But to deny that a sound argument could be based on one’s subjective experience of one’s own cognitive processes is self-exempting if it is -itself- claimed to arbitrate the status of that experience in relation to such an argument. This is the same old self-referential inconsistency that itself claims to be above that which it is itself an instance of by sheer force of the domain of its subject term.

The delusion of grandeur is in thinking that one has the logical standing to predicate the -denial- of such an inferential move with any authority beyond one’s -own- cognitive subjectivity by exempting oneself from that alleged limitation in order to make that trans-subjective claim and thus pass judgment on the entire scope and limits of that very subjectivity itself for all thinking subjects.

Moreover, how could one’s own subjectivity be capable of such a universal claim about what one can or cannot know or infer, if subjectivity itself is as self-limited as that claim itself asserts? Especially when no argument or criteria is ever even mentioned.

In fact, how does this differ from a religious-like admonition: “Believe in my arbitrarily subjective self-stultifying claims about the possibility of knowledge and thou shalt be saved”?

In other words, how does an unargued self-contradictory prohibition on everyone’s thinking differ from the religious proof-texting of an arbitrarily-protected claim that restricts all other claims except itself?

Such self-exemption is never mentioned for a reason, although not a logical one.

In it Paul alludes to an argument advanced by C S Lewis, Alvin Plantinga, Michael Rea, Victor Reppert and also alluded to by Patrica Churchland, Thomas Nagel, William Whewell and Friedrich Nietzche. The argument is that if our cognitive faculties evolved by natural selection, unguided by God, then our cognitive faculties cannot be rationally relied on to give us truth. The literature on this argument is interesting but I won’t comment on that here.

What interests me is the comment Dawkins made in the MP3 which got the applause of the audience. Dawkins appears to not grasp the point of the argument and takes it to be asking for a reason why he supports “scientific rationalism”. He said he believes in scientific rationalism because it “works”. He then provided an example of how it “works”, it is that “science flies us to the moon, while religion flies planes into buildings.”

Much could be said here but I want to limit myself to a single point, the evidence Dawkins cites that science works and religion does not. Dawkins offers that science has done good things such as getting us to the moon; religion has done bad things like destroying the World Trade Centre on 9/11. In other words, the positive things science does commends it as a something we should trust whereas the negative things religious does commends it as some thing which we should not trust.

So let’s look at the claim Dawkins made that “science” got us to the moon. Now how does a subject, get us to the moon? Presumably what he means is that it was through science that we developed the rocket propulsion technology which enabled us to get to the moon.

But here is the problem. If the fact that science developed the propulsion technology that got us to the moon means that science is responsible for the flight to the moon, and can take credit for it, then science must be responsible for the flight into the World Trade Centre; science developed the propulsion technology of aeroplanes, hence, it should be science not religion that is blamed.

Moreover, rockets are used for other things apart from space and air travel.  The first country that flew to the moon has used rockets many times to kill people. So if science is responsible for getting us to the moon, the same reasoning suggests it is also responsible for everyone who is killed in combat by rockets.

On the other hand, if science is not responsible for the World Trade Centre attack because science only developed the technology and the people who did it were motivated by ideals, vision and motivation over and above the technology used to carry it out then science is not responsible for getting us to the moon; it was not merely technology that got us there, it was also people with certain ideals, vision and motivation.

The point is that one cannot credibly give science the credit for something when scientific technology, like rocket propulsion, is used for good purposes and claim this as evidence that science “works” and yet not also give science credit when rocket propulsion is used for negative purposes and not concede this as evidence science “does not work”.

The reality is that the benefits science gives us are not just the result of technology but also the use of that technology by people with certain vision, ideals, motivation and so forth. Questions of how we should live? what is right and wrong? what sorts of purposes should we pursue? are philosophical and theological questions which science cannot, by itself, answer. In the same way the evils done in the name of religion are the result of not just certain religious values but also the use of scientific technology – often technology researched and developed precisely for the purpose of killing people.

The point then is that, both science and religion cause harm and both cause benefit. Technology benefits us when it is used by people who have certain moral and spiritual orientations, who harness science to good. Science will not save us from those of bad character, it will simply give them the tools to do more evil. Similarly, the correct spiritual and moral orientation, by itself, will not benefit people much without the tools to do so.  Both forces are at play in every achievement and lack of achievement of mankind. Neither “work” or fail to “work” in the sense Dawkins mentions. Dawkins’ comments on scientific rationalism may work when it comes to getting the crowd to laugh but that’s all.

When a Christian says that all other religions are false, he is deemed narrow minded.

When an atheist says that all religions are false, she is deemed open minded.

However, I generally regard this perspective on religious epistemology as flawed. There doesn’t seem much reason to limit the question of whether or not theistic belief is rational to solely evidential considerations. Furthermore, it would employ demonstrably double standards in our reasoning to require that the rationality of theistic belief be determined by reference solely to evidential considerations while other rational beliefs remain immune to such scrutiny. Why, for example, should we subject the rationality of our belief in God to any greater scrutiny than we do to our belief that our cognitive faculties give us true ideas about reality?

With that in mind, we also need to ask why it is that we should exclude existential/pragmatic considerations from determining whether or not theistic belief is rational. It is this that my article principally concerns itself with, i.e. whether or not existential/pragmatic considerations can confer warrant or justification on our theistic belief. Can the question of “liveability”, by which I refer to our ability to live consistently and happily within that worldview, confer justification on that belief? Framed negatively, the question is “can the “unliveability” (by which I refer to a general inability to live consistently and happily within that worldview) of a worldview count against that system?”

