The Existence of God II
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The Existence of God II
There are five ways in which one can prove that there is a God.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1A.2.3
I believe also that nearly all the means which have been employed to prove the existence of God are good and might be of service, if we perfect them.
G. W. Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding
1—The Teleological Argument
Widely thought to have been demolished by Hume and Darwin, the teleological argument for God’s existence has come roaring back into prominence in recent years. The explanatory adequacy of the neo-Darwinian mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection with respect to observed biological complexity has been sharply challenged, as advances in microbiology have served to disclose the breathtaking complexity of the micromachinery of a single cell, not to speak of higher-level organisms. The field of origin of life studies is in turmoil, as all the old scenarios of the chemical origin of life in the primordial soup have collapsed, and no new, better theory is on the horizon. And the scientific community has been stunned by its discovery of how complex and sensitive a nexus of initial conditions must be given in order for the universe even to permit the origin and evolution of intelligent life.
Undoubtedly, it is this last discovery that has most served to reopen the books on the teleological argument. Due to sociological factors surrounding the neo-Darwinian theory of biological evolution, captured most poignantly in the public image of the Scopes trial, biologists have been for the most part extremely loath to so much as even contemplate a design hypothesis, lest they let a creationist foot in the door; but cosmologists, largely untainted by this controversy, have been much more open to entertain seriously the alternative of design. The discovery of the cosmic fine-tuning has led many scientists to conclude that such a delicate balance of physical constants and quantities as is requisite for life cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence but cries out for some sort of explanation.
What is meant by fine-tuning? The physical laws of nature, when given mathematical expression, contain various constants or quantities, such as the gravitational constant or the density of the universe, whose values are not mandated by the laws themselves; a universe governed by such laws might be characterized by any of a wide range of values for such variables. By “fine-tuning” one typically means that the actual values assumed by the constants and quantities in question are such that small deviations from those values would render the universe life-prohibiting. As of 2016 the astronomer Luke Barnes was able to supply the following list of well-established instances of finely tuned constants and quantities:
The degree of fine-tuning of these constants and quantities is beyond human comprehension. Take the entropy of the universe, for example. Oxford physicist Roger Penrose calculates that the odds of the special low-entropy condition having arisen sheerly by chance in the absence of any constraining principles is at least as small as about one part in 1010(123) in order for our universe to exist. Penrose comments, “I cannot even recall seeing anything else in physics whose accuracy is known to approach, even remotely, a figure like one part in 1010(123).”
In a sense more easy to discern than to articulate, this fine-tuning of the universe seems to manifest the presence of a designing intelligence. The inference to design is best thought of, not as an instance of reasoning by analogy (as it is often portrayed), but as a case of inference to the best explanation. John Leslie, the philosopher who has most occupied himself with these matters, speaks of the need for what he calls a “tidy explanation.” A tidy explanation is one that not only explains a certain situation but also reveals in doing so that there is something to be explained. Leslie provides a whole retinue of charming illustrations of tidy explanations at work. Suppose, for example, that Bob is given a new car for his birthday. There are millions of license plate numbers, and it is therefore highly unlikely that Bob would get, say, CHT 4271. Yet that plate on his birthday car would occasion no special interest. But suppose Bob, who was born on August 8, 1949, finds BOB 8849 on the license plate of his birthday car. He would be obtuse if he shrugged this off with the comment, “Well, it had to have some license plate, and any number is equally improbable.” But what makes this case different from the other?
A full-fledged theory of design inference has recently been offered by William Dembski. He furnishes a ten-step generic chance elimination argument, which delineates the common pattern of reasoning that he believes underlies chance-elimination arguments. Dembski’s analysis can be used to formalize what Leslie grasped in an intuitive way. What makes an explanation a tidy one is not simply the fact that the explanandum (the thing to be explained) is some improbable event, but the fact that the event also conforms to some independently given pattern, resulting in what Dembski calls “specified complexity.” It is this specified complexity (high improbability plus an independent pattern) that tips us off to the need for an explanation in terms of more than mere chance.
Alternatively, Robin Collins employs Bayes’s theorem (recall chap. 2) to argue that the existence of embodied, conscious observers is much more probable on the hypothesis of theism (and our background information) than on the hypothesis of a single, atheistic universe (and our background information). Therefore the evidence of fine-tuning strongly confirms theism over its rival hypothesis.
Regardless of which approach we adopt, the key to detecting design is to eliminate the two competing alternatives of physical necessity and chance. Accordingly, a teleological argument appealing to cosmic fine-tuning might be formulated as follows:
Since premise (1) seems to exhaust the alternatives, the soundness of this argument will depend on the plausibility of premise (2).
Can the cosmic fine-tuning be plausibly attributed to physical necessity? According to this alternative, the constants and quantities must have the values they do, and there was really no chance or little chance of the universe’s not being life-permitting. Now on the face of it this alternative seems extraordinarily implausible. It requires us to believe that a life-prohibiting universe is virtually physically impossible. But surely it does seem possible. If the primordial matter and antimatter had been differently proportioned, if the universe had expanded just a little more slowly, if the entropy of the universe were marginally greater, any of these adjustments and more would have prevented a life-permitting universe, yet all seem perfectly possible physically. The person who maintains that the universe must be life-permitting is taking a radical line that requires strong proof. But as yet there is none; this alternative is simply put forward as a bare possibility.
