Working on Living—through philosophy

1. Introduction

In this post I want to consider a number of aspects of the question of whether and to what extent our claims about God’s nature are intelligible.  I will begin by considering the question of intelligibility on its own before applying those considerations to some of the things typically said about God in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  My conclusion will be that in regard to some things we say about God, e.g., that God is outside space and time, we are forced to choose between revising those claims, embracing irrationality, or rethinking the implications of those claims.

2. Intelligibility and Unintelligibility

If something is intelligible, then it is capable of being understood by someone.  What is it to understand something?  A paradigm instance of understanding concerns language.  To understand, “The weather is stormy,” is to know what those words mean, a part of which involves knowing what to expect if you were to look outside.  Similarly, if you don’t know German, then you won’t understand “Es regnet.”  Those words won’t be intelligible if you won’t know their meaning.

We also talk of a person’s behavior as being intelligible and unintelligible.  For example, say you have a friend who has been looking for a job and who reports that he has just been offered his dream job, but then reports that he turned it down.  If he claims that he did so for no reason, then we might likely say we can’t understand why he turned down the job.  His behavior is unintelligible; it doesn’t make sense.  If he had said that he turned it down because his wife just got diagnosed with cancer and he has to spend all of his time caring for her, then suddenly his behavior becomes intelligible.  So, in addition to the intelligibility of linguistic meaning, there is the intelligibility of an action in relation to the reasons for it.  If a person’s behavior contradicts their purported interests and goals, then it becomes difficult to understand.

Let us revisit the intelligibility of language for a minute.  There are various ways that the language someone uses might be unintelligible.  The first, as above, involves it being in a language that one simply doesn’t know.  A second kind comes from language that is poorly organized, structured, and/or worded.  For example, instructions on how to put together a bike might be unintelligible because the person who wrote them was not sufficiently careful in her description of how the pieces are to be fitted together.  A third kind of unintelligibility comes from the subject matter simply being beyond one’s cognitive abilities.  For example, imagine Einstein were to explain to you in mathematical detail the special theory of relativity as if you were a fellow physicist, his words would likely be individually meaningful, but the sentences would fail to be understandable because of your lack of background knowledge.  A fourth kind, and one that is related to the intelligibility of behavior, is language that involves inconsistent statements.  For example, if someone says that their house is now painted brown all over and then goes on to say that their house is now painted yellow all over, we don’t know what is being said.  The house can’t be both colors all over at the same time.  So while we know the meaning of the statements, they can’t both be true.  We are thus left wondering what the color of the house actually is.  A fifth kind of unintelligibility of language comes from what we might call the misuse of categories.  For example, my saying, “I read the color in order to hear the bumpiness of the table’s surface” lacks intelligibility because colors can’t be read in order to hear anything.

Another kind of intelligibility bridges the gap between the intelligibility of behavior and that of language.  What a person says may be intelligible or unintelligible in relation to the context in which it is said and the reasons for saying it.  If a person is in a philosophy classroom and suddenly exclaims 25 times 25 is 625, thereby interrupting the class, it would be natural to ask why he said that.  If he claims that there was no reason, not even the reason of trying to be funny or interrupt the class, then what is said, while being perfectly understandable in one way, is unintelligible in another way.  It doesn’t fit the context in which it was spoken.

Lastly, something might be intelligible or unintelligible in relation to the extent to which it is familiar.  If I pull out my cell phone, it is intelligible to you in the sense that you know what a cell phone is, you recognize this as one, and you thus understand what can be done with it and how its basic functions work.  If you traveled back in time 400 years and pulled out a cell phone, it and its function (granted it wouldn’t work as a phone) would be utterly unintelligible to anyone.  In general we interpret, or attempt to make intelligible, something new by referencing past experiences of things that appear similar.  So, if something is utterly unlike anything we’ve experienced, it intelligibility will be seriously affected.

With the above in mind, consider this question:  can a thing be intelligible or unintelligible in some way other than it’s being utterly novel or familiar?  For example, does it make sense to speak of a chair or a color as being intelligible?  Imagine I present to you a folding chair and that I ask you, “Is this chair intelligible?”  I take it that the question itself would be borderline unintelligible, for what could it mean?  You might imagine my asking whether it makes sense to use that kind of chair at a party, but the chair itself is presumably neither intelligible nor unintelligible.  However, it would make sense to ask whether the idea of a chair that is both a desk chair and a recliner is intelligible, in which case we would be asking if the idea of such a chair makes sense or could possibly exist (or be made).  Notice that we are now back to language again in that we are considering the intelligibility of an idea.  Thus, the main kinds of intelligibility seem to concern familiarity, behavior, and the various kinds of linguistic intelligibility from above.

To sum up, we’ve now seen ways in which language and behavior can be intelligible or unintelligible.  The intelligibility of behavior is connected with the intelligibility of language because the intelligibility of a person’s behavior is a matter of her actions being consistent or inconsistent with her aims and goals (those things that provide reasons for action), and those aims and goals are themselves given in language just as the behavior itself is describable in language.  And we’ve seen how genuine novelty can affect intelligibility:  we understand what something is, how it functions, what it will do, only in relation to past experience with similar things.

