Logical Objections to Theism
(pre-publication draft)
Abstract: This chapter looks at
a range of objections to theism that one might class as 'logical'. Some of
these objections aim to show that theism involves an internal logical contradiction.
Others aim to show that theism is at least logically incompatible with other
beliefs to which the theist is also typically committed. Also included are
objections grounded in the thought that theism is nonsensical or meaningless.
The chapter provides both an overview of this broad terrain, including a map of
possible responses to different kinds of objection, and then a number of
examples.
Introduction
This essay is in
two parts. In Part One, I map out several varieties of logical objection to
theism, provide some illustrations, and then set out a number of response
strategies that may be employed by theists in defence of their belief. In Part
Two, I examine in more detail some of the best-known examples of logical
objections to theism, including (i) objections associated with the doctrines of
divine simplicity, divine personhood, and divine foreknowledge, (ii) the
logical problem of evil, and (iii) some verificationist and falsificationist
objections.
PART ONE: A MAP OF THE TERRAIN
By theism I mean belief in an omnipotent,
omniscient, perfectly good being. Of course, these are not the only attributes
associated with God. Many insist that God is, in some sense, simple. Many also
require that God be a person - an agent who acts (in creating the universe ex nihilo, for example) and with whom one
might enter into a personal relationship.
There are a
variety of arguments that I think might reasonably be included under the title
'logical objections to theism'. I will categorise them as internal, external, and nonsense objections.
Internal objections
If someone
claims to have discovered in the rainforests of Brazil a triangle possessing
not three but four sides, mathematicians won't mount an expensive expedition to
confirm whether or not that object exists. We can know, from the comfort of our
armchairs, that there is no such thing. A triangle is, by definition,
three-sided. To assert that there exists a triangle that is not three-sided is
therefore to involve yourself in a straightforward logical contradiction, and
contradictions cannot be true[1].
It appears we can similarly know, from the comfort of our armchairs - just by
unpacking the concepts involved - that neither are there are any married
bachelors or female stallions out there waiting to be discovered.
Internal
objections to theism turn on the thought that we can similarly rule out, from
the comfort of our armchairs, the truth of theism. The suggestion is that theistic
belief involves a logical contradiction. Thus we can know - by means of a
priori, armchair reflection alone - that theism is false.
Internal
objections to theism come in two varieties: those that maintain that theism
requires the instantiation of particular divine attributes that are logically
impossible, and those that maintain theism requires the co-instantiation of
divine attributes that cannot logically be combined.
A familiar alleged
example of the former sort of inconsistency is what I shall term the
Riddle of the Stone objection to God's omnipotence. That objection runs as
follows. If God is omnipotent then he can bring about any state of affairs. But
if God can bring about any state of affairs, then he can create a stone so
heavy that even he cannot lift it. But then it follows that, having created
such a stone, God can't do everything: he can't lift it. Thus, some are quick to
conclude, the very idea of an omnipotent being involves a logical
contradiction: God's omnipotence logically entails his non-omnipotence. Thus we
can rule out an omnipotent God from the comfort of our armchairs, by means of
logic alone.
The second variety
of internal objection maintains, not that any particular divine attribute
involves or generates a logical contradiction by itself, but rather that
certain divine attributes in combination do so. An example is the supposed
logical incompatibility of divine simplicity and divine personhood. For those who define God as being both simple
and a person (and not all theists do), paradoxes such as the following arise. The
concept of simplicity seems to require that God be non-temporal (for otherwise, being extended in time, God would have
temporal parts). The concept of personhood, on the other hand, appears to
require that persons be temporal (for
a person must be capable of possessing psychological
states, such as beliefs and desires, which must have temporal duration; moreover,
persons can perform actions, which require
a temporal framework within which to take place). But the claim that there exists
a being that is both temporal and non-temporal involves a straightforward contradiction.
Thus there's no such simple person, and so no God, so defined.
External objections
I turn now to
externalist objections. The objection is not that there is some internal
logical inconsistency involved in theistic belief per se, but rather that theistic belief is logically incompatible
with certain other belief or beliefs the theist holds. Probably the best-known
external objection is the logical problem
of evil.
Theists
typically accept the existence of at least some evil. The logical problem of
evil involves the thought that the theist's belief in the existence of evil is logically
incompatible with their belief in God. It's argued that a God, being omniscient,
would know of the existence of such evil, and, being omnipotent, would have the
power to prevent such evil. Moreover, being perfectly good, God would not want
evil to exist. Thus, if evil exists, then God does not. So theists who also believe
evil exists might seem to be caught a straightforward contradiction.[2]
Nonsense objections
A third kind of
objection to theism that I include under the umbrella of 'logical' objections are those that maintain
that God talk is not false, but meaningless or nonsensical. Note that both
internal and external objections conclude that theism is false. But what if
theism fails in a more radical way, by failing to get even as far as asserting
something capable of being true or false? That is what the proponents of
nonsense objections maintain.
Why might we conclude
that God talk is neither true, nor false, but meaningless? Most obviously, because we find it fails to
satisfy our preferred criterion of meaningfulness. The criterion best-known for
having been applied in this way is the Verification Principle (closely
associated with A.J. Ayer and the logical positivists). Here's a simple
version:
(VP) A statement is meaningful if
and only if it is verifiable.
Under what
circumstances is a statement verifiable? According to Ayer in his Language, Truth and Logic, there are
just two ways a statement might be verified.
First, the
statement might be analytic (roughly:
true in virtue of meaning, in the way e.g. bachelors are unmarried, and
triangles have three sides, are supposed to be). Such statements, being true in
virtue of meaning, can potentially be verified a priori, by reflection alone, from the comfort of our armchairs.
Second, Ayer
says a statement is verifiable if there are possible observations 'relevant to determining
that statement's truth or falsehood' (2001: 38).
Note that verification,
in Ayer's intended sense, is a fairly weak notion. There is no suggestion that
for a statement to be verified its truth must be establishable conclusively. It's sufficient, thinks
Ayer, that observation might supply
grounds either for supposing the statement is true or for supposing it is
false.
Scientific
statements, such as that all actions are accompanied by equal and opposite
reactions, all emeralds are green, and so on, are not analytic. Nevertheless, that
statement about emeralds, while incapable of being established conclusively (there's
always the risk of a future non-green emerald cropping up), can at least be
supported by observational evidence. The statement can also be disconfirmed observationally
(by an observation of a non-green emerald). Hence, on Ayer's view, though such scientific
claims aren't analytic, they are verifiable, and so are meaningful.
However, Ayer
famously goes on to rule out a great deal of talk as meaningless, including
moral talk. On Ayer's view, moral statements, being unverifiable, are literally
meaningless, and thus incapable of being true or false. Ayer also maintains
that the statement that God exists is unverifiable; it is, he concludes,
meaningless.
