Servile Conformist

Presuppositional Apologetics can’t account for all Truth!

This is a friendly puzzle for my friends over at the Choosing Hats website. I can imagine that contesting with village atheists can be an exasperating experience, so here is something a little different:

Presuppositional Apologetics can’t account for all Truth!

First, some definition:

P: Some proposition P

[_]x: Necessarily x

Vx: All of x

~>: if then conditional

First assumption:

(1) If the Christian God makes P true then, necessarily, if the Christian God exists then P is true.

I don’t think an Presuppostional apologist would disagree with (1), but this leads to a modal collapse if First Order Quantification and S5 modal logic hold:

(2) [_] Vx: F ~> Vx: [_] F (Converse Barcan Formula)

Now let us take an instance of CBF:

(3) [_] Vx: x exists ~> Vx: [_] (x exists)

Now (3) tells us that if it is necessary that everything exists, then everything exists necessarily! What (1) leads us to is that God can’t make a contingent truth, indeed, there could be no contingent truths.

(C) The Christian God cannot account for all Truth.

Amended: Another way to look at this is if the Christian God is a truth maker for any proposition P, and if the Christian God exists necessarily, then anything that is true is necessary., no contingent truth could have the Christian God as it's truth maker.

 

 

A comment by Matthew...

In a pleasent exchange with Matthew, he made a comment about this portion of my response:

It would seem to me that if a person subscribed to this view, then they would be bound to take an event of genocide like the Holocaust and proclaim, “ God’s will has been done, and this is all for his glory!” 

His thoughts via e-mail were:

“This is true in one sense (God's will of decree), and not true of another (God's will of precept). It seems to me that most people, when they say "God's will has been done" are usually referring to God's preceptive will. So, this statement is misleading, because it does not distinguish between the two wills of God (and point out which is in view), and this distinction is at the heart of the argument. Likewise, genocide does not glorify God in the sense of precept (because it is against His revealed moral law), but in the sense of decree, God works all of the events in the world, both good and bad, into a "mosaic" that results in His greater glorification. It is true that, for the most part, we cannot see the greater "mosaic" that God is bringing about, but this itself is stated as much in the article (per Dt. 29:29), and you acknowledge that this is not a problem from the presuppositional perspective (which we adhere to).

In the end, I think it is important to keep in mind that the article (especially the "solution" section) is not intended to persuade an unbeliever that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, but rather to show that one who holds to a Reformed system of doctrine can affirm all three without contradiction. Inasmuch as it accomplishes this, I consider the article a success, even if certain aspects of the Reformed system seem implausible to someone outside of that system. Granted, it is important to address these perceived implausibilities, but that is, I think, the topic of a different (though related) discussion.”

All for God’s glory?

So I happened upon a journal published by the Choosing Hats blog, where authors Alan Rhology and Matthew Martellus present a Reformed Christian theodicy in response to Bart Ehrman’s little book on the bible and suffering. While I’m not going to leap to the defense of Bart, I thought their solution merited some investigation.

I encourage readers to look at the original argument as it is presented in the journal, I’ve reformulated some of premises and numbered them differently to better suit myself. If there are any errors in my presentation of Rhology and Martellus’ argument, it is due solely to my theological ineptitude and does not reflect the authors.

The argument from suffering (hereafter AFS) starts with three basic assumptions:

(A1) God is all-powerful.

(A2) God is all-loving

(A3) There is suffering.

The conjunction of (A1) and (A2) contradict (A3) prima facie, with the solution that one of these three premises must go. The authors take the strategy that the apparent contradiction between (A1) and (A2) with (A3) can be resolved by making careful distinctions about the nature of God and suffering, to resolve the logical contradiction that gives this AFS it’s intuitive force. The authors reform the argument as follows:

(A1) God is all-powerful

(A1*) God can bring about any state of affairs he so wills.

(A2) God is all-loving

(A2*) God’s perception is such that no instances of suffering for suffering’s sake alone will actualize.

(A3) There are instances of suffering in the actual world.

(A4) God’s own glory is his most important motivation.

