Arguments for God

Critically evaluate the Kalam Argument. (40)

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The Kalam Argument for the existence of God was put forward by Islamic mutakallimimiin in the early middle ages. Responding to the work of Aristotle, gathered and translated by the first Caliphs into the Bayt al Hikmah in Baghdad, Muslim scholars were divided between accepting Aristotle’s persuasive world-view along with his arguments and modifying Aristotle to fit in with the revealed truth that the Universe was created by Allah and so had a beginning in time. Those who accepted Aristotle’s idea of an infinite universe, albeit one sustained by a Prime Mover, were known as “Falsafa” (the Arabic transliteration of “Philosopher” and those who modified Aristotle were known as “Kalam” (which literally means word or speech of God).  The Kalam argument built on 6th century Christian writer John Philoponus’ argument that the idea of an infinite universe was self-contradictory.  Philoponus observed that “The eternity of the universe would imply an infinite number of past motions that is continually being increased. But an infinite cannot be added to…” Scholars of the Kalam school argued that

  • P1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause
  • P2: The Universe began to exist
  • IC:  The universe has a cause to its existence.
  • P3: That cause is what everybody calls God
  • C:  God exists

In this way, scholars such as Al Kindi and later Al Ghazali proposed that Aristotle’s principle of causation suggests a necessary Uncaused Causer at the beginning of time rather than just a Prime Mover sustaining an infinite universe.

The work of Al Ghazali in particular inspired American scholar William Lane Craig to develop and defend a new version of the Kalam Argument in the 1970s and 1980s as part of a battery of arguments which he employs for the purposes of Christian apologetics.  He focussed on the first part of the argument above, namely

  • P1:  Everything that begins to exist has a cause
  • P2: The Universe began to exist
  • C:  The universe has a cause to its existence.

Craig chose to leave it to Theologians to argue separately that the (uncaused) cause of the universe could indeed be said to be God. Nevertheless, Craig’s argument was subject to immediate criticism.  Scientists took issue with the proposition “everything that begins to exist has a cause”, citing quantum particles as examples of entities within the universe that are not subject to the Aristotelian principle of causation.  Atheists took issue with the conclusion “that cause is what everybody calls God”, noting that little can be known about the Uncaused Cause of the universe and there is little point of worshipping something as abstract as the Higgs Boson. This essay will conclude that while the argument fails to demonstrate God’s existence it has significant value in other ways.

The Atheist philosopher JL Mackie rejected Craig’s first statement of his Kalam argument in his “The Miracle of Theism”, which was published posthumously in 1983.  In Chapter 5 Mackie attacks the idea that the universe could have a first cause in time, suggesting that Craig had misunderstood the concept of infinity.  He doubts that there is any good reason to believe that the first proposition of the Kalam argument, that “everything that begins to exist has a cause”, is true but focusses his attention on proposition two, that the universe must have begun to exist.  Mackie showed that there are a series of steps or sub-arguments involved in proposition 2, the first relying on the impossibility of an actual infinite and the second relying on the impossibility of an infinity by successive addition.  He argued that neither of the sub-arguments could be said to be sound and therefore that proposition 2, on which Craig’s conclusion relies, cannot be upheld.  Finally, Mackie pointed to the inconsistency in an argument which starts by upholding causality and then proposes an uncaused solution; like Al Ghazali and later Bertrand Russell, he asks “why could not the universe be its own cause?” Mackie’s critique of Craig’s argument is persuasive and echoes generations of critics of the Cosmological Argument as a whole. Nevertheless, in “Professor Mackie and the Kalam Cosmological Argument“[2] Craig labelled Mackie’s criticism as “superficial”, suggesting that Mackie’s theoretical demolition of his claim that an actual infinite or an infinity by successive addition is impossible did not address the real-world difficulty of supposing the universe has no beginning.  It is one thing to theorise about Hilbert’s Hotel or Gabriel’s Trumpet, but it is a different matter to suggest that either approximates to reality.  Craig appeals to experience; how can we suppose that a series of causes and effects in time has no beginning?  Something just can’t come out of nothing!  It seems that Craig really has a point; the concept of infinity stretches the bounds of comprehension and the idea of the universe we can see and otherwise sense and that we can observe (using radio-telescopes at least) expanding, having no beginning and no end seems much less plausible than the alternative.