Response strategies
Before we look
in more detail at various examples of these three varieties of logical
objection - internal, external, and nonsense - I want briefly to map out some
possible response strategies. Theists
don't typically shrug, admit their mistake, and wander off converts to atheism
when presented with such objections. They have a developed a range of strategies
designed to deal with such criticisms. I briefly set out below the general form
such manoeuvres take so we will then be able more easily to navigate our way
through further examples.
Responses to internal objections
When presented
with an internal objection, theists may:
(i) maintain that
the alleged logical contradiction is merely apparent,
or
(ii) drop the
divine attribute(s) causing the problem.
There are two
ways in which theists might adopt strategy (i). First, they might adopt (i) by
(a) attempting to show that there's some error in the reasoning of those who claim
there is an internal contradiction. The theist may insist the critic has
slipped up, logically speaking, and concluded there's a contradiction where in
truth there is none.
Alternatively, a
theist might adopt (i) by insisting that (b) while, if what the critic took the
theist to mean were correct, then the theist would indeed be guilty of
contradicting themselves, the critic has
misunderstood. The critic's logic
may be faultless, but they have nevertheless failed properly to understand what
the theist means by at least one of the terms involved. Suppose I say, 'There's
a bank nearby, but there's no bank nearby'. I appear to have contradicted
myself. However, if it turns out that by my first use of 'bank' I meant
riverbank, and by the second, financial bank, then the contradiction is
revealed to be merely apparent. Theists may similarly suggest that what they
mean by terms like 'simple' or 'omnipotent' as applied to God is not what the
critic assumes. Once what the theist means by such terms has been clarified, any
supposed internal contradiction can be shown to be merely apparent.
.
Here's an
illustration of strategy (i)(b). Some theists respond to the Riddle of the Stone
by claiming, first, that, in saying God is 'omnipotent', they don't mean God that
can do the logically impossible. God can do anything possible, but making a
four-sided triangle, or a stone so heavy that even an omnipotent being could
not lift it, is not a logical possibility.
But why suppose
that God's inability to bring about such logically contradictory states of
affairs entails he lacks omnipotence? One suggestion would be to say that logical impossibilities are no real limitation on God's power, for it is
not as if there is some possible state of affairs - the existence of a four-sided
triangle, say - that God is somehow prevented
from realizing. Rather, the expression 'There's a four sided triangle' fails to
pick out any possible state of affairs.
So, some may conclude,
when properly understood, the claim
that God is omnipotent generates no contradiction.
Alternatively, a theist confronted with the Riddle of the Stone
might adopt option (ii) and drop omnipotence from the list of divine
attributes. That provides a straightforward solution, though it's a far less
popular move.
Responses to external objections
When presented
with external objections, theists have a further option. As with internal
objections, they may:
(i) maintain
that the alleged logical contradiction is merely apparent,
or
(ii) drop the
divine attribute(s) causing the problem,
However, they
may also:
(iii) drop the external
belief(s) causing the problem.
Consider, for
example, the logical problem of evil outlined earlier. Theists might respond by:
(i) insisting that the supposed contradiction involved in believing that there
exists both God and evil is merely apparent, or (ii) dropping one of the divine
attributes causing the problem - the logical problem can be neatly solved by
dropping any one the three omni-attributes (so, for example, the theist might
drop omniscience, maintaining that God is indeed omnipotent and omnibenevolent,
but is ignorant of the evil it would be in his power to remove.[3]).
However, theists also have option (iii). It is the addition of the theist's
external belief in the existence of evil that generates the logical problem of
evil. So the theist might avoid contradiction by dropping, not their theism,
but rather their belief that evil exists. For example, a theist might respond
to the logical problem of evil by suggesting that, though there might appear to
be evils, the evils are in fact illusory.
Pseudo-profundity and embracing
contradiction
Notice that
there is a further way in which theists may respond to both internal and
external objections to theism. They may choose to embrace - and perhaps even make a virtue of - the supposed
contradiction.
If you want to
appear profound, there are several fairly tried and trusted recipes you can
follow. One of the most effective is to contradict yourself regarding one of
life's big themes, such as life and death, meaning and purpose, war and peace,
and so on. Here are three examples I made up:
Sanity is a
kind of madness
Life is often a kind of death
The ordinary is extraordinary
Such sentences are interpretable in all sorts of ways and can easily appear profound. In George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, two of the three slogans of the Party have a similarly contradictory character:
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength
Life is often a kind of death
The ordinary is extraordinary
Such sentences are interpretable in all sorts of ways and can easily appear profound. In George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, two of the three slogans of the Party have a similarly contradictory character:
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength
If you are an
aspiring guru, the attraction of making such contradictory remarks is two-fold.
First, they make your audience do the intellectual labour for you. You can sit
back, adopt a sage-like expression, and let your disciples figure out what you
mean. Secondly, such remarks are interpretable in numerous ways. This gives you
enormous wiggle room if someone dares challenge you (for you can imply your
critic is a crude, overly-literal thinker who has failed properly to grasp the
true meaning of your remark).
The thought that
contradiction is a sign of profundity often crops in religious contexts.
Non-believers usually take what look like straightforward contradictions within
a religious doctrine to indicate falsehood. The faithful, on the other hand,
may take those very same contradictions to indicate genuine insight. Indeed,
religious folk will sometimes make a point of appearing to contradict
themselves, saying things like 'God is, and yet he is not', 'God is one, and
yet he is many', and 'God is good, and yet he is not.'
There's no
denying that seemingly contradictory remarks can sometimes express something
profound. No doubt we can find some kind of truth even in Orwell's poisonous
examples. However, given the formulaic way in which contradiction can be used
to generate the illusion of depth and profundity - that's to say, to generate pseudo-profundity - it's wise not to be
too easily impressed.
Responses to nonsense objections
Responses to
nonsense objections include:
(i) rejecting
the criterion of nonsense/meaningfulness on which theism comes out as
nonsense/meaningless,
and:
(ii) maintaining
that, whether or not the proposed criterion of nonsense/meaninglessness is
correct, theism meets it.
In response to
Ayer's verificationist challenge to the meaningfulness of God talk, then,
theists may challenge the principle of verification on which Ayer relies, and/or
insist that theism is in fact verifiable in the required sense. As we will see,
both kinds of responses to Ayer's challenge have been made.
PART TWO: SPECIFIC EXAMPLES
As promised, I
now turn to some examples of logical objections to theism. What follows is
merely a selection. There are many more such objections.
Divine simplicity
God is widely
supposed to be, in a certain sense, simple.
The doctrine of divine simplicity is characterised neatly by Eleanor Stump (1997:
250) as involving four claims:
1. God cannot
possess spatial or temporal parts.
2. God cannot
have any intrinsic accidental properties.
3. There cannot
be any real distinction between one essential property and another in God's
nature.
4. There cannot
be a real distinction between essence and existence in God.
The first
condition is straightforward, and rules out God being extended in space in the
way that, for example, physical objects are. God's simplicity is also widely supposed
to require that God be eternal rather
than temporal. If God were spread out across time, then he would have temporal
parts, with one part occurring before another.
