What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part One

What is Metaphysical Naturalism?

Part One

I'm going to begin by using the opening paragraph from Wikipedia:

"Metaphysical or ontological naturalism is any worldview
in which the world is amenable to a unified study that includes the natural
sciences and in this sense the world is a unity. According to such a view, nature is all there is, and all things supernatural (which
stipulatively includes spirits and souls and non-natural values) do not exist,
or they are reducible to natural things. It is often simply referred to as naturalism, and occasionally as philosophical naturalism or ontological naturalism, though
all those terms have other meanings as well, with naturalism often referring to methodological naturalism." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_naturalism

That explains it!--if you know what all those terms mean and if you understand the subtle differences between many of them. From all that I've read and heard, not even the naturalists themselves all agree, using different terminology for exactly similar philosophical positions; or using precisely similar terminology for differences that may be subtle, or may be extremely and fundamentally different.

Reductive naturalism is one such "world-view" that denies the metaphysical importance given to the "soul" by religions. It "reduces" things like "soul" to what Wikipedia calls "natural things." I don't deny that in this sense, I too am a "reductivist." There is nothing in existence which can be of, or been created by, the supernatural. The first part of any definition of metaphysical naturalism is the denial that things can exist which are "super"natural.

However, as an atheist, I give the soul the same metaphsyical importance as theists insofar as admitting its existence, and its role, in the affairs of humans while they have empirical life (as opposed to "after-life," which would not be empirical but supernatural.)

Tom Clark, director of the Center for Naturalism http://www.centerfornaturalism.org/index.htm , claims that naturalism "affords superior prediction and control of our environment and ourselves, since in dropping the soul and free will we get rid of the fictional supernatural agency that blocks true explanations of phenomena." [italics added] [from the Academy Blogger post Determinism Vs. the Individualistic Naturalism of the Soul]

Clark, in neither of his websites (the other is http://www.naturalism.org/) defines his brand of naturalism as metaphysical, so far as I have discovered. He does declare that it is scientific naturalism. J.P. Moreland of "Boundless Webzine," describes scientific naturalism as having a "central creation myth — evolution." Obviously, Moreland is not a naturalist.

"Just what is scientific naturalism (hereafter, naturalism)?" Not even Moreland, a critic, makes a distinction between the forms of naturalism, ignorning that there are others. "Succinctly put," he writes, "it is the view that the spatio-temporal universe established by scientific forms of investigation is all there is, was, or ever will be. Brains and buffaloes exist (for instance), but minds and moral values must not, because they are invisible to the five senses and therefore invisible to scientific enquiry. [ ] Naturalism is a theory about reality in which physical entities are all there is." http://www.boundless.org/features/a0000872.html

Well, not exactly. Clark and his many famous associates, who take part in Clark's work, have various means of describing "mind," "soul," and "moral values," among other things that are "invisible." They are not "invisible" to MRIs, to mention one method of "seeing" them. MRIs record in real time the various parts of the brain that operating when stimulated by such things as scents, sights, sounds, memories, etc. While the MRIs are being recorded, so are other evidences of physiology, such as heart rate, blood pressure, respiration and skin conductivity. So in this sense the naturalism of scientists and philosophers such as Clark are able to discover the things that are "invisible" to reason alone. And in doing so, it takes such things as "soul" and "free" wil," and reduces them to their physiological descriptions, thereby taking the metaphysical content out of them.

What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part One continued

Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC


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The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
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The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
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© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

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What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part One continued

What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part One continued

back What is Metaphysical Naturalism?
Part One

Why do I bother to compare the views of a naturalist, no matter the kind he is, and the views of someone who is obviously a creationist? Because it is the reductiveness of ideas like Clark's that creationists resist and denounce, and which makes of them fierce critics when naturalists attempt to codify their scientific findings, or use them to criticize the "fictional supernatural agency" traditionally called "soul" and "free will".

