An Eternal universe?

 

This post is in response to a friend who *held* to a view that the universe was eternal and unchanging. According to him time is contained *within* the universe. As I listened to my friend explain his worldview, something seemed amiss. His conclusion, then was that there is no need (roughly speaking) for a god let alone the Christian God of the Bible.

As I have thought about his position over the last few days, I realized that his argument contains a flaw that he may not have considered.  He wants to say that the Law of Contradiction and the Law of Excluded Middle (hereafter LOC and LEM) are simply different ways of expressing the Law of Identity (LOI).  For argument’s sake, we will set aside the fact that LOI is a recent formulation not set forth in Aristotle. Since my friend has such an affinity for the LOI let’s assume for the moment that he is right. We will fully embrace Leibniz’s Law of Identity. For those of you who need a refresher, the LOI is simply that x=x.

In my friend’s case, this would mean that substituting *universe* for the variable x, we can say that the universe=universe. All of the properties of the universe are contained by the universe.  Sounds simple right? Well it’s far from simple.  In fact, my friend has fallen into a trap that may cause him to recognize the error of his ways, repent and be saved.

I suppose now would be a good time to turn back to our friend Leibniz. As I mentioned above, my friend has a fairly substantial hurdle if he wants to posit an eternal universe. Here is his problem:

The Identity of Indiscernibles (hereafter called the Principle) is usually formulated as follows: if, for every property F, object x has F if and only if object y has F, then x is identical to y. Or in the notation of symbolic logic:

∀F(Fx ↔ Fy) → x=y.This formulation of the Principle is equivalent to the Dissimilarity of the Diverse as McTaggart called it, namely: if x and y are distinct then there is at least one property that x has and y does not, or vice versa.

The converse of the Principle, x=y → ∀F(Fx ↔ Fy), is called the Indiscernibility of Identicals. Sometimes the conjunction of both principles, rather than the Principle by itself, is known as Leibniz’s Law. (source:plato.stanford.edu)

My friend’s worldview contradicts Leibniz’s Law by asserting that the universe x (I take universe x to be a universe without life and universe y to be a universe with life) is the same as universe y.

But universe x is not the same as universe y [hereafter UY and UX]  UY has discernables or in other words items that change within the universe. Using the LOI as a foundation for *everything* is simply not philosophically tenable. If the universe is eternal, as my friend asserts then it cannot have any property (where x=a property) that changes.

In other words, an eternal universe must contain all of the properties into the infinite past that it has presently, and [it would follow] that it has in the future.  His worldview can be refuted by way of a reductio ad absurdum, because according to the IOI if x and y have the same properties then x and y are the same thing. In order to not violate IOI the two must be seperate and distinct universe(s).

 

 

Randian Epistemology

1.Defining a worldview
What is a worldview? How does a worldview affect one’s view on life, death and the ultimate questions that pervade someone’s outlook on life? Further, does Ayn Rand’s philosophy offer a worldview? A definition is in order. Dr. Norman Geisler in his book Worlds Apart: A handbook on worldviews offers this quote:“A world view is a way one views the whole world. And since people have vastly different views of the world, depending on the perspective from which they view the world, it is clear that one’s world view makes a world of difference. A world view is a way of viewing or interpreting all of reality.” (Geisler, Worlds Apart) Miss Rand would heartily agree with Norman Geisler as she is quoted as saying:“Consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, man knows that he needs a comprehensive view of existence to integrate his values, to choose his goals, to plan his future, to maintain the unity and coherence of his life” (Rand, Objectivist Epistemology)

She goes further to say that every decision that man makes is based on this integration of values. Does Objectivism offer a theory that explains the correlation of these values that maintains unity and coherence? It seems that Ayn Rand attempts to make sense of the world as she expounds her philosophy. She discusses man, reason, and ethics and sets forth her understanding of metaphysics, epistemology, and concept formation. In other words as she says, philosophy is not a bauble of the intellect rather something that no man live without. When Ayn Rand uses the word ‘philosophy” one can detect a rather superficial equivocation between the terms philosophy and worldview. Rather than her philosophy being distinctly different than her worldview, the two are inseparable.
Objectivism as a worldview

