16. A Cumulative Case
16
A Cumulative Case
By way of conclusion, putting all the pieces together produces a powerful fivefold cumulative moral case for God’s existence. A couple of what we will call “target factors” shape different formulations of the moral argument. One of those factors is which specific moral phenomena receive focus, and the other is the manner in which the argument is couched. Our fivefold case focuses on five important moral phenomena, but that list is far from exhaustive. Narrowing the focus to these five pieces of evidence, though, gives the moral apologist a choice as to which to focus on, from just one to all five, or various combinations in between.
The other target factor is the decision of which logical form to use in constructing the argument. One might choose a deductive argument in which the conclusion follows logically from the premises or an abductive argument that focuses on which potential explanation of the various phenomena provides the best overall explanation. And there are other options besides, such as C. Stephen Evans’s reformed epistemology approach that involves the way certain experiences naturally imbue one with an inclination to accept a particular conclusion. For example, a poignant sense of the value and infinite dignity of human persons might naturally function to form in someone the conviction that nothing less than bearing God’s image is adequate to explain such a recognition.
In this chapter we offer an inductive moral argument on a broad evidential base. In general, we are inclined to think the logical form of the argument is less important than allowing oneself to feel the force of the evidence itself. Since we wish to construct a cumulative case, an inductive approach lends itself well to the project at hand. Before putting the case together, allow us quickly to reiterate the distinction between a P-inductive argument and a C-inductive argument, borrowing from Richard Swinburne’s analysis and explanation. First, an inductive argument does not aim to provide an airtight case between the evidence (expressed in the premises) and the conclusion. Rather, inductive arguments aim to heighten the likelihood that the conclusion is true. This can be done in numerous ways, one of which is particularly important for present purposes, as the distinction between P-inductive and C-inductive arguments will demonstrate.
A C-inductive argument raises the likelihood of the conclusion without rendering the conclusion, on the basis of the argument provided, likely true. It simply increases the likelihood to some degree or other. In this way, a C-inductive argument is not inordinately ambitious. A P-inductive argument results in making the conclusion of the argument likely true, more likely true than false. This is the more ambitious approach of these two forms of induction. We explained some of this in part 2, when discussing our case for moral realism, but we quickly review it here for those less familiar with the concepts.
Once again, it will be our intention to offer an inductive moral argument. What we intend to argue is that each of the five components in our approach increases the likelihood of theism to some degree, without needing to claim that any of them in isolation renders theism more likely true than false. Having argued for each of its individual parts, we then offer a cumulative-case moral argument incorporating all five elements. At the least, we contend, the combination of all five parts results in a yet stronger C-inductive moral argument and perhaps even treads the verge of offering a workable P-inductive argument that renders theism more likely true than false.
Now is the time that we pull all the pieces together to end up with our fivefold cumulative moral case for God’s existence. Each piece individually makes theism more likely to some degree or other, and their collective power makes theism considerably more likely still. First, regarding moral values, more will be said about values per se in part 4, but consider the issue of human dignity and worth (not mere price). Almost all of us some of the time and some of us nearly all the time have a deep intuitive sense of the great value of human beings. John Hare writes that when we look at the great movements toward the recognition of human value over the last sixty years, we will often find a religious motivation. “I am thinking of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, and the Lutherans in East Germany and the fall of the totalitarian state. Why is this? It is because of the nature of the God they worship.” Hare admits it is true that belonging to a community is very important, but the God of Abraham not only includes us in community but also pushes us out beyond community, to meet the needs of the poor and the marginalized who are the objects of God’s care just as much as we are. “God commands both the inclusion and the moving out.”1 On a specifically Christian understanding, the value of human persons is found in the personhood of God. Moreover, persons are valuable not only in the aggregate; each and every person is of inestimable worth and dignity.
