A sequel to my earlier post:
In this post I comment on some other statements by Thaddeus Metz, God, Soul and the Meaning of Life (Cambridge 2019):
The stronger version of the argument is not that God and a soul are unintelligible, but that they must be insofar as they are deemed to be necessary for life’s meaning (Metz 2013b). The claim is that the logic of supernaturalism as a theory of meaning requires spiritual conditions to be quite different from what exists in the physical world and hence to be beyond what we can conceive. On the one hand, in order for God (or a soul) to be the sole source of meaning, God must be utterly unlike us. The more God were like us, the more reason there would be to think we could obtain meaning from ourselves, absent God. On the other hand, the more God were utterly unlike us and radically other, perhaps for being atemporal or absolutely simple, the less clear it would be whether we could truly understand His nature or how we could obtain meaning by relating to Him.
i) That's not self-explanatory. Why must God be utterly unlike us to be the sole source of meaning? That's hardly self-evident. Where's the argument?
ii) Conversely, how does it follow that "the more God is like us, the more reason there'd be to think we could obtain meaning from ourselves, absent God"? What if God is like us in some respects but unlike us in other respects?
iii) The idea of timeliness isn't beyond what we can conceive.
It's difficult to evaluate this objection because it needs to be unpacked in much greater detail even to know what the claim amounts to .
The last salient argument against extreme supernaturalism has been the most common one for naturalists to make, and it is less complicated than the other two. It is the contention that meaning, at least in life, intuitively seems possible despite atheism, even when such meaning is construed objectively and not merely subjectively. If we think of the stereotypical lives of Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso, they seem meaningful merely in virtue of the activities they performed, even if we suppose there is no all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful spiritual person who is the ground of the universe and who will grant eternal bliss to our spiritual selves upon the deaths of our bodies (Trisel 2004: 384–5; Wielenberg 2005: 31–7, 49–50, 2016: 31, 33–4; Norman 2006). Supposing for the sake of argument we are currently living in an atheist world, we remain inclined to differentiate between lives devoted to long-distance spitting, creating a big ball of string or living in an experience machine, on the one hand, and those exemplifying morality, enquiry or creativity, on the other. Meaning is absent in the former cases and present in the latter ones, which can constitute ends higher than pleasure that merit pride or admiration upon their realization.The argument is powerful, having convinced even many religiously inclined theorists of meaning. For example, one has said that it is ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ that some meaning would be possible even if there were no God and a soul (Quinn 2000: 58), while another remarks that it would be ‘incredible’ (Audi 2005: 334) to think that no meaning would accrue from beneficent relationships in themselves. A recurrent example is rescuing a young girl from severe injury; surely, that would be a meaningful deed to perform, even if a perfect being does not exist and we will die along with the inevitable demise of our bodies, so the argument goes (Trisel 2004: 384–5; Audi 2005: 341–2).
It's counterintuitive considered in isolation, but in combination with naturalism, his paradigm examples cease to be meaningful. In a godless universe, how you choose to live your life is arbitrary.
This is analogous to eliminative materialism. The position is absurd to the point of self-refutation, but it's driven by a larger commitment to physicalism. The way to dissolve the counterintuitive impression is not to say some ways of living are meaningful even in a godless universe, but to say that since some ways of living are meaningful, we don't live in a godless universe.
‘Only a religion with a creator God offers the possibility of compensation for the badness of my wasting my life’
That raises an interesting issue. There are men and women who convert late in life. It's too late for them to make up for the lost years in this life.
A different sort of argument for moderate supernaturalism appeals to a ranking of what human beings characteristically want. By this argument, the moderate supernaturalist will grant that a naturalist sort of meaning could satisfy some of our ‘surface desires’ (Seachris 2013: 20, n. 47), or at best our mid-level needs, longings and wishes. However, he will maintain that only a supernatural meaning could satisfy ‘profound desires anchored in the core of our being’ (Seachris 2013: 20, n. 47), ‘fundamental human aspirations’ (Cottingham 2016b: 136) or ‘the voracious human hunger for meaning’ (Haught 2013: 176; see also Seachris 2011: 154, 2013: 14; Goetz 2012: 44, 47; Cottingham 2016b: 127).The problem with this reasoning is that it just does not seem true to say that human beings qua human beings desire a world with a purposive God or a blissful soul. In particular, many in the South and East Asian traditions simply do not hanker for the existence of God or a soul as construed in this Element. Literally billions of adherents to Hinduism and Confucianism, for example, have desires radically different from believers in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. If so, then a spiritual realm is not necessary for them to have a greater sort of meaning, by the logic of the present argument. Indeed, if there is in fact no spiritual dimension, and if our desires are malleable, then one would be best off letting go of desires for perfection that cannot be fulfilled (on which see Trisel 2002).
That's very superficial:
i) To begin with, most adherents are folk Hindus and folk Buddhists. They don't adhere to the austere outlook of Indian philosophy.
ii) There's a distinction between natural yearnings and a cultural overlay. Sometimes a cultural overlay will choke natural yearnings. But the overlay doesn't reflect their natural yearings, if left to their own devices.
iii) If you think reality is indifferent or hostile to your yearnings, then you give up hope and settle for something less. You make due. But that doesn't mean you don't long for something better.
" The problem with this reasoning is that it just does not seem true to say that human beings qua human beings desire a world with a purposive God or a blissful soul. In particular, many in the South and East Asian traditions simply do not hanker for the existence of God or a soul as construed in this Element. Literally billions of adherents to Hinduism and Confucianism, for example, have desires radically different from believers in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. If so, then a spiritual realm is not necessary for them to have a greater sort of meaning, by the logic of the present argument. Indeed, if there is in fact no spiritual dimension, and if our desires are malleable, then one would be best off letting go of desires for perfection that cannot be fulfilled (on which see Trisel 2002)."
ReplyDelete1. He almost sounds like a paternalistic progressive speaking on behalf of South and East Asians.
2. At least in my experience with some East Asian relatives who were folk Buddhist as well as Confucian, what he says doesn't ring true at all. They still pray and beg this or that deity for aid when they're in dire straits, wishing for help in their circumstances. They still feel thankful when good fortune comes upon them. They still burn incense and leave food for little Buddha statues. If I can put it as neutrally as possible: they still want some sort of connection with some sort of deity in their highs and in their lows. The yearning to connect with something greater than themselves is still present. At least in many cases I know.