3. The Intelligibility of God

Let’s now turn to our main topic, namely, the intelligibility of God.  As we have seen above, the question of the intelligibility of God will likely concern the intelligibility of the language we use to speak about God.  What might the problem be of God’s intelligibility?  Well, what kinds of thing do we say about God, for example, in the Judeo-Christian tradition?  Here is a list of typical things said about God:

1. God is omniscient and omnipotent.

2. God is outside space and time.

3. God is quick to anger.

4. God listens to our prayers.

5. God punishes the wicked.

6. God created the world out of nothing.

7. God spoke to Moses.

8. God determines what is morally right and wrong.

Is there a problem saying such things about God?  None of 1-8 are terribly complicated sentences in regard to their structure or vocabulary.   Regarding number 1, we perhaps make sense of it by thinking that just as we know some things, e.g., that Atlanta is the capital of Georgia, that 2 +2 = 4, that bacteria don’t cause the common cold, God knows all that and more, much more, namely everything there is to know.  Regarding God’s power, we just say something like, “Anything God might want to do, he can do, no matter what it is.”  Regarding number 5, we might simply think of a person performing a wicked act and then imagine God sending that person to hell.  Regarding 7, we might imagine a booming voice coming from the air addressing an older, bearded fellow.

So far, so good, we might think.  But what exactly do we mean by saying that God listens to our prayers?  When we speak of listening, we usually mean one person speaks and another person with ears hears the spoken sounds and reacts accordingly.  But when I say that God hears my prayers, I don’t really mean that he heard my prayer or my thoughts with his ears.  That’s fine, perhaps God just “hears” with his mind.  You speak and as you speak your words are before God’s consciousness.  But what about number 2, the claim that God is outside space and time.  Is that intelligible?  Why might it not be?  First, “outside” is a spatial notion.  Saying that Bob is outside the house locates Bob in space.  So what might it mean to “locate” God outside of space?  We seem to be claiming that God is not spatially located but God is located somewhere, namely, outside of space.  There seems to be an inconsistency there.  (Notice that the theist who claims that God created the space-time world in which we live cannot easily give up the idea that God is outside space and time.)

Is there a meaning of “outside” that is not spatial?  If we say that my jumping, unaided over my house is outside the realm of physical possibility, is the “outside” here spatial?  Perhaps it just means that it is not a member of the set of physically possible things.  But being a member of that set or not is not a spatial notion.  So maybe if one says that God is outside of space that just means something like God is not any of the things that are in space.  We could reformulate that by saying that God is not a member of the set of things that is in space.  And his not being a member of that set does not imply that he is located somewhere despite being outside of space.

However, now we are left wondering what exactly it might mean to say 1) that God exists and 2) God is not located anywhere.  Most things that we speak of existing, we can and do locate in space.  My car is in the parking lot, my pen is in my pocket, my money is in the bank, my job is in Georgia, etc.  Are there other things that we agree exist yet are not located in space?  What about the number 5?  Does the number 5 exist?  That question isn’t asking about whether five of something, say, oranges, exist.  It is asking whether the number itself exists.  If we say that it doesn’t, then what are we claiming when we say that 2 + 3 = 5?  Let’s agree that the number 5 exists?  Where does it exist?  If we say that it exists as the written symbol, then that would mean that we could, if we destroyed all the written instances of “5”, destroy the number itself.  Surely that is an odd claim to make.  Does 5 exist in our minds?  Well, the same thing happens as before if we imagine all minds as ceasing to exist: so would the number 5.  The point here is simply that we might be inclined to speak of 5 existing, but once we begin to think about the way in which it exists, we run into difficulties, difficulties of understanding, difficulties of intelligibility.

5 seems to exist, but not so clearly to exist in space, even though we can, of course, use symbols to refer to it.  Should we say something similar about God?  Perhaps, but there are important differences, obviously, between a number and God.  An important one is that unlike numbers, God is supposed to be capable of causally interacting with the physical world.  Numbers don’t.  Five gallons of water might drown someone, but the number 5 certainly won’t.  So God is not in space, but God is able to interact with spatial things.  However, the intelligibility of that idea is a bit questionable when you consider ordinary cause and effect occurrences.  Ordinarily when we speak of causation there is one thing, say a foot, that interacts with something else, say a ball:  the swinging of the foot and its impacting the ball cause the effect of the ball accelerating in space.  When using a remote control there is a sequence of such events: pushing the button, causing a circuit to be completed, causing a electromagnetic wave to be released, causing another circuit to be bridged, causing a change in the channel.  All parts of these ordinary cause and effect chains are spatially located “things.”  But God, from nowhere, causes the world to form, Adam and Eve to leave the Garden, and a bush to burn.  The effects are in space, but the causes are not.  Well, we might say, God is omnipotent, so of course he makes the bush burn if he wants.  But we should be a bit more cautious and not simply paint over the issue of the intelligibility of a non-spatial cause of a spatial effect with a claim that is itself perhaps not so intelligible.

