Unless Reason is seen as an Absolute, all thoughts about ultimate existence are self-discrediting. If Reason came about from purposeless forces in a naturalistic universe then we cannot know anything. If Reason is to mean anything, it must be seen as an original thing, imparted into the simulacrum from God. We have no laws in the universe unless they are operated through a medium complex enough on which, and because of which, they can function. The same must be true of Reason - it must have a primacy, a self-existent primacy from which Reason itself is filtrated into the simulacrum. The Absoluteness of Reason is our biggest reflection of the Aseity of God. The whole universal system could cease to exist and there would be no contradiction (therefore the universe should not exist at all) - the same cannot be said of the Aseity of God or of Reason itself. Reason is the central factor in the interrelation between Creator and creature; that is, if Reason is not underwritten by the primary truth of existence, then we cannot know anything. It is true that the Aseity of God requires that His existence is necessary, but that fact depends on underwritten logic and certainty that our perception of necessity is correct. That is why I think the Absoluteness of Reason is a leap and our perception of necessity only a step (the former provides more certainty than the latter). That is to say one can always claim Anselm’s contention to be one link in the chain, whereas one must always claim that Reason itself ‘is’ the chain - a necessary attachment between Creator and creature. If Reason is valid then it must come from a source of equal validity, a self-evident source of Aseity, which could never be described as ‘non-reason’. To make a claim to the contrary is to invalidate Reason, including the claims of the self*. The truest statement one can make about existence is to say that we exist because God exists. The Absoluteness of Reason is, on its own, strong enough to provide an insurmountable problem for naturalism.
* Because rationality is something attributable to the self.
Annotation: To deny the Absoluteness of Reason is to leave yourself in a self-referential hamster’s wheel of analysis - for all claims to the truth (however small or large) contain within them an attempt to attach themselves to a foundational truth. Any objection to the Absoluteness of Reason leaves the objector with no place to go. To deny the Absoluteness of Reason is to make claims that its origin lies in a past configurational entropy. Whatever form this entropy took and whatever its properties, it was at some stage ‘non-reason’ according to the objectors. This claim by itself ultimately invalidates every form of human reasoning including the claims of the objector himself, as Reason ceases to have any necessary attachment to truth at all. Having seen this, if ontological investigation is to mean anything, Reason must be seen as an Absolute; this being the case, Reason cannot be Absolute unless it is part of an Absolute Source - an echo that belongs to the melody found in Aseity.
My theory about Absolute Reason emerged from two ideas. In the first place, that if reasoning itself is the result of a set of cosmic flukes in a naturalistic cosmos, 1) why should we trust it? And 2) how can it be used to justify a naturalistic explanation and explain anything about ultimate realities? In the second place, if one is to make any sophisticated attempts at solving the ontological problem there must exist propositions that are necessarily true other than by virtue of mere definition emanating from the minds that are defining them. In other words seeing as though it is impossible for minds to transcend the cognitive interface boundaries that separate phenomena and noumena, and seeing as though mental concepts are justified by mental concepts, it seems like a solecism against ‘mind’ - the very toolkit we are using - to postulate a world without some kind of a priori sense to existence - what I call the Absoluteness of Reason.
Tying this in with what we were just talking about at a genetic level - if Absolute Reason is an a priori fact of existence and that Absoluteness comes from God, it seems the most sensible approach to begin analysing the world with that fact in place and working outwards from there; for in doing so, one can see clearly that with something like, say, natural selection, genomes might have evolved information that allows them to influence genetic change and affect their own survival chances, and that does not in any way transgress the Darwinian boundaries of ‘random’ genetic variation and the many other mechanisms in evolution. If genomes can learn about the world though information carrying in natural selection, one must see that intelligence is occurring at every level possible, and therefore in a world underpinned by ‘Reason’ those who are most sensible are the ones that construct their hypotheses and theories by seeing these building blocks both TO reasoning, and OF reasoning, in their proper context.
Moreover, considering that the Simulacrum itself seems to have ‘intelligence’ woven into its subatomic fabric, one ought to be a little more precautionary in what one ascertains holistically. Empty space is unstable, and from nothingness quark-antiquark pairs crystallise and fill space, actually lowering the energy of the vacuum in the process. But quantum uncertainty will not allow the antiquark to reside precisely next to its quark partner, and that wiggle room between them leaves disturbance and, thus, creates energy (the same energy that endows matter with about 95% of its mass). Now we know that all matter is wrapped up in atoms and that itself is only a tiny fraction of a universe dominated by dark matter and dark energy. But effectively, this means that everything we see in space that is (holistically) a different mass to that at a quantum level (for example the earth does not orbit the sun like an electron orbits an atom) came from this same energy; mass such as chairs, tables buildings, etc, comes from energy crystallised out of nothing - even space and time is a condensate that similarly crystallised from nothingness in the earliest moments of the big bang singularity and, further, the tiniest most compressed singularly itself - did that come ex nihilo (from nothing)?
