Book Review: Why I Became an Atheist, chapter 5

I am reviewing Why I Became an Atheist, by John W. Loftus. Other posts are here.

Chapter 5: Does God Exist?

In this chapter Loftus’s main goal is to describe some major arguments for the existence of God and explain why he doesn’t find them convincing. This chapter is not intended to argue for the non-existence of God, although it contains some moves in that direction.

I should begin by noting that I rarely find philosophical arguments for the existence of God convincing. Where they are convincing, they show very little. As many critics have pointed out, it’s a long way from the designer God of biology or physics to the God who revealed the Qur’an, or to the God who raised Jesus from the dead. It’s a long way from the God “greater than whom none can be conceived” in Anselm’s Ontological argument to the God who brought Israel out of Egypt.

Here’s a general feeling I have about the arguments for the existence of God. I find very helpful Linda Zagzebski’s discussion in her Philosophy of Religion: An Historical Introduction (unfortunately I had to return the book to the one who loaned it to me, and so this is from memory). Zagzebski follows a group of other scholars who think that in Aquinas and the tradition that follows, the arguments or “ways” to God are not intended to convince the atheist or general skeptic. Rather, arguments for the existence of God are supposed to be aides for the religious believer. The arguments help to fit God into the wider world and understanding of the world; they also increase the rationality of the believer, giving supporting reasons for God beyond personal and communal religious experience, and the authority of the Church. On this understanding, it is with Descartes and his tradition there is a move toward proving God from the bottom up – arguments for the existence of God within the framework of foundationalism, where our beliefs are to be ultimately grounded, via some sort of vertical hierarchy, in very simple and virtually certain beliefs. According to Zagzebski et al, philosophy has reacted to this project since the Enlightenment, trying to show that indeed God’s existence cannot be proven along these lines.

That’s a general sketch from memory. But even if the intellectual history is shaky, I think arguments for the existence of God really should play the sort of role they are alleged to play in Aquinas. Arguments for the existence of God should be incorporated into a broader cognitive scheme in the mind of the believer, supplemented further by the experience of religious life.

I have one more feeling, which is that it is odd to have a largely rationalistic argument for the existence of an object. Usually when we try to prove the existence of an object to some person, we use mundane means. I show someone my good friend by personal introduction. You prove the existence of a beautiful place by taking someone there. These are highly direct methods relative to the person. Special cases, such as demonstrating the existence of sub-atomic particles, are more complex, but often reduce to observations and direct inference from observations. There is nothing akin to the “first cause” argument for such objects, for example. My feeling is that demonstrating the existence of God will be of the direct and personal kind of endeavor, rather than the rationalistic kind. We prove the existence of peculiar numbers and relations of numbers, and we prove the existence of far-reaching processes in biology. But we don’t prove the existence of mothers, parades, countries, or other things that allegedly can be readily experienced. Most religions claim that God can be readily experienced like mothers and parades, and few religious believers experience God like a biological process or quirky number.

Ontological Arguments

The Ontological Argument has a rich history. Loftus lists the major figures who have developed different versions. He chooses to focus on Anselm’s original version, and not any of the later versions. Loftus presents the argument in this way:

(1) On the assumption that that than which nothing greater can be conceived is only in a mind, something greater can be conceived, because
(2) Something greater can be thought to exist in reality as well.
(3) The assumption is therefore contradictory: either there is no such thing even in the intellect, or it exists also in reality;
(4) But it does exist in the mind of the fool (see Ps. 14:1);
(5) Therefore that than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in reality as well as in the mind.

Loftus briefly criticizes this argument on a number of grounds. He follows Hume in saying that it is improper to argue for a “matter of fact,” known from experience, via the “evidence of the relations of ideas.” By their very nature, matters of fact require a different kind of evidence, empirical evidence.

Loftus’s major criticism of the argument seems to be that the very idea of a being greater than any other conceivable being is an idea which is highly sensitive to (1) our cultural context and (2) our intelligence. Says Loftus: “Since [the Eastern and Western] conceptions of God produce two mutually exclusive conclusions about which kind of God exists, then the ontological argument itself does not lead us to believe in the Christian God alone.” In other words, maybe the greatest possible being yields a non-Christian conception of God.

Cosmological Arguments

Loftus addresses the “Thomistic ‘Five Ways’ Argument,” the “Kalam Argument” defended by William Lane Craig, and the “Leibnizian Argument.”

In Loftus’ discussion of the arguments he provides critique throughout, but then there is a following section called “Some Criticisms,” which applies especially to the Leibniz argument, focusing on the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR).

Loftus critiques Aquinas’s argument for failing to give a reason for why there can’t be an infinite regress of causes for the Universe, and furthermore for not explaining why God himself is able to be the end of any regress. Furthermore, it’s not clear in Aquinas why the Universe cannot be “a sheer unexplained fact.” After all, God is allowed to be this kind of fact – why not the Universe?

