Comparing G and Y

In a note on the Problem of Evil I wrote in July of 2007, I tried to examine the Leibnitzian theodicy and the idea of the "best of all possible worlds." In so doing, I proposed thinking of free will as P, the sum total goodness of our world as G and the sum total evil of our world as Y. I asked whether or not G - Y + P > G. That is, does free will somehow "cancel out" the evil in the world, or even make this world better than it otherwise would be?

A new paper in a religious philosophy journal criticizes Plantinga's version of the free will theodicy that claims the answer to my question is yes. The author does a really good job of dismantling this free will defense. Read it.

I Pity the Fool

Mr. T. gives us all reason to pause and ponder the problem of evil.

Job and the Problem of Evil

It is often to the book of Job that Christians refer in answering questions about why we suffer.

About the problem generally, for the theist, there are only a few possible responses:

1. We suffer because we deserve it (the attitude of Job's friends)
2. We suffer because we are righteous (hinted at by Jesus in the NT) while the world around us is wicked -- it's God's way of bettering us -- but it will be righted in the end (the Apocalyptic view)
   
3. We suffer because the world is wicked and we deserve it, as we are all wicked (we are to blame for both) and we may not blame God for it at all (Rom 9)
   

Job's god never really answered this question. But I did like the way a recent Yale course in religion analyzed the issue (H/T: Wes):

God has heard enough, it's his turn to ask questions, the answers to which are clearly implied; these are rhetorical questions.

[Job 38 ff]

Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?
Speak if you have understanding.
Do you know who fixed its dimensions
Or who measured it with a line?"
You did, God.
…Have you ever commanded the day to break,
Assigned the dawn its place,
…Have you penetrated to the sources of the sea,
Or walked in the recesses of the deep?

No, no human has. And God continues with these rhetorical questions, questions regarding the animals, their various powers and attributes, but one wonders what the purpose of all these questions is.

One senses that they are irrelevant. Job has posed some very specific challenges to God. Why am I suffering? Is there a pattern to existence? Is God's refusal to answer these challenges a way of saying there is no answer? Or is it God's way of saying that justice is beyond human understanding? Or is this theophany of God in nature and the focus on creation, an implicit assault on the fundamental tenant of Israelite religion that God is known and made manifest through his interactions with humans, his rewards and punishments in historical time.

You'll recall that the monotheistic revolution is generally understood to have effected a break from mythological conceptions of the gods as indistinguishable from various natural forces, limited by meta-divine powers and forces of the cosmos.

The biblical God wasn't another Ancient Near Eastern or Canaanite nature God ultimately, but a wholly transcendent power--He was figured this way in many parts of the Bible--known not through the involuntary and recurring cycles of nature but through His freely willed and non-repeating actions in historical time. Such a view of God underwrites the whole system of divine retributive justice.

Only an essentially good God who transcends and is unconstrained by mechanistic natural forces can establish and administer a system of retributive justice, dealing out punishment and reward in response to the actions of humans in time.

Is the author of Job suggesting that history and the events that befall the just and the unjust are not the medium of revelation? Is God a god of nature after all, encountered in the repeating cycles of the natural world and not in the unpredictable and incoherent arena of human history and action? If so, then this is a third fundamental biblical assumption that has been radically subverted.

So we'll turn now to God's direct speech to Job in 40:8, 40, verse 8, excuse me. "Would you impugn my justice? / Would you condemn Me that you be right?" God, I think, is now getting at the heart of the matter: your friends Job were wrong, they condemned you. They attributed sin to you, so that they might be right. But you, too, have been wrong condemning Me, attributing wickedness to Me so that you might be right.

Job's friends erred because they assumed that there's a system of retributive justice at work in the world and that assumption led them to infer that all who suffer are sinful, and that's a blatant falsehood. But Job also errs; if he assumes that although there isn't a system of retributive justice, there really ought to be one. It's that assumption that leads him to infer that suffering is a sign of an indifferent or wicked God, and that is equally a falsehood. Job needs to move beyond the anthropocentrism that characterizes the rest of Scripture and the Genesis 1 account of creation, according to which humankind is the goal of the entire process of creation.

God's creation, the Book of Job seems to suggest, defies such teleological and rational categories. In a nutshell, God refuses to be seen as a moral accountant. The idea of God as a moral accountant is responsible for two major errors: the interpretation of suffering as an indicator of sin, or the ascription of injustice to God. In his final speech, Job confesses to a new firsthand knowledge of God that he lacked before, and as a result of this knowledge Job repents, "Therefore, I recant and relent, / Being but dust and ashes," 42:6.

Here we see the other meaning of Job's name, "one who repents," suddenly leap to the fore. What is he repenting of? Certainly not of sin; God has not upheld the accusations against Job. Indeed he states explicitly in a moment that the friends were wrong to say he had sinned. But he has indicated that guilt and innocence, reward and punishment are not what the game is all about, and while Job had long been disabused of the notion that the wicked and the righteous actually get what they deserve, he nevertheless had clung to the idea that ideally they should. And it's that mistaken idea--the idea that led him to ascribe wickedness to God--that Job now recants. With this new understanding of God, Job is liberated from what he would now see as a false expectation raised by the Deuteronomistic notion of a covenant relationship between God and humankind, enforced by a system of divine justice.

At the end of the story Job is fully restored to his fortunes. God asserts he did no evil and the conventional, impeccably Deuteronomistic view of the three friends is clearly denounced by God. He says of them, "They have not spoken of Me what is right as my servant Job has," 42:7. For some, the happy ending seems anticlimactic, a capitulation to the demand for a happy ending of just desserts that runs counter to the whole thrust of the book, and yet in a way I think the ending is superbly fitting. It's the last in a series of reversals that subverts our expectations. Suffering comes inexplicably, so does restoration; blessed be the name of the Lord.

God doesn't attempt to justify or explain Job's suffering and yet somehow by the end of the book, our grumbling, embittered, raging Job is satisfied. Perhaps he's realized that an automatic principle of reward and punishment would make it impossible for humans to do the good for purely disinterested motives. It's precisely when righteousness is seen to be absurd and meaningless that the choice to be righteous paradoxically becomes meaningful. God and Job, however we are to interpret their speeches, are reconciled.

The suffering and injustice that characterize the world have baffled humankind for millennia. And the Book of Job provides no answer in the sense of an explanation or a justification of suffering and injustice, but what it does offer is a stern warning to avoid the Scylla of blaspheming against the victims by assuming their wickedness, and the Charybdis of blaspheming against God by assuming his. Nor is moral nihilism an option, as our hero, yearning for, but ultimately renouncing divine order and justice, clings to his integrity and chooses virtue for nothing.

So the only "answer" Job may provide is that the laws of nature themselves are not used as tools of god's justice, but instead callous impersonal forces of the world. Job's "error" is in assuming that the world ought to be just if there was a god behind it who was just. And so this just brings in Occam's Razor to cut away whether a god is behind it all regardless...

Remember Ehrman's explication of the Apocalyptic view of evil in the world, which is somewhat more satisfying than this one, but lacks in logic still.

A picture of a godless universe

A few months ago, in a post talking about a GC member being on TV, I wrote,

The idea that God is listening to your requests and will fix that prostate, or give you that new job, or raise, or protect you from danger, is hilarious. While you're sitting there asking that, mothers are raising their dead children to the sky, after pleading with God to spare them. People are rotting from leprosy and mentally rotting from Alzheimer's. To think that God is letting all the billions of people on earth suffer and plead with no reprieve, but that he cares what job you have or mate you pick, is the height of hubris. The problem of evil has destroyed the faith of giants like Charles Templeton and unknowns like me.

If you want to distill atheism down into a picture, here it is:

That picture is probably a lot like the one that Charles Templeton saw in Life magazine during a famine in Africa in the 1960s that he claimed shook him free of his last remnants of god-belief. It was taken by Kevin Carter, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for it. He took his life three months later.

I've read plenty (including Bart Ehrman's talk on how the Bible portrays suffering) of attempted justifications of how a god could exist and still allow human suffering on this scale. None of it convinces me.

On the use of cosmology as a theistic argument

I've written a few things about cosmology before. Read them here.

This week, a theist friend of mine at work sent me a link to this article about the Big Bang. It's pretty standard Christian apologetics work, and William Lane Craig uses this sort of thing in his Kalam Cosmological Argument. My friend just wanted my response.

Here's what I wrote back:

If people seek an answer to why the universe exists, rather than nothing at all, I don't see how saying, "God made it," makes more sense of it or "explains" that better. For after all, it is entirely possible that nothing could've existed, even no God. In addition, as the article pointed out, but didn't further explain, there are logical issues when one wonders, "What could cause a timeless being to 'create' out of nothing? What could prompt the creation itself? What would disrupt the timeless stasis of a god's existence? If god is 'outside of' time, does that mean concepts like 'before' and 'after' don't work? How could that be?..." and on and on and on...

