Atheism Considered: A Survey of the Rational Rejection of Religious Belief [1st ed.] 9783030562076, 9783030562083

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Atheism Considered A Survey of the Rational Rejection of Religious Belief

C. M. Lorkowski

Atheism Considered

C. M. Lorkowski

Atheism Considered A Survey of the Rational Rejection of Religious Belief

C. M. Lorkowski Kent State University Trumbull Warren, OH, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-56207-6 ISBN 978-3-030-56208-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For Sophie who is simply the best

Preface

Atheism Considered came about as a result of teaching my first collegiate course on atheism, a class cross-listed as both philosophy and religion. I soon found that the available texts were heavily skewed toward the former, strongly favoring discussions of natural theology over revealed. This was despite the fact that revealed religion much more heavily influences beliefs and practices than does philosophical theology. In a chance encounter, I was bemoaning this trend at an American Philosophical Association conference when Phil Getz, a senior editor at Palgrave Macmillan, suggested that I write a book that rectified this issue. That is what I have attempted here. Atheism Considered is intended as an advanced introduction to these matters. It does not assume or require any educational background from its reader, and certainly does not demand any philosophical or theological training. However, the topics themselves are inherently complex and cannot be engaged too superficially without threatening to lose substance. The text is written as a balance—it is intended to be approachable but not simplistic. As such, it is written for anyone with an open mind and interest in these matters, but may require that the novice put forth a little more concentration and attention. And though the novice will get the most out of it, there are also novel arguments and materials that should be of value to the more advanced readership as well. In completing this project, I have had all the help and support that I could ask for, and probably more than I deserve. Thanks go to Phil

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for getting me to do this in the first place, and to Jonathan Beever and Lane Andrew for their various forms of support. I also made good use of Ashford University’s general research funds, as well as a 2019 Office of Research and Creative Scholarship Research Sabbatical. Thanks also go to Jim Hardy for many helpful conversations, and to all my years of students in both religion and philosophy of religion courses for the same. Lastly, thanks go to Paul Draper for helping me do philosophy of religion better, and to the late Bill Rowe for inspiring me to do it in the first place. Warren, USA

C. M. Lorkowski

Contents

1 1 2 3 7 9

1

Introduction and Overview Introduction to the Topic Considered Nonbelief Synopsis of the Text Reading and Utilizing the Text References

2

Of the Philosophy of Religion and Its Methodology Views and Commitments Evidence Over Faith What Counts as Evidence Challenging Questions Further Reading Reference

11 11 13 16 17 17 18

3

Atheism and Atheists Limitations Contemporary Trends (Global) Contemporary Trends (U.S.) An Atheist in Profile Oppression and Suppression Challenging Questions Further Reading References

19 19 20 21 22 23 25 25 27 ix

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4

The Burden of Proof What Is the Burden of Proof? Determining a Burden of Proof The Religious Burden Challenging Questions Further Reading

29 29 31 33 35 36

5

Theology and Reason Natural Versus Revealed Theology Applying Reason to Theological Subjects Reason as a Generator of Truth Common Trends in Natural Theology Challenging Questions Further Reading References

39 39 40 43 45 46 46 47

6

Ontological Arguments Three Historical Families of Argument Shape of Analysis Ontological Arguments in Context The Inference to Existence Some Ontological Arguments Historical Objections to Ontological Arguments A New Criticism and a Final Verdict Challenging Questions Further Reading References

49 49 50 51 52 53 55 57 60 60 62

7

Cosmological Arguments The Quest for an Ultimate Persuasive Cosmological Arguments The Revived Kal¯ am Cosmological Argument Extrapolating the Results Challenging Questions Further Reading References

63 63 64 67 70 73 73 76

CONTENTS

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8

Design Arguments Order and Purpose Local and Global Design Orderly Design A Finely Tuned Universe? Challenging Questions Further Reading References

77 77 77 79 83 86 86 88

9

Conclusions Regarding Existential Natural Theology Where the Arguments Leave Us Cosmic Intuitions Added Value for the Believer? Challenging Questions Further Reading References

89 89 90 92 94 95 96

10

The Concept(s) of God Natural Atheology An Alien Concept An Eternal Puzzle A Concept Too Full Further Reading Appendix: A Plethora of Paradoxes (Just the Top Twenty) References

97 97 98 99 101 103 104 105

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The Problems of Evil—Logical, Evidential, and Moral The Problem Stated The Shape of a Solution Some Standard Theodicies The Danger of Success Escapes and Acceptance Challenging Questions Further Reading References

107 107 110 111 114 115 116 117 119

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The Character of Revelation The Turn to Revealed Theology

121 121

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The Stakes of Revelation The Problem of the Many The Arbitrariness of Religious Belief Challenging Questions Further Reading References

123 124 127 129 129 131

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Challenges to Sacred Texts From Particular to General The Human Controlling the Divine Broken Chains A Far Cry from Perfection The Big Two—Interpretation and Context Where Are We Left? Challenging Questions Further Reading References

133 133 134 135 137 138 140 141 141 143

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Challenges to Miracles The Naturalistic Alternative A Predictable World Challenging Questions Further Reading References

145 146 150 153 153 155

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Challenges to Religious Experience Experiencing Divinity The Fathomably Unfathomable Mind The Unassailability of the Non-Empirical The Asymmetry of Belief Challenging Questions Further Reading References

157 157 158 160 162 163 163 165

16

Moral Critiques to Religion The Rejection of Dogma Two Transcendent Threats to Morality The Threat Is Real

167 167 168 170

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Some Pernicious Contributions Challenging Questions Further Reading References

171 175 175 177

17

Personal Survival and the Afterlife Types of Survival Four Types of Deficient Evidence The Unjust Deserts Impracticalities Conclusion Challenging Questions Further Reading References

179 179 180 183 186 186 187 187 189

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The Case Against Christianity A Special Case Religious Hijacking A Canon of Forced Fit The Coherence of the Trinity Odious Salvation Challenging Questions Further Reading References

191 191 193 194 196 198 200 200 203

19

Naturalism in the Sciences Scientism Versus Scientific Naturalism Methodological Naturalism Past and Future Success Challenging Questions Further Reading References

205 206 207 210 212 213 215

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A Soulless World Ghosts in Machines Mental Machines A World of Brains Challenging Questions

217 219 222 225 228

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Further Reading References

228 231

21

The Naturalization of Religion The Religious “Majority” Imposing Agency The Religious Contagion From Possible to Plausible Challenging Questions Further Reading References

233 233 235 237 241 244 244 246

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The Loss of Thou Shalt Four Divine Roles The Ethics of Divine Whimsy A Damning Dilemma The Appeal of the Unworkable Challenging Questions Further Reading References

247 247 249 250 253 254 255 257

23

Excising God from Value The Precedence and Pedigree of Naturalistic Ethics Natural Sources of Right The Personal Nature of Meaning Goodness First Challenging Questions Further Reading References

259 259 261 263 266 268 268 270

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Concluding Thoughts

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Index

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction and Overview

Introduction to the Topic Were atheism a religion, it would be the third most popular religion in the world. Over a billion people claim no godly commitments. In the United States, nonbelief would be the second most popular religion, with more membership than Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism combined.1 Yet in the U.S., atheism is viewed in a particularly negative light, and has been described as the last great civil rights battle. It can still cost you a job, a friend, a scholarship, or an election.2 Self-identifying as an atheist has been known to invoke vitriol, threats, hate speech through social media, and hate crimes in our institutions of higher learning. It is a view (or lack thereof) that has been demonized and oppressed, in many places for centuries, despite the fact that many atheists rank among the most tolerant, educated, and moral of people.3 The contemporary nonbeliever in the U.S. must struggle for acceptance, even tolerance, and must frequently confront the absolutely bizarre (yet extremely common) assumptions that atheism somehow entails immorality, irrationality, antagonism, or anarchy. Tolerance begins in understanding, and understanding is the primary goal of Atheism Considered. It is not written with the intent to convert or to provoke. This work is, among other things, a call to tolerance, understanding, and meaningful dialogue. But because atheism in the U.S. is the minority position, even to the point of being countercultural, the best way to understand the view is by seeing it through the atheist’s eyes, to © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_1

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show why the position should be considered eminently reasonable, and that it therefore need not remain constantly on the defensive. The book attempts this task in part by analyzing and evaluating the standard justifications and assumptions of theism. It will first show that the standard philosophical supports in favor of the various theisms are unpersuasive, and that an appeal to revealed sources is even more problematic. But beyond this dearth of good reasons to accept the existence of a higher power, there are also compelling reasons that speak against such theistic views and that therefore motivate the rejection of religion. Lastly, there are many additional considerations that speak in favor of a naturalistic worldview. However, this book is not intended to serve as a collection of fodder with which to cudgel theists. While it does present strong criticisms against various theistic viewpoints, it does so for the purpose of understanding and further reflection and investigation, not as ammunition. Atheists just as much as theists must guard against dogmatism. A dogmatist is someone who does not revise their view in light of evidence. Hence, were an atheist to accept any evidence in favor of nonbelief while ignoring any evidence that challenges their view, it would be just as dogmatic and unenlightened as the type of religious mindset that frequently chafes nonbelievers. For this reason and with deliberate irony, I refer to such dogmatic nonbelief as “fundamentalist atheism.” Too many followers of the New Atheists take this tack. If you believe that theism entails manifest irrationality, or if you think that religion has never done anything valuable or that it only harms mankind, then this book is not for you. You may wish to reach instead for a text on critical thinking. Atheism Considered approaches and encourages the evaluation of all evidence rationally, carefully, and without bias, and is not written for those who simply refuse to do so, regardless of their metaphysical worldview.

Considered Nonbelief Up to this point, I have used “atheist” and “nonbeliever” synonymously. This is an oversimplification that will have to be made precise in the next chapter, but for now it will suffice to say that the atheist or nonbeliever, in the intended sense, must be distinguished from both the believer and the agnostic. While agnostics do not believe there is a deity, they also

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do not believe that there is no deity. By contrast, when I use “nonbeliever” or “atheist in the popular sense,” I mean an individual who has gone beyond mere agnosticism; one who, upon considering these matters, actively affirms the position that there is no deity, therefore making a much stronger claim than mere agnosticism. Hence, we may define a nonbeliever or atheist in the popular sense as someone who, upon reflection, denies the existence of any deity. Notice that this definition entails that the nonbeliever finds the sum of all considered reasons for belief insufficient, and further maintains that there is sufficient evidence against this position to merit the rejection of such beliefs rather than a mere suspension of belief. This is worth spelling out in more detail. The considered nonbeliever must therefore not only possess rational grounds for the rejection of the purported evidence intended to support the existence of a deity, but must also hold that there are further, positive reasons for thinking there is no such being. This is because “I don’t believe x” is a very different claim than, “I believe not x.” I don’t believe that it will be a sunny day four weeks from now. This is not because I believe it will be overcast. Instead, I simply hold no considered view about it. I have no compelling reason to think that it will be sunny or that it will not be sunny. When I consider the possibilities, I remain meteorologically agnostic. Thus, the fact that I do not believe it will be sunny four weeks from now in no way entails that I believe it will not be sunny four weeks from now. In order to arrive at the latter belief, I would need to be provided reasons that specifically support the view that it will not be sunny. For instance, I may look at what the Farmers’ Almanac predicts for that day, or perhaps I realize that most years, that particular day is cloudy, etc. What this example is trying to convey is that arriving at considered nonbelief must be a two-step process. We must reject the reasons for saying that x is true, but we must also provide additional reasons why x is false (or, at minimum, show that the reasons to think x is false radically outweigh evidence to support that x is true—such considerations will be discussed much more thoroughly in Chapters 2 and 4).

Synopsis of the Text Atheism Considered progresses through this two-step movement. It presents the standard and influential reasons used to support belief and the rational rejection of such supports. But it then goes beyond this in

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presenting independent support for nonbelief. The text accomplishes this in six major parts. First, the introductory chapters set the conditions for belief and for the proper weighing of evidence. A major stumbling block for opening any type of dialogue between believers and nonbelievers is simply the failure to apply the common rules of logic, argument, and evidence. But such rules are vital and should be the starting point and framework for any pursuit of truth, religious or otherwise. Chapter 2 begins to build this common ground by clarifying terminology and disentangling the clusters of related views and commitments on these topics, after which it will establish some important components regarding methodology for this type of discussion. Chapter 3 will then begin the process of undoing centuries of demonization by examining the typical atheist from a sociological standpoint. The goal in these Chapters is simply to lay the groundwork for a fruitful dialogue. As the skeptical philosopher David Hume was reputed to have said, truth springs from disagreement amongst friends. But before such a dialogue can begin, there is a final piece of groundwork that must be established, what we call the burden of proof. This must be brought in because equal plausibility of theses need not (and in many cases should not) be assumed in a given discussion. Some debates may start on equal footing, but this is generally the exception, rather than the rule. If someone were trying to convince me, for instance, that genocide is permissible, or that the world is flat, I do not begin by assuming that my opponent’s starting point and my own are equally likely. It is not a coin-toss. Instead, my view holds a significant advantage before the discussion even begins and, as such, my opponent starts at a proportionate disadvantage. This is to say, my opponent starts with a burden that I do not. Hence, the burden of proof represents a disadvantageous starting position that must be overcome in order to even get the debaters to a fifty-fifty point. As such, before we can determine how much our views change based on the evidence presented, we must first determine who, if anyone, possesses the burden of proof, and how much of a disadvantage it entails. The goal of Chapter 4 is to establish this for the god debates. Only after we have completed these necessary steps and set the proper groundwork can we begin to present and evaluate the evidence properly. The second major part of the book considers justifications for belief in a higher power grounded in natural theology. Roughly, natural theology pursues theological matters independently of any religious tradition or appeal to faith. Instead, the goal is to see what, if anything, can be learned

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using only the natural faculties (such as reasoning) and neutral evidence— that is, evidence accepted as evidence by all sides of a controversy. Hence, we can think of these chapters as examining what, if anything, reason and the sciences can tell us about these matters without bringing any religious commitments into it. Chapter 5 will start by first considering the role of reason in this type of inquiry. It will sort out which issues are matters of reason, and which are better classified as faith or revelation. Once these matters have been sorted out, we will consider the three major families of arguments for the existence of a deity, traditionally known as the ontological, cosmological, and design arguments, discussed in Chapters 6, 7, and 8 respectively. These kinds of arguments try to establish that reason, metaphysics, or certain facts about the world imply the existence of some form of higher power. Though there are many such arguments in the history of philosophy, the focus of these chapters is not historical but will instead present general forms of the arguments. The question will be whether the acceptance of the assumptions motivating these arguments is reasonable and therefore whether their rejection makes an atheist irrational or epistemically irresponsible. Chapter 9 will bring together what we have learned regarding natural theology by drawing out and analyzing in more detail some of the key assumptions, and where they leave us regarding the god debates. But as we discussed above, denying the success of these arguments may justify agnosticism, but in and of itself does not commit one to atheism. That would require further reasons for maintaining such a being’s existence is improbable or impossible. And such arguments do exist within the domain of natural theology, constituting what is sometimes called natural atheology. Such arguments insinuate that, given the same tools of reason, the senses, and neutral evidence, we should instead arrive at the conclusion that there is no higher power of a certain description. Many conceptions of such a being cause difficulties in and of themselves, but the depiction of a powerful good creator is also difficult, if not impossible, to square with the suffering present in the world. These types of consideration will be addressed in Chapters 10 and 11 respectively. But as most nonbelievers have realized and studies have confirmed, such exercises in reason are rarely the determining cause for the belief in a deity or deities. This is not to say that belief is inherently unreasonable. It is rather a generative point about how the majority of people come to their beliefs. For most believers, arriving at their religious belief is not a matter of carefully weighing evidence and then assenting to belief because

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said evidence is deemed sufficient for assent. It would be wonderful to exist in a world where religion and other tremendously important belief sets are held aloof until such time as they can be considered and weighed rationally, but this is simply not the world in which we live. Most believers hold their beliefs independently of the success or failure of the arguments of natural theology. Instead, they were raised into those beliefs by a family, community, culture, or society.4 For most of us, arriving at religious belief or nonbelief is not a matter of carefully weighing evidence and then assenting to a belief because said evidence is deemed sufficient for assent. As such, it is the exception, rather than the rule, to find a believer whose belief was determined purely by reason to be the most rational, independent of upbringing. Instead, belief is supported through appeals to sources that stretch far beyond mere reason, including (but not limited to) faith, revelation, miracles, and religious experience. Hence, to reject religion, one must reject the tradition of revelation upon which the majority of religious beliefs have been grounded. The fourth unit of the book will address some of the standard but significant difficulties against revealed sources. Chapter 12 will structure the discourse, clarifying what is at stake in appealing to sacred texts, miracles, and religious experience, and then discuss some difficulties that all three types of sources share. The next three chapters will treat these subjects separately. Rather than addressing specific texts, miracles, and experiences on a case-by-case basis, we will instead consider some of the difficulties found universally among these types of sources, such as the selection and transmission of texts, intentional fabrications and unintentional errors, internal and external contradictions, translation issues, and the like. Once more, the focus will be on reasonable rejection of the claim that such sources provide reason to believe in a higher power rather than proselytizing or simply providing fodder for atheists. The fifth unit will then turn to specific religious dogmas. Though such topics are, strictly speaking, not entailments of religious belief, they are, in practice, interconnected. Chapter 16 will consider the relationship between religion and morality, specifically, the religious commitments that tend to negatively impact ethics. Chapter 17 will raise difficulties with typical conceptions of afterlife and reincarnation. Chapter 18 will raise some problems specific to the various Christianities. Though the book generally avoids targeting one religion (or set of religions) so specifically,

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this chapter is merited because the Christian faiths have some very challenging problems that are unique to them, and yet the Christian position is typically assumed to be the default position in contemporary America. Having finished the negative critique of revealed religion and dogma, the focus of the next unit will shift to reasons beyond natural atheology for preferring atheism and naturalism. These chapters will explain some of the advantages of adopting a naturalistic worldview. Chapter 19 will show how such an adoption progresses the sciences and that this progress suggests that a naturalistic worldview is likely correct. Chapter 20 will show, in broad brushstrokes, that a physical approach to the mind that locates conscious thought as a product of the brain is not only adequate but preferable to the alternative of a mind that exists independent of the brain. Finally, Chapter 21 will fill an important gap, explaining why, if the various theisms are not overtly reasonable, religious and supernatural beliefs are so prevalent. It will discuss plausible, naturalistic explanations of the origins of religious beliefs and the mechanisms of their propagation. Appropriate for a book interested in tolerance, the final unit considers God and morality—why a moral code based on the divine is highly problematic and why it is not difficult to arrive at a satisfactory moral code without it. It will also address the perceived threat to meaning in a godfree world and a plausible reason that ethics can serve as a crucial common ground between believers and nonbelievers.

Reading and Utilizing the Text Atheism Considered covers many topics, but to appreciate the text fully, the reader must stay mindful of the goal. The aim is not to destroy belief but rather to show the reasonableness of nonbelief. These chapters are not intended as a refutation of the various theisms, although the reader is encouraged to use them in developing a considered worldview. I certainly believe that the atheist worldview is the best supported one, and I make no apologies for undermining certain forms of religious support that I believe to be flawed. But as mentioned above, the goal of this text is not conversion. Instead, when criticism is implied, it should be situated in the broader context of the nonbeliever rationally constructing a holistic worldview that entails the rejection of any deity. As an example, Chapter 13 points out that, through Biblical scholarship, we know that certain verses of the New Testament were added centuries after the texts were written. Does this imply that the entire text has no value? Of course

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not. However, it does give reason to doubt the views of someone who puts supreme emphasis on specific passages rather than approaching the work in a holistic way. It might also give reason to doubt the purity of the motives of early copyists, cast some doubt on the value or at least the infallibility of the whole, etc. It is one fact that we must accommodate, rather than deny, in our forming of beliefs about religious matters. And this last point is the most crucial. What is most central, what the information really should do, is give us cause to think more carefully and critically about these matters, perhaps reevaluating some of our previously held beliefs about the topic. These chapters therefore mark the beginning of a reevaluation, not the end. To aid in this, most of the chapters will include a list of reflective questions (recommended for anyone, not just theists or atheists), as well as some additional resources that can serve as the starting point for a more in-depth study. These topics are such that they have potentially huge impacts on our lives, and we should make our beliefs as informed as possible. Lastly, it is of paramount importance to recognize that this text uses specific cases and evidence in order to generalize on larger trends. These topics are massive. Each chapter of this work could be easily expanded into several books, and there simply is not space to discuss every topic in great detail, nor to provide a complete survey of the literature, arguments, or counterarguments. But once again, this is not a problem when the text is read as intended, that is, as a starting point rather than as a final word. However, such an approach does necessitate the regular use of generalities. For instance, many religion textbooks point out that Americans are deeply religious, but at the same time, deeply ignorant of religion. Claims like this are clearly intended as generalizations meant to identify important trends rather than as gross stereotypes. Similarly, this text will often employ talk about religious beliefs in general and the like. But religious beliefs are as varied as the supporters of religion. For instance, the only beliefs that seem to be agreed upon by all Christians are that there is at least one god, and that Jesus had some sort of special connection with that god. Anything more specific than this leads to disagreement within the religion. And yet these two claims alone are insufficient to define Christianity (since supporters of some other religions also accept these claims). Hence, the text must generalize regarding religious views, and this is why the first task of Chapter 2 is to distinguish the relevant views more precisely in order to avoid the gross errors and stereotyping that can threaten such a broad discussion.

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Notes 1. The numbers are always changing, and are often difficult to pin down for other reasons that will be discussed in Chapter 3, but for instance, see Cox and Jones. Of the 24% of the population that identify as unaffiliated, 27% of them (or about 6.5% of the entire population of the U.S.) identify as atheist or agnostic. By contrast, 2% of the population identifies as Jewish, with Hindus and Muslims counting for about 1% each. 2. Gallup polling shows that atheists continue to be the least electable nonpolitical minority. 3. For both a discussion relating atheism to morality and crime and a discussion on atheism and the intellectually elite, see Beit-Hallahmi, pages 306– 307. We will consider the much more general “Average American Atheist” in Chapter 3. 4. For specific numbers regarding the percentage of Americans who retain their childhood religion, see Pew. This and other seeming arbitrariness of belief will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 12.

References Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin. “Atheists—A Psychological Profile,” In The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, edited by: Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2007, pages 300–317. Cox, Daniel, and Jones, Robert P. “America’s Changing Religious Identity: Findings from the 2016 American Values Atlas,” at the Public Religion Research Institute, 2017. Retrieved from: https://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/ 2017/09/PRRI-Religion-Report.pdf. Gallup Data. “Between now and the 2020 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates – their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be [ITEMS A-K READ IN ORDER], would you vote for that person?” Response categories: yes, no, no opinion. The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ. Retrieved from: http:// news.gallup.com/file/poll/257495/190509PresidentialCandidates.pdf. Pew Research Center. “Faith in Flux—Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.”, April 2009, revised February 2011. Retrieved from: http://www.the arda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/FAITHFLX.asp.

CHAPTER 2

Of the Philosophy of Religion and Its Methodology

Views and Commitments As discussed in the previous chapter, beliefs relevant to religion are myriad, and require us to be cautious and precise. For instance, notice that I said “beliefs relevant to religion” rather than “religious beliefs,” because we will need to start with the metaphysical underpinnings of religious beliefs rather than the beliefs themselves. These are much more basic than religious affiliation or lack thereof. Making these commitments explicit will provide a helpful framework for the discussions to be had in later chapters. To start, William Rowe makes a useful distinction between theism in the broad sense and theism in the narrow sense.1 Broadly, a theist is someone who believes in the existence of one or more divine beings that are in some way responsible for the world. A theist in the narrow sense is a theist who believes in a single, perfect divine being, a being that is infinite and moral. I will indicate this distinction as between theism and Theism respectively. Similarly, god will refer generally to any deity, whereas God will refer to the infinite being posited by Theism. The God of Theism is understood as the singular creator of the universe, a maximally perfect being that essentially possesses all attributes entailed by this conception, especially moral perfection, eternality, and omnipotence. With this description in place, we begin to see how such metaphysical commitments are pre-religious. For instance, many members of various religions, including Christians, Muslims, Hare Krishnas, etc., © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_2

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would describe themselves as Theists, but disagreement would come primarily regarding how such a being interacted with the world. However, nothing about this description entails that such a being interacts with the world at all. Deism is a version of Theism that maintains the existence of a God that does not miraculously interact with the world post-creation at all, making this view incompatible with all revealed religions.2 Partly due of the ambiguity between theism and Theism, the notion of atheism can be ambiguous as well. Throughout the work, I will use nonbelief, atheism in the popular sense, or just atheism to mean a denial of theism, that is, the denial of any divine being.3 But note that, by itself, such views are only about gods, and leaves open the possibility of accepting other supernatural entities such as souls, ghosts, and mystical energies. Hence, an important concept for this text will be atheist naturalism, the view that there is nothing outside of nature. This view then also denies things like ghosts, spirits, and even minds that are independent of brains, limiting what exists to what can be explained and accounted for by purely natural forces. In discussing philosophy of religion, it is then helpful to think of a range of views regarding the supernatural, with atheist naturalism on one end of the spectrum and Theism on the other, as the views that posit the least and the most regarding the supernatural.4 But someone may posit spirits without gods, gods without God, etc., allowing for a plurality of nuanced views.5 To refer to these views collectively, I will employ supernaturalism to refer to any view that posits a supernatural entity. As such, any view besides atheist naturalism is supernaturalist. This designation is extremely useful for discussing revealed theology, as it allows us to, for instance, group all supporters of sacred texts without incorrectly calling them all theists. Lastly, there is agnosticism. This is the position that, upon consideration, we should refrain from believing either that there is or that there is not a god. This can be done by either maintaining that there are no compelling reasons either way (skeptical agnosticism) or that there are very good reasons both ways (cancellation agnosticism). Note that agnosticism is reserved only for a view very close to 50/50. Certainty is something that is often sought but rarely, if ever, achieved, and is an unrealistic and unhelpful constraint to beliefs. If you stop and consider of which views you are genuinely certain, the list will be shockingly short. For instance, I am not certain that my parents are actually related to me. I have very strong, practically overwhelming evidence that they are, but

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not enough to achieve 100% certainty. Does that mean I withhold judgment? Of course not. I just accept that life is such that it does not deal in certainty, and maintain a very strong belief regarding my parents. Similarly, if someone is 80% sure there are no gods, that does not make them an agnostic, but a tentative atheist who is not certain of their view. Their degree of certainty determines their belief, but that belief is fallibilistic and open to revision in light of new evidence.

Evidence Over Faith Above, I distinguished several views based on their metaphysical commitments. This will be important in later chapters, because it connects to support. For instance, if I can somehow successfully prove that the universe was created, that would establish theism but, by itself, would not justify Theism or any revealed Theistic religion such as Christianity. Instead, I would need some further evidence to show that this creator being was good, infinite, etc., and further evidence still to show that that being interacted with the world in a way described by Christian holy texts. But it is at this point that I may have lost many readers, readers who think it is either inappropriate or unnecessary to justify their beliefs in this way. What I maintain here is what we might call evidentialism in the broad sense, the view that one should only believe things based on adequate evidence. In virtually any inquiry except religious belief, evidentialism is ubiquitous. In the sciences, in history, in everyday life, we should not and do not believe something unless we have good reason. However, it is common when defending one’s religious belief to deny the evidentialist requirement, to instead maintain that evidence is unnecessary for whatever reason. I grudgingly call such positions faith-based beliefs. Though “faith” can be used in many ways, here it specifically refers to the assertion that reasons, argument, and evidence are unnecessary in order to appropriately hold a belief. I must now try to convince the reader that we should form our beliefs based on evidence rather than faith. What is wrong with a faith-based approach to religious belief? Potentially a lot. There are good reasons why we should not be allowed to believe whatever we want independent of evidential standards. First and most importantly, we must recognize the crucial connection between belief and action; that we act according to our beliefs. As such, beliefs stand in a position to contribute to harming ourselves and others because they can lead to actions that do so. To take a common case, suppose that I

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erroneously believe that vaccines cause autism, a myth that has been thoroughly disproven by the medical community and of which there is no good evidence. If this belief leads to me not getting my children vaccinated, then there is a very real possibility that my false belief causes the death of one of my children. But even more generally, expressing the belief that vaccines cause autism is a form of action. If I post my false belief on social media or tell it to a friend, then my belief has the potential to influence listeners and can thereby contribute to the death of children other than my own. Beliefs often have consequences to ourselves, but the expressions of those beliefs and actions motivated by those beliefs have consequences to others. As such, if we have a duty not to harm those around us (and we certainly do), then this requires us to form our beliefs responsibly. If my belief is putting those around me at risk, then that risk demands justification. Let us consider another unfortunate, real-world example parallel to the vaccine case—the fact that most states’ abuse and neglect laws have religious exemptions. This means that one can legally deny life-saving medical treatment to one’s children if said denial is religiously motivated, such as through membership in the Followers of Christ or in Christian Science. When children are dying due to a belief set, answering, “Why do you believe such things?” with “I just do,” seems wildly inappropriate. The stakes are too high. But the examples need not be so extreme. Consider some other real-world harms that religious beliefs can and do cause. If I vote for a sub-par candidate because they agree with some of my religious views, then my beliefs harm others. If I fail to see the importance of recycling, climate change, and the environment because I believe the rapture is eminent, then my beliefs harm others. If I attack and undermine evolution because it conflicts with my religious beliefs, then my beliefs harm others. If I employ a school voucher to move my child from a public to a religious school, then my beliefs harm others. If my religious beliefs cause animosity against people of other races, sexual orientations, or religions, then my beliefs harm others. These examples may seem harsh, so let me emphasize two things. First, I am not claiming that any belief that can potentially harm others is wrong or should not be maintained. Instead, I am making the much narrower (and hopefully uncontroversial) claim that, when beliefs impact others, we have a responsibility to ensure that those beliefs are adequately supported. Second, I am certainly not making the absurd claim that religion causes only harm.6 The focus is on the negative because that is what is at issue

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here. If you have a belief, correct or incorrect, that never causes anyone harm,7 I have no objection to your maintaining of that belief in a faithbased manner independent of evidence. I just think that such beliefs are exceedingly rare, and mention some of the wide-reaching ramifications of religious beliefs in order to draw out how common detrimental beliefs are. Beyond consequences to others, there is a second, related reason that we should be wary of faith-based justifications of belief—parity. If I say that I do not need to defend or justify my belief, then I implicitly grant everyone else license to do the same. For instance, if I am defending the tenets of Islam on a faith-based account, I cannot say that my view is somehow on superior ground to that of a Christian or Jew or Zoroastrian who does the same. But further, if I cannot give some principled reason why this maneuver is appropriate in religious discourse alone, then I also give license for its use on any topic. One can claim, “I just have faith that my party’s agenda is what is best for the country,” and the like. More generally, if I wish to claim that someone else’s views are wrong or, at the very least, in need of adequate support, then I must deny the appropriateness of their appeal to faith-based justification and thereby deny my own. These two reasons should be extremely compelling considerations for evidentialism over faith-based belief. However, if they are deemed insufficient, then the defender of faith-based accounts must still be intellectually honest about their beliefs. If they have no good reason for maintaining their view, that should be conceded, along with all of its entailments. They should freely admit that their view (and any belief that follows from it) is not rationally maintained, and judge contrary beliefs accordingly. For instance, any decently supported view (including atheism, agnosticism, or an evidentialist religious account) is automatically more reasonable than the faith-based account, and should be respected as such. Further, if faith will always trump reason in their mind, then there is no such thing as a debate with that person, and they are instead engaging in a veiled sermon. If they explicitly reject the demands of reason and logic, then every view they espouse should be treated with suspicion and incredulity. On the opposite side, it is worthwhile to consider the power of logic and reasoning. Logic is an amazing thing. It is a truth-generator. It takes things we know to be true and generates other things that we should also know to be true as a result. When utilized properly, it is both universal and objective. As such, any two objective evidentialists should be kindred spirits, and allies rather than enemies in any debate. When we value what

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is true (or, if you like, what is most reasonable to believe based on the evidence), then even if we are debating someone with whom we disagree, both will be on the same side in an important sense because both are seeking to discover what is true rather than seeking to win the argument. We should be just as excited to find out we were wrong as to find out that we were right, because what really matters is learning what is correct. And I know this is optimistic, almost naively so, but it is a posture toward which we should all strive in any discussion or debate.

What Counts as Evidence Above, I used “evidence” in a very general way. This is deliberate. When I say “evidence for,” I mean anything that contributes to supporting a belief as true. If I say, “evidence against,” I mean anything that contributes to supporting a belief as false. Evidence for and against can include scientific and historical facts, statistics, reasoning and argument, personal experience, etc. Evidence need not establish a conclusion in order to be relevant. It only needs to be probably true and supportive. For instance, the fact that there are billions of theists in the world is evidence against the atheist view, because it helps support the notion that theism is not an obviously irrational choice. As such, it supports without establishing. (This evidence will be discussed at length in Chapter 21.) The notion of “supportive” is a little trickier, but is relating to logic and inference. For instance, suppose that I stipulate that the Christian Bible does not hold up as a historical document and only has any claim to truth on the assumption that the core tenets of Christianity are true. If this were the case, then the Bible could not be used as evidence for Christianity, since its evidential status was exactly what was in question, and appealing to it would then represent a form of circular reasoning. This is what happens if we accept such a stipulation. But of course, even an atheist naturalist should not make the claim that the Bible provides no support for Christianity. The very fact that it exists and people put significant weight to it as a document are a form of supporting evidence (though not a very strong one). More generally, we should think of evidence as, in an important sense, neutral. Evidence is that which is to be evaluated and utilized in the formation of beliefs. If we assume the proper mental posture, a total and objective evaluation of all evidence should tell anyone, whether they are

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an atheist naturalist, Theist, or any position in between, what they should believe and with what degree of certainty. This idea is stated forcefully and ideally, but notice two things. First, evaluation of evidence should be as comprehensive as possible. To form views by only considering some evidence while sweeping other evidence under the rug is the height of bias. But second, notice that belief comes in degrees. I am much more certain that the sun will rise tomorrow than I am that my internet will work tomorrow. The reason for this difference in certainty is a difference in evidence. I have significantly more evidence for one than the other. Further, I have counter evidence against the latter but not the former (in that I have had days where my internet has not worked, whereas I have never had a day where the sun has not risen). As such, I assign certainty to my beliefs accordingly, as a sum-total of the evidence for and against. As David Hume famously said, the wise person proportions belief to evidence. This is a goal toward which we should all endeavor.

Challenging Questions – Take one of your beliefs involving metaphysics and/or religion. What are some of the consequences to others regarding that belief? – Try to think of ten ways in which the religious beliefs of others have impacted your life. Be sure to think in terms of both positive and negative impacts. – When was the last time you changed a significant portion of your worldview based on evidence? What changed it and why? How often should such views be revised?

Further Reading – Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, Chapter One – W.K. Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief” – Terence Penelhum, Reason and Religious Faith

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Notes 1. Rowe, pages 16–17. I adopt his distinction generally, but with some minor alterations. 2. Several of our Founding Fathers were deists, vehemently denying the teachings of Christianity. But despite this, the myth that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation” persists in popular culture. 3. Many are unhappy that atheism is defined negatively and is viewed as in some sense reactive to theism, when the beliefs involved need not be ordered in that way. This has led to support for the Brights movement launched by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell, where a “Bright” denotes someone who adopts a naturalistic worldview. However, this term, as they employ it, is professedly a much wider umbrella term that includes several views distinct from atheism. So while I applaud both the effort and the movement, their vocabulary must be set aside in works such as this one that demand more precise delineation of positions. 4. In making this claim, I am not talking about numbers. While it is possible that a Theist only posits one supernatural entity, the entity posited is infinite in its supernatural content. 5. I here challenge readers to familiarize themselves with some other supernatural views—polytheism, henotheism, pantheism, panentheism, animism, and manaism are a good start. 6. The so-called New Atheists would do well to remember that, for instance, the Catholic Church is the world’s largest charitable organization, its contributions to the needy staggering. 7. Notice, there is a huge difference between saying that a belief causes no harm and saying that a belief causes less harm than good. If I have a belief that causes me to give frequently to life-saving organizations but also causes me to occasionally oppress members of the LGBTQ community, then that belief is still causing harm and still requires justification—the harmed community deserves an answer to why you are doing what you do.

Reference Rowe, William. Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction, 4th Edition. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Belmont, CA, 2007.

CHAPTER 3

Atheism and Atheists

Limitations In the previous chapter, we clarified atheists’ metaphysical beliefs. In this chapter, we will turn to who atheists are. However, this task has some challenges that must be acknowledged at the outset. First, we must always be mindful that we are considering generalizations. For instance, the “Average American Atheist,” which I will abbreviate “AAA,” is an abstract. There is no such person and, like all generalizations, there will be outliers to which not all claims apply.1 Second though, there are some difficulties inherent to the data itself. The most significant, for our purposes, is the necessary surveys tend to lack philosophical nuance. Because of this, distinct categories like “atheist,” “agnostic,” “nonbeliever,” and “no religious affiliation” often get run together. And to further muddy the waters, studies have revealed that in many religious sects, between one and five percent of those that self-identify as members of churches and religious congregations also “strongly disagree” with the claim that “God exists.” As such, as counterintuitive as it seems, categories such as “Pentecostal” and “atheist” are not mutually exclusive, at least in terms of self-identification on surveys.2 Further, religious beliefs and practices or the lack thereof are often deeply personal, and minority positions within a culture are more likely to conceal these views, even when the surveys are intended to be anonymous.3 In theistic cultures, nonbelievers are less likely to self-identify and vice versa. Some have suggested that atheist numbers in the United States are underestimated for this reason.4 © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_3

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Overall, then, we must be mindful to take this body of data for what it is, as indicative of trends, but doing so imperfectly. However, the data is the data. This chapter will not draw morals, judgments, conclusions, or even explanations for such trends. These tasks are left to later chapters and to the reader’s judgment.

Contemporary Trends (Global) It is helpful to think of societies as existing on a continuum, coming in mixtures of degrees between religiosity on one hand versus secularity on the other. When considering the sheer variety of religions and religious beliefs that exist globally, further distinctions than these two extremely general ones are unhelpful. Are societies with ancestral worship and spiritualism but with limited appeals to gods theistic? No, even if they are extremely religious and deeply grounded in the supernatural. Hence, more specific distinctions such as “theistic culture” are not proper foils for secular cultures, and can be highly misleading. As we will see in later chapters, world religions are hugely varied, such that even defining “religion” in a way that captures all of them is surprisingly difficult. Because of this, dividing them according to minutia regarding which deities are depicted and how largely misses the point when it comes to analyzing the cultural impact of religion. But when we instead expand our scope to look at secularism and religiosity around the world, we will notice a few trends. First, religious participation in Western Europe and in Canada is generally decreasing, and with it, we see an increase in secularization and the rise of secular cultures. When thinking of the most atheistic of the secular cultures, it is helpful to follow Zuckerman5 in distinguishing between cultures of coercive atheism and organic atheism. The distinction is whether atheism is forced upon the culture by an authoritarian government or whether it has emerged on its own without coercion. The focus here will be on the latter, whose nonbelief is more independent and pure.6 Regarding these highly secular societies, we find them to be, on average, wealthier and healthier than the average religious society. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart suggest a causal relationship here, maintaining that religion wanes in conditions of plenty, whereas religious belief is strengthened in the absence of security. Overall, the data seem to bear this out. Perhaps connected to Norris and Inglehart’s suggestion is the “Secularization Thesis,” which holds that, as societies modernize, religion

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loses its authority in both government and in social life. However, the United States, which will be discussed below, is somewhat of an outlier to both of these trends.7 One crucial metric by which highly secular countries do measurably better than countries with high degrees of religiosity is the Human Development Index, a metric created to measure the success of a country based on the people and their capabilities rather than merely economic considerations. It instead measures things like lifespan and health, standard of living, equality, environmental sustainability, and years of schooling. The top five in this category all have high levels (over 20%) of nonbelief, whereas the bottom forty, categorized as “Low Human Development” contain nearly non-existent atheist populations.8 (On this index, the United States has been climbing steadily, and was ranked thirteenth in 2017.) For whatever reason, countries with high levels of organic atheism tend to be more pleasant places to live. Though it is not the focus of the Human Development Index, we see that this is also true from an economic perspective. When we instead consider countries according to the Lived Poverty Index, we find that the poorest and least developed countries are also highly religious and vice versa, and that the most affluent countries also tend to register the lowest church attendance.9 Once more, however, the United States deviates from this general pattern. So let us now consider the United States specifically with regard to both secularization and its atheist citizens.

Contemporary Trends (U.S.) In the United States, atheist numbers have been rising sharply; the number of U.S. citizens claiming no religion as their own has more than doubled since 1990. This increase far exceeds the population growth of the country. As such, atheists are accounting for a larger and larger percentage of the population. In a little more than a decade, over six million who previously claimed membership in a religion have shifted to a claim of “no religion.”10 Most of these “New Nones” left Christianity (“converted” seems like an inappropriate word), especially from Catholicism and Protestantism. Overall, Christianity has therefore decreased as a proportion of the population since that time,11 although not all Christian sects face declining membership. Evangelical Christianity is growing rapidly, as is its influence in politics and in private education. U.S. trends

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regarding non-Christian religions, for the most part, closely follow their immigration numbers and population growth. Of the larger minorities, Judaism continues to account for about two percent of the population, while Islam and Hinduism each account for about one percent. Exact numbers of atheists in the United States are difficult to estimate, but those that claim no religious affiliation now account for about twenty percent of the population. However, this category is comprised of not only atheists, but also agnostics and those that simply do not hold strong beliefs. Making finer distinctions than this becomes difficult for the reasons discussed above. For instance, only about three percent of the population self-identifies as atheist, but up to nine percent claims to not believe in a god of any sort.12 Hence, in the United States, the selfidentification as “atheist” is apparently separable from the belief that there is no deity. The negative stigma attached to atheism provides at least a partial explanation for this phenomenon.

An Atheist in Profile Who are these five million plus self-identified atheists in the United States? They are, of course, many and varied, since their only common factor is that they explicitly claim that a certain type of being does not exist. However, there are many significant, common trends, allowing us to talk meaningfully about the “Average American Atheist,” or AAA for short. Briefly, the profile is as follows: The AAA is generally a white male between the ages of 18 and 34, and although the AAA is married, he has two or fewer children. The AAA lives in the Western U.S., is college-educated, and enjoys an IQ score six points higher than someone who is very religious and three points higher than the somewhat religious. Politically, the AAA is an independent but with liberal leanings. The AAA strongly supports gay marriage, opposes the death penalty, and opposes most military measures. (It would be erroneous to think that this is simply because of political leanings. Rather, it is substantially a product of excising religious thinking from considered views on these topics. For instance, if we set aside religious arguments, there are no serious considerations against homosexuality or same-sex marriage. Capital punishment costs much more than life in prison but is not more effective at deterring crime. Instead, its appeal lies primarily in some notion of “eye for an eye” retributive justice popularized by the Abrahamic religions.) The AAA is also much more tolerant than his religious counterpart, is more charitable and willing to help the poor, and is less likely to commit a crime, especially a violent crime. Despite this, the

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AAA tends to feel more alienated and less happy within U.S. society13 (one of the chief motivators for my writing this text). There is good reason for this, as we will see.

Oppression and Suppression Despite their charitability and law-abiding status, atheists are still one of the least trusted and most disliked minorities in the United States. Data from an important series of studies conducted at the University of Minnesota shows that this negative view has actually sharpened since 2003, despite the dramatic increase in the percentage of the population that self-identifies as non-religious and atheist.14 Forty percent of Americans view the non-religious as problematic and disapprove of nonreligion, and atheists remain the most disliked minority in the United States. This generally stems from the perception that atheists are cultural outsiders, seen as having rejected the cultural values considered to be the foundation of our national identity. Twenty-seven percent said that atheists did not share their morals or values, a view motivated by a pair of erroneous beliefs—that religion underpins morality,15 and that Christianity is central to American identity.16 Is Christianity central to the American identity? Historically, the answer would be a clear “no.” Some of our first presidents were deists, not Christians, as were several of the other Founding Fathers. Their writings have become a rich mine of anti-Christian sentiment, especially as it pertains to the admixture of religion and politics that America has seen in the Twenty-First Century. But the problem with acontextual quotes (or “fodder” as I call it) is that such evidence is anecdotal, and is not necessarily representative of the religious sentiments of Eighteenth-Century America. In fact, we do not know as much as we would like to regarding the religious environment of that period. The numbers are notoriously difficult to estimate, but we do know that church attendance was well under fifty percent. However, this number is not clearly representative of belief, since churches were less accessible both geographically and in terms of leisure time. We do, however, still have some important documents. The 1797 Treatise of Tripoli, unanimously ratified by the senate, famously states, “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,” and there is, of course, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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The First Amendment states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” The first clause is generally called the “Establishment Clause,” whereas the second is known as the “Free Exercise Clause.” Are these clauses sufficient to establish a purported separation of church and state? If we interpret it as separation between the government and any particular sect of Christianity, then yes. However, if we consider things more generally as preventing a relationship between Christianity and the U.S. government, then it seems not. There are many well-known examples of an implicit, Christian theism deeply connected to the national and local governments in the United States. “Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, our money includes “In God we trust,” and in recent times, all Presidents have sworn their oath of office on a Bible. Similarly, jurors’ oaths and swearing in for all federal jobs also include theistic language. Christian holidays are government holidays, cities spend taxpayer money on Christmas decorations and display them on public lands, there is a Christian National Cathedral, and congress begins each session with a prayer. Religious organizations do not have to pay taxes but may still donate to political campaigns. The military spends billions cultivating Christianity, including $125 million on the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program and its controversial “Spiritual Fitness” test, as well as a $30 million mega-church at Fort Hood. Lastly, many of the laws surrounding controversial topics such as abortion, prostitution, and embryonic stem cell research are dictated by religious, rather than secular considerations. These are just some of the most glaring examples, but the list goes on and on. Of course, all of this blurring of lines between church and state is hard to change. Not only does Christianity have disproportionately high representation in congress, but Gallup polling shows that atheists are generally unelectable for national office. While over 90% Americans would cast a vote for a African American, female, Catholic, Hispanic, or Jewish qualified presidential candidate, only 58% would vote for a qualified atheist candidate. This falls behind all other minorities, including gay or lesbian (74%) or Muslim (60%).17 Such trends are particularly frustrating, since nothing about a lack of religious affiliation would detract from the AAA’s abilities as a civil servant. In fact, one might think the opposite, given the AAA’s higher IQ, higher degree of education, and higher degree of tolerance than their average religious counterpart.

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Challenging Questions – How important is the Human Development Index? If the numbers are significant, would you rather live in a highly secular or highly religious country, all other things being equal? – Is what is described above who you have previously thought of as an “Average American Atheist?” Where do you think the discrepancies come from? – Is there adequate separation of church and state in the United States? If the close ties were to a religion other than Christianity, would you feel the same way?

Further Reading – Ara Norenzayan, Big Gods, Chapter Four – Louise M. Anthony (ed.), Philosophers Without Gods—Mediations on Atheism and the Secular Life – Graham Oppy, Atheism—The Basics

Notes 1. There are also problems inherent to any survey intended to apply to an entire culture. For instance, if we intend to extrapolate surveyed religious beliefs to an entire country, it is tremendously important that the sample of the population is random. Yet this is a difficult task. 2. See, for instance, Kosmin and Keysar, page 45. Their survey also included a “somewhat disagree” option also selected by various self-identifying members of religious sects, complicating matters further. 3. For a discussion of this and other limitations, see Zuckerman, pages 47– 48. 4. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, page 78, suggests that many atheists refrain from “coming out” because it brings disadvantages without advantages. The religious whose views are truly harmful will not listen to atheists, but coming out as an atheist can alienate friends and family, as well as expose them to religiously motivated harassment. (And though SinnottArmstrong’s suggestion is anecdotal and difficult, if not impossible, to confirm, it does match my own personal experience, as well as that of many of my friends and colleagues. My previous work within these topics has led to a flood of emails- some aimed at conversion, some attempting to defend a Young-Earth literalist interpretation of the Bible, and some that are flat-out hateful, usually involving name-calling and condemnation.

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5. 6.

7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

I am already bracing myself for more of the same with the publication of this text.) Zuckerman, page 57. However, Norris and Inglehart conclude that, after the fall of communism and the end of coercive atheism in those countries, there has not been a revival of religious values in the younger generations (page 131), making it difficult to label such cultures as one or the other. For parity, I am inclined to judge them as organic. After all, we no longer consider Christian cultures that had been originally coerced into the religion, such as those of Central and South America, to be perpetually coerced. For a summary, see Norris and Inglehart, pages 4-27. For a good introduction to the differences in religious and secular cultures, see Berger, et al. For an argument that the U.S. is not as much of an outlier as it seems regarding the Secularization Thesis, see Voas and Chaves. Human Development Report, pages 198–203. See Norris and Inglehart, pages 258–259. Kosmin and Keysar, page 61. The percentage of Americans self-identifying as Christian has dropped from 77 to 65% in the last ten years. For a good overview on this and other religious trends in the United States, see the Pew Research Center’s survey on the Religious Landscape. For a more in-depth overview regarding these and other topics, see BeitHallahmi. Edgell, et al. 2016. This will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 22. Sinnott-Armstrong, pages 77–78, points out that, for reasons such as these, theists seem incredibly comfortable attacking and abusing atheists with a passionate vitriol rarely aimed at other minorities. I would add that the very willingness to attack atheists publicly without fear of the backlash one would get if they were instead attaching, say, Judaism, is even more telling of the oppression that the AAA faces. The numbers change a little with every pole, but tend to repeat the same patterns. In these polls, socialists rank lower than atheists, but the former is a political position rather than a religious minority. Hence, since chosen political affiliations do not attain protected status, this means that the atheist is still the least electable minority.

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References Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin. “Atheists—A Psychological Profile,” in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, edited by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2007, pages 300–317. Berger, Peter, Davie, Grace, and Fokas, Effie. Religious America, Secular Europe? A Theme and Variations, Ashgate Publishing Company, Burlington, VT, 2008. Edgell, Penny, Hartmann, Douglas, Stewart, Evan, and Gerteis, Joseph. “Atheists and Other Cultural Outsiders: Moral Boundaries and the Non-Religious in the United States,” Social Forces, Volume 95, Issue 2, 7 December 2016, pages 607–638. Gallup Data, “Between Now and the 2020 Political Conventions, There Will Be Discussion about the Qualifications of Presidential Candidates—Their Education, Age, Religion, Race, and So On. If Your Party Nominated a Generally Well-Qualified Person for President Who Happened to Be [ITEMS A-K READ IN ORDER], Would You Vote for that Person?” Response Categories: Yes, No, No Opinion. The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ. Retrieved from: http://news.gallup.com/file/poll/257495/190509PresidentialCandid ates.pdf. Human Development Report 2016: Human Development for Everyone, United Nations Development Programme, Selim Jehan director and lead author, New York, NY, 2016. Kosmin, Barry A., and Keysar, Ariela. Religion in a Free Market —Religious and Non-Religious Americans: Who, What, Why, Where, Paramount Market Publishing, Inc., Ithaca, NY, 2006. Norris, Pippa, and Inglehart, Ronald. Sacred and Secular—Religion and Politics Worldwide, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 2011. Pew Research Center. “Religious Landscape Study.” Retrieved from: http:// www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/, 12 May 2015. Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. “Overcoming Christianity,” in Philosophers without Gods- Mediations on Atheism and the Secular Life, edited by Louise M. Anthony, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2007, pages 69–79. Voas, David, and Chaves, Mark. “Is the United States a Counterexample to the Secularization Thesis?” American Journal of Sociology, Volume 121, Issue 5, March 2016, pages 1517–1556. Zuckerman, Phil. “Atheism—Contemporary Numbers and Patterns,” in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, edited by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2007, pages 47–65.

CHAPTER 4

The Burden of Proof

Having gotten a clearer sense of beliefs and believers, we are better positioned to begin examining arguments for and against a higher power. But there is one last preliminary we must consider. Before examining the evidence, we must consider how it should be interpreted. More generally, the formation of beliefs is normative—there are rules, guidelines, and procedures that allow us to best achieve knowledge and, as such, they must be upheld. Some of the rules of good reasoning will be discussed in the next chapter. Here, however, we will discuss an important set of guidelines for beginning any discussion or debate, specifically, when and how we must acknowledge a potential burden of proof. Such an application of the burden of proof ultimately determines who wins a debate and should determine which position, if any, should be believed.

What Is the Burden of Proof? What is a burden of proof, and why does it matter? Different burdens exist in different contexts but very generally, it is a particular type of obligation that may fall onto someone wishing to assert a claim. Though we are ultimately working toward a notion of the burden used in determining reasoned belief, we may begin to understand its role by considering the analogous legal burden of proof. In the United States, the defendant has the presumption of innocence and, because of this, the prosecution possesses the burden of proof. What this means is that the default view, © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_4

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that which should be assumed by any objective third party, is that the defendant has done no wrong. But because the prosecutor wants to claim otherwise, they are, in an important sense, fighting an uphill battle. While maintaining the defendant’s innocence requires no justification, debate, or discussion, to assert otherwise requires that the prosecutor provides sufficient grounds for that assertion. The legal application of the burden of proof draws out two important points that carry over to the type of burden we are interested in. First, the burden of proof cannot be equated with incorrectness. It may well be that the defendant is guilty. As such, saying that the burden of proof lies on the prosecution certainly does not entail that they are wrong or that the side without such a burden is correct. The burden of proof informs our starting point and how we must approach our final position. It does not make that determination for us. Instead of telling us what is rational to believe in this disagreement, it sets the standards for how the discussion must proceed and more importantly, how its success is evaluated. And this is the second important point. This dispute is a disagreement about facts which entails that one1 of the parties is wrong. There is a burden of proof because, in this particular disagreement, equality among positions should not be assumed. The two are not treated as 50/50. Instead, because the prosecution possesses the burden of proof, the defendant possesses a distinct advantage. But a similar starting advantage determined by a burden of proof is crucial when it comes to evaluating the success of the argument and evidence intended to fix my belief. To see this, let us contrast the legal case with a belief dispute in which there is no burden. Imagine a (very oversimplified) scenario in which I have no commitments, no relevant background knowledge, etc., and am listening to a couple arguing some fact about their day. I have no reason to think either is lying, more trustworthy than the other, etc. I let each have their say, and both give good, plausible support for their position such that one position is not obviously better than the other. In this case, I started at 50/50, and because of the roughly equal evidence on both sides, this is also where I end. As such, rationality demands that I withhold judgment and not believe one party over the other. Contrast that with a case in which there is a burden. We have not yet talked about what a burden in the sense of belief formation amounts to, so let us return to the legal case where we are forming a verdict rather than a belief. If you are a juror, and the prosecution and defense give roughly equal support for their respective

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sides, then as above, the presentation of evidence has not moved us from our initial position. But because, unlike the other scenario, there was not parity among the starting positions, our initial position was not fixed as undecided but defaulted as not guilty. The prosecution has not overcome this burden, and we should judge the defendant not guilty given roughly equal evidence. Having drawn out some of its salient features, we may now define the burden of proof in belief formation more precisely. This notion of the burden of proof is a dialectical tool used to help determine who, if anyone, possesses an obligation to provide further evidence for their position.2 More specifically, it tells us that, if there were no debate, and no further evidence or argument were admitted, the position that bears the burden of proof should be rejected in favor of the other position. Deciding who, if anyone, has this initial burden is usually a matter of reasonableness. If one position or claim, before any presentation of evidence, seems much less reasonable than the other, for whatever reason, then the initial burden starts on that position. If the positions would be more or less equally initially reasonable to an objective third party, then the initial burden starts on whichever position first attempts to show that it should be believed over the other position.3

Determining a Burden of Proof Determining who should bear a burden of proof in this sense is much more slippery than simply defining it.4 This is because it does not clearly relate to other, more easily measured belief concepts such as popularity or probability. However, considering why these other concepts fail to capture the concept of the burden of proof leads us to a more precise method of assigning it. First, a minority view is not automatically saddled with the burden of proof in any context. To go back to the legal notion, just because many people outside of the courtroom may think that a defendant is guilty, it certainly does not follow that the prosecutor loses their burden. Or think of folk wisdom versus expertise. If thirty novices disputed Neil deGrasseTison on a topic in astrophysics, the default view should still be that the latter is reasonable and that the former start from a disadvantaged position. The popular view is not equated with the reasonable view, and there is no causal relationship between popularity and the burden of proof in any of its forms.

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But nor can the burden of proof be directly related to prior probability. Prior probability is just a quantified probability before some new evidence is taken into account. As such, the answer to the essential question, “prior to what?” does not merit an objective answer, but is instead relative to some default position.5 In trying to relate prior probability to the burden of proof, one might think that the easy answer would be to say, “the burden lies on the party whose claim has the significantly lower probability prior to the discussion,” but this answer will not do simply because there is no objective determination of what information and evidence is to be used in deciding the said prior probability and therefore determining whose is lower. Nor can the assignment of the burden lie in the totality of evidence. If one shifts to epistemic probability, that is, probability relative to one’s total evidence, in order to place a burden of proof, we run into a problem of subjectivity, since no two people’s bodies of total evidence are identical or even close to identical. Otherwise there would be no disagreement to begin with. A disagreement occurs because there are propositions for which the parties would assign different epistemic probabilities. So if we used epistemic probability to determine a burden of proof, it would be very possible that we each place the burden on the opposite side, an undesirable outcome. The burden of proof should be a neutral starting ground, such that we can then use our relative bodies of total evidence in order to have a fruitful discussion and thereby determine who is correct. Though each of these three notions fails as a method for placing the burden of proof in determining belief, considering what they offer gets us into the ballpark. What is required is a notion of objective reasonableness, which we can achieve by considering a fictional, idealized third party. We should say that, if a reasonable, objective third party would, prior to any discussion, assign one view a much lower epistemic probability than the other, as determined by all shared neutral evidence,6 then the former position bears a burden of proof. This method of determining the burden of proof may sound cumbersome, but it captures the intended notion while avoiding the above difficulties. First, it seems to get the correct answer regarding popularity. If there are thirty laypeople on one side and one layperson on the other, then the latter might reasonably possess the burden of proof, as the overwhelming majority on one side would make it less probable that the defector is correct—consider the weight of witnesses, for instance. But this would not be probable in the case of thirty laypeople versus

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an expert on the topic being disputed. Further, employing an idealized third party, because they are idealized, removes the worry of subjectivity by taking into account only shared neutral evidence, so the question of priority is non-arbitrary in that it captures all such evidence prior to the discussion/debate.

