Aikin Deus e Argumento
Aikin Deus e Argumento
Aikin Deus e Argumento
AIKIN
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
I.
ebates about Gods existence are alive and well. Many people are curious
about the divine and in need of clarity. Moreover, plenty of atheists
arent certain God doesnt exist, and plenty of theists have lingering
doubts, too. And so we argue and argue, yet we dont resolve very much. Why?
Now, with this question I am not asking why we do itthe question of Gods
existence is a significant philosophical question, perhaps the most significant. Its
clear, then, why we continue arguing about it. It is significant, we disagree, and
we feel that reason should help with the matter. To pass it over without
deliberation would be irresponsible. Rather, I ask why the debate persists without
resolution. Plenty of very smart folks have thought long and hard about the godquestion and have developed some serious arguments, so its not like its
amateur hour with this question. So, why is it, given our interest and investment
of time and intellectual energy, that the debate hasnt found resolution? Call this
the continued debate phenomenon, and the question is what its explanation is.
We might start with two cynical hypotheses about the continued debate
phenomenon. First, the explanation may be that this is just what philosophical
debates arethey are the kind of matters about which there are only reasonable
positions (at best), but no knowledge. Consequently, there will be debate, as the
sides can be reasonable, but there will not be resolution, as the reasonability of
any side is insufficient to win over converts by close of rejoinder by evidence.
The second cynical hypothesis neednt be that its because of the philosophical
nature of the question, but because of the evidential nature of the question. The
question of Gods existence is too complicated for us, or the evidence is too
conflicted. And so, instead of reasonable sides, we have people merely
expressing their preferences or prejudices one way or the other and
gerrymandering the evidence as they see fit. Since the matter is complicated and
fraught with intrusion of rationalizing dogmatism, the debate will persist.
I have little to say about these cynical explanations. I mention them only to
contextualize my engagement with a substantive explanation to come. But a
brisk point about philosophical cynicism is in order. Let me put it this way: they
have what one might call the grownup illusion surrounding them. Here is how the
grownup illusion works. Consider the rhetorical force of an adult responding to
the pointless and endless bickering of children: the adults perspective is
authoritative about what really matters and what the debates really come to. And
that works when the grownup really is a grownup and the children really are
children. Heres the trouble: were all grownups here, and none of the cynics are
all that much more clear-eyed about the evidential or prejudicial situations as
any of the first-order disputants. Moreover, we might even say that the cynical
perspective infects itself, as it is a perennial issue of whether philosophical
questions are rationally resolvable and whether we merely rationalize when we
approach specific questions. The consequence is that the cynics view is on the
same level as those whose views the cynic was so cynical about. Cynicism,
consistently deployed, yields philosophical flatland. Any cynic denying this is
going to need an argument, and so it must start all over again.
An atheistic hypothesis as to what explains the continued debate phenomenon is
as follows. By hypothesis, God is good and wants the best for us. Since God is
good and made us to love Him and be in personal connection with Him, He
wants us to know Him. And not knowing Him is a bad thing for uswe suffer
uncertainty, lack meaning, feel lost. If we know God, we must know He exists. If
we know God exists, then we wont have uncertainty. We are uncertain of Gods
existencethats what the continued debate phenomenon is. The best
explanation for this is that God doesnt existwere He to exist, you might say,
Hed be easier to find and know for those who search for Him. Its a special
version of the problem of evil, really, and the continued debate phenomenon is
the data. And so the explanation for continued debate is Gods non-existence.
The challenge to the theist, then, is squaring the uncertainty and what seems a
clear bad for humans from a theological perspective with Gods goodness, love,
and capacity. How can a God who hides or remains cloaked in mystery also be a
good, just, or loving God. How could such a God be worthy of worship? It seems
that God failing to be at least some of these things (or failing to be at all) is the
best explanation.