Nevertheless, Craig’s reluctance to make the move from claiming that the universe has a first cause in time to claiming that this cause is God is a potential weakness. Perhaps, as James Still observes, “Craig’s admirable effort to prove the finitude of the universe leaves him in the position of the runner at Marathon. While he has expended all of his energy to bring the news of the universe’s beginning to us, he has little strength left to argue convincingly for its cause.”  Or perhaps Craig’s reluctance is more strategic.  Given research into sub-atomic particles and the evidenced suggestion that on the quantum level things happen without a cause right now, let alone when the conditions of the universe were markedly different (as in the singularity), it is a logical stretch to identify the un-caused cause of the universe with God with any speed and without a great deal of justification.  Although the qualities that Craig ascribes to the cause of the universe – uncaused, necessary, timeless, space-less, eternal, unchanging, infinitely powerful – are the traditional qualities of God, arguably they became so as a result of the work of philosophers in attempting to co-opt Aristotle’s philosophy into the Philosophy of Religion.  It is difficult to see how the cause of the universe could be understood to be the father of Jesus, the author of miracles or the active recipient of prayers, even allowing for the use of metaphorical language. Yet of course Craig understands this difficulty; as a Reformed Epistemologist following Hick and Pannenberg, he leaves it to Theologians to make that case, seeing that his role as an apologist is limited to showing that a faith sourced elsewhere is potentially reasonable.  Craig’s theistic purpose in advancing and defending his argument is obvious; Craig’s version of the Kalam argument was first advanced at the end of a survey and analysis of cosmological arguments for God’s existence and is repeatedly referenced through Craig’s apologetic articles and videos.  It seems that his evasion in relation to the final step in the Islamic Kalam argument is deliberate and strategic, sidestepping the damaging criticism that would inevitably have followed on from his completing the Kalam argument as Al Ghazali did. Craig does not need to complete the argument for his purposes and to do so would be costly, so he chooses to focus on the part of the argument that is more defensible and which raises difficult questions about his opponents’ world-view.  While the criticism that Craig is a hypocrite is rightly rejected as being ad hominem,[4] it is fair to suggest that Craig’s strategic approach to the argument undermines its plausibility to some extent.

In later articles and popular presentations[5] Craig has recruited the work of scientists in support of his reasoning, pointing to the Big Bang Theory and associated evidence such as Red Shift, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics etc. as evidence for the necessity of a beginning for all time and all space.  Given the weight of scientific opinion behind the existence of the universe having a beginning it seems reasonable to conclude, as Craig does, that the universe must have a cause and that this must be outside space and time and thus, single, simple, unchanging, necessary and the origin of everything.  Yet the Philosopher of Science Adolf Grunbaum rejected Craig’s reasoning, arguing that Big Bang theory leads back to a singularity, an infinitely small and dense point of matter at t0.[6]  If time starts with the singularity, it makes no sense to speak of a cause prior to the singularity so the ultimate cause of the universe IS the singularity.  To put it another way, the singularity is the cause of the universe and, because there is no space or time prior to the singularity, the cause of the universe can only be the singularity.  Grunbaum’s reasoning seems flawless; if space and time are connected, as Einstein demonstrated, a universe expanding in space is also expanding in time and both space and time start together.  How then could there be a cause prior to or outside the universe, whether that cause is God or otherwise?  Perhaps the conclusion that the universe is, at least so far as human understanding is concerned, “a brute fact” is inescapable.