The Religious Burden Regarding the god debates, we can now ask whether there is a burden of proof. Put another way, is there reason to think this kind of discussion should not start with all positions being equal? In the debate between theism and atheism, it seems that the burden is on the side positing a higher power, as will be argued below. However, two difficulties must be acknowledged at the outset: First, we are not talking about one debate but many. Consider how different the debates would be surrounding these questions: Does the God of Theism exist? Does any higher power exist? Is religion X correct about Y? And so on. There are many such disputes in which the atheistic position answers in the negative. Second, there are also difficulties involved in moving from a debate between individuals to one between positions. To do so requires us to remain general and restrict the determination to commitments directly entailed by a position which are therefore maintained by all its adherents. (For instance, belief in divine justice is an entailment of Theism and must be maintained by any Theist in any debate.) But even with these limitations, there is still good reason to think that atheist naturalism is the default position and that the believer retains the burden of proof.7 First, even though there are more believers than nonbelievers, such distributions are irrelevant. Not only do such considerations not determine the burden of proof, as discussed above, but the numbers can also be very different in terms of commonly framed debates. For instance, a debate between an atheist and a Christian puts the former in the minority, but if the debate is instead framed in terms of Christian versus nonChristian, then atheists find themselves in the non-Christian majority.8 Numbers do not help here. Instead, we must consider how an idealized third party observer would weigh in. One important consideration is that anyone other than the atheist naturalist is making some sort of positive existence claim. Generally, a party saying that a disputed entity exists bears the burden of proof because they are positing more than their opponent. They are making

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an extra assertion beyond what is granted by all sides, and an extra assertion requires more justification. As such, it might be tempting to simply conclude that the burden always rests with the party making an existence claim, but this is not necessarily the case. For instance, if thirty people are at a picnic, observing what seems to be a dog running around the yard, the burden of proof would certainly lie on the individual that says there is no dog. Or consider the claim that there are electrons. The burden there is on those that would deny it. However, these are principled exceptions. These two cases are very different, and capture two distinct types of exception involving the burden on existence claims. In the picnic scenario, we have what we might call a normally accessible existence claim. In such scenarios, someone is making an existence claim about something that anyone in the situation can sense and interact with. In such cases, it seems fair to say that the burden lies on the denier of this type of claim.9 But to apply this to the topic at hand, is the atheist naturalist denying a normally accessible existence claim? No. Any type of supernatural entity, whether the God of Theism, Ganesh, Angra Mainyu, or a non-deific supernatural being such as an angel, demon, Amesha Spenta, or kami is, at best, limited in its accessibility. Not everyone can sense or interact with it, even if some can.10 But if supernatural beings are not like the picnic case, might they still be like the electron case which would therefore place a burden of proof on the atheist denier? It does not seem so. The denier of electrons certainly bears the burden of proof, but why? Why would an objective and unbiased third party think it is more reasonable to believe there are electrons than otherwise? The answer seems to be tied to scholarly consensus, an extremely powerful form of evidence. All11 experts in the field say there are such entities and agree regarding their important features. As such, anyone, a single layperson or a million, or even a top physicist, would bear the burden of proof in denying the electron or its major features. But notice that the existence of supernatural entities does not achieve anything close to this level of support from scholarly consensus. First, it is not even clear which scholars should be involved. Being charitable and excluding scholarly fields in the hard sciences such as astrophysics from consideration, the relevant disciplines would appear to be theology and philosophy of religion.12 But in neither of these fields do we find the kind of sweeping consensus that would place a burden on the denier. Not only do theologians of different religions disagree on significant details,

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but so do theologians of the same religion. Even the most general claims such as “there is one god” are disputed by theologians of polytheistic religions. Even monotheists disagree on significant details regarding the divine essence and attributes, as we will see in later chapters.13 And there is even more disagreement within the philosophy of religion, including significant support for atheist naturalism. Hence, in debating an atheist naturalist, the religious supernaturalist inevitably makes an existence claim that is neither a normally accessible existence claim nor reflective of scholarly consensus. Yet it seems that any existence claim not of these types must accept the burden of proof. As such, those that posit one or more supernatural entities must accept the burden when debating those that do not. The case of a theistic burden of proof can be made even more forceful when considering the extraordinary nature of the existence claims involved. With few exceptions, the existences posited by supernaturalists are of entities extremely unlike those we experience. For instance, we have no experience of minds without bodies, part of the description for a transcendental deity. Nor do we have experience of an infinite being, as posited by Theists, or of beings that can violate or circumvent the laws of physics, a requisite for any supernatural being. Any claim of this nature, of positing something so discordant with the shared and lived experience of humans, seems to bear the burden of proof to an objective third party, as the shared neutral evidence does not support any beings of this kind.14 This result, that the believer, rather than the atheist naturalist, bears the burden of proof, should be neither surprising nor objectionable to believers. They are typically well-aware that they are claiming the existence of something that cannot be regularly observed or accessed, something that is significantly unlike anything else we experience. These claims demand justification, and belief should not exist in its absence. We will begin to consider such attempted justifications in the following chapters.

Challenging Questions – Are there any theistic or religious tenets that do not posit some supernatural existence, but are still disputed by atheist naturalists? Would they still bear a burden of proof? Why or why not? – Think of some existence claims that do and do not require a burden of proof. Do they support the view that existence claims bear the burden unless they are of the two exceptional types?

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– Does the supernaturalist have any compelling reason to think they do not possess the burden of proof in a debate with an atheist naturalist?

Further Reading – Anthony Flew, “The Presumption of Atheism”

Notes 1. In most disagreements regarding fact, we should only conclude that at least one is wrong, still allowing the possibility that both are incorrect. For instance, atheist naturalism and Theism would both be wrong if it turned out that polytheism were true. However, if the disagreement is between whether the God of Theism exists or not, then it follows that, if one is correct, the other must be incorrect. In the former disagreement, the two propositions being argued are called contraries, where both cannot be true but both can be false. By contrast, the latter disagreement discusses contradictories, where, if one is correct, the other must be incorrect. U.S. jurisprudence sets up verdicts as the latter. 2. Notice that the numerous undisputed beliefs that do not bear a burden of proof prevent us from falling into a quagmire of having to defend all our beliefs all the time. 3. Thanks to Kurt Liebegott and James Hardy for their independent help in clarifying this concept. 4. Notice that in the court case, who bears the burden is stipulated rather than determined by reasonableness of evidence. 5. As such, “prior probability” is negatively defined as probability not including the new evidence. 6. Evidence is shared and neutral if it is both known and granted by all disputing parties. 7. Again, this is not to be equated with the claim that the former is correct while the latter is incorrect. It is, in fact, a religion-neutral position of logic that both the theist and atheist should stipulate at the outset. 8. There is an old adage that atheists simply deny one more god than everyone else, since exclusivists of any religion must reject the beings posited by all incompatible religions. Such considerations will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 12. Religious exclusivism will be examined in Chapter 16. 9. This is subtly related to some of the examples used above. When considering witnesses, the vast majority matters precisely because what they are witnessing is normally accessible.

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10. To briefly address one difficulty—it is possible for a supernaturalist to defend the notion that anyone who places themselves within a certain position/mindset may be able to have a religious experience of some sort. Religious experience will be discussed in Chapter 15, but more generally, I set aside such considerations here because it seems to assert an experimental result that simply is not observed. There is no known situation such that anyone, religious or not, who puts themselves into it can sense the divine. 11. This is true in the case of electrons, but usually a significant majority is all that is required for scholarly consensus. 12. Notice that experts in fields such as Biblical scholarship are not the relevant scholars because Biblical scholarship does not entail the relevant existence claims. For instance, there can be (and are) Biblical scholars that deny the existence of the God of Theism. 13. We might also add that the field of theology itself entails a unique biasthose that think there is no god rarely, if ever, pursue theology as a career. Hence, belief in a higher power is not a product of consensus but a simple prerequisite. 14. Of course, purported evidence such as that provided by a sacred text may proffer such support, but determining the burden of proof must exclude these sources as non-neutral. But there is nothing inappropriate about this. Whether those texts are accurate about these matters is part of what is in dispute and therefore cannot be assumed at the outset- that the texts exist and make certain claims is neutral, the further assumption that they are accurate is not.

CHAPTER 5

Theology and Reason

Natural Versus Revealed Theology Having examined the burden of proof and found it to rest with the supernaturalist, it is finally time to consider what kinds of evidence may be mustered in support of gods or other supernatural entities. A helpful way to begin is by fleshing out the distinction between natural theology, briefly discussed in Chapter 1, and revealed theology. Recall that natural theology pursues theological matters independently of any religious tradition or appeal to faith, instead pursuing the subject by employing only natural sources such as reasoning and neutral evidence. As such, natural theology is in an important sense universal. With proper care, it can be pursued by anyone, since it requires only faculties and resources that are generally accessible. By contrast, revealed theology pursues theological matters using special or revealed sources, of which the major types are sacred texts, prophecy, religious experience, and miracles.1 Why these sources are called “revealed” goes without saying, but they are special in that not everyone has equal access to them. For instance, witnessing a miracle would be evidentially extremely different than hearing an account from someone else who claims to have witnessed one. Even if access to the testimony is universal, access to the actual miracle is not. As such, the weight of the evidence is unequal, depending on one’s perspective. Similarly, access to a revealed text is universal, but access to whatever supernatural events occurred in or inspired it are not. This is important because revealed texts almost never achieve sufficient credibility to count © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_5

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as historical, rather than religious texts.2 As such, their chief claim to credibility is purported supernatural authorship, intervention, or inspiration. This is true of any of the revealed sources but entails the aforementioned unequal weighting of the evidence they provide. For these reasons, evidential priority is generally given to natural theology over revealed; the success of the former would significantly bolster the latter. For instance, imagine that you witnessed a strange event, and you wanted to convince someone that the occurrence was, in fact, a miracle. This task would be much easier if the person you were trying to convince already believed that there was a higher power that might have reason to interfere with the natural order of things. Very similarly, a revealed text carries much more credence if it could first be established that (a) there was a higher power that (b) would be likely to inspire such a text and (c) somehow establishes one set of texts as more likely to be inspired than all the competitors provided by other religions. Without these three, revealed sources must stand on their own merits which, in a vacuum, are inadequate, as we will see in Chapter 13. This is all to say that what reason tells us about theological matters should pretty much always trump esoteric, revealed sources.

Applying Reason to Theological Subjects Before moving on, it is important to situate the role of reasoning in the examination of theological subjects. First, there is no compelling reason to think that either approach to theology is a non-starter by its nature. In principle, both natural and revealed theology could prove fruitful regarding religious topics, including the potential to provide the kind of evidence that is the focus of this book—compelling reasons to think that there exists a higher power. Further, in principle, either can stand alone. But as outlined above, theistic success in natural theology greatly increases the possibility of success within revealed theology. But such potential requires that both types are engaged and supported using reason rather than mere appeals to faith.3 As argued in Chapter 2, it is vital that we have quality evidence in support of our beliefs, a Socratic Injunction4 to follow reason wherever it leads. However intuitive this position seems, it faces historically entrenched resistance. For centuries, certain theologians from various religions have maintained that specific theological matters either cannot or should not be

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dissected by reason. To take an extreme example, Martin Luther notoriously referred to reason as the “devil’s harlot” and the “greatest enemy to faith,” perhaps deriving inspiration from Biblical anti-intellectual passages such as Proverbs 3:5.5 Such a radical position, that reason should not be appealed to in forming theological beliefs, should strike us as suspicious. First, such a position seems incredibly vulnerable. In areligious contexts, such animosity toward reason would be tantamount to a declaration of defeat- it announces that the speaker is afraid of reasoning and of what will happen when it is applied to their view. If, by contrast, careful reasoning definitively proved that Luther’s theological views were correct, I very much doubt that he would heap such vitriol upon it. (And of course, many theologians, Christian and otherwise, and even Luther in other contexts, have embraced reason as a vehicle for truth.) The question is whether theology should somehow be viewed as holding this deviant relationship with reason that is not found in any other area of human inquiry. But this leads to a second problem, in that we should wonder where this imperative that we should not apply reason to these matters comes from. Again, no such imperative exists outside of religious contexts. The injunction to avoid applying reason to the “miracles of faith” would then come from within a particular religion. That is, given certain assumptions about God and God’s messages, we should not apply reason to certain topics. But setting aside whether this injunction is appropriate within that context, it could only be binding if we already believed in a god of a certain description. As such, it cannot apply when the existence of a god of a certain description is exactly what we are trying to reason out. So much for the position that we should not apply reason to theological matters. However, one may raise a different challenge, instead maintaining that we cannot apply reason to theological matters, that they instead demand some sort of Kierkegaardian leap of faith. Though this topic merits a larger discussion than can be given here, there are a few important considerations we can discuss briefly.6 First, this position should strike us as strange, given the hundreds of thousands of pages of high-quality philosophy of religion literature, both theistic and atheistic. If the claim is that theism cannot be proven in this way, then this is an implicit admission of failure and, given both the burden of proof and the caliber of the literature on the other side, then we should be atheists. If instead the claim is that all this literature is inconclusive, including arguments regarding the burden of proof, then that should make us agnostics.

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But generally, the preponderance of argument on these topics entails that such endeavors are at least possible, whether or not the arguments are conclusive. Second, and related to this, to say that we cannot reason at all about a deity would be disastrous, as it would be tantamount to saying that the laws of logic do not apply. For instance, if the Law of NonContradiction did not apply to the divine, then knowing that God is perfectly good would not allow one to rule out the position that God is also perfectly diabolical, etc. Hence, denying that the laws of logic apply to the concept of God render that concept functionally meaningless. Third, and similar to what was discussed above, to say that belief requires a leap of faith seems to be an implicit admission of defeat. It shows that the speaker is resigned to the fact that there are no good reasons for belief. Fourthly, as discussed in Chapter 2, if these religious beliefs have consequences, then to adopt them without good reasons is irresponsible. Lastly, it is important to ask why. If compelling reasons cannot be given to think that religious claims are true, why would someone want to be religious? There are of course answers to this type of question, but any such answer seems to carry important repercussions. For instance, if religious belief fulfills some form of psychological need, this might actually support a typical atheistic belief that the fulfillment of such needs is why false religious beliefs persist. But moreover, it opens Pandora’s Box. If it is permissible to believe something independent of evidence just because it lets you feel a certain way, then this permissibility seems to apply to many unacceptable beliefs, such as the tenets of white supremacy. But maybe this puts the cart before the horse. Before retrenching into such positions, perhaps it would be better to consider what we can reason regarding these matters, and to formulate our beliefs accordingly. In doing so however, there is one more consideration against both the views that reason should not and that reason cannot be applied to religious matters- both positions generally overlook the fact that religion can be enriched when tempered with reason.7 For instance, if religion is interested in ethics, if one thinks that God commands us to be good, then moral reasoning tremendously enhances religion. If one tries to extract ethics from a sacred text, they will quickly find that that sacred text must be interpreted, read in context, and read holistically, all of which are dependent on the exercising of good reasoning. Similar considerations apply to working with concepts of the divine.

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Reason as a Generator of Truth Having defended the claim that reason, as utilized in natural and revealed theology, should indeed be applied to the topics at hand, all that remains is to say a few words about reason’s most important formalization, the argument, and then a few words about the shape of natural theology generally. For those readers unfamiliar with arguments, here is a brief summary: an argument tries to establish a conclusion by making both a factual claim and an inferential claim. Factual claims are simply claims that something is true, that things are a certain way, and they take the form of premises in an argument. The inferential claim is the claim that these facts lead to or support some further fact, i.e., that the premises lead to the conclusion. In both cases, it is important to emphasize the word, “claim.” Claiming something is a fact does not make it a fact, and claiming that the premises support the conclusion does not mean that they do. Instead, the word “claim” is intended as neutral, and to evaluate the success of an argument is to evaluate both the inferential and factual claims. It is therefore critical to note that every argument then requires two evaluationsan evaluation of the inference from the premises to the conclusion and an evaluation of the premises themselves. These two should not be confused, but a failure of either component means that the argument does not succeed, i.e., it does not give us reason to accept the conclusion as true. Informally, to evaluate the inference, we simply ask, “Assuming the premises were true, would they establish the conclusion?” Note this question does not require the premises to be true. For instance, “There are twelve continents, therefore, there are more than ten continents” is a perfect inference. If it were true that there were twelve continents, this would certainly establish that there were more than ten. However, this example also shows why we must make both evaluations. Though the inference is perfect, I have no reason to accept the conclusion because the premise is false. By contrast, if I answer “no” to the inference question, that is, that even if the premises were true they would not support the conclusion, then it is utterly irrelevant whether the premises are true. When the inference is bad, the premises do not even matter. The conclusion is not established. This two-step evaluation of arguments is extremely important for logical, consistent reasoning. If the inference is bad, I have no reason to accept the conclusion. But once I have granted that the inference is a

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good one, I have only two options: I must either accept the conclusion or show why one of the premises is false. I cannot reject a conclusion just because I want to. A good inference means that the premises establish the conclusion. To reject the conclusion, I must show where the argument went wrong, either by showing a bad inference or a false premise. Good arguments can both lead to new facts and justify beliefs. If someone asks, “why do you believe X?” my justification should be an argument whose conclusion is X. If the argument is a good one, my belief is justified, and if it is a bad one, my belief is not. However, the true power of arguments, and the reason that they can generate new facts, is that, if an argument makes a good inference from premises to conclusion and has true premises, then I must accept the conclusion as true as well. In many cases, this means that, with the aid of an argument, I learn that, because I know the premises, and I realize that they support the conclusion, then I know something else. Arguments can let me go from things I knew to new knowledge just by structure and good reason. This is the backbone of logical persuasion. Before applying what we have learned about arguments to natural theology, there is a distinction to be made between deductive arguments and inductive arguments. This is only a distinction in inferential claims. The difference is in terms of how certain the inference from premises to conclusion is intended to be. In deductive arguments, the premises are intended to establish the conclusion with logical certainty. What this means is that, in a successful deductive argument, it is inconceivable that the conclusion is false given that the premises are true. This would not mean that the premises are certain, or that the conclusion is, only the inference from one to the other. Deductive certainty is an exceedingly rare and high standard. For instance, your certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow is not based on an inference of logical certainty. You can conceive of everything you know about astrophysics being true but a global-killing meteor striking the Earth tonight. This shows that logical certainty is rarely sought or needed in life. However, it is much more common in mathematics and philosophy, and is quite common in natural theology.

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Common Trends in Natural Theology Lastly, let us briefly consider some common themes in natural theology, specifically, the project of attempting to show by argument that a higher power exists and why such arguments must be considered. First, trying to argue for a higher power is a mostly Western, especially Christian theological activity. A complex web of factors contributes to this trend—tradition, how the Enlightenment unfurled in Western Europe, and even the backgrounds of certain contemporary theistic philosophers who have contributed all play a part. But there are philosophical reasons as well. Many of the concepts involved—not only the concept of the deity but also important metaphysical concepts such as linear time are largely foreign to other traditions. More significantly, belief tends to be more central in Western religions, especially Christianity and Islam. These are examples of religions of orthodoxy, literally, “right belief,” in which what is believed is considered the more important aspect of the religion. By contrast, many so-called Eastern religions, as well as Judaism, are religions of orthopraxy or “right practice,” in which one’s actions and conduct are more central to the religion.8 As we will see later, this distinction has important ramifications in other aspects of religion. But it makes us realize that, when we widen our view, this type of natural theology is not as common as one might infer from surveying the typical philosophy of religion texts. The topic at hand, especially the defenses of the families of arguments discussed in the following chapters, is a highly specialized and relatively uncommon type of theology globally. Of course, if this is true, devoting several chapters to these topics demands justification. Briefly, the reason for their inclusion here is twofold. First, although we do not live in a Christian-centric world, this text is written for a Christian-centric audience, reflective of contemporary American culture. But more importantly, if what I have argued above is correct, then this type of theology is important for belief. If one believes in a higher power, one must justify that belief in some way. This is incredibly difficult to do just relying on revealed theology, as we will see in the second half of the book. I think that such natural theological arguments have a much better chance of success than do most arguments grounded in revealed sources. If the intent is to give sufficient reasons for belief, then these arguments are almost a necessity. The fact that many traditions do not try to justify belief with theology, but instead merely try to understand it, indicates that they are not engaged in the same kind

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of enterprise of justifying belief. This is not to say that no justification is ever attempted on their part. Such justification may come in many forms. But employing natural theology in an effort to show the existence of a higher power is admirable both in its recognition that such belief must be justified and in its attempt to do so from a neutral starting point that allows engagement with nonbelievers or members of different traditions. Since natural theology has, in this sense, set out this invitation (or perhaps thrown down this gauntlet) to the rational nonbeliever, I would be remiss not to address the proffered arguments. However, it is impossible to address each individual argument. Instead, I will follow a standard historical grouping of families of argument based on what they have in common and how they typically run before addressing the standard basis for rejection by atheist naturalists.

Challenging Questions – Are there any cases outside of religious context where reason, in its most general form, should be viewed negatively? – Does the lens of reason improve religion? Give context. – Using argument to try to show that there is a higher power is to meet atheist naturalists on their own terms. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach?

Further Reading – Jason Marsh, “On the Socratic Injunction to Follow the Argument Where It Leads” – Herman Philipse, God in the Age of Science? A Critique of Religious Reason, Chapter 1

Notes 1. As a practical matter, these groups are conceptually distinguishable but often run together. For instance, most sacred texts are considered to be written by prophets or inspired by some higher power (which would count as religious experience), and then presents accounts of other religious experiences and miracles, etc. 2. This will be discussed in more detail in Chapters 12 and 13.

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3. Again grudgingly using “faith” as a belief inadequately supported by reasons and evidence combined with the view that the latter are unnecessary for appropriately holding a belief. 4. This phrase is borrowed from Marsh, page 187. 5. Of course, Biblical passages can be found in support of the use of reason as well. As we will see, sacred texts must be interpreted rather than ransacked. 6. For a more thorough discussion of both the history of these views and their principled rejection, see Everitt, Chapter One. 7. My view on the benefit and detriment of religion is a complicated one, but as a starting point, religion that is generally harmful tends to be distinctly averse to reason- it allows people to get whatever they wish out of religion. In doing so, religion becomes a vehicle to the baser passions. We will see more of this in the second half of the book. 8. I say “more central” because every religion combines both in varying degrees. The defining distinction is then in terms of prominence.

References Everitt, Nicholas. The Non-Existence of God. Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 2004. Marsh, Jason. “On the Socratic Injunction to Follow the Argument Where It Leads,” in Renewing Philosophy of Religion—Exploratory Essays, edited by Paul Draper and J.L. Schellenberg, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2017, pages 187–207.

CHAPTER 6

Ontological Arguments

Three Historical Families of Argument The following three chapters, 6 through 8, will consider some of the classic arguments for the existence of a higher power. We will call such attempts to establish a higher power existential natural theology. Such arguments are traditionally sorted into three families—ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, and teleological arguments (which will be subsumed under design arguments in Chapter 8). Immanuel Kant established these groupings, and they are helpful in two ways: First, although there are multiple arguments that fall under each heading, they share important similarities and shortcomings. But second, Kant argued that the success of cosmological arguments implicitly relies on the success of ontological arguments, and that the success of teleological arguments implicitly relies on the success of cosmological arguments. And there is something to this concern, as we will see. So what commonalities sort arguments into these types? Since we are defining arguments, we should consider what supports or leads to what, that is, what premises are supposed to lead to what conclusion and how. Ontological arguments, the topic of this chapter, aim to use the concept of God to show that God exists, that is, they argue that somehow the very concept of a perfect God (and only God) implies Its1 existence. By contrast, cosmological arguments start with some very general, prescientific fact about the world and argue that this fact establishes some sort of first being as its ultimate cause. More will be said about these in © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_6

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Chapter 7. Lastly, teleological arguments, the topic of Chapter 8, take some specific, usually scientific, observation, and argue that it is indicative of purpose, therefore implying a bestower of said purpose. Before moving on, we must note the specificity of these three conclusions. Ontological arguments try to establish a perfect God, what we have been calling the God of Theism. By contrast, the other two families of argument conclude something much less specific, a first being and a purpose-giver/designer respectively. This means that, even if these latter arguments are successful, further argumentation is needed for anyone who wants to defend a richer notion of a deity, such as the Theist. Such ancillary arguments (such as arguments that a creator must be omnipotent and an omnipotent being must be morally perfect) can and have been made with varying degrees of persuasiveness, but are ultimately impotent without first establishing the existence of a higher power via existential natural theology. Nevertheless, a successful cosmological or teleological argument would certainly be a significant foot in the door for Theism and would also undermine atheist naturalism.

Shape of Analysis Recall that the aim of this text is to show the reasonableness of atheism. But for atheism to be reasonable, none of these arguments can plausibly succeed in establishing the existence of a higher power. But how to show this? To demonstrate their failure beyond any doubt would require a refutation of every individual argument ever put forward in the history of philosophy, a hopeless undertaking. However, a more practical rejection uses the similarities that sort the arguments into the three families. Such similarities entail similar assumptions, weaknesses, and objections. This means that raising decisive general objections and worries will undercut any relevantly similar argument, thereby justifying an overall rejection of such lines of reasoning. As such, the shape of our analysis will be to present paragon version(s) of the arguments in question, and present telling objections that apply to those versions. However, there is a worry here. Whenever someone is presenting arguments in order to refute them, there is always the threat of a straw man, where a weaker, easily defeated version of a position is presented. To help assuage this worry, let me add three points: First, I hope that no one, ever, develops their considered religious views based solely on a single text, be it mine or otherwise. The topics are too complex and

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far-reaching. It is for this reason that I include lists of further reading at the end of each chapter, lists which include authors with opposing viewpoints so readers may judge for themselves. Second, it is important to remember that this text is written to be accessible to those without philosophical backgrounds. As such, the arguments presented will not be their most complex, robustly defended versions. But any simplifications are done for the reader’s comprehension and are not intended to make arguments more vulnerable. Third, although I will be presenting several new objections, there are also many well-established and powerful objections existent in the philosophical literature. There are no arguments for a higher power that achieve anything close to universal assent, so the fact that they have significant problems should not be surprising.

Ontological Arguments in Context The family of ontological arguments occupies a peculiar logical space. Because they invoke only essences, concepts, and their entailments, making no appeal to cause and effect, this means that their success would establish their conclusion a priori. A priori truths are knowable independently of any experience of the world. Typical examples include mathematical truths, logical truths, and things that are true by definition. As such, were a version of the ontological argument to succeed, it would establish that the claim “God exists” is on the same level as “2 + 2 = 4.”2 While such certainty may be relished by some Theists, it is generally shunned. In fact, many of the most damning objections to such arguments have been provided by Theists, including Saint Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Pierre Gassendi, and Gaunilo of Marmoutiers. As we will see below, there are good philosophical reasons for rejecting specific ontological arguments. However, there is a crucial underlying reason as well. Ontological arguments are viewed by many as trying to do the impossible—establishing an existence claim a priori, effectively trying to define something into existence. Arthur Schopenhauer famously called the ontological argument a charming joke, and many theists3 and atheists alike are willing to leave it at that, to view it as an untenable shell-game. Theists may even distance themselves from the argument simply to avoid giving theistic natural theology a bad name. As much as I would love to leave things at that, the fact that some Theists call versions of the ontological argument sound means that a complete defense of the reasonableness of atheism requires that this

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purported success must be addressed. Before addressing the specific arguments, we will flesh out the more general objection to such a project in more detail (and if the reader finds it decisive, then I applaud their good sense and they should feel free to skip ahead). After that, we will briefly discuss the historical forms of Anselm and Descartes before addressing more recent versions and their shortcomings.

The Inference to Existence As mentioned previously, ontological arguments try to establish a priori that God exists. This point alone is sufficient for many theists and atheists alike to reject the enterprise, as this move is generally deemed to be conceptually impossible. The problem is the status of the conclusion; not its truth, but what type of truth it would be. Is “God exists” an a priori truth (or falsity) or an a posteriori truth (or falsity)? The claim that it cannot be the former and must be the latter has been made by many philosophers, but perhaps most famously by David Hume. We will therefore call this type of objection Humean, and it can be raised in several related ways: First is simply the nature of existence claims. It is commonly maintained that any claim about worldly existence is a posteriori. If this is the case, then one simply cannot infer that God exists (or any other existence claim) from a priori premises, and no deeper analysis is necessary. Related to this, many, following Hume, maintain that it is inconceivable that a priori truths are false, whereas the opposite of an a posteriori claim is always conceivable. For instance, I can imagine dropping a ball but it not falling, whereas I cannot imagine 2 + 2 being anything but 4. If “God exists” is a claim of a priori truth, this implies that it would be inconceivable that God not exist. But if a theist or atheist can coherently imagine a universe without God, then God’s existence must be an a posteriori truth and, once more, the inference of an ontological argument must be denied.4 A third related worry is that the denial of an a priori true proposition is a contradiction. Yet there does not seem to be any derivable contradiction from the claim, “God does not exist” in the way that we can derive contradictions from the claim, “2 + 2 = 4.”5 These Humean positions regarding a priori and necessary truths are well-entrenched in Western philosophy. All such claims except those regarding the God of Theism are virtually beyond dispute. Defenders of the ontological argument will generally claim that God, as the most real, most perfect, being, is somehow the sole exception, that concepts do not

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imply anything about existence except in God’s case. Of course, if an ontological argument is successful, this exceptionalism may be justified.6 Here though I simply wish to raise three points. First, there is a sense of evidential proportion to be considered. Claims regarding the status of logical truths, existence claims, and a priori versus a posteriori status tend to be central to one’s reasoning and epistemology in a way that commitment to a successful ontological argument is not. As such, it may be appropriate to hold the reasons above to be sufficiently compelling so as to brook no exceptions and therefore dismiss the project of the ontological argument by fiat. Second and related to this, if one is only tentatively supportive of an ontological argument, the defender must weigh their certainty of its success against these difficulties- are they more certain of the success of the argument or more certain of the normal status of existence claims? If any of the three considerations discussed above is strongly compelling, then one’s certainty in the inference of an ontological argument is undermined. Lastly, the defender of the ontological argument must also wield a double-edged sword. If claims about God’s existence are not a posteriori, contingent claims, that means that, like a claim of mathematics, the claim “God exists” must be either logically necessary or logically impossible. But this dichotomy can cause serious problems for the believer, as we will see later.

Some Ontological Arguments Historically, the two major ontological arguments are those presented by Saint Anselm, Abbot of Bec, in the Proslogion, and by René Descartes in the Meditations on First Philosophy. Unlike these two, contemporary presentations are modal in nature. The reader (and the Theist) will hopefully forgive me, but considerations of space will limit my presentation to the basic intuitions of these arguments rather than robust defenses as discussed above. In doing so, we will therefore present Anselmian, Cartesian, and modal styles, as well as the important commonalities among these arguments. An Anselmian ontological argument is presented as a reductio ad absurdum, and runs as follows: 1. The concept of God is the concept of the best conceivable being. 2. Existing in reality is better than existing merely as a concept.

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3. If God existed merely as a concept, then there would be a conceivable being better than God (i.e., a God that existed in reality as well). 4. This is impossible because, if God existed only as a concept, there would be a conceivable being better than the best conceivable being. Therefore, God must exist in reality.7 Descartes presented a more economical version of the ontological argument that better withstood early criticisms of Anselm’s version. A Cartesian ontological argument runs as follows: 1. The concept of God is clearly and distinctly perceived as having all perfections. 2. Existence is a perfection. Therefore, a being matching the concept of God exists.8 These historical versions were written before the development of a robust modal9 logic of possibility and necessity. But this seems crucial to any successful ontological argument. Hence, contemporary ontological arguments are modal in nature, and may be expressed as: 1. A being has maximal greatness only if it is maximally excellent in every world. 2. There is a possible world in which there exists a being possessing maximal greatness. Therefore, a being with maximal greatness exists in the actual world.10 This inference requires a bit of explanation. “Possible worlds” here does not imply planets but maximally complete descriptions of states of affairs. For instance, the “actual world,” a very important possible world, is a conjunction of every true statement about the universe. Because possible worlds are actually statements, modal claims, and relations theoretically apply. A necessary statement is one whose falsity is impossible, which we can then say means that it is true in all possible worlds. Hence, the inference relies on the entailments that what is possibly necessary is necessary, and what is necessary is actual. More will be said on this below.

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Note that all three styles of ontological argument share important commonalities. All require a specific description of a perfect being, without which the inference cannot be made. These descriptions are represented as premise (1) in each of these simplified versions. They also require that certain kinds of existence are an improvement or greatmaking property, established by premises (2), (2), and (1) respectively. The inference then goes from the defined concept to that concept’s instantiation because of the demands of a certain notion of perfection. Historically, this type of inference has been blocked in multiple ways, as we will see in the next section.

Historical Objections to Ontological Arguments In addition to the Humean concerns above, we find other substantive objections within the history of philosophy. Perhaps the most famous come from Immanuel Kant, in a section of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled, “The Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God.”11 There, he raises at least three substantive objections. The first applies most directly to the Cartesian assertion that God necessarily has all perfections. Kant points out that the so-called necessity of this statement is importantly conditional. In making any analytic (true by definition) judgment, we define a concept so as to include certain attributes, such as saying that a unicorn must have one horn. And this is the “absolute necessity” of a judgment. It is always true, and creates an impossibility when denied. In Kant’s example, the idea of a triangle would still contain three angles, whether or not a triangle was actualized in reality. The proposition that “a triangle has three angles” has a necessary de dicto (defined so that it must be the case) reading, as it is essential to the definition of a triangle to have exactly three angles. But, this does not entail that three angles are necessary. Instead, this is only the case on the condition that a triangle exist. Similarly, the judgment that God has necessary existence does not bestow necessary metaphysical existence to the subject de re (i.e., that it must exist), but rather makes the weaker de dicto claim about the idea of God, that any conception of the perfect being would entail necessary existence, no different than the claim that any conception of a unicorn requires a horn. Otherwise, the supporter of the Cartesian ontological argument is literally defining something into existence. Imagine if someone said, “Hippy is essentially a necessarily existent giant purple hippopotamus that orbits the earth as a second moon.”

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Such a claim certainly does not entail Hippy’s existence. Adding necessary existence to a concept does not actually instantiate its existence. Conditionally, if a triangle exists, then it must contain three interior angles. When this concept is realized and applied to the Cartesian formulation of the ontological argument, it would have to be changed as follows: 1. Necessarily, if God exists, then God has all perfections. 2. Existence is a perfection. Therefore, necessarily, if God exists, God has existence. This meaningless tautology, while validly derived, does not tell us that God exists. A natural response to this objection, however, is that the denial of the antecedent, i.e., saying that God does not exist would imply a contradiction, as God is, by definition, a necessarily existing being. God’s existence is necessary to Its concept. Just as surely as saying that there are triangles but no three-sided figures implies a contradiction, so does asserting that God, a being whose existence is inscribed in Its very nature, does not exist. To undermine this line of reasoning, Kant pointed out that any time the existence of a subject is posited but its predicate is rejected, a contradiction will result. To say that there are triangles but no three-sided figures is patently absurd. When you deny a thing’s existence, then you deny the thing itself with all of its predicates. This realization allows us to avoid the contradiction the Anselmian reductio relies upon, and (with slight modification) block the inference in the modal version by rejecting the possibility of a being with maximal greatness. As Kant acknowledged, however, there is one concept that might hypothetically circumvent this line of reasoning and possibly overcome the previous objections. It is the concept of an ens realissimum, a being who possesses all reality, and whose essence includes existence. Kant admitted that, if God could be said to fall into this category, then It must exist. But Kant denies this possibility by arguing that existence is not an expansive predicate, that is, it does not modify the subject in any way. Imagining an elephant and imagining an elephant existing are two ways of saying the same thing. The concept does not change if the elephant exists. Instead, it is the world that changes. Since adding existence cannot change a concept, it follows that adding existence cannot improve a concept. Simply claiming that a thing exists does not increase its conceived magnitude.

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These Kantian objections seem decisive against both the Anselmian and Cartesian ontological arguments, but some have tried to salvage the modal version. This is because, while mere existence is not a great-making property, the modal notion of maximal greatness is. Mere existence is non-modal, as it is specific to a world, whereas transworld12 properties, such as necessary existence or maximal greatness, do alter the concept. Imagining an elephant necessarily existing is seemingly different than just imagining it existing. There are a few things to say about this. First, employing necessary existence in an ontological argument still seems vulnerable to Kant’s second objection- a denier of the ontological argument need only deny that such a concept of God is possible. Alvin Plantinga, a defender of the modal ontological argument, seems sympathetic to this. He thinks that the success of the argument comes down to intuitions. He does not think that it can prove its conclusion, but it is rational to accept the premise.13 Hence, a theist who has the intuition that this type of necessity is possible will accept the argument as sound, whereas atheists (and many theists) who do not have the intuition that such a being is possible will not be moved. Of course, if this is true, it is not clear what value is gleaned from the ontological argument, as its success is contingent on what we already believe about the conclusion. This is exactly backward. We should form our beliefs if arguments succeed at establishing those beliefs, not the other way around. But more importantly, there is a worry of begging the question. If the entity is defined in a way so that it cannot be contingent, then to assert its possibility is to assume exactly what is in dispute.14

A New Criticism and a Final Verdict The current status of the ontological argument seems to stand or fall with the modal version for two reasons: First, the historical criticisms of the Anselmian and Cartesian versions are highly persuasive, if not fatal.15 But second, the kind of existence evoked in the ontological argument is not mere existence but necessary existence. Not only is the Kantian objection rather telling against mere existence as a determining predicate, but modal versions more accurately capture what the defender of the ontological argument is trying to say. To establish God exists a priori is to assign a special type of existence substantively different from that of mere worldly beings. (In fact, both Anselm and Descartes seem to support God’s existence as logically necessary, but lacked the modal apparatus to argue for

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it in that way.) As such, I believe the rejection of the modal ontological argument is sufficient to justify the atheist in their more general rejection of this line of reasoning. But in addition to those described above, I will add one more extensive criticism of the modal argument. Philosophers such as William Rowe and J.L. Schellenberg hold that, at least during difficult times, we might expect a morally perfect being to soothe us and let us know that It was there. We can cash this out in terms of our intuitions about a morally perfect deity. With this in mind, let us consider the following case: Imagine a being very similar to (and perhaps identical to) the God of Theism that manifests the Rowe/Schellenberg intuition. It is a maximally perfect being, having all of the attributes that that entails, including necessary existence. Call this being the Necessarily Existent God Amendment to the Theistic Entity (NEGATE).16 However, as an entailment of Its moral perfection, NEGATE likes Its creations to be happy and to know that It cares about them, no matter how hard things get. Instead of leaving such vital information to the ambiguity of ancient texts, however, Its moral perfection demands that It deliver this message unequivocally. To this end, NEGATE regularly and frequently appears in dreams to each and every intelligent creature in order to soothe them, assure them of Its existence, and that their suffering is for a higher purpose. In these dreams, there is no possibility of mistaking the Divine Presence. The question I now pose is simple. Is it possible to have an intuition of a morally perfect being that behaves in this way? It seems that the immediate answer is, “of course.” NEGATE is obviously conceivable, and I dare say that, like Rowe and Schellenberg, I have an intuition that a morally perfect being ought to act in this manner or express Its existence in some pellucid way. In vacuo, the answer to my simple question is resoundingly affirmative. There seems to be no intuitive implausibility in NEGATE, let alone impossibility. Resistance is only raised in realizing how devastating the intuition of NEGATE is to the modal argument. This is because we examine our lives and, lo and behold, at least most of us find that we are not soothed by NEGATE. But if we accept the assumptions required for the modal ontological argument, we should be. NEGATE is possibly necessary, so it must exist. How might the supporters of the modal argument respond? It seems very difficult to respond to the challenge posed by NEGATE in a nonquestion-begging manner. The knee-jerk reaction might be to simply assert that, though I may think that I have an intuition of NEGATE,

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I in fact do not. Setting aside whether this is a philosophical rather than dogmatic response, it is still one that the supporter of the modal argument cannot make. Why? Because if this response is appropriate for NEGATE, it is equally appropriate for the opponent of the modal ontological argument, who can likewise assert that the defender thinks they have an intuition of God as a necessary being but, in fact, do not. Hence, such a blithe response undercuts the defender’s own argument. Perhaps a more hopeful response would be for the defender of the modal ontological argument to show that NEGATE contains some hidden contradiction, and it is because of this that the intuition is wrong. For instance, it might be said that there is something valuable about divine hiddenness, that it develops faith or aides in some form of soulbuilding, or that divine hiddenness is valuable because otherwise, such regular miracles would undercut the laws of nature and the value they entail. Such replies still seem unsatisfactory as a defense against NEGATE for several reasons: First, epistemically speaking, it robs the ontological argument of its status. Once we start introducing a posteriori elements such as the value of faith over certainty or whether the laws of nature maintain their predictive capacity in the face of regular miracles, then its epistemic status is undercut. However, even assuming that this worry can be ignored, there are deeper problems. While such claims about faith or the laws of nature may seem plausible as a response to suffering, the defender of the modal ontological argument is forced to defend something much stronger. They must maintain that it is a contradiction, a logical impossibility in the strongest sense of the word, that God soothes people as an entailment of moral perfection if they are to say that NEGATE is not possible. But the defender would have to go beyond a mere assertion. The burden would be to provide an a priori proof as to why the perfect being would be logically incapable of appearing to us. Not only does the success of such a proof seem dubious (since there seems to be little ground for conceptual impossibilities here), but if such a proof were made, then their defense of the modal ontological argument would seemingly show that revelations such as holy texts are fabrications, since unambiguous revelation would be proven impossible. It appears that any way of defeating NEGATE would entail unpleasant repercussions. Overall, the concept of NEGATE seems to force us to either deny that intuition is a guide to metaphysical possibility or to deny that a concept of necessary existence leads to actual existence. Denial of either proves fatal to the modal ontological argument, and gives the atheist naturalist

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more than adequate reason to reject this type of reasoning. Ontological arguments are fascinating (which I think accounts for their persistence in Western philosophy), but are ultimately untenable.

Challenging Questions – Which of the three families of arguments seems most promising and why? – Is there value in an argument that has no chance of persuading a nonbeliever? Why or why not? – Is there any important relationship between intuition and possibility? – Given its unique difficulties, is it advisable for Theists to defend the ontological argument? Why or why not?

Further Reading – Graham Oppy (editor), Ontological Arguments – Richard Swinburne, “What Kind of Necessary Being Could God Be” – Kenneth Einar Himma, “Anselm: Ontological Argument for God’s Existence” at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Nicholas Everitt, The Non-Existence of God, Chapter Three

Notes 1. I always refer to God as “It,” since gender clearly does not apply to such a being and, worse, implying that gender does apply to such a being underpins religious gender discrimination. I encourage the reader to follow me in this practice. 2. By contrast, a posteriori truths are knowable only with experience. The vast majority of human knowledge falls into this category, including all the truths of the sciences, history, and personal experience and memory. 3. Here, we should emphasize the importance of intellectual honesty in justifying beliefs. There is no reason that a theist must support every argument in favor of a deity, and should instead only support arguments they find plausible. (This point is sometimes misses by certain philosophers of religion, who stubbornly refer to any objector to their theistic argument as “the atheist.”) Conversely, atheists need not support every argument against a deity. Fruitful dialogue and the pursuit of truth requires that we look at things from an unbiased perspective rather than simply going into stereotypical battle formations. People can and should change their minds if that is where the evidence leads. If an atheist finds an argument for a

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higher power highly persuasive, they can and should change views. The same goes for theists, mutatis mutandis. Theist Richard Swinburne champions the view that God’s existence is not necessary in the sense that would be established by a successful ontological argument. Without complicating things more than we have to, these last two claims have to do with logical necessity, of statements that must be true, closely related to a priori truths. More will be said regarding the types of necessity in Chapter 7. Gottfried Leibniz, probably anticipating this kind of concern, stated that no ontological argument could be successful without a demonstration proving that a being whose existence followed from its essence was possible. For a discussion, see Adams, pages 161–164. Anselm, Chapter Two. Anselm also presented a second argument, which some argue is significantly different and improved, in Chapter Three. The claim is that the latter is improved because it is modal in nature. As such, discussion of it will be subsumed under the modal ontological argument presentation. See Descartes, Meditation V. He presents a similar argument in the Principles of Philosophy, Part 1, Section 14. Modal describes a way a statement can be and qualifies the truth of a statement. Terms such as “necessarily” and “possibly” are modal modifiers. See Alvin Plantinga, pages 213–217. Kant, B621–626. Though Kant made them famous, something like all three of the objections discussed were preempted by Gassendi in his replies to the Meditations. Some, including myself, have objected to the possibility of transworld identity, that is, the claim that a single being can exist across multiple worlds in the requisite fashion, but I grant it here for the sake of argument. Plantinga, page 221. A point raised in a different context by Millican, page 33 fn. 21. And my brief presentation even excludes several other telling criticisms that have been raised against these versions. It should be emphasized that there is no reason that NEGATE could not be the actual God of Theism. Indeed, many would consider such a conception quite plausible.

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References Adams, Robert Merrihew. Leibniz—Determinist, Theist, Idealist, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1994. Anselm, St. “Proslogium,” in Anselm’s Basic Writings, Second Edition, translated by S. N. Deane, Open Court Publishing Company, La Salle Illinois, 1962. Descartes, René. “Meditations on First Philosophy,” in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1985. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason, translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1988. Leibniz, G.W. “Critical Remarks Concerning the General Part of Descartes’ Principles,” in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz—Philosophical Papers and Letters, translated and edited by Leroy E. Loemker, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA, 1970. Millican, Peter. “Anselm,” in Ontological Arguments, edited by Graham Oppy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2018, pages 19–43. Plantinga, Alvin. The Nature of Necessity, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1974. Rowe, William. “An Exchange on the Problem of Evil,” in God and the Problem of Evil, edited by William Rowe, Blackwell Publishers, Inc., Malden, MA, 2001, pages 124–158. Schellenberg, J. L. Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1993.

CHAPTER 7

Cosmological Arguments

As discussed in the previous chapter, cosmological arguments, a family of existential natural theology arguments, infer a deity as the ultimate cause of some existence, such as a first mover, first cause, or explanation for the existence of the universe. Put another way, cosmological arguments try to answer “why is there something rather than nothing?” by positing the existence of a higher power. Though such arguments are numerous and varied, all implicitly require that divine agency explains the identified existence in a way that naturalistic accounts cannot. Like ontological arguments, cosmological arguments are too numerous and varied to make an argument-by-argument refutation practical. Fortunately, no such series of refutations is necessary. The shared requirements for a successful cosmological argument lead to similar evaluations regarding the entire family. All plausible cosmological arguments share certain demands for their plausibility, and all must confront the alternative- a naturalistic account of the origin of the universe through Big Bang cosmogony. As we will see, the best cosmological argument cannot seem to take us beyond mere intuitions regarding the origins of the Big Bang.

The Quest for an Ultimate To begin such a large topic, let us turn to an insightful discussion from David Hume’s Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. In the passage in question, Philo, Hume’s skeptical persona, points out that if we take © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_7

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order, complexity, and purposiveness to imply a designer, then we must posit a designer for the designing mind, which is itself ordered, complex, and purposive. But then we must posit a designing mind for the designing mind’s designing mind, and so on, leading to a regress of intellects. Though design arguments will be discussed in the next chapter, what is important here is not the objection but the replies. Cleanthes, Hume’s champion of the design argument, claims that he has found the answer to his question, the divine explanation of the universe, and his inquiry is complete. There is no need to ask about the designer of the designer. But Philo holds no truck with this response. He points out that, if we allow one instance where we do not have to infer a designer of an ordered, complex, purposive being, why not make that being the universe rather than a designer of the universe?1 Ultimately, a similar discussion leads to an analogous result when considering plausible versions of the cosmological argument. If we are allowed to admit that there is exactly one being in our ontology whose existence does not require any external explanation, we could, with the supporter of the cosmological argument, posit a deific agent to fulfill this role. However, we could just as easily posit the Big Bang singularity. But unlike Hume’s Philo, I present this less as a criticism of the inference and instead as a limitation to what cosmological arguments can teach us. They serve to fix our intuitions, but there is no clear winner or loser. After showing what it would take in order for a cosmological argument to be persuasive, I will suggest that cosmological arguments cannot move us beyond this disputed point, giving the atheist naturalist good footing for rejecting this type of reasoning.

Persuasive Cosmological Arguments Let us begin by defining cosmological arguments more precisely. They are almost always deductive, a posteriori, and use the Principle of Sufficient Reason (discussed below) to argue that some very general, pre-scientific fact(s) about the world implies some first being. However, since they only conclude a first being, it would require further argument beyond the scope of the cosmological argument itself to conclude the existence of a God of Theism or something similar. Let us then consider what it would mean for such an argument to be persuasive. First, I intend this as a technical term, as something less restrictive than the requirement that it establishes its conclusion satisfactorily.

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Instead, a persuasive argument is one that is worthy of its philosophical opponent’s attention, in the case of the cosmological argument, the atheist naturalist. This means that the argument has enough merit that it should be considered a challenge to those that deny its conclusion and, as such, must be addressed in order to plausibly retain that denial in an intellectually honest capacity. In short, a plausible cosmological argument challenges the atheist naturalist view and therefore demands either its refutation or acceptance. First, note that persuasiveness is not always intended as the goal of cosmological arguments. For instance, Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Five Ways are precisely what their title suggests. They disclose ways we might argue the existence of a deity independently of revelation, helpful routes that may be attempted.2 The Summa Theologica was not written for an atheist naturalist audience, and Aquinas does not attempt to employ the Ways as persuasive pieces to his Catholic readership. They are quite clearly intended as avenues that may be pursued, though Aquinas himself does not pursue these avenues in the work. Hence, when using Aquinas’s Ways as examples of unpersuasive cosmological arguments, this does not imply criticism, but is instead analogous to explaining why 12 Years a Slave fails as a comedy. It is simply not the intended project.3 Given this qualification, there seem to be three significant requirements for persuasiveness in a cosmological argument,4 and any argument that falls short should not trouble an atheist naturalist’s conscience. These requirements are (1) deductive validity, (2) utilizing only the Weak version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and (3) arriving at a conclusion incompatible with atheist naturalism. Since cosmological arguments, traditionally conceived, are deductive,5 the first requirement is trivially true, requiring the premises to properly establish their conclusion. An invalid argument lends no support to its conclusion. With the qualification above and with respect to his work, I will appeal to the first two of Aquinas’s Five Ways heuristically in order to draw out the other two requirements. Aquinas’ First Way, From Motion, goes roughly as follows: 1. There are things in motion in the world. 2. Something cannot be both mover and moved (in the same motion). 3. An infinite regress is impossible. Therefore, there must be a first, unmoved mover (which Aquinas calls God).

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Aquinas’ Second Way, From Efficient Causation, is perfectly parallel, starting from the fact that there is cause and effect and concluding an uncaused cause instead. Notice that these two Ways typify cosmological arguments. Both start with an incredibly general pre-scientific fact about the world and infer a first being. However, in order to do so, both require a premise that an infinite regress is impossible in order to validly arrive at their conclusions (otherwise, a string of motions or causes stretching back forever could not be eliminated from contention). Such a denial is motivated by the claim that an infinite regress would violate a certain reading of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). PSR is a metaphysical commitment that everything has an explanation, independently of whether we know said explanation. The claim would then be that an infinite regress violates this principle because we do not have a complete explanation as to why the infinitieth member of a series occurred. Though there is some reason to doubt whether an infinite regress represents such a violation, let us assume it to be true. The question becomes, should we accept this entailment of PSR? In fact, it is only entailed by a particularly strong interpretation of PSR that not everyone supports. We can maintain the claim that everything has an explanation without requiring that everything has a total explanation. Call these Weak and Strong PSR respectively.6 Both maintain that things do not just happen or appear uncaused. Their metaphysical commitments really only part ways when it comes to infinite regresses. Consider an infinitely long line of falling dominoes. This picture does not violate Weak PSR, because there is an explanation for why each and every domino has fallen. For each domino X, we can explain X’s falling by its being struck by domino X-1. No domino fell uncaused, hence an explanation for every event. The problem only arises if we demand something more in our answer, if our explanation must also explain something beyond why any given member of the series fell in explaining domino X’s falling. But it is far from obvious that such a demand is reasonable, and it seems to rise or fall solely on the basis of people’s deep metaphysical intuitions about explanation. But very few people have strong intuitions about whether such regresses are possible or not. Hence, if a theist presents a cosmological argument to an atheist naturalist that requires Strong PSR as a premise, they have skipped a crucial step (arguably the crucial step). They have not persuaded their opponent into sharing the intuition that regresses are impossible. But it is only an intuition, both obscure and unjustifiable. Yet it is not appropriate to fault someone for failing to share unargued metaphysical intuitions. If

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the best conclusion a cosmological argument can arrive at is that anyone who thinks that an infinite regress is impossible should believe in a first being, then it remains unpersuasive and should not trouble any nonbeliever’s conscience. For arguments assuming Strong PSR to succeed, Aquinas (or any like-minded supporter of the cosmological argument) must be preaching to the metaphysical choir, which is why reliance on Strong PSR entails unpersuasiveness. But even if Aquinas could sufficiently establish only this result, it would still be marked progress. If the only concern with cosmological arguments is that we must figure out whether infinite regresses are possible, that would still advance the discussion significantly. But we have a much more serious problem than that in these Ways: They still fail the third criterion in that their conclusions are compatible with atheist naturalism. The atheist naturalist could (and generally does) easily say, “Of course there was an uncaused cause. It was the Big Bang,” or “Of course there was an unmoved mover, it was the Big Bang Singularity,” or appealing to the conclusion of the Third Way, “Yes, I believe in a necessary being. It was the Big Bang Singularity.” If cosmological arguments only bring us to a conclusion that is accepted by both theists and atheist naturalists, this means that those arguments do not constitute evidence in support of one position over the other. Hence, they should not alter our beliefs in the god debates. If the established conclusion is common ground, then the argument does literally nothing to help choose between the two positions.

¯ Cosmological Argument The Revived Kalam Contemporary theologian William Lane Craig presents a cosmological argument he calls the Kal¯am that avoids these worries and therefore meets the requirements for persuasiveness. The argument may be constructed as follows: 1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause.7 The argument is clearly valid, and premise (1) is just a specification of Weak PSR. Regresses do not enter into it. Lastly, the conclusion is logically incompatible with atheist naturalism. To posit a cause of the universe

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is to posit something outside of and distinct from the universe, something incompatible with a naturalist ontology. In earlier works, Craig maintained that everyone must grant premise (1), but one can rarely get away with such sweeping generalizations in philosophy, and intelligent dissent has been raised against it. I set aside such details for now though, because even if we restrict the conclusion of the Kal¯am to the hypothetical: if everything that begins to exist has a cause, then the universe has a cause, the atheist naturalist view is sufficiently challenged so as to merit a reply. Hence, the bulk of the analysis of the Kal¯am will be spent as Craig does, on premise (2), though interpretations of how it is to be read will ultimately lead back to (1). It is not my intent to criticize or examine all the objections and replies here.8 Instead, I wish to emphasize that, of the four supports that Craig offers for (2), the only one generally thought to be potentially persuasive to an atheist naturalist is his appeal to Big Bang Cosmogony.9 First, it is important to acknowledge that the occurrence of the Big Bang approximately 13.8 billion years ago is a scientifically confirmed fact.10 Any cosmological considerations regarding the beginning of things, theistic or atheistic, must discuss the Big Bang. As such, deniers of the Kal¯am cannot adequately discharge their epistemic responsibility by denying that the event occurred. However, there is a crucial slip here about which we must be cautious: the difference between scientific fact and interpretation of scientific fact, specifically, the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe and the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe as we know it. This distinction is crucial, but there are several difficulties here that muck the waters. First we must clarify notions of time. For instance, Einsteinian General Relativity Theory tells us that both time and space are relative to the objects in them, which means that the Big Bang marked the beginning of space, not just the beginning of objects in space, that space itself has been expanding ever since. And if that is not sufficiently mind-bending, it also means there is an important sense in which the Big Bang represents the beginning of time itself, and that to talk about “before the Big Bang” threatens incoherence. Physicists often take it that Big Bang cosmology entails this result through an application of the B Theory of Time (that is, the theory that time is not absolute, and the perceived progression of time is psychological). But this need not be the case. For instance, it is coherent to posit both A (that is, absolute) and B Theories of Time in which the Big Bang and the events causally posterior to it can be seen

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as occurring in B-Time, yet it is still possible to take a (pardon the pun) god’s eye view of absolute or A-Time. For instance, the oscillation model of the universe, where there is a series of Big Bangs and Big Crunches, seems to entail this hybrid model of time.11 Or we might instead posit a singularity that has been located in A-Time for any amount of time before it Bangs. There are also multiverse theories (such as Leonard Susskind’s) that posit a much larger universe, where our own Big Bang Expansion is but one of many, like one of many bubbles expanding in a giant bubble bath, the totality of which would seem to require a notion of time beyond the B-Theory time of this universe. However, any of these models quickly crosses from astrophysics into speculative cosmology because of the particle horizons across which information cannot cross.12 Hence, science certainly confirms that the Big Bang was the start of the universe as we know it and the start of B-Theory Time, but is very limited (though not necessarily powerless) in considering any theory of “before the Big Bang.” However, Craig accepts that the Big Bang is the beginning of the universe, full stop, rather than merely the beginning of the universe as we know it. This is not an unreasonable interpretation but must be acknowledged as not reflective of consensus in the scientific community. It is his reasonable interpretation of the data rather than the data itself. The observable universe need not represent the entire universe. In light of this, the supporter of the Kal¯am faces a dilemma. If it is claimed that science confirms that the universe had an absolute beginning, this claim is simply false, leaving premise (2) unsupported and the argument unsound. However, the other option is to modify premise (2) using what is confirmed by the evidence. In doing so, it would become something like (2*)—The universe as we know it began to exist. But once we have made this change, we must similarly modify the conclusion in order to preserve validity. The conclusion validly drawn using (2*) would be “The universe as we know it had a cause.” But once we have performed this necessary modification, we have arrived at a conclusion perfectly compatible with atheist naturalism. “Of course the universe as we know it had a cause. I call it the Big Bang.” If we interpret the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe and additionally accept (1), then, with Craig, we support the Kal¯am. If we only acknowledge that the Big Bang is the start of the universe as we know it, and are still open to the possibility of the observable universe not representing the entire universe, or if we are comfortable denying (1) and saying the occurrence of the

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Big Bang happened uncaused, then we need not accept his conclusion. As such, our acceptance or rejection of the Kal¯am is determined by our intuitions, not any type of “empirical confirmation.” To say the Big Bang is or is not the beginning of the universe or to assert whether it does or does not need a cause to explain it is to go beyond anything empirical and offer a metaphysical interpretation of the cosmos. This leads us to a position I call the Cosmological Push,13 which runs as follows: The theistic supporter of the cosmological argument finds the notion of an eternal, infinite agent less strange than saying there was a brute singularity from which the Big Bang occurred uncaused. The atheist naturalist believes the reverse, that an uncaused Big Bang (or series of Big Bangs, multiverse, etc.) is less strange than an eternal, infinite agent.14 In making the claim that there is no clear winner between these intuitions, we must clarify two points: First, Recall the Chapter 4 discussion regarding the burden of proof. Just because a debate reduces to conflicting intuitions does not guarantee that the sides must agree to disagree, that there is no fact of the matter, or that it is appropriate to withhold judgment. Rather, it means that to move past such positions would be to give reasons or argument as to why one is a better intuition to hold than the other, that is, to give some objective grounds for preference. But with the cosmological argument, this seems exceedingly difficult, for reasons to be discussed below. Second, this is where intuitions lie only considering the cosmological argument. For instance, it is certainly possible to move past the Cosmological Push by appealing to other evidence, such as the Problem of Evil, design arguments, religious experience, incoherence arguments, etc. The claim here is only that the cosmological argument, by itself, cannot get us beyond this clash of intuitions.

Extrapolating the Results Why might we think that, when it comes to cosmological arguments, there is no clear winner of the Push? First, consider the areas of apparent tie. The theistic supporter of the cosmological argument posits exactly one being whose existence does not demand explanation, God. The atheist naturalist posits exactly one being whose existence does not demand explanation, the Big Bang Singularity or some other basic feature of the universe.15 And while the atheist naturalist certainly posits something peculiar in citing an exception to even the weak version of the

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Principle of Sufficient Reason, maintaining that there was an instance where something just appeared or just happened (depending on the interpretation of the Big Bang), the theist also does something strange in positing an eternal agent. An eternal agent must be either eternal in time or eternal outside of time. Eternal in time can certainly be bizarre. Imagine a being who could always remember the day before, or a being that is a perfect intellect, yet seemingly arbitrarily decided that the time to create was 13.8 billion years ago; this after twiddling its divine thumbs for, well, eternity. An eternal being outside of time can be even more of a mind-bender. Kai Nielsen, for instance, finds the notion of atemporal causation incoherent, as even the most minimalist notion of cause and effect requires the cause to temporally precede the effect. He also questions the coherence of positing an atemporal agent, as any type of agency or thought with which we have experience is essentially temporal.16 But notice that the atheist naturalist need not even go as far as Nielsen in maintaining such a notion is incoherent. All that is required is that the notion of an eternal deity is a harder metaphysical bullet to bite than is an uncaused feature of the universe, such as the Big Bang. Similarly, the theist need not say that an eternal being is plausible or intuitive, only that it is more so than a violation of Weak PSR. Thus far, we have seen that Craig’s Kal¯am argument, properly supported, leads to the Cosmological Push. However, as mentioned above, the atheist naturalist needs to be able to make the more general claim that this is the best that any persuasive cosmological argument can hope to accomplish. As such, we now need to extrapolate this result to the rejection of any cosmological argument, which we may do by considering four points. The first and least substantive is what we might call a Unicorn Argument. Just as I believe with inductive certainty that there are no unicorns based on the fact that I have never experienced one and have no reliable account that one exists, so too do I believe that there is no cosmological argument that gets beyond the Cosmological Push. I have similarly never experienced one and have no reliable account that one exists.17 A second, stronger point is to remember why so much time was spent addressing Craig’s Kal¯am specifically- it does not run into the typical shortcomings, and represents what I take to be the most plausible cosmological argument to date. A stronger reason still is in how Craig’s Kal¯am is properly supported, by appealing to Big Bang Cosmogony. Big Bang Cosmogony is too overwhelmingly supported by the evidence to be ignored, and it seems that any reasonable cosmological argument must in

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some way revert to a discussion of the Big Bang. The involvement of any first being must, at minimum, be present there. For instance, to revive a Thomist cosmological argument that discusses an unmoved mover or an uncaused cause without somehow locating it in this event would be preposterous, shifting the discussion to abstruse, a priori metaphysical musings rather than grounding the argument in reality. This leads to the fourth and final reason, which is what the cosmological argument does and what it does not do. It is not an ontological argument. It cannot and should not have us eschewing what we find in the world. But nor is it a design argument, where we infer a designer inductively based on the fit of certain features. As such, a cosmological argument cannot break a push by talking about how fine-tuned the Big Bang appeared, etc. Its scope is limited to bare existences rather than the form those existences take. Hence, for a cosmological argument to be classified as such, it can lead us to a first being but no further. The question is whether that being is an agent or an exploding singularity. Having argued that cosmological arguments can lead us only so far, I now wish to emphasize the significance of the Cosmological Push. First and foremost, it provides important information by fixing our intuitions in this regard. This is crucial not only for consistency of thought, but much more importantly in the god debates, it helps us establish our prior probabilities, discussed in Chapter 4. For instance, if you find an uncaused Big Bang extremely less plausible than an eternal agent, then this means that an atheist naturalist trying to sway you to their side would have much more work to do than if you were closer to fifty-fifty. Second, it advances the conversation. Taking opposing sides on the Cosmological Push isolates precisely where debaters must agree to disagree, and identifying it as a reasonable conflict of intuitions rather than a source of deep irrationality or bias should help reduce tensions. If both sides posit something utterly peculiar, and only intuition tells us which is less peculiar, then it becomes very difficult to call one’s opponent wildly irrational while touting one’s own position as the paragon of sensibility. Hence, even though it seems that any well-constructed cosmological argument will lead us to the Cosmological Push and no further, this should be viewed as a success for the dialogue rather than a failure for the argument. Finally, it ties to the overarching goal of this text- understanding and tolerance. If, for instance, a theist is perplexed as to how the atheist naturalist can support an uncaused Big Bang, we can locate such perplexity as

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a clash between intuitions regarding the Principle of Sufficient Reason. If the conflict is regarding intuitions, the matter cannot be settled, except by appeal to further evidence and argument,18 which we will continue to consider in the rest of the volume.

