Philosophical Naturalism Cannot Account for Qualia

Critics of naturalism argue that even a complete scientific description of the brain processes involved (e.g., neural structures and functions) leaves out the intrinsic, inner feeling of the experience itself. This is sometimes referred to as the "explanatory gap" or the "hard problem of consciousness". The argument is that no amount of physical description can answer why a specific physical process is accompanied by an inner feeling at all.

Definitions 

Qualia:  the raw, subjective qualities of experience—the "what it's like" aspect of having a sensation. Examples include the ouchiness of pain, the redness of a sunset, or the taste of a lemon.

Philosophical naturalism: The view that only natural laws and forces exist; the universe is a closed system, excluding deities or spirit. Also known as Metaphysical Naturalism

Naturalism: The Objective View

Naturalism is defined by its reliance on objective, third-person descriptions.

It posits that everything in the universe can be fully explained by natural processes and laws, as understood through empirical science. Science describes the world from the "outside." For example, a scientist can describe a brain state by measuring neuron firing rates, chemical levels, and electrical signals. These are facts that any observer can verify.

Qualia: The Subjective View

Qualia represents the subjective, first-person nature of experience, which stands in direct contrast to objective data.

Qualia refers to the "qualitative aspects" of consciousness—specifically, "what it's like" to be in a certain state. This includes the "ouchiness" of pain, the specific taste of a lemon, or the sensation of seeing the color red. These are facts that only the subject (the person experiencing them) can access.

The Conflict

The conflict is that these two descriptions do not seem to overlap.

Critics argue that even if you have a "complete scientific description" of the brain's physical processes (the objective view), you have still left out the "intrinsic, inner feeling" of the experience (the subjective view). The problem is naturalism claims to explain everything via physical laws, but if it cannot explain why a physical process feels like something from the inside, then its explanation of the universe is incomplete.

The Explanatory Gap

The "Explanatory Gap" is the term used to describe the fundamental disconnect between physical biological processes and subjective conscious experience.

Science can theoretically provide a complete scientific description of the brain, mapping every neural structure and function involved in a reaction. However, this description completely leaves out the intrinsic, inner feeling of the experience itself.

Even if you fully understand the mechanics of how the brain processes light waves (the "easy" problem), there is nothing in that physical description that explains why that process should feel like seeing red rather than seeing blue or why it should feel like anything at all. This is why the explanatory gap is often referred to as the hard problem of consciousness.

The Unanswered "Why"

Ultimately, the explanatory gap highlights a limitation in naturalistic explanations. The core argument is that no amount of describing how neurons fire can answer the question of why that specific physical process is accompanied by an inner conscious feeling.

Note: The quale of "seeing red" is the unique, subjective, intrinsic feeling or raw feel of redness, which is the internal, private experience itself, distinct from the physical properties like light wavelengths or brain activity that cause it; it's what makes seeing red feel like red and not blue, a warm, alerting, visceral sensation.

The implications of Philosophical Naturalism inability to Account for Qualia

Naturalism claims the natural world (governed by physical laws) is all that exists. If qualia (subjective feelings) are real but cannot be broken down into physical processes (like neurons firing), they represent a reality outside physical laws. Thus a complete scientific/naturalistic explanation of the universe would actually be incomplete because it fails to describe the subjective reality of existence.

If facts exist (like "what it feels like to see red") that are not physical facts, then the core tenet of Naturalism, that only physical things exist, is incorrect. This suggests consciousness might be a fundamental constituent of the universe (like mass or energy) rather than a biological accident. This pushes toward alternatives like Panpsychism (mind is everywhere) or Dualism, both of which contradict Philosophical Naturalism.

For more on Panpsychism see here. 

Functionalism and Emergentism. 

These are two Naturalist responses that attempt to account for qualia without resorting to Dualism (souls) or Eliminativism (saying feelings don't exist).

Functionalism: "It's What It Does, Not What It Is"

Functionalism is currently the dominant theory in the philosophy of mind. It argues that a mental state (like "pain") is defined solely by its functional role, its cause-and-effect relationship with inputs, outputs, and other mental states.

Functionalists argue that "pain" isn't a specific biological material (like C-fibers firing). Instead, "pain" is just whatever state is caused by tissue damage and causes you to scream or pull away.

This theory allows for the possibility that aliens or AI could have qualia. If a silicon robot has an internal state that functions exactly like your pain state, then the robot is in pain.

Functionalists view the mind as software running on the brain's hardware. They argue that qualia are simply the way this software processes information about the world.

The biggest problem for functionalism is the "Philosophical Zombie" argument. Critics argue you could build a robot that functions perfectly (screams when hit) but has zero inner experience. If that's possible, then functionalism is missing the most important part: the feeling itself.

Emergentism: "More Than the Sum of Its Parts"

Emergentism takes a different approach. It accepts that qualia might be undeniably different from standard physical matter, but argues they are a natural byproduct of complexity.

Just as "wetness" is a property of water that doesn't exist in a single hydrogen atom, consciousness is a property that "emerges" when billions of neurons interact in a specific complex network.

Weak Emergence: Qualia are surprising, but if we knew enough about the brain, we could deduce them from the physics (just like we can explain a hurricane if we know enough about air molecules).

Strong Emergence: Qualia are a fundamentally new kind of natural phenomenon that appears at a high level of complexity. They cannot be reduced to just physics, but they are still natural laws, not supernatural ones.  Emergentists argue that we shouldn't expect to find "feelings" in atoms. Qualia are a higher-level reality that nature produces when matter gets organized enough.

Summary Comparison of Functionalism and Emergentism

Theory	View on Qualia	The Metaphor
Functionalism	Qualia are functions. If it acts like pain, it is pain.	Software: The code determines the outcome, regardless of the computer brand.
Emergentism	Qualia are complex properties. They arise from the system's structure.	Wetness: Water molecules aren't wet, but the ocean is.

Refuting Functionalism

Functionalism argues that mental states are defined by what they do (their cause-and-effect role), not what they feel like. The primary refutation is that it is possible to replicate the function without replicating the feeling.

• The "Philosophical Zombie" (Absent Qualia): This is the most famous objection. It is theoretically possible to build a system (like a silicon robot) that functions exactly like a human, like screaming when hit, avoiding damage, and processing data, but has zero inner experience. If such a "zombie" is possible, then having the right "functional state" is not enough to guarantee consciousness.

• Inverted Qualia: Functionalism cannot account for the specific nature of an experience. Two people could function identically (both call a strawberry red and stop at traffic lights), but one might internally experience "green" while the other experiences "red." Since their functional roles are identical, but their experiences are different, functionalism fails to explain the experience itself.

• The "China Brain": Philosophers like Ned Block argue that if you organized the entire population of China to pass signals to each other via walkie-talkies in the exact same pattern as neurons in a brain, the nation would be functionally identical to a mind. However, it is absurd to claim the nation itself would suddenly feel pain or taste chocolate. Therefore, function alone does not create a soul or mind.

Refuting Emergentism

Emergentism argues that consciousness is a property that naturally appears ("emerges") once matter reaches a certain level of complexity, much like "wetness" emerges from water molecules. The refutation argues this is a label, not an explanation.

• The "Brute Fact" Objection (It's Just "Magic"): Critics argue that saying consciousness "emerges" is scientifically empty. Unlike "wetness" (which can be deduced from the geometry and forces of H2O molecules), there is no logical way to deduce "subjective feeling" from "neuron complexity." Saying it "emerges" is just a fancy way of saying "a miracle happens here" without explaining how or why.

