Suppose there is some controversial issue. Also suppose you have a particular view on this issue. Which one of the following two options should you choose?

1. Learn more about the controversial issue.
2. Learn how to better argue for your view on the controversial issue, and argue against those views in conflict with yours.

I think most of us have a hunch that option 1 (which we’ll call free thinking[1]) is somehow better than option 2 (which we’ll call apologetics).

Is Apologetics fairly described by option 2? Yes: almost all apologetics is covered by stuff like “here are some arguments you can use to persuade your non-Christian friends”, “this is how you knock down argument X against Christianity”, “this is why X, who wrote a book attacking Christianity, is wrong”, “tactics for persuasively arguing your case” and so on and so forth. Take a sample of the articles at an apologetics website like bethinking, or STR, or Reasonable Faith, or the titles of speeches given at a recent Apologetics conference. You probably don’t even need to do that: most apologists, apologetics organisations, etc. make it clear they are ‘providing a defence of Christianity’, ‘equipping you to defend the faith’ or something along similar lines. So describing Apologetics as apologetics is accurate.

Why is Apologetics irrational? Because apologetics is an exceptionally bad epistemic strategy. Given religious beliefs are highly diverse, mutually contradictory, and many seem at least superficially plausible (many can attract agents of considerable epistemic virtue, and there is no great trend of the epistemically virtuous to one religion or another), making it your business to convince others of the belief find yourself with is epistemic suicide. The odds are stacked against you (no matter how epsitemically virtuous you are, the cohort of those with similar or greater virtue will be widely divided, and so most of them are wrong – so probably you are too). Yet, in the probable event that your belief is false, practising apologetics is unlikely to get one to realise the falseness of your view and prompt you to change your mind if it is false. If anything, spending your time trying to enhance the plausibility of your belief is likely to make you stick to this belief despite its falseness.[2]

Free thinking is a strategy that has a far better track record. You may still get it wrong, but the idea of learning about the evidence untrammelled by the aim of spinning it to serve your prior ideology should make you track the evidence far better. If the evidence is slanted against your point of view, our free thinker seems far more likely to notice this and revise their belief, and the apologist more likely to rationalise it away and try and convince others (and themselves ) it is not so.

Why you shouldn’t be an apologist

Engaging in apologetics is always irrational. This is because free thinking is strictly superior to apologetics, regardless of how much you know. Worse than that, apologetics is plausibly worse than simply learning nothing.[3]

Why is that? Why would it not be reasonable for someone to carefully consider the matter, come to a conclusion, and then devote themselves to defending it (per many apologist self-portrayals, such as Lee Strobel). It is rational to be persuaded by a given view in the face of disagreement, even if some of these people are epistemically more virtuous than you. It is also rational to argue for your view, or to try and persuade others towards it. However, is never rational to take the evidence with an agenda to vindicating your view. No matter how much one knows, or how carefully one has considered the issue, one never wants to compromise a clear view of the data. For the fact there are people even more epistemically virtuous than you who disagree completely should raise the fear a rational person’s mind that there is some evidence or argument that refutes them that they are not aware. Consequently, they should want to keep as wide and clear a survey of the data as they can. Apologetics runs counter to this reasonable aim.

Of course, apologetics has some benefits. Given equal time invested, an apologist for Christianity is likely to provide a better case for Christianity than a free thinker who comes to believe Christianity[4].  If Christianity is true, and that it is important for others to know Christianity is true, then it is better to do apologetics: although it is not rational, the prudential consequences of convincing more people outweigh this. The problem, of course, is that this all hinges on Christianity being true. If Christianity is false, doing apologetics for it is bad. So rational people will want to be confident of Christianity being true, but that means free thinking, not apologetics. We can add a lack of epistemic humility to the rational sins an apologist commits.

Does this mean anyone who tries to argue for Christianity is irrational (why stop there, anyone who argues for anything is irrational?) Not at all. If someone, after free thinking on religion finds themselves convinced by Christianity, and further tries to argue in its favour too, they are not being irrational.  They only become irrational if they lock themselves in a Christian ideological echo chamber and spend their time trying to defend Christianity and attack other beliefs ranged against it. What one should do instead is carry on as they did before: continue free thinking about the issues, and if that happens to supply one with further reasons in support of ones view, so much the better – if not, one should be grateful for the correction.

Dealing with apologetics, dealing with apologists

Most of us lapse into apologetics without realising it: we do so when we go looking for evidence that confirms our beliefs instead of evidence in general, when we treat countervailing evidence as an enemy (‘but this means I am wrong!’) rather than a friend (‘this is not what I expected, maybe I should change my mind’), or when, when presented with an argument ‘against’ our position, our first impulse is not to seriously entertain it, but rather look for ways to undermine or defeat it. This identification of our beliefs as some object to be valued and protected rather than an estimate to be revised in the light of new information is one of the most persistent and recalcitrant cognitive biases, and almost all of us are guilty of it to some extent or another. It certainly is not unique to Christian Theism[5]. Whatever you believe, you should avoid lapsing into apologetics, and so training oneself to free thinking, and developing insight as to when you are practicing apologetics are very good ideas to keeping rational.

Apologists are prevalent (in part because apologetics can be seen as an intermediate level exploit of human rationality). How should you interact with them? How do you know someone is in thrall to apologetics: everyone will profess that they are merely following where the evidence leads. Yet not all who profess they do really are, and you shall know them by their fruits. If someone claims to be a free thinker, and yet their entire intellectual diet is devoted to material that defends, that attacks opposing beliefs, and so on, then it is a pretty fair bet they are doing apologetics instead.

Apologists are neither epistemic peers, nor are they competent judges of good arguments (it is hard to think of a worse strategy to assess argumentative worth than apologetics). Consequently, their attitudes about the truth of Christianity, or the merit of the arguments in favour and against, do not track the truth. Further, it seems unlikely that they are likely to change their mind (even if they should), and any case they present will likely appear more convincing that it should be taken to be – because their craft is devoted precisely to enhancing the plausibility of their case.

This does not mean that their arguments must be false (straightforward ad hominem), but it does give good reason not to take them seriously, and indeed to neglect to interact with them save in very special circumstances. Although apologists can be useful to provide their ‘side’ of the story, their assessment of the argumentative terrain is worthless, and at worst the arguments they present you need to be checked (as apologists are likely to selectively cite authorities sympathetic to them and other biases that need to be corrected to get a clear view of the evidence). If you are also in the business of presenting arguments to others which you think should convince them to your side, apologists are slightly more recommended – again, though, they are strictly inferior dialogue or debate partners than a free thinker on the other side. In most circumstances, therefore, they are better off ignored and avoided.

[5] That said, modern Christianity, particularly the more evangelical wing, seems to emphasize Apologetics (and thus apologetics) a lot, so it is one of the worse offenders at propagating this anti-epistemology.

At this point, Chris is still challenging premise (4) of the following argument:

Horrific Suffering (def.) = that most awe-full form of suffering that gives the victim and/or the perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that his or her life is not worth living.

(1) Necessarily, if God exists, finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God realize their deepest good.

(2) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God.

(3) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good. (from 1, 2)

(4) Necessarily, if God exists, there is horrific suffering only if its prevention would prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good.

(5) Necessarily, if God exists, there is no horrific suffering. (from 3, 4)

(6) There is horrific suffering.

(7) God does not exist (from 5, 6)

In my most recent article I outlined reasons for thinking (4) is true. I want to bring out some underlying strands of the debate, that will simultaneously address Chris’ concerns.

In the background of the argument is the question “What would a perfect being do?” In answering this question, one engages in conceptual analysis (not just this question, practically all of Western philosophy involves conceptual analysis). In analyzing concepts, we take something like the concept of perfect love, for example, and ask the stereotypical philosopher question of what it means to be perfectly loving. It is the hope of the philosopher that such analysis leads to deeper understandings of the concepts in question. In my last article, I presented a series of considerations for thinking that a perfect being would only permit the existence of horrific suffering if it’s prevention would prevent finite persons from realizing their deepest goods. Forgive me for quoting at length:

Let us delve further, take the state in question, that of Horrific Suffering, defined as being “that most awe-full form of suffering that gives the victim and/or the perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that his or her life is not worth living.” States such as this are often the most difficult times in people’s lives, one need only speak with someone who has gone through such turmoil to realize this fact. God, however, would not even need to speak with these persons. The perfection of God surely entails an omniscience that encompasses all kinds of knowledge. This includes a perfect knowledge of how particular states feel to her created beings and thus, complete insider knowledge of the experiences of every created being. Granting that there can exist no being more compassionate than God, if she exists, this perfect compassion coupled with perfect knowledge of what it is to undergo Horrific Suffering entails that God is, as Schellenberg puts it, maximally opposed to these sufferings. Granting that God stands in maximal opposition to the experience of Horrific Suffering it is surely the case, entailed by our aforementioned analyses, that God allows persons to suffer horrifically only if such suffering is a necessary condition of these persons realizing their deepest good; a relationship with the Creator that will unfold throughout all of eternity, the only thing that God’s perfect nature will deem enough. In fact, even if the existence of Horrific Suffering were a necessary condition of some very-good-other-goods such that they, perhaps in quantity, “outweighed” the non-good state of Horrific Suffering, our above analyses entail that permitting such suffering is still inconsistent with the divine nature!

Given the analysis of the concepts in question, the conclusion to which we are led certainly seems to be that (4) is true. That is, reasoning about what these particular things mean leads us to a conclusion about what a being with those properties would do.

Thus, when Chris suggests that God has morally sufficient reasons for causing or permitting horrific suffering, a few things are occurring. Firstly, he begs the question against the conclusion drawn from the conceptual analysis. He assumes that there can be a reason such that in light of this reason God would permit the existence of horrific suffering even in cases where the deepest good of persons does not have such suffering as a necessary condition. But, our conceptual analysis leads us to the conclusion that there is no such reason; God would not do such a thing. Chris cannot merely assume the failure of the conceptual analysis, he has to argue for it.

The most relevant portion of Chris’ response, is, I think the following:

Is the thought that one’s life is not worth living really something which God is “maximally opposed to?” Many of us have in fact had such thoughts and have subsequently gotten over it. Some people do not get over it. If it is true that Hitler committed suicide then it is likely the case that he did not get over it. But is God “maximally opposed” to Hitler’s horrific suffering or the possible result of him taking his own life? What about the well-to-do millionaire who decides after losing a few million that his life is no longer worth living by virtue of the fact of him losing those few million?

