Gangadean at Grand Canyon University, Part 1

Recently, I watched a lecture given by Gangadean at GCU. I started to write a reaction post to it, where I criticize many of his remarks, but it started to get very long. In an effort to be a bit more accessible, I've decided to make it into a series of posts--hopefully that will make things a bit easier to digest.  I'll add some rough time stamps to each of my comments, intended to correspond to Gangadean's talk. Here is Part 1.

1. Starting at minute 13:00, Gangadean cites as a sort of proof-text for his twin doctrines ("Clarity of General Revelation" and the "inexcusability of unbelief") Romans 1:20. Of course, what he glosses over entirely is the fact that what Gangadean means by 'clearly knowable' and 'without excuse' is something very technical and highly idiosyncratic (i.e., he stipulates the definitions). As I've argued before, there's no reason given for why we should think the author of the cited text (presumably Paul) is using the words 'inexcusable' or 'clearly' in the way that Gangadean does. For all we know, Paul's words could be tracking a more ordinary notion of 'without excuse' and 'clear' (e.g., it's clear to me that my neighbor is a minded being, even though I can't prove, by way of a deductive argument that this is so and it's inexcusable for me to think otherwise). But that's just what Gangadean needs if this is to serve as a proof-text for his philosophical views. If Gangadean doesn't mean to use it as a proof text, then the question is why should the church care about clarity and inexcusability in the first place?

Further, as I've argued before, Gangadean is a Calvinist and believes that God has predestined, those he will regenerate (so as to be able to know that God exists) and those he will leave in the unregenerated state. And the unregenerated are doomed--it's literally impossible for them (barring a divine act) to see what is clear about God. So at the end of the day, not only do the unregenerated have about the best excuse possible (God, you made me so that I couldn't possibly know you!), but it renders the issue of clarity rather moot. Who cares if God's existence is clear to reason, if it still remains metaphysically impossible for some people to know that God exists?

Gangadeanians have a ready response to this worry, but it's no good because it equivocates on the word 'excuse'. They are apt to say that the unregenerated will never complain to God, "why have you made me this way (as an unbeliever) so that I can't know that you exist?" The point here is supposed to be that it's unintelligible for the unregenerated to do so, because that would assume they knew that God exists, which would entail they have been regenerated. But this is neither here nor there. The question is about inexcusability--i.e., whether non believers have got a legitimate excuse for their unbelief. Or to put it another way, the issue is whether it is consistent with divine justice and goodness, that unbelievers are held morally responsible for their unbelief given that they cannot believe in God without an act of divine providence. If they have an excuse for their unbelief, then it wouldn't be fair or in accordance with divine justice or goodness to say relegate them to hell or spiritual death or whatever. Here's where the equivocation occurs. There's an important difference between the two statements.

(1) Agent A is not in a position to actually cite a particular excuse for her unbelief.  

(2) There is no condition which excuses A's unbelief.  

(1) is true of the unregenerated, but (2) is not. What's more, only (2) matters for whether or not God can justly/fairly destine unbelievers to spiritual death for all eternity for failing to believe that He exists. An analogy may be helpful at this point. Suppose that a person in the middle ages had a neurological condition from birth, which caused them to hit persons at random--it's basically like a tick and entirely involuntary. Is she morally responsible for hitting her neighbor on a particular occasion, if caused by her condition to do so? The clear answer seems to be, no. Why? Because the fact of her neurological condition which makes such acts involuntary is an excusing condition. However, suppose that there is some reason precluding her from ever citing such a reason in defense of her action. Maybe she lives in a time where the idea of neurological conditions determining behavior is hard to imagine so that she's not in a position to know that she suffers in this way. In this case, she's in no position to cite the fact that she's got a neurological condition as an excuse. The fact of the condition remains of course, but it's beyond her ken. But that doesn't mean she hasn't got an excuse. Facts about what a person can cite as an excuse and facts about what reasons there are that excuse her come apart. So when a Gangadeanian answers my expressed worry by citing that the unregenerated will never actually cite God's predeterimining on pain of unintelligibility, they simply miss the mark by conflating (1) and (2). The unregenerated have an excuse in the sense of (2) and that's what matters to whether or not it's fair or just of God to hold them morally responsible for unbelief.


2. Relatedly, at around 15:00, Gangadean tell us that "it is clear that God exists" entails that anyone of "ordinary intellectual development" and "average intelligence" can know that God exists. He speaks about how just a little reflection yields the claim that the sun for instance, cannot be eternal.  Again this connects back to inexcusability. If spiritual death (Gangadean's version of hell) is the result of not knowing that God exists, then it has to be clear, insofar as God is good/just/fair. The question to ask then is whether the fact that all people of ordinary intellectual development and average intellingence can know God exists, is enough to make it fair/just/good for God to hold unbeliever responsible for unbelief. Well, that going to be depend largely on what we mean by 'can' in the current context. The words can, and could, roughly map onto the notion of possibility. As such can/could are ambiguous. Consider the following.

a) Surrendra can raise his hand.
b) Surrendra can grow to hate philosophy.
c) Surrendra can become a billionaire.
d) Surrendra can perform miracles.
e) Surrendra can bench press 185 lbs.
f) Surrendra can win the gold medal in the next olympics in speed skating.
g) Surrendra can sprout wings and fly.