I said that in the sense that scientific naturalism reduces everything to quantifiable natural and identifiable physiological traits, at least in living species as opposed to explaining "existence" itself, I am also a reductionist.

But the epistemic theme of the reductivist is to "drop the soul and free will [in order to be] rid of the fictional supernatural agency that blocks true explanations of phenomena."

Metaphysical naturalism is much simpler, and accepts that soul and free will exist and have causes and effects and therefore also have metaphysical value, just as a stomach ache is not merely a buildup of acid from a fictional medical agency, but that the buildup has metaphysical importance for the health of the individual, if only of an extremely transitory nature. On the other hand, it may be something like a peptic ulcer, which is obviously not a fictional medial agency.

Richard C. Carrier, writing for the "Internet Infidels", another group of naturalist writers, in the website Secular Web Library http://www.infidels.org/library/ , says "there is no need to appeal to gods or higher powers or supernatural realms or forces, and we don't believe there are any such things. That's what makes us Metaphysical Naturalists. Though we often disagree about the particulars, we all believe the evidence points to that and nothing else." Unlike Clark, Carrier offers nothing else in the specific nature of MN beyond that.

But he does say this: "In order to fulfill our mission we have become the world's leading nexus for the secular community, a neutral clearinghouse of information supporting our cause, centered above all on a wide-ranging library of secular literature online. The reason for this is simple: secularists and secular philosophy provide inherent and widespread support for Metaphysical Naturalism. So we support them in turn."

But not all secularism is metaphysical naturalism, denying the existence of the supernatural. America's Founders were Deists. Deists are some of the most devout believers in God Himself, but they denounce organized religions. They wrote and signed the Declarations of Independence and the Constitution, and with the inclusion of Jefferson's "wall of separation between church and state" incorporated into it as Original Intent reading, it is an extremely secular document, not allowing for any form of intrusion by any instrument of religion. It protects all religions; it gives sway to none.

And yet, those Deists were naturalists. It is the reason they singned on to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," rather than to God Himself, as the enabler of man's secular rights. So secularism is not a good description of the nature of naturalism. Secularity means the separation of what is by nature reason, from what is by nature faith or religion. [see the comments Jefferson made concerning the intrusion of the name "Jesus" into the The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom, the document he was most proud of having authored.]

But the Internet Infidels do seem to think secularity has much to do with the promotion of metaphysical naturalism, saying: "Besides Metaphysical Naturalism, however, our mission statement includes two other goals: one social, and one ethical.

"Socially, we seek an atmosophere of intellectual freedom and tolerance, for the promotion of knowledge and understanding through the avid pursuit of philosophy and the scientific enterprise. [ ] Therefore, we believe governments must be entirely neutral, favoring none in this quest. [ ] It is our dream that even people of different faiths, including nontheists, befriend each other and work together toward a better society of universal happiness, pursuing reason, science, and truth."

[There is something about the modern version of "humanism" found in most of the variations of naturalism, that makes me want to puke. They all sound like robotic beauty queens promising to work for "world peace." Is there any reason to think that people would think naturalists do not want a better society? Why state the obvious? They are not stating anything about naturalism by doing so; they are advocating altruistic, which they call "human compassion," which is altogether another issue, and much too big to be covered here. But Tom Clark's websites sound eerily similar, and he does specifically use the word "altruism".]

Carrier states the third goal of the mission of the Infidels: "Ethically, we want to uphold the dignity of humanity by embodying honesty and compassion in our pursuit of the truth. The good of mankind is our greatest goal."

As Ayn Rand pointed out, anyone using the phrase "the good of mankind" or any variation thereof, simply means to pursue an agenda of socialism of one form or another upon mankind. The Founders "conceived in liberty and justice" the promotion of the "general Welfare"; and it is not parsing phrases to say that they mean very different things.