Well, if our conceptual analysis is reasonable (which I contend it is) then the affirmative is a reasonable conclusion to draw. I’m not sure if Chris has ever gone through such a period, but at the very least he probably knows of someone who has gone through such a period and even many who have “gotten over it” regard it as the worst point in their lives. The relevant portion of the analysis is the feeling involved with horrific suffering, not the antecedent conditions. We are reasoning about a being that is perfectly compassionate and because of her omniscience shares in our experience. Whether Hitler, a millionaire, or whomever, the experience of Horrific Suffering does not change in content. Chris has even admitted this to an extent, in pointing out that it may have led to Hitler taking his life. It is easy for us, I think, to scoff at people like Hitler and say that they deserve it or what not, but we should not assume that a perfect being, if she exists, shares our shortcomings in this respect; we many not be perfectly compassionate, but surely she is.

So, has Chris offered any reasons to think that the above conceptual analysis is in some way misguided? Not directly. Directly, he’s only begged the question against it by speaking of “morally sufficient reasons for God to permit horrific suffering.” There are hints of a better reply in his responses however, namely, that of “skeptical theism.” A treatment of that topic would require another article, so for now I will only flag it as a possible course of objection for Chris.

Something that I’ve mentioned before seems relevant yet again. Whereas I am asking the question, “What would a perfect being do?” Chris seems to be asking the question, “What has a perfect being done?” The difference is subtle, yet illuminating in how both of us approach this, and probably many other issues in the philosophy of religion. There is some initial question as to whether or not the being Bolt calls “God” possesses the properties of perfection I’ve ascribed to the term. There is a tendency that I have experienced in my many discussions with Christian people to assume that this world is the type of world that God would create, since God did create it. But if our conceptual analyses lead us to discover that this world is not the world that a God would create as I think is the case here, we are left with the conclusion that there is no such being. Many of my discussions with Christians have resulted in their looking at the Christian story and saying that particular conceptual analyses don’t line up with the Biblical conception of God. As I’ve said before, so long as our conceptual analyses are reasonable, so much the worse for the Biblical conception of God; if a God did exist, it would not be that one. While I think there are hints of this confusion occurring in Chris’ thought, I would like to thank him for not, as many confusedly and amateurishly have, done something like throw the book of Job at me or cite various parables from the Bible. It should be clear how to do so in this context, would only be to beg the question even further.

So, our conceptual analysis seems to lead us to the conclusion that this world, with it’s occurrences of horrific suffering, is not the world that a perfect being would create and thus, there is no God.

Chris’ most recent response chooses to set aside his initial two objections and focus in on premise (4) of the argument:

(4) Necessarily, if God exists, there is horrific suffering only if its prevention would prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good.

His main complaint is that no reason is given for accepting the premise. This isn’t true, in my response I provided one such justification:

Looking at an analogous instance, it seems obvious that something has gone wrong when we are saying of the parent that they are acting in accordance with anything we might remotely pick out as being “good” when they cause or permit their beloved child to suffer horrifically when the prevention of that suffering would occur at no loss to the beloved!

This is a piece of prima facie justification and whether or not Chris finds it persuasive, it is there. I will, however, take this opportunity to say much more. If there is anything that perfect goodness is not, it is the causing or permitting of non-good states to obtain for the sake of their being non-good states. What might it mean to say of some person that they are perfectly good and without repercussion can avoid the causing or permitting of some other person their experience of pain (for example), but causes or permits such pain anyhow? It is difficult to make sense of in the same way it is difficult to make sense of there being some person such that they are omniscient, and yet they do not know my name. Whatever is a property of the person in question, it surely isn’t omniscience, and in our previous example, it surely isn’t anything close to perfect goodness. We can reason then that if a perfectly good being causes or permits the obtaining of some non-good states, her doing so must in some way be necessary for some greater good state. Surely a perfectly good being, if bringing about non-good states, does so reluctantly, takes no pleasure in doing so, and would avoid doing so if at all possible without sacrificing one of the greater goods.

Good parents exemplify this in their interactions with their children. They may take their child to the dentist, permitting the obtaining of the non-good state of painful tooth extraction, taking no pleasure in the non-good state obtaining, but permitting it because it leads to the good state of having a healthy mouth. In the above example, the parents seem justified in their permitting their child to suffer because of the upcoming greater good for the child. As Chris notes, if God exists, her being our creator grants her a particular set of rights over our lives that exceeds even that of parent and child. Given such authority, however, we are not to neglect God’s perfect goodness which would ensure that the instances of non-good states are justified in some way. Let us delve further, take the state in question, that of Horrific Suffering, defined as being “that most awe-full form of suffering that gives the victim and/or the perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that his or her life is not worth living.” States such as this are often the most difficult times in people’s lives, one need only speak with someone who has gone through such turmoil to realize this fact. God, however, would not even need to speak with these persons. The perfection of God surely entails an omniscience that encompasses all kinds of knowledge. This includes a perfect knowledge of how particular states feel to her created beings and thus, complete insider knowledge of the experiences of every created being. Granting that there can exist no being more compassionate than God, if she exists, this perfect compassion coupled with perfect knowledge of what it is to undergo Horrific Suffering entails that God is, as Schellenberg puts it, maximally opposed to these sufferings. Granting that God stands in maximal opposition to the experience of Horrific Suffering it is surely the case, entailed by our aforementioned analyses, that God allows persons to suffer horrifically only if such suffering is a necessary condition of these persons realizing their deepest good; a relationship with the Creator that will unfold throughout all of eternity, the only thing that God’s perfect nature will deem enough. In fact, even if the existence of Horrific Suffering were a necessary condition of some very-good-other-goods such that they, perhaps in quantity, “outweighed” the non-good state of Horrific Suffering, our above analyses entail that permitting such suffering is still inconsistent with the divine nature!

Premise (4) is thus established and since, as argued in the earlier articles, Horrific Suffering exists and is not a necessary condition in the relevant way, it follows that God does not exist.

Horrific Suffering (def.) = that most awe-full form of suffering that gives the victim and/or the perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that his or her life is not worth living.

(1) Necessarily, if God exists, finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God realize their deepest good.

(2) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who ever more fully experience the reality of God.

(3) Necessarily, if God exists, the prevention of horrific suffering does not prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good. (from 1, 2)

(4) Necessarily, if God exists, there is horrific suffering only if its prevention would prevent there being finite persons who realize their deepest good.

(5) Necessarily, if God exists, there is no horrific suffering. (from 3, 4)

(6) There is horrific suffering.

(7) God does not exist (from 5, 6)

Chris’ first objection takes aim at premise (2) of the argument. The premise is motivated by the existence of persons in the actual world who attest to experiencing the reality of God and who, themselves, have not gone through horrific suffering. Chris mentions that we must assume that these people are not “lying, deceived, forgetful, or otherwise confused about their alleged lack of horrific suffering.” He rightly notes the extraordinary implausibility of defending such a position, and I add that it would be a most uncharitable interpretation of those in question. However, he does suggest that such a question can be asked of their experiencing the reality of God. That is, of those who attest to experiencing the reality of God and not having gone through horrific suffering, how do we know that they are not lying, deceived or confused with respect to experiencing the reality of God? Chris says:

Now we need not take so strong a position as to deny that these people have experienced the reality of God in order to plant this objection. Rather, we may point out that the subjective nature of experiencing the reality of God is sufficient to raise our suspicions about these people who claim to have had the experience of God without the experience of horrific suffering. How do we know that what one non-suffering person believes is an experience of the reality of God is anything at all like what some suffering person believes is an experience of the reality of God?

To experience the reality of God, in the context of this argument, is to be in a personal relationship with the creator of the cosmos. A relationship of the type theists mention often. It is a being as aware of the existence of God as a child is aware of his or her loving mother. That such an experience occurs in the “ever more fully” sense is to simply point out that given the infinite complexity of God, there will always be more about God for some finite human person to know. That is, if God exists and is as awesome as theists often claim, it is difficult to see how any finite human person can exhaust the things there are to know about God, or exhaust the feelings there are to be had about God, or exhaust the myriad of forms a personal relationship with her might take. It is indeed doubtful that these things can be exhausted in the context of human-to-human relationships, let alone human-to-divine relationships.  Indeed such an experience of God’s reality might manifest itself in different ways to different persons; perhaps we should even expect such a thing given God’s infinite resourcefulness, creativity, and the existence of unique individuals. Chris’ question then seems misguided. Why should we have to know that what one non-suffering person believes to be an experience of God’s reality is what a suffering person believes to be an experience of God’s reality? What is it about the subjective nature of experiencing God’s reality that should lead us to, as Chris suggests, be suspicious of those who claim to experience God, having never suffered horrifically? I fear I must have misunderstood Chris here, as I cannot bring out the objection.

Chris’ next objection is also misguided, but I fear the fault is mine for not taking the time in the initial article to outline the meaning of “ever more fully experiencing the reality of God”.  Chris says that even granting that there exists one person who has not experienced horrific suffering and has experienced the reality of God, it does not follow that the individual is in a position to “ever more fully experience” the reality of God. I hope my paragraph above clarifies what is meant by that term. I am speaking here of, in many ways, an experience of God that unfolds throughout eternity and is such that, given God’s infinite resourcefulness and creativity, the fruits of which are inexhaustible by the finite human person. Now, as Chris continues there is an important distinction to be made. Chris says that:

It could be the case that the non-suffering individual experiences the reality of God in an increasingly fuller sense but that the individual will never experience the reality of God to the degree that she could have had she of endured horrific suffering.

But this is no objection to the argument. No matter which “level of experience” the finite human person initially finds themselves at, there will be an infinite amount of unfolding left to occur. This effectively diffuses Chris’ objection as the value is placed not in the degree at which the divine experience occurs, but in its unfolding nature, the “ever more fully experiencing.” But even setting this point aside, what would be preventing the experience of the non-sufferer from reaching the heights of the sufferer? Is it God, the nature of horrific suffering, or something else? And further, why think that such prevention is necessary? Thus, assuming Chris does not want to object to (2) by taking the strong position of denying that those who claim to experience the reality of God without having suffered horrifically have actually experienced such a reality, the premise seems to survive this round of scrutiny.

