Why Philosophy of Religion Should End
Victor Reppert recently pointed out an argument for the existence of God that strikes me as nothing more than insipid. It appears to be a variant of the Argument From Reason, which Victor himself has championed, and made the centerpiece of his career. This variant is described as an Argument From the Laws of Logic, and it uses essentially the same fundamental reasoning the AFR uses. It was published by James Anderson and Greg Welty with the title The Lord of Non-Contradiction: An Argument for God from Logic. And like the AFR, it is based on unsubstantiated assumptions. It may serve to rationalize a priori beliefs of the faithful, but from the perspective of a non-believer, it is utterly worthless as a rational argument.
The argument is stated as a syllogism in this way:
1. The laws of logic are truths.Each of these statements is discussed and rationalized in the paper. But in the course of this discussion, it quickly becomes apparent that the justifications given are based on the same old tired presumptions that theists always make. And that's where the problem lies.
2. The laws of logic are truths about truths.
3. The laws of logic are necessary truths.
4. The laws of logic really exist.
5. The laws of logic necessarily exist.
6. The laws of logic are non-physical.
7. The laws of logic are thoughts.
8. The laws of logic are divine thoughts.
The first two statements of the syllogism are not particularly controversial. They discuss the fundamental axioms of logical reasoning as propositions about the truth value of propositions. No problem there. But I'm not sure I would accept statement 3. The claim is that the axioms of logic are true in all possible worlds. This is justified by noting that we can't imagine a possible world where these laws don't hold. OK, but does that mean it can't be the case? Maybe there could be a world where logic doesn't hold. I'm not sure. It would be a world of chaos (by our standards), but does that mean such a world can't possibly exist? I don't know, and neither does anyone else, despite any claims to the contrary.
But there's a bigger problem here. If the laws of logic are propositions, as stated already, then they can't be necessary objects, because all propositions are statements that hold truth value. And all statements are the product of a mind. This is a key point that the authors of this paper seem to gloss over. To clarify my point, I should note that there is a difference between reality itself and statements about reality. Reality is what it is, and it has no truth value. A statement (or proposition) has truth value by virtue of how well it corresponds to reality. It is easy to conflate reality with propositions, because you can't describe reality without making statements about it. If the reality is that the grass is green, one must distinguish between what the reality is and any statements made about that reality. If I say that the grass is green, I have made a statement, and it is true because it reflects the reality. But without making any such statement, there is nothing that can be judged to be true or false. No proposition can be said to exist necessarily, because it requires that someone make a statement, which is a contingent thing.
The argument goes downhill from there. Statement 4 says that the laws of logic have an independent existence as immaterial objects. This is, of course, based on the assumption of an ontology of realism, as opposed to nominalism. Realism holds that conceptual things, like ideas and thoughts, exist independently of the mind that conceives them, while nominalism holds that these things are part of the physical process of thinking, and have no existence in their own right. The authors of this paper claim that any anti-realist ontology is just an assumption that must be justified. But wait a minute. Who's presenting their argument here? They are making the assumption of a realist ontology and shifting the burden of proof to anyone who doubts it.
In practice those who object to a realist construal of logical laws are invariably motivated by broader metaphysical pre-commitments, such as the conviction that physicalism (or something close) must be the case. ... But then one must squarely face the challenge of explaining (or explaining away) all the claims we’re naturally inclined to make about the laws of logic.So much for defending your own argument. Statements 5, 6, and 7 follow from the problematic statements that precede them. They are based on the assumption of a realist ontology, the assumption that they are true in all possible worlds, and the idea that laws of logic are propositions. But already, you can see that there is a conflict between the idea of necessary existence, and laws of logic as thoughts. Any thought is a contingent thing. It is the product of a mind that engages in the process of thinking. It doesn't exist independently of that mind, as necessary object would. So to say that the laws of logic are both thoughts and necessary objects is contradictory. But that doesn't seem to bother the authors of this paper.
Finally, the existence of God is rationalized in statement 7. A necessary thing must be the product of a necessary being? Sorry, but necessary existence doesn't work like that. If something exists necessarily, it isn't the product of anything. It exists independently. It is not created - even by God. Statement 7 is a denial of the meaning of necessary existence.
This argument then, is nothing but fluff, built on unjustified theistic assumptions. But I have to give credit where it is due. This is the only theistic argument I have ever seen where the authors openly admit that it is based on the presumption of God.
every logical argument presupposes the existence of God. ... one can logically argue against God only if God exists.and of course, by this logic, one can logically argue for God only if God exists, because logic itself comes from God. They presuppose God in their argument to come to the conclusion that God exists. Unfortunately, they don't seem to recognize that this is circular reasoning, the same as most theistic arguments.