Metaphysical naturalism as I see it, and as I apply it for my Academy, (which, by the way, is moving right along with work on a distance-learning academic program,) does not dismiss mind and soul as real entities of consciousness that are more than simply biological fuctions, like the growling of your stomach. The naturalists like those described above, who believe the physiology of how the brain creates consciousness, and thus what we traditionally call "soul," is tantamount to claiming the growling of the stomach is the soul, rather than that which we perceive in the seat of our emotions.

In other words, early ancestors of modern man who first identified what we call soul, could instead have interpreted the growling of the stomach to be God's connection to us, rather than deciding it was what we do actually call the soul. After all, "More and more, biology and neuroscience show that the brain and body do everything that the soul was supposed to do," writes Clark.

So, therefor, the soul with which we are intimately familiar on an emotional level, was misidentified as being something more than the mechanics of our physiology. So, therefor, our growling stomach could have been identified as our soul, in which case Clark would be claiming that our intestines "do everything that the soul was supposed to do."

A few months back, I was having a conversation with Tibor Machan http://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities/tibor-machan.html by email. Near the end of the conversation, after I sent him the original version of the Academy's "Strong" Position on Naturalism, below, he wrote back:

"Thanks for this. I agree. I have identified myself as a naturalist but for the bit of concern with this: "but purposeless, deterministic (except for possible tychistic [?] events)..." As far as I understand things, human conduct is not well understood in deterministic--other than self-deterministic--terms."

I agree with Machan's assessment of human conduct. It is not deterministic. But Clark and others make it out to be so, by claiming this: "[S]eeing just how we are caused (by our genetic endowment, upbringing, and social environments), [ ] we see that we aren’t the ultimate originators of ourselves or our behavior, [and] we can’t take ultimate credit or blame for what we do. [ ] People don't create themselves, so responsibility for their character and behavior isn't ultimately theirs, but is distributed over the many factors that created them."

It is quite deterministic to say we are caused by what is out of our control and so therefor we are not responsible for our actions. The definition of determinism is "The doctrine that every fact in the universe is guided entirely by law." [Dict. of Phil; Runes; http://www.ditext.com/runes/d.html]

Human conduct is not what many naturalists make it out to be. Man does have free will, and is, ultimately, responsible for his own actions and can, in spite of everything in the world, remake himself in his own image. That is why the description below says the "world-process is deterministic." The "process" of man's actions are "guided entirely" by the laws of nature regarding man; but man is sui generis and intellectually does not have to follow any rules but the ones he makes for himself.

The Academy's Strong Definition of Naturalism , Fully Explained with Caveats.

Given the divided nature of the many categories of "Naturalism," which include "strong" to "weak" definitions, it is necessary to state the position of this Academy as "strong;" and just as necessary to add the caveats at the end in order to distinguish this Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism from other metaphysical schools and schools of naturalism. But I would add that the terms "strong" and "weak" are unnecessarily vague, and that the categorical names are better, names such as metaphysical; teleonatural; ontological; Christian; humanist; deterministic; non-deterministic; reductive; non-reductive; etc.

Amended 9.12.08

"Naturalism, challenging the cogency of the cosmological,

i mechanical,ii and moral argumentsiii, holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government, but is self-existent, self-explanatory, self-operating, and self-directing, that the world-process is neither mechanistic nor anthropocentric, but purposeless, deterministic (except for possible tychistic* events), and only accidentally productive of man; that human life as physical, mental, moral and spiritual phenomena, are ordinary natural events attributable in all respects to the ordinary operations of the laws of nature; and that man's ethical values, compulsions, activities, and restraints can be justified by non-reductive monism, [ http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/09/non-reductive-monism.html ] without recourse to supernatural sanctions, and his highest good pursued and attained under natural conditions, without expectation of a supernatural destiny"--

(amended from B.A.G.Fuller http://www.ditext.com/runes/n.html see Naturalism)

(*Tychism: any theory which regards chance as an objective reality, operative in the cosmos; [ibid])

