Theism or Atheism

The Eternal Debate

F.F. Centore

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780815398417
• eBook ISBN: 9781351144742
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

From the time of the thinkers of ancient Greece, the question of what can be said about the existence and nature of God has been debated by many philosophers and theologians. In Theism and Atheism: The Eternal Debate, F.F. Centore presents a broad analysis of the major positions that address the question and the thinkers who have contributed to the debate. This is an admirably lucid and thorough examination of the history of natural theology. Covering the material in a thematic rather than in a strictly chronological way, Centore draws out the key positions on topics such as the relationship of science and religion, the problem of evil, Naturalistic and Supernaturalistic theism and the dispute between essence and existence. The proponents of the various positions are considered alongside their most explicit critics. Important thinkers dealt with in this work include Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Pascal, Kant, Hume, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud and Darwin. The diversity of exploration also goes beyond the Judeo-Christian tradition to look at Hinduism, Buddhism, Stoicism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism and Classical Paganism. This work, however, is much more than a survey of the major historical arguments and rebuttals concerning God's existence and nature. Overall, it is a work by a well-established Catholic philosopher who concludes that God's existence and nature are indeed compatible with modern science, human freedom and the existence of evil in the world.

Chapter 1
The Reach of Reason

Religion and Science

Philosophical or natural theology is a venerable undertaking, beginning among the ancient Greeks, as illustrated in the dialogue The Laws by Plato (427–347 BC) and in the Metaphysics by Aristotle (384–22 BC). As we will see, over the centuries the basic questions concerning our relationship to God have remained the same (Plato, 1963; Aristotle, 1941).

To illustrate, in modern times, according to Samuel Beckett (1906–89) in his play Waiting for Godot (1952), everyone is waiting for God to show up so that God can give us instructions about what to do. However, God does not show up and so we are thrown back on our own devices. Should we commit suicide or invent busy-work for ourselves?

Yet the question remains: Why doesn't God talk to us in a direct physical way? But then we can also ask: Is this a reasonable expectation? Assuming that God is a spiritual being, is it reasonable to expect that we would experience God in the same way as a material thing? Perhaps the proper way to experience God is by means of conscience or through the love we have for other human beings. Whereas things of the body grow and decay, things of the spirit live forever. If true lovers are to experience love in an everlasting way, maybe it can only be in heaven.

Furthermore, is religion opposed to science, which prides itself on physical observations and material experiments? Some people interested in defending religion seem to think that by degrading science the value of religion must rise. This attitude, though, is a mistake. When considering the relationship of science and religion, there are four possible positions.

1. Science can increase while religion decreases.
2. Science can decrease while religion increases.
3. Both science and religion can decrease.
4. Both science and religion can increase.

Even assuming that science is evil or that it has done more harm than good over the past 400 years, those advocating the denigration of science overlook the third possibility. As we see in the case of David Hume, for instance, one's scepticism can extend to everything, including science. In contrast, for someone such as Thomas Aquinas, the human intellect is capable of knowing the truth in both science and religion. There is no need to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.

The next obvious issue, then, concerns how we go about actually achieving such a balance. Certainly, being negative will not do. To be reasonable we must be affirmative; we must offer positive arguments. In order to be useful in natural theology, any argument for the existence of God must meet certain positive conditions.

1. It must be accessible to anyone with a basic education and basic reasoning powers. It should not be restricted to only a few people with specialized training in science, philosophy, or theology. It should not require that someone be a specialist in all of the fine points of either humanistic or computer logic. Consequently, saying that you have a perfect proof for the existence of God, but that you are the only one who can understand it, will not do.
2. It must be in conformity with the available evidence, even while being free of any particular scientific theory of the universe. The natural sciences keep advancing in their discovery of more and more certainties about nature. When the sciences enter upon the philosophy of nature, however, they are not at all certain. For example, what are the ultimate constituents of nature? Matter and form? Atoms? History is full of discarded relics. Plotinus (205–70), with his universe full of many layers of gods, magic, and mysticism, all coming from the great non-being by a fatalistic process, represented theoretical science at its best. We have also seen the scientific theories of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Newton, and Darwin come and go. Any argument that is bound to the latest scientific theory is sure to die as soon as the scientific theory dies. How long will Einstein's view last? From the perspective of natural theology, for instance, it seems odd that God's power to move something should be limited to the speed of light.
3. In order to be useful in a religious context, the argument must show an agreement between reason and whatever revelation is significant within a given religious context. Such a convergence must not be forced. At each stage it should be possible to check the argument against the available evidence and the rules of ordinary logic. In this way, if there is a convergence of the God of reason with the God of religion, it will not be the result of propaganda or indoctrination.

