Jeff Lowder has issued a series of pointed questions for theists.
Before addressing the questions, I’ll make a few general observations:
i) Although these questions are addressed to generic theists, I assume that Christians are the primary target.
ii) Although these are grammatically questions, they are substantively objections. That’s to say, the point of the “questions” is presumably to present difficulties for “theism” (or Christianity in particular). The unspoken assumption is presumably that if theism is true, then theists ought to be able to answer these questions. If they can’t satisfactorily answer them, then that counts as evidence against the plausibility of theism. While it doesn’t falsify theism, it renders theism less likely to be true. Otherwise, there’s no purpose in an atheistic site posing these questions for theists. They aren’t idle questions, to satisfy Jeff’s sheer curiosity. Rather, they’re objections couched as questions.
iii) A major problem with the questionnaire is that many of the questions are leading questions or loaded questions or even trick questions. So the respondent has to spend time unpacking the hidden assumptions behind the questions, challenge tendentious assumptions, and generally engage in trying to interpret the questions before an answer is possible.
1. Why is the physical universe so unimaginably large?
i) I assume Jeff borrowed this objection from fellow atheists like Victor Stenger. I’m not an astrophysicist, but to my knowledge, the conventional explanation, given standard cosmological models, is that a vast universe is a necessary precondition for the possibility of life. It takes a vast universe to produce suns, planets, and chemical elements (e.g. carbon, oxygen, nitrogen). These are prerequisite conditions for biological life, as we know it.
Cf. H. Ross, Why the Universe Is the Way It Is (Baker Books 2008), chap. 2.
ii) Keep in mind that, to my knowledge, the scale of the universe isn’t directly demonstrable. That’s an inference from measuring the universe by the speed of light. But given the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, there’s no antecedently necessary stage at which that process must commence.
I myself have no principled objection to a vast universe.
2. Why would God desire to create embodied moral agents, as opposed to disembodied minds (such as souls, spirits, or ghosts)? Why is the human mind dependent on the physical brain?
Of course, that’s really two distinct questions bundled into one.
i) Concerning the first question, theists like Aquinas, Augustine, and Leibniz champion the principle of plenitude, according to which a world that exemplifies a greater range of possibilities is superior to a less varied world.
ii) Concerning the second question, that simply begs the question. Jeff can’t treat the dependence of the human mind on the brain as a given, for that’s a highly contested issue in philosophy of mind, even among fellow atheists. Jeff may give his side of the argument, but that neglects the opposing side. For instance:
R. Sheldrake, The Science Delusion (Coronet 2012), chaps 7-8.
iii) Keep in mind that some professing Christians are physicalists. I don’t share their position, but physicalism isn’t an automatic defeater for Christian theology.
3. Did Australopithecus have a soul? What about homo habilis? Homo erectus? Neanderthals? Why or why not? (HT: Keith Parsons)
i) That’s a loaded question because it takes human evolution for granted. But perhaps Jeff is trying to create a dilemma for some Christians. If, on the one hand, you’re a theistic evolutionist, then how do you square human uniqueness with universal common descent? If, on the other hand, you’re not a theistic evolutionist, then how do you square your creationism with the scientific evidence?
But as Jeff knows, the theory of macroevolution is contested, so that’s not a given. Sure, he can cite his favorite scientists, but I can cite scientists to the contrary.
ii) The assumption that only man has a rational soul is a tradition in Cartesian philosophy and Thomistic theology, but there’s no compelling reason to grant that assumption. So I don’t concede the operating premise of the question.
4. How do souls interact with physical matter? Do you have any answer that is not tantamount to "I don't know?" (HT: Keith Parsons)
i) To begin with, dualists don’t have to espouse interactionism. A theistic dualist can espouse occasionalism or preestablished harmony. Take the latter. On this view created minds and bodies are preprogrammed at creation so that mental states and corresponding actions are carried out in mutual coordination–like synchronized clocks:
Before we’re too quick to dismiss this model, I’d simply note that from what I’ve read, quantum mechanics (e.g. nonlocality/action at a distance) bears a striking resemblance to preestablished harmony:
And this has been applied to the mind/body problem by philosophers like David Chalmers.
ii) It also depends on how Jeff defines “interaction.” By “interaction,” does he have in mind something like direct contact? Smacking the 8-ball with the cue ball?
