I'm one step away from being an atheist

Readers of this blog know that I believe in God, and am, obviously, a theist. And most know that I also believe that God's existence can be rationally justified -- as I have attempted to demonstrate on this blog -- even if not everyone finds such justification to be overwhelmingly persuasive. I, thus, believe that my belief in God is rationally grounded.

So how, then, can it be the case that I am "one step away from being an atheist"? Is this an exaggeration? Well kind of, but...not exactly. Let me explain.

My daughter Norah is currently sixteen months old. She's the light of my life, and that which puts everything in perspective. She gives my life more meaning and joy than I ever thought was possible. My first twenty-four years of existence without her pales in comparison to the life that I now enjoy with her and my wife. The love that protrudes from my heart to her being is transcendent and unparalleled. She is my life.

And, unfortunately, as a normal parent, I constantly hear stories of the tragedies that befall parents with children. Heck, my wife works as a neonatal intensive care nurse, and comes home with horrific stories of infants dying and suffering every week, it seems. When I hear of these stories I am always grieved, and I immediately wonder what I would do in those situations. I mean, seriously, what would I do if something happened to my daughter?

Well, many things would happen, and none of them good, I can tell you that. But one action that I genuinely think would be a strong possibility is that I would abandon all belief in a God. To lose the most precious thing I have ever laid eyes on, and have completely given my heart to, would destroy me, and it would annihilate any belief in a God that has even an ounce of love. If something happened to my daughter I would curse God forever, and lose any heart that any such maximally loving being existed at all. That's it, I would be an atheist at heart.

However, there's an inconsistency here that many attentive readers may have picked up on. As I just said, and as anyone would acknowledge, these events happen constantly every day -- children are dying needlessly every minute. How, then, can I sit here and say that one child's potential death would be a sufficient condition for my non-belief, and yet this potential is being realized in thousands of other families every day? That is, how can I consistently say that one turn of events is enough to convert me to atheism, when these very events are ubiquitous in the world we inhabit, and yet nevertheless continue to believe in God?

I think that the answer here is to be found in emotion. No matter how rationally justified and reasonably held our beliefs are, they are still, most likely, predicated on emotion, more than reason. In fact, this is already something that psychologists have inferred. So, even though I believe that the existence of God is rationally justified, it is the case that a flood of emotions so significant and so powerful can overthrow this belief. And it's important to note that this is the case with anyone -- emotion can easily overthrow anyone's reasonably held beliefs, especially if one does not realize that this is occurring. What this also means is that my reasons for believing in God are not purely rational either. They are most likely rooted in just as much emotion as they are reason. In fact, it means that most of our reasonably held beliefs are probably predicated more in emotion than in reason.

So, even though I do in fact have rational justifications for why a "good" God would allow suffering and evil, when this suffering and evil lands on my front door, my emotion is enough to supersede such justification. This isn't always a good thing, but it's the condition of human nature and thought nonetheless. However, though it might not always be a good thing -- when considered from a purely rational perspective -- this sway of emotion is a form of justification in itself, and by that I mean that if one's child unfortunately dies, they are indeed warranted in entailing atheism from this event. I mean, how can they not be warranted? Because they should know William Lane Craig's logical arguments against the problem of suffering? Come on. If God made us, then he made us with a rational faculty that is just as sensitive to emotion as it is to reason -- in fact, it may be even more sensitive to emotion. Therefore, I don't see how God can be upset that an individual infers atheism from tragic and sorrowful circumstances, since God's the one who arranged our cognitive faculties to be swayed in this way to begin with! But, I digress.

To come back to me personally, I'm not even sure if what I've said is correct. That is, I don't know for sure that if the aforementioned circumstances obtained, that I would abandon theism on emotional grounds. I say this because I used to think the same regarding my father. Three years ago my father was killed crossing the street in a residential area by an idiot going fifteen over the speed limit. I always thought that if something like this happened, then, it would drive me away from God. But, here's the thing, it actually brought me closer to God. Contrary to my thoughts, the pendulum swung the other way. So maybe I'm not as close to atheism as I thought. Who knows?

What I think is important here is that we need to be aware of how powerful our emotions are, and how fragile our "rationally justified" believes are. We tend to think that we're straight-shooting logicians, unaffected by the throws of emotion and sentiment, but chances are we're always a few emotional steps away from whatever belief we most oppose.