This ought to change our view of Absolute Reason - certainly with respect to the problem of reason coming from non-reason. If chairs, tables and buildings come from energy crystallised out of nothing, then so do bodies - bodies that are able to use reasoning at a supremely advanced level. At a physiological level an intelligent ‘reasoning’ human body is a colony of trillions of cells, each with their own vinculum of components, able to be observed at the quantum level of uncertainty. These cells communicate and cooperate with each other, jointly working towards goals of which the ‘reasoning’ individuals themselves are largely unaware. From the synchronised firing of neurons in the brain and the brainwaves that are testament to them, to the changes in gene expression which underscore the slow pulsation of the circadian rhythm, to the concerted firing of the heart muscle cells which produce the heartbeat necessary for growth and sustained living. The vastly complex interconnections form a vast distributed network which spontaneously takes in sensory information, processes it, forms an ordered cognition, and compels the brain to use intelligent ‘reasoning’ in apprehending fine details about the external world, itself the self same quantum mechanical system that I have just described.
Although it is a complex set of circumstances at the atomic level that makes a human body different from, say, a cloud, a tree, a chainsaw, even stardust, if one zooms in at the lowest levels we are all made up of the same stuff. Now this, it seems to me, leaves us with only two possibilities. Either there is not an Absolute Reason to underpin all of this or there is. If there isn’t then all this subatomic activity at the gritty lower levels is not emergent reasoning, it is simply inert non-intelligent matter serendipitously producing an organism that can self-replicate and (eventually) creatures like us that can use the highest form of rationale in any living thing. Remember that according to the naturalist this comes from gritty non-sentience, in fact, all this comes from energy crystallised out of nothing, and yet it goes on to produce the type of reasoning and extraordinary abilities that we have seen in human beings from our initial bipedal days right through to men and women that can understand the primary principles of nature herself.
When asked by the naturalist to believe that all that came about by accident, I am asked to believe that this stupendous thing we call ‘reasoning’ emerged from something that was once non-reason - a set of cosmic flukes that were never embedded with the designed mechanism to engender any kind of ‘reasoning’ yet went on to engender minds like our own; I am being asked to betray everything that makes sense to me, and in the process, when it comes to the reliability of the naturalist’s position, saw off the only branch that is supporting me. No I find it makes much more sense - the ONLY sense, in fact, if I treat Reason as an Absolute, emanating from a mind that has the properties of Aseity and contains His own explanation - the self-affirming, self-evident truth that we see in Jesus Christ - the one who has made Himself known and can be known by any mind that wishes to know Him.
* Because rationality is something attributable to the self.
Annotation: To deny the Absoluteness of Reason is to leave yourself in a self-referential hamster’s wheel of analysis - for all claims to the truth (however small or large) contain within them an attempt to attach themselves to a foundational truth. Any objection to the Absoluteness of Reason leaves the objector with no place to go. To deny the Absoluteness of Reason is to make claims that its origin lies in a past configurational entropy. Whatever form this entropy took and whatever its properties, it was at some stage ‘non-reason’ according to the objectors. This claim by itself ultimately invalidates every form of human reasoning including the claims of the objector himself, as Reason ceases to have any necessary attachment to truth at all. Having seen this, if ontological investigation is to mean anything, Reason must be seen as an Absolute; this being the case, Reason cannot be Absolute unless it is part of an Absolute Source - an echo that belongs to the melody found in Aseity.
My theory about Absolute Reason emerged from two ideas. In the first place, that if reasoning itself is the result of a set of cosmic flukes in a naturalistic cosmos, 1) why should we trust it? And 2) how can it be used to justify a naturalistic explanation and explain anything about ultimate realities? In the second place, if one is to make any sophisticated attempts at solving the ontological problem there must exist propositions that are necessarily true other than by virtue of mere definition emanating from the minds that are defining them. In other words seeing as though it is impossible for minds to transcend the cognitive interface boundaries that separate phenomena and noumena, and seeing as though mental concepts are justified by mental concepts, it seems like a solecism against ‘mind’ - the very toolkit we are using - to postulate a world without some kind of a priori sense to existence - what I call the Absoluteness of Reason.