But if Cartesian dualism is true, then body and soul don’t physically interact. Indeed, doesn’t the term “interaction” tend to carry physical connotations? Like moving parts in a Swiss watch? Taken literally, mind and body don’t interact in that sense–assuming Cartesian dualism. Indeed, that way of framing the issue is prejudicial. It tilts the analysis in the direction of a physical interaction.
But if “interaction” is being employed figuratively, then what does the metaphor literally amount to?
iii) Apropos (ii), it’s possible for one event to influence or affect another event without interaction. Take the following chain-of-events:
A traffic accident delays a bus. I have an appointment for a job interview. I’m waiting for the bus. Because the bus is late, I don’t have time to keep the appointment. So I go home. I catch my teenage son smoking weed on the living room couch, because he didn’t expect me to be home so early.
Clearly one thing led to another. The traffic accident triggers a series of events. But did the bus running late “interact” with my son’s abortive experiment with pot? Even though each event affected each subsequent event down the line in a cascade effect, that’s not equivalent to “interaction” in any straightforward sense, that I can see. In a sense, that was caused by the nonevent of the bus not arriving on time. Caused by something that didn’t happen.
5. Why would God use biological evolution as a method for creation? Do you have any answer that is independent of the scientific evidence for evolution?
I reject the premise.
6. Why are pain and pleasure so connected to the biological goals of survival and reproduction, but morally random? For example, why do sentient beings, including animals which are not moral agents, experience pain or pleasure that we do not know to be biologically useful?
i) That question is unanswerable apart from Jeff giving some concrete examples of what he deems to be the case.
ii) I see no evidence that the average wild animal is unhappy with its lot in life. All this human empathy for the excruciating pain and suffering of animals seems to be misplaced. The human is asking himself how he’d like to be in that situation. But, of course, if he were an animal in that situation, he wouldn’t view the situation from a human perspective. That wouldn’t be the frame of reference.
There’s always this implicit and illicit comparison. But the animals in question aren’t human. There’s no basis for the comparison. If you’re one, you’re not the other. You can imagine yourself as an animal, but that’s your human imagination at work. That’s not what it’s like to be an animal–for the animal. Rather, that’s what it’s like to you, as a human being.
Even from an evolutionary standpoint, animals are adapted to their environment. They are “content” (as it were) to be what they are.
And from a Christian standpoint, animals experience life at the level they were meant to experience life, to which they are naturally suited, by divine design. The specific nature of any particular animal selects for what the animal finds “satisfying”–which, in any case, is more germane to higher animals.
7. Why do only a fraction of living things, including the majority of sentient beings, thrive? In other words, why do very few living things have an adequate supply of food and water, are able to reproduce, avoid predators, and remain healthy?
Needless to say, if prey species could successfully evade predators, then the predators wouldn’t flourish. So Jeff’s objection is incoherent.
Why would God create a world in which all sentient beings savagely compete with one another for survival?
Needless to say, “savagery” is a human interpretation of the wild kingdom. Yet there’s nothing “savage” about the conduct of “sentient” wild animals from their own viewpoint–assuming they even have a viewpoint. If they don’t have a viewpoint, then it’s silly to project “savagery” onto them. And if they do have a viewpoint, they don’t share our human interpretation of animal subsistence.
Why do an even smaller fraction of organisms thrive for most of their lives? Why do almost no organisms thrive for all of their lives?
Because they don’t exist for their own benefit. They exist to be eaten. To support the ecosystem or biosphere.
That may sound harsh or even cruel, but if it sounds that way, that’s because we’re thinking like humans rather than animals. Animals have a mental life appropriate to animals. It’s often the case that what we find pleasing they find displeasing–while what they find pleasing we find displeasing .
8. Why is there social evil, i.e., instances of pain or suffering that results from the game-theoretic interactions of many individuals?
i) I assume that Jeff is alluding to Ted Poston’s essay on social evil.
ii) Poston defines evil as “any instance of pain and suffering.” But that trivializes evil. Pain is often good. An early-warning system.
iii) Poston is dealing with situations where self-interest and the common good conflict, or the welfare of one group conflicts with the welfare of a competing group. But it’s not surprising if situations like that arise in a fallen world. So the larger question is why God allowed or ordained the Fall (see below).
Poston considers three theodicies: the freewill defense, soul-making defense, and stable environment defense. However, he doesn’t consider the supralapsarian theodicy. He also admits that scepticism theism might be an adequate rejoinder to the argument from social evil.
iv) Poston’s argument is also predicated on moral responsibility. But Jeff is an atheist. Can Jeff ground moral responsibility? If not, he lacks a key presupposition for the argument from social evil.