Let’s return to the idea that God is omnipotent.  We said God’s omnipotence means something like God can do anything.  Well, what does it mean for you to do something?  Typically it involves your moving some part of your body in space.  But God has neither a body, nor by 2 above is God in space.  God acts, instead, we might say, simply by willing.  We don’t know how that “mechanism” is supposed to work in the way that we know the mechanism for how a music box reproduces music, but we know what it is to will something.  Whatever God wills, it occurs.  But consider this:  one moment God wills that there be light and a while later he wills that locusts plague the Egyptians.  Does such a description of God make sense if God is outside of time?  Is it intelligible to claim that something is not “in” time and that that same thing could one moment do x and the next moment do y?  Clearly, if we say that x occurred before y, we are placing those things in a temporal order.

One might try to respond by saying that the events of the “first light” and the locust plague are in the world and are thus unproblematically temporal, but that doesn’t imply that God has to be in time.  Couldn’t God be outside time and simply will both things simultaneously instead of one after the other?  That is, he wills them simultaneously but they occur at different times in the world and since God transcends the world, there is no problem.  But what is it supposed to mean to say that God is outside time and that he wills multiple things simultaineously?  For simultaneity is itself a temporal notion.

The temporality of willing points in the direction of a more general problem regarding God’s being outside of time, namely, the idea that God is conscious and outside of time.  States of consciousness have at least two essential features: 1) an object of consciousness, e.g., a bird singing, and 2) a temporal succession of moments, e.g., one note after the other of the bird’s song.  If that is correct, then we have a very strong inconsistency between claiming that God is both conscious and outside of time.

4. God’s Otherness and Human Intelligence

At this point, if not sooner, the theist is likely to get frustrated by our line of reasoning.  And it is at the point of this frustration that we come to the real problem regarding God and intelligibility.  The response that the theist might make to the above claims of unintelligibility is to say that that apparent unintelligibility comes from the fact that God is so other, so different, so beyond anything we encounter in our daily life of dealings with people, animals, cars, trees, chairs, etc.  Because of that extreme otherness, we cannot reasonably expect to be able to comprehend (to make intelligible) the nature of God and God’s relationship to the world with our limited, human intellects.  Further, even though statements such as 1-8 may be problematic, they are the best we can do to try to describe God nature, relationship to the world, and God’s actions.  And while they are problematic, they are still true.  Perhaps, one might continue, they are not all literally true, but nevertheless, they express truths.

The above response consists of three claims:

1) God’s being is beyond anything we encounter in this world and is so different that we are not able to (fully) understand it.

2) Our human minds are limited in what they are able to comprehend.

3) We can say true things about God, even if those truths are not literal.

Let’s look at each of these three individually.

Regarding the idea that God’s being is unintelligible because it is beyond anything we encounter in this world and is so different from anything we encounter in this world that we are not able to (fully) understand it, two issues need to be considered.  First, what exactly we mean when saying that God’s being is so other?  Second, in which, if any, of our previously considered senses do we want to say that that being is unintelligible?  The two questions are connected, since it is the kind of otherness that characterizes God’s being that results in its unintelligibility.

Presumably the nature of God’s being is supposed to be in part what we were trying to talk about with 1-8 above.  So let’s take the claim about God is outside space and time.  Everything we experience through our five senses is in space and time.  Therefore, God’s being is different from everything we know through the five senses.  If you were asked to imagine something that exists outside of space and time, what might you imagine?  Anything you picture in your mind’s eye will be something that is spatial.  Anything you “hear” before your mind’s ear, so to speak, will be temporal.  Any smell you try to imagine will be temporal if not spatial.  And we can say the same for tastes and feels.  What about imagining a number?  After all, we said that numbers are not spatial objects.  But other than imagining a symbol such as “5” or “V”, which are spatial, how would you imagine a number?  The point being that our imagination is constrained by space and time.  A God that is supposed to be outside space and time is, thus, something completely unfamiliar; and, thus, it seems we should say that the unintelligibility that comes from this is that of lack of familiarity.

However, given what we saw when we took the time to spell out the details and implications of what it means to say that God is outside space and time, there is another kind of unintelligibility, namely the fourth kind of linguistic unintelligibility concerning inconsistencies.  So we have, at least, two ways in which God’s purported otherness is unintelligible to us.  The important difficulty that now arises for the intelligibility of the above claims concerning God’s nature is that the unintelligibility that comes from the lack of familiarity is fairly innocuous whereas the unintelligibility that comes from inconsistency is highly problematic.  That is, something’s being completely novel does not tell against the possibility of its existence, whereas the standard response to a set of inconsistent statements is to recognize that they cannot all be true.  So, if I claim that my house is yellow all over and brown all over, what I say cannot be true.  The house simply cannot be the way I am describing it to be.  Similarly, if in claiming that God is outside space and time we end up with inconsistent statements when spelling out the details, then that means that God cannot be the way we are describing him to be.

(Notice that God’s otherness cannot save the description of his nature, for God’s otherness was that of being outside space and time, but it was the claim that God is outside space and time that lead to the inconsistencies.)