Sometimes physicists do speak of a yet-to-be-discovered theory of everything (TOE), but such nomenclature is, like so many of the colorful names given to scientific theories, quite misleading. A TOE actually has the limited goal of providing a unified theory of the four fundamental forces of nature, to reduce gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force to one fundamental force carried by one fundamental particle. Such a theory will, we hope, explain why these four forces take the values they do, but it will not even attempt to explain literally everything. For example, in the most promising candidates for a TOE to date, super-string theory or M-theory, the physical universe must be eleven-dimensional, but why the universe should possess just that number of dimensions is not addressed by the theory. Hence, one must not be misled by talk of a TOE into thinking that the universe possesses all its fundamental constants and quantities by physical necessity.
On the contrary, there is good reason to reject this alternative. For it would require us to say that only one set of constants and quantities is compatible with the laws of nature, which seems false. Even if the laws of nature were themselves necessary, one would still have to supply initial conditions. As Paul Davies states,
Even if the laws of physics were unique, it doesn’t follow that the physical universe itself is unique. . . . The laws of physics must be augmented by cosmic initial conditions. . . . There is nothing in present ideas about “laws of initial conditions” remotely to suggest that their consistency with the laws of physics would imply uniqueness. Far from it. . . .
It seems, then, that the physical universe does not have to be the way it is: it could have been otherwise.
The extraordinarily low-entropy condition of the early universe provides a good example of an arbitrary quantity that seems to have just been put in at the creation as an initial condition.
Moreover, it seems likely that any attempt to significantly reduce fine-tuning will itself turn out to involve fine-tuning. This has certainly been the pattern in the past. For example, attempts to eliminate the fine-tuning of the density parameter and the Hubble constant by appeal to so-called inflationary models of the early universe only suppressed fine-tuning at this point to have it pop up again at another, namely, the fine-tuning of the cosmological constant Ʌ. This constant, which is hypothesized to drive the inflationary expansion, must be tuned to a precision of at least one part in 1053. There is no reason to think that showing every constant and quantity to be physically necessary is anything more than a pipe dream.
What, then, of the alternative of chance? One may seek to eliminate this hypothesis either by appealing to the specified complexity of cosmic fine-tuning or by arguing that, given nature’s laws, the existence of embodied conscious agents is significantly more probable on design (theism) than on the chance hypothesis (atheism). It is sometimes objected that it is meaningless to speak of the probability of our finely tuned universe’s existing because there is, after all, only one universe. But the following illustration clarifies the sense in which a life-permitting universe is improbable. Take a sheet of paper and place on it a red dot. That dot represents our universe. Now alter slightly one or more of the finely tuned constants and physical quantities that have been the focus of our attention. As a result we have a description of another universe, which we may represent as a new dot in the proximity of the first. If that new set of constants and quantities describes a life-permitting universe, make it a red dot; if it describes a universe that is life-prohibiting, make it a blue dot. Now repeat the procedure arbitrarily many times until the sheet is filled with dots. One winds up with a sea of blue with only a few pin-points of red. That is the sense in which it is overwhelmingly improbable that the universe should be life-permitting. There are simply vastly more life-prohibiting universes in our local area of possible universes than there are life-permitting universes.
It might be objected that we do not know if all these possible universes are equally probable. This amounts, in effect, to the claim that the actual range of possible values for a certain constant or quantity may be very narrow. But even if that were the case, when one has many variables requiring fine-tuning, the probability of a life-permitting universe existing is still very small. Moreover, in the absence of any physical reason to think that the values are constrained, we are justified in assuming a principle of indifference to the effect that the probability of our universe’s existing will be the same as the probability of any other universe’s existing that is represented on our sheet.
It might be demanded why we should consider only universes represented on the sheet. Perhaps universes are possible that have wholly different physical variables and natural laws and that are life-permitting. Perhaps these would contain forms of life vastly different from life as we know it. The teleologist need not deny the possibility, for such worlds are irrelevant to his argument. His claim is that within the local group of possible universes any life-permitting universe is highly improbable. John Leslie gives the illustration of a fly, resting on a large, blank area of the wall. A single shot is fired, and the bullet strikes the fly. Now even if the rest of the wall outside the blank area is covered with flies, such that a randomly fired bullet would probably hit one, nevertheless it remains highly improbable that a single, randomly fired bullet would strike the solitary fly within the large, blank area. In the same way, we need only concern ourselves with the universes represented on our sheet in order to determine the probability of the existence of a life-permitting universe.
Issues pertinent to the so-called anthropic principle also arise here. As formulated by John Barrow and Frank Tipler, the anthropic principle states that any observed properties of the universe that may initially appear astonishingly improbable can be seen in their true perspective only after we have accounted for the fact that certain properties could not be observed by us, were they to be exemplified, because we can only observe those compatible with our own existence. The implication is that we ought not to be surprised at observing the universe to be as it is and that therefore no explanation of its fine-tuning need be sought. The argument is, however, based on confusion. Barrow and Tipler have confused the true claim (A) with the false claim (A’ ):
A. If observers who have evolved within a universe observe its fundamental constants and quantities, it is highly probable that they will observe them to be fine-tuned to their existence.
A’. It is highly probable that a universe exists that is finely tuned for the evolution of observers within it.
An observer who has evolved within the universe should regard it as highly probable that he will find the basic conditions of the universe fine-tuned for his existence; but he should not infer that it is therefore highly probable that such a fine-tuned universe should exist at all.