The second claim
involves a familiar philosophical distinction between essential properties -
roughly, those an entity must possess - and accidental properties - those an
entity possesses but might have lacked or might come to lack. Physical objects
are widely thought to have both essential and accidental properties. For
example, it's widely supposed that it's essential to this table that it be made
of wood - a table not made of wood would not be this very table. However, it's
not essential to this table that it be painted red, or be in my living room -
these are merely accidental properties of the table. Some properties of my
table are also merely extrinsic - they can be changed without a change in the
object (being in my living room is an extrinsic property of this table, it can
be relocated without any change to it). Other properties are intrinsic - a
change in the property involves a change in the object (a change in the length
of one table leg would involve an intrinsic change in the table). The doctrine
of divine simplicity requires that all God's intrinsic properties be essential
to him. So, while it may not be essential to God that he possess the extrinsic
property of currently being thought about by me (presumably, God
might easily have lacked that particular property), the property of
omnipotence, being intrinsic to God, is essential to him.
The third claim
requires that all God's essential properties be identical. So, for example,
God's essential properties of omnipotence, omniscience and perfect goodness
must, in truth, be one and the same
property: a single property that, say, we are merely conceptualising or
thinking about in different ways.
The fourth claim
exploits another philosophical distinction - between essence and existence. The
essential properties of thing typically do not include existence. For example,
this table's essential properties do not include existence - the table might
not have existed and it will one day cease to exist. God's essence, on the
other hand, includes existence. Indeed, given the third claim, his property of
existence must be identical with his other essential properties - of
omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, and so on. God's essence is existence.
The doctrine of
divine simplicity might be thought logically inconsistent with other doctrines regarding God, such as
the doctrine of the Trinity. How can God be both a simple being and yet triune?
And how can God, who lacks spatial and temporal parts, be Jesus, who had spatial
and temporal parts (arms and legs, and a birth and death, for example)?
Further, the
claim that God is simple has also been accused of being logically contradictory
per se. One of the more obvious objections runs as
follows: surely, we can logically separate out God's properties of omniscience,
omnipotence and omni-benevolence from him as their logical possessor. But then God
is himself logically and ontologically complex, not simple.
However, there
is a long theistic tradition that insists that God's omni-properties are not,
in fact, logically distinct properties of him, in the way that, say, my height
and my weight are logically distinct properties of me. God does not merely possess his omni-properties, he is
numerically identical with them. God
and his omnipotence are one and the same thing; God and his omniscience are one
and the same thing, and so on. But then and, given the transitivity of identity
(if a is identical with b and b with c, then a is identical with c) then all these omni- properties are also identical with each
other. Hence God is, after all, logically simple.
Perhaps more
problematic is the following external objection: God, while simple, is also is widely
supposed by theists to share at least
some properties with his creation. For example, God possesses knowledge and
power, but then so do I (even if not to the maximum, as God does). The
difficulty is: if power is a property that God and I share, then surely God
cannot be identical with that
property. And so God's possession of that property - power - does entail that
he have some logical complexity after all: we can logically distinguish God
from some property of his. It might seem that the only way we can salvage the
doctrine of divine simplicity is by denying any commonality between God and his
creation.
One response to
this external objection is to insist that while God is indeed perfectly
powerful, and I too am powerful to some limited degree, it doesn't follow that
there is, then, some property - power - that we share. Miller (1996) argues
that perfect power is not power. Perfect power is a kind of limit, as is zero
power. And zero power is not power. Similarly, the lower limit in the case of
speed - zero mph - is not a speed. Miller suggests that perfect power should
not be thought of as maximum amount of power (what he calls a 'limit
simpliciter') but as a 'limit case' like zero power or zero speed.
Graham Oppy
(2003) outlines a different response to this external objection, suggesting
that in correctly describing individuals a
and b as being F, it does not follow that there exists some single corresponding
property in the world joint possession of which by a and b makes both 'a is F' and 'b is F' true. For the predicate 'is F' may not pick out an
objectively existing property. Suppose, for example, that 'is F' is defined
like so: something is F if and only if it possesses either property G or property
H. Suppose both a and b are F. It doesn't follow there is one
property they share - for it may be that a
is F by virtue of being G and b is F
by virtue of being H. But then similarly, while both God and I are powerful,
God may be powerful by virtue of his possessing (or being identical with) a
property P1, while I am powerful by virtue of my possessing some other property
P2. In which case, while we can both be correctly described as 'powerful',
there need be no property we share.
That concludes my
brief sampling of the many internal and external logical objections that might
be raised in connection with the doctrine of divine simplicity. But note there
is also the potential for a form of nonsense objection to be raised against the
doctrine. For example, in his Philosophical
Investigations (1998) Ludwig Wittgenstein attacks the notion of absolute logical
simplicity, which played a crucial role in his earlier philosophy (Book I,
sections 45-48). Our talk of what is 'simple' and 'composite' has its home in
settings in which we describe, for example, a chessboard as a complex made up of
squares. But is each chess square simple? Within the context of the game of
chess, perhaps. However, in other contexts each square might be thought of as
made up of two rectangles, or of a larger shape from which another has been
subtracted. A chess square's cream colour might also be seen as a composite of
yellow and white. Each chess square is bounded by four straight lines. And each
of those lines might in turn be viewed as a combination of mathematical points.
Conversely, a mathematical point might be seen as the intersection of two
lines. Talk of 'simple' and 'composite' is highly diverse and has its home in
such varied linguistic contexts. Wittgenstein thought that to abstract away
from all such linguistic contexts or 'language games' and try to apply the
terms 'simple' and 'composite' in an absolute
way - to talk about a thing or things that are simple, period - is to end up talking nonsense:
But what are the simple
constituent parts of which reality is composed? -- What are the simple
constituent parts of a chair? -- The bits of wood of which it is made? Or
the molecules, or the atoms? -- 'Simple' means: not composite. And here the point is: in what sense
'composite'? It makes no sense at all to speak absolutely of the 'simple parts
of a chair'. (Philosophical
Investigations, I, section 47)
It's arguable
that the attempt to define God as being absolutely
'simple' involves a similar drift into nonsense.
Divine foreknowledge
The classic problem
of divine foreknowledge is an external
objection. The objection is that the divine attribute of omniscience is
logically incompatible with the theist's further belief that God has imbued human
beings with free will - that's to say: the freedom to act as they freely
choose, without their action being compelled or determined by anything outside
themselves. The Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135-1204) produced a classic
statement of the objection:
Does God know or does He not know that a certain
individual will be good or bad? If thou sayest 'He knows', then it necessarily
follows that [that] man is compelled to act as God knew beforehand he would
act, otherwise God's knowledge would be imperfect…(1996: 99-100)
The suggestion
seems to be that, if God knows Tom will do x tomorrow, then necessarily, Tom
will do x tomorrow. But then Tom lacks the freedom to do otherwise. Whether or
not Tom performs some future action x is never up to him - it is determined by
factors outside himself: by what God knows he will do.