[caveats]

--AND that

this description neither explicitly nor implicitly exlcudes the existence of the human soul, nor of free will, when:"'soul' is a "veridical perception"** of consciousness;" and "'free will' is the mind’s freedom "to think or not;" (Ayn Rand)

AND that
"consciousness" is "the faculty of awareness—the faculty of [veridically] perceiving that which exists;" (AR)

AND that

"that which exists" is "an 'existent' be it a thing, an attribute or an action;" (AR)

AND FURTHER

that"an existent" is "veridical perception and memory, or abstract and ideal e.g. in conception and valuation;" (Runes)

**Where

"veridical perception" is a direct relation of awareness between a conscious subject and an object of empirical or abstract content. (CEC) (Dict. of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism; unpublished)

i

Where cosmology is taken to mean that which treats of the origin and structure of the universe. Cosmology also refers to the structural view where it is the world view of physics. However, as to cosmological origin, let me be clear: There is no origin. If existence itself had an origin, then the pre-existing condition of existence would be non-existence, which by definition can have no existence and therefore cannot have been a state of being prior to existence.

ii

Where mechanical is taken to mean the explanation of the present and the future in terms of the past. The opposite of mechanical is teleology, i.e., the explanation of the past and the present in terms of the future. [see above for comparison]

iii

Where the moral argument is taken to mean an argument for God based on man's moral nature, an objective nature that gives him cause to make moral assertions about existence but has no basis for conclusions of the supernatural. The only moral argument acceptable is teleological, meaning it must be the answer to the question of whether, not why, Man needs ethics; and what those ethics must be in terms of the objective nature of Man himself as "all there is" in terms of deducing the natural, not the super-natural, existence of existence.

Note:

I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC


mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

Irreconciled Naturalism, Faith, and Populist Education

The Irreconcilability of Naturalism with Faith

by Curtis Edward Clark

Not one person on Earth needs formal training to make a judgment about the world he/she lives in, in the sense with which this article deals. We all make those kinds of "world-view" judgments everyday of our lives.

Theology, alike with physics, requires more formalized education with which to conclude such "world-views." As a matter of fact, physics accepts almost no "world-view" that is not its own, naturalistic and unassuming of a supernatural presence in the structure and origin of existence. Theology accepts almost no "world-view" that does not assume a creator’s existence; and theology also assumes the intelligibility of the universe solely on the basis of that creator’s existence.

Without the influence of religion, science seeks the intelligibility, the cosmos-from-chaos, through individual thinking and peer review; yet one man may uniquely stand against all his fellows in science and be correct yet shunned, until one day the world discovers he was correct, in which case the “Copernican effect” http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/observations/jupiter_satellites.html alters forever the cosmology of the civilization which accepts the logic, i.e., the line of reasoning; or the scientist stands alone until the world beginning with his peers disproves his theories convincingly.

Theology (proper) seeks to make cosmos-from chaos only from theories of the "faith-based" humanities, as opposed to physically or mathematically provable scientific concepts. Where no explanation of the cosmos results from such faith-based theorizing, religion joins reason to faith, "insofar as is possible" to do so, [Boethius] to create a dogma, a papal bull, or some other form of edict which is taken as policy and as gospel truth, until a proper theological explanation can be rendered. All theological explanations presume the existence of a creator.

The Copernican effect shook the foundations of the Roman Church. Dogma and papal edicts had to be radically changed because of the effect this naturalistic scientific idea had on doctrine. Scientific naturalism is epistemic and the logical metaphysical concomitant for most or many scientists is metaphysical naturalism, which is defined as denial of the existence of the supernatural, and thus of a creator.

Naturalism "holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government, but is self-existent, self-explanatory, self-operating, and self-directing" through the cause-and-effect nature of the elements on the Periodic Table interracting with each other. No such effect as "gravity", for example, can exist without being "caused" by such elements interacting as they will by their own scientifically defined nature upon the same defined nature of other elements.

