At the heart of atheism we do not find logical and scientific proofs that disprove the existence of God. Instead, we find the human attempt to answer the question of human existence apart from the existence of the divine. In some way or another these accounts try to make sense of man's place in the universe. What is it that would compel men to account for their existence apart from God? There are certainly many things motivating atheists to deny that God exists. However, I find it hard to believe that the majority of atheists have chosen that particular system of beliefs on account of the fact that they are convinced that God does not exist.
How can this be? What sense does it make to say that atheists are not what they are because they do not believe in God? Is that not equivalent to saying that Christians are not Christians because they believe in Christ? The reason that one becomes an atheist cannot be the knowledge that God does not exist, since no proofs with such a conclusion exist. The mind not being moved to assent by reason itself, there must be some other cause at work in the mind of the person who professes that God is not. This cause is the will, since the atheist must choose what he believes and it is the act of the will to choose.
This only pushes the question back you might say. "What is it that moves the will to reject the existence of God in the first place?" As we said above, concretely speaking, there are innumerable things that could lead to the belief that God does not exist. But they must all have one thing in common, namely this, they must all have something to do with goodness. Why? Because goodness is the object of the will. Which is to say that what we choose, we choose insofar as it is good, and what we do not choose, we do not choose because we do not see in it the good that we are looking for.
If God is by definition Goodness itself, then what would keep someone from choosing to accept his existence? Somewhere there must be a disconnect between the goodness of God and the person who is faced with the choice to believe in him or to deny his being. If a person accepted that "God" referred to goodness itself by definition, then for someone who understood what he was doing to deny that God existed, would require that such a person also deny that there was something good in itself. This does not mean that an atheist would never enjoy a sunset, or like reading books, etc., because he was incapable of seeing anything good in them; but it does mean that the atheist, by definition, would be incapable of seeing a real and lasting goodness in anything since the goodness that an atheist sees is merely a momentary product of his experience and not a participation in Goodness itself. Now I am at a loss as to exactly what makes something good if there is no real foundation of goodness for anything....
To be an athiest, is not to deny that God exists; it is to deny the existence of something good in itself! Since there is nothing good in itself, there can be no God, because to be God, is to be goodness itself. What is it that causes man to reject the existence of a real and true good? Can he deny his own experience of the goodness all around him so much so that the goodness all around him is nothing but an unfounded, soon-to-disappear, happenstance occurence? Is there nothing more to the experience of a vast blue sky with bright sun shining through its expanses than a momentary conglomeration of materials in a mechanical motion? Does not the fact that the entirety of that sky can be taken in to the person who stands beneath it point to something greater than mere mechanics? Can the fact of beauty be so outrightly denied that the relationship between the beautiful thing, e.g., the ocean, and the one who perceives its beauty, the person, is nothing but an illusion? And why do I say illusion? The reason is that beauty implies something more than just a material event. The sun can shine on the ocean, but the ocean will never be pleased by the hyalescence that the sun gives to it. The moon can shine mysteriously through a night sky, but the ape and the chimpanzee will never consider how pleasing the moonlight is to behold or wonder about what lies beyond that moon, why it shines as it does, or what mystery might lay behind its mysterious shimmer.
The experience of the beautiful, just like the experience of goodness, lifts man up, beyond the merely material existence of the world around him, and draws him into the transcendence of those values, the experience of which cannot be accounted for apart from the existence of a human spirit whose depths and heights allow for the material realities of this world to open up in their goodness and beauty and actually be perceived for what they are. For man to deny that there are goodness and beauty in the world around him, he need first deny that it can be found in himself. And once he has done that, it is no wonder that he would deny it is the rest of the world, since he himself is the most wondrous creature of all.
But this is perhaps the point that I was seeking in the first place, namely, that the denial of the good and the beautiful, is not just a scientific resolution concerning matter, but that it is a denial of goodness and beauty in man, and therefore, in all things. And in a world such as this, what person would dare to believe that there was an all-good, all-beautiful God? If there is no foundation of goodness in itself, then there can be nothing that is good because of another, and all material things are good because their goodness has been caused in them by something else.