Loftus spends the most time on William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument. Readers should note that Loftus, like career Christian apologist Josh McDowell, frequently just offers terse quotations from scholars he agrees with. Thus parts of the book can read more like an annotated bibliography, or excerpts from Lee Strobel interviews. We get brief statements from multiple philosophers critiquing a variety of theistic arguments. Presumably Loftus agrees with the statements he cites; but to me, it would be more interesting to have an extended case directly from Loftus.

Loftus gives an outline of Craig’s argument:

(1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence
(2) The universe began to exist
(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence

Loftus doesn’t have  a single major objection to Craig’s argument, but instead objects to multiple aspects of it, which although harder to summarize is perhaps more effective. I’ll list his points as I see them, in the order in which they arise:

(1) Loftus quotes Graham Oppy who observes that if God exists outside of time and there is “a dimension analogous to time” according to which we might “measure” God’s timeless existence, then by Craig’s own argumentation God must have a beginning “in that dimension” or “has always existed in that dimension.” The first choice is theologically unacceptable (God has a cause) and the second philosophically unacceptable (an infinite regress). If we deny that there is such an “analogous dimension” then, Oppy argues, it’s not clear we have any idea what we are talking about when we say God exists outside of time.

(2) Craig sometimes uses examples such as tigers “springing into existence uncaused” to support the intuition that the Universe must have been caused. Loftus quotes Wes Morriston saying that because the beginning of the Universe is unlike anything else we experience (i.e. we don’t experience the origins of “worlds”), we can’t properly make an analogy to this unique event. Morriston also asserts that creation out of nothing is just as “counterintuitive” as an uncaused beginning.

(3) Loftus says that Craig’s view that the Universe “began to exist” “has difficulties.” He then cites Graham Oppy and Richard Carrier as saying that Craig’s theory of time is a minority view in the scientific community. Furthermore, according to David Ramsay Steele, in quantum mechanics “things begin to exist without any cause all the time.” I have trouble following this paragraph. What is involved in Craig’s view that the Universe began to exist? Does it require his concept of time? And what does quantum mechanics really say about Craig’s view of time? It seems to me that some of the ideas in this paragraph are disconnected (to each other, not to Craig’s argument).

(4) Loftus spends a bit more time criticizing Craig’s use and conception of the notion of infinity. Craig says there can’t be an actual infinite collection of things. Because of various absurdities resulting from the notion of infinity, we must conclude, Craig claims, that the Universe had a beginning. There can’t be an infinite number of events in time. Loftus says, “Craig’s basic problem is that he conflates counting an infinite number of events with counting all of them. An immortal being could finish her beginningless task (… -5, -4, -3) and yet not count all events (-2, -1, 0). ” But it seems to me that Craig’s argument (according to Loftus) is precisely that an infinite being could not finish a beginningless task, since that task involves traversing an infinite series. Indeed, assuming the being could finish the task, Craig thinks this leads to absurdities (i.e., the being would have finished the task an infinitely long time ago, and so you couldn’t find the being counting numbers no matter how far back in time you went). My own feeling is that arguments that capitalize on the confusing notion of infinity have something in common with arguments that capitalize on other technical paradoxes. Here is a silly example sent to me by my childhood friend Jason. But it seems Loftus is trying to catch Craig in a conflation of concepts, and I don’t see that this conflation has significant consequences for the argument, even if there is a conflation. Because Craig has been discussing these issues ad nauseam, I doubt there is a conflation.

(5) Loftus’s final point is that Craig’s argument doesn’t show there is a personal God of the kind Christian theism posits. Readers should note that Craig is aware of this, and usually posits other arguments to demonstrate the specific nature of God. Craig tries to push a “cumulative case” for the existence of the Christian God. Loftus is aware of this. It’s interesting that although Loftus thinks religion should be evaluated as a rounded whole, he so far chooses to evaluate it in exactly the opposite fashion, taking arguments like Craig’s and extricates them from their wider apologetic context.

The final cosmological argument is that of Liebniz. This argument uses the PSR to show that there must be a self-explanatory being, since everything that exists requires a reason to explain its existence. As with the other arguments, Loftus offers up a couple of other people’s arguments. The first is Russell’s claim that the Universe is just a “brute fact,” not needing a reason. Furthermore, Loftus says it’s not clear why God escapes needing a reason. Loftus says further that if it seems to us that every part of the universe screams finitude and contingency, perhaps “Humans just might have the tendency to suppose these things.” This is a very curious counterargument on the point of Loftus. Elsewhere he has complained that Christian apologists are always relying on what is “logically possible” (e.g., it is “logically possible” that God has a good reason for allowing horrendous evil). Yet when convenient for atheism, it seems that Loftus has no problem utilizing the same defense, in even less developed fashion. “We might be wrong” is hardly a counterargument, especially against strong widely confirmed intuitions, such as “Things generally don’t contain sufficient reason for existing within themselves.” Loftus issues a related argument, which is that the Liebnizian approach commits the “fallacy of composition,” reasoning from the nature of parts to the nature of the whole. It is not always proper to do so, and Loftus says there is no way of deciding if the Universe and the PSR is like this.

