Atheism and Theism – Page 7 – Maverick Philosopher

Michael Walzer on Religion

At least one lefty gets religion.

Actually, the preceding sentence is ambiguous. The thought is that at least one leftist understands that religion has far deeper roots in human nature than a typical leftist analysis can expose, let alone eradicate. The following quotation borrowed from the weblog of Keith Burgess-Jackson:

The left has always had difficulty recognizing the power of religion. Aren’t all religions the ideological tools of the ruling class? And aren’t all millenialist and messianic uprisings the ideologically distorted response of subaltern groups to material oppression? Religious zealotry is a superstructural phenomenon and can only be explained by reference to the economic base. These ancient convictions are particularly obfuscating today. Parvez Ahmed, a Florida professor who is fully cognizant of the “scourge” of Boko Haram, provides a typical example in a recent blog [sic]. He argues that “much of the violence [committed] in the name of Islam is less motivated by faith and more so by poverty and desperation.” Similarly, Kathleen Cavanaugh from the National University of Ireland, writing on the Dissent website, insists that “the violent and oppressive actions [of ISIS] have little to do with religion per se,” but rather are “underpinned” by material interests. But is this right? Why don’t poverty, desperation, and material interests produce a leftist rather than an Islamist mobilization? In fact, the religious revival, not only among Muslims but around the world, among Jews and Christians, Hindus and Buddhists, has enlisted supporters from all social classes, and the driving motive of revivalist activity seems, incredibly, to be religious faith (Fawaz Gerges’s Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy provides ample evidence of religion’s power).

(Michael Walzer, "Islamism and the Left," Dissent 62 [winter 2015]: 107-17, at 112-3 [brackets in original])

Although Walzer has a better understanding of human nature than most lefties, he betrays his residual leftism by his use of 'incredibly' in the last sentence above.

Why is it "incredible" that people should have religious faith? Only a benighted leftist, soulless and superficial all the way down, bereft of understanding of human nature, could think that human beings could be satisfied by a merely material life. Religion answers to real needs of real people, the need for meaning, for example. Some meaning can be supplied by non-exploitative, mutually beneficial social interaction. But not ultimate meaning, meaning in the face of death. To put it cryptically, an "existing individual" (Kierkegaard) standing alone before God and eternity is no Marxian Gattungswesen.

Whether any religion can supply ultimate needs for sense and purpose and transcendence is of course a very different question. Suppose that no religion can. It would be a mistake to conclude that the needs are not real. It would be even more of a mistake to conclude that something as paltry as the utopias envisaged by Marxists could satisfy religious needs. Supplying everyone with a overabundance of natural goodies will never sate the human spirit. But it takes spirit to understand this point.

Leftists, and atheists generally, typically have a cartoon-like (mis)understanding of religion.

No higher religion is about providing natural goodies by supernatural means, goodies that cannot be had by natural means. Talk of pie-in-the-sky is but a cartoonish misrepresentation by those materialists who can only think in material terms and only believe in what they can hold in their hands. A religion such as Christianity promises a way out of the unsatisfactory predicament in which we find ourselves in this life. What makes our situation unsatisfactory is not merely our physical and mental weakness and the shortness of our lives. It is primarily our moral defects that make our lives in this world miserable. We lie and slander, steal and cheat, rape and murder. We are ungrateful for what we have and filled with inordinate desire for what we don't have and wouldn't satisfy us even if we had it. We are avaricious, gluttonous, proud, boastful and self-deceived. It is not just that our wills are weak; our wills are perverse. It is not just that our hearts are cold; our hearts are foul. You say none of this applies to you? Very well, you will end up the victim of those to whom these predicates do apply. And then your misery will be, not the misery of the evil-doer, but the misery of the victim and the slave. You may find yourself forlorn and forsaken in a concentration camp. Suffering you can bear, but not meaningless suffering, not injustice and absurdity.

Whether or not the higher religions can deliver what they promise, what they promise first and foremost is deliverance from ignorance and delusion, salvation from meaninglessness and moral evil. No physical technology and no socio-political restructuring can do what religion tries to do. Suppose a technology is developed that actually reverses the processes of aging and keeps us all alive indefinitely. This is pure fantasy, of course, given the manifold contingencies of the world (nuclear and biological warfare, terrorism, natural disasters, etc.); but just suppose. Our spiritual and moral predicament would remain as deeply fouled-up as it has always been and religion would remain in business.

It helps to study history. The Communists slaughtered 100 million 'cows' in the 20th century alone. But where's the beef?

It could be like this. All religions are false; none can deliver what they promise. Naturalism is true: reality is exhausted by the space-time system. You are not unreasonable if you believe this. But I say you are unreasonable if you think that technologies derived from the sciences of nature can deliver what religions have promised, or any socio-political re-arrangement can.

As long as there are human beings there will be religion. The only way I can imagine religion withering away is if humanity allows itself to be gradually replaced by soulless robots. But in that case it will not be that the promises of religion are fulfilled by science; it would be that no one would be around having religious needs.

Nietzsche and the New Atheists

The following quotation from a very interesting Guardian piece by John Gray entitled What Scares the New Atheists (HT: Karl White):

[1] The new atheists rarely mention Friedrich Nietzsche, and when they do it is usually to dismiss him. [2] This can’t be because Nietzsche’s ideas are said to have inspired the Nazi cult of racial inequality – an unlikely tale, given that the Nazis claimed their racism was based in science. [3]The reason Nietzsche has been excluded from the mainstream of contemporary atheist thinking is that he exposed the problem atheism has with morality. [4] It’s not that atheists can’t be moral – the subject of so many mawkish debates. [5] The question is which morality an atheist should serve.

Five sentences, five comments.

1. Yes.

2. Granted, the Nazis claimed their racism was based in science. But this is consistent with their racism having other sources as well. So it doesn't follow that it is an "unlikely tale" that the Nazis drew inspiration from Nietzsche. I say it is very likely. See Nietzsche and Nationalism Socialism.

3. Spot on!

4. Agreed, atheists can be moral. Indeed, some atheists are more moral that some theists — even when the moral code is the Decalogue minus the commandments that mention God. The question whether an atheist can be moral, however, is ambiguous. While it is clear that an atheist can be moral in the sense of satisfying moral demands, it is not clear that an atheist can be moral in the sense of recognizing moral demands in the first place. It is an open question whether an atheist, consistent with his atheism, could have justification for admitting objective moral demands.

5. Before one can ask which morality an atheist should serve, there is a logically prior question that needs asking and answering, one that Gray glides right past, namely,

Q. Is there any morality, any moral code, that an atheist would be justified in adhering to and justified in demanding that others adhere to?

If a negative answer is given to (Q), then Gray's logically posterior question lapses.

Most of us in the West, atheists and theists alike, do agree on a minimal moral code. Don't we all object to child molestation, female sexual mutilation, wanton killing of human beings, rape, theft, lying, financial swindling, extortion, and arson? And in objecting to these actions, we mean our objections to be more than merely subjectively valid. When our property is stolen or a neighbor murdered, we consider that an objective wrong has been done. And when the murderer is apprehended, tried, and convicted we judge that something objectively right has been done. But if an innocent person is falsely accused and convicted, we judge that something objectively wrong has been done. Let's not worry about the details or the special cases: killing in self-defense, abortion, etc. There are plenty of gray areas. The existence of gray, however, does not rule out that of black and white. Surely, in the West at least, there is some moral common ground that most atheists and theists, liberals and conservatives, stand upon. For example, most of us agree that snuffing out the life of an adult, non-comatose, healthy human being for entertainment purposes is objectively wrong.

What (Q) asks about is the foundation or basis of the agreed-upon objectively binding moral code. This is not a sociological or any kind of empirical question. Nor is it a question in normative ethics. The question is not what we ought to do and leave undone, for we are assuming that we already have a rough answer to that. The question is meta-ethical: what does morality rest on, if on anything?

There are different theories. Some will say that morality requires a supernatural foundation, others that a natural foundation suffices. I myself do not see how naturalism is up to the task of providing an objective foundation for even a minimal code of morality.