In conclusion, it seems that the Kalam argument is subject to several significant criticisms.  While its simple and elegant form seems to be valid, as JL Mackie observed it conceals chains of reasoning which might not bear scrutiny and makes universal claims about causation which cannot be fully supported.  It is not, therefore, a good argument even in terms of establishing the limited conclusion which William Lane Craig restricts it to, that the universe has an unspecified cause.  Nevertheless, it does seem that the argument has the merit of drawing attention to the inadequacy of alternative, non-theistic explanations of the universe.  It may be that we cannot establish the necessity of a cause for the universe, let alone that that cause is God in any meaningful sense, and yet the idea that the universe has no cause is difficult to accept on any level.  In the end the Kalam Argument shines a light on the bizarre state of relations between Science and Theology today… with the Scientists arguing against the principle of causation and against the implications of their own conclusion that the universe started to exist and the Theologians arguing that the scientists have been right all along, that the principle of causation must stand and that the Big Bang Theory and its implications must be accepted in full.  Perhaps at some point both will have to accept that establishing the cause of the universe is beyond the limits of human knowledge.

Footnotes

[1] Quoted in William Lane Craig “The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz” (1979) p53.

[2] Religious Studies, 1984, Vol.20, pp.367-375

[3] James T Sill “Eternity and Time in William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument” www.infidels.org

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSK3F3sjVNk

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CulBuMCLg0

[6] Vardy and Vardy “God Matters” (SCM Press, 2014) page 74

Critically evaluate the classical teleological argument (40)

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Teleological arguments move from observations of purposiveness in the universe to the conclusion that God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe as it is. The Greek word TELOS originally referred to the target in archery and Aquinas, in his fifth way to God plays on this imagery by selecting an arrow as his analogy for purposiveness in the universe.  He wrote…

“We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.”

The argument has its roots in Aristotle, who wrote of things in the universe and the universe as a whole advancing towards fulfilling a FINAL CAUSE, a telos or purpose, and suggested that there must be some mysterious force guiding this process and supporting the tendency towards fulfilment, goodness, in everything we see. It has been advanced many times and in many different variants since Aquinas, but it is characterised by arguing qua purpose and by the use of analogies to emphasise the improbability of efficient organisms and processes arising by chance. The classical teleological argument fell out of favour in the mid-19th century as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was accepted as offering a natural explanation for the appearance of purposiveness in things.  This essay will argue that while evolution remains the best reason for rejecting teleological arguments, there are other good reasons for rejecting them as well.

In 1779 David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion was published.  It contained a complete, and eminently readable, refutation of the classical teleological as well as other arguments for the existence of God.  Hume’s character Cleanthes sets up the argument, using the analogy of a machine and its maker(s)…

“Look round the world, contemplating the whole thing and every part of it; you’ll find that it is nothing but one big machine subdivided into an infinite number of smaller ones… The intricate fitting of means to ends throughout all nature is just like (though more wonderful than) the fitting of means to ends in things that have been produced by us”[2]

He concluded…

“Since the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer by all the rules of analogy that the causes are also alike, and that the author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though he has much larger faculties to go with the grandeur of the work he has carried out.”[3]

In 1803 Cleanthes’ argument was famously reproduced by William Paley, who used the analogy of a watch and watchmaker, concluding that from the similarity between the watch, natural organisms and even the universe as a whole…

“the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker”

The arguments presented by both Cleanthes and Paley are arguments from analogy and, as such, both can only be as strong as the analogies they employ.  As Hume’s character Philo observed, Cleanthes (and reasonably Paley) relies on a “very weak analogy”.  He reduces the argument to absurdity by suggesting alternative analogies – a house, legs, a ship – and concludes that

“Doesn’t the great disproportion ·between part and whole· bar all comparison and inference? From observing the growth of a hair, can we learn anything about how men come into being? Would the way a leaf blows—even if we knew this perfectly—teach us anything about how a tree grows?”[5]

As Philo points out, there is a great dissimilarity between any analogy and the universe as a whole, and this is not just one of degree as Paley suggests in Chapter II Part V of Natural Theology.  It is not reasonable, even from the perspective of the 19th Century Newtonian world-view, to suggest that

“Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other animals, is just one of the springs and forces of the universe…”

It follows that the analogies commonly employed to persuade readers by proponents of the classical teleological argument add nothing to the strength of their argument as a whole.