But epistemic naturalistic science does not presume or deny the existence of God. The epistemology of it naturally leads to the search for demonstrable proof, either empirical or mathematical. In the scientist's personal life, God may be a fact, and in fact for some scientists it is fact. But for purposes of peer review using proper standards of math or of physics, any theory or other demonstrable proof of science must be naturalistic in its epistemic foundations.

"The moons of Jupiter [also] had a major impact on cosmology. In 1610 the traditional Aristotelian cosmology had come under attacks from Copernican astronomers. Aristotelians had a number of arguments against the Copernican System, one of which was now made obsolete," http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/observations/jupiter_satellites.html by Galileo's observations and conclusions about the heliocentricity of the moons of Jupiter. If it was true there, could Copernicus be correct about our entire solar system? [italics added]

Could science be correct about much more than what the any church is willing to consider? Only two or three hundred years ago, the modern marvelous discoveries and conclusions of science would have been branded "heretical" by the Church, as "vacuum" once was, and the proponents of our modern science would have been hounded and harrassed by clergy and the fanatical faithful.

(I do not imply that all "faithful" are "fanatical." Those who are not "fanatical" are capable of taking such "heresy", even by any other name, in stride, and sometimes even come to its defence.) Five hundred years ago our "heretical" scientists would have been murdered, perhaps as witches.

Cosmological science was originally contrasted with ontology, metaphysics, and natural science, but according to the "Dictionary of Philosophy," “treatises which profess to deal with one of them usually contains considerable material on the others; yet in this science" it continues, quoting Hegel, the topics of cosmology are generally “contingency, necessity, eternity, limitations and formal laws of the world…” and includes “…the nature and interrelationship of space and time,” and related matters, as a totality of all phenomena.
Dagobert D. Runes, Editor; Littlefield, Adams; 1968

Overall, science undertakes the study of "related matters as a totality of all phenomena," because one phenomenon is Man’s sentience of his own sentience. It is said that by observing an action of life, we change the action, e.g., a dog may perform differently if it knows his master is watching. What is the change in effect upon our scientific or theological theories when included in those theories must be the recognition that we are cognizant of our own cognizance, i.e., sapient of our own sapience? We watch ourselves theorizing, and we can watch ourselves watching ourselves, and this has led some philosophers to discount Man's mind as unreliable even in the sciences.

This skepticism has led to disastrous results in the humanities, foregoing the ancient "liberal arts" for politically charged theories of Man's inhumanity to Men; of Man's "meddling" in the universe; of Man being a festering disease upon the face of the planet; of America as a nation attempting to take over the world, as we so rightly accused the Soviets.

This substitution of science and reason for "populist humanities," not to mention the debacle over whether men are responsible for global warming or whether we are simply in a historical, natural warming period led Senator Joe Biden to declare in the Vice Presidential debate (9.03.08) that climate change was entirely "man-made." Biden attacked Palin, asking, "If you don't know what the cause is, how can you solve the problem?"

You can't solve it, necessarily, even if you know the cause. You can only do what seems reasonable and hope it helps. Man may indeed be adding to the problem of climate change, but he is not responsible for any part of it that nature itself creates, as with the very late arrival of the solar eruptions in the last cycle. That late arrival caused a drop in the mean temperature of the earth's atmosphere. Did that cause the Arctic ice to disinitegrate? I might have said man could have been one of the causes but for one other climate anomaly: man could not have caused the new 17 inches of ice that now exists at the south pole.

Can Biden, and Al Gore, and the other left-wing populists account for the extra ice there, or for the severity of China's winter last year, or for the fact that on the mountain peaks of Washington and Colorado America still had snow in June? This indicates weather patterns that are changing; it does not "prove" global warming, but it might prove global weather pattern changes.

