My most popular post by far is this. It’s not even close.
That post is really more about how I look at religion than it is about getting into the weeds about issues that occupy much of current apologetics. In fact it explains why I think many of the debates in apologetics concern minutia, and why that is not all that interesting to me.
I follow Bart Ehrman’s blog and he posted a debate he had with Jimmy Akin.
I don’t follow Akin’s blog, because he does not allow comments, but I have read many articles and listened to him quite a bit. Both men are extremely knowledgeable about church history. I think Jimmy Akin tends to view Bart in the same way I do. I will agree with what much of Bart says in substance (although not everything) but then he will say “therefore the Gospels are unreliable!” When I was thinking “therefore the Gospels are reliable!” It is like I am saying “a mile is a short distance” and he is saying “no a mile is a long distance!” We both understand a mile is 5280 feet so I tend to say ok whatever and still follow his blog for the facts he raises. BTW the same is true about his saying there are a “huge” number of mistakes in all the manuscripts of the bible and I will look at that same number think in terms of the bible being 73 books of such and such a length and think actually that is a pretty “small” number of mistakes.
I think this is due to Ehrman studying at the Moody Bible Institute which is about as “top down” as it gets, versus my own “bottom up” approach to religion after studying philosophy. Anyway one of the comments from “AdamH” in Ehrman’s blog said:
“[Akin] seemed to defend the point of ‘Well, if the Gospels get a good chunk of the small, middle, and big points right, we can call that reliable.’ That latter point is confusing to me… most people are concerned with asking should I base my whole life or not on these texts, not if they are a historically reliable text from an abstract perspective.”
I responded but was limited to 200 words on Ehrman’s blog. So I wanted to fill out my response here a bit. It seems Adam wants to insist on more reliability because of the importance of the issue. I am sympathetic to his desire, but I don’t think the human condition is such that we can make those demands on reality.
Ehrman and others who argue against Christianity will often ask whether saints really rose from the dead as described in Matthew. But this is not an important question from my perspective. For me the question is not whether every single recorded miracle happened. The question is whether even one of the miracles happened. And, for me, it doesn’t even have to be a big one like the resurrection. (C.f., 1 Corinthians 15:17 ) For me, it could just be healing someone’s hand or even turning water into wine. Even if the Gospel authors were mistaken about all the miracles except one then we would have a situation where God gave us a miraculous sign that we should follow Christ’s teaching. How many times does God need to tell us to follow Christ’s teaching before it is reasonable to do it? My answer is he only needs to tell me once. If God tells us even once to follow Christ’s teaching then I think it is reasonable to follow Christ’s teaching.
Would AdamH say, like Russel, “not enough evidence God not enough evidence”…. “One miraculous sign is not enough! I needed at least three miraculous signs before I would follow Christ’s teaching!”
It seems to me that it is people like AdamH that may be putting up arbitrary standards as to whether the texts should be deemed “historically reliable from an abstract perspective.” I am just looking at it and asking what is the best shot at living a moral life. If all the other options I have are a lower probability then Christianity then I am going with Christianity. I am going with whatever that best shot is regardless of whether I think the best shot has a 98% probability or a 2% probability.
My questions to AdamH would be the same ones I asked myself that lead me to be a Christian. In the meantime, as you sort this out, how are you going to live? Do you think the evidence is better that Muhammad or various miracle claims of other religious people are stronger than the Christian ones? Are you just going to do whatever suits you at the time? What basis do you have to believe your own moral intuitions are reliable if there is no God? And then it would seem we get into philosophy, which is where I started, and ended up in Christianity.
In his book Jesus Loves Canaanites Randall Rauser argues that our moral intuitions are evidence that God would not have commanded the killing of children in Old Testament passages. I agree with this but I think this sort of argument can raise some interesting philosophical and theological issues. Here is my take.
The first theological question is whether he has this backwards. That is shouldn’t our reading of scripture be guiding our moral intuitions rather than our moral intuitions guiding our reading of scripture? In short, I think both Rauser and I agree that scripture says God’s law is written on our hearts Romans 2:14-16. (consider also other passages about the holy spirit helping us understand what to do etc.) so scripture itself tells us our conscience can be a good guide to morality. Our conscience can guide our interpretation of scripture and scripture can guide our conscience.
The second question involves the epistemic moral argument I subscribe to. The argument might be thought of in terms of Plantinga’s argument against naturalism but limited to moral claims. Basically, it argues that if naturalism and evolution are true then we have no way to reliably know what morality requires. Some of the points Rauser makes suggests he may not subscribe to that argument. For example he says:
“So, for example, while Tom believes that the act of devotionally killing one’s child as an offering to God is possibly morally right (i.e. if God has commanded it), powerful moral intuitions support the conclusion that it is necessarily wrong (i.e. God could not command it).[54] For that reason, we believe that it could not possibly be a moral praiseworthy or laudatory (let alone required) action, and so we conclude that God did not command it and that conclusion is independent of the results of any survey of biblical data.”
Rauser, Randal. Jesus Loves Canaanites: Biblical Genocide in the Light of Moral Intuition (pp. 56-57). 2 Cup Press. Kindle Edition.
If we know what is morally right and wrong based on our intuitions, independent of the bible (and therefore even without the biblical claim that we have God’s law written on our heart) then why would we need scripture or Christianity to help us understand morality? Indeed if we are saying we will change our understanding of scripture based on our moral intuitions, Rauser would seem to be saying we know what morality requires better than we know what scripture requires. But then how is scripture really helpful for living a righteous life? And if we are just going to reinterpret scripture we consider bad morality why even pretend scripture is guiding our morality? Instead, we are just quoting scripture when it agrees with our pre-existing view of the world and tossing it out when it doesn’t. So why be concerned with the bible or religious teaching at all? Rauser has a few approaches he could take in answering these questions but here I will offer my own approach, which I believe are largely consistent with Rauser’s stated views – although I don’t know if he actually endorses them.
My answer is that without God or some supernatural entity guiding our moral intuitions we have no basis to think they are at all reliable. But Randall seems to make an argument that our moral intuitions do have rational grounding. And although he clearly takes the Christian perspective in writing this book, it seems his rational grounding of our moral intuitions is not dependent on Christianity or God.
Rauser, likens moral skeptics to skeptics of the external world – which follow the lines Berkley and others who followed the lines of various cartesian skeptical arguments. (e.g., how do we know we are not dreaming, in a matrix, or a brain in a vat etc.?) He first tries to give an example where someone believes without evidence – but I argue he is failing to recognize “subjective evidence” is in fact evidence here:
He then offers arguments from Reid and GE Moore that we are justified in rejecting skepticism of the external world based on intuition. He will later then use intuition as a justification for our moral beliefs. Moral intuitionalism is a form or moral realism shared by prominent atheist philosophers such as Michael Huemer, and Russ Shaefer Landau. Let’s look at how Rauser formulates the argument against skepticism of the external world.
“Many other philosophers have joined Reid in exploring common sense rebuttals to idealism and skepticism. For example, more than a century after Reid, the British philosopher G.E. Moore offered his own famous refutation of Berkeley’s kind of skepticism. In his essay “Proof of an External World,” Moore provides the following deliciously straightforward rebuttal to idealistic skepticism about the external world: “Here’s one hand and here’s another.”[56] In other words, Moore responds to the claim that we do not perceive anything outside of our minds by insisting that he perceives two hands outside his mind. The simple logic is that if Moore is actually now perceiving his hands “out there” in a world external to his mind, then it follows that there is a world out there external to our minds which we perceive. To be sure, Moore is not claiming that he can provide a general proof to satisfy the skeptic just as one may not be able to establish to the satisfaction of the skeptic that we are not now in a matrix.[57] For that reason, Moore anticipates that the skeptic will retort like this: “If you cannot prove your premiss that here is one hand and here is another, then you do not know it.”[58] Nonetheless, Moore flatly denies this conclusion. The fact that I cannot provide an argument to satisfy the skeptic does not prevent me from knowing that there is a hand external to my mind. Just as I don’t need to be able to convince the detective before I can know that I didn’t commit the murder, so I don’t need to be able to provide a universally compelling disproof of skepticism to believe—and indeed, to know—that it is false. The key, as Moore observes, is that “I can know things, which I cannot prove; and among things which I certainly did know, even if (as I think) I could not prove them, were the premisses of my two proofs.”[59] If Moore is right then it turns out that knowing depends less on being able to refute the skeptic to the skeptic’s satisfaction and more on simply paying close attention to the quality and nature of one’s own sense perceptual experience of the world, experience that simply overwhelms the skeptic’s claim.
Rauser, Randal. Jesus Loves Canaanites: Biblical Genocide in the Light of Moral Intuition (pp. 65-66). 2 Cup Press. Kindle Edition.
Ok many points can be made here. First yes you can rationally believe something and even “know” it despite the fact that you can not convince others of it. I have addressed this in other blogs. But just because this is possible, that does not mean we always know things we can not prove. Knowledge is traditionaly understood as justified true belief. So you may be justified in believing something you can not prove. However, observing that possibility does not greatly advance the view that we are in fact “justified” in believing in the external world in light of the skeptical arguments.
I think Rauser goes a bit off course when he says “If Moore is right then it turns out that knowing depends less on being able to refute the skeptic to the skeptic’s satisfaction and more on simply paying close attention to the quality and nature of one’s own sense perceptual experience of the world, experience that simply overwhelms the skeptic’s claim.” It is not because we are “paying close attention to the quality and nature” of our experience that we can know we have one hand and another. It is not the case that if we are dreaming (or a brain in a vat) our hands would not appear to have this or that quality or nature which we can identify. It is not like you can see you are recording because of a red dot in the view finder and can also see such a red dot in your dream if you look closely enough. I don’t think that is what Moore was getting at. What then is Moore getting at?