Apart from the analogies, the classical teleological argument can be summarised through this syllogism…

P1.  Natural organisms act towards an end

P2. Natural organisms cannot act towards an end independently

C1. There must be some intelligence causing natural organisms to act towards an end

C2. This intelligence is what everybody calls God.

Clearly, both propositions can be disputed.  There are many examples of inefficiency in nature and even where purposiveness is apparent, this can now be explained by evolution through natural selection.  Yet the most problematic step in the argument is the secondary conclusion, that the “intelligence” is what everybody calls God.  Surely God is usually seen to be whatever caused the universe to be the way that it is, however the qualities of omnipotence and omnibenevolence are usually imputed to God and there can be no doubt that the universe contains many examples of gratuitous innocent suffering.  As Tennyson wrote “nature is red in tooth and claw”[7] – Darwin himself and later John Stuart Mill remarked how implausible it is to suggest that a loving God could create a world in which animals must kill each other to survive.  To many people this world seems more like the project of a sick science-fiction project than of the God of Christianity! Is it not reasonable to suggest that this universe could be the first, “rude effort of an infant deity”[8]?  This would better account for the imperfect characteristics of the universe as we find it than suggesting that it is the perfect product of a perfect God.

Further, there is nothing to suggest that the intelligent designer of the universe would have to be single.  As Philo observed…

”a great number of men join in building a house or a ship, in rearing a city, in framing a commonwealth; why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world?” 

This would render the secondary conclusion of the classical teleological argument, that the intelligence behind the universe could be called God, redundant.   No Christian – and few members of other faiths – could accept that multiple Gods could have had a hand in creating the universe; to do so would place limits on the power of each, reducing the God’s to the status of spirits or demons. Philo admits that supposing the existence of multiple deities would be to “multiply causes unnecessarily” in a way that is philosophically unsound, and yet he argues that although it would be just as wrong to say that there must be one God as to say there must be multiple Gods.  There is no way that human beings can know one way or the other.  The secondary conclusion is not adequately supported by the premises and so the argument fails in its objective of being a demonstration of the existence of God.

Of course modern Intelligent Design arguments get around this difficulty by eliminating the secondary conclusion and leaving just the inference that God might be the intelligence that the argument has concluded to exist.  Scholars such as Michael Behe and William Dembski point out the inadequacy of Darwin’s Theory of evolution through natural selection as a complete explanation for the universe.

Michael Behe points to irreducible complexity in microbiological organisms, such as the flagellum of certain bacteria, suggesting that linear evolution cannot account for complex organisms in which all parts need to work together for any function to be performed.  Individual parts of irreducibly complex organisms are, Behe claims, without purpose unless all the other parts are present and correctly arranged.  How could things evolve all at once to be this way?  An intelligence is needed to explain these structures, some of which are the very building-blocks of life.  It may be that evolution explains some aspects of nature, but without hypothesising intelligent design scientists cannot explain all of nature[9].  Of course Behe’s argument is rejected by most mainstream scientists, who point out that parts of organisms can evolve out of existence as well as into existence.  It could well be that each part of an irreducibly complex organism had a purpose in relation to the organism as it was in a previous stage of evolution, but as the new purpose evolved the old one became redundant and other parts of the structure with no new purpose did not survive.  Most critics of Behe claim that he has either misunderstood the science and is making invalid claims to irreducible complexity or claim that he is too hasty in his conclusion that an intelligent designer hypothesis is required. If they are right, as I am persuaded that they are – the critics vastly outnumber and outrank his supporters – then Behe’s modern version of the teleological argument fails, even with its scientific examples and lack of secondary conclusion.

