An Objection to Simplicity Style Arguments in Favor of Theism

The Objection: While the hypothesis of an unlimited foundation might be more probable than the hypothesis of a foundation with some specific limit, that ignores the following: there are infinitely many ways to be limited *in some way or another*, and only one way to be unlimited. And so even if being unlimited is more probable than any given limit chosen at random, surely 'the foundation is limited in some way or another' is far, far more probable than 'the foundation is utterly unlimited.'

Reminds me of the man who shoots himself in the head:  There’s an infinite number of highly unlikely scenarios where he doesn’t die.  Perhaps it misses his brain, perhaps the powder is wet, perhaps the trigger fails, perhaps he twitches, and so on.  And yet the infinite or near infinite scenarios where he happens to survive doesn’t swamp the most likely scenario - they shouldn’t lead us to think that he’s not almost certainly going to die.

There’s probably a more principled approach that avoids this objection. Here's an attempt: The mere existence of infinitely many options doesn't make them all equally probable with one another. There are infinitely many alternatives to general relativity, but they are probably all false and general relativity is probably true.

But how is it that an infinite number of alternatives, even if all singularly very unlikely, do not swamp the probability of the most likely single explanation? The probabilities of the infinitely many alternatives could form a converging series. Consider the series:

1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, ...

This has infinitely many terms. But their sum is not infinite: it is just 1. Now if those are probabilities expressed as percentages, the first one is 0.5%, the second is 0.25%, the third is 0.125%, etc. Then the sum of the (infinitely many!) probabilities, which is the probability that one or another of them is true, is just 1%. Not too impressive.

From Swinburne: Consideration of the weight we give to simplicity in other areas of inductive inquiry suggests that we normally give it such weight that a really simple hypothesis is intrinsically more probable than a disjunction of many more complex hypotheses.  For example-would a detective really think it is more probable that some hypothesis or other to the effect that Jones cooperated with at least one of the few billion inhabitants of the earth to do some crime more probable than the hypothesis that Jones did it alone when both hypotheses give equal probability to the observed data?

The Genealogies of Jesus

There are some prima facie difficulties in the genealogies of Jesus presented in Matthew and Luke.  The two main difficulties start after David.  First:  Luke traces the genealogy through David’s son, Nathan, while Matthew traces it through Solomon.  Second: Luke and Matthew list different people for Joseph’s father, Heli and Jacob respectively.  How can we resolve these difficulties?

We’ll start with the second problem.  My preferred solution is that Luke is not tracing Joseph’s genealogy but Mary’s.  This is supported by a few data points:  Luke seems especially invested in a Marian perspective, unlike the other three gospels, so it’s natural to think that he provides Mary’s genealogy.  Luke’s parenthetical remark in 3:23: “He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli” has some chance of meaning “being the son (as it was supposed, of Joseph, but really) of Heli.”  This has the effect of eliminating Joseph from Jesus’ genealogy.  But this way of reading the verse isn’t favored by textual critics.  Some additional evidence:  There is a late tradition that identifies Mary’s father as “Joahchim,” for which “Heli” can be an abbreviated form.  Further, some theological evidence:  Providing Mary’s genealogy would link Jesus biologically to David, rather than merely adoptively as in Matthew’s gospel.  

That Luke provides Mary’s line is my preferred solution.  Still, it isn’t a mainstream view, so we should explore other options.  One suggestion is that Joseph was adopted by Heli, allowing a divergence between a legal and natural line. Another, suggested by the quite early writer Julius Africanus, is that Joseph is the result of Levirate marriage.  This view holds that Heli and Jacob share a mother, but have different fathers - one from the line of Nathan, the other from the line of Solomon.  It further proposes that Heli died, leaving a widow.  Jacob marries Heli’s widow in a levirate marriage.  So Joseph is a child of Heli legally, but is biologically the son of Jacob.  This is a very intricate view, but Julius Africanus seems to rest it on documents and testimonies that he had available to him.  So tradition is on its side.

Others propose that Matthew is presenting the more straightforward royal line, so that it becomes clear how Jesus fits into the line.  David’s son Nathan is quite obscure.  Solomon not so much.  So Luke presents the actual descent and Matthew shows how Jesus fits into the more preeminent line. I don’t really like this view.