Atheists and the cosmological argument

Arguments for God’s existence have been around at least since the time of the Pre-Socratics, and these arguments have taken many different forms. However, the argument that is usually seen as prima facie most compelling—even if one is not persuaded by it—is that of the Cosmological Argument (CA). Although this argument has taken many different forms, the thrust of the argument basically rests on the premise that the natural world participates, in some form or another, in a chain of contingency, and that this chain must admit of a first member that is not itself contingent (i.e., the First Cause, Unmoved Mover, Necessary Being etc.).

Throughout the ages, the CA has been promulgated by individuals like Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Avicenna, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Leibniz, Clarke, Pruss, Craig etc., and while all of these arguments differ in a myriad of ways, they are all very similar in that they attempt to deduce a First Cause which is responsible for causing (and upholding) the existence of the natural world. Unfortunately, atheists today do not spend much time differentiating and comprehending the subtleties and nuances of the different cosmological arguments. Rather, a lot of them tend to believe that philosophers and skeptics like David Hume, Bertrand Russell, and J. L. Mackie have refuted these arguments and put them to bed long ago. The atheists subsequently claim that it’s only the desperate theists grasping at straws, trying to justify their delusional faith, who put forward these antiquated and failed arguments for God’s existence.

But is this really the case, though? Have atheists past and present laid rest to the very argument innumerable theists have promulgated time and time again throughout the ages? Have they simply been beating a dead horse, the carcass of which theists try to continually resurrect? I do not believe so, and I don’t say this because I happen to personally find the CA to be persuasive. Instead, I assert that atheists have actually demonstrated their track record for adequately comprehending the arguments is extremely poor. Why do I claim this? Well because the objection against the CA most promulgated by famous atheists over the years is the old adage which states that “If everything needs a cause, then what caused God?” (The point of this article is not to answer this confused objection, which I have done here.) However—and this is important here—no theist who has promulgated the CA, or at least none listed above, has ever used the premise “everything has a cause.” And yet this is literally the most common objection famous atheists have paraded out as the be-all end-all of the CA discussion.

In case you don’t believe me, or think I exaggerate presently, here is a survey of a multitude of well-known atheists (old and new) parroting this very (false) premise:

[The CA] goes. ‘Everything that exists has a cause. Therefore, the entirety of physical existence itself had to have had a cause. Therefore, God exists.’ (Greta Christina)

[T]he postulate of a designer or creator only raises the unanswerable question of who designed the designer or created the creator. (Christopher Hitchens)

The Cosmological Argument[…]in its simplest form states that since everything must have a cause the universe must have a cause—namely, God[.] (Daniel Dennett)

If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. (Bertrand Russell)

Every existing thing has a cause, and every cause must be caused by a prior cause, which in turn must be caused by a still prior cause, and so on[.] (George Smith)

The argument runs more or less like this: everything that exists has a cause; space and time exist; space and time must, therefore, have been caused […] If God created the universe, what created God? (Sam Harris)

Whatever exists must have a cause or reason of its existence[.] (David Hume)

The point, again, is that no version of the CA is predicated on the premise that “everything has a cause.” Therefore, the very question “if everything has a cause, then what caused God?” is itself a caricature and straw-man of the theistic position.

What’s even more telling about the above quotes is that when discussing the CA in published literature—as a majority of these individuals did—these atheists did not actually quote a single theist who had actually defended said argument—and this is one reason why the straw-men abound. You would think that when attacking position X, it would help to actually quote those who have articulated X to their own satisfaction. And yet this is act of charitability with regards to sophisticated dialogue is rarely done by the atheist interlocutors. This, to me, is indicative of the fact that atheists probably have not actually read much of the literature of the opposition, which stems from, again, assuming that the preceding atheists have already done all the metaphysical legwork required in refuting these arguments—e.g., “Hume has already refuted argument X, so why should I bother reading up on it?” Moreover—for those that actually own the books of Russell, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris, and Hume quoted from above—you’ll notice that many of these atheists only devote less than a page—some of them a measly paragraph—to an attempted refutation of the CA. That is, the argument many theists have devoted literally thousands of pages to has been dismissed within literally a few dozen words. Is this really intellectual sophistication on the part of the atheist movement?