So I don't think a god makes more sense of existence. A god just sort of transposes all our mystery and lack of understanding into one package.

Basically there is a "gap" that a god can fit in with respect to making the universe, but that doesn't really explain why we ought to believe that a god DOES exist and DID create the universe. So I'm granting that it's possible that some form of Deism is true. But I just don't think there's a good reason to think it is true.

To me, the experience of daily life, the suffering and arbitrary evils of the world, are strong evidence (and maybe even logical proof) that no good and powerful being exists. It's possible a powerful one does, I suppose, but I don't see a good reason to believe it. Therefore, even if god does explain the universe (which I disputed above as it is hardly an 'explanation'), while my version of the universe remains unexplained, then I guess that's just how it is.

Your thoughts on my thoughts?

PS: Check out Victor Stenger

http://www.amazon.com/God-Failed-Hypothesis-Science-Shows/dp/1591024811

He's an expert on cosmology and has a lot to say about different arguments for theism based on science.

It's kind of funny that I mentioned Wiesel a few weeks ago, because my workplace had a Holocaust survivor come and give a speech and this person and I spoke briefly afterwards and I got to ask her thoughts on him. She said, "He was a lot older than I was during it [she was 10 during the worst of it, he was about 16], and he saw a lot of worse things than I did [he was in Auschwitz], so I understand his different perspective."

Theists and IQ

I've made it clear before that I don't think atheists are simply smarter than theists, or that theism is indicative of a low IQ.

I was joking around last week with the head football coach at my school (one of the two people at my school I've dialogued with on atheism) when I said, "I wouldn't mind if my wife left me for Tim Tebow," and he replied, "But then your kid would be raised a theist!" Completely unfazed, I replied, "Oh no, because my son would still have my genes and therefore a very high IQ and thus would never buy into that nonsense." I said it as a joke, but I know some people would take it seriously, although I know he didn't.

When some people ask me if I could ever believe in God again, I try to use Santa as an analogy. Not that I'm saying that I think god-belief is comparable to Santa-belief, but rather that when we learn about Santa's nonexistence through our own experience (seeing mom and dad buying toys or putting them together on Christmas morning) we are so completely deconverted from the belief that we would have to see comparable positive evidence to outweigh the negative evidence we've witnessed. In other words, I might believe in Santa again if he lands on my roof with his magic reindeer and flies off into the night in front of me. Ditto with God.

My experiences with witnessing human suffering are on the scale that I just simply cannot believe in any sort of powerful benevolent Being. If the problem of evil has some satisfactory solution (I don't think it does) then perhaps I could reconsider it, but I think all that would do is clear the logical obstacle that I think exists to prevent god-belief. In order to actually give me a reason to believe (rather than the capacity to do so) I think would actually require a burning bush or something just as dramatic in my own life.

Don't hold your breath waiting...God's propensity for all that miraculous stuff just so happened to go out of style around the time that technology started developing to record it.

Suffering and the Bible

Since I've had a little more free time this past two weeks, I've pondered a little on old philosophical problems and thus have felt the old familiar urge for an atheist apologetic post. I just got through reading a thought I've had before, but put well into words: that the Cinderella-esque nature of the Christian narrative makes the problem of evil even more difficult for the Christian than for the Muslim or Jew. I also saw Bart Ehrman's lecture (video) on suffering via DC. He also mentions Elie Wiesel and his God on Trial that you can watch on YouTube. He lists the following as the attempts in the Bible to explain or understand suffering in the world: as punishment for (or as a natural consequence of) sin, evil forces in the world (Satan) who are allowed to punish people, as a test of one's faith (Job), a "mystery" that even to ask "Why?" is a blasphemy, that sometimes chaos happens and we "get in the way".

Ross Douthat writes:

Any such revolution would affect atheism as well as belief. Consider, for instance, the way in which the dominance of the Christian story has actually sharpened one of the best arrows in the anti-theist's quiver. In Western society, especially, the oft-heard claim that the world is too cruel a place for a good omnipotence to have created derives a great deal of its power, whether implicitly or explicitly, from the person of Christ himself. The God of the New Testament seems more immediate, more personal, and more invested in his creation than He had heretofore revealed Himself to be. But this arguably makes Him seem more culpable for the world's suffering as well. Paradoxically, the God who addresses Job out of the whirlwind is far less vulnerable to complaints about the world's injustice than the God who suffers on the Cross - or the human God who cries in the manger. For many Christians, Christ's suffering provides a partial answer to the problem of theodicy. But for many atheists and agnostics, it only sharpens the question: How can a God who loves mankind enough to die for us allow us to suffer as much as we do?

Take that question away, and all the arguments that spin away from it disappear as well. Which is just one small reason why a world in which nobody had any reason any longer to believe that God had been born in human flesh to a poor Jewish woman in Bethlehem, or died a miserable death on a Roman cross, would be a world in which atheists as well as believers found themselves arguing about life, the universe and everything in very different ways than they do now.

This is true. For people like presuppositionalists, they prefer to use the whirlwind-style God along with their Calvinism and Rom 9 to say, "Who are you to question God's way of running the world?" To them, you either have no logical basis to even argue that God isn't good (a difficult argument for them to maintain) or you have no ability to cross over to disprove their beliefs because of your flawed fundamental premises. They are a small minority of Christians for good reason. For most Christians, they want to believe that the world as you see it is not the world that God wants it to be, but that He allows it to remain this way because of one thing or another (attempting to draw a distinction between what God permissively and what God perfectly wills has always been absurd to me). Free will is the typical theodicy.

I agree with one of the first things Ehrman says about suffering with respect to Americans: it is very, very difficult to relate to most Americans the scope and nature of suffering that occurs in the world on a daily (minute-by-minute) basis. The inability of Americans to grasp at such suffering, I am convinced, is at least in part the reason for the outlier nature of America in being a very religious country which is also very rich. As I said in a recent post,

The idea that God is listening to your requests and will fix that prostate, or give you that new job, or raise, or protect you from danger, is hilarious. While you're sitting there asking that, mothers are raising their dead children to the sky, after pleading with God to spare them. People are physically rotting from leprosy and mentally rotting from Alzheimer's. To think that God is letting all the billions of people on earth suffer and plead with no reprieve, but that he cares what job you have or mate you pick, is the height of hubris. The problem of evil has destroyed the faith of giants like Charles Templeton and unknowns like me.

When Bart Ehrman talks about free will theodicies, he labels them the "robot answer" defense of suffering in the world: humans are given the ability to obey or disobey and this leads to suffering in the world. He points out that this may help explain some suffering but not natural disasters. He doesn't take it to the next level and include animal suffering, accidents and the distinctions I've drawn before -- the question of why one person's (evil) will supersedes the others involved (including God's and the victims of the suffering), the question of why the physical contingencies allow for one person's (evil) will to actually physically occur rather than be a wish...[I won't rehash all that again, but it is essential to read that post as I feel I've dealt with nearly every single point that theists raise to the argument from evil against God's existence.]

Ehrman goes on to bring up the classic 3-point argument from evil:

1. God is all-powerful
2. God is all-loving
3. There is suffering

He establishes the common theodicies:

1. Deny one of the three premises (deny 1, deny 2, deny 3)
   
2. Bring in an "extenuating circumstance" to explain how the three premises are not logically imcompatible: as punishment for (or as a natural consequence of) sin, evil forces in the world (Satan) who are allowed to punish people, as a test of one's faith (Job), a "mystery", that even to ask "Why?" is a blasphemy, that sometimes chaos happens and we "get in the way" (think spiritual warfare here).

He then goes on to look at the two major overarching themes on suffering in the Bible -- one from the OT and one from the NT:

1. OT (the "Prophetic response") -- the Prophets nearly all had the same view on suffering, and it only concerned Israel, that suffering was punishment for sin. This is exemplified in the story of the Exodus and the obligation that Israel had towards God for saving them from Egypt. If Israel was God's "Chosen People" then all its suffering (war, drought, pestilence, famine) must be explained as some sort of breach of contract, and of course it must be man's (not God's) fault for this contract being breached (cf. Amos 3:2). The reason this is a supposed "solution" to the problem of evil is that the punishment is made with repentance in mind; if the people turn around from their "sin" then the suffering will have served a "greater good" of saving their souls. This is consistent with Adam & Eve's explusion from the Garden of Eden, with the Noachian Flood, with Sodom & Gomorrah, &c. The question of why people are supposed to believe that this sort of God is worth serving is left for the thinker...
   