• The Explanatory Gap Remains: Weak emergence (like a traffic jam emerging from cars) is easy to explain because the whole is just the sum of the parts. But consciousness requires Strong Emergence—where a completely new type of reality (subjective experience) pops out of objective matter. This violates the scientific principle of continuity; you cannot get "subjectivity" out of "objectivity" just by adding more parts.

• The Causal Exclusion Problem: If physical laws (neurons firing) fully explain why your hand moves, then the "emergent" conscious mind has nothing left to do. It becomes a "ghost" that watches but cannot act. If emergentists claim the mind does act back on the brain ("downward causation"), they violate the fundamental laws of physics.

Is the Argument from Reason is Too Successful For its Own Good?

 this Reddit post will be posted here in black. My replies will be in red

Thesis: the argument from reason mistakenly applies a general doubt about the validity of reason to the specific case of naturalism, but in reality applies equally to supernaturalism, as well as any other account of the universe, theistic or not. Therefore, it is not a relevant argument in discussions of theism.

TL;DR

The argument from reason states that naturalism (the view that only the natural exists and the supernatural does not) depends on reason, but makes it impossible to trust that same reason. On this grounds, it rejects naturalism. However, it is impossible to trust reason under any worldview, including theism. This has nothing to do with naturalism - it's just a feature of reason. Therefore, the argument from reason, if successful, succeeds at rejecting all worldviews (including the claim that the argument from reason itself is valid). So the argument from reason contradicts itself and must fail.

The Argument from Reason

The argument from reason is an argument associated with Christian apologist C. S. Lewis and popular with online Christian apologists in general (though it does not relate to Christianity specifically). The argument seeks to disprove a view of the universe called "naturalism", which basically holds that only natural things and the relationships between them exist, and that the supernatural doesn't. Some versions of the argument also further try to prove supernaturalism or theism.

Here is C. S. Lewis's description of the argument from reason:

One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the naturalistic worldview].... The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears.... [U]nless Reason is an absolute--all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.— C. S. Lewis, "Is Theology Poetry?", The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses

In simpler terms, the argument basically goes like this:

If we claim naturalism is true, then we and everything we are is the result of natural, mindless, non-rational forces acting without any purpose.

If we are the result of nonrational forces, there is no reason to think that they would produce humans with an ability to use reliable reason.

Therefore, we have no reason to trust our own reasoning, and so we can't trust the reasoning that led us to naturalism.

A common counterargument to this is to point to evolution. 

Evolution, the defender of natural logic will say, favors humans who can correctly reason over those they cannot! Therefore there is a reason to think mindless forces produced reliable reason in us! It is at this point the proponent of the argument from reason will usually smirk, and say, "Oh? And how exactly do you know evolution is true? Did you use reason to conclude that? Hohohoho!", pushing up their glasses as they gently stroke their signed copy of Mere Christianity.

The apologist's defense here is simple but quite impenetrable. Any counterargument you present to defend your naturally-created reason will be based on, you guessed it, reason. So any counterargument you make will be circular! You cannot use unreliable reason to show that same reason to be reliable!

But they forget that in a naturalistic worldview, everything is the result of matter acting in accordance with the physical laws. Not the laws of logic. So, when the atheist cites "reason" or a "reasonable conclusion", it really just the result of an unintelligent, mindless, material process that follows the physical laws, not logic/reason. 

But what of the Theist? She is not bound by the natural or by the physical laws. Thus, that which constrains the atheist/naturalist brain does not do so to the Theist. The Theist is free from the bounds of the physical and can engage in critical thinking as governed by the laws of logic. - From my post on the Argument From Reason

So, what are we to do? Do we give up and convert to theism post-haste? Instead, let's take a trip - in our favorite rocket ship - to visit Planet Populon.

Planet Populon

Planet Populon is a distant planet not so different from Earth. On it live a race on beings called the Popularians, who are little purple creatures with four arms and six toes on each foot. They are very similar to humans, save for one important difference: they are incapable of understanding the logical fallacy of appeal to popularity.

The appeal to popularity is a simple logical fallacy that says "because an idea is popular, it must be true." To us humans, it's easy to see why this is false. For example, it was once popular to think the earth was flat! In some places, it's popular to think that pineapple tastes good on pizza! And yet those things are obviously false.

But the Popularians are different from us. They are incapable of recognizing this as a fallacy. Whenever one of them begins to think about the problems or contradictions that arise from an appeal to popularity, a special gland in their brains immediately floods their minds with thoughts of the last sports-ball match they watched, and they stop thinking about logical fallacies. Thus, the Popularians never realize that an appeal to popularity is fallacious - they are convinced that it's a valid form of reasoning.

The Popularians, too, believe in God. In fact, they have a logical proof of God's existence, known as the populogical argument. It goes a little something like this: most Popularians believe God exists – therefore, God exists. It's a flawless argument, beautiful in its simplicity, so elegant and minimal that there's no room for logical errors to possibly slip in. Furthermore, for those crazies that question whether reason itself is valid, the Popularians have an answer! It's popular to think that if God exists, he would create the Popularians with reliable reason. And since it's popular, it must be true! So the Popularians' reason must be reliable.

But we, from the side, know there is an error in the populogical argument. The argument commits a logical fallacy - an appeal to popularity. This means the Popularians' reason is not reliable, God or no. But the very fact that their reasoning is unreliable makes them unable to find the flaws in their proofs of their reasoning being reliable!

The Point

So what's the point of our visit to Planet Populon? It's simple. How do we know we are not like the Popularians?

If our reason was unreliable, and there was some fallacy we were incapable of noticing or some rule of logic we were missing, then all of our arguments would be moot. No matter how hard we worked to prove that the sky is blue, or that God exists, or that our reasoning was reliable, it would be pointless, because the very reason we used to tell the good arguments from the bad would be misfiring. And there's no way to prove we'd know if this was the case - after all, to prove that, we need to assume reason is reliable in our proof! It is impossible to prove that reason is reliable, because you need to use reason to do so.

So what does this have to do with the argument from reason? Well remember, the argument from reason was an argument targeted at naturalism. It said that naturalism must be false, because it implies our reason can't be trusted. But the Popularians don't believe in naturalism, and their reasoning still can't be trusted! It turns out, you can never prove your reason is trustworthy. No matter your worldview, you must assume your reason is reliable in order to make any argument at all.

This is the flaw! The argument from reason doesn't say that "reason is unreliable", it states that "reason is unreliable under a naturalistic worldview".  And that's because a naturalistic brain is constrained by the physical laws. Every human action, including thoughts, is the result of the physical laws. The laws of logic play zero part in the thinking process.  

This means that the argument from reason succeeds not just against naturalism, but against any worldview! For example, here's the argument again, but directed at theism this time.

If we claim theism is true, then we and everything we are is the result of supernatural, mindful, rational forces acting without any purpose.

Strawman argument - a logical fallacy where someone misrepresents, exaggerates, or distorts an opponent's actual argument to make it easier to attack, creating a weak "straw man" version to knock down instead of the real, stronger position, thereby appearing to win the debate without addressing the core issue. It's a deceptive tactic in debates, often involving oversimplification or taking words out of context, to make one's own stance seem superior.

I do not argue, nor do I know of any Christian who argues for a "supernatural, mindful, rational forces acting without any purpose"

If we are the result of rational forces, there is no reason to think that they would produce humans with an ability to use reliable reason.

Therefore, we have no reason to trust our own reasoning, and so we can't trust the reasoning that led us to theism.