Ayn Rand’s influence in our culture is undeniable. Nearly every college student that has studied the humanities has at least heard of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Her objectivism is a hybrid of various philosophies. By way of introduction, Objectivism was chosen as topic because it is widely adopted by atheists as a worldview. Objectivism as a worldview should not be considered as over against atheism but rather as an attempt to synthesize various philosophies into a coherent worldview. The basic premise of objectivism is that existents exist. Further, objectivists find the value in selfishness. Rational individualism is the highest expression of this selfishness for the objectivist.

In an attempt to understand objectivism, five salient characteristics should be noted.

1.Reality is objective.

2. One should always follow reason.

3.Morality is objective and can be known through reason.

4.Everyone should always be selfish.

5.Capitalism is the only just economic system.

Now the Christian can certainly find some areas of narrow agreement with the objectivist, especially P2,P3,P5. However, when looking at the epistemic foundation for these premises the Christian and the Objectivist find themselves worlds apart.
The Epistemology of Objectivism
One feature that every worldview must have, if its philosophical underpinnings are to cohere, is a theory of knowledge. A worldview must account for knowledge and the origins of knowledge. In other words every viable worldview has an epistemology.
Epistemology is defined as:“Investigation of the origin and nature of knowledge, is one of the principal branches of philosophy. How do we know something?” (Geisler, Introduction to Philosophy)Each individual must make “sense” of his percepts and integrate them into a coherent and cogent system. For Ayn Rand perception is the foundation of all knowledge. She writes:“Epistemologically, the base of all man’s knowledge is the perceptual stage” (Thomas, “FAQ’s”)

So according to Objectivism all knowledge must necessarily come from sense
experience. Author William Thomas says:“The basis of knowledge is the awareness we have through our physical senses. We see reality ,hear it, taste it, smell it, feel it through touch.” (Thomas, “FAQ’s”)

The weakness of Objectivist Epistemology
According to objectivism, human beings are fed information as babies that comes to them as according to Ayn Rand “undifferentiated chaos”. Reason is held in the highest of esteem. Again objectivist author William Thomas writes:“Objectivism hold that all human knowledge is reached through reason, the human mental faculty of understanding the world abstractly and logically.”(Thomas, “FAQ’s”)

Further, the objectivist must also argue that this includes concept formation. In fact Objectivism asserts that the concept formation is a posteriori. The mind is ultimately a tabula rasa and no knowledge is possible apart from sense experience. The medium by which an objectivist fixes the gulf between experience and concepts is language. Laying aside the fact that Immanuel Kant argued that some truths such as logic are in fact a priori, reformed Apologist Vincent Cheung offers this challenge:“The empiricist must explain how physical sensations convey knowledge to the incorporeal mind.”(Chueng, Presuppositional Apologetics)

Furthermore, Dr. Van Til argues that empiricism, [objectivism] ultimately reduces to absurdity. He points out that David Hume argued convincingly that there is no valid foundation for thought based on this sort of epistemology. Van Til says of Hume:“Hume’s thought remains as the simplest proof that if one takes his stand upon the sense world as such there is no knowledge possible of anything.“ (Van Til, The Works of Cornelius Van Til) It stands to reason then, if the objectivist doesn’t have a solid epistemic foundation can he or she refute the Christian positon by asserting the same about our worldview? To assess this one must take a closer look at the epistemology of Christianity.

Christian Epistemology
At least one philosopher/apologist was convinced that our epistemology was derived from the bible. Gordon Clark, the former chair of the philosophy department at Butler University, argued that the Christian can know what he knows because God has said it.
In other words, his epistemology started with the bible. This view is known as scripturalism. Scripturalism holds that God has revealed truth in the form of the bible. Further, the scripturalist holds that the Christian faith is one of propositional truth. This means that every statement contained in the bible is a proposition. That the bible alone is the word of God, is the maxim of the scripturalist. Moreover, the scripturalist can say that the bible not only contains propositions but these propositions are Christianities axioms.