It seems at least intuitively plausible that, aside from evidentiary considerations, the “liveability” of a possible worldview is a fairly major existential concern we have when deciding upon which to adopt. When I refer to “liveability”, I refer to our ability to live in such a way as to harmonize our worldview with other concerns in life such as happiness. Furthermore, it should seem at least intuitively plausible that where we lack determinate public evidence one way or the other, it is positively irrational to choose that worldview which is ultimately unliveable. For instance, suppose that on one worldview, if we live our lives consistently (that is to its logical consequences) then we can’t be happy. Suppose further, that in order to be happy on that worldview, we must delude ourselves and others. Suppose once again, that on another worldview we wouldn’t need to engage in such grand delusion in order to be happy. Suppose finally, that the total available public evidence between the two is ultimately indeterminate. In such a situation, it makes no sense whatsoever to go with that worldview which makes no sense of our common sense intuition by requiring us to delude ourselves and others in order to be happy. If we possess no reason to abandon our intuition, then quite simply we shouldn’t! Firstly, if such a move were permissible it would give us a reason to abandon other “intuitions” such as the one which states that our sense perception is reliable. Secondly, to ignore our intuition without sufficient reason involves an unjustified denial of the self, a veritable suicide.

However, don’t mistake what I’m saying here. It is possible, at least in principle, for evidential considerations to overturn considerations in favor of “liveability”. That is, where we possess determinate public evidence in favour of that worldview which ultimately denies us the ability to live a life that is consistently happy, then we have a reason to abandon our common sense intuition. However, it is incumbent upon the proponent of the “unliveable” worldview to provide us with sufficient reason to abandon our commonsense intuition.

In-fact, if we suppose that there is an ambiguity of the total available evidence one way or the other, the most rational thing to do is to go with that worldview which gives us the greatest chance of living consistently and happily. In-fact, if we don’t have sufficient reason as to why we should abandon our intuition, it seems to be positively irrational to choose a worldview within which we can’t live consistently and happily. Within meta-ethics, and in establishing the prima facie reliability of our cognitive faculties, this line of reasoning (which as it happens is based on a weak foundationalism) is generally regarded as the only way to establish the reliability of those faculties. Hence if my reasoning with respect to happiness is unacceptable, then so is the reasoning which permits us to establish the rationality of our belief in an objective moral reality, or for that matter in the reliability of our cognitive faculties.

My principle concern then, is to show two things: 1. On Atheism, we cannot live our lives consistently and happily and 2. On theism we can live our lives happily and consistently. Hence, if successful, my argument has the effect that in the absence of determinate evidence one way or the other, theism should win out as the most rational option to choose.

Purpose as a condition for a happy life:
It seems that whenever we act, we do so for some purpose or to achieve some state of affairs that would ultimately make the world better if said state of affairs obtained. It is to say that there is some way in which the world is ultimately supposed to be. Philosophical Hedonism offers a good example of this kind of reasoning. On Hedonism, pleasure is equated with living a happy life and as such becomes the ultimate goal of all action. It essentially seems to be saying that our purpose for living is to maximise our total net pleasure. Put differently, it says that the world is supposed to be such that all people can maximise their pleasurable experiences. Now I’m not going to assess the pros and cons of Philosophical Hedonism (although ultimately I regard it as insufficient to account for a good life). But what I will say is that Hedonism reveals the fact that some ultimate goal or purpose (in its case pleasure) is a necessary aspect of living a good life. It seems difficult to make much sense out of the claim that life can be enjoyed in the absence of such a purpose. For in the absence of such a purpose, there is no way in which the world is supposed to be and by extension no reason to think that the world ought to be in such that we can enjoy our lives.

Why purpose cannot exist within an atheistic ontology:
Within an atheistic worldview, we cannot live our lives in a consistent and happy way. When I say that we live our lives in a “consistent” way, I refer to our ability to live out our worldview to its logical consequences. When I refer to a life that is lived “consistently and happily”, I refer to the compatibility of a happy life with the logical consequences of our worldview. This contention is twofold: a) If we are atheists, and we live out that worldview to its logical consequence, then we cannot be happy. b) If we are atheists and we live our lives happily, then we cannot be living out our worldview to its logical consequence.

On atheism, so it seems, there can be no ultimate meaning to life. As the universe winds down towards total entropic equilibrium, so too will it wind down towards an inevitable heat death. As the Universe continues to expand into eternity, so will it grow forever darker, forever colder until nothing will be left but a gas so thin that the sub-atomic particles of the tiniest atom will be separated by the distance of a galaxy. Regardless of how we presently act, the Universe will remain indifferent. If we live our lives one way, the Universe will face death. If we live another way, the Universe will face death. In the end, it will make no qualitative difference to the Universe whether we live the lives of a saint or the lives of a Hitler.  It seems then that death is at least one of the aspects of an atheistic ontology which would make such a life absurd/devoid of purpose. But if an atheistic ontology can make no sense of purpose, what then of our happiness? You’ll recall that earlier I argued that for a life to be considered “happy”, it required the cognizance of some objective purpose or way in which the world is supposed to be. But if atheism makes no sense of purpose, then if we are atheists and we live out that worldview to its logical consequent, then quite simply we cannot be happy. This point is fundamental to my over-arching argument. Because it shows that if someone professes to believe that atheism is true, and yet he is happy, then that person is not living his worldview consistently. He has mistakenly convinced himself that somehow his worldview is consistent with the idea that life has a purpose, because the existence of that purpose is ultimately what makes his life enjoyable.