And this illustrates the utter futility of theistic philosophy in general. It is entirely based on theistic assumptions. It does not provide any assurance that those assumptions are true. Those assumptions are never properly justified. PoR only provides a veneer of logical reasoning to give comfort to the faithful, in the misguided belief that their faith has a strong basis in philosophy. To teach this to students of philosophy is a crime. Genuine philosophy doesn't allow such poor arguments and faulty reasoning to go unchallenged.
1. The laws of logic are truths.
ReplyDeleteMaybe. However, it seems more plausible to me that truth is modeled using the laws of logic, so it is a mistake to say the laws of logic are truths. Further, there are many different logics. Choosing precisely which "laws" of logic are the ones that are true is never something anyone can seem to pull off.
2. The laws of logic are truths about truths.
Nah. Like above, the laws of logic create rules of inference which if followed we say they are truth preserving.
3. The laws of logic are necessary truths.
"Necessary" needs qualification. The authors appear to define a necessary truth as any true proposition which "Could not be false". But "Could not" needs defining. There are many different types of possibility such as logical, metaphysical, physical, and so on. It would probably be logical possibility, but it doesn't really matter.
4. The laws of logic really exist.
I really don't know what it means to say the laws of logic exist. I know what it means to say atoms exist, and desks, and cows, but the laws of logic are something entirely different. I can't make sense of saying the laws of logic exist.
5. The laws of logic necessarily exist.
Same problem as above.
6. The laws of logic are non-physical.
I have no idea what this means. The authors seem to think that we cannot find the laws of logic in nature like we can find desks, cows, and atoms, so consequently the laws of logic are non physical. I also cannot find gravity, but it surely isn't non physical.
7. The laws of logic are thoughts.
Quite a desperate stretch here.
8. The laws of logic are divine thoughts.
Very poor. The thought is basically that "The laws of logic come from a necessarily existent mind. We call any necessarily existent mind "God", therefore God exists". Sorry, but going from "some x exists which is a necessarily existent mind" to "some x exists which is omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect" is unjustified. It's simply a non sequitur. Arguments for theism often make this mistake, and philosophers are not called out for this often enough.
My advice to any theist making arguments about the laws of logic: Read books on formal logic and companions on metaphysical/epistemological issues regarding logic. Arguments from reason, or arguments about "laws of logic" all seem to be made by people who at best have some elementary understanding of classical propositional and first order logic.
philosophers are not called out for this often enough.
Delete- In my opinion, PoR is perhaps the only field of philosophy where they can get away with this kind of argumentation.
"It is entirely based on theistic assumptions"
ReplyDeleteThere is something very plausible to this. In my experience, any argument for theism would only strengthen the conviction of a theist. The problem? The arguments typically contain at least one premise which begs the question against the non theist. That is, the argument contains a premise which only a theist will believe, so the argument will contain a premise which is equally or nearly as controversial as the conclusion to the non theist. Arguments about "Maximally great beings" show this rather nicely, as do arguments from contingency which use as a premise that only divine beings can be necessary beings.
Plantinga seems to have recognized the problem with the epistemological basis of theistic arguments. So he invented a whole new epistemology to cover up the lack of justification for their assumptions (Reformed Epistemology). Of course, it suffers from the same problem. You have to be a theist to swallow it.
DeleteSince there are many different types of logic and since God seems associated with just Aristotelian logic then there must be many other gods running around for the other types of logic. I like the idea of a Fuzzy Logic god.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the God of Aristotle's logic seems to have fallen a bit short with his axioms. The Law of the Excluded Middle states that a proposition is either true or false, but paradoxical propositions such as "This statement is false" seems to be both (which is a contradiction). But paradoxes are contrived. God would have been better off simply observing nature and defining his axioms of logic accordingly, because paradoxes don't occur in nature.
DeleteAll God has to do to avoid contradictions is to be incomplete (as per Godel).
DeleteIt's all fine and dandy to apply the 'laws of logic' to a host of statements. That is what philosophy does. The use of logic is simply a process by which the best and most authoritative perspective on any particular argument is promulgated, as opposed to garble. However we are dealing with thoughts. And thoughts we are capable of having, the imaginative enterprise so to speak, are not bounded to reality. For example, from our experience of the real, natural world we can think of a horse, we can think of a spike, say the tusk of a narwhal, we can think pink, and from those real natural world examples, we have the great imaginative capacity to conjure the unreal, we can extrapolate a pink unicorn. Or a winged horse, or angels, or talking snakes.
ReplyDeleteThe upshot is that if we do not ground our thoughts to the physics of the natural world what we can imagine logically is not limited to reality. The existence of gods is one such unreality that appears conducive to be logically argued. But does the logicality of the argument mean proof for the existence of gods? No. I go back to Schopenhauer:
"There would then have to be added only the fact that once for all in logic the question is about what is thought and hence about concepts and not about real things."
— Schopenhauer, Manuscript Remains, Vol. 4, "Pandectae II", §163'
The upshot is that if we do not ground our thoughts to the physics of the natural world what we can imagine logically is not limited to reality.