But what about number 2, the claim that our human minds are limited in their ability to comprehend things?  We might put it by saying that just as a dog or a chimpanzee cannot comprehend long division, we cannot comprehend God’s nature no matter how hard we try.  Or we might think about it in terms of Einstein considering the special theory of relativity and a preschooler “considering” the same.  The preschooler won’t even know where to begin.  But we should be careful with such comparisons.  We don’t want to make it sound as if we have absolutely no idea of what we are talking or thinking about when considering God.  After all, we do make various claims about God’s nature, past “actions,” and intentions.  All of which are things that a dog or chimpanzee couldn’t do in relation to long division or a preschooler in relation to the special theory of relativity.

We see here another serious problem in claiming that God is unintelligible because he is so other.  The theist wants both to be able to say intelligible things about God’s nature and intentions while simultaneously saying that our minds are not capable of grasping God’s nature, intentions, etc.  And that can seem very much like trying to have your cake and eat it, too.

Perhaps there is a way out of the above problems.  Perhaps the inconsistencies that resulted from considering God’s being outside space and time, as well as the problem of trying to balance claims about our limited human intellects and our saying intelligible things about God can be ameliorated if we read the claims made about God in some non-literal way.  That is, perhaps the above problems stem from reading the claims 1-8 about God literally.  What happens if we read them non-literally?  Perhaps that will allow us to make sense of saying that we partially understand God’s nature while saying that it is ultimately beyond our grasp.

5. Language and Meaning

It can be easy to forget, but we often use language in non-literal ways.  If I say, “The book is on the table,” in answer to your asking where the book is, then I mean simply that the book is on the table.  As such, it’s an example of a straightforwardly literal use of language.  But we also say things like, “John runs like a gazelle,” “Beth’s smile is the noonday sun,” and “Life is like a bad joke: no one’s laughing at the end.”  The first is a simile, the second a metaphor, and third is a kind of analogy (though very much like a simile as well).  With the first John’s running is like that of a gazelle, presumably meaning that John is quick; with the second, Beth’s smile is clearly not literally the noonday sun, but as the noonday sun is the brightest thing, so is her smile; with life, it shares something in common with a bad joke, namely a lack of laughter at the end.  Let’s look at the claim concerning Beth’s smile.  Can we say the same thing in more literal language?  Instead of saying her smile is the noonday sun, we can say that her smile is bright, that it radiates light, brightening everything.  But that paraphrase is itself metaphorical, for her smile presumably doesn’t really radiate light, brightening everything, regardless of how white her teeth actually are.  Perhaps we just need to redo the paraphrase so that we explain literally the way in which her smile “radiates light.”  Let’s assume this is possible.  In such a case, then, the use of metaphor might just be seen as a colorful, imaginative way to save time, to achieve economy of expression.  But are there examples of simile, metaphor, or analogy in which we cannot paraphrase their meaning?

That last question is a difficult one and even if we cannot think of an example, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t one.  So instead, let us ask another question, one that will save us some trouble:  Is there a way to understand the claims made about God’s nature that is non-literal?  The claim that has given us the most trouble so far is that God is outside space and time.  Is there a non-literal way to read, “God is outside space” or “God is outside time”?  Well, at least with simile, metaphor, and analogy there is a comparison of similarities between two things.  Saying that God is outside time does not involve a comparison of similarities.  If anything, it quite literally contrasts God with all of those things that are in time.

Granted we do often use non-literal ways of characterizing God.  We call God the Father, say God brings light into our lives, God is the Way, etc.  All that may be unproblematic when read non-literally.  But again, there doesn’t seem to be a non-literal way to read the problematic claim of God’s being outside space and time.  If there is not a non-literal way to grasp the claim that God is outside space and time, then we don’t have a way to claim that we partially understand what it means for God to be outside space and time.  And we had turned to non-literal uses of language as a means of making sense of the idea that God is both partially intelligible to us (enough so that we can at least have some idea of what we are talking about) while also being ultimately unintelligible or beyond our cognitive grasp.

6. Restating our Problem and Concluding Thoughts

The problem we are facing can be put by listing the following:

1) God is supposed to be outside space and time.

2) God’s being outside space and time leads to certain inconsistencies, e.g., that God is both conscious and outside of time.

3) Those inconsistencies indicate a certain unintelligibility of those claims, as they cannot all be true.

4) God is supposed to be beyond our understanding (unintelligible) because God is so other.

5) God is supposed to be more than our limited intellects can comprehend.

6) We are supposed to be able to comprehend God at least partially in order to say something intelligible about him.  For if we cannot say something partially comprehensible about God, then we don’t know what we talking about when we talk about “God.”

The real problem is trying to balance out 3, 5, and 6.  In order to get away from the inconsistencies in 3, the theist emphasizes 5.  But the more 5 is emphasized the more difficult 6 becomes to satisfy.  And the more we try to satisfy 6, the more we have to deemphasize 5, and the more problematic 3 becomes.

At this point the theist has three options:

A) Give up the idea that God is outside space and time.  The inconsistencies that result from God’s being outside space and time might be alleviated by simply claiming that God is not wholly outside space and time, and that he never was.  This, of course, would have profound implications for the idea that God created space and time.

B) Embrace the irrationality of accepting the inconsistencies mentioned in 2.  There are, however, various problems with embracing irrationality, not the least of which is that it undermines the strength of one’s whole belief system.