Of course it might be rejoined that my claim regarding the purpose of life on atheism depends on the faulty assumption that only death makes life absurd. It might be pointed out that Albert Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus” countermands this contention by showing us that nothing could be more absurd than an eternity of continuously trying to push a massive boulder to the top of a hill. But this response seems to confuse what I’m really saying. This rejoinder relies on the assumption that my position is that an eternal life is singularly sufficient to make that life meaningful. This is not my position. Rather, my position is that eternal life is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for a meaningful life. For a life to be meaningful there must ultimately be something else i.e. a purpose to our existence, a reason for being. But if atheism fails on this point, then what about most forms of theism? Most forms of theism, particularly Christian theism contend that the ultimate purpose in life is to know God and enjoy Him forever. Such a theology, so it would seem, is sufficient to facilitate a life with an objective purpose. This has the interesting effect of ruling out most “sparse” forms Deism as viable options. This is because on such forms of Deism, God ultimately remains indifferent to human affairs. It should seem clear that Gods indifference is not compatible with there being a purpose in the sense that I’v talked about because in the end it wouldn’t matter which way we act. Of course it might be pointed out that some people that we might refer to as “deists” (namely Lord Herbert of Chedbury and William Wollaston) have held that the soul survives death and is rewarded or punished by God based on their behavior in life. If this is what we mean when we talk about “deism”, I am willing to concede that my argument is compatible with it.

Of course it might be said that we can make our own purpose in life. That we can simply invent a reason for our existence and that this would suffice to make our lives ultimately happy. This, it seems to me, is tantamount to saying that we ought to delude ourselves! It’s the same as saying “well ultimately there is no purpose, but we’ll fool ourselves into thinking that there is such a purpose”. This point brings me to another interesting point. If we must delude ourselves in order to be happy, then it seems that we’re committing a form of “suicide”. We’re denying ourselves (unjustifiably I might add) our fundamentally human desire to know the truth. Furthermore, if we know that there is no purpose in life, then how are we to sustain the delusion? The more you are aware of the absence of purpose, the less you can deceive yourself into thinking that there is purpose! Even if you don’t admit it, at some level you will always know that there is no purpose to our existence.

But if there is an ambiguity of the public evidence for and against theism then it seems that we don’t have a reason to engage in such gratuitous self delusion. If there is such an ambiguity then, in accord with concern for happiness, it seems positively reasonable to make a leap of faith into God. This leap of faith is not at all analogous to an irrational, illogical Kierkegaardean leap into a God which ultimately offends logic. Rather, it says that since we don’t possess a reason to ignore our concern for “liveability”, and since some form of theism is most “liveable”, then theism ultimately is the most rational option.

Agnosticism, so it would seem, does not fare much better than atheism in the analysis. It is to essentially suspend judgement on whether or not one ought to be honestly happy.

Objections:
As I have proceeded I have dealt with a few possible objections that might arise. But there are some which would question the initial method and as such cannot be answered within the main body of the article. Below I have tried to elaborate on a few possible objections and then respond to them as best I can.

Inevitably someone will end up telling me that my argument engages in wishful thinking. But if such people look closely they will notice that I have been sufficiently clear as to avoid that charge. Suppose the available public evidence in favour of atheism was determinate. That is, it clearly came down on the side of atheism as opposed to theism. Suppose further, that regardless of this “determinate evidence”, someone continued to believe in God on the basis that it made him happy. Then (and only then) would the argument engage in wishful thinking! But my argument doesn’t deal with that situation. I have never denied the fact that evidential considerations can, in principle, overwhelm existential/pragmatic considerations. Hence to complain that my argument suffers from wishful thinking would truly show that you haven’t read my article thoroughly.

Perhaps a possible re-capitulation of the “wishful thinking” charge would be to say that one cannot determine something about reality simply by thinking that it would be nice if it were true. Now I can certainly agree that the truth or falsity of existential propositions can’t be determined by reference only to what we think would be nice. But notice, my argument doesn’t at all resemble the claim that we can know something to be true simply because we’d like it to be that way. Rather, my argument has to do, not with the truth of theistic belief, but with the warrant or intrinsic justification for theistic belief. The difference between “truth” and “justification” is made clear by the fact that we can reach true conclusions by faulty inference. For example, suppose I flip a coin and get a “heads”. Suppose that I infer (from getting that “heads”) that it’s raining in Moscow right now. Now it may very well be the case that in-fact it’s raining in Moscow right now. But quite clearly, my means of determining it (i.e. a coin toss) provide me with no justification for the belief that it is. So there is a clear distinction between “justification” and “truth”. This article concerns itself primarily with the justification for theistic belief.

Hat Tip: E†B

Each billboard has the tagline “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” My first thought on seeing this was that authors must find atheism psychologically liberating. We do not have to worry that there is a God and that means that we can enjoy ourselves but why would the existence of God be something to worry about? Is it the moral accountability that goes with it? If God exists then we might have to worry that He has seen what we have done in secret, and being free from this worry enables us to enjoy our lives. If this is so then prima facie this suggests that guilt is a major motivation behind, at least some peoples, atheism.

The tagline aside, let’s look at the three slogans currently affronting us as we navigate our cities. The billboard on Auckland’s Newton Rd states, “Good without God? Over One Million Kiwis Are. Source:2006 Census.”

Here we are told that one million kiwis are good without God because the census says so. Now a lot could be said about the appeal to the census here, I don’t recall a question on it asking me if I was good and even if it did I am not sure that we should take too much from self-reported assessments of people’s own integrity. Let’s assume, however, that the billboard makes a fair claim. The inference is still is fallacious. What the census shows is not that one million kiwis are good without God, rather, it shows that one million kiwis are good without believing in the existence of God. But to say that one can be good without believing in God is not the same as saying that one can be good without God. Many people throughout history have been able to live and breath without believing in the existence of hydrogen and oxygen atoms yet it does not follow that they could live without hydrogen and oxygen.

I am still left wondering how the fact that people do not need to believe in something to do good deeds renders the belief false? For centuries people have done good deeds and lived good lives without believing in heliocentricism or quantum mechanics, should we conclude that these theories are therefore ‘probably false’? Surely we are not being asked to buy that the basis of our beliefs should be what is useful or helpful as opposed to what is true?

