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From: MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Causal determinism and non-materialist atheism
Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2025 22:01:26 +1100
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On 1/01/2025 9:19 am, John Harshman wrote:
> To put it another way, even if we can't support reason in a material 
> universe, adding God or any other non-material entities does nothing in 
> addition to support reason. It does nothing to increase any expectation 
> that reason exists.

If the thing preventing reason is causal determinism (i.e. the billiard 
balls will rebound where they must), then could not an interventionist 
God impart the capacity to humans to override this material constraint?

There remains the question of what is imparted exactly, and how does 
this provide the ability to truly reason?

Also, I'd be wary of pressing this to a kind of dualism, whereby 
(crudely) our physical brains are just a front for the immaterial soul 
which is the real brains behind the operation. Equally (as a theist), 
I'd be wary of denying the existence of an immaterial soul.

You may have detected that I'm somewhat uncertain of these things.