TANG II

A couple of days ago I discussed an argument by Michael Martin which he calls TANG (Transcendental Argument for the Non-existence of God). It's an argument against the existence of God based on logic, science, and morality. In that last post we talked about whether his claim that logic and science precluded God actually works. In this post I want to take the last of the three elements of TANG and see how a theist might respond to it.

Martin writes:

Consider morality. The type of Christian morality assumed by TAG (Transcendental Argument for the existence of God)is some version of the Divine Command Theory, the view that moral obligation is dependent on the will of God. But such a view is incompatible with objective morality. On the one hand, on this view what is moral is a function of the arbitrary will of God; for instance, if God wills that cruelty for its own sake is good, then it is. On the other hand, determining the will of God is impossible since there are different alleged sources of this will (The Bible, the Koran, The Book of Mormon, etc) and different interpretations of what these sources say; moreover; there is no rational way to reconcile these differences. Thus, the existence of an objective morality presupposes the falsehood of the Christian world view assumed by TAG.

One reply to this is that morality is not merely a function of God's will nor is it independent of God, rather it's a consequence of God's essential nature. Just as logic is part of the essential nature of God, so too is goodness. Thus, just as all the energy on earth ultimately derives from the sun and would not exist were it not for the sun's existence, whatever goodness there is in the world derives from God and would not exist were there no God. Goodness, and derivatively, morality, are objectively real but only because they are grounded in the being of God. Without God it's very hard to see how there could be any moral good or bad, right or wrong.

Even if it were true that we can't know what God's will is it doesn't follow that morality is independent of God. We grope, perhaps, to find the good, but if there were no God there'd be no good to find. Nevertheless, as J. Budziszewski argues in his books Written on the Heart and What We Can't Not Know God has impressed upon us the basics of morality much as we have been given a facility for learning language. We may disagree about the details, but everyone knows deep inside that kindness is better than cruelty, and that fairness is better than unfairness. Yet why should we think this if we are just a mass of atoms?

The fact that there are disagreements about what God's will is means nothing. People disagree on how the world came to be. It doesn't follow from that that there is no true explanation for the provenience of the world.

Thus, contrary to Martin's assertion, the existence of an objective morality presupposes the existence of a transcendent ground for moral good and evil. It presupposes a God.

RLC

Wafa Sultan Redux

Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American psychologist, is as irrepressible as she is courageous. Having blasted Islamo-fascism and its various apologists on several previous occasions and having had death fatwas pronounced against her, she's back at it in this video clip which should be required viewing for everyone in the West.

RLC

Eradicating Women

Colleen Carrol Campbell has written an outstanding piece on the effects of sex-selection abortions in India and China and the irony therein for Western feminists.

Demographers predict a shortage of some 30 million Chinese women by 2020, which they fear will contribute to early, coerced marriages of young girls, increased violence against women and more exploitation of women and girls through the region's already burgeoning sex trade.

Campbell's column spurs us to consider not only the sociological consequences of having so many "superfluous" males walking about, but also the likelihood that the government will have to initiate war just to get rid of all the extraneous testosterone.

The irony, of course, is that a procedure which was legalized in order to liberate women from oppression is being used to kill them by the millions and will result eventually in the degradation and dehumanization of millions more in India and China.

Campbell closes with this:

Sadly, most American feminist leaders have remained silent in the face of this modern atrocity. Their refusal to brook any limits on abortion rights has led to one of the bitterest ironies of our post-feminist age: that the abortion license touted as the key to liberating future generations of women would become the preferred means of eradicating them.

Read the whole thing.

RLC

Shroud of Turin

Here's a site that has all the current information on the Shroud of Turin, which, quite apart from its religious significance, is a fascinating scientific mystery. Despite a flurry of media stories about the shroud being shown to have had a 14th century provenience, apparently it really does date back 2000 years, and there is as yet no known process by which the image could have been impressed upon the fabric.

The site addresses all the issues raised by the Shroud and offers the views of both those who think it's genuine and those who are skeptical.

RLC

Stillborn Renaissance

Readers interested in American literature, particularly early 19th century New England writers like Emerson, Hawthorne, and Melville, will find this article from First Things an engrossing read.

RLC

Yipes!

Hillary said today that she's open to being Obama's VP, but I doubt he'll ask her. Why would he want Bill looking over his shoulder?

What's going to keep me awake for the next couple of nights is the gnawing fear that McCain will ask her - and that she'll accept!