First, Moore is begging the question. But despite that, he makes a point that leads into an important view of knowledge. It is called the causal (or tracking) theory of knowledge. (Which have been promoted by prominent philosophers like Robert Nozick and goldman). Moore can be understood as saying “in fact” my hands are reflecting light from the external world. And, in fact, this light is detected by my eye and, in fact, this is causing me to observe something external to my body. And this process is in fact *causing* my belief in the external world. So his belief “tracks” the truth/reality of the matter. Because his belief is caused by mechanisms that track the truth/reality they are “justified.” Does he have good reason to believe the mechanisms he thinks track the truth actually track the truth in that way? Does he have good reason to exclude the dreaming possibility? In other words does he have good reasons to accept his reasons? Maybe not. But that does not mean he doesn’t know the external world exists – at least not if he adopts a causal or tracking theory of knowledge. Let me explain.
The traditional definition of knowledge is “justified true belief.” So there are three conditions that have to be met for you to “know” something. It has to be true, you have to believe it, and you have to have a certain type of justification to hold that belief. A belief is “true” if an only if it corresponds with reality. And if his hand is, after all, part of the outside world, his claim is “true.” He also “believes” it is true. So the “true” and “belief” conditions are not at issue. The issue is whether Moore’s belief in the external world is “justified.”
Moore’s proof can be understood as demonstrating his belief is “justified” because his reasons for holding it “track” reality. So he believes his hands are part of the external world. And his belief is “justified” because his belief is causally related to (or “tracks”) the truth of the external world. Now does he know his belief tracks the external world in that way? Maybe not. He could say I don’t know that I am not a brain in a vat and therefore I can’t rule out the possibility the hand I seem to see is really not part of the external world. But that would essentially be asking him if he is justified in believing his justification for believing in the external world. That is, he believes in the external world for reason A, but you can ask well why do you believe reason A? And he might give reason B. And you could keep asking then why do you believe reason B? etc., and we could have an infinite regress. Moore in essence can say in order to know the external world exists I just need to be justified in believing the external world exists. I do not need to be justified in believing all the reasons that justify my belief in the external world. So Moore can say I believe in the external world because here are two hands that are part of the external world. Premise 1) I would not see these hands if they did not exist in an external world. Premise 2) I see these hands. Conclusion: The external world exists. Do I need to prove premise one in order to know the conclusion? That would be requiring that he give reasons for his reasons. And if we need to do that infinitely to have knowledge then of course knowledge is impossible.
That said the skeptic does still have what I consider a strong rebuttal that our beliefs should not be stronger than the reasons we have for holding them. So if our reasons do ultimately come down to us saying yeah we have no basis for believing this or that then the skeptic still makes a good point. The fact that this requirement of infinite reasoning is as a practical matter impossible to meet in our finite existence, does not necessarily negate their point. In fact, I believe the skeptical scenarios are a legitimate problem with “knowledge.” Most epistemology writing does not solve the underlying problem but rather tries to redefine “knowledge” so they can avoid it. That is what the causal theory (or tracking theory) of knowledge tries to do.
The beauty of the causal theory (or tracking theory) of knowledge is you can say I don’t have to “know I know” there is an external world, in order to simply “know” there is an external world. If my belief in the external world is, in fact, caused by reasons that are properly sensitive to the truth of the matter (i.e., sensitive to the reality of situation in question) and they are properly causing my belief then I am justified even if I can’t justify the reasons for my reasons etc. As long as my beliefs are catching hold of the reality train at some point I can be justified even if I can’t describe all the cars pulling my car all the way up to the engine (which may be infinitely many cars ahead).
Consider that someone may get confused if you ask, how do you know Abe Lincoln was born on February 12th? Or how do you know some country, you never personally visited, exists? They may not be able to fully explain all the reasons they believe Jamaica exists or that Abe Lincoln was born on February 12th, but they can still know those things. On the causal theory they are “justified” in believing those things so long as the reasons they believe in them tracks the truth of the matter. So I believe Jamaica exists because I read about it in various books and talked to people that visited it etc. Can I defend all of those reasons to believe and thus “know I know”? Do I know the people I talked to really visited Jamaica and the books really track to the existence of Jamaica? Even if I couldn’t explain how I know all those reasons are good reasons I could still know Jamaica exists, if my belief was caused by at least some of the people, who say they went there, actually going there and the people who wrote about it in books did so for reasons that tracked the truth of Jamaica existing. Thus my belief was caused by reasons that properly tracked the truth that Jamaica exists and was therefore justified.
Now assume, I came to believe Abe Lincoln’s birthday was February 12th solely because I looked at how the tea leaf residue in the bottom of my otherwise empty cup were positioned. Then I would not have a justified true belief that February 12th is Abe Lincoln’s birthday. I may believe it, and it may be true that is his birthday, but how my tea leaves ended up positioned in my cup has no intelligible causal relationship/connection to that being the date of Abe Lincoln’s birth. Therefore, on the causal theory of knowledge my reasons to believe do not “track the truth” of the matter and are thus unjustified.
Now causal theories and tracking theories of knowledge have their own interesting problems. But whether or not these theories can completely define knowledge, they do highlight some aspects of rational belief that are hard to deny. Specifically, if someone believes X for evidential reason Y and we see no intelligible connection between the truth of X and Y it is very hard to say Y is a good evidential reason to believe X. This is why most people agree that tasseography is not a good reason to hold a belief that Abe Lincoln was born on February 12th. We also might agree that because I drank two cups of coffee today that is not a good reason to believe the democrats did well in the midterm elections. If our evidence for believing something is not sensitive to the truth of the matter (or track the truth of the matter) then it is not a good reason to believe it. Now tasseographists might disagree with me about the connection between the position of tea leaves and other events. But even a tasseographist would likely agree, it is irrational to say “yes I agree my drinking two cups of coffee today is completely unconnected to whether democrats did well in the midterm, but I still believe my drinking two cups of coffee is a valid evidentiary reason to believe that the democrats will win the midterm election.”
Now it is true that relevant evidence might in fact have no connection to the question of reality we consider it relevant to. For example maybe someone was driving a red car just like mine outside the bank and it has no connection with me possibly robbing the bank. But if a person isn’t sure it is not my car they still may think it may have been my car then that might still rationally be considered some evidence against me. But this is the important point. If you are sure that it was not my red car but someone else’s red car, and you believe it being there had nothing to do with the bank robbery in question, then it would be irrational for you to think the red car being there is good reason to believe I robbed the bank.
Ok that took a while but these nuances are important to grasp before we get to the examples Rauser uses and how they would affect the moral argument. Let’s see how he ties skepticism about the external world with skepticism about morality:
“In the same way that we find ourselves carried along by the basic deliverances of our sense perception, so we find ourselves carried along by the basic deliverances of our moral intuition/ perception. In the same way that our experience of seeing the sun and feeling its warmth on our skin gives rise to the immediate and irresistible belief in an external world that we perceive, a world that includes a sun that shines and gives warmth, so our experience of contemplating particular instances of human moral action such as “God commanded Tom to hack apart his son in a devotional sacrifice” gives rise to an immediate perception regarding the moral status of the act: No, this is wrong! And just as the idealist’s arguments for skepticism about the external world will be insufficient to overcome our conviction that the external world exists, so the moral skeptic’s arguments that there is no objective moral value beyond our personal opinions may very well prove insufficient to overcome our immediate, intuitive sense that some actions like devotional child sacrifice are always wrong.”
Rauser, Randal. Jesus Loves Canaanites: Biblical Genocide in the Light of Moral Intuition (pp. 63-64). 2 Cup Press. Kindle Edition.
Ok so first our “moral perceptions” are not like our five empirical senses in very important ways. For one we have a model of how our empirical senses work. We think we “see” when light from the external world connects with an object and then our eye etc. The same is true of sound. We believe that sound waves cause air to vibrate and that contacts our ear drums etc. If we were to believe we were dreaming these perceptions we would no longer think we actually saw or felt a sun that exists in the external world. We would see that the mechanism that we think causes our belief about things like the sun or our hands was not at work, and so having a dream where we sense the sun or our hands is not a reason to actually believe the sun we thought we saw in a dream actually exists. Of course, what we seem to perceive in dreams might exist in some world! It is at least theoretically possible that there is a world in some galaxy that corresponds with what we sense in dreams. Such a world would have anxious people walking through school halls late and lacking proper clothing etc. But there is not even an intelligible theory of how our dream experiences would, track with such a possible existing world. We believe our dreams are caused by things other than and independent from this other possibly existing world. We don’t even have a theory of how our dream experience could be sensitive to the truth of this possibly existing world. So it seems irrational to think our dream experiences actually track the truth of an external world. Just like it seems irrational to think the position of our tea leaves tracks the truth/reality of when Abe Lincoln was born.
So what is the explanation of how our “moral senses” track the objective reality of moral truth? Without any sort of explanation it seems we would be in much the same boat as the person who believes their dream tracks some far off objectively real world. It seems very much a case of special pleading. You don’t think what appears to be senses in dreams correspond with a real objective reality, but you do about your moral senses even though in neither case can someone offer any sort of causal model of how the two might even possibly connect/relate.
Ok perception is not accurate but what about “intuition”? I agree intuition seems the better description but it still has the same problem. What is the connection between moral reality of what should happen and our beliefs about what should happen? What is interesting is that naturalistic/scientific proposals abound about how we came to hold the beliefs about morality that we do. For example, cooperation lead to increased survival. Or certain other behaviors lead to more or less “fitness.” The problem with these explanations is they never explain how that connects/tracks with “moral truth.” The objective moral truth plays no role in what caused our beliefs. We know this because those theories don’t even require that there be an actual moral truth! Those theories work just fine if moral anti-realism is true. So all of these theories are exactly like the tasseography in the sense that the reasons we hold the belief does not track the truth in any intelligible way.