Please note that I don’t claim all atheists have mischaracterized the CA, or failed to quote their theistic counterpart, or devoted only a few paragraphs to attacking their interlocutors. Rather, my charges here are only indicative of the intellectual laziness that has plagued many, and some of the most famous, atheists. And this is important to highlight because it is these very atheists that have blazed the trails that have led to the New Atheist movement. These are the same individuals that are publishing best-selling books on the very topic of anti-theism, or have done so in the past, and are highly regarded in the present atheist community—for reasons I don’t understand. Yet, when it comes to actually engaging probably the most well-known argument promulgated for theism, these very atheists have no idea what the hell they’re talking about, and yet sit there and adamantly and arrogantly label themselves the “freethinkers”—completely oblivious to their ignorance.

I think it’s best to sum up my point in the eloquent words of W. Norris Clarke:

[W]e are here in the presence of a philosophical tradition that is truly in a self-repetitive rut, a tradition that has long since ceased to look outside of itself to check with reality and see whether the adversary it so triumphantly and effortlessly demolishes really exists at all[… ][I]t would seem to be high time that those who still follow this particular tradition of antitheistic argument should have the grace and humility to acknowledge that their argument is dead, and let us get on with more substantive problems with regard to philosophical argument for and against the existence of God.

Louis C.K. on atheism

"I'm not religious. I don't know if there's a God. That's all I can say honestly is 'I don't know.' Some people think that they know that there isn't. That's a weird thing to think you can know:

 'Yeah, there's no God.'
 'Are you sure?'
 'Yeah, no, there's no God.'
 'How do you know?'
 'Because I didn't see him.'

There's a vast universe. You can see for about a hundred yards when there's not a building in the way. How could you possibly...Did you look everywhere? Did you look in the downstairs bathroom? Where are you looking? 'No, I didn't see him yet.' Well, I haven't seen Twelve Years a Slave yet, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. "

The argument from contingency

The cosmological argument for the existence of God has taken many different forms for hundreds of years. However, the version that I take to be the most powerful, as some readers of my blog know, is the argument from contingency. And it is this version that I will be presently defending, as well as answering common objections put forward against it.

The terms

Before promulgating the argument I feel it necessary to define the terms being used (i.e. contingency and necessity). Now, there are different (though not contradictory) definitions of contingency, so let me spell these out. Something is contingent if: (1) it exists, but could have possibly failed to exist, or (2) it is not of the nature of it to exist, or (3) its nature can be contemplated without simultaneously contemplating its existence.

Let me now expand these definitions so as to illuminate how they each entail contingency. If some existent X satisfies (1) then, to reiterate, it is possible that X could not have been. But this necessarily entails that it is not of the nature of X to exist. For if it was of the nature of X to exist, then it could not be possible for it to fail to exist. (My claim here is that if it is of the nature of X to be Y, then you cannot have X without Y. As an example, if it is of the nature of a triangle to have three sides then it is not possible for an triangle to fail to have three sides.) This point seems to lead us directly to (2), and thus our first two definitions go hand in hand. Now what this means is that if it is not of X’s nature to exist, then X does not contain the reason for its own existence, and thus it must derive its existence from something else.

 Let’s take a look at (3). If I can contemplate the nature of X without simultaneously contemplating its existence, then this entails the fact that it is not of the nature of X to exist—otherwise contemplating the nature of X would be to simultaneously contemplate its existence. Thus we see that (3) leads to contingency for the same reasons as (1) and (2).

From what precedes it should be obvious how we can define necessary. Something is necessary if it is non-contingent. That is to say, something is necessary if it is not possible for it to not exist (i.e. it must exist), or if it is of its very nature to exist, or if contemplating its nature entails simultaneously contemplating its existence.

The argument

It is now appropriate to state the argument from contingency, and note that the term contingency in the argument can take the form of any of the above definitions:

1) If something is contingent, then it derives its existence from something outside of itself.

2) The universe is contingent.

3) Therefore, the universe derives its existence from something outside of itself.

The argument is logically valid, that is, the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. But the question can be posed regarding its soundness, so let us go about demonstrating the premises. Premise 1) seems to follow necessarily from the definitions of contingency given above. To reiterate, if it’s possible that X could (have) fail(ed) to exist, then the reason for its existence is not contained within its own nature, and thus it must be contained in the existence of something else—and this thing would be where X derives its existence from. Premise 1) then seems to be on quite solid ground.