RLC

ETL

My friend Caleb writes with a fun question:

I saw this article a few weeks ago where the Vatican said it was OK to believe in aliens and God. I know you have mentioned the book Rare Earth, which suggests that Earth may be the only planet capable of supporting life, but what do you think personally on this subject? Do you think that there is the possibility of life on other planets, or do you think Earth is the only planet with life? Or, is it impossible to know for sure? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Here's part of my reply to him with one or two thoughts tacked on:

I agree with the Vatican, Caleb, that it's perfectly okay to keep an open mind on the possibility of extra-terrestrial life (ETL). Such a phenomenon, if it existed, would have no bearing on the existence of God. Everything that exists in the cosmos is a product of God's creative effort and there's really no theological reason to think that we are the only life forms He has chosen to create.

Indeed, it seems to me that although most people might think that the discovery of ETL would be a blow to theism, I think it would be just the opposite. If there is no Creator then the origin of life is so astronomically improbable as to be quite miraculous. No one knows how it could have happened given that chance and physical law are the only factors operating in the universe. The sheer improbability of abiogenesis occurring through purely naturalistic means suggests to me, then, that if there's sentient life elsewhere it's more probable, not less, that there's an intelligence guiding its origin and development.

Having said that I think that there are scientific reasons to be skeptical of ETL. You mentioned the "Rare Earth" problem which for me is the biggest barrier to ETL.

For instance, only a fraction of the 300 billion galaxies in the universe are suitable for higher life, and of that fraction, only a portion of their stars are capable of sustaining life. Of those stars only a fraction would possess the appropriate satellites, and of those that do have planets, there are so many (hundreds) highly improbable physical conditions that the planet would have to meet in order to provide a haven for higher life forms that the odds are not in ETL's favor. See here for some of the qualifications any life sustaining planet would have to have.

To me, then, it seems most reasonable, scientifically speaking, to assume that intelligent life probably exists nowhere else but here.

RLC

Global Warming Skepticism

I've had this in the queue to be added to Viewpoint for about a week so it's old news by now, but in case some readers may have missed it, here's an interesting story about one very prominent global warming skeptic:

Czech President Vaclav Klaus said Tuesday he is ready to debate Al Gore about global warming, as he presented the English version of his latest book that argues environmentalism poses a threat to basic human freedoms. "I many times tried to talk to have a public exchange of views with him, and he's not too much willing to make such a conversation," Klaus said. "So I'm ready to do it."

Klaus was speaking a the National Press Building in Washington to present his new book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles - What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?, before meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney Wednesday.

"My answer is it is our freedom and, I might add, our prosperity," he said.

Klaus, an economist, said he opposed the "climate alarmism" perpetuated by environmentalism trying to impose their ideals, comparing it to the decades of communist rule he experienced growing up in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia.

"Like their (communist) predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality," he said.

"In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat - this time, in the name of the planet," he added.

Klaus said a free market should be used to address environmental concerns and said he opposed as unrealistic regulations or greenhouse gas capping systems designed to reduce the impact of climate change.

"It could be even true that we are now at a stage where mere facts, reason and truths are powerless in the face of the global warming propaganda," he said.

Klaus alleged that global warming was being championed by scientists and other environmentalists whose careers and funding requires selling the public on global warming.

"It is in the hands of climatologists and other related scientists who are highly motivated to look in one direction only," Klaus said.

It would be interesting to hear Al Gore, or anyone on his side of the issue, debate a knowledgeable critic. The global warming people, however, seem unwilling to engage their opponents in public dialogue. Or have there been debates that I am not aware of?

RLC

Behind Every Successful Man

I'm skeptical about this, but for what it's worth NewsMax is reporting that:

An untold story lies behind Hillary Clinton's determination to remain in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination - the possible revelation of a shocking recording of rival Barack Obama's wife Michelle.

That's the word from longtime political analyst Roger J. Stone Jr., who writes on his The StoneZONE Web site that the recording purportedly documents Michelle Obama making racist comments in a speech.

According to Stone, Hillary aides are in a race with Republicans to get their hands on the offensive recording.

"On the heels of Michelle Obama's quote that she 'has never been proud of her country' until now, the new controversy could turn the contest upside down, but its more likely" to benefit "John McCain than to boost Hillary Clinton to the nomination - if the alleged recording exists," Stone writes.

He also asserts that Mark Penn, Clinton's former chief campaign strategist, has told sources that the bombshell "could come this week."

