Arguments to and from Miracles (Part 1) - Hume and Violation Miracles

This post serves a dual function. It is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt’s book The Non-Existence of God, and my series on Miracles.

Over the next few posts I will be covering chapter 6 of Everitt’s book, entitled “Arguments to and from Miracles”. This will serve as a nice, gentle and general introduction to the philosophical issues associated with miracles and miracle claims.

Everitt begins his chapter by noting that miracles are thought to be both indicators of God’s existence and (potentially) God’s character. He then observes that one of the problems associated with evaluating arguments to and from miracles is that they frequently rely on different senses of the term "miracle".

In this entry we will discuss the violation sense of the term "miracle".


1. Hume and Violation Miracles
We begin with the locus classicus: Hume’s discussion of violation miracles in his essay “Of Miracles”. This is a text to which we will return time and again throughout this series as it has shaped the contours of the modern philosophical discussion. In his essay, Hume defines miracles as follows:

• “Miracle” = a violation (or transgression) of a law of nature by a particular volition of the deity.

This violation sense of the term miracle is undoubtedly popular. The idea, presumably, is that the natural world is governed by a set of laws determining regular unfolding of events and that the only being who could violate such laws would have to be supernatural in origin.

The problem with this is that although there may well be a fixed set of natural laws, we are not necessarily any good at identifying them. Thus, it will be difficult to assess whether a putative violation is due the actual intervention of God, or due to an error in how we have been identifying the laws of nature. Hume, as we shall see, uses this as the basis for an argument against believing in miracles.

Before outlining Hume’s argument, Everitt stops to make a couple of points.

First, some believers argue that even if we could identify them, violations of the laws of nature would not necessarily be evidence for the existence of God. They contend that the violation must contribute to some divine purpose. Of course, this assumes that we have some alternative source of information about divine purposes.

Second, it is not necessary to assume -- even on this definition -- that miracles are rare. Indeed, some religious doctrines suggest that miracles might be commonplace. As examples of this consider some of the claims made concerning the success of petitionary prayer, and the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. That said, regular occurrence of miracles might create some problems from an evidential perspective, as we shall see.


2. Hume’s Argument
In his essay on miracles, Hume makes two simple arguments. The first is an in principle argument. It suggests that it is (in principle) impossible to rationally believe in the occurrence of violation miracles. The second is an in fact argument. It suggests that the existing testimony is weak.

The in principle argument relies on Hume’s mini-theory of rational belief. This has two elements to it: (i) beliefs must be proportionate to the available evidence and (ii) the prior improbability of an event increases the evidence needed to prove that the event occurred.

To see how Hume’s mini-theory works, consider a simple example: a friend of yours tells you that they saw a cow in a field. Assume your friend’s eyesight is normal and they have no reason to lie. Should you believe them? I would say yes: the presence of a cow in a field does not suffer from prior improbability and so relatively little evidence is needed to make belief in the presence of that cow rationally acceptable.

Now imagine a second version of this. This time around your friend claims that they saw a three-headed cow in the field. Should you believe them? No: the existence of a three-headed cow suffers from prior improbability and so you will need more than one eyewitness to convince you of its presence. You would probably need several (independent!) eyewitnesses, photographic evidence and may even like to confirm it for yourself.

Based on this example, Hume’s mini-theory of rationality seems unexceptionable. But now consider how it applies when you’re receiving testimony about the occurrence of a violation miracle. To make belief in this miracle rationally acceptable, two propositions need to be established:

• (1) That there is a law of nature L.

• (2) That event E (a violation of L) has occurred.

It is worth emphasising the point that both of these need to established, not just (2). But since our beliefs must be proportionate to the evidence, and since we could err in our identification of the laws of nature, Hume points out that:

• (3) The statement that E has occurred contradicts the statement that L is a law of nature.

In other words, any evidence that is sufficiently strong to prove the occurrence of E would also be evidence that counts against L’s status as a law of nature. It might be that L really is a law of nature and E really is a miracle, but it might also be that E is something that should encourage us to revise our commitment to L.

This is Hume’s in principle argument. Note that although Hume explicitly refers to belief in E that is based on testimony, the same argument holds even if you have observed the evidence for E yourself.

Hume follows this up with a discussion of the kinds of evidence that usually is presented to support belief in miracles and finds it to be not even of sufficient strength to warrant agnosticism. We won’t discuss that argument here.


3. Assessing Hume’s Argument
In assessing Hume’s argument, Everitt points out that Hume is not claiming that violation miracles are impossible. This is a common misinterpretation, one to which even the most sophisticated of Bayesian interpreters can fall prey. Rather, Hume is claiming that the following disjunctive conclusion must be reached:

• (4) Either it is rational to believe that E occurred but was not a violation miracle, or it is rational to believe that E did not occur.

Everitt thinks that many commentators fail to understand both the strengths and the limitations of this conclusion.

As an example, he cites Brian Davies who argues that although testimony may fail to provide rationally compelling evidence of miracles, the testimony could be corroborated by physical evidence. The idea being that historical events leave causal traces in the present that could be recovered.

Everitt responds by saying that this could very well be true, but that it misses the point. The point is not that testimony is particularly weak form of evidence; the point is that evidence for miracles and laws of nature complement one another. The more credible is the evidence for the miracle; the less credible is the evidence for the law of nature, and vice versa.

Everitt thinks that, when understood properly, Hume’s argument really does provide a decisive blow to arguments supporting the occurrence of violation miracles. But he qualifies this by saying that the decisive blow could be avoided by simply offering a different definition of miracles.


4. Conclusion
That is the extent of Everitt’s discussion of Hume’s argument. A few words are in order. Everitt studiously avoids the recent Bayesian interpretations and critiques of Hume’s argument. This is something for which he has been criticised. According to some of the Bayesian critiques, the disjunctive conclusion reached above is much too strong because there are conditions under which it may be permissible to believe in the occurrence of miracles.

We will consider some of these more sophisticated Bayesian critiques in future entries to this series. In the next post on Everitt’s chapter, we will consider two further arguments against the violation sense of miracles.

Omnipotence (Part 4)

This post is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's book The Non-Existence of God. For an index, see here.

I am currently working through Chapter 13 of the book. This chapter deals with the potential contradictions inherent in the concept of an omnipotent being. Everitt surveys five possible definitions of omnipotence and checks them for inconsistencies.

We closed the last part by looking at the third definition of omnipotence:

• Def. 3: "X is omnipotent" = "X can do everything that it is logically possible for a being with X's defining or necessary properties to do."

Applied to God, this definition means that God's power must be consistent with his freedom, knowledge and moral perfection. In a different series of posts, we ran into some of the problems with this definition.

Everitt raises similar objections.

1. God's Omnipotence is Relative to Time

Some things are only logically possible at particular moments in time. If we assume that God is in some sense temporal (either totally or just in his relations with human beings) then his power would limited by ordinary temporal processes. For example, it would have been possible for him to prevent the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami back in 2004, but not in 2006.

If this reasoning is correct, we get a fourth definition of omnipotence:

• Def. 4: "X is omnipotent" = "At every time, X can do everything that it is logically possible for a being of X's nature to do at that time."