In short, skepticism has led us to the irrationalization of our civilization's knowledge base. We are all skeptics of something cosmological; some of us are skeptic of most things cosmological, or at least metaphysical. Physicists are hardly interested anymore, as they were in Galileo's time, of being metaphysicists. Right-wing populists are a little more rational than those on the left, but only because their conserv-atism puts them a decade or so behind their progress-ive compatriots, for whom "progress" means going in the direction of humanism, demonstrable logic be damned.

The original "liberal arts" of the ancient world right up to nearly the beginning of the twentieth century, were: grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic [the trivium], arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy [the quadrivium.] The nature of these subjects causes the mind to use its natural and acquired logic more stringently, deeply, and scientifically--even when that science is often "joined insofar as is possible" with faith. Faith as the abnegation of reason is always wrong; but theology as rational thought is not always wrong, and has at times been correct, but for the wrong reason: its faith-oriented epistemology.

It would not be to the detriment of students in the twenty-first century to learn those ancient subjects. In fact, it would be to the advantage of our entire society, getting us back to education that was not "dumbed down" for the less-comprehending of our students.

Under the current educational system, no one is allowed to rise to the level of his/her incompetence unless they buck the system--or they are genius; everyone else is held back to the level of the incompetence of the slow, less-comprehending students.

Critical-thinking is all the rage these days, but it comes with the territory when we study the old Liberal Arts and the attendant subjects. Studying them gives students a deeper intellectual insight into the world by causing the use of formalized logical principles. I occasionally learn bits and pieces of those subjects, myself. And I try to lose any skepticism that is not to the advantage of my rationality to have.

Next Monday: The unnatural attempt to reconcile metaphysical naturalism with "intelligent design."

>

Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC


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http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of the
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM, The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

more

Excerpt from Anthony Horvath’s

Christian Apologetics Ministry

http://sntjohnny.com/front/one-atheist-admits-im-right-another-responds-to-big-bang-post/364.html

And the Reclassification of Theism

as the Skeptical Position of Naturalism

"It is not very often that you get an admission as clear as the one that was posted on my forum today. I asserted in this post on my blog that at the bottom, most atheistic arguments against the existence of God are based on the ‘presumption of naturalism’ with [missing info in original post.] The atheist on my forum said:

'At the conclusion, you argue that the evidence will show God’s existence if only we give up our assumption that all explanations must be natural. What you fail to give us is any compelling reason why we must abandon that assumption.'"

Unfortunately, Rev. Horvath's critic undercuts his own position by saying he would, in effect, be willing to accept giving up reason. Horvath responds--quite logically--by saying, "The atheist in question says that this assumption can only be abandoned in the face of extremely good reasons, but it should be evident that anyone who believes ‘all explanations must be natural’ is really just throwing up a smokescreen if he now demands ‘reasons’ for thinking otherwise."

Oh, if only we would listen to what we say before we say it. In light of what Horvath said regarding the abandonment of reason for "compelling" reasons, I think the critic would have thought out his words more carefully.

But my favorite atheist philosopher said we must take men at their word. If they say it, then they said it, and we cannot presume to judge that they meant something else. This does not mean we cannot amend our statement when our contradiction becomes evident.

But unless Horvath's critic writes back, we must assume he does not understand the difference between:

1. A principled deduction of logic that tells him that naturalism is natural, while supernaturalism is---not, by definition, natural; and

2. The decision that it makes no difference whether a thing is "natural" or "not-natural" if one is willing to suspend his rational judgment to decide that the "not-natural" can somehow become the "natural," or at least the "acceptable."

Horvath tells him--and others like him--"If you’re just starting to examine the merits of Christianity and are evaluating skeptical objections, the key here is to understand that all the later objections to things like the resurrection and miracles stem from this prior assumption."

What Horvath himself fails to explain is that naturalism was the prevailing world-view for nearly 1000 years, until Augustine.