Tying this in with what we were just talking about at a genetic level - if Absolute Reason is an a priori fact of existence and that Absoluteness comes from God, it seems the most sensible approach to begin analysing the world with that fact in place and working outwards from there; for in doing so, one can see clearly that with something like, say, natural selection, genomes might have evolved information that allows them to influence genetic change and affect their own survival chances, and that does not in any way transgress the Darwinian boundaries of ‘random’ genetic variation and the many other mechanisms in evolution. If genomes can learn about the world though information carrying in natural selection, one must see that intelligence is occurring at every level possible, and therefore in a world underpinned by ‘Reason’ those who are most sensible are the ones that construct their hypotheses and theories by seeing these building blocks both TO reasoning, and OF reasoning, in their proper context.
Moreover, considering that the Simulacrum itself seems to have ‘intelligence’ woven into its subatomic fabric, one ought to be a little more precautionary in what one ascertains holistically. Empty space is unstable, and from nothingness quark-antiquark pairs crystallise and fill space, actually lowering the energy of the vacuum in the process. But quantum uncertainty will not allow the antiquark to reside precisely next to its quark partner, and that wiggle room between them leaves disturbance and, thus, creates energy (the same energy that endows matter with about 95% of its mass). Now we know that all matter is wrapped up in atoms and that itself is only a tiny fraction of a universe dominated by dark matter and dark energy. But effectively, this means that everything we see in space that is (holistically) a different mass to that at a quantum level (for example the earth does not orbit the sun like an electron orbits an atom) came from this same energy; mass such as chairs, tables buildings, etc, comes from energy crystallised out of nothing - even space and time is a condensate that similarly crystallised from nothingness in the earliest moments of the big bang singularity and, further, the tiniest most compressed singularly itself - did that come ex nihilo (from nothing)?
This ought to change our view of Absolute Reason - certainly with respect to the problem of reason coming from non-reason. If chairs, tables and buildings come from energy crystallised out of nothing, then so do bodies - bodies that are able to use reasoning at a supremely advanced level. At a physiological level an intelligent ‘reasoning’ human body is a colony of trillions of cells, each with their own vinculum of components, able to be observed at the quantum level of uncertainty. These cells communicate and cooperate with each other, jointly working towards goals of which the ‘reasoning’ individuals themselves are largely unaware. From the synchronised firing of neurons in the brain and the brainwaves that are testament to them, to the changes in gene expression which underscore the slow pulsation of the circadian rhythm, to the concerted firing of the heart muscle cells which produce the heartbeat necessary for growth and sustained living. The vastly complex interconnections form a vast distributed network which spontaneously takes in sensory information, processes it, forms an ordered cognition, and compels the brain to use intelligent ‘reasoning’ in apprehending fine details about the external world, itself the self same quantum mechanical system that I have just described.
Although it is a complex set of circumstances at the atomic level that makes a human body different from, say, a cloud, a tree, a chainsaw, even stardust, if one zooms in at the lowest levels we are all made up of the same stuff. Now this, it seems to me, leaves us with only two possibilities. Either there is not an Absolute Reason to underpin all of this or there is. If there isn’t then all this subatomic activity at the gritty lower levels is not emergent reasoning, it is simply inert non-intelligent matter serendipitously producing an organism that can self-replicate and (eventually) creatures like us that can use the highest form of rationale in any living thing. Remember that according to the naturalist this comes from gritty non-sentience, in fact, all this comes from energy crystallised out of nothing, and yet it goes on to produce the type of reasoning and extraordinary abilities that we have seen in human beings from our initial bipedal days right through to men and women that can understand the primary principles of nature herself.
When asked by the naturalist to believe that all that came about by accident, I am asked to believe that this stupendous thing we call ‘reasoning’ emerged from something that was once non-reason - a set of cosmic flukes that were never embedded with the designed mechanism to engender any kind of ‘reasoning’ yet went on to engender minds like our own; I am being asked to betray everything that makes sense to me, and in the process, when it comes to the reliability of the naturalist’s position, saw off the only branch that is supporting me. No I find it makes much more sense - the ONLY sense, in fact, if I treat Reason as an Absolute, emanating from a mind that has the properties of Aseity and contains His own explanation - the self-affirming, self-evident truth that we see in Jesus Christ - the one who has made Himself known and can be known by any mind that wishes to know Him.
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