The problem for atheists is all of their explanations about what is moral do not seem to track to (or be sensitive to) moral reality. They have explanations that these beliefs about morality helped us survive and reproduce etc. But that is like saying we believe that we dream we are in the sun because these neurons are triggered and that creates the sensation of being in the sun. In the case of dreams we see that is unrelated to actually being in the sun and so do not think that dream experience is a valid reason to think we are in fact in the sun. But when it comes to morality they just try to talk past this issue.
But let’s pursue this. To properly appreciate the skeptics argument it is best not to assume situations where you are awake (as GE Moore does) but instead consider situations where we assume you are dreaming. I have had dreams that I believe were influenced by the objective world around me. I may have even dreamt I was in the sun when in fact I was laying in the sun. It is at least possible that my being in the sun caused me to have the dream experience of being in the sun. But in that case my reasons to believe I was in the sun when I was dreaming at least tracks to an intelligible explanation where the truth of being in the sun plays an important role.
Consider this situation. Someone wakes up and sees that there is a faint sunlight in an otherwise mostly dark room. Now he just woke up and based on the time he knows the sun just recently rose. He also had a dream experience that he was in sunlight, but it may be unclear if he had the dream experience before or after the sun rose. But let’s say the dream experience did in fact happen after the sun rose so there was a dim beam touching his calf at the time he had the dream. Now let’s say he believes the dream experience justifies his belief that sunlight was in fact touching him at the time he had the dream experience.
So did he “know” the sun was touching him at the time of the dream experience? It would have been true that the sun was touching him at the time of the experience. In fact there was a dim beam of light touching his calf. He also believed the sun was touching him in his dream state. But is he justified in believing that the sun was touching him based on the experience? I think most of us would say no. But ok let’s indulge the possibility that the sunlight may have caused the dream experience. You can increase the amount of sunlight as you wish. I think at some point many people would say ok it is possible that a certain amount of sunlight may have been a causative factor in his having the dream experience he did. But whether the actual sun caused the experience is key here right? Consider two different views:
He says yes I think the sun touching me was a causative factor in my having the dream experience, therefore my dream experience justifies my belief that I was in fact in sunlight at the time of the dream experience.
or
2. He says no I do not believe the actual sunlight on my calf had any effect on my dream experience of being in the sun. Yet I still believe I was actually in the sun at the time of my dream experience because I had the dream experience and it was very vivid! The experience simply overwhelms any doubts.
In the first case we may think the person is wrong about the actual sunlight causing his dream, but if true his view is at least in some sort of ballpark of being rational. But the second situation is someone that seems completely irrational. Most of the atheist theories of how we came to hold the moral beliefs we do are like the second case. They do not require any moral reality, at all, let alone a link between moral reality and our beliefs about morality. When we consider that morality is addressing how things “should be” it is difficult to even imagine how this non-material thing could possibly be interacting with us in naturalistic way that causes our moral beliefs.
Atheists have argued against Plantinga by saying that we can take our beliefs a mostly true because true beliefs would promote survival. I think this may have some traction when we are talking about physical things and thus dealing with Plantinga’s more general argument. Perhaps implicit in beliefs about evolution is the belief that having true beliefs about physical things promotes survival. I think that is where Plantinga has his debate. But I think I can grant that argument because moral truths have no physical indicia. Morality deals with what should be and what should be is not a physical thing that could possibly be physically interacting with us causing our beliefs. I have addressed this in some other blogs.
Now “moral naturalists” disagree with me on that. They are a type of moral realist that thinks we can know what is moral based on simply looking at natural facts about what is. But even if I concede that, they still have a huge problem. They offer no explanation of how that works. I can concede that a certain collection natural facts simply is a moral evil. Just like water is H2O. But without any sort of idea how we are categorizing some sets of facts as good and others as evil, and how that relates to the truth of the matter based on moral reality, this view is a dead end for people that want to live a moral life.
For the person facing moral questions on a daily basis this view is useless. It is like telling a person that needs to clean a flooded basement “I bet there will one day be a machine we can use to easily and thoroughly clean this in under an hour with very little effort.” Ok maybe that is true, but for right now that is not helpful in the least. It is unclear what I am supposed to do with the idea that maybe we can someday figure out how moral properties reduce to natural properties. Maybe someday we will be able to build flying saucers that can fly us around the world in minutes! For those of us that need to get somewhere today it is no help. Until there is some idea of how that works “moral naturalism” is a dead end for someone trying to know how to live a moral life.
Christianity not only provides a framework for how we would rationally know right from wrong, it also gives us useful information on how we know what is and is not moral as we live our lives.
I know this blog is already too long but I would like to offer one more example courtesy of a philosopher named John Pollock. Consider a situation where you are in a factory and see widgets that all appear to be red. Now a guide tells you that all the widgets appear red due to a special lighting in the factory. He says that the lighting would make the widgets appear red regardless of their actual color. By actual color I mean how they would appear in normal white daylight. Assume never see the widgets with a different light source. Do you believe the widgets are actually red? Well that might depend on how much you believe your guide. If you believe what he says about the light in the factory it would seem you are not justified in believing the widgets are actually red. If you don’t really believe the lighting could actually make them all appear red as they appear to you then you might be justified in thinking they are actually red.
Consider these two views:
Person A believes what the guide says and so believes that regardless of the objects actual color they would still appear the same redness as they do. Nevertheless person A believes the widgets are actually red because of “the experience” he has of them appearing red.
Person B does not believe the guide. He thinks that there is no way the objects would all appear so red based on the lighting alone. He believes that if they were not actually red they would not appear as they do.
Now it seems to me that person A is irrational. But person A might tell person B we both believe the widgets are red because they appear red to us. But person B might say yes that is true but our basis for trusting that what appears a certain way, is actually as it appears is different in important respects. Namely I think my experience is of seeing red is connected to (tracks) the objective reality of this widget being red in a way that you deny.
I think this is exactly what happens concerning the moral argument. I get asked don’t I agree it would would be “bad” if humans went extinct or needlessly suffered? Or it that it is good if we flourish? And yes I agree with those conclusions but I think my moral intuition is connected to (tracks) moral truth in a way atheists. Namely I think a creator designed my moral intuition in a way that tracks moral truth. They deny this designer. The atheist explanation of how we came to hold these beliefs intuitions does not require that these moral truths are even true – and indeed there is a very significant relationship between belief in moral anti-realism and atheism.
Once I recognized that these non-religious explanations of our moral intuitions have no intelligible causal link with moral reality I could not unlearn it. I simply can’t be the person that fully believes that there is an objectively existing world in some galaxy that corresponds with my dream experiences when I have no explanation of how that would even work. If the explanations of my dreams involves no causal articulable connection to this other world that may objectively exist in some other galaxy then I can’t see how that experience is evidence such a world exists. That is true regardless of how vivid or compelling the dream experience seems. The same is true for my moral experiences. They may be very strong experiences/feelings but if none of the theories connects them with moral reality I just don’t think it is rational to say they are good evidence of what moral reality requires. I can’t just pretend I didn’t see that step getting skipped over.
Now that does not mean moral realism is false. Saying moral realism is false would be like saying we know there are no other objective worlds where people have experiences in other galaxies. I don’t think this argument does that. I think it is therefore wrong to think this argument supports the view that moral anti-realism is more likely. It raises what I consider insurmountable difficulties for atheist moral realists, but rejecting moral realism seems uncalled for. Moreover, the various moral anti-realist positions have huge problems of their own. I talked about a few of them here. https://trueandreasonable.co/2019/06/25/ad-hoc-reasoning-suits-moral-subjectivism-and-anti-realism/
I a drafted a blog dealing with error theory/nihilism. I have at least one more blog on Rauser’s book and then I will post that.
Randal Rauser wrote a very good book about Old Testament Passages.
I mostly agree with him and I am glad he wrote the book. I do not intend to do a review of the book as much as do a few blogs where I talk about a few places where I diverge from his views. Do not think because I am disagreeing with the book I think it is not worth reading. It covers many important issues.
One topic is how we might interpret Old Testament passages. I definitely take what he calls the “spiritualized” approach to some of the Old Testament. I believe Origen used the term “spiritualize” to describe his own non- literal reading of scripture and indeed I draw many of the same conclusions Origen did. However, I would simply say I am taking a “non-literalist” approach to many parts of the old testament.
I think saying I “spiritualize” the text suggests that I promote a certain particular interpretation. Sometimes I do, but often I don’t have any interpretation other than to say I would not take that passage literally. If I had to choose how to interpret the Old Testament passage of the Canannites I would choose the method chosen by Origen. (I was not aware he interpreted it the same way I do until I read it in Rauser’s book) But I am not saying I believe it is, more likely than not, the true intent of the author. I just think the probability that Origen’s interpretation is correct is higher than the probability a literalist reading, or other options, are correct/true.
Over all, I am happy to admit I am not sure what message was intended by particular passages of the old testament – including that one. And indeed much of the old testament may not even be true or false. It can be artistic. Is a poem or work of art “true or false”? Scripture may be intended to invoke feelings and mindsets rather than just offer literally true and false facts about the world. How would those feelings and mindsets have played a role for cultures distantly removed from us in time is often just an exercise in wild speculation.
It is for this reason that I do not find fault with the Church for omitting certain parts of the Old Testament from the lectionary. If we don’t know what message the Holy Spirit is trying to convey why would we spend time on that passage as opposed to other passages that are more clear? Christ is our guide and he was repeatedly challenged with this or that particular passage from the old testament. Again and again he reinforced what the fundamental take away of the old testament was.
He did not get into the weeds about what this Hebrew word meant and how we can understand it this or that way. So it is just not concerning to me that I must admit I am not sure what specific message the Holy Spirit was trying to communicate in a particular passage. And often I think we don’t know very much at all about what the Holy Spirit was doing to guide people.
Let’s say you find this song.
Further assume you know nothing about the context of the song, you don’t even know who wrote it let alone what the political issues of the day were let alone what his political or religious views were. You can at least translate the song and when you translate it you can see that some of the lyrics are things like, “We’re moving night and day to go to Meadowlands / We love Meadowlands.” Based on the beat and the lyrics you might think the writer of the song really liked the meadowlands and was happy to move.