Like Behe, William Dembski proposes that an intelligent designer hypothesis is needed to account for the characteristics of natural organisms.  Dembski appeals to what he calls “specified complexity”, instances where incredibly complex structures occur where each part of the whole is finely tuned for its job.  The obvious example is DNA – each “letter” of a strand of DNA, ACGT, has a specific role and there are millions and millions of them in the most basic genome. As a statistician, Dembski calculates the probability of such specified complex structures arising by chance and concludes that where the probability surpasses what he calls the “universal probability bound” (10×1150) then it is incredible to suppose that it happened by chance rather than design[10].  Dembski has as many critics as Behe.  Again they claim that he has either misunderstood the science or jumped to his conclusion of intelligent design too hastily.  Specifically, Dembski starts with specified complex structures as they are today and assumes that they were always meant to be this way when he calculates probability, which ignores the possibility that they genuinely exist by chance and could very well not exist or exist differently.  Scientists are beginning to recognise that DNA contains a huge percentage of redundancy – code that was once relevant but which has been rendered redundant by new code which has been added as species evolve.  Certainly, cutting out a section of DNA will change the efficacy of the whole strand, but that is because redundant elements are woven into the fabric of the whole.  Take Brighton Pavilion as an example – its structure is highly complex and each bit is integral to the whole.  This is not as a result of design but because the building was remodelled through several different designs and the present building incorporates and relies on elements of older buildings.  The guttering runs inside the walls and now holds up the ceilings in some places.  Start taking things away – even things as small as layers of wallpaper or light-fittings – and the whole building starts to crumble.  As Richard Dawkins has observed, it is more reasonable to suggest that specified complex structures did arise naturally, over extended periods of time and as a result of environmental pressures, than to claim that they were created as they are my a mysterious “intelligence”[11].  Such a conclusion multiplies improbabilities and by the scientific and philosophical principle of Occam’s Razor, is illogical.  It follows that Dembski’s argument fails as well.

In conclusion it seems that the classical teleological argument fails to demonstrate the existence of God.  The versions proposed by Aquinas, Cleanthes and William Paley are undermined by their use of weak analogies, their propositions are questionable and the conclusions, both that an intelligence and that God exists, are not adequately supported by those propositions.  Most persuasively, the argument fails to explain how a recognisable God could create an imperfect universe or why the characteristics of the universe should not be imputed to demonstrate the existence of an imperfect God, or even a committee of Gods.  Yet, in the end, Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection remains the best reason for rejecting teleological arguments, whether in their classical or modern forms.  The failure of Intelligent Design arguments such as those proposed by Michael Behe and William Dembski shows that any attempt to argue qua purpose to God lacks credibility when evolution offers an elegant and demonstrable explanation of purposiveness that does not demand recourse to the supernatural.  Certainly, examples of structures which biology does not yet understand exist.  However absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence!  Science is by its nature a process and it is unreasonable for religious critics to demand that it present a complete explanation now or admit failure.  There is ample evidence that evolution continues to offer explanatory power and that it is making progress in explaining even the most irreducibly complex or specifically complex structures.  Nevertheless, the failure of classical arguments qua purpose and modern derivations of them does not obviate the possibility of arguing to God qua regularity.  In particular, the aesthetic argument presented by Richard Swinburne could survive the criticisms outlined here[12].  That a universe should exist and evolve in the way that it does is incredible and this sense of awe and wonder could be the basis for a successful abductive argument for some sort of a God, if not the God of Classical Theism.

Footnotes

[1] Summa Theologica: First Part, Question 2, Article 3

[2] Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) Part II

[3] Ibid.

[4] Natural Theology page 3.

[5] Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) Part II

[6] Ibid.