C) Go back and try to figure out a way to remove the inconsistencies mentioned in 2.  This would involve arguing that what appeared to be inconsistencies resulted from a misunderstanding of the issues involved.

The difficult question now is to figure out which of those three to choose.  One could, of course, choose to do all three, i.e., embrace all three, draw out the results of doing so and compare those results to see which is the best?  But consider this:  What kinds of standards would be used to determine which results are the best?  Rational?  Pragmatic?  Or…?

If we can be certain of anything, then it is of death (of course) and……not taxes (for one might live where there are no taxes)…..but suffering: death and suffering confront us as part of what it is to be human.  Just as we must eat and drink to live, so too we must suffer and eventually die.  Much may come between birth and death—real love and fulfillment would be “nice”—but two of the most important questions we should ask ourselves in our role as humans concern what our attitude toward death and suffering should be.  Here I will talk only about suffering.  There are, I suggest, three main possibilities for our attitude toward suffering.  I will refer to them as Buddhist, Christian, and Affirmative.

What I am calling the “Buddhist attitude” is not meant to be true to all the subtleties of the various forms of Buddhism.  Nevertheless it is a kind of distillation of a key aspect of the Buddhist world view. The key idea is that happiness (I will speak of happiness instead of Nirvana) results from escaping suffering; and suffering is caused by incorrect views and actions in regard to our habitual desires, especially the desire to control how things are.  We don’t want to wait in line; we wish the line would move faster; and what happens?  We suffer.  We don’t have enough cash, but we don’t want to wait to buy an Ipod; so either we suffer or we buy one on credit, putting off the suffering.  If we remove the desire and accept how things are, then we remove the suffering.  It is only through such relinquishing of desire that we can avoid suffering; and it is only through avoiding suffering that we can truly be happy.  There is, of course, much more to Buddhism than this.  But central to the Buddhist view for our purposes is the idea that suffering is an impediment to happiness.

Just as with the Buddhist attitude, what I am calling the “Christian attitude” is not meant to be true to all of the subtleties of the various forms of Christianity.  Nevertheless it is a kind of distillation of a key aspect of the Christian world view.  The key idea is that happiness results from transcending the physical world and achieving some kind of union with the divine.  Hell is separation from God; heaven is union with God.  As long as we are on this earth we are separate from God, despite how close we may feel at certain moments of prayer or ecstasy.  Further, and importantly, we are fallen creatures who are destined to sin no matter how hard we try.  And it is through our sinning that we bring suffering upon ourselves and those we love.  So we are to blame for our suffering; the best we can do to be happy is to focus on God and following God’s commandments, all the while hoping to transcend this world to one much better.

What I am calling the “Affirmative attitude” owes much to ideas found in the writings of Nietzsche.  The fundamental insight is that happiness of the kind that we should be concerned with is not to be equated with a lack of suffering or some merely positive, fleeting feeling.  Rather, happiness, a life worth living, demands a certain kind of action and creativity that is only possible through suffering.  Suffering, or at least certain types, is valuable as a means.  We must either actually suffer or risk great suffering if we are to create a life that is valuable.

For the moment I am going to remain vague on the kinds of suffering I am talking about.  Instead I want to note that there is the problem of the suffering that does not seem to contribute to such lofty goals.  For example, the quotidian suffering from headaches, hangnails, and hangovers.  But more importantly, the suffering of illness that is either debilitating or (inclusive “or”) terminal.  The “quotidian” suffering may be justified along the lines that if we cannot bear such suffering, then how can we hope to bear the more profound kinds of suffering needed to live well?  So that suffering is a kind of “practice.”  But the suffering from debilitating/terminal illness cannot necessarily be handled in the same way.  We may in the end simply have to say that not all suffering is of value.

And that leads to the point that, of course, the three attitudes above need not be, nor are they in real life, separate.  Anyone growing up in some kind of Judeo-Christian (Muslim?) society will have imbibed aspects of all three.  We naturally seek to avoid suffering (Buddhist attitude), we learn to blame ourselves for certain kinds of suffering and hope for a better life, if not in “heaven,” then in the future (Christian attitude), and we pay lip service, at least, to the idea that greatness doesn’t come easy (Affirmative attitude).  The question is which of them should prevail over the others—not necessarily to the full exclusion of the others.  We can, after all, adopt the affirmative attitude and still seek to avoid getting cancer or wish that we didn’t have some debilitating neuro-muscular disorder or debilitating migraines.

The point to all of this is that “western” cultures/societies uncritically, and without any sort of awareness of what they are doing, adopt a combination of the Buddhist and Christian attitudes.  In general the Affirmative attitude is relegated to those few necessary evils we must do to get that promotion, buy the house, go on the nice vacation, etc.; and then the Affirmative attitude isn’t affirmative at all, but full of resentment:  “Why can’t this be easier?”  Without giving any reason here, now, I will simply assert that those of us who can (and I am not saying I could) should adopt more fully and with full awareness the Affirmative attitude.

What follows is that outline considering possible reasons for endorsing some kind of theism. Importantly, it is just an outline; so its details need to be filled in. Were that filling in to occur, I’m sure that certain points might get modified, added, or rejected. Further, a lot of it is based on things I have written about more extensively in my notebooks and as such a number of things will be presented that might not make sense or for which I will not offer arguments. I hope to elaborate on and present arguments for those claims later on.