Wouldn't that spice things up.

If the tape exists, and the Republicans get it, they'll no doubt sit on it until Obama wraps up the nomination at the convention. If they use it now it might propel Sen. Clinton to the nomination and thus not help the GOP at all. That's why Hillary needs to get her hands on it before the Republicans do. If it exists at all.

RLC

Denzel on Faith

BeliefNet has a list of the twelve most powerful Hollywood actors and actresses who count themselves as Christians. Some on the list may surprise you. They also have an interesting interview with Denzel Washington, part of which we highlight here:

What role does Jesus play in your own life?

I was raised in the church. My father was a minister for 60 years. And I've been a member of West Angeles Church of God in Christ for, now, about 27 years, since I've been out here in Los Angeles.

I open the film (The Great Debaters) with a prayer and end it with praise. The spiritual aspects of the film weren't even necessarily in the screenplay. But I added those. It was my desire to start the film with a prayer.

Why was it so important to put spirituality in it?

Because spirituality is important in every aspect of my life. I mean, that's why I'm here. That's what I've been blessed to do.

When I was about 20 years old, when I first started acting, I was sitting in my mother's beauty shop. And a woman just kept looking at me. I was looking in the mirror, and I saw her across the room. And she said, "Someone give me a piece of paper." And she wrote down a prophecy. She said that I would speak to millions of people, and I would travel the world and preach to millions of people. And I didn't know what she was talking about. But this was March 27th, 1975, 32 years ago now, almost 33 years ago.

So my work has been my ministry. In fact, I asked my pastor, years ago, "Do you think I should become a minister or a preacher? And he says, "Well, that's what you're doing already." And he felt, as I feel, that that's what she was talking about back then.

I've always understood why I've been blessed to be put in this situation. And I'm more than happy to take advantage of it and to preach, if you will, about what God has done in my life.

How did being the son of a pastor help you prepare for this career?

I don't know. When I was young, actually, it was an obligation. You had to go. It wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do. But I lived in church morning, noon, night, weekends, Sundays, every day. So there was a time, between that time and as a young adult, where I moved away from the church because I was obligated to go. And I just found my way back, maybe 30 years ago, at 27--30 years ago, when I came out here.

How would you describe the role of prayer in your life today?

Even this film--every major decision I made, I made through prayer, about who I was picking to be in it, what it was I was trying to say, praying that the film was saying the right thing and that it would reach the right people. It's every aspect of it. Every aspect of it. It's how I start every day, and it's how I end every day.

I was especially interested in what Washington had to say about his participation in the movie Training Day. Read the interview to get his thoughts on playing the vile character he portrays in TD.

Meanwhile, my friend Jason nominates Bella for our list of films which offer positive portrayals of Christianity and/or Christians. Another movie we might give honorable mention is Manna from Heaven.

RLC

Ten Myths about Divorce

Throughout the last several decades, though perhaps not so much lately, we've often heard each of the following claims about divorce, and a lot of people, apparently, have come to believe them. A 2002 Harvard study, however, has shown each of them to be wrong. Maybe that's why enthusiasm for these notions seems to waned somewhat in recent years.

Here are the "ten myths" about divorce:

• Because people learn from their bad experiences, second marriages tend to be more successful than first marriages.
• Living together before marriage is a good way to reduce the chances of eventually divorcing.
• Divorce may cause problems for many of the children who are affected by it, but by and large these problems are not long lasting and the children recover relatively quickly.
• Having a child together will help a couple to improve marital satisfaction and prevent a divorce.
• Following divorce, the woman's standard of living plummets by seventy three percent while that of the man's improves by forty two percent.
• When parents don't get along, children are better off if their parents divorce than if they stay together.
• Because they are more cautious in entering marital relationships and also have a strong determination to avoid the possibility of divorce, children who grow up in a home broken by divorce tend to have as much success in their own marriages as those from intact homes.
• Following divorce, the children involved are better off in step-families than in single-parent families.
• Being very unhappy at certain points in a marriage is a good sign that the marriage will eventually end in divorce.
• It is usually men who initiate divorce proceedings.

There's an explanation of why each of these commonly held beliefs is wrong at the link.

In the same vein the prologue to this book also makes for fascinating reading.

Finally, a friend of mine tells me that there's another Harvard study, though I was unable to find it, which shows that weddings held in a church service have a divorce rate of one out of fifty marriages, but marriages in which the couple attends church every week, reads the Bible and prays together have a divorce rate of one out of 1,105. If that's accurate it's pretty astonishing.