A theist might object and say, "of course we have reason to think rational forces would produce rational minds!" But this time we can smirk, push up our glasses, and say, "Oh? And how exactly do you know rational forces would produce rational minds? Did you use reason to conclude that?" Once again, any argument you use to show that human reason is reliable under theism is itself based on that same reason 

A theist might object and say, "of course we have reason to think rational forces would produce rational minds!" But this time we can smirk, push up our glasses, and say, "Oh? And how exactly do you know rational forces would produce rational minds? Did you use reason to conclude that?" Once again, any argument you use to show that human reason is reliable under theism is itself based on that same reason.

Notice a parallel here. It's quite reasonable to think that we can trust our reason under theism - after all, we can propose a simple mechanism for it (God made it that way). Just as before, it was quite reasonable to think that we can trust our reason under naturalism - after all, we can propose a simple mechanism for it (evolution made it that way). But in both cases, establishing these mechanisms relies on our reason, so ends up being circular. 

Under a theistic worldview, human reasoning is not viewed as a mere evolutionary byproduct for survival but as a reflection of a divine mind.

In this framework, the ability to think logically is often treated as a "gift" or an "imprint" of the Creator, ensuring that the human mind is attuned to the structure of the universe. This perspective changes why we trust our thoughts and how we use them.

The central premise of theistic reasoning (particularly in the Abrahamic traditions) is the concept of Imago Dei—that humans are created in the "image of God."

Since God is viewed as the ultimate rational being (the Logos), creating humans in His image implies endowing them with a "spark" of that rationality. This gives humans the unique ability to step beyond instinct (like animals) and engage in abstract thought, mathematics, and moral judgment. We reason because we are "mini-reasoners" modeled after the "Great Reasoner."

In a theistic worldview, the laws of logic (like A cannot be non-A) are not arbitrary rules invented by humans, nor are they rules that God simply "decided" to create. Instead, they are believed to be reflections of God's own nature.

Because God is consistent and cannot lie or contradict Himself, the universe He created operates on consistent, non-contradictory laws. When humans use logic, they are not inventing a tool; they are discovering the fabric of reality. To reason correctly is to think God's thoughts after Him.

Since a rational God designed the human mind specifically to know and understand the world, then we have a valid reason to trust our cognitive faculties. We can assume that our logic maps onto reality because both were made by the same Author.

Contrary to the popular cultural idea that faith and reason are opposites, the classical theistic view (championed by figures like Thomas Aquinas and Augustine) sees them as partners. It's actually atheism/naturalism v reason that are opposites, or incompatible. 

"Faith Seeking Understanding": This famous Latin phrase (fides quaerens intellectum) suggests that faith is the starting point that orients the mind, while reason is the tool used to explore and understand that faith.

 Theists often describe two sources of knowledge:

1. The Book of Scripture: Specific revelation (moral laws, nature of God).

2. The Book of Nature: General revelation (science, physics, logic). Since both books have the same Author, theists believe they cannot ultimately contradict each other. If they seem to, it is presumed that our human interpretation of one (or both) is wrong.

Theistic worldviews also offer an explanation for why human reasoning fails (bias, error, delusion). This is often called the "noetic effect of sin" or human finitude.

While the capacity for reason is divine, the execution is flawed because humans are imperfect/fallen.

Summary: The Difference

Feature	Naturalistic View	Theistic View
Origin of Reason	Evolutionary adaptation for survival.	Imprint of the Divine Mind (Imago Dei).
Basis of Logic	None.Thoughts are the result of physical laws not  logical laws..	Reflection of God's internal consistency.
Why Trust It?	Can't as it works for survival, not truth seeking	It was designed to find Truth.
Goal	To adapt and survive. Logic/truth not relevant	To know God and understand His creation/reality.

This is just how reasoning works. You can't use reason to prove itself, because reason itself precludes it. Reason an axiom - you must assume it to use it. But I'd say it's a pretty reasonable assumption to make.

Only axiom is Reason is the basis for knowledge

Conclusion

The argument from reason is too successful. It's an example of a class of arguments I've witnessed more and more in recent years, that I call "sinking canoe" arguments. The name comes from the following story:

The argument from reason is too successful vs atheism/natursalism, not Christain theism. 

Two men are sitting in a canoe. Suddenly, a leak springs in the bottom of the canoe, and it begins to fill with water. The man in the back stands up, walks to the front, carefully examines the other man's seat, and declares: "Yep! Your half is sinking!"

The format of the fallacy is much like the argument from reason. Let's say you believe in idea A, and want to refute some competing idea B. Take a general issue that plagues both A and B, change up some wording and introduce some terminology to make it seem specific to B, and then present it as a refutation of B. These arguments are so very effective because to refute the specific argument against B usually seems impossible, because it's not an argument against B at all. What really must be done is to see the argument for what it is: a general issue that rests on a deeper level than the contest between A and B, and that supports them both – an issue that must be resolved before either A or B can succeed, or must refute them both, but that offers no insight into which of A or B is the better idea. The canoe sinks for us both, and we must either patch it together, or both go down with the ship.

Sorry to tell you, but we are not sitting in the same boat. Since your naturalism cannot account for or give grounding to reason, critical thinking, or logic. However God can. 

So yes, your boat is sunk, not the Christian's!

The Argument from Reason

The Argument from Reason

Why the atheist/naturalist can't trust his brain

If naturalism (materialism) is true, then your thoughts are just chemical reactions in your brain, determined by the laws of physics. But if your thoughts are just fizzing chemicals, why should you trust them to tell you the truth?

If there is no God and everything is material, then the human brain is essentially a biological machine, Your thoughts are not produced by "reason" or "logic"; they are produced by neurons firing

The only thing driving the development of the brain was Evolution. But that is where the problem starts. Evolution does not care about what is true; it only cares about what helps you survive.

If a caveman hears a rustle in the grass, it helps him survive to believe "It's a tiger!" and run away. It doesn't matter if it was actually just the wind. [Plantinga's example]

Thus, If our brains were built strictly for survival (per evolution) then we have no reason to trust them when they try to do complex things that don't help us survive, like quantum physics, philosophy, or arguing about the existence of God.

This is the fatal flaw in the atheist worldview. An atheist uses their brain to reason, "There is no God; everything is just random atoms."

But if that statement is true, then the brain they used to come to that conclusion is also just random atoms. It wasn't built for truth; it was built to hunt, reproduce, survive.

It’s like shaking a box of Scrabble letters and having them accidentally spell out a sentence. The sentence might exist, but you wouldn't trust it to contain deep meaning because it was created by random shaking, not an intelligent mind.

To trust our own brain, our own logic, we have to believe that our reasoning power comes from a rational source.

If God exists (a Rational Mind), then He created our minds in His image, specifically so we could understand the universe.

The atheist, naturalist, critic cannot use reason to disprove God, because the validity of reason depends on God. As C.S. Lewis famously put it: "Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God."

*****

A common counterargument to this is to point to evolution. Evolution, the defender of "natural logic" will say, favors humans who can correctly reason over those they cannot. 

Therefore, there is a reason to think mindless forces produced reliable reason in us!

But they forget that in a naturalistic worldview, everything is the result of matter acting in accordance with the physical laws. Not the laws of logic. So, when the atheist cites "reason" or a "reasonable conclusion", it really just the result of an unintelligent, mindless, material process that follows the physical laws, not logic/reason. 

But what of the Theist? She is not bound by the natural or by the physical laws. Thus, that which constrains the atheist/naturalist brain does not do so to the Theist. The Theist is free from the bounds of the physical and can engage in critical thinking as governed by the laws of logic. 