I don’t hold strongly to any of these solutions.  So long as we manage to show a strong enough probability that these options could be correct, it’s possible to hold to both Luke and Matthew’s genealogies without denying an error in either one of them.  The problem of the complexity of these solutions is eased, at least in my case, from my experience with building out my own personal family tree.  Such weird complexities are not at all rare!  Such intricacies are true to life’s intricacies.  

Another personal note - and this is true of all doubts more generally - I feel the pressure of these doubts to a much greater degree at night when I’m tired.  They feel irresolvable at these times.  But whenever I wake up in the morning and resurvey the evidence, these pressing doubts tend to disappear.  Just a weird fact about our psychology, I guess.

One further note and I’ll finish here.  I tend to feel a pretty vast skepticism over these genealogies from a more general historical point: How did the Jews preserve these records, and would they have been easily accessible to the Gospel writers?  Hundreds of years.  Loads of wars and conquest.  Two quick points:  The Jews were notorious record keepers and there was actually a dedicated building for genealogical records next to the temple, identified as the Archives in the ESV Study Bible.  Also, God could easily guard history and records so as to preserve a true account of Jesus’s genealogy for Matthew and Luke. If he can create the universe, surely he could guard the records, right?

Accessibilism: A Hybrid View

William Lane Craig is an Accessibilist. He thinks that one can be saved apart from hearing the gospel. But if he's an Accessibilist, then what's the point of his Molinist move that holds that those that reject natural revelation and never hear the gospel would have rejected the gospel had they heard it? To safeguard against the objection that there may be individuals who, while rejecting natural revelation, would have accepted the gospel had they heard it, so that it’d be unfair if they were damned without hearing it. This objection goes through even given Accessibilism, so still requires a response.  

So WLC doesn’t hold that any that would respond to the gospel would indeed hear it - for those that accept natural revelation would also accept the gospel - but rather holds that those who do not hear the gospel and do not believe general revelation would not have believed the gospel if they had heard it.

Still, there's an issue with Accessibilism. We'll call it the Missions Objection.  What’s the point of doing missions if people can be saved apart from hearing the gospel? It isn't just about our motive for missions but about the urgency and immense importance placed on missions in the Bible. We need to uphold both a grounded motivation and the Biblical data undergirding missions.

So I propose a hybrid view: There are individuals who will respond positively to natural revelation and thus be saved apart from hearing the gospel, so bare Accessibilism is true. But there are also individuals who will not respond to natural revelation but will respond to the gospel upon hearing it. So they will not be saved by surveying natural revelation alone, but must hear the gospel in order to believe. And we can add the middle knowledge bit here: those people that will only respond to the gospel *will* get a hearing of it.

Thus we can preserve bare Accessibilism and the motive and biblical data for missions.  Still, I decline to endorse this view.  It's just an option on the table.

An Argument for Hypothetical Universalism

Thus a thousand talents hidden away in the treasury of a prince are said to be a sufficient payment price to redeem ten citizens taken captive by an enemy; but if there is not added an intention and act of offering and giving these talents for those captives, or for some of them, then a mere, and not an ordained, sufficiency of the thing is supposed as to those persons for whom it is not given. But if you add the act and intention offering them for the liberation of certain persons, then the ordained sufficiency is asserted as to them alone.

I think that no divine of the Reformed Church of sound judgment, will deny a general intention or appointment concerning the salvation of all people individually by the death of Christ, on this condition: If they should believe. For this intention or appointment of God is general, and is plainly revealed in the Holy Scriptures, although the absolute and infrustratable intention of God, concerning the gift of faith, is special, and is limited to the elect alone. 

- John Davenant

1. If it's true that if a reprobate comes to belief, then they'll be saved, then the atonement must have been made for them. 
2. It is true that if a reprobate comes to belief, then they’ll be saved. 
3. So the atonement must have been made for the reprobate.1

Why believe premise (1.)?  Because if we deny it, we’d have to hold that a reprobate person can be saved by coming to belief but without having their sins atoned for.  That seems wrong.

Why believe premise (2.)?  Because we’d have to deny that the reprobate person could be saved, despite coming to belief.  That also seems wrong. If a person truly and honestly believes in Jesus, then they will be saved.  To say otherwise undermines the sincerity of the gospel’s offer (“whoever believes will be saved”) and numerous New Testament passages.

There’s a few maneuvers open to the standard Calvinist:  (a) They could argue that if the reprobate believed, then they’d be elect. (b) They could argue that the conditional in the first premise includes an impossible antecedent, and thus poses no threat to limited atonement (c) They could deny one of the premises.  Given that both premises seem safe, as we’ve seen, I don’t think (c) is a viable path. 

