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(This article addresses the material left by a commenter named ‘GM’ on the “I Contend We Are Both Atheists” article. Click here.)
It is a welcomed but certainly unexpected example of ‘irony’ to observe our commenter, GM, engaging in the very thing that he accused me of—a condescending sophistry which attempts to foment support from the readers by denigrating the opponent. Although he unequivocally characterizes my post in this fashion and therefore falls prey to his own accusation, the fact remains clear that I did not overtly characterize Roberts this way. GM apparently thinks otherwise, but it cannot escape the reader’s notice that this was something that GM had to infer from my article—and incorrectly because, despite whatever feelings GM might harbor, I have not in fact belittled Roberts in my post. I did say that “musings and ramblings were his foray, not philosophical precision,” but that was not intended as either an insult nor a criticism. It is, in fact, something that Roberts tends to admit himself and the very reason I chose to not criticize Roberts. It is simply the way he is, and I do not see that this should be viewed as a fault. Furthermore, I do not criticize individuals; I criticize arguments, under their own self-contained merits. If an argument is faulty or erroneous, it’s not from any failings on the part of its proponent.
GM admits that “a person cannot be an atheist if he believes in a god” but then insists that Roberts’ adage never claimed otherwise. It is astonishing, I confess, that GM could manage to arrive at such a bewildering conclusion, one which is obviated by any responsible interaction with the text of my article. For the sake of any readers who might think GM’s criticism has an ounce of merit, let’s examine this a little more closely.
“I contend we are both atheists,” Roberts said; “I simply believe in one fewer god than you do.” To whom is this addressed? “One fewer god than you,” Roberts said, so this implies a hearer. Is he addressing himself? That would be impossible, for how can Roberts believe in one fewer god than himself? It is a logical contradiction to describe someone as believing in one god and, at the same time and in the same respect, no gods at all. So is he addressing a fellow atheist? That would be absurd because his hearer believes in one god more than Roberts does, who is an atheist. Ergo, Roberts is addressing a theist who believes in at least one God. Consider: (1) If Roberts is a confessed atheist and (2) believes in “one fewer god” than his hearer, (3) then the very meaning of the text demands that his hearer believes in at least one God. The question which my article posed has not lost any merit: As long as his hearer believes in at least one God, Roberts cannot meaningfully “contend we are both atheists.”
In conclusion: If Roberts is addressing himself, the whole thing short-circuits on a logical contradiction. If Roberts is addressing a fellow atheist, how can Roberts believe in “one fewer god” than a supposed atheist? If Roberts is talking to a theist, how can he “contend we are both atheists” when his hearer believes in at least one God?
GM tries to retain the validity of his argument by insisting that Roberts’ second sentence “demonstrates that the supposed ‘believer’ is deluded.” Two things can be noted here. First, GM is willing to push Roberts’ argument to extremes that Roberts’ himself is not comfortable to. Nowhere in Roberts’ adage does he claim that believers are deluded, and for good reason: one is “deluded” when one adheres to a belief or idea in the face of invalidating evidence, and there is simply no evidence that invalidates belief in God. To hold that believers are deluded is a position that cannot be sustained with any intellectual integrity. Second, whether “deluded” or not, GM just admitted that the hearer is a “believer,” as my criticism maintained.
GM finally attempts to demonstrate that my “second criticism is largely destroyed already” (although the reader can decide whether my argument has sustained any damage at all yet) and offers to make “one more pass” by the pitifully impotent bulldozer. I will quote his argument in full because it is so convoluted that I cannot even make heads or tails out of it:
To claim that a person believes in a god because that god told him to do so is inadequate, especially when that god explicitly states, “Thou shalt not have any other gods but me.” The commandment necessarily acknowledges the existence of other gods but jealously insists upon his adherent’s sole devotion. This in turn necessarily requires the believer to reject all other gods save the one.
First, if God demands unadulterated allegiance, even going so far as to make a commandment of it, then exactly how does that render inadequate the claim that “a person believes in a god because that god told him to”? GM does not tell us. I cannot even determine how these things are at all related. Second, neither my article nor my theology maintains that a person believes in God because God said to. I am not aware of any theology that makes this claim. Strawmen are easy to knock down, GM, but they leave your opponent’s argument untouched. Third, while Scripture’s proscription against belief in other gods thereby tacitly acknowledges the existence of other gods, it also confesses elsewhere that they “by nature are not gods,” that “ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood, who pray to gods that cannot save,” that he is to be pitied who “says to wood, ‘Come to life!’ Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’ Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver; there is no breath in it.” Scripture is quite clear that these gods are nothing more than artifices of man: “The LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other . . . Apart from me there is no God.”
