Debating God: Notes on an Unanswered Question

By Gary Gutting / International New York Times | 13 October 2014

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This is a concluding reflection on my series of 12 interviews with philosophers on religion. I’m grateful to all of them for the intelligence, clarity and honesty with which they responded to my questions, and to the readers, who posted hundred of comments on each interview. It seemed natural to keep to the interview format, even though I (G.G.) had no one to interview except myself (g.g.). Taking some of the recurring views and concerns expressed by the readers into account (there were too many to cite individually), I’ve tried to submit myself to what I hope was the polite but challenging voice questioning my interviewees.

G.G.: What was the point of talking to a bunch of philosophers about religious belief?

g.g.: The immediate impetus came from the poll I cited at the beginning of the first interv iew: 73 percent of philosophers said they accepted or were inclined to atheism, while 15 percent accepted or inclined to theism. Only around 6 percent identified themselves as agnostics. I would have expected a good majority to identify as agnostics.

G.G.: Why did you expect that?

g.g.: The question of whether God exists is a controversial one: there have been, and still are, lots of smart, informed and sincere people on both sides. So it would seem that philosophers, committed to rational reflection on the big questions, wouldn’t be atheists (or theists) without good reasons. But it is also obvious that the standard arguments for and against God’s existence — first-cause arguments, the problem of evil, etc. — have stimulated an enormous amount of debate, leading to many complications but to no consensus. (To get a sense of contemporary discussions on theism see the Stanford Encyclopedia’s articles on the cosmological argument and on the problem of evil.) Given this, it seemed to me that at least a good proportion of philosophers would be agnostics, undecided about God’s existence.


G.G.: So you wanted to talk to philosophers to see why they accepted or denied the existence of God. What did you find out?

g.g.: Well, the theists were pretty much as I expected. None claimed to have a decisive argument for God’s existence; that is, an argument they thought should convince any reasonable person. Alvin Plantinga claimed that there are lots of “pretty good” arguments, but allowed that they aren’t conclusive, even though they may be “as good as philosophical arguments get”— which I take to mean that they can make it rational to assert God’s existence, but don’t make it irrational to deny it.

Sajjad Rizvi suggests something similar when he says that theistic proofs “allow believers to fit their faith in God into a rationally coherent framework,” even though atheists may not find them rationally compelling. But the two other theists, John Caputo (a Catholic) and Howard Wettstein (a Jew) think that arguing for God’s existence misunderstands what religion is all about.

In my experience, all this is typical of philosophers who believe in God. As Daniel Garber noted, once upon a time believing philosophers thought they had arguments showing that atheism was irrational. Nowadays, the most they do is argue that it can be rational to be a theist.

G.G.: And the atheists? Are they interested in refuting theistic arguments or providing arguments that God doesn’t exist?

g.g.: Not especially. Citing Garber again: “Today, those who don’t believe, philosophers and others, don’t seem to pay much attention to the contemporary literature on proofs for the existence of God. [Such proofs] have become something of an empty intellectual enterprise.” Atheist philosophers do often refer to the argument from evil, but, like Louise Antony and Michael Ruse, they say little more than that they personally find it convincing. Atheists generally don’t claim that those who reject the argument are irrational, and very few seem to have looked closely at the extensive and highly technical current literature on the question. Philip Kitcher expressed a common view when he said he had “little sympathy for strained discussions” about God and evil.

G.G.: So are you saying that the atheists don’t have any good arguments?

g.g.: No, they do, but they’re against specific forms of theism. There’s a very strong case — nicely developed by Tim Maudlin in our interview — against arguing for the existence of God (in any religiously relevant sense) as a scientific hypothesis. And Kitcher gave a powerful formulation of the case against believing the doctrines of a particular faith. The point is that there’s often no more reason for believing those doctrines (say, the triune nature of God, God becoming man, the Last Judgment) than there is for believing those of other faiths. Therefore, if you deny the doctrines of other faiths, then you should also deny the doctrines of your faith.

G.G.: You don’t think philosophical believers have good responses to those arguments?

g.g.: No, but few of them hold the positions the arguments refute. First of all, they don’t think saying that God exists is a scientific claim. On the contrary, they think it’s a claim that there is something beyond the scope of scientific investigation and testing. They may think it’s knowable by metaphysical arguments or (more likely) by religious experiences. But they don’t think either metaphysics or religious experiences are part of scientific inquiry.

G.G.: Many atheists will say that such mental gymnastics are just rationalizations of an emotional need for religion, that if believers faced up to the evolutionary and psychological facts that explain beliefs, they could slough off their childish delusions.

g.g.: The weakest intellectual aspect of current atheism is its naïve enchantment with pseudo-scientific biological and psychological explanations of why people believe. There are no doubt all sorts of disreputable sources for religious belief, and the same goes for rejections of religion. But it’s just silly to say that there’s solid scientific evidence that religious belief in general has causes that undermine its claims to truth. Here I think Antony in her interview was right on target: “Theists are insulted by such conjectures (which is all they are) and I don’t blame them. It’s presumptuous to tell someone else why she believes what she believes — if you want to know, start by asking her.”

G.G.: O.K., but at least aren’t believers who appeal to religious experience and metaphysical arguments admitting what popular atheism so insistently claims: There’s simply no evidence for God’s existence, and that alone warrants atheism?

g.g.: There’s no scientific evidence, but there are other sorts of evidence.

G.G.: I suspect that most atheists think scientific evidence — evidence that ultimately appeals only to empirically observable facts — is the only sort of evidence there is.

g.g.: That may be their assumption, but how do they show that it’s correct? It certainly isn’t supported by scientific evidence, since that tells us about only what is empirically observable. The question is whether there is anything else.