2. NT (the "apocalyptic response") -- found in the latest book of the OT (Daniel) and dominated the NT: suffering was not coming as a punishment from God, but from "other sources" in the world. Enemies of God (cosmic forces in the world) cause our suffering (the devil and his demons). The devil was not found in the Prophets. Sin is not a specific wrong that you've done, but a sort of cosmic force in the world ("the flesh") and this is what leads to suffering. Eventually, God will remove these evil forces from the world and restore perfection to the world.
3. The Ecclesiastical Response -- "all is vanity" [vanity = Hebrew hevel: transcience, impermanence]. There is no justice in the world, therefore the idea that suffering is a just punishment for sin is false. Also, there will not be justice in the next world, which takes away the empty hope of Apocalypticists. Therefore, live life fully in the present. There is therefore no "answer" to suffering except to try to live and enjoy life. Paul's thoughts as he pondered this possibility? Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die! This third response is somewhat like that of atheism.
   

Ehrman points out four tenets of this apocalyptic response:
1) dualism [Manichaeism]: which groups everyone into either God's camp or the devil's, and also gives this world (the one of suffering) to the devil but the future world (the one of perfection) to God, is also intended to explain "why the wicked prosper but the righteous suffer", in the sense that the present age will "pass away";
2) pessimism: we can't really improve the present age, and even if we do, it won't matter in the cosmic sense, the present age is under the control of evil forces, and things will get worse and worse;
3) vindication: God will set things right, especially by judgment, and restore its own sovereignty, those in one camp will be rewarded and those in the other will be punished, this is why the suffering that occurred in this world is really inconsequential, this was the beginning of philosophical defenses within Judaism/Christianity of the afterlife;
4) imminence: the timing for all this is soon, the coming of the Lord is at hand, things were just about as bad as they could get/were going to be, Mark 9:1, the imminence seems necessary as it helps to make God less bad for letting all this suffering occur -- if God can stand this much suffering for much longer, it seems that God is less good;

Ehrman looks at the Apocalypticists as a contrast to the Prophets and points out the logical inconsistencies that any believer has to deal with. Moral complacency is a real issue for the former: why worry about evil if things will get better only in the next world? Along this same line, the belief that the end is coming soon is something that gives believers hope but also alarm and fear. Therefore, along with moral complacency, believers along the Apocalyptic response have a certain scary worldview that doesn't enrich their lives or the lives of those around. The conflict between the two major responses is obvious: either this world is rotten and you don't get what you deserve here because God doesn't fundamentally dole out punishment until a later judgment, or, people do get what they deserve in this life. Either you reap what you sow here in this world or you don't and you get it in the world to come.

One of the questions he was given at 48:00 or so in to the video was, "How do you know that suffering is bad if there is no God?" He dealt with it pretty simply: the traditional utilitarian view -- whatever brings about good (in the sense of health, wealth, happiness and pleasure) for the majority of people, acknowledging and using our human sense of empathy in avoiding suffering for ourselves and others as being foundational to this moral view. He also hinted at seeing the problem of Divine Command Theory in his transition from to becoming an agnostic from Christian.

I also liked a guy at the end (55:00 or so) who pointed out that the idea that "the poor you shall have with you always," and the general moral complacency brought about by the Apocalyptical view is harmful and wrong. We have the resources in the world, if they were redistributed and focused, to end the sort of starvation and ridiculous death rates from things like lack of drinking water and mosquito nets. And this guy's point was that a religious view keeps us from realizing that we could alleviate much suffering on earth, and thus in turn reduce the burden on a theist to explain/justify it with a theodicy.

Some of Ehrman's statistics (21:55):

• Every 5 seconds, a child starves to death
• Every minute, 25 people die from drinking unclean drinking water
• Every hour, 700 people die from malaria
  

GC member on local TV

*Tangent: Paul Kurtz has a new editorial on secular ethics in Free Inquiry*

A member of Godless Columbia was interviewed for an article on the healing power of prayer on local television. Some of the comments on the article are hilarious.

The idea that God is listening to your requests and will fix that prostate, or give you that new job, or raise, or protect you from danger, is hilarious. While you're sitting there asking that, mothers are raising their dead children to the sky, after pleading with God to spare them. People are rotting from leprosy and mentally rotting from Alzheimer's. To think that God is letting all the billions of people on earth suffer and plead with no reprieve, but that he cares what job you have or mate you pick, is the height of hubris. The problem of evil has destroyed the faith of giants like Charles Templeton and unknowns like me.

This point gets explored in more detail by whywontgodhealamputees.com in a recent video (see the accompanying document here):

I get email: Atheist professor and Christian student

Every once in a while, you receive emails that deserve a blog post to respond to. To me, if the email has either arguments that are poor and thus ought to be shown as such, or the topic is a common misconception, or you've received this email multiple times, that warrants a thoughtful response. Two recent examples:

1. "Muslims cannot be good Americans"
2. "America is a Christian nation"

Interestingly, my mother sent me the following email back on 1/12/08, and I just received it yesterday from a former high school chemistry student of mine. I changed a few things around, but largely used the text below to send this response to her.

It can be found in different forms online, and there are some who have taken the time to respond to it at length. Even though it reads like a bad Jack Chick tract, I think one thing in it is worth responding to: the proposed "contrast theodicy", aka the Augustinian privatio boni theodicy, to the problem of evil.

Interestingly, this part of the email is lifted from another email chain in which Albert Einstein was supposed to be the student; snopes.com debunked that a long time ago. Since I think there are a few things fallacious about the email, and since I think a lot of people read emails like these and hold misconceptions that this email affirms, I want to respond to it.

This is about a college freshman. I would not have had the maturity to do this.

God vs. Science (long but worth reading)

A science professor begins his school year with a lecture to the students, "Let me explain the problem science has with religion." The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand.

"You're a Christian, aren't you, son?"

"Yes sir," the student says.

"So you believe in God?"

"Absolutely."

"Is God good?"

"Sure! God's good."

"Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?"

"Yes."

"Are you good or evil?"

"The Bible says I'm evil."

The professor grins knowingly. "Aha! The Bible!" He considers for a moment. "Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?"

"Yes sir, I would."

"So you're good...!"

"I wouldn't say that."

"But why not say that? You'd help a sick and maimed person if you could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn't."

The student does not answer, so the professor continues. "He doesn't, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?"

The student remains silent.

"No, you can't, can you?" the professor says. He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.

"Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?"

"Er...yes," the student says.

"Is Satan good?"

The student doesn't hesitate on this one. "No."

"Then where does Satan come from?"

The student falters. "From God"

"That's right. God made Satan, didn't he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?"

"Yes, sir."

"Evil's everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything, correct?"

"Yes."

"So who created evil?" The professor continued, "If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil."

Again, the student has no answer.

"Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?"

The student squirms on his feet. "Yes."

"So who created them?"

The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his question. "Who created them?" There is still no answer. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is mesmerized. "Tell me," he continues onto another student. "Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?"

The student's voice betrays him and cracks. "Yes, professor, I do."

The old man stops pacing. "Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?"

"No sir. I've never seen Him."

"Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?"

"No, sir, I have not."

"Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter?"

"No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't."

"Yet you still believe in him?"

"Yes."

"According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?"

"Nothing," the student replies. "I only have my faith."

"Yes, faith," the professor repeats. "And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith."

The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of His own. "Professor, is there such thing as heat?"

"Yes," the professor replies. "There's heat."

"And is there such a thing as cold?"

"Yes, son, there's cold too."

"No sir, there isn't."

The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain. "You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can hit up to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than the lowest -458 degrees."

"Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-458 F) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it."

Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer.

"What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?"

"Yes," the professor replies without hesitation. "What is night if it isn't darkness?"

"You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word."

" In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?"

The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester. "So what point are you making, young man?"

"Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed."

The professor' s face cannot hide his surprise this time. "Flawed? Can you explain how?"

"You are working on the premise of duality," the student explains. "You argue that there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought."

"It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is
not the opposite of life, just the absence of it."

"Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?"

"If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do."

"Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?"

The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed.

"Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?"

The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided. "To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let me give you an example of what I mean."

The student looks around the room. "Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?" The class breaks out into laughter. "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain, felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir."

"So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures, sir?"

Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable. Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. "I guess you'll have to take them on faith."

"Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with life," the student continues. "Now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?"

Now uncertain, the professor responds, "Of course, there is. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These
manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

If you read it all the way through and had a smile on your face when you finished, mail to your friends and family with the title "God vs. Science".

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:1-2)

I hope you feel as dirty at the end of reading that as I did. The reason I say "dirty" is because this whole thing is such a caricature of reality and makes the atheistic position rude and mean in the form of the professor, while the theistic position is humble and polite in the form of the student. It is such a cheesy setup: the atheist is abusing his position to belittle a student while the student is showing great humility and courage in his manner of interaction and defense of his faith. Also, the dialog presents straw man arguments for atheism by presenting only a logical empiricist/positivist approach.

I also wanted to point out something else about the professor, besides his obvious meanness: he is an idiot. He begins the class by saying that science has a "problem with religion" but then goes on to make two separate arguments:

1. Evolution renders creationism false
2. The problem of evil renders theism false

The first reason that this professor is an idiot is that neither of these two is the same as science rendering religion false Creationism is only a subset of beliefs within only a few religious interpretations of a few religions! There are many religions which embrace evolution, and there are many non-theistic religions as well (e.g., Buddhism). By making the argument from evil, he is arguing from philosophy, not science.