There is also an
internal objection to theism
generated by divine foreknowledge. If God, being omniscient, knew yesterday that
he will do x tomorrow, then God can't do anything other than x tomorrow. But if
God can't do other than x tomorrow, then he is not omnipotent: his power is
limited by his own foreknowledge.
But have we
really identified a problem regarding divine foreknowledge? After all, we also have
(admittedly fallible) knowledge of what will happen in the future. I might
know, for example, that Ted will go to the shops tomorrow. But it is a
necessary condition of knowing that P that P is true. Hence my knowing Ted will
go to the shops tomorrow entails that Ted will indeed go to the shops. So does my knowledge of what Ted will do
tomorrow entail he lacks the freedom to do otherwise?
Actually, this problem of foreknowledge has a
solution. What is necessary is the conditional
(if-then) statement that if I know
that P, then P. It does not follow
that if I know that P, then necessarily P, i.e. that it is a necessary truth
that P, that things could not have been otherwise. More generally:
Necessarily: If x, then y
does not entail
If x, then necessarily: y.
Compare:
necessarily, if Tom is a bachelor, then Tom is unmarried. That conditional
is a necessary truth. But of course it does not follow that if Tom is a
bachelor, then it's a necessary truth that Tom is unmarried - that Tom lacks the freedom to get married.
Similarly then,
while it's a necessary truth that if I know Ted will go to the shops tomorrow,
then Ted will go to the shops tomorrow, it doesn't follow that my knowledge of
what Ted will do entails Ted lacks the freedom to do otherwise.
So have we
solved the problem of divine foreknowledge?
If my knowing that Ted will go to the shops tomorrow is consistent with Tom's
having the freedom to do otherwise, why shouldn't God's knowing what Ted will do
tomorrow be consistent with Ted's freedom to do otherwise?
If there is
still a problem regarding divine
foreknowledge, it seems that will be because there's something special about
God's foreknowledge. Of course there are differences between human foreknowledge
and God's foreknowledge. In particular, unlike us, God is infallible about what will happen in the future. So does God's infallibility entail that, if God knows Ted will go
to the shops tomorrow, then necessarily Ted will go to the shops tomorrow -
that Ted lacks the freedom to do otherwise?
It seems not.
God's infallibility requires:
Necessarily: if God believes that P, then P.
So, necessarily:
if God infallibly believes Ted will go to the shops tomorrow, then Ted will go
to the shops tomorrow. However, it does not follow that if God infallibly
believes Ted will go to the shops tomorrow, then necessarily Ted will go to the
shops - that Ted lacks the freedom to do otherwise. Again, that inference
involves an illicit slide from: Necessarily: If x, then y, to: If x, then necessarily:
y.
Of course, if
Ted knows today that God believes he, Ted, will go to the shops tomorrow, then
Ted might, given his freewill, choose not to go to the shops and so render God
fallible. Now obviously, given that necessarily, God is infallible, Ted must
lack the ability to make God fallible. But does this in turn require that Ted
lack freewill?
No. Whenever Ted
thinks he knows what God believes Ted
will do tomorrow, and Ted acts to make God's belief false, it turns out Ted's just
mistaken about what God believed Ted would freely choose to do.
However, while God's
infallible belief that Ted will go to the shops tomorrow does not seem to be
incompatible with Ted having the freedom to do otherwise, perhaps, if we also
add into the mix (i) the suggestion that God knew yesterday what Ted will do tomorrow, and (ii) a further necessity -
that the past is unalterable - then a successful argument that divine
foreknowledge is incompatible with free will might constructed. Some more
sophisticated versions of the problem of divine foreknowledge take this form. Here's
one example (let T be: Ted will go to the shops tomorrow)[4]:
1.
Yesterday,
God infallibly believed P
2.
If E
occurred in the past it is now necessary that E occurred then.
3.
Thus
it is now necessary that God believed T.
4.
Necessarily,
if God believed T, then T.
5.
If p
is now necessary, and necessarily (if p then q) then q is now necessary.
6.
Thus
it is now necessary that T.
7.
If
it is now necessary that T, then Ted cannot do other than go to the shops
tomorrow.
8.
Thus,
Ted cannot do otherwise than go to the shops tomorrow.
9.
If
you cannot do otherwise when you act, you do not act freely.
10. Thus when Ted goes to the shops tomorrow,
he will not do so freely.
It remains
contentious whether any such argument is cogent. Rather than explore in yet more
detail the precise form the problem of divine foreknowledge might take, let's
now look briefly at perhaps the best-known response to the problem: that of Boëthius.
Boëthius (1999:
Book V) attempts to deal with the problem of foreknowledge by denying the first
premise of the argument sketched above. That's to say, Boëthius would deny that
God infallibly knew yesterday that
Ted will go to the shops tomorrow. This is because Boëthius considers God to be
eternal - a timeless being. It's not that God lacks knowledge; rather his
knowledge is not temporally locatable in the way ours is. Being a timeless being,
God does not know anything at a time.
Rather, he knows timelessly.
Of course, the
view that God is a timeless being is controversial, and indeed we will see that
some theists consider the claim that God is eternal to be incompatible with the
claim that he is a person, for example (see Divine
Personhood below). Boëthius's solution is obviously not available to those
who believe both that God is a person and that God's personhood requires that
he be a temporal being.
Not only is Boëthius's
solution unavailable to a certain sort of theist, it appears his solution in
any case fails. The original objection can easily be tweaked to deal with it. For
suppose Boëthius is correct and God only timelessly
infallibly knows that T. Still, it is presumably now necessary that God
timelessly infallibly knows T. But then it still follows that it is now necessary that Ted will go to the
shops tomorrow. But then Ted still lacks the freedom to do otherwise.
Divine personhood
The thought that
God is a person is the source of
various internal objections to theism.
We noted in Part
One that the suggestion that God is a person would seem to require that God
possess beliefs and desires on the basis of which he may rationally act.
However, as we saw above, the doctrine of divine simplicity seems to require
that God be eternal - be a timeless
being. And now an objection looms. Arguably, psychological states like belief
and desire necessarily have temporal duration, and thus require a temporal
setting. But then the claim that there exists an eternal personal God appears
to generate a contradiction: God must be timeless, but not timeless.
There are various
further internal objections relating to divine personhood and eternity - for
example: (i) that being a person involves being capable of change, but change
in turn requires that the being in question be temporal, (ii) that the
possibility of performing actions (arguably a condition of personhood) requires
that God be located in time, for actions require a temporal setting. (Pike, for
example, argues that 'a timeless individual could not produce, create, or bring about an object, circumstance, or
state of affairs' since that would involve temporally locating the agent's
action (1970: 110).), (iii) that being a person requires having a mind, and 'the
quickest and most direct way of showing the absurdity of a timeless mind is as
follows: A mind is conscious, and consciousness is a temporally elongated
process.' (Gale 1991: 52).