So now God's power is relativised to both his nature and to time. Does this leave us with a coherent conception of omnipotence?

Not really, as Everitt notes, once you start relativising your definition of omnipotence in this manner you open up the possibility of many omnipotent beings. Indeed, every being is omnipotent relative to some identifiable set of constraints. This would seem to make a mockery of the notion of an all-powerful being. (This was discussed previously)

The mockery becomes apparent if we consider the following reductio.

• A Nullipotent being = A being, one of whose defining properties is the inability to do anything

This being would count as omnipotent, if we were to follow definitions 3 and 4. This is clearly absurd. So those definitions must be inadequate.

2. A Final Possibility

What can the theist do to avoid this absurdity? Everitt considers one final definition:

• Def. 5: "X is omnipotent" = "At every time, X can do everything which it is logically possible for a being of X's nature to do at that time; and no being, Y, greater in overall power than X, can be conceived."

The final clause seems to avoid the absurdity of the nullipotent being, but it does so at the expense of creating further problems with the concept of omnipotence.

First, there is the measurement problem. The definition assumes that we have some readily-available metric for comparing the relative strengths of the capacities possessed by different beings. This might be true if all beings could obtain the same capacities (e.g. X, Y, Z) and one being had more or less of them. But if beings have distinct sets of capacities, e.g. {X, Y, Z} vs. {R, S, T} commensurability becomes an issue.

Second, and more seriously, it would imply that God, as traditionally conceived, is not omnipotent. To see this, compare God with Semigod. God has all the traditional divine properties. He is morally perfect, all-knowing, all-present, and so on. Semigod has all the traditional properties save one: he is not morally perfect. God, due to his moral perfection, could not commit a morally evil act; Semigod could. It would then follow, from definition 5, that Semigod is omnipotent and God is not.

One doubts whether that would be palatable to a traditional theist.

3. Conclusion

What have we learned from this exploration of omnipotence? Clearly, we have learned that omnipotence is a tricky concept. The most natural definition -- Definition Two -- becomes problematic when applied to a being who fits with the traditional conception of God. And the subsequent "relativised" definitions seem to lead to absurdities or to the unappetising conclusion that God is not omnipotent.

The one possible solution -- canvassed in part three -- would be to develop a sound argument for a logically necessary God. This would be a version of the ontological argument. Whether such an argument is possible is a question for another day.

In the meantime, the following diagram summarises the five definitions of omnipotence covered in this series, as well as some of the problems associated with them.

Omnipotence (Part 3)

This post is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's book The Non-Existence of God. For an index, see here.

I am currently working my way through Chapter 13 of the book. This chapter deals with the potential contradictions inherent in the concept of an omnipotent being. Everitt looks at five separate definitions of omnipotence and checks them for consistencies.

We are currently looking at the second, and most popular definition of omnipotence:

• Def. 2 "X is Omnipotence" = "X can do everything that is logically possible."

As noted, this definition throws up certain problems for God because there are things that we physical, fallible, and mortal human beings can do that would not seem to be possible for an immaterial, perfect and immortal being like God. For instance, we can perform morally corrupt acts; we can eat, sleep, run, walk and so on -- all activities requiring a physical body; and, finally, we can bring about our own annihilation (suicide). God, it would seem, could not do any of this. 

In part two we looked at the possibility of a sinful God and found it to be theologically circumspect. In this post we will look at God's lack of a physical body and his potential suicide. We then move on to consider a third definition of omnipotence.


1. God's physical body
Is the claim that God cannot do anything that requires a physical body a serious objection to his omnipotence? For many religious believers, including orthodox Christians, it isn't. For them, there is an easy way for God to perform actions requiring a physical body: he can occasionally take physical form.

Indeed, according to Christianity that's exactly what he did when he killed himself on the cross to satisfy his own sense of justice (or something like that!).

Everitt thinks that there might be a problem with this type of response to the original objection. When we perform an action such as scratching our noses, we are identical with the person doing the scratching. God would not have that kind of identity-relationship with a physical form. After all, God didn't actually die when Jesus died on the cross.

Or did he? This gets us into a theological minefield and I'm not sure that any coherent thought can survive passing through it. Maybe that is itself good grounds for the incoherence of the traditional Christian conception of God.

Whatever else it provides a neat segue to the next section.

2. Can God Kill Himself?
If God cannot kill himself then there is something that is logically possible but not in his power to do. And surely it must be true that God cannot kill himself. In the previous part, it was suggested that God could do things that would make him lose certain divine properties. That's problematic in itself, but we are now asking whether God could bring about his own total annihilation.

Theists have a way out of this, but it isn't pretty. They can argue that God is a logically necessary being, i.e. that his non-existence is logically impossible. And since Definition 2 only claims that God can do whatever it is logically possible to do, the crisis is averted.

The ugly part of this response is that it forces the theist to accept a fairly strong form of the ontological argument. This is the only argument that makes God a logically necessary being (some versions of the cosmological argument might make God physically or metaphysically necessary, but that's not the same thing -- we need an argument that makes his non-existence logically contradictory).

Since the ontological argument is highly contentious, and unpersuasive to many theists, the objection is likely to stand.


3. Relativised Omnipotence
The conclusion from the above (and from part two) is roughly the following: unless one is willing to embrace some pretty weird doctrines about God (that he could perform some actions that would make him lose divine properties) or the ontological argument, God cannot do everything that it is logically possible to do.

This provides the impetus for a third definition of omnipotence:

• Def. 3 "X is omnipotent" = "X can do everything that it is logically possible for a being with X's defining or necessary properties to do."

This is a relativised form of omnipotence. Applied to God it would read something like "God can do everything that it is possible for an all-knowing, perfectly good and perfectly free being to do."

I actually covered a similar approach to omniscience when dealing with Jeremy Gwiazda's critique of Richard Swinburne. As we saw there, one of the attractions of the relativised definition is that it covers certain problems arising from the concept of free will.

First, if God is himself perfectly free, then he cannot have control over (or knowledge of) his future free actions. Second, one of the most popular responses to the problem of evil is to claim that God has given us the capacity free will and does not have the power to prevent us from exercising that capacity. 

You might wonder why it would not be possible for God to prevent us from performing free acts. The answer Everitt gives is that one of God's necessary properties is his non-equivalence with his creation. So because God is not A, he cannot perform A's free actions.

We can charitably allow this kind of sophistry, because there is another problem with this definition. You'll have to wait for the final part to this series for that.

Omnipotence (Part 2)

This post is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's book The Non-Existence of God. For an index, see here.

I am currently looking at Chapter 13 of the book. This chapter considers arguments against the possibility of an omnipotent god. If these arguments are successful, they would undermine the classical conception of God.

As noted in part 1, the arguments against omnipotence depend on unearthing the contradictions that might be inherent in the notion of an all-powerful being. This, in turn, depends on how we define omnipotence. Everitt considers five possible definitions. The second of these is probably the most common:

Def 2: "X is omnipotent" = "X can do everything which it is logically possible to do"

As we saw at the end of part 1, there are several problems with this definition. For example, it is possible for human beings to commit suicide, but it is not possible for God to do the same. Likewise, there are certain actions that humans can perform that require a physical body which God, being immaterial, lacks. Furthermore, it is possible for humans, because of their moral imperfection, to perform morally evil acts, but it is not clear that God, because of his moral perfection, could do the same. Finally, there is the classic "could God make a stone so heavy that not even he could lift?"-objection.