The second reason that this professor is an idiot is that he is making an argument from logical positivism, but one completely distorted by needing to visually "see" anything that may be justified for belief. His criterion for warrant is absurd, and is completely unaware of how to respond when the kid asks him if he has "seen" evolution himself. Obviously, empiricism doesn't demand that we must ourselves visually see anything that warrants our belief, only that it be falsifiable and that someone (usually a scientist) has observed it, directly or indirectly, using any sort of instrumentation or test.

The third reason that this professor is an idiot is that he had no concept of how to respond to the claim that there "is no such thing as cold" or darkness or evil. Even using each of these as the absence of their dualist counterpart, one may and ought to respond that the words themselves serve as logical relations, or at least subjective perceptions: X is colder than Y, A is darker than B, Satan is more evil than an infant child...&c.

The fourth reason that this professor is an idiot is that he did not respond to the student's reiteration of the "contrast theodicy" in the way that I will:

The professor was quite "on the money" when he asked the student if he would cure others' sicknesses, and then pointed out that God does not do this, and so the student was "more good" than God in this way. This gets to the crux of the issue: does God have a moral duty and moral obligation to do good? (See here for more on that) Even if you grant that evil is "just" the absence of good, then any time and any where you point to an absence of good, then you are pointing to a dereliction of duty on God's part. So long story short, whether you call it "the problem of evil" or "the problem of absent goods" you still have a strong argument for atheism. When the student says "evil does not exist," after he has defined evil as Augustine's privatio boni (privation of good), he is, in effect, incoherent, because if this is true, then good should be everywhere in everything all the time. I sincerely doubt any thinking person, theist or otherwise, would assert such nonsense.

Those four things make the professor an idiot, and by extension, make the dialog a straw man argument for theists to present. Real arguments for atheism aren't presented here. If you are interested in more, there are some who have taken the time to respond to more of this dialog at greater length than I will.

Morality and atheism: an analysis -- 3 of 3

See here for the outline of all three posts on morality and atheism.

Let's look again at the exchange with my friend via email:

BUT WHAT DOES WRONG MEAN? WHAT DOES RIGHT MEAN? WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOMETHING BEING RIGHT OR WRONG? AND WHY DOES THAT OR OUGHT THAT COMPELL TO ACT THIS OR THAT? FROM A THEISTIC PERSPECTIVE, IT MAKES SENSE. THERE IS A GOD WHO HAS THIS CHARACTER OF GOOD. WE ARE HIS CREATION AND OBJECT OF HIS CARE, AND OWE HIM LOYALTY AS HIM ON WHOM WE ARE UTTERLY DEPENDENT. HE IS ALSO THE JUDGE "WITH WHOM WE HAVE TO DO." THERE IS REASON TO ACT IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS WILL. THERE IS REASON TO DO GOOD. IT ENTAILS THE DESIRE TO FULFILL OUR DESTINY AS THOSE MADE IN HIS IMAGE (TO BE GOOD), TO WALK IN INTIMACY WITH HIM, AND THE FEAR OF JUDGMENT FROM THE JUDGE

I think it should be clear that everything I've written in parts 1 and 2 was intended to deal with the question of whether or not, "from a theistic perspective, it [morality] makes sense." I attempted to argue that morality cannot be contingent upon God's nature, that God's nature is an unsatisfactory basis for moral justification, and that using God in talking about morality obfuscates, rather than enlightens. I further developed in part two on how using God in talking about morality brings up more questions than answers, given the inability for God to fit the criteria of moral virtue that our own (human) nature does.

In sitting here writing about morality, and in your sitting there reading about it, we both presuppose something important: that morality and moral motivation are amenable to reason. If, at a basic level, people will act how they feel like acting, despite rational arguments against this behavior, then both of us are wasting our time, in a cosmic sense. It is only in the hope that people can be swayed by argument and can respond to normative values that we spend time on this endeavor.

Two irreducible and irreplaceable components of morality are the fact-value and is-ought distinctions. If you cannot commit to the existence of ought or the existence of value (even if these are merely nominal or conceptual), then no moral argument can be made to move you, for all such arguments presuppose these two things. My approach in making a moral argument will be to talk about human nature, human desires, moral values and the principles of symmetry and justice. One of the things I need to assume for the sake of trying to persuade you rationally to act morally is that you have a value for your own life and/or that of others around you. If you (irrationally) conclude that your own life has no value and neither does anyone else's, then your feeling on this matter has precluded my ability to persuade you to rationally act on the values that I must assert exist.

It is here that theists often conflate atheism with a lack of value and/or lack of obligation. And they are correct in saying that if there is no value to anything, then moral realism is false and we are all really responding only to our genetic and evolutionary programming by acting on our desires and avoiding things that repulse us. If this latter scenario is correct, then we are wasting our time writing and reading about morality, and all we can hope for is that the instincts we have will serve us and our society well in the future. In fact, our "hope" in this case is just a "feeling" as well and does not necessarily conform to rational direction.

Now I want to address his question:

• Why does that, or ought that, compel us to act?

This is where meta-ethics is done and moral psychology comes in.

Now, some theists assert, belief in God is a necessary part of moral motivation. Let's put one thing out there first: even if this is true, we cannot will ourselves to believe in something that we are not genuinely persuaded to be true. That means, in effect, that unless the theist can give the atheist a genuinely reasonable argument that persuades the atheist to become a theist, then this assertion is not normative. And so, if belief in god is not possible for a given person, and if moral motivation is dependent upon god-belief, then obviously that person will lack moral motivation. It doesn't mean that they can motivate themselves to believe in something they find unreasonable in order to motivate themselves morally!

Second, the theist appeals to two things for moral motivation that may seem uniquely available to theists:

1. fear: if you don't obey God's commandments, you'll be punished for it
2. self-interest: if you do obey God's commandments, you'll be rewarded for it
   

Simply put, the components of fear and self-interest exist in the atheist's world just as much (if not more so) than a theist's. If this life is all that there is, then it takes on an extraordinary amount of value, given that it is all that we have. Morality is logically necessary for society to function, rather than fall apart into chaos. Therefore, one can be motivated as an atheist by fear of anarchy and chaos, as well as the self-interest of hoping for a stable, prosperous society to live in. In this way, atheists can use fear and self-interest just as much as a theist. I can make other arguments of a similar fashion, whether the fear is based on going to prison, or the self-interest is based on "let live in order to live" symmetry. Bentham argued along these same lines, in showing how self-interest was not contradicted by altruism, for the overall good of society.

When we use the word "good" we imply value. If one is an amoralist, and claims there is no real ultimate value to anything, then it would be rather difficult to convince said person to be motivated to act morally. By reframing the motivation into one of a reasoned argument, you are still forced to accept, at some point in time, that doing something good is of value to you or to those you care about. Here's a short simple example:

1. All of the following are good: wealth, health and happiness.
   
2. Human beings can cooperate in societies, or they can compete tribally
3. When human beings form societies, morality is necessary for order and stability
4. The lack of society, in the form of tribal competition, does not bring about the greatest amount of these goods (from 1) for the greatest number
5. Since the greatest good for the greatest number occurs within society, morality is necessary to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number
   

What this argument does is give context to "doing good" by showing that "doing good" brings about second-order goods, in the form of wealth, health and happiness. If someone denies the first premise, then of course we're back at square one. But denial of premise (1) would seem to pose a problem for a theist, as it seems that most religions accept that God wants good things for humans; what about belief in God could make (1) false?

In addition, it may simply be the case that morality is self-contained when it comes to motivation: you do what is good because it is the good thing to do; you shun what is evil because it is evil! This may be simple, but that doesn't disqualify it at all. In point of fact, this may be the best motivation of all: the nature of morality itself is normative and therefore motivates us. It does not require external factors or belief: when you know what is good, you do it; when you know what is evil, you avoid it.

• On meta-ethics

I intend to deal with exactly what the first two questions he asked mean:

1. What does wrong mean? What does right mean?
2. What is the significance of something being right or wrong?

One question that meta-ethics brings up is what our ontological commitments are. That is to say, what sorts of things exist, and what properties do they have? We do not have to (yet) "account" for the things we think exist in simply describing ontology, as this is the purview of metaphysics and requires a comprehensive analysis. The question that is relevant here is that of moral realism and how it may affect the existence or nonexistence of moral facts and moral properties.

The queerness of moral properties has been known for a long time, but is probably best summarized by John L. Mackie in 1977. The roundness of an object is given in the object's dimensions and relations to itself. This is an easy property for us to define and make sense of. What about the property of clumsiness? We all must admit it exists, but to define it, and to show how this property is instantiated and exemplified gets very complex. What may seem awkward and clumsy to one person may seem a least satisfactory to another. In addition, while the property of roundness is given in an object's relations to its own dimensions (its shape), what exactly about someone or something makes it clumsy? Its movements, yes? But exactly which movements? Therein lies the rub...