There are also nonsense objections that focus on the
combination of divine personhood and eternity, on which the suggestion that God
is a timeless, unchanging being who is also an agent capable of performing
actions is held to involve, not a contradiction, but a drift into incoherence. Bede
Rundle for example, says: 'I can get no grip on the idea of an agent doing
something where the doing, the bringing about, is not an episode in time,
something involving a changing agent.' (2004: 77)
Some theists, in
response to these kinds of objection, have dropped one or other of the divine
attributes in question. You might drop timelessness in order to maintain attributes
required for personhood. For example, Nicholas Wolterstorff drops timelessness
in order to accommodate the Biblical thought that, among things, God, as a
person, planned certain things and remembers certain things: God's 'planning
must occur before the planned event occurs. For otherwise it is not a case of
planning'. (2007: 164). Alternatively, a theist might drop personhood in order to
maintain timelessness.
An alternative
response, other than dropping one of the divine attributes of personhood and timelessness,
would be to maintain that 'person', 'action', and so on, when applied to God,
mean something other than what these terms usually mean when applied to human
beings. One possibility here is to insist that, when used to describe God, such
language should be understood not literally but analogically. God is not literally
a person, at least not in the usual sense of the term, but he is, in certain
crucial respects, person-like, etc.
And of course
there is also the possibility of tackling such objections head-on and
maintaining that God can be literally
both a person, with all that that entails, and also timeless, without
contradiction. For example, with regards to the problem generated by the
thought that God, as a person, must have beliefs and desires, and that these in
turn require a temporal setting, some have responded by trying to show that
what is essential so far as the holding of beliefs is concerned is that the
being having duration, there being a kind of duration that is
non-temporal. The view that God's knowledge and belief involves a form of
non-temporal duration is taken by Eleanor Stump and Norman Kretzmann (1981: see
esp. 446)
Omnipotence - The Riddle of The Stone,
and other problems
There are a
variety of internal objections regarding the omnipotence of God including, as
we have seen, the Riddle of the Stone. Other internal objections include:
1. God, if
omnipotent, has the power to bring it
about that he is not himself omnipotent. But, being necessarily omnipotent, God must lack that power. Therefore, there
exists no necessarily omnipotent God.
2. God, if
omnipotent, has the power to bring about
evil. But God, being essentially morally perfect, cannot bring about evil.
Therefore, God does not exist.
3.God, if
omnipotent, can bring about his own
non-existence. But God, being a necessary being, cannot do this. Therefore
there is no God.
4. God, if
omnipotent, possesses the power to bring it
about that another omnipotent being exists. But there cannot be more than
one omnipotent being (the existence of one omnipotent being limits the power of
all other beings - for example, if God, being omnipotent, can bring it about
that I sneeze now, there can't be another omnipotent being able to prevent me
sneezing now). But a being that lacks the power to bring it about that another
omnipotent exists is not omnipotent. Therefore, there exists no such being.
There are also external objections to theism including:
5. Omnipotence
and free will. Most theists believe in what's sometimes called libertarian free will. That's to say,
they believe individuals can perform free actions, these being actions that are
not caused or determined by anything outside of that individual, including God.
An omnipotent God would have the power to bring
about our freely choosing one thing rather than another. However no being
has the power to bring about our freely choosing one thing rather than another.
Thus there is no God.
6. Omnipotence and the unalterability of
the past. Most theists
accept that the past is unalterable. God might have prevented life emerging on
Planet Earth, and he might now snuff that life out, but God can't bring it
about that life never emerged if it already has. But if no being can bring
about a different past, then there is no omnipotent being, and so no God.
7. Similarly, given
the unalterability of the past, God can't bring it about that Donald Trump is eating
cake for the first time given that Trump has already eaten cake. But if no
being can bring that about, then there is no omnipotent being, and thus no God.
Note, by the
way, that not only does God lack the power to bring about Ted's freely chooses
to be kind (objection 5 above), Ted himself does
possess that power. Ted also has the power to bring about his own non-existence.
So it appears there are beings, such as Ted, that possess powers God lacks.
How do theists
respond to these objections?
Most of us,
unversed in philosophy and theology, would probably say that omnipotence
consists in something like the power to
do anything, as Peter Geach notes: 'The English word omnipotent would
ordinarily be taken to imply ability to do everything.' (1973)
A few
philosophers have been prepared to accept that God can indeed bring about
anything - including the impossible. Descartes, for example, suggests God might
create a square circle. However, most theistic philosophers have understood
'omnipotence' in a more restricted way.
So how should
omnipotence be understood? It appears all of the above objections can be dealt
with by defining omnipotence as maximal
power to bring it about states of affairs[5]
- where this is in turn understood as an
amount of power that it is impossible for any being to exceed (see Hoffman & Rosenkrantz (2010)).
Notice that this
definition of omnipotence immediately deals with a wide variety of internal
objections. Yes, God lacks the power to bring about the existence of a square
circle, or another omnipotent being (so that two omnipotent beings exist
simultaneously), or a different past. However, no possible being possesses such
powers - because these are powers to bring about the impossible. God's lacking such
power does not entail that he's not omnipotent.
Nor does God's omnipotence,
defined as maximal power, require that he must possess the power to bring about
states of affairs that some other
being cannot. God possesses maximal power just in case his total amount of
power exceeds that of any other possible being. However, that is compatible
with his lacking specific powers others possess. While the Grand High Wizard's
powers may vastly exceed those of any of his minions, his minions might still possess
powers he lacks (perhaps they can cook, while he can't). Similarly then, God may
be omnipotent, thus defined, even if it's true that God lacks powers possessed
by Ted, including the power self-destruct.
What of the
Riddle of the Stone? Hoffman and Rosenkrantz point out that, if God is essentially omnipotent, then his
creating a stone so heavy he cannot lift it is impossible, because his omnipotence
requires that there be no stone so heavy he cannot lift it. (However, a being
that is not essentially omnipotent could create a stone so heavy that they
could not lift it. The being would be omnipotent when creating the stone but,
having created it, would no longer be omnipotent.) Again, on their
understanding of omnipotence, an omnipotent God is not required to possess the
power to bring about what is impossible.
So the definition of omnipotence as maximal power (as explained above) does appear to deal with the
objections sketched out above. However, objections remain. For example, Sobel
(2004: chapter IX, esp. 362.) argues that no being can be essentially omnipotent.
Logical Problem of Evil
As noted above
the logical problem of evil is an external
objection. Theists are usually committed to two claims: the claim that God
(defined as omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good) exists, and a claim
about the world - that it contains evil. The suggestion is these two claims are
logically inconsistent.
Note that talk
of 'evil', in this context, is of two varieties of evil - moral evils: these being the morally bad things that persons do of
the own free will, and natural evils,
these being the natural diseases, disasters, and so on that befall the sentient
inhabitants of this planet and cause them great suffering. The suggestion is
that the existence of any evil at all
- be it of either variety - logically entails the non-existence of God. Thus,
according to Mackie, belief in the existence of both God and evil is
'positively irrational' (1955: 200)
Alvin Plantinga's
'Free Will defence' (1974: chapter 9) provides the best-known response to the
logical problem of evil.