(A1*) and (A2*) are two important distinctions the authors draw to aid in their theodicy. (A1*) basically tells us that God can bring about a denumerable amount of possible worlds (baring necessarily impossible ones). (A2*) tells us that since God is all-loving, he would never allow suffering to occur just for the sake of suffering, but that suffering must serve some other purpose and (A4) informs us that God’s most important purpose is his glory. From this we can derive:

(D1) When God selected this world W, he perceived W as a whole and determined that W brought him sufficient glory and actualized it. (from A1*, A2* and A4)

When looking at (D1) it is important to recognize that the authors took the time to tell readers that when God perceives the world as a whole and judges it be good, don’t make the mistake of thinking that if some parts of the whole have suffering as a property, it does not entail that the whole has that property. For example, Human bodies are made up of atoms which have the property of being invisible to the human eye, but the human body does not have such a property when considered as an ontological whole.

(D2) God actualized this world and its instances of suffering because it brought him a sufficient amount of glory as a whole. (from A3 and D1)

(C1) The existence of an all-powerful and all-loving God is compatible with the instances of suffering in this world. (from A1, A2, A3, and D2)

In my estimation, the authors have successfully relieved any tension of contradiction in the three premises that Bart originally presented in his book, but as with all things, the devil is in the details.

First, (A2*) tells us that God would not allow instances of suffering for the sake of suffering alone, and I would assert that for God to do so would contradict (A2). If being all-loving is one of God’s attributes, then an implicit statement here is that necessarily, there can never be an instance of suffering for the sake of suffering alone. While I don’t think this idea is bothersome to the authors (I’m making an educated guess that they practice presuppositional apologetics), it does bother me. It would seem to me that if a person subscribed to this view, then they would be bound to take an event of genocide like the Holocaust and proclaim, “ God’s will has been done, and this is all for his glory!”

My second observation is that in the above instance of the Holocaust being for God’s glory, I’d counter that a place like Auschwitz is an instance of suffering contra (A2*). The anticipated response I think I’d get would be along the lines of, “We (as humans) don’t have the foresight to judge if an instance of suffering doesn’t work towards God’s glory.” While such a response is true, I think it is pretty ambitious. The authors have set up a theodicy which makes instances of suffering for suffering’s sake alone way is at least metaphysically impossible, if not logically impossible. Like my first observation, I don’t think this would phase a presuppositional apologist, but I can’t shake the thought that the denial of the conclusion (C1) is more plausible than the conjunction of all the premises.

My third observation is related to (A4). My limited understanding of Reformed theology informs me that all humans are sinful (due to the fall and federal headship of Adam), and that any suffering is most deserved, because it takes the form of God’s justice.

Now, in an effort not to be a total theological boob, I want to mention the mistake of thinking God’s choice to save a person or send them to hell has some ultimate equivalency, it does not. God didn’t create a human just to send them to hell, but hell is the form his righteous justice takes. God gives justice (a good thing) or mercy (a good thing).

Now if (A4) is true, it seems more than just intuitive that God will maximize the amount of glory when creating a world. Which act gives more glory? Sending a deserving sinner to hell, or saving a deserving sinner from hell? If one option bestows more glory to God, it would seem that God would maximize that option by saving or punishing all of us.

　

I think I’ll stop my thoughts here for now.

A successful response from Dr. Peoples

After a pleasant and thoughtful exchange with Dr. Peoples in e-mail, I’ve come to the conclusion that the two concerns I raised in my previous post have been addressed more than adequately. Concerning my comments on (P1), Dr. Peoples had this to say*:

I only consider something like a universal to be non-natural. If I ever refer to it as supernatural, I would be at pains to add "provided by that we all understand that I just mean non-natural." If people are OK with calling non-natural things supernatural, then so be it. Now, typical "supernatural" things like God or angels etc are also non-natural, but I generally try to be clear that I mean nothing more than non-natural. When I present the argument more fully elsewhere or when I present it verbally, I always try to be clear that I just mean non-natural, although I add that some people talk about "supernatural" things, but I'm only interested in the fact that they aren't natural. But I do later end up talking about a non-natural agent (since I argue that moral facts are best construed as having a personal origin), so the particular non-natural thing I end up talking about is also the kind of thing that people would typically call supernatural, but as far as the argument goes, what matters is that the agent is non-natural.