Most anthropic theorizers now recognize that the anthropic principle can only legitimately be employed when it is conjoined to a many worlds hypothesis, according to which a world ensemble of concrete universes exists, actualizing a wide range of possibilities. The many worlds hypothesis is essentially an effort on the part of partisans of the chance hypothesis to multiply their probabilistic resources in order to reduce the improbability of the occurrence of fine-tuning. The very fact that they must resort to such a remarkable hypothesis is a sort of backhanded compliment to the design hypothesis in that they recognize that the fine-tuning does cry out for explanation. But is the many worlds hypothesis as plausible as the design hypothesis?
It seems not. In the first place, it needs to be recognized that the many worlds hypothesis is no less metaphysical than the hypothesis of a cosmic designer. As the physicist-theologian John Polkinghorne says, “People try to trick out a ‘many universe’ account in sort of pseudo-scientific terms, but that is pseudo-science. It is a metaphysical guess that there might be many universes with different laws and circumstances.” But as a metaphysical hypothesis, the many worlds hypothesis is arguably inferior to the design hypothesis because the design hypothesis is simpler. According to Ockham’s razor, we should not multiply causes beyond what is necessary to explain the effect. But it is simpler to postulate one cosmic designer to explain our universe than to postulate the infinitely bloated and contrived ontology of the many worlds hypothesis. Only if the many worlds theorist could show that there exists a single, comparably simple mechanism for generating a world ensemble of randomly varied universes would he be able to elude this difficulty. But no one has been able to identify such a mechanism. Therefore, the design hypothesis is to be preferred.
Second, there is no known way of generating a world ensemble. No one has been able to explain how or why such a collection of varied universes should exist. Lee Smolin made the ingenious suggestion that if we suppose that black holes spawn other universes beyond our own, then universes that produce large numbers of black holes would have a selective advantage in producing offspring, so that a sort of cosmic evolution would take place. If each new universe is not an exact reproduction of its parent universe but varies in its fundamental constants and quantities, then universes that are proficient in producing black holes would have a selective advantage over those less proficient. Thus in the course of cosmic evolution universes whose fundamental parameters are fine-tuned to the production of black holes would proliferate. Since black holes are the residue of collapsed stars, cosmic evolution has the unintended effect of producing more and more stars and, hence, more and more planets where life might form. Eventually observers would appear who marvel at the fine-tuning of the universe for their existence. The fatal flaw in Smolin’s scenario, wholly apart from its ad hoc and even disconfirmed conjectures, was his assumption that universes fine-tuned for black hole production would also be fine-tuned for the production of stable stars. In fact, the opposite is true: the most proficient producers of black holes would be universes that generate them prior to star formation, so that life-permitting universes would actually be weeded out by Smolin’s cosmic evolutionary scenario.
Other suggested mechanisms for generating a world ensemble turn out to require fine-tuning themselves. For example, although some cosmologists appeal to inflationary theories of the universe to generate a world ensemble, inflation itself requires fine-tuning. The total cosmological constant Ʌtot is usually taken to be zero. But this requires that the energy density of the true vacuum be tuned to zero by hand; there is no understanding of why this value should be so low. Worse, inflation requires that Ʌtot was once quite large, though zero today; this assumption is without any physical justification. Moreover, in order to proceed appropriately, inflation requires that the two components of Ʌtot cancel each other out with an enormously precise though inexplicable accuracy. A change in the strengths of either gravity or the subatomic weak force by as little as one part in 10100 would destroy this cancellation on which our lives depend. In these and other respects, inflationary scenarios actually require rather than eliminate fine-tuning.
Third, there is no evidence for the existence of a world ensemble apart from the fine-tuning itself. But the fine-tuning is equally evidence for a cosmic designer. Indeed, the hypothesis of a cosmic designer is again the better explanation because we have independent evidence of the existence of such a designer in the form of the other arguments for the existence of God.
Fourth, the many worlds hypothesis faces a severe challenge from biological evolutionary theory. By way of background, the nineteenth-century physicist Ludwig Boltzmann proposed a sort of many worlds hypothesis in order to explain why we do not find the universe in a state of “heat death” or thermodynamic equilibrium. Boltzmann hypothesized that the universe as a whole does, in fact, exist in an equilibrium state, but that over time fluctuations in the energy level occur here and there throughout the universe, so that by chance alone there will be isolated regions where disequilibrium exists. Boltzmann referred to these isolated regions as “worlds.” We should not be surprised to see our world in a highly improbable disequilibrium state, he maintained, since in the ensemble of all worlds there must exist by chance alone certain worlds in disequilibrium, and ours just happens to be one of these.
The problem with Boltzmann’s daring many worlds hypothesis was that if our world were merely a fluctuation in a sea of diffuse energy, then it is overwhelmingly more probable that we should be observing a much tinier region of disequilibrium than we do. In order for us to exist, a smaller fluctuation, even one that produced our world instantaneously by an enormous accident, is inestimably more probable than a progressive decline in entropy over fifteen billion years to fashion the world we see. In fact, Boltzmann’s hypothesis, if adopted, would force us to regard the past as illusory, everything having the mere appearance of age, and the stars and planets as illusory, mere “pictures” as it were, since that sort of world is vastly more probable given a state of overall equilibrium than a world with genuine, temporally and spatially distant events. Therefore, Boltzmann’s many worlds hypothesis has been universally rejected by the scientific community, and the present disequilibrium is usually taken to be just a result of the initial low-entropy condition mysteriously obtaining at the beginning of the universe.