Let us now turn to what is most likely the premise that a naturalist will find most fault with, namely, premise 2). The easiest way to demonstrate premise 2) is to demonstrate that the universe satisfies the definition(s) of contingency. So, the first thing we can ask is whether it is possible for the universe to have failed to exist. Here we might meet some resistance. First, what exactly is meant by the universe, and how do we know that we can conceive of it failing to exist? Well, by universe I simply mean “all matter, energy, and space-time,” and therefore this includes not only our observable universe, but any meta-universe(s), if you will. Subsequently, to say that we can conceive of matter, energy, and space-time not existing does not seem to bring forth any inherent difficulty. That is to say, there is no contradiction or incoherence in such a statement, and thus I see no claim for inconceivability that could be made here. (Note that something is said to be metaphysically possible if it is conceivable.)

What about the second definition of contingency? Does the nature of the universe contain the reason for its own existence? I don’t see how it does, in that having the nature of being all matter, energy, and space-time does not tell us why all matter, energy and space-time actually exist in the first place. That is, there is nothing in matter, energy and space-time together (or even apart) that tell us that it must exist. This goes hand in hand with the third definition of contingency. That is, I can contemplate the nature of the universe without simultaneously contemplating its existence. But if I can do this, then the reason for the existence of the universe is not found within itself.

What this demonstrates then is that the universe—all matter, energy, space and time—satisfies all three definitions of contingency, and thus the premises of the above argument seem to be vindicated. This obviously means that the conclusion is valid and sound, and therefore the universe necessarily derives its existence from something else.

Objections

It should go without saying that the naturalist will not take this argument lying down, nor would I expect one to do so. There are many arguments or objections that could be leveled against the argument from contingency, and while I cannot deal with all of them here, I will currently try to deal with the most penetrating and popular ones.

(a) How do we know that what the universe derives its existence from is God? There is nothing logically wrong with claiming that perhaps the universe derives its existence from something that is itself contingent. However, this only pushes the problem back a step further, for then this thing requires an account for its existence. The point here is that we must, at some point, admit of something which is non-contingent, that is, necessary—something that cannot fail to exist. This would be something whose nature contains the reason for its own existence, and whose nature we can contemplate while simultaneously contemplating its existence. This thing then just would be existence, that is, it would be pure existence, or pure being. And surely this is worthy of earning the name “God.”

(b) Why admit of something necessary? Why can’t we have an infinite series of contingent beings? I will not answer this objection by asserting that an actual infinity cannot exist. For this is something that it seems even mathematicians and philosophers cannot agree on. Rather, my argument is that a chain of contingent beings remains contingent. Now, before one levels a fallacy of composition at me, remember that not every inference from a part to a whole is fallacious. For instance, if every brick in a wall is red, then it does in fact follow that the wall is red. What this means is that claiming that a chain of contingent things is itself contingent commits the fallacy of composition would need to be demonstrated. Moreover, this could be avoided if one simply demonstrates that a collection of contingent things is in fact contingent, and this I plan to do currently.

Physicist Paul Davies explains the problem elegantly:

[I]t is quite wrong to suppose that an infinite chain of explanation is satisfactory on the basis that every member of that chain is explained by the next member. One is still left with the mystery of why that particular chain is the one that exists, or why any chain exists at all.

This point was also made a long time ago by the mathematician Leibniz when he gave an example of an infinite collection of books, of which each book was simply a copy of the content in the previous book. The point being that the content in the books is not accounted for simply because the collection is infinite, and there must be something outside this collection that does account for it. The big picture here, then, is that if we have an infinite collection of individual things of which it is possible for them to fail to exist, then it is possible that the collection in its own right could fail to exist, and thus the infinite chain is still contingent. Therefore something necessary must still be admitted.

(c) Why expect the universe to admit of explanation at all? Why can’t the universe simply be? To claim that the universe (or anything) might escape explanation in principle is to admit of brute facts—in fact, that’s exactly what a brute fact is, namely, a state of affairs which has no explanation for its existence. There are a few problems with this line of reasoning. First, since things are made intelligible by explanation then a brute fact does not have an explanation for itself, and it has no explanation to impart to anything else. This entails that a brute fact cannot be a participant in an explanatory chain, and therefore it certainly cannot be the end of an explanatory chain, as the universe would have to be. (Note that I have argued this at much greater length here.)

The second problem is that an object or substance can only either possibly fail to exist, or not. This is to say that something can only either be contingent or necessary. There is no middle ground here, of which a brute fact would have to be. To deny that something can either only be contingent or necessary is to deny the law of excluded middle, and would thus be illogical.