Chris’ next target is (4). The denial of (4) seems quite the denial indeed. To deny the premise suggests that if God exists, there can be instances of persons who undergo horrific suffering even though their doing so is unnecessary for the realization of their deepest good. Chris, being the good Calvinist that he is, writes:

It is conceivable that a perfectly good God would “justifiably cause/permit some person A to suffer” even if that suffering were not necessary for bringing about some greater good for A. God not only owns that person, but is Himself the standard of what is just. God does no man wrong by taking his life from him immediately and without any cause known to us, and the same might just as easily be said with respect to “horrific suffering.” Herein lies a serious difficulty with reasoning through atheists’ arguments; the assumption throughout this particular argument is that humanity is the main focus of God’s dealings rather than God being the main focus of God’s dealings as Scripture describes.

It would be fruitful to understand to which particular flavor of Divine Command Theory Chris adheres, if he does possess such a view. I think Chris owes us some argumentation as to how the existence of a perfectly good God is compatible with the existence of human persons unnecessarily undergoing horrific suffering. Looking at an analogous instance, it seems obvious that something has gone wrong when we are saying of the parent that they are acting in accordance with anything we might remotely pick out as being “good” when they cause or permit their beloved child to suffer horrifically when the prevention of that suffering would occur at no loss to the beloved! Chris hints that the analysis may be too narrow, assuming that humanity is the main focus of God’s dealings. The lurking suggestion might be that God causes or permits the existence of horrific suffering for her own “deepest good.” It’s difficult to see how this might work out. This does suggest, however, that there is some good-for-God which only obtains if finite persons exist. But goods in this category seem to be, for example, instances of personal relationship between God and the created. Certainly I do not want to limit the category to those things, but I want to note the prima facie implausibility of there being, as a good in that category, that finite beings suffer horrifically. What is it about the existence of horrific suffering that makes it a necessary condition for the realization of God’s deepest good?

But these considerations aside, Chris’ objection simply begs the question. Recall, he says: “It is conceivable that a perfectly good God would justifiably cause/permit some person A to suffer even if that suffering were not necessary for bringing about some greater good for A.” Temporarily ignoring the debate of whether or not conceivability is a suitable modal epistemology, that is, whether or not it is a suitable guide to possibility, the argument from horrific suffering seeks to demonstrate that such a thing is not possible. Thus, unless Chris is just assuming from the outset that this argument is unsound, the objection does not work. Chris needs to argue (in a non question-begging way) against any justification of that premise, rather than merely assuming the premise false!

It is also important to note that when Chris says, “… the assumption throughout this particular argument is that humanity is the main focus of God’s dealings rather than God being the main focus of God’s dealings as Scripture describes,” it seems he is taking it to be the case that if God creates a world, God creates this world. That is, he is taking the data presented by the argument and attempting to make sense of how it “fits” in this “Christian-God created world.” The argument, however, has as its conclusion that there is no God, so Chris must be careful not to beg the question against the argument by reasoning in a manner that assumes the conclusion false, to show the conclusion false. An appeal to Scripture to show that the existence of horrific suffering is consistent with the Christian story may easily yield to us the conclusion that “If God creates a world, God does not create this world.” More precisely, we must be careful in looking upon the actual world as being created by God when attempting to reason about the type of world God would create and the types of worlds she would not/could not! Argumentation may lead us to say, “So, Scripture claims that God made a world with unnecessary horrific suffering… so much the worse for Scripture.“

Given these considerations, Bolt’s objections to the argument in their current form fail, and we may successfully conclude that God does not exist.

Often online discussions devolve into endless block-quotes incomprehensible to anyone but the two discussants. Therefore, I’ll instead take the opportunity to summarize the lines of argument in ascending order of importance. Many of these criticisms parallel those made by others, and I fear I may well have failed to acknowledge all of them. My apologies in advance.

To remind ourselves, the most modern incarnation of the OTF is this:

(1) Consequently, it seems very likely that adopting one’s religious faith is not merely a matter of independent rational judgment but is causally dependent on cultural conditions to an overwhelming degree. This is the religious dependency thesis.

(2) Hence the odds are highly likely that any given adopted religious faith is false.

(3) So the best way to test one’s adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism used to evaluate other religious faiths. This expresses the OTF.

(4) Rational people in distinct geographical locations around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and defend a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their upbringing and cultural heritage. This is the religious diversity thesis.

(1) Ground clearing
(2) Making OTF1-3 valid
(3) Objections
3.1. Reductio and Atheist special pleading,
3.2. Good arguments and rude dialectics
3.3. Epistemic privilege and the insider test for infidels
(4) Conclusion

Ground clearing

As it stands the OTF seems to be trying to do too much, and in a garbled way. A lot of the talk about ‘taking the OTF’, the OTF versus the argument for the OTF and so on is hard to decipher, and criticisms, counter-criticisms and defences are often lost in a haze of not-quite-precise-enough philosophical verbiage. Some distinctions might be needed to clarify exactly what is being argued over.

The first three statements appear to be offering an argument about an epistemic pathology endemic to religious belief, and the fourth to give a cure. These can (and should) be separated for clarity – the fourth statement may still be a good epistemic norm even the foregoing argument doesn’t work, and vice-versa. Let us therefore distinguish between OTF1-3, the argument for epistemic pathology in religious belief, and OTF4, the proposed cure. We will focus on OTF1-3.

Making OTF1-3 valid

A close reading of [1] suggests that [2] might be no better than a restatement. For [1] says

Rational people in distinct geographical locations around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and defend a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their upbringing and cultural heritage. This is the religious diversity thesis. [Emphasis added]

This extra rider seems awfully like stating a dependency thesis. Which is what Loftus claims [2] is:

Consequently, it seems very likely that adopting one’s religious faith is not merely a matter of independent rational judgment but is causally dependent on cultural conditions to an overwhelming degree. This is the religious dependency thesis.

So this all seems a bit garbled. But perhaps we can see what Loftus is trying to get at, regardless of infelicities in expression: that religious beliefs show this socio-cultural patterning suggests they are often driven by cultural inertia, and not some careful reasoning untrammelled by one’s socio-cultural milieu. So let’s give a new argument that does just that.

5) The demographics of religious belief are much better explained by a cultural inertia model (that is, where people’s beliefs are driven by their socio-cultural milieu) than any other.

6) The majority hold religious beliefs due to cultural inertia.

This makes the sort of move Loftus surely has in mind: inferring from the demographics of belief to the likely mechanism of belief formation. The move from [5] to [6] isn’t formally valid either. However, it is clear on what move is being made. Further, it should also be clear that this argument can be made by adding further premises, none of which would be remotely controversial. If that’s good enough for such august philosophers like Peter van Inwagen, it’s good enough for our purposes here.

A bigger problem is the move from [2] to [3]. For on it’s face it seems a straightforward use of the genetic fallacy: to conclude from the (epistemically disreputable) mechanisms that cause people to believe p something about p’s truth.

Loftus doesn’t think this is a big deal, and refers to Parsons. Yet Parsons cautious support of genetic-fallacy-esque arguments aren’t of the sort Loftus uses in OTF1-3. The key passage is here:

Theists counter that such an argument, if taken as supporting atheism, commits the “genetic fallacy.” You commit the genetic fallacy when you conflate two questions that should be distinguished: (a) What causal processes account for the psychological origins of a belief? (b) What rational grounds are there for thinking the belief true? Just because you can explain why somebody holds a certain belief (he learned it from his mother, say) doesn’t mean that the belief has no objective truth or validity. I might be “hardwired” to think that God exists, but, nevertheless, he might really exist, as arguments and evidence might show. As the saying goes, just because you are paranoid does not mean the people are not out to get you; likewise, just because you are wired to believe in God does not mean that God does not exist (Maybe, in fact, it was God who wired you to believe in him!).

However, the charge that atheists commit the genetic fallacy is both wrongheaded and disingenuous. Sometimes, indeed, the causal history of a belief has no bearing on its credibility: I may have originally accepted the Pythagorean Theorem because my high school geometry teacher pounded it into my reluctant head, but if I can now prove it, the history of how I acquired my beliefs about the Pythagorean Theorem is irrelevant to my current judgment about its soundness. On the other hand, there are times when the causal history of a belief is highly relevant to its epistemic merits… [Emphasis added]

In other words, the ‘genetics’ of a given belief is entirely relevant to the question as to whether so-and-so is justified in believing it. But it has no bearing at all whether that belief is, in fact, true. Thus the move from [2] to [3] – from “it seems very likely that adopting one’s religious faith is not merely a matter of independent rational judgment but is causally dependent on cultural conditions to an overwhelming degree” to “the odds are highly likely that any given adopted religious faith is false”  is surely a genetic fallacy.

Does it matter? Not too much. We can renovate this bit of the argument by talking about justification or warrant instead of truth. For if indeed religious beliefs are culturally dependant (and granting something fairly uncontroversial about culturally determined belief being usually unwarranted), then it would follow that most religious belief is unwarranted:

6) The majority who hold religious beliefs hold them due to cultural inertia.

7) Beliefs held due to cultural inertia are not warranted

8) The majority who hold religious beliefs are not warranted in holding their religious beliefs

Now we have a renovated version of the Outsider Argument. Call it the ‘Demographic Defeater for Faith’ (DDF).

5) The demographics of religious belief are much better explained by a cultural inertia model (that is, where people’s beliefs are driven by their socio-cultural milieu) than any other.

6) The majority hold religious beliefs through cultural inertia

7) Beliefs held due to cultural inertia are not warranted.

8) The majority who hold religious beliefs are not warranted in holding them

This expresses the sort of moves Loftus wants to make in the first three statements of the OTF, but does so more clearly and more strongly. How does this ‘OTF+’ stand up to scrutiny?

Objections

Reductio and special pleading for Atheism

Consider these three beliefs:

1. “All life on this planet is descended from a common ancestor”
2. “There is no God”
3. “Skin colour is morally irrelevant”

Demographic defeater type objections could be levied against these. Loftus freely accepts that the OTF1-3 is really a more specific form of an OTB – for beliefs which are highly culturally plastic, one should wonder whether you really are being reasonable in going with the flow of your prevalent cultural milieu.

Surely there are a diversity of beliefs about evolution, Atheism, and racism. And surely these beliefs are culturally plastic. Displace me a hundred years or a thousand miles, and I’d probably believe different things about a-c. A dependency thesis follows soon after: it seems unlikely given this cultural plasticity that these beliefs aren’t formed by cultural inertia. So, more likely than not, these beliefs are unwarranted.