Second, if there are authoritative, objective, binding moral obligations, they cry out for adequate explanation. The challenge of providing such an explanation often leads to skepticism about their existence or to efforts to water them down or domesticate them in some fashion—reducing talk of moral authority to various reasons for behaving in certain ways, for example. The former is to explain morality away, and the latter is to fail to be attentive to the nature of moral evidence, such as its distinctive and overriding authority. Such authority requires explanation: Where does this moral clout come from? To rest content with affirming its existence without inquiring into its nature is to ask too few philosophical questions. We submit that theism, and Christian theism in particular, can most effectively provide its explanation. A loving, perfect God who commands, who knows us better than we know ourselves and made us in his image, who knows truly what is in our ultimate best interest, who desires the best for us, and who fashioned our telos provides a robust explanation of binding, objective, authoritative moral duties. Little wonder that Alvin Plantinga has said he thinks a moral argument on the basis of objective moral obligations is among the best pieces of natural theology on offer.2
So far the moral evidence considered is metaphysical in nature—objective moral values and duties. Next come epistemic considerations, the third prong in our argument. Whereas ontology is more top-down, epistemology is more bottom-up; still, there are reasons moral knowledge points to theism. An explanation of the cosmic coincidence between our moral judgments and moral truth needs a proper account. Evolutionary debunking arguments of various stripes are one of the more recent widely discussed contenders for a potential defeater for moral knowledge. Because of the likes of Michael Ruse, Richard Joyce, and Sharon Street, such arguments have attracted much attention. Unsurprisingly, Ruse, Joyce, and Street, secularists all, end up abandoning moral realism and any moral knowledge predicated on it. Theism, however, potentially provides a defeater-defeater against the evolutionary debunking argument(s) (if not a defeater-deflector) by rejecting the naturalistic origins thesis as a gratuitous theological add-on to which evolution need not be attached. This carves out room for evolution to be a divinely guided process that may well ensure a correspondence between moral truth and at least our most nonnegotiable moral convictions. Theism holds the promise of closing that explanatory gap.3
After a consideration of metaphysical and epistemic matters, we extend our moral argument by appeal to two aspects of Kantian moral faith. So, fourth, another gap needs closing: the performative gap between the best we can do and what morality requires. This is the first aspect of Kantian moral faith, and John Hare most recently has written the most about it. Christianity teaches that our highest ethical yearning can be satisfied. God can replace our heart of stone with a heart of flesh, effecting a revolution of the will and solving “Spener’s problem” by making us not just better people but new people.4 He can allow Anselm’s affection for justice to assume primacy over the affection for advantage, can heal the “dear self,” and replace the evil maxim with the good one. He can save us to the uttermost and make all things new, transforming us into the people he intended us to be, holy as he is holy.
Christianity not only speaks of forgiveness, change, and ultimate perfection in its three stages of salvation but also has an established historical track record of effecting social holiness. Even outspoken atheist Jürgen Habermas, in his later work, acknowledged the inescapable and profound debt human rights discourse today owes to the biblical worldview:
Christianity has functioned for the normative self-understanding of modernity as more than just a precursor or a catalyst. Egalitarian universalism, from which sprang the ideas of freedom and a social solidarity, of an autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights, and democracy, is the direct heir to the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in light of current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk.5
Fifth—and the second aspect of Kantian moral faith—theism offers resources for morality to be a fully rational enterprise. It can resolve the dualism of practical reason, reconciling happiness and holiness. What seems an irremediable tension can be quite reconciled on theism, Christian theism in particular. Radical transformation is available in a robust, vibrant, saving relationship with God, and it is there that we also find our deepest joy, the profoundest satisfactions for which we were made. God renders us worthy of happiness by his grace, making justice and righteousness dance and happiness and holiness embrace.
In each instance, theism provides a compelling, robust explanation of important moral phenomena without watering the evidence down, neither domesticating nor deflating it. Each piece individually makes theism more likely to some degree or other, and their collective power makes theism considerably more likely still. Mention of cumulative cases is important because it’s a reminder that the moral argument, even if it itself can be given in the form of a cumulative case, remains just one weapon in the arsenal of the natural theologian. A broader cumulative case for God’s existence can and has been made; appeals to cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments are all possible, among others. The moral argument is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, but we submit that it deserves an important place at the table. Our hope is that this book helps familiarize readers with its salient contours and a taste of its rich history, firm foundations, and contemporary formulations.
1 John E. Hare, God’s Command (Oxford University Press, 2015), 307–8.
2 “Afterword: Trent Dougherty and Alvin Plantinga: An Interview on Faith and Reason,” in Two Dozen (Or So) Arguments for God: The Plantinga Project, ed. Jerry L. Walls and Trent Dougherty (Oxford University Press, 2018), 447.
3 It bears repeating that Plantinga’s EAAN provides a defeater of belief in the conjunction of evolution and naturalism.
4 “Spener’s Problem” is the challenge to become not merely better people but new people; it is derived from the seventeenth-century Lutheran pietist Philipp Jakob Spener.
5 Jürgen Habermas, Time of Transitions, ed. and trans. Ciaran Cronin and Max Pensky (Polity, 2006), 150–51. Tom Holland’s Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (Basic Books, 2019) also chronicles many of the morally beneficial results of Christianity.