The point then is not for us to confound atheists in a solely rational manner, e.g., with the five ways of Aquinas, because logic is more than often not enough to convince a person of goodness where he sees none. The point is for us to show that goodness does exist, that beauty too exists, and that these are found quite visibly in man himself, in the works of his hands, and in the depths of his mind, where God's own voice waits for him in his conscience, speaking to him of goodness itself. For from where would we have learned to speak of goodness and beauty in the first place, if not from him whose Word gives form to all words?
Moreover, it is no surprise that atheism goes hand in hand with moral relativism, since the atheist, in his denial of goodness itself, by that very denial, denies also the existence of a transcendent conscience which is capable of judging between good and evil. This would also account for the distortion of freedom into license, since without conscience as a standard of goodness and evil, man is no longer free to choose between what he knows is right and what he knows to be wrong, his choices being reduced to his private interpretation of his feelings about what is to be done or not done. Moreover, it is no surprise that atheism has taken root in many hearts in our day because the emptiness of a world without values and without goodness and beauty, where children have grown up without moral norms, expectations, or responsibilities, does not easily lead to a belief in a God who is good, beautiful, and loving. Nonetheless, God is still present to His people, and to every human person, He has given the unreturnable gift of conscience, that listening to His voice in the depths of their heart, we might be led through the reasonable and responsible exercise of freedom to a trust in Him and in His goodness that is the key to unlock the fullness of the meaning of the goodness and beauty that each person seeks after and experiences in undeniable ways every day of our lives. AMDG
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
On A Logical Argument In Favor of Abortion
The Original Argument:
P1: If abortion is not legal, there will be women who would be desperate enough to find a specialist to abort her fetus illegally.
P2: She would be putting herself at risk of an abortion operation from a quack.
P3: She could die along with the fetus.
C: For the life of the woman, abortion should be legal.
Firstly, I will comment on the logic of the argument formally, that is, with regard to form of the argument, apart from truth and falsity:
P1: The first "premise" proposes a hypothetical, highly probable situation, that, in the past, has been a historical fact. This statement does not have any logical flaws. It merely presents the conditions of the syllogism that follows it. To simplify it for the sake of analysis: If abortion is illegal, it will still be performed. (Let it be taken as given throughout the course of this commentary.)
P2: The second premise, while not presented formally, can be restated formally as such:
P2: Illegal abortion is a health risk to women. There is nothing illogical about this statement. It can be used as a premise in a syllogism. The only question is whether the other premises used in that syllogism will lead to a logically valid conclusion.
P3: Placing this statement in its logical form, that is, two terms connected by a copula (is), it looks like this: Illegal abortion is a potential cause of death to abortion patients. From this we can see that it is being used in conjunction with P2 to give support to the conclusion that is drawn from some unmentioned premises.
C: The conclusion does not explicitly follow from the preceding "argument." The argument stated its conclusion in this way: For the life of the woman, abortion should be legal. This is not an appeal to logic, since this conclusion does not follow from the premises. A logical argument must connect two different terms, a major and a minor, through a common term, the middle term. This argument's conclusion is not derived directly from what is stated in the premises, nor could it have been since there was no middle term in the argument, and new terms are being introduced in the conclusion. There are a few steps in the argument that are made implicitly. If we examine the argument more carefully we will be able to see what is going on more clearly:
Given: If abortion is illegal, it will still be performed.
P1: Illegal Abortion is a health risk to women.
P2: Illegal Abortion is a potential cause of death to abortion patients.
C1: If abortion is illegal, there will be health risks to women and potential death for women who have abortions.
C1 is the logical conclusion based on the given conditions and the two premises (P1 and P2).
So how are we supposed to arrive at the conclusion that "Abortion ought to be legal."?
The term "ought" indicates that according to the conclusion of the argument, legalized abortion should be an obligation of the state. On what grounds? The grounds of the argument are P1, P2, and the given conditions concerning illegal abortion. How did we move logically from C1: That there will be health risks to women on account of illegal abortion, all the way to the moral obligation to have legal abortion without any connecting premises or terms whatsoever? The argument arrives at its conclusion through the following implicit or hidden premises:
Hidden Premise 1: Abortion is necessary for the life of women.
Hidden Premise 2: Legal Abortion is not a risk to the life and health of women.
Hidden Premise 3: It is necessary to protect women from risks to their health and life.