G.G.: Well, at least, atheists can try to show that the allegedly nonscientific evidence that theists put forward doesn’t support their conclusion. They can, for example, argue that the religious experiences are illusory and the metaphysical arguments are unsound. 

g.g.: Agreed, but then they have to show that. They can’t just keep saying “there’s no empirical evidence” and think they’ve shown that a theism based on metaphysical reasoning or nonempirical experience is irrational. The core question is whether there is anything beyond the empirical — some transcendent reality we can call God. I think it can be rational to say there isn’t a transcendent reality. But to show that it’s irrational to say there is, you’d have to end the impasse in philosophical discussions of theism. That’s where atheism falls short and agnosticism is the preferable position.

Here what I’m saying about religion is what many rightly say about other strongly disputed areas such as ethics and politics: people on both sides can be reasonable in holding their positions, but neither side has a basis for saying that their opponents are irrational. This, I think, was what Keith DeRose was getting at when he said that no one knows whether or not God exists.

G.G.: O.K., but the unsettled discussions are only about the existence of a minimal god (say an intelligent and benevolent creator). That falls far short of what most religions believe about their gods. And, as you’ve noted, Kitcher’s argument shows that the sorts of reasons believers have for rejecting the distinctive doctrines of other religions will tell against their own doctrines.

g.g.: That’s a major problem for believers who are exclusivist about their doctrines. Their only recourse, I think, is to insist that any concepts we apply to God fall far short of grasping the divine reality. If so, then we should expect that different, even apparently contradictory, claims about God could all be true. In fact, you don’t even need rival faiths to think this way. Christianity has from early on wrestled with apparent contradictions in its own doctrines: how can there be just one God but three divine persons? How can Christ be both wholly divine and wholly human? Thomas Aquinas and many others have offered ingenious and often illuminating accounts of how to make sense of such claims. But the ultimate appeal to mystery remains inevitable.

G.G.: So what you’re saying is that, in the face of atheist criticisms, religious belief can still be rational, but only if it gives up thinking of the existence of God as a scientific hypothesis and admits that many of its claims are fundamentally mysterious. Doesn’t that in fact undermine most of traditional religious belief?

g.g.: It’s more accurate to say that it undermines a strong tendency of religion — at least in its major monotheistic forms — to misunderstand its own basic message. There’s nothing in the Bible that presents God as a well-confirmed scientific hypothesis, and there’s a great deal that emphasizes that the truths of religion are beyond human comprehension. In spite of this, believers too often play the double game of insisting on God’s transcendence and mystery to meet rational objections, but then acting as if they’d justified a straightforward literal understanding of their beliefs.

G.G.: So are you what we might call a “mysterian theist”?

g.g.: No, I’m an agnostic. I don’t find it reasonable to accept or reject a transcendent God, so I withhold judgment.

G.G..: How can you be an agnostic and still claim to be a Catholic?

g.g.: Because, despite my agnosticism, I still think it’s worth pursuing the question of whether God exists, and for me the Catholic intellectual and cultural tradition has great value in that pursuit.

G.G.: Still, I don’t see how you can find a place in a church that claims to be the custodian of a divine revelation, when you don’t believe in that revelation.

g.g.: The fundamental revelation is the moral ideal expressed in the biblical account of Christ’s life. Whether or not that account is historically accurate, the New Testament Christ remains an exemplar of an impressive ideal. Engagement with the practices (ethical and liturgical) inspired by that ideal is the only requirement for being a Catholic. Beyond that, historical narratives and theological doctrines can at least function as useful means of understanding, even for those who aren’t prepared to say that they are true in any literal sense. Some believers may have experiences (or even arguments) that have convinced them that these doctrines are true. But religions — even Catholicism — should have room for those who don’t see it that way.

G.G.: So it seems that you agree with most of your interviewees — believer and nonbelievers — that practice is more important than doctrine.

g.g.: Yes, and I agree with Kitcher that the greatest obstacle facing atheism is its lack of the strong communal practices that characterize religions. People need to believe something that provides a satisfying a way of living their lives, and most people need to find this in a community. So far atheism has produced nothing like the extensive and deep-rooted communities of belief that religion has.

G.G.: But, as atheists often point out, religions themselves often lead to barbarous behavior.

g.g.: That’s because religious faith without a strong role for critical reason readily falls into fanaticism. I thought this was one lesson of my interview with Sajjad Rizvi. He showed the historical connection of Islam with traditions of philosophical reflection that have tempered excesses of blind faith. Although such traditions are still effective in many parts of the Muslim world, it’s undeniable that there are places where they have failed and a fanatical mutation has gone out of control.

G.G.: What about the stunning moral failings of your own church? Don’t they show a fundamental corruption that requires abandoning it?

g.g.: The corruption largely arises from failing to give practice the religious priority it deserves. The Catholic Church lets indefensible doctrines about papal infallibility and hierarchical authority interfere with its fundamental ethics of love. A sensible change on birth control, forbidden only because it would admit fallibility, would help the poor and probably do more than anything else to prevent abortions. And the cover-ups of sex abuse were largely driven by a fear of weakening clerical authority. The best response is not to withdraw but to work for a new Reformation to dislodge the doctrines that undermine the fundamental mission of the church.

The entire series of 12 interviews can be read here.

Gary Gutting is a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and an editor of Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. He is the author of, most recently, “Thinking the Impossible: French Philosophy since 1960,” and writes regularly for The Stone.