Some Non-arguments

Style versus Content

Should all statements concerning the existence of God be taken seriously? Consider, for instance, the following: 'You do not really believe in God, do you! You must accept the fact that you are a mistake of nature regurgitated up out of the primeval slime with no purpose whatsoever!' The first rule of rational discourse is to avoid emotional outbursts. Statements such as the above say something about someone's state of mind, but not something about the state of things outside the mind. It is as useless as asking, I wonder why people in the newspaper always die in alphabetical order? I wonder why hospitals always seem to have so many sick people? Or, I wonder what the world would be like if all the men were women and all the women were men? Emotional statements are statements of fact about someone's psychological condition. But what is emotionally embraced by one person can be emotionally rejected by another person. We must not confuse the cognitive with the affective, knowledge with feelings.

By the same token, merely asserting that the earth is cube-shaped does not tell us anything about the real earth. In parallel fashion, denying the existence of God because someone was taught to believe in God at a young age is no argument at all. The same line could be used to hassle the atheist. The only reason you (the atheist) disbelieve in God is that you were raised in an atheistic family. Is the truth always the opposite of what you were taught at home or in school?

Neither should we think that someone's manner of speaking, physical appearance, or lifestyle is relevant to the truth or falsity of the statements being made. Someone, for instance, can tell you in the nicest way that two and two make five. However, regardless of the person's good looks, beautiful speech, fine clothes, and charming personality, the answer is wrong. On the other hand, someone might punch you in the mouth, throw you down on the ground, and hurl insults at you, all the while telling you that two and two make four. The fact that someone is attractive does not guarantee that the person is saying something true. Neither is there any necessary connection between being attractive and being moral.

We must beware of attempting to judge something on the basis of something else that happens to be close to it. Similar to the situation wherein someone's personality is used as a basis for deciding what is true or false, deciding which of two or more propositions is true or false by association is a good way to often be mistaken. For instance, the fact that someone is very prejudiced against Whites does not mean that he is unable to solve some very thorny problem in mathematics. The reason for this is simple. When you have a conjunction of two propositions (P and Q), one can be true while the other one is false, or both can be true, or both can be false. For instance, in the case of 'the moon is made of green cheese and all hydrogen is combustible', there is no need to assume that the latter is false because the former is false.

This becomes significant when dealing with arguments for the existence of God made by people who lived in times when the level of scientific knowledge was far below that of ours today. Does this mean that anything they have to say must be inferior to what we have today? Certainly not. To assert that what they have to say is unfit for modern ears would itself be a form of prejudice. Instead, each statement made by the older thinker must be judged on its own merits.

Similarly, we must be careful about our initial assumptions. Over the years, for example, many people have criticized Pope Pius XII (1876–1958) for not speaking out louder and more constantly against the Nazis. The critics, though, usually begin with the false assumption that the best way to control the actions of a vicious dictator is to publicly condemn him loudly and often. Those who tried this approach with Hitler soon learned that it did more harm than good; constantly slapping the vicious dog on the nose will not make the beast less vicious. The proper approach in Hitler's case was to work behind the scenes in order to save as many of the intended victims as possible, which is exactly what Pope Pius XII did.

In other words, appearances can be deceiving. The spoon in the water is not really broken and the person seen from a distance walking across campus is not really only three inches tall. What is up-front and what is behind the scenes can be quite different. Style and outward appearance can be one thing while the actual content can be something else.