But of course one could be an atheist without being a naturalist. One could hold that there are objective values, but no God, and that ethical prescriptions and proscriptions are axiologically grounded. (N. Hartmann, for example.) But let's assume, with Nietzsche, that if you get rid of God, you get rid of the Platonic menagerie (to cop a phrase from Plantinga) as well. It needs arguing, but it is reasonable to hold that God and Platonica stand and fall together. That is what Nietzsche would say and I think he would be right were he to say it. (The death of God is not an insignificant 'event' like the falling to earth of a piece of space junk such as Russell's celestial teapot.)

No God, no objective morality binding for all. Suppose that is the case. Then how will the new atheist, who is also a liberal, uphold and ground his 'enlightened' liberal morality? John Gray appreciates the difficulty:

Awkwardly for these atheists, Nietzsche understood that modern liberalism was a secular incarnation of these religious traditions. [. . .] Nietzsche was clear that the chief sources of liberalism were in Jewish and Christian theism: that is why he was so bitterly hostile to these religions. He was an atheist in large part because he rejected liberal values. To be sure, evangelical unbelievers adamantly deny that liberalism needs any support from theism. If they are philosophers, they will wheel out their rusty intellectual equipment and assert that those who think liberalism relies on ideas and beliefs inherited from religion are guilty of a genetic fallacy. Canonical liberal thinkers such as John Locke and Immanuel Kant may have been steeped in theism; but ideas are not falsified because they originate in errors. The far-reaching claims these thinkers have made for liberal values can be detached from their theistic beginnings; a liberal morality that applies to all human beings can be formulated without any mention of religion. Or so we are continually being told. The trouble is that it’s hard to make any sense of the idea of a universal morality without invoking an understanding of what it is to be human that has been borrowed from theism.

Gray is right. Let me spell it out a bit.

Consider equality. As a matter of empirical fact, we are not equal, not physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, socially, politically, economically. By no empirical measure are people equal. We are naturally unequal. And yet we are supposedly equal as persons. This equality as persons we take as requiring equality of treatment. Kant, for example, insists that every human being, and indeed very rational being human or not, exists as an end in himself and therefore must never be treated as a means to an end. A person is not a thing in nature to be used as we see fit. For this reason, slavery is a grave moral evil. A person is a rational being and must be accorded respect just in virtue of being a person. And this regardless of inevitable empirical differences among persons. Thus in his third formulation of the Categorical Imperative in his 1785 Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant writes:

Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only. (Grundlegung 429)

In connection with this supreme practical injunction, Kant distinguishes between price and dignity. (435) "Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has dignity." Dignity is intrinsic moral worth. Each rational being, each person, is thus irreplaceably and intrinsically valuable with a value that is both infinite — in that no price can be placed upon it — and the same for all. The irreplaceability of persons is a very rich theme, one we must return to in subsequent posts.

These are beautiful and lofty thoughts, no doubt, and most of us in the West (and not just in the West) accept them in some more or less confused form. But what do these pieties have to do with reality? Especially if reality is exhausted by space-time-matter?

Again, we are not equal by any empirical measure. We are not equal as animals or even as rational animals. (Rationality might just be an evolutionary adaptation.) We are supposedly equal as persons, as subjects of experience, as free agents. But what could a person be if not just a living human animal (or a living 'Martian' animal). And given how bloody many of these human animals there are, why should they be regarded as infinitely precious? Are they not just highly complex physical systems? Surely you won't say that complexity confers value, let alone infinite value. Why should the more complex be more valuable than the less complex? And surely you are not a species-chauvinist who believes that h. sapiens is the crown of 'creation' because we happen to be these critters.

If we are unequal as animals and equal as persons, then a person is not an animal. What then is a person? And what makes them equal in dignity and equal in rights and infinite in worth?

Now theism can answer these questions. We are persons and not mere animals because we are created in the image and likeness of the Supreme Person. We are equal as persons because we are, to put it metaphorically, sons and daughters of one and the same Father. Since the Source we depend on for our being, intelligibility, and value is one and the same, we are equal as derivatives of that Source. We are infinite in worth because we have a higher destiny, a higher vocation, which extends beyond our animal existence: we are created to participate eternally in the Divine Life.

But if you reject theism, how will you uphold the Kantian values adumbrated above? If there is no God and no soul and no eternal destiny, what reasons, other than merely prudential ones, could I have for not enslaving you should I desire to do so and have the power to do so?

Aristotle thought it natural that some men should be slaves. We find this notion morally abhorrent. But why should we if we reject the Judeo-Christian God? "We just do." But that's only because we are running on the fumes of the Judeo-Christian tradition. What happens when the fumes run out?

It is easy to see that it makes no sense, using terms strictly, to speak of anything or anybody as a creature if there is no creator. It is less easy to see, but equally true, that it makes no sense to try to hold on to notions such as that of the equality and dignity of persons after their metaphysical foundations in Christian theism have been undermined.

So there you have the Nietzschean challenge to the New Atheists. No God, then no justification for your liberal values! Pay attention, Sam. Make a clean sweep! Just as religion is for the weak who won't face reality, so is liberalism. The world belongs to the strong, to those who have the power to impose their will upon it. The world belongs to those hard as diamonds, not to those soft as coal and weak and womanish. Nietzsche:

Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation – but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped?

Beyond Good and Evil, Chapter 9, What is Noble?, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote

More quotations on strength and weakness here.

Theism Meets Metaphysical Naturalism

The following is an excerpt of an e-mail from the Barcelona lawyer, Daniel Vincente Carillo. As I mentioned to him in a private e-mail, I admire him for tackling these great questions, and doing so in a foreign language. The pursuit of these questions ennobles us while humbling us at the same time. Carillo writes,

In the contest between theism and metaphysical naturalism we have only four possible scenarios:

1st. An uncaused and necessary universe: It doesn't exist by another being and it cannot cease to exist (absolute and eternal universe).

BV: This is indeed a doxastic possibility. (By calling the possibility doxastic, I leave it open whether it is a real possibility.) But one ought to distinguish between omnitemporality and eternality. The omnitemporal exists at every time, and is therefore 'in time.' The eternal does not exist 'in time.' A universe that cannot cease to exist is in time and therefore not eternal. This could be a merely terminological matter.

2nd. A caused and necessary universe: It exists by another being but it cannot cease to exist (infinite series of universes).

BV: It is true that what is caused to exist is caused by another, since nothing can cause itself to exist, not even God. To say that God is causa sui, then, does not mean that he causes himself; it means that he is not caused by another. 'Causa sui,' shall we say, is a privative expression. So far, so good.

But Carillo may be conflating the necessary with the omnitemporal. To say that a universe is necessary is to make a modal claim, one that is much stronger than the merely temporal claim that the universe in question exists at every time. Suppose time is actually infinite in both past and future directions and that the universe (or a universe) exists at every time. Then the universe is omnitemporal: it exists at every time. But it doesn't follow that the universe is necessary. Metaphysical necessity is a modal, not temporal notion. The necessary is that which cannot not exist. An omnitemporal universe could well be contingent, i.e., possibly nonexistent.

In the jargon of 'possible worlds,' a necessary being is one that exists in all possible worlds. An omnitemporal being is one that exists at every time in a world in which there is time. Clearly, if x is omnitemporal, it does not follow that x is necessary.

3rd. An uncaused and contingent universe: It doesn't exist by another being but it can cease to exist (universe from nothing).

BV: But even if an uncaused universe could NOT cease to exist, it might still be contingent. Suppose that there is an uncaused universe U which is such that: if it exists, then it cannot cease to exist. U's being contingent is not ruled out. If it is necessary that U continue to exist if it does exist,it does not follow that U necessarily exists. For there might not have been that universe at all.

4th. A caused and contingent universe: It exists by another being and it can cease to exist (created universe).

BV: But again, if U exists ab alio, this is logically consistent with U's never ceasing to exist. Suppose God creates a universe which has the essential property of being omnitemporal. He creates a universe out of nothing that exists at every time. Since it exists at every time, there is no time at which it does not exist. And because there is no time at which U does not exist, it never ceases to exist. (If x ceases to exist, then there are two times, t and t*, t < t*, such that x exists at t but does not exist at t*.) So a universe can depend for its existence on God even if it cannot cease to exist.