Let's consider the case of evil I've been using since the first post: drowning an otherwise-healthy infant. Is it my pushing an infant below the surface of water that is immoral? Obviously not, mothers bathe their children in the same way every day. Is it the moment at which the baby's heart and brain are clinically dead? Well, that seems to imply that if I was able to resuscitate the child to life, then I've done nothing immoral. So in the same way that it becomes difficult to pin down the exact dimension of movement that is clumsy, so it is difficult to pin down the exact dimension of action versus intent that is evil. This is part of the issue of the queerness of moral properties: how to locate and define them in the first place.

One of the things that I think causes theists to argue that God is necessary for, or at least comports well with, moral realism is that they recognize that God is attributed the same queer properties as morality is: transcendence and metaphysical ultimacy. That is to say, there seems to be nothing about space-time and physics that make moral properties what they are, and they don't seem to be contingent upon the world in which we live.

• If moral properties exist, and are metaphysically ultimate

If it is indeed true that moral properties exist in the same way the redness and roundness do, and are metaphysically ultimate (not contingent), like mathematical truths, then the answers to our questions about right and wrong are simple, although they may not be to our liking: 2 + 2 = 4 because by definition, that's just what it means to sum identities. In the same way, drowning an infant is wrong by definition, that's just what it means to be immoral. There is nothing "arbitrary" about this, it is the definition of what it is.

But wait, you say, that's not satisfactory! Perhaps it doesn't explain things to your liking, but if it's true, then it's true: morality may simply be about the issue of causing harm to others. That maybe all that it is, whether we like it or not. The problem we have with this is that even when we agree on the moral status of some act (like drowning a baby), we may come up with different justifications for why we feel it is so.

But is this problem unique for morality? Not at all. Think, for instance of defining something scientific, like the unit of length. We all use different systems of measurement, but the objects being measured, and their property of length -- assuming it is constant -- these things are not subjective, but objective. Are our own systems of measurement arbitrary? Absolutely! But, the object that we measure is not arbitrary!

Perhaps all we're doing with the different schools of thought on morality is measuring the fundamental harm that something causes, or looking at it from different angles, but we aren't changing the fact that morality is still all about harm!

Moving on to his second question: what is the significance of it? A simple answer exists: right and wrong possess their own virtuous force! The significance of something being good is its goodness, which motivates us and defines its value. The significance of something being evil is its badness, which also motivates us (away from it) and defines its (negative) value. If more significance is needed, such as fear or self-interest, then I've already covered that, above.

This is one answer to my friend's question, although we may not like it because it is "too simple".

• If moral properties exist, and are contingent

Another possible answer to my friend's question about what right and wrong "are" could be that they are related to some objective facts about the world which are not metaphysically ultimate (like mathematical truths and analytical truths). Morality could be based on human nature and evolution. Indeed, it seems to be the case that humans can all agree on a few things (if you disagree, feel free to point out which premises you find faulty):

1. Certain facts about human nature give us certain desires and needs.
2. We rank or order these desires and needs into a sort of hierarchy. The need for food and water are foundational to our own minute-by-minute survival, while the desire to procreate is contingent on these first-order needs being met.
3. We either: 1) assign value to these things, or 2) recognize that there is intrinsic value to them. This distinction is drawn for someone who may be inclined towards nominalism (1) versus realism (2) when it comes to properties and relations.
   
4. When actions and behaviors promote our values, these are "good" and thus are morally what we ought to do. When actions and behaviors detract from, or go against these values, they are "evil" and thus are morally what we ought not do. This seems to follow definitionally from the concept of something having positive or negative value to us.

Imagine for a moment that pulling off someone's arm caused them to experience an orgasm, and they immediately regrew the limb. For that person, would pulling off their arm be an immoral act? It seems clear that the facts and restrictions about human nature; namely, how we experience pain and pleasure, directly influence our concept of morality. All you have to accept is that pain and pleasure form the basis of moral value, given human nature and the desire and need to avoid pain and the desire and need to enjoy pleasure. Thus the basis for many ethical theories involving utilitarianism.

Besides this simple but easily-followed layout of how we get the idea of objective moral properties that are contingent upon human nature, we can talk about how our moral faculties evolved and what role biology plays in the exercise of morality. Please notice that we're going from what good and evil are to how we recognize them.

On a recent Point of Inquiry, Marc D. Hauser spoke of how our moral faculties may be like our grammatical faculties -- cognitive modules that either develop properly or don't, but are entirely based on biology and evolutionary logic. He and Peter Singer summarize this view in a nice article hosted by the CFI. His co-author (Singer) has also written some great pieces on this same issue -- the evolution of a moral sense -- for NYT Magazine, among others. (also see this, this and this)

Now, what these scientific explanations really do is give plausible mechanisms to explain the evolution of a moral sense in humanity, including such evolutionary oddities as kin altruism. This, in turn, explains why we have an innate disgust at the idea of child rape and a universal set of moral principles involving avoidance of suffering and harm. What this does not do is give a meta-ethical justification as to whether or not causing harm without justification (i.e., self-defense, warfare) is actually wrong.

For that, we return to the question of whether foundational concepts form the basis of morality:
"Causing harm without necessity is wrong," or something of the like. The best answer seems to be that morality is all about causing harm, and that, by definition, humans ought not cause harm without justification (self-defense or the law).

In conclusion, the answers I present to my friend's questions are:

1. Wrong and right refer to actions or behaviors that we ought not do, or ought to do, respectively. Either these things are metaphysically ultimate, such as 2 + 2 = 4, and therefore not contingent, or they are objective facts founded on human nature, based on the concepts of pain and suffering. If they are contingent, then, they are contingent upon human nature; the existence of these values flows from our own human natures: value is directly related to human needs and desires. These are universal and absolute, given that survival and death are universal human experiences, but may or may not be metaphysically ultimate. Either way, they are independent of the question of God's existence.
2. The significance of rightness or wrongness is, as Kant would say, "the thing in itself": the value of acting morally is its own significance. If this sounds circular it is meant to be so, because the entire idea of morality is self-contained: as we have seen, appealing to authority or fear are not the same as appealing to one's sense of duty and obligation. Doing good is, itself, good (valuable/significant) and doing evil is, itself, evil (it works in opposition to that which we value and find significant). One must derive value from "doing what is good/doing what one ought to do," nor find reason to oppose "doing what is evil/doing what one ought not do"

And so it seems the crux of the issue is this:

• If moral realism is true, then there are moral facts and objective moral properties.
• If moral realism is not true, then "moral facts" may simply mean that certain statements or beliefs about morality are just how humans feel about them -- this is the essence of cultural relativism
  
• If moral realism is not true, then we have no real cause to argue about morality, since you are simply affirming how you believe when you say, "X is good," or "Y is evil," and so am I. Our beliefs cannot be fundamentally proven right or wrong, and so moral disagreement may never be resolved.
  

See here for the outline of all three posts on morality and atheism.

Booblefrip & an all-evil God

A great article on the problem of evil (my fave) by Stephen Law to pass on:

The God of Eth: are the usual religious defenses of belief in God really up to the job? A dialogue
Skeptical Inquirer, Sept-Oct, 2005 by Stephen Law

Most people who believe in, God assume their belief to be pretty reasonable. "Perhaps Gods existence can't be conclusively proved," they'll say, but it s a fairly sensible thing to believe--far more sensible than, say, belief in fairies or Santa Claus." But are they right?

Christians, Muslims, and Jews all believe that God is both all-powerful and all-good. Indeed, God is often characterized as an infinitely loving father. Yet most of the popular arguments for the existence of God allow us to deduce little if anything about his moral character. Take the argument from design, for example. Even if it can be shown that the universe does show signs of design, what's the evidence that its creator is all-good?

There is also a well-known argument that, even if the universe was created by an all-powerful being, that being is not all-good. The argument is called the problem of evil, and runs roughly as follows: if God is both all-powerful and all-good, why is there so much suffering in the world? Why does God inflict earthquakes, floods, famines, and the Black Death upon us? Why does he give small children cancer? Why does he make life so grindingly miserable for so many? Why does he arrange for millions of us to end our lives horrendously scarred in many cases both physically and psychologically crippled--by the world he created for us? This hardly sounds like the behavior of a supremely compassionate and loving father figure, does it? Surely, there's overwhelming evidence that the universe is not under the control of a limitlessly powerful and benevolent character.

Many find this argument compelling. But of course, there are plenty who believe the problem of evil can be dealt with. How? Religious thinkers have, over the centuries, developed a number of ingenious solutions. Here are some popular examples:

The free-will solution. God gave us free will. We are not blind automata, but free agents, capable of making our own choices and acting on them. As a result of God having given us free will, we sometimes choose to do wrong. We start wars, steal, and so on. So some suffering results from our possessing free will. However, it is still better that we have free will. Free will is a very great good that more than compensates for the suffering it can bring.