We continue now by looking at the ways in which theists can avoid the last two of these problems.


1. The Superheavy Stone
The problem with the superheavy stone is that if God can make it, then he won't be able to lift it and so is not all-powerful, and if he cannot make it then there is something he cannot do. So either answer to the question "could God make a stone...?" seems to undermine the concept of omnipotence. Everitt notes that theists have tried to provide defences of both answers.

Some argue that God could make the stone and that so long as he never actually makes it his omnipotence is preserved. This is a strange solution to the problem. It seems to concede that God could be omnipotent at one moment (prior to making the superheavy stone) but not at another (after making the stone). But wouldn't this be tantamount to saying that God would cease to exist after making a superheavy stone?

This is hardly a theologically reassuring line of thought. However, there is another way to defend the "yes"-answer. This turns on an analysis of what is and is not a logical possibility. The theist can accept that it is logically possible for God to create a superheavy stone. Then, they can turn around and deny that it is logically possible for an omnipotent being to lift an unliftable stone.

Of course, the same reasoning can be turned on its head in order to support a negative answer to the original question. So, for example, the theist could say that the creation of an unliftable stone is not a logically possible task.

Now maybe this is wrong. But it would take a fairly sophisticated analysis of what "logical possibility" really means to defeat it. As a result, Everitt thinks it is best to ignore the superheavy stone objection.


2. Can God Sin?
As mentioned above, it is possible for human beings to sin. But it is not clear that a morally perfect being like God could do the same. Thus, there is something that God cannot do.

The theist can respond to this objection in a manner similar to the first response to the idea of the superheavy stone. In other words, they can say that God could perform a morally evil act, but that provided he never does he never compromises his moral perfection.

Again, this concedes that God could cease to have one of his defining properties. And the deeper problem with this is that it would seriously damage the concept of moral perfection. If all that is needed for moral perfection is the failure to act immorally at certain moments, then we are all morally perfect on occasion.

This would seem to make a mockery of the notion of a morally perfect being. The theist needs a being who cannot do moral wrong, not just one that fails to do a moral wrong. But then this runs foul of the original objection. The only way out of this is to tack on an arbitrary qualification to Definition 2 stating that omnipotence precludes moral wrong.

Everitt thinks that a more promising solution is available to the theist but that it will require a completely new definition of omnipotence. We will consider that definition in due course.

That's where we'll leave it for today. In the next part we will consider theistic solutions to the problem of God's immateriality and immortality.

Omnipotence (Part 1)

This post is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's book The Non-Existence of God. For an index, see here.

It's been awhile since I dipped into Everitt's excellent introduction to the philosophy of religion and it's about time that trend was reversed. In the next few posts I will take a look at Chapter 13 of the book. The chapter deals with the topic of omnipotence.

It has been pointed out to me that some of the more interesting atheological work comes in the shape of positive arguments against the consistency and coherence of the classical understanding of God. Everitt's chapter on omnipotence does just that by critically examining the idea of an all-powerful God.

Let's see what he has to say.


1. Self-Contradiction
The type of argument that Everitt considers in chapter 13 is dependent on the notion of self-contradiction. In other words, on the idea that some concepts are self-contradictory and hence impossible.

What kind of self-contradiction would be involved in the concept of God? Let's take two examples. The first is that of a circular square. In this case there is a straightforward and obvious contradiction inherent in the concept: something cannot be both circular and square.

Sometimes, things are less obvious. A good example of this is the concept of the highest prime number. As we all know, there is no such thing as the highest prime number. Indeed, one of the first mathematical proofs I ever learned was the proof of the infinitude of primes.

But notice that the contradiction is not immediate or obvious. We have to do some formal analytical and logical work before it reveals itself. If the concept of God is self-contradictory, it is likely to be contradictory in this second, less immediate manner.

2. Divine Power
Before we look for contradictions, let's try to understand how God would exert his power. We will do this by way of analogy to our own powers.

Whenever we want to exert power and influence, we do so by chaining together long sequences of bodily movements. For example, if you want to change TV channels you will have to pick up the remote control and press the appropriate buttons. And if you want to overthrow the government, you must find a group of like-minded revolutionaries and then plot and plan a revolution. That takes a lot of effort.

It is assumed by most theists that God's power is not exerted in the same way. If God wants something to be the case, he doesn't have to take all the intermediary steps mentioned above. He can directly will whatever he wants.

Does this make his power unintelligible? Not at all. For we can directly will things as well. Take the example of raising your hand. You can do this directly without willing the intermediary steps involving the firing of neurons in the motor cortex. Now imagine this power could be extended over everything you wish to do and you begin to get close to the idea of God.



3. Defining Omnipotence
In searching for contradictions in the concept of omnipotence, we will follow a simple method. We will begin with a definition of the concept and see if that definition entails any absurdities. All told, there will be five separate definitions. In the remainder of this post we will deal with the first two.

The first definition is the most straightforward:

Def 1: "X is all powerful" = "X can do everything"

This immediately runs into the brick wall of logical impossibility. In other words, it forces us to ask whether God can do things that are logically impossible, such as make it the case that "1+1=3" or that triangles actually have four sides. If he could, we would landed in a bizarre and arbitrary Alice-in-Wonderland-like universe.

Some theists -- e.g. Richard Swinburne -- think that God must be limited by the laws of logic. But that is not a theologically disturbing thought since the logically impossible is not do-able and hence is not a limit on God's power. And even those who think God is necessary for the sustenance of the laws of logic assume that he could not have made them other than what they are.

This leads naturally to a second definition:

Def 2: "X is all powerful" = "X can do everything that it is logically possible to do"

This is the variety of omnipotence that is popular with the armchair theist, but it too has its problems. As we are about to see.


4. We are more powerful than God
The problem with Definition 2 is that there are certain things that it is logically possible for us mortal, fallible human beings to do that do not seem to be available to God. Here are three examples:

• Because we are not morally perfect, we can do things that are cruel, cowardly, irredeemably selfish and hypocritical and so on. But God, being morally perfect, cannot do these things.
• Because we have physical bodies, there are certainly things we can do -- e.g. walk, eat, run -- that presuppose the existence of a body. But God, being immaterial, cannot do these things.
• Because we are finite and mortal, we have the option of committing suicide. But God, being immortal, could not do likewise.

In addition to these three objections, there is the more famous stone-objection:

• Could God make a stone that was so big not even he could lift it?

There is no logical impossibility invoked by this question but, nonetheless, it does seem to give rise to a contradiction inherent in the concept of omnipotence. Why? Because either answer -- "yes" or "no" -- entails that there is something God cannot do.

We will see how the theist can respond to these objections, and refine their definition of omnipotence, in the next post.

Religious Experience (Part 1): Argument vs. Experience

This post is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's The Non-Existence of God. For an index, see here.