This, of course, leads back to what my argument actually was: The reason I dismiss all the other possible gods is because Scripture declares that they “by nature are not gods,” that “apart from the LORD there is no God.” That’s my reason. We have Roberts claiming his reason for dismissing God is the same as my reason for dismissing all other gods. We can see this is actually not the case at all.
It is a very popular idea—far too popular—that somehow ‘agnosticism’ is neutral territory on the question of God and where one stands with respect to belief in him. Cruising through Technorati this evening, I discovered a post by Roberto Teixeira on the subject of agnosticism in his blog (which is not usually devoted to subjects like these, so perhaps he has not explored the finer points of philosophy). After giving a little background information about how and why he turned his back on God, and the weakness of the arguments for God that he has encountered, he made a rather disappointing remark:
Agnostics cannot prove or disprove god; thus, they neither accept nor deny it.
This is, of course, simply false. In reality there are two species of agnostic: (1) those who believe God exists, and (2) those who do not. And this is because ‘agnosticism’ in itself is a sub-set of both theism and atheism; one can be an agnostic theist (e.g. Deism) or an agnostic atheist (e.g. ‘weak’ atheism). The term ‘agnostic’ refers to what one knows (epistemic) and ‘atheist’ refers to what one believes (doxastic). I can hear Teixeira saying something like this: “I can’t really say for sure whether or not God exists—” (this would be his agnosticism speaking) “—but my worldview has no place for God and my life is lived without any reference to him” (this would be his atheism speaking). We must grant that Teixeira is an agnostic on the epistemic question, because he claims to be an agnostic, but we can also perceive him as an atheist due to his implied Naturalist assumptions and conclusions. The reality is that no one is ever just an agnostic; when it comes to the question of God’s existence, even the most ambivalent person ultimately comes down on one side or the other. Even if one has not thought very much about the issue, he nevertheless conducts his life in a manner consistent with either theism or atheism (e.g. he lives his life as though God does not exist; practical atheism).
Just as a side note, one of his concluding remarks was:
People cannot be reasoned out of something they didn’t reason into.
There are two things to be said about this: (1) I certainly know many atheists who did not reason their way into atheism, and (2) I certainly did reason my way into Christianity. In the final analysis, his clever adage does not apply to reality quite as neatly as he might have hoped.
Some time around the middle of August of this year, my attention had been directed to an unfamiliar blog that had published an article on a rather interesting subject. The blog was TwoOrThree.net and one of its contributors, Aaron, was sharing his disdainful reaction to a new book by 71-year-old University of California professor Henry Ansgar Kelly. The book, Satan: A Biography, was published by Cambridge University Press (ISBN: 0521843391) just this August. Aaron was wryly remarking on his lack of surprise that it might soon be politically incorrect to refer to Satan as evil: “No one is ever really bad,” he retorts sardonically; “they are simply ‘misunderstood’ . . . No wonder we can’t call terrorists evil or condemn the murder of innocent civilians; you can’t even talk bad about Satan without academia defending him.” Henry Kelly’s book might be interesting as a subject in itself but what has me writing here is the comments that followed Aaron’s article; of particular and perhaps obvious interest to me was the exchange between myself and an apparent atheist named Mark Nunes (who runs a blog that reviews eclectic films and typically goes by the name of ‘Cineaste’ online).
Satan, Mark insists, is nothing more than a fiction created by Christians to give them something upon which they can lay blame for all the evil in the world. “Without Satan to blame everything bad on,” he remarks, “Christians would have only God left to blame the ills of the world on. Christians can’t have that; hence, they put Lucifer in the story. Satan has an important role to play in the Christian mythology.” (We will ignore the fact that he conflates Satan and Lucifer, and his poisoning-the-well assertion that Christianity is mythology.) The part that really grabbed my attention, however, was where he had said that people have a tendency to “confuse good and evil with morality.” He feels that anything you “think of as ‘evil’, you are confusing [it] with what you think of as immoral.” It grabbed Aaron’s attention, too, and he said he found it curious that Mark thinks good and evil are not connected with morality. Mark reaffirmed his feeling that they are not connected, and then added his rejection of all supernatural beings. (With contradictory flair, he claims that if you remove man from the picture then ‘nature’ is all that’s left—as though man were not himself a part of nature.)
I simply had to reply, of course. The following is the exchange between myself and Mark (click here).
