"How to Think About (the Lack of a) God" [new window]
Also, here is a basic outline to Dr. Witmer's talk, with links to the relevant sections of the video:
"How to Think About (the Lack of a) God"
talk by D. Gene Witmer for Gator Freethought
September 26th, 2007
Introduction
1. Defining one's terms: What do we mean by "God?"
2. Possible positions: Claims of belief, knowledge, and -isms
a. Theism, atheism, agnosticism: What about the terms we commonly use?
3. Skeptical obstacles: Can we ever really know whether God exists?
4. The notion of faith: Does mentioning "faith" stop rational discussion?
5. One atheist's position: How the evidence favors atheism
For information on the "Great Debate" series Dr. Witmer mentions, see here.
1. Defining one's terms: "God"
Sneaky moves and bizarre definitions
Example: "God is the power of love." Compare "Santa Claus is the spirit of generosity."
Stipulation vs. report
Variations in meaning?
God as an object of worship and devotion
A proposed definition
God is that unique thing which created the universe, is all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing, eternal, and a person (i.e. can be described as doing things, knowing things, desiring things, &c).
The danger of "bloated conclusions"
2. Possible positions
Propositions and three possible attitudes
Believe that P; believe that P is false; refrain from believing either
Epistemic claims
Claims about whether a proposition is known; distinct from the proposition itself. For instance, you could believe that God doesn't exist but also believe you don't know this to be so.
Theism, atheism, agnosticism
3. Skeptical obstacles
Skepticism about the question
Skepticism: either "no one can know that God exists or that God doesn't exist" or "no one can have good enough reason to believe either way."
Unprincipled dogmatic skepticism
Militant agnosticism: I don't know and you don't either! Popular view that certain questions are "obviously" just a "matter of opinion," where there can be no rational way of settling the question. This is mostly an excuse for lazy diplomacy.
"No one can prove either way": what does "prove" mean?
The ultra-demanding sense of proof
Prove that P = show that there is absolutely no possibility that P is false. In this sense, almost nothing (if anything!) can be proven.
Shifting standards
Inconsistent use of the word "prove"; other times used in a more relaxed way, so that "prove" = "show that there's excellent reason to think that P is true". Even if one can't prove in the ultra-demanding sense that God exists or that God doesn't, perhaps you can prove it in the more ordinary sense.
"Proving a negative"
"Everyone knows that you can't prove a negative." Consider: "There is no elephant in this room." Can this be proven? In the ordinary sense, yes. Note that the claim "you can't prove a negative" is itself a negative claim, so it applies to itself.
Intangibility and skepticism
If God is intangible or unobservable, perhaps that means we can't have evidence either way? It's not obvious that God is supposed by believers always to be unobservable. In any case, we can have evidence for unobservable entities in physics by appeal to their effects. God is supposed by believers to have observable effect—miracles, daily life, at a minimum the physical universe is his creation.
Controversy and skepticism
People have disputed the question for ages; but nobody convinces each other. Hence, there's no good reason to believe one way or the other. This argument has some force, but it's important to see there are alternate explanations of the interminable controversy. Compare: the controversy in the 1800s over whether slavery is moral. Here, the explanation clearly is that one side had a vested interest. A similar explanation may be in play here. Note that both theists and atheists might have vested interests, so it's hard to use that consideration to come to a conclusion about who is right.
4. The notion of faith
Common appeals to faith
"You're not supposed to worry about finding evidence for God; you're supposed to take it on faith." "It wouldn't be faith if we had proof." Does the role of faith mean reason and evidence aren't relevant? Well, what is faith in the first place?
The joke definition of faith
"Faith is when you believe something you know ain't so." Those who think of faith as valuable must have something else in mind than believing what you know is false. But what?
The question of value
If faith is something contrary to using reason or evidence, why is it supposed to be valuable? When a particular account of "faith" is given, ask: (a) Is there anything valuable about believing on faith, when understood this way? (b) Does it apply in particular to belief in God?
The mere subject matter interpretation
A matter of faith = a matter of belief about religion. If this is right, then, pointing out that it's a matter of faith tells us absolutely nothing at all that is relevant to the question of evidence or reasons in relation to those beliefs. Compare: "Your belief is about the moon!" So?
Better approaches: special kinds of evidence or special attitudes towards evidence
Special kinds of evidence
"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing." This suggests that there are kinds of reasons or evidence that get overlooked by what is usually deemed "reason." And in fact it's a very bad idea to limit the term "reason" to some predetermined set of specific kinds of evidence. This doesn't mean we should accept anything as evidence for anything else, only that we should evaluate on a case by case basis.
Faith as relying on testimony
Sometimes "take it on faith" means believing something because you take someone else at his word. But of course we don't think it's a good idea to always believe what people say; whether we should believe what someone tells us depends on what other evidence we have regarding their honesty, reliability, sanity, and so on. This sense of "faith" is not at all contrary to believing on evidence.
