The Antimaterialist Self-Contradiction Argument

Here is another interesting argument from Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli's Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics:

A computer is not reliable if it has been programmed by chance rather than by rational design (e.g., by hailstones failing at random on its keyboard).

The human brain and nervous system are a computer.  They may be much more, but they are not less than a computer.  So the human brain is not reliable if it has been programmed by mere chance.

But if materialism is true, if the soul is only the brain, if there is no spirit, no human soul and no God, then the brain has been programmed by mere chance.  All the programming our brains have received, through heredity (genetics) and environment (society), is ultimately only unintelligent, undesigned, random chance, brute facts, physical causes, not logical reasons.

Therefore materialism cannot be true.  It refutes itself.  It destroys its own credentials.  If the brain is nothing but blind atoms, we have no reason to trust it when it tells us about anything, including itself and atoms.  Thus, if there is nothing but atoms, we have no reason to believe there is nothing but atoms.

If materialism is not true, this means there is immaterial reality too.  And that immaterial reality-usually called spirit, or soul-need not be subject to the laws of material reality, including the law of morality.1

Courage and Godspeed,
Chad

Footnote:
1. Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics, p. 91-92.

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