“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” (Stephen F. Roberts)
Not only the existence of this quote but especially its abundant popularity among atheists is simply additional evidence that the average atheist is compelled more by ill-thought slogans and rhetoric than consistent rationality and critical thinking. (We shall disregard the worst of them, who find themselves compelled by fallacious antitheistic censure and invectives, which results from a complete abdication of reason.)
Stephen Roberts was once an acquaintance of mine; I would not be so presumptuous as to think that we were friends but I can say that we were friendly, and we did enjoy conversing. At the time he was a channel operator in #Atheism on the Dalnet IRC network, a channel in which I had spent considerable time for three or four years. He was known as ‘wubwub’ then and I, as always, was known as ‘Ryft’ (my online name for the last sixteen years). I remember Stephen as a good-natured fellow with a fantastic sense of humour who seemed to enjoy debate, as long as it did not go too deep; whenever it did, he was more content to sit back and let the likes of Sastra or KonKan address the finer points. For this reason I cannot fault him too harshly for originating the quote. Even if someone were to examine its merits with Stephen, it is more likely that he would abandon the exercise than pursue it too deeply. Musings and ramblings were his foray, not philosophical precision. If it wasn’t fun then he wasn’t interested, it seemed. And that is his prerogative.
But I do fault any atheist that embraces this quote while passing himself off as a rational and critical thinker, because this quote simply does not hold up under scrutiny. It is delightful rhetoric as far as it goes, but rhetoric never goes very far in the intellectual arena. When we attempt to apply this proposition to the real world, it soon falls apart.
“I contend that we are both atheists; I simply believe in one god fewer than you.” Although this first clause of the proposition per se is nearly acceptable, it nevertheless possesses a minor but obvious difficulty. The one making this statement is an atheist who rejects all gods, and the one to whom he is speaking rejects all gods but one. Please note: How can the latter be referred to as an atheist when he affirms a belief in one God? To affirm a belief in God contradicts the basic definition of ‘atheist’. A commitment to sound reason necessitates that this first clause be deemed erroneous and nonsensical for contending that “we are both atheists” when the one to whom it is speaking affirms a belief in at least one God—the person to whom it is speaking is a ‘theist’, not an ‘atheist’.
“When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” This is embarrassingly false. In reality, when it is understood why I dismiss all other gods, the error of this clause is starkly evident. For example, one reason why I dismiss the god of pantheism as illegitimate is because, by the pantheist’s own admission, his god is none other than the world in which we live. The god of pantheism is nothing more than ‘nature’, which is an entirely appropriate and suitable term already; to replace the term ‘nature’ with the term ‘god’ is superfluous and obfuscating outside the scope of sentimentality. Now, will Stephen claim that he rejects the God of Christianity because God is nothing more than ‘nature’? I surely hope not, for by that he would commit the straw man fallacy.
But this clause is false on an even larger scale. Why do I reject all other possible gods? Because the Scriptures declare that “there is one God,” that “besides [him] there is no god,” that all other gods “by nature are not gods,” and so forth. My commitment to the truth of Scriptures is ultimately my reason for rejecting all other possible gods. I think we can be quite certain that this is not Stephen’s reason for rejecting the God of Christianity. When one understands the reason why I dismiss all other possible gods, we do not thereby find Stephen’s reason for rejecting the God of Christianity after all. Both clauses of this proposition are, in reality, nonsense and false.
Linkography:
Stephen F. Roberts Home Page – http://www.wildlink.com (accessed 13-Oct-06)
The History of ‘The Quote’ – http://freelink.wildlink.com/quote_history.htm (accessed 13-Oct-06)
In two independent discussions with atheists Eric and Ryan, they each present what they feel are detrimental arguments against God with the presence of evil in the world. (It should be noted that they address moral evil, which is distinct from natural evil, e.g. earthquakes). I attempt to offer a response which shows that the light of criticism is really not shining quite as brightly as they might have thought.
Eric summarizes his position like this: “If nothing, ever, was without God, then God created evil as well as good. It is only logical. And God is ultimately responsible. This God is the creator and must be accountable. The greatest authority holds the greatest responsibility.” Ryan follows the same line of thinking, adding further, “People, for some reason, choose not to believe that God is the creator of evil, finding every excuse in the book to let God off the hook. God is credited with creating everything in creation—except evil.”
On the surface this might seem a decent enough argument but it is plagued with a crippling difficulty, and it is found at the point where they each essentially argue that, if God is the sovereign Creator of all things, “then God created evil as well as good.” There is, of course, no disagreement between us over the premise that God is the sovereign Creator of all things—as a Christian, I’m going to enthusiastically endorse this premise. However, their argument does ultimately fail, and this failure is due to the fact that, although God is the Creator of all things, good and evil are not themselves ‘things’ capable of being created. Let’s explore why.
