Four questions for Keith Parsons [UPDATED 2/21]

Keith Parsons’ feelings are, it seems, still hurt over some frank things I said about him a few years ago (here and here).  It seems to me that when a guy dismisses as a “fraud” an entire academic field to which many thinkers of universally acknowledged genius have contributed, and maintains that its key arguments do not even rise to the level of a “respectable philosophical position” worthy of “serious academic attention,” then when its defenders hit back, he really ought to have a thicker skin and more of a sense of humor about himself.  But that’s just me.

 
Anyway, Parsons laments the bad “manners” I showed in having the temerity to give him a taste of his own medicine.  He says he wishes we could have had an “interesting discussion instead.”  So, in the interests of furthering that end I’ll refrain from returning his latest insults.  Instead I’d like to ask him four very straightforward questions to which I think both my readers and his would like to hear his answers.  A response should only take him a few moments.  I set out some context for each question, but I’ve put the questions themselves in bold so as to facilitate a speedy reply from Prof. Parsons.  Here they are:

1. Prof. Parsons, in your response to a reader’s comment, you say:

Unlike Prof. Feser, I would like to address the strongest claims of my opponents, and not those that seem weakest to me.

Evidently, then, you think I have failed to address the strongest criticisms either of my own arguments or of the arguments of philosophers to whose work I appeal (e.g. Aquinas).  So, who exactly are these critics I have ignored, or which of their criticisms, specifically, have I failed to address?  I’m sure you have something in particular in mind, so if you could take just a second or two to let us know what it is, I‘d appreciate it.

2. In the same response, you write vis-à-vis the doctrine of divine conservation:

Why, for instance, does a proton have to be maintained in existence? Why can't it just exist on its own? The very idea that existence is some sort of act that must be continually performed sounds to me, frankly, fatuous.

I assume, then, that you’ve studied and refuted the Scholastic arguments for divine conservation – which, of course, offer an answer to the question you raise -- and have just neglected to tell us where this refutation can be found.  So, could you tell us where we can find this refutation?  Is it in one of your books or journal articles?  Or could you point to some other author you think has adequately done the job?  (FYI, I have defended the Scholastic position at length in my American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly article “Existential Inertia and the Five Ways,” wherein I respond to the arguments on this topic presented by J. L. Mackie, Bede Rundle, John Beaudoin, and others.   I will be happy to email you a PDF of the article if you haven’t seen it, since I’d be very interested to hear which criticisms you think I’ve overlooked.) 

While I’ve got you, I also have a couple of questions about some remarks you made a few years ago when your dismissive remarks about natural theology were widely publicized: 

3. In response to a reader’s comment, you wrote:

I think Bertrand Russell's beautifully succinct critique of all causal arguments holds good: "If everything requires a cause, then God requires a cause. However, if anything can exist without a cause, it might as well be the universe as God."  Exactly.

Now, your Secular Outpost co-blogger and fellow atheist Jeffery Jay Lowder agrees with me that this is not in fact a good objection to arguments for a First Cause, because it attacks a straw man.  Specifically, Lowder has said:

[N]o respectable theologian or theistic philosopher has ever made the claim, "everything has a cause." Yet various new atheists have proceeded to attack that straw man of their own making. I remember, when reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, where he attacked that straw man and cringing. There are many different cosmological arguments for God's existence and none of them rely upon the stupid claim, "everything has a cause."

You won't find that mistake made by Quentin Smith, Graham Oppy, Paul Draper, or (if we add a theistic critic to the list) Wes Morriston.

End quote.  Now it would seem that what Lowder calls a “mistake” is one that you, Keith Parsons, have made.  But is Lowder wrong?  If he is, please tell us exactly which theistic philosophers who defend First Cause arguments – Avicenna? Maimonides? Aquinas? Scotus?  Leibniz? Clarke? Garrigou-Lagrange? Craig? -- actually ever gave the argument Russell was attacking.

4.  In response to another reader’s question, about Craig’s version of the First Cause argument, you wrote: “Both theists and atheists begin with an uncaused brute fact.  For Craig it is God, and for me it is the universe.”  Now, as you know, the expression “brute fact” is typically used in philosophy to convey the idea of something which is unintelligible or without explanation.  And your statement gives the impression that all theists, or at least most of them, regard God as a “brute fact” in this sense. 