The Teleological Argument

This argument is most popularly manifested as the argument from design, most famously associated with the Intelligent Design movement. This argument has a couple of forms. Loftus considers “cosmology and biochemical complexity.” In cosmology he addresses the anthropic principle, that the nature of the Universe is, on multiple levels, apparently well-suited for the kinds of beings we are; it is “fine tuned.” Not only is it well-suited, but it is just barely well-suited; if it were even slightly different, we wouldn’t exist.

One objection Loftus cites is Victor Stenger’s argument that the argument assumes “only one kind of life is possible.” This, he says, “is like arguing that a particular card hand is so improbable that it must have been preordained.”

Richard Dawkins has the clever response to the design argument that the anthropic principle is an alternative to the God hypothesis as an explanation for why we are here. The principle says: we are here because in this incredibly vast universe, due to the natural laws, beings like us will sometimes arise.

Richard Carrier argues that an orderly God is a poor hypothesis because it begs the question “Who rolled the dice that gave us our god, rather than some other god, or no god at all?” I’m unclear what the force of this is. The theistic argument here might pull the nature of God from other considerations and arguments, not the reasoning present in the design argument. It seems to me like Carrier is subtly switching topics.

Loftus digresses again into “logical possibility.” He asks if his readers have ever stopped to wonder what is “beyond the known order of our universe.” Then he suggests that perhaps things operate differently out “there,” who knows. I don’t think this way of arguing has any force. If the theist has to preface all of her arguments with “As far as we know…”, then she is in the same position as all other people who offer arguments. But Loftus isn’t ready to grant that theistic arguments work “as far as we know,” so it’s not clear why he must rely on how things might get wacky out in the ether.

Loftus also uses a similar concept – logical consistency – to defend the hypothesis that there are multiple universes, which increases the probability that a universe like ours would arise. People who doubt the multiverse will not be impressed by the observation that the multiverse doesn’t contradict other things we know.

Loftus addresses the other teleological argument, from biochemical complexity, defended by people like Michael Behe and William Dembski. Loftus points out that evolutionary theory and natural selection in particular do have various ways of explaining phenomena such as “irreducible complexity,” such as complexity that becomes apparently irreducible after being gradually built. “An irreducibly complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just advantageous, become – because of later changes – essential.” Loftus also gives similar arguments about probability as he did in preceding arguments.

Conclusion

Loftus ends his chapter with three sections. The first section challenges the notion that God is theoretically simple rather than complex (which is relevant for theoretical usefulness); the second section is on the question “Who made God?” where Loftus says Christians “claim the upper hand by definition”; the third and final section argues that the “God of the Bible” is at times morally monstrous, and hence God was really made in the image of man.

These three questions are rather large questions. The question of divine simplicity largely is a question of definition, but it’s also a question of metaphysics. Philosophers Loftus cites, especially Plantinga and Swinburne, have systematic treatments. But it seems to me that with respect to explaining scientific data, only a God who is simple in the relevant sense is theoretically useful (unless we modify the criterion of simplicity). The issue is most relevant for Swinburne, who explicitly posits God as a kind of scientific explanation and hypothesis. If Loftus gives a convincing argument for why Swinburne’s God is not simple, then it seems that Swinburne could just modify his concept of God and still have a working explanation for his other arguments, which could still be called God.

The second question on who made God is common. It has always seemed to me that theists have a very modest upper hand here, because the idea that no one made God is built into the Christian and Jewish religious traditions in a non-ad-hoc way, before these questions were being pushed by people like Loftus. But this is indeed a modest upper hand, as traditions don’t necessarily confer truth.

The third question is a messy one. Recently there was a conference at Notre Dame where philosophers discussed the God of the Hebrew Bible. You can read a few reflections here, but the papers will be published in an upcoming book by Oxford University Press.

In general, my feeling about the “God of the Bible” is that it’s not relevant to the atheist unless she is explicitly asked to assent to certain passages in a particular way. Christian believers have a diversity of ways of understanding, say, the story of genocide in Canaan, and an individual is only responsible for the theology that she knows or is presented to her. Discussing “the God of the Bible” as an identifiable object presupposes a host of theological and exegetical positions. Why not “the God who is worshiped by Christians” or “the God who raised Jesus from the dead”? These are all referents we have to choose from.