On Faith - Part I,584something

         As a preparation for my oncoming article "On Faith - Part II", I have decided to post my notes on the chapters concerning religion from an amazing book I just read. For a very good résumé of the panorama of ideas that make up western philosophy, "50 Philosophy Ideas You really Need to Know" is the book to look for. In the chapters concerned, the authors introduce and explain the different philosophical arguments meant to prove God's existence, for then to explain end interpret the responses and counter-arguments of philosophers. To sum up concisely, God's existence can neither be proven nor dis-proven. To sum up not quite as quickly, my notes concerning these chapters, plus some of my own additions, can be found further down:

Religion

38, The Argument from Design (the divine watchmaker) 

- The argument form design, also known as the theological argument, is the belief that we can induce from the complexity of natural mechanisms that there is a creator behind it all. But there are several weak points in this theory, first pointed out by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779):

o   Arguments from analogy works best when the different ‘objects’ are not too different. We can infer from our anatomical resemblance with the chimpanzees that they might feel pain as we do, but to compare an eye with a camera is to go a bit far, as is to compare a watch with the mechanisms of the universe

o   The argument is vulnerable to infinite regress. If our universe needs a designer, than what can we say about the universe and its designer? Do we need and über-designer? And then an über-über-designer, etc.?

o   The arguments biggest appeal is that it explains the complexity and marvel with what things like the human eye works and comes to existence. But the theory of evolution does the same thing, without the need of an omnipotent creator.

o   Even if we recognise in the argument, there are limits to it. Certain aspects of nature might suggest a committee, so a whole team of designers might be necessary. And nothing in this world, however well “created”, is perfect. Everything seems to be flawed in one or another way, and would it not be logical to draw the conclusion that the maker himself is flawed, or non-omnipotent? There is bad in this world, and this too, might give us serious doubts of the morals of the maker.

o   And of course, if we admit that there is a designer behind the watch of the universe, there are no compelling reason what-so-ever to indicate that he is still around / alive.

39, The Cosmological Argument (the first and uncaused cause)

- Basically resumed as thus: - Why is there anything? – God.
- While it is appealingly simple, and easy to just accept, it presents several flaws or weaknesses:

o   The argument is by analogy. Everything we know is a result of causality, cause and effect, so we naturally assume that the universe too must have a cause. But the argument extends the reasoning to something that is by definition outside of our experience, our universe: to whatever created the universe. But our experience of this (world) cannot tell us anything about this, and is thus not even coherent. The universe means everything that exist, and its beginning also marks the beginning of time

o   If the universe itself is caused by something, so does also God. If not, God must be outside of “everything”, he must be supernatural. This might be satisfactory to those who already believe the conclusion that the argument is supposed to lead to. For others, it only fuels the suspicion that the argument is incoherent or unintelligible.

o   The argument resides on the notion that infinite regression is intolerable (if B causes A, than C must have caused B, and D must have caused...): the chain must end somewhere, and that that somewhere is God who is uncaused or self-caused. But is the idea of an infinite chain, implying that the universe had no beginning, really any more incomprehensible than a supernatural something lying outside of it?

o   Even if the chain must end somewhere, why cannot the universe itself be uncaused or self-caused? If self-causation becomes acceptable, God becomes redundant.

o   By accepting the argument, we thus lay some very peculiar characteristics upon God: he must be self-caused or uncaused, necessarily existent, etc.. While this in itself may be hard to interpret, the argument does not prove (if it proves anything at all) that God possesses any magic properties at all, such as omnipotence, omniscience, universal benevolence, etc..

40, The Ontological Argument (the greatest imaginable being)

- Basically the idea that, we being able to imagine a being greater than anything that we can possibly conceive, is a proof itself of the existence of God. Now it is possible to conceive God as such – and an even greater one: one that exists in reality as well as in our minds. So, for this not to be contradictory, God must exist!

- Descartes has had a similar approach: We can imagine someone kind and great. But we can also imagine someone kinder and even greater, and we can go on until imagining the perfect kind- and greatness. According to Descartes, these ideas must come from somewhere, as we cannot imagine something out of our experience. Descartes conclusion is that these principals must come from God, as he is a being of eternal kind- and greatness, thus proving his existence.

- Flaws:

o   The problem is that the same type of argument can be used to “prove” the existence of non-existent things, such as centaurs and griffins. God must thus be in some way a special case. While a juicy apple is great, it is always possible to imagine a juicier one and hence greater one. God must thus be great (/ omnipotent, omniscient ad benevolent) to a degree not possible to surpass. But, unfortunately, being bestowed of such perfect qualities is in itself contradictory:

§  To be omnipotent means, amongst other things, to be able to create beings of free will. But this is contradictory with the idea of:

§  Omniscience, which means to know everything. How can it be possible to beings of free will, thus being able to act on its own, when an omniscient God would know every consequence of his actions?