It was explicitly assumed that abortions will continue to be done if it is illegal. What is implicitly assumed in order to arrive at the conclusion is that abortion needs to be done even if it is illegal (HP1). The reason that this is implicitly assumed is that the conclusion mentioned above (C1) does not dictate any action or obligation on the part of the state, rather it merely concludes that illegal abortions are serious health risks to women. If illegal abortions are serious health risks to women than all that can be concluded from that with respect to the state is that the state has done well to make such life endangering procedures illegal. However, a different conclusion is drawn: Abortion ought to be legal. By brushing away P1 and P2, which serve only to support HP1, we can look at the argument as it actually is formulated, albeit implicitly:
HP1: Abortion is necessary for the life of women.
C1: Illegal Abortion is a risk to the life and health of women.
HP2: Legal Abortion is not a risk to the life and health of women.
HP3: For the life of women it is necessary to protect women from risks to their health and life.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is necessary for the life of women that there be legal abortions.
Formally speaking, this argument is logical. If abortion is necessary for the life of women, and the only kind of abortion that does not harm the life and health of women is legal abortion, then surely legal abortion is necessary. The scary thing is that the logical argument is not presented explicitly, rather it is hidden underneath a vacuous argument that appeals to emotions in order to lead people to conclude that the best thing for the health of women is abortion.
Secondly, I will comment on the logic of this argument materially, that is, with respect to its truth and falsity:
HP1: Abortion is necessary for the life of women.
Why? This would only be the case if the conditions for abortions were necessary. What are the conditions for an abortion? Unwanted pregnancy. Why are there unwanted pregnancies? People have sex and do not want to have children. Is it necessary to have sex and not want to have children too? Certainly not. Then neither is abortion a necessity for the life of women. This is an outright falsehood which assumes that women and men are unable to have sex in a responsible, rational, and consequently, human way. False.
C1: Illegal Abortion is a risk to the life and health of women.
True.
HP2: Legal Abortion is not a risk to the life and health of women.
False. Many women have died because of complications from abortion, e.g., bleeding, infections from baby's body parts which remain in utero after the procedure is completed, anesthesia complications, etc. Also, women who have had abortions are 60% more likely to have breast cancer. Women who have had abortions regularly experience Post-Abortive Trauma, psychological damage that takes years (if ever) to recover from.
HP3: For the life of women it is necessary to protect women from risks to their health and life.
True.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is necessary for the life of women that there be legal abortions.
False. Even if only one of the premises from which the conclusion was drawn was false the entire argument would fail to produce a true conclusion. But this argument has two false premises that both need to be true if the conclusion is going to be true! The argument itself does not conclude logically and the latent argument does not conclude in reality because it is blatantly false to say that abortions are necessary for the life and health of women.
In fine, this argument ought to be rejected as a manipulative attempt to steer its audience towards the evils of abortion. For it attempts to reach its conclusion by evoking emotions and relying on a degrading concept of women as incapable of reasonable and responsible actions in the sphere of human sexuality in order to sway the audience from a rational analysis of the evils of abortion. AMDG.
P1: If abortion is not legal, there will be women who would be desperate enough to find a specialist to abort her fetus illegally.
P2: She would be putting herself at risk of an abortion operation from a quack.
P3: She could die along with the fetus.
C: For the life of the woman, abortion should be legal.
Firstly, I will comment on the logic of the argument formally, that is, with regard to form of the argument, apart from truth and falsity:
P1: The first "premise" proposes a hypothetical, highly probable situation, that, in the past, has been a historical fact. This statement does not have any logical flaws. It merely presents the conditions of the syllogism that follows it. To simplify it for the sake of analysis: If abortion is illegal, it will still be performed. (Let it be taken as given throughout the course of this commentary.)
P2: The second premise, while not presented formally, can be restated formally as such:
P2: Illegal abortion is a health risk to women. There is nothing illogical about this statement. It can be used as a premise in a syllogism. The only question is whether the other premises used in that syllogism will lead to a logically valid conclusion.
P3: Placing this statement in its logical form, that is, two terms connected by a copula (is), it looks like this: Illegal abortion is a potential cause of death to abortion patients. From this we can see that it is being used in conjunction with P2 to give support to the conclusion that is drawn from some unmentioned premises.