Paul Mosers recent God without Argument1 is an attempt to accomplish two
things: (i) explain the continued debate phenomenon in purely epistemic terms,
and (ii) show that the epistemic differences that yield continued debate are
theologically coherent with a good, loving and efficacious God. Mosers central
claim is that having sufficient evidence is not always a matter of having a
winning argument; rather, sometimes that sufficient evidence is non-discursive.
As a consequence, the continued debate phenomenon is the result of a confusion
of having with sharing ones reasons.
II.
To start, the challenge for the theist is to give an explanation for the continued
debate phenomenon that can salvage the epistemic status of god-belief. Mosers
answer to the challenge is that some epistemic status can be achieved without
correlate argumentative force that there are some kinds of evidence that you
can only have and then talk about, but one cannot share it. Consequently, it is
possible for the theist to have epistemic justification for god-beliefs, but not be in
a winning argumentative position. Moser has two lines of argument for this
view: one theological, the other epistemic.
Mosers theological argument is that God is the being worthy of worship, and
God offers redemptive love to humans in virtue of His perfect goodness.2 Such
an agent would seek what is morally and spiritually best for all beings;
particularly, God seeks reconciliation with them. This means that God will
In Is Faith in God Reasonable? Edited by Corey Miller and Paul Gould, (New York:
Routledge), 69-83.
2 Moser, God without Argument, 69.
1
should eventually come to realize they are missing out on something. In short,
the research model is wrong.
Inquirers about God should investigate this kind of experience,
and not just philosophical arguments about the existence of God.
Arguments can divert attention from, and obscure the
importance of, this kind of experience.8
The trouble is that the key evidence is not an argument, but the primary means
we take to evaluate belief in God is that by way of argument. The means, it
seems, when it does not work, actually polarizes people, and as a consequence
makes many less receptive to Gods personal interventions, which itself further
polarizes. Thus, the phenomenon of continued debate not only exists, but has
become a vicious cycle.
III.
There are two points of pushback on Mosers line of thought. I will present them
serially and then turn to a metaphilosophical point I believe refocuses discussion.
First, I believe that the argumentist can concede Mosers analogy with perceptual
justification one does have prima facie non-discursive justification for ones
judgments about perceptual and religious experience. But that is not the end of
the issue. Given that a subject (S) can have prima facie empirical justification for
believing Fx when S is appeared to Fx-ly, S can have similar prima facie
justification for believing in a redeeming God if S has first-personal redeemingGod experiences. The trouble is not with the initial justification on the analogy,
but with the host of defeaters that loom for the analogues.
Consider whether S would be justified in believing there is an apple present
when many fail either (a) to have the experience under similar conditions, (b)
undergo the experience in similar conditions but claim there are no apples
present in it, (c) have the experiences but claim they are of a green apple, or (d)
have the experiences but hold that they are merely hallucinatory. It seems that
when faced with this circumstance, unless there were no question-begging
accounts of how to arbitrate the disagreements, the believer has an undercutting
defeater (or perhaps a range of both undercutting and rebutting defeaters) for
her initial justification. The reason why those who believe in red apples before
them on the basis of being appeared to red-apple-ly is not just that they have
those experiences, but because there is little disagreement about the apple under
the right conditions. And were there disagreement, wed have a way to address
it. Having all those pieces in order is required for justification.
The same should go for the religious believer here. The trouble is that there is
wide disagreement about and variance in religious experience. There are those
who (a) try to have religious experiences and subject themselves to all the rigors
of religious ritual and abasement before the divine but never feel the presence of
god, (b) those who have religious experiences but hold the experiences are nontheistic, (c) those who have religious experiences but hold that the god they
reveal is significantly different from others, and (d) those who hold that the
10
11 See Scott Aikin and Michael Hodges, St. Anselms Ontological Argument as
Expressive, Philosophical Investigations 37:2 (2013): 130-151.
12 Scott Aikin and Robert Talissse, Reasonable Atheism (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2011).
13 For a review of this case and the literature, see Cass Sunstein, Infotopia: How Many Minds
Produce Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 2006), 45-7.