Now a precisely parallel problem attends the many worlds hypothesis as an explanation of fine-tuning. Roger Penrose has pressed this objection forcefully. He points out that the odds of our universe’s initial low-entropy condition’s existing by chance alone are one chance out of 1010(123). By contrast the odds of our solar system suddenly forming by the random collision of particles is one chance out of 1010(60). This number, says Penrose, is “utter chicken feed” in comparison with 1010(123). What that implies is that it is far more likely that we should be observing an orderly region no larger than our solar system, since a universe like that is so unfathomably more probable than a fine-tuned universe like ours.
In fact, we wind up with the same sort of illusionism that saddled Boltzmann’s hypothesis. A small world with the illusion of a wider universe is more probable than a fine-tuned, real universe. Carried to its logical extreme, this has led to what theorists have called “the invasion of the Boltzmann brains.” For the most probable observable universe is one that consists of a single brain which pops into existence by a random fluctuation with illusory perceptions of the external world! So if we accept the many worlds hypothesis, we are obligated to believe that each one of us is all that exists and that this book, your body, the Earth, and everything you perceive in the world are just illusions.
No sane person believes that he is a Boltzmann brain. On atheism, therefore, it is highly improbable that there exists a randomly ordered world ensemble. Ironically, the best hope for partisans of the multiverse is to maintain that God created it and ordered its worlds, so that they are not randomly ordered. God could give preference to observable worlds that are cosmically fine-tuned. To be rationally acceptable, the many worlds hypothesis needs theism.
For these four reasons the many worlds hypothesis faces a severe challenge as a candidate for the best explanation of the observed cosmic fine-tuning. It therefore seems that the fine-tuning of the universe is plausibly due neither to physical necessity nor to chance. It follows that the fine-tuning is therefore due to design, unless the design hypothesis can be shown to be even more implausible than its competitors.
The implication of the design hypothesis is that there exists a Cosmic Designer who fine-tuned the initial conditions of the universe for intelligent life. Such a hypothesis supplies a personal explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe. Is this explanation implausible? Detractors of design sometimes object that on this hypothesis the Cosmic Designer himself remains unexplained. It is said that an intelligent mind also exhibits complex order, so that if the universe needs an explanation, so does its Designer. If the Designer does not need an explanation, why think that the universe does?
This popular objection is based on a misconception of the nature of explanation. It is widely recognized that in order for an explanation to be the best, one need not have an explanation of the explanation (indeed, such a requirement would generate an infinite regress, so that everything becomes inexplicable). If astronauts should find traces of intelligent life on some other planet, for example, we need not be able to explain such extraterrestrials in order to recognize that they are the best explanation of the artifacts. In the same way, the design hypothesis’s being the best explanation of the fine-tuning does not depend on our being able to explain the Designer.
Moreover, the complexity of a mind is not really analogous to the complexity of the universe. A mind’s ideas may be complex, but a mind itself is a remarkably simple thing, being an immaterial entity not composed of pieces or separable parts. Moreover, properties like intelligence, consciousness, and volition are not contingent properties that a mind might lack, but are essential to its nature. Thus postulating an uncreated mind behind the cosmos is not at all like postulating an undesigned cosmos, and the teleological argument based on the fine-tuning of the initial state of the universe fares well as a sound and persuasive argument for a Designer of the cosmos.
2—The Axiological Argument
Can we be good without God? At first the answer to this question may seem so obvious that even to pose it arouses indignation. For while theists undoubtedly find in God a source of moral strength and resolve that enables them to live lives that are better than those they would otherwise live, nevertheless it would be arrogant and ignorant to claim that those who do not share a belief in God do not often live good moral lives. But wait! It would, indeed, be arrogant and ignorant to claim that people cannot be good without belief in God. But that was not the question. The question was, can we be good without God? When we ask that question, we are posing in a provocative way the metaethical question of the objectivity of moral values (see chaps. 21–22). Are the values we hold dear and that guide our lives mere social conventions akin to driving on the left versus right side of the road or mere expressions of personal preference akin to having a taste for certain foods? Or are they valid independently of our apprehension of them, and if so, what is their foundation? Moreover, if morality is just a human convention, then why should we act morally, especially when it conflicts with self-interest? Or are we in some way held accountable for our moral decisions and actions?
Many philosophers have argued that if God exists, then the objectivity of moral values, moral duties, and moral accountability is secured, but that in the absence of God, that is, if God does not exist, then morality is just a human convention, that is to say, morality is wholly subjective and nonbinding. We might act in precisely the same ways that we do in fact act, but in the absence of God, such actions would no longer count as good (or evil), since if God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. Thus we cannot truly be good without God. On the other hand, if we do believe that moral values and duties are objective, that provides moral grounds for believing in God. We should thus have an axiological argument for the existence of God.
Consider the hypothesis that God exists. According to classical theism, objective moral values are rooted in God. To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or bad independent of whatever people think about it. Similarly, to say that we have objective moral duties is to say that certain actions are right or wrong for us regardless of what we think about them. For example, to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that it was wrong even though the Nazis who carried out the Holocaust thought that it was good, and it would still be wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them.
On classical theism God’s own holy and perfectly good nature supplies the absolute standard against which all actions and decisions are measured. God’s moral nature is what Plato called the “Good.” He is the locus and source of moral value. He is by nature loving, generous, just, faithful, kind, and so forth.
Moreover, God’s moral nature is expressed in relation to us in the form of divine commands, which constitute our moral duties or obligations. Far from being arbitrary, these commands must be consistent with God’s moral nature. On this foundation we can affirm the objective goodness and rightness of love, generosity, self-sacrifice and equality, and condemn as objectively evil and wrong selfishness, hatred, abuse, discrimination, and oppression.