Plantinga's
response utilizes talk of 'possible worlds', a possible world being, roughly, a
way reality might have been (the actual world being a possible world). Although
I exist at the actual world there is a possible world in which I don't exist
(in which my parents never met, for example). There are, presumably, possible
worlds in which the laws of nature are different, and even worlds in which the
universe does not exist (given the universe might not have existed). Necessary
truths, on the other hand, including all mathematical and logical truths, are
true with respect to every possible world. There's no possible world at which 2
+ 2 fails to equal 4.
Plantinga's
approach to the logical problem turns on the thought that God will wish to
create or actualize a possible world containing free agents - agents that are
not antecedently caused or determined to do what they do but are capable of
freely choosing whether to do good or evil. For only such a world can contain
moral goodness.
However, if God
creates a world containing free agents, then he can't, as it were, compel its inhabitants to do good. If the
inhabitants are to be free, then they must be free to do evil. Given this
freedom, there are possible worlds in which those free agents always choose to
do good, not evil.
But then why
can't God just actualize such a world? Why, in particular, can't God choose to
actualize one of the possible worlds in which there is a free agent, but as a
matter of fact that agent freely chooses always to do good, never evil, and so
moral goodness, but not moral evil, exists? Plantinga now argues it is possible
God lacks this freedom.
Because God can't
compel the free inhabitants of any world he has created not to do evil, it may
be that in any possible world containing free agents that God might choose to create,
some evil exists (i.e. evil that created by those free agents acting freely).
Why suppose it's
possible that any world God might create that contains a free agent will also
be a world in which some evil exists? Well it is possible, argues Plantinga, that free agents suffer from what he
calls 'transworld depravity'. It may be that no matter what circumstances God
might put a given free agent in, that agent will always take at least one wrong
action, and so some evil will exist.
Of course,
Plantinga doesn't claim to have shown that free agents do suffer from transworld depravity. However, he points out it is possible that they do - it's possible that
in any world actualised by God in which a free agent exists, some evil will
also exist. But if that is possible, then there
is no logical inconsistency involved in supposing God has created a world
containing some evil. It may be that some evil is the price God must inevitably
pay to allow for moral goodness.
Mackie is
unconvinced by Plantinga's treatment of the logical problem of evil. He argues
that there is a plausible position on free will - compatibilism - on which free
actions may nevertheless be causally determined. In which case, God can choose to create a world in which
free agents and moral goodness exist, but no evil exists because those free agents
are caused always to do the right thing. Plantinga responds by rejecting
compatibilist accounts of free will.
There is a fairly
broad consensus that the logical problem of evil has now largely been dealt
with by Plantinga and subsequent developments. Sobel, however, (2004) disputes
this.
The hiddenness
argument
For many, God is largely hidden. We fail to find good
evidence for his existence. Nor does God directly reveal himself to us (via a
religious experience, say). Consequently, given this the degree of 'divine hiddenness',
many of us fail to believe. But surely God, if he exists, would want us to believe
in him?
An argument against theism based on divine hiddenness has
been developed articulated in some detail by J.L. Schellenberg. Schellenberg's original
argument in his book Divine Hiddenness
and Human Reason (1993) might be summarised as follows:
(1) There are people who
are capable of relating personally to a perfectly loving God but who, through
no fault of their own, fail to believe.
(2) If there is a perfectly
loving God, then there are no such people.
(3) Therefore, there is no
such God.
Because he maintains that God would be perfectly loving,
Schellenberg concludes that God does not exist. Note that premise (1) concerns
the existence of what might be called inculpable or non-resistant[6]
non-believers: individuals who do not willfully aim to shut the door on any relationship with God that
might be on offer, but who nevertheless fail to believe. There
appear to be such people. Indeed, not only do there appear to be non-believers
who aren't resistant to belief, it seems many actually want to believe.
Why suppose premise (2) is true? Schellenberg argues that
a perfectly loving God will want to enter into a personal relationship with
each of us. However, we can only enter into such a relationship if we believe
God exists. Hence God, if he exists, will ensure that each of us believes in
him (unless, of course, we are resistant). It is only if we believe God exists
that the possibility of our entering into a relationship with God opens up to
us.
Is this an external logical
objection to theism? It can be. To qualify as an external logical objection, as
I have defined it, the objection must be that the theist's belief in the
existence of non-resistant non-believers is logically
incompatible with their theism. Now, as I note below, not all theists accept
that there are non-resistant non-believers. For such theists, then, the above
argument is not a 'logical objection' to their theism. Still, many theists do
accept that non-resistant non-belief exists. Is this, then, a logical objection
to their theism? It depends on the status of the second premise. A variety of hiddenness
arguments are possible. We might argue that the existence of a perfectly loving
God logically entails there will be
no non-resistant non-believers. If that is the argument, then this is indeed an
external logical objection (so far as it is aimed at theists who accept non-resistant
non-belief exists). However, we might instead merely argue that it is improbable that a perfectly loving god would
allow non-resistant non-belief. If that is the argument, then the above
argument is an evidential objection to theism. Schellenberg offers both forms
of argument.[7]
Theists might respond to logical version of the
hiddenness argument in a number of ways. In particular, they may: (i) refuse to
accept that non-resistant non-belief exists, (ii) reject that principle that
belief non-resistant non-belief is logically incompatible with belief in a perfectly
loving God, or (iii) give up belief in a perfectly loving God.
As we have already noted, some theists do deny that resistant
non-belief exists. Some maintain that, in a sense, non-belief does not exist.
All of us know, at some level, that
God exists. We merely choose to suppress this knowledge. Alternatively, theists
may allow that some of us don't know that God exists, but that our lack of
knowledge is due to our own resistance. Difficulties with such responses
include the fact that there's good empirical evidence some of us really are non-resistantly
ignorant of God's existence, including those of us who have never even
encountered theistic belief, for example.
Some theists may be prepared to accept that God is not
perfectly loving. However, the most popular response to the hiddenness is to
reject premise (2).
Some theists maintain, for example, that God might be
justified in allowing non-resistant non-belief in order to achieve certain
greater goods. Michael Murray (2002), for example, argues that were God to make
his existence clearer to us, so that reasonable, non-resistant non-belief was
no longer possible, then we would no longer have the opportunity to develop
good characters for which we are ourselves responsible.
Others (the so-called skeptical
theists) maintain that whether or not we can think of a reason that would
justify God in allowing non-resistant non-belief, there could still be a
reason. In fact, for all we know,
there is such a reason. Our mere inability to think of such a reason fails to
provide us with good grounds for believing no such reason exists (this, it's
suggested, would be a faulty noseeum inference - akin to arguing that if I
can't see any insects in my garage, then there probably aren't any insects in
my garage). In any case, given there could be such a reason, there can be no
logical inconsistency in believing
both that God is perfectly loving and that non-resistant non-belief exists. In
response, Schellenberg reverses this logic: if Schellenberg has, as he claims,
successfully shown that belief in a perfect being is incompatible with belief
in non-resistant belief, then he has
shown that there's no adequate reason for God to allow non-resistant non-belief
(2015: 111).