In Experiments in Ethics, Kwame Anthony Appiah writes:

Now, in real life reasonable people will not hold most of their beliefs with the level of conviction that we call certainty. Most of us, most of the time, will allow that most of what we believe about the world could turn out to be wrong. So our actual reasoning is not from certainties to certainties but from the probable to the probable. (pp.51-52)

I believe Appiah is right about the above; so, I am not looking for certainty here, but rather what is reasonable to believe. All of the reasons given below may not be strong individually, but perhaps they add up to a strong argument, particularly when taken in conjunction with the objections and replies.  For that to make sense, the arguments need to be interpreted as inductive; a large number of invalid deductive arguments won’t add up to a strong argument.

Before getting to the reasons themselves, I want to distinguish between causes of belief, epistemic reasons for belief, and pragmatic reasons for belief. Roughly, the cause of belief is that which brings it about that a person holds the belief she holds. For example, Carol believes in God(s) because she was raised in a Hindu home. An epistemic reason for believing something is a reason that is supposed to make probable the truth of that which is believed. For example, Bob believes he will get over the infection because of the known efficacy of antibiotics for treating his kind of infection. That known efficacy is a reason for believing, it makes it probably true, that Bob will get well; and thus it justifies his believing that he will get well. A pragmatic reason for believing something is a reason based on a desired end and the idea that holding the belief in question will make more probable the achievement of that end. That is, for example, if a person has an epistemic reason to believe that if she believes she can make a particular jump across a chasm, then she will most likely be able to make the jump, then even if she doesn’t have an epistemic reason to believe she can make the jump, she may have a pragmatic reason. Almost all of the reasons considered below are epistemic reasons for and against affirmation of theism.

Reasons for believing in God:

1) The testimony of people, e.g., Gandhi, who are intelligent, sincere, and willing to explore and challenge religious dogma, and yet believe in God(s).

2) Cosmological reasons concerning an explanation of either the origin of the universe or a reason for its existing at all even if it has no origin per se.

3) Teleological reasons concerning the fine-tuned nature of the observable universe for the existence of life.

4) Connected to 3, the idea that the universe is morally valuable because of its fitness for life and that it actually contains conscious and self-conscious life; and that this indicates that if there is a God, that that God is in some way good. Further, we might think that a good universe is more likely the outcome of creation by a good God than by other means or reasons. So not only is a universe fit for life improbable given all the other possibilities, it is even more improbable that a good universe would arise “randomly.”

5) The wonder of nature, all life, and the fact that nature is not only conscious of itself (experiences itself, as animals do) but also conscious of itself as nature and conscious of itself as conscious of itself.

6) [This perhaps should be a part of objections and replies. It is not properly speaking a reason for belief in God] Regarding science and faith, Robert Pollack writes:

Science makes the following claim for itself, legitimately: most of what is knowable is unknown at this moment, and most of what is unknown will be knowable eventually through science. The faith of science makes a further claim: all that is unknown will be knowable through science. The distinction between the two turns on the question: Is there anything unknown now, whether or not it lies on the outer edge of what is knowable, that will never be understood, anything that is ultimately unknowable? No one denies that science will push the margin ever closer to full knowledge. The issue is whether some unknown will always remain. That question about science is by its very nature not answerable by science. Therefore to claim there is nothing unknowable is an act of faith, and to affirm this statement makes science into a faith. [From Practicing Science, Living Faith, Eds. P. Clayton and J. Schaal. Page 229]

Importantly, he goes on to make clear that he does not think that all scientists make the claim that “all that is unknown will be knowable through science.” And that may simply be because there are questions that science cannot answer as a result of contingent human limitations (e.g., whether there are extraterrestrials). Thus he is not claiming that the practicing of science necessarily requires faith. Rather, his claim is that a certain way of viewing science and knowledge requires faith. The crucial move in Pollack’s argument is “The issue is whether some unknown will always remain. That question about science is by its very nature not answerable by science. Therefore to claim there is nothing unknowable is an act of faith, and to affirm this statement makes science into a faith.”

“Science,” of course, might “say” that its “faith” is justified by the progress that science has and continues to make. However, against this we might point out that since the questions “Is all knowledge scientific knowledge?” and “Is there anything that will remain unknowable to science?” cannot be answered by science, and since their answers seem to be that no, not all knowledge is scientific knowledge and thus yes there are things that are unknowable to science—the latter may include things unknowable to any human—such faith in science is not only misplaced but simply wrong. And if science’s purview is the physical world and it cannot know everything, then it follows that there may be some things about the physical world it cannot know, e.g., its origin or reason for being, or that there may be something beyond the physical world that it cannot know simply because it is transcends the physical world.
Therefore, despite science’s successes, it is neither the keeper of all knowledge, nor the judge of all that can be known. Thus there is room open for God and science.

7) In the way that William James seems to argue in “The Will to Believe,” we might risk belief in God because once we do open ourselves to such a belief, new, religious/spiritual kinds of experiences may be opened up. So this is not an epistemic reason to believe in God; rather it is a pragmatic reason that may lead to epistemic reasons.