Finally, on classical theism God holds all persons morally accountable for their actions. Evil and wrong will be punished; righteousness will be vindicated. Moral accountability implies that despite the inequities of this life, in the end the scales of God’s justice will be balanced. Thus the moral choices we make in this life are infused with an eternal significance. We can with consistency make moral choices that run contrary to our self-interest and even undertake acts of extreme self-sacrifice, knowing that such decisions are not empty and ultimately meaningless gestures. Rather, our moral lives have a paramount significance. Thus it seems evident that theism provides a sound foundation for morality.
Contrast the atheistic hypothesis. If God does not exist, then what is the foundation for moral values and duties? More particularly, what is the basis for the value of human beings? If God does not exist, then it is difficult to see any reason to think that human beings are special or that their morality is objectively valid. Moreover, why think that we have any moral obligations to do anything? Who or what imposes any moral duties upon us? Philosopher of science Michael Ruse writes,
The position of the modern evolutionist . . . is that humans have an awareness of morality . . . because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. . . .
Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says “Love thy neighbour as thyself,” they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. . . . Nevertheless, . . . such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory.
As a result of sociobiological pressures, there has evolved among Homo sapiens a sort of “herd morality,” which functions well in the perpetuation of our species in the struggle for survival. But there does not seem to be anything about Homo sapiens that makes this morality objectively binding.
Now it is important that we remain clear in understanding the issue before us. The question is not: Must we believe in God in order to live moral lives? There is no reason to think that atheists and theists alike may not live what we normally characterize as good and decent lives. Similarly, the question is not: Can we formulate a system of ethics without reference to God? If the nontheist grants that human beings do have objective value, then there is no reason to think that he cannot work out a system of ethics with which the theist would also largely agree. Or again, the question is not: Can we recognize the existence of objective moral values without reference to God? The theist will typically maintain that a person need not believe in God in order to recognize, say, that we should love our children. Rather, as humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz puts it, “The central question about moral and ethical principles concerns their ontological foundation. If they are neither derived from God nor anchored in some transcendent ground, are they purely ephemeral?”
If there is no God, then any ground for regarding the herd morality evolved by Homo sapiens as objectively true seems to have been removed. Human beings are just accidental by-products of nature that have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust lost somewhere in a hostile and mindless universe and that are doomed to perish individually and collectively in a relatively short time. Some action, say, rape, may not be socially advantageous and so in the course of human evolution has become taboo; but on the atheistic view it is difficult to see why there is anything really wrong with raping someone. Crudely put, on the atheistic view human beings are just animals, and animals are not moral agents.
Some philosophers, unwilling to affirm that acts like rape or torturing a child are morally neutral actions, have tried to affirm objective moral values in the absence of God. Let us call this view atheistic moral realism. Atheistic moral realists affirm that objective moral values and duties do exist and are not dependent on evolution or human opinion, but they also insist that they are not grounded in God. Indeed, moral values have no further foundation. They just exist.
It is difficult, however, even to comprehend this view. What does it mean to say, for example, that the moral value justice just exists? It is hard to know what to make of this. It is clear what is meant when it is said that a person is just; but it is bewildering when it is said that in the absence of any people, justice itself exists. Moral values seem to exist as properties of persons, not as mere abstractions—or at any rate, it is hard to know what it is for a moral value to exist as a mere abstraction. Atheistic moral realists seem to lack any adequate foundation in reality for moral values but just leave them floating in an unintelligible way.
Second, the nature of moral duty or obligation seems incompatible with atheistic moral realism. Let us suppose for the sake of argument that moral values do exist independent of God. Suppose that values like mercy, justice, love, forbearance, and the like just exist. How does that result in any moral obligations for me? Why would I have a moral duty, say, to be merciful? Who or what lays such an obligation on me? As the ethicist Richard Taylor points out, “A duty is something that is owed. . . . But something can be owed only to some person or persons. There can be no such thing as duty in isolation.” God makes sense of moral obligation because his commands constitute for us our moral duties. Taylor writes, “Our moral obligations can . . . be understood as those that are imposed by God. . . . But what if this higher-than-human lawgiver is no longer taken into account? Does the concept of a moral obligation . . . still make sense? . . . The concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone.” As a nontheist, Taylor therefore thinks that we literally have no moral obligations, that there is no right or wrong. The atheistic moral realist rightly finds this abhorrent, but, as Taylor clearly sees, on an atheistic view there simply is no ground for duty, even if moral values somehow exist.
Third, it is fantastically improbable that just that sort of creatures would emerge from the blind evolutionary process who correspond to the abstractly existing realm of moral values. This seems to be an utterly incredible coincidence when one thinks about it. It is almost as though the moral realm knew that we were coming. It is far more plausible to regard both the natural realm and the moral realm as under the hegemony of a divine Creator and Lawgiver than to think that these two entirely independent orders of reality just happened to mesh.
Thus it seems that atheistic moral realism is not as plausible a view as theism, but serves as a convenient halfway house for philosophers who do not have the stomach for the moral nihilism that atheism seems to imply. Some philosophers, equally averse to abstractly existing moral values as to theism, try to salvage the existence of objective moral principles or properties in the context of a naturalistic worldview. But the advocates of such theories are typically at a loss to justify their starting point. If their approach is to be considered serious metaphysics rather than just a shopping-list approach, whereby one simply helps oneself to the supervenient moral properties or principles needed to do the job, then some sort of explanation is required for why moral properties supervene on certain natural states or why such principles are true. It is insufficient for the naturalist to point out that we do, in fact, apprehend the goodness of some feature of human existence, for that only goes to establish the objectivity of moral values and duties, which the proponent of the axiological argument is eager to affirm.