This is bad news. For Loftus and those who agree with him overwhelmingly accept a-c, and further take their acceptance to be reasonable as opposed to cultural brainwashing. Yet if they believe that their acceptance of Evolution, Atheism, racial equality and so on can be held despite that DDF style can be raised against them, then why can’t religious believers shrug off the OTF? In short, what gives this argument selective toxicity towards religious beliefs?

Those who support the OTF1-3 rely on tenuous distinctions to excuse them from the force of the OTF1-3. See Loftus’s explanation of why he doesn’t need to ‘take the OTF’ for Atheism:

When Christians ask if I have taken the outsider test for my own “belief system,” I simply say “yes I have, that’s why I’m a non-believer.”

They’ll ask if I am equally skeptical of my skepticism, or whether I have subjected my non-belief to non-belief, or my disbelief to disbelief. These questions express double negatives. When re-translated they are asking me to abandon skepticism in favor of a gullible faith, for that’s the opposite of skepticism—something no thinker should do. Even if having a gullible faith is desirable, which faith should we be gullible about? And how can we decide between these faiths? The bottom line is that skepticism is a word used to describe doubt or disbelief. It doesn’t by itself represent any ideas we’ve arrived at. It’s merely a filter we use to strain out the bad ones leaving us with the good ones. So we cannot be skeptical of doubt unless we think doubt is inherently wrong, which would leave us with mere belief in belief.

This doesn’t work, and the reason it doesn’t work is it equivocates between scepticism as epistemic caution and scepticism as a label for Atheism/Agnosticism. For “There is no god” is definitely an idea that we arrive at, and not just some passive heuristic for belief formation (and no, not some ‘lack of belief’ either). This game seems a roundabout way of asserting that Atheism is epistemically respectable by equating it with good epistemic method.

This is not the only example. See the reply to Reppert. Reppert offers a series of reductios, one of which is our beliefs about rape. Loftus’s response to that charge is this:

…

So can we apply this same skepticism to moral beliefs? Should I be as skeptical that rape is wrong as I am that rape is morally acceptable? No. Absolutely not. Again, look at the specific criteria I provided. I said:

The amount of skepticism warranted depends on the number of rational people who disagree, whether the people who disagree are separated into distinct geographical locations, the nature of those beliefs, how they originated, how they were personally adopted in the first place, and the kinds of evidence that can possibly be used to decide between them. My claim is that when it comes to religious beliefs a high degree of skepticism is warranted because of these factors.

That’s what I said, and so in this instance as with many other moral beliefs they do not suffer the same consequences from applying the OTF. Beliefs like the acceptability of rape are based on religious beliefs anyway, so they are subject to the outsider test precisely because of the nature and origin of those beliefs, as I said. I know of no non-believer who would ever want to defend the morality of rape, for instance, unlike believers in the past and present who do because of some so-called inspired text. We know rape is wrong, and we also know that this kind of behavior is sanctioned by religious beliefs, as is honor killing. The religious person who thinks rape is morally acceptable should subject that belief to skepticism as an outsider. And when he does this he will begin to doubt his previously held religious/moral beliefs, as I’ve argued. When it comes to Reppert, I think his moral belief that rape is wrong will survive his own skepticism, for there is evidence that as a father of a daughter he would want to help maintain a free society where she can go about her business free from being accosted. If Reppert wants to provide an argument where he can defend the morality of rape I’d like to see this. I would find it very strange if in order to escape the OTF Reppert must defend the morality of rape. That seems too high of a price to pay, but if that’s what he wants to do, then I’m all ears.

Yet, ignoring the large red herring about how religious beliefs apparently shelter rape acceptability, it seems our beliefs about rape tick the boxes of Loftus’s criteria (at least, the ones that distinguish anything) just as well as any religious belief you care to name. For surely beliefs about “when is it acceptable to have sex with a woman without her consent?” has a large number of ‘rational’ people who disagree, who are separated particular geographical and cultural ‘camps’, which were probably picked up from the prevailing cultural mores, and so on. So the argumentative weaponry behind the DDF are just as effective against these sorts of moral beliefs, amongst many others.

Good arguments and rude dialectics

Another approach when faced with a demographic defeater is to simply provide arguments in favour of the proposition in question. One may say we can prove evolution or racial equality and marshal all sorts of evidence in favour of these things. Whereas this isn’t true for something like Christianity.

Yet such a response just begs the question against all those people who want to provide reasons for their religious convictions. The reply usually is that the people offering these arguments are scrabbling around for them after the fact of their religious convictions – they aren’t really using them to guide them to their conclusions, but rather they find take them because they confirm these convictions. Once again, of course, exactly the same reply can be made whenever Atheists offer arguments for Atheism, racial equality, or whatever.

Of course, such an explanation of disagreement is logical rudeness, little different in application to a psychoanalyst whom explains disagreement with his theories as Oedipal conflict, or the Evangelical who locates the origin of disbelief in that disbelievers are blinded by sin per Rom. 1. One might find this accusation levelled against the religious implausible, even if it is granted we get nowhere far.

There are two ways of understanding this “you’re just accepting these arguments because they have conclusions you like” response. The first is the reply made is that Christians say are coming up with these arguments expressly to defend their prior commitments, and therefore these arguments are unpersuasive. That is obviously fallacious. The second reading is an epistemic one: that because Christians are coming up with these arguments to defend their prior commitments, they will still accept these commitments whether or not the arguments they have at their disposal were any good. So even if the arguments they have are good arguments, they still aren’t being reasonable because their convictions don’t track the preponderance of the arguments. This sort of reply does work.

Yet, once again, exactly the same move can be deployed against the Atheist trying to argue for Atheism, or anyone arguing for any moral truths ‘taken as read’ in modern liberal society. Even if we do have the right arguments for these things, that is just epistemic luck, in the same way a Christian would be lucky if they stumbled onto cogent arguments for their faith when desperately looking to shore it up. In neither case, it seems, are the actors behaving in epistemically respectable ways, and thus our DDF, even in its most charitable light, doesn’t give the nod to Atheism over Faith.

Epistemic privilege and the insider test for infidels

The only robust way to answer this sort of criticism is to argue for the privileged position of our particular socio-cultural millieu in contrast to others who disagree. That in fact our cultural lens is the best available to bring the issues into proper focus.

Take the theory of evolution. Affirmation of evolution is patterned, but patterned in a manner suggestive of warrant. It correlates with scientific training, educational level, and things like that. Likewise the beliefs of Doctors regarding disease and the medical laity. That there is disagreement patterned on communities need not mean they are all scrabbling in dark. It may indicate that some, but not all, have privileged access to the truth.

In the case of medics or scientists it is fairly easy to find evidence that they possess epistemic privilege regarding matters of health or the natural world: we can look to their past record of predictive success, how they exhibit particular epistemic virtues in excelsis, and so on. When confronted with the fact that we’d likely have very different attitudes about race if we brought up in 1890s Alabama or 1930s Germany, we should be thankful that we weren’t in these environments, for we think they would have led us away from the truth. Were we faced with a white supremacist or a Nazi, we take ourselves as having a dialectical advantage, that we would be able to provide a case they could not answer – and if they aren’t persuaded, it is simply because their view on these matters is impeded relative to ours. In short, we take our culture’s view on racial equality versus its detractors as privileged, much like the doctors on medicine or the scientists on science. The equality-generating cognitive environment is superior to the racist-generating cultural environment with respect to some set of epistemic norms.

Yet everyone believes their cognitive environment is superior compared to all those others that lead to people disagreeing with them. Doubtless the racists could come up with a story as to how their environment is superior relative to ours. The only way forward, it seems, to actually argue the point of issue, and see which side’s claims to dialectical superiority survive.

The same applies to belief and its detractors. Believers and Atheists will have their own stories to tell as to who has epistemic privilege. That Atheists assert – by their own lights – the atheist-generating cognitive environments are privileged compared to the believer-generating ones is no more than an insider test for infidels: for an Atheist to say religious ways of knowing are rather delusions and to urge believers to be rational and abandon them is no better than an evangelical talking about reason being a whore to satan and urging so-called ‘rationalists’ to open their hearts to Jesus. They amount to no more than assertions of epistemic ‘other’ness.

Both sides need to swallow their shrill assertions of epistemic privilege and settle down to trying to beat each other by the usual ‘rules of the game’ for debating these matters. For if Atheist has the better of the argument or has ‘facts on their side’, that would suggest she was right all along in asserting that the athiest-generating environment is better than the believing one. Yet doing so obviates the need for the whole DDF rigmarole in the first place: instead of presenting the DDF and demonstrating it is selectively toxic to belief by vindicating atheism’s epistemic privilege by showing it to be more reasonable, one can simply stick to demonstrating that Atheism is more reasonable. In short, this sort of argument has taken us in a long circle back to where we started.

Conclusion

Loftus’s project to undermine the rationality of religious belief is a failure. We can improve OTF1-3 to provide a better argument in the spirit of what Loftus has in mind, yet even this renovated argument remains unpersuasive. It is unpersuasive simply because demographic worries like the OTF attempts to exploit are endemic to beliefs we hold – were our environments different we would almost certainly believe differently, and many (perhaps most) of our beliefs are due to cultural inertia.

Against this, there is no means to put religious beliefs (over any others) under special scrutiny which isn’t question-begging nor tendentious. If demographic data is ‘good enough’ to undercut the rationality of religious belief, it is ‘good enough’ to undercut the rationality of Atheism, or most of our beliefs about science, or most of our ‘commonsense’ moral beliefs. To avoid accepting this, we say that our environment is privileged – that other cultures who differ with us see through a glass darkly, and were we transposed into this environment the different beliefs we have would be accounted for by some loss of epistemic virtue. Yet, again, these are precisely the moves a religious believe can make to defend their religious community from similar charges, and, again, there is no reason to dismiss one defence out of hand but not the other.

These defences cannot be evaluated without settling the question of whether the beliefs in question are true, or at least reasonable. Yet this is was exactly the subject under discussion. The OTF is a detour that takes us nowhere. Our time and energy is better spent otherwise.

If you consider thoroughly the ramifications of a deity taking care of us, what you’ll find is an irresolvable logical conflict between God guaranteeing health and safety on one hand, and the motivation for of caregiving and interdependence on the other. That behavior happens to define human existence like none other.

So, God doesn’t allow people to suffer and die for specific reasons. He does so because it makes more sense than not that we live as mortals – i.e., with the vulnerability to suffering and death.

God allows suffering and tragedies in our world because only as flesh-and-blood mortals does life on Earth make any sense.