C: The conclusion does not explicitly follow from the preceding "argument." The argument stated its conclusion in this way: For the life of the woman, abortion should be legal. This is not an appeal to logic, since this conclusion does not follow from the premises. A logical argument must connect two different terms, a major and a minor, through a common term, the middle term. This argument's conclusion is not derived directly from what is stated in the premises, nor could it have been since there was no middle term in the argument, and new terms are being introduced in the conclusion. There are a few steps in the argument that are made implicitly. If we examine the argument more carefully we will be able to see what is going on more clearly:
Given: If abortion is illegal, it will still be performed.
P1: Illegal Abortion is a health risk to women.
P2: Illegal Abortion is a potential cause of death to abortion patients.
C1: If abortion is illegal, there will be health risks to women and potential death for women who have abortions.
C1 is the logical conclusion based on the given conditions and the two premises (P1 and P2).
So how are we supposed to arrive at the conclusion that "Abortion ought to be legal."?
The term "ought" indicates that according to the conclusion of the argument, legalized abortion should be an obligation of the state. On what grounds? The grounds of the argument are P1, P2, and the given conditions concerning illegal abortion. How did we move logically from C1: That there will be health risks to women on account of illegal abortion, all the way to the moral obligation to have legal abortion without any connecting premises or terms whatsoever? The argument arrives at its conclusion through the following implicit or hidden premises:
Hidden Premise 1: Abortion is necessary for the life of women.
Hidden Premise 2: Legal Abortion is not a risk to the life and health of women.
Hidden Premise 3: It is necessary to protect women from risks to their health and life.
It was explicitly assumed that abortions will continue to be done if it is illegal. What is implicitly assumed in order to arrive at the conclusion is that abortion needs to be done even if it is illegal (HP1). The reason that this is implicitly assumed is that the conclusion mentioned above (C1) does not dictate any action or obligation on the part of the state, rather it merely concludes that illegal abortions are serious health risks to women. If illegal abortions are serious health risks to women than all that can be concluded from that with respect to the state is that the state has done well to make such life endangering procedures illegal. However, a different conclusion is drawn: Abortion ought to be legal. By brushing away P1 and P2, which serve only to support HP1, we can look at the argument as it actually is formulated, albeit implicitly:
HP1: Abortion is necessary for the life of women.
C1: Illegal Abortion is a risk to the life and health of women.
HP2: Legal Abortion is not a risk to the life and health of women.
HP3: For the life of women it is necessary to protect women from risks to their health and life.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is necessary for the life of women that there be legal abortions.
Formally speaking, this argument is logical. If abortion is necessary for the life of women, and the only kind of abortion that does not harm the life and health of women is legal abortion, then surely legal abortion is necessary. The scary thing is that the logical argument is not presented explicitly, rather it is hidden underneath a vacuous argument that appeals to emotions in order to lead people to conclude that the best thing for the health of women is abortion.
Secondly, I will comment on the logic of this argument materially, that is, with respect to its truth and falsity:
HP1: Abortion is necessary for the life of women.
Why? This would only be the case if the conditions for abortions were necessary. What are the conditions for an abortion? Unwanted pregnancy. Why are there unwanted pregnancies? People have sex and do not want to have children. Is it necessary to have sex and not want to have children too? Certainly not. Then neither is abortion a necessity for the life of women. This is an outright falsehood which assumes that women and men are unable to have sex in a responsible, rational, and consequently, human way. False.
C1: Illegal Abortion is a risk to the life and health of women.
True.
HP2: Legal Abortion is not a risk to the life and health of women.
False. Many women have died because of complications from abortion, e.g., bleeding, infections from baby's body parts which remain in utero after the procedure is completed, anesthesia complications, etc. Also, women who have had abortions are 60% more likely to have breast cancer. Women who have had abortions regularly experience Post-Abortive Trauma, psychological damage that takes years (if ever) to recover from.
HP3: For the life of women it is necessary to protect women from risks to their health and life.
True.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is necessary for the life of women that there be legal abortions.
False. Even if only one of the premises from which the conclusion was drawn was false the entire argument would fail to produce a true conclusion. But this argument has two false premises that both need to be true if the conclusion is going to be true! The argument itself does not conclude logically and the latent argument does not conclude in reality because it is blatantly false to say that abortions are necessary for the life and health of women.
In fine, this argument ought to be rejected as a manipulative attempt to steer its audience towards the evils of abortion. For it attempts to reach its conclusion by evoking emotions and relying on a degrading concept of women as incapable of reasonable and responsible actions in the sphere of human sexuality in order to sway the audience from a rational analysis of the evils of abortion. AMDG.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Did Mary have other Children?
