>Really? You didn't understand me? That's weird, seeing as you claim to be able to understand none other than God. Contradiction
I didn't claim to be able to understand God. What I claimed is that the fine-tuning argument does not posit a designer that is beyond understanding.
>Those two have done no such thing. Their concepts of God are incompatible with the designer. One is non-intelligent, and the other is indifferent. False claim
Both thinkers ascribe an intellect to God.
However - yes, Spinoza's God is indifferent, and you might reasonably argue that Spinoza's system isn't reconcilable with the fine-tuning argument (Spinoza himself would say that the universe is the way it is out of necessity.)
But the point here is that Spinoza---several of whose arguments are not that alien to the traditional theology before him---is a thinker one could look to to see arguments about the cause of the universe has certain properties. Look at Ethics until Proposition XVII. One can argue for the designer, argue that he is to be identified with substance, and accept all these propositions---coming away with understanding of the designer.
Really, I only mention Spinoza and Aristotle here because I thought one would be less inclined to dismiss them out of hand as saying anything remotely similar to "A triangle does not have three sides. To find out why, and to get saved, come to the service on Sunday! (don't forget the donation)". Of course, Spinoza and Aristotle are not the only ones who discuss God in a way not like this. You can see, for example, Aquinas's discussion of whether God has X property in his Summa, and he makes no assertions like this---but since my earlier mention of theologians elicited the reaction that it did, I tried not to discuss traditional theology further. And no, this is not me saying that further discussion of designer requires religion---one can buy certain arguments about God and his properties but still reject religion; reading the Summa does not force you to buy every single claim that Aquinas makes (even many Christians don't). One can agree with some claims and disagree with others---it's certainly possible to buy the fine-tuning argument and then buy certain Aquinas-style arguments that the designer has certain properties, but disagree with Aquinas's arguments that the designer is to be identified with the God of any religion. Indeed, a common criticism of arguments for God is that even if they succeed and are even successful in establishing certain properties of God, they are not sufficient in establishing the truth of religion.
>Spinoza and atheism
Indeed, it is true that Nadler's thought here is a bit hard to make sense of given Spinoza's discussion of God since belief in God seems to directly contradict atheism, as you've correctly pointed out. What I think Nadler has in mind here is that Spinoza's God is so radically different from the normal theistic conception of God that he is essentially atheist, see a short article by him on his explanation of why Spinoza is atheist [0]. I'm not sure he is using atheist in the normal sense of the word here, yes. I bring this claim of Nadler's up only to make Spinoza's thought (a good portion of which is not too different from, say, Aquinas's thought) and arguments about God and various properties of him more amenable and less liable to dismiss him out of hand for trying to donate to some church, or something like this.
>Also, Spinoza's idea of the intellect that you reference is incompatible with the intelligence required for the fine tuner. Non sequitur
It's not clear that this is the case. The intellect that Spinoza ascribes to God is not unlike the intellect that, just for example, Aquinas, fairly orthodox (little-o) in his theology (and whose fifth way is in a sense a predecessor of design arguments like the fine-tuning argument), ascribes to God. It seems reasonable to say Spinoza's further arguments (e.g. that there is nothing contingent in the world) are ones one cannot square with the fine-tuning argument, but one is not forced to buy those arguments.
>Also, no one has ever proven even the existence of God, let alone "many things" about him. All meta-physicists do is postulate. False claim
Philosophers who engage in metaphysics are primarily in the business of not just postulating arbitrary metaphysical claims, but rather in making arguments for metaphysical claims.
>Moreover, even if he did prove something about something, even God, that would not show that he did not ascribe meager power to the human mind. Non sequitur
The original claim here was that Spinoza ascribed meager power to the human mind, and thus claimed God was beyond understanding. In this sense of "meager power", clearly, Spinoza did not think so, as he believed he had proved various things about God, hence, understood various things about God.
>Aristotle is 100% affiliated with Christianity because St. Aquinas affiliated him with it. The fact that he was dead before St. Aquinas was born is irrelevant to the fact that he is now affiliated with St. Aquinas' religion, as his arguments can be found all over Christian theology. False claim
I don't know what to say here except to repeat again - Aristotle has no affiliation with any traditional religion in the sense that he was not Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., and wouldn't have recognized these religions (not the least because the first two didn't exist during his time). Aristotle does have an affiliation with Christianity in the sense that his thought was influential on important Christian theologians, such as Aquinas, yes, but this is not the only sense in which a person has a religious affiliation. I mean religious affiliation in the sense that one would normally interpret the question "What is your religious affiliation?" to which the answer has nothing to do with whether your thought has influenced some religion in some major way. Clearly, Aristotle was not affiliated with Christianity in this sense, even if he were alive today, not the least because many aspects of his thought needed to be reinterpreted to be squared with Christian theology. This is relevant because there is no contradiction in someone being an Aristotelian today but not subscribing to any religion, just to illustrate the point of how there is thought compatible with understanding the designer that does not tie one into any religion.
