God proofs make ancient mistakes
William Jaworski
professor of philosophy
In last Tuesday's Observer, Charles Rice claimed there are good faith-independent arguments for God's existence. I could hardly disagree. I think there probably are such arguments (although I don't know of any myself and doubt there are any with premises an atheist would accept). What's surprising is that Rice claims to have such arguments. The ones he presents, however, are riddled with difficulties. Here's just a sampling.
Rice's first argument rests on a false dichotomy. He claims there are just two options: (a) there exists an eternal personal being (God) or (b) there exists nothing. But there are at least two options besides: (c) there exists an eternal non-personal being (e.g. the physical universe) or (d) there exists an infinite series of non-eternal beings each of which causes the existence of the next. Interestingly enough, Aquinas himself considered (d) a philosophical live option (his arguments against infinite series concern synchronically, not diachronically, related items). Famously, Aquinas also held that the non-eternality of the world could not be proven philosophically. (Nor does the Big Bang rule it out: It's possible the universe is eternally oscillating, undergoing successive big bangs and "big crunches." Granted recent cosmology suggests a big crunch isn't in the offing, but there are still other hypotheses about an eternal universe.)
Rice's argument to an unmoved mover, on the other hand, trades on a theory of motion we know to be false. Unlike Aquinas, we've known at least since Newton that objects will continue in rectilinear motion at constant velocity unless acted upon by outside forces. Consequently, although one might infer that an object in motion must have been moved by something, one cannot infer that its mover still exists.
I won't rehearse the well-known difficulties facing the argument to a first cause.
Rice is right about one thing: a watch coming together as a result of its parts being shaken in a bag is so improbable it's incredible. As an argument against Neo-Darwinism, however, this is an obvious straw man.
My purpose here is not to prove that arguments like Rice's are bad. Everybody … sorry … almost everybody already knows they're bad. My purpose, rather, is to suggest that advancing them à la Rice does theism a disservice.
Consider detractors from theism who harbor the following suspicion: People who believe in God are ignorant dogmatists who can do no better than advance time and again the same ineffectual arguments. Thanks to efforts like Rice's, such persons believe their suspicions confirmed. The result is exactly as Aquinas said: "The very inadequacy of the arguments strengthen [adversaries of the faith] in their error, since they imagine that our acceptance of the truth of faith is based on such weak arguments." Nor do such arguments help the faithful. Most theistically-minded students, for instance, greet them with fatigue: "Here comes that argument again, and here's the refutation again." The result is misology, loss of confidence in the ability of reason to resolve matters of any importance.
Rather than following Rice's tack, theists do better on a different, more modest one. Again Aquinas: "Our intention should not be to convince our adversary by arguments: it should be to answer his arguments against the truth." The complaint that recent Christian apologetics has overused this defensive strategy has something to recommend it. But to go on the offensive with arguments like Rice's is analogous to entering a modern battlefield armed with a flintlock.
Study the arguments of past masters; by all means learn from them, imitate their spirit, but for the love of God don't repeat their mistakes.
William Jaworski
professor of philosophy
University of Notre Dame
March 2, 2001
All Viewpoint Stories for Monday, March 5, 2001