(a) seems initially promising, but contains a confusion. It holds that the argument is using “reprobate” in an equivocal sense.  If by “reprobate” we mean individuals in our world who are non-elect, but who, being elected in other worlds, would therefore believe and thus be saved - then yes, the first and second premises are true.  But the conclusion would only get us to: “the atonement must be made for the reprobate if they had been elected,” which just seems like standard Calvinism.  But if instead we’re using the term “reprobate” in a more flaccid sense to refer to a variable class of individuals who are always non-elect, then the original conclusion goes through and is not in line with standard Calvinism.  It’s this latter meaning of reprobate that I intend.  We’re effectively divorcing election from belief, and it still seems the case that if a non-elect person came to genuine belief that they would be saved.2

(b) is a difficult maneuver as well.  It holds that, given the impossibility of the reprobate coming to belief apart from election, that we can safely dismiss the truth of the conditional.  Given the way that the logic of material conditionals work - sure, it comes out true that if the reprobate were to believe, they’d be saved - because the antecedent is necessarily false.  But that’s just a trivial truth of logic and doesn’t have the theological import I’m wanting it to have.   We don’t need to give an account of the truth of the conditional, this response goes, because all conditionals with an impossible antecedent are like this.  So, in fact “no,” the atonement doesn’t need to be universalized to account for the truth of this conditional, as we can already account for its truth given its impossible antecedent 

There’s two ways to respond to this maneuver.  First, we could hold that the antecedent in the conditional is not metaphysically impossible or necessarily false.  Perhaps it’s false in our world, and perhaps false in all nearby worlds - but it seems hard to imagine that it must be false in every world.  Perhaps in some worlds the doctrine of prevenient grace is true.  This sort of response, to maintain its Calvinist character, must hold that the reprobate cannot believe in our world apart from election.  But perhaps this fact of our world is more like a law of nature - necessary *here*, but not necessary in every world.3

The second maneuver is to argue that even if the antecedent is necessarily false, it’s still clearly not irrelevant to the consequent.  There is a connection between the two.  This isn’t like the conditional “Squares have 5 sides, therefore unicorns exist.”  There’s a strength in the conditional that’s lacking in these vacuous sorts with impossible antecedents.  And given the strong connection between the antecedent and consequent in our conditional, we still need to account for it, even if it is a metaphysically impossible antecedent. 

I think we need an account of the conditional: If the reprobate believed, then they'd be saved.

To say that they cannot and never will believe doesn't explain it, for there are true conditionals in our world that cannot and never will have their antecedents met, yet are still true in a substantive sense:  e.g., if you could lift an elephant then you could lift a giraffe.4  To say that the reprobate would be members of the elect if they believed doesn’t work either; because even granting that God doesn’t elect the reprobate class of people, it still seems true that if they truly believed - all on their own, apart from election - that they’d be saved.  And election isn’t responsive to belief, so they do not become members of the elect by believing.  So it doesn’t seem like election can explain the truth of the conditional.  

How about this? If the reprobate believed, then Christ would have died for them, but since they won’t, he didn’t.  That seems to provide a sort of stop-gap that does explain the conditional.  But it also seems to give away the case.  Isn’t this just the hypothetical universalist option? Christ died for some on the condition of their belief. And while they don’t meet that condition in this world, so Jesus didn’t die for them - he would have, had they believed on their own.  The atonement is *responsive* to belief, even belief absent-election.

Here's an alternative strategy that requires less machinery.  Rather than focusing on the reprobate person/s, instead we focus on the belief itself.  So we focus on belief that is not the result of election, and find that it would still result in salvation.  

So I think that the conditional is true even on the requirement that the belief not result from election.  This, of course, cannot be accounted for by saying that the would-be belief would be the result of election if the belief were to occur, because I’m explicitly targeting belief that is *not* the result of election, whether it would occur or not.  Or, I'm defining "belief" such that it does not and cannot result from election - and I think the conditional is still true even in that case. 

And so the conditional “if a person believes with a belief that is not the result of election, then they’ll be saved” is true at our actual world, though the possibility of them believing in the actual world isn’t there. 

I think the question becomes: Why accept the conditional?  Why think that this type of belief would save?  Because it just seems that if such belief occurs in a person, that they’ll be saved - whether that belief is the result of election or not.  So while their belief doesn’t occur here in the actual world, the conditional’s truth *does* occur here in the actual world.