The first three options characterize atheism/naturalism, while the last one is peculiar to theism. But are they equally rational? Definitely not.

BV: A minor point is that atheism and naturalism are not the same. The latter entails the former, but the former does not entail the latter. (The case of McTaggart, atheist but non-naturalist).

Despite my criticism above, the three naturalist options Carillo lists do seem to exhaust the possibilities if we assume that a metaphysical naturalist is also a metaphysical realist, an assumption which is quite 'natural.' But if one were a naturalist and some sort of anti-realist or idealist, that would be a further option.

Now how does Carillo exclude the third option? He writes:

It looks like the 3rd possibility is the weakest, since nothingness cannot create anything at all. The act of creation, like any other act of producing something, presupposes that the creator and the creature exist simultaneously at least in some moment. However, by its very notion, nothingness cannot exist simultaneously with the universe at any moment. Therefore, a universe from nothing is impossible . . . .

This is entirely too quick. True, nothingness cannot create anything. But someone who holds that the universe just exists as a matter of brute fact, i.e., contingently without cause or reason, is not committed to maintaining that nothingness has creative power. As I recall from Russell's debate with Copleston, Russell ends up saying that the universe just exists and that is all! That is not a good answer, in my opinion, but one cannot refute it by pointing out that nothingness cannot create anything. The whole point of naturalism is that there are neither creatures nor creator.

What Does It Mean to Say that Nothing is Sacred?

Yesterday I quoted Christopher Hitchens as saying that nothing is sacred. I now ask what it means to say that nothing is sacred. I think it means something like the following. Nothing, nothing at all, is holy, venerable, worthy of worship; nothing is an appropriate object of reverence. (One cannot appropriately revere one's spouse, 'worship the ground she walks on,' etc.) If nothing is sacred, then nothing is so far above us in reality and value as to require our submission and obedience as the only adequate responses to it.

If nothing is sacred, then man is the measure of all things; he is not measured by a standard external to him. Man is autonomous: he gives the law to himself. Human autonomy is absolute, the absolute. There is nothing beyond the human horizon except matter brute and blind. There is nothing that transcends the human scale. If so, then it makes sense for Hitchens to maintain that the right to free expression is absolute, subject to no restrictions or limitations: "the only thing that should be upheld at all costs and without qualification is the right of free expression."

The right to mock and deride religious figures such as Muhammad follows. For if nothing is sacred, then there is no God, no Allah, and hence no prophets of God. And of course no Son of God. If nothing is sacred and there is no God, then there is no revelation of God in any form, not in nature, not in a human person such as Jesus of Nazareth, and not in any scripture. If there is no God, then the Koran and the Bible are not the word of God; they are books like any other books, wholly human artifacts, and subject to criticism like any other books. And the same goes for physical objects and places. There are no holy relics and holy sites. Mecca and Jerusalem are not holy because, again, nothing is sacred. If there is nothing that is originally sacred, then there is nothing that is derivatively sacred either.

One obvious problem with Hitchens' position is that it is by no means obvious that there is nothing sacred. I should think that something is originally sacred if and only if God or a suitably similar transcendent Absolute exists. No God, then nothing originally sacred. Atheism rules out the sacred. And if nothing is originally sacred, then nothing is derivatively sacred either. If there is no God, then there are no prophets or saints or holy relics or holy places or holy books. And of course no church of God either: no institution can claim to have a divine charter.

I reject the position of Hitchens. I reject it because I reject his naturalism and atheism. They are reasonably rejected . But I also reject the position of those — call them fundamentalists — who think that there are people and books and institutions to which we must unconditionally submit. Here is where things get interesting.

I do not deny the possibility of divine revelation or that the book we call the Bible contains divine revelation; but I insist that it is in large part a human artifact. As such, it is open to rational criticism. While man cannot and must not place himself above God, he can and must evaluate what passes for the revelation of God — for the latter is in part a human product.

God reveals himself, but he reveals himself to man. If the transmitter is perfect, but the receiver imperfect, then one can expect noise with the signal. Rational critique aims to separate the signal from the noise. To criticize is to separate: the true from the false, the reasonable from the unreasonable, the genuine from the specious.

I insist that religion must submit to rational critique. Religion is our affair, not God's. God has no religion. He doesn't need one. He needs religion as little as he needs philosophy: he is the truth in its paradigm instance; he has no need to seek it. Since religion is our affair, our response to the Transcendent, it is a human product in part and as such limited and defective and a legitimate object of philosophical examination and critique.

It is reasonable to maintain, though it cannot be proven, that there is a transcendent Absolute and that therefore there is something sacred. But this is not to say that what people take to be embodiments of the sacred are sacred. Is Muhammad a divine messenger? That is a legitimate question and the right to pose it and answer it negatively must be upheld. To answer it negatively, however, is consistent with holding that something is sacred. Is Jesus God? That is a legitimate question and the right to pose it and answer it negatively must be upheld. To answer it negatively, however, is consistent with holding that something is sacred.

My position is a balanced one. I reject the New Atheist extremism of Hitchens & Co. These people are contemptible in a way in which many old atheists were not: their lack of respect for religion, their militant hostility to any and every form of religion, shows a lack of respect for the unquenchable human desire for Transcendence. Religion is one form of our quest for the Absolute. This quest is part of what makes a human. This quest, which will surely outlast the New Atheists and their cyberpunk acolytes, must not be denigrated just because many of the concrete manifestations of the religious impulse are fanatical, absurd, and harmful.

One ought not mock religion, and not just for the prudential reason that one doesnot want to become the target of murderous Muslim fanatics. One ought not mock religion because religion testifies to man's dignity as a metaphysical animal, as Schopenhauer so well understood. Even Islam, the sorriest and poorest of the great religions, so testifies.

But while I reject the extremism of Hitchens and Co., an extremism that makes an idol of free expression, I agree that what passes for religion, the concrete embodiments of same, must submit to being hauled before the bench of Reason, there to be interrogated, often rudely. Reason, in its turn, must be open to what lies beyond it. It must be open to revelation.

A New Probabilistic Argument for God

A reader sent me an argument expressed in an idiosyncratic and unnecessarily technical terminology. But his idea is a very interesting one. I'll present and then evaluate my version of the reader's argument.

1. There are several actual and many possible positions on the nature and existence of God. Call them God-positions. One who occupies a God-position takes a stand on the existence of God, yes or no.

2. All but one of these God-positions are theistic: they affirm the existence of God, though they differ as to the divine attributes.

3. Only one of these God-positions is atheistic: only one affirms the nonexistence of God.

4. Exactly one of these God-positions is true.

Therefore

5. The probability that one of the many theistic God-positions is true is much greater than the probability that the one atheistic God-position is true.

Therefore

6. The claim that God exists is much more likely to be true than the claim that God does not exist.

I should think that the first three premises need no support: they are well-nigh self-evident. If support is wanted for (4), it can be found in logic. By Bivalence, there are exactly two truth-values. By Excluded Middle, every proposition is either true or not true.

But how is (5) supposed to follow from (1)-(4)? Here is where I think the problem lies. Intuitively, (5) does not follow from the premises.

Consider a parody argument. There are several actual and many possible positions on the nature and existence of the Lost Dutchman Goldmine. All but one of these LDM-positions are affirmative of the mine's existence; the remaining one is negative. But only one LDM-position is true. Therefore, it is more likely than not that the LDM exists.

This is obviously a fallacious argument. If it is, then so is the original argument. But this leaves us with the task of explaining why both are fallacious. This is not so easy.

Either the LDM exists or it does not. At most, these contradictory propositions are equiprobable. (Given my knowledge of the geology of the Superstition Wilderness, I would deny that these propositions are equiprobable; but let's assume that they are.) The number of different conceptions of the LDM has no bearing on the probability of its existence. One cannot raise (lower) the probability of the mine's existence by adding to (subtracting from) the conceptions of the LDM. Why not? Well, if the mine exists, then exactly one of the conceptions is instantiated, and all the other conceptions are uninstantiated. And it seems obviously true that the probability of some concept's being instantiated does not vary with the number of similar concepts that might have been instantiated instead.