Challenging Questions – In what sense, if any, does “God” require no further explanation? – What evidence would count as decisive in breaking the Cosmological Push?

Further Reading – Paul Davies, Cosmic Jackpot – William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith,Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology – Graham Oppy, Arguing about Gods, Chapter Three – Tyron Goldschmidt (editor), The Puzzle of Existence—Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing? – J. Brian Pitts, “Why the Big Bang Singularity Does Not Help the Kal¯am Cosmological Argument for Theism”

Notes 1. Hume, D 4.6–14. To my knowledge, this is the first statement of something like what I call the Cosmological Push below. 2. Aquinas, Part I, Question 2, Article 3. 3. I would surmise that Aquinas believed that they could be transformed into something persuasive, but since the effort is never attempted, I have no comment on how successful they would have been other than to speculate that they would have ended in a position no better than the Kal¯am, for reasons extrapolated below. 4. Three, that is, besides obvious ones common to all arguments, such as not having wildly improbable premises, not employing fallacious reasoning, etc. 5. I hold that we ought to classify arguments of natural theology by their exemplars, and that there is nothing problematic about classifying cosmological arguments as deductive. This position has extensive support in the literature. For a more extended introduction to these arguments, see Rowe, Introduction and Chapter One.

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6. Hume briefly discusses the relative merits of these versions in the Dialogues, D 9.9. Though this discussion is much older than Hume, his discussion is especially lucid. See also Rowe, Chapter Two. 7. Craig, page 63. Though Craig has refined his support for the argument almost continuously since its original publication, the form of the argument itself remains unchanged. 8. Draper and others have done so admirably. 9. But so as to not leave it completely unaddressed, however, I will quickly outline my reasons for this verdict. Briefly, Craig gives two “philosophical arguments” and two “empirical confirmations” for (2). His two “philosophical arguments” that a universe cannot be infinitely old and therefore must have a beginning simply fail. He first asserts that a completed infinite is impossible using intuition-based appeals to Hilbert’s Hoteltype scenarios which try to bring out absurdities inherent to completed infinites. But such appeals have three major problems, the most glaring of which is that its success would essentially negate Theism, since the being it posits as the cause of the universe would have qualities like an omniscient intellect that entails a completed infinite in terms of known propositions. Second though, it is far from clear that the impossibility of the infinite is even the lesson we should take from Hilbert’s Hotel, as it mainly brings out the absurdity of supertasks rather than completed infinites. Third, as argued by Draper, it commits Craig to an “inconsistent triad,” as he commits himself to three inconsistent positions regarding set theory (see Draper, page 192). His second argument is that we cannot achieve an infinite by successive addition. If you start counting at one, you never get to infinity. This is certainly correct, but it cannot support the claim that the universe is not infinitely old. To assert that we must start counting at one, or any finite starting point, simply begs the question by assuming exactly what is at issue. Much more plausible are Craig’s “empirical confirmations” of (2), the first of which appeals to the fact that, were the universe infinitely old, all energy would have equalized according to the Laws of Thermodynamics. However, this confirmation holds no force in and of itself because, if there were some huge infusion of energy fourteen billion years ago, then this conclusion would not follow. Hence, his appeal to the Laws of Thermodynamics is subsumed under considerations of the Big Bang Cosmogony. Given the failure of his two philosophical arguments against an infinite past and the fact that his appeal to the Laws of Thermodynamics is parasitic upon denying an appeal to Big Bang Cosmogony, this last appeal becomes the real mete of his support for the Kal¯am. 10. Sadly, we do not live in a world where this entails that it is accepted by everyone. But it is important to realize that any resistance to its occurrence is entirely faith-based. There is no dissention within the scientific

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community, and the Big Bang’s occurrence is confirmed by overwhelming evidence. Note however, that I say there is no dissention about the event’s occurrence. There are disagreements about how the event unfurled, especially beyond the particle horizon, but Craig’s Kal¯am does not require consensus about such nuts and bolts. Significantly, there are theists and atheists willing to adopt A-theory time, so one’s temporal theory does not stand and fall with theism. This is because, generally, information can never travel faster than the speed of light. But even more difficult in this case, there was a time in the very early universe during which temperatures were so hot that matter took the form of a soup so thick that light could not travel through it. It was only after an estimated 380,000 years that matter de-ionized to allow the passage of light. As such, nothing about the period prior to this barrier could possibly be confirmed using known physics. This is a gambling reference rather than a reference to force or conflict. If a roulette wheel has a “push” slot, it means that everyone gets their bets back. There are no winners and no losers. It is worth emphasizing that in discussions such as this, intellectual honesty demands that we couch language in terms of “less strange,” because any talk of eternality, infinity, uncaused causes, etc., is so far beyond our normal scope of experience and intellectual capacities so as to render talk about normalcy metaphysical hubris. Technically, there may be a minor tie-breaker here if we appeal to parsimony. The theist posits God, the Big Bang Singularity, and everything that follows. The atheist naturalist only posits the Big Bang Singularity and everything that follows, hence providing a slightly leaner ontology. However, the theistic retort is generally that an agent is in some ways simpler or more satisfying than a random event. See, for instance, Swinburne, pages 35–45. Nielsen, Chapter Three. For a more thorough treatment of these topics in this text, see Chapter Ten. One familiar with the literature might think that I have failed to consider contemporary modal cosmological arguments from contingency. However, whether the Big Bang is contingent and, if so, whether positing an agent as its explanation is an improvement on brute fact speaks to the intuitions grounding each side of the Cosmological Push. Swinburne, Chapter Four, argues that theism can provide ultimate explanation in a way that naturalism cannot. For a good exposition and refutation, see Philipse, pages 192–199.

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References Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologica: Complete English Edition in Five Volumes, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Christian Classics from Ave Maria Press, Inc., Notre Dame, IN, 1981. Craig, William Lane. The Kal¯ am Cosmological Argument, Macmillan Press, Ltd., London, UK, 1979. Draper, Paul. “A Critique of the Kal¯am Cosmological Argument,” in Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, Seventh Edition, edited by Michael Rea and Louis P. Pojman, Cengage Learning, Stamford, CT, 2015, pages 189–194. Hume, David. “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” in David Hume Dialogues and Natural History of Religion, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1993. Nielsen, Kai. Naturalism without Foundations, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 1996. Philipse, Herman. God in the Age of Science? A Critique of Religious Reason, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2012. Rowe, William. The Cosmological Argument, Fordham University Press, New York, NY, 1998. Swinburne, Richard. The Existence of God, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2004.

CHAPTER 8

Design Arguments

Order and Purpose Of the three families of existential natural theology arguments introduced in Chapter 6, perhaps the most diverse are those traditionally called teleological (from the Greek “telos,” meaning “end” or “goal”). However, this is not the most helpful designation, as that categorization has been subsumed under the category of design arguments. This broader family argues (inductively) that some aspect of the universe exhibits characteristics that are deliberative. Teleological arguments take purposive features to be indicative of design.1 However, there are also arguments from order, harmony, etc., that can be used to attempt a similar inference to design. In discussing the merit of such arguments, we will follow the same strategy as the previous two chapters. We will need to generalize our discussion of these lines of reasoning and their principled rejection. To do so here, we will first address a distinction in scope between local and global design arguments, rejecting the former as unpersuasive, before considering two general forms of the latter—from order and fine-tuning.

Local and Global Design A helpful place to start is to first determine what type of features are purported to exhibit design. Following Herman Philipse, we may helpfully distinguish between local and global design arguments. A local

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design argument uses as a basis for inference some specific phenomenon within the universe, such as the structure of the human eye or other complex biological features. By contrast, a global design argument employs some overall feature of the universe as its starting point, such as a law of nature or the features of atoms.2 Historically, most design arguments have been the former, but that approach has rightly gone out of vogue. This is not just stylistic preference, however, as there are important philosophical reasons to think that local design arguments are no longer tenable. The first and most important reason for this verdict is that local design arguments provide a second, less certain explanation for phenomena. For instance, suppose we tried to explain the presence of the human immune system by inferring that there is a god who wishes us to be healthy. In a vacuum, this might seem reasonable, but we in fact have a complete, scientifically established explanation for the presence of the human immune system provided by evolutionary biology.3 Put another way, we know why and how the human immune system exists, and from a biological perspective, no further explanation is necessary. More generally, we have no reason to think that there are cases of localized order or purposiveness that cannot be explained by higher order laws. The attempted lines of response to this issue cannot save local design arguments. First, one might try to latch on to some local biological feature that science has not explained. This strategy, however, would be inadvisable. If the feature simply has not been explained yet, that provides no reason to think it cannot or will not be explained in the future. The history of biology has shown us that such phenomena are explained given enough time and effort. A more common strategy would be to pursue a feature of the sciences that in principle cannot be explained by science— but the best candidate for this would be the most basic laws of nature, those we cannot explain via appeal to more general laws. But this is to simply jettison local design arguments in favor of global design arguments. The last line of response amounts to the same thing. If I say that it is not the organism that exhibits features of design but the laws of evolutionary biology themselves, I have once more appealed to the evidence of a global design argument rather than a local. The other reasons motivating the dismissal of local design arguments in favor of global are related to the practical implications of this shift. First, local arguments risk damage to the sciences by encouraging a “god-ofthe-gaps,” motivating us to worship, rather than solve, mysteries. This will

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be discussed in more detail in Chapter 19, but for now, consider a simple, real-world example. If we look at a bacterial flagellum and say, “Look, this seems too complex to be explained by evolution. It must be the product of divine intervention,” then acceptance of this outlook means that we stop looking for an evolutionary explanation. However, if we keep looking, we can and do eventually find the evolutionary explanation and therefore expand our body of scientific knowledge.4 The other practical point is to extrapolate the lessons from the history of philosophy and science. What these lessons teach us is that we have found no miracles in nature (this is not the same as saying there are no miracles, but only that there are no systematic divine interventions within the regular workings of the universe). The purportedly inexplicable has been routinely explained, leaving no compelling reason to think that, in science, we will find some particular phenomenon whose explanation cannot be reduced to the laws of nature.5 If we posit as inexplicable something that science can, in principle, explain, history tells us that the mystery will keep getting pushed further back until either there is none or we arrive at the fundamental laws of nature. For these reasons, respectable design arguments are global in their approach, although not all focus on the same features. We will first consider arguments that focus on order, harmony, and complexity, before turning to arguments that are more anthropocentric, that is, casting design as something specifically supportive of humans (or at least life).

Orderly Design Again begging the reader’s indulgence in allowing me to generalize, we may draw out some of the important features of the argument to design. It helps to start with the inference at its most basic: 1. The universe seems like it is designed. Therefore, the universe is designed. This argument may seem glib, but it is not. Instead, it draws out a crucial feature of the design inference—the requirement that we know what it means for something to appear to be designed. But the only such knowledge we can have is our acquaintance with things that are designed, specifically, human invention (invoking anything divine here

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would beg the question). As such, design arguments are implicitly or explicitly reasoned by analogy. Some global evidence bears resemblance to known human artifacts in some way, leading us to infer a designing mind that is analogous to that of a human. A typical design argument therefore argues by analogy, drawing out similarities between the universe and human artifice. Briefly, arguments by analogy fit the following form: Entity A has properties a, b, c,…z. Entity B has properties a, b, c…. Therefore, Entity B probably has property z. Properties a, b, and c represent known similarities, z is the inferred similarity, Entity A is an entity known to have z, while Entity B is what is inferred to have z. Analogical arguments are then evaluated based on the strength and relevance of the similarities and the absence of significant dissimilarities.6 In an analogical design argument, z is design. Hence, Entity B is the universe or some part of it.7 What remains is to fill out the Entity A (something known to be designed) and the properties shared by it and the universe. In perhaps the most famous version of this argument, William Paley8 used a watch as the Entity A that we know to be designed. The properties shared by the watch and the universe are: order, complexity, a high degree of precision and harmony among its parts, and purposiveness. Paley went beyond many previous design arguments by cleverly arguing for, rather than merely asserting, the relevance of these traits. To show their relevance to z, he contrasted a watch and an object of which we do not immediately infer design, such as a stone. When we see a normal stone, we do not infer design, but when we see a watch, we do. Hence, to show the properties relevant to design, we isolate the features that account for this inference, properties possessed by the watch but not the stone or, put hypothetically, that if they were exhibited by the stone, we would infer design. For instance, the watch contains gold. If we found a stone that contained gold, would we infer design? No. Hence, containing gold is not relevant to design. Contrast this with a high degree of precision and harmony among the parts. If you were strolling on a beach and you found a stone that functioned as a Rubik’s Cube, you would infer a designer, thus showing that precision and harmony among its parts is relevant to

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the design inference. So says Paley. This is not the only form of analogical design argument out there, but it is helpful not only because it argues for the relevance of these properties but also because the vast majority of design arguments employ one or more of them as indicative of design. Let us then consider some very general but important worries regarding this kind of reasoning. Perhaps the most important is the purported relationship between order and design. We know that we can have order without design.9 Further, we know that order, especially high levels of order, can mimic design, but that order is also reproductive, that is, order leads to more order. An example related to the above is how the order found in the DNA of an organism ultimately leads to new, similarly ordered organisms with new, similarly ordered DNA. Putting this worry at its most forceful, if we have some orderly base (such as the laws of nature), we can then go on to explain the highly precise, ordered appearance of the universe without bringing design into it. Hence, appealing to lower levels of order such as the laws of celestial mechanics that govern planetary motion faces the same worry as that of local design arguments. We need not explain them through design because they can be and are explained by other knowns in nature—in this case, the more basic laws of physics. The most important question for the success of design arguments then becomes, does that initial, most basic order require a designer? First, it helps to consider whether there is a viable alternative to an ordered universe, presumably a universe with no order, that is, a completely chaotic universe. But while we can talk casually about such a notion, many have argued that the concept of a completely chaotic universe is incoherent. This is because any coherent picture requires kinds to serve as sortals, at minimum, the most basic kinds such as “matter” and “space.” But to have any such kind requires that there are rules, definitions, natures, essences, etc., something that makes it a member of that kind rather than something else and thereby allows us to conceptually distinguish that kind. This is true of even the broadest kinds such as “matter.” A truly chaotic universe would therefore have to be a universe without any kinds, but such a state is inconceivable. A universe could certainly have a different order, perhaps even significantly less order, but it is far from clear that it could have no order at all.10 The very existence of the universe seems to entail some order, at least enough to have rules governing basic kinds,11 but once we have an ordered universe, it is not clear that there is anything left to explain, save perhaps how it is ordered. (Considerations of this latter type will be addressed in the next section.)

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A second consideration, and another reason that some maintain that design arguments implicitly rely on the success of cosmological arguments, is to wonder whether positing a deity actually adds anything to the explanation. Is a necessarily existing divine mind that requires no further explanation for its own ordered existence a better explanation than simply saying that the order of the universe (in the form of the laws) requires no further explanation? When considering order in the form of the most basic laws of nature, it seems that we again find ourselves at the same Cosmological Push discussed in the previous chapter, with no reason to think that an undesigned designer provides any richer, more intellectually gratifying explanation than the naturalist account, again unless something about the specific order we find is more indicative of design. Let us summarize where these considerations leave us. We have good reason to think that order persists and propagates and that mere order in the form of the laws of nature can account for Paley’s other traits he assigns to design. Order by itself explains everything else, such that the only lingering question is to ask whether order itself requires explanation. However, we need to split this into two questions. We can ask whether order, simply as the mere existence of order requires explanation, or we can ask whether some specific kind of ordering requires explanation, such as if the order of the universe seems aimed at certain outcomes like happiness or human benefit. The above considerations apply to the first question, the mere existence of order, and the proper verdict seems to be one very similar to that of cosmological arguments, that there is no good reason to think that the existence of order in the universe has to be explained by or is better explained by positing a divine cause of that order. The weakest conclusion we can draw from these considerations (although sufficient for the purposes of this text) is that the atheist naturalist does nothing unreasonable in saying the basic ordering of the universe does not require further explanation, and is on at least as good a footing as the theist that says that a god’s ordered mind requires no explanation. However, if the order follows a certain pattern indicative of intent, then this would demand some further explanation. Such considerations will be addressed in the next section. Before moving on, however, it is worthwhile to draw out one theistic pitfall in appealing to order of either type as evidence of a higher power. If order is taken to be indicative of design, then it threatens to undermine other types of evidence often appealed to in favor of religion, such as miracles, revelation, incarnation, and the like. All of these represent

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fundamental breaks from the natural order, so it is hard to see how a theist could have their cake and eat it to—to have both regularity and things that undermine that regularity simultaneously counting as evidence of the divine. (Baruch Spinoza went so far as to argue that the divine order rendered miracles impossible.) While I am not making that strong a claim here, the important point is that one must be careful in developing a consistent (a)religious worldview, deciding what to defend and what to avoid, what counts as evidence, etc., rather than simply jumping at anything that seems to favor a deity.

A Finely Tuned Universe? Let us now return to the question of whether the specific configuration of order in the universe gives reason to think that that order is intended. The best arguments in this regard are the subfamily of design arguments called fine-tuning arguments. Fine-tuning arguments maintain that certain specific facts about the laws of nature are better explained by design than by chance. In order to see how these work, a little more logic background is necessary. Start with what I will call the Axiom of Induction, as it is absolutely fundamental to any inductive reasoning and is such that it cannot and should not be questioned (we will also see it employed in later chapters). The Axiom of Induction may be expressed as follows: Given two rival hypotheses, A and B, and a single piece of evidence, E, if E is expected given A but surprising given B, then E provides proportionate support for believing A over B.12

For a simple application, suppose that I am trying to determine if a new drug causes weight loss. I can consider two rival hypotheses, that it does and that it does not. I then collect some evidence and find that the first five people to whom I give the drug do not lose weight. This piece of evidence would be surprising if the drug did cause weight loss (although not impossible. We are talking induction after all. There could be other reasons, such as all of them, realizing they were on a weight loss drug, ate more fatty food). However, it would be expected if the drug did not, hence, providing support for belief in the latter. The fact that it provides proportionate support can be seen if we tweak the example slightly. Suppose instead that the first thousand did not lose any weight.

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This is a much stronger piece of evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the drug does not work. We will apply this type of reasoning in many topics, but fine-tuning arguments apply it to certain fundamental facts about the universe (usually physical constants) to create design arguments. Take, for instance, Hubble’s Constant, the rate of expansion of the universe. If Hubble’s Constant was significantly lower, then the matter in the universe would simply collapse back together in a Big Crunch. However, if Hubble’s Constant were significantly higher, then matter would flee from the Big Bang so quickly that it could not coalesce and eventually form galaxies. So here is a piece of evidence, that Hubble’s Constant falls within the range that allows for galaxies (and therefore life). Now consider two rival hypotheses—atheist naturalism and a designer. The argument says that this evidence would be surprising given atheist naturalism but expected given a designer, hence providing support for a designer.13 However, we have not said enough here, because there are several underlying assumptions involved in the supporter’s reasons why such things might be surprising given atheist naturalism. First, a more traditional presentation of the fine-tuning argument presents the two rival hypotheses as design and chance. I did not present the argument in this manner because it is far from clear that an atheist naturalist needs to bring chance into things at all. The universe may be determined, as may the laws. Certainly nothing about the commitment to atheist naturalism requires the laws of the universe to be established by chance. As such, employing “chance” seems to load the dice (pardon the pun) in favor of the supporter, as we will see below. However, the general idea is that, if it seems that things could have been different, then the atheist naturalist believes that we lucked out in getting an inhabitable universe. But luck entails that something improbable lands in our favor. Hence, if there is a feeling of lucking out on the part of the atheist naturalist, then the argument seems to run. Without getting deeper into things than we need to, there are two important considerations against this line of reasoning. The first, as mentioned, is that this argument requires the application of anthropocentric probability which seems to be, in principle, inapplicable. Classical probability theory is a theory of assumptions and idealizations. The chance of rolling a five on a fair die is one in six. This assumes that all options (in this case sides) are equiprobable, and there are no other options that are unaccounted for. But in the world, there is no such thing

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as a fair die roll because neither of these assumptions hold. First, not all sides are equiprobable (due to natural weighting). Second, there are also other options. A die can land on a crack in the table so no side is prominent, etc. But most importantly, there is really no such thing as chance in the roll. It is all determined by the physics of the starting position and the throw. “Chance” is an epistemic notion regarding our belief about the action, not about the action itself. A deck of cards makes this point even clearer. There is a fact about what card is on the top of a deck. We use probability because we have no reason to believe it is one card rather than another. If we know the top card, we do not bring probability into it. Classical probability is only an approximation used to help form a belief when we have insufficient knowledge, but, in some cases (like dice and cards), it is a helpful one. What is far from clear is why we should think that any of this can be helpful in determining constants in the laws of physics. What reason do we have to think that there was some range of possible numeric values as options for Hubble’s Constant, that there was some cosmic die-roll equivalent that set this value at the Big Bang? This question seems, in principle, impossible to answer, and yet we cannot talk about whether the value is surprising or expected without the answers to said questions.14 Such a massive, unargued assumption alone gives an atheist naturalist a principled rejection to this kind of reasoning, but there is another problem as well. If we are to embark upon this kind of reasoning, we are posturing ourselves as testers of hypotheses. This means that a fair question to ask would be, “Assuming a designer, how would we expect the universe to be?” If we ask what kind of universe we would expect from a good designer, we run into the teeth of the Problem of Evil, discussed in Chapter 11. But for now, we can simply ask from a position of the laws of nature and the order of things. For instance, if a designer designed the universe to support life, would we expect laws that generate a universe like ours, where at least 99.999999999999999999999999% of it does not actually support life? Or why would a creator create through a Big Bang and Hubble’s Constant at all, rather than just creating the desired galaxies teeming with life? Further, why would all of human existence be but a tiny blip in the history of the universe? In and of itself, such considerations are peculiar but relatively minor. Yet they lead to a much more important issue. Positing a deliberate designer, as a hypothesis, should lead to some sort of empirical, testable implications. However, if the designed universe ends up predicting all the same results of the atheist naturalist universe, then a designer is an impotent hypothesis with no explanatory

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or predictive value. As such, it becomes a metaphysical musing rather than achieving any interesting cause-and-effect relation with the universe. Without predictive value, we are doing nothing more interesting than mental gymnastics. Both of these concerns are significant, but they are also big-picture consequences of differing worldviews. I do not think that either serves as a sufficient direct refutation of the fine-tuning argument in the way that I take certain objections to the ontological argument to be decisive. Instead, the general point is that these arguments are only persuasive (in my technical sense), if you adopt certain significant theist-friendly assumptions—if one assumes that the atheistic alternative to design is that laws somehow come about as a product of genuinely random chance, and that this seemingly inefficient universe is the spitting image of what one would expect from the deliberate actions of a creator deity. I am aware of no philosophical atheist who believes the former, and later chapters will continue to undermine the latter. But for now, it is sufficient to say that an atheist naturalist does nothing irrational in rejecting the reasoning of fine-tuning arguments (or similarly, the design arguments from order) because the theist simply has not adequately discharged their assumptions. This is a common theme in theistic natural theology that will be drawn out in the next chapter.

Challenging Questions – Is there any important sense in which a deity as the cause of basic order adds to our understanding of the world? Is order surprising, given a universe? – Can a design argument run without the implicit success of a cosmological argument? – Think of your designer deity of choice. Try to unbiasedly answer what a universe designed by that deity would look like. Is this universe a match?

Further Reading – David Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion – Quentin Smith, “The Anthropic Coincidences, Evil and the Disconfirmation of Theism” – Daniel Dennett, “Atheism and Evolution”

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Notes 1. We must be very cautious in how language is employed regarding this type of inference. If I say something in nature is designed, then I have effectively begged the question by assuming a designer. We do not infer from design but to design. That’s why we must employ more neutral language, such as apparent design allowing us to infer actual design. Similarly, “purposiveness” is the neutral term in a way that “purpose” is not, at least when it comes to nature. 2. Philipse, page 257. 3. This is setting aside faith-based denials of evolution such as creationism and intelligent design. This topic will be discussed more in Chapter 19, but here we may dismiss such approaches for an entirely different reason. There is no scientific reason to think that special creationism is true. As such, the only motivating factor for supporting it and rejecting evolution would be through revealed texts. But as discussed previously, revealed texts, in a vacuum, are insufficient to show that there is a god. It was for this reason that we started with natural theology—the only reason to think that an ancient text outweighed the findings of biology would be if we knew with a very high degree of certainty that there was a deity and that that deity inspired the text, leading to a certain, correct interpretation. But if we want to establish such certainty, we must first have very good reasons for thinking there is a deity, and that is what we are considering here. “I know there is a god because a text inspired by god tells me to ignore the findings of biology in order to show that biological features prove there is a god” would be a dizzyingly circular argument. 4. This example is deliberate in that it shows the dangers of local design arguments. Deniers of evolution have put forward the flagellum as an example of irreducible complexity that cannot be explained by global evolution. Of course it can and has been so explained, leading its defenders to either concede the point, move the goalposts, or double down in their anti-science posture, none of which aid in the developing of plausible design arguments or of a respectable, epistmically responsible worldview generally. 5. Again, I am not ruling out miracles by fiat, but am instead only denying the systematic intervention of a deity in nature required for a local design argument. Whether we have reason to think that miraculous intervention occurs at an individual level will be discussed in Chapter 14. 6. There is no such thing as relevance and irrelevance generally, but only (ir)relevance to z. 7. In light of the discussion above, this is generally some global feature of the universe, such as the laws of nature. 8. Paley, Chapters One and Two. 9. Unless one begs the question by assuming that all order is designed.

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10. For a good discussion, see Everitt, pages 88–91. 11. And of course, if we ask why there is a universe at all, we are back to cosmological arguments instead of design arguments. In fact, it is because any divine design would need to come in at the level of the fundamental laws and therefore occur with the formation of said laws that Kant and others have maintained that the success of the design argument implicitly assumes the success of the cosmological argument. 12. Bayes’ Theorem can be seen as a mathematization of this axiom. 13. There are many pieces of evidence besides Hubble’s Constant that have been appealed to, such as Newton’s Constant (the gravitational force any two objects exert on each other) and the ratio of mass between a proton and an electron. But the philosophical considerations are ultimately very similar, so I only present one example. Similar considerations to fine-tuning are also discussed under the heading of the Anthropic Principle. 14. For a good discussion, see Everitt, pages 94–96.

References Everitt, Nicholas. The Non-existence of God, Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 2004. Paley, William. Natural Theology. Edited by Matthew D. Eddy and David Knight, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2006. Philipse, Herman. God in the Age of Science? A Critique of Religious Reason, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2012.

CHAPTER 9

Conclusions Regarding Existential Natural Theology

In the previous three chapters, we have considered the general shape of reasoning demonstrated by three families of arguments—ontological, cosmological, and design arguments. We called these examples of existential natural theology, as they are a field of natural theology that tries to show that some higher power exists. Having already treated them separately, it is now time to see what lessons we can draw from looking at their successes and failures as a whole.

Where the Arguments Leave Us As we have seen in the previous three chapters, ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, and design arguments fail as conversion pieces. This is to say that they do not provide compelling reasons for the denier of a higher power to be persuaded into belief.1 As such, if this is their intended function, then they must be regarded as failures. If the reasoning of the previous three chapters is correct, even the best versions of the ontological argument are irredeemable. By contrast, the best cosmological and design arguments are defensible only when we accept seemingly reasonable (though not even close to universally accepted) assumptions. Cosmological arguments require the intuition that naturalistic explanations for the Big Bang or their absence are less plausible than a supernatural one. Design arguments from the mere existence of order similarly require that mere order is better explained supernaturally rather © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_9

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than accepted as a brute fact. The best design arguments from particular order, such as the fine-tuning arguments, require the assumptions of classical probability to apply to some initial formation of that order when we have no compelling scientific reason to think they do. It seems fair to say that these arguments cannot succeed in achieving their conclusions persuasively unless the listener shares these (or very similar) assumptions. And while these assumptions may seem plausible to some, a position we will consider in more detail below, they are far from minor or innocuous. Instead, they are fundamentally tied with deep issues that exist at the border of metaphysics and theoretical science. What is the nature of the laws of physics? Can the laws have been significantly different or even different at all? Are they eternal or did they come into being? Are they the ultimate explanation or are they explainable? Is our universe the totality of what there is or only a part of a much larger physical universe? Is Einsteinian relativity merely apparent or absolute? These are incredibly difficult questions, questions whose answers scholars have dedicated careers to answering. And while the average thinker may have intuitions regarding how such questions should or will be answered, it is not clear that these intuitions, as intuitions, can serve as grounds for belief in a higher power.2 Instead, the reverse seems to be the case.

Cosmic Intuitions I have concluded that the defenders of the best cosmological and design arguments only defend them by making very large background assumptions involving some of the fundamentals—of how the universe operates at its most basic levels. And for this reason, someone who does not share these assumptions, such as the atheist naturalist, will not be swayed by such arguments. Moreover, since the success of these arguments hinges on such similar assumptions, they also fail to provide cumulative evidence by which a large number of individually uncompelling pieces of evidence may still sufficiently increase the likelihood of the conclusion so as to compel us into accepting their conclusions.3 But now we must consider whether theists4 may be reasonably swayed by them and if so, why? Asking whether theists are swayed by existential natural theology draws out a standard accusation that has been raised by atheist naturalists—of confirmation bias at its most charitable, and of downright unscrupulousness at its least. This is because, having seen their failures and shortcomings, it becomes very easy to say that theists should not defend

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these arguments and, as such, we can then explain away their continued beleaguered defense as a need to maintain these arguments simply because they support theism. Such reasoning would be culpable in that to defend an argument simply because you agree with the conclusion is the opposite of critical thinking and represents deep and irredeemable bias. So if the theist defends an indefensible argument, this implies some intellectually inappropriate behavior. Either they are blinded by their own preference and perceive the argument as much better than it is (that is, confirmation bias), or their goal is simply to defend theism at any cost, even to the point of defending arguments known to be flawed as post hoc justification. The question is, do we have good cause to think that theists are doing this? While I am sure that this happens on occasion5 and, as such, explains some theists’ defense of the cosmological and design arguments,6 I think that, as a generality, something much less superficial is occurring. Though it is admittedly speculation, my respect for many theistic colleagues who have defended these arguments has made me suspect a different explanation; that, instead, the general motivation for their defense is that the required assumptions for the arguments are bundled with theism as part of a larger and more holistic approach to the world. At its most basic level, I believe that which types of explanations are considered desirable and undesirable, satisfactory and unsatisfactory, normal versus mysterious, etc., motivate both the pull to theism and the kind of assumptions about the fundamentals of the universe that highquality cosmological and design arguments demand. As such, the two are very often bundled together. If stopping explanation at the universe, in whatever form, seems inadequate or undesirable, one will not only be inclined to accept the assumptions of the cosmological and design arguments, but will also be inclined to think that agency is special, that the human mind cannot be just a brain, that there are therefore spirits, nonphysical things, and entities that are somehow independent of the laws of physics. Such a mindset will then be very receptive to entities like those posited by theism or, more generally, any of the supernatural worldviews.7 If someone is fundamentally drawn to thoughts such as the universe cannot be random or there must be some meaning to it all or my consciousness cannot be just synapses firing or there must be more to ethics than biological impetus, then one is looking for things that the sciences and any naturalistic worldview cannot, in principle, deliver. If this is the

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case, then someone with such a mindset cannot find a naturalistic worldview intellectually nourishing or complete and will naturally (pardon the pun) look for something beyond nature. Now, if there is something inappropriate about this, it is not something specific to the defense of the arguments of existential natural theology but the kind of general inappropriateness of the supernatural worldview that I am examining in this text. Defenses of cosmological and design arguments are not (or at least, need not be) representative of uncritical confirmation bias or post hoc justification where key assumptions are maintained just so these arguments can run. If my explanation is correct, however, if the propensity to accept theism and the propensity to reject natural explanations as fundamental are both the products of certain views regarding the adequacy of explanation, then it seems unlikely that using one to justify the other can succeed, calling into doubt any potential fruitfulness of existential natural theology. We have seen this in the failure of such arguments to persuade atheist naturalists. However, tying their success or failure to the assumptions that motivate a supernatural worldview also casts doubt upon their ability to convince an agnostic who has not made up their mind regarding the existence of a higher power. Instead, such attempts seem to be having the wrong conversation. By starting with an argument that goes from fundamental, unverifiable assumptions about the natural world to the existence of a higher power, it skips the crucial step of first determining whether this worldview that is receptive to non-natural causes is even motivated, making them unpersuasive to agnostics as well. But if these arguments have no conversion value to either the atheist naturalist or to the agnostic, then any value they have must be found elsewhere.

Added Value for the Believer? Though cosmological and design arguments fail as conversion pieces and seem to fail as attempts to rationally justify their conclusions, it seems that they do have value, and this value is related to our analyses in previous chapters. As discussed in Chapter 7, an important realization of the Cosmological Push is that it fixes intuitions regarding some of these big-picture interpretations of the fundamentals of theoretical physics. But similar considerations apply to design arguments as well. Looking at the best forms of these arguments then leads to a common ground of sorts—theists and atheist naturalists will agree as to what the best, most

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reasonable form of theism must look like, at least regarding these matters. They should agree that, roughly speaking, any divine creation would need to take place as a cause of the Big Bang, and should do so in a way that fixes the laws of nature rather than, for instance, specially creating or modifying individual species.8 Notice what makes these versions of theism the most plausible—first, they are compatible with, rather than opposed to, the findings of science, but further, they are compatible in a way that does not try to re-explain phenomena that the sciences can already explain. This is important for reasons we have seen. When theism tries to posit supernatural explanations for specific phenomena whose explanations generally fall under the purview of the sciences, it is eventually forced to give way to confirmable scientific explanations. This can be seen as the local design arguments based on complex biological features have given way to evolutionary explanations of the same phenomena. Hence, any persuasiveness that these arguments held in the past has long since been relinquished. But do we have good reason to think this will happen again, forcing theists to move the goal posts? It is perfectly possible that the Big Bang may eventually be explained as a direct consequence of laws of physics more fundamental than the ones that break down at the Big Bang singularity, and I do not wish to rule out such a possibility. However, even if this occurs, a theist may still plausibly seek an explanation for those laws, or whatever the most basic laws are, and it is not clear that science, in principle, could ever provide a fulfilling answer to “why those laws?” But if this is correct, then we have no reason to think that this science-minded theist is prone to falling into the same trap as previous theists who, positing theistic explanations for the findings of the sciences, needed to relinquish those arguments9 in the wake of scientific progress. In this way, an analysis of the existential arguments of natural theology and the assumptions that underpin them can help determine what theism should look like. And though we will have more to say on this in later chapters, one important realization is that whatever else we find, we must situate religious beliefs such that they are not in opposition to the sciences10 unless there is overwhelming evidence that supports the theist maintaining said opposition. But notice that this fits well with the bundling of theism with certain assumptions regarding scientific explanation defended above. These relations contribute to a holistic worldview that sees science as successful but incomplete in the sense that it is incapable in principle of explaining everything, a view that makes both theism

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and the acceptance of cosmological and design arguments much more appealing. Does this make adherence to these arguments appropriate? First, the answer to this question is less pressing than it might appear. This is because, unlike religious beliefs, the bare belief in a creator or a designer concluded by these arguments is effectively impotent, as it implies no necessary (or even suggested) actions on the part of the believer. Believing that there was an intelligent fixer of the laws of nature does not entail that that being intends any type of religion, ethics, or action generally, and nor does this change much if we also have reason to think that said designer is good or cares about our well-being. If the theist finds these arguments successful, even if it is irrational to do so, the lack of consequences to such beliefs does not seem to carry with it the irresponsibility of maintaining unfounded beliefs that cause massive and direct harm discussed in Chapter 2. A harder question is whether support of such arguments, in light of their shortcomings, is irrational. Answering that question is contingent on whether the adherence to scientific incompleteness and the turn to a supernatural worldview is motivated. If we are to fulfill our doxastic responsibilities by believing only that which is justified via good reasoning, then we must still give compelling motivations for this way of looking at things beyond simple wish-fulfillment, beyond a desire for there to be “more to it” than brute physics. But as we have already begun to see, this battle is an uphill one. If natural theology has failed to motivate unbiased justification in the existence of a higher power, then any such justification must come from revealed theology. But whatever these reasons are, they must be so compelling as to not only overcome the burden of proof discussed in Chapter 4, but must also overcome considerations against the existence of a deity provided by natural atheology, topics to which we now turn.

Challenging Questions – Is there any way that a theist can defend an argument of existential natural theology without making controversial assumptions regarding the fundamentals of physics? Why or why not? – Does the failure of these arguments to be persuasive signal a complete inability for theists to convert a considered atheist naturalist? Why or why not?

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– If we widen our view from theistic defenders of natural theology to all theists, does that change how we view the significance of existential natural theology? How and why?

Further Reading – Keith M. Parsons, “Perspectives on Natural Theology from Analytic Philosophy” – Jim Kanaris (editor), Reconfigurations of Philosophy of Religion – Timothy D. Knepper, The Ends of Philosophy of Religion

Notes 1. This should not strike us as in any way surprising, since versions of these arguments have been around, in some cases, for millennia, and yet have failed to have any substantive impact on conversion. 2. I am partially appealing to a basic truth of logic here. A requirement of any satisfactory argument is that we are more certain of the premises than of the conclusion—A mysterious conclusion is not rendered less mysterious by an even more dubious premise. 3. For an in-depth discussion of the nature and impact of cumulative cases regarding traditional theistic arguments, see Draper. 4. Recall from Chapter 2 that “theist” lowercase implies a theist in the broad sense. But Theists, deists, and many other defenders of higher powers can and do defend cosmological and design arguments. 5. It is probably more common in popular discourse than in academic, but there do still seem to be cases of the latter. For instance, in a podcast responding to Paul Draper’s claim that philosophers of religion should be testing their beliefs rather than spending all of their efforts protecting them, William Lane Craig maintains that believers need not engage philosophy of religion in a way that carries the risk of becoming a nonbeliever. He claims that one may still carry out “responsible, philosophical inquiry within such a paradigm,” (Craig) but such a claim is highly dubious. It is hard to see how knowing your conclusion at the outset and a refusal to genuinely question your own beliefs can count as philosophical inquiry at all, let alone responsible philosophical inquiry. 6. I am much more sympathetic to the claim that this is what is going on when it comes to ontological arguments, which seem too fundamentally flawed and to require so many bizarre (rather than at least superficially plausible) assumptions, that I am likelier to question the intellectual honesty of their defenders.

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7. Where such mindsets come from is an open discussion, but upbringing and society seem to play a significant part. We will discuss this in Chapter 12. 8. The claim that such interaction represents the most defensible version of theism is in no way novel, but is instead a fairly standard position within philosophy of religion. 9. The notion of relinquishing arguments is actually much more involved and problematic than it sounds. Realize that it is never appropriate to invoke post hoc justification, to work backwards by selecting arguments that agree with our conclusions. Instead, we should be forming conclusions based on arguments, since arguments are what justify conclusions. If I claim that I am a theist because the adaptation of biological features is evidence of a higher power creating those features, and I later find out that those features are not (directly) created but instead arise through observable and confirmable natural processes, then I have an intellectual responsibility to re-evaluate my beliefs regarding creation, not to blindly stab out looking for the next argument I can use in order to justify my beliefs. So here, I am charitably assuming that such a re-evaluation happened when evolution was discovered and that it continues to happen, that intellectually honest theists realize that evolution accounts for these features and that new arguments instead come from honest curiosity and thinking about what explains the laws of evolutionary biology. When they do so, they uncover what they believe to be compelling questions to which science cannot provide an answer, but from which defensible design arguments can arise. 10. Again, this still leaves room for things like miracles, revelation, and divine intervention if those are viewed as instances where the normal workings established by the deity (i.e. the laws of nature) are suppressed, and therefore do not call into doubt the laws of nature or the findings of the sciences. Moses parting the Red Sea would not call into doubt the laws of hydrodynamics but would only question whether the latter are the sole determinant of the behavior of water.

References Craig, William Lane. “The End of Philosophy of Religion,” Reasonable Faith with William Lane Craig. October 26, 2014, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/ media/reasonable-faith-podcast/the-end-of-philosophy-of-religion, accessed July 28, 2018. Draper, Paul, “Cumulative Cases,” in A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Second Edition, edited by Charles Taliaferro, Paul Draper, and Philip L. Quinn, Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, MA, 2010, pages 414–424.

CHAPTER 10

The Concept(s) of God

Natural Atheology In the previous chapters, we have considered the apparent failure of existential natural theology to provide independent, reasonable grounds for belief in a higher power. However, this only marks the beginning of our inquiries into these topics. While natural theology fails to provide grounds for belief, it can and does provide compelling reason to support the opposite conclusion. That is to say that, by restricting our inquiries to the natural faculties, we actually discover some very good reasons to think that there is not a higher power that fits common descriptions. Call such reasoning natural atheology. Since natural atheology still pursues theological matters independently of religious tradition or appeals to faith, instead using only reasoning and neutral evidence, it should be viewed as a subclass of natural theology rather than as an independent pursuit. And like the broader field of natural theology, the topics are many and varied. For the purposes of this text, however, we will focus on just two categories of argument against a higher power. In Chapter 11, we will unpack the deep tension that exists between the existence of suffering and the existence of a perfectly good god. In this chapter, however, we will start with more fundamental issues—some of the myriad difficulties entailed by the mere concept of such a being. Before we begin, however, a few caveats are in order. First, as discussed in Chapter 2, it is erroneous to assume that there is only one, or even just a few, depictions of a higher power. For instance, the God of Theism is © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_10

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a very specific description, part of which is moral perfection. This carries problems that the supporter of a being with a different moral description (such as that of a vengeful or petulant god) need not deal with. There is also an even more specific version of Theism called Classical Theism, which adds to Theism that God is simple (not consisting of parts), and exists atemporally outside of time. There are also anthropomorphized conceptions of the deity within the Judeo-Christian tradition, and many more anthropomorphized conceptions of deities from other religious traditions as well. As such, the difficulties explained below will apply to varying degrees to different conceptions of a higher power. Having said that, the focus of this chapter will be on some of the broadest difficulties involved in positing any personal creator. Lastly, we need to acknowledge what these problems mean. First, there are philosophers who believe that certain conceptions and combinations of traits are impossible. If that is the case, then any being whose description entails such a conception or combination of traits simply cannot exist. However, even if this extreme conclusion is not sufficiently established, examining the difficulties inherent to such a conception is still fruitful for two related reasons: First, it puts additional burdens on the theist, as it brings to light further problems that the theist must plausibly resolve in order to maintain their belief. Second, because of this, if these problems have any force whatsoever, then they render the existence of a higher power with the relevant attributes less probable, making atheist naturalism more likely correct. The sheer number of problems generated from the divine attributes is staggering. As such, only a few of the most significant, standard problems can be discussed in any detail in this chapter, so it will also include an appendix with a more comprehensive list of difficulties associated with common theistic conceptions of the deity.

An Alien Concept What kind of being would the deity be? It would be alien in the most fundamental sense, something completely outside of our experience. The purported being would be immaterial—it would think without a brain, sense without sensory apparatus, and apply force without mass. It would not be located but would be conscious, and could violate the laws of physics by its sheer will. It also would be purportedly infinite in many

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ways, though we have no firm concept of any infinity outside of mathematics. This being would be such that the strangest and most alien being in our known universe would be far less strange and much more fathomable than the God of Theism.1 Such a depiction is indeed so queer that I believe it would be dismissed out of hand if not for thousands of years of custom defending and normalizing the concept of God.2 It is this bizarreness that partially motivated the theistic burden of proof in Chapter 4. Apart from the manifest strangeness of this conception of a god, it also carries inherent problems in trying to infer the existence of such a being from the evidence of the world. The first is that an immaterial being is immune to any of the known laws of physics. Its properties, and even its existence, seem to be in principle unperceivable. It is not clear what evidence would allow us to adduce the existence of something that cannot be sensed, that has not even a fleeting relationship with those laws of nature that constitute and govern the totality of our experience. Similarly, we may wonder about the inference from an experienced, finite reality to the existence of an infinite being, especially when, as mentioned above, the only infinities with which we have even a nodding acquaintance are abstract quantities, not concrete properties like infinite power, goodness, wisdom, intellect, or forgiveness. Positing such a deity then is trying to hit a very narrow target—to posit a being that is vaguely analogous to humans in its consciousness, personhood, morality, etc., but who is nothing like a human in any other capacity, and who leaves no evidence of its existence that is anything like the evidence that a human would leave. Let us now consider in more details why such a concept is so difficult.

An Eternal Puzzle As we have seen when dealing with cosmological arguments, a crucial conception of a creator deity is eternality (else, we are simply forced to push back the question by asking who created the creator). First though, we must distinguish between two distinct notions of eternality. Call them temporal eternality and atemporal eternality. Temporal eternality means eternal in time, an existence within the time stream that has always been, thereby entailing infinite age. By contrast, an atemporal eternity, such as that maintained by Classical Theism, instead posits a being that exists outside of the time stream. Either notion contains significant

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difficulties, particularly when the higher power is supposed to be a person in the philosophical sense; that is, a being that is conscious, intelligent, and intends actions. Hence, eternal personhood, entailed by virtually any notion of a creator deity, creates a dilemma for the theist. A temporally eternal deity would be an infinitely old person. This carries some profound difficulties that we previously hinted at in Chapter 7. First, it is something completely disanalogous to personhood as we know it due to the entailed challenge of eternal memory and consciousness. An infinitely old person, especially one with the intellectual capacity to create our universe, would be able to always remember the time before, stretching back infinitely. Though this is bizarre, the problem is compounded in that persons are also the kind of thing that act. If an eternal god created the universe in a Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, that means that, as far as we can tell, it sat around doing nothing for a literally infinite amount of time before (seemingly arbitrarily) deciding that 13.8 billion years ago was the right time to create. This is particularly problematic if we add that this god is a moral being, which entails that creation was good. If creation was indeed a good thing, then why did this god wait so long to create? A perfect intellect should not be so arbitrary.3 A supporter of an eternal, personal deity needs to answer the questions, “why create then?” and “what did that being do pre-creation?” Such a concept, if not impossible, is sufficiently strange so as to cast serious doubt upon this depiction. However, an atemporally eternal personal deity fares much worse. An atemporal being sits outside of time, acting on all times4 simultaneously. Such a notion is in itself deeply problematic, perhaps even incoherent.5 First, it is not clear what simultaneous personhood would amount to. Persons are essentially temporal in the sense that thought, memory, and action are all temporal processes. An atemporal deity is said to act on all times simultaneously, but once more, it is unclear whether atemporal causation is coherent since, at minimum, a cause must precede its effect. This is not to mention that such a conception obliterates the notion of human free will, since all times must be equally real to God, entailing that God is acting on the past, the present, and even the future, all of which must be equally real to this being. The fact that God is already acting on ten minutes and ten years from now means that every decision we will ever make has already been made from the perspective of the deity. As such, the supporter of an atemporal deity must pay a high cost, surrendering not only the common notions of person and of cause and effect, but of

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human free will as well,6 leaving any defender of an eternal person to choose from two very undesirable, possibly incoherent, options.

A Concept Too Full These challenges to eternal being connect to a second problematic attribute, the notion of necessary existence from which eternality is generally derived. The notion of necessary existence implies that it is a being that must exist, but this can be interpreted and defended in several ways. The first, strongest notion is of logically necessary existence, that is, a being whose non-existence is logically impossible and therefore inconceivable. This would be the type of existence proven by a successful ontological argument and whose strangeness was already discussed thoroughly in Chapter 6. Outside of religion, such existence applies only to abstract entities such as numbers rather than to concrete beings like a deity. We can imagine a world without God in a way we cannot imagine a world without the concept of “2.” As such, few philosophical theists defend this notion of necessary existence as belonging to the deity. However, we can also talk of a weaker, more common conception of divine necessary existence, often called metaphysically necessary existence. A necessary being in this sense relies on nothing external to itself for its existence. Such causal and explanatory independence would be required in order to posit any god as an ultimate explanation of creation, as somehow answering why something, rather than nothing, exists. And though logical necessity would seem to entail metaphysical necessity, the reverse is not true. Hence, those that reject the former as applying to concrete beings may still maintain that the latter can. Notice that, while we can certainly give definitions of these concepts, it is not clear that they are coherent. By saying that a metaphysically necessary being relies on nothing outside of its own existence, this entails that nothing explains it other than (possibly) itself. But this means that once more, we have a being nothing like our lived experience, having not even a nodding acquaintance with our normal notion of explanation. The only things we know of that are self-explanatory in the literal sense are statements, specifically, tautologies, not beings. Apart from hollow tautologies such as “a=a,” any coherent explanation seems to require that the explanandum is distinct from the explanans, and apart from potential divinity, we know of no exceptions to this requirement. And things get even worse when we realize we are talking about explaining existence.

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There seems to be a particularly vicious circularity involved in saying that X is responsible for the existence of X. But if God’s existence is not logically necessary, if “God exists” is rejected as being a tautology for the reasons discussed in Chapter 6, and we do not wish to posit an entirely new and circular notion of explanation where a non-tautology may explain its own existence, the only other option seems to be to posit the deity’s existence as a brute fact, as having no explanation. But in positing the deity as explaining its own existence or as having no explanation for its existence, we have introduced a new series of problems. First, we have seemingly willfully violated the Principle of Sufficient Reason, leading us back to the Cosmological Push of Chapter 7. But more generally, we have also called into question whether such a being can be thought of as providing a genuine explanation at all, especially when we add that divine causation is nothing like the causation we experience through the laws of physics. Explanations are informative and intellectually nourishing in a way that these hollow answers simply are not. Such maneuvers seem akin to answering “magic” when asked a serious scientific question about how some phenomenon occurred. It is a response that is unhelpful because it provides an answer that has nothing to do with the context in which the question was raised while suggesting no new information in terms of actual explanation. The purported “explanation” entailed by necessary existence simply carries no force. Nevertheless, the notion of necessary existence is heavily leaned upon by theists in order to provide a coherent, non-arbitrary packaging of the divine attributes. It is important because it accounts for the various divine properties as something beyond a mere metaphysical wish list. In a tradition going back at least as far as René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, a necessary being, as the maintainer of its own existence, would be a “full” concept, entailing something like maximal greatness or the perfect being of Theism. It would lack for nothing. This would then explain why such a being would have all knowledge, all power, etc., while being absent any shortcomings, weaknesses, or limitations, such as immorality or materiality. However, such a full depiction is rife with conceptual difficulties, many of which are briefly enumerated in the Appendix,7 but especially noteworthy in that it entails the strongest consideration against such a being’s existence, the Problem of Evil, to be discussed in the next chapter.

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Further Reading – Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier (editors), The Impossibility of God – Brian Leftow, “Eternity” in A Companion to Philosophy of Religion— Second Edition – Terence Penelhum, “Divine Necessity”

Notes 1. This is not something with which Theists will disagree. Their God must be the creator and therefore stand apart from creation. However, this is only a principled explanation for the strangeness. It does not render such a conception reasonable, normal, or unproblematic. 2. Both the strangeness and the historical normalizing go double for the Trinitarian conception of the Christian God, an even more difficult concept which will be the focus of Chapter 18. 3. We might also wonder how a person could be so impervious to boredom, or how we even sensibly talk about the passage of time, since all perception of time is based on change, but there did not seem to be any pre-creation. 4. It is also not clear whether we can divide time into the discrete moments necessary to talk coherently about “all times”—both Xeno’s ancient paradoxes and the Einsteinian relativity of time make such a conception incredibly difficult if not impossible. 5. Maintaining the position that atemporal personhood is incoherent is not a view exclusive to atheist naturalism. Many theists believe this as well. Swinburne, a theist, typifies the view by claiming that not only is the notion internally incoherent, but also incompatible with many other claims that theists wish to make about God. See Swinburne, pages 223–229. 6. A hybrid view, such as that defended by William Lane Craig, where God is atemporal “until” creation, seems to accept problems from both perspectives without clearly solving the difficulties of either. Saying God exists timelessly before creation is to require atemporal existence to temporally precede temporal existence, but by definition, “precede” cannot apply to atemporal existence. Compounding the problem, an atemporal existence would exist at all times, including the times post-creation, leading to God existing both temporally and atemporally simultaneously. 7. The brief statements of difficulties in the Appendix are not supposed to be decisive refutations in and of themselves, but are given as introductions to the challenges, as well as to draw to the fore the prodigious difficulties the theist must take on in order to posit such a being. If nothing else, this Appendix should support why atheist naturalism is perfectly reasonable in rejecting the existence of a being matching such a depiction.

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Appendix: A Plethora of Paradoxes (Just the Top Twenty) – Atemporal existence is incompatible with human free will, as it entails that all times, including the future, are equally real to god. – Atemporal causation is incoherent because cause must precede effect. – Atemporal personhood is incoherent because intent is an inherently temporal notion. – Temporal eternality is incompatible with perfect personhood, since the former entails infinite inaction while the latter requires moral action. – Temporal eternality is incompatible with a perfect intellect, as the former makes creation at a specific time arbitrary while the latter entails a lack of arbitrariness. – The combination of omnipotence and moral perfection is incompatible with suffering because omnipotence bestows the ability to prevent all suffering and moral perfection provides the motive and obligation to do so. – Perfect justice is incompatible with people receiving different degrees of evidence regarding the existence of a deity. – Perfect mercy is incompatible with perfect justice, since the former entails punishment less than what is just. – Omniscience is incompatible with human free will, since the former entails that god knows our actions in advance while the latter entails that our decisions are not preordained. – Omniscience is incompatible with god’s mode of being, as it excludes “what it’s like” knowledge, such as what it’s like to be limited, frustrated, blind, nauseous, etc. – Omniscience is incompatible with moral perfection because god cannot know what it is like to desire to do wrong. – Omniscience is incompatible with immutability, as the body of knowledge known by an omniscient being is constantly changing. – Immutability is incompatible with god’s answering any prayer. – Immutability is incompatible with a creation event. – Immutability is incompatible with omnipresence because space (and therefore God’s presence) is continually expanding. – Omnipotence is incompatible with incorporeality because god cannot do physical things like walk.

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– Moral perfection is incompatible with god’s freedom, as the former requires god to do what is best in all situations. – God’s omniscience is incompatible with moral perfection because the former entails that God knows secrets in which it would be improper to pry. – God’s omnipotence and moral perfection are incompatible because a morally perfect being cannot do something wrong. – God’s immateriality is incompatible with omniscience because God cannot have sensory knowledge.

References Craig, William Lane. Time and Eternity, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, 2001. Swinburne, Richard. The Coherence of Theism—Revised Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1993.

CHAPTER 11

The Problems of Evil—Logical, Evidential, and Moral

Of all the challenges that Theism faces, the most devastating is the Problem of Evil (PoE). The PoE arises from a deep tension between the existence of a being that is both omnipotent and morally perfect and the existence of suffering. Briefly, an omnipotent being would have the ability to prevent all suffering. A morally perfect being would have both the motive and obligation to do so. As such, the existence of suffering provides very good reason to think that there is no being that is both omnipotent and morally perfect. Of course, much more needs to be said than this. In order to realize the depth of the problem, we must first state it more precisely, and doing so will also inform what an adequate solution would need to look like. After this, we will consider the inadequacy of three standard attempted solutions to the PoE as well as some approaches that try to circumvent it. However, as has been the case before, the issues must be considered at a fairly general level.

The Problem Stated With just the brief statement of the PoE given above, we can already see a deep tension between Theism and the existence of suffering. However, a more precise statement is required not only to convert this into a compelling argument against God’s existence but also to be fair to the Theist in stating the exact nature of the challenge. In this section, we will present the logic of the PoE, but because we are only discussing logic, we © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_11

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will find nothing about which Theists and atheist naturalists substantially disagree. We must start by precisifying the relevant terms. An omnipotent being is able to bring about any logically possible state of affairs.1 Though it is not a perfect match, we can get at this concept by using conceivability. Roughly speaking, if you can imagine it, then an omnipotent being could do it. To possess moral perfection is to be maximally praiseworthy, to never be blameworthy and always be praiseworthy. Falling short of either means to surrender the title of moral perfection. For instance, if a being could have done better but did not, then that being is not morally perfect.2 Lastly, we will define evil, in the sense relevant here, as any suffering.3 This notion of evil is the relevant one because a moral being prevents suffering, any suffering, when it can. To take a simple example, consider my stubbing my toe on the coffee table. This would cause my suffering. However, if you were in a position to prevent my stubbing my toe (say by warning me), it seems right for you to prevent my undue suffering. If you could have done so but chose not to, there would be something morally suspect about this. It would certainly decrease your praiseworthiness unless there was a good, overriding consideration for why you did not advise me. But talk of such overriding considerations raises a question—is it morally obligatory to prevent suffering? Yes and no. For instance, the pain that my daughter experiences in her arm when receiving her vaccine is suffering that I allow. Yet it is morally permissible for me to do so because it prevents something much worse. We might refine the view then and say that I am morally obligated to prevent the most suffering I can. This seems like a basic requirement for ethics, as I should be blamed for allowing harms that I could have prevented. Hence, I am not blameworthy here due to my seeking to minimize suffering through the pursuit of a greater good (or seeking to stave off a greater evil). This means I would not be blameworthy for allowing that pain in her arm, but that is only because I am finite. Were I omnipotent, I would simply use my power to make her immune to disease, entailing less suffering still. To discuss the PoE then, we must shift from talking about the degree of suffering that a human could prevent to the degree of suffering that an omnipotent being could prevent. An omnipotent being, able to do all that is logically possible, could prevent any suffering that is not logically entailed by a greater good. For instance, if free will is the right kind of greater good, but logically entails

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certain types of harm, then not even an omnipotent God could prevent this type of harm without also eliminating the greater good. Hence, if this were the case, God would not be blameworthy for allowing this harm because preventing it would increase total suffering.4 In such a situation, call the harm that is logically entailed by the greater good necessary evil. Because it is an entailment of something that is better, it is in no way blameworthy to allow it (or even create it). By contrast, any suffering more than the minimum entailed by a greater good is gratuitous evil. What is crucial here is that, because it is more suffering than the minimum required, allowing any gratuitous evil is blameworthy. And since a morally perfect being is never blameworthy, God and gratuitous evil are logically incompatible. If one exists, the other does not. This is a conceptual truth. As such, the Theist must be committed to the position that there has never been a single instance of gratuitous evil, and that all actual evil is in fact necessary. In raising the PoE then, the atheologian makes an argument that at least some evil is gratuitous. One can try to make this argument by maintaining that any instance of evil is unnecessary and hence, any suffering is incompatible with the existence of God. Whether such reasoning is correct or not, a much more potent version of the argument instead inductively argues that at least some evil is probably gratuitous.5 Since we should always proportion belief to evidence rather than believing only that which is certain, establishing this conclusion would be sufficient to reject Theism. If some evil is probably gratuitous, then it follows that there is probably no God, which means we should be atheists rather than agnostics.6 Since acknowledging that some evil probably is gratuitous entails a denial of Theism, then a consistent Theistic view must claim that this is false. On pain of contradiction, the Theist must maintain that there is probably no gratuitous evil, that all evil is probably necessary. This claim is equivalent to the claims that: • Actual evil matches the amount of suffering we would expect given a perfect creation. • God’s preventing or reducing some particular instance of suffering would likely make the world a worse place. • This is probably the best7 possible world.8

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Once we have stated these Theistic commitments baldly, they seem extremely counterintuitive at best, blatantly false at worst. Consider one of the many horrendous evils we know, such as the Holocaust. The Theist must say that the world is somehow a better place for the Holocaust, that God preventing the Holocaust, or even reducing its horrors minutely, would make the world worse, and that we would expect the best possible creation to have such atrocities. The same is true for any other instance of suffering—child rape and murder, fatal genetic birth defects like TaySachs disease, severe brain damage, Alzheimer’s disease, the millions of poverty-related child deaths each year, COVID-19, the suffering of nonhuman animals, etc. Again, the Theist must say that the world is a better place with these things in them on pain of contradiction. This should be sufficient to establish the Problem.9

The Shape of a Solution Since these are claims that are simply entailed by Theism, then a solution cannot involve denying them. Instead, a Theistic response to this kind of challenge is to try to render these claims plausible, to make them something we should want to say. That is, a solution provides reasonable explanations as to how or why such horrors contribute to the greater good. This type of explanation is the task of a theodicy. In order to be successful as a theodicy, it must first explain why the suffering is entailed by some greater good and is therefore necessary rather than gratuitous. But further, it must do so in a way that both plausibly explains why that suffering is the minimum that is needed to achieve said greater good and further, makes plausible why we would expect the distribution of the suffering to be as it is. As we will see, these last two are crucial to avoiding gratuitous evil, but are often underplayed by Theists. To emphasize the importance of the degree and distribution criteria, consider poverty-related deaths. Suppose a Theist made the claim that this serves to make us all grateful for what we have, and that explains why God allows it. They are then claiming that this gratefulness is a greater good (which is questionable, but let us set that aside), making the death by starvation a necessary evil. For any chance of making this claim successful as a theodicy, the Theist would need to plausibly explain the degree of suffering, specifically that 22,000 children per day die of poverty-related issues. If this is the minimum, they must plausibly explain why fewer children dying would somehow not achieve the intended greater good.