This is the first principle of the Christian worldview.
The objection is most certainly raised, this entails believing a book. This objection is short lived however as the objectivist is simply implying that sense experience is inherently better than the bible. The other objection that might be offered is that one must use sense experience to read the bible. Turning to John Robbins, Gordon Clark’s most prolific disciple, he says that God has to reveal knowledge to man. Although the senses are used, the senses are not responsible for knowledge. Robbins quotes Clark as saying that:“Knowledge of the truth is the gift from God. Man can do nothing apart from the will of God, and man can know nothing apart from the revelation”(Robbins, “Revelation and Epistemology”)

The weakness of Objectivism as a worldview
Objectivism has some positive points to be sure. There may even be some points were Christian theists and objectivists can find some agreement. Does Ayn Rand’s philosophy satisfy the existential questions that have plagued men and philosophers? Does objectivism offer answers to life’s ultimate questions? In this Objectivism fails just as miserably as other forms of atheism. As a worldview, it purports the absolute nature of its truth as a system while jettisoning God. As Norman Geisler points out indirectly this leads to a contradiction of mammoth proportions:“But absolute prescriptions are only possible if there is an Absolute Prescriber. Absolute moral laws can come only from an Absolute Moral Law Giver . The only logical conclusion for an atheist is to deny all moral absolutes, as did Nietzsche and Jean Paul Sartre.”(Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics)

Further, objectivism leaves untouched questions of life after death, meaning of existence and other ultimate questions. The maxim of objectivism is no different than that of the Epicureans; eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. Perhaps to this maxim the objectivist can add the epitaph and “don’t forget to be selfish.”

The Superiority of the Christian worldview
Is it fair to conclude that objectivism fails as a worldview? Could one go even further and declare that objectivism is intellectually untenable and as a competing worldview is devoid of coherence and cogency? Objectivism falls flat because it cannot offer a first principle from which the rest of the system can be derived. As Apologist Vincent Cheung argues:“Our strategy for biblical apologetics begins with the recognition that Christianity is the only deductive system with a self-consistent and self-justifying first principle that has been infallibly revealed by an all-powerful and all-knowing God, and that is broad enough to yield a sufficient number of propositions to construct a comprehensive and self-consistent worldview.” (Chueng, Presuppositional Apologetics)

Objectivism posits that man’s mind is a blank slate, a tabula rasa. Yet, neither Ayn Rand nor any of her exegetes have every offered a demonstration of how “knowledge” is gained through sense experience. As Bible believing Christians have known all along, God has given us innate knowledge, so that in order for the Objectivist to make sense of his/her experience they must presuppose Christian first principles in their entirety. Objectivism’s attempt to glean knowledge from sense experience and abstraction has failed. John Robbins wrote this of Ayn Rand’s philosophy:“All secular philosophies share the axiom of autonomy, the belief that man’s unaided intellect can arrive at knowledge. Objectivism is no exception. Yet the repeated failures have not resulted in a repudiation of this axiom, only in more determined efforts to reach knowledge via man’s own efforts.” (Robbins, “Revelation and Epistemology”)

 

Bibliography
Chueng, Vincent, Apologetics. Presuppositional Apologetics. Boston, MA.: Reformation Ministries International, 2003.
Geisler, Norman, Christian Apologetics. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999.
Geisler, Norman et.al, ed.. Worlds Apart: A Handbook on World Views. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1989.
Geisler, Norman et.al., ed.. Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1980.
Rand, Ayn et.al., ed.. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. USA: Plume, 1993.
Rand, Ayn, ed.. Objectivist Epistemology. USA: Penguin Group, 1990.
Van Til, Cornelius, ed.. The Works of Cornelius Van Til. New York, NY: Army Labels Co., 1997.