Reasons Against Believing in God and Replies:

1) God seems conspicuously absent from the world.

Reply: Well it depends on what one means by “absent.” There is no booming voice from the sky; there is no “person” making an appearance and saying, “Hey I’m God. Nice to meet you.” However, we might say first that God’s nature is so other that it does not make sense to think of God as being present or absent in the way that a person is present or absent in one’s life. Second, we might think that God is indeed present through God’s very creation—but this presence through nature is not necessarily one that can be seen unless the idea of God is given a chance. We, of course, have to be careful about the problem of seeing what we want to see (For example, when a spouse wants to believe that the marriage is working and so “doesn’t see” the evidence of infidelity). That is, seeing God’s presence may require an openness to God, but we have to be vigilant about not simply thinking we see God’s presence because we believe in God. How to distinguish the two in actual circumstances is surely difficult.

2) Sense cannot be made of God’s characteristics or attributes. What could it mean to say that God is conscious and outside of time? Doesn’t consciousness as we know it require successive conscious states of awareness? What could it mean to say that God acts, when God transcends space-time?

Reply: These are indeed troubling conceptual problems; ones that are difficult to sort out. Further, it is difficult to know whether they indicate the nonexistence of God or the limitations of our reason. We might notice that there are a number of conceptual problems in physics, particularly, quantum mechanics, ones that seem contradictory to reason, and yet they are not taken as evidence of the failure of quantum mechanics. One might reply to that by saying that quantum mechanics can be used to make true predictions, which give it credence; but the same cannot be said of God. That is indeed true, however, it might miss the point that in and of themselves, conceptual problems do not necessarily give us reason to reject a view. Further, one might say that the other reasons for believing in God are analogous to the true predictions made by quantum mechanics. That is, just as there are those predictions that keep us from rejecting quantum mechanics even though it seems to involve conceptual impossibilities, we might say that even though the idea of a transcendent God involves conceptual “impossibilities,” the other reasons given above mitigate the conceptual problems so that they do not give us reason to reject God solely on their basis.

Further, we might, and perhaps reasonably should, acknowledge that the human mind is capable of only so much, and is formed and limited in its thinking by the nature of the physical world. So we might not be too surprised if there is something incomprehensible about the idea of a God who transcends the physical world.

3) The world contains a great deal of evil, pain, and suffering; why would a good God allow such things? A good God wouldn’t; therefore, there is not a good God.

Reply: We might argue that while the world (the universe) contains much suffering, it is on the whole a good world in that it allows for conscious and self-conscious life, which are intrinsically valuable, and whose existence allows for still further goods.

Secondly, we needn’t conceive of God as omnibenevolent. God could be good in virtue of having created the universe and fine-tuned it for the evolution of life without being all-good such that we should expect there to be no suffering. Further, the existence of suffering might in some cases be seen as a good (Nietzsche), and secondly, in some cases it is the result of human free will (itself a good).

4) Belief in God is leftover from prescientific times. It was the result of earlier people’s attempts to explain the universe, its origin and workings.

Reply: Aside from committing the genetic fallacy (which in this case means claiming that the origins of belief in God count against the truth of God’s existence–in a sense the genetic fallacy takes the causes of a belief to count as epistemic reasons for denying the belief; and that doesn’t necessarily always follow), this objection assumes that the only role of God in prescientific times was as an explanation of the physical world. That seems to be simply false. God has and does play a number of different roles in people’s lives.

5) Belief in God is the result of not being able to accept that the world is meaningless without God.

Reply: Aside from committing the genetic fallacy, it is not at all clear that without God the world is meaningless. Even if there is not a God, conscious and self-conscious life is intrinsically valuable. I take this to mean that the universe itself is valuable and as such can “contain” a great deal of meaning.

6) Belief in God is the result of not being able to accept our or our loved ones’ deaths.

Reply: Aside from committing the genetic fallacy, belief in God does not necessarily involve a belief in an afterlife.

7) Science can or will be able to satisfactorily explain the origin of the universe.

Reply: That is questionable given the limitations of our instruments to probe the depths of what we take to be the origin of the universe, i.e., the big bang. So it may not be possible to do more than offer speculative theories that defy confirmation or disconfirmation. Further, it is doubtful that science can offer a reason for why there is something rather than nothing, since that does not seem to be a scientific question; and it is not clear that science can explain the fine-tuned nature of the universe (multiverse theories are rather controversial, and there is always the rejoinder that a multiverse needs to be fine-tuned itself in some way).

8) Look at all of the atrocities done in the name of God. How could God permit such evil in his/her name?

Reply: Again, God need not be all-good to be good. Secondly, what humans do is what humans do. Presumably we act from free will; and our actions often stem from our nature, which is not through and through good—but that does not mean that we are fallen or full of sin. Religion does not equal God; evils done in the name of religion do not give us reason to think that God doesn’t exist—it gives us reason to think that people are often misguided, wrong, and at times evil.

9) You appeal to God as an explanation of the universe’s existence and for its fine-tuned nature; but how can you explain God’s existence?