It would be interesting to know what the divorce rate is for couples joined in a civil ceremony.

RLC

Angry Dems

I wonder how many Democrats this woman speaks for:

No wonder Democrat women like this one are angry. It's amazing that a woman who was - we were often told by Democrats - highly intelligent, experienced, and competent, has been thrown over by her party so that they can run a charismatic black man who appears to be little more than political fool's gold.

RLC

More Good News from Iraq

Here's some very good news, but don't expect the Keith Olbermanns of the world to dish out any high fives:

The U.S. military said Sunday that the number of attacks by militants in the last week dropped to a level not seen in Iraq since March 2004.

About 300 violent incidents were recorded in the seven-day period that ended Friday, down from a weekly high of nearly 1,600 in mid-June last year, according to a chart provided by the military.

The Iraqi forces are slowly taking over more of the combat operations and are becoming much more proficient in handling them. As this trend continues American infantry and Marines forces will be needed less and less, except as advisors, and will start coming home, possibly by mid-summer.

If so, the war will be a difficult issue for the Democrats to run on. They certainly won't want to remind the voters that they were all for pulling out when pulling out meant almost certain defeat. Unless something very surprising happens, and that's always a possibility in Iraq, the Democrats are going to look just plain wrong on the war to all but a relatively tiny group of pacifists, and McCain, compared to Obama, is going to look more and more presidential.

RLC

Empty Promises

For those readers looking for good reasons to vote for John McCain, here's one:

Susan Sarandon, who appeared in three films last year and won kudos for her TV movie "Bernard and Doris," is still not a contented soul. She says if John McCain gets elected, she will move to Italy or Canada. She adds, "It's a critical time, but I have faith in the American people."

Please, don't go, Susan. How will we ever get on without you?

RLC

Auto Repairs

This article has some good information about independent automotive service shops and dealership service departments. Unfortunately, the conclusion of the comparison is unhelpful, but the article itself is informative.

RLC

Your Taxes

The Tax Foundation has an interesting chart that shows a comparison of what your federal tax bill would be, assuming no children and standard deduction, without the Bush tax cuts. It's surprising to me that both Democrat candidates for president have promised to rescind Bush's tax cuts, and a lot of people who complain about not being able to make ends meet are still going to vote for whichever of the two wins the nomination.

Here's your homework assignment: Go to the chart and see the difference between how much you'd be paying if the cuts were not in effect and how much you pay as a result of the cuts. Multiply your answer by four and that's what a Democrat in the White House for the next four years is going to cost you - at a minimum.

Speaking of taxes here's an interesting factoid: The share of federal income tax needed to fund Social Security and Medicare in 2010 will be 8.6%. By 2050, however, largely because the Democrats have blocked all attempts to reform the system, it will grow to 76%.

RLC

Beautiful Birds IV

I thought I'd grace Viewpoint with pics of three more of the feathered gems I've been fortunate to observe this spring. The first is a common bird in the northeast whose soft colors give it an understated beauty. It's called a cedar waxwing because its wingtips look like they've been dipped in red sealing wax:

The red-headed woodpecker is one of the most striking members of that family, at least among those found east of the Mississippi. It's not very common in the east but seems to be increasing in numbers and should be looked for anywhere there are open stands of mature oaks such as in parks, etc.

I'm sometimes asked what my favorite bird is. I don't know if I have a favorite, but among eastern North American species this one probably ranks in the top five or six. It's a blackburnian warbler, and the flame-throated male is absolutely gorgeous in good light. These birds are difficult to see unless you're in an area where they breed or you're deliberately looking for warblers during migration. They're tiny and often flit about high in the forest canopy and so usually go unnoticed by casual observers.