‘Good’ and ‘evil’ are strictly moral terms. When we say that this thing is good or that thing is evil, we are making a moral pronouncement. And if God is our ultimate ground of moral order—and he is—then these terms become relational descriptions. What this means is, a thing is determined to be ‘good’ by the degree of its relationship to God’s righteous nature, notably expressed prescriptively through his law, and ‘evil’ becomes a privative term expressing any want of conformity with such (inasmuch as cold is a privative description of heat).
Evil (or sin) is not some ‘thing’ that can be created; it describes a relationship between things but is not itself a thing, it’s not any sort of entity itself. It is strictly a term which describes a privative relationship (i.e. consisting in the absence of something), whether it’s a privation from an original state of righteousness in communion with God (a condition of being which we call “original sin”) or a privation from God’s holy law (acts of commission or omission which we call “actual sin”). Both original sin and actual sin discuss what is ultimately a relational privation of some form; in the scope of Christian theology, sin/evil is described in only these two forms. Therefore, to insist in the face of all this that sin/evil is itself a thing capable of being created is to construct a strawman argument—which is a form of faulty reasoning that regretfully fails the test of relevancy.
That these terms are relational descriptions is never escaped, for even if one’s ground of moral order is something other than God, goodness or evilness is still determined by the degree of its relationship to that foundation. That is, no matter what one’s worldview is, good and evil are not in themselves things capable of being created. Again, they describe a relationship between things but are not themselves things.
As far as God being held accountable, he isn’t. If accountable means “liable to account for one’s actions”—and it does—then God is not held accountable, for since he alone is the embodiment of Holiness, the supreme Law-giver and the sovereign Judge, there is no one to whom he must give an account. There is, by definition, no one above God to whom he is subject. We are God’s creation—indeed, the whole of the universe is—so it is we who are subject to him. I suppose an atheist might object and insist that it is actually man who created God, but that would be a pretty silly objection: you see, a fictional character is even less liable to account for his actions, so the atheist would hardly make his case this way. That is the rich irony: whether by Christian or atheist philosophy, in either worldview there is none to whom God is liable to account for his actions.
I will submit, with ease, that God is the First Cause of evil’s existence, in virtue of creating beings capable of relational privation through their natural free agency. This does not make God the author of evil, however. The distinct difference is that he is the author of beings who are capable of evil, but it is they who are the authors of evil in virtue of creating a breach between themselves and God Most Holy.
This put Ryan into quite a state: “First you submit with ease that God is the First Cause of evil’s existance,” he said, “then you point out that God cannot create evil. Then you say God is not accountable for anything that God does. Then you try to change and confuse the definition of evil into a non-existent relational term. You are talking in circles.”
There is a lot to respond to, right there, so let’s tackle it one at a time.
First of all, I submit easily enough that “God is the First Cause of evil’s existence” only insofar as (1) all things are ultimately traced back to him as the sovereign First Cause, and (2) he created beings capable of relational privation (sin/evil), through endowing them with free agency. Given God’s nature as eternal, sovereign, omniscient and so forth, he knew exactly what he was doing when he created those beings; ergo, he had a purpose in it. Sin/evil is a relational privation brought about by creatures whose actions create a breach between them and God and his law. Put as simply as possible, (1) God created man; (2) man fell; (3) this condition of being, and all actual transgressions which proceed from it, are both identified as sin (original and actual). In this way man is the author of sin, not God. God is the author of man. But since God already knew what would happen with this creation he was about to produce, he is the ultimate First Cause.
Secondly, I never pointed out “that God cannot create evil.” I pointed out something completely different, which was that evil “is not some thing that can be created.” This is a rather important distinction we must carefully note. You see, if we say that God cannot create a thing then we have said something about God, but if we say that evil cannot be created then we have said something about evil.
Third, it is unfortunate for Ryan’s argument but Christianity has described sin/evil as a relational privation for millennia. That is, I’ve neither changed nor confused anything. Although it’s possible that Ryan might be experiencing some confusion, the fact is I’ve presented a definition that is consistent with historical Christian theology. It is possible for me to cite thousands of years’ worth of historical evidence to demonstrate this, but I’m not sure people would want to slog through that. Sin/evil has been described for thousands of years as “a privation from an original state of righteousness in communion with God (a condition of being which we call ‘original sin’) or a privation from God’s holy law (acts of commission or omission which we call ‘actual sin’).”
Fourth, as the readers can see, I’m actually not talking in circles at all.
