Let the Naturalists Speak

UPDATED (see end of post)

This new website is a good thing: Naturalism presents the case for believing that nothing but the physical exists, and that everything can be explained by strictly natural causes.

You read that right. Proponents of intelligent design (including Bill Dembski and Denyse O'Leary) are jumping-up-and-down happy about this official naturalism site.

Why? Because people tend to think that those who disagree with naturalism are portraying it inaccurately, to make it look bad; but now there's a clear presentation of naturalism by its proponents, so all the world can see that the flaws are not manufactured, but are inherent to naturalism.

With her typical flair Denyse says (by e-mail):

Naturalism was so outstandingly successful because it was always portrayed as just "the way things are" or "what the smart people really know is true." That's the best way to cement a philosophy. Don't explain. Just make everybody assume it's been proven....

Once the naturalists have to spell out just what they really mean, any loudmouth serf can get up and start bellowing that their overall understanding of life is inconsistent with a moral, civilized, or democratic society. That's true, of course, but it wasn't something you could easily say until they had to start spelling out what they think.

What exactly do the naturalists think? Here's what they say:

1) You Have No Free Will

Human beings act the way they do because of the various influences that shape them, whether these be biological or social, genetic or environmental. We do not have the capacity to act outside the causal connections that link us in every respect to the rest of the world. This means we do not have what many people call free will, the ability to cause our behavior without being fully caused in turn....

Therefore individuals don’t bear originative responsibility for their actions, in the sense of being their first cause. Given the circumstances both inside and outside the body, they couldn’t have done other than what they did.

The myth of self-determination (free will) blocks the design of a more humane society by blaming persons for their shortcomings instead of understanding the conditions that create them.

This means that naturalists have no reason (and no right) to be angry with an unfaithful spouse, the murderer of their child, or the Republicans who ordered the invasion of Iraq; because according to naturalist ideology, no one is responsible for his actions. No one can help doing what he does. And besides,

2) There is No Such Thing as Right or Wrong

There is no finally correct way to behave, nor are there finally justifiable goals, but only the desires and intentions that currently constitute us, all of which may change as human nature and cultures change.

This means that naturalists have no grounds for arguing that abortion-on-demand is "right" or "good," while the prohibition of abortion is "bad" or "wrong." Laws are nothing but social constructs, based on nothing but society's current preferences.

3) Nothing Ultimately Matters

There exist no immaterial souls, spirits, mental essences, or disembodied selves which stand apart from the physical world. It is easy to see that from a naturalistic perspective there cannot be any ultimate purpose to existence....

The initial psychological response ... is often the melancholy feeling that life is therefore devoid of meaning.... But on second thought, once we see the logic of the desire for ultimate meaning - that by its very nature it is an unsatisfiable demand - we can begin to laugh about it...

Naturalism disallows the existence of the soul. There is nothing about a person that survives death, so we cannot hope for a better world in the hereafter, or for reincarnation in this world....

As naturalists, death confronts us with a total cognitive impasse, an ultimate limit on what we as individuals can predict or control. We may at first reflexively recoil at this prospect, but maybe we can jump in, and give ourselves up to this ending of knowledge and control with an enthusiastic curiosity. Not that we ourselves, as this particular person about to end, can ever know what’s next, but that there will be a next moment for someone, at least, we can be assured.

So there you have it. Life is meaningless, and so is death.

But some things are left unexplained. Why should someone else's continued existence after my death comfort me now? On death (according to naturalism), my bundle of nerves and sensations dissolve. Other bundles of nerves and sensations will note this and move on, shuffling along toward that moment when their own bundle of nerves and sensations will also dissolve. There's no comfort in that.

And why can we be assured that there will be a next moment for someone? Couldn't a nuclear holocaust, or a giant comet, wipe us all out?

And what's the point in working oneself up to being "enthusiastically curious" about ceasing to exist? That's a curiosity that certainly can't be satisfied.

Of course, it doesn't matter whether naturalism (or any belief system) is pleasant. What matters is whether it is true.

Design theorists argue that naturalism isn't true, that it isn't supported by science. But even if we set aside science, naturalism has problems. If a worldview is false, one would expect its implications to ring false; they wouldn't match the world we experience. And that's the case with naturalism.

For instance:

We know that we make choices every day. That's why we celebrate people who rise above their circumstances, who leave the ghetto and make something of themselves. If such people "couldn’t have done other than what they did," why are they honored, considered heroes, role models?

And we know that some things are simply evil--racism, for instance, or the torture and murder of a child. No law can make them otherwise.

And we instinctively know that we are more than temporary collections of atoms, more than mere matter, more than naturalism has dreamt of in its philosophy. You exist in all the beauty and fullness of your personality and person-hood, body and spirit, mind, heart, will, soul. That makes you meaningful. You are inherently precious and irreplaceable, not just to your friends and family, but also--and especially--to God.

That's why most people intuitively balk at the logical implications of naturalism. Naturalism simply isn't natural. It's counter-intuitive, counter to common sense.

Yes. Some people, through a concerted effort of will, do bring themselves to accept naturalism's counter-intuitive tenets.

And they are free to do so.

*Update: Joe Carter also has a post about the Center for Naturalism, and says if you write a post about it, send him a link and he'll do a special feature this weekend. (Later: Here is the collection. Be sure to read Mike Russell's post.)

**Update the Second: Joshua Frear agrees with my conclusions, but urges me to make careful distinctions between two claims:

Claim A is that given naturalism, we do not have Incompatibilist free will. The naturalist readily agrees to this. Claim B is that given a lack of Incompatibilist free will, we do not have moral responsibility. The naturalist [usually] will vehemently deny this claim.

I urged Joshua to post further explanations over at his own blog, A Preliminary Expectoration, and he's going to try to make time to do so.

***Update the Third: Joshua's interesting (and challenging) post is here.