Subject: MATERIALISM

To: PRESTON SIMPSON

From: ROGER GRIFFITH

Date: 10/9/94 3:57:01 PM

MATERIALISM IS SELF REFUTING

"...no account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible for our thinking to be a real insight. A theory which explained everything else in the whole univere but which made it impossible to believe that our thinging was valid would be utterly out of court. For that theory would itself have been reached by thinking, and if thinking is not valid, that theory would, of course, be itself demolished. It would have proved that no argument was sound -- a proof that there are no such things as proofs -- which is nonsense.

...no thought is valid if it can be fully explained as the results of irrational causes.

But naturalism, as commonly held, is precisely a theory of this sort. The mind, like every other particular thing or event, is supposed to be simply the product of the Total System. It is supposed to be that and nothing more, to have no power whatever of going on to its own accord. And the Total System is not supposed to be rational. All thoughts whatever are therefore the results of irrational causes, and nothing more than that.

...The naturalist will have to admit that thoughts produced by lunacy or alcohol or by mere wish to disbelieve in naturalism are just as valid as his own thoughts. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The naturalist cannot condemn other people's thoughts because they have irrational causes and continue to believe his own thoughts which have (if naturalism is true) equally irrational causes.

Thus the Freudian proves that all thoughts are merely due to complexes -- except the thoughts which constitute this proof itself. The Marxist proves that all thoughts result from class conditioning -- except the thought he is thinking while he says this."

If all thoughts have irrational causes, then that thought itself has an irrational cause. So why should we believe it? If all thoughts are irrational chemical secretions, reactions, or electrical charges, then why should the thought of materialism be viewed as rational and reasonable?

As Lewis so aptly points out, the materialist wants to refute Christian thoughts by tracing them supposedly to irrational causes such as chemical determinism, behavioral conditioning, or class consciousness. But they exempt themselves. They cannot logically or rationally do this.

Origin: (1:301/10)

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