RLC

Big Oil

This site, sponsored by the Petroleum Institute, is chock full of interesting information about oil and gasoline matters. Some of the more salient facts that can be gleaned from it include the following:

• The amount of profit from a dollar of gasoline that goes to the oil companies is about 7.5 cents (though I've heard that it's even lower than that).
• Oil demand worldwide has grown from 77 mbd (million barrels per day) in 2001 to 85 mbd in 2007. It will increase another 1.2 mbd this year and 1.3 mbd next year.
• Next year's world oil production is expected to increase markedly over 2008 levels, which should push pump prices back down to about $3.45 a gallon.
• Oil and natural gas sales in 2007 resulted in 8.3 cents profit on every dollar. The beverage and tobacco industry earned 19.1 cents per dollar. Oil profits were about average among all American industries.
• Oil industry stock is overwhelmingly owned by the public. When oil companies profit almost all of us do as well. Individual investors own 23% of the stock; mutual funds almost 30%; pension funds hold 27%; IRAs hold about 14%; and corporate "insiders" own about 1.5%.
• The top 27 energy companies paid $48.4 billion in income tax in 2004. With their friends Bush and Cheney in office giving them all sorts of tax breaks, starting wars on their behalf, and in general ripping off the little guy their income tax payments rose to $90.4 billion in 2006.
• Oil companies in 2006 paid 40.7% of their income in taxes. The rest of American manufacturers paid 22.1%.
• Since 1985 fifty seven refineries have closed but refining capacity has risen by 20% due to increases in efficiency. Continued improvements will boost domestic refining capacity by the equivalent of four new refineries by 2010.
• The industry has spent $160 billion since 1990 on making their product more environmentally safe.
• We have 112 billion barrels of crude oil offshore and in Alaska that we are not using. This is enough oil to power 60 million cars for 60 years. There's enough natural gas to heat 60 million homes for 160 years. Congress, however, has blocked all attempts to recover this resource.
• Of the eighteen largest oil companies in the world, only one of them is a U.S. company. Our largest firm, Exxon/Mobil, produces only about 3% of the world's petroleum.
• The U.S. imports 59% of the petroleum it uses. Our largest supplier is Canada (12% of what we use). Only 7% of our petroleum needs comes from Saudi Arabia. The only other Middle eastern supplier is Iraq (3%).

Despite these statistics, people like Maxine Waters want to nationalize the industry and all of our presidential candidates are talking about taxing oil companies even more heavily. Speaking of Waters, this video has to be seen in order to fully appreciate the congresswoman from California:

Link: sevenload.com

And to think we're paying her salary. Who votes for these people, anyway?

RLC

Fuel Economy

If you're concerned about gas prices and are thinking about a new ride you might be interested in this article from Consumer Reports:

Consumer Reports recently announced its annual used cars ratings, and we weren't surprised to see one of the major categories was "Best in Fuel Economy." With gasoline and oil prices on a seemingly endless upward spiral, that's a key factor these days when choosing a used car -- or even a new one.

The cars that made this list were, according to Consumer Reports, "the affordable and reliable vehicles [that] returned some of the best results in our real-world fuel-economy tests."

Consumer Reports broke them up into two groups: "Under $10,000" and "$10,000-$20,000."

What follows is a list of the vehicles that Consumer Reports rated "Best in Fuel Economy," with a short description of each vehicle. The mileage figures stated are the ones calculated by Consumer Reports in their own on-the-road tests.

Read the recommendations at the link.

RLC

TANG I

My friend Byron links me to a brief 1996 piece by Michael Martin, a philosophy professor at Boston university, who makes an argument against the existence of God. I read it with interest, impressed by the inverse relation between the ambition of Martin's project and the thinness of the argument he offers in its support.

Let's take a look. Martin writes:

Some Christian philosophers have made the incredible argument that logic, science and morality presuppose the truth of the Christian world view because logic, science and morality depend on the truth of this world view. Advocates call this argument the Transcendental Argument for Existence of God and I will call it TAG for short. In what follows I will not attempt to refute TAG directly. Rather I will show how one can argue exactly the opposite conclusion, namely, that logic, science and morality presuppose the falsehood of the Christian world view or at least the falsehood of the interpretation of his world view presupposed by TAG. I will call this argument the Transcendental Argument for the Nonexistence of God or TANG for short.

I don't know to which Christian philosophers Martin refers, but I know of no one who claims that logic, science, and morality depend upon the truth of Christianity. I do think, though, that morality, at least, depends upon the truth of theism, and that it may be that logic does also. As for science, it's conceivable that it could have emerged in an atheistic milieu, but it nevertheless seems to be the consensus among historians, even some who are not especially sympathetic to theism, that a Biblical worldview was an indispensible assist to the development of the modern scientific enterprise.

But let's see what Martin has to say in defense of TANG.