I am now working my way through Chapter 8 of Everitt's book, which deals with religious experience. In this first part I will consider whether experience is an alternative to argument or not. Some of this material overlaps with the previous discussion of Plantinga.


What are Religious Experiences supposed to do?

Religious experiences (REs) come in a variety of forms, but they all share some core features. In particular, they all purport to be experiences (perceptual or mystical) of God. Before getting down to the philosophical questions, consider the following example:

On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking in the Cascade Mountain, the majesty and beauty of God's creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next morning I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ.

That is, of course, Francis Collins describing a religious experience he had. It was so powerful that it converted him to Christianity from atheism (see The Language of God - his experience may have be a "straw that breaks the camel's back" phenomenon).

What are we to make of Collins's RE? Two significant questions seem to arise: (a) If I had such an experience, should it convince me of the truth of God's existence? and (b) If someone else told me they had such an experience, should it be enough to convert me to their faith?

Defenders of arguments from RE (call them experientialists), have, on separate occasions, answered both  questions in the affirmative. We need to see whether they are right to do so.


Basic Beliefs Once More
The first line of defense for experientialists is to claim that REs give direct epistemic access to God. With such access, no argument is needed. This claim brings us back to the idea of a basic belief -- that is: a belief that needs no justification. Uncontroversial examples include my belief that "1+1=2" or my belief that "I am in pain". These beliefs are self-justificatory.

Are REs in the same category? Take my experience of the cup I am holding. I can see it, I can touch it and I can say that it exists. I do not need to infer its existence from my experience; its existence simply is the content of my experience. Experientialists claim that REs are like this.

Critics of these claims will argue that there are implied inferences taking place and that these inferences are open to challenge. It helps if we distinguish two varieties of inference:

• A-inferences: these are inferences that are used to arrive at a belief.
• J-inferences: these are inferences that are used to justify a belief.

The importance of the distinction is easily captured with the following example. Your romantic partner comes into the room, you look at them and say to yourself "He/she/it's angry". You arrive at this belief without making any inferences (no A-inferences). In other words, you do not look at them, examine their frown, identify a general principle stating that people with such an expression are usually angry, and conclude that he/she/it is angry. You jump straight to the belief.

However, if someone were to ask you how you knew that they were angry, you would be forced to justify your belief (use J-inferences). It would not be enough to say simply that your experience proved their anger.

The distinction between these two types of inference can be used to develop criteria for establishing whether something is a basic belief. If we consider an uncontroversial example, such as my belief that I am in pain, we see that it needs neither A-inferences or J-inferences: the experience of pain is the full content of the belief and if I told someone I was in pain they would not ask me to justify my belief.

So a belief that needs neither type of inference is definitely basic. What about beliefs that involve inferences of either kind? They could not really be included within the category of basic beliefs. Because they are based on inferences of some kind, they are always open to challenge.

Are Religious Experiences Properly Basic?

The final question to be addressed in this post is whether or not REs involve inferences. To answer this we need to look at some REs.

William Alston's 1991 book Perceiving God offered the following taxonomy of religious experiences (click to enlarge):

This suggests that there are two main varieties of RE: (a) experiences of God's properties; and (b) experiences of God's actions. Both of these types of experience involve inferences of some kind.

Let's go back and consider Collins's experience of the frozen waterfall. It seems clear that Collins's experience falls into the first of Alston's categories: through observation of nature, Collins experienced some property (glory or power) of God.

It seems equally clear that there must be an inference underlying the experience. Collins had a conscious experience of one kind (of nature), deemed it to be impossible unless there was a God, and so reached the conclusion that it really was a direct experience of God.

Indeed, all REs seem to involve the following type of inference:

1. I have had conscious experience X.
2. I would not have had experience X without there being a God behind it.
3. Therefore, my experience is of God.
4. Therefore, God must exist.

In sum, REs are more like "X is angry" than "I am in pain". And because they are like this they are open to all the challenges that arguments are usually open to. We will consider those challenges in future posts.

God and Morality (Part 5): The Supervenience of Morality

This post is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's The Non-Existence of God. For an index, see here.

I am currently working my way through Chapter 7 of Everitt's book, which deals with the topic of God and morality. In previous parts, I have covered several arguments that try to make God and morality interdependent.

In this final part, I cover one last moral argument for the existence of God: the argument from supervenience. This is the idea that there is something so metaphysically "queer" about moral properties that only God could explain them.


What is Supervenience?
The first thing we need to know is: what is supervenience? Supervenience describes a metaphysical relationship between different sets of properties. This is a fairly standard definition (taken from Everitt p. 143):

One set of properties supervenes on a second set when the properties are so related that there could not be a difference in the first set without there being a difference in the second set, but there could be a difference in the second set without a difference in the first set.

Think of a painting. It has two sets of properties. One is its pigmental properties, i.e. the precise distribution of pigment on the canvas. It is possible to describe a painting purely in terms of it pigmental properties. The second set of properties would be its aesthetic properties, i.e. its "mood", "elegance", "vividness" and so forth.

The suggestion here is that the aesthetic properties of the painting supervene on the pigmental properties.

Do Moral Properties Supervene?
The next thing we need to know is whether or not moral properties supervene on non-moral properties. The argument here is that they do.

Consider an event (call it A) in which Mike stabs Paul with a knife. Like the painting, this event has two sets of properties. The first would be the physical actions that make up the event: Mike taking the knife into his hand, raising his arm above his head and thrusting it into Paul's chest. The second would be the moral value of the event, which we would probably agree was "bad" or "immoral".

Consider a second event (call it B) in which Mike shoots Paul with a gun. The physical actions are different, but the moral properties are the same. In other words, the moral properties supervene on the physical actions.

It may be possible to challenge moral supervenience. It may be possible that changes in physical actions always produce changes in moral properties. But still, supervenience seems to be a fair assumption: we generally think of moral properties as abstract, i.e. not simply equivalent to physical actions.

What is Metaphysically Odd about Moral Supervenience?
Moral supervenience gets translated into an argument for God by pointing out something metaphysically odd about the whole arrangement.

Recall from earlier that moral properties are supposed to provide us with reasons-for-action. In particular, they are supposed to provide us with reasons-for-action that are desire-trumping, i.e. override our basic physical desires. In other words, when we learn that an event has a particular moral quality, it should prevent us from acting on desires we might otherwise have had.

The contention is that it is metaphysically "queer" or odd for such desire-trumping reasons to supervene on brute physical reality. So odd, that God must be posited to explain it. In case you are wondering about the use of the word "queer" to describe this oddness then you should be aware that it comes from J.L. Mackie (who rejected this moral argument for God).

We give the argument a formal presentation, as follows:

1. Moral properties supervene on non-moral properties (premise).
2. Moral properties supply desire-trumping reasons (premise).
3. Non-moral properties do not supply desire-trumping reasons (premise).
4. It is unlikely that 1, 2, and 3 would be true unless they had been made true by an all-powerful God (premise).
5. Probably there is an all-powerful God (conclusion).

Now we have to ask whether this argument is any good.

Does the Argument from Supervenience Work?