(d) It’s possible that the universe is eternal, and thus it would not be contingent. I have no problem with theoretically granting the possibility of an eternal universe. However, simply asserting that the universe could be eternal does not thereby make it necessary. Let us return to Leibniz’s example of the collection of books to see why this is so, except let us not imagine a collection of books but, rather, simply one book existing eternally. Does the fact that this book has always existed demonstrate that it is necessary? No, because one can still ask why this book exists, has the content that it does, and why this content was not different. The point is that it remains true that nothing about the book, not even its eternality, provides the reason for why it exists at all.  To always exist is not the same as existing necessarily, because duration of existence does not enlighten us to the reason of existence. Moreover, duration of existence does not affect a thing’s nature. A triangle is still a triangle, whether it exists for a second or for an infinite amount of seconds.

Similarly, it would remain the case that an eternal universe could possibly have been different, or it could have not existed at all. Moreover, it would still remain the case that contemplating the nature of the universe does not entail contemplating its existence. Thus, even an eternal universe satisfies the definition, not of necessity, but of contingency.

There are other objections that can be raised (e.g. “What created God?” or “Why does God exist?”) but I felt the need to only address, what I take to be, the most substantial ones. The point seems to remain that the universe is indeed contingent, and that it ultimately derives its existence from something which is necessary and which we call God. The argument from contingency then seems to be successful.

Warranted belief

As a believer, I am frequently bombarded (usually on the “sophisticated” blogosphere) with the question of why I personally believe in the existence of God. When asked this question, I can usually rattle off a few (among many) reasons: because the universe seems clearly contingent; because there is so much design which seems to imply a designer; because Near Death Experiences give compelling evidence in favor of the supernatural; because the ubiquitous nature of consciousness that is crucial to human cognitive function seems inexplicable on a naturalistic worldview; because innate human feelings such as love and goodness seem to transcend us and, arguably, have an absolute source etc. Now, it is at this point that my interlocutor will roll their eyes and ramble on about how the arguments for God’s existence have been refuted a thousand times, especially by Hume, or how NDE’s do not constitute valid scientific evidence, or how neuroscience demonstrates that consciousness surely must be dependent on the brain, or how the feelings of love and goodness are explicable in purely naturalistic evolutionary terms etc. Case closed, right? Well, no.

You see, my interlocutor has made an error in comprehension. Remember that I was asked why I believe in the existence of God, and not what logical proofs I have for the existence of God. Now, while these two questions might seem to be prima facie identical, they’re not. A warrant for belief in a specific inference is not equivalent to having logical deductive proof for that inference.

For example, it might be the case one day that my wife wakes up, after I have left for work, and discovers that the toilet seat was left up. She will immediately infer the following conclusion: my husband left the toilet seat up. Notice that this conclusion is a mere belief, as opposed to a proof. My wife has simply reasonably assumed this belief, based on the fact that I do this constantly and we’re the only two people in our house. She does not have any proof for such a belief. That is, she didn’t see me leave it up, nor has she called me and asked me if I did in fact leave it up. But the question that can be posed here is this: is my wife’s belief warranted? And surely the answer is in the affirmative. Indeed my wife has enough warrant to infer that I left the seat up. Now, could she be wrong? Yes, she could. But, does this possibility of fallibility render her inference unwarranted? No. So, even though she could be wrong, she is still warranted in holding her conclusion.

So, let us turn back to our original context, namely, belief in God. The question arises whether or not I have personal warrant for concluding, based on my reasons above, that God exists. The answer is surely that I do. Is it possible that I am mistaken in my conclusion? Of course, but that is not the point. The point is whether or not I have reasons that provide me with warrant to infer a specific conclusion, and I surely do possess these reasons.

Now, my interlocutor might claim that he himself has reasons for doubting the existence of God, or lacking a belief in the existence of God. For example, he might hold that the amount of suffering in the world is incompatible with the existence of God, or that God has not made his existence abundantly obvious, or that phenomena in the world can be explained in purely naturalistic terms, making God superfluous etc. So, is my interlocutor also warranted in his conclusions based on these reasons? Yes, he is.

We see then that both the theist and the atheist can be warranted in their conclusions even though such conclusions are mutually exclusive.

To return to my example, it could turn out that I do not remember using the bathroom that morning, and therefore it’s probable that I did not leave the seat up. So, I am warranted in my conclusion—that I did not leave the seat up--as well. Notice now that both my wife and I hold mutually exclusive inferences, yet we are both warranted in arriving at the conclusions we have arrived at. Now, when I get home we can discuss who is correct. That is, we can discuss whether I was so tired that morning that I forgot that I did in fact use the bathroom, or we can discuss whether one of the friends we had over the night before left the seat up and we never noticed etc. However, it still follows that we are both warranted in holding our beliefs.