Bad things don’t always have to be understood as serving some greater purpose. However, immanent mortality, or the fact that anyone can suffer and die, is the primary ordering principle of human life. Our mortal vulnerability motivates the behavior that builds an important depth of experience to humanity – including the search for spiritual knowledge.

That’s why God allows us to suffer and die. We have to live as mortals.

In mortal life, there are many flaws and imperfections, but there are no definable or achievable qualities that could be called perfect.

One could say that life builds upon imperfections and frailty – forming immeasurable good out of the possibility of evil and suffering. Our mortal vulnerability motivates caregiving and social organization – the behavior that anchors all culture and civilization. Everything we get from permanent culture – knowledge, traditions, institutions, identity, the structure of families, societies, the civil order of nations, our sense of worth or esteem for our place in them – we owe to the social stability of cooperative living and childrearing. We owe to the behavior compelled by the fact that anyone can suffer and die.

We suffer because the impassive forces that generate and sustain life also imperil it, and because no human could be perfect enough to be free of the potential for evil. But we’re members of families, cultures and civilizations because of our mortal interdependence and the need to guard against human flaws and natural peril.

The theodicy I’ve developed not only explains how mortality structures our existence, it shows why nothing else makes sense – especially and including a deity manipulating existence from the heavens to keep good people safe and healthy.

For God should not be regarded the same as a human bystander who has the means to avert tragedy but does not. (Otherwise, he is either not good or not powerful, the dilemma asserts.) God is the bystander to all tragedies everywhere and throughout time who, if he chose to make us safe himself, would change existence – and not for the better. That’s why I argue that it’s not just important, but essential that people address the dangers of the world instead of God.

Were God to ensure people’s health and safety (or, the health and safety of “good” people, “innocents,” etc.), or arrange that we never suffered too much, he would create a world without incentives or consequences. The result would be a profoundly different world, not a better one.

That’s because God couldn’t address evil by changing the outcomes of only the atheists’ favorite examples of manifestly un-Godly suffering. A just God couldn’t address suffering according to context, newsworthiness, historical significance or sensation unless he was only interested in public relations. Under God’s active stewardship, no earthquake would mean no natural hazards to life at all. No Holocaust could happen because there could be no murder. No tsunamis could threaten life because no one could drown. Precluding cancer could only be part of preventing any excruciating or deadly disease. And we couldn’t suffer or die from starvation or thirst because we couldn’t depend on any kind of sustenance.

Asking for a world in which God keeps innocents safe is asking for a world in which it’s unnecessary to raise children. It’s also asking for a world in which innocents don’t have to live cooperatively with others, work for a lifetime or organize socially at all. A world unburdened of compulsory parenting or work wouldn’t be a bad or evil place. But it certainly wouldn’t be our world “improved.” It’d be idle and more primitive than anything on our planet.

And if God as a rule made exceptions and intervened during times of distress, he would only turn the living incentives we have inside-out and encourage us to live in conditions that guaranteed good health. If our vulnerability to nature extended only as far as we understood it, the advance of knowledge would be hazardous. Likewise, children would be safer without parents. We’d be inclined to avoid fertile soil and water sources that made us hunger and thirst (and compelled us to work for food and water). Isolation from human assistance would distance us from suffering. And if we figured out that people who are physically trapped remained miraculously healthy until rescued, we’d know that one of the best ways to ensure the safety of those we care about would be to entomb them against their will.

It’s easy for atheists to cite incidents and kinds of suffering in isolation and note that God failed or fails to intervene to correct each one. What’s impossible for them for anyone to do is to put all those corrections together, with God creating, arranging, intervening, or whatever, and leave behind a sensible world. We live as mortals and are all able to suffer mortal consequences. Nothing else makes sense.

In fact, we make sense of our existence by giving it cultural form and meaning because we’re all mortal. God could create life and even sustain it, but it’s the living who endow it with value. And we’ve done so by taking care of children and with the social organization that bonds us to families and that forms cultures.

The better aspects of human life exist because health and safety are in the care of mortals and only mortals. It’s not fair to everyone, and the results of our failures and vulnerabilities can be gruesome. But on the one hand, who did anything to deserve a certain amount of life? The answer is no one, and that happens to be true whether a God exists or not.

There’s no divine plan that requires thousands to be crushed, trapped, stranded and killed by rubble. But there is a good reason why we must live as mortal flesh-and-bones, vulnerable to nature and other people.

It’s an essential and even defining fact of living that maintaining health, safety and life itself is our endeavor, and ours exclusively – not God’s responsibility, or ours with God as a backup. I call it the logic of living. It’s not theology, and it’s not even religious; it’s common sense, woven into the fabric of being. Flesh-and-bones is our responsibility. I believe that God concerns himself more with the soul within. It’s an order that works best for us.

What is sentimentally good is not always wise. So it would be with God safeguarding life and limb for a people whose existence is based on behavior meant to safeguard life and limb.

Our world is not perfect, but not because there’s no God or because there’s no good or omnipotent God. It’s not perfect because there’s no such thing as a perfect world.

Scene setting

David: Consider our universe. It seems to be precisely tuned for life. Were its initial parameters even slightly different, the universe would have no stars, or no matter, or collapse in on itself a moment after it arose, amongst many other life denying fates.

It would be strange if this ‘just so happened’ in a purposeless, undesigned way. That out of all the possibilities, we landed on the one that permitted life. Theism (and other more ‘anthrocentric’ hypotheses, admittedly) provide a much more plausible explanation for the data. Because God wanted living beings, he would make a life-permitting universe. It makes a much better fit for the facts.

Claire: How are you constructing this sort of inference? I can see ways you can do it, but what do you have in mind?

David: I’d like to borrow from Robin Collins, here. We need to talk about epistemic probability. In some sense, we need to evaluate the relevant conditionals while pretending we don’t know what actually occurred: that although some event really did happen, it would have been less likely to happen on one hypothesis relative to another. This ‘retrospective confirmation’ applies regardless of the conditional that “if (less-likely hypothesis), then we’d still see this evidence.”

A concrete example.

Sharpshooters: Suppose you get lined up against the wall, and ten marksmen take aim at you and fire. You survive. The fact you’re still alive surely speaks against the hypothesis that these are expert marksman with properly-functioning weapons: it suggests maybe they aren’t very good shots, or they’re firing blanks, or similar. That this event has already happened does nothing to screen off the effect of this evidence. (Indeed, if so, we couldn’t really do any history, of any kind.)

Applying a similar scheme, we can present a fine-tuning argument. That we turn out to be alive in a life-permitting universe surely counts against a non-theistic (or non-design) hypothesis if it’d be really unlikely to turn out this way – a bit like you’d be unlikely to survive if ten able marksman took a shot at you. Yet such an occurrence is much more likely on Theism.

More formally, like this:

Let LPU = Life permitting universe

N = Naturalism

T = Theism

P(LPU|N) is very low. P(LPU|T) is not too low. So, via some reverse probability and prime principle of confirmation.

P(T|LPU)/P(N/LPU) > P(T)/P(N)[1]

So the fact we arrive in a life permitting universe improves ones odds of Theism over naturalism – or design over not-design. Given how really, really small the relevant conditional is, this should give us a very large kick towards Theism

Claire: That is right, so long as your assignments for the crucial conditionals are correct. But I don’t think they are. For simplicity, let’s assume the only two horses in town are Theism or Naturalism.

Multiverse

Claire: Suppose a multiverse, with uncountable universes. Perhaps it exhausts every possible combination of values/parameters and so on, or maybe just a very, very large number. If that’s so, then even if the chances of getting a life permitting universe ‘first time’ are low, the chances of getting one after a few trillion (or infinitely many) bites at the cherry aren’t that low. So P(LPU|N) isn’t very low, and so the confirmatory push of fine tuning to Theism is repulsed.

David: Why on earth believe this multiverse hypothesis? It’s wildly ad hoc. It’s almost as bad as any sceptical hypothesis you care to name.

Claire: Is it? Ignore any putative free-standing reasons from quantum mechanics and the like. What reason is there to reject a multiverse? Unlike a sceptical hypothesis, it doesn’t offend any of our intuitions of having knowledge. It seems a complete toss-up. Yet this means that the multiverse hypothesis is inscrutable given naturalism, and thus the P(LPU|N) is likewise inscrutable.

David: Perhaps, but we can set some idea of a probability bound. P(LPU|N) will basically be P(M|N), where M is a suitable multiverse hypothesis.[2] I don’t think the sort of Ms are hugely likely, and much less likely than P(LPU|T). Even if it’s pretty inscrutable on naturalism it’s not exactly what we expect.

Claire: I’m not sure about this. I have worries about what sort of things perfect beings want to do. But put that aside – I’m sure many people have your take on these probabilities as opposed to mine. But you aren’t out of the woods yet.

Finely tuned evil

Claire: There is another worry. What we really should be asking is not whether we should expect a life permitting universe in general. But this universe in particular.

Not all Life Permitting Universes are expected given Theism. A world where all conscious beings are mercilessly tortured for their entire lives might be one example. Closer to home, a world with the distribution of evils we observe might be another. If so, then although our universe has attributes (like life-permittingness) that confirm Theism, our particular universe lies is a member of this set that actually disconfirms it because it includes evil.[3]

David: Fair enough, then there is a theodicy issue, but I think that distracts us. Effectively, this is a rebutting defeater to fine-tuning: if we only know that the universe is life-permitting, then this tilts us towards Theism. If we also know that this universe has gratuitous evil or whatever, then we’re tilted back to naturalism. However, we’d have to sort out this question too. It would still be the case that fine tuning simpliciter would tilt us towards Theism.

Claire: The epistemic terrain is hard to navigate here, but my hunch is that the argument from evil supervenes on the fine tuning argument, simply because there isn’t the relevant sorts of evil in a universe that isn’t life permitting. So even if a life permitting universe confirms Theism, this makes no odds if we discover that this universe has gratuitous evil or similar. Of course, if fine tuning doesn’t work, then the argument from evil remains live. In other words, evil is prior to fine-tuning, although it mightn’t dominate it.[4]

But let’s assume that we can sort out evil. I don’t think fine tuning works anyway.

It’s a big (modal) world, after all…

Claire: My main worry is this: we simply lack modal access to say that P(LPU|NSU) is very low, where NSU is a naturalistic single universe. Indeed, we can’t say anything about P(LPU|NSU). If that’s so, then fine tuning exerts no persuasive pressure at all.