Verificationist and falsificationist
objections
We have already
briefly discussed A.J. Ayer's verificationist objection to theism. Ayer wields
his Verification Principle to try to show that the statement
God exists
is not false but
meaningless. We have also seen that responses to such nonsense objections
include (i) rejecting the criterion of nonsense or meaninglessness being
applied (in this case, the Verification Principle), and (ii) maintaining that,
whether or not the proposed criterion is correct, the statement in any case
meets it.
The Verification
Principle is certainly a contentious philosophical principle. A standard
theistic objection is that the principle is self-undermining. For, it's claimed,
the verification principle is itself neither analytic nor observationally
verifiable. Thus, by its own lights, the Principle is meaningless.
However, is the
Principle observationally unverifiable? Meaning and observation do appear to be
linked. The meaning of our public language is unavoidably taught and learned
through observational encounters (I learnt what words like 'cat', 'house' mean
by hearing them used in encounters with cats and houses, for example). But then
might not some empirically confirmed theory of how language acquires meaning
have the Verification Principle, or something like it, as a consequence? In
which case, the Principle itself might yet be empirically confirmed.
Whether or not
such a case for the Verification Principle might be made, Ayer himself provides
no grounds in Language Truth and Logic
(2001) for supposing his Principle is true. The Principle merely functions as
an assumption. So theists can justifiably point out that Ayer's case in Language Truth and Logic for supposing
that 'God exists' is meaningless rests on a principle that is both highly
controversial and for which he provides no argument.
One ambiguity in
the Verification Principle is: who
must be in a position empirically to verify the statement if it is to qualify
as meaningful? An actual human being? But then the Principle seems too strong. Consider
the statement:
A dinosaur walked across that very
spot exactly 200 million years ago.
This, surely, is
a meaningful statement. However, it may be that no actual human being will ever
be in a position to verify it. Obviously, there were no humans around 200
million years ago to verify it. And, given the amount of time that has elapsed,
it might be impossible for any actual humans to verify it either now or in the
future.
If, on the other
hand, we allow merely possible beings, human or not, to count as verifiers, then
God, as a possible being, is presumably in a position to verify all sorts of
things, including his own existence. In which case the statement that God
exists is not unverifiable.
Further, John
Hick (1966: 195) points out that while we actual humans may not currently be able to verify that God
exists, it may be that we will be able to do so in the future - after we die.
Thus what Hick calls an 'eschatological' verification remains a possibility.
Finally, it's by
no means clear that we actual humans cannot now verify that God exists. Might
not, say, arguments from design provide us with good grounds for supposing God
exists by pointing to the fact that God best explains certain observed features
of the universe? Alternatively, might not the evidential problem of evil
provide us with good grounds for supposing that whatever, if anything, created
the universe, it is not God?
If, in response
it's suggested that only a direct
observation of God can verify his existence (that is not a suggestion Ayer
makes, by the way), then again our Principle will be too strong as surely
scientists are able meaningfully to posit the existence of all sorts of things that
cannot be directly observed: subatomic particles for example.
An even tougher
criterion of meaningfulness says that a statement is meaningful only if it can
be falsified - that's to say, only if
some possible experience might give us good grounds for supposing the statement
is false. Note that the Verification Principle allows two ways in which non-analytic
statements might satisfy the Principle's condition of meaningfulness: the
condition is met if there could be observational grounds for supposing the
statement is true, or observational
grounds for supposing the statement is false. The suggestion, now, is that
there must be potential observational grounds for supposing the statement is
false. Observational grounds for supposing the statement is true won't do. So we
are setting the bar even higher than Ayer did for a statement to qualify as
meaningful.
Antony Flew (Flew,
Hare, and Mitchell1(964)) seems to suggest at least something like this falsificationist
principle. Flew begins with John Wisdom's well-known parable of the gardener.
Once upon a time two explorers came
upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and
many weeds. One explorer says, ‘Some gardener must tend this plot’. The other
disagrees, ‘There is no gardener’. So they pitch their tents and set a watch.
No gardener is ever seen. ‘But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.’ So they
set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds.
(For they remember how H. G. Wells’s The Invisible Man could be both smelt and
touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some
intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an
invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not
convinced. ‘But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to
electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who
comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves.’ At last the Sceptic
despairs, ‘But what remains of our original assertion? Just how does what you call
an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener
or even from no gardener at all?’
In this example,
suggests Flew, something that starts out as an assertion is gradually reduced,
step-by-step, to something else. The original assertion suffers 'the death of a
thousand qualifications' as what might potentially have counted as evidence
against the assertion is discounted until in the end, nothing at all is allowed
to falsify what's asserted. At that point, suggests Flew, nothing is asserted.
Flew suggests that similarly, when religious people assert such things as that
God loves us as a father loves his children, that God has a plan, and so on,
and skeptics point out what appears to be strong evidence against such claims,
the religious tend endlessly to explain that evidence away in much the same way
as the defender of belief in an invisible gardener. That's to say, they
endlessly qualify their assertions so as to immunise them against any empirical
refutation. But then such claims similarly end up dying the death of a thousand
qualifications. Ultimately, what the theist says ends up lacking any assertoric
meaning.
Is Flew's
criticism fair? R.M. Hare responds with is own parable.
A certain lunatic is convinced that
all dons want to murder him. His friends introduce him to all the mildest and
most respectable dons that they can find, and after each of them has retired,
they say, ‘You see, he doesn’t really want to murder you; he spoke to you in a
most cordial manner; surely you are convinced now?’ But the lunatic replies
‘Yes, but that was only his diabolical cunning; he’s really plotting against me
the whole time, like the rest of them; I know it I tell you’. However many
kindly dons are produced, the reaction is still the same (Flew, Hare, and
Mitchell (1964)).
Hare points out there is no behaviour of the dons that this
will accept as counting against his theory. Therefore, on Flew's test, this
person asserts nothing. But this conclusion seems wrong: we consider such a
person mistaken. We disagree with him. If he made no assertion, no disagreement
would be possible.
Young Earth Creationism
provides another apparent counter-example. Many Young Earth Creationists won't
let anything count against their theory that the universe is only around 6,000
years old. Whatever evidence is provided against their theory (the fossil
record, light from distant stars, etc.) is, in one way or another, explained
away. Should we conclude, then, that when such a Young Earth Creationist says,
'the Universe is only a few thousand years old' they fail to assert anything at
all? Surely not. But then falsifiability, as a criterion of meaningfulness (or
at least of meaningful assertion), is
too strong.
Also, notice that some
theists would not answer 'nothing' to the question: what, if anything, might
show that your belief in God is false? In which case, even if Flew's criterion
of meaningful assertion were correct, it would in any case fail establish that this sort of theist failed to assert
anything by saying 'God exists'.
Conclusion
There is a vast
array of logical objections to theism. By no means all have been included here.
New objections will no doubt emerge. Do any succeed?