The same goes for God even if the existence and nonexistence of God are equiprobable. There are many different conceptions of God even within a broadly Abrahamic ambit. On one conception, God is triune and simple; on another, triune but not simple; on a third, simple but not triune. And so it goes. Some hold God to be absolutely unlimited in power; others hold that logic limits God's power. And so on. Each of these conceptions is such that, if it is instantiated, then God exists. But surely the number of God-conceptions has no bearing on the probability of one of them being instantiated.

God as an Ontological Category Mistake

John Anderson's rejection of God is radical indeed. A. J. Baker writes:

Anderson, of course, upholds atheism, though that is a rather narrow and negative way of describing his position given its sweep in rejecting all rationalist conceptions of essences and ontological contrasts in favour of the view that whatever exists is a natural occurrence on the same level of existence as anything else that exists. From that position it follows, not merely that the traditional 'proofs' of the existence of God can be criticised, but that the very conception of a God or a supernatural way of being is an illogical conception — God is an ontological category mistake as we may say. (Australian Realism: The Systematic Philosophy of John Anderson, Cambridge UP, 1986, 118-119)

If someone said that the average thought has such-and-such a volume, you would not say that he was factually incorrect; you would say that he had committed a category mistake inasmuch as a thought is not the sort of item that could have a volume: it is categorially disbarred from having a volume. Someone who says that God exists is saying that there exists something whose mode of being is unique to it and that everything other than God has a different mode of being. But the idea that there are two or more modes of being or two or more levels of reality, according to Anderson, is 'illogical" and ruled out by the exigencies of rational discourse itself. To posit God, then, is to involve oneself in a sort of ontological category mistake, in the words of A. J. Baker.

Let's see if we can understand this. (This series of entries is booked under Anderson, John.)

The Andersonian thesis is an exceedingly strong one: the very concept of God is said to be illogical. It is illogical because it presupposes the notion, itself illogical, that there are levels of reality or modes of existence or ways of being. What makes the argument so interesting is the implied claim that the very nature of being rules out the existence of God. So if we just understand what being is we will see that God cannot exist! This is in total opposition to the tack I take in A Paradigm Theory of Existence (Kluwer 2002) wherein I argued from the nature of existence to (something like) God, and to the tack taken by those who argue from truth to God.

The Andersonian argument seems to be as follows:

1. There is a single way of being.

2. The single way of being is spatiotemporal or natural being.

3. If God exists, then his way of being is not spatiotemporal or natural.

Therefore

4. God does not exist.

Note that the argument extends to any absolute such as the One of Plotinus or the Absolute of F. H. Bradley or the Paradigm Existent of your humble correspondent. Indeed, it extends to any non-spatiotemporal entity.

The crucial premise is (1). For if 'way of being' so much as makes sense, then surely (3) is true. And anyone who accepts (1) ought also to accept (2) given that it is evident to the senses that there are spatiotemporal items. So the soundness of the argument pivots on (1). But what is the argument for (1)?

Note that (1) presupposes that 'way of being' makes sense. This is not obvious. To explain this I first disambiguate 'There are no ways of being.' Someone who claims that there are no ways of being could mean either

A. There are no ways of being because there is a single way of being.

or

B. There are no ways of being because the very idea of a way of being, whether one or many, either makes no sense or rests on some fallacious reasoning: either a thing exists or it does not. There is no way it exists. We can distinguish between nature (essence) and existence but not among nature, existence and way of existence. What is said to belong to the way a thing exists really belongs on the side of its nature. A drastic difference such as that between a rock and a number does not justify talk of spatiotemporal and non-spatiotemporal ways of being: the drastic difference is just a difference in their respective natures.

Many philosophers have championed something like (B). (See Reinhard Grossmann Against Modes of Being. Van Inwagen, too, takes something like the (B)-line.) If (B) is true, then Anderson's argument collapses before it begins. But I reject (B). So I can't dismiss the argument in this way.

Anderson's view is (A). The problem is not with the concept of a way of being; the problem is with the idea that there is more than one way of being. This is clear from his 1929 "The Non-Existence of Consciousness," reprinted in Studies in Empirical Philosophy, wherein we read, "If theory is to be possible, then, we must be realists; and that involves us in . . . the assertion of a single way of being (as contrasted with 'being ultimately' and 'being relatively') [a way of being] which the many things that we thus recognise have." (SEP 76) Thus what Anderson opposes is a duality, and indeed every plurality, of ways of being, and not the very notion of a way of being. One could say that Anderson is a monist when it comes to ways of being, not a pluralist. To invoke a distinction made by John Passmore, one to be discussed in a later entry, Anderson is an existence-monist but not an entity-monist.

Now what's the argument for (1)? As far as I can tell the argument is something like this:

5. Truth is what is conveyed by the copula 'is' in a (true) proposition.

6. There is no alternative to 'being' or 'not being': a proposition can only be true or false.

Therefore

7. There are are no degrees or kinds of truth: no proposition is truer than any other, and there are no different ways of being true. (5, 6)

8. (True) propositions are concrete facts or spatiotemporal situations: propositions are not intermediary entities between the mental and the extramental. They are not merely intentional items, nor are they Fregean senses. The proposition that the cat is on the mat just is the concrete fact of the cat's being on the mat. And the same goes for the cat: the cat is identical to a proposition. Anderson's student, Armstrong, holds that a thick particular such as a cat is a proposition-like entity, a state of affairs; but Anderson holds the more radical view that a cat is not merely proposition-like, but is itself a proposition. But if a cat is a proposition, then

9. Being (existence) = truth.

Therefore

1. There is a single way of being. (from 7, 9)

Therefore, by the first argument above,

4. God does not exist.

Critique

A full critique is beyond the scope of this entry especially since brevity is the soul of blog, as some wit once said. But what I am about to say is, I think, sufficient to refute the Andersonian argument.

If everything exists in the same way, what way is that? Anderson wants to say: the spatiotemporal way. He is committed to the proposition that

A. To be is to be spatiotemporally

where this is to be construed as an identification of being/existence with spatiotemporality. Good classical metaphysician that he is, Anderson is telling us that the very Being of beings, das Sein des Seienden, is their being spatiotemporal.

Now there is a big problem with this. A little thought should convince you that (A) fails as an indentification even if it succeeds as an equivalence: one cannot reduce being/existence to spatiotemporality. For one thing, (A) is circular. It amounts to saying that to exist is to exist in space and time. Now even if everything that exists exists in space and time, the existence of that which exists cannot be identified with being in space and time. So even if (A) is true construed as telling us what exists, it cannot be true construed as telling us what existence is. A second point is that, while it is necessary that a rock be spatiotemporal, there is no necessity that a rock exist, whence it follows that the existence of a rock cannot be identified with its being spatiotemporal.

Now if (A) fails as an identification, it might still be true contingently as an equivalence. It might just happen to be the case that, for all x, x exists iff x is spatiotemporal. But then it cannot be inscribed in the nature of Being (as a Continental philosopher might say) that whatever is is in space and time. Nor can it be dictated by "the nature and possibility of discourse" (SEP 2) or by the possibility of "theory" (SEP 76). Consequently, the Andersonian battle cry "There is only a single way of being!" cannot be used to exclude God.

For any such exclusion of God as an "ontological category mistake" can only proceed from the exigencies of Being itself. What Anderson wants to say is that the very nature of Being logically requires the nonexistence of God. But that idea rests on the confusion exposed above. For his point to go through, he needs (A) to be an identification when at most it is an equivalence.

Must an Atheist Eschew Religious Practice?

David Benatar of anti-natalist fame argues in the negative. (HT: London Karl)

Can a Theist Maintain that Some Lack a Religious Disposition?

Suppose you believe that man has been created in the image and likeness of God. Can you, consistently with that belief, hold that only some possess a religious disposition?