Finally, if atheism is true, there is no moral accountability for one’s actions. Even if there were objective moral values and duties under naturalism, they are irrelevant because there is no moral accountability. If life ends at the grave, it makes no difference whether one lives as a Stalin or as a saint. As the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky rightly said, if there is no immortality, then all things are permitted. Given the finality of death, it really does not matter how we live. So what do we say to someone who concludes that we may as well just live as we please, out of pure self-interest? This presents a pretty grim picture for an atheistic ethicist like Kai Nielsen. He writes,
We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view, or that all really rational persons should not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn’t decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me. . . . Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.
Somebody might say that it is in our best self-interest to adopt a moral lifestyle. But clearly, that is not always true: we all know situations in which self-interest runs smack in the face of morality. Moreover, if one is sufficiently powerful, like a Ferdinand Marcos or a Papa Doc Duvalier, then one can pretty much ignore the dictates of conscience and safely live in self-indulgence. Finally, as we saw in chapters twenty-one and twenty-three, anyone who tries to adopt the moral point of view solely on the grounds of self-interest fails in so doing to adopt the moral point of view. It therefore follows that it is impossible to adopt a truly moral lifestyle out of pure self-interest.
Acts of self-sacrifice become particularly inept on a naturalistic worldview. Why should you sacrifice your self-interest and especially your life for the sake of someone else? Considered from the sociobiological point of view, such altruistic behavior is merely the result of evolutionary conditioning that helps to perpetuate the species. A mother rushing into a burning house to rescue her children or a soldier throwing his body over a hand grenade to save his comrades does nothing more significant or praiseworthy, morally speaking, than a fighter ant that sacrifices itself for the sake of the anthill. Good sense dictates that we should resist, if we can, the sociobiological pressures to such self-destructive activity and choose instead to act in our best self-interest. On atheism, prudential value and moral value are therefore on a collision course. The atheist may choose to adopt a moral lifestyle if he likes, but it will be imprudent to do so. Thus the absence of moral accountability from the philosophy of naturalism makes an ethic of compassion and self-sacrifice a hollow abstraction.
We thus come to radically different perspectives on morality depending on whether God exists. If God exists, there is a sound foundation for morality. If God does not exist, then, as Nietzsche claimed, we seem to be ultimately landed in nihilism.
But the choice between the two need not be arbitrarily made. On the contrary, the very considerations we have been discussing can constitute moral justification for the existence of God.
For example, if we do think that objective moral values exist, then we shall be led logically to the conclusion that God exists. And surely we do apprehend a realm of objective moral values. There is no more reason to deny the objective reality of moral values than the objective reality of the physical world. The reasoning of Ruse that morality is only a biological adaptation is at worst a textbook example of the genetic fallacy (the fallacy of arguing that a belief is mistaken or false because of the way that belief originated) and at best only proves that our subjective perception of objective moral values has evolved. But if moral values are gradually discovered, not invented, then our gradual and fallible apprehension of the moral realm no more undermines the objective reality of that realm than our gradual, fallible perception of the physical world undermines the objectivity of that realm. Most of us think that we do apprehend objective values. As Ruse himself confesses, “The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says, 2 + 2 = 5.”
Furthermore, consider the nature of moral obligation. The international community recognizes the existence of universal human rights, and many persons are willing to speak of animal rights as well. But the best way to make sense of such rights is in terms of agreement or disagreement of certain acts with the will or commands of a holy, loving God.
Finally, take the problem of moral accountability. Here we find a powerful practical argument for believing in God. According to William James, practical arguments can only be used when theoretical arguments are insufficient to decide a question of urgent and pragmatic importance. But it seems obvious that a practical argument could also be used to back up or motivate acceptance of the conclusion of a sound theoretical argument. To believe, then, that God does not exist and that there is thus no moral accountability would be quite literally de-moralizing, for then we should have to believe that our moral choices are ultimately insignificant, since both our fate and that of the universe will be the same regardless of what we do. By “de-moralization” we mean a deterioration of moral motivation. It is hard to do the right thing when that means sacrificing self-interest, and it is hard to resist temptation to do wrong when desire is strong. The belief that ultimately it does not matter what you choose or do is apt to sap your moral strength and so undermine your moral life. By contrast, there is nothing so likely to strengthen the moral life as the belief that you will be held accountable for your actions and that your choices do make a difference in bringing about the good. Theism is thus a morally advantageous belief, and this, in the absence of any theoretical argument establishing atheism to be the case, provides practical grounds to believe in God and motivation to accept the conclusions of the theoretical arguments in support of theism.
In conclusion, if God does not exist, then it is plausible to think that there are no objective moral values, that we have no moral duties, and that there is no moral accountability for how we live and act. If, on the other hand, we hold, as it seems rational to do, that objective moral values and duties do exist, then we have good grounds for believing in the existence of God. We can formulate this argument simply as follows:
In addition, we have seen powerful practical reasons for embracing theism in view of the morally bracing effects that belief in moral accountability produces. We cannot, then, truly be good without God; but if we can in some measure be good, then it follows that God exists.