More precisely, if we had set X of all non-natural entities, those entities that people would consider supernatural would be a proper subset of X.

Regarding my second concern, Dr. Peoples noted that:

[Nowhere] do I (intentionally) suggest the modal fallacy that you warn readers (correctly) about.

　

　

*- Dr. Peoples has given me permission to reproduce these parts of our conversation.

Glenn Peoples and the Moral Argument for Theism

Here is a version of the Moral Argument for Theism (hereafter MAT) from Dr. Glenn Peoples (PhD Otago), over at his blog 'Say Hello to My Little Friend’:

(P1) If there are moral facts, then their basis is either natural or supernatural (where these two are construed as mutually exclusive categories)

(P2) The basis of moral facts is not natural

(C1) Therefore if there are moral facts, then their basis is supernatural

(P3) The most plausible way to think of a supernatural basis of moral facts is in terms of a supernatural person who brings moral facts about.

(C2) Therefore, if there are moral facts, the most plausible way to think of their basis is in terms of a supernatural person who brings moral facts about.

Before I start in on my observations, I think it is important to point out that Dr. Peoples’ original blog post was just giving a reader’s digest version of the argument, so it would be uncharitable to act as if this is the final and definitive statement from Dr. Peoples on the subject. I’m sure if given the time and space, Dr. Peoples could give a very robust defense of the MAT.

My first comment concerns the first two premises and the first conclusion. (P1) is a conditional statement (if X then Y) that leads to a disjunction (either A or B). Dr. Peoples then uses (P2) to introduce the negation of one of the possible options, leaving us with (C1).

Dr. Peoples’ deduction of (C1) from (P1) and (P2) is of course valid, but I think it presents a false dilemma. Dr. Peoples’ states:

And since the natural and the non natural are mutually exclusive, that is, they cover all possible options, then there’s just no avoiding it: If there are any moral facts then their basis has to be either natural or supernatural.

(emphasis is mine)

I agree that natural and non-natural are mutually exclusive, but they are not jointly exhaustive (e.g. they cover all possible options) and I think Dr. Peoples engages in the equivocation of non-natural and supernatural. A distinction needs to be drawn here to escape this equivocation, supernatural is not merely the negation of the natural, and anything non-natural is not ipso facto supernatural. To bolster my case:

The more general application is to philosophy as a whole, and again involves both the objects studied and the methods used in studying them, I.e. both metaphysics and epistemology. In metaphysics naturalism is perhaps most obviously akin to materialism, but it does not have to be materialistic. What it insists on is that the world of nature should form a single sphere without incursions from outside by souls or spirits, divine or human, and without having to accommodate strange entities like non-natural values or substantive abstract universals (The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Ed: Honderich, Oxford, 1995 page 604)

Notice this entry draws the same distinction I asserted earlier, that there can be non-natural entities like abstracta, that are clearly not natural and clearly not supernatural. If Platonic numbers exist, they are abstract and cannot causally interact with the concrete world, which I think is counter intuitive to the conception of the supernatural, since it is so often invoked as an explanation of phenomena.

So I would insist that Dr. Peoples’ (P1) add another disjunctive:

(P1’) If there are moral facts, then their basis is either natural or non-natural or supernatural (where these three are construed as mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive categories)

And of course, if this change is made, (C1) does not follow from (P1’) and (P2) and the original force of the MAT fails to materialize.

A second observation that I think needs to be made is that I think Dr. Peoples might be close to error in his alethic modality. Take for example this section of his blog post:

Notice firstly that this more nuanced version of the moral argument doesn’t prove that God exists. What it establishes is that if there are moral facts, then they are best explained by a supernatural person who is the source of moral truth. But I think that the existence of a being like that is obviously not compatible with philosophical naturalism, the belief that the natural universe is all there is: Matter, energy and nothing else. So what we have is a contingent claim. If moral facts exist, then philosophical naturalism is false and there exists, for want of a better term, something like a God.