I often say things like the following:

The religious person perceives our present life, or our natural life, as radically deficient, deficient from the root (radix) up, as fundamentally unsatisfactory; he feels it to be, not a mere condition, but a predicament; it strikes him as vain or empty if taken as an end in itself; he sees himself as homo viator, as a wayfarer or pilgrim treading a via dolorosa through a vale that cannot possibly be a final and fitting resting place; he senses or glimpses from time to time the possibility of a Higher Life; he feels himself in danger of missing out on this Higher Life of true happiness. He feels his fellows to be fools endlessly distracted by bagatelles, sunken deep in Pascalian divertissement, as Platonic troglodytes unaware of the Cave as Cave.

I maintain that one in whom this doesn't strike a chord, or sound a plaintive arpeggio, is one who lacks a religious disposition. In some it is simply lacking, and it cannot be helped. I 'write them off' no matter how analytically sharp they are. One cannot discuss religion with them, for it cannot be real to them, any more than one can share one's delight in poetry with the terminally prosaic, or one's pleasure in mathematics with the mathematically anxious. Religion is not, for those who lack the disposition, what William James in "The Will to Believe" calls a "living option," let alone a "forced" or "momentous" one. It can only be something strained and ridiculous, a tissue of fairy tales, something for children and old ladies, an opiate for the weak and dispossesed, a miserable anthropomorphic projection, albeit unconscious, a wish-fulfillment, something cooked up in the musty medieval cellars of priestcraft where unscrupulous manipulators exploit human gullibility for their own advantage.

A perceptive interlocutor raised an objection that I would put as follows. "You say that some lack a religious disposition. I take it you mean that they are utterly bereft of it. But how is that consistent with the imago dei? For if we are made in the divine image, then we are spiritual beings who must, as spiritual beings, possess at least the potentiality of communion with the divine source of the spirit within us, even if this potentiality is to no degree actual. After all, we are not in the image of God as animals, but as spiritual beings, and part of being a spiritual being is having the potentiality to know itself, and thus to know that one is a creature if in fact one is a creature, and in knowing this to know God in some measure."

How might I meet this objection?

One way is by denying that all biologically human beings bear the divine image, or bear the divine image in its fullness. Maybe it is like this. The existence of specimens of the zoological species to which we belong is accounted for by the theory of evolution. God creates the physical universe in which evolution occurs, and in which human animals evolve from lower forms. The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis is not an account of how human animals came to be that is in competition with the theory of evolution. It is not about human animals at all. Adam is not the first man; there was no first man. Eve is not the first woman; there was no first woman. Adam and Eve are not the first human animals; they are the first human animals that, without ceasing to be animals, became spiritual beings when God bestowed upon them consciousness, self-consciousness, free will, and all their concomitants. But the free divine bestowal was not the same for all: from some he withheld the power to know God and become godlike.

I suspect this is not theologically 'kosher.' But it fits with my experience. I have always felt that some human beings lack depth or spirit or soul or inwardness or whatever you want to call it. It is not that I think of them as zombies as philosophers use this term: I grant that they are conscious and self-conscious. But I sense that there is nothing to them beyond that. The light is on, but no one is there. (In a zombie, the light is off.) There is no depth-dimension: they are surface all the way down.

But it may be that a better line for me is the simpler one of saying that in all there is the religious disposition, but in some it is wholly undeveloped, rather than saying that in some it is not present at all.

UPDATE (12/19): The "perceptive interlocutor" mentioned above responds:

To suppose that some persons lack the religious disposition is certainly not theologically kosher, at least not from the Christian perspective. This is more akin to certain varieties of predestinarian gnosticism to which early Christian theologians (e.g., Origen, Irenaeus, et al.) vehemently objected. These gnostic theories proposed that there were various different classes of human persons, some of whom were structurally determined to realize saving knowledge (gnosis) of Reality whereas others were cruder, baser, and doomed to live unenlightened lives in the body. The difference between classes was not choices they had made or anything of the sort; it was simply their ontological structure to reach enlightenment or not. The early Christians objected to this in two ways: first, it is denial of the freedom of the will of the human person, since some evidently are intrinsically incapable of choosing salvation; second, it is incompatible with God's goodness, since if he is good, he desires the salvation of all and works to accomplish it.

I don't disagree that these are among the theologically orthodox responses to my suggestion above. How good they are, however, is a separate question. First, if God does not grant to some class of persons the religious disposition, that is not a denial to them of freedom of the will. They can be as free as you please; they just lack that particular power. I am not free to fly like a bird, but it doesn't follow that I am not free.

As for the second point, there may be a confusion of damnation with non-knowledge of God. The suggestion above is that only some biologically human persons are disposed to seek God and possibly know God. That is not to say that these persons are predestined to a state in which they are conscious of God's existence but cut off from God.

God desires the ultimate beatitude of all that have the power to achieve it — but not all have this power on the above suggestion. If God desires the ultimate beatitude of all whether or not they have the power to know God, then God desires the ultimate beatitude of dolphins and apes and cats and dogs.

I suppose these are the two greatest problems for the quasi-gnostic position you consider in that post. Another problem would be that it might ethically justify mistreatment and prejudice against persons deemed to lack a religious disposition. After all, if they cannot sense God's existence and enjoy communion with him, how are they any different from animals? If God himself didn't care to make them such that they could know him, why should theists and those having the religious disposition care for them any more than for a dog?

I don't see any problem here either. Not all human beings have the same powers but people like me and my interlocutor would not dream of using this fact to justify mistreatment of certain classes of people.

What Did You Do With Your Life, God?

Thanksgiving evening, the post-prandial conversation was very good. Christian Marty K. raised the question of what one would say were one to meet God after death and God asked, "What did you do with your life?"

Atheist Peter L. shot back, "What did you do with your life, God?"

In my judgment, and it is not just mine, the fact of evil is the main stumbling block to theistic belief. While none of the arguments from evil are compelling, some of them render atheism rationally acceptable. This has long been my view. Atheism and theism are both rationally acceptable and intellectually respectable, though of course they cannot both be true.

This puts me at odds with the Pauline passage at Romans 1: 18-20. I'll summarize it. Men are godless and wicked and suppress the truth. What may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. Human beings have no excuse for their unbelief. "For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made . . . ."

Paul's claim here is that the existence and nature of God are evident from creation and that unbelief is a result of a willful turning away from the manifest truth. There is no excuse for unbelief because it is a plain fact that the natural world is divine handiwork. Now I am a theist and I am sympathetic to Christianity. But although I have one foot in Jerusalem, the other is planted firmly in Athens (philosophy, the autonomy of reason). And so I must point out that to characterize the natural world as 'made' or 'created' begs the question in favor of theism. As begging the question, the Pauline claim about the evidentness of the world's being created offers no support for theism. It is an analytic proposition that there is no creation without a creator. So if the heavens and the earth are a creation, then it follows straightaway that a creator exists.

But is the world a divine creation? This is the question, and the answer is not obvious. That the natural world is a divine artifact is not evident to the senses, or to the heart, or to reason. Of course, one can argue for the existence of God from the existence and order of the natural world. I have done it myself. But those who reject theistic arguments, and construct anti-theistic arguments, have their reasons too, and it cannot fairly be said that what animates the best of them is a stubborn and prideful refusal to submit to a truth that is evident. It is not evident to the senses that the natural world is a divine artifact.

I may be moved to marvel at "the starry skies above me" (Kant). But seeing is not seeing as. If you see the starry skies as divine handiwork, then this is an interpretation from within a theistic framework. But the datum seen can just as easily be given a nontheistic interpretation.

At the end of the day you must decide which of these interpretations to accept. You will not find some plain fact that will decide it for you. There is no fact you can point to, or argument you can give, that definitively rules out theism or rules it in.

If the atheism of some has its origin in pride, stubborness and a willful refusal to recognize any power or authority beyond oneself, or beyond the human, as may well be the case with such luminaries as Russell and Sartre, it does not follow that the atheism of all has this origin.

By the way, here we have the makings of an argument for hell. If someone, post-mortem, in the divine presence, and now fully cognizant of the ultimate metaphysical 'lay of the land,' were to persist in a pride Luciferian, and refuse to acknowledge and worship the ultimate Source of truth, goodness, beauty, and reality, a Source itself ultimately true, good, beautiful, and real, then the only fitting place for someone who freely chose to assert his miserable ego in defiance of its Source would be hell. It would be deeply unjust and unreasonable to permit such a person the visio beata.

