I’m not usually fond of G.K. Chesterton. He’s one of those writers like C.S. Lewis or William F. Buckley that people like Hugh Hewitt are fond of because they put nonsense into very nice-sounding upper-class phrases with terms like “pedantry” and “quite apart from” and “stuff and nonsense.” This last phrase is particularly apt. Lots of stuff to disguise the nonsense.
Take for instance this quote, courtesy of Stuart Buck. The point Chesterton is trying to make is that science cannot tell us whether the soul survives death, therefore scientists shouldn’t express certainty on the subject. This argument is nonsense, as has been shown many times, but Chesterton conveys it with enough stuff to cover that fact.
No, there is no evidence that he soul survives death. A scientist is right to say that there is no such evidence, and that, in the absence of evidence, there is no rational, scientific basis for believing the assertion. Now, Chesterton or Buck might then argue that we ought to believe in this assertion for non-rational, non-scientific reasons, although the burden would then be upon them to show that non-rational, non-scientific thinking produces reliable or valid results. In the absence of such a showing, it’s as irrational to believe that the soul survives death as it would be to believe that there is a teacup orbiting Pluto. No, you can’t prove that it isn’t so, but you can never prove a negative, and no person seriously interested in the truth will suggest that you do so. Rather than confront these epistemological problems, Chesterton simply characterizes this position as insufficiently imaginative: “there is nothing to make a medical man a materialist, except what might make any man a materialist.” What what? Quite right, guv’nah. Cheer-io!
Well, that sort of logic might go over in Injya, but the right answer is, hear, hear, dear fellow! There is nothing to make a man a materialist except a serious rational dedication to facts and logic, and a refusal to stuff in a miracle whenever he feels his childhood fantasies being threatened. Provide the evidence, or explain why one should be free to think without evidence. But don’t use harrumphing crustiness to shore up a shoddy appeal to unreason.
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