God

Eight Enduring Questions

C. Stephen Layman

• Éditeur: University of Notre Dame Press
• Année: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780268202040
• Sujet: Teologia e religione
• Sous-sujet: Filosofia delle religioni

This book explores a wide range of philosophical issues in their connection with theism, including views of free will, ethical theories, theories of mind, naturalism, and karma-plus-reincarnation.

In this clear and logical guide, C. Stephen Layman takes up eight important philosophical questions about God: Does God exist? Why does God permit evil? Why think God is good? Why is God hidden? What is God's relationship to ethics? Is divine foreknowledge compatible with human free will? Do humans have souls? Does reincarnation provide the best explanation of suffering? Based on more than thirty years of experience in teaching undergraduates and in leading philosophical discussions related to God, Layman has arranged the text to deal with each of these eight questions in one or two chapters apiece.

Many philosophical works take up questions about God, but the chapters of this book plunge the reader very quickly into the arguments relevant to each question. Layman presents the arguments cogently and simply, yet without oversimplifying the issues. The book emphasizes strengths and weaknesses of both theism and its metaphysical rivals. Readers will gain a clearer understanding of theism and naturalism, and of their sometimes surprising implications. The book can be used as a text in philosophy of religion and introductory philosophy courses. Professional philosophers will find significant, novel arguments in many of the chapters.

ONE

Does God Exist?

Part I

A worldview is a comprehensive philosophical position, one that provides a fundamental outlook on the world and on human existence. In this chapter I’ll outline two contrasting worldviews, theism and naturalism. I will summarize some of the main arguments for naturalism and then take the first steps in developing a case (an extended argument) for theism.

Theism can be formulated as follows: (1) There is exactly one Being that (2) is perfectly morally good and (3) almighty and that (4) exists of necessity. Let me comment briefly on each of these clauses.

(1) By “theism” I refer to a view of God found in the great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. On this view, there is exactly one God; both polytheism and atheism are false.

(2) Theists believe that God is perfectly morally good. Thus, God is perfectly loving, perfectly just, and perfectly wise.

(3) “God is almighty” means roughly that God is maximally powerful. More precisely, there is no state of affairs that God is unable to bring about due to a lack of power.¹ It needs to be noted, however, that there is wide agreement among theologians and theistic philosophers that God cannot do or bring about certain things. For example, God cannot bring it about that God both exists and does not exist (at the same time). Such a scenario is logically impossible, that is, its description is explicitly or implicitly logically inconsistent. And there is no such thing as a power to make logical contradictions true—talk about such a power would simply be nonsense. Similarly, God cannot force a person to perform an act freely; if God forces a person to perform an act, the act is not freely undertaken. It is a necessary truth that no forced act is freely performed. (A necessary truth is one that cannot be false under any circumstances.) And there is no such thing as a power to make necessary truths false—the very idea is incoherent. Hence, these examples are not examples of things God is unable to bring about due to a lack of power; they are simply impossibilities. It would make no sense to say that if only God had more power, he could bring about logical impossibilities; that would be rather like saying, “If only Hercules were stronger, he could lift a thousand-pound spherical cube.” On the other hand, of course, theists insist that God has the power to bring about quite amazing states of affairs. For example, God can create the entire physical universe ex nihilo (out of nothing), bring a dead person back to life, or still a raging storm.

An almighty being would be non-physical, since an entity counts as physical only if it is governed by laws of nature (such as the law of gravity), and an almighty being is not governed by laws of nature.² If a being were governed by laws of nature, it would be unable to do miracles, and clearly, in the traditional conception, God can do miracles. In addition, if God were a physical entity, God would be located in space.³ But if God is the Creator of physical reality—as traditional theists claim—there simply were no physical locations prior to God’s creation of the physical universe. Also, if God is a physical entity located somewhere (or everywhere), God’s location must be (at least in principle) detectible—directly or indirectly—through the five senses.⁴ Is there some tactile, olfactory, gustatory, or visual indication of God’s location in space? Some color, shape, taste, or electrical charge that signals God’s location? Surely not.⁵ Finally, if God were a physical being, God could create only part of physical reality, specifically, the part outside of himself. But on the traditional conception of God, God creates the whole of physical reality, not just a part.