The next move is to argue that the truth of the conditional in our world requires that Jesus have died for the non-elect in some sense.

Medical Marijuana? Nah

Marijuana as an Analgesic

It’s wrong to intend intoxication either as an end or a means. So it is impermissible to intend intoxication as a means to relieve pain. It is, however, permissible to foresee intoxication as an unintended side-effect of one’s action.

Still, given that intoxication is a wrong, one must judge whether intoxication is proportional to the good of pain relief.  If it is proportional, then it can be justified.  But proportionality does demand that one seek out non-intoxicating alternatives if feasible.

So the question is this:  Do the anesthetic properties of marijuana work by intoxicating the users? If so, then the intoxication is being used as a means to relieve pain, and would be impermissible.  If, instead, the anesthetic properties are achieved by some non-intoxicating mechanism of marijuana, then the intoxication could classify as an unintended foreseen consequence.

There’s debate about whether marijuana has any pain relieving properties at all.  From a peer reviewed article:  “Despite the increased demand for cannabinoids among individuals with persistent pain, the evidence is deemed low, or very low, for analgesic efficacy.”  This study goes on to demonstrate that the analgesic efficacy of marijuana can plausibly be attributed to the placebo effect.

THC is the primary psychoactive ingredient of marijuana.  CBD may have some psychoactive effects, but significantly less than THC. Some argue that CBD is the primary vehicle for pain relief, given its purported anti-inflammatory properties.  If this is true, then proportionality would demand isolating CBD from the intoxicating effects of THC.  I have a strong suspicion that many marijuana users would no longer take the drug if it were stripped of its intoxicating powers.

One significant, but rather limited study, strongly suggests that marijuana’s purported analgesic properties are in fact attributable to THC’s intoxicating effect: “Brain imaging shows little reduction in the brain regions that code for the sensation of pain, which is what we tend to see with drugs like opiates. Instead cannabis appears to mainly affect the emotional reaction to pain in a highly variable way.”  If this is right, then THC cannot be permissibly used as an analgesic, as intoxication is being used as a means to relieve (or distract from) the pain. Question: Would marijuana achieve its goal if its intoxicating effect (i.e., its harm to rationality) were entirely removed? If the answer isn't "yes, it would achieve its goal even if the intoxication were removed," then it's prohibited. 

Much of the reasoning in this essay applies to other types of intoxicating pain relievers. Proportionality demands that we search out, as far as is feasible, alternative pain relievers that do not intoxicate their users.  Thankfully, such alternatives do exist: Localized anesthesia, steroids such as corticosteroids and gabapentinoids, and NSAIDs.  There are also developing technologies that show promise in pain management:  Radiofrequency ablation - which works by inserting a needle into a nerve, and can provide pain relief for up to a year.  Nerve blocks and the use of transcutaneous nerve stimulation.  Pain pumps also allow for specialized delivery to problem areas without affecting the mind. 

Sources:

Placebo Response and Media Attention in Randomized Clinical Trials Assessing Cannabis-Based Therapies for Pain - PMC

THC vs. CBD: What's the Difference? 

Cannabidiol for Pain Treatment: Focus on Pharmacology and Mechanism of Action - PMC 

Brain imaging insight into cannabis as a pain killer | University of Oxford

Non-Opioid Treatment

Analgesic mechanisms of gabapentinoids and effects in experimental pain models: a narrative review

Marijuana as an Anxiety Medication?

Limited studies suggest that CBD is largely responsible for any anxiety reducing effects of cannabis.  The response of individuals is highly variable, however, with some reporting increased anxiety.  THC, in small doses, appears to decrease anxiety but increases it at higher doses.  CBD does not appear to cause anxiety, even at higher doses.  Neither THC or CBD seem to be good at managing anxiety in the long term, possibly due to the increased tolerance of users - plus, cannabis poses significant risks with long term use.  This long term ineffectiveness for anxiety relief may underlie the strong correlation of regular cannabis users with anxiety disorders, with long term users at a 35% higher risk of a mental disorder.  Some studies suggest that treating anxiety with cannabis leads to increased depression.  Given that CBD is not psychoactive, it may be justifiable as a means of treating anxiety in the short term. Still, given the success of alternative treatments for anxiety such as SSRIs, exercise, and therapy, which have long-term success, CBD doesn't seem like it should be a first choice. "Developing better tools to manage stress and anxiety makes the most sense. Developing better coping mechanisms is likely to be especially beneficial for individuals using risky substances" and "In addition, marijuana doesn’t appear to offer the same long-term effects as other anxiety treatments, including psychotherapy or medication. Using marijuana may offer some much-needed temporary relief, but it’s not a long-term treatment option."