The character-building solution. We know that a bad experience can sometimes make us stronger. We can learn and be enriched, through suffering. For example, people who have suffered a terrible disease sometimes say they gained greatly from it. Similarly, by causing us pain and suffering, God allows us to grow and develop both morally and spiritually. It is only through our experiencing this suffering that we can ultimately become the noble souls God wants us to be.

Some goods require evils. Theists often point out that God inevitably had to include quite a bit of suffering in his creation in order that certain important goods could exist. Take, for example, charity and sympathy. Charity is a great virtue. Yet you can only be charitable if there exist others who are needy. Similarly, you can only sympathize with someone whom you perceive to be suffering. Charity and sympathy are so-called "second order" goods that require "first order" evils like neediness and suffering (or at least the appearance of such evils) to exist. It's argued that these second order goods outweigh the first order evils, which is why God allows the evils to occur.

Play the mystery card. Some theists point out that God works in mysterious ways. It's arrogant of us to suppose that we can understand the mind of an infinitely powerful and wise being. The evil God inflicts upon us is, actually, all for the best. It's just that we, being mere humans, can't see how.

Many believe that these and other similar arguments largely take the sting out of the problem of evil. Some think they dispose of the problem altogether. I find them utterly inadequate. The following dialogue is my attempt to convey why.

Welcome to Eth, a modestly proportioned planet on the far side of our galaxy. Here, beneath the great marble spires of Eth's finest university, the debate of the age is taking place. Arrayed on either side of the university's Great Chamber are Eth's finest scholars and thinkers. They are here to decide the most controversial and emotional issue dividing the inhabitants of Eth: Does God exist?

To the right of the Great Chamber are arrayed the believers. To the left sit the skeptics. The public galleries are nearly bursting with those waiting to observe the proceedings. At the end of the debate, the audience will vote.

Booblefrip, the birdlike Professor of Origin, and Gizimoth, the portly Arch-logos Inquisitor, lead the debate.

GIZIMOTH: Here, on Eth, many of us believe in God, do we not?

BOOBLEFRIP: Certainly.

GIZIMOTH: So what is God like?

BOOBLEFRIP: Well, God is all-powerful, of course. God can do anything. He created the entire universe, including every last one of us. God's awesome power knows no bounds!

(A whisper of approval ripples across the believers on the right side of the Great Chamber.)

GIZIMOTH: Let's agree about that, then. God, if he exists, is omnipotent. But here on Eth, those who believe in God also attribute another property to him, don't they?

BOOBLEFRIP: Yes. As you know, we also believe that God is all-evil.

GIZIMOTH: Can you explain what you mean by that?

BOOBLEFRIP: Not only does God's power know no bounds, neither does his depravity. His cruelty is infinite; his malice without end.

(Booblefrip casts a cool look across the right side of the chamber.)

GIZIMOTH: I see. All powerful. And all-evil. Now Professor Booblefrip, do you think that you could briefly explain why you think it's reasonable to believe in such a being? What grounds can you provide to justify belief in this evil God?

BOOBLEFRIP: Well, I don't say I can conclusively prove beyond doubt that God exists. But it seems to me that there are at least two rather good reasons for believing in God. First, it seems obvious to me, as it does to many, that the universe must have come from somewhere. Don't you agree?

GIZIMOTH: Of course. The scientists assembled here will tell you that there is a perfectly good scientific explanation for the existence of the universe--the Big Bang. About 14 billion years ago, an unimaginably violent explosion occurred, in which all matter and energy came into existence, and in which space and even time itself began.

BOOBLEFRIP: We're all familiar with the Big Bang theory, Professor Gizimoth. But of course, the Big Bang really only postpones the mystery of why there is anything at all, doesn't it? For now we need to explain why there was a Big Bang. Why did the Big Bang happen? Science can't explain that, can it? There's a real mystery here, isn't there?

GIZIMOTH: Hmm. Perhaps.

BOOBLEFRIP: The only satisfactory explanation we have for why the universe came into existence in the first place is that God created it. So, there's my first reason to believe in God.

(Gizimoth frowns--he's clearly not buying Booblefrip's argument--but he encourages Booblefrip to continue.)

GIZIMOTH: And your second reason?

BOOBLEFRIP: Take a look around you at the wonders of the universe. Life. Conscious beings like ourselves. Do you suppose that all this appeared just by chance?. Surely not. The universe shows clear signs of design. And where there's design, there's a designer!

GIZIMOTH: But science can explain life. What about the theory of natural selection? That explains how, over millions of years, life forms evolved and developed. It explains how complex life-forms can gradually evolve from even the simplest of bacteria. Science can perfectly well explain life without introducing your supernatural designer.

BOOBLEFRIP: Natural selection can't explain everything. For example, it can't explain why the universe was set up to allow natural selection to take place in the first place, can it?

GIZIMOTH: Hmm. Well, no, it can't explain that.

BOOBLEFRIP: Did you know that if the laws governing the universe had been only very slightly different, the universe would not have survived more than a second or two? Either that or it would have quickly dissipated into a thin sterile soup, incapable of producing life. For life to emerge and evolve, you need very specific conditions. The universe must be set up in an extremely precise fashion. And of course, we know that it was set up in just this way, don't we!

GIZIMOTH: I guess so.

BOOBLEFRIP: Now, that it should just happen to be set up in just this way by chance is too much to swallow. That would be a fluke of cosmic proportions. It's much more sensible, surely, to suppose that someone deliberately designed the universe this way, so as to produce life and ultimately ourselves. That someone is God!

(Another warm ripple of approval arises from the right side of the Great Chamber. The assembled academics feel that, so far at least, Booblefrip is getting the better of the argument. But Gizimoth is perplexed.)

GIZIMOTH: Very well, let's suppose the universe does show clear signs of having been designed by an intelligent being.

BOOBLEFRIP: Ah, a convert!

GIZIMOTH: Not at all. I'm supposing this only for the sake of argument. You still haven't given me much reason to suppose that this designer is all-evil, have you?

BOOBLEFRIP: But God is, by definition, all-evil.

GIZIMOTH: But why define God that way? Why not suppose, instead, that God is neither good nor evil? Or why not suppose he is all-good?

(Booblefrip thinks Gizimoth has gone too far.)

BOOBLEFRIP: What a bizarre suggestion. It's obvious our creator is very clearly evil! Take a look around you! Witness the horrendous suffering he inflicts upon us. The floods. The ethquakes. Cancer. The vile, rotting stench of God's creation is overwhelming!

GIZIMOTH: Yes, our creator may do some evil. But it's not clear he's all-evil, is it? It's certainly not obvious that his wickedness is infinite, that his malice and cruelty know no bounds. You're deliberately ignoring a famous argument against the existence of God--the problem of good.

BOOBLEFRIP: I'm familiar with the problem of good--we theologians of Eth have been debating it for centuries. But it's not fatal to belief in God.

GIZIMOTH: Really? Let's see. The problem of good, as you know, is essentially very simple. If the universe was designed by an all-powerful, all-evil God, then why is there so much good in the world?

BOOBLEFRIP: That's the supposed problem, yes.

GIZIMOTH: Why, for example, does God allow at least some people to live out happy, contented, and fulfilled lives? Why doesn't he torture them instead? If God is all-powerful, he certainly could torture them, couldn't he?

BOOBLEFRIP: Well, yes, he could.

GIZIMOTH: In fact, he could make their lives utterly miserable. And we know that, since he is also supremely evil, he must want them to suffer. Yet, he gives some people every consideration. Why? It makes no sense, does it?

BOOBLEFRIP: Perhaps not at first sight, no.

GIZIMOTH: Here's another example. Why does God allow us to do good deeds, to help our fellow Ethians? He even allows us to lay down our lives for each other. These selfless actions improve the quality of our lives no end. So why does God allow them? Why doesn't he force us to be nasty and do evil, just like him?

BOOBLEFRIP: I grant you that the fact that God allows so much noble and selfless behavior might seem like very good evidence that he is not all-evil. But appearances can be deceptive.

GIZIMOTH: Also, if God is absolutely evil, why did he put so much beauty in the world for us to enjoy? Why did he create such sublime sunsets?

BOOBLEFRIP: Good question.

GIZIMOTH: And why does God give us children, who bring us immeasurable happiness? You see? There are countless ways in which our lives are enriched by God's creation.

BOOBLEFRIP: But there's also evil!

GIZIMOTH: True, there's evil in the world. But there's an awful lot of good. Far too much good, in fact, for anyone reasonably to conclude that the universe was created by an all-evil God. Belief in a supremely wicked creator is palpably absurd.

(There is much quiet nodding to the left of the Great Chamber. Gizimoth's argument has struck a chord even with the unbelievers. But Booblefrip thinks Gizimoth's argument is far from conclusive.)