If knowledge is a form of power, then if God is almighty, God has as much knowledge as it is logically possible to have, that is, God is all-knowing or omniscient. And it is plausible to suppose that knowledge is a form of power. Imagine a true-false exam on all the knowable propositions. Among the powers an almighty being would have, surely, would be the power to answer all the items on the exam correctly. But then, clearly, an almighty being is also an all-knowing being.

(4) Many theologians have insisted that God exists of necessity. A necessary being is one that cannot fail to exist. By contrast, a contingent being is one that does exist but would not exist under different circumstances. For example, human beings exist contingently. Presumably I would never have existed if my parents had never met and had sex. Yet it is logically possible that one of my parents died at birth—that could have happened, though it did not. So I am a contingent being.

Why do many theologians claim that God exists of necessity? For at least two reasons. First, theists generally think of God as the most perfect being possible. And many theists believe that necessary existence is a more perfect form of existence than contingent existence. Second, God is the creator of all contingent beings, according to theists, but God is uncreated. So God must exist not contingently, but of necessity.

Naturalism can be formulated as follows: (1) There is a physical reality that is by its very nature organized (i.e., the organization is not imposed by a god or any other force or agent); (2) physical reality exists eternally or by chance; and (3) leaving aside possible special cases (such as numbers or other abstract entities), all entities are physical. Let me comment briefly on each of these clauses. (1) Physical reality doesn’t need to be designed or organized by an intelligent being; it is inherently organized. Scientists can describe this organization in terms of the laws of nature, for example, the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. (2) If physical reality wasn’t created, how did it “get here”? Naturalists will say either that physical reality has always been in existence or that it came into existence purely by chance. Now, the idea that physical reality “popped” into existence out of nothing (and without any cause) is not very plausible.⁶ So naturalists typically hold that physical reality in some form or other has always been in existence. Notice: They do not say that the physical universe of our acquaintance has always existed. According to contemporary science, our physical universe has existed for about 13.7 billion years. That’s a long time, but it’s not an infinitely long time. So naturalists usually claim that our universe was preceded by some other physical state or situation.

(3) Physical reality is the ultimate reality, according to naturalists. There is no God (or anything like God) and no angels, no demons, no non-physical souls, and so on. Now, some naturalists allow for the existence of abstract entities, which are not physical. An abstract entity is one that cannot enter into causal relations. For example, take the number seventeen. You cannot bump into it; you cannot strike someone with the number seventeen; you cannot make it vanish. (Yes, you can erase numerals from a chalkboard, but that has no effect whatsoever on the number seventeen. And humans might conceivably destroy themselves in a nuclear holocaust, but if they did, surely there would still be some number of planets, stars, etc., even if there was no one around who could count them.) So some naturalists do allow for the existence of non-physical abstract entities, but these entities can play no causal role. The only entities that can cause anything to happen are physical entities.

It seems to me that theism and naturalism are the two greatest metaphysical alternatives in the contemporary marketplace of ideas. There are other alternatives, of course. Polytheism, for example. And we shall take up a combination of reincarnation and karma (minus the belief in a personal God) in chapter 12. But for the time being, let’s consider the strengths and weaknesses of theism and naturalism.

ARGUMENTS FOR NATURALISM

The Appeal to Simplicity and Science. Suppose someone is explaining how a combustion engine works. He explains in detail how the pistons, cylinders, valves, spark plugs, crankshaft, and so on operate together to make the engine run. He then adds, “Of course, each combustion engine is inhabited by an engine-angel, without which the engine won’t work at all.” No doubt you would reject this claim regarding engine-angels. Why? Basically, for two reasons. First, there is no direct evidence for engine-angels; no one has ever seen an engine-angel. But no one has ever seen subatomic particles such as quarks, either, yet scientists believe that quarks exist. So science isn’t necessarily opposed to hypotheses involving unobservable entities. Why do scientists believe that quarks exist? Simply put, because, by postulating quarks, they get the best explanation of certain observable phenomena. But postulating engine-angels does not yield a similar benefit. The explanation in terms of pistons, cylinders, spark plugs, and so on, is fully adequate. We do not improve on that explanation by postulating engine-angels. The engine-angel idea unnecessarily complicates our explanation.