Grant indifference over known possibilities. It seems clear, however, that the set of worlds we can illuminate is much, much smaller than the set of live possibilities. I have no idea whether a universe with a cosmological constant a few trillion orders of magnitude bigger than its present value is life-permitting.  It seems to me there are any number of ‘alien physics’ we can conceive of with completely different laws of physics (one example: a set of universes with four fundamental constants, a-d, for all values of which the universe is life-permitting). Not only this, but I don’t trust my modal perceptive apparatus enough to reveal the whole field of available possibilities. In other words, I am confident that our ‘modal sample’, or epistemically illuminated range is much much smaller than the space I need to evaluate.

Yet, if so, then extrapolating that because life-permittingness is rare within our modal range that it’s rare in general isn’t unreasonable.[5] Yet if we can’t make this inference, we simply have no steer into what the likelihood of getting a life permitting universe on ‘just chance’.

David: Alright. We need to restrict ourselves to our epistemically illuminated range, on which life-permittingness is unlikely. So we need to add in some principle, Q, which is something like “we fell inside this particular range.” So we want to evaluate P(LPU|N&k’), where k’ is our background knowledge, which includes Q, but doesn’t include U: that this particular universe occurred.

Claire: That seems a bit arbitrary, doesn’t it? Why should we accept Q?

David: I think there are two good reasons. The first is one of principle – as a rule, we can include into background fairly freely knowledge that doesn’t bias us one way or another. As P(Q|T)/P(Q|N) seems pretty inscrutable, Q satisfies this ‘no-bias’ condition.

Further, I think we can see how including Q makes good intuitive sense. Consider this:

Partially illuminated flies: Suppose one fly illuminated by a large spotlight, such that it takes up a minute area of the illuminated range. You know nothing about what lies outside the spotlight – for all you know, just outside the illumination it’s swarming with flies. Suppose now this fly in the spotlight gets hit. This surely confirms that this fly was being aimed for. Even if it wasn’t so unlikely that a random shot would have hit a fly, it’s very surprising it hits this particular fly.[6]

No-bias and salience alteration

Claire: Let’s take the principle first. I agree that no-bias is a necessary condition for free inclusion into background. But it isn’t a sufficient one. There’s another condition we need to meet which Q fails, which I call ‘Salience alteration’.

Suppose a standard scientific trial: say it’s about statins and heart attacks. We have a control group without statins, and a case group with them, appropriately matched, randomized, and blinded. We find that those taking statins have a lower incidence of heart attacks than the controls. Does this mean we should think statins are cardioprotective? We need to do some inferential statistics to see if the difference we observe is likely to have occurred ‘just by chance’.

Yet, if ‘no-bias’ is sufficient to incorporate into background knowledge, then we don’t need to do this. For A “Our sample incidences exactly match our population incidences” or I “Our sample incidences are completely unrelated to our population incidences” both pass ‘no-bias’. Yet they lead us to completely different conclusions about the salience of the data we observe. It’s clear we can’t just include things into our background that make things salient or not without good reason. Obviously in scientific trials, the only things we should include in our background about the salience of our results are those granted to us by proper statistical technique.

Where does this leave Q? Well, it is certainly salience altering: with it, we have powerful confirmation for Theism, without it, the likelihoods are inscrutable. So we need reason to believe it, much like we might want reasons for or against sceptical Theism or similar concerns. The worry is familiar – whether we should trust the appearance of fine-tuning, or the appearance of gratuitous evil. Just assuming it’s salient in background isn’t good enough.

David: Fair enough, then perhaps the example can show that this assumption is intuitive.

Targeting and Locality

David: Take the worst case scenario for the partially illuminated flies. That flies are everywhere except within our spotlight, where there is only one:

Our single fly-illuminated region-lots of flies almost makes a ‘bullseye’. Yet it surely remains that, even in this ‘worst case scenario’, hitting the middle fly confirms a aimed hypothesis over a just chance one. This single fly is special. If indeed this ‘worst case scenario’ still gives us the confirmation we want, then we don’t need to worry about what lies outside our epistemic spotlight: we still get the confirmation whatever is actually there. So it’s fine to include Q.

Claire: I think the inference is right, but the process is misdiagnosed and fundamentally disanalagous to the fine tuning argument.

There are two different hypotheses you could use, one if ‘fly preference’, and the other is ‘aiming’. If you use aiming, then indeed it doesn’t matter how common flies are outside the epistemically illuminated range. This is because the confirmation relies on a locality – that is of small groups of flies surrounded by space, which will be rare however common or not flies are in general. If flies are rare, then hitting a ‘target’ of a fly is unlikely by chance. If flies are common, hitting the flies surrounded by (rare) empty space is unlikely by chance. The ‘worst case scenario’ for the aiming hypothesis isn’t solid flies, but a ‘polka-dot’ pattern of targets. But even then, hitting one confirms aiming.

Yet, a fly preferences hypothesis does depend on how common flies are. If you hit a fly and flies are common, it’s no great surprise on chance, even if a particular fly was in a rare locality. So for this hypothesis we need to estimate how common flies are across our partially illuminated space – if we only illuminate a tiny part of this space, and can’t make any assumptions about the space, then we should say it’s inscrutable.

It’s clear that the fine-tuning argument as presented isn’t analogous to aiming, but rather about fly-preference. It is a particular property of a universe (that it permits life) that we are told to consider, not some locality condition like being an oasis of life in a barren locality. So we can’t include Q-like hypotheses into our background in these cases, as it risks giving aberrant significance to small and possibly unrepresentative samples.

Tension and development

Claire: Worse follows. Not only does Q have little to speak in favour, there’s very good reason to be against it. We can co-opt Collins’ own deployment of probabilistic tension against adopting Q.

Collins suggests when considering a conjunction of hypotheses, we should consider how well they ‘hang together’. He particularly considers some extensions to a naturalistic single universe (NSU&e) on which you should expect fine tuning. Collins argues that if P(e|NSU) is low, NSU&e suffers from probabilistic tension, and that it’s good epistemic practise to avoid such tension. This seems about right: adding implausible extensions to your pet hypothesis to ‘explain away’ countervailing evidence doesn’t mean this evidence doesn’t ‘count against’ the hypothesis.[7]

But now consider NSU&Q&k”, where k” is k’ subtract Q, and so our background knowledge minus the fact that this universe exists, and minus the fact the universe is in this epistemically illuminated range. Yet it is clear that this conjunction suffers from considerable probabilistic tension. This is because P(Q|k”&NSU) is very low. This is because, if we assume indifference (which we did to make the argument in the first place) then P(Q|k”&NSU) is simply the ‘modal area’ of epistemically illuminated range divided by the ‘modal area’ of the relevant space being considered (namely, all possible physical words). Yet, as I’ve urged above, this seems probably very small indeed. Then NSU&Q&k” suffers from probabilistic tension, and should be rejected.

NSU&k” does not suffer from this tension. Yet P(LPU|NSU&k”) is inscrutable. So, surely, the argument is unpersuasive.

Attractively, these sorts of modal scope objections don’t only apply to cosmological fine tuning. They also apply to the biological design argument too. Even if we grant (pace modern science) that getting replicators, or brains, or whatever else is unlikely to have happened on Naturalism, we can run a very similar objection to the above. So long as our insight into the relevant possibilities is poor (which it is), then that this particular route to get to brains or whatever is unlikely, it doesn’t mean there aren’t many other, and perhaps fairly likely routes just elsewhere. If that’s true, this biological design argument doesn’t work even if the factual premises are conceded.

David: I’m not sure that’s so successful for biological design. I think we think we’ve got a better handle on the relevant biological probabilities, and further we feel more confident in making assumptions about the modal space in questions that avoid these sampling concerns. Then again, the battle will surely be over the points of fact at issue.

I’m not sure there’s much hope of resurrecting a Q-like principle that lets us avoid the modal space we don’t know about when we make our inference. On reflection, the underlying principle of your objection (‘don’t infer from a sample to a population if the sample is much smaller and without knowledge of the population distribution’) seems sound: I doubt analogical arguments or Chrisholming a suitable restriction will work.

Claire: Better luck might be in denying the modal space in question is as vast and inscrutable as I make out. Maybe I suffer from a modally promiscuous imagination, and these supposed possibilities are rather impossible or absurd. Yet they seem about right to me – they don’t seem any more impossible and absurd when considering those possible worlds in our epistemically illuminated range. I think this intuition, with a healthy dose of modal scepticism, is hard to budge.

David: Returning to what we covered earlier. Perhaps we can change what we’re after to some sort of locality or ‘bullseye’ prediction. That, as you covered above, is fairly secure to modal scope objections.

Claire: Yes, but how? I can see how Theism predicts a LPU, but I don’t see how it predicts a bullseye LPU. That seems pretty inscrutable to me.

David: Perhaps as a way for God to reveal himself?

Claire: Maybe, but Theists can’t really agree to what extent, and in what manner, god hides or reveals himself, so I don’t see much hope of a robust prediction there.

Then again, P(LPU&X|T&k”) doesn’t need to be really high. It just needs to be good enough to beat the naturalistic likelihood. The problem is that as you add in stronger and stronger locality concerns, the relevant likelihoods become harder and harder to divine. There’s also the issue that this looks like an increasingly ad hoc exercise.[8]

David: A final question. Do you really believe it? Doesn’t it strike you as a somewhat arcane objection? For me, at least, the fine tuning data ‘hits you in the gut’. Do you think this objection is substantive, or more a puzzle to be sorted out by the proponent of the argument?

Claire: Actually, there is a strong intuition underlying the above – it isn’t just some curio. I agree fine tuning data does have a hit to it – it seems odd that the universe turned out that way, and maybe there’s a more comprehensive explanation than ‘it happened’. But, I think, it’s pretty odd that the universe turned out any way: that all the ways the world could have been is vast and almost limitless. It is this nigh-mystical awe of the modal space that is that should lead us to be suspicious of being too confident of it being like the fine-tuning argument presumes it is.

REFERENCES

Collins, R (2009) The teleological argument: an exploration of the universe’s fine tuning. In Craig, W. P. and Moreland, J. P. The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester.