In reality, it was written as a protest song in South Africa protesting the forced move many black people had to make from Sophiatown to the Meadowlands. South Africa had censorship of music that went against government policy. So the music was deliberately upbeat to suggest to the government it was in favor of the move. But in fact the upbeat nature just added to the irony and sarcasm that was intended by the author Strike Vilakazi, and his audience that heard it.
Some officials in the South African government took it literally and so they played the song on the radio. Those government employees were living in the context but still misunderstood. The joke was on them and that inside joke shared by a community makes the song inspiring. But how do we know this? We know this because the song was written less than a century ago at time long after the printing press and even video cameras that documented the history and intent of the author. But what if you just found this song without any of that context. What if you didn’t even know who wrote the song, all you could do was translate it? Almost certainly you would get a completely wrong message.
The way this song played a role in South African history is wonderful. I might even call it historical scripture. Is the song “true”? Did people misunderstand the song then, and might they misunderstand the song later if they lack the context? Yes but their ignorance adds to the songs brilliance.
When we read the Old Testament we should not pretend we know all the meanings or purposes the writers had in mind if, in fact, we know precious little. But some people will insist they know God wants them to read it literally as a default. How they know this I have no idea. Instead I think the view of interpreting scripture and other material literally has come about as a consequence of sola scriptura and also the printing press. I will explain that in another blog.
Origen is one of the earliest commentators on Old Testament passages whose works still exist. He was onve of our closest in time sources to understanding what these authors would have intended. He did not interpret them literally. My own approach is I might read a passage where “God says” kill every soldier, and I think ok, but, if this is literal how do we know this is God saying this and what does he look like etc. But ok maybe we can get past that. But then “God says” kill every male even if they are not a combatant. And there I think hmm that seems questionable based on other writings like the fifth commandment not to mention what God said and did when he came to earth as Jesus. But then I read “God says” and kill every woman. At this point I am definitely thinking the author is up to something other than literal history. More likely than not this is not simple recording of literal history. And then “God says” kill every infant! And here I am definitely thinking God is communicating in a non-literal way. Beyond reasonable doubt this is not literal. But then even if you are still not understanding this is not intended as literally what God said the author writes God also said kill every one of the enemies donkeys! Ok at this point unless your name is Dwight Schrute you have to be thinking the author is up to something other than a simple transcript of what God literally said.
Is the author making an inside joke about certain hard line priests/rabbis/political leaders of his time? Would certain rabbis misunderstand the intent that more sensible Jews/Rabbis understood as happened with the song meadowlands? I am not necessarily saying that. I am saying we don’t know. And I am certainly saying that I think that is much more probable than the intent was that he literally believed God thought we should take vengeance on the farm animals of our enemies. I also believe that inside jokes against arrogant powerful leaders is likely one of the oldest forms of entertainment and expressions of solidarity for oppressed people. If it was intended as a jab at certain overzealous preachers of the day I can see why it was handed down as a classic.
My own view – if I had to choose one – is that the author was using symbolism where the canannites represented sin. My view is similar to Origen’s view. But even that I do not think is more likely than not true. I just think that is more probable than a sarcastic interpretation. Both of those interpretations are not combined to be over 50% in my mind. But either the sarcastic or symbolic interpretations seems much more likely than a literalist interpretation. The biggest part of this pie graph is – we really can’t say what to make of this passage.
I often hear/read that authors of this literature lived in a time where science was non-existent and therefore ignorance was everywhere. We hear that most people could not read and write and therefore they must have been very stupid. I have read many times claims that people in ancient times thought things like thunder was made by Thor banging his hammer. And they thought the world was on the back of a tortoise etc. And I wonder how do these people know what the ancient authors thought? Today we tend to read this literally and so we project our views on the author. But how do we know they interpreted these stories literally? And if I am able I will ask the person making the claim how he knows that. Rauser offers some decent reasons in support of a literalist interpretation, (which I will address in another blog) but for the most part there is no response other then they repeat what is said and assume it is to be taken literally.
But If some myth author suggested that the earth rested on the back of a tortoise and some person asked the author “what does that toroise stand on?” or “well how does the tortoise get enough water to drink” I think the author of these myths would not praise this person hung up on literalism for their insight, but rather shake their head and possibly consider them someone that is difficult to communicate ideas to. I don’t think the ancients writing myths and stories that were handed down for centuries in any culture were just dumb people. In particular I certainly do not think that of the ancient Jews that wrote the stories that were considered scripture for their culture were dumb.
People often assume they are smarter than others. They especially think other people distant in time, culture or space lack their understanding. I really think we apply this prejudice to ancients, in ways that are not unlike what the South African apartheid government did to black people. The joke was on the government leaders. The culture that revered the books of the Old Testament was not a culture of idiots. But I think there is a certain prejudicial arrogance that allows some modern people to think their literature really was just crude ignorance in word form.
The bible has 73 books. We should not claim we know what every passage means. It is ok to say we don’t know what that particular passage means. Just because all scripture is good for instruction 2 Timothy 3:16 that does not mean every passage is good for every person at every time in history. It may very well be that parts of the bible were revered for reasons that are lost. Denying this possibility is not going to help anyone gain understanding.
It is for this reason that I would push back on Randall Rauser’s view that we shouldn’t “omit” certain Old Testament passages. I think there are Old Testament passages that we do not really understand well at all. I think they are properly left out of church lectionaries and Sunday school. Why read scripture when we don’t know what to make of it? Especially when there is so much scripture that we can understand and provides wonderful instruction in how to live in the modern world?
But people might say well how could God let this happen? Why wouldn’t God make sure people always understood what the author was communicating? And I would respond, why should he? God reveals himself differently to people at different times. Why would we assume we need exactly the same messages people of a different time and place needed?
And anyway the answer is that in reality the meaning of written words in our world/reality does often get lost. The written words may stay but the full meanings are often lost not just in scripture but other writings as well. So what would we expect God to do to help us not be lead astray? Well Scripture tells us 1) he wrote his law on our hearts as a guide. 2) He created a Church, and 3) if you are Christian you also believe God came down from heaven and told us the important takeaways from the old testament. I don’t think it is reasonable to ignore God’s commentary on the Old Testament just because you decided literal readings should be the default. Start with God’s commentary on the Old Testament. If someone’s literal interpretations puts them at loggerheads with the author’s interpretation of his own work we can acknowledge the literal interpretation is wrong. We should do the same with scripture.
I have been following Randal Rauser’s Blog lately. I enjoy reading his comments and watching his interviews and other youtube content. I like his approach to apologetics and these topics generally. He also has written quite a few books. His most recent book is “Jesus Loves Canaanites.” It addresses the issue of difficult readings in scripture and in particular the Old Testament. He has been on a few youtube channels where he supposedly discusses the book but I tend to doubt those discussing it with him have read the book. So I figured I would at least read the book and offer some thoughts on what I consider the substantive stances he takes. As I started reading it, I realized that he addresses several interesting topics that I have been meaning to write about anyway so I am going to break up this review into a few blogs.
His overall thesis in the book is that we can use our moral sense to interpret scripture. It is not a one way street. It is not the case that we are solely to inform our moral sense by what we read in scripture but it is also ok to use our moral sense to inform what scripture means/says. This is itself an interesting topic but on the whole I agree with him. I would likely formulate the argument a bit differently and I may discuss that in a different blog.
I want to address some of the general epistemic arguments and claims that he makes. These concern the various cartesian arguments that can lead us to be skeptical of the external world. I have talked about these arguments here. But in short one argument is: how do we know we are not dreaming? After all we have had dreams where we seem to have experiences that seem very real. And anything we believe is real about the external world could merely be part of a dream. We don’t believe there is a real material world that corresponds with our “dream world” so why think there is one with our experience now? Berkeley is a philosopher that famously maintained there is no external world just our experiences. Rauser offers an argument by analogy against this view. This is what he says:
“Thus far, I’ve argued that you cannot refute the skepticism of the external world proposed by Berkeley and others like him simply by appealing to your direct experience of sense perceiving the world. But here’s the really critical question: does it follow from this that you are obliged to give up your belief that you are directly sense perceiving the external world? No, in fact, that does not follow at all. The fact that you cannot refute Berkeley does not mean that you have to agree with him. Nor does it mean that you suddenly need to become agnostic about the whole question. You can still retain your convictions in the external world even if you cannot show Berkeley to be wrong.
How so? Consider an analogy from yet another type of belief: memory. Let’s say you remember very clearly that you were at home alone all day yesterday working in your garden. So you are completely shocked when the police storm into your house and arrest you for a murder carried out at that exact same time. Later, when the detective is interrogating you, he outlines a motive for you to commit the crime, a motive which you cannot easily refute. In addition, you are dismayed to learn that two witnesses have identified you as the murderer and their confident testimony appears to be backed up by some surveillance footage which shows a car like yours arriving at the scene of the crime. Based upon that weight of evidence, the detective may be justified in believing that you are guilty of murder. However, it does not follow that you are obliged to believe that you are guilty. Nor would it require you to become agnostic as to your potential guilt. The motive, testimony, and surveillance footage notwithstanding, you could go right on trusting your very clear memory that you were, in fact, home working in your garden the whole time.