But in fact that is the reverse of the truth.  Aristotelians, Neoplatonists, Thomists, Leibnizian rationalists, et al. would deny that God is a “brute fact.”  They would say that the explanation for God’s existence lies in the divine nature -- for Aristotelians, in God’s pure actuality; for Neoplatonists, in his absolute simplicity; for Thomists, in the fact that his essence and existence are identical; for Leibnizians in his being his own sufficient reason; and so forth.  (Naturally the atheist will not think the arguments of these thinkers are convincing.  But to say that they are not convincing is not the same thing as showing that the theist is either explicitly or implicitly committed to the notion that God is a “brute fact.”)

But perhaps you think the standard interpretation of the views of Aristotelians, Neoplatonists, Thomists, Leibnizian rationalists, et al. is mistaken.  Perhaps you think that these thinkers are in fact all explicitly or at least implicitly committed to the thesis that God is a “brute fact.”  So, could you please tell us where you have spelled out an argument justifying the claim that all or at least most philosophical theists regard God as a “brute fact” or are at least implicitly committed to the claim that he is?  Is there a book or journal article written by you or by someone else in which we can find this justification? 

Thanks.   I look forward to your answers and to an interesting discussion.

UPDATE 2/19: Over in his combox, Keith Parsons at first expressed interest in responding to my questions, but then in a follow-up comment wrote:

On second thought, after looking at your "straightforward questions" my answer is: Nah. I was expecting an invitation to a civil academic discussion, but I find that you are still in personal attack mode. My only response will be to assure you that you have not hurt my feelings at all. I think you are a horse's ass, and the disdain of your ilk is of no concern to me at all. Indeed, I consider it a badge of honor. Please do write more nasty things about me for the amusement of your ignorant and boorish followers. It makes my day when I piss off people like you guys.

I’ll let readers be the judge of which of us is “pissed off,” “nasty,” “in personal attack mode,” etc.; of whether I was right to characterize Parsons as too thin-skinned; and of why he decided not to respond to some polite and straightforward questions that should take him only a few moments to answer.  (Judging from his combox, Parson’s own readers aren’t too happy with his reply.) 

I’ve just posted a polite response in his combox.  Let’s see whether I’ve made his day again.

UPDATE 2/20: For those who aren’t following the proceedings in Parsons’ combox, in response to my polite restatement of my questions to him, Parsons wrote: 

Prof. Feser, 

You have written now, what is it, three lengthy columns attacking me? I think about you approximately zero percent of the time. Apparently, however, I am living rent free in your head. The kind of help you need is not the kind that I am professionally qualified to give.

By this point I found I couldn’t help but let slip the dogs of sarcasm, responding:

Prof. Parsons, 

Thanks for that. Just ran your comment through Google Translate. Here's what came out: "Prof. Feser, you've embarrassed me by asking four polite and simple questions I cannot answer, despite my having loudly shot my mouth off about the subjects in question for several years. So, I will try once again to deflect attention from this fact by accusing you of launching a personal attack, in the desperate hope that there might still be a few readers left who haven't bothered actually to read your blog post and see that my accusation is false. Also, I never give you any thought, except for all those times over the last few days and years that I've run to my computer to post comments to the effect that I never give you any thought." 

Can you confirm the accuracy of this translation?

 

To which Parsons replied: 

Prof. Feser, 

Thanks for the hysterical (in both senses of the term) calumny. You prove my point more eloquently than I ever could. Really, sir, you are in the grip of an irrational obsession. Get some help.  

Parsons’ readers have, almost to a man, expressed disappointment at his behavior, and now his co-blogger Jeff Lowder has called on Parsons to knock it off and just answer the questions I put to him.  But I doubt anything else he might say could be more illuminating than what he's said already.

UPDATE 2/21: If you’ve been following the continuing exchange in the combox over at Keith Parsons’ blog, you know that he has now agreed to an exchange with me, to be moderated by Jeffery Jay Lowder.  I’ll report the specific details after they are finalized.