DeleteWell said. Christians prefer to ground their thoughts not in reality but in that which doesn't exist. So anything is possible for them. That's the only way they can believe in a man who walks on top of water and rises from the dead.
It is unfortunate Christians don't ground their reality in the physics of the natural world. Indeed they imagine a reality grounded in metaphysics, but it is a metaphysics unhinged from, and which does not supervene on, the physics. Gods, like angels, are not real. They are metaphysical conjurations, concepts which do not relate to the physics. If science should discover the possibility that humanoid figures can indeed develop skeletal and musculature physiologies to support wings and flight, then I say the existence of angels are rightly grounded in the physics.
DeleteI know It is a rather droll example of what some christians perceive as angels and believe that they actually exist in the real world [despite many other christians telling you that they do not have wings]. But then, what examples from the bible are not as equally droll in reality with no correlate in the real world on which it could supervene?
Theology, religion, christianity has no more a mandate on axiomatic truths that I couldn't find in say the tales of Hans Christian Andersen or some other didactic story telling. And that is all it is. And that's all christianity is; a confected story.
Don McIntosh makes his rebuttal here.
ReplyDeleteBut Skeptical's brash denial of the premise that logical axioms are necessarily true misses the point. The whole purpose for the philosophical notion of modal logic and possible worlds is to ascertain what may be possible or necessary according to the rules of logic. Clearly if there is any world at all that is "not possible," it's one in which the rules of logic do not hold!
Clearly, Christians believe in a world that contains immaterial beings. Furthermore, the aspect physical world is contingent, or not necessary. But it is only the physical world that requires the rules of logic to hold. God can do whatever he pleases in the immaterial realm. Consider: Christians make the logical argument that a chain of causation in the physical world must end (or begin) somewhere, and that end is in the immaterial realm. So the logic that applies to the physical does not apply to the immaterial. The immaterial God is the exception to the logical rule that applies to the physical. Likewise the teleological argument. Things in the physical world must have been designed, they say. Where does the logic end? With God, who, again, is the exception to the logic.
Still not convinced? Think about the trinity of God. Three persons who are all God, but are not the same. That defies conventional logic, and it certainly would not be possible if those persons were physical beings. But in the immaterial realm, is it possible. Anything is possible where the rules of logic don't apply. Christians often say that God can't do what is not logically possible. I contend that the concept of the trinity proves that to be incorrect. God can't do what is logically impossible in the physical realm, but in the realm of the immaterial, anything goes.
The bottom line is that it is in fact conceivable that there is a possible world where the rules of logic don't hold, but just not our physical world. Therefore, we can conclude that the rules of logic are not necessary in some possible world, and so they are not necessary.
Don McIntosh again:
ReplyDeleteNor would I agree that all the arguments by theist philosophers of religion are "based on theist premises." Take Plantinga's now-famous "free will defense," acknowledged widely by philosophers theist and atheist alike as an effective response to the logical argument from evil: The free will defense is actually based on atheistic premises, as laid out by noted unbelievers such as Epicurus, Hume and J.L. Mackie. Plantinga merely points out that the set of premises supporting the argument from evil as a reductio ad absurdum are not, strictly speaking, logically contradictory, and therefore the reductio fails.
Based on atheistic premises? No. The argument From evil is a reductio based on theistic premises:
1. God is omniscient (all-knowing)
2. God is omnipotent (all-powerful)
3. God is omnibenevolent (morally perfect)
4. There is evil in the world
And so is Plantinga's rebuttal:
A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now God can create free creatures, but He can't cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren't significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can't give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good. - Plantinga
If Plantinga's argument is successful (and Oppy and other atheists disagree), it only shows that the argument from evil fails, not that God must exist. Nevertheless, theistic arguments for God still are based on theistic assumptions.
Don McIntosh again:
ReplyDeleteSkeptical's larger point seems to be that PoR, as practiced by Christian theists, amounts to a large and expensive exercise in question-begging apologetics. I don't think that's true but let's say he's right. I would think that if this were really the case, the various atheist, non-theist and non-Christian philosophers within the discipline of PoR could simply point that out, or at least could point out the many instances of question-begging.
Oppy has done that (see Arguing about Gods), and others have, as well.
Don McIntosh again:
ReplyDeleteMy message to the critics of PoR is this: If religion is not worth arguing about, then by all means don't argue about it. But if you argue about it, expect counterarguments. I say that only because it seems to me as if the atheist critics of PoR are more than willing to make grand pronouncements about religion being indefensible, but are not willing to defend those very pronouncements. Or at least I can imagine no other reason why they would be moving to do away with PoR in the first place.
We can argue about it all you like. I am willing to go toe-to-toe with science deniers, too. But I don't think their pseudo-science should be taught in schools, because it is not the stuff of legitimate science. Get it?