The contrast between you and the detective parallels the contrast between the world-realist who believes there is a world external to our mind that we perceive and the idealist or skeptic who rejects that claim. The skeptic may be persuaded by the evidence that there is no external world just like the detective is persuaded by the evidence of your guilt. But just as you have a private memory that grounds and thereby justifies your belief in your innocence so a person may have personal sense perceptual experiences every waking moment that ground and thereby justify their belief in an external world. Even if you cannot refute the detective, you are still justified in maintaining your belief in your innocence. And even if you cannot refute the idealist or skeptic, you are still justified in maintaining your belief in the external world. Thus, you would be perfectly within your rights to respond like this: “Look, I don’t know how to refute Berkeley’s ‘idealism’ or other skeptical scenarios. I concede that it is possible that I am wrong and that I really am asleep or in a matrix. Or maybe I’m a brain in a vat. But why should I be moved by the mere possibility that one of those scenarios could be true? What I do know is that my experiences seem overwhelmingly to be of a world external to my mind. And the power, the weight, the ineluctable gravitas of that experience, an experience that is clearly part of general common sense shared by most people, all that vastly outweighs the strength of your piddling skeptical claims that I am really just experiencing sensory ‘ideas’ in my head.”
Rauser, Randal. Jesus Loves Canaanites: Biblical Genocide in the Light of Moral Intuition (pp. 63-64). 2 Cup Press. Kindle Edition.
First a few things we agree on. I agree you can be justified in maintaining your belief even though you can’t convince others. I also happen to think you are not justified in changing your belief even if you convince everyone of something you know is not true. That is not to say other people’s views should never have any influence on my own beliefs but I certainly agree there are times where we should not care what others, who are less informed about the situation think.
However, I do not think his analogy works. In the murder case you have actual evidence that the detective does not have. You have compelling subjective evidence that you did not commit the crime. Subjective versus objective evidence can be loosely defined this way: “Subjective evidence” is evidence that others cannot examine. Rauser refers to this evidence as a “private memory.” Of course you do not need to keep the memory “private” in the sense of keeping the memory secret. You can explicitly shout out what you remember from the rooftops. But the actual experience of having the memory can not be shared. It can only be conveyed by statements and hearing or reading the statements is not the same as actually having the memory of the experience. “Objective evidence,” on the other hand, is evidence that others can examine.
“Subjective evidence” often gets a bad rap. I was discussing something with John Loftus and he said we should only consider objective evidence. I think that is really bad advice (and I suspect Rauser would as well) but I think there is enough confusion on the issue that it is worth talking through a bit.
In cases where we directly and personally witness an event we have subjective evidence of what occurred. Our experience of what we witnessed can not be directly shared. Of course we can write it down and then that written report is objective evidence that others can examine for themselves. But our creating that writing describing what we saw (that is the creation of objective evidence) should not immediately increase the strength of our own belief. That would be silly.
Historians often deal with objective evidence. But the objective evidence they use is often derived from subjective experiences. We certainly hope they are derived from people actually seeing or hearing things with their own senses. “Pre-historic” is usually defined as the time before a culture had surviving written records. Most of the objective evidence that historians are using are writings. The writings are objective because anyone can examine them. They are not solely in the mind of the historian. Many of the ancient copies of scripture that we have also counts as objective evidence.
Rausers situation is one where the subjective evidence – your memory of what you did that day – is much stronger than any sort of objective evidence the detective can bring whether it is video of a car that looks like yours or witness affidavits putting you at the scene etc. Here is another example of the power of subjective evidence.
A lawyer is defending Don who is accused of murdering Victor. One problem for the state is they never found Victor’s body. In closing the defense lawyer goes through various pieces of evidence that he thinks show his client is innocent and he also says “I know Don did not murder Victor and you will soon know it as well.” He then dramatically points to the doors of the court room and says “that is because any second Victor is going to walk right through those doors!”
He sees everyone in the Jury turning to look at the doors. He figures clearly they must have doubts since they looked at the doors. But they quickly come back with a guilty verdict! He asks a Juror “how could you have found him guilty I saw you and the rest of the Jury look at the doors so you must have had doubts!” The Juror says “yes I looked and it seemed everyone in the courtroom looked at the doors. But I happened to look at your client, Don, and he didn’t turn around to look at the doors.”
In this case the defendant knew Victor was not going to walk through those doors based on his subjective experience of killing him and disposing of the body. It doesn’t matter if his lawyer had video that seemed to show Victor was alive after the alleged murder or other objective evidence such as recorded statements or testimony that anyone could hear. And of course the Jurors knew that Don the defendant had access to the most powerful evidence anyone could have on this question – knowledge of his own subjective experience regarding what he did on the day in question. Since Don had access to that subjective evidence the smart juror was most interested in the probability Don would put on Victor walking through those doors.
So in these cases the defendant has subjective evidence that others don’t. However, in the skeptical arguments there is no reason to think the evidence is any different for Berkeley or Rauser or anyone else. There is no evidence that would show we are not dreaming (or a brain in a vat etc.) that I posses and others don’t. Indeed it is very difficult to even imagine what such evidence could be.
Rauser goes on to seemingly embrace a sort of intuitionism. Intuitionism roughly posits that something seeming so to us is itself evidence. I have mixed views on this. He is in good company with philosophers including not only GE Moore but also Michael Huemer and Russ Schaefer-Landau. However here is a well written and short article by Richard Joyce that I think presents some of the shortcomings of the view.
This blog is primarily about my own thoughts on what it means o be reasonable or rational. In looking at that question it can be asked what is the goal we are rationally pursuing? My goal is to live rightly. Others seem to put their concerns on other things as I discussed here. But for me my goal is to live rightly as best I can. And by live rightly I mean my goal is to live morally as best I can. And yes I mean “real” morality not subjective morality or something we just make up. Do I have other goals? Yes but the goal of living rightly is the most important one that trumps all other concerns.
I would think many people would agree with that goal although not all. But even if you agree, the question is how do we do that? Follow the guidance of Mohamed? of Christ? other religious leaders? of Sam Harris or Peter Singer? I have argued that due to the nature of moral truth it is not something we can learn by science. I think the process is much more of a mixture of instinct, emotion, intuition, and reason/logic. But reason alone can’t get us there – we need starting premises and we need to weigh different values – logic won’t give those starting premises or weights. From my own observations and studies of history as well as other fields I think it is silly to think another natural person will give us guidance unless they are getting it from a supernatural source.
But how sure do we need to be there is an actually way to live? Is there a burden of proof that real morality exists? Should we or even can we believe things if they do not seem “more probable than not”? etc. I have written this analogy that I believe can help people understand my view and understand the importance I place in living rightly.
Imagine you come to realize you are lost in a large desert and you are short on water so your time is limited. You see a woman and she says you need to go this way follow me. Now do you believe her? Maybe you ask “why do you think I should go this way?” And she doesn’t answer. Maybe she looks shifty or is even in a prison uniform so you think maybe she is a criminal. Do you think the direction she is going is “more likely than not” the true way you should go? Does it matter if you believe her in a technical sense of “it is more likely than not true that she is going in the correct direction”? I don’t think it matters. I think the only question is whether it is possible she is better informed than you as to which way to go. Because you know you have no clue, it is certainly possible she is better informed than you are. So if she is possibly better informed it seems rational to follow her.
To the atheists: Maybe you will say I don’t really “believe” her. That is maybe you would say “I don’t think she is more likely than not telling the truth because ‘it is just her say so.’” Or maybe you will say I should “withhold belief.” And here I think we are to some extent questioning what it means to “believe.” But I think you would all agree that you would “take what she said as true” with respect to very important actions in your life. And here one of the most important actions that day will be to walk in a certain direction. So yes I can agree with your view that maybe you don’t “believe” her but I don’t agree that it is rational to walk in a different direction or just sit there waiting for someone else to come before you die of thirst. If you will walk with her until something more certain comes along, I agree. But in the meantime you should follow her.
To Christians: You might say Joe you are not a Christian if you do not believe in God. And by that you may mean I fail to think God’s existence is more likely true than not. I am not always sure what percentage I put on God’s existence. When I tried to calculate it I found it was very hard, and my calculations seemed to vary from day to day for little or no reason. I stopped trying to calculate it a long time ago. Decades ago?
But I will say that if I follow the woman I am having “faith” in her in a very important decision. I think I make very important decisions in my life based on taking Christ as the true guide. Of course, I admit my faith is not perfect, I have not given everything I own to the poor as Christ said one should. And I admit my not being perfect may be due to doubts. But I do pray, I do try to understand and follow scripture I do go to church, I am raising my children in the faith, I try to build love for God and others and I do firmly have faith in Christ more than anything else.
I trust him more than anyone. Do I wish I had more evidence? Yes sometimes I do. If I told you I never wished I had more evidence who do you think I would be fooling? But I also admit I am happy to get the Luke 12:47-48 pass for my behavior due to ignorance. Following Christ is not always easy. I think I am confident enough in Christ, and I don’t necessarily wish to up the ante.
Now I talked about belief and I do agree that when I say I “believe” something it tends to mean that I think it is more likely true than not true. But if we want to understand what Paul or the other scripture writers were getting at when they said “believe” or have “faith” in Jesus I really think they meant something more like what I am doing. That is they want us to walk the walk. Jesus himself often talked how our actions matter. (both our actions in a physical sense but also our actions in forming our conscience.) I have been and still remain firmly in that stage of trying to follow his guidance.
Now it seems pretty clear from “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing…” “belief in Jesus” does requires works. If I were to say “those who believe in Jesus will not do the works he has been doing” it would seem I am pretty clearly contradicting Jesus and teaching the opposite of what he said.
However, to be fair Jesus does not address whether “belief in him” requires other things – at least not here. And some might interpret this passage as suggesting Jesus is saying people will do greater miracles. But I think that is not simply not true to the actual words used.
“Works” is the Greek “erga” which Is translated as works – deeds – actions.
Jesus showed he was from God by both doing good works and performing miracles/signs. If John thought Jesus was referring to his miracles in this passage he would have used the terms that mean miracles. He used different words and it is hard to see why – except for biases – we should say he really meant to use this other word.
Moreover Matthew also makes it clear that Christ is more interested in our doing good and not evil than he is in our performing miracles.