Yes, but does not having any sort of commitment, whether internal or external, make a discussion of religion impossible? No, because it is possible to be committed and tolerant at the same time. As a matter of fact, neutrality in religious matters is impossible. Everyone must maintain some view with respect to God. Even the agnostic is maintaining a definite position. Nevertheless, although neutrality in the area of religion is neither possible nor necessary, getting to the roots of the issues is both possible and necessary in philosophy. For example, if someone should lament the fact that a young boy committed suicide rather than go through life as a homosexual, the philosopher would not say: 'Oh, how terrible,' and leave it at that. He would become obnoxious and ask: 'So what's wrong with suicide?'

As we will see, real philosophers are in the business of radical thinking. They love cutting through propaganda and outward appearances. Their main tool for doing this is the embarrassing question. They question what others take for granted. This is a good way not to be popular at parties, especially if you are dealing with politicians. Nevertheless, it is something that must be done if we are to make any progress in our discussion of the existence of God.

The Crutch Theory

Another non-argument is the crutch theory of religion, which says that religion is really only a way of overcoming our many fears concerning the precariousness of life. Our fear creates the gods. According to this view, the more a creature is likely to suffer the more religious it is.

However, it is easy enough to see that being dependent on something for comfort does not disprove the existence of the thing. A child, for instance, can depend upon a blanket for comfort. Also, why are animals, which suffer as much if not more than humans, not just as religious?

In addition, the argument can be turned against the critic. It is the critic who fears the existence of God because of what taking God seriously means for his immoral lifestyle. If God can come into his life, his whole sense of security would be upset. Taking God seriously means that tonight God might demand his life. His fear of punishment creates the atheist.

A variation on the crutch theory is the old Marxist view that religion is a tool of the capitalist oppressors, the opium of the people, used to keep the workers tranquilized. The old Marxist sings:

You will eat, bye and bye
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

Joe Hill (Joseph Hillstrom, 1879–1915), The Preacher and the Slave

Following in the footsteps of Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–72), who said that God did not create us, but rather we created God, Marx believed that theology is really anthropology. Saying that the will of God should be done is really saying that the will of man should be done. For the Marxist, humanity is God. The Church must now be replaced with secular government central planning. According to Marxist theory, physically comfortable people are naturally atheists; radically reorganize the material basis of human life and religion will simply fade away. Unfortunately, this is another case of trying to make the facts fit the theory. In fact, physically comfortable people do not act like well-kept animals. As self-conscious, rational beings we become bored, restless, and suffer in mind from existential angst.

Cultural Relativism

One of the most current pseudo-arguments against the existence of God is cultural relativism. If the theory is right, the most we could have would be as-if (subjective) arguments for the existence of God. It would be impossible to say anything for-real (objectively true) about God.

Modernism refers to the rise of science, with its objective explanation of the world. For the enlightened scientific person, everything is nature and nothing is culture. The emphasis is on reason and how reason discovers the fixed natures (essences) of things. Pushed too far, though, this has some serious anti-humanistic consequences. If scientific determinism is the truth, what becomes of our human dignity? If we have a natural constitution that determines our every move, how can we determine our own personal and social destinies? Obviously, something must be done to neutralize the influence of science. Somehow or other we must free ourselves from the suffocating oppression of the inexorable laws of nature. How can man's will power be restored to its rightful place at the centre of the universe?

The answer given by post-modernists is that everything must be constantly constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed. There is no truth, only 'truth'. All basic world-views are only cultural prejudices. There is no methodology, scientific or otherwise, capable of providing us with the truth. Everything is nurture (culture) and nothing is nature. Perspective is everything. Religious stories, for example, are not just failed attempts to do good science. Contrary to Freud's view, religion is not a rival to science. Rather, religious myths serve a social function, which is to provide cohesiveness for the people. Something can be true, but only within a given belief system. There is no truth that cuts across all times, places, and societies. Cultural relativism begins with the basic assumption that nothing at all, even science, is essentially real, true, and good. In a word, philosophical renewal is essence removal.