Similarly, the theist and atheist can hammer it out constantly and provide their reasons for belief, or disbelief. However, this does not entail that both individuals cannot walk away from the discussion still warranted in their positions.

What is usually desired is logical deductive proof. And similarly, both sides can usually produce a logical proof of their own, and which one of these individuals can provide a successful proof I will leave for another time. But whether these proofs are valid, or whether they will persuade the other side is peripheral here. The point is that a conclusion can constitute a warranted belief without itself being the inference of a logical proof. And furthermore, two individuals with mutually exclusive beliefs can still both be warranted in said beliefs. Hopefully, this can help the fruitfulness (or lack thereof) of discussions such as the atheist/theist divide, in the sense that these discussions need not be predicated on who can “win” the argument, but, rather, they should predicated on simply demonstrating the reasons one has for their conclusions. People should still be able to walk away from a discussion knowing that even though they don’t agree with their interlocutor, they can still appreciate that their conclusion is warranted.

Atheists and their obsession with God

The odd behavior of non-believers

I am a theist, and obviously that means that I profess a positive belief in the existence of God. Naturally, a belief in God—who is claimed to be the source of being, consciousness, love etc.—shapes and molds almost all of the ways I carry out my life. I pray, go to church, read the Bible, talk about the faith I share, fellowship with other believers, and read books concerning my faith etc. A lot of the things I do are done with a thought towards the divine in some sense. Now, it should seem quite reasonable to state that if I lacked a belief in God, I would not concern myself with many of the aforementioned activities. Why would I pray if there’s no God to hear me? Why would I talk about the faith Christians share if I don’t share it? Surely these endeavors would be a waste of time. However, such a reasonable line of thinking seems to be absent from the “New Atheist” movement—which is ironic since atheists pride themselves on being at the frontier of the movement of reason.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that even though atheists lack a belief in God, they nevertheless still pray, or go to church, or read the Bible devotionally. Of course they don’t. But my point is this: atheists do spend a lot of time constantly discussing the very thing they claim not to believe in. Surely this is, to say the least, a bit strange. Why spend so much time arguing over, talking about, and demeaning something you belief is non-existent? Has anything ever seemed like such a waste of time and energy? I think Neil Degrasse Tyson said it perfectly:

I don’t play golf. Is there a word for non-golf players? Do non-golf players gather and strategize? Do non-skiers have a word, and come together and talk about the fact that they don’t ski? I can’t do that. I can’t gather around and talk about how much everybody in the room doesn’t believe in God. I don’t have the energy for that.

Yet, the lifestyle of the new atheists is even more embarrassing than the picture Tyson paints. It’s not as if these individuals only occasionally sit around and discuss their non-belief; rather, in many cases people are devoting so much of their time and energy to such non-belief! Think of the hundreds of thousands of blogs and websites predicated on atheism, or the dozens of books printed each year on the “delusion of belief”. Dinesh D’Souza articulates my point:

I don’t believe in unicorns, but you’ll notice that I haven’t written any books disputing the existence of unicorns. I am not the author of, for example, The Unicorn Delusion or The End of Unicorns or Unicorns Are Not Great. I don’t attend conferences on the fallacy of unicorn belief, nor do I go around debating people on whether there are in fact unicorns.

The point is, when you lack a belief in something you ignore it. Why, if you lack a belief in a supernatural entity, would you spend your energy discussing your non-belief in the existence of said entity?

Now, I anticipate the response of the non-believer: so much time is spent arguing over belief in God because our society is overrun with the delusional belief in such a thing! Perhaps if the world was populated with a bunch of people believing in invisible unicorns then we would be obligated to focus our energies on them.

But surely this is not a good analogy. It is true that if people by the millions believed in invisible unicorns I might occasionally feel obliged to “set them straight”. But, I wouldn’t see myself devoting much time at all to converting the unicornists to a-unicornists. I would, most likely, just ignore such delusions, and probably laugh incessantly anytime the topic came up. Who wouldn’t?