>Moreover, you did not seem to mind dragging him into fine tuning, although he was dead before fine tuning came about. So you want to have it both ways? When it's convenient for you, it's Ok to affiliate him with a concept (fine tuning) although he was dead before the concept came about, but when it gets inconvenient for you, it's suddenly not Ok to affiliate him with a concept (Christianity) because he was dead before it came about? Bad faith
I haven't dragged him into fine-tuning or affiliated him with fine-tuning. What I have done is pointed to him as an example of someone whose arguments about the designer of the world (unmoved mover) could be leveraged to establish properties of the designer, hence gain understanding of the designer. The only reason I have pointed to him as opposed to, say, Aquinas, is to avoid a dismissive response involving donations to a church.
>The problem of evil is not something you can use as an argument that the designer is not all good, because you would need to establish the designer first, and the problem of evil does not do that. False claim
But what's at stake here is not whether any argument succeeds in establishing the designer. What's at stake here is whether the fine-tuning argument posits a designer that is beyond understanding. What I'm saying here is that if one buys the fine-tuning argument, one could plausibly establish that the designer could not be all-good via the problem of evil, thus gaining knowledge of the designer, viz. that the designer is not all-good.
>It does not get you to knowledge of the absence of a property of the designer because it does not even establish the designer. All it does is show that a particular kind of a designer is logically inconsistent. So you would need to first establish this designer, before you can start getting to knowing some of its properties. But how are you going to establish this designer? Fine tuning? But you are in the middle of arguing that fine tuning is not nonsense. So you want to use a time machine to jump forward in time where you have established fine tuning as a valid argument, and then jump back here to use it to support the thing that supports it? Circular reasoning
But I'm not in the business of establishing a designer, what I am in the business of is establishing that the fine-tuning argument is not positing a designer beyond understanding. Indeed, I am saying that the fine-tuning argument is not nonsense. Of course, an argument doesn't have to succeed to not be nonsense.
(Aside: this is why there is a stark difference in tone between the SEP article for the fine-tuning argument [1] and intelligent design [2], relevant here due to your earlier comments about both being equally silly examples of "Goddidit". )
>Really? You didn't understand me? That's weird, seeing as you claim to be able to understand none other than God. Contradiction
I didn't claim to be able to understand God. What I claimed is that the fine-tuning argument does not posit a designer that is beyond understanding.
>Those two have done no such thing. Their concepts of God are incompatible with the designer. One is non-intelligent, and the other is indifferent. False claim
Both thinkers ascribe an intellect to God.
However - yes, Spinoza's God is indifferent, and you might reasonably argue that Spinoza's system isn't reconcilable with the fine-tuning argument (Spinoza himself would say that the universe is the way it is out of necessity.)
But the point here is that Spinoza---several of whose arguments are not that alien to the traditional theology before him---is a thinker one could look to to see arguments about the cause of the universe has certain properties. Look at Ethics until Proposition XVII. One can argue for the designer, argue that he is to be identified with substance, and accept all these propositions---coming away with understanding of the designer.
Really, I only mention Spinoza and Aristotle here because I thought one would be less inclined to dismiss them out of hand as saying anything remotely similar to "A triangle does not have three sides. To find out why, and to get saved, come to the service on Sunday! (don't forget the donation)". Of course, Spinoza and Aristotle are not the only ones who discuss God in a way not like this. You can see, for example, Aquinas's discussion of whether God has X property in his Summa, and he makes no assertions like this---but since my earlier mention of theologians elicited the reaction that it did, I tried not to discuss traditional theology further. And no, this is not me saying that further discussion of designer requires religion---one can buy certain arguments about God and his properties but still reject religion; reading the Summa does not force you to buy every single claim that Aquinas makes (even many Christians don't). One can agree with some claims and disagree with others---it's certainly possible to buy the fine-tuning argument and then buy certain Aquinas-style arguments that the designer has certain properties, but disagree with Aquinas's arguments that the designer is to be identified with the God of any religion. Indeed, a common criticism of arguments for God is that even if they succeed and are even successful in establishing certain properties of God, they are not sufficient in establishing the truth of religion.
>Spinoza and atheism
Indeed, it is true that Nadler's thought here is a bit hard to make sense of given Spinoza's discussion of God since belief in God seems to directly contradict atheism, as you've correctly pointed out. What I think Nadler has in mind here is that Spinoza's God is so radically different from the normal theistic conception of God that he is essentially atheist, see a short article by him on his explanation of why Spinoza is atheist [0]. I'm not sure he is using atheist in the normal sense of the word here, yes. I bring this claim of Nadler's up only to make Spinoza's thought (a good portion of which is not too different from, say, Aquinas's thought) and arguments about God and various properties of him more amenable and less liable to dismiss him out of hand for trying to donate to some church, or something like this.