3—The Ontological Argument
By 1077 Anselm of Canterbury had already written his Monologium, a treatise in which he argued for the existence of God by means of axiological and cosmological arguments. But Anselm remained dissatisfied with the complexity of his demonstration and yearned to find a single argument that would on its own prove that God exists. It was then that he hit on the conception of God as “the greatest conceivable being,” which provided the key to his new argument. Anselm argued that once a person truly understands the notion of a greatest conceivable being, then he will see that such being must exist, since if it did not, it would not be the greatest conceivable being. God’s existence, then, is truly inconceivable for him who rightly understands God (Proslogium 2-3).
Anselm’s argument, which has come to be known as the ontological argument, went on to assume a variety of forms, being defended by Duns Scotus, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and others. Although Graham Oppy in his very thorough book identifies six basic types of ontological arguments, his classification of an argument as ontological is based on a criterion far too vague for useful classification (namely, an argument is a form of the ontological argument if it proceeds from considerations that are entirely internal to the theistic worldview). Rather, the common thread in ontological arguments is that they try to deduce the existence of God from the very concept of God, together with certain other necessary truths. Proponents of the argument claim that once we understand what God is—the greatest conceivable being or the most perfect being or the most real being—then we shall see that such a being must in fact exist.
The ontological argument tends to sharply polarize philosophers. Many would agree with Schopenhauer’s dismissal of the argument as “a charming joke,” but a number of recent, prominent philosophers such as Norman Malcolm, Charles Hartshorne, and Alvin Plantinga not only take the argument seriously but also consider it to be sound.
In his version of the argument, Plantinga appropriates Leibniz’s insight that the argument assumes that the concept of God is possible, that is to say, that it is possible that a being falling under that concept exists or, employing the semantics of possible worlds (see chap. 2), that there is a possible world in which God exists. Plantinga conceives of God as a being that is “maximally excellent” in every possible world, where maximal excellence entails such excellent-making properties as omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection. Such a being would have what Plantinga calls “maximal greatness.” Now maximal greatness, Plantinga avers, is possibly instantiated; that is to say, there is a possible world in which a maximally great being exists. But then this being must exist in a maximally excellent way in every possible world, including the actual world. Therefore, God exists.
Although Plantinga thinks that the ontological argument is sound and non-question-begging, still he did not initially regard it as “a successful piece of natural theology” because the key premise, “Possibly, maximal greatness is exemplified,” can be rationally denied. Plantinga later confessed that he had set the bar for “success” in natural theology unreasonably high, for he believes that “the ontological argument provides as good grounds for the existence of God as does any serious philosophical argument for any important philosophical conclusion.” As George Mavrodes muses, “But if natural theology can be that good, as good as the best arguments anywhere in serious philosophy, . . . why should we not put forward these powerful arguments as proofs of God?”
The principal issue to be settled with respect to Plantinga’s ontological argument concerns the warrant for thinking the key premise to be true. It is crucial in this regard to keep in mind the difference between metaphysical possibility (roughly understood as actualizability) and mere epistemic possibility (that is, imaginability). One is tempted to say, “It’s possible that God exists, and it’s possible that he doesn’t exist!” But this is true only with respect to epistemic possibility; if God is conceived as a maximally great being, then his existence is either metaphysically necessary or impossible, regardless of our epistemic uncertainty. Thus the epistemic entertainability of the key premise (or its denial) does not guarantee its metaphysical possibility.
It might be said that the idea of a maximally great being is intuitively a coherent notion and, hence, possibly instantiated. In this respect, the idea of God differs from supposedly parallel notions traditionally put forward by the argument’s detractors like the idea of a maximally great island or of a necessarily existent lion. The properties that make up maximal excellence have intrinsic maxima, that is, they have peak values, so to speak, whereas the excellent-making properties of things like islands do not. There could always be more palm trees or native dancing girls! Moreover, it is far from clear that objective excellent-making properties even exist for things like islands, for the excellence of islands seems to be relative to one’s interests—does one prefer a desert island or an island boasting the finest resort hotels? The idea of something like a necessarily existent lion also seems incoherent. For as a necessary being, such a beast would have to exist in every possible world we can conceive. But any animal that could exist in a possible world in which the universe is composed wholly of a singularity of infinite density just is not a lion. In contrast, a maximally excellent being could transcend such physical limitations and so be conceived as necessarily existent.
Perhaps the greatest challenge to the appeal to intuition to warrant the premise that maximal greatness is possibly exemplified is that it seems intuitively coherent in the same way to conceive of a quasi-maximally great being, say, one that is in every other respect maximally excellent save that it does not know truths about future contingents. Why is the key premise of the ontological argument more plausibly true than a parallel premise concerning quasi-maximal greatness? Are we not equally warranted in thinking that a quasi-maximally great being exists? Perhaps not; for maximal greatness is logically incompatible with quasi-maximal greatness. Since a maximally great being is omnipotent, no concrete object can exist independent of its creative power. As an omnipotent being, a maximally great being must have the power to freely refrain from creating anything at all, so that worlds must exist in which nothing other than the maximally great being exists. But that entails that if maximal greatness is possibly exemplified, then quasi-maximal greatness is not. A quasi-excellent being may exist in many worlds (worlds in which the maximally great being has chosen to create it), but such a being would lack necessary existence and thus not be quasi-maximally great. Hence, if maximal greatness is possibly exemplified, quasi-maximal greatness is impossible. Thus our intuition that a maximally great being is possible is not undermined by the claim that a quasi-maximally great being is also intuitively possible, for we see that the latter intuition depends on the assumption that maximal greatness is not possibly exemplified, which begs the question.