[7] In Memoriam, Canto 56

[8]   Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) Part V

[9] See “Darwin’s Black Box” (1994)

[10] In books such as “No Free Lunch” (2002)

[11] See the case he presents in episode 2 of his documentary “Religion: The root of all evil” (2002)

[12] The Existence of God (2004)

Critically evaluate Aquinas’ Fifth Way. [40]

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Aquinas’ Fifth Way represents a classic statement of the teleological argument qua purpose.  Like Aquinas’ first four ways (Summa Theologica 1, Question 2, Article 3) the argument is inductive and draws the conclusion that God exists a posteriori, following observations of characteristics of the natural world and specifically that all things seem to act for an end (Greek “telos”).  Also like Aquinas’ other ways, the fifth way cannot claim to prove God’s existence; as an inductive argument it is limited to concluding that God is the most probable explanation of the aspects of the universe named in the propositions.  Apart from that obvious limitation, Aquinas’ argument is beset by significant problems and, as this essay will demonstrate, fails to achieve its aim of being a good argument for God’s existence.

Aquinas’ fifth way can be expressed through the following syllogism

P1: natural bodies, which lack intelligence, act for an end

P2: whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence

C: Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end (and this being we call God)

The first proposition – that natural bodies which lack intelligence act for an end – could easily be disputed.  Might it not be that direction in natural bodies is more about how we see and understand them than about how they actually are?  Arguably, the human brain is hard-wired to see patterns and infer causation in the natural world.  Of course, without proposition one the whole argument will founder.

Even if this objection is dismissed as taking scepticism too far, proposition two – that whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end unless it be directed by some intelligent being – is problematic.  Take a banana.  Creationists often cite it as an example of “intelligent design” in the universe.  The banana is a great size, shape, sweetness and colour for human consumption (even its skin features a reliable indicator of ripeness) it seems well designed for the end of being a tasty snack.  Yet to say that ignores the fact that neither the colour, nor the shape, nor the sweetness nor the size of the banana has anything to do with a divine designer – modern bananas have been selectively bred by farmers to have these attributes from parent plants which evolved to appeal to other animals such as monkeys who would spread the seeds of the plant by consuming its fruit.  While we can infer the existence of an intelligence from the brilliance of the modern banana in suiting the average human palate, to suggest that that intelligence is divine is a big step too far.  Even setting aside the modern banana in favour of the original “wild banana”, the “intelligence” that designed it is more probably evolution by natural selection than any God.  It seems that the second proposition “whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence” is seriously flawed and on this grounds as well could be said to fail in its aim of being a good argument for God’s existence. 

Further, Aquinas proceeds to use the analogy of an arrow and an archer to illustrate his claim that all natural things act for an end and so must have been designed to do so by an intelligent being.  The analogy is far from perfect and suggests a certain circularity in Aquinas’ reasoning.  As Hume’s character Philo observes, the selection of an analogy for the universe is far from neutral.  Scholars (including Aquinas) assume their own world-view in selecting something to compare the universe with and so by saying “the universe is like an arrow” or “the universe is like a watch” commit the fallacy of begging the question. If I compare teleology in the universe with an arrow then the suggestion of a necessary divine archer seems reasonable, yet if I compared the universe with a rock rolling down a mountain, which seems just as sensible an analogy – elements of the universe go through cycles, grow increasingly complex and make progress after all – then the inference that there must be an intelligent designer behind the process seems less obvious.  Rocks can roll down mountains as a result of non-intelligent actions, whereas arrows don’t tend to hit their marks randomly.  The “ends” which Aquinas claims that non-intelligent things act for could well be accounted for by natural processes such as evolution through natural selection, so it seems unnecessary to conclude that an intelligent designer, let alone the Christian God, exists.

Finally, Aquinas’ claim about direction and efficiency in the universe is a general one.  There are many instances of natural things failing to fulfil their apparent end or indeed not having an apparent end.  If God is the “intelligent designer” of the universe then what do the obvious inefficiencies in nature suggest about His competence, and (as Charles Darwin and John Stuart Mill both observed) what does the existence of beings whose end is to torment and destroy other beings say about His goodness? As Darwin wrote…

“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.”

And as the Biologist JBS Haldane wrote…

“The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other, for the simple reason that there are nearly 300,000 species of beetle known, and perhaps more, as compared with somewhat less than 9,000 species of birds and a little over 10,000 species of mammals. Beetles are actually more numerous than the species of any other insect order. That kind of thing is characteristic of nature.” (“What is life?”)

