Video Transcript: Regulation not Derivation

In this session, I want to try to show you what I mean by a religious belief that is  a divinity belief, a belief in something, as the self evident reality that generates  everything else about such beliefs, exercising influence on theories, I'm going to  show you that it makes a difference to theories, what someone puts in the slot of being the divine reality. Let me start with an example of a theory that may be  familiar to a lot of you. Freud, famously has a theory in which he talks about the  ID as the serving surging driving power of desire in a person. Then he talks  about ego, and what he calls super ego. And he gives, he wrote many books in  which he speaks of these as the components of a human psychological  makeup. This is a drive, sometimes it's equated with sex drive, but he says, it's  not only that acquisition, ego is what emerges out of the conflict between ID and super ego. The super ego is where you have conscience, and you worry about  what's right. I have a drive and I want to accomplish this. Do I have to trample  somebody to get it? Maybe, if so, super ego kicks in and says, Oh, but that's  wrong, you wouldn't want to be treated that way. And he described human  makeup and human decision making and so on. In terms of these three  postulates, there is a theory that there's such a thing as ID. the ego, the super  ego, and what kind of thing those are, is treated very differently, depending upon a person's divinity belief. Freud himself pot posits these three things, right, these are proposals, hypotheses, in order to explain the human psychological  makeup, why people behave the way they do, and make the choices they do  and so on. In fact, at one point, Freud even said, that all the decisions we make, are driven by our unconscious emotional needs, or everything we believe we  believe, because of our unconscious emotional needs. Notice, that's a theory  that undercuts itself. Right? Because if every belief is that way, then Freud's  beliefs that all beliefs are controlled by an unconscious emotional needs, is  quote, unquote, controlled by his unconscious emotional needs. Very good,  doesn't recommend itself. But these three have caught on, they've entered into  the language. And most people take these to be non physical, they are, they are psychological. They are a part of the mind, the mind is not a physical object. So  there are brains and glands on one side and the non physical mind on the other.  And these are disposition, natural disposition, dispositions, of the, of the non  physical mind. But Freud himself was a materialist. And so in one of his late  books, I was surprised to read on that when was the title of it right now? These  are just temporary ways of talking about things. Until brain research will locate  what it is in the brain, that's the ego, the ID, the ego and super ego. So he thinks that they are physical. Right? And that's because what what it is the divine for  Freud? is a purely physical though if someone is a duelist, as most people who  aren't philosophers are, they believe that we have a mind or soul in addition to  the body? Then they're going to say, Well, no, that's why would you locate these in the brain, this is characteristics of the mind, the non physical component of  the soul, or whatever you want to call it, and they would have a very different 

view of it, particularly a rationalist. A rationalst will tell us that this has more to do with a person's rational nature, tempering and restraining the emotional side. So he just he would tend to regard these as emotional and this as rational. That's  what we get in Plato or Aristotle or a modern rationalist who says it's the reason  that's going to restrain the emotions and the evil it comes out of emotion and  good comes out of reason. That's another view. That view sees the divine as two things. Reason as well as the purely physical, that is to say, this person has two  divine principles, that's what dualist means has to there is not there is not only  the purely physical body, there is the purely rational mind. And the emotions  arise out of the purely physical body. And the reason arises out of the mind and  reasons is the super ego that restrains the other stuff. No, that would be wrong  to do, and so on. So how one postulates, the nature's of these things, right is  that's what I'm saying. It's not that a divinity, belief, hands Freud, these three as  a theory, no, those are invented by brilliant people, they think up their own  theories. But the nature's they attribute to these are controlled always by what  they put in the slot of being divine. So the materialist is not going to tell you  those are non-physical. To him, everything is physical, or caused by the  physical, the dualist is not going to admit that he's gonna say no, no rational,  and so on the other side. And we can get yet other things depending on what  people put down here. But clearly, think of Pythagoras, everything is  mathematical mathematical numbers. If these things exist at all, they too are  combinations of numbers. And they're rational. And maybe this is less so and  this is more so something like that. But that's what I mean by exercises  regulative control of a theory, the person's divinity belief does not hand him or  her the exact postulates of a theory what the theory proposes exists, that we  don't ordinarily see, like the molecules in the paint, or the ID, ego, and the super  ego. They don't hand them the very proposals of what they're saying exists in  order to explain what they want to explain, but it controls how we think of a  nature of the proposal. So it's not that if a person is a Christian, they'll think of  atomic theory that a persons a rationalist, they'll think of another theory.  Everybody agrees, sometimes atomic, atomic theory has said any number of  interpretations. Let me use that too. As the second example, we won't talk about ID, ego and super ego here, we'll talk about the atomic hypothesis. There are  atoms. There we go. There are atoms, plus subatomic particles. And laws that  govern them, we find the chemical laws, for example, of Valence with the outer  shells, the electrons of one atom interchange with the outer shell electrons of  another atom, and we have a chemical bonds, and so on all that kind of stuff.  Well, that hypothesis been around for a long time. And most people are unaware that there are radically different interpretations of it. So let me tell you what they  are. Now some of this, you're gonna think is pretty silly. And I'm not  recommending these theories. I'm just showing you how they in fact, have  worked out how divinity beliefs have exercise of their control. Of course, there 

are materialists. They hold that everything is either purely physical or caused by  the purely physical. So for them, an atom is a physical thing. The electrons in  the outer shell denote neutrons and protons in the nucleus. They're all purely  physical. That's a theory. That hypothesis about the nature of them is a theory  that is controlled by this materialistic ability belief or put DB divinity belief. Why?  Well, because there are other people who think that the essential characteristic  of an atom isn't physical, it's mathematical people, this would be more in accord  with the old Pythagorian view, there's matter there. But what's really important is the organization and that's governed by mathematical law. Here's another  example. Okay, we have materialists and we have rationalists of some sort  rationalist, it's the laws of math or math and logic or logic, that are that is the real essential characteristic of atoms and other subatomic particles. And then we  also get another theory. Now there are also people and in philosophy, this is  called the phenomenalist position. I hope you're sitting down for this. These  people have held that our experience the world that we experience, and  everything about it consists of sensations. We never really get past our own  sensations sensations register inside of us. Sights, taste, touches, smells and  sounds. In addition to that, we have the capacity to do logical reasoning. But all  the we experience are sensory perceptions, bunches of sights, taste, touches,  smells, and sounds, if they're not atoms then that's what they are. But do we  don't have any sight, taste, touch smell sound of an atom. And so the  phenomentalists, the people who hold this, the ultimate reality is our sense  perceptions. This divinity beliefs and here's their interpretation. Here's what one  of them said, very famous atomic physicist, atoms are useful fictions. They don't  exist. Neither do tables and chairs exist as objects outside of our minds, they're  just sensations in our minds, we can have this idea and we can fool around with  it. It's that's why it's useful. This is an atomic physicist, this is Ernst Mach, the  guy whose name you all know without knowing that you know it. Mach one is the speed of sound, double the speed of sound is Mach two, Mach three is three  times the speed of sound This fella. That's the way you spell his name. I had the unpleasant task one time of reading five books by Mach for my first book. This is what he held. And in doing so he followed thinkers like George Barkley and  David Hume, they held the same thing. And in the 20th century, right up till about 1960, there was a powerful philosophical movement made up of people who  were devoted to that point of view, called they were called logical positivists. Not phenomenaistsl. That's a mouthful. But at any rate, because the guy holds that  this is the character of reality. That's the character of any hypothesis he  proposes. There, we've got three different views of what an atom is. A fello like  Verner Heisenberg says in his book, when we find finally find the ultimate laws  for physics, they will undoubtedly turn out to be eternal laws, mathematical laws  for motion. Eternal mathematical laws, and then he hit that he says, This fits with the Pythagorean religion. And there's no proof of it. But I and a number of my 

colleagues hold this view. He recognizes very well that he's making the  numerical, the ultimate reality, the mathematical realm of math and laws, and so  on, and that, that this will give us the insight into anything that's true about this.  So he has a rationalist, one version of a rationalist point of view, what somebody puts into this slot of being the divine reality, their divinity, beliefs, controls how  they, how they think of the nature of the things that they postulate, the guesses  that they make, whatever those things are, whether it's atoms, Ids, egos and  super egos, whether they're syndromes, whatever it supposed to be historical  cycles, that it's going to have the nature of whatever the guy thinks is the nature  of the Divine. And here's, here's the kicker. For a Christian, it shouldn't be any of those things. Right? The Divinity that holds all things together, is the power of  God through Jesus Christ. And it's not identical with the mathematical, the  spatial, the physical, the sensory, the logical, or anything else. Those are all  created. None of them are what they are the real nature of reality, because  they're the real nature, the ultimate overall nature of reality is just to depend on  God doesn't have an intrinsic nature. Other than that, things that we encounter  in the world do a plant has a different nature from a boulder, which is a different  nature, again, from a horse, and so on. And we can give a good goodly account  of that sort of thing and those differences from a Christian point of view, that  doesn't need to deify turn into divine, any aspect of the reality we in which we  live in order to explain things or to provide the nature of of our hypothetical  guesses that we put forward in theories. I hope that helps to clear up what it is  we're looking for. It's not that our Christian religion is going to hand us a of  theory of geology, paleontology, biology, astronomy physics, if that's not going to hand us the postulates that we need in those fields, but it is going to prevent us  from deifying any one aspect of them and saying they are only of this nature.  One of the first consequences that follows is that things have a many sided  nature. Those are all true. Atoms have a sensory side, a logical side of  mathematical physical. Atoms have more than that. And we'll go we'll see how  that works out in some detail in our coming talks. I think you've had enough for  today. Something to think about.