In his review of Michael Martin’s case for secular ethics, Jeff concluded that Martin’s argument was a failure.
So does Jeff have a fallback position? There can be no argument from evil unless there’s evil to argue from.
v) Is Jeff simply attacking Christianity on its own grounds? But unless Jeff believes in epistemic duties, why is he attacking Christianity (or theism) in the first place? We have no epistemic duties unless we have moral duties. Why deploy the argument from evil for its own sake?
9. Why does God allow horrific suffering (and relatively little glorious pleasure)?
Because evil is a source of second-order goods. A sinless world is better than a sinful world. In some respects a sinless world is better than a redeemed world, but worse in other respects. The cost of a sinless world is the loss of certain goods only obtainable in a redeemed world. It avoids evil at the expense of certain compensatory goods. The evils of a redeemed world are offset by second-order goods. Both a sinless world and a redeemed world are good, but incommensurable. Each scenario has to sacrifice one type of good for another. That’s a necessary tradeoff.
10. Why does horrific suffering often destroy a person, at least psychologically, and prevent them from growing morally, spiritually, and intellectually?
Evil has opposite effects. Two men can suffer the same evil, but one is destroyed by the evil while the other is ultimately bettered by the evil. This illustrates the differential effect of grace. The differential factor is not the person, or the situation, but the presence or absence of God’s sustaining grace. That illustrates our utter dependence on God for all good.
11. Why is there nonculpable (reasonable) nonbelief in God?
Of course, that begs the question in favor of atheism. From a Christian standpoint, atheism is not morally innocent, but culpable.
And as a Calvinist, I don’t grant a key assumption of the argument from divine hiddenness, which Jeff is alluding to.
Why are there former believers, i.e., people who, from the perspective of theism, were on the right path when they lost belief?
To illustrate the necessity of grace. Only grace can save us or preserve us. Not our own effort.
Why are there so many people who gave their lives to God only to discover there is no God?
i) Once again, that begs the question in favor of atheism. But from a Christian standpoint, there is a God, so you can never discover the nonexistence of God.
ii) Of course, many people give their lives to false gods, only to find out the hard way that their idolatry was misplaced.
Why are there lifelong seekers? Why are there converts to nontheistic religions and especially nonresistant believers who arrive as a result of honest inquiry at nontheistic experiences and beliefs?
Notice how Jeff keeps assuming what he needs to prove. From a Christian standpoint, apostasy (from the Christian faith) is never the result of honest inquiry.
Of course, losing faith in a false religion is a good thing, although that’s not an end in itself.
Why are there isolated nontheists, i.e., people who have never so much as had the idea of God?
i) That’s a question predicated on an unverifiable premise.
ii) There is also a distinction between tacit and explicit religious knowledge. To take a comparison, if I watch a movie, I’m learning about the director in the process. For the movie reflects the artistic vision of the director.
Yet I may find the movie so absorbing that I never give the director a second thought. I’m immersed in the world of the movie. Captivated by the illusion of reality.
It’s easy to take God for granted, like the unseen director. To focus on effects rather than causes.
12. Why do some believers feel there is evidence for God's existence on which they may rely, but in which God is not felt as directly present to her experience, and may indeed feel absent?
The presence of God is always mediated by something other than God. God subsists outside of time and space, so we have no direct access to God. That’s a fundamental difference between the creature and the Creator.
But there are analogies in human experience. If you talk to a friend on the phone, that’s indirect. Even if you meet them face-to-face, you don’t have direct access to their thoughts and feelings. They must convey their thoughts and feelings through words and actions. Language. Gestures. Facial expressions. “Presence” is always a matter of degree. At one or more removes from the thing itself.
13. Why are there such striking geographic differences in the incidence of theistic belief? Why does theistic belief vary dramatically with cultural and national boundaries? For example, why does a population of millions of non-theists persist in Thailand but not in Saudi Arabia? And why has the global incidence of theistic belief varied dramatically over time, i.e., during the existence of the human species?
i) We need to distinguish between natural faith and acquired faith. Evidence for God’s existence is naturally and universally available. But to be a Christian requires access to historical, propositional revelation. You can believe in God without being a Christian.
ii) Sinners have a great capacity to resist unwelcome truths. Exposure to unwelcome truth may provoke a hostile reaction. Denial.
iii) Christian faith is variable in time and place because it depends on God’s grace and providence.