Do You Think Your Views Will Ever Change?

The question was put to atheist A. C. Grayling. His response:

No, my views will not change; I am confident in the rationalist tradition which has evaluated the metaphysical and ethical claims of non-naturalistic theories, and definitively shown them to be vacuous in all respects other than the psychological effect they have on those credulous enough to accept them.

Should we perhaps speak here of the faith of a rationalist? And isn't there something unphilosophical about Grayling's stance? He is sure that his views will not change and confident in the rationalist tradition. He is not open to having his views changed by further thought or argument or evidence. Not very philosophical, not very Socratic. Socrates knew only that he did not know. Grayling knows.

He blusters when he speaks of what has been "definitely shown." Nothing of a substantive nature has ever been definitively shown in philosophy, and certainly not the "vacuousness" of the metaphysical and ethical claims of non-naturalism. Besides, it is simply false to say that these claims are "vacuous." Though they may be false, for all we know, they are quite definite and meaningful claims. 'Vacuous' means 'empty.' In this context it means empty of sense or significance.

What you have to understand about Grayling and his New Atheist ilk is that they are ideologues, no different in this respect from their anti-naturalist, religious counterparts. (Compare the Thomist view that it has been definitely shown that God exists, that the existence of God is knowable with certainty by unaided human reason.) Grayling and Co. are not philosophers who love the truth and seek it because they don't have it; they fancy themselves possessors of the truth and its guardians against the benighted.

So if unshakable confidence in the definitive truth of one's position can lead to violence and oppression, why is this a danger only on the religious side of the ideological divide and not on the anti-religious side? That is a question that ought not be evaded. Don't forget what the communists did to the religious people, instituitions, monuments, and sites in the lands where they gained control.

Grayling posts of mine. They are polemical. He polemicizes; I polemicize right back. Meet polemics with polemics, civil truth-seeking dialog with civil truth-seeking dialog.

As one of my aphorisms has it: Be kind, but be prepared to reply in kind.

Burden of Proof, Appeal to Ignorance, Safety Considerations, and God

Presumption and Burden of Proof

Firearms instructors sometimes say that every gun is loaded. That is plainly false as it stands, but a wise saying nonetheless if interpreted to mean: every gun is to be presumed loaded until proven unloaded. Presumptions are procedural rules. To presume every gun to be loaded is to adopt a procedural rule to treat every gun as if it is loaded regardless of how antecedently likely it is that it is loaded. Suppose the likelihood is near zero: I examined the gun carefully an hour ago and I found it to be unloaded. Nevertheless, the presumption that it is loaded remains in force. I continue to behave as if it is loaded. For example, I don't point the gun at anything unless I want to destroy it.

I conclude that to presume that p is not to assert that p is true, nor to assert that p is probably true, nor to assume that p is true, but to decide to act as if p is true. A presumption, then, is not a proposition, although it embeds one. A presumption is something like a decision. More precisely, a presumption is the accusative of an act of presuming, an accusative that is not itself a proposition, but embeds one.

A presumption is not like a belief in the following important respect. To presume that a gun is loaded or that a man is innocent is not to believe that it is or that he is. To believe that p is to believe that p is true. But to presume that p is not to presume that p is true; it is to act as if p is true without either accepting or rejecting p. To presume that Jones is innocent until proven guilty is not to believe that he is innocent until proven guilty; it is to suspend judgment as to guilt or innocence until sufficient evidence is presented by the prosecution to warrant a verdict one way or the other. When I presume that p, I take no stand as to the truth-value of p — I neither accept nor reject p — what I do is decide to act as if p is true.

Presumptions must be defeasible. (I suspect that an indefeasible presumption is no presumption at all.) The presumption of being loaded is defeated in a particular case by carefully examining the gun and showing that it is unloaded. So while a presumption is not a proposition, it embeds a proposition that can be shown to be false. Defeasible presumption and burden-of-proof are correlative notions. (They are like rights and duties in this respect but also in that both are normative notions.) In a court of law, for example, if the accused enjoys a presumption of innocence, as he does in the Anglosphere, then the accuser bears a burden of proof, a burden which, if properly discharged, defeats the presumption.

Appeal to Ignorance?

So if person A claims to person B that a certain gun is unloaded, the burden of proof is on A to show that it is unloaded; person B does not bear the burden of proving that it is loaded. It is not just that he bears a lesser burden'; he bears no burden. Indeed it seems that B would be within his epistemic rights were he to claim that his ignorance of whether or not the gun is loaded is good evidence of its being loaded. But this is an appeal to ignorance. It has not been shown that the gun is unloaded; ergo, the gun is loaded.

It has not been shown that ~p; therefore p gives us the form of the ad ignorantiam 'fallacy.' Construed as a deductive argument, it is clearly invalid. Construed as an inductive argument, it will be in many cases weak. For example, suppose the gun is straight from the manufacturer and right out of the box. Then the probability of its being loaded is very low, and the argument: This gun out of the box has not been shown to be unloaded; ergo, this gun is loaded is very weak.

Nevertheless, safety considerations dictate a defeasible presumption in favor of every gun's being loaded, whether out of the box or not, a presumption that places the onus probandi on the one who maintains the opposite. So one might conclude that the appeal to ignorance in this case is reasonable even though the argument is deductively invalid and inductively weak.

The situation is similar to that in a court of law. The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty, so the burden of proof rests on either the state in a criminal proceeding, or on the plaintiff in a civil trial. In a criminal case the probative bar is set very high: the accused has to be shown guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Here too there seems to be a legitimate appeal to ignorance: if it has not been shown that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the conclusion to be drawn is that he is not guilty.

We will have to examine this more carefully in a separate post.

Safety Considerations

There are 'safety' considerations in both the gun example and the law example. It is because we want to be on the safe side — and not get shot — that we presume every gun to be loaded. "Better that a hundred guns be unnecessarily examined than that one sentient being be accidentally shot."

And it is because we want to be on the safe side — and not sentence an innocent person — that we presume the accused to be innocent until proven guilty. "Better that a hundred guilty people go free than that one innocent person be wrongly convicted."

But now what about God? Don't safety considerations apply here as well? If God exists, then our ultimate happiness depends on getting into right relation with him. So why can't one make a legitimate appeal to ignorance here? Now of course from the fact that no one has proven that God does not exist, it does not follow that God exists. That is an invalid deductive argument. That would be a truly fallacious instance of ad ignorantiam. But it is also invalid to infer than a gun is loaded because it hasn't been proven to be unloaded, or that a man is innocent because he hasn't been proven to be guilty. It just doesn't follow in any of these cases. And yet we reasonably consider the gun loaded and we reasonably find the accused to be innocent. And so why can't we reasonably presume God to exist on the basis of the fact that he hasn't been shown not to exist? If the burden of proof rests on the one who claims that gun is unloaded, why doesn't the burden of proof rest on the one who claims that God is nonexistent? We don't want to get shot, but we also don't want to lose our ultimate beatitude — if ultimate beatitude there be.

You can't say that that the burden of proof rests on the theist because he is making a positive claim; for there are positive claims that need no proof. And you can't say that the burden of proof rests on the theist because he is making an existential claim; for there are existential claims that need no proof. If you claim that extraterrestrial intelligent beings exist, then the burden is on you. But if you claim that there are Saguaro cacti in Arizona, then the burden of proof is not on you but on the one who denies it. Nor can you say that the burden rests on the theist because he is controverting the widely-accepted; the consensus gentium is that God exists.

Earlier I argued that we shouldn't bring BOP considerations into the God discussion at all. But if we do, why doesn't the BOP rest on the atheist?