Draper, P (2008) Collins’ case for Cosmic Design. From here

Rowe, W. L. (1984) Evil and the Theistic Hypothesis: A response to Wykstra. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 16 (1984) pp. 99-100

[1] For the interested:

P(T/LPU)/P(N|LPU) = P(LPU|T)/P(LPU|N)*P(T)/P(N)

In order, the terms are the posterior odds, the likelihood ratio, and the prior odds. So long as the likelihood ratio really favours Theism (ie, P(LPU|T)>P(LPU|N), the posterior odds are slanted towards Theism more than that priors. That there is a life permitting universe confirms Theism over Naturalism. However, without establishing our prior odds, we cannot say whether this is enough to ‘prove’ Theism or similar.

[2] Granting that P(LPU|N&¬M) is very low, but P(LPU|N&M) is very high, P(LPU|N) = P(M|N)*P(LPU|M&N) + P(¬M|N)*P(LPU|¬M&N

P(M|N)

[3] This objection stretches back at least to Hume’s Dialogues. A more contemporary gloss was given by Draper (2008). See here for further elaboration.

[4] This gets complicated. If we aren’t sure about to what degree evil tilts us towards naturalism (if at all) fine tuning is back in the game. Recall the balance figure, if the red line is rather a red smudge, the position of the wider distribution (namely, the fine tuning data) may steer us towards a conclusion more or less acceptable to Theism.

[5] Strictly, we can infer from a sample much smaller than the population, so long as we can be sure our sample is likely to capture the salient aspects of the population distribution – that the sample represents the population. Here lies considerable issues about complexity and entropy. We can leave those aside here. If indeed the modal space is inscrutable, then likewise no presumptions can be made about the distribution. If so, then the only steer to go on is the relative size of the sample to the population. If, as here, it is much much smaller (and local!), then one shouldn’t have any confidence in it representing the modal space in question.

[6] This closely follows Collins’ own defence. See Collins (2009). The flies example is minimally adapted from Leslie’s ‘fly on the wall’ analogy. Collins reads Leslie as saying we can ‘trust’ restriction to the EI range as being reliably representative. Leslie seems to be saying something more radical – that the data from the EI range is sufficient to run the fine tuning argument regardless of the wider modal space.

[7] This also follows moves against sceptical Theism about being ‘top heavy’. See Rowe (1984) for an early rendition of this move.

[8] A bit like hypothesis extension, Chrisholming your hypothesis’s prediction so it’s confirmed on the data also isn’t epistemic good practice.

Introduction

Typically, moral arguments for the existence of God work by demonstrating the existence of objective moral values and then by grounding their existence in the nature of God. Philosophers who have argued in this fashion include Robert Adams, Paul Copan, and William Lane Craig.¹ In response, critics have raised three different types of objections to this form of moral argument. Type one objections simply deny the truth of moral realism, opting instead for a myriad of other views, such as noncognitivism. Type two objections, while affirming that moral realism is true, have nonetheless attempted to ground moral facts and duties in other sources. Finally, type three objections affirm that while objective moral truths exist, they are necessary truths and thus do not require an explanation. It will not be my goal to evaluate these critiques; rather, I will present a version of the moral argument that is immune from most type two and type three objections. As this argument is directed mainly toward those who entertain type two and type three objections but otherwise grant the existence of objective moral values , I will not concern myself with type one objections here. They have, in my opinion, been dealt with persuasively in the philosophical literature.²

Plantinga’s Argument

In his 1993 book, Warrant and Proper Function, philosopher Alvin Plantinga proposed what he called an evolutionary argument against naturalism.³ According to Plantinga, the probability that our cognitive faculties would have been reliable given naturalism is either low or inscrutable. This is because evolution does not select for truth per se, but for survival value. As long a particular belief ensures an organism’s survival, it doesn’t matter whether that belief is true or false. One’s beliefs could all be false yet still be advantageous toward his survival. Plantinga uses the example of Paul, a prehistoric hominid who encounters a tiger. He writes:

Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely that the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief… Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it… or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a regularly recurring illusion, and, hoping to keep his weight down, has formed the resolution to run a mile at top speed whenever presented with such an illusion; or perhaps he thinks he is about to take part in a 1600 meter race, wants to win, and believes the appearance of the tiger is the starting signal… Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behavior.⁴

Evolution could have very well produced beings whose cognitive faculties are pragmatically reliable, but unreliable in terms of producing true beliefs. Thus, the probability of our having reliable cognitive faculties given naturalism, argues Plantinga, is either low or inscrutable. We are left in the position of either doubting or being agnostic about the reliability of our cognitive faculties. But, since our cognitive faculties are reliable, we have a defeater for naturalism.

Step 1: Plantinga’s Argument and Moral Knowledge

I will now propose a modest version of the EAAN – one that argues for the falsity of naturalism on the basis of our moral faculties as opposed to cognitive faculties and that succeeds even if Plantinga’s version is false. Assume for the sake of argument that both objective moral values and warranted moral knowledge exists. Given naturalism, what would be the probability of evolution producing beings with reliable moral faculties geared toward grasping these moral truths? Even if we grant that Plantinga’s EAAN is false – that evolution does select for truths of reason – would evolution select for true moral beliefs? Unlike nonmoral truths, moral truths are what J. L. Mackie called “queer” – they cannot be inferred through observation of physical properties.⁵ So even if evolution were to select for epistemologically true beliefs, it seems unlikely that it would select for true moral beliefs due to their radically different nature. Indeed, had evolution taken a different course, it is likely that we would have ended up with a completely different set of moral beliefs. Darwin himself remarked:

If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering.⁶

These alternate set of beliefs described by Darwin would have no doubt also been advantageous toward survival, yet they would no doubt be morally reprehensible if we were to engage in them Evolution, it seems, selects for adaptive behavior, not necessarily moral behavior. Indeed, Darwinians typically explain the origins of our moral faculties and beliefs in terms of their survival advantage and not because of their truth or falsity. Given a completely different set of conditions and thus different requirements for survival, it is plausible to suppose that evolution would have provided us with a completely different set of moral beliefs. Call these “Darwinian counterfactuals.”⁷ The processes of evolution are contingent upon the environment in which they take place. So, given a different set of conditions, it is likely that evolution would have ended up producing a different set of faculties with different beliefs about what is moral, since the conditions for survival would be different. Or suppose we were to rewind our own evolutionary development and let it play through again. Given such a scenario, it is likely that evolution would have taken a completely different route with a different set of moral beliefs. In fact, if we kept replaying this scenario, we would generate an endless number of sets of moral beliefs that would be advantageous toward survival. It thus seems that on naturalistic evolution, our moral beliefs are completely arbitrary – as arbitrary as our evolving five fingers rather than six, a fact that prominent atheistic biologist Richard Dawkins has himself admitted.⁸ Instead of rearing our young, we might have well been eating our young as it has been observed in some animal species. It is unlikely, therefore, that naturalistic evolution would have produced reliable moral faculties. But since we do have reliable moral faculties, we have a defeater for naturalism.

But suppose that evolution did occur in such a way in that mostly true moral beliefs were selected for. Does this help the naturalist? Evidently not, for it is not enough to simply account for the existence of moral knowledge – one must show this knowledge to be warranted. Indeed, for a belief to count as knowledge, it must be warranted; that is, it must be believed for genuinely good reasons. Rational insight is required. The naturalist thus has two tasks. He must:

1. Account for the existence of true moral knowledge.

2. Provide an adequate framework in which to ground moral knowledge.

Let us grant that the naturalist can account for (1). Accounting for (2) seems to be more problematic. As previously stated, our moral beliefs would have been selected for not because they are true but because they confer survivability. Moral beliefs would simply the means to a nonmoral end (Survival).⁹ But if the reason we believe in certain moral truths is because of their survival advantage, then we are not warranted in thinking that these beliefs are actually true – only that they confer some practical advantage. This is true even if evolution somehow selected for true moral beliefs. Mark Linville observes:

[G]iven an evolutionary account of human moral beliefs, there is no reason for thinking that a relation of epistemic dependence obtains, and so, given an evolutionary account, belief in moral facts is unwarranted. If our moral beliefs are without warrant, then they do not amount to moral knowledge.¹⁰

Consider the example of Bill, a brilliant mathematician who has solved many of the world’s most difficult math problems. No doubt we would consider Bill a genius. However, upon further investigation, we find out that Bill solved all of his math problems by throwing number tiles into a black bag and drawing a few at random. Though Bill may have drawn the correct numbers, we would not call him rational. The question of whether or not evolution would provide us with warranted moral knowledge “cannot be answered in a manner that leaves entirely out of account the question of how [those] beliefs are produced and sustained.”¹¹ What matters is not whether naturalism can account for moral knowledge, it is whether or not it can adequately ground it. If truth plays no part in explaining why we have certain true moral beliefs, then we do not have any moral knowledge.

Bertrand Russell allegedly once observed, “Everything looks yellow to a person suffering from jaundice.” Actually, I believe the truth of the matter is that people suffering from jaundice look yellow. But suppose that both are right: jaundiced people both appear and are appeared to yellowly. Jones enters Dr. Smith’s office, complaining of various and vague discomforts. Smith takes one look at Jones and exclaims, “Your skin has a very tawny appearance!” He diagnoses Jones with jaundice and prescribes accordingly. Later, it occurs to Smith that all of his patients have a yellowish tint, as do his charts, the floor tiles, once-white pills and the nurses’ uniforms. A simple blood test determines that he is suffering from jaundice. It dawns on the doctor that Jones would have appeared yellow to him regardless of Jones’ actual condition. Has Smith now a reason for supposing ‘Jones is jaundiced’ is false in the way that, say, a negative blood test would provide such a reason? It seems not. Perhaps Jones is jaundiced. Smith simply lacks any reason for thinking that Jones’ appearance was caused by Jones’ condition, or that the belief that Jones was jaundiced is epistemically dependent upon any medical facts about Jones. And this is to suggest that facts about Dr. Smith’s own condition have now supplied him with an undercutting defeater for his belief regarding Jones’ condition.

It thus seems that if naturalism is true, we should all be moral skeptics. Though evolution may have bestowed upon us moral faculties which allowed us to grasp the content of moral truths, we would be believing them for the wrong reasons. In essence, we would have believed in them on accident. William Hasker observes:

Occasionally, to be sure, it may happen that the thought processes generated by the physically determined functioning [In our case, survival value] of the brain will arrive at a conclusion which is correct. But this, when it happens, is simply a fortunate accident – and to say that a conclusion is reached by accident is incompatible with the claim that the the conclusion was reached by rational thinking…. [I]f my recognition that there are good reasons for a belief is not what brings about my acceptance of the belief, then I am not rational in accepting it.¹³

Naturalism is thus inadequate both as a ground and source of reliable moral knowledge.