As with all arguments, it is open to us to attack each premise, but we are not going to do that here. We will accept P1, given what we already said about moral supervenience. We will also accept P2 as being essential component of a moral theory. P3 might cause us some concern since our terminology is vague (what is the difference between a desire-trumping reason and a desire-based reason?) but we will leave it unchallenged for now. Our beef is with P4.

Everitt identifies three lines of attack on P4. Let's look at each of them.

(a) The Problem with Probability Judgments

Premise 4 is based on a probability judgment. Probability judgments are always difficult to make, but they must be based on some evidential reference point. So, for example, our judgment that there is a 0.5 probability of a heads resulting from the flipping of a coin cannot be based on the fact that there are two possibilities (H or T), but rather on the fact that many coin-flipping trials demonstrate that to be the case.

The claim that moral supervenience is improbable unless there is a God is not being made relative to any evidential reference point. And since there is only one universe, and we are not sure whether it is theistic or naturalistic, we have no way of obtaining the necessary evidence. It may be that moral supervenience is more likely in a naturalistic universe.

(b) Swinburne's Attack

The second attack on P4 comes from Richard Swinburne who, although a theist, is dismissive of moral arguments. He argues that if moral prescriptions are true, they are necessarily true (true in all possible worlds). This would mean that the supervenience-relationship is necessarily true. God is not needed to explain necessary truths: they explain themselves.

(c) Mackie's Attack

The final attack on P4 comes from Mackie himself. He agrees that moral properties, if they existed, would comply with P1, P2 and P3. But then they would be so metaphysically bizarre that the most reasonable conclusion to reach is that there are no such properties. In other words, Mackie embraces moral error theory.

Error theory completely destroys any moral argument for God.

God and Morality (Part 4): Ward and Trethowan

This post is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's The Non-Existence of God. For an index, see here.

I am currently working my way through Chapter 7 of Everitt's book, which deals with the topic of God and morality. In the previous post I covered the Kantian moral argument, which suggests that God is presupposed in moral reasoning.

In this post I tidy-up some loose ends by looking at a quasi-Kantian argument from Keith Ward and something similar from Illtyd Trethowan. In case you would like to know: Ward is an Anglican theologian and Trethowan was (he is now dead) a theologian and Catholic convert from Anglicanism.


Ward's Argument
Ward offers a type fused Kantian and Divine command "argument". The scare quotes are to indicate that it is, once again, not an argument from morality to God, but rather an argument from God to morality. Ward has two aspirations for his argument:

1. He wants to show how God gives morality its objective meaning and validity.
2. He wants to show how moral prescriptions are dependent on God's will, without being arbitrary.

As it turns out, Ward's arguments are pretty weak, which make me wonder why Everitt chose to consider them at all (Ward is a big fish in the Anglican pond, so that might explain it). Let's see how weak they really are by considering each aspiration in turn.

1. God gives morality its objective meaning and validity

This is the Kantian component of Ward's morality. There is no real argument to describe here, just a bunch of intuitions and assertions. Ward is claiming that the finite nature of human life and human justice strips moral commitment of its meaning. Only a supreme being who can ensure ultimate justice makes moral commitment meaningful.

I dealt with this manner of thinking in the post on Kant's argument. The problem with it is that finite justice does not make moral commitment any less meaningful: a world with partial justice is still better than a world with none.

2. Morality is Dependent on God's Will in a non-arbitrary way

One of the great fears for the proponent of a divine-command metaethics is the potential arbitrariness of the command. If God is omnipotent, then it would seem he could deem anything to be morally acceptable. Murder, rape, genocide; you name it.

Ward shares this fear. He wants morality to be dependent on God's will, but in a non-arbitrary way. To bring this about, he offers two strange arguments.

The first is his claim that God has created us with a certain nature. In accordance with this nature, certain types of conduct contribute to our flourishing while others detract from it. It is this God-imbued nature that provides us with moral guidance.

As is obvious, this argument makes human nature -- whatever its source may be -- the source of morality. If God created us, well and good; if he didn't, we still have a genuine morality.

The second argument used by Ward is that moral prescriptions are necessarily true. In other words, moral prescriptions can only be one way because they must appeal to our rationality. At this point, Ward has turned into the intellectual equivalent of Wile E. Coyote: he has run off the cliff, but doesn't seem to have looked down yet.

The problem is this: If there are many possible ways for something to be (e.g. designs of a house), and if only one of them is realised, then there are good grounds for supposing that the willful act of someone is needed to explain the possibility that has been realised. But if there is only one possible way for something to be, then there is no need to posit the willful act of someone to explain why it is as it is.

Ward is claiming that moral prescriptions could only be one way, and that God's will is needed to explain why they are that way. This will not fly. It's like saying God is needed to ensure that 2+2=4.

Trethowan's Mystical Apprehension

Trethowan espouses a far more mystical doctrine than the analytical philosophers with whom we have been dealing. Yet, there is something vaguely Kantian about what he says. He asserts that the awareness of moral obligations is a direct awareness of God.

Let's be clear about what this means. He is not saying that awareness of obligations supports or increases the probability of God's existence. He is saying that awareness of obligations and awareness of God are equivalent experiences.

To which we respond "Mere assertion", for that is all it is. We may as well say that the awareness of obligation is an awareness of Zeus, or Santa Claus, or indigestion.

Okay, that's enough. In the final post on God and morality, I will look at the argument from supervenience.

God and Morality (Part 3): The Kantian Argument

This post is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's The Non-Existence of God. For an index, see here.

I am currently working my way through chapter 7 of Everitt's book, which deals with the topic of God and morality. In previous posts I have considered the difficulties with a moral argument for God's existence, and the shortcomings of two arguments that try to make morality dependent on God.

In this post, I cover Kant's moral argument.

Kant's Philosophy: Theoretical Reason v. Practical Reason
Kant had little time for the standard arguments for the existence of God. He famously dismissed the ontological argument, along with the cosmological and design arguments. But he did believe in God for reasons emanating from his moral theory.

A little background is in order here. Kant distinguished, as many do, between theoretical reason and practical reason. Theoretical reason is concerned with establishing the truth or falsehood of propositions about the world. Think of the theoretical reason as a machine: its inputs are collections of data (observations, detections and so forth) and its outputs are beliefs about the nature of reality ("the sky is blue", "populations of organisms change through the process of evolution" etc.).

Practical reason is concerned with decisions to act. Again, think of practical reason as a machine: its inputs are also collections of data but its outputs are desires, intentions-to-act, imperatives and prescriptions ("I will to X", "You must do Y" etc.). Practical reason is directly involved with establishing moral truths.

Kant's most important argument was that the machinery of practical or theoretical reason had to make certain presuppositions before it could work. So, for example, Kant argued that the machinery of theoretical reason had to presuppose the existence of space and time before it could reach any firm conclusions about what was happening in the real world.

Kant's moral argument is a variation on this presuppositionalist theme. It is the argument that the machinery of practical reason (which outputs moral propositions) must presuppose the existence of God.


Kant's First Argument
Everitt covers two versions of Kant's argument. The first based on what he considers to be a fair reading of Kant's writings on the matter; the second based on a more favourable interpretation of Kant's writings. Let's deal with the first version for now.