Pigliucci's Confusion

Massimo Pigliucci thinks that if one understands who bears the burden of proof in a trial, then one ought to see right away that the burden of proof rests on the theist. For, "the burden of proof is always on the party making a positive claim, not on the one making a negative one." This strikes me as confused. It is true that the party making a complaint or bringing a charge is making a positive claim, but this is not the reason why the BOP rests on the accuser. It rests on the accuser because of the presumption of innocence that the accused enjoys. The BOP rests on the accuser not because his claim is positive but because of the procedural rule enshrined in our system of law according to which one is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

It is not true that the BOP is always on the one who makes a positive claim. 'That hillside is studded with Saguaro cacti' said to my hiking companion needs no proof. I shoulder no probative burden when I make a commonplace observation such as that. Therefore, the following is an unsound argument:

Everyone who make a positive claim bears a BOP.
The theist makes a positive claim.
ergo
The theist bears the BOP in his debate with the atheist.

I argued above that if BOP considerations are relevant to the God debate, then the BOP is on the atheist. To appreciate the argument I gave, you have to realize that the God question is not merely theoretical. It is a practical question. In that respect it is like the gun safety and court room cases. My interest in whether or not a particular firearm is loaded or unloaded is not merely theoretical, or I should say, not at all theoretical. It is a practical interest in maintaining the health and physical integrity of myself and the people around me. Similarly with the law. If you are accused of homicide you are in deep trouble and face the loss of your liberty or your life. Arguably, the God question is in the same boat.

So I invite you to accept one or the other of the following conclusions. The BOP is borne by the atheist. BOP considerations should be kept out of the theist-atheist debate altogether.

Paul Draper on God and the Burden of Proof

A concise paper by a pro in the philosophy of religion. For now I simply note its existence and availability. Some discussion later perhaps. See also Massimo Pigliucci, The Delicate Issue of Burden of Proof.

Parsimony, Burden of Proof, and God

From an e-mail by Spencer Case:

. . . by my lights, parsimony might be a consideration that puts the burden of proof on the theist. Theories that multiply entities unnecessarily are less likely to be true and the theist's theory postulates an entity. Now, it may be that the theist will say that we need God as a first cause or something like that– that could be enough to absolve him of the burden. But in the absence of other reasons for believing in God (known to the interlocutors), the burden of proof would be on the theist.

Let's think about this. I doubt the usefulness in philosophy of burden-of-proof considerations, at least when we are discussing such big questions as God, freedom, and immortality. I also doubt the usefulness in philosophy of considerations of parsimony. What is parsimony anyway?

Parsimony

Parsimony or Occam's Razor is a principle of theoretical economy that states or rather enjoins:

OR. Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.

It is sometimes formulated in Latin: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. The principle or rather injunction is presumably to be interpreted qualitatively rather than quantitatively, thus:

OR*. Do not multiply TYPES or CATEGORIES of entity beyond necessity.

Thus it is not individual entities that are not to be multiplied, but types or kinds or categories of entity. To illustrate. Some criticized David Lewis' extreme modal realism on the ground that it proliferates concreta: there are not only all the actual concreta , there are all those merely possible ones as well. He responded quite plausibly to the proliferation charge by pointing out that the Razor applies to categories of entity, not individual entities, and that category-wise his ontology is sparse indeed.

'Multiply' is a picturesque way of saying posit. (Obviously, there are as many categories of entity as there are, and one cannot cause them to 'multiply.') And let's not forget the crucial qualification: beyond necessity. That means: beyond what is needed for purposes of adequate explanation of the data that are to be explained. Hence:

OR** Do not posit types of entity in excess of what is needed for purposes of explanation.

So the principle enjoins us to refrain from positing more types of entity than we need to explain the phenomena that need to be explained. It is obvious that (OR**) does not tell us to prefer theory T1 over theory T2 if T1 posits fewer types of entity than T2. What it tells us is to prefer T1 over T2 if T1 posits fewer types of entity AND accounts adequately for all the data. So there is a trade-off between positing and accounting.

Spencer tells us that "Theories that multiply entities unnecessarily are less likely to be true . . . ." I don't think this is right. Theories that posit entities or types of entity beyond the needs of explanation are uneconomical and to be rejected for this reason. We prefer simpler theories to save cognitive labor, not because simplicity is the mark of truth (simplex sigillum veri) or even because simpler theories are more likely to be true. Now it may be that simpler theories are more likely to be true — how would one show this? — but this is no part of the principle of parsimony as I understand it. It is a principle of Denkoekonomie.

The defeasible presumption in favor of parsimonious explanations is very much like the defeasible presumption of innocence (POI) in the law. The accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty even if the probability of his being innocent is low or even near or at zero. The presumption of innocence does not vary with the probability of innocence, and is in fact logically consistent wth guilt. And of course the presumption of innocence does not entail innocence.

POI is a procedural rule: we proceed in the law as if the accused is innocent even if it is evident that he isn't. (Suppose 100 reputable winesses observe a man in a non-self-defense situation bludgeoning a woman to death. There still has to be a trial, the accused will enjoy the POI, and the prosecutors will bear the burden of proof. It's just that this trial will be very short.) Similarly, the principle of parsimony is a principle of procedural presumption. (See N. Rescher, Presumption and the Practices of Tentative Cognition, Cambridge UP, 2006. p. 124 ff.)

God

Suppose everything could be explained just as well without God as with God. Then we would have no reason to posit God as playing an explanatory role. But it wouldn't follow that God doesn't exist, or even that it is unlikely that God exists. All that would follow is that we would have no reason to posit God as an explanation of the existence, order, intelligibility of the universe: The 'God hypothesis' would not be rationally motivated.

Now one point I want to make is that Parsimony is a fairly useless and trivial injunction. After all, who wants to posit types of entity in excess of what is needed for purposes of explanation? The real question is what is needed for explanation. Parsimony gives us no help with this question. I would argue that God is needed to explain the existence and the intelligibility of the universe. Now that is a meaty set of issues that cannot be resolved by brandishing the Razor. We all agree about the Razor. What we don't agree about is what is necessary for an adequate explanation of what needs explaining.

And so it would be a cheap shot for an atheist to claim that theists violate Parsimony by positing God. Spencer of course understands this. For again, the issue is whether the posit is necessary for explanation.

Burden of Proof

Who bears the burden? Theist or atheist? The question is senseless or else has a trivial answer: both bear it. For it is not evident that God exists, nor it is evident that God does not exist. Neither side can invoke a defeasible presumption.

But there is a defeasible presumption in favor of the reliability of memory as a source of knowledge; so it does make sense to place the burden of proof on one who denies it.

Finally, does parsimony put the burden of proof on the theist as Spencer claims? No and for two reasons. First, Parsimony is a trivial injunction that, by itself, cannot decide between theism and atheism. Second, it is either senseless or trivial to ask where the BOP lies in the atheism-theism dispute.

UPDATE (10/28): Spencer Case e-mails: "I think you should make clear to your readers that your post attributes views to me that I do not hold. The part you quote from me is given in a context that is meant to show how my view of burden of proof would apply to a particular dialectical situation where an atheist thought parsimony mattered for the reason I stated. I wasn't actually subscribing to that view of parsimony. My account of what philosophical burden of proof amounts to was the main point of my comments.

Sam Harris on the Very Idea of Divine Revelation as ‘Poison’

Sam Harris is a liberal I respect and admire. He has not succumbed to the PeeCee delusion and he actively combats it. Although Harris is a contemporary, he is not a 'contemporary liberal' as I use that phrase: he is a classical or old-time or paleo or respectable liberal. But on religion and some philosophical topics he is out beyond his depth.

Here is Harris in his mainly excellent Sleepwalking Toward Armageddon (emphasis added):

And just like moderates in every other religion, most moderate Muslims become obscurantists when defending their faith from criticism. They rely on modern, secular values—for instance, tolerance of diversity and respect for human rights—as a basis for reinterpreting and ignoring the most despicable parts of their holy books. But they nevertheless demand that we respect the idea of revelation, and this leaves us perpetually vulnerable to more literal readings of scripture. The idea that any book was inspired by the creator of the universe is poison—intellectually, ethically, and politically. And nowhere is this poison currently doing more harm than in Muslim communities, East and West. Despite all the obvious barbarism in the Old Testament, and the dangerous eschatology of the New, it is relatively easy for Jews and Christians to divorce religion from politics and secular ethics. A single line in Matthew—“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”—largely accounts for why the West isn’t still hostage to theocracy. The Koran contains a few lines that could be equally potent—for instance, “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256)—but these sparks of tolerance are easily snuffed out.