Whence, then, the appearance of something essentially fixed? The answer is man-the-maker. Temporary stability is the result of the human will creating the nature and function of things. The enlightened post-modern person is always asking: Whose reality? Why was it constructed? What social function is served? For instance, when the Aryans invaded India they set up the caste system in order to make themselves feel good about their superior position. Likewise, the early Christians, who were persecuted for so many years, invented stories about a suffering Jesus Christ in order to make themselves feel good about their inferior position. Over time, the main ingredient of all man-made social constructs is language.

This is why tradition, especially linguistic tradition, is so important to Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002), someone following in the footsteps of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976). For Gadamer, tradition is the great flywheel of society, keeping things stable through many changes. It restrains arbitrariness. Even though we are free to take everything apart and put it back together in any way we wish, our traditions give us stability. When Gadamer died in March 2002, even Pope John-Paul II praised him for his emphasis on tradition.

As emphasized by Gadamer, the hermeneutical phenomenon can be illuminated only in light of the fundamental finitude of being, which is wholly verbal in character. Furthermore, he wants to go beyond the concept of method held by modern science and envisage in a fundamentally universal way what always happens, which is that all understanding is determined by man-made culture. Instead of our language being a reflection of reality, reality is a reflection of our language (Gadamer, 1989, pp. 458, 512, 555).

Without a doubt, cultural relativism, in the sense that some aspects of human life are the result of social conditioning, is partially true. However, the basic principle of cultural relativism, when stated universally, is false. It is a truism that everything in life is part of a context. We are all children of our times. However, saying, rightly, that there is no going back to the past does not mean that there are no principles of moral human behaviour persisting through the past, present, and future. In real life we are not free to act in any way we want or to pass any law we feel like. In the social and political realm, for instance, the state cannot, without dire consequences, pass a law saying that women must drive on the right side of the road and men must drive on the left, or a law encouraging married women not to have children. Unless our purpose is to deliberately throw everything into chaos, neither can we pass a law saying that two and two make five.

Likewise in the sciences. Science seeks the universal and necessary causes for things in the physical world. Where there is a fixed nature (essence) inherent in something, there is a law. Where there is a law, there is science. Where there is science, there is predictability. And where there is predictability, there is the possibility of technology. Unsurprisingly, those in mathematics and science do not take seriously the deconstructionist brand of relativism.

Consider, for instance, feminism. No biologist is surprised when a teenage girl becomes pregnant. That is what she is supposed to do. Biologically speaking, females are baby-making machines. How, then, can feminism get started – that is, how can anyone justify ignoring nature? Enter Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80), another Heidegger student, who figured out a way of rendering science irrelevant to human life. He told us in his Being and Nothingness and Existentialism is a Humanism, that man is freedom, which cannot be based on being. Being is the in-itself, the world of nature that is fixed and determined. Being is completely lacking in freedom and as such is anti-human. Freedom, therefore, must be based on the opposite of being, which can only be non-being (nothingness). Thus freed from nature, man can do whatever he wishes.

It is no accident that the bible of modern feminism was written by Sartre's loyal disciple, Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86). The divorce of man from nature allows her to declare in her work The Second Sex (1947) that everything feminine is the result of highly variable culture. If everything is the result of social history, then certainly some thing, such as what makes a male or female, is also. Cut loose from nature, females are given a licence to become the same as males in every way; anyone saying otherwise is guilty of oppressing women. She differs from her master in so far as her womanly instinct for the importance of interpersonal relationships causes her to place a greater...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• 1 The Reach of Reason
• 2 The Problem of Evil
• 3 Naturalistic Theism
• 4 Supernaturalistic Theism
• 5 The As-if Approach to God
• 6 The For-real Approach to God: The A Priori Method
• 7 The For-real Approach: A Posteriori Internal Experience Method
• 8 The For-real Approach: A Posteriori External Experience Method Based on Essence
• 9 The For-real Approach: A Posteriori External Experience Method Based on Existence
• Bibliography
• Index