In response to Gary's question:
First of all, let me begin by saying that Mary was a PERPETUAL VIRGIN, this meaning: She was a virgin before, during, after the birth of Christ. She did not have any other children.
Many fundamentalists challenge the Catholic doctrine of Mary's Perpetual Virginity. One of the most common claims is that scripture states that Jesus had brothers, . Matthew 13:55 states: "Is he not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother named Mary and his brothers james, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?" It is extremely important to denote that the word "brother" used in the bible can also mean "relative." In fact, two of the brothers mentioned, namely James and Joseph are identified as the sons of another Mary, the wife of Clopas (Please compare the scripture verses Matthew 27:56 & John 19:25). In addition to this, it does not make sense, if Jesus had blood brothers, that He would have entrusted Mary to John and not one of these so called "brothers."
Just for historical accuracy, let us make it clear that this doctrine was not even challenged until about 400 AD (the time of Saint Jerome) AND it is interesting to note that the founders of Protestantism did not challenge the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. EXAMPLES:
Luther wrote: " It is an artical of faith that Mary is the Mother of the Lord and still a virgin.....Chrsit, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact."(See works of Luther v. 11, pp. 319-320; v. 6 p. 510)
Calvin wrote: " There are certain folk who have wished to suggest from this passage (Matt 1:25) that the Virgin Mary had other children than the Son of God, and that Joseph had then dwelt with her later; BUT WHAT FOLLY THIS IS! For the gospel writer did not wish to record what happened afterwards; he simply wished to make clear Joseph's obedience and to show also that Joseph had been well and truly assured that it was God who had sent his angel to Mary. He had therefore never dwelt with her nor had he shared her company...and besides this Our Lord Jesus Christ is called the first-born. This is not because there was a second or a third, but because the gospel writer is paying regard to the precedence. Scripture speaks thus of naming the first born wheter or no there was any question of the second."(Sermon on Matthew 1:22 -25, published in 1562)
Zwingli: " I firmly believe that Mary, according ot the words of th gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin." (Zwingli Opera, v. 1, p. 424)
I have a question for the Fundementalists: Why do they not honor Mary as their own Founders did?
First of all, let me begin by saying that Mary was a PERPETUAL VIRGIN, this meaning: She was a virgin before, during, after the birth of Christ. She did not have any other children.
Many fundamentalists challenge the Catholic doctrine of Mary's Perpetual Virginity. One of the most common claims is that scripture states that Jesus had brothers, . Matthew 13:55 states: "Is he not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother named Mary and his brothers james, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?" It is extremely important to denote that the word "brother" used in the bible can also mean "relative." In fact, two of the brothers mentioned, namely James and Joseph are identified as the sons of another Mary, the wife of Clopas (Please compare the scripture verses Matthew 27:56 & John 19:25). In addition to this, it does not make sense, if Jesus had blood brothers, that He would have entrusted Mary to John and not one of these so called "brothers."
Just for historical accuracy, let us make it clear that this doctrine was not even challenged until about 400 AD (the time of Saint Jerome) AND it is interesting to note that the founders of Protestantism did not challenge the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. EXAMPLES:
Luther wrote: " It is an artical of faith that Mary is the Mother of the Lord and still a virgin.....Chrsit, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact."(See works of Luther v. 11, pp. 319-320; v. 6 p. 510)
Calvin wrote: " There are certain folk who have wished to suggest from this passage (Matt 1:25) that the Virgin Mary had other children than the Son of God, and that Joseph had then dwelt with her later; BUT WHAT FOLLY THIS IS! For the gospel writer did not wish to record what happened afterwards; he simply wished to make clear Joseph's obedience and to show also that Joseph had been well and truly assured that it was God who had sent his angel to Mary. He had therefore never dwelt with her nor had he shared her company...and besides this Our Lord Jesus Christ is called the first-born. This is not because there was a second or a third, but because the gospel writer is paying regard to the precedence. Scripture speaks thus of naming the first born wheter or no there was any question of the second."(Sermon on Matthew 1:22 -25, published in 1562)
Zwingli: " I firmly believe that Mary, according ot the words of th gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin." (Zwingli Opera, v. 1, p. 424)
I have a question for the Fundementalists: Why do they not honor Mary as their own Founders did?
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