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Further, the Theist would have to defend the distribution of suffering. Are the children who are dying the ones that would best cultivate this gratefulness? Given that they are living in the extremely poverty-stricken parts of the world, is it not likely that those watching them suffer firsthand would already be grateful for the little that they have? The Theistic claim is that God does things perfectly, allows evil minimally and judiciously, and remains maximally praiseworthy for the system that is in place. If we could, upon reflection, imagine a better, more efficient system (such as fewer children dying in a way more apparent to the ungrateful people), then the theodicy has failed. A successful theodicy must so explain some suffering as necessary rather than gratuitous. But it is important to realize that a successful theodicy does not guarantee that the PoE is solved. This is because it explains some evil, whereas, to solve the PoE, the Theist must account for all evil. That is, the Theist must present some combination of successful theodicies that, taken together, account for all actual suffering in the world.10 Call this combination a presentation of theodicy. There is no reason that, in principle, a single theodicy could not account for all suffering. However, it is more common to try to explain different types of suffering in different ways. For instance, a standard and helpful distinction is between moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is suffering whose immediate cause is agency, that is, when someone intends harm, such as through rape, murder, and other violence. By contrast, natural evil is suffering whose immediate cause is not intended, such as hurricanes, cancer, etc. The “immediate” notion is an important one. When a smoker smokes, they do not intend cancer by their actions, even if that is a long-term consequence. As such, said cancer would still be classified as natural evil. Below, we will discuss a popular theodicy intended to cover moral evil, a popular theodicy intended to cover natural evil, and one that could theoretically cover both.

Some Standard Theodicies We will now briefly discuss three of the most significant theodicies and their shortcomings. Before that, however, it is important to realize that certain types of stories often put forward automatically fail as theodicies. First, in a theodicy, what is only possible, not probable, is irrelevant.11 Explanations that start with, “for all we know…,” “maybe…,” “it might

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be the case that…,” and the like are irrelevant to theodicies, because explanation must be reasonable rather than merely speculative in order to contribute to their success. Similarly, explanations that are not really explanations fail as theodicies. Appeals such as “God works in mysterious ways,” or “it’s all part of a higher plan,” or “we can’t see the big picture,” are intrinsically incapable of solving the PoE.12 A third non-solution, at least at this stage, is an appeal to revealed texts. As will be drawn out in the second half of this work, these texts fail as historically credible sources. Any credence they possess is instead parasitic upon their being inspired by a higher power. But since the existence of said higher power is exactly what is being called into question here, an appeal to a revealed text in order to establish the existence of a deity would be circular. (Of course, to use a revealed text to solve the PoE in a non-circular manner is theoretically possible, but to do so, one would have to first prove that the relevant revealed text is accurate on the matter independent of any appeal to a higher power. The chief difficulties of such a project will be discussed at length in Chapters 12 through 15.) Having discussed both what a theodicy must and cannot do, we now conclude the part of the discussion upon which Theists and supporters of the PoE agree. The disagreement begins when we consider the success or failure of important theodicies and therefore our final evaluation of the PoE. Let us begin with the Free Will Theodicy (FWT), a theodicy which, if successful, has the potential to account for much, if not all, moral evil. The greater good that it posits as explaining suffering is morally significant free will. The claim is that, in order to be morally significant, our freedom must allow us to choose between doing right and wrong.13 Hence, even an omnipotent God could not give us the relevant sense of freedom without also allowing our ability to misuse it. Before getting to the standard problems of degree and distribution, there are two significant holes with how the FWT explains suffering as necessary rather than gratuitous. First and foremost, it seems committed to something false about ethics. Standard systems of ethics have a middle category between right and wrong, a category of neutrality. For instance, most people’s moral intuitions locate the action of spending the afternoon watching TV as neither right nor wrong, instead labeling the action as neutral. But if the notion of morally significant free will employed by the FWT is correct, we must say that the choice between good and neutral, say the choice between spending the afternoon watching TV or helping

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dig earthquake victims out from under rubble, is not a morally significant decision. The defender of the FWT must make this bizarre claim because otherwise, God could have given us morally significant free will by setting up a world where all of our morally significant choices were like this—choices between right and neutral, thus making the freedom to do wrong unnecessary for the attainment of morally significant free will and therefore rendering the suffering from such choices gratuitous. Second, the FWT is one of those cases where there seems to be better systems available—when people in our society exercise their freedom in particularly dangerous ways, we lock them in institutions (such as prisons and mental hospitals) to prevent them from continuing to harm others. It certainly does not seem like we do anything wrong in taking away their freedom in this way, and I would have deep concerns about someone who said we should not lock up serial killers because their freedom is more important than the lives they take. But if one is morally justified in removing freedom once it is abused, then allowing harm from any further abuse is gratuitous. These two factors show that we have to make some questionable assumptions about morality to even claim that morally significant free will is a greater good. This is a trend we will explore in more depth in the next section. However, we still have worries regarding distribution and degree. In terms of distribution, the concern is that, for instance, murdered children never have the chance to exercise or develop their morally significant free will. A just God would presumably allow everyone access to greater goods, but that is not the system described by the FWT. Further, free will does come in degrees. To take some seemingly trivial cases, I am free to lift 50 pounds; I am not free to lift 1,000. I am free to walk, but I am not free to levitate. These examples are not as trivial as they seem because they establish that, if there is a God, then that God already limits our freedom through the laws of nature. If God is permitted to limit freedom, then the Theist must tell us why this is the perfect degree of freedom (especially when different people have different degrees). Why would the world not be a better place if God employed the laws of nature to implement further limitations, such as a natural limitation that made men physically unable to rape small children? This type of worry leads us into issues with the FWT’s complimentary theodicy, the Regularity of Laws Theodicy (RLT). As a way to explain natural evil as necessary, one may point out that, in order to have knowledge of the world, the laws of nature must be regular. For instance, if a book fell off a table at 9.8 meters per second squared, whereas an infant

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who fell off the same table floated gently to the ground, Newton would have never discovered the laws of universal gravitation, and we would be deprived of all the goods that come from knowing them. This account seems plausible. Learning about the world is a good thing, and we can only do so with regularity, a regularity that is the source of much suffering. However, the challenge here is degree. In this case, the Theist must claim that we have the best possible laws, and that even an omnipotent being could not have done better, that that being could not have tweaked the laws so that they caused less suffering. This can be a hard sell. Take a single piece of natural evil, such as Tay-Sachs disease. An infant born with this terrible condition seems normal until about two years, and then their nervous system begins to implode, progressively degenerating to a bad death within a few years. The cause is a chromosomal defect through which a certain enzyme is not produced. The enzyme is so important that we have two copies of the gene, and the condition only occurs when both fail. Now, if I had an omnipotence wand, my first act may well be to wield it so as to eliminate Tay-Sachs, not miraculously (since regularity is important), but to tweak the laws of nature such that this condition would never occur.14 If such tweaking for the better with this or any suffering caused by nature seems possible, then we must grant that some evil is gratuitous and that there is probably no God of Theism. Lastly, let us then briefly consider a different theodicy, one that has the potential to explain both moral and natural evil, the Soul-Making Theodicy (SMT). Here, the claim is that certain virtues are best cultivated through adversity. For instance, one cannot develop courage if they have nothing to fear.15 First, this explanation seems to run into the same difficulties already described. In terms of degree, it seems that the suffering is far more than the minimum required in order to achieve the greater good of cultivating virtues. And once again, the distribution seems wrong— some humans are never given the opportunity to develop their virtues, such as infants who are murdered.16

The Danger of Success But another problem looms for the SMT and other theodicies, and this is the worry of moral reversal. Any solution to the PoE requires that we explain all actual evil as somehow good. For instance, if the SMT succeeds, and the suffering of children is beneficial to their (or someone

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else’s) moral development, then my love for humanity should seemingly manifest through my torturing of children. Or, if the FWT theodicy is correct, then I should seemingly sit aside and watch someone abuse an infant when it is easily within my power to stop them. More generally, we may state this problem as follows: Stipulate that there is a successful solution to the Evidential Problem of Evil and that, other considerations aside, the God of Theism probably exists. This implies that there is probably no gratuitous evil, which further implies that it is probable than every instance of evil contributes to a greater good whose achievement is attained in the best possible way. As such, any action that an agent can possibly commit in the actual world must ultimately contribute to the greater good of said world, or else God would prevent it, and the world would be a worse place for the agent’s inability to do so. It then becomes very difficult to defend non-arbitrary criteria under which we could condemn said agent. Hence, granting the existence of the God of Theism forces us to jettison our moral compass in a very important sense.17 To have any chance at success, a theodicist must, in addition to the requirements above, plausibly explain why God’s moral obligation is so radically different than ours, but do so in a way that preserves God’s moral perfection.

Escapes and Acceptance The Theist is then in a difficult position. If the arguments of this book are correct, the Theist bears the burden of proof to begin with, and cannot discharge that burden via existential natural theology. But further, the power of the PoE and the difficulties of purported solutions seem to make Theism even less reasonable. Given these challenges, it may be more desirable or even necessary to sidestep the PoE rather than solve it. Call such attempts escapes rather than solutions. An escape gives a reason as to why the PoE need not be solved. There seem to be three ways to attempt this: First, one can deny one of the relevant attributes. One cannot deny the existence of suffering, but one can deny that the deity is omnipotent or morally perfect.18 A second approach is to take the position that Hume calls Mysticism, the view that God is moral in ways that mere humans cannot fathom. According to Hume, this route solves the PoE at the cost of destroying religion. If God is good in ways we cannot understand, then admiration, in any meaningful sense, is simply impossible. I might as well . And while I can certainly mouth the words, praise God for being

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Hume seems right that I cannot genuinely praise God for something I, in principle, cannot fathom, nor even relate to a similar human feature. “O, . Your surpasses all other beings and God, you are so wonderfully .” I can underI lose myself in ecstasy whenever I contemplate your as something that is supposed to have value, as something that stand is supposed to be praised, but to actually praise it as meritorious seems to require my being able to see the value in it. But if it is something that I can see any value in, I have moved out of the realm of mysticism and back into theodicy.19 Skeptical Theism can be seen as a more sophisticated version of this thinking, one which posits God’s reasons rather than God’s morality as inscrutable. More specifically, the view is that, given the limitations of humans’ finite minds, we are not in a position to understand God’s reasons for allowing evils, and should not expect to do so. Such a view faces at least two significant difficulties. First, without an explanation of why God allows what It does, we are struck particularly hard by the ethical problem explained above—I do not have the slightest inkling as to why God allows children to be murdered, and I should not expect to, and therefore cannot know if it is something that only God should allow or that humans should allow as well. Second, and more importantly, we can only defend skeptical theism or mysticism if we have independent reasons for thinking there is a good God rather than no God or a morally indifferent god. Further, these reasons must be so persuasive as to overcome the burden of proof, the challenges to the conception of god, and the challenge raised by the PoE. That is, we must have extremely persuasive, principled reasons for making such a claim. But as we have seen in previous chapters, natural theology fails to give us such justification. In the second half of the book, we will consider whether revealed theology provides any such reasons.

Challenging Questions – If there is a God, why does the distribution of suffering in the universe look identical to what we would expect if there was no God? – Is it a problem that theodicies make God’s morality inferior to humans? God does not have morally significant free will, and God’s virtues have not been developed through adversity.

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– What is the Theist’s best option when presented with the PoE? What degree of evil, if any, would be required for the Theist to accept that there is no God?

Further Reading – William Rowe (editor), God and the Problem of Evil – Chad Meister and Paul K. Moser (editors), The Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil

Notes 1. It might seem counterintuitive to define an omnipotent being’s power as constrained by the laws of logic, but it should be far more desirable to the believer than the alternative. Positing a being that can violate logic is unhelpful in the extreme, a destroyer of truth and of coherence. For instance, such a being could violate the Law of Non-Contradiction and, as such, from the fact that we knew that that being was good, we would not be able to infer that that being was not also heinously evil. Knowing that it cared for us would not preclude that it is indifferent to our existence, etc. To take the most extreme example, knowing such a being exists still allows for the possibility that it does not. All claims about such a being lose meaning when it can defy logic. 2. Note that a being possessing both omnipotence and moral perfection is required to generate the traditional PoE. Not every description of a deity includes these features. However, since both are necessary for the depiction of the God of Theism, the PoE is felt most keenly by Theists. Nevertheless, a weaker version of the PoE can still be generated for any being that is both good and tremendously powerful. 3. Because this is not the most intuitive notion of “evil,” philosophers have begun to drop the language of “evil” entirely and simply restrict the discussion to talk of suffering. While I think that this is generally helpful, I refrain from doing so here because the history of the PoE is rich and readers researching the topic for the first time will find much more material by searching out the traditional, if less precise, language. 4. The appeal to free will as an explanation for certain types of evil is standard, but carries some significant difficulties, as we will see. 5. The former approach, championed in modern times by J. L. Mackie, is now known as the Logical Problem of Evil, and purported solutions are known as Defenses. The latter, recently championed by William Rowe, is known as the Evidential Problem of Evil. Attempted solutions to the Evidential Problem are called Theodicies.

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6. Here, I mean “atheist” as denying the God of Theism. This rejection follows not only because we should always proportion belief to evidence but because, as discussed in Chapter 4, the burden of proof is on the Theist. 7. It is worth noting that Robert Merrihew Adams has argued that God need not create the best to maintain moral perfection, though this view has not been widely accepted. But even if this is correct, we can recast this third point as the amount of evil we would expect from the best possible creator and the PoE loses none of its bite. 8. David Hume draws these out nicely in his Dialogues. For a more specific discussion of how he does so, see Lorkowski. 9. For more precise statements of the evidential PoE, both traditional and Bayesian, see Draper, pages 337 and 339 respectively. 10. And of course, they must all be consistent with one another. 11. If it is possible that God and actual evil are compatible, this solves the Logical PoE, but not the Evidential. 12. More sophisticated versions such as Skeptical Theism may be able to sidestep the PoE, as will be discussed in the next section. However, such a maneuver should not be equated with a successful theodicy as it does not actually solve the Problem. 13. Here, I follow Plantinga’s notion of moral significance, although he employs it as part of a defense, not a theodicy. Other Theists, however, are happy to apply this notion as part of a FWT. 14. Much of the suffering endured by organisms, including Tay-Sachs, is explained by the work of evolution, which is extremely powerful as an explanatory mechanism. However, since its primary function is to preserve the DNA of the organism, not to minimize the organism’s suffering, it entails many apparent imperfections. (For a good list of some of the flaws it has created, see Tooley, pages 110–113.) But the Theist is then committed to saying that evolution is perfect, and could not be tweaked in such a way as to prevent Tay-Sachs or any of the other of the myriad imperfections it creates. And the Christian that denies evolution entirely is in an even worse position, unable to explain any of these natural evils by appealing to the regularity of the laws. More generally, if regularity is good, then breaks in that regularity (i.e. miracles) would be bad, causing further tensions between RLT and revealed religion. 15. For an extended defense of the SMT, see Hick, Part IV. 16. And with both the SMT and FWT, we seem to have goods that a perfect God does not. 17. N. N. Trakaksis gives such morally unacceptable consequences as a possible motivation for what he calls an “anti-theodicy,” that is, a principled denial of the possibility of any successful theodicy (Trakaksis, page 99).

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18. Denying the latter is much more common than denying the former. A creator deity would have sufficient power to create the entire universe from nothing, which seems to entail the power to stop a Holocaust. A more plausible approach is to deny that creator’s moral perfection. Such a denial is a fair response to the PoE, with the only cost being the necessity of surrendering the title “Theist” (and perhaps explaining the purpose of creation and whether we should bother to worship such a being). 19. For a more detailed account of Hume’s casting of the PoE as a dilemma between failed theodicy and mysticism, see Lorkowski, 2015.

References Adams, Robert Merrihew. “Must God Create the Best?” Philosophical Review Volume 81, Issue 3, 1972, pages 317–332. Draper, Paul. “The Problem of Evil,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, edited by Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2009, pages 332–351. Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY, 2010. Lorkowski, C.M. “David Hume: Religion.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, available at https://www.iep.utm.edu/hume-rel/. Lorkowski, C.M. “Mysticism, Evil, and Cleanthes’ Dilemma,” International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, Volume 76, Issue 1, 2015, pages 36–48. Plantinga, Alvin C. God, Freedom, and Evil, Harper & Row, New York, NY, 1974. Tooley, Michael. “Does God Exist?” in Knowledge of God, by Alvin Plantinga and Michael Tooley, Blackwell, Malden, MA, 2008, pages 70–150. Trakaksis, N. N. “Anti-theodicy,” in The Problem of Evil —Eight Views in Dialogue, edited by N.N. Trakaksis, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2018.

CHAPTER 12

The Character of Revelation

The Turn to Revealed Theology Previous chapters have focused on the failure of natural theology to justify theistic belief. However, Chapters 12 through 15 will instead turn to revealed theology, considering attempted justifications that set aside natural theology’s requirement to restrict evidence to that which is universally accessible. Because such justifications do not come from a universally accessible source, they are sometimes called special revelation. Whereas everyone has access to the prerequisites necessary to run a cosmological argument, evidence from special revelation is special precisely because not everyone has received the requisite inspiration. For instance, it might be proposed that a god communicates to prophets in a unique way not shared by the general populace. Hence, it requires special (as opposed to regular) action by a deity in order to impart the knowledge provided for revealed theology. Revealed theology may be divided into three broad categories: revealed texts, miracles, and religious experience. Revealed texts are texts whose information was purportedly transmitted or inspired through divine revelation, and whose authority is derived from some divine connection rather than as authoritative historical documents.1 Notice that revealed texts can be combined with appeals to religious experience, but need not be. For instance, I could say that I have some knowledge of Allah from reading the Qur’an, and support the Qur’an’s accuracy by maintaining that it is a recitation of what Gabriel told Mohammad. In such a scenario, © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_12

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Mohammad is the one claiming a religious experience. But by appealing to the Qur’an, I am accepting that Mohammad’s encounter was genuine and accurate (and I am also accepting much more, such as accurate transcription and transmission of the words and ideas through the centuries). Hence, religious appeals can, and typically do, blend together revealed texts and religious experience. However, they need not. A text can be authored by someone thought to be special or holy without entailing a belief that the message is a direct, divine transmission. For instance, I might appeal to the Islamic Sunnah—the record of the life and moral teachings of Muhammad. Their authority is not intended to come from direct divine instruction but from his purported authority as a human moral exemplar. Religious experience then, is an essentially personal, direct communication with a divine agent. First, they are “essentially personal” because, if the occurrence is observable by others (such as an angel appearing publicly), it is better classified as a miracle. Examples of religious experience range from the most direct—God talking in one’s head, to profound feelings or religious ecstasy that purportedly do not or cannot have a natural source. The intensely personal nature of these experiences leads to a variety of possible religious positions. For instance, it would be perfectly sensible to claim, “I know that my experience was genuine, but I don’t expect it to convince you.” Similarly, I can say, “I believe X about God because God told me” or I can say, “I believe X about God because God told person Y, and I believe Y .” Religious experience will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 15. As indicated above, miracles are public rather than personal, and may be defined as a break or circumvention of a law of nature caused by supernatural agency.2 For the purposes of the god debates, occurrences with entirely natural explanations, such as a tornado swerving around a house due to natural (though complex) air currents, do not count as miraculous. However, there are multiple positions here as well. We can talk about whether or not a miracle occurred, or we can have a very different discussion by stipulating that the miracle did occur, and instead have a conversation about what, if anything, the occurrence teaches us about supernatural agents or religions. Miracles claimed to contribute anything to revealed theology are viewed in the latter context. Miracles will be examined in more detail in Chapter 14.

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The Stakes of Revelation With these distinctions in place, it is important to situate revealed theology within the god debates. First, an analysis of revealed theology is of paramount importance because it is the primary source of belief in the world. The natural theology of the previous chapters is of more interest to the philosopher of religion than to the common believer. Most theists believe in a deity not because they were converted by the arguments of existential natural theology, but because they were raised within, or feel a resonation with, a particular religion. Further, because natural theology does not tells us anything about specific religions, being religious rather than merely theistic entails defending a specific set of propositions from revealed theology. More commonly, appeals to natural theology are made post hoc as a way of rationalizing religion to those that challenge their commitments. Hence, revealed theology rather than natural theology tends to provide the source of belief, the content of belief, and the framework from which atheism is generally criticized, especially in the United States. Second, and crucially, revealed religion, not natural theology, is the primary source of religion-based conflict and tension in the world. Were we to strip away all the tenets of revealed religion from theism and instead rest the believer’s case solely upon the arguments of natural theology, we would be left with some form of deism, postulating only some intelligent creator or, at most, a good creator. But without the influence of revealed theology, the strongest normative role that belief in a good creator could provide is to encourage us to be good, a position incapable of causing any major strife.3 But historically, this has not been the primary position of theists. The bigotry, hatred, and wars that the New Atheists employ to demonstrate the harms of religion stem not from natural theology but from interpretations of purported revelation. Hence, while the negative consequences of natural religion are few if any, the potential negative consequences of revealed religion are copious. Lastly, it is important to realize that defenders of revealed theology bear extra burdens within the god debates, as the number of posits, and therefore of opponents, goes up significantly. Supporters of the arguments of natural theology must defend their beliefs against atheist naturalists as their chief opponents. However, the defender of say the Christian New Testament must justify their beliefs to not only the atheist naturalist but also Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Zoroastrians, etc. Related to this exponential

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increase in opponents, there is a larger philosophical difficulty which we will call the Problem of the Many.

The Problem of the Many The plurality of world religions, sacred texts, religious experiences, and miracles4 has an internecine effect that entails difficulties for any revealed religion. The first step in recognizing the depth of the problem is to realize the sheer variety and disagreement among religious beliefs, divine commands, accounts of god(s), eschatologies, and the like. Though theistic philosophers of religion often minimize the magnitude of disagreement by restricting their scope of “religion” to the three contemporary Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), perhaps with Hinduism and Buddhism thrown in, such restrictions are unmotivated, arbitrary, and unrealistic. Revealed religion includes not only those usual suspects but also their numerous and disagreeing subgroups and sects, every revealed religion of the past, such as the polytheisms of Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and of various Native American tribes, and also the thousands of indigenous, tribal, and shamanistic religions that still exist today. The claim that these five constitute the central list of candidates for revealed religion, and we can therefore ignore the thousands of others, is absurd. What motivation could possibly be appealed to here? There is no obvious answer that is not ad hoc. It is sometimes claimed that these favored five were more “sophisticated,” but this clearly represents author or cultural bias, as such a claim simply cannot withstand any close scrutiny. Many extremely sophisticated religions do not make the list, and versions of the religions cited can seem primitive in many ways.5 Appeals to popularity or to membership fail for similar reasons. For instance, there are three times as many Yruba as there are Jews in the world. To dismiss 99% of all religions without dismissing them all, we would need to say that the justification of their beliefs of practices is somehow on much better footing than the others, but the following chapters will call this claim into doubt. For now though, this teaches us that we must broaden our understanding of “revealed religion” beyond the three Abrahamic religions in order to appreciate the plurality of religious doctrines and dogma. Take, for instance, the crucial question, “How many gods are there?” Jainism posits zero. Islam and Judaism say one. Considering the disagreements between sects, Christianity can say one or three. Zoroastrianism

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seems committed to two—Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu. Various polytheisms such as the Greek, Aztec, Egyptian, etc., generally answer about six to twelve, and the Upanishads of Hinduism gives the famous answer of 330 million. Similar disputes erupt regarding what constitutes a god and how many other divine beings (such as angels or Satan) there are. When considering all world religions, supernatural beings have been described in nearly every way possible, from remote creators to humanlike rapists to powerful angels defending humans against evil to witches that eject special organs from their bodies that fly around committing mischief. Once we have chosen a depiction of supernatural entities, we must next ask, what do these beings want from us? Dietary restrictions? Prayer? Sacrifices? Strict ethical codes? Songs? Rituals? Burnt offerings? Nothing? The demands are as varied as the beings that make them as are the metaphysics underpinning the religion. Is death the end? Is there reincarnation? Is there an afterlife? Many afterlives? A combination? Of what description(s)? Without exaggeration, I can say that I am not aware of a single common belief among the world religions, unless, of course, we arbitrary limit our scope to prevent counting them all. But this plurality has an important entailment. Take any belief maintained by a religion. It will be considered false by at least some other world religions (and once more without exaggeration, probably hundreds). This raises a special problem. David Hume makes the point well in the context of miracles, but similar considerations apply to revealed theology generally. He states, Every miracle, therefore, pretended to have wrought in any of these religions…as its direct scope is to establish the particular system to which it is attributed; so has it the same force, though more indirectly, to overthrow every other system. In destroying a rival system, it likewise destroys the credit of those miracles, on which that system was established; so that all the [miracles] of different religions are to be regarded as contrary facts, and evidence of these…as opposite to each other.6

There is some disagreement regarding how this argument should be parsed out, but a reasonable interpretation has Hume capturing something like the following—the miracle supporters have a problem. In the case of their own religion, their level of incredulity is sufficiently low so as to affirm their own miracles. However, when they consider miracles attested by other religions, they increase their incredulity so as to

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deny the miracles of other faiths. By supporting a sect that rejects at least some miracles, they undermine their own position. In claiming sufficient grounds for rejecting the miracles of other sects, they should thereby reject their own. In other words, sectarians cannot have their cake and eat it too. Intellectual honesty requires a consistent level of credulity. By rejecting their opponent’s claims to miracles, they commit themselves to the higher level of incredulity which should also apply to the miracles of their sect. As Hume says, in listening to a Christian’s testimony of a miracle, “we are to regard their testimony in the same light as if they had mentioned that Mahometan miracle, and had in express terms contradicted it, with the same certainty as they have for the miracle they relate.”7 This difficulty is further underscored by the fact that the supporter of the miracle (or other revelation) must deny miracles of other religions by some natural mechanism. A cautious estimate would be that supporters of some specific set of special revelations (say a traditional Christian supporting the supernatural occurrences and sources of the Bible) must deny 99% of all purported special revelation.8 They must say Mohammad did not receive the word of God, for instance, but nor did Joseph Smith if they are of a non-Mormon Christian sect. One would hope that they would also deny many of the self-interested claims of divine communication—claims that God says I should be president, or that you should send money to my church, or the number of politicians saying God communicated certain laws and policies, such as the recent claim of an Alabama lawmaker that God wanted him to outlaw a certain style of pants. I certainly hope they would also deny Albert Fish’s claim that he was communing with Jesus when he was eating children he had murdered. To maintain that anyone who says that they have received a divine communication actually did so would be a bizarre commitment. But now the denier of all these revelations must provide a mechanism of naturalization, that is, a way to explain how the purportedly supernatural phenomenon being denied was actually natural. For instance, anyone, theist or otherwise, should acknowledge that Albert Fish suffered from schizophrenic delusions, and this is certainly a plausible explanation for his purported religious experiences. But in doing so, we thereby commit ourselves to the claim that at least some people that claim to have communicated with God are mistaken due to delusions. But once this perfectly reasonable claim has been granted, we can immediately see the problem.

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How do we know that any of the prophets claimed by Christianity or even Jesus himself was not just afflicted with similar psychiatric issues? One might respond that there is a clear disanalogy, that blatant immorality should be a defeater here, allowing us to reject Albert Fish’s claim to the supernatural but not that of the Judeo-Christian prophets.9 But while such an appeal may allow us to distinguish between the cases of Albert Fish and Jesus, such will not help with other rejected cases, such as those of Jesus and Mohammad or Jesus and Joseph Smith. The Christian must say that competing experiences were not genuine, but once more, there is no clear way to make this claim in a manner that does not apply equally to the Judeo-Christian prophets.10 Hence, defenders of a revealed religion have a problem. They cannot accept the claims of all religions, given their diversity.11 But this means that they must reject the vast majority of purported revelation. Yet doing so is exceedingly difficult, as it would require them to maintain that not only is their religion on better grounds than atheist naturalism, but also that it meets evidentiary standards much more satisfactorily than all the world religions that disagree with theirs. Whether such evidentiary claims can be met will be discussed in more detail in the following chapters, but for now, it suffices to say that religious theists must somehow address and refute the Problem of the Many in order to rationally maintain their view.

The Arbitrariness of Religious Belief Suppose that a religious theist still wishes to maintain the defensibility of their belief independent of any appeal to faith. This requires that they explain why their beliefs are better justified than the beliefs of religions they reject. Suppose for instance that they do so by maintaining that they support Christianity because the evidence supporting it is much better than that of other world religions, and can thus dismiss other revealed religions without dismissing their own. They can claim that their religion is correct because it is best supported. However, there is a significant prima facie reason to think this claim is false when we consider the apparent arbitrariness of religious belief. Such arbitrariness becomes manifest when we realize that important patterns of religious belief are entirely independent from any quality of support. If a given religion were supported by significantly superior evidence, or its tenets were much more reasonable than its competitors, and we claimed that this reasonability accounted for its membership, then we would expect certain patterns to

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emerge. For instance, we would expect that rational people would carefully weigh evidence and convert. We would expect brighter youths to reject the religions of their parents in favor of this better justified religion. We would expect this most reasonable religion to grow independently of geopolitical, cultural, or historical lines. But while these expectations are met in regards to the contemporary trends of atheism discussed in Chapter 3, they describe no known revealed religion. Instead, world religions follow other patterns, those predicted by natural explanation. For instance, conversion from one religion to another is extremely rare.12 Instead, the most common source of religious belief seems to be upbringing. For instance, a recent study shows that about 90% of Protestants were raised Protestant. However, only about 7% of their numbers come from converts, and most of those converts come from another Christian sect (Catholicism) rather than a distinct religion or from atheism.13 Religions that show growth in numbers generally do so by having children rather than by conversion, at least in free countries. Where a state or regime sponsors a religion or aids in the repression of other religions and of atheism, the numbers are skewed into the patterns we would expect from such application of force. But other than high rates of childbirth, we do not see any religious sect growing significantly through non-aggressive and non-repressive conversion. Instead, humans share the religious beliefs of their families and that of their societies, two factors that would be irrelevant if the appeal of a revealed religion were grounded in superior evidence and reasonability. Of course, all of this is consistent with saying something like, “While I grant that many adherents to my religion are members because it was inherited through family or culture, this does not mean that my position is not still more reasonable than that of other religions. The fact that most people do not approach religion through careful evaluation of the evidence is consistent with the claim that my religion is much more reasonable than the others.” And while this is certainly true, creating a study to investigate this type of claim is a bit more difficult. Nevertheless, there are still patterns we could search for. Say for instance, we claim that the ability to accurately consider and weigh evidence is connected with intelligence. If this were true, we would expect the best-supported religion to have a significantly higher average IQ than its competitors, or at least be much more attractive to people with extremely high IQs. Once more, while this is true of atheism, it is not true of any religious sect.14 Similarly, if we tie ability to evaluate evidence with education, then we would expect

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those with greater education to be attracted to a certain religion independent of the dominant religion of where the education takes place. But once more, we do not find such a pattern among any particular world religion. As such, the extant patterns in religious belief give an overall impression of arbitrariness rather than supporting any claim to a most reasonable religion. Even before we begin to consider the specific forms of special revelation, we already see some major drawbacks in defending some subset of special revelation. First, the sheer variety presents a challenge by calling into question a religion’s ability to privilege its own beliefs while simultaneously dismissing the overwhelming number of disagreeing beliefs as natural and erroneous. The only potentially satisfactory method of prioritizing one such set of beliefs would be to claim that it has better evidentiary support. But if any revealed religion had such support, we would expect certain patterns to emerge. Yet empirical evidence fails to bear this out, giving us compelling reason to doubt such claims.

Challenging Questions – If one is overwhelmingly likely to share the religious commitments of one’s parents and or culture, would this be incompatible with divine justice, given that being born in a certain country makes one more or less likely to achieve salvation? – Given the Problem of the Many, does this make religious pluralism the only reasonable option for the defender of revealed theology? Why or why not? – What evidence or experiment might we set forth in order to provide objective criteria by which we may judge a religion as much more likely to be true than all competitors?

Further Reading – John Hick, “Religious Pluralism and Ultimate Reality” – Michael de Montaigne, “An Apology for Raymond Sebond” – Linda Zagzebski, “Religious Luck”

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Notes 1. This line is sometimes blurred. For instance, it may be claimed that a revealed text, such as the Bible, is historically accurate. As will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 13, we have to be careful with such claims. First, there are certainly passages that get history correct, but also many passages that do not. More importantly, claiming that such passages make the text a historical document would mean placing its evaluation solely within the domain of history rather than religion, a move undesirable for theists. For these reasons, it is definitional that a revealed text is not a historical text. This is not to claim the text is historically inaccurate, but only that its evaluation does not fall under the discipline of history. Similarly, we must be careful to distinguish between a text making a historical claim or a religious claim. 2. Notice that, in this sense, religious experiences, especially the “God spoke directly to me” sort, would then count as miraculous. However, the two are distinguished here not as metaphysically distinct but as purported justifications of religious knowledge and belief. Roughly, if someone appeals to an event as confirming their belief, they are appealing to a miracle. If they instead maintain a divine communication or connection, they are appealing to religious experience. 3. Indeed, it has been argued that theism based on the best natural theology and atheism are functionally equivalent, a view discussed in more detail in Chapter 23. 4. Here and in the following chapters, I will employ a shorthand by saying “religious experiences,” “miracles,” etc. without adding “purported” in front of each case. In all cases regarding revealed theology, I am talking about what is claimed to be divine, and drop the qualifications to prevent them from becoming cumbersome. 5. Many sects of Christianity still have ritual ersatz cannibalism tied to the Eucharist, for instance. 6. Hume, 10.24. 7. Ibid., 10.24. 8. In Roman times, Christians were called atheists because they denied the existence of virtually every deity. 9. This point is contentious at best, given some of the questionable morality endorsed by the text in question. Immorality from revealed religions will be discussed in detail in Chapter 16. But more importantly, the disanalogy assumes we already know the existence and morality of the deity, which is exactly what is at issue here. 10. The defender of religious pluralism might object here. Religious pluralism maintains that a common religious message of supernatural origin may be presented in different ways to different peoples by a single

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source. If this were the case, then the essence of religion would be what is common to all these traditions, and the religious pluralist could say that Jesus was divinely inspired, but so were Mohammad and Joseph Smith, both of whom received slightly different messages due to different circumstances, but that included certain common insights about ethics and monotheism. But notice that the pluralist account relies on finding some common message among all religious experience that simply does not exist when we expand our scope in the way described above. The pluralist that accepts Jesus, Mohammad, and Smith would have a very hard time accommodating the religious traditions that are far from the Judeo-Christian and monotheistic traditions, such as those of the Fong people, or the shamanistic experiences of Mongolian natives. But further, the pluralist is still committed to certain naturalizations. The pluralist is unlikely to accept Albert Fish’s communication as genuine, so one could still wonder if Jesus, Mohammad, Smith, etc., were similarly delusional. For an excellent presentation of the variety of religious tenets we encounter when taking a broader prospective than merely Abrahamic and Eastern religions, what he calls “unfamiliar diversity,” see Boyer, Chapter One. Though changing from one sect to another within the same religion is more common. See Pew. See also Smith. See Beit-Hallahmi, pages 306–307.

References Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin. “Atheists—A Psychological Profile,” in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, edited by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2007, pages 300–317. Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, Basic Books, New York, NY, 2001. Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Edited by Tom L. Beauchamp, Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, 2000. Pew Research Center. “Faith in Flux—Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.”, April 2009, revised February 2011, available online at http://www. thearda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/FAITHFLX.asp. Smith, Tom W. “Counting Flocks and Lost Sheep: Trends in Religious Preference Since World War II.” GSS Social Change Report, Number 26, National Opinion Research Center, 1988.

CHAPTER 13

Challenges to Sacred Texts

Having seen that natural theology fails to provide anything close to persuasive evidence for the existence of a higher power, we have turned to revealed theology. In the previous chapter, we saw that any such revelation carries certain standard difficulties—the Problem of the Many prevents the believer from preferencing one revealed religion over others unless it is significantly more reasonable than the alternatives, but the distribution of believers as well as rates and types of conversion make this claim difficult, if not impossible to defend. This chapter will look at one specific kind of evidence—revealed texts. Their common shortcomings will not only substantiate the Problem of the Many, but will further call into question whether this type of evidence can hope to show that a religion is more rational than alternative religions or atheist naturalism.

From Particular to General A general criticism of revealed texts is a daunting task, not only because there hundreds, if not thousands, of such texts to consider (depending on how they are counted), but also because these texts have rich traditions and long histories of analysis and apologetics. As such, the scope of this chapter will be to emphasize a set of standard, yet significant challenges. These difficulties impact different texts and religions to varying degrees. For instance, while translation of sacred texts can be highly problematic for some religions, Islam skirts this issue entirely, as a translation © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_13

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of the Qur’an from the original Arabic into any other language is no longer considered a Qur’an but is instead considered an interpretation. Despite such variance, no revealed text is problem-free or even close to it, and the problems discussed below strongly undercut the evidential value that these texts present. I leave it to the reader to determine exactly how problematic each issue is to the religions with which they are familiar. And though these problems are general difficulties that apply to many revealed texts, they will be drawn out through specific examples. These examples are intended to be typical, lucid cases of the problem rather than constituting the totality of said problem. It should therefore be understood that the selected examples are far from unique and, as such, “solving” the specific example that is employed should not be equated with solving the more general problem that it typifies. Instead, the defender of the sacred text must plausibly solve all such problems associated with their text, not just a few of the most egregious cases. Finally, it should be noted that many of the examples come from Judeo-Christian texts. This is deliberate for two reasons that were mentioned in previous chapters—first, this book is written primarily for a U.S. audience, and so these texts are the ones with which the readership is most likely familiar. Second, tolerance and understanding continue to be central goals of this book. But intolerance aimed at nonbelievers tends to come from the orthodoxic, exclusivist, conversionist religions,1 of which Christianity and Islam are the most prominent.2 By drawing out the shaky foundations of the texts used to justify this type of sectarianism, we further the goals of tolerance and understanding.

The Human Controlling the Divine Sacred texts, when examined from a metaphysically neutral perspective, do not stand up well to scrutiny. So instead of evaluating them on their own merits, it is much more common to shore up their claims to veracity by appeal to revelation, divine inspiration, intercession, etc. However, such claims are undercut by every human influence. In the historical origins of a sacred text, a human or group of humans must decide at some point what is to be included in the text and what is to be excluded, what is to be considered sacred and what is to be heresy. Call this the Problem of Selection. Consider Christianity. In early Christianity, church fathers formed their own lists of what books were proper, including some texts but not others.

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Any relevant witnesses who could have sorted things out had long since died. Instead, it was a continuous process of debate and refinement, but an official list of books to be included in the Bible was not accepted, as far as we can tell, until the Council of Rome in 382, reaffirmed the next year at the Council of Hippo. What became sacred and what became heretical was determined, after some debate, by popular vote. And support for what eventually became included in the Christian Bible was far from unanimous. For instance, the early Church father Marcion of Sinope argued against the inclusion of the Tanakh, what Christians call the Old Testament, as canonical, as he thought the description of God in those texts was incompatible with the depiction of God in the New Testament.3 And excluded Christian texts also had metaphysically substantive differences from what was included, such as the role of Jesus and the relationship between Jesus and God. In order to call a text like the Bible veracious and authoritative, to say that what is included should have been included (because it is correct), and what was excluded should have been excluded (because it is incorrect), one must say that this process, one that may have stretched over a period of thousands of years, led to a perfect, divinely approved selection. And of course, many do say this—the standard doctrine of the Catholic Church is that the process was guided by the Holy Spirit. This explanation,4 while internally consistent, runs into problems already discussed. First, unless we already have good evidence supporting a particular religious persuasion that accepts the relevant text, we have no reason to believe that there is such a being as the Holy Spirit. As such, one cannot invoke the Holy Spirit in order to justify the sacred texts that justifies the existence of the Holy Spirit without circularity. But if instead of appealing to independent evidence, one simply supports such a claim by an appeal to faith, they fall into the same problems with faith over reason discussed in Chapter 2. There, therefore, seems to be no neutral evidence to persuade the nonbeliever to accept that the text has been accurately selected. Supporters of such revealed texts should therefore not expect them to carry any weight for someone who does not already share their religious commitments.5

Broken Chains One thing to notice from the above is that these writings, stories, and teachings often existed for a long time, sometimes hundreds and hundreds of years, before they were written down in the form we have today.

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Instead, they had been passed down orally or through non-canonical writings. To claim that these texts are accurate therefore requires that every step in the transmission—from their origins to the selection (and later), preserved that accuracy. Call the collection of inherent difficulties with this chain the Problem of Transmission. To give a few examples of this kind of problem, we must first have reason to think that the oral transmission of the narrative before it was written down was accurate and unchanged, or that the correct version of the story was the one written down. But transmission does not stop there. For centuries after the cannons were assembled, there was not one official written source. In Christianity, copies were done by hand, and the Christian copyists not only made mistakes but also made deliberate changes. For instance, we have good reason to think that part of 1 John 5:7, the clearest (and arguably only) affirmation of the Trinity in the New Testament, did not exist in earlier versions of the Bible, and was probably added by a zealous copyist. There are also issues involved with translation that can and have caused difficulty. For instance, Isaiah 7:14 uses the Hebrew “almah” who will give birth to Immanuel. When translated into Greek, “almah” became “parthenos,” or “virgin.” The Gospel of Matthew then uses this to suggest that Jesus, born of a virgin, fulfills this prophecy. The problem, of course, is that it is an incorrect translation. “Almah” means “young woman” in Hebrew. The word for virgin is “bethula,” which does not appear in the text at all. This mistranslation has been fixed in some versions of the Bible, but not others.6 Similarly, some versions retain the inserted portion of 1 John 5:7 while others do not. Such errors raise the question of how vital such issues are. If a recitation gets a few words wrong, or a copyist adds or subtracts one small passage, one or two words are mistranslated, etc., should this be important to the religion that utilizes the text if the main messages are overall preserved? Yes. First, such “small” issues have caused significant harm. When Jews were persecuted for denying that Jesus was the messiah, Christians appealed to passages where the Tanakh “confirmed” their claim. More generally, entire policies have been based on one or two phrases. Consider “clobber passages” like Leviticus 18:22, used by evangelical Christians to justify discrimination, bigotry, and sweeping government policies. If such passages are inaccurate, then the fulcrum for an entire line of argument crumbles. Second, consider what is at stake. We are considering whether such sacred texts provide evidence for a higher power. That evidence would not only need to outweigh the burden of proof,

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the Problem of Evil, etc., but also do so in a way that makes it clearly superior to other religions, thus allowing the believer to overcome the Problem of the Many. To accomplish this, incredibly high evidentiary standards for those texts would need to be met. We must have extremely good reason to accept their veracity if they are to serve as persuasive to the nonbeliever,7 but so many problems radically undercut such claims. Considerations like those that fall under the Problem of Transmission seem to justify the nonbeliever’s incredulity.

A Far Cry from Perfection But translational errors are far from the only known mistakes in revealed texts. Depending on the revealed text, errors can number from dozens to hundreds.8 We may helpfully divide such errors into three broad categories—historical and geographic inaccuracies, scientific inaccuracies, and internal contradictions. An important reason that sacred texts fail as historical texts is that they get history and geography wrong far too frequently. A small sampling of the well-known mistakes in the Tanakh includes referring to Palestine before it existed,9 failing to recognize that Ur was not a Chaldean city during the purported time of Abraham,10 and that the River Gihon could not possibly flow as described, geographically speaking.11 The New Testament mentions a mass census and taxation by Caesar Augustus, but this is triply inaccurate—it was not over all the world but was in just one state, it did not require people to migrate to their birth cities, and it did not occur during the reign of Herod.12 Further, there is no historical record of Herod committing any slaughter like what is described. The Qur’an mentions Joseph’s brethren selling him for a price in a denomination that did not exist at that time,13 and has Muhammad visiting a mosque decades before it was built.14 Again, this is a small sample of many known and cataloged errors, but is sufficient to establish the worry.15 Setting aside miracles, which are intended to be scientifically impossible and therefore should not count as scientific errors, revealed texts still contain many scientific inaccuracies. The Tanakh describes a strange population explosion between the exodus from Egypt (of which we also have no historical evidence) and the time of Solomon and David in which, after just a few generations, a tiny city state goes from 7,000 to having a standing army, horses, and gold comparable to that later possessed by the Roman Empire.16 It also implies that rabbits chew cud,17 humans

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can live for hundreds of years, as well as some more notorious cases, like a flood that covers the world (which is not only historically false, but impossible given the water cycle) and two of each species and food for them all fitting in a small boat, or that the world is only a few thousand years old. The New Testament posits a mountain from which one could see all the kingdoms of the world,18 etc. These are impossible to science, yet do not seem intended as miraculous. Again, this is a small sampling of a larger problem, something to be expected of primitive myths and stories but unacceptable for a purportedly veridical word of God.19 The last set of errors are internal contradictions, where the text states something different from and incompatible with something stated in another part of the same text. These can be small differences, such as the discrepancies in census numbers between 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicle or whose governorship Jesus was born under, moderate differences, such as Paul’s three conflicting accounts of his own conversion,20 or they can be contradictions much more significant to doctrine, like the differences in the Ten Commandments as presented in Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, and Exodus 34. The letters of Paul contradict the Gospels regarding both resurrection and salvation, and Sûrah 9 contradicts itself regarding how Muslims should treat nonbelievers.21 Such errors are incredibly common, again depending on the text.22 A few such errors would prove extremely embarrassing for a history text. Why are we more tolerant of purportedly divine messages upon which such important consequences rest? For the nonbeliever, such difficulties give more than sufficient grounds to dismiss the evidential value of this type of work. For the believer though, they also present difficulties. First, they seem to render a religious literalist position, where one claims that there are no errors and that the revealed text must be taken literally,23 simply indefensible. But second, to maintain an intellectually respectable position, the believer is forced to instead bring some interpretative apparatus into their reading of the text.

The Big Two---Interpretation and Context Once we are forced to jettison the literalist position, we must interpret sacred texts rather than take them at face-value. First, there is nothing inherently wrong with reading these texts non-literally and, if that interpretation is guided by good reasoning and ethics, then it is something I would encourage believers to do. If we have such an interpretation in

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place, many of the above problems disappear. If I maintained that the central message of the text was X, and X was not a topic primarily of history or of the sciences, placing the passage in the context of X could allow the believer to plausibly minimize the impact of many historical and geographic, as well as scientific inaccuracies. For instance, if I am not trying to give a literal account of the beginning of the universe and life on earth, I could present the literally false creation accounts of Genesis in the context of allegories teaching valuable lessons about humanity’s stewardship over other species. I could similarly minimize the impact of contradictions that are not central to X (though contradictions in doctrine, like those mentioned above, can still be damning). The necessity of such non-literal readings is not novel to philosophy and appears in many world religions. For instance, Hindu texts such as RgVeda 10.129 leave room for the questioning and the non-authoritative nature of the Vedic texts, and many Muslims interpret the Qur’an in light of the Hadith. Many Christians interpret their religion as what has been called “Golden Rule Christianity,” where the Golden Rule and similar moral teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount (especially the Beatitudes) are central to the religion and can therefore provide the interpretive framework for the New Testament, etc. Though utilizing an interpretation to provide a non-literal context can be unproblematic, desirable even, the challenge comes when we ask where such an interpretation, as authoritative, would come from. Put another way, why think the basis of the interpretation is correct, such that the text should be interpreted in this way and, to the topic at hand, provides sufficient justification for the text to be considered veridical to the nonbeliever?24 A believer might say that reason in the form of logic, philosophical theology, ethics, and the like, guides the interpretation. But to make this claim is to toss the ball back into the court of natural theology. For instance, one might reason as follows: “I have reason to think there is a creator deity that is good, and who would want to share certain moral messages with humans. Sacred texts of religion R seem to best capture what we would expect such a message to look like. Therefore, my belief in a god of a certain description gives reason to accept the sacred texts of religion R as accurate when interpreted through this lens.” First, such a position relies on us having good reason to think that there is a good creator deity, a position that has been undercut by previous chapters. Second though, if natural theology tells us what kind of being there is and what kind of message they would transmit, then it is not clear what

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the appeal to a revealed text could actually add. If the text contradicts the expected message, then we would have to interpret it away. If it does not contradict the expected message, it adds nothing to our theological understanding. But if an interpretation is based on something besides natural theology and reasoning, it seems to be stymied by the problems listed above. For instance, if I say that my interpretation of the Christian Bible is guided by the weight of tradition in the Catholic Church, then I run into the Problem of the Many, since other interpretations can be guided by similar traditions. I also run into the Problems of Transmission and Selection, since these interpretations could not start until the sacred text was assembled.25 I must have a reason (and not just an appeal to faith) to think that the tradition is correct.

Where Are We Left? Given the challenges above, it is important to take stock of where we are left. The “we” can be divided into two groups—the nonbeliever and the believer. Given these challenges, the nonbeliever is left where they started, in a state of nonbelief, perhaps with increased skepticism regarding revealed religions. Where these challenges leave the believer is more complex. First, as discussed, the believer must accept that literalism is indefensible and that, as such, any value from a revealed text is parasitic upon the value of the interpretive lens through which it is read. But this realization carries three important entailments: First, unless that interpretive mechanism can be sufficiently justified and applied to the text using neutral evidence and reason, then the sacred text carries no conversion value whatsoever, and the believer cannot employ it as evidence for conversion or as evidence of the nonbeliever’s irrationality. Second, because the believer must favor an interpretation and central message over the literal statements found in the text, this seems to make reason primary over the text such that, when the two clash, the believer should favor the former. Third, because various revealed texts share many problems, the believer should be much more inclined toward tolerance, both toward other religions, since one text does not seems to be significantly less problematic than others, but especially toward nonbelievers, whose rejection of religion supported by revealed texts seems well-supported.

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Challenging Questions – To what degree do small inaccuracies in a revealed text call into doubt the value of the whole? – On what grounds could we say that the texts of one religion are more authoritative than another? Does any text succeed in providing those grounds? – What value should we seek to find in revealed texts? Given these types of problem, can such value be found?

Further Reading – Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus – Richard Swinburne, “Authority of Scripture, Tradition, and the Church” – The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible (Annotated by Steve Wells) – Nancy T. Ammerman, “Golden Rule Christianity: Lived Religion in Mainstream America”

Notes 1. Isolating these approaches to religion as the most problematic will be a task for Chapter 16. 2. Note that this claim is about the religions generally. As emphasized in previous chapters, generalizations are a necessary evil in this kind of project, but they should not be misinterpreted as universal claims. It is a patent falsity to say that all Christians or Muslims are intolerant. Some of the most tolerant people I know assent to versions of these religions. My only claim here is that many intolerant people subscribe to these two religions, and more importantly, use their religion as a vehicle for that intolerance. 3. And while this canon has stayed constant for Catholicism since that time, founders of other sects have altered it in different ways, such as the deliberate subtraction of books by Martin Luther and the addition of books by Joseph Smith. 4. And any other explanatory mechanism that relies on divine inspiration or intervention. 5. And the Problem of Selection is not unique to Christianity. For instance, Abu Bakr led a delegation of twelve to compile the Qur’an from scattered materials, the Sri Lanka Tripitaka (Pali Canon) of Theravada Buddhism was originally assembled by monks’ recitations from memory of earlier

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6.

7.

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9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19.

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teachings, etc. To my knowledge, there is no purported sacred text that is claimed to exist in an original and preserved form. If we are to take the New Testament as veridical, the fact that the Gospels have Jesus quoting several “Scriptures” that do not exist in our current versions casts further doubt that the text we have has been transmitted accurately. This puts Christians in a particularly difficult position because, if the New Testament we possess is accurate, then their version of the Old Testament cannot be. Without restating it in detail, the same considerations from the previous sections apply in trying to overcome the Problem of Transmission. If we limit ourselves to secular standards, the text is likely indefensible. But if we bolster its claim to truth with supernatural considerations, we either employ circular justification by using belief as a justification for the accuracy of the text or face the problems discussed in Chapter 2 if we instead appeal to faith. If we do not take the texts entirely literally, some errors can be dismissed as poetic, exaggerations, unimportant, etc. However, this gets into the issue of interpretation, discussed in the next section. Exodus 15:14. Genesis 11:28. Genesis 2:13. Luke 2:1–5. Sûrah 12:20. Sûrah 17:1. Michael Levine rightly points out that the narratives of antiquity were not interested in recording things “as they happened,” but were instead “…interested in transmitting events in such a way as to enable hearers to participate in their meaning in their own setting” (page 92). However, while this explains the frequency of mistakes, it does not actually forgive them or give us reason to accept the texts as accurate (though it does emphasize why sacred texts should not be regarded as historical). And once more, this gets into issues of interpretation, yet to be discussed. 1 Kings 20:15. Leviticus 11:6. Matthew 4:8. Nonbelievers are often flummoxed by the lack of critical thought applied to revealed texts. Jonathan Adler puts the point well in maintaining that, “Exceptionalism is the norm of religious faith. Religious stories are exempted from minimal demands for empirical credibility…” (page 272). Acts 9:1–19, 22:3–16, and 26:9–18. I call this moderate rather than minor, as Christians owe so much of their professed Christology to the authority of Paul.

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21. For a succinct discussion of these latter contradictions and the problems they create for believers, see Philipse, pages 5–9. He argues that such explicit contradictions leave the believer in a trilemma—either the God’s revelation was untruthful, the receiver misinterpreted the message, or the revelation instead had a natural (and therefore non-veridical) explanation. Any of the three calls into question the supernatural origin and reliability of the text. 22. The King James Bible is probably the worst offender. For this specific text, there are lists compiling over eight hundred instances of these three types of error. 23. In Christianity, literalism is called the doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy. 24. Various religions and sects have claimed that certain miracles confirm their religion. Though miracles will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter, the reason this solution cannot work here is that, apart from the skies opening and a god telling us that a particular interpretation is the correct one, it is not clear how a miracle can provide a holistic interpretation of a sacred text. At best, it seems like it could confirm a passage or two. 25. It also runs into tradition-specific problems. For instance, saying the Holy Spirit has always guided the Catholic Church is hard to square with the moral abominations committed by the Borgia popes, such as Pope Alexander VI’s incestuous relationship with his own daughter. Trust in the theology provided by church fathers is undercut by the strange case of Pseudo-Dionysus, a sixth century theologian who effectively forged his writings so they were thought to be authored by St. Dionysius the Areopagite, someone who knew Paul of Tarsus personally. As such, his forgeries carried a special weight that influenced Catholic doctrine for centuries after.

References Adler, Jonathan E. “Faith and Fanaticism,” in Philosophers Without Gods —Mediations on Atheism and the Secular Life, edited by Louise M. Anthony, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2007, pages 266–285. Levine, Michael P. “Contemporary Christian Analytic Philosophy of Religion: Biblical Fundamentalism, Terrible Solutions to a Horrible Problem, and Hearing God,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Issue 48, 2000, pages 89–119. Philipse, Herman. God in the Age of Science? A Critique of Religious Religion, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2012.

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Rgveda Samhita: Rig Veda in Four Volumes, Translated By H.H. Wilson and Bhasya of Sayanacarya, edited by: Ravi Prakash Arya and K.L. Joshi, Indica Books, Varanasi, 2002. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, NSRV, Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2010. The Noble Qur’an—English Translation of Meanings and Commentary, King Fahd Complex, Madinah Munawwarah, K.S.A.

CHAPTER 14

Challenges to Miracles

This chapter will discuss the notion of miracles in depth, specifically, what evidence, if any, miracles offer in support of a higher power that may therefore serve to undercut the position of the nonbeliever. A miracle may be defined as the specific violation of a law of nature by a supernatural agent. This conception has a few important ramifications. First, we must realize that virtually all revealed theology involves purported miracles. In addition to the many miracles described in various revealed texts, the acts of revelation themselves are often interpreted as miraculous, such as Gabriel revealing the Qur’an to Mohammad, Yahweh revealing the Ten Commandments to Moses, etc. Further, as we saw in the last chapter, revealed texts require some justificatory mechanism to account for their purported veracity. But because natural, historical justifications fail, it is much more common to appeal to the supernatural (and therefore the miraculous) in order to overcome the myriad problems that sacred texts face. For instance, divine inspiration from the Holy Spirit is commonly appealed to as a guarantor of accuracy for the Christian Bible, yet such inspiration would then take the form of an intervening guidance outside of the natural development of the texts. As such, such interference would count as miraculous. More generally, if gods took no supernatural actions in the world, then there could be no such thing as revealed theology and therefore no revealed religion. Therefore, acceptance of revealed religion seems to entail the acceptance of at least some miracles. But if belief in the latter is unfounded, so is belief in the former. © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_14

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Also notice that this conception of miracles excludes mere extraordinary events that remain consistent with the laws of nature. This entailment is not an attempt to fudge things. First it follows popular conceptions. If natural occurrences favor the believer, indicative of “god’s plan,” etc., then they are more generally considered providence than miraculous. Second, an important entailment of the laws of nature is that phenomena follow normal and predictable probability distributions. As such, if we had reason to believe those probabilities were skewed significantly based on religious significance, for instance, if those that pray to a certain deity had a significantly higher cancer survival rate than the general population, then that skewing of patterns would still count as miraculous by this definition.1 Third, if it turns out that natural occurrences are generally favorable in a certain way, then that discovery may indeed support the existence of a deity, but said support would instead take the form of a design argument2 rather than an appeal to the miraculous. With this conception of miracles in place, the rest of this chapter will consider two powerful considerations against miracles: the naturalistic alternative and the lack of credible miracles to date. With these in place, we may form a generalized argument against the conversionary power of miracles for the nonbeliever that also undermines the belief in miracles for the believer.