§  And of course, there is the problem of evil, putting complete benevolence up to the question

o   As Kant demonstrates in his Critique of Pure Reason, to say that God exist is not to attribute the property of existence to him, but to say that there is a concept that has those properties, and the truth of something like this cannot be determined without seeing how things are in reality outside of reality. Existence is not a property, but a precondition of having properties. The ontological argument crumbles at once if existence is denied the status of predicate.

41, The Problem of Evil (why does God let bad things happen?) 

- A problem that directly arises from the qualities that are attributed to God within the Judaeo-Christian tradition:

o   God is omniscient: knows everything logically possible to know

o   God is omnipotent: is able to do anything that is logically possible to know

o   God is omnibenevolent: universal goodwill and wishes to do every good thing possible

- But, these characteristics are contradictory to each other:

o   If God is omniscient, It knows about all suffering

o   If God is omnipotent, It is able to prevent it

o   If God is omnibenevolent, It wishes to prevent all pain and suffering

- There is pain and suffering in the world, so logically, God is either ignorant, incapable or unwilling to do anything – not the idea of God most religions like to profess.
-  There are some possible defences against this argument, though denying evil itself, or limiting God's powers does not seem to be acceptable:

o   Most theists would argue that we are ultimately better off with evil in the world, or that it is possible for them to coexist without contradiction:

§  Many would argue that evil is the price we must pay for freewill, for the freedom to make our own choices:

- If there are no moral evil, how can good actions shine forth?

- True character and virtue are forged through overcoming adversity: fighting for the oppressed, opposing the tyrant, etc.

§  Though this argument might be appealing, it struggles to explain the arbitrary distribution of human suffering;

- The blameless is often the one that suffers the most

- The vicious goes unscathed

-  The last line of defence for the faithful is often “God moves in mysterious ways”, though this argument possesses little, if no, weight with the non-believer.

42, The Freewill Defence (Freedom to do wrong)

-  The daily drama and suffering suggest a God, if any, that is removed from the perfect being described in Judaeo-Christian tradition, which is either unable or unwilling to help. In other words: a God scarcely deserving of our respect, let alone our worship.

- The most common counter-argument is that God could not have given us freewill without the risk of evil: he could not have hindered moral baseness without taking away moral goodness (see The Problem of Evil). This argument possesses several weaknesses:

o   The “Freewill Defence” might explain the so-called “moral evil”, evil caused by men alone. But what about natural evil? Man is capable of inflicting enough evil on himself without the addition of natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis), viruses (HIV), haemorrhoids etc..

o   This again might be defended by the insistence on it being the work of the devil or fallen angels, but is not that to jeopardise God's Omnipotence and Omnibenevolence?

o   Otherwise, one puts the blame on the original sin, referencing God’s “just” punishment for Adam and Eve's actions in the Garden of Eden. But is not the idea of punishing us for something our great-great-great... grandfathers did a major injustice, in no way compatible with the idea of moral excellence? “How does it benefit those being judged by the actions of their (distant) forebears to be given freewill in the first place?

- Besides the obvious problem of natural evil, the Freewill Defence runs into a major philosophical difficulty with the problem of freewill itself. The defence assumes our capacity to make free choices in its fullest sense: a decision we make is not determined or caused by any factor external to us. The possibility to do otherwise is really open to us. The problem is to explain how actions can occur indeterminately without being random, and thus in a way depriving us of moral responsibility for our actions. And if the libertarian definition of freewill is unsustainable, the whole argument crumbles with it.

43, Faith and Reason (the leap of faith)

- Roughly summarised, the debate ongoing for centuries between “fideists” and rationalists can never be finished to satisfaction for both sides. The rationalists prove to their satisfaction that faith is indeed irrational, and fideists regard the arguments as irrelevant and beside the point. No common ground seems possible.

- Pascal's Wager:  If insecure, what shall we do? We have two options

o   We believe in God:

§  We are right: we win eternal bliss

§  We are wrong: we lose nothing

o   We do not believe in God:

§  We are right: We neither win or lose anything

§  We are wrong: we lose eternal bliss at best; gain eternal damnation at worst

- Pascal's wager have been criticised by many, amongst whom Voltaire. Richard Dawkins even suggests God might reward honest attempted reasoning, but punish blind or feigned faith - anything else would just be absurd, and if so, the image of God as omnibenevolent would just be quite plainly misplaced. Richard Carrier takes the argument further