How might TANG proceed? Consider logic. Logic presupposes that its principles are necessarily true. However, according to the brand of Christianity assumed by TAG, God created everything, including logic; or at least everything, including logic, is dependent on God. But if something is created by or is dependent on God, it is not necessary--it is contingent on God. And if principles of logic are contingent on God, they are not logically necessary. Moreover, if principles of logic are contingent on God, God could change them. Thus, God could make the law of noncontradiction false; in other words, God could arrange matters so that a proposition and its negation were true at the same time. But this is absurd. How could God arrange matters so that New Zealand is south of China and that New Zealand is not south of it? So, one must conclude that logic is not dependent on God, and, insofar as the Christian world view assumes that logic is so dependent, it is false.

Well, actually no. God cannot change the laws of logic, to be sure, but that's because those laws are an expression of his nature out of which he has engineered the creation, something like an artist impressing his personality upon his art. God cannot change his nature any more than he can cause himself to cease to exist. So, yes, logic is dependent upon God in the same way that Goodness, Beauty, and Truth are dependent upon God, but these are not "things" he creates. They are his very essence.

Even so, the principles of logic may also be thought of as necessary in that, being an essential element of a necessary being (God), they themselves cannot not exist. If they did the necessary being which possesses them would not exist and that is a contradiction. Logic, then, is an ontological effusion of God into His creation and exists necessarily because it is an essential aspect of a God who possesses necessary existence.

Martin continues:

Consider science. It presupposes the uniformity of nature: that natural laws govern the world and that there are no violations of such laws. However, Christianity presupposes that there are miracles in which natural laws are violated. Since to make sense of science one must assume that there are no miracles, one must further assume that Christianity is false. To put this in a different way: Miracles by definition are violations of laws of nature that can only be explained by God's intervention. Yet science assumes that insofar as an event as an explanation at all, it has a scientific explanation--one that does not presuppose God. Thus, doing, science assumes that the Christian world view is false.

Martin here makes enough errors to cause one's head to spin. First, it's not at all the case that "to make sense out of science one must assume that there are no miracles." If it were then Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Boyle and dozens more of the greatest minds in the history of science were not making sense out of the discipline to which they contributed so much. Nor does science presuppose that there are no miracles. It simply cannot do this without making a nonscientific assumption that either God doesn't exist or, if he does, he doesn't intervene in the physical world. Both of these assumptions are metaphysical, not scientific.

What science actually presupposes is that what we call physical laws are simply descriptions of the way nature operates the vast majority of the time. If there appears to be a breach in the law then scientists assume, as a matter of methodology, that there is a natural explanation, but that methodological principle does not rule out God's intervention. It merely assumes that God's intervention cannot be scientifically demonstrated. If a scientist were to observe water change to wine the most he could say as a scientist is that there's no natural process with which he is familiar which could account for the phenomenon. It doesn't mean that there isn't one, nor does it mean that God did not override the normal action of physics and chemistry to produce a true miracle. The scientist has simply come up against the limits of what he can speak about as a scientist.

Nor is Martin correct in saying that miracles, by definition, are a violation of the laws of nature. A law of nature is a claim that given certain conditions certain other conditions will follow as far as we've been able to tell. For example, every time we've looked we've found that if something has mass it will exert a gravitational attraction on every other body. We thus assume for convenience's sake that this holds true everywhere in the universe and every time it's tested, but we have no proof of that. Induction does not yield proof.

Moreover, scientists talk all the time about regions or domains in the cosmos (or multiverse) which could have different laws. If so, then why couldn't a God who superintends the whole of reality import laws from one domain into another and thus override laws which normally obtain with higher order laws which normally do not?

God could supercede a physical law just like the gravitational force between particles can be overcome if both particles possess the same electrical charge. Gravity is not violated, the force still acts on the particles, but its effect is overridden by another, stronger, force.

One more thing. It could be that the laws of physics are framed such that given X, Y will occur unless Z happens. The law of inertia is stated exactly this way: An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Perhaps, to take a biblical example, the laws of buoyancy are something like this: Denser objects will always sink when placed in less dense substances unless the denser object is the Son of God. Since no one in modern times has witnessed the qualifier, science would be completely unaware of that part of the law.

Here's the point that Martin misses: Miracles need have no effect on the assumptions of science unless they are frequent. If they are rare, if a man were raised from the dead on average only once every thousand years, then the impact of such events on the scientific enterprise and the assumptions necessary for science to be fruitful, would be negligible.

So, whether science and logic actually depend upon the atheist assumption or presuppose the falsehood of Christianity, as Professor Martin wants us to believe, his argument does little to help us decide.

More on the third element in his case later.

RLC