The Naturalistic Alternative When responsibly considering miracles, the question that anyone must address is whether we should believe that a given purportedly miraculous event was genuinely miraculous. When something strange or hard to explain occurs, there are, roughly speaking, two alternatives—we can posit a supernatural explanation or we can posit a naturalistic one. To take a basic example, consider something awe-inspiring that a magician performs on stage. We could explain that phenomenon by inferring that we witnessed something genuinely magical or we can instead infer that what we have witnessed was the product of prestidigitation, misdirection, and quality engineering. Overall, for any unexplained phenomenon, we can always posit a supernatural or natural explanation. The only question is which of those two types of explanation is more plausible. When deciding this, we must realize that overall, the natural explanation has a decided preference over the miraculous, and this position

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should not be controversial. This is because natural explanations are overwhelmingly more common in life. Even the defender of the miraculous should and does think that miracles are exceptional and rare, and rightfully accepts natural explanations for a great many phenomena. To take a trivial example, if I flip a switch and a light turns off, I infer that there is a natural explanation (i.e., that the switch and the light are connected in the usual way and are simply obeying the laws of physics). But even if the light turns off without my touching the switch, I would have to be very naively superstitious to infer something supernatural was the cause when there are clear natural explanations available—a power surge or failure, the lightbulb burning out, etc. Such natural explanations, because they are commonly experienced and reasonable, should be appealed to before anything supernatural. And that is true whether or not I believe that miracles sometimes occur. This natural preference becomes more decided when we consider that the defender of miracles also maintains natural explanations for many purported miracles of a deeply religious nature. Recall from Chapter 12 that, if I am of a religious persuasion that rejects other revealed religions, then I must also reject the supernatural nature of all the miracles of those religions as well. I must explain them naturally by appealing to some combination of hoaxes, lies, misunderstandings, etc. For instance, if I deny any truth to Islam, then I must maintain that Muhammad was either a paranoid schizophrenic that heard voices from his own brain rather than a genuine message from God or simply fabricated the whole story, etc. But then I must allow these types of explanation as a possible naturalistic alternative for any miracle. And even if I am a religious pluralist that accepts the miracles of many or even all religions, that still does not mean that I do or should accept the supernatural explanation for every purported miracle. I should certainly be skeptical of self-interested supernatural claims of the “God spoke to me and said you should give me money” variety, be skeptical of the supernatural claims of the deeply mentally disturbed variety, etc. Rejecting the supernatural nature of such claims is similar to the case of the light bulb. Specifically, we are familiar with commonly experienced and reasonable explanations that do not require the supernatural—charlatans, mental disorders, coincidence, etc., and so we infer the natural explanation most of the time, even when the event is claimed to be of religious significance. Again, this should be true of the believer and nonbeliever alike.

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If we are to instead believe that a miracle is genuine, we must maintain that the miraculous explanation for the phenomenon is more plausible than the natural one. But in recognizing the import of the above discussion, we realize that this is rarely (if ever) the case. We have seen that we should posit a natural explanation rather than a supernatural one if we have one that is a commonly experienced, reasonable explanation. Call this the reasonability requirement. At minimum, we should only posit a miracle in the absence of such explanations. But such absences of plausible explanations are exceedingly rare when we apply what we have learned from the history of religious matters. We know how far humans will go in order to deceive regarding the supernatural, whether it be for gain, glory, or an ends-justify-the-means defense of their faith. Dishonesty applied with human ingenuity becomes a powerful explanatory mechanism for the miraculous. As such, while the reasonability requirement seems perfectly innocuous and rational, even essential for operating within the world, it is not consistently applied when it comes to revealed religion. If it were, the religious defender would be forced to jettison at least the vast majority of their miracles. Consider a purported miracle that is supposed to be truly profound— a resurrection. How difficult would it be to fake a resurrection, say Jesus’ raising of Lazarus described in the Gospel of John?3 The answer is not even mildly. It would require two ringers and virtually nothing else. We would need a ringer Lazarus and a ringer to pronounce Lazarus dead, and with that, we could naturally explain the entire event. Ringer Lazarus wraps himself in grave wrappings and sits in a tomb pre-stocked with several days of food until Jesus commands him to come forth. Assuming this event even took place, the charlatan explanation represents a commonly experienced and reasonable explanation, and it would certainly be the preferred explanation if a similar event happened today. However, it is also possible that the event never occurred to begin with, as there is another natural, commonly experienced and reasonable explanation for the account—someone made up the entire story in order to proselytize their religious beliefs.4 So why would people believe in the Biblical miracle rather than applying the reasonability requirement? The answer comes in two parts. First, miracles gain plausibility if we already assume additional theoretical apparatus—such as a god that conveys information through miracles or grants their devoted supernatural powers, which may also give additional reason to think that the text is veracious. With the addition of such beliefs,

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miracles gain more plausibility. (And recall that this was one of the reasons we addressed natural theology before revealed—if the former can give good reason to think there is a higher power that would do so, miracles gain much more traction. If it cannot, then we must evaluate individual miracles neutrally based solely on their independent merit.) Second, it is unlikely coincidental that the miracles of the Axial and early Christian ages were recorded in pre-scientific times. A less understood world made supernatural explanations much more acceptable, and the lack of a notion of scientific rigor also led to much lower evidentiary standards. The combination of these two would lead to a very credulous general population. Put another way, we should not think that our evidentiary requirements are the same as those of rustic illiterates from two millennia ago. Yet such lax standards can account for improper beliefs becoming popular and then staying popular through the weight of tradition. As we can see, there is not one question regarding the appropriateness of belief in miracles but several due to different evidential requirements and backgrounds. However, the central question here becomes, would a neutral party in the Twenty-First Century ever have reason to accept the supernatural rather than the naturalistic explanation? We can see why this question is key if we situate the inquiry within the larger context of this work. It is true that we can theoretically distinguish the questions of whether someone who already believes in a god of a certain description should believe in a miracle versus someone who does not. However, if the previous arguments of the book are successful, then this distinction is moot. In order for the believer to be more reasonable in inferring the miraculous interpretation than the nonbeliever, they would need good, independent reasons to posit such a being. Yet if the previous chapters are correct regarding the failure of natural theology and of sacred texts to provide justification for belief, then such hedging in favor of miracles is inappropriate. A second reason to consider miracles from the standpoint of a neutral observer has to do with the overall goal of the text. The relevant issue is whether the nonbeliever does anything irrational or blameworthy in rejecting the divine, which means we are primarily interested in whether the occurrence of purported miracles lends credibility or conversionary power to religious belief. But when the rejection of the miraculous by the nonbeliever is in accordance with the reasonability requirement, such rejection not only avoids irrationality but seems to be the responsible course of action.

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What must still be addressed is whether we have reason to believe that there are unexplained events for which the supernatural explanation is the better option, an admission incompatible with atheist naturalism. Though it is impossible to address every purported miracle, the next section will provide a general argument that we have good reason to think there is no actual case where the reasonability requirement would not apply and that, in practice, we should always follow the natural explanation.

A Predictable World To determine whether a purported miracle should be interpreted as genuine, we should consider what it would take to make the reasonability requirement inapplicable in a given case. What would this entail? If we are lacking strong reasons for positing a miracle-bestowing deity, this question becomes synonymous with what would be required to convince the nonbeliever. A plausible supernatural explanation for an event seems to require several components—first and foremost, there would need to be one or more sufficiently skeptical observers,5 people who would put forth full and adequate effort in trying to uncover a natural explanation. But second, such skeptical observers would need to be sufficiently well-versed in the relevant scientific field to be able to recognize a naturalistic explanation if it were present. For instance, a resurrection would be much more plausible if the body had been first declared dead by someone with adequate medical training who had eliminated cases such as coma or poison or the possibility of twins, and who was not religiously vested in the outcome.6 We might also add that the purported miracle should accomplish something of religious (rather than, say, merely financial) significance. Lastly, we should add that the chain of testimony that brings us the account is also highly credible, either witnessed firsthand or brought to us by an extremely trustworthy source (or ideally, multiple trustworthy sources). These requirements seem to be the bare minimum necessary for finding the supernatural explanation plausible but, to date, no purported miracle appears to have come close to meeting them. For instance, for many years, the James Randi Educational Foundation offered a substantial prize to anyone who could demonstrate something supernatural within a scientifically controlled environment. Though thousands applied, none ever succeeded. And because such a challenge would have been a perfect opportunity for a deity to reveal itself demonstrably to the nonbelievers,

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such a failure, at minimum, tells us that if miracles ever occur, their purpose is not the conversion of nonbelievers. In principle, there seem to be phenomena that could fulfill the outlined criteria. For instance, if something like the more extreme of the Exodus miracles were to occur in the Twenty-First Century, an entire river turning into blood, hail falling from a clear sky and catching on fire, every firstborn in an entire country dying, or someone parting a sea in an unnatural way, such events should give even the rational nonbeliever pause. But when we move from theory to empirical fact, nothing like that has happened since the Age of Enlightenment.7 Were such an event to occur, that would merit much closer scrutiny. This last point underlines one final difficulty with the miraculous interpretations of strange phenomena. The fact that something has not been explained does not entail that it cannot be explained. There are many things that science currently has not explained for which we have absolutely no reason to think cannot or will not be explained naturally in time. As the sciences progress, they continue to expand their explanatory power, demonstrating things that they previously could not. As such, even if a strange phenomenon meets the requirements outlined above—something beyond what is commonly experienced, witnessed by skeptics with relevant expertise, etc., we are still left with a non-miraculous option—we may instead infer that we have seen something natural that science has yet to explain. Hence, even if a purported miracle meets all the above requirements, it must also be rendered somehow more plausibly supernatural than natural but as yet to be explained by science. Such considerations have even led some to argue that we should categorically reject the miraculous interpretation of a strange event in favor of a yet to be explained natural event. But we need not go this far. As above, we may simply acknowledge that the kinds of purported miracles that are defended as still occurring today (such as the power of prayer, miraculous healing, etc.) are not the kind of phenomena that science, in principle, cannot explain. And the history of science teaches us that, when we continue to seek a natural explanation to such events, we eventually find them, thus giving us good reason to keep looking for a natural explanation rather than simply giving up and calling the event a miracle.8 However, since these claims are all spoken in terms of generalizations, they may sound more dismissive than is intended. The forms of purported miracles are an incredibly diverse group, and rejecting them

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without getting into specifics may come off as fast or incautious. But this kind of worry forgets what is at stake. The criteria for plausible belief in a miracle outlined above are fairly standard. Were an event to meet these requirements in a manner such that a nonbeliever should be persuaded, it would be international news, perhaps the biggest news story of all time. It would be on par with aliens landing and making clear and deliberate contact with humans in front of cameras. If a well-documented event occurred that experts agreed could not, even in principle, be explained by the sciences, we would hear about it. It would be analyzed and celebrated and debated continuously. When I claim that no event to date9 fulfills the criteria for a plausible miracle, that is why. But second, remember that these are the requirements for the neutral observer to accept a miracle and, as such, there is an asymmetry here. Like the case of religious experience to be discussed in the next chapter, even if I witness something that I am certain is miraculous, that does not entail that I can or should be able to convince anyone else of its miraculous nature. If it cannot be confirmed by experts, the scientific community, etc., it remains hearsay and rightfully unpersuasive to the nonbeliever. Since the argument in this chapter has contained many parts and proceeds largely by generalization, let us end with a restatement of its reasoning against miracles: – Any unexplained event has multiple possible explanations which can be divided into supernatural and natural. – Even among believers in the miraculous, there is a strong preference for natural explanation as the default, invoking the supernatural only for events that are not better explained naturally. – Events are better explained naturally when those explanations are commonly experienced and reasonable. (I called the requirement that we do not offer supernatural explanations for events that have commonly experienced reasonable natural explanations the reasonability requirement.) – If we take the perspective of a neutral observer rather than of a believer with miracle-favoring background assumptions, the reasonability requirement leads us to dismiss the miracles presented in sacred texts because, whether or not those events can be faked, the fabrication of stories is a commonly experienced, reasonable explanation for those accounts of events.

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– Hence, for a miracle to have persuasive power to the neutral observer, it would need to take place in an environment where we have good reason to believe the testimony of the miracle. To achieve this would require it is witnessed by skeptical experts. – Skeptical expertise would need to conclude that the supernatural explanation is the better one, entailing not only that current science cannot explain it, but that, in principle, we have no reason to think that it ever will. – Nothing close to a compelling case has been made for an event such as this, leaving the nonbeliever no reason to think that miracles do occur or have ever occurred. – Hence, purported miracles fail as conversion pieces to the nonbeliever, and the lack of quality evidence supporting them should also give the believer substantive, if not definitive grounds for doubting their occurrence.

Challenging Questions – Is there a plausible explanation for the believer why, as education increases, the number of miracles posited decreases? What are the ramifications for this explanation? – What would be the point of genuine miracles, given they are neither persuasive to the nonbeliever nor aid believers equally or justly? – If we look at stories from around the world, do we find accounts of contemporary miracles that achieve the requirements for plausibility outlined above?

Further Reading – David Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section Ten – J.L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism, Chapter One

Notes 1. I use the prayer example deliberately, as the medical effects of prayer are not only testable but have been tested. For instance, Benson et al. showed that surgery complications occurred at about the same (actually slightly

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higher) rate for those that unknowingly received intercessory prayer than those that did not. And it is important to remember that any commitment to the occurrence of miracles has important ramifications for natural theology. If regularity counts as evidence of design by a deity, then the breaks in regularity that miracles represent would undercut that type of design argument. Similarly, if the regularity of the laws theodicy is used to deflect the Problem of Evil, then positing the miraculous would undermine that effort as well. More generally, if the bestowing of miracles is unproblematic for a deity, then we should expect more miraculous intervention and less suffering rather than letting nature take its course. Hence, the more frequent miracles we posit, the more acute the Problem of Evil becomes. John 11:1-44. David Hume gave a famous argument that it is always more reasonable to reject testimony of a miracle than to think that a law of nature had been violated, an argument I believe is substantively correct. For my discussion of this argument, see Lorkowski, section 3. This role need not be fulfilled by nonbelievers. There are many believers who reject or are incredulous of at least contemporary miracles. For instance, a standard Protestant view is that there have been no miracles since the last of those that personally knew Jesus died, as miracles only occurred in order to demonstrate the truth of the Gospels. A skeptical witness is therefore someone who is skeptical of the event’s miraculous status, not necessarily skeptical of a higher power. This last clause is important if a miracle is to avoid naturalization through the reasonability requirement, as religious zealotry that undermines healthy skepticism is something all too commonly experienced. Such zealotry could, for instance undercut our credulity in the most famous purported resurrection where, according to the Gospels, many nonbelievers saw Jesus die, but only his most fanatical followers claimed to have seen him alive afterward. We can plausibly say they were simply lying in the name of cultivating religious beliefs. (And we can render this more plausible while accounting for the missing body when we realize the Sasanian habit of stealing the bodies of their martyrs specifically to claim they had been resurrected.) And empirically, we also have no reason to think any of these events happened then. Secular writings and archaeology from that time do not confirm anything from the Exodus account other than the fact that some foreign slaves were in Egypt and that a few names from the sacred texts were real persons. This point is in the spirit of a more detailed argument Paul Draper gives in favor of methodological naturalism, that its past success provides us with a strong inductive argument that ontological naturalism is probably true.

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See Draper (2005). Naturalism in science will be discussed in much more detail in Chapter 19. 9. Again, this is partially due to the lax evidentiary standards before the age of reason.

References Anthony, Louise M. “For the Love of Reason,” in Philosophy Without Gods — Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, edited by Louise M. Anthony, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2007, pages 41–58. Benson, Herbert, Dusek, Jeffery, Sherwood, Jane, Lam, Peter, Bethea, Charles, Carpenter, William, Levitsky, Sidney, Hill, Peter, Clem, Donald, Jain, Manoj, Drumel, David, Kopecky, Stephen, Mueller, Paul, Marek, Dean, Rollins, Sue, and Hibberd, Patricia. “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in Cardiac Bypass Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Trial of Uncertainty and Certainty of Receiving Intercessory Prayer,” American Heart Journal, Volume 151, Issue 4, 2006, pages 934–942. Draper, Paul. “God, Science, and Naturalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion, edited by William J. Wainright, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2005, pages 272–303. Lorkowski, C.M. “David Hume: Religion,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, available at https://www.iep.utm.edu/hume-rel/. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, NSRV, Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2010.

CHAPTER 15

Challenges to Religious Experience

Experiencing Divinity Purported religious experience is a huge and varied phenomenon. However, given the focus of this text, we will constrain the discussion to religious experiences that may serve as a ground or justification for religious belief or conversion. With this in mind, we may define a religious experience as one in which a person discerns the immediate presence of a supernatural entity.1 “Immediate presence” means something that is presented to our awareness, such as data given through the senses, rather than something that is inferred through reasoning. Entities revealed through religious experience could be god(s) but could also be other things outside of the normal biological taxonomy, such as angels, divine messengers, amesha spentas, etc. Any such revelation would clearly fall outside of the natural order. As such, there is significant overlap between religious experiences and miracles, which were discussed in the previous chapter. An angelic being appearing to a prophet would be a violation of a law of nature as would a booming voice from the heavens. Arguably all religious experiences can be subsumed under the broader concept of miracles. Having said that, religious experiences merit special considerations beyond the previous discussion regarding miracles for three reasons—First, religious experiences would be the source of direct, deliberate communication by a deity, revealing the divine will much more lucidly than the wonders that miracles provide. Second, and related to this, such communications serve as the © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_15

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chief grounding for revealed religions. Hence, the reliability of religious experiences is much more important than other miracles in maintaining the reasonableness of revealed religion.2 Third, religious experiences are often of an intensely personal nature, and not subject to public scrutiny in the way other miracles should be. This last consideration defines the focus of this chapter. Religious experiences can be public, that is, such that anyone present should share a similar experience. An example of this would be if an angelic being appeared in the room and everyone in said room saw and heard it. Were such an event to occur, we should approach it in the same way as other potentially miraculous phenomena as outlined in Chapter 14, apply the reasonability requirement for alternative explanations, seeking expertise when available, etc. However, when the event is private, such considerations may not apply. A religious experience is private when others should not share it due to its nature. This could be because the experience is entirely internal—such as a voice in one’s mind, or because a presented being is sensed but only by the chosen individual. Because the considerations regarding public religious experiences are roughly the same as miracles, the focus here will be on the private. But as we will see, one of the most important considerations against miracles, the natural alternative, still applies.

The Fathomably Unfathomable Mind The previous chapter showed that a requirement for the formation of reasonable belief is that we should not posit a supernatural explanation when we have natural explanations for the same phenomena that are commonly experienced and reasonable. This is not because of some attempt to stack the deck against the supernaturalist. Instead, it is derived from how we do act, should act, and must act in a life in which our success or failure depends so much upon our engaging the natural world, a world where, even if there are supernatural breaks in the natural order, they are the rare exception rather than the rule. However, while it is at least conceivable that there are miraculous events to which this reasonability requirement would not apply, this is not the case with private religious experiences. There is always a commonly experienced reasonable explanation for private religious experiences—the fact that the mind can deceive itself via hallucination.

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Hallucinations are an unfortunate but commonly experienced part of the human condition. There are several known sources, one group of which is hallucinogenic drugs (which, ironically, have been used deliberately to induce purported religious experiences). If someone has ingested a hallucinogenic drug, then they have very good reason to infer a natural cause for a religious experience.3 However, we must also acknowledge unintentionally ingested substances that can cause hallucinations, such as accidentally harvested mushrooms or ergot poisoning which can be triggered simply by eating bread. The more subtle causes of hallucinations, however, come not from ingested poisons but from improper brain function. These include certain mental disorders such as schizophrenia, dementia, and delirium, and physical conditions such as temporal lobe epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and brain tumors, whether cancerous or benign. Many such causes can have onsets late in life and may cause hallucinations as a first (or only) symptom. The question is, can the recipient of a private religious experience eliminate hallucinations as a reasonable explanation for that experience? They certainly have an obligation to try to eliminate hallucinations as a cause—not only to uphold the reasonability requirement but also because there can be serious consequences to hallucinations, both from the implications regarding one’s health entailed by the condition and from the problems which may arise from the unreliable content of the experience, such as hallucinated orders to kill or try to fly. Yet ruling out this possibility with certainty would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. One can eliminate many of the possible causes of hallucinations mentioned above but, for instance, intermittent seizures as a cause would be nearly impossible to detect.4 Such natural explanations are particularly significant given the similarities between religious experiences and hallucinations. As Michael Martin points out, “They tell no uniform or coherent story, and there is no plausible theory to account for the discrepancies among them.”5 One such discrepancy is a variant of the Problem of the Many discussed in Chapter 12. People of many different religions have claimed and do claim to have religious experiences specific to their own religion. The presence of such heterogeneous accounts not only undercuts their overall credibility as described by the Problem of the Many, but it is also exactly what we would expect if they were hallucinatory products of the subjects’ minds rather than stemming from a single divine source. Such

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expectation-matching visions serve to render a natural explanation much more plausible than the alternatives.6 This type of explanation provides a plausible natural alternative when a private religious experience, like a hallucination, comes to us entirely unbidden. However, the defender of religious experience may rightly point out that such explanations lose their force when the experience does not come unbidden, but instead comes about through a deliberate process of connecting with the divine, such as meditation or prayer. Though mental health disorders can still explain religious experiences coming from such deliberate methods, there exists another type of natural explanations for them. A hypothesis that has gained much traction is that deep prayer and meditation can place one in a highly suggestable, quasi-hypnotic state in which one can, in essence, self-hypnotize without being aware of it, fabricating an invented experience without realizing it.7 Self-hypnosis in such circumstances has been observed and documented. As such, considerations become similar to the case of hallucinations above. Self-hypnosis becomes a commonly experienced and reasonable explanation. Therefore, the defender of the religious experience has an obligation to eliminate this natural account before positing the experience as genuinely supernatural. But as was the case with various causes of hallucinations, it is not clear how an explanation of this sort could be eliminated with any reasonable degree of certainty.

The Unassailability of the Non-Empirical To responsibly maintain a private religious experience as genuine, the subject would need to rule out known natural causes. But as has been mentioned, the elimination of natural causes, specifically hallucinations (for unbidden experiences) and self-hypnosis (for more deliberate experiences), is difficult, if not impossible. It is worth spelling out the difficulties in more detail. We will consider three main challenges—first, the fact that the object of perception is not perceived by the senses creates difficulties. Second, the veridicality of the perception breaks down even further when we move from general reliability to specific instances, and lastly, the non-empirical nature of the object creates additional obstacles in terms of conveying specific content. First, it is important to realize that what is given to us by the senses, while often accepted at face value, comes with a battery of procedures and mechanisms that let us better determine the veracity of that which is

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given. Yet such methods of confirmation are unavailable to private religious experiences. First and most importantly, we are generally aware when our senses are working correctly. But a hallmark of both hallucinations and self-hypnosis is that this is often not the case. As such, they lack an important corrective mechanism for ensuring the accuracy of the perception. Further, when it comes to the senses, even if we are uncertain of their accuracy, we have many ways to confirm it. We can look at agreement with the other senses. Additionally, since the objects of the senses are public, we can also look for external confirmation, corroborating our findings not just with the senses of others, but also with equipment such as cameras. We may even conduct experiments intended to confirm or disconfirm what was witnessed. Generally, there are many ways to determine if our senses are working correctly and, as such, we have very good reason to think that what we have sensed is reliable when we have taken such additional measures. But when we shift to something purely in our own minds, our ability to confirm our perception’s accuracy is much more limited. But this problem is sharply exacerbated if we shift from questions of our perceptions being accurate generally to whether we correctly perceive specific phenomena. If I wanted to confirm that what I was seeing was correct, I could reach out and touch it. I could snap a photo, I could ask the person next to me, see how my dog behaves around it, etc. By contrast, if I wanted to know whether a voice in my head was originating in my own subconscious, I could make an appointment to see a neurologist, another to get a CAT scan, and a third to get a toxicology screening. Yet none of these tests could occur in the time frame in which I was actually perceiving the event. Many of the leading natural explanations for religious experiences are intermittent and inherently deceptive, and the workings of the human brain are staggeringly complex and imperfectly compartmentalized. I might possibly determine whether my brain was functioning properly at the time of the examinations, but extrapolating proper, ordinary brain function at all times from proper functioning during an examination is virtually impossible. But even if one can be reasonably certain that the brain is functioning properly during a private religious experience, it is not clear exactly what such knowledge could meaningfully contribute to religious belief. The problem is that a perception that is not of the senses seems to be importantly lacking in religious content. Is it an imagined voice? A feeling of

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awe, wonder, or otherness? If a voice in my head tells me to be a Christian, this does not carry with it any kind of veridicality. Even if I can be certain that the voice is not a product of my own subconscious, that does not entail that that being is honest, correct, or even divine. If we take away confirmation by the senses, we are left with mere feelings and perhaps incredibly vague ideas. Nothing about a non-inferential perception will convey omnipotence, moral perfection, or even honesty to our minds. In what way can a feeling of divinity from a being who is not an object of the senses even be conveyed?8 If we are talking about a religious experience as intended to confirm or support any specific religious belief, it is not clear how a non-empirical object given as a non-inferential perception could do so.

The Asymmetry of Belief It is worth situating the above considerations more specifically into the larger scheme of things. First, it is important to distinguish between three different conclusions one could draw from the above challenges: that private religious experiences can never be treated as genuine, that private religious experiences are probably not genuine, or that testimony of private religious experiences should not be persuasive to those who have not experienced them. Establishing the first conclusion would be nearly impossible, short of establishing that any form of supernaturalism is incoherent. However, the nature of belief is such that it deals in probabilities, not absolutes, so rendering something’s occurrence improbable should serve as sufficient evidence against it, barring new argument or evidence. Does the above do so regarding the improbability of private religious experience? It appears to. In calling into question independent reasons for belief in a higher power, the considerations of the previous chapters seem to leave us in a position where we must evaluate the evidential value of religious experience on its own merit rather than as bolstering an extant religious framework.9 However, the reasonability requirement demands that we appeal to supernatural explanations only when commonly experienced, plausible, natural explanations are unavailable. But since there are always such explanations available for private religious experiences, the combination of the reasonability requirement and the perennial availability of natural explanations for strange mental phenomena drastically undercuts the evidential value of private religious experiences.

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But there are two things to say about this result. First, it is only presented as a general response, and I am not going so far as to claim that there can be no religious experience which is not so undermined. Perhaps there are world-shattering experiences that are so indubitably divine as to transcend natural explanation. But even if this were the case, the value of such evidence would be radically asymmetrical between the person having the experience and the receiver of testimony regarding that experience. Even the recipient of such an experience should respect the incredulity of anyone who has not had a similar encounter. At minimum, such incredulity is merited given the concerns discussed above, and as such, a third party should not believe that a private religious experience is genuine simply because the subject testified that it was indubitably legitimate.10 The subject’s claim would amount to the mere assertion that their private religious experience was veridical. But such testimony gives no reason for the listener to accept such a claim. To any unexperiencing third party, such “trust me” claims are simply blind assurances, hearsay that provides no additional weight. As such, the claim of religious experience simply cannot call into question the reasonability of nonbelief.

Challenging Questions – Is there any way to entirely and plausibly rule out the possibility that a private religious experience was not a product of natural causes? – Are there reasonable distinctions that the religious exclusivist could appeal to in order to dismiss the vast majority of religious experiences as erroneous while retaining a subclass as genuine? – Is there a reasonable common thread among purported religious experiences that would allow the religious pluralist to plausibly maintain that disparate experiences and messages have a common source? – Can any experience be so certain as to be impervious to doubt?

Further Reading – Michael Martin, Atheism—A Philosophical Justification, Chapter Six – Caroline Franks Davis, The Evidential Force of Religious Experience – William Alston, Perceiving God

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Notes 1. There are a few things to say about this definition. First, it closely follows that of Michael Martin (page 154), which in turn followed that of William Rowe. However, I stray from both definitions in shifting from sensing the supernatural to discerning. I use the latter because many purported experiences involve no sensation at all in terms of receiving data from the five senses, but are instead restricted to internal, mental phenomena. Further, “discerns” is used neutrally and applies whether such an entity is actually present or not. Lastly, there is a sense in which this definition is limited— it does not as clearly capture some types of religious experience, such as certain versions of mystical experience and shamanistic trances. However, this limited definition is, as mentioned, not an omission but deliberate. It focuses on the types of religious experience that can engender belief in some higher power while, to the extent possible, avoiding overlap with miracles. 2. Religious experiences also situate miracles in a divine context. For instance, the plagues of Egypt described in Exodus would have meant very little religiously had they not been presented as confirmation of the divine will revealed to Moses. Without any such revelation, miracles are reduced to extremely strange phenomena bereft of religious significance, even if their source can be confirmed as divine. 3. Things get a little tricky here because, strictly speaking, a natural cause does not entail that the religious experience is not genuine. It is possible that a supernatural entity only reveals itself to people in a certain state of mind. Such a state could possibly be achieved via hallucinogens or by other methods, such as meditation or nearly trance-like prayer. However, while such a story is possible, the considerations of this chapter will undermine its plausibility. 4. The human brain is still a source of great mystery. For instance, it is not unheard of for someone to have a single isolated seizure in their lifetime, yet no underlying cause is ever discovered, even with extensive medical testing. If such a seizure impacted the correct part of the brain, the result would be a hallucination with no medically detectable, yet perfectly natural, cause. It is unclear how one could rule out the possibility that a private religious experience was in fact such an event, at least given current medical science. 5. Martin, page 159. 6. Of which there seem to be two—either a being that appears in different ways to different people and thereby confirms many seemingly contradictory beliefs, or that only a very small subset of consistent religious experiences are genuine, and the rest are naturally explained via hallucination, self-hypnosis, and the like. The religious pluralist defends the former

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(usually by maintain that it is the interpretation or the context, not the messages themselves, that are contradictory) while the exclusivist must seemingly defend the latter. Pluralism and exclusivism will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter. For a good introduction to the topic, see, for instance, Gibbons and De Jarnette. For a more detailed analysis of the problems hinted at here, see Everitt, pages 172–175. As was the case with miracles, the likelihood of genuine religious experiences may be bolstered if we can first establish good, independent reason for thinking there is a higher power who might interact with humans in such ways. But such independence would require that we set aside revealed religion (since it implicitly and explicitly requires at least some religious experiences to be genuine) in order to avoid circularity. And again, it is not clear whether it is possible for religious experience to convey this hypothetical indubitability. Yet such unquestionable certainty of divine origins seems necessary, as the reasonability requirement demands that any religious experience falling short of it should be accepted as having natural causes, even by the person who had said experience.

References Everitt, Nicholas. The Non-Existence of God. Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 2004. Gibbons, Don, and De Jarnette, James. “Hypnotic Susceptibility and Religious Experience,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 11, Number 2, 1972, pages 152–156. Martin, Michael. Atheism—A Philosophical Justification. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA, 1990.

CHAPTER 16

Moral Critiques to Religion

The Rejection of Dogma The previous chapters have covered a lot. They have, in general terms, undermined rational reason for belief. Within natural theology, they have exposed the failures of traditional lines of argument in favor of a higher power and presented arguments against even the most general conceptions of such a being. Hence, when we restrict our inquiry to the evidence which is given universally through reason and the senses, the considerations align in favor of the nonbeliever, especially when we acknowledge that the burden of proof must rest with the believer. We then turned to other types of evidence that may be employed in support of a higher power, specifically that provided by revealed theology. Here, when restricting the scope of evidence to special revelation, we found significant difficulties as well, identifying problems against such types of evidence that apply more or less universally. Such challenges call into question the rationality of belief but, much more importantly, give no cause to think the nonbeliever is doing anything inappropriate in rejecting such considerations as the basis for rational belief. But while the previous chapters have focused directly on reasons for (dis)belief, the next few chapters will instead turn to some common, problematic entailments of religious belief. These beliefs and tenets are by no means universal, but are common within religion, especially as practiced in the United States. I will refer to commitments that are not entailed by mere belief in higher power(s) yet are considered central to a religion © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_16

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as dogma.1 The discussion (and rejection) of dogma is important to the goals of this book for three reasons. First, rejecting specific dogmas as irrational or harmful ultimately undermines any theological framework that supports or allows them. Second, and more importantly, rejecting dogma is an important step in establishing that the atheist’s position is not only reasonable, but is more reasonable than its standard competitors. This is because, historically and currently, atheism’s competitors (and oppressors) are not bare theism but specific religions committed to such dogmas. Lastly, an analysis of religious dogmas will isolate important disagreements that generate animosity between believers and nonbelievers, especially in the United States. This chapter will draw out some of the potentially corrosive effects that certain religious dogmas can have on morality.

Two Transcendent Threats to Morality To discuss the moral tenets of every religion, or to even try to generalize about them all is a fool’s errand. However, considering two important distinctions among world religions will help narrow the focus to the most problematic types. Recall the distinction drawn in Chapter 5 between religions of orthopraxy and religions of orthodoxy. In religions of orthopraxy or “right practice,” one’s actions and conduct are more central to the religion. By contrast, with religions of orthodoxy or “right belief,” what is believed is considered the more important aspect of the religion.2 The majority of the world’s religions are orthopraxic, with ethical, ritual, and/or liturgical practices as central to the religion. Of the two types, religions of orthodoxy are the more likely to support dogma that is harmful to morality. This may seem surprising given that action, rather than belief, is central to morality. However, it is not the encouraging of bad morals that leads to problems, but the de-emphasis of good morals. Religions of orthopraxy treat one’s actions as critical to not only the religion but to any religious evaluation of value, meaning, etc. Ethical code is therefore often central to orthopraxic religion. Consider, for instance, the Buddhist Eightfold Path, Jainist Ahimsa, the Hindu Five Yamas, etc. By contrast, orthodoxy, in essence, entails that what you believe is more important than what you do. As an extreme case of this, consider sole fide, a doctrine held by some Christian sects3 that faith alone is sufficient for salvation, exclusive of good works.4 One can very easily see how making one’s (im)morality utterly irrelevant to what is considered the ultimate or highest good can become toxic to morality.

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A second important distinction in situating the impact of religion on morality is the distinction between exclusivism and pluralism. Religious exclusivism holds that certain central claims about the ultimate are true. As such, one set of religious claims and the religion that cultivates them is most correct and has a privileged position in attaining the ultimate (salvation, liberation, etc.) Roughly speaking, the exclusivist holds that there is a single, correct religion. By contrast, religious pluralism maintains that there are many equally legitimate ways to achieve the religious ultimate and, hence, no single religion is exclusively correct.5 Pluralist religions are much less likely to have a negative impact on morality than exclusivists for two reasons. First, pluralists need not claim the tenets of other religions are incorrect. For instance, Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta Hinduism distinguishes between Nirguna and Saguna Brahman, Brahman without or with a “mask” (that is, attributes). But Saguna can appear to the world in various ways. Such a depiction can therefore easily accommodate other religions as part of a greater whole, which in turn reduces tensions, animosity, etc. As can, for instance, the concept of Bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism. Perhaps more importantly though, pluralism specifically affirms the value of other religions and ways of thinking. For instance, Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, calls religious diversity “a very useful and beautiful thing.”6 An exclusivist, by contrast, must operate under the assumption that the beliefs, traditions, and histories of other religions are incorrect. Members of other religions are therefore mistaken in what the exclusivist takes to be the most important aspect of life—the attainment of the ultimate, whether it be salvation, liberation, enlightenment, or some other ultimate. Such beliefs quickly breed contempt, bigotry, animosity, and extreme conversion tactics in a way that pluralistic worldviews do not. Summing up, religions and religious dogmas that tend to be the most damaging to morality are quite often found in strongly orthodoxic and exclusivist sects,7 and shall be the focus of the rest of the chapter. In the United States, evangelical Christianity represents an influential collection of such orthodoxic and exclusivist religions. Evangelism may be defined through a protestant emphasis on four tenets: Biblicism, Christ-centeredness, conversion, and evangelism.8 However, in terms of morality, the centrality of Christ tenet leaves much room for interpretation. If one chooses to focus, for instance, on the Beatitudes and the Golden Rule, a “Christ-centered” morality can be a beautiful, rich source of ethics.9 But such a focus is not the norm in evangelical Christianity

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which, influenced by Lutheran Protestantism, tends to emphasize faith rather than actions, as discussed above.

The Threat Is Real Among all these abstractions, it is important to remember that religions and religious ideals have caused incalculable harm. The number of deaths directly attributable to religion and religious violence is in the tens of millions,10 not to mention the role religions play in hate crimes, terrorism, and other violence. There is an entire academic journal (The Journal of Religion and Violence) dedicated to the many relationships between religion and violence. Additionally, religiously motivated views often end up on the wrong side of history—for instance, the violence against pagans during the reigns of Theodosius I and II, the Inquisition, the Pope-sanctioned violence of the Crusades, Protestant support of Hitler,11 scriptural justification of slavery in the nineteenth-century America,12 and the more recent oppression of and violence against the LGBTQ community. Of course, while it is true that religion can, does, and has contributed to such harms, this does not entail that it must do so. A common response to such considerations is that religions need not cause harm, that religion often does morally wonderful things as well, and that the religious sentiments at the root of these ills are misguided or a corruption of the correct version of that religion. And while I am sympathetic to these claims (especially since at least the first two are clearly true), such responses miss the point being drawn out here. First, as distinguished above, we are focusing specifically on the religious positions that tend to be pernicious, rather than those that generally lead to positive moral actions. Second, and unfortunately, by claiming to be of the same religious alignment as those that commit immoral acts in the name of that religion, the former legitimizes the latter by making it appear to be more supported and buttressed.13 Lastly, these responses seem to concede the exact point that this chapter is trying to make. Imagine you were at a bookstore selecting an ethics textbook, and at the checkout, you were told, “Hey, great choice. However, be careful when you are reading this- it is commonly misread. But when read incorrectly, you get the wrong answer when it comes to even the most basic issues in ethics, approving of murder, genocide, slavery, and bigotry. People have even tortured their own children as a result of misreading this book.” At this

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point, it would not seem the least bit unreasonable to simply acknowledge that this book is not a good ethics text, is not a source you should turn to for answers to moral conundrums, and perhaps you should simply put it back. You might also give a wide berth to those who have read the book as an ethics text, especially those who seem to have done so uncritically. At minimum, you should ensure that you are, in fact, reading the book correctly, are applying rigorous ethical reasoning to ensure that you do not get these insanely wrong answers, be mindful of what it is that causes it to generate these obviously incorrect answers, and ensure that you excise them from any moral deliberations. And this last is exactly what we will do now.

Some Pernicious Contributions The common religious issues that significantly contribute to such pernicious morality may be divided into the categories of intolerance, fanaticism, textual fundamentalism, and improper focus. As hinted above, a common side-effect of religious exclusivism is intolerance. When one maintains that they have a clear path to the ultimate to the extent that all others are incorrect and will not achieve said ultimate, that mindset can be corrosive to morality in several ways. Recall what we saw in Chapter 12, that the most significant contributors to a person’s religious membership are upbringing and culture. Now first, this seems to make the claim of religious exclusivism ludicrous. Saying all others are wrong and or damned based on an arbitrary factor such as which country one is born in should strike us as exceedingly odd, an absolutely arbitrary way to sort out damnation and salvation. But more importantly for the point being made here, linking the achievement of an ultimate to those that share my upbringing creates a harmful in-group/out-group dichotomy where intolerance of other beliefs (and believers) becomes hard to separate from an intolerance of those that come from different cultures. This easily can and does become hopelessly intertwined with xenophobia, racism, and, at minimum, out-group bias. This seems to happen in the United States, where correlations between religion and various forms of intolerance have been well-documented.14 A second, related problem stemming from exclusivism is the threat of dehumanizing those outside of your religion. Believers that place ultimate value in some end, such as salvation or an afterlife, and then deny that that end can be achieved by others, strip away the perceived value of those

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outsiders. This can (and has) led to immoral actions, up to and including discriminating against, bestowing second class status to, enslavement of, terrorism against, and genocide of, religious out-groups. A notorious case is the siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, in which the remaining Jews and Muslims in the city were slaughtered, including women and children. A scary piece of reasoning that was sometimes invoked as justification for this and similar events was that those killed were already damned (for being non-Christian), but if they had been allowed to live, then they would have had more (non-Christian) children who would also be damned. Hence, a genocide would actually reduce the number of damned souls.15 Though it should be emphasized that it is not likely that the genocide was actually committed for this reason, the more important point to be made is that an exclusivist religion has the mechanisms in place that it can support such reasoning as a method for dehumanization. The misapplication of the Qur’anic16 call of death to nonbelievers is another example.17 This leads to the next religious detriment to morality, fanaticism. Though the word is applied very broadly, I use it here in a narrow, technical sense. Fanaticism refers specifically to the view that religious beliefs, practices, and dogmas are indisputable, that to even question them is inappropriate or taboo. As was the case above regarding religious intolerance, it is important to note that such a position is clearly not supported by reason and seems, in principle, unjustifiable. Recall the importance of evidentialism discussed in Chapter 2. Nothing, save the principles of reasoning themselves, should be accepted without evidence and, as such, we can and should be able to demand the evidence that supports a view. We then evaluate the quality of said evidence and proportion our belief to the support. But the evidence for any religious belief falls incredibly short of establishing anything like certainty (indeed, if the arguments of this book are correct, they fall short of establishing even basic credibility). A fortiori given the difficulties mentioned above, a special, unquestioning status of religious morality is especially difficult to countenance.18 Instead, fanaticism, in the sense used here, seems to be a posture of cowardice, a refusal to question, debate, or justify one’s beliefs, a claim to superiority without actually demonstrating it. Such dogmatic refusal, however, can be quite harmful to morality.19 The central issue is that assuming certainty when the evidence does not support it is highly damaging to ethics. There are genuinely difficult ethical decisions in the world. And especially when these issues have high

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stakes, they require our upmost care, attention, and intellectual humility in arriving at tentative conclusions. However, the cavalier attitude engendered by religious fanaticism works to undermine such ethical reasoning, leading to several types of problem. First and most basically, false certainty leads to much slower change and reform. We as a society do get ethics wrong (consider, for instance, slavery). But if we are nevertheless certain that we are right and refuse to have our beliefs questioned, course correction in such instances happens at a glacial pace when it happens at all. But second, a lack of deep reflection means more error in basic moral reasoning, contributing to the religiously motivated acts of immorality mentioned above. Lastly, it leads to religious justification of obviously immoral things. The view that anything goes as long as it is due to my religion is both ludicrous and dangerous. History has also proven such views to be wrong many times over. A third component that underpins both intolerance and fanaticism is what I call textual fundamentalism. This is an improper way of reading religious texts that thereby contributes to many of the problems discussed above, going hand-in-hand with religious fanaticism. Generally, textual fundamentalism represents a failure to acknowledge the myriad difficulties inherent to religious texts20 combined with a certainty that the texts are being read correctly. More specifically, we can define textual fundamentalism as the combination of three errors: (a) reading religious texts selectively, (b) reading them acontextually, and (c) not acknowledging that (a) and (b) are occurring. The moral problems caused by textual fundamentalism may not be apparent from the combination of these three errors alone. The problem is only made acute when we realize that religious texts must be read in context. We are generally talking about works that were written centuries ago, can have dozens of authors, were compiled, refined, and edited over the courses of hundreds, if not thousands of years, and were often transmitted orally for some time. The practical effect of these difficulties is that, when combining such sources with textual fundamentalism, one can get nearly anything they want to out of the text. It is very difficult to find anything that the Christian Bible, for instance, cannot justify in this way, which, in essence, allows the textual fundamentalist to think they have divine approval for virtually any action or belief, even license to kill.21

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This problem is exacerbated by the sheer immorality to be found in many religious texts (especially the texts common to exclusivist, orthodoxic religions). Consider the Hebrew Tanakh and the Christian Bible that later appropriated it. The God of the Bible frequently punishes the wrong people, orders and personally commits genocides, and commands the death penalty inappropriately—for instance, putting to death engaged females who were raped inside city limits,22 those that work on the Sabbath,23 and children that curse their parents.24 God also commands genital mutilation,25 supports slavery, punishes and commands punishment of innocent descendants of those that committed a crime,26 and endorses and aids in other immoral acts (such as providing the bears needed to murder the children that made fun of Elijah’s baldness.27 Elijah was an important figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, so this horrible story taints all three.) Other Biblical figures do not fare much better. Moses was a murderer, Jesus constantly damned and name-called those that disagreed with him and encouraged breaking up families, etc. The Qur’an and its figures (many of which are shared with the Hebrew Tanakh) suffer similar difficulties regarding God-approved war violence, as well as introducing other immoral challenges, containing verses that can be read to support child marriage28 and the oppression of women and violence against them.29 Such examples focus on the negatives of these texts, ignoring the positives, but that is the point. Selective, acontextual reading allows for such ransacking, providing divine justification for the most disturbing actions. Circumventing the problems entailed by textual fundamentalism leads to a paradoxical result. To avoid taking such morally depraved lessons from the texts requires that we read them through a framework of good reasoning and proper ethical principles. However, if we already possess the requisite reasoning and ethical principles, we simply do not need the text (or religion more generally) to teach us anything about morality. Ethics independent of religion will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 23. Here, I will simply note that, if ethical reasoning already tells us what is moral or immoral, then reading religious texts can only confuse rather than enlighten. This leads to the last religious contributor to immorality— the focus on the wrong thing. I am taking liberties by saying so, but it seems that religious belief in a higher power can only be valuable if that higher power is praiseworthy. However, we praise individuals for their moral worth, not their power. A deity who is actually worthy of worship would then, at minimum, be a moral exemplar, and desire and aid in

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our being moral agents. Put simply, a good god would first and foremost want us to be good.30 And while that message may be conveyed by a given religion, it is conveyed as a mere subset of the given commands and principles, which includes non-moral commitments such as dietary restrictions, requirements for worship, cleanliness, purity, the end of the world and, of course, metaphysical beliefs. The problem is that none of these additional commitments add to morality, but they can detract from it. They can do so by changing focus, diverting resources, or giving contradictory imperatives to those given by ethics. This point is perhaps the most basic—religion detracts from morality when it gives non-moral considerations equal or greater weight. As such, we have a simple criterion for both evaluation and reformation. If a religion’s chief focus is on making its adherents into better people (morally), then that religion is very likely to avoid all the difficulties given above and likely has a positive impact. If its focus is something else, it likely does not.

Challenging Questions – Has the impact of religion been overall positive or negative? Does this answer change if we restrict the question by asking about only the last century? Or only in the United States? Or asking about specific groups or sects? – If sacred texts must be read through the framework of reason to avoid pernicious morality, can they actually contribute anything to ethics beyond what reason already tells us? – What should the focus of religion be and why?

Further Reading – Martien E. Brinkman, The Non-Western Jesus – John Hick, Problems of Religious Pluralism – Elizabeth Anderson, “If God is Dead, is Everything Permitted?”

Notes 1. This definition is stipulative, and not intended to capture ordinary usage. 2. And it is important to realize that virtually all religions are some mixture of both, which is why we must talk in terms of more and less central.

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3. It is important to remember that Christianity is a family of religions rather than a single religion. The various Christian sects cover a wide spectrum in terms of the orthopraxy/orthodoxy scale. 4. Martin Luther’s defense of this doctrine, in contrast to the Catholic locating of salvation in faith and works, was a central dispute during the Magisterial Reformation. 5. Philosophers of religion often posit a middle ground, a third category called inclusivism, in which one religion has a privileged path to achieving the ultimate, but that adherents to other religions can (perhaps with more difficulty) achieve it as well. All three definitions follow that of Peterson et al., pages 573–575, but mine differ in shifting from talking about “salvation/liberation” to the more general pursuit of an “ultimate” in order to better capture more of the world’s religions. 6. Page 13. 7. Note that the lines get a bit fuzzy here. For instance, two individuals could both claim to be of the same religious sect, yet one be exclusivist and one be pluralist. As such, when I talk of a pluralist or exclusivist religion or sect, I am referring to one whose teachings tend toward that orientation and whose members are also generally of that persuasion. 8. This definition is from Ryden, page 8, who also presents a helpful discussion of these tenets. 9. Similarly, we find admirable moral commands in the Tanakh, such as Jeremiah 22:3, and the Qur’an frequently commands that we care for widows and orphans—Surahs 2:177, 2:220, 4:2, 4:6, 4:10, and 4:36, for instance. 10. Though not all deaths caused by religion are due to violence and immorality. Death and lesser harms also come from religious opposition to science and medicine, a topic we will discuss briefly in Chapter 19. 11. For a good, quick summary, see Moore, pages 228–229. 12. Most notoriously, the Baptist minister Richard Fuller’s defense in Domestic Slavery Considered as a Scriptural Institution. 13. Sinnott-Armstrong, page 77. 14. There is no shortage of studies linking religion to racism and intolerance in the U.S. Batson et al. Chapter 9, summarizes many of the earlier studies nicely. Of 38 studies considered, they found 37 findings positively correlating religion and intolerance but only two suggesting otherwise. Recent data from the Public Religion Research Institute also underlines some disturbing trends, finding, for instance, that white evangelical protestants are the only group whose majority believes that the U.S. becoming a majority non-white nation in the future would be negative, believes that immigrants present a threat to America, and overwhelmingly favors a Muslim-majority country travel ban. It further found that the majority of all white Christians believe that “socioeconomic disparities between

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black and white Americans are due to lack of effort by black Americans” (Vandermaas-Peeler et al.). As a second terrible justification, Fulcher of Chartres, witness to the events, also referred to decontaminating the city of pagans. 2:190-192. I say misapplication because the passage must be taken out of context to imply the relevant dehumanization. In context, it was about one specific event, specifically applying to the idol-worshippers of Mecca who had broken a truce with the Muslims. This underscores the importance of reading in context, which is then ignored with textual fundamentalism to be discussed below. Brian Leiter rightly points out that, “…no one has been able to articulate a credible principled argument for tolerating religion qua religion- that is, an argument that would explain why, as a matter of moral principle, we ought to accord special legal and moral treatment to religious practices” (page 7, emphasis his). It is, of course, harmful in many other ways as well—such as the negative impact to science, election of sub-par officials, etc., but these go beyond the scope of this chapter. For a presentation of such problems at their most general level, see Chapters 12 and 13. This may sound poetic, but it is not intended as an exaggeration, at least regarding ethics and metaphysics. The Bible, for instance, is not even consistent on what is arguably its own most important message, stating at least four different accounts regarding how salvation is to be attained. Deuteronomy 22:23-27. Exodus 35:2. Leviticus 20:9, reaffirmed in Matthew 15:4-7 and Mark 7:9-10. Genesis 17:14. See, for instance, Deuteronomy 23:3. 2 Kings 2:23-25. Surah 65:4. Surah 4:34. The focus on things besides this simple tenet is part of why religions of orthodoxy tend to be more morally pernicious than those that focus on actions.

References Batson, C. Daniel, Schroendrade, Patricia, and Ventis, Larry W. Religion and the Individual —A Social-Psychological Perspective, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1993.

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Gyatso, Tenzin. Answers: Discussions with Western Buddhists, edited by José Ignacio Cabezón, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, NY, 2001. Leiter, Brian. Why Tolerate Religion? Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2013. Moore, Andrew. “Theological Critiques of Natural Theology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology, edited by Russell Re Manning, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2013, pages 222–244. Peterson, Michael, Hasker, William, Reichenbach, Bruce, and Basinger, David. Philosophy of Religion, Fourth Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2010. Ryden, David K. “Introduction: The Evolving Policy Agenda of Evangelical Christians,” in Is the Good Book Good Enough?—Evangelical Perspectives on Public Policy, edited by David K. Ryden, Lexington Books, Lanham, MD, 2011. Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. “Overcoming Christianity,” in Philosophers Without Gods —Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, edited by Louise M. Antony, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2007, pages 69–79. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, NSRV, Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2010. The Noble Qur’an—English Translation of Meanings and Commentary, King Fahd Complex, Madinah Munawwarah, K.S.A. Vandermaas-Peeler, Alex, Cox, Daniel, Najle, Maxine, Fisch-Friedman, Molly, Griffin, Rob, and Jones, Robert P. “Partisan Polarization Dominates Trump Era: Findings from the 2018 American Values Survey,” October 29, 2018, available at: https://www.prri.org/research/partisan-polarization-dominatestrump-era-findings-from-the-2018-american-values-survey/.

CHAPTER 17

Personal Survival and the Afterlife

Types of Survival This chapter will consider some of the difficulties inherent in the notion of personal survival after death. Personal survival means survival not just of the life force, anima, non-dual Hinduism’s atman, etc., but of the personality, that is, of a continued consciousness that retains memory, distinct character traits, and the like. Views regarding personal survival are as varied as the religions that espouse them. However, we may helpfully sort them into three main types—resurrection, afterlife, and reincarnation. According to resurrection survival, the dead will be raised, perhaps in a different time or place, but with the same body.1 This is the view of some Christians (who refer to the “resurrection of the body”), but also captures other conceptions of afterlife where a seemingly mortal body is transported elsewhere, such as to Valhalla or Elysium. In distinguishing this type of survival, the key feature is that one keeps his or her own body, or some very close approximation to it. By contrast, afterlife survival posits the survival not of the body, but of the soul—some body-independent encapsulation of the personality. A common version in U.S. culture is the belief of heaven and hell, though there are many distinct notions. Lastly, there are those who believe in reincarnation survival. This is the doctrine of transmigration from one body to a different body, whether it be human or otherwise. The most famous version of the reincarnation doctrine is the Samsara of Hinduism and religions that branched off of it. However, we must be particularly careful of the complexities here. Many © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_17

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interpretations of Samsara do not entail survival of the person in the sense used here, and can also mix in versions of an afterlife.2 It is very rare for the defender of reincarnation to maintain that someone is reincarnated with all their consciousness, memories, etc. Instead, the claim is more commonly that of a personal essence with, at best, potential glimpses into memories of a previous life. This threefold distinction between versions of survival is then (roughly): survival of the same body, survival of the soul in a nonembodied state, and survival of the person in a different body. Notice then that the last two versions require the existence of some soul, a concept I will use as neutrally as possible, simply referring to something that survives death, is independent of the body, yet retains the essential personhood in terms of consciousness, memory, and personality. Positing the existence of such entities carries a whole host of problems, the presentation of which will be the chief focus of Chapter 20. For now, however, I will just summarize that the problem stems from what we know regarding the brain. We know the brain is responsible for memory, consciousness, and personality while we live, as damage or stimulation to the correct portions of the brain can affect any of these three in predictable ways. So a soul would need to be some sort of seemingly redundant backup system whose existence would need to be defended on philosophical, rather than scientific grounds. More will be said on this in the later chapter. Finally, it is important to realize that the existence of souls and personal survival more generally is entirely separable from the existence of a higher power. One can believe in one but not the other. This means that even if one possessed overwhelming evidence that there existed a higher power of a certain description, this by itself would not establish that humans somehow survived their deaths via any of these methods. To establish this would require a second line of reasoning and evidence to somehow justify either that such survival existed independently of a deity or that the description and characteristics of the deity would impel that being to creating some system of survival.

Four Types of Deficient Evidence Consider what kind of evidence could impel us to think that humans survive death in one of these senses. The inference seems incredibly difficult, first and foremost due to the impossibility of empirical evidence.3 No one has ever come back from death in the age of modern science4

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to discuss it. The so-called near-death experiences are just that, near death. Brain function did not cease completely, which means the (oxygendeprived) brain is still plausibly responsible for whatever visions occurred. So why think that death is not final when experience tells us the contrary? Setting aside claims that a deity’s existence would somehow entail it, there seem to be four approaches to making such an argument—revelation, moral considerations, the argument from consciousness, and the argument from a brain-independent mind. By far, the most commonly appealed to evidence regarding an afterlife is revealed theology, specifically sacred texts. For instance, both resurrection survival and afterlife survival are implied in the New Testament, afterlife survival is espoused in the Qur’an and the Avesta, and reincarnation doctrines are found in the Samhita, the Rgveda, and the Upanishads, as well as the Agam Sutras. Such appeals are so pervasive that it is rare to hear any other justification given for survival, at least by believers. For any who defend belief in personal survival in this way, their justification then rises and falls based on the quality of evidence provided by sacred texts. But since this is the case, that means that Chapters 12 and 13, in having established the Problems of the Many, of Selection, and of Transmission, as well as an abundance of textual errors, have therefore already cut off this avenue as an attempt to justify personal survival, and nothing more need be said about it here. Instead, we will briefly consider some other lines of argument intended to support personal survival. One such line of reasoning involves justice. It is undeniable that, in this life, bad things happen to good people and, conversely, the wicked are quite often rewarded for their wickedness or, at minimum, escape punishment. Many depictions of personal survival, in some sense, balance the scales. The good who are not rewarded in this life are rewarded after and, similarly, the wicked are punished. Lives that were unfair in this world (such as a murdered infant) may be rectified. Hence, a continued existence would allow us to say that existence is just after all, and some have argued for survival due to such considerations. The question is, do we have reason to infer it? This question must be answered in two parts. First, if we already know that there is some reason that the universe should be just, such as having good reason to think there is a morally perfect deity or that the laws governing karma and Samsara are actually part of nature, then we would also have reason to think that some form of personal survival must exist in order to rectify the inequities of this world. But again, if the arguments of the preceding chapters are persuasive, we

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have no such reason. Hence, the key question is whether the demand for justice, in and of itself, justifies such beliefs. The answer seems to be no. First, we must always be wary of an inference whose conclusion we want to be the case. The fact that we desire justice does not entail that it is achieved independently of our efforts. But the more general problem is that the required inference draws a conclusion that is opposite of what is implied by the evidence: The world is manifestly unjust. Therefore, it must actually achieve justice in some way. Without compelling additional reasons to think that the world is ultimately just, such an inference is patently absurd. It would be no different than a person giving you every indication that they are a scoundrel, so you infer they must be a saint in disguise. Without some independent reason to think that the world must balance the scales, we cannot and should not make such an inference. Hence, appeals to justice give no independent reason for thinking there is an afterlife, and stand or fall with whatever metaphysical reasons we have to think there is a just entity (whether a god or karmic law) outside of nature. A third line of reasoning seeks to give conscience a privileged position. One might argue that consciousness, by its own nature, is the kind of thing that must continue. However, there are several considerations that render this line of reasoning dubious. First, while it may be granted that consciousness is a strange phenomenon, we have little reason to think it is immortal and many reasons to think otherwise. Dreamless sleep establishes that consciousness can be extinguished, and there is nothing incomprehensible about the claim that we will, at some point, enter a dreamless sleep from which we never wake. Further emphasizing this, we know that our consciousness is not eternal. There was already a time (before we were born) that it did not exist, and further, it is something that developed as we grew. We were not born fully conscious. It grew with our experience and our brain function. Yet nothing else we know of that came into existence, grew, and developed is immortal, and there seems to be no principled reason to think that our consciousness is an exception. However, a last line of reasoning, related to this one, is the claim not that consciousness in and of itself must continue, but that consciousness establishes a mind that is somehow independent of the body. As such, there must be a realm of minds that is independent of the realm of bodies. Several of the threads already discussed undermine this view. First, as mentioned, we have overwhelming evidence to believe that what we call mind is dependent on physical processes of the brain.5 Second,

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even if the mind is somehow independent of the brain, this still gives no reason to think that there is an afterlife. If mind and brain are linked so incredibly closely in life, born together, developed together, and altered together, why would we assume they do not also cease together? And even if mind does continue, that does not establish anything like an afterlife or a reincarnation. A mind may simply be trapped in a bodiless existence with no ability to sense or interact. Lastly, there is a basic inference problem. If there is a mind independent of body, then it is a completely unique entity, unlike anything else we have experienced in the universe. The evidence required for positing such an entity would need to be overwhelming for us to believe in an entirely new kind of existence.6 We may conclude that, while all of these reasons to believe in personal survival may be drastically improved if there is also good reason to think that there is a higher power of a certain description, they tend to be nonstarters without the established existence of such a being. This means that belief in personal survival is, in a sense, faith-based. It cannot be meaningfully established independently of religious belief, and to reject the latter seems to entail a rejection of the former. If the arguments of the previous chapters are successful in establishing that the atheist does nothing unreasonable in rejecting such conclusions, then it follows that they also do nothing unreasonable in rejecting the various doctrines of personal survival. Having said that, the final two sections will raise problems with specific conceptions of personal survival that arise when we assume that, contra these arguments, there is a higher power of a certain description and that that being carries with it a doctrine of personal survival.