Reply: This is a difficult question. I’m not entirely satisfied with the idea that God is some sort of necessarily existent being such that God could not have not existed. So, to this objection I don’t have a very good reply. I can only say that it makes more sense to me (even if I cannot explain exactly why) to say that God is in need of no explanation (God just is) in a way that it doesn’t make sense to me to say that the universe is in need of no explanation (it just is). That may well be the biggest lacuna in all of the above.

Conclusion:
I am by no means convinced by the above lines of argument for theism, though all of the above does get me closer to believing in God. However, even if the above were convincing, we ought to be left wondering what kind of God we have been given reason to believe in. I don’t think it is the God of any of the major world religions. But that, as with so much else, will have to wait for another time.

In my last blog post, I indicated that I believed that the religious extremes that dominate public discussion of religion are dangerous. Here I will briefly give reasons for thinking that is true. To begin, I consider atheism and agnosticism to both be religious perspectives simply because they concern religion or religious issues. So one can be an atheist and still be a religious extremist. In my last post I wrote:

“On the one hand, there are those who openly, inwardly, or both, mock or simply dismiss the very ideas of God, religion, and man’s need and yearning for the two. What I call the radical atheists, e.g., Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, are typified but such dismissiveness,  though it is not just the radical atheists who mock and deride God and religion. On the other hand, there are those devotees of religion who are overly and non-critically zealous and accepting of religious dogma, while at the same time seemingly ignorant of the inherent fallibility of all humans.”

I take it that both poles, both sides, are dangerous for the same kinds of reasons. Nothing I say here is meant to apply without exception, but here they are:

1) Both sides are closed to the possibility that the other might have something important to contribute to the discussion of what it is to live well (which,  I believe, requires contemplation of, and engagement with, God and/or spiritual issues). That is, the mocking atheist identifies the religious life with the extreme forms of religion, e.g., versions of Christianity and Islam, that one finds in the news and thereby dismisses the possibility that there are more sophisticated forms of not only Christianity, Islam, and other religions, but also non-denominational theisms. The religious fundamentalist, on the other hand, is often unwilling and unable to consider the possibility that some of the tenants and dogma of his/her religion may be flawed such that they should be reexamined, possibly altered or discarded.

2) The above is due, in part, to a failure of those involved to fully acknowledge and embrace their own fallibility as humans. Each side is convinced that they have accurately apprehended the true nature of the other side and the Truth in general about religion. And each side reinforces the other: the vitriolic and, at times, unreasonable proclamations from each side cause the other to hunker down more deeply into dogma and closed-mindedness.

3) The first two points are further problematic because they remove the possibility of affirming a reflectively religious life that minimizes dogma as far as possible. I take such a life to involve an appreciation of the value of a religious/spiritual life, while acknowledging all of the difficulties of comprehending what such a life should be, and whether there even is a God or what the role of God is in a religious/spiritual life.

The mocking atheist denies the value of a religious or spiritual life, whether of the reflective kind that I am advocating or the unreflective, dogmatic kind I have mentioned. The dogmatic believer denies that the dogma that rules his/her life may be flawed and refuses to take seriously the possibility that God does not exist or does not exist in the way he/she imagines. And again, I take it that many on both sides are operating with overly simplistic ideas about God and religion.

Thus, the two religious extremes I have canvassed are dangerous because they lesson the likelihood of finding the truth, and they foster an environment hostile to the kind of reflective theology that I see as being vital to living a fully good life.  Note that a “reflective theology” need not come with a god, but requires simply an openness to, and appreciation for, the possibility and value of a spiritual/religious life in a reflectively sophisticated form.

I believe it is important to promote what I take to be a healthful middle ground between two dangerous religious poles that exist. On the one hand, there are those who openly, inwardly, or both, mock or simply dismiss the very ideas of God, religion, and man’s need and yearning for the two. What I call the radical atheists, e.g., Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, are typified but such dismissiveness,  though it is not just the radical atheists who mock and deride God and religion. On the other hand, there are those devotees of religion who are overly and non-critically zealous and accepting of religious dogma, while at the same time seemingly ignorant of the inherent fallibility of all humans.

There are, of course, exceptions; not everyone fits neatly in either pole or between. But it is my impression that the majority of people discussing religion in the public sphere, e.g., radio, TV, newspapers and magazines (those sources with the widest audience), tend to fall into one of these two groups.

Again, my concern is to promote the middle ground between these two poles. I take that middle ground to consist not necessarily of belief in God (though it by no means excludes it) but in taking religion and man’s religious yearnings seriously, while at the same time seeking to approach the issues as rationally and charitably as possible.

And with those who might claim that religion and belief in God do not fall under the purview of rationality, I would disagree for two reasons. First, insofar as there may be respects in which God and religion concern things beyond human understanding or things that are ineffable, that does not mean that reason is excluded, since we should use reason to help figure out what exactly is beyond our understanding or ineffable. Second, while there may well be limits to our understanding and to our ability to conceptualize God, that does not imply that religion and spirituality are exempt from rational and critical analysis. Again, as far as possible, reason should be used to help distinguish nonsense from things beyond our understanding.

I’ll address in the next post why I think the lack of such a middle ground in public discussions of God and religion is dangerous.