Kant's argument can be a given formal statement as follows:

• (1) Morality requires us to try and achieve the highest good, which is the proper proportioning of happiness to virtue.

Some explication is required here before continuing to the rest of the argument. Kant would argue that moral reasoning is unavoidable: we cannot get outside the machinery of practical reason and practical reason forces us to reason about the right and the wrong (i.e. about morality). Kant is further arguing that morality consists of two things: developing virtuous character (or, in his version, the good will) and achieving sentient happiness or contentedness. It is possible for those two things to disaggregate. Indeed, looking around the world today we find many virtuous people suffering and experiencing unhappiness. In the ideal world, the good will and happiness go together.

• (2) "Ought" implies "can" (i.e. it must be possible to do what morality demands of us).

• (3) It must be possible to achieve the highest good (from 1 and 2)

• (4) It is not possible for mortal and fallible human beings to achieve the highest good.

• (5) There must be some immortal and infallible being who is able to achieve the highest good (from 3 and 4).

• (6) God exists.

As it stands, this is a fatally flawed argument. The problem is that (3) is a non-sequitur, i.e. it does not follow from the conjunction of (1) and (2). All that is mandated by (1) and (2) is that we try to achieve the highest, we need not actually achieve it for morality to exist. In other words, the journey is what counts, not the destination.

Given that the argument has this fatal flaw, Everitt attempts a reformulation that makes the destination what counts.

The Ultimate Justice Argument

The reformulated argument is based on an alleged difference between sham-morality and real-morality. In a sham-morality the highest good can never be achieved, people strive and struggle but their efforts are always in vain, and thus devoid of meaning. In a real-morality, their efforts are not in vain: the highest good can indeed be achieved.

So the idea is that in order for morality to be meaningful (i.e. not a sham) it must be possible to achieve the highest good. The problem, once again, is that mortal and fallible beings like us cannot achieve the highest good. We cannot ensure that the wicked are always punished and the virtuous always rewarded. We need God for this; he ensures that there is ultimate justice.

The reformulated version of Kant's argument looks like this:

• (1) For morality to have a point, there must be ultimate justice.

• (2) We mortal and fallible beings cannot achieve ultimate justice.

• (3) There must be some supernatural being who can achieve ultimate justice.

• (4) For morality to have any point, God must exist (from 1 and 3).

Does this argument fare any better? Three observations are apposite.

First, it is certainly true that the idea of "ultimate justice" is popular among religious apologists. They will often claim that an atheistic morality is pointless because it cannot provide ultimate justice. However, it is not clear that Kant would agree. Kant's most famous contribution to moral philosophy is the idea of a categorical imperative. This is a moral requirement that operates in the absence of reward or punishment. So this reformulation is not strictly Kantian.

Second, it is difficult to say why a morality that only achieves partial justice is pointless. Surely it is better to achieve some justice rather than none at all? And surely the prescriptions of morality remain genuine even granting the limited nature of human justice?

Third, the argument does not actually establish that God exists. For that, an additional premise is needed. As follows:

• (5) Morality does have a point.

In other words, the argument is working off an assumption that morality actually has a point. This is no doubt something that many people desire to be true. But desiring it to be true does not make it so. I pointed out in Part 1, how unwarranted premises like this are nearly always at work in moral arguments for God's existence.

God and Morality (Part 2): Owing Duties and the Euthyphro Dilemma

This post is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's The Non-Existence of God. For an index, see here.

I am currently working my way through chapter 7, which deals with the topic of God and morality. As I pointed out in Part 1, most so-called moral arguments for God are nothing of the kind. They try to use God's existence to prove the truth of moral realism; they do not use the truth of moral realism to prove the existence of God.

Thus, the focus shifts to two questions about theistic meta-ethics:

1. Does God's existence actually provide a solid footing for moral realism?
2. Is a non-theistic moral realism possible?

In this post, I look at two arguments that try to make the case for theistic meta-ethics. The first is the argument that because God is our creator we owe certain duties to Him. The second is that God's omniscience makes him the source of moral truths.

The Creator-Duty Argument
The creator-duty argument is easily described. God created us, gifted us with life, sustains our existence, and so we owe him certain duties as a sign of gratitude. The argument rests on the idea that the gift of life imposes certain duties or obligations that must be met. Is this a good argument?

Everitt thinks not. He argues that life cannot be a gift and so no duties can arise from the act of creation. His reasoning is as follows: for there to be a gift, there must be a giver and a receiver. But who is the receiver in the act of creation? We do not yet exist. To suggest we owe a duty of gratitude is thus nonsensical.

Perhaps the argument can be improved by saying the duty of gratitude arises not from the act of creation but from the continuing sustenance of our existence. This is indeed a better argument, but it too has its flaws.

We must be sure that God really sustains something that is valuable. Only then could we owe a duty of gratitude. It is not obvious that this is the case. Continued existence is often painful and torturous. Here we start to rub-up against the problem of evil, a topic to be considered on another occasion.

In sum, it is not at all obvious that God's creation or sustenance imposes real moral duties. Furthermore, we must remember that arguments of this kind cannot prove the existence of God. It is not as though the existence of duties prove that God exists. Duties exist for all sorts of mundane reasons (e.g. the signing of a legal contract) that do not rest upon God.

Perhaps we can have more luck with an argument based on God's supposed omniscience.

Moral Expert or Engineer: The Euthyphro Dilemma
One of the standard attributes of God is omniscience (along with omnipotence and omnibenevolence). This implies that God has perfect knowledge in all domains. This would include the moral domain. Which would imply that if God were to say that something is morally wrong/right/permissible we could be sure that this is true.

Which some logical sleight of hand, this line of reasoning often brings us to the following claim:

• (A) Something is morally wrong/right/permissible if and only if God says so.

The goal of A is to make morality dependent on God. Does it succeed? There are two possible interpretations of A (coming originally from Plato's Euthyphro dialogue):

1. God is simply a moral expert, the subject matter of his expertise is independent of his will.
2. God creates or engineers moral truths, but does so in a self-defeating way.

Let's look at both interpretations and see what is wrong with each of them.

God as Moral Expert

The first interpretation is easily dismissed. In order to be an expert on anything, there must be a factual basis for your expertise that is independent of your own opinion. For example, if I claim to have expert knowledge on the production history of the Star Trek television series, there must be some archival records, or producers and actors that can verify that what I am saying is true. It cannot simply be the case that whatever I think about the production history is true simply because I think it.

So if God is a moral expert, there must be some set of moral facts about which he is an expert. And these facts cannot depend on him for their truth or falsehood. Therefore, God's existence is not necessary for moral realism to be true.

God as Moral Engineer

The second interpretation really does seem to make morality dependent on God but in a way that strips it of motivational force. The claim is that God, by exercise of Divine fiat, engineers or creates morality. Homosexuality? Abortion? Adultery? If God disapproves, then these are impermissible. But what if he approves of something that seems terrible, such as genocide?