The Unjust Deserts As discussed above, justice is central to many depictions of personal survival.7 Further, maintaining divine justice would be required in order to achieve the moral perfection demanded by the depiction of a God of Theism. More generally, however, justice goes to the heart of worshipworthiness of a higher power. We have little reason to praise a deity that is capricious or unfair, to praise a creator whose creation is deficient in such a key quality as justice. To do so would be to praise power rather than morality, and would render such a being unworthy of worship. Yet there are compelling reasons to think that many typical depictions

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of personal survival lack this key attribute, that personal survival cannot achieve justice. First and foremost is the question of who survives. What is the mechanism by which a higher power selects who will be resurrected or not, who goes to heaven or hell, or who gets a better or worse life through reincarnation? A common answer is that at least part of the decision is determined by whether the person was of the correct religion, that is, the exclusivist claim that the ultimate is best achieved by one set of teachings and therefore one religion is most correct. However, if exclusivism is the case, it sets up a wildly unfair system because not everyone will have equal access to whatever that correct religion is. For instance, if the correct religion is some particular sect of Christianity, then it is nearly impossible for people who live in non-Christian parts of the world to discover and properly follow said religion. This could be because other religions dominate the culture and intellectual scene—such as in the Middle East and India, or because it is simply too remote to be reached by the message of that sect of Christianity—such as would be the case for the indigenous peoples of the Amazon Rainforest. But even (falsely) stipulating that it is possible for all of these people to discover and convert to that correct sect, it would still lead to a massively unfair system since unequal opportunity entails unequal effort. If one’s parents and culture are already of the proper sect, then one possesses an enormous advantage in ease of achieving salvation and, by contrast, it would be staggeringly more difficult for others. Such a system seems to lack fairness, and therefore justice. Reinforcing this point is the caliber of available evidence. If certain depictions of survival are correct, then knowing how to achieve it may be literally the most important thing that any human can learn. And yet, the main evidence and instructions given for such a system are holy texts that are incredibly opaque, due not just to the general difficulties discussed in Chapter 13 but to other difficulties specific to survival doctrines. For instance, if being a good person is relevant to one’s personal survival, then the mixed moral messages of sacred texts discussed in the previous chapter undercut this clarity further, as do the multiple, contradictory paths to salvation mentioned in the New Testament.8 But further, we can only start to try to dissect these sources if we have very good evidence for the existence of the higher power that inspired them. The sheer variety of religions among rational people in the world establishes that there is not exactly one way to interpret the evidence. Therefore, as above, this system would not be just, as people who process evidence in a certain way

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have an overwhelming advantage over those that process it differently. Yet such things do not seem to be under our control. A much more just system would then be to leave religious affiliation out of things and base survival judgments solely on moral considerations. While this is clearly the more desirable system, it creates difficulties of its own. First, if this determination of survival is correct, then religion becomes useless. If ethics is all that matters to achieving the ultimate, then religions should stop dealing in metaphysics, rituals, and the like altogether and just focus on morality.9 And while this would be a welcomed result among the secular community, it is less likely to be so among believers. Second, there are still concerns regarding justice as it relates to ability and proportionality. It is far from clear that everyone is equally positioned to succeed as moral agents, that due to factors beyond our control, it can be much harder or easier for different individuals to do the right thing.10 As such, even an afterlife based on moral deeds is not clearly fair. Further, if we start considering concepts like eternal life, eternal bliss, or eternal punishment, we seem to lose any claim to just deserts. There is nothing we can do with our finite existence that entails infinite reward; nor is there a crime for which infinite punishment would be appropriate.11 And as David Hume rightly pointed out, “Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float between vice and virtue.”12 A third concern regarding justice is the question of what happens with children who die. A common claim is that those that die young are rewarded after so as to balance out their poor lot in life. But it is not clear how such a system would work. For instance, do they get extra rewards for dying early (whatever “extra” means when we are already talking about infinities)? If so, does that mean that those who die young are actually in a privileged position? Or if there is a heaven and hell dichotomy, do all children who die before they come of age go to heaven? If so, then it is much better to die young, as there is no risk of damnation, but this gives those who live to adulthood a distinct disadvantage. Overall, if religious affiliation is included in the system of reward and punishment, the system (and the power that created it) is unjust. However, if we focus only on morality, the commonly defended system still seems to be unjust.

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Impracticalities Though concerns with justice seem to be the most significant problems for the commonly defended notions of survival, there are other issues as well. One concern defenders of afterlife survival have to deal with, for instance, is how to make sense of disembodied existence. What would count as bliss for someone deprived of all sensation? We have every reason to think that, even if consciousness is not entirely physical, sensation certainly is. A second interesting problem is to ask, would anyone actually want eternal life? It may sound appealing at first, but its desirability tends to fall apart upon examination. For instance, imagine that you have read not just every book ever written, but every book possible. You have read each hundreds of thousands of times, and yet you still have eternity to go. How will we spend eternity so that it does not become torturous boredom? If we try to fix this concern—say by maintaining that we will be so awed by the divine presence that we will not get bored, or that our consciousness will be fundamentally altered so as to achieve the same result, we seem to lose the notion of personal survival, because we have radically changed who we are and what it means to be conscious. The much more serious concern is that appeals to such infinite afterlives can have a practical impact by minimizing the importance of what we do in this world. For instance, popular conceptions of survival may lead me to be insufficiently concerned regarding whether someone escapes their just punishment, since I believe they will be punished regardless. I might also be less inclined to do important, meaningful things with my life if I think that, in some sense, my existence will never cease. I might also be less concerned about the catastrophic damage resulting from human-caused climate change if I think there is another world beyond this one, etc. I am not saying such reasoning is entailed by survival, but it is a threat that a defender of personal survival would need to overcome in order for the system to do more good than harm.13

Conclusion Though the discussions of this chapter have, of necessity, remained general due to the sheer number of nuanced accounts of personal survival, we may summarize as follows: First, support for survival independent of a deity or other metaphysical commitment is distinctly lacking. As such, if the arguments from the previous chapters are correct, then the

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nonbeliever is justified in rejecting such accounts based on this alone. But beyond this, accounts of personal survival introduce significant problems regarding divine justice, as well as other issues regarding overall desirability and practicality. So even if the believer can establish the existence of a supernatural being that would carry some notion of personal survival, their work is far from complete. They would then need to go further and develop a nuanced account of survival that would avoid the difficulties mentioned above. Such a task is difficult, if not impossible (depending on one’s intuitions regarding justice), and such challenges seem sufficient for the nonbeliever to reject any account that fails to plausibly resolve the issues.

Challenging Questions – How much, if at all, are depictions of the afterlife shaped by what people want to be the case? – Is there a notion of the afterlife that can preserve fairness and therefore justice? Why or why not? – What depiction of a system of personal survival would be most beneficial for acting in the world and why? Would this depiction be more or less beneficial than the doctrine of no survival at all?

Further Reading – David Hume’s, “Of the Immortality of the Soul” – Michael Martin and Keith Augustine (editors), The Myth of an Afterlife

Notes 1. To even say “same body” already introduces a slew of philosophical problems involving personal identity that were cause for much distress for proponents of this view, especially in the Middle Ages. There are concerns about whether a reconstituted being with the same matter is the same person or a replica and further concerns about whether such replication is even possible. For instance, consider a body that was rotted away and whose organic matter then fertilized plants that were eventually consumed by another human—this means they share parts and cannot both be entirely constituted if both are resurrected. Though such problems are

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2. 3.

4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

9.

10.

legitimate for resurrection survival cast in a certain way, they seem to lose the forest through the trees given the much larger problems that will be raised here. Perhaps the most important difference is that the goal is to reach moksha, the escape from such a cycle of survival, rather than eternal life. There have been attempts to establish empirical evidence for a mind that exists independently of the body using purported out of body experiences. But even if these studies were not so dubious, they would not establish that the mind continued after the death of the body. They will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 20. The problem is that hearsay from the unqualified cannot count as quality evidence. If someone claims they died, went to an afterlife, and came back, anyone, religious or otherwise, should be skeptical unless a credible medical professional had established said death. See Chapter 14 for more about the importance of scientifically confirmable cases. For a concise presentation of why we should think so, see Tooley, pages 93–97. But again, this will be discussed in much more detail in Chapter 20. Notice that this consideration is similar to the above in that it is incredibly difficult to establish independently but gets much easier if we already have certain beliefs in place. For instance, if we had good reason to think that there was a deity of a certain description, then we would already have precedence for thinking that there is at least one mind that is independent of a body. Hence, the problem is most acute when we ask whether minds existing differently than bodies give independent reasons to think that there is personal survival. Though certainly not all. Doctrines such as predestination or sole fide seem to entirely excise justice from salvation. There is a famous anecdote regarding the avowed atheist Bertrand Russell, where an angry Christian asked him what he would say when he stood before God’s throne for judgment. His answer was that he would say, “Not enough evidence God, not enough evidence.” Such a response would seem merited, given the myriad difficulties with belief emphasized throughout the text. This is certainly not a new suggestion. Baruch Spinoza, in his TheologicalPolitical Treatise (Chapters 12 and 13), suggests something close to this in describing how we should read the holy texts. However, he made his view sound more religious than it was by not clarifying that the pantheistic notion of “God” he was invoking was to be equated with “Nature.” In a similar spirit, Thomas Jefferson’s The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (commonly called the “Jefferson Bible”) cut the miraculous and divine out of the New Testament while retaining the moral teachings. See Nagel, who defends the existence of such “moral luck” (Chapter 3).

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11. And this problem becomes more acute if we have a personal survival doctrine in place. Murder is heinous, but the crime becomes less so if the victim is simply sent to a just afterlife prematurely. Anything like an infinite crime becomes impossible. 12. Hume, page 34. He also points out that such punishment, with no chance of redemption, is purposeless. 13. There is, of course, the argument on the other side as well, that a meritbased afterlife may inspire others to moral deeds. There are two problems with this, however. The first is simply that this flatly contradicts how we tend to think of ethics in a post-Kant world. Immanuel Kant had the important insight that any act I commit that is purely motivated by selfinterest is morally worthless. This seems true—ethics should be about something besides watching out for oneself. Yet if this is correct, then our committing acts just to achieve reward in an afterlife would also be morally nugatory, and why God would reward us for such worthless actions becomes nebulous. Second, though the subject is hard to study because it is difficult to know how someone would act if they had different religious beliefs, there is evidence to suggest that those who believe in heaven and a forgiving god are more likely to commit crime whereas belief in divine punishment may reduce it (See, for instance, Shariff and Rhemtulla. For a more recent review of the literature and a discussion of some of the methodological difficulties, see Sumter et al.).

References Hume, David. “Of the Immortality of the Soul,” in David Hume—Writings on Religion, edited by Anthony Flew, Open Court, La Salle, IL, 1992. Nagel, Thomas. Mortal Questions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1979. Shariff, Azim F., and Rhemtulla, Mijke. “Divergent Effects of Beliefs in Heaven and Hell on National Crime Rates,” PLoS One, Volume 7, Issue 6, 2012. Spinoza, Baruch. “Theological-Political Treatise,” in The Collected Works of Spinoza, Volume II , edited and translated by Edwin Curley, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2016. Sumter, Melvina, Wood, Frank, Whitaker, Ingrid, and Berger-Hill, Dianne. “Religion and Crime Studies: Assessing What Has Been Learned,” Religions, Volume 9, Issue 6, 2018. Tooley, Michael. “Does God Exist?,” in Knowledge of God, edited by Alvin Plantinga and Michael Tooley, Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, 2008, pages 70–150.

CHAPTER 18

The Case Against Christianity

A Special Case Since atheism entails the denial of any deity, the previous chapters have tended to follow a general line of rejection. Pursuing this strategy meant that the evidence thereby presented counted against many versions of theistic belief, religious or otherwise. The chapters on natural theology sought to cut off general lines of reasoning in support of a higher power or a good deity, and the chapters on revealed theology presented universal problems and challenges regarding appeals to any such evidence. This chapter will stray deliberately from that pattern, and will instead speak directly against Christianity.1 The reason for singling out Christianity is sociological. It is far and away the most dominant religion in the United States, not only in terms of its membership but also in the tremendous sway it holds over both culture and politics. Christianity is therefore the religion most relevant to this text’s readership. It is not only the most influential but also represents the most powerful source of animosity directed against atheists and nonbelievers. An important step in removing this animosity is to acknowledge, fully and honestly, just how difficult a posit Christianity represents. First, as with other revealed religions, it suffers from the many difficulties and failings that have been presented in the previous chapters. This includes the failure of natural theology to justify belief in a higher power, the problems and contradictions related to positing a God of Theism specifically, including the Problem of Evil, the difficulties involved in defending sacred © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_18

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texts and revealed theology more generally, and the negative effects on morality that exclusivist, orthodoxic religions bring. However, in addition to all the previously presented challenges, Christianity carries with it several unique and extremely difficult problems not found in other religions—problems of appropriating another religion, the assembly of the cannon around Jesus, Trinitarianism, and the Christian basis for salvation. As such, Christianity, far from the most reasonable, may well be the most difficult religion to defend. Realizing these difficulties, even if they were not enough to undermine rational belief in Christianity, should certainly be sufficient to show that detractors are not irrational, and to thereby disarm the “you’re crazy not to be a Christian” attitude prevalent in U.S. culture. As in previous chapters, we must, of necessity, speak in generalizations. In order to do so, it is helpful to consider what is meant by “Christianity.” Here, I will mean it as any religious commitment that maintains the following four tenets: 1. Christianity maintains Theism, as defined in Chapter 2, and is committed to the existence of a maximally perfect higher power. 2. Christianity maintains Trinitarianism, that the godhead takes the form of the Trinity—one God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 3. Christianity maintains that Jesus Christ was the Incarnation, the Son embodied in flesh, and that Jesus’s Resurrection is the basis of salvation. 4. Christianity maintains that these commitments are accurately described in the Christian Bible, with the Christian New Testament completing and fulfilling the Jewish writings Christians call the “Old Testament.”2 The conjunction of (1) through (4) is what I mean by “Christianity” generally. These tenets are not intended to be controversial or crafted so as to load the dice against Christianity. Instead, they are simply meant to capture most mainstream forms of Christianity and are deliberately stated at a level of generality that circumvents many of the theological disputes between sects.3 The issues underlying these disputes are thorny and complex. However, the problems discussed in this chapter should be seen as arising from general commitments, and therefore as problems for

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Christianity generally, rather than for specific sects.4 Let us then turn to four general problems unique to Christianity.

Religious Hijacking Christianity is unique not just in that it borrows heavily from a religion that came before it (after all, many religions do this), but that the intended absorption of pre-Christian Judaism is nearly complete. It claims Jewish writings for over half of its religious canon, and insists that Jesus not only fulfills the prophecies therein but also, in some sense, completes the religion. Such a religious hijacking entails a host of difficulties. The first and most basic is simply the temerity involved, of not only appropriating huge portions of the religion but of then telling the Jewish people that they have been reading their own written works incorrectly, that their sacred texts instead imply a totally different religion. More importantly, such a presumptuous claim seems to be radically undercut if the Gospel accounts are taken as accurate. In those accounts, the works, words, and ministry of Jesus were witnessed firsthand by many Jewish people. And while some followed Jesus, those that were experts on the Jewish scriptures (especially the Pharisees and Sadducees) were not only unpersuaded but were outraged by his claims. This would be incredibly strange if Jesus had even a modest claim to Messiahship based on the Jewish writings. However, as we will see later, he does not seem to. For now though, the most significant problem of Christianity’s appropriation of religious texts is that it seems to require the simultaneous acceptance and rejection of the Tanakh. In order to claim authority and Messiahship of Jesus, Christians must appeal to the Hebrew Tanakh. However, the central messages of Christianity undermine and replace its key tenets—such as the crucial claim that God is one5 and the centrality of the giving of the Law.6 “Judaism confirms that Judaism is wrong,” as a central message of Christianity seems to be a logical conundrum at the very least. And this unique challenge persists whether Jesus was a firstcentury Jewish reformer (as the Gospels seem to indicate) or had intended to spread his message to the Gentiles, as Paul of Tarsus insisted. Either would require the principled denial of parts of the Jewish Tanakh that cannot be assuaged by Jesus’s tenuous claim to Messiahship. But let us consider his claim.

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A Canon of Forced Fit As we have begun to see, problems arise when we try to center a religious canon around Jesus of Nazareth in the manner championed by Christianity. First, as mentioned, is how poorly Jesus fit the Messiah narrative. Without serious manipulation of the texts, the Tanakh does not imply that the Messiah would die an outcast.7 Psalms 22, for instance, gives no indication of being spoken by an intended Messiah.8 Instead, the Messiah of the Old Testament seems to be a political/military leader who would accumulate many victories and thereby receive much prestige and approbation, and eventually would be anointed king.9 Christianity must read most of the Messianic passages in a radically figurative and allegorical way. But even if such a reading is somehow motivated, the notion of Jesus as Messiah still has three additional significant textual difficulties. First, Jeremiah makes clear that the Messiah will be of the line of David, and this is further confirmed by multiple passages in the New Testament.10 But this means that Jesus cannot be the Messiah. It is true that the New Testament gives two lineages, one in Matthew, one in Luke, that trace the lineage back to David. However, in addition to the two lineages contradicting each other wildly, they are both lineages through Joseph. But if we are to take Matthew’s account of the Virgin Birth seriously (which indeed we must if we are to motivate the central claim that Jesus was born without Original Sin), then Joseph’s line is irrelevant, as Jesus is not of his blood. Only Mary’s being descended from David would fulfill the prophecy, but the Gospels give no indication of this.11 Second, the Messiah is supposed to be observant of the commandments of the Hebrew Law.12 However, even if we generously interpret this as his only needing to follow the Ten Commandments rather than the 613 Mitzvot, Jesus still violates and preaches against two Commandments—he fails to honor his own mother and encourages his followers not to do so either, and he performs forbidden work on the Sabbath.13 The last reason Jesus is a bad fit for the Messiah is a caution given to Jews. The Hebrew Scriptures14 warn Jews that if anyone preaches an unknown God (such as a God that encourages the rejection of the Law), even if said preaching is purportedly confirmed by wonders, miracles, and the like, to not be fooled, and to instead put said false prophet to death. Small wonder that they were not persuaded to Jesus’s new religion due to his miracles. In addition to being a poor fit for the Old Testament, Jesus also makes a sorry Messiah for other reasons. Apart from the immoral actions and

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teachings touched upon in Chapter 16, he is a very bad prophet. First, he frequently misquotes (or fabricates) scripture.15 This creates a dilemma for Christians, since it implies either that Jesus was not infallible or that the Old Testament scriptures we have are not the correct ones,16 either of which is extremely problematic for obvious reasons. But Jesus also makes faulty predictions, maintaining that the end of the world and the second coming would occur before all of his (then current) audience had died out.17 He also, at minimum, performs some funny math. Three of the four Gospels refer to Jesus predicting himself as being dead for three days,18 but the time from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning is only a day and a half.19 Beyond his faulty Messiahship, the other problem with assembling the canon around Jesus is that the manner in which it was done creates a ground very fertile for contradiction. The Old Testament frequently contradicts the New and is otherwise in deep tension with it. The inclusion of four Gospels leads to many additional contradictions, such as Jesus’s two distinct lineages mentioned above, but also leads to other strange inconsistencies, such as Mark’s ham-handedly cramming two distinct resurrection stories together as one.20 But third, Paul of Tarsus, who was the chief force driving Christianity from a Jewish sect into its own religion, seemed to be unfamiliar with the Gospels and many of their central messages, substantively disagreeing with Jesus on such issues as whether salvation requires exertion, whether obedience grants righteousness, whether celibacy is commanded, etc.21 These three sets of tensions between sources create a text ripe with contradictions, with documented lists numbering in the hundreds. Perhaps some of these contradictions could be forgiven if we had compelling reason to think that the descriptions of the events presented were generally accurate. However, there is a startling dearth of independent (i.e., Pagan) evidence in support of the Gospels’ historicity regarding the person of Jesus. The historical texts that mention him either just present a summary of what Christians believe about Jesus without providing any confirmation (this occurs, for instance, in the writings of Tacitus) or were seemingly doctored in order to support Christianity (as appears to have happened to Josephus). As such, Christianity simply does not have a better claim to historicity, as has sometimes been claimed, granting Christians no reprieve in their attempt to defend such a problematic canon.

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The Coherence of the Trinity The previous two problems have been largely evidential in nature. The last two, however, are philosophical, and persist whether or not the evidential challenges can be fixed. The first, quite simply, is how to make sense of the Trinity. It is typically described, as above, as one God in three persons, or sometimes it is presented as one essence, three persons, homoousion, three cosubstantial persons, etc. However, the fact that it is definable does not imply that it is a well-formed concept. One can, in some sense, define a round square, but that does not render the concept pellucid. The Christian concept of a Trinity is extremely difficult, and brings along with it worries of coherence, likelihood, and textual support. Before addressing these issues, however, it is important to cut off a specific line of retreat, the position that the Trinity must simply be accepted as a “mystery of faith.” This claim has a long tradition within Christianity,22 but is unacceptable for several reasons. First, as argued in Chapter 2, any faith-based appeal is inappropriate when it has the potential for real-world consequences. But second, to allow this avenue of reasoning seems to open Pandora’s Box. One can simply sweep any embarrassing or irrational belief under the rug as something that must be accepted as a mystery. If good reasoning makes something seem unlikely, incorrect, or impossible, then we should reject it rather than say it should be accepted for non-evidential reasons. Now it might be possible to avoid applying these mandates of reason specifically to the Trinity if we had overwhelming reasons to think that Christianity were true and accurate. If so, we might be able to accept some of its tenets without their explicit defense. However, this does not seem to apply here for two reasons. First, if the previous arguments are correct, then we entirely lack good grounds for thinking that Christianity is overall correct. But second, even if we had such reasons, this alone might be insufficient to establish the Trinity which, as we will see below, appears to come about as a result of various compromises in the early Church rather than having any firm textual or philosophical support. So let us return to the worries. The first, and potentially most devastating, is that the concept of the Trinity is incoherent and, as such, is the kind of thing that cannot be endorsed once its meaning is fully understood. Why think this? A caricature version of the problem is that one cannot equal three, no matter what mental gymnastics are involved. But this version is not charitable, as I am aware of no Christian that thinks that

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the Trinity requires maintaining that one equals three. Instead, things are less explicit, and center around the concept of personhood. Part of what it means to be a person, in the relevant sense, is a distinct identity. However, it is far from clear that the distinct identity required for personhood is compatible with the shared identity of constituting one God. Certainly, there is no precedence for such overlap in the experienced world; no known person shares an identity with another. The Trinity seems to require us to entirely jettison our traditional notion of “person.” Hence, someone who has stronger intuitions regarding the concepts of personhood or identity than they have intuitions regarding the Christian mysteries of faith will call the Trinity incoherent. Instead, the burden of proof seems to be on the Christian to explain how and why our standard notion of “person” should be so radically revised. But motivating such a revision seems incredibly difficult given other issues. First, even if such a complex, strange principle is coherent, the same issues make it prima facie improbable. As Richard Swinburne reminds us in context of the simplicity of the laws, …our ordinary practice, and that of scientists, historians and detectives, shows that we understand a hypothesis as simple to the extent to which it postulates few substances (entities), few kinds of substances, few properties, few kinds of properties, more readily observable properties, few relations between properties…and simpler kinds of relations between properties….23

If Swinburne is right about this, as he certainly seems to be, it follows that Trinitarianism is much less simple than alternatives. It posits more entities, more relations, more complexity of entities and relations, and fewer observables than alternatives such as any non-Trinitarian monotheistic deity (or no deity at all). It is therefore prima facie much less probable than its rivals, though determining exactly how much less probable would require a much deeper analysis than may be accomplished here. However, this lack of simplicity is certainly sufficient to establish the point of this chapter—the complexity of the Trinity is a special problem for Christianity that, everything else being equal, would render the truth of Christianity significantly less likely than other monotheistic conceptions, such as that of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, or Islam. Lastly, it should be remembered that the doctrine of the Trinity cannot even be justified by appealing to the authority of the Bible. As mentioned

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in Chapter 13, the only passage that comes close to an affirmation of the Trinity in the New Testament (the second half of 1 John 5:7) was not part of the original passage. It did not appear in any Greek manuscript, and was either an intentional insertion or a gloss that was later included as canon. But beyond this verse, there is no other explicit mention of the Trinity and nothing in the New Testament that even comes close to implying the doctrine. So where did the idea come from? The answer seems to be from a series of early ecumenical councils. The First Council of Nicaea determined that Father and Son were homoousios (one substance), and the later First Council of Constantinople determined that the Holy Spirit should be glorified with Father and Son. First, the very fact that Church Patriarchs had such a substantive disagreement that it needed to be settled in an ecumenical council shows that the doctrine is both very difficult and not at all clear from the texts. But second, faith in the Trinity is ultimately faith in the infallibility of the rulings of the early Church fathers, another position rendered difficult by the issues raised in Chapter 13.

Odious Salvation Perhaps the most objectionable aspect of Christianity is that its entire basis for salvation rests upon an absolute abomination of justice, manifest in both the Fall and the purported redemption brought about by the sacrifice of Jesus. The traditional Christian claim is that the Fall of Adam and Eve from paradise, described in the second Genesis creation account, created a rift between a perfect God and a now-damaged creation. This rift was the root of all suffering and death in the world, caused every descendent of Adam to be born with Original Sin, and could only be repaired by the divine sacrifice made by Jesus. This depiction has many difficulties, the most serious of which are the gross injustices that will be described below. But before that, it is worth briefly mentioning some of the other difficulties. Perhaps the most glaring is that it is entirely faith-based, as the Adam and Eve account cannot be read literally in light of modern science. It denies what we know about the age of the world, of evolution, of genetics, etc.24 But even if we have a more nuanced, non-literal reading, it still raises philosophical difficulties— why would a God construct a “perfect” creation such that a single mistake by one of the creations essentially ruins it? Further, is a God that forbids humans from knowledge of good and evil even praiseworthy? Is this not what makes us human and separates us from other animals? Lastly, tying

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to the points above, why think that the Jewish people who wrote the text are reading it wrong, and that we should superimpose such messages onto their religious texts? However, the most objectionable aspect of the Fall is the punishing of the innocent entailed by Original Sin. It runs deeply counter to our most basic notions of justice. We should never punish children for their parents’ mistakes, much less the mistakes committed by their most distant ancestors. Yet this is exactly what the doctrine of Original Sin implies. At its most extreme, Christians have maintained that unbaptized infants cannot attain paradise. Dante’s Inferno is a graphic example, placing them in Limbo, the first circle of Hell. But if one solves this injustice by simply doing away with the concept of Original Sin, the Christology of the Gospels falls apart. Hence, Original Sin seems to present a dilemma for the Christian; they must either accept a massive, systematic injustice on the part of their deity or drastically undercut the significance of Jesus and the Resurrection.25 The Christian account of Jesus’s death and Resurrection also contains a glaring injustice, but seems to have been repeated and accepted enough that it has become normalized. This is the very notion of a sinless26 Jesus “dying for our sins” and thereby allowing for eternal life, redemption, etc. But this dogma makes a truly horrifying depiction of God in two ways: First, it depicts a bloodthirsty deity that demands gruesome sacrifice, more fit for Hollywood than as the basis of a twenty-first-century theology.27 But the corruption of justice comes in whose blood is demanded. God forgives sinners because an innocent is ritually sacrificed in their place. This notion is nothing like justice. Imagine a judge who turned a murder free because an innocent citizen accepted the death penalty for them. Who gets punished is central to any notion of justice. But the Christian God seems to be the exception to even this most basic tenet of justice. Exacerbating the issue, there are Christians that hold that no one can be saved without Jesus simply because all humans are too wretched. Hence, we all deserve punishment. This brings with it additional problems of injustice. If it is true that all humans truly are that vile, then God is unjust simply for forgiving those that should not be forgiven. Excessive mercy is just as incompatible with justice as excessive punishment. But further, it calls into question the value of creation, of why God would create so many billions of despicable beings who would never be in a position to be saved. And of course, the other obvious problem is that not all humans are wicked, and many people seem to be better moral

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exemplars than those presented in the Christian Bible. It seems to be that the only way to motivate such universal depravity is through the system of Original Sin, the injustice of which was previously discussed. Overall, Christianity seem to have an intractable problem when it comes to motivating the need for Jesus’s sacrifice and Resurrection in a matter compatible with divine justice and worship-worthiness. The common accounts of the Fall, Original Sin, and a deity that prefers innocent blood to punishing the guilty miss this mark so badly that it is not clear if a Christian can fix the problem in a manner that preserves the Christology required for the religion. Overall, the Christology of Christianity seems to be based on gross injustices leftover from Pagan times that would have been dismissed out of hand if they did not carry with them the weight of tradition.

Challenging Questions – Are there sects of Christianity that score better or worse in regards to the four problems described? Why or why not? – Can Christianity be rendered just in a way that is still recognizable as Christianity? – In what ways, if any, do the problems outlined above entail or encourage tolerance toward other religions by Christians?

Further Reading – Bertrand Russell, “Why I am not a Christian” – Michael J. Murray and Michael Rea, “Philosophy and Christian Theology” at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – G. A. Wells, The Historical Evidence for Jesus – Michael Martin, The Case against Christianity

Notes 1. Which again, should be considered as a group of related religions rather than as a single one. Different sects of Christianity vary widely on crucial issues, including soteriology, ethics, personal survival, exclusivism, and the role of Christ. Having said that, I will continue to refer to this group as “a” religion for convenience sake, using “Christianity” when discussing

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topics on which the sects broadly agree and “Christianities” where they do not. For a philosophically nuanced statement of the Christian Creed, see Swinburne (2005, pages 199–203). It is in deference to disagreements between the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches that I do not say more about the relationship between the three persons of the godhead, for instance, and avoiding explicitly stating how the Resurrection leads to the achievement of salvation circumvents other significant disagreements between Christianities. Of course, sects that do not share these mainstream commitments may avoid the problems that stem from them. However, it is also important to realize that, while the scope of the chapter is problems with Christianity generally, these difficulties should not be seen as the only problems a given Christian sect faces. As mentioned above, they also face the problems inherent to Theism and revealed theology. Further, many sects have problems unique to their nuanced commitments, such as the moral and logical problems entailed by the doctrine of predestination. Deuteronomy 6:4. And this is to ignore, for the moment, how poorly Jesus fits many of the Tanakh’s descriptions of the Messiah. For a discussion, see Hoffman, page 13. And it is important to note that, since the Gospels were written with the intent that Jesus fulfilled the Hebrew Scriptures, it is not surprising that the language matches. It is very likely that portions of the Gospel were deliberately written to fit Old Testament claims. A particularly blatant example of this seems to be John 19:29-30. Here, Jesus’s disciples give him vinegar, thus “fulfilling” the claim of Psalms 69:21 that he would have nothing but vinegar to drink. The reason this seems like a deliberate fabrication to me is that, if it were my lord, savior, teacher, mentor, and friend dying a terrible death in the sun, I would like to think that I would spend a little extra effort in getting him some water, instead of just lazily dipping from the vessel of vinegar that happened to be present. Another potential fudging is the Virgin Birth issue previously discussed in Chapter 13. See, for instance, Genesis 49:8-10, Psalms 2:8-9, and Jeremiah 23:5. He shall also re-assemble the scattered Jewish people (Isaiah 11) and rebuild the Temple (Jeremiah 33:18). See, for instance, Matthew 1:1, Luke 1:32, Acts 15:15-16, and Hebrews 1:5, for instance. And of course, the Talmud, as well as the second century Greek philosopher Celsus, give Jesus’s father as a Roman soldier. For a summary, see Hoffman, pages 38–40.

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12. Isaiah 11, 2-5. This is also reaffirmed in Matthew 5:17. 13. Mark 3:31-35, Luke 14:26, and Mark 2:27, respectively. Deuteronomy 21:23 also tells us that anyone who is crucified is cursed by God. 14. Deuteronomy 13. Jeremiah 14:14 also warns of prophets lying about speaking in God’s name. 15. For instance, Luke 4:18, Mark 2:25-26 have incorrect quotations, and John 7:38 and Luke 24:46 have nonexistent ones. 16. The Gospel author(s) also include non-existent scriptures, such as that found in Matthew 2:23. 17. Matthew 16:28, Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, Luke, 21:32, etc. 18. For instance, Matthew 12:40, Mark 8:31, and John 2:19. 19. Other passages instead have “on the third day,” which is less obviously incorrect. We are still left with a dilemma similar to the previous—either Jesus gets details wrong or the Christian Holy texts do not capture his words accurately. 20. 16:1-8a, 16:9-20. 21. For a good summary of the tension between Paul and the Gospels, see Hoffman, pages 16–20. 22. For a typical, extended defense, see Aquinas, Part One, Question 32. Aquinas argues that articles of faith must be accepted as long as they are not impossible. However, if the Trinity is incoherent, as many have argued, then it would constitute one such impossibility. 23. Swinburne (2012, page 105). 24. An unfortunate side-effect of Christianity is that, by tying salvation to this second Genesis creation account, it encourages a literal reading of this text which then leads to anti-evolution and more general anti-science attitudes in the U.S. that have caused and continue to cause lasting damage. Of course, the account need not be read this way. For instance, more sophisticated accounts render the passage compatible with science by saying that Adam and Eve were the first ensouled humans, or that they were the first humans in the sense of being moral agents, recognizing right from wrong, etc. 25. Of course, there are attempts to escape this dilemma. Augustine (13.313.14) maintained that every human who would ever exist was “seminally present” in Adam’s loins, that, in essence, the choice to eat from the Tree of Knowledge was unanimous, so all punishment from Original Sin is just. Such an explanation seems to solve one problem by introducing a host of others—for instance, how was our consciousness fully formed and then unformed? If it is the same “we” who made such a decision, doesn’t this render our upbringings, teachings, etc. irrelevant to our moral development? Doesn’t this imply a radical determinism, since it has already decided all the people who will ever exist and how they would choose? Is

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it plausible to say everyone chose this path when many consciously deny that they would have? Etc. 26. Colossians 1:22, 1 Peter 1:19. 27. The anachronistic focus on blood, sacrifice, and even cannibalism is reaffirmed in the heavily Pagan-influenced ritual of the Last Supper (see, for instance, Matthew 26:26-27).

References Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologica. Complete English Edition in Five Volumes, Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Christian Classics from Ave Maria Press, Inc., Notre Dame, IN, 1981. Augustine. The City of God, translated by Gerald G. Walsh, Demetrius B. Zema, Grace Monahan, and Daniel J. Honan, Image Books, Garden City, New York, 1958. Hoffman, R. Joseph. Jesus Outside the Gospels, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York, 1984. Swinburne, Richard. Faith and Reason, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2005. Swinburne, Richard. “Bayes, God, and the Multiverse,” in Probability in the Philosophy of Religion, edited by Jake Chandler and Victoria S. Harrison, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2012, pages 103–123. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, NSRV, Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2010.

CHAPTER 19

Naturalism in the Sciences

The previous chapters have been largely negative in their conclusions, primarily arguing against the rationality of theism and revealed religion. The following three chapters will change focus, considering some positive reasons beyond natural atheology for preferring atheism and naturalism. Chapter 2 defined atheist naturalism as the view that there is nothing outside of nature. More specifically, we can say that naturalism is the ontological position that every possible object of our experience can be accounted for through purely natural forces and entities.1 Naturalism then entails that there is no reality beyond, outside of, or apart from nature. In the following chapters, we will consider the benefits of such a naturalistic worldview in science generally, in the human brain more specifically, and in the manifestations of world religions. We will see that adopting a naturalistic perspective brings the advantages of being more fruitful, offering better explanation, and overall being more likely correct. In contrasting naturalistic with supernaturalistic worldviews, it is important to realize how much they have in common. As discussed in Chapter 4, they both agree that the natural world exists—there is a world of universal and regular laws, a world where brains control bodies, etc. The evidence overwhelming supports such an interpretation of the natural world. The difference, and the source of many problems, is that the supernaturalistic worldview accepts the vast majority of naturalistic explanations, but then adds not just an additional explanation, but an additional kind of explanation. Though the laws of physics can © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_19

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seemingly explain all the workings of the world, they are also explained by divine providence. Though the workings of the body are explained through the physical processes of the brain, a soul is posited to explain some of the actions of the brain. Though we can explain the totality of religious phenomena through forces in biology, sociology, and politics, divine inspiration is added, etc. As we will see, such additional, redundant explanations add little, if anything, but bring with them host of difficulties. Because of this, it is important to realize that the choice is not between a naturalistic worldview and a spiritual worldview, but a naturalistic worldview and a naturalistic worldview with seemingly unnecessary, often clumsy, supernatural additions tacked onto it.2

Scientism Versus Scientific Naturalism Before arguing these points in more detail, it is vital to recognize what inference is not being made here. Consider the following argument: 1. The only truths are explainable by the sciences. 2. Supernatural religious claims are not explainable by the sciences. Therefore, supernatural religious claims are not true. The key premise here is premise (1), and it is the expression of a worldview often called scientism. We must be careful, however, as the term is ambiguous. It is true that the word, “scientism” can refer to the view captured by (1). Such a commitment is rightly denigrated as closedminded, dogmatic, and presumptive, as it assumes (most unscientifically) that there can be nothing outside of science. This form of scientism has been compared to a new or ersatz religion, unquestioningly worshipping science rather than a deity.3 By contrast, “scientism” may instead simply refer to being supportive of the methods and attitudes of scientists and the values of the sciences, a rational view to accept. To avoid this ambiguity, I will refer to the former as “cult scientism” due to its use of blind faith and the latter as “scientific naturalism.” The latter view is supportive of science but, unlike cult scientism, does not entail the conclusion that there is only scientific explanation. This lack of explanatory closure is important for two reasons—first, as hinted at above, to do otherwise is dogmatic in that it categorically denies the possibility of non-scientific entities. Adopting such a position undermines

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the commitment to evidentialism defended in Chapter 2. If evidence leads us to infer that there are non-scientific entities, we should be willing to alter our commitments accordingly. And this is central to the distinction between cult scientism and scientific naturalism. As we have seen, the former uses the ontological commitment to scientism to infer that religion is incorrect. With scientific naturalism, however, the inference goes the other way. The evidence supports that there are no supernatural entities and that the sciences are fruitful in discovering truths about the natural world. These two together imply that we should provisionally accept scientific naturalism. There is a second important reason to adopt the posture of scientific naturalism rather than accepting the explanatory closure entailed by cult scientism. Even if an atheist naturalist worldview is accepted as correct, it may well turn out that that worldview still ends up being incompatible with cult scientism. This is because fundamental aspects of our natural universe may turn out to be brute facts, that is, the kind of thing that in principle has no explanation. We have considered this possibility in our discussions of both cosmological and design arguments. Both types of argument relied on claims that there are places in which scientific explanation, in principle, stops—questions like, “why is there a universe at all?” and “why do we have these laws rather than others?” Determining whether these are questions that science, in principle, cannot answer would require a deep delve into theoretical physics, something that cannot be done here. However, as we have seen, even if we assume that these questions can never be answered by the sciences, it does not follow that that there must be a higher power involved in their answer because it does not follow that there are answers. The fact that there is a universe and that it has a certain set of laws may simply be brute.4 It seems quite plausible that, at some point, explanation stops, and that something must be accepted as brute. Such a position has sufficient plausibility that it should not be ruled out by fiat.

Methodological Naturalism In considering the advantages of a naturalistic worldview, a helpful place to begin is by considering benefits of the posture known as methodological naturalism. This designation is not about belief but about modus operandi.5 When following methodological naturalism, one acts as if ontological naturalism were the case. In certain contexts, this can be a

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very powerful tool for both the religious and nonreligious alike. As such, there is a sense in which the preference for methodological naturalism is religiously neutral (at least among professionals6 ). But before discussing the contexts for which it should be adopted, it is important to explain why the imperative to practice methodological naturalism is religiously neutral even when ontological naturalism is not. To begin, note that it is not as strange as it may seem to follow a method requiring us to assume something that we may not believe. Consider a few common scenarios: For instance, it is standard for professors of world religions to assume a neutral standpoint in their teachings, even if they are committed to a specific religion. In criminal law, a lawyer may adopt a position independent of their belief of a defendant’s guilt or innocence in order to do their job to the best of their ability. A teacher must set aside their beliefs regarding the caliber of the student whose assignment they are grading in order to give a fair and impartial grade. What do all these cases have in common? The adoption of a posture that assumes a position contrary to belief is proper when it is useful for achieving important outcomes other than arriving at correct belief. Similarly, it is because of its usefulness that the posture of methodological naturalism has become standard within the sciences—adopting it has proven much more fruitful than that of a supernaturalist posture. This simple truth is acknowledged by religious and nonreligious professionals alike and as such, the imperative for scientists and medical professionals to adopt a stance of methodological naturalism within their respective fields is not particularly controversial.7 At its most general, these fields require us to seek natural explanations for all observations. Why is the requirement for natural explanation so important? In addition to the reasons touched upon in Chapter 14, the major problem with allowing the positing of the supernatural is the premature end to explanation. Roughly speaking, a supernatural explanation for a phenomenon entails that science cannot explain it so science should cease trying. But such a move stagnates progress. To take a simplified example, if we blame those pesky witches for the crops dying in the low spots of the fields, we will simply accept that we cannot fix the issue (or possibly try to fix it in the wrong way, such as by trying to appease them) rather than discovering the real cause, overwatering due to a lack of irrigation. This example is simplistic but gets at the general point. A supernatural explanation implies that there is not a natural explanation and, thus no natural solution. But

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if we do not think there is a natural solution, we do not attempt to seek one out and therefore drastically reduce the odds of discovering one. And such problems do not exist entirely in the abstract. They still threaten progress.8 For instance, there is a theory of pseudo-science called “intelligent design,” a sophisticated version of special creationism that is purported to provide an alternative to Darwinian evolution. One manner in which it has been defended is by positing “irreducible complexities,” complex biological features whose individual steps are not fit for survival. As such, their existence is incompatible with evolution as accounting for everything in biology and would show that some higher power had intervened. Of course, no irreducible complexity has been discovered (if it were, it would be perhaps the biggest news story in history). Nevertheless, a biological feature is occasionally put forth as irreducibly complex by a supporter of intelligent design. But imagine if, instead of properly practicing methodological naturalism, such a claim was instead accepted at face value. To point at a feature and say “that is irreducibly complex” is to say that biology cannot explain how it developed and therefore should not even try. Accepting this claim would then rob us of all the important consequences that come from understanding how and why the feature arose through evolutionary processes. Fortunately, biologists instead practice methodological naturalism, so whenever pseudo-science has made the claim that a feature is irreducibly complex, scientists have been quick to disprove the assertion by showing how the feature is actually reduced.9 If not for methodological naturalism, such mechanisms would remain unanalyzed. Before moving on, there is a second way in which the introduction of supernatural explanations into the hard sciences can cause harm—overdetermination. Positing the supernatural as part of an explanation introduces a second kind of explanation for the same phenomenon. But the threat of redundancy in explanation makes the answer undeterminable. Suppose that, using the example above, we instead ruled that the crops were dying because the witches caused the lack of proper irrigation. How then do we fix the problem? Do we try to appease the witches, do we try to irrigate properly, or both? Or to take a more realistic problem, suppose someone believes that a medical issue should be resolved through prayer. Do we pray instead of treatment, as is suggested by Christian Science? This seems extreme. Instead, it is much more common in such cases to pray and treat. But suppose the patient recovers. Because we have introduced two kinds of treatment, we cannot determine which succeeded or

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why. In this case, it is not very problematic to introduce two treatments, but we certainly cannot abide two diagnoses. If someone posits the Devil and arthritis for joint problems, then duel causes can prevent us from treating properly, etc. The solution, consistent with methodological naturalism, is to keep the natural and the supernatural separate—let the doctor tend the body and the shaman treat the spirit. This is a methodological version of the view known as non-overlapping magisteria, the view that science and religion are different branches of human inquiry that therefore cannot be in conflict.10 It is a methodological version because, like naturalism above, one need not accept a belief in non-overlapping magisteria as correct, but simply act as if it were. Overall, methodological naturalism is much more fruitful than the alternative, the positing of occasional supernatural explanations in a largely natural framework. The latter, to our detriment, encourages an end to fruitful scientific inquiry, and can make precise explanation much more difficult, if not impossible due to overdetermination of explanation. Hence, methodological naturalism should be encouraged as a general practice within the hard sciences and medicine. Having said that, it is important to remember the discussion in Chapter 14, that there are at least conceivable extreme cases where the apparent failure of natural explanation may cause even the scientist to step out of naturalistic thinking in order to countenance the possibility of a supernatural explanation—cases such as someone parting Lake Erie, confirmable cases of resurrection, etc. Hence, although methodological naturalism is both standard and recommended, we ought not allow it to cause us to slip into cult scientism.11 However, it is important to remember that no case like this has occurred in the modern age, and that granting their possibility does not grant their actuality.

Past and Future Success We have seen the imperative for science to be practiced naturalistically. Yet, as discussed, this imperative is religiously neutral, as even a religious individual can and should acknowledge the value of pursuing the sciences in this way. If we simply left things at that, we are given very good reason to adopt methodological naturalism and to thereby ensure the secularization of the sciences. But as presented, this result, while extremely important, does not provide support for atheist naturalism as

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an ontological framework. However, we will now consider why the overwhelming success of methodological naturalism does support the truth of ontological naturalism. The reason why is an application of the Axiom of Induction introduced in Chapter 8. It is expected that methodological naturalism would be successful given the truth of ontological naturalism. However, such fruitfulness would be surprising given any of its supernaturalist alternatives (or at least, expected to a lesser degree, which amounts to the same thing when it comes to comparing rival hypotheses).12 This is because, while there is a very plausible, straightforward explanation for the success of methodological naturalism given ontological naturalism, this does not seem to be the case for any version of supernaturalism. Put another way, in order for the success of methodological naturalism to not support ontological naturalism, we would need an equally compelling reason for thinking that methodological naturalism would be so successful given a supernatural account of the universe. Why is it that the sciences have not discovered or utilized anything supernatural, and why has the introduction of supernatural explanation instead harmed the sciences? Answers to these questions will vary depending on the version of supernaturalism being defended, but any answer would need to explain why a god never interferes with nature in a scientifically observable and documentable way and why the sciences discern no evidence at all of past interferences. The least problematic answer would be to support the existence of a hands-off (and therefore areligious) deistic deity, one that creates the world so that it could run on its own thereafter without miraculous intercessions. But even this view needs to answer questions like why did that deity set up the world in a way that belies no evidence of consciousness in a creative act, revealing no patterns that would be predicted by specific descriptions of such a being (such as the wicked suffering more than the righteous if it is a just deity, etc.), or more generally, why did that being set up the laws in such a way that they are functionally identical to what a naturalistic universe would look like? Of course, the atheist naturalist need not claim that these questions cannot be answered by a sufficiently sophisticated account, only that they will not be answered with a degree of economy and plausibility equal to or better than the account of why ontological naturalism implies the success of methodological naturalism. However, the problem is amplified if we turn to the supernatural accounts given by religion. The more a god purportedly interferes with

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nature, the more difficult the view is to square with the success of methodological naturalism and the less plausible the explanations for that success become. Why, for instance, does evolution account for all known biological features? Why does prayer have no discernable effect in reducing surgery complications?13 Why do diseases and disorders seem to follow the distributions of genetic recombination rather than having anything to do with morality, just deserts, or other notions of a “chosen people?” Such results are extremely challenging for views of a god that not only interferes but is swayed by the prayers of the faithful. And as with the case with the hands-off deism, we need not say that these questions cannot have answers, or even good answers; only that any such answer will not succeed in explaining the fruitfulness of methodological naturalism as well as the ontological naturalist hypothesis. For these reasons, the success of methodological naturalism gives us reason to accept ontological naturalism over a supernatural account. However, the degree of said support will depend on how well (or poorly) the given supernatural accounts explain the success of methodological naturalism given supernaturalism. Before turning to naturalism in human brains, I would like to end this chapter by considering an important but less tangible benefit of the naturalistic worldview, one that can deeply impact human psychology. A naturalistic world is, in an important sense, a safe one. One need not worry about bogeymen in one’s closet, or angry spirits, or divine smiting for barely fathomable reasons.14 There is no need to agonize over what I did to deserve a tragedy that befalls my family or concern myself over diabolic temptation and influence. The world is such that everything has a natural (and therefore, in principle, knowable) explanation. The world is governed by extremely strict natural laws that nothing can contravene.15 Such a realization is and should be a source of deep psychological comfort. The power that the fear of the unknown holds over us shrivels under the solace provided by ontological naturalism.

Challenging Questions – Has religion ever helped science? Is methodological naturalism the standard because religion has never helped or only because it causes much more harm than good within the sciences? – If religion and science are indeed non-overlapping magisteria, what revisions of religion would be required such that it does not tread on any scientific claims?

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– When religion pits itself against the sciences, it tends to lose in the long run. However, when it encourages and accommodates the findings of the sciences, it is much more formidable. What is the best way for religion to encourage science without undermining its own claims? – Do quality explanations as to why supernaturalism would imply the success of methodological naturalism undermine the expected benefits or special qualities of those accounts? Answer this question by considering the supernatural account with which you are the most familiar.

Further Reading – Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science – Del Ratzsch, “Science and Religion,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology – Robert C. O’Connor, “Science on Trial: Exploring the Rationality of Methodological Naturalism” – Paul Draper, “God, Naturalism, and Science”

Notes 1. My definition closely follows Purtill’s notion of “metaphysical naturalism,” page 69. 2. As discussed previously, the scope of supernatural claims is important here. For instance, a deist view of a god that creates but does not miraculously interfere post-creation does not run into many problems of redundant explanation. Similarly, a religion that posits gods but not souls may avoid difficulties with brain, etc. 3. Friedrich Nietzsche called this the unconditional will to truth, a replacement for religion that ultimately entailed the same failings. 4. Recall that a central dispute in Chapters 7 and 8 is that, for the inferences to work, the theist would need to maintain that the existence of a god is somehow a better explanation for the existence and structure of the universe than no explanation. Yet this claim is made very difficult in that the existence of said god would be unexplained in any meaningful sense, so it is not clear how positing a god as a brute existence provides a more satisfactory answer.

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5. To disambiguate the two, I will refer to the naturalist position that every possible object of our experience can be accounted for through purely natural forces and entities as ontological naturalism. 6. If we expand the scope beyond professionals to include the general public, we see an entire spectrum of views, including those that are fully committed to religion interfering with or opposing science. We see glimpses of this in the particularly U.S. phenomenon of Christian attacks on evolution or even the age of the world or government restrictions on stem cell research, which are clearly religiously motivated given the lack of secular considerations against it. 7. Of course there are controversies, but they generally occur in fields like world religions, ethics, and philosophy of mind, not in the hard sciences. 8. I take it that science can and does make progress and that this is overall a good thing. I, for one, have no desire to live in the technological equivalent of the Dark Ages, where the average human lifespan was significantly under forty. Though science and technology are far from perfect, I believe that they have overall improved mankind, and most of the problems to which they have been attributed are actually problems with mankind’s lack of ethics, sense of fairness, and critical thinking rather than problems inherent to science and technology themselves. 9. An infamous case is when Michael Behe put forth the flagellum as irreducibly complex, prompting a slew of scientific papers refuting the claim by showing how it would be reduced in a manner explainable by evolution. For a good discussion, see Miller. 10. The concept of non-overlapping magisteria was developed by Stephen Jay Gould, although he defended the view as correct, that is, that they are wholly separate domains, rather than simply defending that it is methodologically helpful to treat them as such. His view is often criticized because, while it is true that religion and science should be separated, in practice, the two clearly are not. Religion steps into science all the time, not just in extreme cases such as intelligent design, but even in offering supernatural cosmogonies, origins of humans, and the like. 11. Following methodological naturalism while still allowing such possibilities is close to what Draper calls “modest methodological naturalism,” which says to follow methodological naturalism but to invoke supernatural explanation only as a last resort (page 297). Such a view has merit, even among supernaturalists because, as discussed above, even they grant that the natural explanation is the correct one the vast majority of the time and should be the default explanation. 12. For a more thorough version of this kind of argument, see Draper. 13. The study demonstrating this was discussed in more detail in Chapter 14. 14. I say “barely fathomable” due to problems regarding a lack of just distribution raised in Chapter 11. Even if I think that my religion has the inside

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track on appeasing god(s) and thereby receiving rewards and avoiding punishment, I must still acknowledge the historical fact that others who share my religion have still met with tragedy, etc. and so, at best, my success is not guaranteed. Hence, the cloud of worry is not fully and adequately dispelled. 15. For a more extended discussion of this point, see Antony, pages 56–57.

References Antony, Louise M. “For the Love of Reason,” in Philosophers Without Gods — Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, edited by Louise M. Antony, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2007, pages 41–58. Draper, Paul. “God, Science, and Naturalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion, edited by William J. Wainright, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2005, pages 272–303. Miller, Kenneth R. “The Flagellum Unspun—The Collapse of Irreducible Complexity,” in Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA, edited by William A. Dembski and Michael Ruse, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2004, pages 81–97. Purtill, Richard L. “Defining Miracles,” in In Defense of Miracles —A Comprehensive Case for God’s Action in History, edited by Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 1997, pages 61–72.

CHAPTER 20

A Soulless World

The previous chapter presented the advantages to pursuing methodological naturalism within the hard sciences and argued that its success is best explained by the truth of ontological naturalism. This chapter will be, in some senses, a more specific application of this result, as it considers the advantages of applying a naturalistic worldview to the human mind. It will do this in three stages: First, it will draw out the sheer oddity depicted by a mind that is somehow independent of the brain. Next, it will show why human consciousness as a product of physical processes is nowhere near as strange as it may seem before going on to present compelling reasons to think that a naturalist view should be accepted over one that posits a mind that is independent of the brain. Before that, however, we must clarify terminology and situate the scope of the discussion in terms of religious belief. Terminology regarding minds can be confusing, so I will begin by stipulating more precise language. I will use “mind,” “thought,” and “consciousness” neutrally to capture the common experience of the mental goings-on that we, as humans, have. To say these are used neutrally means that they carry no ontological commitments. These terms will not distinguish whether thoughts or the things that have and are aware of said thoughts are purely physical or something more.1 When I intend to make the distinction, I will use brain to refer to the purely physical, naturalistic object, and spirit to refer to an entity that is non-physical,

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yet retains essential personhood in terms of consciousness, memory, and personality.2 Corresponding to the brain and spirit, we can then distinguish two broad categories regarding the nature of the thinking thing: a supernaturalistic category of minds (which I will just call supernaturalist) that is committed to the existence of a conscious spirit responsible for thought, and the naturalistic category of mind (which I will just call naturalistic) which denies the existence of a spirit and instead maintains that thought and consciousness are, in whatever form, entirely a product of the physical brain. These are categories rather than specific views because such bare commitments are incomplete as accounts of philosophy of mind, and either category can accommodate many nuanced variations, especially when it comes to parsing out exactly what thoughts and intentions consist in. Though such details are important, they are chiefly topics of philosophy of mind rather than philosophy of religion.3 That is why the important distinction being drawn here is not what thoughts are but what the thinking things are—whether minds exist independent of the brain or not, and the rest of the chapter will focus on general considerations for preferring a world of brains without spirits. However, as we have seen in previous chapters, the defender of the supernatural grants the commitments of the naturalist (i.e., that there is a brain) but adds something supernatural beyond this. They claim that, in addition to the brain, there is a spirit. The brain still runs bodily functions such as breathing, still lights up in certain patterns and in certain areas in a manner concurrent with certain thoughts, stimuli, and other activities. That is, both views accept observations that your brain “flashes” in a certain way when you have a certain thought or stimulus. However, the general supernaturalist4 claim is that the spirit controls and/or affects the brain (or at least the functions of the brain tied with consciousness and intent). Hence, the spirit that is actually having this thought is somehow responsible for the “flash” and that, once the spirit activates the brain, the rest is the usual neurological story told to us by the sciences. More will be said on this in the next section. Choosing between these two types of worldview carries two significant religious ramifications. The first is that two of the three common depictions of an afterlife depicted in Chapter 17 require a soul, that is, an eternal spirit. The systems of both afterlife survival and reincarnation survival require a spirit and therefore entail an alternate view of the mind than any of those proposed by the naturalist. Second, the coherence of a

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spirit independent of a body is closely tied to the coherence of a bodiless god. Establishing that there are spirits that control brains would serve as a powerful precedence for a god- it would establish that there are nonphysical entities that can seemingly ignore the laws of physics and still affect the physical world. Hence, the existence of spirits would weaken the case for atheist naturalism (though it would only be a very small foot in the door for establishing theism).

Ghosts in Machines In his groundbreaking work, The Concept of Mind, Gilbert Ryle presented a now-famous criticism of the common supernaturalist view of spirits controlling brains. The view he called the “Official Doctrine,” also known as Cartesian or interactionist dualism, maintains that there are two kinds of things (hence “dualism”), distinct mental and physical substances, that causally interact with each other. The mental substance (what I call spirit) can cause physical effects, such as consciously willing my arm to go up and then its doing so through intermediate physical processes. But the physical can also cause mental effects, such as registering pain when my hand gets slammed in a door. If the locus of consciousness is a non-physical mind, i.e., a spirit, then anything in the physical world that impacts our thoughts is an instance of such interaction. However, on this view, there is no physical component of consciousness, so the brain becomes a mechanistic interchange between the spirit and the rest of the body. Ryle, with intentional disparagement, called this view “the Ghost in the Machine,” a disturbing but apt summary of the system depicted.5 Though we will look at some of the problematic entailments of this view momentarily, it is important to first realize why Ryle calls this view the “Official Doctrine.” Briefly, this is the prevalent unexamined view, capturing the commitments of those who have never seriously (or philosophically) considered the topic or any of the difficulties that the view entails. People believe that they have a mind. People believe that they have a body. People believe that their consciousness is a thing, and yet that thing seems distinct from a collection of physical processes. And further, physical causes clearly can affect the mind. As such, the significant motivation for this view does not seem to be religious in nature but is instead indicative of the power of folk psychology. Left unanalyzed, things simply seem this way, and such a depiction is overwhelmingly the most common supernaturalist view of mind.

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Of course, neither folk psychology nor any other appeal to how things seem prior to close examination is a reliable guide to reality. It does not seem that our nose is in our vision unless we specifically pay attention to it. It seems that we see the sun where it is, rather than seeing where it was eight and a third minutes ago. The Earth seems to be sitting still rather than moving thousands of miles per hour in multiple ways. Heat does not seem to be mere motion but we know that it is. These examples are not intended to turn us into skeptics, and it may be fine to accept something at face value when there is not evidence or argument against it. However, this is not the case regarding a spirit distinct from the brain. The oddities and absurdities entailed by the Official Doctrine, as well as the overwhelming evidence against it provided by neuroscience, are such that we cannot simply follow folk psychology and accept this position at face value. Instead, we should be much more critical than we are and, at minimum, should not see a dualist picture as the default, standard view. I strongly suspect that, while religion is not the prime motivator for the doctrine, the entanglement of religious commitments, as well as our related desire that we are something more,6 prevents us from being as critical of this worldview as we should be. Before we turn to some of the inherent strangeness of the supernaturalist spirit-and-brain worldview, it is important to recognize two things: First, the sophisticated versions of the view do not have a spirit moving the body directly but only influencing the relevant parts of the brain. The spirit does not move the hand but causes the “flashes” in the lobes of the brain (at minimum, the parietal, frontal, and temporal). This leads to activity in the motor cortex, which loops both the basal ganglia and the cerebellum. The axons of the neurons then transmit the signal down the spinal cord, and so on, leading to the voluntary movement of the hand. Second, we must realize that any view of the mind is a philosophical theory, and that science can neither confirm nor disprove it (though it may render certain views more and less likely, as we will see below). For instance, what we know for sure is that certain parts of a person’s brain “flash” when they have a certain thought. However, it is a matter of philosophical interpretation7 whether the “flash” is caused by the thought, causes the thought, is the thought, or some other, more complex relation. As such, we must consider evidence as better explained by one worldview or the other rather than as proving one and disproving the other. We must bear these two qualifications in mind to avoid creating straw men.