Is the Argument from Reason is Too Successful For its Own Good?

There is NO evidence for God!

I hear the "There is no evidence for God" line all the time from atheists and other critics, but I think that it's untrue; there IS evidence for God.

An analogy: The Big Bang Theory is widely accepted, but that doesn't mean that there is no evidence for the Steady State universe or a cyclical universe. It just means that the Big Bang Theory explains more of the data/evidence better than those other two. The same data/evidence is used by all three.

Similarly, Christians, atheists, and other critics all see the same data/evidence, however Christians offer an explanation but atheists, and other critics usually do not.

The data/evidence

1) Reason is the basis for all knowledge - thus one cannot default to scientific explanations.

2) Philosophical Naturalism is logically incoherent, thus 1) one cannot default to physical explanations; 2) we now have at least one reason to see non-physical explanations as reasonable.

3) Our thoughts are not just brain activity, rather they are the result of an immaterial mind thus, we now have a second reason to see non-physical explanations as reasonable

4) A metaphysically necessary, efficient cause solves the problem of an infinite regress of causes

5) the origin of DNA is more likely on design than chance.

6) The fine-tuning of the universe is more likely on design than chance or necessity - thus, given all the above, a transcendent metaphysically necessary God is the best explanation for life as we know it.

7) Jesus was a historical person, see also Bart Erhman, NT Scholar agnostic/atheist where he says ["no question Jesus existed"] since there are many, early, independent sources.

8) Jesus' resurrection was historical rather than a myth

Conclusion: Sans the presumption of philosophical naturalism, 1–8 above, and the explanation offered for each, offer a critical thinker good reasons to conclude that the Christian God is the best explanation for the world as we know it.

If atheists and other critics with "I don't know" or "I'm not convinced" then they are admitting that they do not have any explanations and tacitly conceding that the Christian has the better explanation.

If one has no better explanation(s), why reject the Christian's?

Objection A - This is a God of the gaps fallacy

Reply: I’m not citing a gap in our knowledge and saying "God did it". This is a series of arguments; first showing that reason is the basis for knowledge not science; second, that must be a non-physical aspect to reality; third that design is a better explanation for our existence and life; fourth that God is the best explanation for whom that designer is.

Objection B - The theory of the existence of a mind makes no predictions, thus there can be no evidence for it. 

Reply: It doesn't need to. You seem assuming that it must meet the criteria for a scientific theory, but this is a logical argument. See point 1 Reason is the basis for all knowledge - thus one cannot default to scientific explanations.

Objection C - this is just a list of assertions based on your own ignorance, incredulity, and gullibility; that's not evidence for God. This is just "apologist goulash"  

Reply:  You are just sticking your head in the sand, refusing to engage in a discussion of the evidence/data/arguments. 

Objection D - You might want to post this on a Reddit sub where you debate atheists, not Christians. I'm sure the Christians here could offer some constructive feedback, though.

Reply:  In my experience: 1) there are enough atheists in Christian subs to get feedback/debate, 2) what I mostly get on when I used to post atheist Subreddits is derision and downvotes, no intelligent discussion. Look at the current comments on Reddit. Additionally, Christians can be edified, educated, and enriched with this.

Objection E - Your points/arguments are incredibly inaccurate

Reply: Which ones specifically and where exactly are the errors for each? 

Objection F - Is the universe really so perfect? It’s extreme and harsh. Completely inhospitable for life, with vast excesses of empty space. Is that the mark of design?

Reply: When scientists speak of fine-tuned universes, they are referring to universes that are life-permitting. By life-permitting, they do not mean that life can exist wherever, or whenever, or that it's a paradise, or that there is no suffering/death; they do not even guarantee that life will exist. It’s a much more modest claim. It only holds that the fine-tuning will permit the existence of life. That’s it.

Objection G - You misunderstand what constitutes evidence.

Reply: Evidence is an item or information proffered to make the existence of a fact more or less probable. Evidence can take the form of testimony, documents, archaeological finds, DNA, etc

DNA is evidence. The findings of neuroscience for an an immaterial mind is evidence. Fine-Tuned Constants is evidence. Philosophical Naturalism is logically incoherent is evidence

Objection H -  Where you see design, others see chaos.

Reply: What better explains the Fine-Tuned Constants of the universe? Design, or chaos? Why?

What better explains the multitude of DNA-based micromachines like the ATP Synthase? Design, or chaos? Why?

SETI looks for design [or artificiality - i.e. not generated by natural processes], an arson investigator can tell if a fire came about naturally or was started by a human, the police can determine if a death was natural or at the hands of a human, an archeologist can say whether it’s a just rock or an arrowhead, etc. An appeal to a designer is accepted in every field of inquiry, including biology - we can determine whether a virus, like Covid-19 was designed of was natural.

An a priori non-design stance seems to be an a priori ideological conclusion, rather one that is driven by the facts

Objection I -  The problem with this is sooner or later we hit a brute fact. I say that the fact is there are natural laws that describe how reality functions.  You say, because a magic guy made it that way.  We can show the laws, testable, repeatable, and consistent.

Reply: First, you cite "reality"; so what is reality, and how do you know? 

It can't be Philosophical Naturalism since it's logically incoherent and since Reason is the basis for all knowledge this seems to be how we should evaluate arguments

And the "magic guy" is better understood as A metaphysically necessary, efficient cause 

Additional info

Atheist Engineer Explains How Reason Led Him To GOD (Part 1) [Video]

Scientific Evidence for an Immaterial Mind - aka the Soul

Yes, we do have some evidence that the mind is separate from the brain.

1) cerebral localization

It's been known since the 19th century that for motor and sensory function there are very specific locations in the brain that seem to mediate those functions. Hand movements are controlled by a specific part of the opposite cerebral hemisphere. Vision is controlled by a very discrete area in the occipital lobes.

However, Higher intellectual functions, such as abstract thought, mathematics, ethics, are not localized like that. There is no calculus center of my brain. There's no ethics center in my brain.

The brain seems to be necessary for doing calculus and doing addition and thinking about concepts like justice and mercy, and so on, but it's not localizable. The belief that higher abstract thought was going to be localizable was held by materialism in the 19th century, and they developed the theory of phrenology from that. He has the idea that all of these individual higher intellectual Functions have a spot in the brain that controlled them. Phrenology has been discredited. It's been shown to be wrong.

Because only certain things in the brain seem to be mediated by the brain other aspects of the mind, don't have a spot in the brain. The implication there is that they're not really material, but they're an immaterial power of being able to reason and use logic. And frankly, that's a very old dualist idea. It was an idea proposed by Aristotle. So for thousands of years duelists have predicted that and modern neuroscience, for now, confirms that.

2) split brain operations

Back in the 1960s, Roger Sperry, a prominent neuroscientist did a series of studies on patients, who had split brain operations due to severe epilepsy. An epileptic focus would begin in one hemisphere of the brain and travel through the corpus colosum, which is a bundle of fibers connecting the two hemispheres, and cause a generalized seizure.

It was recognized by surgeons in the mid-20th century that if you cut the fiber bundle that connected, the two hemispheres of the brain that you could prevent the seizures from becoming generalized, and you could greatly improve the quality of the patient's life. So a number of patients had this operation called corpus callosotomy. The patient's seizures would get better. But they really weren't much different, that is that their brains were essentially cut in half, but they still seem to be a unitary person. They still seem to be fairly normal. Sperry was a neuroscientist who studied these people in detail, and he did find that there were some subtle abnormalities as a result of cutting the brain in half, but the abnormalities were very subtle; so subtle that the experiments he won him the Nobel Prize.

And what that implies is that the human mind is not purely generated by the matter of the brain, otherwise cutting the brain in half would have profound effects on the human mind. It might make two people. Certainly, it should create a profound difference in a person's state of consciousness, but it doesn't. You've cut the brain in half and the person can't tell the difference, except that he has fewer seizures.

3) epilepsy neurosurgery

Dr. Penfield was the first neurosurgeon to systematically operate on the human brain when people were awake; he would work on the brain while they were awake in an effort to identify the focus of their seizures and to remove the focus from the brain. So their seizures would stop, and he operated on upwards of a thousand patients like this and very carefully recorded his results. He believed that all the mind originated from activity of the brain., but by the end of his career, he was a passionate dualist.

He repeatedly observed that there were aspects of the patient's mind that no matter what he did to the brain he couldn't affect. He could elicit memories, make a muscle move, or make a patient have a sensation. But he couldn't change their consciousness, he couldn't change their intellect, he couldn't change their sense of self. There was a fundamental core, that no matter what he did to the brain, remain the same. So, he said there was something he couldn't reach.

He asked the question, why are there no intellectual seizures? When people have epilepsy, commonly a person will have jerking of a muscle. Sometimes so many muscles jerk that they actually go unconscious. Sometimes they have a tingling on their skin, or sometimes they'll have a funny smell, or sometimes they can even have a little behavioral tick.

But they never start doing calculus. They never contemplate, justice or mercy. They never think about Shakespeare. So Penfield says, why aren't there intellectual seizures? If the mind comes from the brain entirely, the mind is material in some sense, then you ought to have seizures that make you do addition. Or think about politics. But you don't. What that implies is that the intellect is not the brain.

4) vegetative state brain function

Neuroscientist Adrian Owen looked at brain function in people who were in persistent vegetative state, Persistent vegetative, where a person has such severe brain damage that they show no sign of consciousness. And sometimes their caretakers will say something like, *I get the sense that the person is there that they understand things*, but there's no clinical evidence for it. Doctors would examine them, but there's no sign of any reaction at all and scan their brains are shrunken and obviously severely damage.

So Owen did a fascinating experiment. He used the technique called functional MRI imaging, which is MRI machine that images changes in blood flow in the brain that seems to correlate with brain function. So if you're moving your arm, the part of your brain that involves moving your arm lights up on the functional MRI. If you're thinking about stuff, your frontal lobe, slide up, things like that. So what Owen did is that he took a woman who had been diagnosed for several years and persistent vegetative state from a car accident, who showed no sign at all of any awareness, deep common, put her in the MRI machine and ask your questions. He said, pretend that you are playing tennis. Or imagine that you're walking across the room. He asked her to imagine all these things, and her brain kind of lit up in places.

But you could say that the brain lighting up, doesn't mean she was understanding anything. Maybe the sound coming into her ears, was causing a reflex or something. So, he took 15 normal people. And he did the same thing with them. Stuck them in a machine, put an asked the same questions. And then he asked, neurobiologists to look at the functional MRI images of this woman and the 15 normal people, And see if you can tell a difference between the two and they couldn't. Her pattern of reaction was identical to the normal people. That seemed to imply that she could understand what he was asking.

But perhaps the lighting up of areas in her brain and the lighting up of the area is a normal people's brains was just because of the reception of the sound, and didn't really understand. So what he then did is he took the same words that he had asked her before, but he took away the semantics. And just left some syntax. And her brain stop stopped reacting. As did the normal controls. Her brain only reacted when what he said to her made sense. It didn't react from just sound.

And this has been repeated by a number of different investigators that show the same thing that he found. That even when your brain is so massively destroyed and there's no clinical evidence for any mental activity at all, functional MRI can find that these patients are capable of thinking. Some patients who can do mathematics, ask "what's six plus six" and then give them different answers and when you hit the right answer of the brain lights up. So, very clearly, there are aspects of the mind that cannot be destroyed by severe brain damage. That's what Owen's work is showing us. It's showing us our aspects of the mind that aren't connected tightly to the brain, our minds are immaterial.

Conclusion

So not only is this a blow to a naturalistic understanding of the world it is also evidence for the existence of the soul, since in religion and philosophy, the soul is often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self.

See Michael Egnor's The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul for a more in depth look at the arguments above

While this doesn't show how an immaterial mind could interact with the physical brain in A Scientific Case for the Soul Robin Collins offers some idea how the immaterial mind can interact with the material brain - see sections 4 & 5.

This added with the argument that Philosophical Naturalism is logically self-refuting is additional evidence that a physical only view of the world is not sufficient to explain it; i.e. there must be some supernatural, nonphysical, element at play in the world

Objections

for [1] cerebral localization

1) seems like they're "localized" to many different areas that work together. source

Reply: You seem to be misunderstanding the meaning of "localization". When I write a mathematical equation on a piece of paper, the area of my brain that generates the movement of my right hand can be localized to millimeter accuracy on the precentral gyrus of my left frontal lobe. But my understanding of the equation cannot be localized at all.

Mora Leeb and oter have defied the widely accepted view that human thought is controlled entirely by the physical brain. But they are not alone; medical literature offers a striking number of such cases. For example, a 2019 study of six people who had up to half of their brains removed (hemispherectomy) showed that, despite the loss, each of them adapted well. [Laura Sanders, “Some People with Half a Brain Have Extra Strong Neural Connections,” 

A 2022 study of forty adults who had half the brain removed as children to combat severe epilepsy found that despite that, they performed within 10 percent of other study subjects on face and word recognition. [Bob Yirka, “Adults Who, as Children, Had Half Their Brain Removed Still Able to Score Well with Face and Word Recognition,” 

If higher thought was tied to a specific part of the brain the above would not be possible since cutting out that part of the brain would affect cognitive thought.  This is the problem for those who think all highrt level thinking is physical only. 

for [2] split brain operations

1) Sperry rejected Cartesian dualism, supported a mentalism theory and believed that consciousness was a ‘supervenient result of neural activity. Citing a scientist who rejects dualism in support of dualism is pretty wild.

Reply: I am citing his research. I'm arguing that dualism is a better explanation than mentalism theory - whatever that is. 

You say "consciousness was a ‘supervenient result of neural activity". Supervenient means an additional, unexpected, or extraneous development or occurring subsequently. How did Sperry prove this to be true? 

for [3] epilepsy neurosurgery

1) Penfield: In 1974, he completed The Mystery of the Mind, an account for laymen on brain research. There, he set out his views on the relationship between the human brain and the human mind. [Penfield W. The mystery of the mind: A critical study of consciousness and the human brain. Princeton University Press; 1975.] Source

Instead, I reconsider the present-day neurophysiological evidence on the basis of two hypotheses: (a) that man's being consists of one fundamental element, and (b) that it consists of two. I take the position that the brain mechanisms, which we (my many colleagues and I all around the world), are working out, would, of course, have to be employed on the basis of either alternative. In the end I conclude that there is no good evidence, in spite of new methods, such as the employment of stimulating electrodes, the study of conscious patients and the analysis of epileptic attacks, that the brain alone can carry out the work that the mind does. I conclude that it is easier to rationalize man's being on the basis of two elements than on the basis of one. But I believe that one should not pretend to draw a final scientific conclusion, in man's study of man, until the nature of the energy re sponsible for mind-action is discovered as, in my own opinion, it will be.

Reply: there is no such thing as a final scientific conclusion. On any subject.  Why? Science is provisional; if more data comes it must be accountted for.  For example, the Steady State theory of the universe was widely held to be correct 100+ years ago.  But more and more data led to the formation of a new theory, an expanding universe theory.  

Thus, let me state again that, working as a scientist all through my life, I have proceeded on the one-element hypothesis. That is really the same as the Jacksonian al ternative that Symonds and Adrian seem to have chosen, i.e., "that activities of the highest centers and mental states are one and the same thing, or are different sides of the same thing." Source

Reply: Is he saying that he will hold onto this hypothesis no matter what?  Shouldn't he be led by the data, evidence, or argument? Wherever it leads? 

2) seizures do, of course, affect cognition. Focal seizures can disrupt cognitive functions, including memory, language, attention, and higher-order processing. These manifestations vary according to the cortical regions involved and are particularly common in seizures arising from the temporal or frontal lobes. Language disturbances may include speech arrest, expressive aphasia, or paraphasic errors. Source

Reply: I'm looking into europlasticity as a explanation. 

for [4] vegetative state brain function

1) fMRI measures brain activity. if they're measuring brain activity in an fMRI, they have measurable brain activity.

Reply: Incorrect. fMRI measures blood flow. Your brain cells use more oxygen when they’re working. That means following the blood flow shows the areas of your brain that are working hardest. Those areas appear brighter on an fMRI scan. Blood flow changes does not always directly correlate with neuronal activity.

2) Owen: These results confirm that, despite fulfilling the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of vegetatives tate, this patient retained the ability to under-stand spoken commands and to respond to them through her brain activity, rather than through speech or movement. Source

Reply: coming soon

Other

1) cause comes before effect, and brain states precede mental states by up to 11 seconds

Reply: Libet’s Experiments?

In Libet’s initial experiments people were instructed to press a button with one of their fingers while he monitored their brain activity. Libet discovered that prior to a person’s awareness of his decision to press the button, a brain signal had already occurred which resulted in his finger’s later moving. So the sequence is:

1) a brain signal occurs about 550 milliseconds prior to the finger’s moving; 

2) the subject has an awareness of his decision to move his finger about 200 milliseconds prior to his finger’s moving; 

3) the person’s finger moves.

In a second run of experiments, Libet discovered that even after the brain signal fired and people were aware of their decision to push the button, people still retained the ability to veto the decision and refrain from pushing the button! 

So some interpreters take the brain signal to indicate but a “readiness potential” to initiate movement which the subject may go along with or cancel.  Angus Menuge, for example, writes,
“if you look at Libet's experiments closely, there was a prior conscious decision by the instructed subject, then a readiness potential, then awareness of that readiness potential, and then a movement. So one can still say that a distal conscious decision was the cause of the movement, even if the proximal cause is the readiness potential” (Angus Menuge, “Does Neuroscience Undermine Retributive Justice?” in Free Will in Criminal Law and Procedure)

Libet himself considered his experimental results compatible with the existence of free will. Libet proposed humans retain a "free won't," or the ability to consciously veto an action initiated unconsciously. The conscious mind can still choose to inhibit or allow the action to proceed, even after the brain shows a readiness potential.

Alex Rosenberg, a materialist and determinist, agrees that the experiments do not prove that there is no free will but appeals to them merely to show that we cannot trust introspection to tell us whether or not we have free will. [The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), p. 154]

Furthermore this is exactly what the dualist-interactionist would expect. The soul (or mind) does not act independently of the brain; rather, as the Nobel Prize-winning neurologist Sir John Eccles put it, the mind uses the brain as an instrument to think. So, of course, the soul’s decisions are not simultaneous with the conscious awareness of them.

The Inference to the Best Explanation

Offering an inference to the best explanation occurs when we conclude that the best available explanation of the current data is probably true because it’s the best addresses all or most of the data or observations. A little more formally:

S is a state of affairs; a collection of data, facts, observations, givens.
H hypothesis, would, if true, explain S.
No other hypothesis [A, B, C] can explain S as well as H does.
Therefore, it is probable that H is true.

Inferences to the best explanation are common in all fields of inquiry, including scientific, and everyday life. For a more thorough exploration:

Inference to the Best Explanation - Peter Lipton

Inference to the Best Explanation - An Overview

Pushbacks

We may be choosing the best of a bad lot, and that we have no way of knowing whether the truth is contained in our set to begin with.

Reply: Scientists don't claim to have completely certainty on any scientific fact, no fact from any field of inquiry does. We've gone from Newtonian physics to special and general relativity, and guess what? Einstein's work is likely to only be partially correct. Qualms with IBE on this account are off base. Abductive inferences [IBE] are used in every field of inquiry, including science, history, linguistics, and everyday life,

Explanations help us to understand why something happened, not simply convince us that something happened. However, there is a common kind of inductive argument that takes the best explanation of why x occurred as an argument for the claim that x occurred. For example, suppose that your car window is broken and your iPod (which you left visible in the front seat) is missing. 

The immediate inference you would probably make is that someone broke the window of your car and stole your iPod. What makes this a reasonable inference? What makes it a reasonable inference is that this explanation explains all the relevant facts (broken window, missing iPod) and does so better than any other competing explanation. In this case, it is perhaps possible that a stray baseball broke your window, but since (let us suppose) there is no baseball diamond close by, and people normally don’t play catch in the parking garage you are parked in, this seems unlikely. 

Moreover, the baseball scenario doesn’t explain why the iPod is gone. Of course, it could be that some inanimate object broke your window and then someone saw the iPod and took it. Or perhaps a dog jumped into the window that was broken by a stray baseball and took your iPod. These are all possibilities, but they are remote and thus much less likely explanations of the facts at hand. The much better explanation is that a thief both broke the window and took the iPod. 

This explanation explains all the relevant facts in a simple way (i.e., it was the thief responsible for both things) and this kind of thing is (unfortunately) not uncommon—it happens to other people at other times and places. The baseball-dog scenario is not as plausible because it doesn’t happen in contexts like this one (i.e., in a parking garage) nearly as often, and it is not as simple (i.e., we need to posit two different events that are unconnected to each other—stray baseball, stray dog—rather than just one—the thief). Inference to the best explanation is a form of inductive argument whose premises are a set of observed facts, a hypothesis that explains those observed facts, and a comparison of competing explanations, and whose conclusion is that the hypothesis is true. The example we’ve just been discussing is an inference to the best explanation. 

Explanation: The hypothesis that a thief broke the window and stole your iPod provides a reasonable explanation of the observed facts.

Comparison: No other hypothesis provides as reasonable an explanation.

Conclusion: Therefore, a thief broke your car window and stole your iPod.

Notice that this is an inductive argument because the premises could all be true and yet the conclusion false. Just because something is reasonable, doesn’t mean it is true. After all, sometimes things happen in the world that defy our reason. So perhaps the baseball-dog hypothesis was actually true. In that case, the premises of the argument would still be true (after all, the thief hypothesis is still more reasonable than the baseball-dog hypothesis) and yet the conclusion would be false. 

But the fact that the argument is not a deductive argument isn’t a defect of the argument, because inference to the best explanation arguments are not intended to be deductive arguments, but inductive arguments.  That isn’t a defect of an inductive argument, it is simply a definition of what an inductive argument is! As we’ve seen, in order to make a strong inference to the best explanation, the favored explanation must be the best - i.e. the most reasonable. 