Notice secondly that this argument has a further logical consequence: If no supernatural person exists, then there are no moral facts. That is the real kicker here, and I think that’s why a number of atheists are, on an emotive rather than intellectual level, so strongly opposed to the moral argument for theism. The moral argument effectively says to them that they are denying that moral claims are true, and who wants to be in that position?

(emphasis mine)

And to add to this, his closing remarks:

In short, whatever else might exist in a godless world – and that’s a subject for a whole other discussion – moral facts certainly could not exist.

(emphasis mine again)

I think it worth mentioning as a word of caution here, while it might be necessarily “that if Naturalism is true, then moral facts do not exist“, it does not follow to say “moral facts necessarily could not exist in a naturalistic universe”. The scope of modality expressed by Dr. Peoples is quite broad:

Notice secondly that this argument has a further logical consequence: If no supernatural person exists, then there are no moral facts.

What I gleaned from the blog post was:

Let N be “ If naturalist is true” and ~M be “moral facts exist”

(P4) Nec(N -> ~M)

(C3) N -> Nec(~M)

Which would qualify as a modal fallacy.

The broadest in scope and strongest type of necessity is that of logical necessity, which I think Dr. Peoples comes close, if not outright, stating is the case. I think perhaps it might be appropriate to take a softer stance then stating moral facts could not logically exist in any possible world without the supernatural is not something I think could be defended.

While the debate over the truth value of (P2) and (P3) is of much interest to me, I think Dr. Peoples’ MAT and presentation of MAT needs some tweaking, it raises some important questions that Atheist and Theist alike need to carefully examine.

 

Welcome to Philosophy Carnival #134!

Welcome Welcome, My blog is relatively new and I’m excited to be hosting this edition of the Philosophy Carnival here at Servile Conformist, my meager home. As you can see, most of my scribbling online has something to do with religion, but there have been quite a few carnivals focused on the topic of Philosophy of Religion in the past, so I made an effort to provide material not related to religion. I only got 1 serious submission (really surprised at how many submissions I got about the power of positive thinking and advice from life coaches), so I hope you find something interesting! We do not yet have a host for the next carnival, so if you think you might be interested, head on over to the Carnival's website to check it out.

There are some great interviews out right now available for listening that I wanted to draw people’s attention to. First, the BBC interviewed Philosophers Stephen Mulhall, Beatrice Han-Pile, and Hans Johann-Glock about the so called “Continental-Analytic split” in Philosophy. Second, comes from the University of Chicago, where Professor Peter Kail discusses the legacy of David Hume.

A blast from the past, I’ve discovered some mp3 lectures of my all time Favorite philosopher Walter Kaufmann. He has lectures available on Existentialism, from Heidegger and Jaspers to Kierkegaard and Sartre! Fantastic stuff in my opinion.

 

Speaking of Sarte, Jared Smith of Philosophy and Polity has a two part discussion on Existentialism and Compatibilism, where the topic ranges from the general understanding of freedom in existential literature, some metaphysical mistakes Sartre makes in his own version of Compatibilism and Nietzsche and Camus’ own solutions to freedom in the face of determinism.

On the topic of Freedom, Professor Eddy Nahmias has an interesting piece on Neuroscience and Free Will, the comments section has some interesting developments, where Professor Nahmias comments as well.

As a companion to Professor Nahmias 's piece, Serife Tekin provides some excellent commentary on what it means to have a Philosophy that in empirically-informed.

Justin Smith (who blogs much less than he should) provided a short excerpt from his upcoming work 'Language and Animals', where he takes up David Foster Wallace and Louis Agassiz request to, "Consider the lobster".

Ben Saunders is looking for comments on his thoughts about this question:

Suppose we have two propositions, P and Q. P is true. Q is a more extreme version of P. Does it follow that Q is false? Or that we have reason to believe P rather than Q?