As Hume’s character Philo concluded, the problems attendant on suggesting that God is the necessary designer of this universe, with all of its quirks and inefficiencies, are many.  Further, why one God?  Why not an apprentice God, a senile God… or one working as part of a committee? The final step in Aquinas’ argument, that of saying “this being we call God” is a giant leap and probably a leap too far.

In conclusion it seems that quite apart from the limitation of being an inductive argument, Aquinas’ fifth way fails to achieve its aim of being a good argument for God’s existence.  Aquinas’ first proposition can be questioned, his second seems to have no foundation in a post Darwin world, his analogy of the arrow and the archer is imperfect and so his conclusion that an intelligent designer-God must exist cannot be upheld. Nevertheless and despite its failure Aquinas’ argument retains value as an extremely clear statement of the teleological argument qua purpose, an argument which remains the most persuasive and which is probably the most widely cited reason for belief in God. Although the propositions fail to stand up to scientific scrutiny they seem reasonable, even undeniable to many people on an intuitive level.  On this basis modern scholars such as Alister McGrath and Richard Swinburne appeal to probability asking “which is more probable; that the apparent order and purpose nature is explained by chance and natural selection or that there is an intelligence shaping the process?”  They have more success in this limited endeavour than Aquinas had in seeking to advance a good inductive argument for God’s existence.

Further Reading

Aquinas’ Ways to God (New Advent)

Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

 

Religious experience is a good pointer to the existence of God! Discuss (40)

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Religious experience, whether that is the general experience of living a religious life or specific, direct experiences of the divine, is very commonly cited as the basis for religious faith.  Nevertheless, William James and William Alston have both argued that although Religious Experiences are reasonably authoritative for the people who have them – and for those people may serve as more than a pointer to the existence of God – because of plausible non-religious explanations there can be no duty on other people to accept the authenticity of religious experiences or see them as pointers to anything supernatural. Richard Swinburne went further, noting that whether one accepts religious experiences as a good pointer to the existence of God will depend on one’s assessment of prior probability.  Responses to the claim “Religious experience is a good pointer to the existence of God!” depend to some extent on one’s own relationship with religious experience(s), whether one has had a direct experience or must rely on others’ reports, but depend mostly on one’s world-view.  Atheists and materialists are unlikely to accept the claim, even if they have had an experience that might otherwise be categorized as religious, whereas those who are open to the existence of God on other grounds are more likely to accept the claim, even on the strength of anecdote.

Direct religious experiences are notoriously difficult to define or categorise.  William James identified four marks that most experiences seem to have – transiency, a noetic quality, ineffability and passivity – and yet there are well-known experiences which do not have these marks.  Thomas Merton had relatively regular experiences over a long period.   Teresa of Avila’s experiences were sustained and seemingly the result of practices designed to provoke them.  Further the Religious canon is packed with descriptions of religious experience.  Other scholars have defined religious experiences in different ways.  Scholar of mysticism Rudolph Otto took a more general approach, saying only that authentic religious experiences are those of mysterium tremendum et fascinans.  In some ways Otto’s definition accords with Martin Buber’s description of religious experiences as I-thou encounters.  Walter Stace excluded classic visions and voices altogether and argued that genuine religious experiences are non-sensuous and mystical in character.  Richard Swinburne, on the other hand, listed five different types of religious experience in two categories, public and private, in an attempt to be inclusive. The difficulty in defining religious experiences is a seemingly insuperable obstacle to using them as the basis for an inductive argument for the existence of God.