Why does Harris think that the idea of divine (scriptural) revelation is intellectual, ethical, and political poison? Perhaps his reasoning is along the following lines.

1. In every extant scripture there are morally offensive prescriptions and proscriptions which, if followed, would be detrimental to human flourishing, and in that sense 'poisonous.'
2. If one believes that a given scripture is the Word of God, then one believes that everything in that scripture carries divine sanction (approbation): it proceeds from the ultimate moral authority in the universe.
3. If one believes that everything in a given scripture carries divine sanction, then one believes that one has an obligation to commit some morally offensive actions, namely, those enjoined in the scripture in question, actions detrimental to human flourishing. (from 1+ 2)
4. Actions detrimental to human flourishing are 'poison.'
Therefore
5. The idea of divine revelation, if accepted, is 'poison.' (from 3 + 4)

I have just imputed to Harris an argument the reasoning of which is correct. Please recall the Logic 101 distinction between correctness/incorrectness of reasoning and truth/falsity of premises and conclusions. (If this argument, or something very similar, is not the argument at the back of Harris's assertion, then I have no idea what that argument would be).

But no defender of divine revelation need be troubled by the above argument. For such a defender may simply deny premise # 2. If a given scripture is the inspired Word of God, that doesn't change the fact that it is written down by men — and we know what they are like: fallible, sometimes foolish, liable to embellish and distort, biased, limited in ever so many ways.

To put it very simply, I can accept a scripture as divinely inspired while rejecting parts of it as merely human accretions. Why not? There are things that St. Paul says, for example, that are pretty obviously nothing but reflections of his own personal preferences and biases, or else those of his time and place.

Notice that Harris is attacking the very idea of divine revelation: the acceptance of that idea is 'poison.' But he has given us no good reason to accept this wild claim. Of course, if there is no God, then there cannot be divine revelation. But the existence of God is not at issue here. The above argument is logically independent of the existence/nonexistence of God. Indeed, a theist could deploy the above argument.

And the issue is not whether particular portions of some scripture are credible or not. The issue concerns divine revelation as such and in general.

Harris may be assuming that anyone who accepts scriptural revelation must be a fundamentalist in the sense of someone who believes that everything in the Christian Bible, say, wears its meaning on its 'sleeve' and is literally true. But obviously, not everyone who accepts scriptural revelation need be a fundamentalist!

So much for the second of the two bolded sentences above.

The first sentence reads: But they nevertheless demand that we respect the idea of revelation, and this leaves us perpetually vulnerable to more literal readings of scripture. This sentence encapsulates an inference which, unfortunately for Harris, is a non sequitur. If one respects the idea of divine scriptural revelation, how is it supposed to follow that one is vulnerable to literalism? It obvously doesn't follow. And what exactly is literalism?

Harris ought to read Augustine on the interpretation of Genesis. Here is a sampler of some of the issues that arise.

As I said, Harris is way out of his depth when he enters these theological waters.

When Atheists Eat Their Own: The Sexism Charge

Allegedly, the New Atheism has a "shocking woman problem": Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are "misogynists." Thus Amanda Marcotte in Salon. (See also Kathe Pollitt in The Nation). This appears to be the latest PC purge.

It is true that the New Atheism is male-dominated. But why? According to Marcotte,

The reason has, in recent years, become quite apparent: Many of the most prominent leaders of the New Atheism are quick to express deeply sexist ideas. Despite their supposed love of science and rationality, many of them are nearly as quick as their religious counterparts to abandon reason in order to justify regressive views about women.

One such prominent leader is Sam Harris, a man of "knee-jerk Islamophobic tendencies" who has recently "added women to the category of people he makes thoughtless generalizations about."

Let's remind ourselves that a phobia is an irrational fear. Fear of radical Islam, however, is eminently rational, especially in the light of recent events. (You may wish to consult the Christians of the Middle East on this point.) It is obvious that 'Islamophobic' and cognates are semantic bludgeons used by leftists to silence and discredit their opponents by imputing to them a sort of cognitive/affective dysfunction. It's a shabby tactic and its says a lot about them.

As for "thoughtless generalizations about women," what does Harris actually say? From his weblog:

My work is often perceived (I believe unfairly) as unpleasantly critical, angry, divisive, etc. The work of other vocal atheists (male and female) has a similar reputation. I believe that in general, men are more attracted to this style of communication than women are. Which is not to say there aren’t millions of acerbic women out there . . . . But just as we can say that men are generally taller than women, without denying that some women are taller than most men, there are psychological differences between men and women which, considered in the aggregate, might explain why “angry atheism” attracts more of the former. Some of these differences are innate; some are surely the product of culture. Nothing in my remarks was meant to suggest that women can’t think as critically as men or that they are more likely to be taken in by bad ideas. Again, I was talking about a fondness for a perceived style of religion bashing with which I and other vocal atheists are often associated.

How can any reasonable person be offended by what Harris is saying above? He is giving an explanation of why men are 'over-represented' among active, or as I would call them 'evangelical,' atheists. Surely it is a plausible explanation and it may even be true. Anyone with any experience of life knows that there are differences between men and women and these are reflected in different styles of communication.

There is an interesting logico-linguistic question here. Is the sentence 'Women can think as critically as men' a modal statement? Note the modal auxiliary 'can.' The sentence is grammatically modal, but is it logically modal? Does the sentence express the proposition that it is possible that women think as critically as men? Or does it express a proposition about actuality? If the latter, then it is equivalent to 'Some women think as critically as men' which does not feature any modal words. The second sentence is clearly true, especially when spelled out as 'Some women think as critically as some men.'

Later in his post, Harris reports a dialog with an offended woman. Here is part of it:

She: [. . .] What you said about women in the atheist community was totally denigrating to women and irresponsible. Women can think just as critically as men. And men can be just as nurturing as women.

Me: Of course they can! But if you think there are no differences, in the aggregate, between people who have Y chromosomes and people who don’t; if you think testosterone has no psychological effects on human minds in general; if you think we can’t say anything about the differences between two bell curves that describe whole populations of men and women, whether these differences come from biology or from culture, we’re not going to get very far in this conversation.

The irate female is indisputably in the right if she is saying that some women think just as critically as some men, and that some men are just as nurturing as some women. But then she has no dispute with Harris who would not dream of denying these truths. The following, however, are false:

1. Every woman thinks just as critically as every man.
2. Every man is just as nurturing as every woman.
3. Every woman is possibly such that she thinks as critically as every man.
4. Every man is possibly such that he is as nurturing as every woman.

I leave undecided the following two de dicto claims:

5. It is possible that every woman think as critically as every man.
6. It is possible that every man be as nurturing as every woman.

Conclusion

There is plenty to criticize in Harris's views. I lay into him in Sam Harris on Whether Atheists are Evil and Sam Harris on Rational Mysticism and Whether the Self is an Illusion. But as far as I can see, he is as little a sexist or misogynist as he is an 'Islamophobe' or a racist. And I would mount a similar defense of Richard Dawkins even though he, like Harris, doesn't have a clue about religion and is out of his depth when he gasses off about it.

Here as elsewhere many on the Left substitute the hurling of epithets for serious discussion. Why think carefully and responsibly when you can shout: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, racist, bigoted, Islamophobic, etc.?

One of the basic errors of the Left is the assumption that we are all equal. It is is simply not the case. Men on average are taller than women on average. That's just the way it is. Now it is good to be tall, but it is also good to be nurturing, and women on average are more nurturing than men on average. No one can responsibly be labelled a sexist or a bigot for pointing out such plain facts as these.

Leftists often compound their error with a fallacious inference. They infer that since there is no equality of outcome, then there must have been sexism, or racism, etc. at work. Non sequitur!

Finally, if atheists draw their inspiration from natural science and oppose religion as superstition, then they ought to give some thought as to how they will ground empirically and scientifically key tenets of the leftist worldview. If you say that we are all equal, with equal rights, and equal dignity, and equal value as persons, etc. what is the basis of all that? Why isn't this just residual ideological claptrap left over after the death of God and the collapse of Christianity?

Salon piece here.