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The biggest problems with the Cartesian supernaturalist view center on the lack of plausible story as to how physical events affect non-physical minds. The crucial issue is not things like sensation and registering pain, but when physical causes like mind-altering substances and brain damage alter our consciousness and personality. For instance, the medical sciences have a very clear explanation as to why excessive alcohol affects the brain. Yet no such explanation seems to exist as to why brain processes impacted by alcohol would also affect a purportedly non-physical, independent spirit. Saying that the physical effects of alcohol on the brain lead to problems with motor control are consistent with the supernaturalist view, as one can claim that the spirit cannot control the body properly when the intermediary, the brain, is impeded. Hence, such problems can be plausibly located in the brain instead of the spirit. But this story gives no reason why alcohol also alters one’s consciousness which, if supernaturalist dualism is correct, is entirely independent of the brain. Why are one’s memory and inhibitions altered by chemistry? Why is the thinking process slowed? When ethanol reduces the effectiveness of glutamate (an excitatory neurotransmitter), that should certainly impact a physically grounded consciousness, but why would it impact an independent mental one? There seems to be no plausible answer to this question. At minimum, no attempted answer will be as plausible as that given by the naturalist account. The problem of physical alterations to consciousness is even more acute when we turn to brain damage. For instance, isolated damage to the parietal lobe can cause facial agnosia, where the victim loses the ability to recognize faces, even of those close to them. To be clear, this is not because the face cannot be sensed. There is nothing wrong with the patient’s sensory apparatus. Instead, the mind no longer processes facial patterns correctly. It cannot put them together, so to speak. Cases like this speak very strongly to the brain, rather than a non-physical consciousness, as being the source of certain types of thought and awareness. Similarly, we know that parts of the cortical area are vital to speech and to language comprehension. Damage to Broca’s area leads to an inability to perform coherent speech, while damage to Wernicke’s area impairs comprehension of speech, even when the victim’s ears are functioning perfectly.8 Or consider permanent mental impairment caused by oxygen deprivation, especially hypoxia at birth. This lack of oxygen can cause brain damage which leads to many mental alterations, including autism, behavioral problems, ADHD, and learning disorders. But this means that

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a purely physical process can have a radical impact on one’s consciousness in terms of the formation and development9 of personality. Stories as to how independent spirits are impacted by such physical processes are simply lacking. If the brain is merely the interchange between the spirit and the body, brain damage would cause problems with controlling the body, but it seems like it should not cause such deep alterations to consciousness and personality.10 Lacking a plausible account of why it does so, the Ghost in the Machine remains a highly problematic depiction of the human mind.11

Mental Machines By contrast, the naturalistic views that have consciousness originating in the brain have no such difficulties in explaining cases like those mentioned above. Though, there are many naturalistic views of consciousness that reject Cartesian dualism and may explain these phenomena slightly differently, none will face the same challenges as those that posit an independent spirit. A materially grounded mind perfectly accommodates the data from mind-altering substances and brain damage. So why is there pushback against the brains without spirits worldview? Besides the impediments to critical analysis mentioned above, the view that consciousness is somehow a product of the brain can be seen as counterintuitive in three ways: first is the fact that neuroscience has not provided a wholly satisfactory account of consciousness. Second is the sheer complexity of consciousness, which seems to be something not replicable with machines. Lastly is the view from phenomenal experience; put very roughly, it sure seems like we are conscious in a non-mechanical way. However, none of these three are as compelling or as damaging to a naturalist view as they may seem at first blush. Regarding the first worry, there is a standard distinction between what are called the easy problem and the hard problem of consciousness. The former simply tracks what is going on in the brain concurrent with consciousness, with certain types of thoughts, etc., for instance, determining what parts of the brain are active and in what way when you are thinking about someone you love. Neuroscience has been very successful with such easy problems over the last two decades. As discussed above, however, knowing what part of the brain “flashes” at a certain thought or activity does not distinguish between a brain-based consciousness and a spirit-based consciousness that interacts with the brain. This relates to the

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hard problem- determining what consciousness actually consists in and what causes it. The dauntingness of the hard problem is at the heart of the first counterintuitiveness worry. The question becomes, is the hard problem hard enough to impel us to cling to ghosts in machines? It seems not for three reasons: First, we must realize the scope. In order to show that the dualist picture is incorrect, we need not solve the hard problem and determine what consciousness is, full-stop. We do not even need to show that the brain is conscious. Instead, we need only show that consciousness is a product of the brain. Even if we do not understand how it is caused or what it consists in, establishing that it is physically caused is sufficient to undermine the supernaturalist dualist view, regardless of whether we solve the hard problem. Second, we must recognize that there is an important difference between being explained and being in principle explainable. The fact that consciousness as a product of a physical brain has not been explained does not entail that it cannot or will not be explained.12 And third, related to this, while neuroscience is certainly incomplete, it is promising. It continues to achieve significant results and to explain what had been previously mysterious. So the question becomes, is the hard problem so hard that, even given the stable progress of neuroscience, we will never, in principle, to be able to explain a cause of consciousness grounded within the activity of the brain? Given the progress that has been made, some of which will be discussed below, we have no compelling reason to accept such a pessimistic posture. Let us now turn to the second counterintuitiveness worry, whether the complexity of consciousness is too much to be explained as the product of purely mechanical objects and processes. “Complexity of consciousness” may not be clear. The worry is that we cannot get non-human things to act like or imitate humans, and some take this to indicate that non-human things cannot be responsible for consciousness. This may be drawn out by considering the Turing Test competitions. Named after Alan Turing, a Turing Test is one in which a judge has a conversation with either a person or a computer. A computer would pass the Turing Test when the judge could not tell which was the human and which was the computer. To date, no computer has passed, and they have failed due to what I have called the complexity of consciousness. Language, thought, stream of consciousness, reaction to environment, reaction to the words of others, and a hundred other forces coalesce in a single conscious mind.

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But does human consciousness seem so complex that it could never be explained or replicated by machinery? There does not seem to be any non-dogmatic reason to think so. First, the human brain is quite literally the most complicated thing we know of in the universe, a combination of 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections, configured for parallel distributed processing (as opposed to the much less sophisticated serial processing).13 Hence, the (current) failure of Turing Tests means little, especially when computers continue to improve their test performance over time. The question should be whether a computer exponentially more advanced than the most advanced supercomputer to date, given millions of years of additional programming,14 could plausibly do so. To insist on a negative answer seems like nothing more than a dogmatic stamping of one’s foot. Let us conclude by considering the phenomenal concern, the worry that it simply does not seem like consciousness can be based in a physical thing. G.W. Leibniz famously articulated this point in his Monadology: …the perception, and what depends upon it, is inexplicable in terms of mechanical reasons, that is, through shapes and motions. If we imagine that there is a machine whose structure makes it think, sense, and have perceptions, we could conceive it enlarged, keeping the same proportions, so that we could enter into it, as one enters into a mill. Assuming that, when inspecting its interior, we will only find parts that push one another, and we will never find anything to explain a perception….15

The general concern is that we simply cannot locate conscious thought in a complex system of physical processes. But the intuition underlying this claim seems to possess a fatal flaw. Leibniz is certainly correct that, when looking at a machine from the outside, nothing seems conscious, but this is the exact wrong point of view. Looking at things from the outside should, by fiat, be a nonstarter when consciousness is so intensely personal. The naturalist claim is not that a thought is just a result a physical processes but a result of physical processes within an extremely complex system. By analogy, a string of over three million ones and zeroes does not seem like a picture of the Titanic when we view it outside of a system. However, when that code is activated in the correct complex system (your computer), it becomes one. One may respond to the Leibnizian intuition similarly. Of course a “flash” of neurons by itself is not a perception,

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but when plugged into a sufficiently complex, pre-programmed system, it certainly seems that it can be one.

A World of Brains In the first section, we discussed why the evidence of mind-altering substances and brain damage should be enough to at least motivate the dualist to consider naturalistic alternatives rather than treating theirs as the default.16 Then in the previous section, we tried to disarm some of the standard blocks to those naturalistic alternatives by assuaging their more counterintuitive aspects. In this section, we will consider more telling evidence that consciousness is a product of the brain. In doing so, we will sort the considerations under three broad headings of intuitiveness, neuroscientific evidence, and explanatory power, though we should think of the considerations raised as kinds of evidence rather than as constituting a totality of support. In considering the ghost in the machine, we saw that a dualist picture simply does not have intuitive appeal when it comes to purely physical phenomena impacting consciousness. This was brought out through the challenges of mind-altering substances and brain damage, but can easily be expanded. Consider, for instance, that a blow to the head can cause unconsciousness. Why would damage to the brain cause such a drastic impact on the non-physical processes of a non-physical entity? For that matter, what dualist explanation is there for the unconsciousness and quasi-consciousness caused by sleep? Without rehashing the previous section, such worries become evidence in favor of a naturalistic picture when we apply the Axiom of Induction introduced in Chapter 8. We have two rival hypotheses—the supernaturalist dualist account that claims consciousness is a product of a spirit and its naturalistic negation, that is, the claim that consciousness is a product of the brain. Things like a blow to the head causing unconsciousness or lack of oxygen causing mental disorders are surprising given a non-physical consciousness but expected (or at least much less surprising) given a physically based consciousness, thus lending support to the latter proportionate to the degree of surprise or expectedness.17 But remember that the goal of any philosophical endeavor is to form a considered view based on all available evidence. As such, we cannot leave things at intuitions, and should put significant weight on the findings of the sciences. Though neuroscience is a huge and rapidly advancing field,

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I will focus on two important sets of findings—the neurological activity surrounding when decisions are made and the significance of the subconscious in our decision-making. An important finding in these areas was made by Benjamin Libet, et al. in 1983.18 They found that the brain activity associated with a simple voluntary act happens one quarter to one half second before an act and milliseconds before we are aware that a decision has been reached. Since then, similar findings have been repeatedly confirmed.19 Such findings suggest that, at least sometimes, conscious intent in decision-making is inert, that certain decisions are made in the brain before we “consciously decide.” If this is the case, then such consciousness is, at best, an awareness of the prior workings of the brain, and does not seem to play any causal role in the decision, radically undercutting the notion of a brain-independent consciousness. At least some actions that we think of as conscious decisions are not, at least in the way we would expect if there were a spirit controlling our brain. By itself, this result seems fatal to any view that posits a causally efficacious consciousness within the spirit rather than the brain. But there is a second result that such views seemingly cannot accommodate—the substantive role of the adaptive unconscious in everyday decision-making. The adaptive unconscious is not a simple Freudian subconscious but a complex group of systems that have tremendous influence on our conscious reasoning and belief formation.20 Studies have shown that substantive portions of what we think of as conscious activities are actually performed, determined, and/or heavily influenced by our adaptive unconscious. A simple example is the accommodation of pattern recognition. For instance, one study had subjects playing a financial game of risks and rewards based on cards drawn from different decks. Subjects began making financially advantageous selections long before they had consciously realized the patterns involved.21 This is an instance of a beneficial contribution, but the subconscious also does more nefarious things, such as picking up subconscious cues that lead to behavior reflective of such cues—if a subject is primed with rude words, they are overwhelmingly more likely to act rudely, etc.22 For this reason, people can (and often do) make racist or bigoted decisions without ever being aware they are doing so. The various roles of the subconscious and its documented impact on our decisions is an extensive and varied topic that we have only briefly touched upon, but the relevance should be immediately obvious. The central claim of the dualist is that the spirit is responsible for

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consciousness, and that consciousness is responsible for making decisions, reasoning, intent, and the like. But the more we learn about the human mind, the further this view is eroded. The question becomes, how much is too much? If one claims that the spirit is responsible for all conscious decisions, or that decisions are made entirely consciously, then such views have already been thoroughly refuted by neuroscience. But even weaker claims like saying that most decisions are made consciously or that the majority of reasoning is conscious have been similarly undercut. The question becomes, should we just skip to the end and say that consciousness is simply a product of the brain’s physical work, or do we cling to an increasingly diminished dualist view in which the consciousness is responsible for less and less? As a last consideration in favor of the brains without spirits worldview, consider the explanatory power of a physical theory of mind. If it is correct, then the goings-on of human minds are driven by the product of millions of years of imperfect evolution rather than the intent of a supernatural entity. Such a picture fits very well with what we know, explaining why the brain is a complex amalgamation with conflicting drives, redundant systems, and systemic oddities, disorders, and imperfections. Take, for instance, the often bizarre results of a severed corpus callosum, leading to two separate minds in one body that can act independently (with patients doing one act with the right hand and the opposite with the left, for instance). Or consider alien hand syndrome, in which the hand acts outside the conscious control of the subject, or mental disorders, such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s. These all seem like malfunctions of a mechanically based system. And if consciousness is the result of a complex, imperfectly unified brain, this will also better explain why humans can be and are so unreasonable. In addition to the subconscious prejudices mentioned above, consider obviously irrational decisions and defensiveness. The fight-orflight response is a physiological reaction, but it can also be triggered when one’s beliefs are attacked. Hence, a brain-based consciousness can easily explain irrational defensiveness (say in politics or the topic at handreligion) and does so much better than by positing a brain-independent consciousness. Not only do naturalistic pictures better explain what we know of the mind, but viewing it as a product of evolution, for good and for ill, will put us in a better position to both understand and treat the various problems and disorders as they arise.23

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Challenging Questions – What is the best or most hopeful explanation as to why physical phenomena, such as brain damage, impact spirit consciousness? Is this explanation more or less plausible than the suggestion of physically based consciousness? – What is the most compelling reason to think that a consciousness cannot be physical and why? Is this a reason provided by the sciences, intuition, or independent, previously held commitments? – How big a problem is the existence of a hugely influential subconscious? What is the dualist’s best way of handling it?

Further Reading – Daniel Dennett, “Facing Backwards on the Problem of Consciousness” – Owen Flanagan, The Problem of the Soul – Paul Churchland, The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul – Michael Martin and Keith Augustine (editors), The Myth of an Afterlife – Susan Pockett, William P. Banks, and Shaun Gallagher (editors), Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?

Notes 1. The argument is sometimes made that employing such terminology implicitly assumes that the speaker has some ontological commitment to a thing that is independent of physical processes, that the word “thought” somehow entails something beyond the electrochemical processes carried out by neurons and axons. This reasoning, however, has no force. Linguistic usage is not indicative of ontological commitments but merely reflective of the linguistic tendencies of the society in which the speaker was raised, and/or a shorthand for the much more complex descriptions of what is occurring. It is no different than a non-Christian’s occasional use of “Jesus” as an explicative, for instance. 2. Unfortunately, I must use a different term than that of “soul,” introduced in Chapter 17. The reason for this complication is that the souls introduced as part of the discussion of afterlife definitionally survived the death of the body. Spirithood, by contrast, does not entail this commitment, as it is a consistent view to believe that there are brain-independent minds

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that still expire with the brain. As such, “spirit” is a broader term, and we may define a soul as an eternal spirit. Hence, while all souls would be spirits, not all spirits would be souls, so if there are no spirits, there are no souls. This is not to say they are less important, just that they are tangential to the topic at hand. As always, I encourage the reader to further research and reflect on these matters. The term “supernatural” may seem like an ill fit here, as a believer in spirits need not believe in any sort of deity or other being that exists outside of the natural order. However, I (hesitantly) retain use of the term because even such a secularist notion of this spirit would still appear to violate the laws of physics. For instance, it would be a being with no mass (and therefore no force) that can still move physical objects. Even if they only cause minute changes in the cells of our brains, spirits still stand in violation of the known laws of physics. See Ryle, Chapter 1. The naturalistic view overall may be undesirable for several reasons, not the least of which are issues surrounding the questions of mortality and of meaning. However, the astute reader may notice a third issue here. If it is true that our minds are entirely dependent on our brains, and our brains are entirely physical, then they very likely operate under mechanistic laws. But this has the seeming entailment that we are determined and that free will is an illusion. Hence, our desire to not be determined may also contribute to our avoiding a serious analysis of the two substance picture. But again, wanting something to be true does not make it any more likely. For a discussion, see Caruso, pages 11−12. And again, there are other philosophical interpretations, such as epiphenomenalism, parallelism, emergentism, and idealism, which provide alternatives to these two views. While it is not my intent to sweep these under the rug, space requires that I constrain the discussion to the two meta-views most relevant to the topics of this text. For further discussion, see Churchland, pages 35 and 133−134. This is to say nothing of development generally—why an independent spirit must keep pace with the developing brain. Perhaps the most famous case of brain damage altering personality is that of the railroad worker Phineas Gage. Having survived a rod being shot entirely through his skull, he was said to have exhibited very different personality traits, especially right after the accident. We should be careful, however, as the stories surrounding him have been embellished over time. For the most direct account, see Harlow. A second, smaller issue already mentioned is that the non-physical altering the physical violates the known laws of physics. However, if we knew there was a deity, we could assuage (though not explain) this worry more easily

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as some form of divine intervention or the introduction of analogous laws of spirit. In fact, there are already well-developed neurobiological theories of consciousness. See Churchland, pages 3−6, for a more extended introduction. This is a reference to evolution, which is, in an important sense, what programs our brains by determining how we should react to external and internal stimuli. Leibniz, 1.17, emphasis his. In so doing, I have focused primarily on science-based evidence. However, there are also significant, nuanced philosophical problems in positing two kinds of substance that I have set aside. There can also be other concerns here that may significantly or minimally undermine the dualist view, depending on how the view is spelled out. For instance, if you are asked where your consciousness is located spatially, the answer seems to be (roughly) behind your eyes. Such an obvious answer is highly problematic for the Cartesian dualist that is committed to the claim that minds are not located at all. A second issue is that consciousness and rationality seem to be scaling, with non-human animals possessing these features to varying degrees. As such, animals present a challenge to views that claim spirits are either wholly present or wholly absent, or say that humans are the only animals with spirits, minds, etc. Lastly, there are problems with mental transparency. Should consciousness be aware of what it is willing? If so, we clearly are not conscious in that sense, because we will our hand to raise rather than the several thousand individual events and processes that occur to cause that action, for instance. See also Jeannerod. For good discussions of the philosophical ramifications, see D. Wilson, pages 360−366 and Caruso, pages 125−126. For a good extended introduction, see T. Wilson, pages 6−15. See Bechara, et al. For an extensive discussion of the Bechara study and other such findings and their relevance, see Caruso, pages 107−126. This result is an application of the arguments from the previous chapter. However, for an argument that neuroscience specifically should follow methodological naturalism, see Kim, pages 131−132.

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References Bechara, Antoine, Damasio, Hanna, Tranel, Daniel, and Damasio, Antonio R. “Deciding Advantageously Before Knowing Advantageous Strategy,” Science, Volume 275, 1997. Caruso, Gregg D. Free Will and the Illusion of Consciousness —A Determinist Account of Free Will, Lexington Books, Lanham, MD, 2012. Churchland, Paul M. The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul —A Philosophical Journey into the Brain, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995. Harlow, John Martyn. “Recovery from the Passage of an Iron Bar through the Head,” Publications of the Massachusetts Medical Society, Volume 2, Issue 3, 1869, pages 327−347. Kim, Jaegwon. Philosophy of Mind, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1996. Jeannerod, Marc. “Consciousness of Action as an Embodied Consciousness,” in Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?, edited by Susan Pockett, William P. Banks, and Shaun Gallagher, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006, pages 25−38. Leibniz, G.W. The Monadology, in G.W. Leibniz: Philosophical Essays, edited and translated by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1989. Libet, B., Gleason, C.A., Wright, E.W., Jr., and Pearl, D.K. “Time of Consciousness Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activities (ReadinessPotential): The Unconscious Initiation of a Freely Voluntary Act,” Brain, Volume 106, 1983, pages 623−624. Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind, New University of Chicago Press Edition, Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL, 2002. Wilson, David L. “Nonphysical Souls would Violate Physical Laws” in The Myth of an Afterlife—The Case against Life After Death, edited by Michael Martin and Keith Augustine, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2015, pages 349–367. Wilson, Timothy D. Strangers to Ourselves —Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002.

CHAPTER 21

The Naturalization of Religion

The Religious “Majority” If the arguments from the previous chapters are successful, then theism is not more reasonable than atheist naturalism, and religious theism proves even more difficult to defend. Not only do the arguments and evidence in support of theism fail, but there are persuasive reasons to think that naturalism is the case. However, this line of reasoning leaves a lacuna. If atheist naturalism is so reasonable and more justifiable than the alternative, then why is religion so prevalent? Why do believers outnumber nonbelievers at least four to one, or by an even wider margin if we take historical belief into account? Though answers to such questions are vast, complex, and multifaceted, this chapter will give a general outline of how the atheist naturalist might go about providing a reasonable answer. Before looking at these explanations in more detail, however, there are a few points about this line of reasoning we must realize: First, the fact that religious believers hold a majority view does not, in and of itself, constitute an argument in favor of theism. To offer it as such is to commit the appeal to popularity fallacy. From the fact that a claim is popularly held, it simply does not follow that it is true. History is filled with cases of the majority maintaining a falsity, such as the belief that the sun goes around the Earth or that the Earth is flat. American politics are similarly filled with popular falsities, such as the claim that the death penalty is cheaper than life in prison, that English is the national language, that there is no manmade climate change, or that evolution has not been © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_21

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confirmed. Anyone with the most basic notion of scientific or evidencebased reasoning can easily demonstrate the falsity each of these claims, and yet they persist.1 Second, to depict the situation as four believers against one nonbeliever is both arbitrary and highly misleading. More typically, any of them is opposed by the other four, not just the nonbeliever, due to the Problem of the Many discussed in Chapter 12. The Christian is not only opposed by the defender of atheist naturalism but also the defenders of Hinduism, Shintoism, Yoruba, and every other religious non-Christian.2 The religious “majority” agrees that there is something beyond the natural world, but do not agree on what or why. As such, their only meaningful agreement is a negation of naturalism. But agreeing on a negation does not seem to be a substantive agreement. For instance, defenders of democracy, defenders of oligarchy, and defenders of dictatorships all agree that monarchy is not the proper form of government, but that alone does not amount to substantive agreement such that it should count as evidence against monarchy. We can just as easily run the argument by saying that defenders of oligarchy, dictatorship, and monarchy all reject democracy. But simply changing perspective in this way does not somehow generate any new evidence against democracy. Having made these two important clarifications, there is still a need to say something about the popularity of supernaturalism if we are to have an intellectually satisfying account of atheist naturalism. Beyond undercutting the argument from the majority, we still need to give a plausible explanation as to why such religions exist, and do so in a way that does not invoke any supernatural entity and origin. We must naturalize the phenomenon of religion. To naturally account for the plurality of world religions is necessary simply in order to give a full and complete account of atheist naturalism. However, if we can do so in a way that is more plausible than the supernaturalist explanation for the same phenomena, then he has given additional evidence in favor of nonbelief. The account offered below will aim at the more modest goal, of simply giving a plausible, naturalized account. Nevertheless, it will also present some reasons to think the proffered explanations better account for religion as a natural phenomenon than the supernatural alternatives. But because religion is such a complex phenomenon that is transmitted through societies and history, we must be careful to distinguish between the natural origin of religious belief and its transmission and evolution through culture.

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Imposing Agency In discussing the natural origins of religion, we are not considering the origins of one specific religion, but something much more general. Where do humans get the idea of invisible, powerful agents imposing their will upon the natural world and, more importantly, why are they willing to believe in such things when the evidence speaks strongly to the contrary? If we can answer such questions, then we can explain the existence of specific religions much more handily through various psychological, historical, social, and political forces that are then applied to these basic beliefs in invisible agency. But in discussing the origins of religion, we must situate ourselves to the task in three ways: first, we must realize that such origins are speculative, as belief in supernatural agents is older than not only written language, but possibly even spoken language. As such, we are extrapolating based on what we know about some of humans’ most basic and primitive instincts. Related to this, even the oldest religions and religious practices we know of are modern in comparison, products of reflection, refinement, abstraction, and the reasoning and philosophical musings that only become available when communication leads to continuity and history. Third, and perhaps most importantly, we need to remove any traces of the idealized Enlightenment depiction of humans as purely rational beings. With no permanent structures or language, humans were just another animal, certainly much more clever, but still largely at the mercy of their basic instincts and the environmental forces around them. And though we have advanced in some ways, we still must resist the Enlightenment depiction of the mind as a simple rational agent. Our minds are incredibly complex, and our thoughts, decisions, and actions are influenced by many non-rational (and even irrational) psychological forces. But further, our environment, upbringing, etc., play hugely important roles in forming our most fundamental beliefs. The mind is a not Lockean tabula rasa but instead takes an active role in filtering, sorting, and processing what is given. When considering humans, early and contemporary, it is imperative that we resist the notion that we come to a proposition fresh, neutral, and unbiased, and then decide to accept or reject belief based on its evidential merits. Not only is this incorrect, but when beliefs are changed or transmitted, we alter and process them and make them our own. Pascal Boyer explains that, in terms of religious adhesion, we tend to think, “There is a gatekeeper in the mind that either

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allows or rejects visitors- that is, other people’s concepts and beliefs. When the gatekeeper allows them in, these concepts and beliefs find a home in the mind and become the person’s own beliefs and concepts.”3 But as Boyer points out, this depiction of the mind is flatly incorrect. Instead of a matter of simple acceptance and rejection based on the verdict of the stoic gatekeeper of rationality, everything we encounter influences our thoughts and beliefs, primarily impacting not what we believe but who we are, and then it is who we are that ultimately determines which beliefs we will be receptive to.4 Having rejected the rational gatekeeper approach, we must seek a different feature of the early mind in order to explain the appeal to invisible agency. The best candidate to explain humans’ proneness to positing invisible agents as explanations is what Justin Barrett calls the “hypersensitive agent detection device” or “HADD.” When we perceive objects violating our intuitive assumptions about how they should move, HADD interprets that movement as goal-directed and therefore the effect of an agent.5 Setting aside supernatural agents for the moment, it is important to first realize that HADD is incredibly fit for survival in the evolutionary sense. Imagine a pair of early humans sleeping in the woods who are awoken by a sound. The one that thinks something like “it’s just the wind” and goes back to sleep is much less likely to pass along his DNA than the one that gets up to investigate based on the suspicion that it is a potentially hostile agent. We can easily see that HADD is not only fit for evolution, but may have been utterly essential to pre-societal humans. However, evolutionarily fit mechanisms often have spandrels, phenotypic characteristics that are nonessential side-effects or byproducts.6 One such spandrel of HADD is the tendency to posit invisible agents as being responsible for natural phenomena. In the example above for instance, even if the sound was just the wind or a falling branch, erring on the side of caution (i.e., the assumption of agency) is much more fit. Hence, when we do not know exactly why a natural event occurs, it comes very naturally to humans to posit an agent as the explanation. But when there is no conclusive evidence of said agency, the posited agent naturally becomes an invisible, and therefore supernatural, being.7 Such an explanation for very early religious beliefs is well-supported in several ways. First, we know humans possess HADD. More importantly, however, we also know through observation and experiment that humans have a natural tendency to assign purpose in nature, and to cognize nature

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as an artifact. Experiments confirm that, “children have a broad teleofunctional bias to treat objects and behaviors of all kinds as existing for a purpose.”8 Put another way, we know that HADD overextends into the natural realm, that humans naturally (and erroneously) posit agency as an explanation for natural phenomena. Second, such an explanation fits well with some of the earliest, most basic religious systems of animism, which posits spirits or souls as inhabiting natural objects such as plants, animals, bodies of water, and places, and of polytheism, or systems of multiple deities, many of which assign different gods different domains, such as distinct gods of water, volcanos, sky, etc. If HADD is responsible for initial and early beliefs in deities, then we should expect older and isolated cultures to lean toward animism and polytheism, of supernatural entities that frequently interfere with the regular workings of nature in localized ways. And this is exactly what we find. Of course, HADD, in and of itself, cannot explain religion as we know it today. But it is not intended to. HADD naturally explains the origins of religious belief, and goes a long way toward explaining religion’s appeal and therefore popularly (by explaining such beliefs as the product of evolutionarily natural mechanisms). To go from such basic, initial leanings to religion as the incredibly complex set of phenomena that exist today requires many more steps. Outlining such steps will be the topic of the next section.

The Religious Contagion Having discussed natural origins of religious belief, we must now turn to its transmission, refinement, and endurance. As we will see, religious beliefs are not only naturally easy to generate, but also naturally easy to remember and to pass on.9 In order to discuss religious transmission, however, we will need to bring in two types of explanatory mechanism. First, religions as they exist today are social constructions. As such, it is helpful to think of and explain their production, continuity, and transformations in terms of social Darwinism. That is, we can think of social institutions analogously to organisms—those that are fit for survival will persist, and the main determinant for survival is the usefulness of adaptations that help them thrive in certain environments. However, we must be careful. First, this is not to claim that religion itself is an adaptation, as, “[t]he religions we know today were founded and expanded well after humans had abandoned the physical environments and social contexts in

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which evolution occurred.”10 Further, just as biological evolution is not about the survival of the individual but of the species (or more precisely, the DNA), a fit social construction is not one that helps the individuals survive but one that helps the society itself to survive. The second important explanatory mechanism is the notion of the meme, an idea or behavior that is spread through a population via nongenetic means. Memetics proposes that ideas are also transmitted in a manner analogous to evolution, that certain ideas, stories, etc. are much more likely to be passed on than others based on whether the meme is fit for survival in the given environment.11 And since both social Darwinism and meme theory essentially involve the human mind, we should think of cognitive science as underpinning both- facts about the human brain and its structures play significant roles in determining which ideas are more likely to be transmitted, which human needs religious institutions must fulfill in order to be fit, etc.12 To try to explain the phenomenon of religion in its totality would be an enormous (and probably impossible) undertaking, not because we cannot explain religion through these mechanisms but because of the sheer logistics of such an endeavor. New religions come into existence daily, and all religions change over time. But further, not only do religious beliefs of the individual also change over time, but they vary from person to person, even within the same sect. Because of this massive scope, all we can do here is explain in the most general way some of the most significant natural forces that contribute to the persistence of religious institutions and religious beliefs in the individual. And it is important to say some of the natural forces, as there simply is not one single explanation that can or should account for all religious phenomena. We should instead see the development and persistence of religion as a product of many forces. (And as always, I encourage the reader to study these matters more deeply than can be done here). Since religious institutions reinforce and cultivate belief, it helps to discuss some of the factors that contribute to the founding and survival of these institutions first. One of the less subtle sources of institutional survival is state sponsorship and enforcement. Religion can be and is used to fulfill a variety of functions that are viewed favorably by governments and those who run them. Many regimes have discovered the military applications of religious belief, at its most extreme, the use of religion as an excuse for war and aggression, but more commonly as a method of making soldiers more willing to follow orders and even to die.13 A second

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important (for government) role of religion is the stratifying of social order, providing and encouraging theoretical justification for inequalities that the government perceives as desirable. This has occurred along gender lines (i.e., various forms of patriarchy and oppression of women), racial or ethnic lines, and through class distinctions (such as the caste system). Karl Marx famously called religion the opiate of the people, as it keeps the poor content with their lot. This happens by assigning desert— i.e., that a bad lot is the will of the gods, by encouraging a focus on the next life rather than this one, and by defending a reversal of evaluation where the poor and the meek are the ones truly favored by the gods. Religions that do these things find powerful allies in governments, which will seek to not only preserve but to bolster such institutions (and sometimes even found them). And the alliances will very often go both ways, with religions supporting certain notions of government that are conducive to their beliefs and practices.14 Part of understanding religious transmission and survival then is to consider the various interactions with the ruling body. A more subtle but vital adaptation of religious institutions is that they create an important in-group/out-group dichotomy. Religious institutions often do this deliberately, through indoctrination and the creation of schools, through the elimination of deviant behavior, and through an exclusivist notion of salvation. Sustaining this dichotomy helps religions survive in several important ways: First, encountering people who think differently is detrimental to religious doctrine, especially exclusivist doctrine. For instance, adaptations such as Jewish dietary restrictions and the kosher cleaning of dishes were vital in keeping Jews from fraternizing with the ancient Greeks, and Leviticus’s condemnation of certain sexual practices reinforced this by forbidding much of what the Greeks were known for, thereby making them sinners and not among God’s chosen. By keeping themselves isolated from the Greeks (and others) in these and other ways, Judaism did not suffer the same fate as the ten lost tribes during the diaspora- they did not vanish through absorption by other cultures. To maintain its identity among Gentiles, it was (and is) crucial that Judaism holds itself apart. However, doing so cultivates other significant adaptations—an increased sense of identity and a similar sense of close community.15 Such adaptations are advantageous to any religion and establishing an in-group/out-group distinction is fit for social survival.

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Another crucial (perhaps the crucial) aspect of religion that nurtures its survival is ritual. First, the repetition, sequencing, and symbolism of rituals (and to a lesser extent, religious art and architecture) reinforces the adaptations mentioned above, such as by deepening the demarcations of the in-group and out-group. But further, ritual also greatly contributes to the fitness of religious ideas for transmission. By connecting belief with ritual, religious ideas become much more memorable and sharable, impose order on our jumble of religious ideas, connect the world of religion to the experienced, natural world, and provide us with a feeling of control in otherworldly matters that would otherwise be absent.16 As a last point in this brief survey of the survivability of religious institutions, it is important to recognize that they are directly adaptive. That is, individual religions are constantly changing and adapting through religious reform to maintain themselves amidst changing social forces. Consider, for instance, how much more flexible Christian churches are regarding church attendance than was the case three hundred years ago, when church services were mandatory and went for virtually the entire day. This feature that was likely adaptive at one time simply was not anymore. It threatened membership significantly and, as such, was virtually done away with. Or consider churches whose communities were being alienated by homophobic policies that have since come to embrace homosexual membership even amongst the clergy. As long as members embrace such changes, religious institutions can continue to adapt to survive. Religious adaptation must be seen as an ongoing process. To this point, we have been talking about the fitness for survival of features of the institutions, but not exclusively so. Institutions are supported by individuals, and many of the points presented above also contribute to the desirability17 of religious beliefs to the practitioner. The importance of ritual (religious or otherwise) is well-documented in cognitive science, and in-grouping and out-grouping fulfills several key psychological needs, including community and exclusivity. Beyond this, however, specific religious ideas can be desirable and, as such, can be seen as a manifestation of Freudian wish-fulfillment. One such wish is the desire for justice, which is not manifest in this world. Related to this, we also seek an explanation for seeming randomness of calamity, such as bad things happening to good people. The notion of an afterlife is also desirable. In addition to the potential contribution to justice (and vengeance), it takes something that is out of our control (death) and puts it under our control. Lastly, religious belief provides pre-packaged

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meaning. It gives answers to some of the hardest questions, like what is the meaning of life, what should I do, etc., without any serious thought, reflection, or doubt. Indeed, the elimination of doubt and uncertainty generally is a highly desirable outcome that religion fulfills. Of course, there is no requirement that every religion does all these things, but since they are all highly desirable from the standpoint of human psychology, we should expect religions that contribute such ideas to be successful and for humans to hold onto religious beliefs that cultivate them well beyond what is rationally supported by evidence.

From Possible to Plausible Having very generally and quickly discussed some of the natural forces that lead to the formation and adherence to religious institutions and beliefs, we now turn to the importance of such naturalistic causes. First, as mentioned above, we can see such explanations as necessary for filling a hole in the atheist naturalist’s account. Given that there are no supernatural entities, the atheist naturalist must say something about why belief in such beings is so prevalent. But if the arguments from the previous chapters are successful, all the atheist naturalist really needs to accomplish with such explanations is to show that it is possible for them to, in principle, account for the totality of religious phenomena. The previous section gives an outline of how we might do so. However, they can strengthen the atheist naturalist position if such naturalistic explanations explain religious phenomena very well (especially if they explain religious phenomena better than the competing supernatural explanations). As such, we may ask two distinct questions: can natural explanations explain all religious belief in principle, and can they do so better than the alternatives? To take the questions in order, it is important to recognize that the same pattern we have seen in revealed theology applies here. Even the defender of supernatural explanations can and does allow that the vast majority of religious phenomena can be accounted for naturally. For instance, it is beyond dispute that religious beliefs are sometimes produced by HADD, that some religious institutions have thrived due to the natural forces described above, etc. Indeed, the religious exclusivist must say that virtually all religious beliefs are explainable without appealing to the supernatural. The atheist naturalist just removes the “virtually” qualifier and instead claims all religion can be so explained. Because of this, there does not seem to be any compelling reason to think that, if we can explain

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every other religion as a production of such natural forces, we would not be able to complete the picture. Put another way, there seems to be no principled reason to think that natural explanation in terms of HADD, social Darwinism, meme theory, and cognitive science cannot explain the totality of religious phenomena. Moving to the second question, however, we need to more specifically address the types of religious alternatives to atheist naturalism, religious exclusivism and religious pluralism. First, in addressing exclusivism as an alternative explanation for religious phenomena, it is not necessary to pick out one specific religion. As mentioned previously, any exclusivist, regardless of religion, must accept natural explanations for the vast majority of religious phenomena. But second, and tellingly, there does not seem to be any particular religion that is significantly harder to explain in natural terms than its competitors. For instance, there is no popular religion that fails to fulfill basic psychological needs and no religious institution that is highly detrimental to the goals of the government in which it persists, yet continues to thrive in that society. When considering the pluralist alternative, however, it is important to remember that pluralists rarely try to accept all religious belief as coming from a single divine source. The messages are too mixed, and the goals of the religion are too disparate. For instance, the indigenous religion of the Fang people posits witches with an additional organ that they can eject from their bodies at night and employ to cause all sorts of mischief. Pluralists must do one of two things with such religious beliefs. First, they can accept these beliefs as correct, as part of the same message sent by a higher power to other world religions such as the message of Christianity sent to the Christians, the message of Zoroastrianism sent to Zoroastrians, etc., but modified for the Fang people. However, the complete lack of connection with messages, metaphysics, and morals of the more popular religions makes this option extremely difficult. The other option is to do what the exclusivist does— reject certain beliefs as products of the natural forces described above rather than positing a supernatural explanation for every single religious belief. Given the sheer variety of religious beliefs, especially among the indigenous religions, it seems that pluralists must invoke this second option frequently. Hence, even though the pluralist can accommodate many of the most popular world religions, such as the Abrahamic religions and the samsara-based Eastern religions, and therefore avoid calling the majority of believers wrong, they still must call the majority of beliefs

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wrong, as there are hundreds, if not thousands, of indigenous religions for each of these more popular religions.18 Given these commitments regarding the two alternatives, it seems that the naturalized explanations of religious phenomena are a better explanation than the supernatural alternatives given by religious exclusivism and religious pluralism. Not only must both alternatives still accept these natural explanations for the vast majority of religious beliefs, but the natural explanations themselves predict data that is born out in the world but which is difficult to explain supernaturally. For instance, if HADD is responsible for initial beliefs in supernatural agency, then we should expect older and isolated cultures to lean toward animism and polytheism, rather than monotheism, which is exactly what we find. By contrast, if actual encounters with the supernatural are the cause, then such results would be very surprising unless the supernatural causes in question were those described by animism or polytheism. The natural explanations also predict that religions would change the least when not threatened by outsider groups, but would be more susceptible to reform the more interaction it had with out-group cultures. Once more, this is exactly what we find in the world, but it is a result difficult to explain if the cause is supernatural agency. Were the latter the case, we would expect reform to happen fairly equally as a product of philosophical and theological refinement. But this expectation is much harder to square with the data. As a third prediction, if social Darwinism significantly explains the shape of religious institutions, then we would expect different religions to arise and thrive in different environments, which we also find. By contrast, were exclusivism true, we would expect religious belief to be similar everywhere, unless we were dealing with an unjust god with a single chosen people. The pluralist does marginally better here, but only marginally, since they still face the dilemma above of dismissing most indigenous religions or admitting no common message. Cognitive science also explains why ritual is so central to religions and is paired with belief, even when ritual does not seem strictly necessary to religious doctrine. Though we can go on, what is important is that natural explanations predict testable, observable data and patterns, and that these data and patterns are born out in the world. To compare them to the alternatives, the believer must simply determine what patterns their chosen supernatural alternative would predict, and see which is better borne out. To this point, the naturalists seem to have a strong upper hand.

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Challenging Questions – What would a religion that doesn’t fulfill the psychological and emotional needs mentioned above look like? Would such a religion appeal to our rationality? Is such a system recognizable as a religion? – Consider the sheer variety of religious phenomena. How many can a religious pluralist accommodate? How many must they instead explain naturally? Are they on significantly better grounds than the exclusivist here? – Is the atheist naturalist missing something? Is there anything we know about world religions that cannot, in principle, be explained naturally? If not, how damaging is this to the supernaturalist’s view?

Further Reading – David Hume, Natural History of Religion – Justin Barrett, Why Would Anyone Believe in God? – David Sloan Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral —Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society – Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell —Religion as a Natural Phenomenon – Bart Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity

Notes 1. These examples are deliberate, as I suspect that they persist for many of the same reasons that religious claims do—not from any claim to truth or evidence but through their fulfillment of emotional needs. We simply are not purely rational creatures. 2. As before, this is clearly the case for the exclusivist, but less so for the pluralist, who can accept many, though not all (and probably not even most), world religions as alternate manifestations of the same higher power. But as was discussed in Chapter 12, religious pluralism carries other difficulties, such as the lack of anything like a common message. Further, there is a sense in which pluralists are opposed by exclusivists, so we can run numbers games along those lines as well. 3. Boyer 2001, page 30. 4. For a more thorough discussion, see Boyer 2001, pages 28−33, though this discussion is best read in light of a distinction he makes in an earlier

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7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

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work between the epistemic versus cognitive viewpoint, discussed in Boyer 1994, pages 50−52. Barrett, pages 32−33. It may be worth noting that the very existence of such evolutionary byproducts can be seen as undercutting the design hypothesis, as they are explained much better by chance than deliberation. For a more thorough introduction and explanation, see Barrett, Chapter Three. Kelemen and DiYanni, page 4, who provide an excellent survey of the literature on the topic. For a more technical summary of the naturalness of various aspects of religion, see Whitehouse, Chapter Two. Smith, page 140. The quote is a little misleading, since evolution never stops, but the general point is about evolution that directly impacted our early survival. For a more extended, technical discussion, see Dawkins, pages 109−112. Boyer, for instance, shows that certain notions of supernatural agency are much easier to generate, transmit, encode, and remember. To take an example, he develops the notion of a “minimally counterintuitive concept,” generally including only one counterintuitive notion in an otherwise familiar concept, as cognitively optimal. The counterintuitive concept makes the otherwise mundane memorable and worthy of transmission, but not so unreasonable as to be dismissed out of hand (Boyer 1994, pages 117−124). Minimally counterintuitive concepts in religion explain not only the commonality and transmission of such ideas but also certain recurring themes in religion. Secondly, it should be noted that Boyer himself raises concerns with some of the standard assumptions made by memeticists (Boyer 2001, pages 37−40). However, it is clear that not all memeticists commit such errors, and I think we should read Boyer’s criticisms as a revision rather than rejection of memetics (specifically, he calls it a “starting point”). There is no reason to think that both meme theory and cognitive science models cannot contribute to the explanation of such a complex and varied phenomenon as religion, and this is the general approach I suggest when pointing out the important cognitive science underpinnings to both social Darwinism and memetics. As was discussed previously, the U.S. military spends billions cultivating Christianity. Such as the alliance in the U.S. between Evangelical Christianity and the Republican Party. The latter is unelectable without the support of the former, and so we see them enacting policies that both cater to and support their religions. A few of the most glaring examples are interference with healthcare, stacking courts with judges with Christian leanings,

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allowing discrimination against homosexuals as “religious freedom,” and school choice programs where money is drawn from public schools in order to subsidize religiously affiliated schools and therefore cultivate indoctrination. And it is important to remember that these are adaptations, not necessarily positives. They help the religious institution survive. But such in-group/out-group distinctions have an extreme dark side as well. They can and do motivate and justify bigotry, supremacy, violence, and worse, up to and including dehumanization and genocide. Extremism is in many ways a direct result of the in-group/out-group dichotomy, but can itself be seen as an adaptation. In addition to fulfilling the psychological needs of the individual extremist, extremism is fit for institutional survival because it increases the cost of defection from the group. For a good discussion of extremism as a natural phenomenon, see Whitehouse, pages 120−127. For a good discussion of the cognitive importance that ritual plays, see Boyer 1994, Chapter Seven. I talk in terms of desirability rather than fitness because religious beliefs themselves are not (or at least need not be) a survival adaptation. As such, we need to talk of what contributes to their persistence as memes instead. And the numbers go even higher if we include all the religions that have ever existed.

References Barrett, Justin L. Why Would Anyone Believe in God? AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA, 2004. Boyer, Pascal. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas —A Cognitive Theory of Religion, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1994. Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained—The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, Basic Books, New York, NY, 2001. Dawkins, Richard. The Extended Phenotype—The Long Reach of the Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1982. Kelemen, Deborah, and DiYanni, Cara. “Intuitions About Origins: Purpose and Intelligent Design in Children’s Reasoning About Nature,” Journal of Cognition and Development, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2005, pages 3−31. Smith, Aaron C.T. Thinking about Religion—Extending the Cognitive Science of Religion, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY, 2014. Whitehouse, Harvey. Modes of Religiosity—A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA, 2004.

CHAPTER 22

The Loss of Thou Shalt

Four Divine Roles Having completed our brief survey of the evidence against theism and supernaturalism and the advantages of atheist naturalism, the final chapters of the text will consider a pragmatic worry often raised when considering the rejection of supernaturalism—the impact of its loss on ethics. Dismay stems from thoughts like without God, anything goes, or without God, nothing matters, or we need an afterlife to keep people on the straight and narrow. As we will see, while such worries are common, they are almost entirely unfounded. Articulating why will be the topic of this chapter and the next. But as we start to analyze these matters, it becomes important to recognize that the divine can be assigned different roles in terms of ethics and value. Trivially, any creator deity would be the source of ethics in some sense, as it would have directly or indirectly created moral agents. For instance, if there were a God who fixed the laws of nature, and biology or some other metaphysical or naturalistic aspect of human nature were the source of ethics, then there is a sense in which that God was responsible for ethics. Call this the generative role (in ethics). However, in such a scenario, belief in the divine would be entirely irrelevant to morality, because nothing about the generative role requires that humans recognize the creator as part of their ethical grounding. Since nothing in this scenario hinges on belief, we can still have a full and robust ethics without

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belief in the supernatural. Nothing is lost if we abandon belief in a higher power. We will consider this topic in more depth in Chapter 23. A second role we could assign to the divine is the one discussed in Chapter 17, as overseeing a desert-based system of personal survival, such as an afterlife or cycle of reincarnation. In such a scenario, the deity would have a motivational role in ethics by providing reward for doing what is right and providing punishment for doing what is wrong.1 As a brief reminder, two considerations serve to significantly undercut the motivational role in ethics: First and most importantly, it is simply a wrong-headed approach to ethics. If the reason you do something is to get a reward, you, in fact, do nothing right or meritorious, and we should not expect a just deity to reward you based on such selfish motivations. As such, the motivational role is self-defeating because it would contribute to ethics by undermining our most basic assumptions about ethics (i.e., that morality requires us to do something other than look out for ourselves). Second, as discussed in Chapter 17, the efficaciousness of the motivational role is apparently nonexistent. The data simply does not bear out that belief in a desert-based afterlife has a significantly positive impact on ethics. We should therefore feel no sense of dismay in relinquishing the motivational role. The final two roles both come from the possibility of a deity instructing us on how to act and, as such, require that we bring in a notion of supernaturalist revelation rather than bare theism. Many supernaturalists maintain that a deity has left special (that is, miraculous) instruction regarding right and wrong, such as the Ten Commandments.2 But if God says that it is wrong to murder, the supernaturalist can assign two different roles to such a claim. The first is an instructional role. This is to say (roughly) that God is a teacher of ethics, a being that can be relied upon to tell us that murder, theft, and the like, are wrong. The question of whether such instruction is necessary or helpful will also be discussed in the next chapter. However, one can instead say that such commands serve a determining role, that such commands actually fix otherwise undetermined ethics (that is, that God’s choice and corresponding commands are what make these acts right or wrong- that murder is wrong because God commanded us not to). This determining role will be the focus of the rest of the chapter. It is significant in the sense that, if this role is indeed central to ethics, then the loss of belief in a god would entail a loss of any meaningful morality.

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Fortunately, as we will see, this role is most assuredly not central to ethics, and this is true even if belief in a higher power is retained.3

The Ethics of Divine Whimsy Suppose one wishes to make the claim, everything God 4 commands is good. Corresponding to the two potential roles identified above, such a position still requires that we ask, “Is it good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?” In the history of philosophy, this query is known as the Euthyphro Question, named after Plato’s dialogue in which a similar question was posed in determining the source of piety. But applied in this way, the question creates a seemingly insoluble dilemma for the view known as Divine Command Theory. Divine Command Theory is a theory of ethics (not religion) that says that what makes an act right or wrong is God’s free command. This entails not only that everything God commands is good and everything good is something that God commands, but that the command itself is what made it good. This means the theory is a formalization of what we called the determining role in ethics, that God’s choice actually fixes the moral principles of right and wrong. Important to understanding this view is that it is a product of God’s free will. A command is free in the relevant sense if God could have just as easily commanded X as not X. But this conception of freedom, and therefore Divine Command Theory generally, has some important entailments. First and foremost is that the role of divine reason and ratiocination is simply negated due to the required notion of freedom. If I have overwhelming, or even good, reasons for preferring to choose X over its opposite, then I am not free to command not X in this sense of freedom. As such, in order for a command to be truly free, reason simply cannot enter into it. It is because of this that ethics would be reduced to an arbitrary divine whimsy, nothing deeper or more meaningful than a favorite color. Though this sounds extreme, this point is not intended as a straw man but as a simple entailment of Divine Command Theory. And it should not be as surprising as it seems. Divine Command Theory assigns a determining role in ethics to God. But if God were employing reason in order to generate ethical commands, then it would be those reasons, rather than God, that ultimately served to determine ethics.5 As such, if any divine determining role is to be necessary for ethics, then that role must be a product of God’s freedom rather than God’s intellect.

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A Damning Dilemma As mentioned above, the Euthyphro Question presents a dilemma for Divine Command Theory or, more generally, any view that assigns God a determining role in ethics. A dilemma is a specific type of problem in which there are exactly two options, neither of which is tenable. When we ask, “Is it good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?” we present just such a situation for Divine Command Theory. Is the command the cause of goodness or the effect? If the Euthyphro Question is to be a dilemma, then either option must be problematic. Let us begin with the claim that something is good because God commands it, traditionally called the voluntarist option because it leaves goodness wholly within God’s free control. Why might claiming that something is good because of God’s command be undesirable? There are two types of problems with making this claim—logical, in that it has some extremely unpleasant entailments, and practical, in that it cannot do what a system of ethics needs to. To take these in order, if I, with the Divine Command Theorist, say that something is good because God commands it, then I commit myself to some problematic and strange views in both ethics and religion. Ethically, the Divine Command Theorist must say, for instance, that the only thing wrong with torturing children to death is that God said not to. The same goes for any other terrible act one can imagine. Put another way, they are committed to saying that torturing children to death would have been perfectly fine if God had not commanded otherwise. And further, if God changed Its mind and commanded tomorrow that we should be torturing children to death, then that act would not only cease to be wrong, but would become obligatory and good. All of these claims seem like a perfectly monstrous way to approach ethics. Yet to reject any of them is to reject Divine Command Theory and, more broadly, God’s determining role in ethics. Indeed, if one takes a (perfectly reasonable) position and says something like, “God would never command us to torture children to death,” then they are implicitly assuming God’s commands are based on some form of reasoning and thus maintaining that God’s commands are not free. They are thereby rejecting Divine Command Theory by maintaining that God is not free to change Its mind at will. While this is an assumption that every Theist should make, it is closed off to the Divine Command Theorist.6 It is to change answers to the Euthyphro Question and instead say God commands it because it is good.

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The inability of the Divine Command Theorist to maintain that God would not command atrocities hints at some religious implications for the voluntarist option as well. Perhaps the most damning is that it portrays God as a being that does not use intellect or reason on a topic that has huge and important consequences. Such a depiction would radically undercut the worship-worthiness of that being. Further, note that it is fundamentally incompatible with the notion of the God of Theism defined in Chapter 2. The God of Theism was described as essentially good, but a being who is essentially good does not command freely because Its commands cannot go against Its essential nature. Hence, by placing such an extreme emphasis on divine freedom, a Divine Command Theorist is not a Theist in this sense.7 A related, undesirable consequence is that the claim that “God is good” becomes a hollow tautology, true by definition, rather than offering any meaningful praise. In praising God’s ethics, no matter what those ethics are, we seem to be praising God’s power rather than God’s morality, and power, in and of itself, is never praiseworthy. The problematic commitments in both ethics and the depiction of God are simply entailments of Divine Command Theory and, more generally, a determining role in ethics that has a god deciding right and wrong independently of reason. As such, anyone who, like the Divine Command Theorist, assigns God such a role must simply accept these problematic entailments as bullets to be bitten. The rejection of any one of them entails a rejection of the view. But in addition to these challenges, it is important to realize that the Divine Command Theorist also has a large practical problem that impedes its intended functionality. They are purportedly providing a system of ethics, which means that they should be providing a framework capable of properly evaluating any potential action. However, such a system will clearly fall short, given the sources of purported divine commands—revealed texts and religious experience. Chapters 11, 12, and 15 have already discussed their flawed nature generally, as well as their failure to provide adequate evidence in support of the existence of a deity. Here, it is worth briefly emphasizing why these same texts fail as a basis for divinely determined ethics. One of the most significant problems, hinted at above, is one of incompleteness. It is highly problematic to say “whatever God commands on a topic is right,” and then follow up with “but I have no idea what God commands.” Though not explicitly stated in this way, this is a very common position. Despite popular rhetoric, the Christian Bible does not

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say a word about abortion or stem cell research, for instance. These are interpretations, rather than divine commands. While problematic in and of itself, incompleteness raises an even larger problem—that we must interpret. Take, for instance, a command such as “Thou shalt not kill.” This implies we cannot murder, one would think. But does it mean we cannot kill in self-defense? Or kill game for food? Or factory farm? What about driving in a car, which leads to the killing of insects? The command in question is simply too vague and cannot be read without interpretation. Now in and of itself, interpretation is not a bad thing. In fact, I strongly encourage anyone to interpret their holy texts based on consistency, context, ethics, and reason. Yet the Divine Command Theorist is cornered here. If texts must be interpreted, and indeed they must, then we must base that interpretation on some guiding principle. Yet to do so is to once more assert that God’s commands regarding ethics are not free. For instance, if I interpret a passage based on what was said elsewhere in the same text, then I am implicitly assuming that God’s commands are consistent, and am thereby implicitly asserting that God’s commands are constrained by said consistency, that God could not or would not command A at one point and not A at another. More generally, whatever principles of interpretation I use will ultimately assume that God’s commands follow said principle, and are therefore constrained in some specific way. The very fact that we must interpret commands from revealed texts means that we cannot be Divine Command Theorists.8 The Divine Command Theorist simply does not have access to the bank of uninterpreted commands that would be required in order to complete a satisfactory theory of ethics. So far, we have identified two major types of problem with the voluntarist option. However, since all of these problems have applied to the same half of the Euthyphro Question, we have yet to present a dilemma. Before moving on then, we must briefly consider the other half, the answer that maintains, “God commands it because it is good.” Historically, this has been called the intellectualist option, because it asserts that God has reasons for Its command and, hence, commanded ethical principles are a product of God’s intellect. First, I cannot emphasize enough that there is nothing wrong with the intellectualist option. Any intellectually respectable Theism should start with the assumption that a higher power is both good and reasonable. Having said that, the Euthyphro Question poses a dilemma for Divine Command Theory because it is an option that the Divine Command Theorist simply cannot take. The reason for this is

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a simple entailment of the word “because.” If God commands us to do something because it is good, this entails that it was already good prior to (or at least independently of) God’s command. Hence, the command did not make it good, directly contradicting the Divine Command Theorist’s chief commitment. This result can be generalized in two ways: First, note that the intellectualist option moves us from a determining role in ethics to an instructional role. God is commanding us to do something that has already been determined to be good by whatever method.9 But more importantly, the intellectualist option entails that ethical principles are already fixed rather than determined by God’s decisions. As such, the Euthyphro Question is a dilemma not just for the Divine Command Theorist but for anyone who assigns God a determining role in ethics. They must either maintain the determining role and, in doing so, accept an ethics of divine whimsy that also becomes unworkable due to the need to interpret holy texts, or they must join both atheist naturalists and intellectually respectable Theists in rejecting the determining role and instead maintain that the divine will simply is not needed for the fixing of ethical principles.

The Appeal of the Unworkable The Euthyphro Dilemma has been known for thousands of years. It, in fact, predates Christianity. And though I hope my presentation above was lucid and helpful, I have not said anything particularly novel.10 Divine Command Theory and more generally, God’s purported determining role in ethics, is a philosophical nonstarter. So why is it so appealing (and therefore common)? There seem to be three types of reasons that people are drawn to it: theological, practical, and psychological. Theologically, it is the result of putting supreme emphasis on God’s sovereignty, God’s absolute control of all things. But as has been previously discussed, this is not as desirable as it seems. It glorifies God’s power over all else. In and of itself, this is suspicious. Hitler had power, but that did not make him praiseworthy, and this problem certainly does not go away if we imagine that Hitler was instead omnipotent. But further, as was argued in Chapter 11, if I say that God’s omnipotence ranges over absolutely everything, I effectively destroy philosophy, religion, and knowledge generally. If God, for instance, can violate a law of logic, then God could make it

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true that A and not A at the same time. That is, God could cause contradictions. But this means that we can no longer know anything because, for instance, even if I knew that God was perfectly good, I could not infer from this that God was not also heinously evil. To even assume there can be knowledge, theological or otherwise, requires that we treat the laws of logic as exceptionless. This is to say that the theist plays a dangerous (and undesirable) game in assigning God a sovereignty that allows God to change conceptual truths such as those essential for ethics. Having said that, Divine Command Theory does not seem to be a common view in philosophical theology, but is instead much more common among non-professionals. And here, we find other appeals of a determining role. The first is a practical one. If theists agree to base religious belief on the rational analysis of evidence, they place themselves on shaky (and shrinking) ground. The overall trend in evidence has been going toward atheist naturalism and away from supernaturalism. God’s role gets smaller and smaller in the way we view the world. We no longer need God to explain species, cosmic origins, or even consciousness. However, a common retrenching point maintains that theism somehow provides something that naturalism cannot, to dig in one’s heels and insist that God’s role is necessary for determining ethics. Unfortunately, there is a final, more nefarious reason I believe that Divine Command Theory persists, in that it enables fundamentalism and extremism, both of which can fulfill deep psychological needs. By downplaying the role of reason while at the same time treating revealed texts as authoritative, it becomes easy to not only get whatever one wants to out of their religion,11 but to do so with a perceived divine validation. This contributes to psychologically desirable feelings of superiority, certainty, in-grouping, meaning, and the like, whose psychological desirability was discussed in Chapter 21. Assuming God is on my side, and in a way that I never need to question it, can be very comforting indeed.

Challenging Questions – Are any of the four divine roles in ethics essential? Why or why not? Which seems the most important? Is there a viable replacement for that role that the atheist naturalist can utilize? – What makes murder wrong? Does it seem like it goes beyond whether a deity said so? What ramifications does this have for supernaturalist ethics?

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– Which depiction of God is more desirable—one of absolute sovereignty or one that utilizes a perfect intellect? Defend your answer.

Further Reading – Plato, Euthyphro – Robert Merrihew Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods – William Manchester, A World Lit Only by Fire

Notes 1. Notice that the motivational role only exists for desert-based survival scenarios. Such roles are either greatly diminished or nonexistent for other methods of determining survival, such as purely faith-based accounts, predestination, or membership in a certain exclusivist religion. 2. Here we must be careful, because a supernaturalist need not believe that all such commands are a matter of ethics. For instance, many Jews who keep the 613 Mitzvot believe that they serve a purpose other than that of ethical principles, such as helping us be mindful of Yahweh during daily activities or as a purification activity, etc. Hence, it is a consistent position to say that God commanded men not to trim their beards (Leviticus 19:27) but that doing so is not immoral. 3. Put another way, even the supernaturalist does not and should not assign this role to the deity, save perhaps as divine lip service. 4. The rest of the chapter will adopt the language of Theism. This is partially for linguistic convenience, but more because assigning God a determining role in ethics is limited almost exclusively to omnipotence-based monotheism. This is because the determining role is generally motivated by a claim to God’s sovereignty, an omnipotence in which absolutely everything is under Its control, including conceptual truths such as those of ethics. As we will see though, such a depiction may undercut another Theistic trait—that of worship-worthiness. 5. As we will see in the next section, this realization also plays an important role in the dilemma posed by the Euthyphro Question. 6. More generally, any appeal to the reasonability of God certainly creates a more defensible, moral, and intellectually fulfilling depiction of the deity, but does so at the cost of surrendering God’s determining role in ethics. 7. It is worth saying a few words about freedom. We like to say that freedom is a good thing, but while this might be true for finite beings, it is less clear that it would be a positive for an infinite being like God. An omniscient

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8.

9.