We have seen
how, with some ingenuity, it is always possible to find a way round an internal
or external logical objection, by, say, tweaking your definition of God,
finding some fault in the logic, or, in the case of external objections, giving
up one of your other beliefs. Does this mean that all logical objections fail?
In so far as such
objections force theists to revise their
position, no.
What these
objections target are very specific conceptions of God (sometimes in
combination with other beliefs) and, in many cases, the theism that involves
those very specific conceptions must, on pain of contradiction, be abandoned
(or else the other beliefs abandoned). The target
theistic belief or belief-combination is sometimes successfully refuted.
Theists
sometimes acknowledge this. However, other varieties of theism, very loosely
understood, always remain on the table. So the theist can always switch to one
of those other varieties. For example a theist convinced by logical objections
to a personal God may, in response, switch to a non-personal conception of God.
Indeed, the theist may insist that one of the other varieties of God was always
what they had in mind. They've just been misunderstood, and/or have themselves been
unclear about the character of the God they believe in.[8]
From the
perspective of the theist, this strategy of switching and adjusting belief in
response to such objections constitutes progress
in getting clear about what theism fundamentally involves. Such logical
objections are helpful to theism,
they say, by allowing theists to clarify
the nature of God.
From the
perspective of many atheist critics, on the other hand, these same logical
objections are in many cases a threat
to theism, and the theistic strategy of switching, modifying, and/or abandoning
beliefs in order to retain at least some sort of logically consistent theistic
belief looks suspiciously like, not clarification, but rather a merry-go-round
of evasion.
Which of these
two perspectives is the more accurate is, I suspect, the fundamental question
to press regarding logical (and indeed evidential) objections to theism.
REFERENCES
Ayer, A.J.
(2001) Language, Truth and Logic New
Edition. London: Penguin Books.
Boethius, Ancius
(1999) The Consolation of Philosophy, Revised Edition, London: Penguin
Classic.
Flew, A. Hare, R.M., and Mitchell, B. (1964) 'Theology and
Falsification: a University Discussion' in New Essays in Philosophical
Theology, Flew, A. and MacIntyre, A. (eds.) New York: Macmillan, 99-103.
Available online at:
http://www.politik-salon.de/files/theory_of_falsification.pdf
Gale, Richard M.
(1991) On the Nature and Existence of God Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Geach, P. T. 1973. 'Omnipotence' Philosophy 48
(183): 7-20.
Hick, John (1966) Faith and Knowledge 2nd Edition,
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Hoffman, J. and Rosenkrantz, G.S. (2010) 'Omnipotence' in A
Companion to Philosophy of Religion 2nd. Edition, C. Taliaferro, P. Draper,
and P. L. Quinn (eds.), Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 243–50.
Mackie, J.L. (1955) 'Evil and Omnipotence' Mind 64 (254): 200-212.
Maimonides, Moses (1996). The Eight Chapters of
Maimonides on Ethics (Semonah Perakim), edited, annotated, and
translated with an Introduction by Joseph I. Gorfinkle. New York: AMS Press.
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[1] I assume for the
purposes of this essay that contradictions cannot be true, though note that
some, including Graham Priest, argue that some contradictions can be true (and,
simultaneously, false). See Priest (2006).
[2] Note the argument is not that the evil we
observe provides good evidence
against the existence of God, making the existence of God less probable. That is the evidential problem
of evil. See the chapter in this volume 'Evidential Objections to Theism'.
[3] Of course, in suggesting that the
theist can solve the logical problem of evil by dropping any one of the three
classical omni-attributes, I am assuming those omni-attributes are logically
independent, which is contentious. If omnipotence logically requires
omniscience, say, then the theist does not
have the option of dropping omniscience alone.
They would have to drop omnipotence too.
[4] This example is adapted from one
provided by Linda Zagzebski in her entry to Stanford
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on 'Foreknowledge and Freewill': https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/
[5] Note that, for
technical reasons, the authors prefer to characterise omnipotence in terms of
performing tasks, but in terms of bringing about certain states of affairs.
[6]
Note that in later developments of the argument, Schellenberg switches from talk of inculpable
belief to talk of non-resistant belief, acknowledging that one might somehow be
culpable - be to blame - for ones failure to believe in God even if one is not
aiming deliberately to shut the door on any relationship with God that might be
on offer. It is the latter 'resistant' form of non-belief that Schellenberg
maintains is incompatible with the existence of a perfectly loving God. (2015:
54-55)
[7] Schellenberg has suggested to me in
correspondence that his (2015) volume presents an argument that belief in
perfectly loving god is incompatible
with belief in non-resistant believers, whereas elsewhere - e.g. in his
(1993) book and in his (2004) paper - he argues only that it is actually false that God would permit
non-resistant non-belief or that non-resistant non-belief provides at least evidence against the existence of a
perfectly loving god.
[8] They may use
'God' as a label for something they first encounter through a glass darkly, as it were (Paul uses the
phrase in Corinthians: 1 Cor. 13, 12). Thus the subject matter of their
belief - the God they 'have in mind' - can remain a constant, even while the
beliefs they hold about the subject matter may undergo considerable revision.
Compare: suppose I introduce 'Tim' as a label for him - that person I now
see dimly through a mist; it's still Tim I have in mind when I later admit that
much of what I first believed about Tim (based on his misty appearance) was
incorrect.
Comments
No contradiction to my rejoinder then?.... Wittgenstein was correct after all!
"From the perspective of the theist, this strategy of switching and adjusting belief in response to such objections constitutes progress in getting clear about what theism fundamentally involves. Such logical objections are helpful to theism, they say, by allowing theists to clarify the nature of God.
From the perspective of many atheist critics, on the other hand, these same logical objections are in many cases a threat to theism, and the theistic strategy of switching, modifying, and/or abandoning beliefs in order to retain at least some sort of logically consistent theistic belief looks suspiciously like, not clarification, but rather a merry-go-round of evasion.
Which of these two perspectives is the more accurate is, I suspect, the fundamental question to press regarding logical (and indeed evidential) objections to theism."
Your conclusion takes the same form as Putnam's "Meaning & Reference" paper (though I doubt you can observe this). What is interesting is that your conclusion is admitting that it is not possible to use the Principle of Determinability with respect to logical objections to theism.
This highlights the anomaly in your own paper (Natural Kinds) concerning the determinability of natural kinds and confirms my account of Putnam's paper using a Principle of Limitation to be valid.... because as your own conclusion of logical objections to theism seen above admits a Principle of Limitation rather than a Principle of Determinability.
After all, why would even highly evolved primates have a perfect logic? If our logic is not perfect, then many real things may be too far from our everyday experiences to be very well described by our logical language. Physics may be another example. (Personally, I would not question logic.)
We could not say of an illogical universe what it will look like.
Also, is an evil god sustainable? Creation seems to be a "good" act but destruction considered evil and destruction doesn't intuitively seem sustainable.
Sorry if this seems dated, I just heard your Unbelievable debate from Dec. 2011.