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
The debate could go on. But if at the end of my life God says Joe even though you tried to live and form your conscience as Christ instructed (again I admit I could do better and I am sure that will be obvious to all at judgment day but I also think it will be obvious I *tried* to follow Christ, I tried to love my neighbor, I tried to live as he wanted, “I ran the race” as Paul said) but you know the probability you gave of my existing was too often below 50% based on an evaluation of the evidence (or it was below 50% at the instant of your death) so “adios down you go!” Well then ok. I really find that scenario pretty absurd. I think this view only seems to hold so much sway now because of the Catholic Church’s abuses and the Protestant views of “faith alone” and “belief versus works” over-corrected beyond any common sense understanding of scripture.
Again I don’t say it is impossible that my lack of credence/probability has no effect on my behavior I think it does. But really I don’t think there is much more I can do about where I put the evidence of God’s existence. I trust God is fair (if he is not then again what can any of us do?) and if he is fair he will not blame people for things beyond their control. So some can say I am not a Christian or a Catholic. But I think there are other more important things I need to do, to align my mind and actions with the way Christ wants other than just try to keep going over arguments about the probability of God’s existence.
Moreover, I have long ago hit a sort of equilibrium when it comes to those arguments. Not much has drastically changed in the overall weight of these probabilistic arguments in decades and the slight changes that do happen from reading about them are not always favorable to God’s existence anyway! Even when I read an argument that is supposed to be in favor of the probability of God I may find it weak or flawed and it may if anything slightly decrease the probability I put on God existing. I am not saying it should have that effect, but I think it does. In any case the importance of where we draw the line of probability is grossly overblown. It is much more important to understand the context of our decision whether to follow Christ and this desert analogy is the best way to express my understanding of the context.
It is interesting that Catholicism makes it clear that atheism is not always a mortal sin. And the reason for this is Catholic teaching is that God will treat us fairly and not expect us to do things beyond our ability.
Notice I am not saying it is ok to believe God does not exist. I am not adopting the view that no supernatural things like God are possible so Jesus was just a wise person. I think that would be like following the woman even if you knew she was just as lost as you are. I am saying I am adopting a position that Jesus was divine or at least guided by the divine in a way normal people are not guided. That is really all I am looking for. Did he perform every miracle recorded in scripture? That is not important. The important question is whether he performed *even one* miracle which would show that he has moral knowledge beyond other natural humans.
Our situation of how to live rightly is not properly evaluated by believing things that have over a 50% probability of being true. It is a comparison between options. In this scenario it is best to go with the guidance that has the best chance of being correct even if that chance is below 50%.
What about comparing different religions that have some evidence of being supernaturally inspired? It depends on the action and the judgment of the religion as to that action. But when it is the same moral command by different religions such as giving alms to the poor then the percentages reinforce each other. But when there is a disagreement I think we need to weigh the evidence as to which moral guidance is actually from God. And here I think the most direct way to see if something is from God is to compare the evidence of miracles.
If you are a Christian like me and have some doubts about whether the probability of God existing is over 50% then I would recommend the same thing I do and what I recommend to atheists. Keep following Christ until a more sure moral guide to how you should live shows up. And by that I do mean you should consider the chance that Mohammed or Confucius or Sam Harris, or you yourself know better how you should live than Christ. In making that judgment you should consider how anyone might even be able to reliably understand what we should do in a moral sense and who might possibly be in a better informed position. My evaluation of these factors has lead me to be a Christian.
This meme seems to be far too accurate when I see socialism discussed in the media and by politicians. I hope this blog will give people clarity on what socialism is and how an economy can be “mixed.” Let’s start with the relevant definitions of socialism from Merriam Webster:
“1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state…”
Politicians talking about socialism today are talking about government control not private communes. Accordingly I think we can focus in on : “governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.” Or 2b “a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.”
Ok so does Norway’s government “own” the means of production and distribution of goods? The answer is they partly do. A government can partly “own” production and distribution of goods in at least two important ways:
First, it can entirely own a single sector of the economy such as health care or education or it can completely own businesses within a sector such as the post office in the United States or some public schools.
Second, it can partially exert ownership rights over certain property that we still considered “owned” by private people. The second aspect is a bit more complicated and will be addressed a bit more in depth.
The first way is the easy to identify method of mixing socialism. The government completely owns a particular sector of the economy or even a specific business within a sector. So they may completely own the health care sector or the education sector. Or they may own some businesses in these sectors. For example in the US we have some schools completely owned by the state and some privately owned schools. We have some VA hospitals and some privately owned hospitals. We have government run police but also private security options and even private businesses that sell locks, fences and pepper spray in a security industry. The post office is owned by the United states government but we also have private businesses like Federal Express that also transport packages. So “soft socialism” can happen when there are some completely government owned businesses or sectors that operate along side private businesses or sectors. That is the first and more straightforward form of “soft socialism.”
The second form of soft socialism requires us to examine what it means to “own” something. What it means to “own” something is not as straightforward as it seems. There are degrees of ownership and ownership is often not absolute. But again lets start with a standard working definition. Merriam Webster says you own something if you “have power or mastery over” it.
“OWNERSHIP the full and complete right of dominion over property. It has been said that ownership is either so simple as to need no explanation or so elusive as to defy definition. At its most extreme and absolute, it means the power to enjoy and dispose of things absolutely…..”
Does the government have “power or mastery” over our means of production and distribution of goods? Now we are starting to see that “ownership” might be a bit fuzzier than we thought.
But before we get into ownership as it relates to socialism let’s consider basic ownership claims that have no political implications. Consider my claim that “I own this house.” Ok normally we say you still “own” the house even if you allow someone to rent it from you. But clearly you are giving up “power or mastery” over the property when you rent it. You are giving up some aspects of your ownership in exchange for money. The notion of having mastery or dominion over the thing is important to ownership. You are the one who decides what happens to it. If you own a house, you decide who can go in it. However, if you rent it then you can no longer decide that and instead the renter can invite who they like. If you own a car you decide who can go in your car and where the car goes. But if you rent it then you give up some of those rights of ownership. But you still retain some rights – specifically the right to eventually sell/alienate the item at the price you would like.
Control over the terms of alienating/selling the property is important. In fact, it is so important we still say the renter does not “own” the property even though he or she may be able to control what happens to the property due to a prepaid 100 year lease. The renter still can’t sell the property. Control of how the property is sold is so important that we still don’t call the renter who can exclude the “landlord” from setting foot on the property for decades the “owner.” Even though the law still calls the landlord the owner, I think it is fair to say if you let someone rent your property you are giving up mastery and control of it – that is you are giving up certain characteristics of ownership. But the ability to choose the terms under which I will completely alienate the property to someone else is retained so the landlord is still considered the “owner” even though I think ownership is really shared in these examples.
If I have a mortgage on my home that means I gave up some of my right to alienate the property in exchange for getting the loan. I can’t legally sell the property unless I pay off the loan. Again the bank gains a share of ownership. If I own one third of a company (one third of the stock) then I am entitled to one third of the proceeds of the sale of the company.
Ownership is not complete if I do not control or receive the benefit of sale. My ownership is shared with someone else. In a documentary I saw on Cuba they said the people “own” their apartments. But the catch was they could only sell it to the government. If you can only sell something to one entity then that greatly diminishes your “dominion”. The item may become worthless if that entity has no interest in acquiring the property and you have no use for it. Clearly the Cuban government has a huge amount of mastery over that property. The person who lives there is much more like a prepaid renter than an owner.
So we can see owning property can be mixed. What about ownership of “the means of production and distribution of goods.” How do we produce goods? One way is by our labor. We think we own our labor. But government often steps in and takes some of that ownership. Income tax is like a mortgage on our labor. We can’t sell our labor unless we pay the government a percentage of the sale proceeds. So income tax an ownership interest the government takes in our labor much like a mortgage is an ownership interest the bank takes our land or a stock holder takes in a company. The larger the percentage the more ownership and thus the more socialism. This applies to sales taxes, property taxes (which is similar to us paying rent to the government for the right to use the property) and property you sell at a profit but have to pay income tax on. So taxes are a direct way the government owns part of your labor and property. The higher the taxes the more socialist the economy is. But taxes are not the only way government takes an ownership interest in what we normally call private property.
What about control over my ability to sell my labor? Do I control the terms of when and how it will be sold? Partially. I might want to work in a field I have little experience in, but would be willing to do that for cheap. I might be able to find someone who will hire me to do that. But the government might come in and say “no we have a minimum wage so you are not allowed to sell your labor to that person at that price.” Thus they are controlling the terms of the sale of my labor. I read in Germany the government limits the amount of hours you can work. https://knowledge.leglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/LEGlobal-Employment-Law-Overview_Germany_2019-2020.pdf If you want to work more than that you need permission from them to sell more of your labor. Overtime laws are another example of the government not allowing people to control the sale of their own labor. As the government takes more and more control over our ability to sell our labor they are taking control/ownership over the production and distribution of goods and services.
So Governments that take more control over the sale of our labor are more socialist. They take ownership rights of the labor from the individual and give it to the government. That is moving in a socialist direction.
So is Norway socialist? Well not completely but they are likely more socialist than the US. With a few exceptions Western Europe is more socialist than the US. Their economies are not as bad as full on socialist countries. But they are considerably more socialist than the US and, unsurprisingly, their economies are substantially worse than the US economy. As the data I offered here and here demonstrated. So I agree that Scandinavian and Western European countries are, with some exceptions, in fact more socialist than the USA. My question is why are we only looking at tiny homogenous Norway (or some other tiny Scandinavian country) and not all the other European countries that are also considerably more socialist than the US and whose economies are doing much worse? The US has over three times as many people with Italian ancestry as we do people with Norwegian ancestry. In fact we have three times more people of Italian ancestry than Norway has Norwegians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States#Ancestry So it just seems odd indeed to assume socialist policies in the US would work out closer to how they work in Norway rather than in how it is working for Italy or Spain or France or England. Italy would need a 47% boost to their economy to match the US gdp per capita and the UK would need a 35% boost to their economy to match the US gdp per capita. By my rough calculations the average Western European/Scandinavian would need about a 40% boost to their countries economy to equal the USA’s economy. That is a fairly dramatic difference in prosperity.