Direct religious experiences are also open to alternative, non-religious explanations. Ludwig Feuerbach and Sigmund Freud both noted how religious belief tends towards wish-fulfilment.  Some religious experiences fit in most conveniently with the wants and needs of the person who has them and could be explained as creations of the subconscious mind. For example, Joan of Arc’s experiences fit in with the French nationalistic mood of the time and provided Joan with a credibility that she could never otherwise have had.  Might she have invented the experiences – or have interpreted them creatively – for her own (side’s) political advantage?  The Emperor Constantine’s vision before the battle of Milvian Bridge and the visions leading to the discovery of the True Cross on the First Crusade could be seen in similar terms. Alternatively, other religious experiences might be explained in physiological terms.  It is more common for those experiencing extreme physical stress or hormonal change to claim religious experiences – could the physiological changes associated with puberty or the suffering involved in a life-threatening illness be causing out-of-body sensations that are later interpreted as religious?  Julian of Norwich experienced visions while close to death, St Paul seems to have been an epileptic subject to grand-mal seizures and many other visionaries and mystics have exhibited physiological symptoms which might account for their altered state.  Of course it is difficult to disprove religious experiences in these ways – not least because an account of HOW the experience might have happened does not rule out God as the reason WHY it happened.  Nevertheless, the existence of non-religious explanations for religious experiences does undermine their status as a good pointer to the existence of God, both individually and otherwise.

Although Swinburne incorporated an argument from Religious Experience into his cumulative case for God, set out in “The Existence of God” (1991), he accepted that unlike accepting the natural observations that other inductive arguments start with, accepting religious experiences as even a pointer to the existence of God depends on prior probability.  People who already accept the possibility of God’s existence will accept that religious experiences are a feature of the world which require explanation while those with an atheistic world-view will reject religious experiences as delusions or at least claim that psychology and/or physiology explain away the phenomenon without any need to suggest a supernatural cause. It is fair to say that religious people, or at least those who are open-minded, will be more likely to accept that Religious experience is a good pointer to the existence of God than those who are committed to an atheist or materialist world-view and this suggests that there will always be disagreement on whether Religious Experiences constitute a good pointer to the existence of God that is little to do with the experiences themselves or what causes them.

Swinburne went on to argue that it is reasonable to accept reports of religious experiences – defined very broadly so as to include both public and private experiences – and to take them as pointers to the existence of God because of the principles of credulity and testimony.  In everyday life we believe what we see or experience ourselves and believe other people unless we have a good reason not to.  Why should these principles not apply to religious experiences?  Given the large number of people who claim to have had experiences that might be classed as religious experiences – around 1 in 3 people according to Alister Hardy Centre research – they need to be explained.  What reasonable grounds are there for dismissing either the occurrence of these experiences or the explanation proffered by those who have had them when we have no clear reason to doubt?  Nevertheless, Swinburne’s principles do little to advance his argument beyond prior probability.  Those with an atheistic or materialist world view are likely to respond to Swinburne by arguing that the very fact that somebody claims to have had a religious experience is evidence of their irrationality and good reason to be suspicious of their testimony. As Carl Sagan said “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” – by their nature religious experiences are out of the ordinary and demand more rather than less evidence both to support their authenticity and their interpretation.

In conclusion, the claim “Religious experiences are good pointers to the existence of God” will only be accepted by those who are open to the existence of God on other grounds and is unlikely to persuade non-religious people of God’s existence. As Anthony Flew wrote in God and Philosophy (1966), responses to religious experiences… ‘seems to depend on the interests, background and expectations of those who have them rather than on anything separate and autonomous…” Take AJ Ayer’s conversion experience.  Even the medically documented experience of a committed atheist and expert Philosopher is explained away in physiological and psychological terms by those who see it as impossible. Ayer eventually denied his own experiences, attributing them to the effects of cerebral anoxia or shock, rather than change his prior assessment of probability.  In “The Blind Watchmaker” Richard Dawkins wrote that if he witnessed a marble statue waving its hand at him he would prefer to check himself into the nearest psychiatric hospital than accept that he had witnessed a miracle. What better demonstration can there be of the effects of prior probability on the likelihood of people accepting religious experiences as a good pointer to the existence of God?

Further Reading

Richard Gale on Swinburne’s Argument from Religious Experience