The general principle here is one that most people find plausible and acceptable. It is called the principle of simplicity: If a hypothesis is unnecessarily complicated, it is probably false (and so should be rejected). In practice, both theists and naturalists generally seem to presuppose a principle of this type.

From the naturalist’s point of view, theism may have made sense before the rise of science. Faced with mystery upon mystery in the physical world, an appeal to God (or the gods) may have been the best explanation available to humans in many cases. But the situation has changed dramatically since the rise of science. For example, whereas lightning and thunder were seen by the ancient Greeks as the work of Zeus, nowadays we can explain such phenomena in terms of the laws of nature. And whereas the rich diversity of life forms on earth was perhaps once best explained by appeal to a Creator, this phenomenon can now be explained in terms of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Furthermore, whereas human thoughts and feelings may once have been best explained by appeal to a non-physical soul, these phenomena are now best explained via neuroscience in terms of brain processes.

To sum up the naturalist’s appeal to simplicity, it runs as follows: There is no direct evidence for God’s existence. Indeed, it’s obviously impossible to see or touch a non-physical entity. Furthermore, the “God hypothesis” is not the best explanation of any phenomenon; rather, the appeal to God is like the appeal to an engine-angel. Take any phenomenon: Either science can already explain it or probably will someday, and in any case the appeal to God seems unhelpful. For example, suppose scientists cannot currently explain how a certain type of bird migrates to the same location every year. Nevertheless, this seems to be the kind of thing that science will someday be able to explain, and furthermore, “God makes it happen” is not an illuminating explanation. It seems, then, that the belief that God exists is no more credible than the belief that engine-angels exist.

The Problem of Evil and Suffering. Naturalists argue that they can explain the amounts and kinds of evil and suffering in the world better than theists can. Consider: If God is perfectly morally good, God is perfectly loving and just. And if God is perfectly loving, God doesn’t want people to suffer unless there is a good (adequate) reason to let them suffer. Now, theists have offered various reasons God might have for allowing suffering. And some of the reasons may explain some suffering. The problem is that the reasons don’t come close to explaining either the total amount of suffering in the world or the more intense kinds of suffering. For example, if God gives us free will so that we can choose between good and evil, this might explain some suffering that results from the abuse of free will, as when one person tells a lie and someone else suffers as a result. But the appeal to free will explains none of the suffering that results from non-human causes, such as diseases, birth defects, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, mudslides, extreme temperatures, and animal attacks. Furthermore, even if the appeal to free will explains some suffering due to the abuse of free will, it doesn’t clearly justify the extreme suffering that results from genocide or torture. A loving parent would not allow such things to occur—he or she would interfere to stop them (if able to do so). Similarly, if God really is “our Father in heaven,” God would surely interfere to stop such horrors. But since such horrors often occur, there is, or at least probably is, no God who is both perfectly loving and almighty.

Naturalists, on the other hand, have no need to square the facts about suffering and evil with a supposedly good God who allegedly governs the world. Much suffering results from the operation of laws of nature, for example, extremes of temperature, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, diseases, and so on. Well, that is just a fact about the challenging environment we humans live in. The naturalist has no difficulty explaining why such unfortunate things occur.

Some theists think that naturalism makes no room for morality, but the main philosophical ethical theories make no reference to God. For example, utilitarianism is (very roughly) the view that we should always act so as to maximize the happiness of those affected by our actions.⁷ And what we call wrong or evil acts very typically harm others in some way, thus making them unhappy or less happy. So the naturalist has no difficulty accounting for moral evil, either.

To sum up, it is widely acknowledged that theism seems unable to explain much of the suffering and evil in the world, while naturalism has no such difficulty. And according to naturalists, this gives us a very strong reason to think that naturalism is more likely to be true than theism is.

The Problem of Divine Hiddenness. John Schellenberg’s “hiddenness argument” provides naturalists with another way of arguing that their view is superior to theism.⁸

1. If a God of love exists, reasonable non-belief (that is, not believing that God exits) does not occur.

2. But reasonable non-belief does occur.

3. So a God of love does not exist.

Assuming that there is at most one God, the hiddenness argument, if sound, supports atheism. “Non-belief” here includes atheism, agnosticism, never having conceived of God, believing in an unloving God, and so on. And a person’s non-belief is reasonable if he or she cannot be faulted for lacking the belief that God exists.

The support for premise 2 would include claims such as the following: Some...