Professor Edward Feser has been reviewing Alex Rosenberg’s book  The Atheist's Guide to Reality. Here are the first three installments: I, II, III

Over at the Prosblogion, Alexander Pruss posted an interesting argument for Theism by Emanuel Rutten of VU University in the Netherlands. I found the first metaphyscal principle that Professor Rutten mentioned ("If it is impossible to know that p, then p is necessarily false".) was fertile ground for further exploration.

Helen De Cruz posts some observations on John Schellenberg's Divine Hiddenness agrument, which prompted Clayton Littlejohn to comment further.

Over at the Secular Outpost, Philosopher Graham Oppy has been in discussion with Christian apologist JP Moreland about the argument from consciousness, which started in the European Journal for Philosophy of Religion and continues online.

Ockham, Tense, and Coyne

Daniel Fincke's blog post on Jerry Coyne caught my eye. Now normally, I don't pay much attention to Coyne, the Evolution VS Intelligent Design context isn't my thing (For the record, I think ID is tarted up creationism that is trying to legislate itself into credibility) and I don't find Coyne to be particularly insightful. At any rate, Coyne and his fan boys n girls were taking shots at a certain post-doc getting money from the Templeton Foundation,  and Dan wanted to highlight the reasons why their shot taking was misguided.

What bothered me most was a post Dan linked to from Verbose Stoic, who I think did a very insufficient job of explaining why that particular post-doc was useful. So I thought I'd take a crack at it myself.

Let us take these two symbolic statements:

(1) O(J) --> L(W(J))

and

(2) O(J) --> W(L(J))

Now let us understand the variables as:

O: it is now the case that…

W: it was the case that…

L: it will be the case that…

J: Jerry made a blog post on October 27^th.

(1) tells us that once Jerry made a blog post on October 27^th, it will always be the case thereafter that Jerry made a blog post on October 27^th. (2) informs us that since Jerry now made a post on October 27^th, it was always the case that Jerry made a blog post on October 27^th.

(1) Is obvious enough, that should pass without argument and most people today would affirm (2) without a problem, and guess what? So would William of Ockham, and so would most people who affirm either A or B theories of time. Had no idea there was an A or B theory of time? Don’t worry, I’m willing to bet that Jerry had no idea about it either when he made that blog post.

But there is a problem here, some seriously smart people would disagree with (2), and armed with tense logic, they’d make a strong case for it, showing that our actual natural use of language shows that we don’t really mean (2). If we understand the word “will” with any sort of predictive use, we find ourselves running into trouble. If I say, “Tomorrow the sun will set in the west.” do I mean that the sun setting in the west merely does occur, or that it must occur? Is the sun’s rising causally inevitable or am I saying that the chances of the Sun not setting tomorrow are so ridiculously high that it’s just common sense to state that it sets in the west?

If you agreed with, “the chances of the sun not setting tomorrow are so ridiculously high that it’s just common sense to state that it sets in the west”, to be consistent, you’d have to deny (2) as well.

And this is an example of why the Metaphysics of Time are an important topic, If you are like most physicists who affirm a tenseless theory of time (that’s B theory of time for you Coyne fans), denying (2) simply isn’t an option. Why is there a disconnect between how we speak and what Special Relativity strongly points to? Interesting question. And what does God have to do with it? Well, any description of time, A or B theory, requires us to use a God’s eye view of time to explain it. How counter intuitive is it to say one needs to step outside of time to even describe what’s going on? What does it even mean to be outside of time? I fail to see why the term “God” is somehow more “incoherent” than saying, “ I’m outside of time and I’m looking at a 4 dimensional cube that represents my universe”

Typically, if you preface a comment with, "This is an area about which I’m completely ignorant...", it helps to not comment at all.  Ahhh well:

Faith of the Gaps

I picked up a new book recently from my local used book store, by Alister McGrath and I came across this [1] startling passage:

The atheist believes that there is no God, but his position is a matter of faith rather than fact. He cannot prove beyond all reasonable doubt that God does not exist, just as the Christian cannot prove with total conviction that God does exist: Both are positions of faith.

