00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Okay, we're on philosophy lecture
number 11. Philosophy lecture number 11. And we're still in metaphysics. And we're going to try to answer
the question, does man survive death? Does man survive death? and that is chapter 14 in your book
by Geisler and Feinberg we're just going to look at arguments against
immortality and of course immortality is the view that man lives forever
and then arguments for it So taking a look at arguments against
immortality, there is the argument used from the universality of
human mortality. The universality of human mortality. This just argues that all humans
will eventually die. Nobody doubts this. And You know,
everybody's in agreement on that. So does that prove that there's
no life after death? No. Everybody agrees that humans
will physically die, but the real question is what follows
that? Do we just cease to exist or is there life after death? So that really is beside the
point. We all agree that humans physically
die. David Hume argued from the analogy
of nature In the analogy of nature, he argued against immortality.
David Hume argued that bodily changes produce proportionate
changes in our minds. Bodily changes produce proportionate
changes in our minds, therefore the total death of the body will
entail the total death of the mind. Jung argued that nothing in nature
can survive a drastic change in environment for instance supposing
the sun moved closer to the earth and all of a sudden every day
instead of it being 80 degrees on a hot day it was 250 degrees
or 300 degrees obviously man would die nothing in nature can
survive a drastic change in environment can the mind survive without
the body? that would be a drastic change
in the environment for the mind Jung argues also from analogy
he's looking for similarities in nature with man that animals
resemble men but today nobody believes that animals are immortal he also argues that the world
is destructible and since man is part of the world, so is man's
mind structure now the criticism here that Geisler and Feinberg
bring to this the criticism here is that Jung assumes the conclusion
everybody agrees, everyone agrees in the mortality of the physical
realm but the mind is not in the physical
realm Those who argue for immortality usually argue the mind is apart
from the physical realm. So what happens in the physical
realm? It doesn't necessarily happen in the realm of the mind. And by the way, there are also
ways that animals do not resemble man. Bertrand Russell used the
body-mind dependence argument. Bertrand Russell argued against
immortality using the body-mind dependence argument. Russell
was an agnostic. Questioned God's existence. If
I can be honest, he was probably an atheist. This has been known,
thought of by many as the most impressive argument against immortality. He says that the activity of
the mind is now dependent on the body. The activity of the
mind is now dependent on the body. Our mental life is dependent
on brain activity. For instance, if you had a horrible,
took a horrible blow to the head and it caused brain damage, it's
going to affect your mental life. Now our brains will eventually
die. And so, Bertrand Russell is saying,
well if the brain eventually dies, the mind is going to have
to die with it. The criticism of this is that
the present body-mind dependence says nothing about the conditions
of future existence you have to assume that the present body-mind
dependence is going to be that is going to have that relationship
for as long as the mind lasts and we don't know about the conditions
of future existence so we can't use that so now let's take a
look at different views about immortality and then try to decide
which would be the the best view. As Christians we must hold to
a view of immortality, that man survives death in some way. There is the immortal soul, immortal soul doctrine, made famous by Plato, the Greek
philosopher. There is the shadow man or minimal person doctrine. And there is the reconstruction. Now first, let's take a look at the immortal soul doctrine of
Plato. That was Plato's belief that
the human soul is immortal. It is immortal in itself. In
other words, God's not going to keep our souls in existence
for all eternity. They are by nature immortal.
Nothing has to hold them in existence. The human soul is by nature immortal. And the soul is the real person.
The physical part of you isn't the real you. It's less real.
than the real you, which is the soul. This is where that distinction,
the Gnostics ended up picking up on this and getting that distinction
that the flesh is evil and the spirit realm is good and therefore
God could not become a man. That was the immortal soul doctrine.
There's a few areas there that Christians obviously cannot agree
with. The shadow man or minimal person
doctrine says The real person is, or the minimal person, is
the soul. In other words, the person can
survive without the body, although it doesn't make the body evil
or it doesn't make the body non-important, although it is not essential
to you. You can exist as a conscious human being, a conscious person
without a body. And so the soul, the mind of the man can
survive without the body. This, I think, the shadow man
or minimal person is the closest to Christianity and that's the
one we'll be defending. The reconstruction doctrine says
that our bodies will be resurrected after death and obviously Christianity
believes that, but the way they view it is that God calls us
back into existence. So it's the doctrine of soul
sleep that the Jehovah's Witnesses hold to, where we cease to, when
we physically die we cease to exist until God physically raises
us from the dead. So if there's life after physical
death, no, in the sense that if you don't have a physical
body you're not alive but yes, in that God will eventually physically
raise us so we would hold to more the shadow man or minimal
person doctrine where the soul can survive without the body
so where does the reincarnation fit in with? is that kind of
a recompression doctrine? no, that would be much more like
the immortal soul doctrine because eventually the goal is to It
would be more like the immortal soul doctrine except this immortal
soul would only be one world soul and you would... because eventually you're... the physical realm is either
less real or just a total illusion in the mind of the Hindus and
eventually you become part of the world soul and the cycle
of reincarnation, the goal of it is to get out of it and to
become one with the world soul. So it would be a lot closer to
the immortal soul doctrine of Plato. Now in defense of the
shadow man doctrine Socrates argued that only composite
things like bodies decompose. Bodies are made up of different
parts but the soul is a simple entity and it isn't made up apart
so it can't come apart can't be taken apart, can't decompose
Plato's view of the eternal ideas can also help to defend the shadow man or minimal person
obviously it would defend his immortal soul doctrine as well
but we can use it to defend our doctrine and then use some other
arguments as well But Plato's view of the eternal ideas is
that the forms or the ideas, the form of something, you know,
a chair is made of matter, but there's a form. If that matter
is formed into a different form, it wouldn't be a chair, it might
be a table or a dresser or something. But the forms or ideas are eternal
or unchanging. They're the idea chair, the chairness
of the chair. things like equality or color
are ideas. The forms or ideas are eternal
and unchanging and in Plato's way of thinking the forms are
the real objects of knowledge. The soul knows the forms. The
soul recognizes, can recognize a particular chair as being part
of the universal classification of chairs. So the soul knows
the forms and therefore we can argue the soul is probably eternal
and unchanging just like the ideas, the forms or ideas are
eternal and unchanging. Plato also argued from reminiscence
that we can know certain things a priori. We do know certain
things a priori before investigating things and determining if this
culprit is real. We bring into that certain a priori ideas. Certain things that we know without experiencing it and finding
evidence in the facts of experience. So we know certain things a priori
and Plato argued that in order to have this a priori knowledge,
in other words, in order to be created with ideas already in
our mind through which we can make judgments, rational judgments
upon the physical facts of sense data Plato argued that therefore
the soul must have pre-existed the body and we must have had
these ideas before we became bodily, had bodily existence.
Now obviously Christians reject this view so we would not use
that argument to argue for the defense of the shadow man doctrine.
C.S. Lewis argued that rationality
or reason could not have been caused by purely material causes. What he's arguing there is that
nature is non-rational. We would not get in a debate
with a rock. We would not try to shake hands
with a tree and exchange ideas with a tree. Nature by definition
is non-rational, non-thinking. So rationality or reason could
not have been caused by purely material causes. Therefore, rationality
is supernatural and immaterial. Our thinking is non-material. You can't weigh a thought. Our thinking is immaterial and
supernatural. It transcends nature. Near-death experiences would
also be an argument for immortality. People who have had no brainwaves
and their hearts have ceased to beat and they're just laying
there at times have said that they came out of their bodies
and then they during that time period could tell you what was
going on in that room and sometimes could tell you what was going
on ten blocks away from that room and have witnessed things
and given some information that can't be explained on naturalistic
terms. Now, a lot of New Agers are using
these near-death experiences to try to argue for the New Age
movement, but Abermass and Moreland, in their book, I think it's something
like The Case for Immortality, Life After Death or something,
their book is probably the best creaking work on the subject.
Dr. Habermas was one of my professors
at Liberty and Moreland taught at Liberty at one time and I
was teaching down at Talbot in California Habermas and Moreland
in their book also argue from recent brain research now scientists
have managed to prod the human brain and they've gotten people
to raise their right hand and then they ask them what happened
and people say you raised my right hand And that shocked the
professors that have done this test because they assumed that
there was no immaterial soul of man. They assumed that man
was simply material and that his brain did his thinking so
that if you push the right button in the brain and it raises the
right hand then the guy would say, I decided to raise my hand
and I rose my right hand. In actuality what it's showing
is that the people are saying, what it shows is that the brain
does it make the decision? Somewhere outside of the brain
or outside the material man the man chooses to raise his right
hand and that acts upon the brain and causes some kind of chemical
reaction which causes the man to raise his right hand but the
decision was not made in the brain the decision was made in
the mind, in the immaterial mind. so decisions not being made in
the brain seem to indicate the soul is not the brain and when
the brain dies it might not just the soul might not just continue
on in existence but might even be freed to a more powerful existence
and the brain might actually keep limit that which the soul
can learn to a lot of sense that and things like that. Jesus'
resurrection of course would be the ultimate evidence for
immortality. The fact that Jesus rose from
the dead and came back and he can guarantee our immortality
by promising to raise those from the dead and trust in him. There's still, you know, further
objections to arguments for immortality. Some would argue that even though
the soul cannot experience change, maybe it can still cease to exist.
Others would argue, why must the knower resemble the thing
known? Just because we know some invisible,
unchangeable things, does that mean that our soul has to be
invisible and unchangeable? I was going to say the problem
of identity. Is the soul the same person as you are after
death? Those who hold immortality would
probably argue that we would continue in conscious existence
and we would have memory about our life before, so it would
be the same person even without the body. You know, just like
you're the same person you were yesterday even though you were
wearing different clothes. yesterday. Our present way of individuating
between persons is by way of their bodies, but that still
says nothing about the future. Once we see more clearly on the
spiritual realm, with spiritual eyes, we may individuate between
persons in different ways. In fact, I think if we judge
the worth of a person In purely physical terms, I think we're
making a poor judgment of you. The character traits, those invisible
attributes of a person are more important than the visible ones. Some reduce mental space to the
mere physical realm, but I think that's been disproven both scientifically
and philosophically. It can be shown that there is
more to man than just the body. Others would argue that sense
experience is impossible without the body, but there may still
be a more direct way of knowing that may be possible without
the hindrance of our bodies. So we just, you know, we're talking
about uncharted waters, and the possibility that man can still
know without having sense experience is possible. And then some others
would say, well, where is the afterlife? But there's no logical
reason to deny that the afterlife is a non-physical realm. It's
in a non-physical realm, though it could be in the physical realm.
So we don't have to know where the afterlife is to know that
there is an afterlife. In conclusion, for that chapter,
chapter 14, does man survive death? There's no decisive philosophical
evidence against immortality. For Christians, Christ's resurrection
settles the issue. the minimal person survives the
death of a body Luke chapter 16 verses 19-31 is a good passage
to look at for that and so at the resurrection the minimal
person the soul will be reunited with it's resurrection body and
there's good philosophical evidence to at least show that that view
is reasonable chapter 15 deals with the question are there other
minds? Are there other minds? So let's discuss that question. Are there other minds? The argument for other minds
based on analogy goes like this. The mental states
we experience are associated with our bodies and their behavior. Other bodies similar to ours
display similar behavior. The mental states we experience,
thoughts we have in the world, The mental states we experience
are associated with our bodies and their behavior. Other bodies
similar to ours display similar behavior. And so we assume that
there are mental states associated with other bodies that are similar
to our own mental states. We assume that there are mental
states associated with our bodies that are similar to our own mental
states. Be like I'm talking with Doug,
and Doug's lips are moving, his hands are moving and he's talking
to me and dialoguing and so I'm assuming I'm hearing if the sounds
come out of him similar to sounds that come out of me I'm seeing
his physical actions and stuff he touches something that's hot
and he screams and so I'm assuming that the same type of mental
activity that's occurring inside of me is also occurring inside
of him and so that would be an argument for other minds based
on analogy Criticisms of his view is that, number one, arguments
based on analogy are usually weak. Yeah, but not always. The analogy is pretty strong.
The similarities are pretty strong. The arguments can be pretty strong.
There's also, there's no way to verify this argument. It is
said, you know, we have to be able to or a sense of mind with the five
senses to verify it with the five senses that type of thing
and then others say the argument is circular although I don't
believe it's a circular if you claim it's circular well I know
he's got a mind because I've got a mind and he acts just like
me so he must have a mind and say well that's kind of circular
reasoning I don't think it's as circular as it's denial So
the denial of the existence of other minds, if you deny, you
can go in a closet and turn off the light and close the door
and say, there are no other minds, there are no other minds, there
are no other minds. That's not contradictory. You're
not contradicting yourself there. But! Once you tell another person
that you do not believe in the existence of other minds, you're
contradicting yourself. Because you have to assume the
existence of the other person's mind in order to dialogue with
them and to make the denial of the existence of the other person's
mind. A. J. Ayer defended the argument from
analogy. He said that verbal communists
Communication confirms the argument. People explain their mental states
in much the same way that we understand our own. And so the
argument can be directly checked. Well, you also already know that
the argument can be directly checked. Others rightly conclude
we are in pain when we scream. We scream and they say, are you
okay? No, I'm in pain. And they start giving us first
aid or whatever. We do not need public phenomenon
phenomena to verify a private experience like mental thoughts.
That's what A.J.A. would argue. An alternate form
of the argument from analogy that Geisel and Feinberg present,
an effect often resembles its cause. Other beings display rational
activity. Rational activity only comes
from rational minds. So it would be an argument that
would run along those lines. all to form the same argument
from now on. So there's been other arguments for the existence
of other minds that have been offered that I don't think are
as strong. I'm not even going to mention
P.F. Strawson and John Wisdom. I don't think they really...
the authors don't go into that much depth on them anyway, but
I don't think it really offers much to our... Even Ludwig Wittgenstein,
even what he mentions here, words being used as symbols for sense
perceptions, John Wisdom clarifying the problem. I don't think it
really offers enough to the discussion. But an alternative argument for
the existence of other minds would be like behaviorism that
they mention here. The idea that all mental states
are fully reducible to physical states. In other words, the mind
is the brain. They're synonymous. Behaviorism,
All mental states are fully reducible to physical states. The mind
is the brain. Obviously, we already presented
evidence in the last lecture that the mind is not the brain.
The mind is more than the brain, and so we would not hold to that
argument. So, in conclusion, the argument
from analogy which has been much criticized in contemporary thought,
still it seems to be as defensible as any other argument for other
minds. In fact, even more defensible. My basic argument would be that
the denial of other minds cannot be communicated to others. The
denial of other minds cannot be communicated to others without
affirming the existence of other minds. Can you repeat that? The
denial of other minds cannot be communicated without affirming
the existence, cannot be communicated to others without affirming the
existence of other minds. So, if a guy says, I do not believe
in the existence of other minds, if he's willing to debate you
on it, he automatically loses the debate. because he has to
assume the existence of another mind in order to try to convince
the other mind of the non-existence of other minds. So my argument
is the denial of other minds cannot be communicated to others
without affirming the existence of other minds. Now we move on,
we're making some real good progress, we're still on metaphysics and
the question comes up, what is truth? What is truth? What is truth? That's chapter
16 in Geismann and Feinberg's book. There is the coherence theory
of truth. The coherence theory of truth.
There is the pragmatic theory of truth. Pragmatic theory of truth. There's
the performative theory of truth. And then there
is the correspondence theory of truth, which is what I hold
to. correspondence theory of truth. A lot of people are moving
into the coherence theory of truth, but I find that very weak. Let's take a look at the coherence
theory of truth. The coherence theory of truth
says that something is true only if it does not contradict other
statements in its own system of thought. Coherence theory
of truth says that something is true only if it does not contradict
other statements in its system of thought. Okay? Statements can be either partially
true or partially false in the coherence theory of truth. But
the whole system of statements that it belongs in It must be
wholly true. It could be wholly true or wholly
false. For instance, I'm going to draw a circle and then some
x's inside the circle. The circle represents the system
of truth. That whole system of truth is
either going to be wholly true or wholly false. But each one
of these little x's inside there can only be partially true or
partially false. That's kind of the theory that
they got. I think it's sloppy. I don't
really hold to it. Evaluation of the coherence view. If something is to be true, then
the law of non-contradiction is necessary. So, the fact that
things must cohere, the fact that something in the statement,
something is... In order for something to be
true, it cannot contradict other statements within its own system.
In other words, if you've got a system of thought that is contradictory,
we know it cannot be true. But just because all the beliefs
in your worldview or your system of thought do not contradict
themselves, it still doesn't tell you that your view is true.
See what I'm getting at? Let's say In my world view, man
equals non-man. Well that's obviously a contradiction,
so we know that my world view cannot be, that's an essential
part of my world view, my world view cannot be true. But suppose
that in my world view, man equals man. And all the beliefs in my
world view are not contradictory. These are the three views in
my worldview. Man equals man, animal equals
animal, and ground equals ground. So in my entire worldview, there
are absolutely no contradictions, but I still wouldn't say anything
about whether or not my worldview is true. So a statement can be consistent
with one system, but inconsistent with another system. A coherent statement also might
not apply to the real world. Suppose my worldview contains
one statement, glob equals glob. Well, if there's no such thing
as globs, what good is the worldview if it says nothing about the
real world? So a coherent statement might not apply to the real world.
Even if we define bachelors as unmarried males, If there are
no, that doesn't tell us if there's any bachelors in the real world.
It is logically possible that there are two coherent systems.
In other words, it's logically possible that we can have two
systems that don't contradict anything within their systems.
But they could be two systems where only one of them could
be true, not both of them. So how do you know which one's
true and which one's false? Coherence wouldn't tell you.
As long as they're self-consistent, coherence would say they're true. What if Hinduism was totally
consistent, which it isn't, but what if it was totally consistent
and Christianity was totally consistent? There'd be no way
for us to say Hinduism is false and Christianity is true if we
alter the coherence theory of truth. And this whole idea of
the concept of partial truth or partial falsehood is ludicrous. Once you get out of the realm
of absolute truth, you know, something can be true in one
sense and false in another sense, but we're not saying it's partially
true. We're saying it's totally true in one sense and totally
false in another sense. So the coherence view of truth
fails. Then there's the pragmatic theory
of truth. So, basically the coherence theory
though says basically whatever does not contradict, non-contradiction
is true. Well, if it doesn't contradict,
it tells us, if something does contradict, it tells us that
something is false. But if it doesn't contradict
itself, then it just says it might be true. It doesn't tell
us what must be true. Now the pragmatic theory is that
truth is whatever, truth equals whatever works. Truth equals whatever works.
It takes truth and it makes it, you know, it has to be something
that's practical. So the pragmatic theory of truth
is that truth is what works. Charles Sanders Peirce he said
that truth is the practical consequence of experimentation by the scientific
community truth is the practical consequence of experimentation
by the scientific community so truth is whatever works within
science within scientific experimentation would be the way that he argues
not many people would hold to that William James says that
truth is determined by personal, he's out of the realm of the
scientific community, by personal and practical consequence. Truth
is what works for the individual. Problem with James' view there,
lies often work. Still, they aren't true, otherwise
there wouldn't be lies. For instance, a doctor might
lie to help a patient recover. He said, 95% chance you're going
to survive the surgery. Well, he might be lying. There
might only be a 5% chance of him surviving the surgery. But
it makes the patient optimistic. The patient survives. The lie
worked. William Jayne says, since it
worked, it must be true. But it was a lie. It worked,
but it was false. So, that seems to prove. John Dewey also holds a pragmatic
theory of truth. He says, ideas become true when
the facts are right. And so truth is mutable, truth
is changeable, it's not absolute. So the problem with Dewey is
that denial of absolutes is absurd. To say there is no absolute truth,
if that's true, it's an absolute truth. So it's a self-refuting
statement. Also, if Dewey's view is true,
then a crime committed on Wednesday would not be true, it would not
really occur until it was proven on Friday, and that's ludicrous. The whole idea Just remember
about pragmatism. It holds the view that truth
is whatever works. Kind of the ends justifies the
means type of thing. And that's ludicrous. The performative theory of truth,
P.S. Fawson, he holds to this. He says, we perform an action
when we make a truth claim. We're actually doing something
when we make a truth claim. So he says to say it is true
that it is raining, It is true that it is raining really means
I agree. I'm making the action of agreeing
with the statement that it is true that it is raining. And to agree that something is true
is not the same as saying that something is true. There's a
difference between the two. Some people are convinced that
they're wrong and therefore they change their account. And by
the way, on 246, Steisen and Feinberg said that performatives cannot account
for blind uses of the word true. A blind use of the word true
is the bottom paragraph. A blind use of the word true
occurs when a person describes a statement or group of statements
as true without knowing what the statement or statements are.
So in other words, somebody could say, I think the Raiders are
good, are going to win the Super Bowl. I think it's true. I say, I like the Raiders. I
think they're going to win the Super Bowl. What do you think?
The person says, yeah, I think that's true. They'll win the
Super Bowl. And then we find out that the guy really doesn't
know anything about football. You know, there's a blind usage
of the word true. There's no real knowledge if
you don't really understand what the statement It really is. It's a real vague issue here
in the performative theory of truth. It's like to say something
is true, you're just expressing your opinion, that's all it is. You're not going to support your
opinion in any way, that's just what you're saying. He's even
saying that you really can't be supported. He's kind of getting
into the relativity of truth, if I understand correctly. So there really is no such thing
as absolute truth. But the correspondence theory
of truth, this is the view that I hold to. It's when a statement
corresponds to reality, it is true. Such as if I said, there
are 300 people in this classroom. That statement would not correspond
to reality, so it would be false. If I said there are two people
in this classroom, that statement would, clearly. We didn't have
too good of a turnout today. That statement would correspond
to reality. Aristotle, on page 290, 247,
he defines truth. That says, Aristotle gives
a definition of truth that is on examination, clear and simple.
To say of what is, that it is not, or of what is not, that
it is, is false. Then Aristotle says, well, to
say of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not,
is true. Okay, so I like that when you
get a chance. Right under Aristotle's name
on page 247, that's his definition of truth. Statement is true if
it says of what is, that it is. And a statement is true if it
says of what is not, that it is not. Telling it like it is,
that corresponds to being true. A statement corresponds to reality. If I say there is a pulpit in
this room, that is a true statement because in reality there is a
pulpit in this room. A statement corresponds to reality.
If I say there is not a pulpit in this room, that is a false
statement because it does not correspond to the reality that
there is a pulpit in this room. G.E. Moore says truth is the
facts, but there's no such thing as true propositions. Propositions are statements about
the facts. G.E. Moore is off the wall. There
are true propositions. To say there is a pulpit, that's
a proposition and that proposition is true. G.E. Moore wants to
bring us to the physical realm alone there. Alfred Tarski says
truth is a property of sentences, When the sentence expresses the
genuine state of a reality, then the sentence is true, and I would
agree on that point there. In conclusion, I would say only
the correspondence theory of truth is adequate. Only the correspondence theory
of truth is adequate. The other theories result in
relativism or agnosticism. They result in the idea there's
no real absolute truths. Something can be half-true or
whatever. It can be true to you and not true to me. And we don't
need to say agnosticism. To say man cannot know pure agnosticism
is a claim to know that man cannot know. Self-refute. So man can
know something. So we need to get away from agnosticism.
And to say that there is no absolute truth which is the basic statement
of pure relativism, to say there is no absolute truth. If that
statement is true, it is an absolute truth, then it would contradict
itself, so therefore it must be false. So there is absolute
truth and we know something, and therefore the correspondence
theory of truth is the truth that I would hold to, to answer
the question, what is truth? Now that completes the section,
part three, the section on metaphysics, the whole section on metaphysics,
what is reality. So we've covered an introduction
to philosophy, we've covered epistemology, what is knowledge,
how can man know, then metaphysics, what is reality, And now we enter
part four, what is the ultimate, which is philosophy of religion. What is the ultimate, philosophy
of religion? After a few lectures on that,
then we'll go to ethics, what is right and what is wrong. So
in the next lecture, we'll pick up with a section on philosophy
of religion, part four, what is the ultimate.
Introduction to Philosophy 11
Series Introduction to Philosophy
| Sermon ID | 102708542526 |
| Duration | 45:25 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.