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A Response to Anthony "stjohnny" Horvath

On "Road-to-Damascus" type Revelations

To read the original blog by Horvast,click on Guest Author Rev. Anthony "sntjohnny" Horvath

Note: I have been mistaken in the title to use for "sntjohnny." Here is what he wrote to me recently: "For quick reference- I am not a pastor or a reverend. I did finish the pastoral ministry degree in college which in many denominations is sufficient to receive ordination but in my denomination an additional four years on top of the bachelors degree is required- and I didn't do that. (and no complaints about it, either!)"

Introduction by Tony Horvath:

"Recently an atheist [Clark] stumbled upon my site and put [there]
a post responding to a post on my own blog on
the distinction between ‘natural’ revelation and ’special’ revelation.
The reader has all the information in the links above to follow this exchange, if they like.
"In my blog entry I indicated that many atheists won’t be convinced by anything less than their own ‘Road to Damascus’ experience. Mr. Clark responds:"

Part Two, (or is it Three?)

Atheists don’t believe such revelations as "revealed" or "natural" are possible, because the cause of them does not exist. A revealed revelation, as Horvath points out, "concerns that which is known and can only be known because God himself reveals it." A "natural" revelation is one which comes through contemplation about the nature of existence.

Any "atheist" who could possibly be looking for a revelation, revealed or natural, would be a contradiction, in terms of what his beliefs were, as concerning the lack of a god who could give such revelations versus what he expected as either an epistemic or metaphysical quality of knowledge. In other words, he either believes no god exists, in which case no quality of knowledge can be called "revelation" in the religious sense; or he believes religious-type revelations are possible, in which case he is wrong about being atheist.

By definition, an atheist knows there is no god, in the sense that all the resolutions of logic one has in one’s mind is what he “knows.” This is sometimes called “justified true belief,” as opposed to “unjustified.” The justification comes from the soundness of the argument that there are only two choices: naturalism and supernaturalism; and from the soundeness of the proposition that faith is the negation of reason.

Theists, on the other hand, 'know,' by the same standard, that God exists. Atheists 'know' he does not. Each of them has found the soundness, the justification, within his own logic that to doubt it would be to doubt his own mind. To go looking for a revelation, or even to expect that perhaps such a supernatural quality of knowledge will be imparted to him, implies that he knows nothing either way, and perhaps has no beliefs one way or the other.

You say I am engaged in an unnecessary discussion on what constitutes an atheist, that there are different kinds of atheists, including what we construe in technical terms as weak and strong atheists. You say your problem as a Christian Apologist is that these issues are largely an internal matter among atheists but each atheist insists on telling you what atheism absolutely is! "Atheism," you say, "reduces, ultimately, to each individual atheist’s perception of atheism."

My contention is that just as there cannot be such a thing as a strong chair vs. a weak chair--which would be what: anything not manufactured as a chair but which works as a chair anyway?--and just as there cannot be a thing such as a strong apple versus a weak apple......The point is, "chair", "apple", "naturalist," numismatist," and "atheist" are concepts. What is a weak concept versus a strong concept?

It is true that "naturalist" and "atheist" are concepts indicating epistemic determinations. But a definition is still a definition, and the only one that can be argued is the one that takes the idea to its logical extreme. Anything less than the extreme is less than the essence of the concept. Why debate things which are not the essence of the debate?You say you recently had one instance where you asked an atheist if he agreed that revelations were possible if one happened to him. He answered, “You’re asking me whether if god came to visit me (like some amplified Jehovah’s Witness) and explained the whole thing, then would that change my opinion? Uh, yes."

Tony, I myself will tell you the same thing: If God came to me it would be less than rational to ascribe his identity to him. But I will also tell you that since the concept of "atheist" means denial of the supernatural realm, asking your question is like asking whether one would believe in sapient army ants if one showed up. Of course I would believe in sapient army ants if one showed up. It isn't going to happen.

Let me tell you a story. Nearly three years ago I had what you and other believers would have described within your own beings as a "revelation." It truly was as if from God. I had an immediate apprehension of a truth, and the truth set me free, so free, in fact, that I went to a "church for alcoholics" within five minutes of having this apprehension, and I've been alcohol free ever since. The fellowship of A.A. has helped me to cope with my new life; but it was the apprehension which set me free.

That apprehension hit me as if I had been thrown against a brick wall at 60 miles an hour. It physically hurt. If I was a weaker man in my constitution, I might have run off the road and hit a house, a pedestrian, or another car. It was all I could do to keep driving and to remember where the Alano Club was.

I was shaking in my shoes. I had a hard time finding my voice. After my first A.A. meeting, someone asked if I was ok because she said I was pale as a ghost. I don't think I recovered my normal color for more than 24 hours, and not until after my fifth A.A. meeting in that same 24 hour period. I know I could not even crack a smile until after that fifth meeting. It was a truly spiritual experience, the kind that every member of A.A. hopes to one day have, a bolt of lightening out of the blue.