BOOBLEFRIP: Look, I admit that the amount of good in the world might seem to undermine belief in an all-powerful, all-evil god. But actually, we believers can explain why a supremely evil God would allow all these good things to happen.

GIZIMOTH: By all means try.

BOOBLEFRIP: Surely you are familiar with the free-will defense?

GIZIMOTH: Perhaps you would care to explain it.

BOOBLEFRIP: Very well. God's malevolence is without end. True, he lets us do good. He allows us to act selflessly for the betterment of others, for example. But there's a reason for that.

GIZIMOTH: What reason?

BOOBLEFRIP: God gave us free will.

GIZIMOTH: Free will?

BOOBLEFRIP: Yes. God could have made us mere automata that always did the wrong thing. But he didn't do that. He gave us the freedom to choose how we act.

GIZIMOTH: Why?

BOOBLEFRIP: By giving us free will, God actually increased the amount of suffering there is in the world. He made the world far more terrible than it would otherwise have been!

GIZIMOTH: How?

BOOBLEFRIP: Think about it. By giving us free will, God can be sure we will agonize endlessly about what we should do. For free will brings with it the torture of temptation. And then, when we succumb to temptation, we feel guilty. Knowing that being free, we could have done otherwise, we feel awful about what we have done. We end up torturing ourselves. The exquisitely evil irony of it all!

GIZIMOTH: Hmm.

BOOBLEFRIP: By giving us free will, God allowed for far more intense and subtle forms of suffering than would otherwise be possible.

GIZIMOTH: But what about the good that people sometimes do?

BOOBLEFRIP: It's true that people do sometimes choose to act selflessly and nobly and that this can produce good. But this good is far outweighed by the additional suffering free will brings. Just take a look at the world, for goodness sake! It's a world full of people who not only behave despicably but also agonize endlessly about what they have done!

GIZIMOTH: But this is ridiculous!

BOOBLEFRIP: Why?

GIZIMOTH: Well, for a start, this only explains the good that we bring about by acting freely. It doesn't explain the existence of naturally occurring good.

BOOBLEFRIP: Such as?

GIZIMOTH: Well, what about the glories of nature: sublime sunsets, stunning landscapes, the splendor of the heavens? We're not responsible for those things, are we?

BOOBLEFRIP: No. God is.

GIZIMOTH: But why would an all-evil God create something that gives us pleasure? Also, why does he give us beautiful children to love? And why does he choose to give some people extraordinary good fortune--health, wealth, and happiness in abundance? Surely, the existence of these goods provides us with overwhelming evidence that, even if the universe has a creator, he's not all bad?

BOOBLEFRIP: You're mistaken, Gizimoth. Such things are exactly what we should expect if God is supremely evil.

GIZIMOTH: But why?

BOOBLEFRIP: Some natural beauty is certainly to be expected. If everything was uniformly ugly, we wouldn't be tormented by the ugliness half as much as we are when it's laced with some beauty. To truly appreciate the ghastliness of the environment most of us inhabited--urine-stained, concrete-and-asphalt wasteland peppered with advertising billboards, drug addicts, and dog dirt--we need to be reminded every now and then that things could be different. God put some natural beauty into the world to make our recognition of the ugliness and dreariness of day-to-day life all the more acute.

GIZIMOTH: Hmm. But why would a supremely wicked God give us beautiful children to love?

BOOBLEFRIP: Because he knows we'll spend our entire lives worrying about them. Only a parent can know the depth of torture a child brings.

GIZIMOTH: Why does he give us healthy, young bodies?

BOOBLEFRIP: He makes sure that both our bodies and their vitality and health are short-lived. You see, by giving us something and then snatching it away, our evil creator can make us suffer even more than if we had never had it.

GIZIMOTH: But then, why does God allow some people to live out such contented lives?

BOOBLEFRIP: Of course an evil God is going to bestow upon a few people lavish lifestyles, good health, and immense success. Their happiness is designed to make the suffering of the rest of us even more acute! We'll be wracked by feelings of envy, jealousy, and failure! Who can be content while others have so much more!

GIZIMOTH: Oh, honestly!

BOOBLEFRIP: Don't you see? The world clearly was designed to produce life--to produce conscious beings like ourselves. Why? So that its designer can torture us. The world is designed to physically and psychologically crush us, so that we are ultimately overwhelmed by life's futility and bow out in despair.

(Gizimoth is becoming frustrated. Every time he comes up with another piece of evidence that the universe wasn't designed by a supremely evil deity, Booblefrip turns out to have yet another ingenious explanation up his sleeve. And yet, thinks Gizimoth, the evidence against the existence of an utterly evil God is overwhelming.)

GIZIMOTH: This is ridiculous. You have an answer for everything!

BOOBLEFRIP: Yes, I do have an answer to all your arguments. So far, you've given me not the slightest reason to suppose that the world was not created by a supremely evil being. But if you're unhappy with my answers, let me try a rather different approach. There are some evils that require good in order to exist, aren't there?

GIZIMOTH: Such as?

BOOBLEFRIP: Take the evil of jealousy. Jealousy requires something to be jealous of. God gave good things to some people so that others would feel jealous. Or take lying. Lying requires that people often tell the truth--otherwise, there would be no point in lying, because no one would believe you. The evil of dishonesty requires that there be a certain amount of honesty.

GIZIMOTH: And you think this evil outweighs the good it depends on?

BOOBLEFRIP: Exactly. God allows some good things into his creation. It's the price he has to pay for the greater evil.

GIZIMOTH: These tricky replies of yours are patently absurd. You can't seriously maintain that the world you see around you--a world full of natural beauty and laughing children--is really the handiwork of an infinitely evil God?

BOOBLEFRIP: I do maintain that, yes. True, I may not be able to account for every last drop of good in the world. But remember that we are dealing here with the mind of God. Who are you to suppose you can understand the mind of an infinitely intelligent and knowledgeable being? Isn't it arrogant of you to suppose that you can figure out God's master plan?

GIZIMOTH: I'm arrogant?.

(There's some subtle nodding from the believers on the right.)

BOOBLEFRIP: Yes, arrogant. Evil God works in mysterious ways. Ultimately, everything really is all for the worst. It's just that, being mere humans, we can't always figure out how.

GIZIMOTH: Oh, really. This is--

BOOBLEFRIP: I think it's arrogant of you to suppose otherwise--to suppose that you must be able to figure it all out. (At the end of the debate, the audience votes. After the deliberation, a spokesperson steps forward with their verdict.)

SPOKESMAN: It seems to us that Booblefrip has made a powerful case for supposing the world was created by God. In addition, Booblefrip has provided a compelling defense of belief in this evil being. He has successfully explained why even an evil God would allow a great deal of good. And so the motion is carried--we are persuaded that Evil God exists.

Are you persuaded by Booblefrip's defense of belief in a supremely evil God? Of course not. His explanations are clearly utterly feeble. Surely, despite all of Booblefrip's convoluted maneuverings, the fact remains that belief in a supremely evil God is patently absurd.

But of course, Booblefrip's defense merely flips around the standard explanations that theists offer in defense of belief in a good God. His attempts to explain what good there is in the world mirror the theist's attempts to explain the evil. If Booblefrip's explanations are deeply inadequate, why aren't the theist's explanations? That's the question theists needs to answer.

Of course, theists consider belief in an all-evil God to be downright silly. And rightly so: there's clearly far too much good in the world. So why is it that they consistently fail to recognize that the sheer quantity of suffering in the world renders their belief in an all-good God equally silly? Surely, even if the universe does have a designer/creator, isn't it patently obvious that this being is neither all-evil, nor all-good?

Stephen Law is a lecturer in philosophy at London University. He edits the Royal Institute of Philosophy's journal Think: Philosophy for Everyone and is the author of The Philosophy Gym. He has a Web site at www.thinking-big.co.uk.

This nice dialogue reminds me of the The Screwtape Letters.

The argument from evil simply refutes theism. End of story.

Good discussion on facebook

I've been enjoying a back-and-forth with a nice Christian (no, not Dan Marvin) on a facebook discussion board about evolution/science/religion.

In my first long comment, I tried to explain that even if science is devoid of moral explanations, this doesn't validate religious claims. It is entirely possible that neither science nor religion have the tools to explain/justify morality.

In my second long comment, I tried to respond to Andrew's inquiry about whether things like qualia disqualify physicalism.

Check 'em out below:

• Comment one:

I think Ryan gave a nice explanation of his answer, and I just wanted to follow up your comment and clarify what I said above.

In regards to what you said:

1) Even if it's true that science doesn't supply any "oughts," that doesn't mean that we can invent them from religious mythology.