Still, modal skeptics (skeptics about the knowability of necessary and possible truths) will insist that we have no way of knowing a priori whether maximal greatness or quasi-maximal greatness is possibly exemplified. It cannot be both, but we have no idea if either is possible. Our intuitions about modality are unreliable guides. Can anything more be said in defense of the ontological argument’s key premise? Plantinga provides a clue when he says that if we “carefully ponder” the key premise and the alleged objections to it, if we “consider its connections with other propositions we accept or reject” and we still find it compelling, then we are within our rational rights in accepting it. Such a procedure is a far cry from the sort of a priori speculations decried by the modal skeptic. Even if we cannot determine a priori whether maximal greatness is possibly exemplified, we may come to believe on the basis of a posteriori considerations that it is possible that a maximally great being exists. For example, other theistic arguments like the Leibnizian cosmological argument and the axiological argument may lead us to think that it is plausible that a maximally great being exists. The one argument leads to a metaphysically necessary being that is the ground of existence for any conceivable finite reality and the other to a locus of moral value that must be as metaphysically necessary as the moral values it grounds.
Moreover, we may find ourselves persuaded by a conceptualist argument for God’s existence that the best metaphysical grounding for the existence of abstract objects is an omniscient mind whose concepts they are. Considerations of simplicity might also come into play here. For example, it is simpler to posit one metaphysically necessary, infinite, omniscient, morally perfect being than to think that three separate necessary beings exist instantiating these respective excellent-making properties. Similarly, with respect to quasi-maximally great beings, Richard Swinburne’s contention seems plausible that it is simpler (or perhaps less ad hoc) to posit either zero or infinity as the measure of a degreed property than to posit some inexplicably finite measure. Thus it would be more plausible to think that maximal greatness is possibly instantiated than quasi-maximal greatness. On the basis of considerations like these, we might well consider ourselves to be warranted in believing that it is possible that a maximally great being exists.
The question that arises at this point is whether the ontological argument has not then become question-begging, that is, a case in which one’s only reason for thinking a premise in an argument to be true is one’s belief that the conclusion is true. It might seem that the reason one thinks that it is possible that a maximally great being exists is that one has good reasons to think that a maximally great being does exist. But this misgiving may arise as a result of thinking of the project of natural theology in too linear a fashion. The theistic arguments need not be taken to be like links in a chain, in which one link follows another so that the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Rather, they are like links in a coat of chain mail, in which all the links reinforce one another so that the strength of the whole exceeds that of any single link. The ontological argument might play its part in a cumulative case for theism, in which a multitude of factors simultaneously conspire to lead one to the global conclusion that God exists. In that sense Anselm was wrong in thinking that he had discovered a single argument that, standing independent of all the rest, served to demonstrate God’s existence in all his greatness. Nevertheless, his argument does encapsulate the thrust of all the arguments together to show that God, the Supreme Being, exists.
Chapter Summary
The teleological argument for the existence of God has come back into prominence today due to the discovery of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life. The presence of the finely tuned initial conditions of the universe must be explained as the result of either physical necessity, chance, or design. The hypothesis that a life-permitting universe is physically necessary is not merely a baseless speculation but actually goes against the evidence as well. The chance hypothesis can only be reasonably defended by the postulation of a world ensemble of an infinite number of randomly varied universes in which our universe appears by chance alone. But such a hypothesis is arguably inferior to the design hypothesis because (1) it is less simple, (2) there is no known way of generating a world ensemble, (3) there is no independent evidence for the existence of a world ensemble, and (4) it faces the dreaded Boltzmann brain problem. Design is therefore the best explanation.
The axiological argument provides moral justification for theism. If God exists, then a sound foundation for objective moral values, moral duties, and moral accountability exists. If God does not exist, then human beings seem to be mere animals and so have no moral value, moral duties, or moral accountability. If we believe, as seems reasonable, that moral values and duties do exist, then it follows logically that God exists. Finally, we have a practical argument for theism in view of its morally advantageous nature in contrast to the de-moralization wrought by atheism.
The ontological argument seeks to show that once we grasp the concept of God as the greatest conceivable being, then it becomes clear that God must exist. If a maximally great being is possible, it follows that such a being exists in every possible world with maximal excellence and so exists in the actual world. It seems intuitively clear that maximal greatness is possibly exemplified, in contrast to chimeras like a maximally great island or a necessarily existent lion. Moreover, if maximal greatness is possibly exemplified, then quasi-maximal greatness is not possibly exemplified, so that one cannot undercut the ontological argument by appeal to the possible existence of a quasi-maximally great being. The possibility of maximal greatness being exemplified is rendered plausible by various a posteriori arguments for the existence of such a being.
Checklist of Basic Terms and Concepts
altruistic behavior
animal rights
anthropic principle
atheistic moral realism
axiological argument
best self-interest
conceptualist argument
design inference
divine commands
epistemic possibility
genetic fallacy
greatest conceivable being
fine-tuning
inference to the best explanation
inflationary models
intrinsic maxima
many worlds hypothesis
maximal excellence
maximal greatness
metaphysical possibility
modal skeptics
moral accountability
moral duties
moral nihilism
necessary being
objective moral duties
objective moral values
Ockham’s razor
ontological argument
physical necessity
possible world
practical argument
principle of indifference
quasi-maximal greatness
question-begging
sociobiological pressures
specified complexity
super-string theory
teleological argument
theory of everything (TOE)
tidy explanation