Sources: 

Effects of Marijuana on Mental Health: Anxiety Disorders 

Systematic review: Efficacy and safety of medical marijuana in selected neurologic disorders - PMC

Marijuana and Anxiety: A Good or Bad Match?

Cannabis and anxiety: What's the link? 

Is there a link between marijuana use and psychiatric disorders? | National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) 

Know the Negative Effects and Risks of Marijuana Use | SAMHSA 

Medicinal Marijuana, Stress, Anxiety, and Depression: Primum non nocere - PMC

Cannabis, a cause for anxiety? A critical appraisal of the anxiogenic and anxiolytic properties 

Cannabis use and the risk of developing a psychotic disorder - PMC 

Marijuana and Tolerance

Studies have reported conflicting results on whether regular cannabis users develop tolerance over time.  Some have failed to show that marijuana has an effect on cognitive performance for regular users, while other studies show that regular users are impaired in a broad range of cognitive domains.  A good explanation of this discrepancy is that tolerance could unequally affect different performance domains.  Tolerance is thus relative to a specific domain.  Many studies indicate that marijuana has a less pronounced subjective effect on regular users versus non regular users.  In other words, subjective experience of intoxication in regular users decreases with extended use. Further, tolerance in regards to cognitive function varies in regard to the specific tasks, with some tasks showing decreased impairment with extended marijuana use and other tasks being insensitive to extended use or not. 

Regular users, upon ingesting cannabis, did not show significant impairment in sustained attention, psychomotor ability, or reaction times.  But regular users did not significantly differ from non-regular users in the following domains:  Distractibility, executive function, impulse control, working memory, risk-taking, and hand-eye coordination.  Regular users and nonregular users suffered from similar impairment in the Digit-Symbol Substitution Test, for example.

Sources:

Cannabis Use and the Development of Tolerance: A Systematic Review of Human Evidence

A Bridge Between PAP and Accounts of Sex

Companion piece to this post

In expositing my favorite argument against homosexual activity, I tend to make a quick leap between an account of sexual activity and a theory of pleasure.  With these two in place, I conclude that homosexual activity is immoral.  I want to make explicit the connection between the theory of pleasure as perception (PAP) and accounts of sexual activity.  

In providing accounts of sexual activity, we are attempting to provide the underlying meaning and purpose of human sexual acts. For an account to be successful, it needs to adequately explain the various normative features that sex possesses.  I think it can be argued that only the one-body account succeeds. 

PAP holds that sexual pleasure, taken on its own, is not inherently valuable.  It’s only valuable insofar as it relates to the real underlying good of the pleasure or experience. Given PAP, sexual pleasure exists as a perception of some underlying good.  Once we've given a successful account of sex, we’ll have identified the underlying good that sexual pleasure is perceiving.  In the case of sexual acts that do not relate to the underlying good sexual activity, PAP holds that the agent is bringing about a pleasure or experience of having achieved such one body union without the underlying reality of it.  To do this is to deceive oneself into a false pleasure.  And it is morally wrong to deceive oneself in a matter as important as sex.

So the accounts of sexual activity are attempts to probe the underlying good of sexual experience or pleasure.  Human sexual experiences and pleasure exist for the sake of these underlying purposes.  The PAP theory is to argue that it’s wrong to induce such an experience absent its underlying good.  

(I think we should broaden PAP, perhaps dropping the “pleasure” bit. This broadening doesn't affect my main point. Still, I’ll continue to call this principle PAP.)

Does Christ have Two Minds?

I hold to the traditional Christological position known as Dyophysitism, the doctrine that Christ has two natures.  This was expressed in the Chalcedonian Definition and reaffirmed in the Third Council of Constantinople.  One rather recent development of this doctrine is the idea that Christ, while being just one person, possessed two minds - and while the traditional position doesn’t really (so far as I know) speak about Christ having two minds, but rather natures - I think that it’s still a natural development of the orthodox position.  I particularly like the development of the two-mind theory that Thomas Morris has provided.

I think that the two minds theory is required for the qua-type moves the orthodox must make in order to account for Jesus's duel omniscience and limited knowledge.