There are four goals for the informed naturalist, says physicist and cosmologist Dr. Quentin Smith. "i) retrieve naturalism from its de facto reclassification by medieval philosophers. This is a reclassification (which may have been a result of some other deliberately chosen goal) from its original, accurate, classification in Greco-Roman naturalism, and this reclassification was effected by the medieval philosophers. This reclassification still prevails today." Philo Online http://www.philoonline.org/library/smith_4_2.htm

"Some of these pre-Socratics sometimes used the word “god” (theos), but insofar as the existence of a so-called god or gods was embraced, they meant by “god” a non-human intelligent organism that was a part of and governed by (rather than governing) natural processes. The first task is based on the fact that naturalism began as a distinct, holistic world-view, was in effect subsumed as a skeptical subfield of natural theology by the medievals..."

This means that Christianity was once the "skeptical" position relative to naturalism. Therefore, Horvath's call to critics who may be "evaluating skeptical objections" are not really the skeptics. They are the former progenitors of the original world-view. The problem with modern naturalists assuming this role and attempting to put the Christian back on the skeptical position is that the modern naturalist does not have the proper epistemic tools to do so.

"This retrieval is also a reversal," writes Smith. The aim is that theism be justifiably reclassified as a subfield of naturalism, namely, as a skepticism about the basic principles of naturalism whose refutation serves to stimulate and further develop the naturalist program. 'Philosophy of religion' disappears, to be replaced by a new subfield of naturalism, namely, 'skepticism about naturalism,' with skeptical arguments being put forth and argued against, with the aim in mind of further developing the argumentative foundations of the naturalist world-view."

The informed naturalist must study his logic properly, not just go off on a quick run as a criticism, as Horvath's critic did. Smith outlines his epistemic proposals for creating better arguments than theists, and thus overcoming their "defeater" arguments" with better "defeater" arguments of our own.

Smith lays it out this way:

"A (a defeated justifier). A is the argument that contemporary science and naturalist philosophy are known to be probably or certainly true, even though A includes no counterarguments against contemporary arguments for theism.
DA (a defeater for the justifier A). DA is a sound argument that argument A is unsound.

"B (a defeated justifier). B is an argument that, contemporary science and naturalist philosophy, when conjoined with an evaluation of contemporary theist arguments for not-
N, (where “not-N” implies naturalism is not true) justify not-N.

"DB (a defeater for the justifier B). DB is a sound argument that argument B is unsound.

"C (an undefeated justifier for N). C is the argument that, contemporary science and naturalist philosophy, when conjoined with an evaluation of contemporary theist arguments for not-N, justify N."

Later, after explaining these positions better, he finalizes this portion of his academic paper by advising that :

"Since both A and B are defeated, most contemporary naturalists, as well as most contemporary theists, hold defeated beliefs about the truth-value of naturalism. The informed naturalist knows the complex argument C that constitutes the defeater of B and the justification of N, as well as meets other conditions explained later in this paper.

"[The] Belief State of Informed Naturalists [is]
'C.

'C justifies N.

'Therefore, N is justified.'"

Horvath's critic began with the proper positing of (C), when he said, "At the conclusion, you argue that the evidence will show God’s existence if only we give up our assumption that all explanations must be natural." After that, he provides his own defeater arguments against himself, and all Horvath had to do was properly point them out.

The modern naturalist is not used to using such logic. The modern naturalist is probably not aware that at one time naturalism had Christian logic on the run. The neo-Platonic philosophy of Augustine threw all arguments into disarray, and the naturalists of his day, not used to being put on the skeptical defensive, never recovered.

Smith seems to have discovered the method, the epistemic position, that metaphysical naturalists must take, if we are to regain, one argument by one argument, the former glory position of having not only valid logic, but soundness of logic, on our side.

Because that is what Smith's formula is about: injecting not only validity, in other words adherence to the rules of formal syllogistic logic, but using that logic to locate the soundness. "Soundness" is defined as sound "if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true." The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/v/val-snd.htm