There's a sense in which each of these is true because 'can' (possibility) comes in many flavors. That's why philosophers speak of not only of what is logically possible, but also of metaphysical, causal, nomological, deontic, bouletic, possibilities (to name a few). Now the important point here is that even though there is a sense in which a)---g) are all true, it doesn't seem like it would be just/good/fair of God to hold Surrendra responsible for each of these states of affairs. Even though there's a sense in which any person could/can become a millionaire, it doesn't make sense that God would hold us all responsible if we fail to become a millionaires. Now what should we say about the idea that all persons can come to know God? Well, it's unclear because Gangadean hasn't told us exactly which sense of 'can' or 'possible' he's got in mind. Once he's done that, then we can ask whether it would be fair/good/just that God holds all persons responsible for unbelief--then we can assess whether unbelievers have an excuse. One thing is clear, mere logical possibility won't do--these are far too inclusive. To reiterate, it wouldn't be fair/or just for God to hold Surrendra responsible for failing to win Gold in the upcoming olympics, even though it's logically possible that Surrendra do so. In which case, Surrendra would have an excuse for failing to win the olympics namely, that mere logically possibility of doing so is simply not enough.

Anderson in his book makes remarks that might be construed as an answer to this problem.  He suggests that 'can' is of a conditional sort which depends on one's desires so that "All persons can know what is clear" amounts to, "If any person wants to know what is clear, then they can." Of course, this is no good because he uses 'can' on both sides of the analysis and that's the very term we want to shed light on! So I think what he meant to say is that "I can know that God exists" amounts to something like, "If I want to know what is clear, then I will." In other words, one's desire to know what is clear is sufficient for knowing what is clear. But this analysis is false. The desire to know what is clear isn't by itself sufficient to know what is clear because knowledge requires forming beliefs on the basis of good reasons. It's a process that is not identical with forming a desire! It isn't as if people get zapped with knowledge as soon as they form the desire to know the truth. The other problem has already been mentioned above. Given their commitment to Calvinism, it's ultimately up to God whether or not each person wants to know what is clear (according to Gangadean, we're all created in total depravity and God chooses who will want to know what is clear, and who won't).  And as I stated above, that means unbelievers have a monster of an excuse for their unbelief.

Not only does this analysis seem unhelpful for the reasons I've just cited, but it still leaves us wondering what the relevant sense of 'can' in "all persons can know that God exists' is. Since per Anderson's analysis, the only thing thats preventing an unbeliever from knowing God (what is clear) is their desire, then we need to ask whether a person can have a different desire. Again we're faced with the question, what sense of 'can' had Anderson got in mind? As we've just seen, for Gangadeanians like Anderson, it requires an act of God according to the for the unregenerate's desires to change (for them to go from wanting not to know what is clear to wanting to know what is clear). The will cite that if this were not so, then humans would be blank slates and there would be no causal story to tell about their actions. So short of being self-created, if we are contingent for our existence on God, and if there are causal connections between our actions and our beings, then we've got to start with something like a basic desire (or set of desires) which God creates us with. And we can't just up and change such desires at will--that is, we can't change whether or not we want to know what is clear--that's up to God. But now it seems like it's metaphysically impossible for the unregenerate to see what is clear (to know that God exists)--because the only way they can is if they want to and the only way they will want to is if God changes their hearts/minds. If this is right, then again we have to ask, what does it matter that it's "clear"? The unregenerate in their current state cannot know what is clear. So the principle of clarity seems problematic on many grounds.

3. Starting around the 30:00 mark, Gangadean starts to talk about the unity of the faith and the unity of the spirit within the church. It's difficult to take him seriously when he speaks of the importance of unity--of any sort within the church. His ministry, his teachings are largely responsible for much division among families, friends, and this among fellow Christians!

He then speaks about his so called, rational presuppositionalism. He makes a strange claim: if we agree with what is more basic, we will (not just can) agree with what is less basic. But of course, he doesn't provide an argument for this claim. The emphasis on 'will' over 'can' is fairly new, and makes his contention even stronger. And it's simply false because there's no such entailment. That is to say, it's logically possible for two persons to agree on basic claims without agreeing on less basic claims.

He then goes on to talk about 'a is a' and 'not both a and non-a at the same time in the same respect'. But there's a huge lacuna between agreeing about these things to agreeing about whether there is anything unethical about transgenderism, for instance.

I've got 6 or 7 more critiques of the lecture, so I will likely add at least 2 more posts to this series.