Here we run into the classic Euthyphro argument. A theist might wish to respond by saying God could never command such a thing because he is intrinsically good. But this defeats the original argument. Remember, we started by saying God is not a moral expert and that morality depends on his command or approval. This implies that everything is morally neutral prior to God's approval. But if it is morally neutral, and if God has the power to choose otherwise (and I know of no theist who would deny free will to God), then it really could be the case that genocide or torture or child-rape are morally acceptable. If you think such a divine-command theory implausible or irrelevant, then consider how many religious terrorists claim divine approval for their seemingly heinous acts.

There are two additional consequences of the moral-engineer-argument. The first is that it makes a mockery of God's moral perfection. For moral perfection to be a property that is worthy of respect it must be something more than the mere exercise of divine fiat.

The second consequence is perhaps the most damaging of all. It is the fact that if morality is a product of divine fiat, then morality cannot provide us with reasons-for-action. A reason-for-action is something that motivates us to alter our behaviour. If morality is simply the product of divine fiat, it is not clear how it could motivate us.

Motivational force is a product of the content of moral norms, not their origin. Imagine if God had commanded us all to stand on our heads. It is not clear how this declaration would actually motivate us to change our behaviour.

The theist has an obvious response. He/she can argue that the threat of divine reward or punishment provides us with moral reasons for obeying God's command. Here, we must distinguish between moral reasons-for-action and prudential reasons-for-action. If we obey simply out of fear or prudence, then we are not behaving morally. In other words, we are not changing our behaviour out of a belief in moral rectitude.

There is more to be said about this line of argument, but Everitt does not say it. I personally think that the Christian doctrine of salvation through acceptance of Jesus denudes morality of its motivational force; as do certain responses to the problem of evil. I hope to cover these some other time.

Further Reading

I don't usually do this, but on this occasion I will suggest some additional reading for interested parties.

Wes Morriston has some great articles dealing with the alleged dependence of morality on God's command:

What if God commanded something terrible?

Did God command genocide?

Are omnipotence and moral perfection compatible?

Must there be a standard of goodness independent of God?

Likewise, Adolf Grunbaum has a good, if overlong, paper on the poverty of theistic morality.

God and Morality (Part 1): Is there a moral argument for God?

Welcome to my series on Nicholas Everitt's book The Non-Existence of God. For an index, see here.

In the next few posts I will be looking at chapter 7 of Everitt's book, which has the deliberately ambiguous title "God and Morality". I say "ambiguous" because Everitt's book is supposed to deal with arguments for the existence of God. The problem is that it is not clear if there is a moral argument for God's existence. That said, people often speak of God and morality in the same breadth.

In this part, I want to explain why there is a problem with the idea of a moral argument, and why God and morality share the same air supply.


What is Morality Anyway?
Morality is primarily about behavioural restrictions; about telling us what we should and should not do. We are all familiar with moral prescriptions, e.g. "you should not profit from the misfortunes of others", "you should not treat others as a means to an end but as an end in themselves", "you should not steal, murder, lie etc.".

When confronted with such moral prescriptions, we have two concerns (see my post on moral realism):

1. Are they objectively true? In other words, are they more than simply the subjective whim or bias of the individual prescribing them?
2. Do they provide me with reasons-for-action? In other words, upon knowing them am I motivated to do otherwise than I might have done?

These two questions provide us with two criteria for moral truth: the objectivity criterion and the motivational criterion. Keep these in mind in the ensuing discussion.


How God and Morality are Usually Connected
Cosmological and teleological arguments usually start from some widely agreed-upon fact and use that to support the claim that God exists. So, for instance, cosmological arguments begin with some general structural feature of the universe (temporality, causality, contingency) that everyone agrees exists. They argue that there cannot be an infinite regress of this feature and that God is needed to halt the long unending march to oblivion.

When it comes to morality there is no such widely-agreed-upon fact with which to begin the argument. For it is not at all clear that there are genuine moral truths. When we look at the moral prescriptions that are accepted by others it is not clear that they are doing anything other than:

• following whatever is congenial to their own subjectivity; 
• uncritically accepting the morality of their family, tribe, sect, or state; or 
• accepting restrictions imposed by others out of fear or some other form of self-interest. 

Furthermore, the diversity of moral opinion around the world should give us pause.


Now, it is certainly true that most people want there to be moral truths. It seems to be a popular craving. But because there are no widely agreed-upon moral truths to anchors our discussion, God's existence is most often used to solidify or justify moral beliefs. In other words, religious believers try to show how God provides us with the objectively morality that we crave. They do not usually argue that because morality exists, so too must God.


Craig's Moral Argument
Despite what has just been said, it is possible to imagine a formal moral argument for the existence of God. William Lane Craig provides one simple example of this (see his website for details). Craig's argument is the following:

P1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.
P2. Objective moral values exist.
C1. God exists.

As syllogisms go, this is perfectly valid, but that's not saying much. Craig is trying to make an appeal to everyone's craving for an objective morality in P2 and using this to switch the focus to arguments in favour of P1. It is interesting that he never supports P2 with anything beyond a mere appeal.

Still, we have to take the argument as we find it. Most of Everitt's discussion in Chapter 7 concerns P1 and is guided by two questions: (i) Does God's existence actually support an objective morality? and (ii) Is objective morality impossibe without God? Both questions must be answered in the affirmative if P1 is to survive.

Discussing P1 is edifying in itself but bear in mind that without P2 there can really be no moral argument for the existence of God.

Reformed Epistemology (Part 3): The Revenge of the Sceptic

This post is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's The Non-Existence of God. For an index see here.

I am currently going through Chapter 2 of Everitt's book, which deals with Alvin Plantinga's arguments for a reformed epistemology (RE).

In Part 2, I covered Plantinga's arguments. In essence, they amount to following: God-belief is properly basic, experientially grounded and requires no positive justification; it may be defeated by argument, but there may also be defeaters to those arguments.

In this Part, I will cover Everitt's objections to Plantinga. One of the chief virtues of Everitt's book is that it packs a lot into a condensed space. In just four pages he raises a number of interesting objections. It's hard to be any briefer than he is, but I will try.

Fortunately, there is some order to what he says. He offers two main arguments against Plantinga: (i) God-belief cannot be properly basic, even granting some of what Plantinga has to say; and (ii) even if it works, Plantinga's reformed epistemology has very little effect on the role of reason in the assessment of God's existence.


1. The Unstable Grounding of God-Belief
If you recall from Part 2, Plantinga suggested that although you cannot reason your way to a basic belief, these basic beliefs can be experientially grounded. Everitt argues that experiential grounding makes some sense when applied to other types of basic belief, but none at all when it comes to God-belief.

Consider my belief that I am in pain or that there is a laptop in front of me (both of which are basic beliefs). In both cases the experience that grounds the belief (sensory perception of pain/laptop) directly corresponds with the actual belief. In other words, the content of the experience forms the content of the belief. This is not true of God-belief.

This becomes apparent when we look at the two experiences that Plantinga suggests can ground a properly basic belief in God. They are: (a) when reading the Bible you get the feeling that God is talking to you; and (b) when you do something wrong, you get a pang of conscience which is suggestive of a moral lawgiver. In neither case is the content of the experience actually a three-omni God.