Just a few points of clarification on what socialism is not.
Socialism is not the only factor that determines how healthy an economy is. Other factors are important including resources, education, culture, corruption, crime, legal system that respects property rights etc.
Socialism and democracy are different concepts. People can democratically elect a soft socialist or even a hard socialist. This happened when Salvador Allende was elected in Chile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende So saying someone is a “democratic socialist” doesn’t necessarily mean the socialism they are pushing for is less severe than a vanilla hard socialist. Democracy is a political system not an economic system. However “democratic socialist” can be a label that attaches to a political party. And then it can mean whatever that party decides it means. Just like a “Republican” or “Democrat” is a label for a party that can mean whatever the party decides it will stand for and this can and does change over time.
Socialism is not the same as to helping the poor. Often socialists try to argue that socialism will help the poor. I think that view is mistaken, but regardless people of all different sorts of economic views can help the poor. Socialism is certainly not the only way to help the poor and indeed there is nothing in the definition of socialism that suggests the government will help the poor. A socialist government is still a socialist government whether it helps the poor with the property it takes from citizens or not.
In the last few blogs I have posted about some economic data that I think is relevant to political discussions in the US. I have also commented on Eric’s blog trying to explain why some Christians may vote republican and why Jesus was not a socialist. We quickly got in the weeds about data and why we think our data is more important and why we think the facts we mention are more important etc. I think all of those arguments are important in political debate. But neither Eric nor I are really trying to run a political blog. I want my blog to be more philosophical with an aim to show why being a theist is more intellectually fulfilling and coherent than being an atheist.
That topic will necessarily cover a wide variety of subtopics from meta-ethics, morality, to free will, to science, history, scripture, and yes politics. I think Eric and I would both agree that certain political views are anti-christian. But my disagreement with him was that we shouldn’t consider people who vote for one party or the other as Christians. Each party has a wide range of policies that they adopt and rarely are you going to find a party that perfectly matches our christian views. To the extent we are going to say political views on certain policies are christian or anti-christian those policies need to be considered individually. That is why I think Christians can be Democrats or Republicans or even Socialists.
The Catholic Church I believe has done a decent job (although far from perfect) of navigating these debates in this way. It has taken specific stances on issues that it believes are anti-christian but by and large has not emphasized certain political parties as being “Christ’s party” or the “anti-christ’s party”. It should be obvious to anyone reading the Gospels that Christ was not a politician and he was not preaching a political agenda. This is a difference between Islam and Christianity.
But part of the debate between theists and atheists is more centered around which view leads to better government. This is a much more philosophical question. So you might ask if Jesus was not a politician why would we say a theistic outlook is could lead to a better government? And the answer is because the theist has a fundamentally different view of what they are and how they get rights than the atheist. And this fundamentally different view has led to various issues over the past couple of centuries.
All laws are intended to promote certain goods. So questions of about whether morals exist, what they are, and how we know them, will be foundational for any government that is enforcing laws. Most of my blog explains why I believe an atheistic worldview completely fails to establish a coherent view of morality. Without real morality debating laws is essentially the same as debating whether red or white wine is preferable (subjectivism) or whether batman would beat the silver surfer in a fight (fictionalism).
The foundational belief that all humans are made in the image of God is the great equalizer and has provided a basis to reject slavery, racism and killing humans deemed undesirable. Rejecting the idea all humans are made in the Image of God removes a massive barrier to these practices. Efforts to create any similarly sized barrier have not yet materialized.
Theism supports the belief that our rights come from God and therefore the state can violate them. Atheists will often argue that rights are a creation of the state. This is a very different view and has had catastrophic consequences throughout history.
I am not saying Atheists can not run a government or have a moral society. But since they reject the notion that we are all made in the image of God that can be a severe foundational problem. We see this foundational crack play out in many different policies from racism, life issues, free speech, animal rights versus human rights, the relationship between the government and the individual, the relationship between church and state, and many more.
I have drafted a few blogs about some of these issues and hope to post about them in the future.
But for now I would recommend a pretty interesting interview that touches on some of these concerns. Ben Shapiro is a Jewish political commentator that worked his political views back to philosophy. (Yes many of the philosophical arguments I make would also support the Jewish theism.) Whereas I think I worked out philosophy to its political implications. So I think we sort of came at it from different directions but ended up meeting on some common philosophical ground. Now my goal is not to say people should adopt Ben Shapiro’s political views. I do think he does a good job representing conservative positions but I also think people should make sure they understand the positions of democrats and socialists.
Rather I recommend this video for the more philosophical aspects of his discussion. This is mostly covered in 20:00 to about 47:20 so if you are not interested in his personal life you may want to skip there.
A common view is that we are rational when we weigh the evidence for and against any belief we hold, and if the weight of the evidence says it is more likely than not true we can/should continue to believe it. If not, then we shouldn’t continue to believe it. Another approach is to say we should “apportion our beliefs to the evidence.” These approaches are different from each other, but as far as they go they seem ok and I am not trying to parse them out here. Instead I want to suggest there is more to having rational beliefs than simply following either of those approaches.
Consider the various Cartesian skeptical scenarios. These scenarios force us to ask how we know anything about the external world. ( BTW throughout this blog I am using “know” as imprecise short hand for “reasonably believe.” I think “knowing” something does require more certainty that what we “reasonably believe” but my sentences are awkward enough so I am sticking with the term “know”) We might be dreaming. Some god or evil genius may be manipulating a brain in a vat somewhere causing us to have these experiences etc. If that was the case it would seem there is still something (a thinking thing) having an experience and so in some sense “I” (this thinking thing) would still exist, but nothing external to my mind would need to exist as I perceive it. This is where we get the famous “I think therefore I am.”
Perhaps the easiest way to start getting the idea of these scenarios is the dreaming argument. Everything I know about the external world is due to my experiences. However, since I have had dreams where the experiences were such that I couldn’t tell I was dreaming it seems at least possible that I could be dreaming now. Do I have “evidence” I am not in a very detailed dream? We can’t step outside of our experience to see what is causing our experiences, so no I do not. Yet I believe I am not in a detailed dream. So that would seem to violate the notion that rationality involves “apportioning belief to the evidence.”
Moreover, my rejection of the dreaming argument seems to violate a notion of parsimony. Every time I have the experience of oncoming headlights traveling opposite my direction on a highway, not only do I have that experience, but I also believe there are physical people with minds and lives of their own in those vehicles. And not only that I think those people will pass headlights and behind those headlights will be real people with real lives and concerns etc.
We do not think there actually are physical things (that may have their own minds) that correspond to the imagery we experience when we dream. We just think there is the experience of seeing people in our dreams, but those people don’t really exist with minds of their own. It is possible there are material things existing somewhere that somehow correspond to the dream experiences we have, but our experience does not require that these material things actually exist. It seems absurd to think any material things exist somewhere corresponding with our experiences – at least when we are talking about “dream experiences.”
But when we talk about experiences we have when we believe we are awake, we somehow think the opposite. Belief in all those extra material things and minds suddenly seems justified – even though we know from dreams – we could be having the experience without the extra material things or minds existing.
My point is not to try to convince people we should believe we are in a dream or other skeptical scenario – I generally don’t try to convince people of things I do not believe myself. But rather I want to point out that it is not the “evidence” that is apportioning our beliefs here. The various skeptical scenarios take up a very small percentage of real estate in my mind. Most of my beliefs are formed around the notion that I am a real person moving around with other real people with minds of their own. I do this even though I have no evidence against one of the skeptical scenarios being true. So in doing that I am certainly not “apportioning my belief to the evidence.” So if it is rational to believe I am not in a skeptical scenario then there must be more to rationality than “apportioning belief to the evidence.”
I think there is at least one other reason we do not orient our beliefs towards a Cartesian Skeptical scenario. That is because it is hard or impossible to know what we should do in such a scenario. The converse is also true. If we did know exactly what we should do if we were in one of these Skeptical scenarios then it would be a much more rational to orient our beliefs to account for this scenario. It would be a possibility we could better account for because we would have an understanding of how we should deal with it. Thus whether we could have some idea what we should do in a scenario is important to whether we should consider it a viable scenario. But without any understanding of how we should deal with or act in such a scenario, that scenario seems a dead end. It is only rational to orient our beliefs to viable scenarios not dead end scenarios.
Now let’s get back to reality as we believe it exists. We see things and believe many of them exist in a material form independent of our experience of them. But does having this “materiality” actually answer how we should deal with this scenario? Some would say it does, but I don’t think knowing about how things are tells us how they should be. So I think just adding materiality to the scenario accomplishes very little if anything.
But regardless of where you stand on that question, you still may agree with me that the viability of a scenario does depend on whether we have any hope of knowing what to do if we are in that scenario. If we don’t know what scenario we are in then, any scenarios where we would have no clue how to act anyway should be discarded from consideration in orienting our beliefs/actions. This is because by definition whatever beliefs or actions we orient to would not be better or worse than any other in those scenarios. So a rational person focuses on the possible scenarios where we could know what to do and form their beliefs based on the possibility of those scenarios being true. Those are the “live options” or what I call the “viable scenarios”.
But do we have to “really” know what to do or can we make up what to do? That is, do we have to be a “moral realist” or can we be an anti-realist and just admit we are making things up based on our experiences. It seems to me that if we can just make up morality through a form of constructivism it wouldn’t matter that we are in a real world as opposed to a skeptical world. It would seem we could just as easily make up morality if we are dreaming or a brain in a vat. It is also at least possible that there is real morality even though we are a brain in a vat. And it is also possible our beliefs and intended actions are morally relevant. But the important point is that if the real world we think we live in does not offer anything better than a form of anti-realist morality, then it is no more “viable” than a Cartesian skeptical scenario.