But, this is not the path of the atheists, who, instead of ignoring the thing they lack belief in, utilize their efforts trying to convince the believers (and themselves) that they should lack belief too! And every once in a while you’ll see an atheist come to their senses and realize how absurd their endeavor is. Take John Loftus over at Debunking Christianity. Every couple of years or so he realizes exactly how meaningless his whole cause is and attempts to jump ship. Take these claims made from him in May 2012:

I have no more desire to engage Christians. They are deluded, all of them. I have never been more convinced of this than I am now. I have better things to do. I spent 39+ years of my adult life on a delusion. If I add the years of my childhood that’s almost my entire life. Yet this is the only life I will ever have. It’s time to move on[…]I see no reason to waste large chunks of my time on this delusion anymore.

Yet a few months later Loftus was back posting full time on the blog. How sad.

Why would anyone, as Loftus articulated, want to waste large chunks of their lives on what they take to be a delusion? Why waste your resources writing blogs, writing books, posting videos, setting up conferences, and even making television broadcasts talking about the very thing that you find to be nonexistent and delusional? I mean geez, I’ll bet that John Loftus spends more time thinking about God than most the congregation of my church. Is this not insane and delusional in itself? Do not these actions on behalf of atheists beg for a psychological evaluation?

Obsession with God

It is, I dare to say, an obsession with God. Why would you waste your energies and resources on something you don’t believe in unless you are obsessed with that very something? You don’t write books and blog posts on a constant basis on a topic unless that topic is constantly on your mind.

But what does this mean for the atheist? Are they, deep down, trying to constantly resolve some sort of cognitive dissonance they harbor? Perhaps they have given up an intellectual assent to a divine being, but maybe they still feel that personal lure of something beyond themselves and beyond the world. Perhaps they still have the knowledge of the divine embedded in their consciousness or being. Why else would someone constantly spend their time discussing how much they lack belief in something, unless they are trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance that accompanies the lack of belief in said something.

 Non-believers have claimed that one reason believers meet every week is to constantly reinforce their own delusions. But what does the same line of reasoning mean with regard to atheists, who constantly (and also at least on a weekly basis) feel the need to write about, talk about, discuss, and argue about what they claim to not believe in?

Perhaps atheists are trying to reinforce their own delusions.

The universe just is?

What is the ultimate explanation of the universe? Is there something beyond the universe that accounts for its existence, or does the universe contain no explanation for its being, and simply is? For a metaphysical naturalist, who believes that the universe is a closed system—that is, there is nothing that transcends the natural world that could be labeled supernatural—the former is rejected and the latter accepted. There really is no other option for the naturalist, if he wants to remain faithful to naturalism. If the universe is all there is and nothing outside the universe can explain its existence, then it must simply be viewed as the ultimate brute fact. That is to say, the universe just exists, with no rhyme, reason, or explanation.

 Yet, I maintain that this position can be demonstrated to be untenable. One way (there are others) to demonstrate this is by examining the nature of the universe itself. You see, if we can show that the universe is contingent, then, by the definition of contingent, we will have shown that the universe requires something outside itself to explain its existence. But, how can we go about demonstrating that the universe is contingent? Well, how about we begin by defining our terms.

 There are many different definitions of a contingent being: (1) that which could possibly have not existed, (2) that which could cease to exist, or (3) a being whose essence (what it is) is distinct from its existence (that it is). It seems that we could utilize any of these definitions, though (1) would seem harder to predicate of the universe. Moreover, (2) seems easy to predicate of the universe, yet it seems difficult to infer from this definition that the universe therefore requires an explanation for its existence from something outside of itself. Hence, I feel it easier to pursue our inquiry with the utilization of (3).

 So, something is contingent if what it is is distinct from the fact that it is. Take, as an illustration, a basic chair. The essence of the chair is that it provides a seat (among other things). The existence of the chair is the fact that it has being—that is, that it actually exists. The fact that the chair’s essence is not identical to its existence demonstrates that the chair is contingent. Why, you might ask? Well, because if it is not the essence of a chair to exist—which it certainly is not since my concept of a chair shares the same essence, yet does not exist—then the explanation for its existence must lie outside the chair. That is to say, we cannot examine the nature of the chair and deduce the reason for its existence; we must look elsewhere. Hence, the chair is contingent.