There's also something more dubious about the beliefs that can be grounded by both experiences. In my leisure time I like reading the comic novels of P.G. Wodehouse. The numerous Jeeves and Wooster stories are a particular favourite. The stories are written in the first-person, from the perspective of Bertram Wooster. The characterisation is so well done that while reading them I really get the feeling that he is talking to me. Does this make Wooster-belief properly basic?

You may object that in the case of Wooster-belief we have a good defeater readily at hand: we know that Wodehouse was the real author. But we know similar things about the authors of the various books of the Bible. We know that there were several authors of genesis and we know that the New Testament writers had their own axes to grind.

A similar point can be made about the pang of conscience. When I started out my odyssey as a PhD student, I made a rule about my study-behaviour: I had to read and summarise three academic articles every day. I often broke this rule, and when I did I felt a pang of conscience. What beliefs did this pang-of-conscience experience entitle me to hold? Surely nothing more than that I had broken a rule, not that the rule was made by God.

The point here is that pangs-of-conscience arise for a variety of mundane reasons that have nothing to do with an eternal moral lawgiver.

Now there is more to be said about moral lawgivers and hearing God talking to you. But what can be said is more properly said when looking at two other types of argument: arguments from experience and arguments from morality. What is important for now is that Plantinga's suggestions don't make God-belief properly basic.


2. Two Different Sense of "Belief"
In his second line of attack, Everitt argues that there is a critical duality in the concepts of epistemic approval used by philosophers.

Most of Plantinga's arguments concern the duty-sense of belief. In other words, they answer the questions: is it permissible for me to believe in God? Am I being epistemically negligent in believing as I do? All these questions are directed at the act of believing.

There is a second sense of belief, the truth-indicator sense. Here, the concern is with questions like the following: is what I believe true? Does my belief pick out a real ontological entity? These questions are not directed at the act of believing but at the content of the belief.

Now here's the rub. Plantinga's arguments may succeed insofar as they target the duty-sense of belief. It may be illegitimate to criticise or chastise a believer in God for failing in their epistemic duties. But even so, the truthfulness of the beliefs is still open to assessment with logic and evidence.


3. Some Closing Observations
Everitt says some other interesting things, but that summary covers the main details. I think there is one major blindspot in both Everitt's attack and Plantinga's arguments for RE that is worth raising.

One of Plantinga's arguments against classical foundationalism is that it is self-defeating. This is because belief in classical foundationalism is not itself a basic belief.

Surely this objection applies equally as well to Plantinga's reformed foundationalism? And yet it is never raised again.

I am basing this observation purely on Everitt's summary. Perhaps Plantinga addresses this in his original papers?

Reformed Epistemology (Part 2): The Attack of the Plantingas

This post is part of my series on Nicholas Everitt's The Non-Existence of God. For an index, see here.

I am currently working my way through Chapter 2 of Everitt's book, which deals with Alvin Plantinga's arguments for Reformed epistemology (RE).

I closed out Part 1 with a summary of classical foundationalism: a theory of epistemic justification that rests on the notion of basic beliefs. Basic beliefs are beliefs that need no justification: all other beliefs must be derived from them.

As we saw, for classical foundationalists, there are two types of basic belief: (i) self-evident or logical truths; and (ii) beliefs about conscious states. Plantinga wants to bless God-belief with proper basicality.

The Flaws of Foundationalism
Plantinga paves the way for a reformed epistemology by first pointing out the flaws in classical foundationalism. They are twofold.

First, there seem to be certain beliefs that we are justified in having that are neither basic, nor derived from basic beliefs. Everitt uses the following example: "I ate toast for breakfast." This belief is not self-evidently true; nor is it about a current conscious state (the memory might be, but the content of the belief is not equivalent to the memory). Maybe evidence could be adduced to support this belief, but surely this is unnecessary; surely I can just know that ate toast for breakfast without the need for further justification.

This first objection can be simplified: classical foundationalism is too strict. It would commit us to a thoroughgoing scepticism which is unheard of in most types of inquiry.

Second, and more seriously, Plantinga charges classical foundationalism with self-refutation. Recall, that are supposedly two types of basic belief, every justified belief must either be a basic belief or be derived from one. But what about the belief in classical foundationalism? It is neither self-evidently true, nor is it about a present conscious state. Thus, it would seem to be bankrupt.

The dismissal of classical foundationalism is a core component of reformed epistemology. Plantinga suggests that many objections to the proper basicality of God-belief can be traced back to the failure to fully appreciate the rejection of classical foundationalism.



A Reformed Epistemology?
Pinpointing the flaws in classical foundationalism is easy. Plantinga also has to make the positive case for RE. Let's see what this case is. (I hope you are sitting comfortably, because you are about to be exposed to some brain-liquefying ideas.)

First off, Plantinga is actually proposing a reformed foundationalism. This foundationalism would have a much broader typology of basic beliefs. Indeed, basicality would now include memory beliefs and, no surprises here, God-belief.

These basic beliefs would no longer need to incorrigible or infallible: there may well be reasonable objections to them (defeaters). For example, my belief that I had toast for breakfast could be defeated by video evidence to the contrary. However, and this is crucial, the person with the basic belief is entitled to continue to believe provided (i) they have never heard the objection or (ii) they have defeaters for the defeaters.

This last point is crucial because religious apologists will often play the possibility-card in debates about God's existence. In other words, they will say that because God-belief is properly basic, they need only show possible objections to atheistic arguments. The objections might be highly improbable, but that doesn't matter.



Is Belief in the Great Pumpkin Properly Basic?
One standard objection to RE is that it is too open-ended: any arbitrary belief, such as belief in the Great Pumpkin, can count. Plantinga thinks this is not true, but admits he does not have precise criteria for distinguishing basic beliefs from other beliefs.

He argues that this is not a major problem because we often "know" the difference between two things without being able to adduce specific demarcation-criteria. For example, we all know that a mouse is not the same as an elephant, but we may not be able to articulate the precise criteria for mouse-hood (such essentialism is ruled-out by evolution anyway).

Instead, he proposes that we proceed inductively: that we gather many examples of basic beliefs and infer demarcation-criteria from these examples. In so proposing, Plantinga is endorsing a view called particularism, which uses what we know to infer criteria for how we know it (see here).

Sceptics will be quick to point out that this task is impossible because there is no neutral starting point from which to begin: atheists think God-belief not properly basic and theists do, we need to appeal to some independent criteria (like those of classical foundationalism).

Plantinga argues that neutral starting points are not needed. The theist can feel secure that they are right to believe as they do. How so?



Grounded, but not Reasonable
This is where the idea of groundedness becomes important. Plantinga argues that although basic beliefs need no justification (and so cannot be "reasonable"), they can be experientially grounded. For example, my belief that I am in pain can be grounded in the conscious experience of pain.

How can God-belief be experientially grounded? There are some examples. For instance, you could start reading the Bible and become convinced that God is speaking to you through the text; or by having a guilty conscience after doing something wrong and becoming convinced that there must be a moral lawgiver.

These two examples would seem to take us beyond the general theistic god and into a more specific religious god. But if they work, all the better for the religious believer.

That's it for now. In the next part, I will detail Everitt's objections to RE.