2) Science and common sense/logic supply analytical tools to evaluate what is the best thing to do in most situations -- that which serves "the greatest good for the greatest number" is always an easy benchmark. Infidelity and lying are examples of how we have to act at times against our baser instincts (of harm avoidance/self-preservation that make us want to lie, and impulse fulfillment that makes us want to be sexually promiscuous) in order to preserve important higher-order social structures that benefit us all in the long run. Ditto with crime: committing murder or theft leads to rips in the fabric of society; society supplies us with more "high end" goods than it is worth trading for "low end" momentary impulse satisfaction. So in a way, there need not be anything more to morality than that it just so happens that what is "best" = what we "ought" to do and therefore utilitarian ethics is self-contained and very consonant with science and logical analysis.

"I am a fan of intellectual discussion for sure, but at some point I have to leave the white walls of a classroom, drop my pen onto the paper and live life."

And you don't have to stop being logical/analytical/critically thinking as you do so. If you can justify acting morally using nothing but some pretty safe assumptions and solid logical relations, then you're fine. If not, then maybe you ought to abandon whatever aspect of morality you can't justify (I think of lots of religion-related "moral oughts" -- like sex before marriage, etc.).
_____
To clarify a bit regarding what I said earlier:

Evolutionary biology is not (typically) about individuals. Evolution occurs in populations, not individuals, as Mayr spent a great deal of time explaining. Therefore, when we find very useful (true) models of how to scientifically explain adaptations with evolution as exploiting some aspect of an ecological niche, we are almost always referring to an entire species. Evolutionary biology is about principles that explain common descent with modification. It is much more difficult to use evolution to analyze one particular individual and its actions/adaptations to its environment, since part of evolutionary theory is that variation will occur within populations, and *only some of it will be beneficial* -- the way this relates to the examples this thread began with is that it may not be beneficial to be born a sociopath (no empathy or impulse control). That doesn't mean it isn't "scientific" or contradicts evolution.

It's just that being born in society means that there are selective pressures to have those things, so these may be *unfavorable* variants.

When we talk about why person X did some horrible act, it thus becomes necessary to abandon the concept that this act:

1) May be rationally justifiable. Insanity is organic and biology explains it well; it can sometimes be cured with pills, after all.
2) May be the result of something "beneficial" in evolution; evolutionary progress occurs through the weeding out of "bad apples" -- person X may be one of those, having mental disease or defect or etc.

Some animals are not social animals. If we look at non-social animals, the traits that person X exemplifies (selfishness, low impulse control, lack of priority...) may be *best* for non-social creatures. Because humans have to be social to survive, they *must* develop things like moral codes and laws. Some of the weirdness that arises out of the necessity for codes and laws includes religion, with things like animal sacrifice and body piercing and lots of other behaviors that don't seem to have any direct "survival value" and are therefore hard to fit in to general simple evolutionary explanations. These are the "culture" that I mentioned in my first comment -- they arise out of the primary survival pressures, but are not, necessarily, themselves survival-related, and are thus epiphenomena.

• Comment two:

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, and I apologize for the long delay in response.

You said:

For me, I don't see evolution, on a grand or individual scale, as sufficient enough for our lives as human beings.

That's an intriguing comment that I may be tempted to agree with, given certain constraints on the interpretation of that claim. If you mean "evolution as an explanation of the origin of the species homo sapiens," then I would disagree, of course. But given that so many other things are necessary to understand ourselves than "just" how we evolved from other apes, I would agree that evolution isn't "sufficient" in the sense that it leaves so much else out of the picture of what/who we are, where we've been and where we're heading.

That line of thinking reminds me to a very good article in the NYT last year; here's a good quote from that article:

"'We should let the success of the religious formula guide us,' Dr. Porco said. 'Let’s teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome — and even comforting — than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.'"

You said:

I have met some men (George Bowes, Professor of Botany at UF for example) and have also listened to the director of the Human Genome Project who look at science on all levels as one of many means to show us more of who God is, actually explaining how much "life" is in science.

This last part is quite an ambiguous statement (explaining how much "life" is in science). If you look at evolution on the scale of physics and biochemistry, then I'm afraid that "life" itself is rather difficult to define. See, for instance, this article on that topic. Here's a relevant excerpt from that piece:

Carol Cleland first began to mull the definition of life in the late 1990s. She had spent much of her career as a philosopher pondering fundamental, metaphysical matters such as cause and effect. But in 1996, when NASA scientists found what looked like microbe fossils inside a meteorite from Mars, Cleland was invited to speak on a panel about the mystery.

Looking into the matter, Cleland concluded that a lot of the controversy came out of confusion. Critics were treating the NASA report as if it were experimental science, with a hypothesis that could be tested with experiments. But it's impossible to do experimental science on a single 4-billion-year old rock. Instead, the NASA scientists were doing historical science, which Cleland argued was as legitimate a science as experimental science.

Cleland's talk resulted in an invitation to join the NASA Astrobiology Institute. There, as she learned how scientists at the Institute thought about the search for extraterrestrial life, something set off Cleland's philosophical radar. "Everybody was working with a definition of life," she says. Cleland began to feel that the concept of attempting to define life was deeply flawed, and she made her concerns public at a meeting called "The Nature of Life" hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2001. Speaking to an audience of scientists, she said the search for a definition of life was beyond problematic, and they should simply stop looking for one. The quest could either be impossible or scientifically trivial. End of story.

"There was an explosion," says Cleland. "Everyone was yelling at me. It was really amazing. Everyone had their pet definitions and wanted to air them. And here I told them the whole definition project was worthless."

Not everyone in the audience was yelling, though. "What she said made a lot of sense to me," says Christopher Chyba, a professor of astronomy at Princeton University.

Now, if you want to try to talk about how God = the natural laws of the universe, or some such thing, or is revealed through them, then I suppose we could have a good discussion on the implications of uniformity and what quantum theory does to that notion. The problem is that theists often only look at these laws and claim something akin to, "laws require a lawgiver." They often don't analyze the metaphysical issues at play: that a universe could not exist in the first place without certain properties; that these properties require relationships between space and matter; that these are the basis of our "laws"...

Also, most theists ignore the really ugly consequences of some of these laws, from the heat death of the universe to the prevalence of birth defects like anencephaly.

You said:

The strongest I believe is found in marriage. Be honest with me since you are married and I am not--is there something deeper and more profound in marriage that just physical, biological responses?

I always try to be honest, and in doing so, I must point out that we've waded out here into two areas that are very difficult to talk about "scientifically": 1) qualia, 2) the fact-value distinction.

1) The relationship of qualia to physicalism is vexing and takes up more pages of philosophy than I care to even begin to read, much the less explain here. Whether or not our perceptions and experiences relate to fixed brain states is not likely to ever be proven one way or another scientifically. Long story short, our first-person experiences probably don't reduce very well to reductionist explanations, but there is absolutely no explanatory value to saying, "therefore, a magical, invisible soul explains all this!"

2) The feelings that I feel when I look at my wife are indeed the end result of a cascade of neurological, physical, biological responses that were *caused* by the input of her image into my visual cortex. What you seem to dislike about that is that you feel it cheapens the experiences or value of marriage.

When we say something like, "that's all they are," we're making a value judgment. It's akin to you denying that a bullet through the gut is sufficient to explain your pain by saying, "it's just a tiny piece of lead, but I feel far too much for that to account for it."

Your pain is "more" than *just* bullet and its physical consequences, because your conscious experience of it leads to you assign it a great deal of (negative) value. In just the same way, my feelings for my wife are "more" than *just* a bunch of neurotransmitters, but only in VALUE. That doesn't mean that these physical things are not the *causes* and physical basis of what we come to assign *value* to. You admit yourself that you must wade off into mystical thinking ("...I don't have any empirical evidence here...") in order to ask me the question you asked.

You said:

Also, I am not saying one must get rid of logic and reason, either.

But all you offer here is a fallacy of "argument from ignorance": you think that if science cannot explain qualia, or the experiences of bonding in marriage, that you have, by default, an argument that validates your own presumed explanation of those things (that a God exists, that a soul exists, &c.). Unfortunately, your position of claiming that science is incapable of explanation is not the same as offering one; religion offers no evidence or explanation for these things at all. "It's spiritual," is not an explanation, but an avoidance of explanation -- you offer no mechanisms to explain conscious experience, no reason to choose dualism as a superior option. In fact, if our physical brains are not the sole reason for our consciousness and qualia, then we have a new can of worms that is opened by questions about how physical things can so easily change our states of mind and ability to remember and experience things; about why your own conscious experience only occurs from inside the perspective of your own body, &c., but those arguments are for another time...

You said:

...I will almost always argue from the perspective of "relationship."

But your "relationship" is with an invisible purported creator of the entire universe, of 50,000 billion billion stars, with whom many other people also claim a quite different sort of relationship & with whom you have only one-way conversations & from whom a claimed bunch of "love letters" that date back thousands of years. To top it off, you have to account for things like the problem of evil. And so your "relationship" is not a terribly "living" one, irrespective of the rhetoric used to make it such. It is insolubly similar to the other Abrahamic religions (among others) in this way. Christianity is a pagan modification of Judaism that *claims* a new revelation and relationship with the God of the Jews, not an *actual* relationship.