It seems to me a “viable scenario” requires that 1) moral realism is true and 2) we have a way to know what morality requires. That is we have a way to know how we should act and what we should believe. A scenario where we can’t possibly know what to do in it, is not a viable scenario. Whether viability is an on off switch, or more of a sliding scale may not be all that clear. But let’s just say any scenario where 1 and 2 are not met is not a very “lively” scenario. They would share the same trait that makes the Cartesian doubt scenarios non-viable.
Now consider the possibility that naturalism is true. We can look at the possibility that naturalism is true without any preconditions and we might say the probability is X. But then let’s consider the probability that naturalism is true if we are in a scenario where moral realism is true. Some, myself included, would say that if they knew Moral realism was true then they would think the probability naturalism goes down. So on moral realism the probability of naturalism becomes X minus Y. Others might not agree. But one thing I am fairly certain of, is that if the scenario we are in, includes 1(moral realism is true) and 2 (we have a reliable way to know what morality requires) then the probability of naturalism being true is very low indeed.
The logic of the arguments made by Sharon Street, Mark Linville and Richard Joyce demonstrate this. They persuasively argue that if naturalism and evolution is true, even if moral realism is also true, we have no way to reliably know what morality requires. Street and Joyce believe in naturalism so they reject the idea we can reliably know what moral realism requires even if it is true. Linnville, and I, think that in light of this sort of argument we should reject naturalism.
For the reasons I stated above I think rejection of naturalism is the more rational option. That is because holding on to naturalism leads to believing in a non-viable scenario, and rational people orient their beliefs around viable scenarios, naturalism should be rejected. If naturalism is a scenario where the probability of 1 and 2 is extremely low, then naturalism implies a scenario that shares the same trait that makes the Cartesian skeptical scenarios non-viable.
Of course, people can dispute whether 1 and 2 are necessary for a viable scenario. They can also disagree whether 1 and 2 make the probability of naturalism low and vice versa. But I think this is the best way to understand the structure of my moral argument for God.
Do we have free will? I don’t have anything more to offer as far as evidence. But I do think it is clear that morality and our justice system is a complete flop if we don’t have free will. Most proponents of determinism agree that, if they are correct, we are not morally responsible/culpable for our actions. But they still might believe there is a right and wrong way to act. So, they don’t completely abandon hope of morality or a rational justice system.
In my opinion determinism allows only a crippled view of morality. It doesn’t matter what direction morality points us we are on a train going wherever we are going and we can’t get off anyway. Our hope for a rational justice system would also seem to rely on dumb luck. How might our meta-ethical views concerning determinism impact our criminal justice system?
Traditionally criminal laws were grounded on four different notions, vengeance, retribution, deterrence and/or rehabilitation. Retribution has replaced vengeance, although sometimes people fail to draw a distinction between the two. I am not aware of anyone who believes in hard determinism but still maintains we should keep retribution as a grounds for our criminal justice system. Retribution is the most important aspect of our criminal justice system but that will be the topic of another post. Here, let’s consider the claim that even if determinism is true we can still pass laws for deterrence or rehabilitation purposes.
For example, Sam Harris says if you are a determinist like him: “We could forget about retribution and concentrate entirely on mitigating harm. (And if punishing people proved important for either deterrence or rehabilitation, we could make prison as unpleasant as required.)”
He like many determinists agree retribution is out. But he claims we can still hope to achieve two other goals of our criminal justice system – rehabilitation and deterrence. Deterrence is the idea that we can prevent people from committing crimes if they think undesirable things will happen to them as a result of those crimes. So we can pass laws with punishments that are unpleasant and thus we make it less likely people will commit crimes. Rehabilitation, at base, is the notion we can do things to criminals such that they will act in a way we want in the future.
So, if we accept determinism and still think deterence and rehabilitation are viable, we find ourselves saying we have no influence or control over our own behavior, but we do have influence and control over other people’s behavior. Traditional wisdom suggests the opposite. Common sense suggests we have more influence over our own actions than we do over other’s actions. Is it possible that we can have no influence over our own actions, yet we are still be able to influence other people’s actions? No, not in any meaningful sense.
I think this is an example of people not fully appreciating the far reaching implications of their position. If determinism is true then even saying “we could make prison as unpleasant as required” plays on an ambiguity and is not actually accurate. The ambiguity is in the term “could.” “Could” can mean: we have the option. Or “could” might mean: it is possible.
In Harris’s usage he seems to suggest “we have the option to make prison as unpleasant as required.” But of course, on determinism we have no options. We must do what we are going to do, and can’t do otherwise. So that meaning of the word “could” leads to a contradiction in his beliefs.
If he means just that “it is possible that we would make prison as unpleasant as required….” Then we might ask so what? It may be possible, but we have no influence over our actions so we have no way to make that possibility a reality.
Our very sense of self is obliterated by determinism. We are like ping pong balls in a lottery machine. Yes we “could” bounce into other balls causing them to jostle and become a winning number. In the sense of “could” that “it is possible” that happens. But, of course, those ping pong balls have no control over themselves so it is not an option they have.
It makes no sense to take the perspective of the ping pong ball. If we throw out free will then we throw out our whole notion of self. It is no longer even sensible or meaningful to think in terms of what we “can” or “could” do. We are just parts of a system that must act however we are going to act.
For those who are interested in the free will debates I highly recommend this set of lectures:
We see everyone claiming to be rational but then we find that they view being “rational” as having a mindset that leads to their conclusions. My second blog was on what it means to be rational in general terms here.
Those views seem correct now just as they have for decades before I wrote that blog. But there is still a tension in what it means to “believe” something that I have been thinking about for decades and I have ultimately concluded that the term “belief” has two different meanings that are essential to our understanding of the term but can sometimes conflict. This blog is intended more as one that explains a problem that I see rather than provide a solution. Hopefully others will have a decent solution or at least understand the problem so their discussions can be a bit nuanced. Here are the two essential aspects of belief that I think most philosophers would at least agree are valid considerations as being part of the term “belief”:
The second view is that a belief is something you properly hold if you believe the evidence supports the conclusion that the claim is more likely than not true.
Although I agree the second definition is a view that seems to capture an essential part of the term “belief” I also think it has problems that I think never get enough press in professional philosophy. I want to discuss the problems I see with the second view but then, in the end, will explain why I think it is, nevertheless, hard to just do away with it.
I think this second view of belief leads people to think rational people should be constantly weighing the evidence of each individual belief and then trying to banish those where the evidence does not measure up. Our beliefs are much more complicated than that. That simplified view does not even give us an idea of what beliefs should be examined and which shouldn’t or the pragmatic considerations. For example under that view a rational person could be memorizing facts out of a phone book as much as they investigate whether they should believe it is ok to have an abortion. Obviously being rational means more than just filling our heads with random facts which the evidence suggests are more likely than not true and expunging those beliefs that seem not to have that evidence.
But there is another problem. A logical problem with this view is that many decisions are not exactly binary. Either the Christian God exists or he doesn’t. That’s true. But that doesn’t mean, unless we think the evidence supports that the Christian God exists is more likely than not true, we are irrational for believing in that God. We have to consider the alternatives. And there seem to be many alternatives to believing in the Christian God. There are Gods as explained by other religions. There is the possibility to believe in a God that is not explained by a religion. All of these are possible beyond just either the Christian God exists or no God exists.
So lets analyze a hypothetical situation. Let’s just say I believe:
Christian God is 30%
non-Christian God(s) aggregate to 40% but all individually are less than 30%
and
no God is 30%?
Sometimes people say that if we don’t have evidence that supports any of those beliefs are more likely than not true then we should “withhold belief.” Sometimes people say that means you are “agnostic” and some people would say that an “atheist” might fit that description as well. The arguments about the terminology seem more pedantic than helpful so I won’t address them.
But ultimately I still have to decide things like:
Am I going to Church Sunday morning?
Am I going to treat human life as though it is a sacred gift from God?
Am I going to treat all humans as though they are made in God’s image?
Am I going to teach my children these things?
These are a few Christian teachings that you are either going to live your life by or you are not. You need to act now.
If you can pause life then ok. But I can’t. So in the meantime my actions are going to reflect my beliefs. And it is hard to understand what it would mean to be agnostic here. Would that mean I sometimes go to church on Sunday? Should I try to go 30% of the time? If I never go to church on Sunday or act in accordance with the Christian teachings then am I not adopting the belief that the Christian God does not exist? And other religions are even less likely so I would act as though there is no God. But in my hypothetical the evidence doesn’t support that belief as being more likely than not true either! Does the agnostic know how to pause his life? Can he teach me how to do that?
Notice these issues arise before I even start to get into the fact that this is only dealing with “theoretical rationality” and not “pragmatic rationality.” It is irrational to ignore pragmatic reasons which can effect what views we should adopt, but these problems arise when we just consider the theoretical model on its own.
But let’s dig a bit deeper. Some say we can act as though something is true even though we don’t believe it is true. That sounds a bit like lying to yourself. But let’s go along with this a bit. We still need to ask which way should I choose to act when the evidence doesn’t support any relevant belief is more likely than not true? Should I just act and adopt views however I feel like at the moment? Ok but are we going to claim that is rational?
I’m sorry but the second view (where we rationally believe something if and only if the evidence supports that it is more likely than not true) is too simplistic and just won’t work in life. Any approach to being rational in a situation must address all the different probabilities and their pragmatic consequences. Yes it’s complicated but oversimplifying rationality only masks the problems.
So I think the first view is important. But the second view does have this going for it. If I say “I believe O.J. Simpson murdered Ron Goldman”, then it seems I am saying it is more likely than not true that OJ Simpson murdered Ron Goldman. It is hard to remove that aspect of the term “belief” without doing an injustice to language. I don’t have a solution, but I think we should understand these two different meanings of “belief” especially when we talk about whether beliefs are rational or not.
True and Reasonable 