 Now, let us turn our attention back to the universe. Everything inside the universe is, just like the chair, contingent. There is no existent thing in the universe whose essence is identical to its existence. But, if the universe is simply the totality of all these contingent things (e.g. galaxies, planets, rocks, humans, stars etc.) then how can the universe fail to be contingent itself? Now it is at this point that one is charged with the fallacy composition—that is, fallaciously reasoning from the part to the whole of a thing. If every brick in a wall weighs one pound, it doesn’t logically follow that the wall itself weighs one pound. Similarly, just because every thing in the universe is contingent, this doesn’t entail that the universe as a whole is contingent. However, this is simply a misunderstanding. Not every inference from a part to a whole is fallacious. For instance, if every city in a country lacks electricity, then the country as a whole also lacks electricity. Similarly, a compiled group of things whose essences are distinct from their existence does not seem to rid the group itself of this distinction. The group as a whole still has an essence—namely, being that very collection of things—which is not identical to its existence—that it does in fact exist. And therefore, the universe, which contains all contingent things, would have to be contingent.

 Now, if the universe is contingent, then there must be an explanation for why the universe exists, since the explanation is not to be found in the essence of the universe itself. Stated thus, we see that the universe cannot, contrary to the naturalist, just be. Rather, there must be an explanation for the existence of the universe, and it must come from outside the universe. The universe then is not a brute fact—if there is any such thing—rather, it is something that exists, not out of its own necessity, but out of the necessity of another.

Who created God?

My faith in the ability of those with non-theistic convictions to comprehend and accurately present the position they are opposed to (i.e. theism) is constantly eroded. The fact that such a judgment can be predicated even with regards to respected members of academia (see below) makes me wonder how much time skeptics actually spend researching the convictions they so militantly oppose. The reality that such blatant mischaracterizations are promulgated demonstrates that atheists (though not simply atheists) truly do not understand the position they claim is irrational; and if they do not understand the opposing position, then how can their rejection of said position be warranted?

The title of this post highlights a common objection, predicated on the above misunderstandings of atheists, brought forth when, usually, discussing the philosophical arguments (usually the Cosmological Argument) for God’s existence. After attempting to arrive at a deductive conclusion for God’s existence—the validity of this procedure must be discussed at a later time—the Christian interlocutor is, consistently, bombarded with this question of “who created God?” Not only is this a common objection with internet atheists, but it is an objection put forth by such well-known skeptics as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and (surprisingly) the great philosophers Bertrand Russell and David Hume—though, to be fair, Hume’s objection was more along the lines of “who designed the designer?” It would seem to be the case that such great minds as these would be able to present an objection free of elementary misunderstandings of the subject (God) under discussion--the very subject they claim is riddled with incoherency.

Yet the cogency of this question is tremendously wanting. For the question, as will be demonstrated presently, engages in blatant question-begging. Moreover, not only is it a bad objection to make, but it turns out that the objection is in itself incoherent.  Let’s take these assertions one at a time.

Supposed I ask you “what created my truck?”, “what created my computer?” or “what created the sun?”. All of these questions contain an implicit assumption, namely, that the subject in question was indeed created. Anyone making the inquiry “what created (x)?” is assuming the (x) in question has a cause of its existence. In contrast, if one harbored no such assumption of the contingency of the subject then the question would never be put forth. So, the one who asks “what created God” is already assuming the contingency and dependency of God on some ontologically prior entity. Such an assumption is blatant question-begging and is therefore fallacious.

Moreover, the question invites an even worse attack than above: the question is itself incoherent. For any person well-versed in the beliefs of classical theism—which obviously most atheists are not—knows that the very essence of God is existence itself. Hence, God’s very nature is existence and he, therefore, cannot fail to exist; thus, God who is existence itself and, therefore, a necessary being would by definition not require a cause. So the skeptic’s question amounts to nothing more than asking “who created the uncreated?” or “who caused the uncaused?” Surely these questions make no sense. This is tantamount to asking, “who has seen that which is not seeable?” or “who has knowledge of that which is unknowable?” These questions are all in the same boat: they are incoherent.

Now let me also articulate the fact that the above definition is not some arbitrary brute fact that the theist has attached to the concept of God in order to absolve said concept of any refutation—though no doubt most skeptics think this. This concept of God—that which is pure actuality, pure being (read: existence) and necessary—has been arrived at by logical deduction. Now if this logical deduction is invalid then the skeptic must demonstrate this by refuting one of the premises in said deduction. But it must be observed that the question “who created God?” does not attempt to do this. Rather, it is an incoherent question posed after the deduction has already arrived at a being that is necessary and, therefore, the question remains senseless.

My hope is that this incredibly empty and ridiculous argument will be disposed of by those who see themselves as the “champions of reason” (i.e. skeptics); but if the history of the philosophy of religion has taught us anything, it’s that this objection will, unfortunately, continue to be raised by the skeptic community.