naturalism discredits reason

This post was sparked by reading the "Naturalism" chapter of "Worldview in Conflict" by Ronald H. Nash. The core of his argument is that naturalism, believe that only the physical world exists, suggests that all reasonings are change reactions of chemicals in our brains, and therefore discredits the reasoning that support naturalism to begin with, a self-defeat. Lennox brought this point up in a similar way in his talk with Dawkins. See time stamp 12:20 my post "on Lennox vs. Dawkins 10/21/08".

On the surface, this argument seems valid. Looking deeper, we should question it. Looking still deeper, we can still find some good, valid points.

First of all, the basic proposition of naturalism is that nothing exists in the real world save that which is the physical, material world contained in space and time - scientific things by the cultural definition. There are no distinct objects, though they may appear to be, all is simply a giant conflagration of interacting particles. Second, Nash says it naturally follows that all events, all states of being in the universe, are mere products of the interactions of everything else. In a certain sense this may be seen as chance, but it seems to me that a good accompanying tenet of naturalists is determinism. Determinism is a philosophical school of thought which holds that if anyone had perfect and complete knowledge of the state of the universe right now, they could perfectly and accurately predict the future state of things any amount of time into the future. Essentially, there is no chance.

But that is beyond the point. If the thoughts in our minds are simple interactions of chemicals and do not have any sort of individual identity to them, they cannot be assigned the term truth. On the surface this is true. However, Dawkins combated this idea by saying that the natural selection engine of evolution tends to produce truth in our minds.

In this sense he is holding to the pragmatic definition of truth - "what works". In this sense we have diminished the standard of truth a little. What we know to be true, how we use reasoning, how we perceive and think, is simply what has allowed us to survive better than the monkeys for the last 15 million years. Depending on your aspirations for greatness, this might be old news to you, or it might be very disheartening. Besides, the process of natural selection still goes on. Some of us, arguably perhaps most of us, are being left behind by a few of our species that are adapting better, thinking better. How do we know which ones of us are thinking better? Who's thinking is valid? I think it is reasonable to accept that our basic understanding of logic and reason can be depended on.

However, it is certainly not something that can be wholly depended on. A second doubt can be placed on our evolutionary, pragmatic definition of truth. A great claim of atheists and others is that mankind has invented Gods for their own purposes, to help them deal with the pain and uncertainty of life. Mankind has deceived itself to dull the pain. Could it not also be so that all of mankind has deceived itself into thinking that its method of reasoning is valid? And if we have deceived ourselves, is there any sense in which we can discover out deceit, especially through the reasoning which may be false? In this  way the pragmatic definition of truth breaks down even more.

Of course this argument may be turned around on Christians, or anyone for that matter. Many groups and individuals would agree that many people have deceived themselves in some way. In fact, it's so fundamental and annoying that philosophers might dismiss it just because it's so annoying for everyone. However, some groups may have explanations that waylay the problem. For instance, Christians claim that it is the devil that speaks lies to us, and we simply believe them, that we want our own way and so ignore Gods plan, that we idolize the good things God has made and so deceive ourselves into thinking they are worthy of our worship.

So, does naturalism discredit the reasoning that derived it? Meh... At the least it heavily lowers the standard of truth. I think there are a number of other, better ways to attack naturalism. Lack of moral standards and qualia would be two of them.