But what makes an explanation reasonable? There are certain conditions that any good explanation must meet. The more of these conditions are met, the better the explanation. The first, and perhaps most obvious condition, is that the hypothesis proposed must actually explain all the observed facts. 

Commonly acknowledged criteria for inference to the best explanation

1. Explanatory scope. The best hypothesis will explain a wider range of data than will rival hypotheses. An explanation has explanatory scope if it

• makes fewer assumptions
• accounts for more facts or observations
• more details of causal relations are provided
• depends less on authorities and more on observations
• is more falsifiable (more testable by observation or experiment
• offers greater predictive power (if it offers more details about what should be expected to be seen and not seen);

2. Explanatory power. The best hypothesis will make the observable data more epistemically probable than rival hypotheses; an epistemic possibility is a statement that may be true given the current state of knowledge about the world. For example, "Given what we know about the weather, it might rain tomorrow" is an epistemic possibility

3. Plausibility. The best hypothesis will be implied by a greater variety of accepted truths, and its negation implied by fewer accepted truths than rival hypotheses.

4. Less ad hoc. The best hypothesis will involve fewer new suppositions not already implied by existing knowledge than rival hypotheses.

5. Accord with accepted beliefs. The best hypothesis, when conjoined with accepted truths, will imply fewer falsehoods than rival hypotheses.

6. Consistency: Is the hypothesis consistent with other established facts or theories?

7. Comparative superiority: The best hypothesis will so exceed its rivals in meeting conditions (1) through (6) that there is little chance of a rival hypothesis’s exceeding it in fulfilling those conditions.

It’s Turtles All the Way Down - the Infinite Regress Problem

An Infinite Regress entails the inconceivable; an actual infinity. This quantity, in different contexts, yields different answers; many of which are in contradiction.

For instance, consider 2 + 3 =5. Thus, 5 - 3 = 2

So,

Infinity + Infinity = Infinity. 

Therefore; Infinity - Infinity = Infinity

However

Infinity + 0 = infinity. Therefore, infinity - Infinity = 0; but that's different to the answer above.

There are two major forms that the infinite regress problem takes.

Epistemic Regress: Knowledge is a true, justified belief. In every chain of logical reasoning, each step depends on the previous one (its justification) for its existence. For the sake of understanding, let’s take a step T1 in a logical argument. T1 relies on T2 for its justification, and similarly, T2 relies on T3, which again would require a justification in the form of T4. T1 will never be supported adequately, because the needed series of support would be infinite, and we would never have any justified knowledge. Thus, it has been proposed that reason is the basis for knowledge.  

 
Metaphysical Impossibility: This can be explained by taking an ontological example. Things in the external world are taken to exist because of the parts that they are composed of. These things (parts) must also depend on their own parts for existence. This chain continues till infinity, which many thinkers claim to be impossible.

Everything in the world has an origin. Something cannot come from nothing. Yet, something must have come from nothing if we want to be logically coherent . The idea of an origin-less universe seems absurd. Especially in light of the scientific evidence for it.

Those who propose an infinite/infinite universe, what do you do about the problem of an infinite regress of causes?

In other words, a series of things that are each ontologically dependent on the next; in this case, the singularity, the singularity -1, the singularity -2, the singularity -3....

How do we reach the singularity if there is an infinite/endless series of causes?

For example, if a giraffe had an infinitely long neck, he would die of starvation - even if he had eaten for an infinite amount of time - since the food would always have another inch to travel before it reached the stomach. So this string of infinite causes would always have another casual step to take before the singularity happened.

To say that "that there is no first moment, because every moment is preceded by earlier moments" is to be logically and philosophically hanging in midair.

Christians would say that God is a metaphysically necessary [efficient] cause for the material universe, thus avoiding regress problems.

Infinite regress can be a problem because it can lead to answers that never terminate. When people ask for justification for something, they want an answer that is compelling. However, answers that result in an infinite regress aren't rationally compelling

It’s more logical to believe in an uncreated Creator or First cause than an infinite universe. Why? Because If God had a creator [or a cause had a cause] who brought Him into existence, then we could ask “who created that God?” 

Ockam’s Razor - the philosophical principle used in science that suggests you shouldn’t multiply causes to explain something beyond what’s necessary - would suggest that we not have a regression of creators at all. The one who brought our universe into being is the uncreated one.

This isn’t special pleading for God. This is what the atheist has typically said about the universe; that the universe is uncreated and eternal in its existence. No atheist was asking “Who created the universe”? They thought the universe was “Just there,” that it was a brute fact. Although that conclusion is now invalidated by powerful scientific evidence and philosophical arguments. 

Objection - There is no problem whatsoever traversing an infinite chain of events. Every event on that chain can logically be reached. The only thing you cannot do with an infinite chain of events is reach the beginning or the end because those don't exist. Every event is logically reachable. The only way you could not reach your destination on an infinite chain is if you set your destination to the end, but that's because by definition there is no end and no beginning. Every other destination is not only possible but guaranteed.

Reply This makes no sense.

Let's say that the Big Bang is 0 and our present time is 14.  Yes, we can count from -99 to 0 and then to 14.  But first you have to get to -99, and then you have to get to -100, then you have to get to -101, then you have to get to -102, ad infinitum. It's absurd to think because we can count to 100 that the problem of the infinite regress has been solved. 

Theists are TERRIFIED of this CRUCIAL argument - Rationality Rules - A response

[Here's the vid]

The argument is that a perfectly Loving God who has created this perfect world would not create worms that eat children's eyes. Thus, a perfectly Loving God doesn't exist. 

Where do you get the idea that this world is what God intended? It's not, it's a fallen world. This atheist's error is presuming that we live in a perfect world. 

So this "argument", is based on a strawman fallacy - distortion of someone else's argument or view by exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone's position, it's much easier to attack their view and present your own position as being reasonable; but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine honest rational debate. 

The fact is, that God created various forms of life according to their kinds, with the ability to reproduce and fill the earth (Genesis 1:21– 22, 24–28). This view includes the concepts that God had purpose in what He created and that it originally was very good (Genesis 1:31; Isaiah 45:18). Disease-causing bacteria, viruses, and "bad bugs" like the worms referenced are descendants of that which was non-harmful. We now live in a fallen world, and all creation “groans” under the consequences of our sin (Romans 8:22). 

Why would a loving God "create" a worm that destroys children's eyes? This is what is known as a loaded question - a complex question that contains an assumption or accusation that the person being questioned is likely to disagree with, or a question that has a presumption built into it so that it couldn't be answered without appearing guilty. 

The most famous example is: Have you stopped beating your wife?  Answer yes, and at best, you are a former wife-beater. But this is the tactic used; the question assumes that God created the worm in question. But, He didn't.

Furthermore, the question posed by those in the vid is valid; if one thinks that only the physical exists [i.e. Philosophical Naturalism] - and thus every event/action in the world must be the result of the interaction of particles in antecedent physical states, in accordance to the physical laws - how can they say that anything is bad or evil?  All actions/events are just the result of unguided, unintentional, unintelligent, purposeless, goalless process. 

So in their worldview, how can anything be said to be bad or good? 

A further problem is, how can they say that they are reasoning or thinking critically - defined as "careful thinking directed to a goal" [per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy] if they have no dominion of their thoughts? They cannot make any molecule act in a manner inconsistent with the physical laws; i.e. their thoughts must come via interaction of particles in antecedent physical states in accordance to the physical laws.  Again, all actions/events [including human thought] are just the result of unguided, unintentional, unintelligent, purposeless, goalless process. 