Step 2: Is Ethical Behavior Even Possible?

Now suppose that everything I have previously said is false, that naturalism can account for the existence of warranted moral knowledge. In spite of that, naturalism does not provide the possibility for moral behavior, such that moral knowledge becomes practically useless even if we have it. Naturalism, because it views the world mechanistically, implies determinism.¹⁴ On this view, free will is non-existent, since our actions are determined by prior conditions and not by our own choosing. However, for ethical behavior to be possible, free will must exist. We cannot be punished or praised for doing something we had no control over. If we are not responsible for our own actions, then moral responsibility becomes meaningless. As Kant said, “Ought implies can.” Suppose that a mad scientist implants a chip into my brain that allows him to control my body remotely. Using a game controller, he then manipulates my body such that it robs a bank. Am I responsible in such a scenario? No, for I had no control over my actions. It is not enough for the naturalist to provide an adequate foundation for moral knowledge, for he must also provide a foundation for moral behavior.

Step 3: Moral Instantiation

There is one final challenge for the naturalist: he must show that moral values (Specifically, human dignity and equality) are instantiated in human beings.¹⁵ Given naturalism, it seems odd to think that human dignity and equality would simply be present in human beings. Who or what gives human beings these values? It doesn’t seem that value could arise from valueless causes.

Suppose the naturalist attempts to predicate dignity and equality upon human cognitive functioning. Several issues arise. First, why should we accept cognition to be a ground for these values? How does cognition ground objective dignity and equality? If these values exist as abstract Platonic forms, then why do they happen to be instantiated when we develop a certain level of cognition? It just seems to be arbitrarily asserted. Second, if one bases dignity and equality upon mental functioning, then they become degreed properties. After all, some people have a higher level of mental functioning than others, but it obviously doesn’t follow that they have more value than others. Indeed, such a notion runs afoul of the idea of equality. Third, it commits the naturalistic fallacy. One cannot move from a descriptive (An “is”) statement of biology to a prescriptive (An “ought) statement of ethics. Finally, “[i]f the naturalist claims that intrinsic dignity somehow emerges when an organism is sufficiently neurologically complex, the problem of account for the emergent of value or dignity remains. As Kant argued regarding the actual infinite, so can we regarding human worth: dignity cannot be formed by successive addition. Intrinsic value must be given at the outset, otherwise, it doesn’t matter how many nonpersonal and nonvaluable components we happen to stack up.”¹⁶

Conclusion

Naturalists have a tall task before them. They must: (1) account for the existence of warranted moral knowledge, (2) provide a robust foundation for the possibility of ethical behavior, and (3) show how moral values such as human dignity could be instantiated in a naturalistic framework. Such a task, as we have seen, is unlikely to be satisfied. It is probable to assume that naturalism is therefore false.

But how does theism fare? Standard accounts of theism hold that there exists a good and wise God who created mankind in his image and in doing so, endowed them with value. Even if God is not the ground of morality, he could instantiate it. Moreover, because God is a rational being, it seems reasonable to ground the existence of reliable moral knowledge in his being. Even supposing that such a God used evolution to produce mankind, he would have likely guided the evolutionary processes to ensure the production of beings with reliable moral faculties. Theism also provides a robust foundation for moral responsibility, since humans are endowed with genuine free will with which they can use to make moral choices. Paul Copan writes:

If moral facts are just brute givens and necessarily true, there is left unexplained a huge cosmic coin­cidence between the existence of these moral facts and the eventual emergence of morally responsible agents who are obligated to them. That this moral realm appears to be anticipating our emergence is a staggering cosmic concurrence that begs an explanation.¹⁷

And indeed the theist does indeed have a robust explanation, whereas the naturalist is ultimately left scratching his head for answers. Theism emerges as the better explanation.

___________

Sources

This argument is a metaphysical one, meaning it deals with the nature of reality. It also assumes your epistemology is that of a positivist (a person who rejects anything unless it’s logically verifiable). If you have some other epistemology, you may want to not spend much time reading the explanations of the premises and skip to the objections section.

So, we’ve got four possibilities typically when we start talking about the nature of the universe:

Skepticism: the proposition that nothing whatsoever exists.

Bundle-theory: the proposition that the only existent things are properties, and hence properties are the metaphysical nature of the universe (there are no substances).

Monism: This usually comes in two forms: emergentism, which is the proposition that only properties and physical things exist and the mind is just an emergent property of matter. The second most popular form would be idealism, which is the proposition that only properties and ideas, or mental substance, exist, the physical world merely being a description of ideas.

Dualism: This also presents itself in two forms. Substance dualism is the proposition that there exist both physical and mental substances as well as properties. Property dualism is the proposition that only mental and physical properties exist.

Now you may have noticed that property dualism shares it’s definition with bundle-theory here. In philosophy of mind, property dualism actually shares it’s definition with emergentism. In other words, property dualism sort of gets passed around a lot. We will here be using property dualism exclusively to refer to the dual properties that bundle-theory posits (mental and physical properties) without any underlying substance.

The method by which we will be eliminating metaphysical theories is deductive reasoning, however, if you were so inclined, you may also use occam’s razor to inductively get you to the same conclusion in the very same way (that is, that amongst several options, the choice with the least non-evidential assumptions is the correct one).

Now we know right off the bat that skepticism is wrong because if nothing exists then there can be no propositions, and if there are no propositions there are no truth statements, and if there are no truth statements then skepticism is self-refuting.

So we are left with several options. We know that one of them must be right, or in other words, we know, as Decartes did, that something has to exist. Now if we can deductively conclude that only one thing exists, that means we must throw out any metaphysical position here that posits the existence of more than one thing, or in syllogism:

Only 1 ontos for the universe exists

metaphysical theories 3 and 4 and the subdivisions thereof all posit more than 1 ontos.

Therfore, metaphysical theory 2, bundle-theory, is correct.

However, we have run into a problem. If we look closer, we can see that bundle-theory doesn’t just make one assertion, it makes two, and in fact it is a type of dualism and hence is equivalent to a subdivision in 4. It would seem now that our syllogism is invalid. Our conclusion is wrong because it is not exempt from the problems of all the other theories. It posits more than one ontos (nature).

Well wait a minute now, all it would seem we’d have to do is look at the theory itself and see which assertion in it we can logically verify. Under bundle-theory we have two types of properties:

1. mental properties
2. physical properties

Now if we can eliminate one of these, then we immediately justify bundle-theory as the accurate metaphysical theory. How can we do this? Well that’s where Berkeley comes in with one of his strongest proofs of idealism (or, as we can call it now, Humean-idealism):

We perceive ordinary objects (houses, mountains, etc.).

We perceive only mental properties.

Ordinary objects are mental properties.

Readers of Berkeley’s A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Understanding will note that I have simply replaced the word “idea” with “mental properties” or “bundles of mental properties”.

It is here that we can now forward Berkeley’s argument for god, which is distinct from mine. For Berkeley’s argument (or rather, arguments, as he eliminates possibilities), consult the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s article on him.

As for (finally) my argument, given our newly deductively proven metaphysics:

Only mental properties exist.

We cannot perceive everything that exists.

An omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent mind is necessary to perceive all that exists.

3 may seem to be jumping the shark, but notate that any mind which contains in it all of existence is itself omniscient, since it is aware of all that exists. Also notate that any mind which is omniscient is by necessity omnipotent, since it can imagine any event into fruition or create anything. And finally notate that by definition, one is always present in their own mind, hence omnipresence.

Non-positivist objections:

The Critique from Broad Foundationalism

“Hey, I’m a broad foundationalist though and accept all this stuff being physical as a properly basic belief.”

I will only respond to a criticism of this type with a Samuel Johnson-esque “well, I’m a broad foundationalist too and I take all this stuff being non-physical as a properly basic belief.”

The Critique from Conventionalism

“I take basic beliefs to be determined by society’s tendencies and intuitions, hence I reject your first premise.”

If you believe this, then you’ll also have to accept that god exists without argument, being that 84 percent of the world believes in him.

The Critique from Reliabilism

“I think we should judge whether or not something is true based on how good it is at predicting stuff.”

If this is so, then simply read “deductive reasoning” in this article as “occam’s razor”. Occam’s razor is lovely at predicting things and to refuse to apply it in a particular place is a special pleading fallacy.

The Critique from Narrow Foundationalism

“I believe clear and distinct truths are what we should assume, such as the physicality of objects.”

I reject this criticism on the grounds that the originator of your own epistemology did not think it clear and distinct that physical stuff existed.

The Critique from Coherentism

“You behave in a way such that physical things exist.”

No I most certainly don’t. See the Three Dialogs for Berkeley’s defense of idealism as a common-sense belief and critique of matter as an abstraction. Also see Russell’s critique of coherentism.

Positivist Objections:

Argument from Meta-Ethics.

“An objective morality exists, and such a morality cannot be determined by a god nor be intrinsic to him as per Euthyphro.”

This is actually a good refutation, but if you don’t mind try to ignore it in your own objections, since I’m looking for possible refutations I haven’t already thought of.

Begging the Question

“You seem to be saying there are mental properties that aren’t perceived, since god isn’t perceived by anything here.”

There are two ways to respond to this. The simple and cheap way is god perceives himself.

The better way would be to use the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument, since existence is just redefined here as “being perceived” we can directly translate the term “necessary existence” to “necessarily perceived thing”.

Non Causa Pro Causa

“An omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being does not follow from 2.”

I explain why it does follow after premise 3.

Equivocation

“Hume used properties to describe tropes, as he was a nominalist”.

Either definition works for the purposes of this argument.

Contra Berkeley’s Core Argument

“We have deductive reason/inductive evidence for physicalism.”

First define what matter is without begging the question, then refute the master argument, then solve interactionism/justify the existence of matter.

—————————————————————————————

That covers all the stuff I can forsee. Feel free to bring up the objections I’ve already mentioned for further analysis if so inclined (with the exception of the meta-ethics critique). Also if anyone is curious, the reason I haven’t revoked my atheism after formulating this is because I want to rigorously examine whether or not it is fallacious.

Further Reading:

Berkeley, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Philosophy

Collection. Web. 09 June 2010. <http://philosophy.eserver.org/berkeley.html>.

“Skepticism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy. Web. 09 June 2010. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/>.

Bergmann, Gustav. The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism. New York:

Longmans Green, 1954.