14. Why do only some people have religious experiences?
Everyone has religious experiences. In fact, every experience is a religious experience. You experience yourself, as well as the world around you, by the way God designed you. He designed your senses. He designed your mind. He designed your consciousness and subconsciousness. The way you view the world reflects the viewpoint God gave you by the way he engineered your nature, your sensory perception, as well as your psychological perception and self-perception.
Not only is it a religious experience to be a divinely-endowed observer, but it’s also a religious experience to observe the world God made.
In particular, why is it that most of the people who do have religious experiences almost always have a prior belief in God or extensive exposure to a theistic religion?
i) Jeff cites no evidence to support that sweeping claim.
ii) He also fails to distinguish between a religious experience and a self-consciously religious experience. But one can have a religious experience without recognizing the religious character of that experience.
I don’t hear my ears. Rather, I hear with my ears. I use my ears to hear sounds. I’m not generally aware of my ears. Rather, I’m aware of what I hear with my ears.
Likewise, I experience God simply by being a rational creature, designed by God, to be capable of self-experience as well as experiencing the world he put me in. I’m the medium by which I experience myself as well as the world.
But the medium doesn’t automatically reflect on itself, unless it makes a conscious effort to do so. Just as I’m not ordinarily aware of my ears. I don’t have to think about my ears to hear.
15. For those people who do have religious experiences, why do they pursue a variety of radically different religious paths…
i) Religious experience varies greatly in its informational content. To experience God in nature or history lacks the specific content of propositional revelation.
To take a comparison, Rembrandt sometimes painted his common law wife. And you can read art critics interpret his portraits. That involves three degrees of informational content, with increasing degrees of specificity.
a) If you saw his wife in the flesh, that would be an informative experience.
b) If you see a portrait of his wife, that’s more informative, because that gives you Rembrandt’s artistic interpretation of his wife.
c) If you read Kenneth Clark’s interpretation of Rembrandt’s painting, that’s even more informative. A propositional interpretation of an artistic interpretation. The verbal explanation has a conceptual precision which the visual presentation lacks.
ii) Likewise, to experience God in nature is much more generic than the experience of a seer or prophet, who’s the recipient of divine visions and auditions. To whom God speaks.
Likewise, to be one of the disciples who followed Christ, is a more specific religious experience than observing God’s providence.
iii) Finally, fallen man is prone to idolatry. Prone to distort religious experience. Twist religious experience.
…none of which bears abundantly more moral fruit than all of the others?
Once again, Jeff is begging the question.
16. Why do so many people report not experiencing God's comforting presence in the face of tragedies?
i) It’s not God’s intention to comfort everyone. It’s not God’s intention to save everyone. God is not in covenant with everyone.
ii) Tragedy often seems random or inscrutable at the time. In many cases it is only in retrospect, with the passage of time, that we gain understanding, and the consolation that comes from understanding. We must learn how to wait, as well as wait to learn.
17. Why does the the relatively new discipline of cognitive science of religion support the claim that forming beliefs about invisible agents including gods is very natural for human beings?
i) That question grants the validity of cognitive science, then applies it to religion. But why should we grant the methods and assumptions of cognitive science, which are highly controversial even within secular science and philosophy?
ii) Even assuming that we grant the validity of cognitive science for the sake of argument, if God designed the human brain, would it be surprising if he designed the human brain to perceived his existence?
iii) Cognitive science is a double-edged sword. It can be applied to theism or atheism alike.
18. Why does God allow such confusion or disagreement among people, including theists, about what is morally good or bad and morally right or wrong?
There’s a difference between knowing what’s right and acknowledging what’s right. People can knowingly do wrong or rationalize wrongdoing.
19. If you believe humans have free will, why would humans have free will if God exists? Why are we able to exercise free will in some situations but not others?
If by “freewill,” Jeff means libertarian freewill, then I reject the premise.