I hate comments like this, I really do, and it pains me even more when a person with McGrath’s education makes it. This is not something a theologian should ever put into print.

I call this line of observation the “Faith of the Gaps” and it usually crops up when someone reflects on the disputations that go on between Atheists and Christians, and it usually comes from the Christian camp. I think it is a terrible mistake, it seems like Christians like McGrath are trying to level the playing field by attributing faith to the Atheist like faith is something to be ashamed of, or like faith some kind of concession of defeat for the Atheist.

In any case, McGrath makes some serious epistemological presumptions here without ever drawing his reader’s attention to them. First, he uses language that almost seems to suggest infallibilism when it comes to knowledge, but more charitably, I think he just intended a high level of justification, something akin to mathematical or very strong scientific proof, whatever belief does not reach this level of justification must cover the remaining distance with faith.

I was under the impression that faith (well placed, in any event) was a virtue within the body of Christ, and McGrath equates both positions as one of faith, but fails to make any sort of qualitative distinction between the faith in the risen Jesus Christ, the Living God and faith in the negation of the metaphysical position of Theism (and let’s be fair, that is all Atheism strictly entails).

From a biblical perspective, I would think that there is more to faith than mere intellectual assent to some body of propositions, but the intimacy with God reflected by both paragons of faith within the Hebrew Bible, Abraham and Job.

What is more troubling, if faith is to be a virtue and it operates as McGrath stated, then it would be more virtuous for a person to be less knowledgeable about sacred things, so the amount of their faith could increase. I’m sure that is not what McGrath intended with this passage, but it is a sad consequence of his own words.

 

 

　

[1]Studies in Doctrine, page 131 under ‘God and His Critics’, 1997 Zondervan Publishing.

Thoughts from class: Cultural Anthropology

    I was sitting in my Cultural Anthropology class the other day, and the professor asked the class how many of us are feminist, and only two people raised their hands. The Professor was shocked, and openly wondered why so many of her students (the majority female no less) were not feminists.  I had suggested that perhaps the term had become too saturated and no one in here felt comfortable enough to profess a belief in something they didn’t properly understand. The Professor gave me an incredulous look that signaled her assessment of my explanation, and had a student look feminist up in the dictionary, which yielded the following, “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men” . She asked again, “Why aren’t you all feminists?”

    I thought she made my point rather well, but I didn’t pursue it further. There is a tendency for activists of any cause to distill their ideals down to its barest simplicity, and reframe the position in terms that just about any person can identify with. A classic example is the position of Pro Life in the abortion debate, that position is described in a such a way that the negation of it is to be Pro Death or in the very least, against life itself. Those are not the kind of terms people wish to associate themselves with, while just about anyone, despite their views on abortion would identify as Pro Life.

    As the class progressed, the Professor began unpacking what exactly it means to be a feminist, and how this commitment to feminism begins to color how one begins to critically assess their own culture in terms of gender and sex equality. She could not have explained a hermeneutic of suspicion more clearly, with even a discussion of how one might perceive male hegemony in even women wearing high heels.

    I thought her examples were great and that they reaffirmed my own sneaking suspicion that feminism isn’t so simple, and that the concept requires much more unpacking than what a dictionary provides. A person might consider themselves feminist with their own notions of what kind of equality they’d like to see, but I don’t doubt that same person might outright reject a feminist understanding of social criticism or literary theory.

    For me, all this raises meta-questions about the discipline of cultural anthropology. Are there meta-discussions about the methods one is supposed to use in studying one’s own culture? It’s one thing to study gender issues in small populations that exist on the edges of dominant cultures, but surely those same methods fall short when applying them to our own culture. Durkheim thought one could study religion without judging it, but I think the enlightenment project of reaching objectivity in the social sciences is long since dead, and it is much more fruitful to take a careful inventory of the baggage one brings to a study, instead of leaving it at home. How much more does that apply to the study of the culture you exist in and identify with? 

Scholars Misbehaving: Dawkins

No matter how you feel about Richard Dawkins, you can’t deny he plays an important role in the contemporary public discourse about religion and that his book ‘The God Delusion’ (hereafter, TGD) is an important text to understanding that discourse.