Perhaps the sellers mean to convey something else. Some Christian thinkers such as William Lane Craig, Robert Adams, Stephen Layman, Alvin Plantinga, John Hare and Philip Quinn have argued that moral properties such as right and wrong depend on God for their existence. Atheist writers such as Paul Kurtz and Christopher Hitchens retort that this claim is falsified by the existence of morally upright atheists. I suspect something like this is meant by the slogan on the billboard, it repeats Hitchens’ and Kurtz’s retorts as though they said something insightful or clever.

This retort misses the point. Craig, Adams, et al are not claiming that one needs to believe in God to be good – a point made several times in the literature (and particularly made so many times to Kurtz that it beggars belief that he keeps repeating it) rather, their claim is that moral properties, such as right and wrong, depend on God for their existence. This is not the same thing, we know that water depends for its existence on the existence of hydrogen and oxygen, this does not mean, however, that we need to believe in the existence of hydrogen and oxygen in order to effectively recognise and use water. Ancient and medieval people were drinking, washing in, swimming in and sailing on water centuries before the discovery of contemporary atomic theory.

This is a fairly basic and elementary distinction in the literature. How exactly expressing a common philosophical confusion counts as reason for thinking “there probably is no God” is hard to see.

Parnell Rise’s billboard informs us “In the Beginning Man Created God.”

This one asserts that man created God. Now if one takes this statement in an absurdly literal manner (the way many sceptical organisations approach parables, hyperbole and poetry in the Bible) we find that atheists are telling us that God actually exists. I have no issue with the slogan at this juncture, however, the idea that God was created by human beings is clearly absurd. God is typically defined as an all-powerful, all-knowing, immaterial, necessarily-existent being who created the world and who sustains everything in it. Now if one is going to claim that humans actually created an all-powerful, all-knowing, immaterial, necessarily-existent who created and sustains the world, then they are contradicting themselves. Humans are part of the world and therefore cannot have created the being that created the world – otherwise humans would have to exist prior to their own existence.

Of course to interpret this billboard in this way would be uncharitable. The authors of this billboard probably do not mean to say that humans actually created God, they do not think He exists after all. Their claim is that humans created the idea or concept of God and developed it. This is undoubtedly true. Of course, humans also invented the idea or concept of atoms as well – ancient Greek philosophers came up with the basics of this concept millennia ago – but this fact tells us nothing about whether or not the idea or concept humans developed actually corresponds to anything in reality. To assume that it tells us something about whether the idea or concept is true is a fairly obvious case of what logicians call the genetic fallacy.

The last one is my favourite, “We Are All Atheists About Most Gods. Some of Us Just Go One God Further.”

To see the problems with this slogan take out the term “God” in the sign and replace it with some other term such as “non-Christian perspective.” When we do this we get: “We all reject most non-Christian perspectives, some of us just reject one more.” This argument has true premises, do we now have, a knock-down argument for Christianity?

Similarly, an analogous argument form with true premises gives us an argument for nihilism, the denial that humans have moral duties, the total denial of the existence of morality. “We are all nihilists about some conceptions of morality, some of us are just nihilistic about one more.”

The same argument for also furnishes a refutation of secularism, “we all reject some secular perspectives on reality, some of us just reject one more.” I could go on.

Taking a stand on any issue of philosophical substance, whether by affirming, denying or simply being sceptical of it, is to put oneself in opposition to any number of other people and groups who take a contrary stance. That’s life. Such pluralism hardly provides a reason for thinking “there probably is no God” any more than it gives us a reason to doubt any other perspective on the world.

So what do the atheist billboards do? Well the first one tells us that some atheist groups conflate basic philosophical distinctions and do not really understand the debate they are contributing to. The second shows us that these groups think contradictions and obvious fallacies are some how savvy and smart. The last shows us that they think that invalid argument forms, forms from which you could infer the denial of anything and everything by substituting one true premise with another, are avant-garde. All in all, pretty accurate advertising for these groups.

I write a monthly column for Investigate Magazine entitled Contra Mundum. This blog post was published in the Sept 10 issue and is reproduced here with permission. Contra Mundum is Latin for ‘against the world;’ the phrase is usually attributed to Athanasius who was exiled for defending Christian orthodoxy.

Letters to the editor should be sent to:
editorial@investigatemagazine.DELETE.com

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Contra Mundum: Slavery and the Old Testament
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Now Dawkins is a Zoologist and I, not being a Zoologist, would not presume to assess his work on Zoology. What is interesting, however, is that much of Dawkins’ most famous work is not on Zoology; it is on Theology and specifically Philosophy of Religion. That field of Philosophy which critically analyses religious questions, such as, the veracity of arguments for and against God’s existence. Having some background in these fields I find it a little surprising that an Auckland University publication would contend that his work is open minded because it is evidently not.

In The God Delusion Dawkins’ main argument against the existence of God alludes to Fred Hoyle’s famous claim that the probability of something as complex as life evolving by blind chance was less likely than a fully-functional Boeing 747 being created by a hurricane blowing parts around in a junk yard. Dawkins writes, “However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747.” Dawkins has made the same line of argument elsewhere “God, or any intelligent, decision-making calculating agent, is complex, which is another way of saying improbable.” In The Blind Watchmaker he argues,

Once we are allowed simply to postulate organized complexity, if only the organized complexity of the DNA/protein replicating machine, it is relatively easy to invoke it as a generator of yet more organized complexity”. But of course any God capable of intelligently designing something as complex as the DNA/protein machine must have been at least as complex and organized as that machine itself.

This argument contains three premises. First, that theism (belief in God) is justified by “postulating” God to explain the existence of organised complexity. Second that the God appealed to by theists is complex. Third, that the existence of complex beings are highly improbable. These lead to the conclusion that “God is the Ultimate Boeing 747” and hence “almost certainly does not exist”. The problem with this argument is that all three premises rest on caricatures and misunderstandings of contemporary theology and ignorance of contemporary philosophy of religion. I will explain.

Dawkins contends that God is postulated to explain organised complexity. There are two problems with this contention. First, Dawkins assumes that God is rationally believed only if his existence is inferred by some kind of argument for the best explanation of a given phenomenon. However, not all beliefs are justified on the basis of some kind of argument of this sort. Our belief in the existence of the past, our belief that it is wrong to rape, our belief that other people exist or that basic axioms of logic are true are not based on inferences to the best explanation. It is not that they are rationally believed because they explain some phenomena better than all alternatives, it is rather that these beliefs are part of the background data that we use to assess proposed explanations against. These things are true because we immediately experience them as true. I have the experience of remembering the existence of a past event. I intuitively perceive that rape is wrong. I experience the basic axioms of logic as self-evident and so on. Such beliefs are called properly-basic beliefs.

Since the late 1970’s an extremely important movement within Philosophy of Religion, known as the reformed epistemology movement, has offered detailed and rigorous defences of the contention that, for theists, belief in God can be properly-basic. This position has been defended by leading philosophers of religion such Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Peter Van Inwagen and others. Now, of course, it is possible that this movement is mistaken but Dawkins surely owes us an argument to this end as opposed to his simply assuming it and ignoring the counter evidence.

Second, among those theists who do defend God’s existence on the basis of some argument for the best explanation, very few do so on the basis that God explains “organized complexity”. Richard Swinburne, the leading proponent of such arguments, argues that God explains the existence of laws of nature, religious experience, the origin of the universe and the continued existence of the universe. Swinburne does not postulate God to explain “organised complexity”. Similarly, William Lane Craig, a leading defender of theism, suggests that God explains the origin of the universe, the existence of morality and the fine tuning of the laws of nature. Again, Craig makes no appeal to “organized complexity”. In 2009 The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology was published which contains the most up to date versions of the 11 most definitive arguments used to defend the existence of God in the literature today. Not one of them involves an appeal to “organised complexity”. While the cogency of arguments for the existence of God that do not involve “organized complexity” remains open to substantive debate, it is undisputed that these arguments exist. Dawkins’ picture of God as a postulate to explain organised complexity is a crude caricature of theistic scholarship.

To be fair Dawkins attempts to address some of these other arguments elsewhere in the book. However, here again much of his writing consists of caricature. He attacks five arguments proposed 800 years ago by Thomas Aquinas as being representative of the current case for theism and completely ignores the vastly more sophisticated and vigorous versions being defended in the literature today. Ironically, Dawkins quite severely misunderstands Aquinas’ arguments and attributes to him a position no Aquinas scholar would accept as accurate. However, even if his account were accurate, critiquing theism by attacking the arguments of one 12th century theologian is a bit like me attacking evolution on the basis of the evidence for it gathered in the 12th century and ignoring any of the scientific developments of the last 800 years. Such ineptitude would not be tolerated in the scientific world and should not be seen as de rigueur just because the topic is religion.

Dawkins’ second contention fares little better. Dawkins states that “A God capable of continuously monitoring and controlling the individual status of every particle in the universe cannot be simple” this seems to be because,

The corners of God’s giant consciousness are simultaneously preoccupied with the doings and emotions and prayers of every single human being—and whatever intelligent aliens there might be on other planets in this and 100 billion other galaxies.

There are several problems here. First, as Craig has noted, this confuses whether what God thinks about is complex with whether God himself is complex. Second, as Plantinga has noted, in The Blind Watchmaker Dawkins states that something is complex if it has parts that are “arranged in a way that is unlikely to have arisen by chance alone.” However, the concept of God employed by most theists is of an immaterial being that does not have material parts so by Dawkins’ own definition God is not complex (unless one assumes that God is a material being but theists almost unanimously maintain that God is an immaterial being).

This misrepresentation is made all the more pertinent by the fact that for centuries theists have been offering rigorous and sophisticated arguments that God is not in fact complex but is simple. While these arguments may not be successful, Dawkins still needs to actually provide reasons for rejecting them. To simply assert that God is to be conceived in a way that no one conceives Him and to ignore the numerous arguments to the contrary seem more like a child who asserts his position and then puts his hands over his ears and repeats “I am not listening” than it does a serious critical evaluation of another’s position.

Dawkins’ final contention, that the existence of complex beings is improbable, is similarly confused. Suppose one grants that God is “the Ultimate Boeing 747” and that God’s existence is as statically improbable as the complexity it is invoked to explain. Little in fact follows from this. This is because what is improbable in the Boeing 747 analogy is that the plane came into existence by chance. If God is “the Ultimate Boeing 747” then the conclusion to be drawn is only that it is improbable that God came into existence by chance. This, however, provides us with no reason for thinking that God does not exist. No theist holds that God came into existence by chance, theists hold that God is eternal. Here, again, Dawkins attacks a concept of God nobody holds to and hence is caught jousting with a straw-man.

On examining Dawkins’ central argument what one discovers is not an open-minded, informed, careful examination of the contemporary debate over the existence of God. Nor does one find a carefully researched assessment of theism. Instead one finds Dawkins simply ignoring what theists mean by God. He ignores how they conceptualise God and ignores the arguments and discussions they have actually made. The theism Dawkins dismisses apparently assumes that God is a material being with parts, that He came into existence by chance and is postulated merely to explain organized complexity. The actual arguments proposed in defence of theism that have been put forward in the literature are not addressed at all.

Some Auckland University academics might consider such tactics to count as open-minded but I do not. In my view an open-minded honest assessment of religion requires accurately representing what theologians say and teach. It means endeavouring to read and understand their position and offer informed and critical responses to these positions. Ignorance and caricature is not open-minded scholarship.

I write a monthly column for Investigate Magazine entitled Contra Mundum. This blog post was published in the May 10 issue and is reproduced here with permission. Contra Mundum is Latin for ‘against the world;’ the phrase is usually attributed to Athanasius who was exiled for defending Christian orthodoxy.

Letters to the editor should be sent to: editorial@investigatemagazine.DELETE.com

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Setting aside the dubious factual claims and the fact that I could list a stack of atheist atrocities that could outnumber the theist ones just from the last century alone, there is another way of addressing the slogan. If a person joined Weight Watchers, got the points book, the pamphlets explaining how the program works and began attending weekly meetings to fellowship with others on the same journey but instead of following the instructions began to bend the rules, invent new ones and ignore others and as a result began to gain weight, could that person justifiably claim that Weight Watchers made them fat? That Weight Watchers should be rejected as a weight-loss program, in fact, attempting to lose weight in and of itself is a bad thing, because this person gained weight whilst ostensibly being a follower of the program?

If you can see how ridiculous it would be to blame Weight Watchers and to abandon the pursuit of weight loss because someone who cheated on the program had a bad outcome then why can’t you see it when the same reasoning is applied to atrocities committed in the ‘name of’ Christianity

H/T Rodney Lake at Thinking Matters Tauranga

Now by juxtaposing this question next to the description of the beating, Loftus insinuates, that the scriptures explicitly or implicitly condone these sorts of practices. In his book, Loftus reinforces this by noting that,

the Bible was still used by Christians to justify the brutal slavery in the American South. Distinguished Princeton professor Charles Hodge defended American slavery in a 40 page essay written in 1860, just prior to the Civil War.

Apparently it’s just in poor taste and really just skirts around the edges to point out that contrary to the claims that some skeptics love to make, the Old Testament does not endorse what we call slavery. But I daresay that annoyance has clouded John’s vision, for what has been shown is that in fact God did condemn kidnapping and/or mistreating people, the very things that Loftus is concerned about and which he is calling “slavery.” it may be irritating to have the rug ripped out from under your argument, but getting annoyed and demanding that people deal with the “main” argument by pretending that the rug is still there (for the sake of your argument and nothing else) is a bit of an ask, don’t you think? Why not just graciously thank the other person for their helpful explanation and remove the argument from your repertoire?

Here’s exhibit “A” of the backward thinking of some Christians. This is incredibly ignorant:

“So yes, I…am happy to be treated the same way women were in the Bible.” Link

How much more ignorant can someone be? Although, her husband probably likes it!

“God can do wrong only if he commands himself to do something and then disobeys his own command.”In this post, I will argue that Plantinga’s criticisms can be reformulated by appealing to a divine command theory of ethics and when they are, it can be shown that Tooley’s argument relies on controversial moral assumptions that many theists do, in fact, reject. Finally I will look at two objections to this line of argument; the claim that, even on a divine command theory, God has obligations and Tooley’s critique of the divine command theory. I will argue both objections fail.

To save you having to click back repeatedly to the previous post, I will first re-cite step one of Tooley’s argument,

(12) The property of choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the death of more than 50,000 ordinary people is a wrongmaking property of actions, and very serious one.
(13) The Lisbon earthquake killed approximately 60,000 ordinary people.

Therefore, from (12) and (13):

(14) Any action of choosing not to prevent the Lisbon earthquake has a very serious wrongmaking property.

Tooley then adds as an additional premise,

(15) No rightmaking properties that we know of are such that we are justified in believing both that an action of choosing not to prevent the Lisbon earthquake would have had those rightmaking properties, and that those properties are sufficiently serious to counterbalance the relevant wrongmaking property.[1]

Modifying Plantinga’s Response : The Divine Command Theory
In a more recent paper, Naturalism, Theism, Obligation and Supervenience, Plantinga makes a comment that suggests he could formulate his objection so that “permitted by God” was taken in the second sense mentioned above. Plantinga writes,

Theists typically think ethical properties are intimately related to what God approves or values or commands. Thus they will often think of moral obligation as a matter of what God commands. What is obligatory are those actions God commands or wills; what is wrong are those actions God prohibits; what is permissible are those actions God does not prohibit.[2]

Plantinga here refers to what has been called the divine command theory of ethics[3]; the position that, “an action or kind of action is right or wrong if and only if and because it is commanded or forbidden by God.”[4] According to a divine command theory of ethics, being permitted by God is a right-making property; actions are right, if and only if, and because, they are permitted by God. I am inclined to think that any theist who accepts a divine command theory of ethics will deny (15) whether or not they “offer a theodicy.” They will also have reasons for denying (12).

This is because, if the divine command theory of ethics is true then (12) is false. Tooley affirms that, “the property of choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the death of more than 50,000 ordinary people is a wrongmaking property of actions, and very serious one.” According to a divine command theory of ethics this is false; there is only one ultimate wrong-making property, that of being contrary to God’s commands. Given that the property of “choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the death of more than 50,000” is not the same property as “being permitted by God,” it follows that the former property is not a right-making property of actions and, as such, (12) is false.

Even if one puts this point to one side, if a divine command theory of ethics is true, there is a further problem with (12); it is ambiguous compare:

[12 a] The property of choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the deaths of more than 50,000 ordinary people is a serious wrongmaking property of actions performed by human beings (or rational creatures relevantly like human beings).

and

[12b] The property of choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the deaths of more than 50,000 ordinary people is a serious wrongmaking property of actions performed by (including God).

For Tooley’s argument to be successful he must mean for (12) to be taken as [12b]. Tooley is arguing for the conclusion that if God exists then he has performed actions that it would be wrong for God to perform; which, given that God is good, is an impossible state of affairs.

However, what is an “uncontroversial moral claim” that “does not seem very problematic” is [12a]. If a divine command theory of ethics is true then [12b] is false. This is because one implication of a divine command theory of ethics is that God does not have obligations and hence, strictly speaking, nothing he does can be right or wrong.[5] Craig notes “nor, plausibly, is God bound by moral duties since he does not issue commands to himself.”[6] Similarly Alston, in an article defending the claim that God has no obligations, states “we can hardly suppose that God is obliged to love his creatures because he commands himself to do so.”[7]

Craig and Alston’s arguments seem sound. If the divine command theory of ethics is true then a person p is required to do an action a, if and only if, God commands p to do a. It follows then, that God is required to do a, if and only if, God issues commands to himself. Moreover, if divine command theory of ethics is true then a person engages in wrongdoing, if and only if, they disobey a command that God issues to them. Hence, if divine command theory of ethics is true then God can do wrong only if he commands himself to do something and then disobeys his own command.

Neither of these conditions seems very likely. It seems unlikely that God issues commands to himself. Why would he need to? If he wanted to do something wouldn’t he just do it? Moreover, it seems absurd to suggest that even if God issues commands to himself that he would then disobey them. That would suggest that God displays some form of weakness of the will and it is not clear that weakness of the will is compatible with a supremely excellent being such as God.[8]

The divine command theorist will take a similar stance towards (15). If a divine command theory of ethics is true then the property of “being permitted by God” is a right-making property. If God permits an action, in the sense of refraining from prohibiting it, then that makes the action morally permissible. Consider then, “[God's] action of choosing not to prevent the Lisbon earthquake.” For the reasons spelt out above, God did not forbid himself from doing this; hence, this action has a right-making property that a theist, who embraces divine command theory of ethics, knows about.

Similarly, this right-making property outweighs any wrong-making property that the action has. As I mentioned previously, according to a divine command theory of ethics, there is only one ultimate wrong-making property, the property of being contrary to God’s commands. Given that God did not command himself to stop the Lisbon earth quake, the action of allowing the Lisbon earthquake to occur does not have any wrong-making properties and so there can be none that outweigh it.

Consequently, if a divine command theory of ethics is true then both (12) and (15) are false. It is not just theists who offer a theodicy then who would reject (15).

The Significance of this Conclusion
I think this conclusion is significant for two reasons. First, a significant number of contemporary theists embrace and defend the divine command theory of ethics. Those who have defended it include, Robert Adams,[9] John Hare,[10] William Alston,[11] William Lane Craig,[12] Stephen C Evans,[13] Philip Quinn,[14] Edward Wierenga,[15] Janine Marie Idziak,[16] William Wanwright,[17] William Mann,[18] Thomas Carson[19] and more recently Alvin Plantinga.[20] These people are not obscure, marginal representatives of theism; these names include some of the leading defenders of theism in the literature today. Tooley’s argument then contains a premise that would be, and in fact is, rejected by many leading theists.

Second, this fact introduces a significant incoherence into Tooley’s discussion of the argument from evil. In “Does God Exist?” Tooley rejects an axiological argument from evil on the grounds that it rests on a moral claim that was “within ethical theory deeply controversial, and likely to be rejected by many theists and others.” Tooley’s own argument, however, presupposes the denial of a divine command theory of ethics. This is a controversial moral claim and one that is rejected by many theists. His own deontological argument then seems to be no better than the axiological version he rejects.

Finally, it seems in light of these conclusions that Tooley’s deontological argument from evil is incomplete. It is not enough for Tooley to simply ask “what rightmaking properties can one point to that one has good reason to believe would be present in the case of an action allowing the Lisbon earthquake and that would be sufficiently serious to counterbalance the property of allowing more than 50,000 to be killed?”[21] The theist can point to such a property. Tooley needs to supplement his argument with a refutation of the divine command theory; specifically, he needs to argue that even if theism is true then this theory is implausible and problematic. Until the divine command theory can be shown to be a rationally untenable option for theists, theists can avoid Tooley’s deontological argument from evil.

Objections
In this last section I want to anticipate and criticise two lines of argument that Tooley or a defender of Tooley, might make against the above line of critique.

Tooley’s Critique of Divine Command Theory
I suggested that Tooley’s argument was incomplete until he provides the theist with some reason why a divine command theory of ethics cannot be accepted then the theist can reject two crucial premises of his argument. (A defender of Tooley could object here that he has argued for this conclusion. In a debate with William Lane Craig at the University of Colorado Tooley addressed the divine command theory and offered a Euthyphro style argument against it. I agree that a complete defence of my position requires a response to this argument, regular readers, however, will note that I have addressed this argument previously in Tooley, The Euthyphro Objection and Divine Commands.)

Divine Commands and Divine Obligations
My argument depended on the claim, made by Craig and Alston, that if a divine command theory is true then God does not have duties. Linda Zagzebski has called this claim into question. In “More Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists,” Zagzebski proposes an account of divine obligations which is compatible with a divine command theory. Zagzebski starts by offering an account of the meaning of obligation, “What we mean by ‘obligation,’ is essentially this: there is no other option compatible with moral goodness.”[22] From this definition she argues that “the metaphysical source of divine obligation” and “the metaphysical source of human obligation are distinct.”[23]

The metaphysical source of the property of an act of a human being which makes it the case that there is no alternative act compatible with goodness is that it is commanded by God. The metaphysical source of the property of an act of God that makes it the case that there is no alternative act compatible with goodness is that that any alternative is incompatible with Gods nature.[24]

Hence, she concludes that it is “metaphysically necessary that an act X is an obligation for a human if and only if X is commanded by God” and “it is metaphysically necessary that an act X is an obligation for God if and only if X is compatible with Gods nature.”[25]

While I am not convinced by Zagzebski’s account of divine obligations, even if one grants them for the sake of argument it is clear that it cannot be used to defend Tooley’s deontological argument from evil. Consider,

(15) No rightmaking properties that we know of are such that we are justified in believing both that an action of choosing not to prevent the Lisbon earthquake would have had those rightmaking properties, and that those properties are sufficiently serious to counterbalance the relevant wrongmaking property.[26]

If Zagzebski’s account of divine obligation is correct then (15) is false. Plantinga’s original unreformulated response is rehabilitated. As Plantinga pointed out “God exists and is a perfectly good being. If this is true, then any action that God has in fact performed has the property of being performed by a perfectly good being.”[27] Moreover, “theists believe that God performed the action of permitting the Lisbon earthquake. They therefore believe that the action of performing the Lisbon earthquake has the property of being performed by God, who is a perfectly good person.”[28] But if the Lisbon earthquake was performed by a perfectly good person, performing it must be compatible with the divine nature and hence it has the very right-making property that Zagzebski identifies in her account of divine obligation.

The same is true for (12). Tooley contends,

(12) The property of choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the death of more than 50,000 ordinary people is a wrongmaking property of actions, and very serious one.

On Zagzebski’s account (12) is false. There are only two right-making properties that exist. The property of being compatible with God’s nature, which is what makes God’s actions right, and the property of being permitted by God, which is what makes human actions right. Now the property of “choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the deaths of more than 50,000 people” is neither of these properties and hence, is not a right-making property.

[1] Michael Tooley “Does God Exist?” in The Knowledge of God eds Michael Tooley and Alvin Plantinga (Malden, M A: Blackwell Publishers, 2008) 119; I am following Tooley’s enumeration.
[2] Alvin Plantinga “Naturalism, Theism, Obligation and Supervenience” accessed 4 April 2009.
[3] The position is perhaps more correctly known as ethical voluntarism as some proponents of it emphasise the divine will as opposed to divine commands. However, because of the widespread use of the term ‘divine command theory’ in the literature I will stick with the term.
[4] W K Frankena Ethics 2nd ed (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973) 28.
[5] It should also be noted that the claim that God does not have obligations has been defended on grounds other than a divine command theory. See, for example, William Alston, “Some Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists” in Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy ed. Michael Beaty (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990). Hence, even if one dismisses a divine command theory of ethics it still follows that [12a] is not the obviously uncontroversial statement Tooley thinks it is.
[6] William Lane Craig Philosphical Foundations of a Christian World View (Downers Grover Il: Intervarsity Press, 2003) 529.
[7] William Alston “Response to Zagzebski” Perspectives on the Philosophy of William P. Alston eds Heather D Battaly, Michael P Lynch, William P Alston, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005) 204.
[8] It is worth noting the definition of God that Tooley works with in formulating his argument. For the purposes of his argument, Tooley is defining God as “an appropriate object of worship” as well as an appropriate object of other human concerns such as the desire that good will triumph over evil, and that justice will be done” etc.
[9] Robert Adams “Divine Command Meta-Ethics Modified Again” Journal of Religious Ethics 7:1 (1979); Finite and Infinite Goods (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
[10] John Hare God’s Call: Moral Realism, God’s Commands and Human Autonomy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001); God and Morality: A Philosophical History (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007).
[11] William Alston “Some Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists” in Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy ed Michael Beaty (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990).
[12] William Lane Craig “This most Gruesome of Guests” in Is Goodness Without God Good Enough? A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics eds Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanthan: Rowan and Littlefield Publishers Inc, 2009) 172; also Philosphical Foundations of a Christian World View (Downers Grover Il: Intervarsity Press, 2003) 529-532.
[13] C Stephen Evans Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love: Divine Commands and Moral Obligations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
[14] Philip L Quinn Divine Commands and Moral Requirements (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); “An Argument for Divine Command Theory” in Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy ed Michael Beaty (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990) 289-302; “The Recent Revival of Divine Command Ethics” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (Fall 1990) 345-365; “The Primacy of God’s Will in Christian Ethics” Philosophical Perspectives 6 (1992) 493-513; “Divine Command Theory” in Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory ed Hugh Lafollette (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 2000) 53-73; “Theological Voluntarism” The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) 63-90.
[15] Edward Weirenga The Nature of God: An Inquiry into the Divine Attributes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989) 215-27. See also, “Utilitarianism and the Divine Command Theory” American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984) 311-318; and “A Defensible Divine Command Theory” Nous 17 (1983) 387-408.
[16] Janine Marie Idziak “Divine Commands Are the Foundation of Morality” Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion (Malden, MA:Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004) 290-298.
[17] William Wrainwright Religion and Morality (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, 2005).
[18] William Mann “Theism and the Foundations of Ethics” in The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Religion ed William Mann (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005).
[19] Thomas Carson Value and the Good Life (Notre Dame IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2000).
[20] Alvin Plantinga “Naturalism, Theism, Obligation and Supervenience”available at http://www.ammonius.org/grant_topics.php#0708 accessed 4 April 2009.
[21] Michael Tooley “Does God Exist?” in The Knowledge of God eds Michael Tooley and Alvin Plantinga (Malden, M A: Blackwell Publishers, 2008), 122
[22] Linda Zagzebski “More Suggestions for Divine Command Theories” in Perspectives on the Philosophy of William P. Alston eds Heather D Battaly, Michael P Lynch, William P Alston, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005) 189.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Tooley “Does God Exist?” 119.
[27] Alvin Plantinga “Reply to Tooley’s Opening Statement” in The Knowledge of God eds Michael Tooley and Alvin Plantinga (Malden, M A: Blackwell Publishers, 2008), 170
[28] Ibid.

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Tooley, Plantinga and the Deontological Argument from Evil Part I