>Also, Spinoza's idea of the intellect that you reference is incompatible with the intelligence required for the fine tuner. Non sequitur
It's not clear that this is the case. The intellect that Spinoza ascribes to God is not unlike the intellect that, just for example, Aquinas, fairly orthodox (little-o) in his theology (and whose fifth way is in a sense a predecessor of design arguments like the fine-tuning argument), ascribes to God. It seems reasonable to say Spinoza's further arguments (e.g. that there is nothing contingent in the world) are ones one cannot square with the fine-tuning argument, but one is not forced to buy those arguments.
>Also, no one has ever proven even the existence of God, let alone "many things" about him. All meta-physicists do is postulate. False claim
Philosophers who engage in metaphysics are primarily in the business of not just postulating arbitrary metaphysical claims, but rather in making arguments for metaphysical claims.
>Moreover, even if he did prove something about something, even God, that would not show that he did not ascribe meager power to the human mind. Non sequitur
The original claim here was that Spinoza ascribed meager power to the human mind, and thus claimed God was beyond understanding. In this sense of "meager power", clearly, Spinoza did not think so, as he believed he had proved various things about God, hence, understood various things about God.
>Aristotle is 100% affiliated with Christianity because St. Aquinas affiliated him with it. The fact that he was dead before St. Aquinas was born is irrelevant to the fact that he is now affiliated with St. Aquinas' religion, as his arguments can be found all over Christian theology. False claim
I don't know what to say here except to repeat again - Aristotle has no affiliation with any traditional religion in the sense that he was not Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., and wouldn't have recognized these religions (not the least because the first two didn't exist during his time). Aristotle does have an affiliation with Christianity in the sense that his thought was influential on important Christian theologians, such as Aquinas, yes, but this is not the only sense in which a person has a religious affiliation. I mean religious affiliation in the sense that one would normally interpret the question "What is your religious affiliation?" to which the answer has nothing to do with whether your thought has influenced some religion in some major way. Clearly, Aristotle was not affiliated with Christianity in this sense, even if he were alive today, not the least because many aspects of his thought needed to be reinterpreted to be squared with Christian theology. This is relevant because there is no contradiction in someone being an Aristotelian today but not subscribing to any religion, just to illustrate the point of how there is thought compatible with understanding the designer that does not tie one into any religion.
>Moreover, you did not seem to mind dragging him into fine tuning, although he was dead before fine tuning came about. So you want to have it both ways? When it's convenient for you, it's Ok to affiliate him with a concept (fine tuning) although he was dead before the concept came about, but when it gets inconvenient for you, it's suddenly not Ok to affiliate him with a concept (Christianity) because he was dead before it came about? Bad faith
I haven't dragged him into fine-tuning or affiliated him with fine-tuning. What I have done is pointed to him as an example of someone whose arguments about the designer of the world (unmoved mover) could be leveraged to establish properties of the designer, hence gain understanding of the designer. The only reason I have pointed to him as opposed to, say, Aquinas, is to avoid a dismissive response involving donations to a church.
>The problem of evil is not something you can use as an argument that the designer is not all good, because you would need to establish the designer first, and the problem of evil does not do that. False claim
But what's at stake here is not whether any argument succeeds in establishing the designer. What's at stake here is whether the fine-tuning argument posits a designer that is beyond understanding. What I'm saying here is that if one buys the fine-tuning argument, one could plausibly establish that the designer could not be all-good via the problem of evil, thus gaining knowledge of the designer, viz. that the designer is not all-good.
>It does not get you to knowledge of the absence of a property of the designer because it does not even establish the designer. All it does is show that a particular kind of a designer is logically inconsistent. So you would need to first establish this designer, before you can start getting to knowing some of its properties. But how are you going to establish this designer? Fine tuning? But you are in the middle of arguing that fine tuning is not nonsense. So you want to use a time machine to jump forward in time where you have established fine tuning as a valid argument, and then jump back here to use it to support the thing that supports it? Circular reasoning
But I'm not in the business of establishing a designer, what I am in the business of is establishing that the fine-tuning argument is not positing a designer beyond understanding. Indeed, I am saying that the fine-tuning argument is not nonsense. Of course, an argument doesn't have to succeed to not be nonsense. (Aside: this is why there is a stark difference in tone between the SEP article for the fine-tuning argument [1] and intelligent design [2], relevant here due to your earlier comments about both being equally silly examples of "Goddidit". )