On Cheungian Occasionalism

(Aquascum, aquascumSPAMMENOT at gmail dot com)

 

Last summer I posted a critique of Vincent Cheung’s Scripturalist and occasionalist epistemology (cf. <http://www.reformed.plus.com/aquascum/>). Recently, Cheung has posted a series of comments ostensibly in response to his critics (cf. <http://www.vincentcheung.com/2006/03/01/the-fatal-maneuver/>). As far as I can tell, none of it is in direct response to any specific critiques I’ve made. The closest I can find is the following paragraph of his:

 

Then, there is another objection that has to do with my view on divine sovereignty, and how it relates to metaphysics and epistemology. I affirm that God must be active in facilitating and controlling all human thoughts, whether true or false, biblical or heretical. The adherents of this other school of presuppositional apologetics once again tries to perform a fatal maneuver against me. They suggest that according to my view, I could be deceived in affirming my view. First, this is just outright stupid, since the Bible says that God can send evil spirits to convince people of error. So no matter how it happens, God is the one who decrees that someone would be deceived. Second, they demonstrate that they really have no idea how to perform this fatal maneuver, since it again backfires against them. If I am deceived in the way that the objection suggests (that is, by my own explanation of how one comes to believe falsehood), then it actually proves my position. If I am deceived in the way that I say one is deceived, then I am in fact not deceived. To illustrate, if God sends a demon to “deceive” someone into thinking that God does not send demons to deceive, then God does send demons to deceive. Likewise, if God causes me to believe the “falsehood” that it is God who causes one to believe falsehood, then God does cause one to believe falsehood, and I am in fact not deceived. In other words, my position cannot be demonstrated as self-refuting in the manner attempted by the objection.

 

I just want to point out that these ruminations on occasionalism don’t come close to addressing any of the criticisms I’ve made of Cheung’s views. In particular, the entirety of section four of my “A Response to Vincent Cheung” (cf. <http://www.reformed.plus.com/aquascum/cheung.htm>) is devoted to asking five questions:

 

4.1 What does Cheung mean by ‘occasionalism’?

4.2 Is occasionalism adequately grounded?

4.3 Is occasionalism in tension with Scripturalism?

4.4 Is occasionalism in tension with infallibilism?

4.5 Is occasionalism in tension with internalism?

 

Now, since the paragraph cited above might plausibly be taken as relevant to my arguments under 4.4, I just want to make clear the scope of that argument. To summarize, according to Cheung, since (a) God is the only cause in the universe, it follows that (b) God causes all beliefs whatsoever. But Cheung is no doubt aware that Scripture abundantly testifies to the fact that (c) many people have false beliefs, such as, say, “Jesus is not the Christ” or “Paul is not an apostle.” It follows from (b) and (c) that (d) the process of divine illumination (as Cheung defines it) is a fallible process, for many cases of God’s causing of our beliefs end up with our having false beliefs.

 

There is no need here to arbitrarily restrict our attention, as Cheung does in the paragraph above, to the particular epistemological belief that “it is God who causes one to believe falsehood.” No doubt that particular Cheungian belief cannot be both true and false at the same time. And if God causes us to believe every one of the falsehoods we in fact believe, then anyone’s Cheungian belief that “it is God who causes one to believe falsehood” would be true rather than false, and that is that.

 

But Cheung’s pointing out this obvious fact does nothing to overturn the argument that (b) and (c) imply (d), that occasionalist divine illumination is a fallible process. And since Cheung subscribes to the infallibilist constraint on knowledge (notice how Cheung presses the issue of fallible vs. infallible no less than eleven times in his short post at the link above!), it follows that Cheung’s occasionalism doesn’t secure knowledge, on Cheung’s own standards for knowledge. If Cheung rejects sense-experience as a source of knowledge on the grounds that our senses are fallible, then he should equally reject occasionalist divine illumination as a source of knowledge, on the grounds that occasionalist divine illumination is fallible. Presumably, even if occasionalist divine illumination were the case, then although any belief that “it is God who causes one to believe falsehood” would in fact be true, hundreds of other human beliefs caused by that same process would be false.

 

In section 4.4 of my critique above (which is a brief three paragraphs), I offer a couple of rejoinders which Cheung could make to my line of reasoning. But I go on to argue that they are equally hopeless in salvaging Cheung’s epistemology. I find it notable that the critique has been posted for nearly a year now, and Cheung still hasn’t managed to squarely face its arguments.

 

-- Aquascum