The immediate apprehension is what a believer would call a "miracle," what he would call a "revelation." As a matter of fact, I call it a natural revelation, myself, but I do not admit that natural revelations admit of a God, or of any form of supernaturalism. Because I reject Boethius' call to "join faith to reason, isofar as is possible," because I reject faith as the abnegation of reason that all theologians say it is, I can only attribute my immediate apprehension to what is epistemologically called "intuition." Was this my own personal "Road to Damascus" type revelation?

"Intuition" is from the Latin "intuere," meaning to look at, and is "The direct and immediate apprehension by a knowing subject of itself, of its conscious states, of other minds, of an external world, of universals, of values or of rational truths." "Dictionary of Philosophy"; Runes; 1942

Step One of A.A. says I "admitted I was powerless over alcohol--that my life had become unmanageable." Oh how very true is that statement, in light of the life-altering immediate apprehension of my situation.

Step Two says I "came to believe a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity." Again, in my immediate apprehension I most certainly did come to believe that.

So you might ask, what "greater power" do I believe in? It turns out to be the greater power of the mind than that of overt consciousness, the greater power that is within each of our subconscious minds to turn a problem over and over without our overt knowledge of this process. Man existed and was conscious and able to form language and ethics long, long before the pre-Socratics discovered the power of "thinking about thinking."

That subconscious power that allowed a more intellectually primative man to continue existing and to grow and to learn from his mistakes and to add knowledge to his impressively growing store of knowledge resides within each of us. If Thales had not grasped the element of "thinking about thinking," we would still be acting on the conscious level of Homo sapiens, instead of that of Homo sapiens sapiens.

Technically, Homo sapiens is said to have become extinct many tens of thousands of years ago. We are his only living cousin. But our name, Homo sapiens sapiens, means that we have the power to add sapience upon already existing sapience, that we are as a matter of fact the only species that is sapient of his own sapience, and that that is thus the determining virtue for distinguishing Man as the "rational animal."

It is not too far fetched to say that until men learned the art and science--not to mention the joy--of thinking about thinking, that he was not truly Homo sapiens sapiens. He was a potentiality, waiting for a time when he would have his first conscious experience with "immediate apprehension," viz, "intuition."

Tony, you say, "Perhaps the hang up is my phrase ‘looking for’ [a revelation,] which I think is actually the problem. Mr. Clark is resting his disbelief on the ’soundness of the argument’ but I maintain that a single contrary fact is enough to put an argument to bed. [ ] [L]et me just say that its difficult to imagine how God could possibly meet the burden of demonstration many atheists expect him to fulfill if they would immediately discount the evidence if it was actually provided."

The "soundness of the argument" is that there are two choices: naturalism, and supernaturalism; Reason, and faith. So-called "natural revelation" requires reason to determine the nature of the object in question; but it requires faith to place its nature in the category of "supernaturally created." Intuition as "immediate apprehension," by natural methods of human neurology and psychology, can account for both type of revelation, without resorting to supernaturalism.

No naturalist who is also atheist has any justified true belief in either kind of revelation of the supernatural. The naturalist who believes in 'natural' revelation is not an atheist. The person who believes in 'revealed' revelations is not a naturalist." "Natural" revelations are not revelations of metaphysical naturalism and have nothing to do with "intuition" as defined above.

You continued in your response to me: "Well, obviously the naturalist wouldn’t see the natural order as revelation about God. The phrase ‘revelation’ can still be rehabilitated, though, because if one wants to get to the bottom of just what reality is all about, than they are going to have to rely on more than just introspection. They’ll have to open their eyes and let the universe around them ‘tell’ them about itself. You cannot deduce the law of gravity. For that you must drop an object and allow it to ‘reveal’ its speed as it rushes to the earth."

And that, my friend, is exactly what "intuition" is when it is left devoid of any supernatural origins and overtones. Rune's Dictionary of Philosophy is not interested in determining where such "intuitions" come from. That is for science to decide, after which philosophers and theologians may argue what it means, and whether or not the epistemic roots of the investigation contained strict scientific integrity.

You also said, "Atheists may not be looking for evidence of revelation but my contention is that they ought to be, and that they ought to do so without prejudging the issue, because that would be circular reasoning." You base this on your premise that we must let the universe tell us about itself. In the sense that men "intuit" the information the universe provides us, I totally agree. We cannot see without looking.

And if some men intuit the supernatural in their seeing, it does not speak to what the universe is trying to tell us; it speaks only to the principles of epistemology and the accepted metaphysics of the one who says he sees.

Thank you, Anthony "sntjohnny" Horvath, for the "back-and-forth" nature of our discussion. This is what human discussion is supposed to be. You, and I, and our readers, know that there are those out there in the world who could not have a dialectic such at we are having.

sntjohnny and I have agreed to keep this discussion going until we reach what each of us considers a good ending. It may happen every 10 days to two week, more or less, give or take, as we see fit. I will always be certain to link the threads together for you, as he did at the top of his piece.