Faith as relying on special experience
Perhaps believing on faith is believing on the basis of one's own special religious experiences. This is still believing on the grounds of a kind of evidence. Why should religious experiences be treated any differently from, say, visual experiences? Despite their differences, they're both experiences and both subject to critical scrutiny.
Must appeal to special experience end the conversation?
Perhaps such experiences seems not to be "evidence" because it's very hard to discuss them. Next question, then: Why is it hard to discuss them? What might that show about their significance? If you can't even describe them, should you be confident in what you think about what they show?
Special attitudes towards evidence?
The trivializing "no proof" interpretation
Faith is belief without proof. In the ultra-demanding sense? Okay, then almost every belief is faith in this sense. And it's valuable, since if you didn't allow yourself to believe in the absence of such ultra-demanding proof, you'd be stuck believing almost nothing. What about proof in the more ordinary sense? What could be valuable about belief without that sort of proof?
No evidence or not enough evidence interpretations
Faith is believing when there is no evidence, or only substandard evidence. What would be valuable about this? Utterly puzzling.
Balance of contrary evidence interpretation
Suppose I have very good evidence for thinking that, say, a particular person is an honest, upstanding fellow; yet there is also evidence that he's guilty of some horrid crime. In such a case, we might think that the evidence is just ambiguous and it makes sense to pick one side and stick with it, at least until something helps tip the scales more decisively. Still, in this case it's clear that assessing the evidence critically is in order. Note that this only applies to theism if the evidence is in this way balanced.
Moral interpretations
Faith is believing because you have a moral obligation to believe. Example: Father ought to have faith in his son. This has some appeal, but surely it has some real limits, and evidence is relevant to assessing whether you've reached those limits.
5. One atheist's position
Minimal evidence for theism; powerful evidence for atheism
The evidence is not at all balanced; it tilts heavily towards atheism.
The best evidence for theism? Teleological arguments
The biological teleological argument: mostly defunct given evolutionary evidence. Contrast: the fine-tuning argument regarding certain values for physical quantities. The argument: best explanation of such fortunate combination of values is that a designer set them with the intent to have a life-permitting universe.
Problems with teleological arguments: a bloated conclusion
Even if we allow that the arguments show that there's an all-power designer of the world (and I'm not willing to allow that, but supposing we do for the sake of argument), there is no chance of going so far as to show that the designer is all good, given the pervasive evil in the world. Note that if you already have good reason to think that the designer is all-good, you might be able to explain away that evil (though see below). But if you're trying to show in the first place that God exists, simply going by the evidence from the state of the world, we have no reason to think an all-good designer is responsible.
The best evidence for atheism: the problem of evil
The problem as an argument, not just a complaint
1. If God exists, he is all good and all powerful.
2. If an all-good, all-powerful being exists, it would ensure that no evil exists unless that evil is logically necessary for an adequately compensating good.
3. There exist evils in the world such that they are not logically necessary for any adequately compensating good.
Hence, God does not exist.
[Something is logically necessary if its denial is self-contradictory or incoherent. It's logically necessary that there are no square circles and no married bachelors. A married bachelor is a logical impossibility. Not even God could change what is logically necessary.]
Requirements on an adequate theodicy
A theodicy = an excuse for God. An adequate theodicy needs to specify some good X such that God aims to achieve X and can't try to get it without allowing all the actual evil there is in the world. In other words, the evils must be logically necessary for this good. Further, X must be something sufficiently good that it justifies allowing all this actual evil. In other words, it must be an adequately compensating good. Let "E" be a description of all the actual evils in the world. Consider (T):
(T) God tries to achieve X and does so while making sure that the amount of evil in the world is less than E.
The theist will have to say that (T) is logically impossible. If (T) is not logically impossible, God could do what is described in (T), and he has no excuse for not doing so.
Most commonly overlooked point
Pointing out that some evils eventually result in something good doesn't show that they were needed by God to bring about that good thing. If you bear in mind his being all-powerful, you'll see that it's very hard to explain why he would need to allow some evil to bring about some good. He could only need to do it if were utterly impossible to do it in any other way.
Two big problems with appeals to free will
Justified interventions
One can allow free will while still stepping in at certain points to prevent the worst abuses. Indeed, if you were trying to provide your children with freedom, you would still not hesitate to limit it in certain ways.
The consistency of free will and perfect goodness
A bigger problem (the biggest in my view) is that there is no inconsistency between having free will and being a perfectly good person who always does the right thing. Why didn't God create only people who are like that? He wouldn't be taking away their free will; he would just be limiting himself to only creating those who in fact have such generally good characters that they won't commit evil deeds.
Investigate further
There is a ton of literature on these issues, and I encourage you to look into these matters further on your own. At a minimum, I hope to have convinced you that there's no reason to think the question cannot or should not be approached in a critical and rational fashion.