Thus, Philosophical Naturalism is logically self-refuting as a physical-only model of the world cannot account for human reasoning - i.e. goal-directed thinking. 

Rationality Rules seems to assume Philosophical Naturalism, which leads to used two self-refuting statements; the existence of morality and the existence of reason are not grounded in Philosophical Naturalism. Rationality Rules used that plus two logical fallacies to try to refute Christianity.   So, FOUR fatal errors in one short vid - an interesting strategy by a You-tuber by the name of "Rationality" Rules. 

[this assumes that Rationality Rules is a Philosophical Naturalist - but given his vids with regard to miracles, it's likely true]

Philosophical Naturalism is logically self-refuting

Definition: 

Determinism, a theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws

A self-refuting idea or self-defeating idea is an idea or statement whose falsehood is a logical consequence of the act or situation of holding them to be true.

Examples: 

1) Truth cannot be known (If so, then how does one know this truth claim?)

2) Language cannot carry meaning  (If language cannot carry meaning, then what about this claim? Is it meaningful?)

3) Science is the only way to determine truth, or I only trust things I can determine through a scientific process  (Can science determine if that statement [about science] is true or what scientific experiment provided that conclusion for you?)

The problem:

Justification [the action of showing something to be right or reasonable] requires some kind of "cognitive freedom" - you need to have control over your deliberations, over what you do [or don't accept] on the basis of evidence, reason, However, determinism [the belief that all actions and events result from other actions [i.e not you - so people cannot in fact choose what to do] makes this freedom impossible. 

Therefore, the person who argues for determinism, or is tempted to accept it, is in a weird position: their conclusion apparently undermines the very reasoning process they're using to justify it.

The Argument:

Philosophical Naturalism is the belief that nature is all that exists, and that all things supernatural (including gods, spirits, souls and non-natural values) therefore do not exist. It is sometimes called Metaphysical Naturalism or Ontological Naturalism to distinguish it from Methodological Naturalism. Philosophical Naturalism entails physical determinism

Methodological Naturalism is the assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method. Methodological naturalists limit their scientific research to the study of natural/physical causes for all events and phenomenon. From Rationalwiki - An online rationalist skeptical resource with is decidedly anti-religious, anti-theistic bent.

Michael Ruse an atheist and Philosopher of science in The Oxford Handbook of Atheism writes "It is usual to distinguish between "methodological naturalism" and "metaphysical naturalism" whereby the latter we need a complex denial of the supernatural - including atheism as understood in the context of this publication - and by the former a conscious decision to act in inquiry and understanding, especially scientific inquiry and understanding as if metaphysical naturalism were true. The intention is not to assume that metaphysical naturalism is true, but to act as if it were.  [p383]

That's methodological naturalism - assuming naturalism is true, or acting as if it were, in one's methodology.

Philosophical Naturalism holds that any mental properties that exist are causally derived from, and ontologically dependent on, systems of non-mental properties, powers or things (i.e. all minds, and all the contents and powers and effects of minds, are entirely constructed from or caused by natural phenomena). 

Philosophical Naturalism entails physical determinism - all events are physically determined, including human thoughts. 

To do science one must only presume that the universe is orderly, i.e. disposed in some order or pattern, or governed by law.

1) Reason is the basis for all knowledge, since all epistemological theories or methods must employ it.

2) Every truth claim requires the laws of logic. It is impossible to deny the laws of logic without using them. Thus, logic reason, and critical thinking are an aspect of reality. In fact, everyone is using logic in this discussion, so it seems evident that all believe that logic is an aspect of reality.

3) All debates presuppose a reality that exists. Each debater is trying to show that their claims are closer to that reality or are best explained by that reality.

4) Critical thinking's definition is contested, but the competing definitions can be understood as differing conceptions of the same basic concept: careful thinking directed to a goal. [source] Critical thinking is purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed; an intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.

5) Under Philosophical Naturalism all actions, including human thoughts, words and deeds, are the result of matter which must act in accordance with antecedent physical conditions and the physical laws without exceptions.

6) 4 above is incoherent under Philosophical Naturalism; logic, reason, and critical thinking are an aspect of reality that cannot be explained via Philosophical Naturalism, since no one has dominion over their thoughts - i.e. no one makes any molecule act in a manner inconsistent with the physical laws, as they must act only in accordance to the physical laws Note: Just saw this vid where William Lane Craig agrees with this point

7) The best explanation for the existence of logic is that there is an aspect of reality that is free from the constraints of the physical; i.e. not being caused to do something by causes other than oneself. It is up to me how I choose, and nothing determines my choice. One's decisions are differentiated from natural events by being done by the agent himself for reasons the agent has in mind.

J. P. Moreland in his book, “Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity" offers a perfect summary: “Physicalism cannot be offered as a rational theory because physicalism does away with the necessary preconditions for there to be such a thing as rationality.” If a naturalist wants to argue that rationality does not exist, they will be making two grave errors: 1- They would be claiming to be non-rational, and 2- they would be making a rational argument that rationality does not exist. It seems the rational decision one ought to come to is that naturalism is irrational, and therefore, false.

In Daniel O. Dhalstrom's Heidegger's concept of truth the author writes: There is, for example, a metaphysical sense of naturalism that Husserl deems self-refuting: the theoretical pretense that everything - including, preeminently, ideas and consciousness - is part of "nature", conceived as the ensemble of empirical facts governed by laws uncovered by natural science....The claim is self-refuting and a pretense because it cannot justify itself; 

Conclusion: Philosophical Naturalism is not simply less likely to be correct, it is logically self-refuting and is necessarily false since it cannot account for reason - careful, purposeful, intellectually disciplined, goal directed thinking as a guide to belief and action. Under PN every thought action is physically determined. Thus, the existence of logic is best explained in a reality where more than the physical exists - something that is not bound by physical restraints - which allows one the freedom of not being caused to do something by causes other than oneself.

As Haldane once said, “It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”

Either “reason” is merely an illusion of physics—in which case there is no justification for relying on it to produce truthful beliefs—or “reason” is something more than physical—in which case naturalism is false. If human reason is driven by mindless particle interactions, it does not necessarily correspond to truth. If we believe reason corresponds to truth, we cannot also believe reason is determined purely by physical means.

No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of non-rational causes.

Objection A: We live in a natural world. There is no supernatural. Deal with it

Reply: Yes, we live in a natural world, that's not the question. Which is, is reality encompassed by just the natural world?  Given the above argument, that's not likely. 

Objection B: Naturalism is not a presumption. Its induction. If you have only ever seen white swans, and you have to guess what color the next swan you see will be, the best guess is white.

Reply: How does this show that only the physical exists? 

Objection C: this argument does not sufficiently demonstrate that philosophical naturalism is self refuting. So it still stands.

Reply: This is an assertion. It can be, and should be, lopped off with Hitchens's razor: what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. If you have an argument, please provide it. 

Objection D: Quantum Mechanics shows that the world/universe that is just physical isn't necessarily deterministic

Reply: While that is true, it hardly solves the problem of grounding rational, logical, goal-oriented thoughts in a physical world where there are only determined thoughts or random thoughts. 

Objection E: Being a philosophical naturalist doesn’t mean you have to be a determinist

Reply: I've heard this objection from quite a few, but I always follow up with this: "If only natural laws and forces operate in the universe, how then are human actions not determined by those laws and forces?"

My interlocutors either go silent or try burden shifting, as they are unable to come up with anything to support their claim that "Being a philosophical naturalist doesn’t mean you have to be a determinist".