Personally, I find Dawkins’ books about biological science to be wonderful. As someone who doesn’t have a great education in the physical sciences, I find him to be invaluable resource in that respect. Sadly, I cannot repeat that praise for TGD, even though it is arguable that TGD is his most important work.

Whenever the TGD comes up in conversation, I usually express my dislike for the book, which in turn, causes people to challenge me to articulate what I find wrong with TGD, so this (and other upcoming) blog posts is a result of that.

On page 2, in the Preface to TGD, Dawkins states the following:

“Perhaps you have been taught that philosophers and theologians have put forward good reasons to believe in God. If you think that, you might enjoy Chapter 3 on ‘Arguments for God’s existence’ - the arguments turn out to be spectacularly weak.”

Now this is a strong claim, one that I wouldn’t make. I may be an atheist and remain unconvinced by theistic arguments, but I would never judge them to be spectacularly weak. Also note he singles out both philosophers and theologians, which means Dawkins intends to engage the best arguments from the professionals.

The arguments addressed in chapter 3 are: Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways, Ontological Argument, Argument from Beauty, Argument from personal experience, argument from scripture, Argument from admired religious scientists, Pascal’s Wager, Bayesian Arguments, the chapter is 32 pages long (77-109).

What immediately jumps out to me is the actual lack of modern arguments. For example, one of the most famous philosophers of religion is Richard Swinburne, who not only is a theist, is also a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He taught at Oxford from 1985 till 2002, a published highly influential books defending the coherence and rationality of theism.

What I don’t understand, is why Dawkins doesn’t deal directly with Richard Swinburne? He obviously knew of him, knew he’s a philosopher and a faithful Christian to boot. He mentions Swinburne in the next chapter concerning Divine Simplicity, so I don’t see any excuse to omit his work from Chapter 3. Dawkins’ oversight does a disservice to the atheist readers he seeks to inform, because he essentially leaves his fans completely defenseless to any theistic thinker who bothered to read the modern literature (or taught by an apologist what to say in response).

In The ‘Existence of God’, Swinburne readily admits that the variety of traditional arguments for God’s existence, when considered alone and deductively, are not sound. Swinburne’s strategy is to asses the arguments for theism along inductive lines, using two categories for assessment: First is a C-inductive argument, which raises the probability of a hypothesis, and P-inductive argument, which makes a hypothesis more probable than not. Swinburne then picks out several arguments that he feels make a good C-inductive arguments, and the conjunction of these arguments make for a P-inductive argument for theism.

Swinburne’s strategy has been in print since 1979, and what even frustrates me even more, is that the probability calculus that Swinburne employs is Bayes’ Theorem, which is the last thing Dawkins addresses in Chapter 3, but instead of dealing with Swinburne, Dawkins’ target is Stephen Unwin. So…ignore the Oxford Philosopher with a strong reputation and target a risk management consultant? Really?

Chapter 3 is such a painful read, for example, on page 106 Dawkins observes:

“But of course that final estimate can only be as good as the original numbers fed in. These are usually subjectively judged, with all the doubts that inevitably flow from that.”

Anyone who has spent anytime closely examining arguments for theism from actual scholars (and not  apologists), you become use to their unassuming and modest attitude. Swinburne takes into account  subjectivity of the various evidentiary values, and even makes honest concessions (on page 289, my copy of The Existence of God comes from the revised 91 edition):

“All this so far is very imprecise, but, as we have seen we just do not have the criteria for very precise estimation of probabilities in science or history or most other fields. However I now suggest that it is reasonable to come to the following qualitative judgment about the force of the evidence so far considered…Theism does not have a probability close either to 1 [100%] or 0 [0%], that is, on the evidence considered so far, theism is neither very probable nor very improbable. It does not have a probability close to 1 because it does not have predictive power.”

Swinburne doesn’t make any radical claims, like Unwin apparently does, and spills much ink in justifying his values, and that deserves a fair treatment, if not a close and detailed one.

Dawkins is a total let down: