The Argument from Consciousness – Dr J.P. Moreland

James Porter Moreland (born 1948), better known as J. P. Moreland, is an American philosopher, theologian, and Christian apologist. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in La Mirada, California. He received a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Southern California. Moreland is a prolific Christian author, lecturer, and debater on a wide range of philosophical, religious, and social issues. He is best known for his contributions to contemporary philosophical apologetics, his critiques of materialism and naturalism, and his defense of Christian theism.

 

Adapted from ‘Argument from Consciousness’ - Dr J.P. Moreland

Many naturalists are willing to admit that consciousness is a mystery. If the evolutionary process depends solely on the physical, how do we explain consciousness? Consciousness is among the most mystifying features of the cosmos. Philosopher Geoffrey Maddell states:

“The emergence of consciousness, then, is a mystery, and one to which materialism signally fails to provide an answer.” Mind and Materialism (1988, Edinburgh University Press)

Naturalist Colin McGinn claims that consciousness borders on sheer magic because there seems to be no naturalistic explanation for it:

“How can mere matter originate consciousness? How did evolution convert the water of biological tissue into the wine of consciousness? Consciousness seems like a radical novelty in the universe, not prefigured by the after-effects of the Big Bang; so how did it contrive to spring into being from what preceded it?” (The Mysterious Flame, 1999, Basic Books)

In other words, to the naturalist/materialist, matter is all there is and evolution is a purely physical process that produces only different arrangements of physical materials (DNA and so forth). And you can’t get consciousness from simply rearranging matter. Some argue that, while finite mental entities may be inexplicable on the naturalist worldview, they can be better explained by theism, thereby furnishing evidence for God’s existence.

As a result of the mystery of consciousness, many believe that finite minds provide evidence of a Divine Mind as their creator and template. If we limit our options to theism and naturalism, it is hard to see how finite consciousness could result from the rearrangment of mere matter. If you start with mere particles and just rearrange them according to physical law, you won’t get consciousness. It is easier to conceive how an infinite, immaterial and self-existent Conscious Being could produce finite consciousness.

Naturalists are committed to the view that, in principle, evolutionary explanations can be proffered for the appearance of all organisms and their parts. By the principle of natural selection, as long as an organism, when receiving certain inputs, generates the correct behavioural outputs under the demands of fighting, fleeing, reproducing and feeding, the organism will survive. What goes on inside the organism is irrelevant and only becomes significant for the processes of evolution when an output is produced. According to evolutionary theory, the functions organisms carry out consciously could just as well have been done unconsciously. Thus, both the sheer existence of conscious states and the precise mental content that constitutes them is outside the pale of evolutionary explanation.

Once we understand consciousness and its inexplicable nature when defined by evolutionary theory, we can see that consciousness provides evidence for God and against evolutionary naturalism.

An MP3 presentation on the Argument from Consciousness presented by Dr Moreland is available here.