20. Why should we believe that, of the innumerable deities worshipped by human beings over the ages, yours is the one that really exists? Why believe in Yahweh rather than Zeus, Odin, Marduk, Ishtar, Osiris, Quetzalcoatl, Madame Pele, Ahura-Mazda, etc., etc., etc.? (HT: Keith Parsons)
i) There’s no tension between the exclusive truth of Christianity and religious diversity, for the Bible regards idolatry as symptomatic of fallen man’s spiritual rebellion.
ii) It’s odd that Keith Parsons would raise this objection. After all, Parsons is a philosopher. Why should we believe that of the innumerable theories in ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics, his own philosophical beliefs happen to be the right philosophical beliefs?
iii) For every true answer there are many false answers. But unless Jeff Lowder and Keith Parsons think truth is obtainable, they can’t very well argue for atheism.
iv) Parsons is mounting an argument from analogy minus the argument. Why assume these are comparable claims, with comparable evidence–or counterevidence? Naming and listing various deities doesn’t create a genuine parallel.
21. Why is so much of our universe intelligible without any appeal to supernatural agency?
That’s a vague question as well as a loaded question.
i) If Jeff means we don’t need to invoke God’s existence to explain the universe, then he’s begging the question.
ii) Can we understand the universe without reference to God? Understand in what sense? At what level?
My computer is intelligible without my needing a degree in computer engineering or software design. Indeed, computers are designed to be operable by customers who may have little computer literacy. The fact that someone can understand how to use a computer without understanding much about how computers work doesn’t mean there’s nothing behind the screen or under the keyboard.
22. Why isn't our universe teeming with life, including life much more impressive than human life?
i) We’re poorly positioned to gauge whether or not the universe is “teaming” with life. We can’t explore the universe. We can barely explore our solar system.
ii) If the universe were teaming with life, an atheist would say that proves spontaneous evolution when the initial conditions are present.
iii) “More impressive” compared to what? Many terrestrial and aquatic creatures here on earth are more impressive than human beings in varying respects. But there are tradeoffs. More impressive in one respect is less impressive than another.
iv) In Christian theology, there’s a sense in which angels are probably more impressive than human beings. More intelligent, more powerful, more mobile.
v) I’m not an astrophysicist, but I assume that for other planets to support life, more planets would have to be in the Goldilocks zone. But given gravitation, if more planets occupy the Goldilocks zone, then that would necessitate corresponding adjustments in the position of other celestial bodies, to maintain overall balance. Likewise, you’d need to have more suns, of a suitable size and composition, at a suitable distance.
So it’s not as if one can make a few discrete changes here and there while leaving everything else intact. Like stretching a web in different directions, everything is related to everything else. Everything affects everything else.
Is Jeff proposing a realistic alternative? Is a more ecofriendly universe physically feasible?
23. Why isn't the universe saturated with auditory, tactile, or other sensory beauty?
i) That’s a very androcentric question. Pure speciesism. Based on the distinctive acuities of the human sensory system. But tuning into one frequency tunes out another frequency. We sample what our senses were designed to sense, but that screens out whatever our senses were not designed to sense.
ii) Beauty and functionality aren’t automatically compatible. The alien world in Avatar is quite beautiful, but quite unrealistic. Indeed, it’s because James Cameron wasn’t bound by real physical constraints that he can make everything artificially pretty.
24. Given that the universe has a finite age, why did the universe begin with time rather than in time?
The answer depends, in part, on whether we subscribe to a Newtonian or Leibnizian concept of time. If time itself is a mode of finite subsistence, then you can’t have abstract time. Rather, time is a property of timebound property-bearers. There must be concrete entities to exemplify that contingent mode of subsistence.
It's interesting -- I used to feel uneasy about the size of the universe. Why DID God create it so needlessly big? (Ignoring the scientific reasons, which I wasn't aware of at the time.)
ReplyDeleteHowever, as I've come to a better understanding of God, that uneasiness has faded. I think it was a result of having too small a view of God. Once you gain even a modicum of appreciation for God's greatness, the question gets turned around: why WOULDN'T God create such a vast universe?
"You can imagine yourself as an animal, but that’s your human imagination at work. That’s not what it’s like to be an animal–for the animal. Rather, that’s what it’s like to you, as a human being."
ReplyDeleteFor example, I have yet to meet a dog with a sense of shame.
One theological explanation for the vastness of the universe is to symbolize the greatness of God.
ReplyDeleteii) There is also a distinction between tacit and explicit religious knowledge. To take a comparison, if I watch a movie, I’m learning about the director in the process. For the movie reflects the artistic vision of the director.
ReplyDeleteYet I may find the movie so absorbing that I never give the director a second thought. I’m immersed in the world of the movie. Captivated by the illusion of reality.
It’s easy to take God for granted, like the unseen director. To focus on effects rather than causes.
GREAT ANALOGY!