10. 11.

being with a perfect intellect would always know the best course of action. As such, freedom would simply represent the ability to make a bad decision when the right course of action is perfectly pellucid. Such freedom would then undermine, rather than enhance perfection. It is therefore perfectly consistent to say that freedom is positive for finite creatures but not for God, and thereby make it easier to say that the maximally praiseworthy God of Theism is perfect without our finitude-born freedom. For a good discussion on the God of Theism’s lack of freedom, see Rowe. For an account of divine ethics connected to God’s essence, see Adams. The latter can be seen as attempting to provide a third option when confronted with the Euthyphro Question by answering “both,” that the relation is identity (of God’s essence to goodness) rather than of cause and effect. While I believe that such an attempt avoids the Euthyphro Dilemma handily, it does so by switching God’s role, giving a nuanced account of the generative role rather than providing a determining role. Hence, even if Adams’ argument is successful, it does nothing to undermine the main purpose of this chapter- the rejection of God’s determining role in ethics. It is worth mentioning that, while the issue of interpretation is the most serious, there are other issues as well. As was discussed in previous chapters, revealed texts have God committing and commanding monstrous things, which we must call good, but also commanding things that most people ignore—such as not eating shrimp, not trimming beards, etc. Both types of command create undesirable results for the Divine Command Theorist. But further, since God can change Its mind at any time (to assume otherwise is to say God is constrained), we also have no idea if God issued newer commands that replace or supplant any given holy text. This is particularly problematic for Christians, whose faith assumes that God radically changed Its mind regarding ethics about two thousand years ago. Why think that this has not happened again? Though less severe than the problems of incompleteness and interpretation, such issues are still damning for the Divine Command Theorist. Note, to take the intellectualist option, one need not even say that goodness is outside of God, only outside of God’s free command. For instance, if goodness is an emanation of God’s essence, then God’s commands are simply an enumeration of God’s generative role. Other than, perhaps, generalizing the Euthyphro Dilemma so that it applies to any assignment of a determining role to God. To take an extreme case, consider the 9/11 attacks, which were purportedly divinely sanctioned, despite the fact that such attacks explicitly violated multiple teachings and commands found in the Qur’an. If reason (and therefore consistency, context, etc.) is taken out of the picture, then

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one can simply find a passage with the desired result without looking further to see if they are reading said passage correctly.

References Adams, Robert Merrihew. Finite and Infinite Goods —A Framework for Ethics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1999. Rowe, William L. Can God be Free? Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2004. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, NSRV, Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2010.

CHAPTER 23

Excising God from Value

The previous chapter was largely negative in its focus on what ethics is not and cannot be. This chapter will shift to the positive, briefly discussing the rich sources of ethics and meaning that exist independent of belief in a deity.1 The existence of such sources should hardly come as a surprise, given that there are millions of atheists who do not exist in a state of perpetual existential crisis and who still conform to at least basic, if not exemplar moral codes. However, drawing out these sources, at least at their most general level, is important to the project of the book. Doing so assists the believer in understanding why and how atheist naturalists carry out a meaningful existence, which also helps remove the negative stigma attached to atheism and thereby contributes to meaningful dialogue. As we will see, ethics should be viewed as an important common ground between believers and nonbelievers and should serve as the basis for any meaningful judgment about members of either group.

The Precedence and Pedigree of Naturalistic Ethics First and most importantly, we must realize that naturalistic ethics, by which I mean ethics whose workings do not require any supernatural entity, is simply the standard. Generally, within the field of ethics, there are three leading contenders for the source of moral value—consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Each of these sources motivates defensible © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_23

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approaches to ethics and morality, yet none of them requires the existence of a deity in order to provide a systematic, consistent, plausible account of right and wrong. Consequentialism, as its name implies, maintains that the right or wrong of a given action is determined by the consequences of said action. Hence, if you believe that happiness is good and that suffering is wrong, it is very easy to base a system of ethics on consequences without invoking anything supernatural. To take an intuitive example, supposed someone asked you why torturing children was wrong. Consequentialist answers like, “because you should not harm people if you can avoid it,” “pain is bad,” “because their happiness is important,” and the like seem very plausible, certainly more so than, “because God said we shouldn’t.” Put negatively, to say that the consequences of your actions (such as whether your action causes thousands of deaths) have nothing to do with whether that action is right or wrong seems bizarre, if not monstrous. Perhaps the most famous version of consequentialism is utilitarianism, a view that maintains that right and wrong are proportionate to total utility (that is, the total (un)happiness they cause). Overall, if you think happiness is a good thing and unhappiness is a bad thing, you can develop a robust system of ethics independent of, but compatible with, a deity.2 By contrast, deontology maintains that some specific feature of the act itself has intrinsic moral worth. Such features could include conscience, the inherent value of a moral rule or principle involved, or the intentions or motivations of the acting agent. Since the value is inherent, the deontologist need not appeal to a deity to import value, though many deontologists are theists (for instance, one can say that God is the source, in some sense, of intrinsic value). If one is attracted to ideas such as, “Murder is wrong, regardless of circumstance,” then one may see the appeal of deontology. However, one can defend and employ a robust form of deontology, such as Kantian ethics,3 without any notion of divinity. Lastly, virtue ethics evaluates actions in terms of how they inform your character, whether your action is indicative of a virtue or a vice. For instance, if one thinks that wisdom is a valuable trait, then an act that manifests or cultivates wisdom is of moral worth. An early proponent of virtue ethics was Aristotle, who valued virtues based on natural kinds. It should be unsurprising that the father of biology located value in what kind of thing we are. Though Aristotle’s account was later Christianized by Saint Thomas Aquinas, it serves as an early, naturalistic account of

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ethics. There are plenty of neo-Aristotelians that defend a similar account that, unlike Aquinas’s version, requires no notion of divinity.4 However, it is here that the grounding for ethics may be the least religiously neutral. Determining what is a virtue and what is a vice is relative to kind, but religious accounts of kinds are likely to vary from natural ones. We are very clearly animals and, as such, are a biological kind. However, the supernaturalist may maintain that we are an ensouled animal, which may make us something beyond a mere animal. But as we will see in the next section, biology still has quite a bit to contribute regarding human ethics, serving as an explanation, source, and foundation for a satisfactory system of ethics.5 As such, our natural kind cannot be ignored.

Natural Sources of Right So what does biology have to say about ethics? The short answer is rather a lot, enough that we may only briefly touch upon some of the most relevant features here. Truths of biology carry weight in terms of both a source of, and motivator for, ethical behavior, providing a natural account of features like empathy and altruism. A basis for such notions in nature should be far from surprising. After all, we know that social animals are hard-wired with some sense of empathy. Elephants, for instance, will cry when they see the dead body of another elephant. Human children will start crying when they see another child get hurt. And such sentiments even cross species barriers. We frequently see news stories about animals adopting babies of different species. Horses will not trample humans unless they are trained to. Or consider the loyalty of dogs. Such examples go on and on. Most importantly though, is the fact that humans exist at all. They survived in groups for tens of thousands of years before language became sophisticated enough to even have notions of ethics (or of religion, for that matter), which tells us that some foundational care toward others is a part of our primitive, biological nature.6 Empathy and altruism, central to ethical behavior, have a clear biological basis. Empathy, we now know, is structurally integrated into the brain. Simply put, when we witness the suffering of others, it activates our neuronal networks associated with our own pain and discomfort.7 Our brains are such that it is physically uncomfortable to see other humans suffer. As such, we have a natural inclination to avoid causing (or even allowing) such suffering. But our brain structure goes well beyond this

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negative. Data also suggests that compassion (and neuroplastic compassion training) increases happiness and improves well-being by reducing stress-induced immune and behavioral responses.8 And not only do we feel good about helping others, but altruism has also been tied to health and longevity.9 Hence, by our animal natures, humans tend to avoid hurting others and instead seek to help them. This should be expected. Given our dependent existence and need of the assistance of others to thrive, especially in child-rearing, traits like empathy and altruism are extremely evolutionarily fit, central for the survival of our species. In considering such results, we should make two clarifications: First, neither of these drives is absolute. As discussed in Chapter 20, human brains are incredibly complex and, as products of evolution, include redundancy, inefficiency, and sometimes internecine conflict. As such, other drives, needs, and even disorders10 can and do lead to humans ignoring their natural inclinations toward empathy and altruism. Just as emotional needs can and do impede our rational nature, underscoring the need for critical thinking, so to do other needs undermine our altruistic nature, underscoring the need for ethical reasoning. Second, none of these studies is aberrant or unique. They fit well with what we know of the brain structures, psychologies, and behaviors of humans and of other social creatures, and books can be (and are) filled with similar results. Let us now situate results of this kind. Biology (in the broad sense) can offer insights into how physical processes impact how we act as moral beings. Such results are observable, measurable, and replicable in controlled settings. As such, an adequate theistic response cannot be to simply deny such results. The dangers of such a faith-over-facts approach were discussed in Chapter 2. Instead the theist must accept that our biology heavily informs our ethics, and any defensible theism must accommodate this realization. And while nothing about such results is incompatible with theism or supernaturalism more generally, they may serve to undercut certain religious tenets (such as humans being ensouled as the source of ethics or of animals being placed under human dominion because their moral standing is nothing like ours or that we naturally exist in a fallen, depraved state). More importantly, they further undermine the view that a god is needed for the various ethical roles described in the last chapter. To ground morality, it seems that all we need is our biological nature. As such, the most basic foundations of our ethics are independent of belief and will be shared by both theists and atheists alike.

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But atheist naturalists need not accommodate any new data in this regard. They already maintain that, in an important sense, human nature is biology all the way down, which means that, trivially, biology must be the source of ethics. This does not mean that the atheist naturalist must somehow relegate the field of ethics to a subclass of biology. Human brains are such that they are capable of high levels of abstraction, and such abstraction has proven to be a rich source of knowledge. Indeed, it has led to valuable fields of study such as mathematics, economics, and formal logic. Though such fields are direct products of the human brain, it would be silly to subsume them under neurobiology. Put another way, simply because ethics is a product of biology, that does not mean that it should not be studied independently and abstractly. Instead, I am only suggesting that we should include relevant biological facts when considering the basis for doing what is right. In this sense, biology, specifically, natural altruism in some sense, is a much better explanation than fear of divine wrath for why we do not all kill each other, as natural drives motivate us otherwise. This is what I mean when claiming biology can serve as a foundation for ethics.11 But note that this entails that any human, believer or nonbeliever, has an impetus to act morally, and this should then block the inference that atheists are somehow immoral due to their lack of belief.

The Personal Nature of Meaning Less straightforward than a grounding for ethics is the grounding for meaning. Believers commonly tie meaning in life12 to religion in certain ways, and therefore a loss of a religious belief may threaten said meaning. Two of the more commonly perceived threats to meaning stem from a loss of an afterlife and a loss of divinely given purpose. At an individual level, it may be disconcerting that you will close your eyes one day and never open them again. Such a thought is incredibly difficult to even imagine simply because the very act of imaging requires a viewpoint from which to perceive. But such is the situation with the denial of personal survival. However, the perceived threat to meaning is less about this lack of an afterlife itself and more about what such a lack implies—that everything is finite, and therefore everything ends. Everything you create will one day be destroyed. Everyone you help in your lifetime will also die. As will all of their descendants. At some point, your existence will not even be a memory. Even if you are one of the few that manage to drastically improve the world, the world itself will still end, if nothing else, when our sun goes red giant. Of course all of this

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is bothersome, maybe even depressing, but does it entail a lack or loss of meaning? First, we have very good precedence for thinking that humans can get past such potentially depressing realizations. Entire societies, millions, if not billions, of people, have managed to carry on quite well without any belief in an afterlife. The people of the pre-Christian Roman Empire, with few exceptions, maintained no belief in personal survival. Rather than R.I.P., Roman epitaphs would often read, “n.f. f. n.s. n.c.” for non fui, fui, non sum, non curo, “I was not; I was; I am not; I care not.”13 In our own time, hundreds of millions of people from Eastern cultures carry on without hope of an afterlife. As do, of course, all atheist naturalists. The reason so many deniers of personal survival can continue is because inferences like, “X is finite, therefore, X is without value,” “Y ends, therefore Y is without meaning,” and the like are simply faulty. Temporary benefit is still benefit. Fleeting value is still value. Our everyday actions reflect this. I can still enjoy a movie knowing full well that it ends. The same goes for a book, a date, or anything else I care to do. I certainly do not call such activities meaningless or enjoy them less simply because they end. Nor do I consider saving a life less heroic simply because that life will eventually cease anyway—precisely because that temporary life of temporary activities still has value. And believers in survival seem at least implicitly committed to this as well. In addition to such everyday evaluations as those just mentioned, the very desire for an afterlife seems to entail this. Overall, if a believer considers an afterlife to be valuable, something to the effect of “happy existence has value” must underlie that judgment. But once this is granted, it is hard to see how one can put value in an afterlife while not importing any value into finite existence. So far, we have briefly considered why a finite existence should not detract from meaning. However, there are also compelling reasons to think that the opposite is true, that finite existence actually amplifies meaning and value, at least in some ways. For instance, without an afterlife, the current life becomes the only one we have, making time a finite resource. A given day is then a much scarcer good and, as such, should be valued, treasured, and utilized accordingly. Further, this life becomes ultimate rather than an infinitesimal training ground for the next. Most importantly, our lives are only judged by our actions and, as such, we must act accordingly. And this leads to the second standard concern, how we find meaning in a random universe in the absence of a divine purpose-giver.

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Now trying to convince the reader of meaning in life seems like a wrong-headed approach. The goal here is not to answer what should replace religion in order to give your life meaning. Instead, we will very broadly consider how people can and do find purpose without a purpose-giver. There are two big-picture paths to choose from, depending on the nature of meaning. In the absence of a purpose-giving higher power, we must ask whether meaning is the kind of thing that we should seek to discover or the kind of thing that we should seek to create. Both answers have very promising approaches. Those steeped in objectivist ethics lean toward the former, whereas the existentialism movement argues the necessity of the latter. Both options can be rendered plausible and, as such, their potential success should at least begin to assuage the worry of lost meaning. In terms of discovered meaning, the existence of deity-free sources of value discussed above is a promising start. Moral worth (and therefore value) is preserved in the absence of divinity, and it seems that there should be a close relationship between value and meaning. It seems that living a good life, defined through any of the above sources of value, should be meaningful in some sense. However, we should not completely equate goodness and meaning, as the latter seems more personal than simply right action. But this does not seem terribly problematic. If meaning turns out to be personal, but still the kind of thing that must be discovered, this just means that there need not be a single answer. Could some people discover meaning in helping others while others discover it in family, art, work, politics, or something else? There seems to be no compelling reason to think otherwise. “Without God, nothing matters,” seems rather petulant and short-sighted, a knee-jerk reaction rather than a considered view. There is simply too much in this world to enjoy, and our connections with others are too central to adopt a position that ignores every other aspect of human existence. Nevertheless, the quest for meaning is a very personal one. If a higher power does not tell you what is meaningful, you must instead achieve it on your own. You must search rather than simply be told. And while this may imply that achieving meaningfulness requires more work, it certainly does not entail that such meaning is impossible or even difficult to achieve. The notion of creating value rather than discovering it is a little more difficult, not because the actual creation is harder than discovery, but because the view comes with philosophical assumptions that may not match our pre-philosophical views. Traditionally, the notion starts with

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the existentialist position that value cannot be discovered in the world (and such a realization can be the source of an existential crisis). If this is the case, then all value is and must be created.14 Such a responsibility can be both terrifying and liberating. But for better or worse, it places ultimate responsibility onto mere humans, making them responsible for their actions and lives on a scale unmatched by those that maintain that value is simply discovered. Such an embracing of our own fate seems desirable, but we can make it more so by realizing that it allows value to manifest anywhere. A common worry is that, without religion, it becomes easy to think that many of the more mundane aspects of existence are meaningless—menial jobs, boring lives, being average or below in some way. But if value is exactly where we locate it, this need not be the case. One can import value into any profession, any activity.15 Such a brief description does not do the existentialist movement justice, but I hope I have said enough to show that such approaches are not just possible but have desirable features. If this is the case, then we have further undermined the worry that a loss of religious belief entails a crisis of lost meaning.

Goodness First The stated motivation for writing this text was a call for tolerance and understanding. As such, it seems appropriate to end this last argumentative chapter with a word about common ground and how we should judge others. To start the discussion, consider the words of Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Desmond Tutu, regarding his good friend and fellow Nobel Peace Prize recipient Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Dalai Lama: …do you really think that when- I didn’t say if ; I said when- the Dalai Lama arrives in heaven, that God will say, ‘Oh, Dalai Lama, you’ve been so wonderful. What a pity you are not a Christian. You’ll have to go to the warmer place.’ Everyone sees just how ridiculous it is.16

I truly wish that everyone did see the ridiculousness of this statement but, sadly, this is not the case, especially in the United States where exclusivism is common.17 If the reader is surprised that I cite and am in agreement with religious readers, they should not be. As a personal note, I am not dogmatically antagonistic toward religion. I have many religious friends, family members, and colleagues, as well as religious philosophers

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and authors whom I admire. I have been inspired by Christians who live and practice agape love, and have been deeply moved by religious texts and leaders of many faiths. I teach courses on world religions, and admire much about many traditions. I have even been blessed by both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu. And yet I have spent many chapters attacking various religious beliefs. This is not a contradiction. I judge religions (and the religious) on their effects—on their actions, their positive and negative contributions to the world and to ethics. And I sincerely hope that they judge me by this same standard. However, as explained in Chapter 16, it is the exclusivist, belief-based sects that are overwhelmingly more likely to cause more harm than good. Therefore, undermining the tenets that underpin such a damaging belief set is a way to improve matters. Having said that, these beliefs need not be jettisoned in order to arrive at common ground with a nonbeliever such as myself. Instead, it simply requires that people follow the example set by the Archbishop and the Dalai Lama, to use religion as a vehicle for love and for making the world a better place rather than as an excuse to hate or to enshrine ignorance. And there is good philosophical reason to think that religion should be used in this way. A general argument runs as follows: 1. If there is a higher power, and that higher power is to matter to our lives, then that higher power must be worship-worthy. 2. A worship-worthy deity would be both reasonable and ethical (and therefore use reason in ethical assessment). 3. A reasonable, ethical being would wish us to be moral above all else. 4. A reasonable, ethical being would judge us based on what is most important. 5. Morality is independent of religious belief. Therefore, any higher power that matters would judge us based on our morality independent of religious belief. Such an argument provides a philosophical framework for why a believer such as Archbishop Tutu can and should believe that God judging nonbelievers18 independent of their moral contributions is “ridiculous.” But perhaps more importantly, if a deity should judge us based on our morality over our religion, then certainly mere humans should do so as well.

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The upshot of this line of reasoning seems to be a functional equivalence. If only our actions in this life matter, then the rational nonbeliever will maintain that we should be acting morally. However, since any worship-worthy higher power would prioritize right action, so should the rational believer. It seems then that the most important distinction should not be between the believer and the nonbeliever, but between the good person and the bad, and a morally upstanding nonbeliever should be valued above an immoral believer and vice versa.

Challenging Questions – Identify some obviously moral and obviously immoral actions, and then explain what makes them right and wrong. Do the explanations better conform to one of the naturalistic foundations of ethics identified above or to a supernaturalistic ethics? What does this tell you about your ethical beliefs? – Identify five meaningful activities in your daily life. Which, if any, require religious belief? – Think of the most morally upstanding theist that you know personally. Then imagine that that person ceased being a theist. Do you think they would cease being a good person or do you think they would continue to be good? What does this imply about your ethical beliefs? – Think of a person who is the least morally upstanding theist that you know. What does this imply about the relationship between belief and ethics?

Further Reading – Kai Nielsen, Naturalism without Foundations – Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism” – Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus”

Notes 1. Such independence implies that these sources are available for both the believer and the nonbeliever alike, rather than solely available to the nonbeliever.

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2. Again, it is perfectly consistent to be a theist and a consequentialist—for instance, the Catholic Works of Mercy, both Corporal and Spiritual, are some of the most profound and laudable Christian principles of ethics, but they seem largely consequentialist in nature. 3. Interestingly enough, Kantian ethics, an influential form of deontology, has been frequently Christianized. Immanuel Kant insists that ethics must be pure, that is, independent of circumstances. One way to get at this notion is the formulation of the Categorical Imperative called the Formulation of Universal law, which insists (roughly) that we only act in such a way that it is possible to will that everyone must act that way. (Kant, 4: 402–403) Many Christians see a parity here between Kant’s Formulation of Universal Law and the Golden Rule. Harry Gensler, for instance, presents a simplified Kantian framework as “Golden Rule Ethics.” (Gensler, Chapters 7–9) Of course, there are still two interpretations here. If one says that the Golden Rule is simply a worthwhile moral principle, one is defending a deontological view. However, if one says that the value of the Golden Rule is only from God saying so, one is maintaining Divine Command Theory, the view rejected in the previous chapter. 4. And Aristotle himself was not particular theistic, as his notion of Prime Movers are beings with no interest in the world (thereby excluding any possibility of meaningful religion) and certainly play no role in ethics. 5. At the risk of being repetitive, we can once more see easy ways in which the supernaturalist can embrace the same account of ethics as the naturalist. If important ethical truths are built into our biology and what kind of thing we are, the supernaturalist will have no trouble, since they are committed that part of creation is the creator fixing the laws of biology. (See Chapters 7 and 8). 6. For a more thorough refutation of humans as possessing only egoistic motivations, see Batson, Chapter Five. 7. Specifically, “…a portion of the anterior insula and a specific part of the anterior cingulate cortex were consistently activated, both during the experience of pain as well as when vicariously feeling with the suffering of others.” (Singer and Klimecki, R876) 8. For a study documenting the impact of compassion training, see Pace, et al. 9. See Post, especially pages 68–71. 10. Lack of empathy is symptomatic of both sociopathy and psychopathy, further underlining that empathy is natural to humans, as its absence indicates a serious natural defect. 11. However, as mentioned in the previous section, such biological facts can also provide a foundation for normative ethics—that because humans are naturally a certain way, it implies that we should act in order to exemplify

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certain naturally valuable traits. This is central to the naturalistic neoAristotelian virtue ethics already mentioned. I avoid saying meaning of life because not only does the phrase come with a lot of baggage; it also rests on the dubious assumption that there is one, singular answer. The saying is attributed to Epicurus, though there is no direct record establishing it as his. Although this is stronger than we need. It seems consistent to say that value, like a rare gem, can be either discovered or created. Or put less poetically, one can maintain that value can be created without the additional assumption that the natural world itself is value-free. The existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre uses the example of a waiter at various points. Dalai Lama and Tutu, pages 71–72, emphasis his. The same text also gives some helpful tools that can be employed in the search for meaning, as the two work together to identify eight “Pillars of Joy.” Even though these pillars are developed by two religious leaders, it is significant that none of them are in any way dependent upon religious belief. For an explanation and detailed moral critique of this position, see Chapter 16. The Dalai Lama is a nonbeliever in important senses, though certainly not an atheist naturalist.

References Batson, C. Daniel. Altruism in Humans, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2011. Dalai Lama [Tenzin Gyatso], and Tutu, Desmond, with Abrams, Douglas. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, Avery, New York, NY, 2016. Gensler, Harry J. Ethics —A Contemporary Introduction—Third Edition, Routledge, New York, NY, 2018. Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in Immanuel Kant — Practical Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1996. Pace, Thaddeus W.W., Negi, Lobsang T., Adame, Daniel D., Cole, Steven P., Sivilli, Teresa I., Brown, Timothy D., Issa, Michael J., and Raison, Charles L. “Effect of Compassion Meditation on Neuroendocrine, Innate Immune and Behavioral Responses to Psychosocial Stress,” Psychoneuroendocrinology, Volume 34, Issue 1, January 2009, pages 87–98.

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Post, Stephen G. “Altruism, Happiness, and Health: It’s Good to Be Good,” International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Volume 12, Number 2, 2005, pages 66–77. Singer, Tania, and Klimecki, Olga M. “Empathy and Compassion,” Current Biology, Volume 24, Issue 18, September 2014, pages R875–R878.

CHAPTER 24

Concluding Thoughts

As I finish writing this text, the United States is being ravaged by COVID19. And needless to say, there are believers whose religious beliefs and practices are making the situation much worse. Irrational, hate-filled Christian preachers, including those with access to the White House and their own TV shows, are telling those who would listen that the virus is God’s punishment for the United States becoming more tolerant of the LGBTQ community. This view is doubly puzzling since the virus is also hitting communities here and abroad that are not so tolerant, adding to the larger puzzle as to why a creator would hate so many of its creations to begin with. A Texas televangelist has claimed multiple times that God has destroyed the virus, and that the pandemic is over. Such claims are being asserted before the virus has even peaked. Anyone foolish enough to believe this or similar claims may put themselves and others in danger by not practicing social distancing. In fact, many churches continue to undermine safe social distancing practices on a massive scale. Not learning from how the congregations of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus inadvertently contributed to the pandemic in South Korea, churches are suing the government to reopen much earlier than is safe. Worse, megachurches in Louisiana and Ohio refuse to close, thereby accelerating the spread of the virus and drastically increasing the likelihood that hospitals in those states will become overwhelmed. The churchgoers will spread the virus to each other, to their families, to their workplaces, and to the customers of those places. Further contributing to the spread, many have denounced © The Author(s) 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3_24

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the wearing of masks due to a childishly literal interpretation of the claim that humans are made in the image of God. In a very real sense then, certain religious beliefs and practices are continuing to cause harm to believers and nonbelievers, even to the point of getting people killed. The fact that the governors of these states have been advised of these probable consequences but still refuse to take adequate steps to close the churches underscores the degree to which religion has infected government—these leaders eschew their duty to protect their own citizens, even from death, in order to preserve irrational religious practices.1 However, stupefying and damaging such positions are, it would be extremely biased to pretend that religious influence has been entirely negative during this crisis. Believers and religious organizations have also come to the front lines in positive ways, contributing hospital tents, food, supplies, money, time, and other forms of support to those in need during the crisis. But though the pandemic is a unique situation, such a mix of harms and benefits stemming from religion is not. These simply represent current instances of a much larger trend. However, they do raise an important question with regard to religion—whether it is possible to lose the bad while retaining the good. If we cannot, then we must consider whether overall, the bad outweighs the good. If it does, then we are simply better off without religion. In some ways, however, the answer to whether belief does more harm than good is irrelevant. This is because, regardless of whether religion does more good overall, it is manifest that it still does cause harm, and sometimes that harm is extreme. As was discussed in Chapter 2, any belief that is not harmless entails a responsibility to ensure that it is correct. This means that the evidence in favor of supernaturalism, especially beliefs as influential as those underpinning Christianity, must be carefully scrutinized. It would be the height of irresponsibility to do otherwise (we certainly owe it to the victims of religion-based harm to do so). Yet, when such an analysis is performed, we uncover some important trends— atheist naturalism is on better footing overall. Moreover, the religious beliefs used to motivate the most harm are also supported by the flimsiest evidence, while the more philosophically respectable views tend to lead to fewer pernicious consequences. Let us review our overall findings in more detail. The most promising approach for the theist is to begin with natural theology. Establishing the existence of a higher power based on reason and other universal sources would ground belief philosophically rather than through faith, thereby

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avoiding many of the harms and other undesirable consequences of faithbased accounts. Nevertheless, such religion-neutral theology could still serve as a starting point for revealed theology by bolstering the credibility of such accounts. But as we have seen, natural theology does not seem capable of plausibly establishing the existence of a higher power. Ontological arguments seem to be an abject failure. Cosmological and design arguments are more promising but, at best, seem to leave the theist and atheist naturalist on equal footing. Cosmological arguments give no good reason to think that the uncaused being is a god rather than something like the Big Bang singularity, and design arguments similarly give no good reason to think that an undesigned designer of the laws of nature provides a more plausible account than their being brute facts. Hence, in a vacuum, existential natural theology leaves atheist naturalism on at least as good a footing as theism. But it is important to realize that, even limiting our considerations to natural theology, we are not in a vacuum. Instead, because theism posits more and does so with difficult, complex, and counterintuitive concepts, it possesses the responsibility of discharging the burden of proof and, as such, an approximate tie with such lines of reasoning instead becomes a lopsided loss for theism. But further, natural atheology raises significant difficulties involving the coherence of an eternal, uncaused personal deity, and the Problem of Evil makes the existence of a good deity2 incredibly unlikely. On the whole then, the appeal to natural theology not only makes atheist naturalism reasonable, but much more so than its competitors. Natural theology’s failure to plausibly establish the existence of a higher power means that it cannot be used to shore up revealed theology. Yet when we judge revealed sources on their own merit, we find that they cannot stand on their own. When evaluated with even the most basic of evidential standards, the objective evaluator has very good reason to doubt their veracity. Any exclusivist has a nearly insurmountable challenge in the Problem of the Many, as it would require proof that their religion is significantly better supported than the rest. However, revealed texts are far too problematic to allow such a claim, to the point where any literalist position is indefensible. Christianity is especially hard to defend given its unique problems involving the appropriation of Jewish texts, the assembly of a canon conducive to contradiction, and the metaphysical and ethical difficulties inherent to its central tenets. Nor is such revelation strengthened with the introduction of miracles or religious experience. Both fail as conversion pieces, especially given that the naturalistic explanation of a

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given phenomenon is much more likely. Instead, approval of such sources seems to be grandfathered in since, to date, no purported revealed text, miracle, or religious experience meets even the basic requirements for credulity. Nor is an appeal to revealed sources significantly improved from a pluralist viewpoint. While it may skirt the Problem of the Many to a degree, it must still appeal to sources that are much better explained naturally rather than supernaturally. Hence, their view may be better supported than that of the exclusivist, and be less likely to have pernicious consequences, but is still less reasonable than that of the atheist naturalist. Overall, when revealed sources are presented independently of an extant religious framework, they have no conversionary power, and their rejection is quite reasonable. Lacking rational grounds for religious belief, one might instead turn to pragmatic concerns, for instance, whether religion contributes to other fields of study such as ethics. But it does not seem to. No substantive moral advantage of belief over nonbelief is borne out by the data. Nor is this finding surprising. As we have seen, there are deep philosophical problems with having a god in a determining or motivational role in ethics, the failure of natural theology undercuts the generative role, and the inadequacy of evidence in revealed theology undercuts the instructional role. Indeed, religion overall seems better positioned to harm ethics than to help it. No one needs religion to tell them that murder is wrong, only to tell them that murder is right. A similar result occurs when we turn to the sciences. We do not need religion to succeed in the sciences. Instead, religions are often positioned to hinder them, whether deliberately or indirectly. By contrast, atheist naturalism is better supported in each of these areas. The position is rationally justified through natural theology. Atheist naturalism also better explains the failure of revealed evidence than does supernaturalism. Naturalistic explanations inform why revealed texts are on approximately equal, inadequate ground, account for purported miracles and religious experience, and do so in a way that explains issues such as the Problem of the Many. Related to this, atheist naturalism also better explains why supernatural events that meet basic evidential standards are never recorded in the age of reason and explains the overwhelming success of methodological naturalism in the sciences. Beyond explanations, atheist naturalism provides predictions that are born out far better than supernaturalist accounts, such as the patterns of suffering and

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distribution of goods in the world, religious trends such as which religions claim the most members, why belief membership tracks parentage so closely, and why conversion to nonbelief is much more common than conversion to other religions. It is a better fit with what we know regarding ethics, not just what was mentioned above but also the established neurobiological grounds for empathy and altruism. Atheist naturalism is not only extremely well-supported, but it does not carry with it the threat3 of pernicious consequences. This is not to say that atheists do not or have not done harm. Instead, the view itself is what is harmless. The naturalist worldview, unlike those of various religions, does not require us to act in any specific way, to resist the sciences, or to adopt a skewed view of ethics. Of course it is true that some religions are more harmful in these ways than others, but even the most innocuous religions can cause harm in two ways: First, any religion that says anything about ethics ultimately threatens ethics. Even if the ethical principles provided by that religion are positive, even meritorious, there can still be harm. This is because such an ethical believer must serve two masters. They must accept claims about ethics and about metaphysics. As such, there is always the potential for conflict between these two, which can at best cloud good moral reasoning and can at worst suppress it entirely. As such, belief can only hurt, but cannot help, good ethics. Second, if the central arguments in this text are correct, then any supernaturalist view is less well-supported than atheist naturalism. Hence, even membership in the most rationally supported supernaturalist view still requires that the believer support an epistemically inferior alternative, and therefore demands an improper evaluation of evidence or, worse, a complete eschewing of evidential standards. But even the former is harmful, as it cultivates bad reasoning in the believer and implicitly or explicitly endorses bad reasoning within their community. Therefore, even the least harmful of religions threatens harm in two ways that atheist naturalism does not, and these are threats that any responsible believer must guard against. Apart from converting to atheist naturalism, how might the supernaturalist guard against such potential harms of their belief? Regarding the threat to ethics, the best route is that outlined in the previous chapter— to recognize that any worship-worthy higher power would want us to be good and, as such, reasoned ethical considerations should always take precedence over any metaphysical commitment or belief. How does one maintain an evidentially inferior belief without threatening to harm those around them by encouraging bad reasoning? Intellectual humility and tolerance. The believer should be ready to not only admit that their

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view is evidentially inferior and maintained at least partially for emotional reasons but should also be willing to tolerate and even defend people who disagree with them, especially people whose religious views (or lack thereof) are grounded in rigorous reasoning and the examination of evidence. This brings us back to one of the central goals of the book, a call for tolerance and understanding of nonbelief. But it is important to recognize that this is a qualified tolerance, not a general one. The latter entails that all views should be respected, but this is never something we should support. As has been emphasized throughout the book, views that are extremely harmful and yet lacking in rational support should not be secure beneath the blanket of tolerance. There is no reason that we, as a society or as individuals, should consider views irreproachable that are both wildly irrational and carry with them the potential to cause massive harm, such as those discussed above in relation to the virus. Instead, tolerance should be reserved for reasonable views that are unlikely to cause harm. And maintaining this position of qualified tolerance is why it is difficult to call for it without being, at least to some degree, antagonistic toward religion. Nonbelief must be shown to be rational, but this is not possible without revealing the failures of existential natural theology and providing naturalistic explanations for the purported evidence of revealed theology. Principled nonbelief must be shown to avoid pernicious consequences, but this is best demonstrated by contrasting it with sources of belief that do carry such consequences. As such, showing that nonbelief merits this qualified tolerance means that religious beliefs with potentially deep emotional connections ultimately end up on the dissection table. But two more points about this qualified call for tolerance must be emphasized. First, this work is intended as the beginning, not the end, of an intellectual journey of informed religious (non)belief.4 This is why chapters included both challenge questions to clarify thinking about these matters and some suggestions for further reading, including sources written by both believers and nonbelievers. More generally, my foundational belief, much more so than that of mere atheist naturalism, is that we must follow the evidence wherever it leads us, and we must do so without prejudice or bias. Dedication to this pursuit is why I am now an atheist naturalist, even though I was raised Christian. But such a commitment also requires that I am always open to new argument and quality evidence, and the reader should be as well. More generally though, my posture means that I never have anything to fear from evidence, and I

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encourage both believers and nonbelievers alike to read as many quality 5 sources as they can on these matters. But further, I would encourage believers to review their own sources with a critical eye. For instance, I would encourage a Christian to read the entire6 Bible, but to do so with the same evaluative standards as they would when reading the Upanishads, the Avesta, the Qur’an or the writings of any other religion (which I also recommend). Such exercises in the pursuit of truth come with significant benefits. First, engaging in a deep, critical analysis of one’s own beliefs (any beliefs, not just religious) has one of two outcomes—if, upon close scrutiny, the belief turns out to be correct, then the analysis moves our belief from mere opinion to something much richer—a considered view. On the other hand, if it turns out that the original belief was false, then we will be better for no longer believing and espousing an incorrect position. As such, applying critical thinking to our own views is always a win-win. But secondly, acknowledging what views are better and worse supported provides perspective in other ways. It may lead to more tolerance and understanding of different beliefs but, more importantly, should lead to intellectual humility. And this is the second point about qualified tolerance that must be emphasized. An absolutely foundational principle of reasoning is that the higher the potential consequences of an action, the more certainty is required in the belief motivating said action. For instance, if I am 70% sure that there are no cars coming, then I should indeed tentatively believe that there are no cars coming, but I definitely should not attempt to cross the street. The reason for this is that, since I am risking my life, I need a much higher degree of certainty in order to act upon my belief, and I will seek out additional evidence that will increase that certainty (such as looking both ways) before committing to the potentially damaging action. And yet, this fundamental dictum is too often ignored by believers. For instance, impeding the legality of embryonic stem cell research is an action that potentially prevents huge medical breakthroughs, and therefore potentially prevents the saving of thousands of lives. Yet religious justification for such resistance is extremely spotty at best, derived from questionable interpretations of already questionable texts. And this is just one example among the many ways that one’s religious belief can have a direct impact on others. Instead, intellectual humility requires that the believer acknowledge the frail nature of their religious support and, in so doing, should lack the degree of certainty required to perform

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actions whose consequences are disproportionately significant. Neither the chosen “certainty” of faith nor extreme passion for the subject is a substitute for this required evidential support if we are to act responsibly toward others. To go back to the previous example, few would say “I don’t need evidence, I just have faith” when it comes to crossing the street without knowing whether a car was coming. Nor would they say, “I know there is good evidence that there is a car coming, but it comforts me to believe otherwise,” before then crossing the street. In such a context, we would not accept these support-substitutes as sufficient for committing to a course of action with such significant consequences. And yet the consequences of religious belief can be this momentous or even more so. Too many teens have been driven to suicide by anti-LGBTQ bigotry and rhetoric. Tens of thousands will die unnecessarily due to belief-based actions that spread COVID-19, and the country (and the world) will face significant consequences when policy is influenced based on religious motivations in voting. But if we instead recognize the tenuous nature of evidence in favor of belief, it is my hope that the believer will exercise intellectual humility and then act accordingly—to refrain from making decisions that negatively impact others when their evidence is imperfect, to judge religious views based on their support and reasonableness, to defer to what is reasonable, to recognize that nonbelief can be grounded in something admirable (reason) rather than petulant antagonism, and to prioritize ethics above all else in constructing their religious worldview.

Notes 1. This is not even getting into the harms that are more difficult to estimate—to what degree were the President’s inaction and sewing of false information responsible for the severity of the outbreak? Many experts think that the answer is quite a bit. Yet neither he nor the senate that enabled him would be in power if not for the influence of the religious right. Similarly, we cannot determine to what degree the anti-science, anti-expertise culture, to which Christianity in the U.S. is at minimum an accomplice, contributed to the slow initial reaction and lack of the general populace taking the threat seriously. Given how much the glacially slow initial reaction and the radically premature reopening of states exacerbated the outbreak, one can make a persuasive case that religion has contributed to the death of tens of thousands of Americans this year.

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2. Strictly, the Problem of Evil is only a problem if one is positing a good deity. However, not only is this posit very common, but for a believer to do otherwise is functionally useless. Maintaining the existence of a higher power that takes no interest in our well-being and is not worship-worthy does not seem to make for a worthwhile religion, especially given the seemingly random patterns of suffering. The latter implies that even if religion focuses not on worship but on trying to appease such a being for our own benefit, the attempt remains a fool’s errand. 3. Here, it is worth reiterating that religious belief takes many forms, some of which are much more prone to causing harm than others. As was argued in Chapter 16, exclusivist, orthodoxic religions tend to be much more harmful. 4. And because it is a survey that covers many topics, considerations of length have required me to steer clear of much of the minutia and to only minimally address the various counterarguments and reasoned disagreements. 5. Unfortunately, these sensitive topics generate a lot of emotion-driven, subpar, and sometimes even intentionally misleading, work, especially in areas like evolution and Christian apologetics. As such, any reader interested in genuine critical thought should restrict themselves to scholarly work when possible, and be highly suspicious and critical of self-published texts, “.org” websites, and any work supported by special interest groups. More generally, seek out sources whose primary goal is the pursuit of truth rather than sources that start with their intended conclusions and then reason backwards to try to establish them. 6. Even reading a text cover-to-cover can be enlightening. Many believers simply do not know what is in their text, and are surprised when a nonbeliever points out an obviously problematic passage. By focusing on certain passages and downplaying less plausible ones, it gives a skewed perspective of how reasonable it is to accept or reject the text, and also contributes to damaging fundamentalist positions whose justifications are not born out when the text is read more holistically.

Index

A Abu Bakr, 141 A Canon of Forced Fit, 194 A Concept Too Full, 101 A Damning Dilemma, 250 Adaptive unconscious, 226 Added Value for the Believer?, 92 Adler, Jonathan, 142 A Far Cry from Perfection, 137 A finely Tuned Universe?, 83 Afterlife survival, 179, 181, 186, 218 Agam Sutras, 181 Agape love, 267 Age of Enlightenment, 151 Agnostic, agnosticism, 2, 3, 5, 9, 12, 13, 15, 19, 22, 41, 92, 109 Ahimsa, 168 Albert, Fish, 126, 127, 131 An Alien Concept, 98 An Atheist in Profile, 22 An Eternal Puzzle, 99 A New Criticism and a Final Verdict, 57 Animism, 18, 237, 243

Anselmian ontological argument, 53 Anselm, Saint, 52–54, 57, 61 Anthropic Principle, 88 Anthropomorphism, 98 A Plethora of Paradoxes (Just the Top Twenty), 104 A posteriori, 52, 53, 59, 64 Appeal to popularity, 233 Applying Reason to Theological Subjects, 40, 41 A Predictable World, 150 A priori, 51–53, 57, 59, 61, 72 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 73, 202 Aquinas, Thomas, 51, 65, 67, 202, 260, 261 Argument, 4–6, 8, 13, 16, 22, 26, 29–31, 41–46, 49–53, 57–61, 63–65, 67, 69, 70, 72–74, 77–80, 83, 84, 86, 87, 89–97, 107, 109, 115, 123, 125, 136, 146, 149, 150, 152, 154, 167, 172, 177, 181, 183, 186, 189, 196, 206, 207, 214, 220, 228,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. M. Lorkowski, Atheism Considered, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56208-3

283

284

INDEX

230, 233, 234, 241, 256, 267, 277, 278 Argument, evaluating, 30 Arguments by analogy, 80 Aristotle, 260, 269 A Special Case, 191 Atemporal eternality, 99, 100 Atheist in the popular sense, atheism in the popular sense, 3, 12 Atheist naturalist, atheist naturalism, 12, 16, 17, 33–36, 46, 50, 59, 64–72, 75, 82, 84–86, 90, 92, 98, 103, 108, 123, 127, 133, 150, 205, 207, 210, 211, 219, 233, 234, 241, 242, 247, 253, 254, 259, 263, 264, 270, 274–278 A-Time, A Theory of Time, 69 Atman, 179 Average American Atheist (AAA), 9, 19, 22, 26 Avesta, 181, 279 A World of Brains, 218, 225 Axial Age, 149 Axiom of Induction, 83, 211, 225 B Barrett, Justin, 236, 245 Bayes’ Theorem, 88 Beatitudes, 139, 169 Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin, 9, 26 Bible, 16, 24, 25, 126, 130, 135, 136, 140, 143, 145, 173, 174, 177, 192, 197, 200, 251, 279 Biblical Inerrancy, 143 Big Bang, 63, 67–72, 75, 84, 85, 89, 93, 100 Big Bang Singularity, 64, 67, 70, 93, 275 Bodhisattva, 169 Boyer, Pascal, 131, 235, 236, 244–246

Brain, 7, 12, 91, 98, 110, 147, 159, 161, 164, 180–183, 205, 206, 212, 213, 217–227, 229, 230, 238, 261–263 Broken Chains, 135 Brute fact, 75, 90, 102, 207, 275 B-Time, B Theory of Time, 68, 69 Buddhism, Buddhist, 124, 141, 169 Buddhism, Mahayana, 169 Buddhism, Theravada, 141 Burden of proof, 4, 29–37, 39, 41, 70, 94, 99, 115, 116, 118, 136, 167, 197, 275 C Cancellation agnostic, cancellation agnosticism, 12 Cartesian dualism, 222 Cartesian ontological argument, 54, 55, 57 Caste system, 239 Christianity, evangelical, 21, 136, 169, 245 Christianity(ies), 6, 8, 13, 16, 18, 21, 23, 24, 45, 124, 127, 130, 134, 136, 141, 143, 169, 174, 176, 184, 191–198, 200–202, 242, 245, 253, 274, 275, 280 Christianity, Protestant, 169 Christian Science, 14 Classical probability theory, 84 Classical theism, 98, 99 Coercive atheism, 20, 26 Common Trends in Natural Theology, 45 Confirmation bias, 90–92 Consequentialism, 259, 260 Considered nonbelief, 2, 3 Contemporary Trends (Global), 20 Contemporary Trends (US), 21 Contradictory, 164, 165, 175, 184 Contrary, 15, 125, 208

INDEX

Cosmic Intuitions, 90 Cosmological argument, 5, 49, 63–67, 70–73, 75, 82, 88, 89, 99, 121, 275 Cosmological Push, 70–73, 75, 82, 92, 102 Council of Hippo, 135 Council of Rome, 135 Craig, William Lane, 67–69, 71, 74, 75, 95, 103 Cult scientism, 206, 207, 210

D Dalai Lama, 169, 266, 267, 270 Deductive argument, 44 Defense, 30, 45, 51, 53, 59, 91, 92, 117, 118, 148, 176, 196, 202 Deism, deist, 12, 18, 23, 95, 123, 212, 213 Deontology, 259, 260, 269 Descartes, René, 52–54, 57, 61, 102 Design argument, 5, 49, 64, 70, 72, 77–84, 86–92, 94–96, 146, 154, 207, 275 Determining a Burden of Proof, 31 Determining role (in ethics), 248–251, 253, 255, 256 Diaspora, 239 Dilemma, 69, 100, 119, 195, 199, 202, 243, 249, 250, 252, 253, 255, 256 Divine Command Theory, Divine Command Theorist, 249–254, 256, 269 Divine hiddenness, 59 Dogma, 6, 7, 124, 168, 169, 172, 199 Dogmatism, dogmatist, 2 Draper, Paul, 74, 95, 118, 154, 155, 214

285

E Easy problem of consciousness, 222 Eightfold Path, 168 Enlightenment, 45, 169, 235 Epicurus, 270 Epistemic probability, 32 Escape, 115, 181, 188, 202 Escapes and Acceptance, 115 Establishment Clause, 24 Euthyphro Question, 249, 250, 252, 253, 255, 256 Evangelism, 169 Evidence, 2–6, 8, 12–17, 23, 29–34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 42, 47, 60, 67, 69–71, 73, 75, 78, 80, 82–84, 88, 90, 93, 96, 99, 104, 109, 118, 121, 125, 127–129, 133, 135–137, 140, 145, 153, 154, 162, 163, 167, 172, 180–184, 188, 189, 191, 195, 205, 207, 211, 220, 225, 230, 233–236, 241, 244, 247, 251, 254, 274, 276–280 Evidence over Faith, 13 Evidentialism, evidentialist, 13, 15, 172, 207 Evidential problem of evil, 115, 117 Evil, moral, 111, 112 Evil, natural, 111, 113, 114, 118 Exclusivist, exclusivism, 36, 134, 163, 165, 169, 171, 172, 174, 176, 184, 192, 200, 239, 241–244, 255, 266, 267, 275, 276, 281 Existentialism, existentialist, 265, 266, 270 Existential natural theology, 49, 50, 63, 77, 89, 90, 92, 97, 115, 123, 275, 278 Experiencing Divinity, 157 F Factual claim, 43

286

INDEX

Faith-based belief, 13, 15 Fanaticism, 171–173 Fine-tuning argument(s), 83, 84, 86, 90 First Council of Constantinople, 198 First Council of Nicaea, 198 Five Ways, 65 Five Yamas, 168 Folk psychology, 219, 220 Four Divine Roles, 247 Four Types of Deficient Evidence, 180 Free Exercise Clause, 24 Free Will Theodicy (FWT), 112, 113, 115, 118 From Particular to General, 133 From Possible to Plausible, 241 Fundamentalism, 254 Fundamentalism, textual, 171, 173, 174, 177 Fundamentalist atheism, 2 G Gage, Phineas, 229 Gassendi, Pierre, 51, 61 Gaunilo of Marmoutiers, 51 Generative role (in ethics), 247, 256, 276 Ghosts in Machines, 219 Global design argument, 78 God-of-the-gaps, 78 Golden Rule, 139, 169, 269 Goodness First, 266 Gould, Stephen Jay, 214 Gratuitous evil, 109, 110, 115 Greater good, 108–110, 112–115 Gyatso, Tenzin (Dalai Lama), 169, 266 H HADD, 236, 237, 241–243 Hadith, 139

Hard problem of consciousness, 222 Heaven, 157, 179, 184, 185, 189, 266 Hell, 179, 184, 185, 199 Hick, John, 118 Hindu, Hinduism, 1, 9, 123–125, 139, 168, 169, 179, 234 Hinduism, Advaita Vedanta, 169 Historical and geographic inaccuracies, 137 Historical claim, 130 Historical Objections to Ontological Arguments, 55 Homoousion, 196 Homoousios , 198 Human Development Index, 21 Humean objection, 52 Hume, David, 4, 17, 52, 63, 64, 73, 74, 115, 116, 118, 119, 125, 126, 130, 154, 185, 189 Hypersensitive agent detection device, 236

I Imposing Agency, 235 Impracticalities, 186 Incarnation, 82, 192 Inclusivist, inclusivism, 176 Inductive argument, 44, 154 Inferential claim, 43, 44 Instructional role (in ethics), 248, 253, 276 Intellectual humility, 173, 277, 279, 280 Intellectualist option, 252, 253, 256 Intelligent design, 87, 209, 214 Interactionist dualism, 219 Internal contradictions, 137, 138 Introduction to the Topic, 1, 165

INDEX

J Jainism, Jainist, 124, 168 Jefferson, Thomas, 188 Jesus, 8, 126, 127, 131, 135, 136, 138, 142, 148, 154, 174, 192–195, 198–202, 228, 273 Josephus, 195

K Kal¯am cosmological argument, 67 Kantian ethics, 260, 269 Kant, Immanuel, 49, 51, 55–57, 61, 88, 189, 269

L Law of Non-Contradiction, 42, 117 Leap of faith, 41, 42 Leibniz, Gottfried, 61 Leibniz, G.W., 224 Levine, Michael, 142 Libet, Benjamin, 226 Limitations, 19, 25, 33, 64, 102, 113, 116 Literalist, Literalism, 138, 140, 275 Lived Poverty Index, 21 Local and Global Design, 77 Local design argument, 78, 81, 87, 93 Logical certainty, 44 Logically necessary, 53, 57, 102 Logically necessary existence, 101 Logical necessity, 61, 101 Logical Problem of Evil, 117 Luther, Martin, 41, 141, 176

M Mackie, J.L., 117 Magisterial Reformation, 176 Marcion of Sinope, 135 Martin, Michael, 159, 164 Marx, Karl, 239

287

Meme, 238, 242, 245, 246 Mental Machines, 222 Messiah, 136, 194, 201 Metaphysically necessary, 101 Metaphysically necessary existence, 101 Metaphysical necessity, 101 Methodological naturalism, 154, 207–212, 214, 217, 230, 276 Miracle, 6, 39, 40, 46, 59, 79, 82, 83, 87, 96, 118, 121, 122, 124–126, 130, 137, 143, 145–154, 157, 158, 164, 165, 194, 275, 276 Mitzvot, 194, 255 Modal, 53, 54, 56–59, 61 Modal ontological argument, 57–59, 61 Moksha, 188 Moral evil, 111, 112 Morally perfect, 50, 58, 105, 107–109, 115, 181 Morally significant free will, 112, 113, 116 Moral perfection, 11, 58, 59, 98, 104, 105, 108, 115, 117–119, 162, 183 Motivational role (in ethics), 248, 276 Muhammad, 122, 137, 147 Mysticism, 115, 116, 119 N Natural atheology, 5, 7, 94, 97, 205, 275 Natural evil, 111, 113, 114, 118 Naturalism, 7, 75, 155, 205, 210, 212, 234, 254 Naturalism, methodological, 154, 207–212, 214, 217, 230, 276 Naturalism, ontological, 211, 212, 214, 217 Naturalism, scientific, 206, 207 Naturalistic ethics, 259

288

INDEX

Naturalize, naturalization, 126, 131, 154, 234 Natural Sources of Right, 261 Natural theology, 4–6, 39, 40, 43–46, 51, 73, 86, 87, 89, 93, 94, 97, 116, 121, 123, 130, 133, 139, 140, 149, 154, 167, 191, 274–276 Natural versus Revealed Theology, 39 Near-death experience, 181 Necessarily Existent God Amendment to the Theistic Entity (NEGATE), 58, 59, 61 Necessary evil, 109, 110, 141 Necessary existence, 55–59, 101, 102 Neo-Aristotelian, 261, 270 Neutral evidence, 5, 39, 97, 135, 140 New Atheist, New Atheism, 2, 18, 123 New Testament, 7, 123, 135–139, 181, 184, 188, 192, 194, 198 Nielsen, Kai, 71, 75 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 213 Nirguna, 169 Nonbeliever, 1–5, 7, 19, 33, 46, 67, 134, 135, 137, 138, 140, 145–147, 149–153, 167, 168, 172, 187, 191, 234, 259, 267, 268, 270, 274, 278, 279, 281 Non-overlapping magisteria, 210, 214 Normally accessible existence claim, 34, 35

O Odious salvation, 198 Official Doctrine, 219, 220 Old Testament, 135, 192, 194, 195, 201 Omnipotence, omnipotent, 11, 50, 104, 105, 107–109, 112, 114, 115, 117, 162, 253, 255

Ontological argument, 5, 49–57, 59–61, 63, 72, 86, 89, 95, 101, 275 Ontological Arguments in Context, 51 Ontological naturalism, 154, 207, 208, 211, 212, 214, 217 Oppression and Suppression, 23 Order and Purpose, 77 Orderly Design, 79 Organic atheism, 20, 21 Original Sin, 194, 198–200, 202 Out-group bias, 171 Out of body experience, 188 P Paley, William, 80–82, 87 Pali Canon, 141 Past and future success, 210 Paul of Tarsus, 143, 193, 195 Personal survival, 179–181, 183, 184, 186–189, 200, 248, 263, 264 Persuasive argument, 65 Persuasive Cosmological Arguments, 64, 71 Philipse, Herman, 75, 77, 87, 143 Plantinga, Alvin, 57, 61, 118 Plato, 249 Pluralist, pluralism, 130, 131, 147, 163–165, 169, 176, 242–244 Post hoc justification, 91, 92, 96 Predestination, 188, 201, 255 Presentation of theodicy, 111 Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), 64–66, 71, 73, 102 Prior probability, 32, 36 Problem of Evil (PoE), 70, 85, 102, 107–109, 111, 112, 114–119, 137, 154, 191, 275, 281 Problem of Selection, 134, 141 Problem of Transmission, 136, 137, 142

INDEX

Providence, 146, 206 Q Qur’an, 121, 122, 134, 137, 139, 141, 145, 174, 176, 181, 256, 279 R Reading and Utilizing the Text, 7 Reasonability requirement, 148–150, 152, 154, 158, 159, 162, 165 Reason as a Generator of Truth, 43 Reductio ad absurdum, 53 Regularity of Laws Theodicy (RLT), 113, 118 Reincarnation survival, 179, 218 Relativity, 68, 90, 103 Religions of orthodoxy, 45, 168, 177 Religions of orthopraxy, 45, 168 Religiosity, 20, 21 Religious claim, 42, 130, 169, 206, 244 Religious experience, 6, 121, 122, 157 Religious experience, private, 158–164 Religious experience, public, 158 Religious Hijacking, 193 Resurrection, 138, 148, 150, 154, 179, 192, 195, 199–201, 210 Resurrection survival, 179, 181, 188 Revealed texts, 39, 40, 87, 112, 121, 122, 130, 133–135, 137, 138, 140, 142, 145, 251, 252, 254, 256, 275, 276 Revealed theology, 12, 39, 40, 43, 45, 94, 116, 121–123, 125, 130, 133, 145, 167, 181, 191, 192, 201, 241, 275, 276, 278 RgVeda, 139, 181 Rowe, William, 11, 18, 58, 73, 74, 117, 164, 256

289

Russell, Bertrand, 188 Ryle, Gilbert, 219, 229

S Saguna, 169 Salvation, 138, 168, 169, 171, 176, 177, 184, 188, 192, 195, 198, 201, 202, 239 Samhita, 181 Samsara, 179–181, 242 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 270 Schellenberg, J.L., 58 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 51 Scientific inaccuracies, 137, 139 Scientific naturalism, 206, 207 Scientism, 206, 207 Scientism, cult, 206, 207, 210 Scientism versus Scientific Naturalism, 206 Secularization Thesis, 20 Secular, secularism, 20, 21, 24, 26, 142, 154, 185, 214 Sermon on the Mount, 139 Shankaracharya, Adi (Shankara), 169 Shape of Analysis, 50 Shared neutral evidence, 32, 33, 35 Skeptical agnostic, skeptical agnosticism, 12 Skeptical theism, 116, 118 Smith, Joseph, 126, 127, 131, 141, 245 Social Darwinism, 237, 238, 242, 243, 245 Sole fide, 168, 188 Some Ontological Arguments, 53 Some Pernicious Contributions, 171 Some Standard Theodicies, 111 Soul, 12, 172, 179, 180, 206, 213, 218, 228, 229, 237 Soul-Making Theodicy (SMT), 114, 118

290

INDEX

Sovereignty, 253–255 Spandrel, 236 Special revelation, 121, 126, 129, 167 Spinoza, Baruch, 83 Spirit, 12, 15, 91, 135, 143, 145, 198, 217–222, 225–227, 229, 230, 237 Sri Lanka Tripitaka, 141 Straw man, 50, 249 Strong PSR, 66, 67 Sunnah, 122 Supernaturalism, supernaturalist, 12, 35, 37, 39, 158, 162, 208, 211, 212, 214, 218–221, 223, 225, 234, 247, 248, 254, 255, 261, 262, 269, 274, 276, 277 Survival, afterlife, 6, 146, 171, 179– 189, 209, 218, 228, 236–240, 245, 246, 248, 255, 262–264 Survival, reincarnation, 179, 218 Survival, resurrection, 179, 181, 188 Susskind, Leonard, 69 Swinburne, Richard, 61, 75, 103, 197, 201, 202 Synopsis of the Text, 3 T Tacitus, 195 Tanakh, 135–137, 174, 176, 193, 194, 201 Teleological argument, 49, 50, 77 Temporal eternality, 99, 104 Temporally eternal, 100 Ten Commandments, 138, 145, 194, 248 The Appeal of the Unworkable, 253 The Arbitrariness of Religious Belief, 127 The Asymmetry of Belief, 162 The Big Two- Interpretation and Context, 138 The Coherence of the Trinity, 196

The The The The

Danger of Success, 114 Ethics of Divine Whimsy, 249 Fall, 26, 198–200 Fathomably Unfathomable Mind, 158 The Human Controlling the Divine, 134 The Inference to Existence, 52 Theism, theist, 2, 11–13, 17, 18, 24, 33, 36, 41, 50, 52, 53, 57, 66, 71, 72, 74, 75, 82, 83, 86, 91–94, 96, 98, 100, 102, 107, 109–111, 113–115, 123, 126, 127, 130, 168, 183, 192, 201, 205, 219, 233, 247, 248, 250–252, 254, 255, 262, 268, 274, 275 The Naturalistic Alternative, 146 Theodicy, 110–112, 114, 116, 118, 119, 154 The Personal Nature of Meaning, 263 The Precedence and Pedigree of Naturalistic Ethics, 259 The Problem of the Many, 124, 127, 129, 133, 137, 140, 159, 234, 275, 276 The Problem Stated, 107 The Quest for an Ultimate, 63 The Rejection of Dogma, 167 The Religious “Majority”, 233, 234 The Religious Burden, 33 The Religious Contagion, 237 The Revived Kal¯am Cosmological Argument, 67 The Shape of a Solution, 110 The Stakes of Revelation, 123 The Threat is Real, 170 The Turn to Revealed Theology, 121 The Unassailability of the Non-Empirical, 160 The Unjust Deserts, 183

INDEX

Three Historical Families of Argument, 49 Tolerance, 1, 7, 24, 72, 134, 140, 200, 266, 277–279 Trakaksis, N.N., 118 Trinitarianism, 192, 197 Trinity, 136, 192, 196–198, 202 Turing, Alan, 223 Turing Test, 223, 224 Tutu, Desmond, 266 Two Transcendent Threats to Morality, 168 Types of Survival, 179 U Unicorn Argument, 71 Upanishads, 125, 181, 279 Utilitarianism, 260 V Views and Commitments, 4, 11

291

Virtue ethics, 259, 260, 270 Voluntarist option, 250–252

W Weak PSR, 66, 67, 71 What Counts as Evidence, 16, 83 What is the Burden of Proof?, 29 Where are We Left?, 140 Where the Arguments Leave Us, 89 Works of Mercy, 269 World Religions, 20, 124, 125, 127–129, 139, 168, 205, 208, 214, 234, 242, 244, 267

X Xeno, 103

Z Zoroastrianism, 124, 242