The fallacy of the too convenient
Susan Haack in Defending Science – Within Reason (p. 286) quotes (in order to dispute) Richard Swinburne:
If God’s existence, justice and intentions became common knowledge, then man’s freedom to choose [to believe or disbelieve] would in effect be vastly curtailed. (Swinburne, The Existence of God p. 244)
What I immediately wondered (not for the first time) on reading that is: why is that important? Why is it even meaningful? Why is belief an issue? And why, being an issue, does it become an issue of freedom? Why is it treated as a test?
We have all kinds of common knowledge – and that’s not seen as a problem. We don’t worry about our freedom to choose to believe or disbelieve various items of common knowledge; why is it different with God? That is, independent of the fact that God is hidden and is not common knowledge?
Given the fact that God is hidden – and that billions of people claim to believe in it anyway – it becomes very difficult to see how to separate the claim about freedom (and other similar claims) from the need to explain the brute inconvenient fact that God is hidden. In my case anyway, it is impossible.
In other words – God is hidden – and this obvious fact is slightly inconvenient (though not as inconvenient as it ought to be) for people who believe in it and want others to believe in it, and espcially for people who want to rebuff and reprove and correct non-believers. That means there is a need for some kind of explanation. What would such an explanation look like? Well, like what Swinburne says. Therefore…it seems likely that that is why Swinburne says it.
1) God is hidden. 2) Non-theists consider this a reason not to believe God exists. 3) Theists need a counter-reason. 4) Therefore theistic explanations of God’s hiddenness are rendered suspect by this motivation.
An explanation can be suspect and still be correct, of course – but to a non-theist all these excuses for God’s non-appearance do tend to sound awfully…carefully crafted to fit the disconcerting and undeniable facts. (We keep inviting God to dinner and it keeps not showing up.)
An argument like this would show its fragility quite readily in real life. ‘You skipped work today, you’re fired.’ ‘No, I was there.’ ‘No you weren’t!’ ‘Yes I was, it’s just that we kept missing each other.’ ‘Uh huh – that’s a little too convenient – you’re fired.’
An explanation that is too convenient in that way is suspect.
Swinburne’s argument is almost self-refuting.
If it was a good argument it might make God’s existence common knowledge by convincing too many people.
Apparently Mr Swinburne does not think that the truth will set you free.
Why would an all-loving god even care if we believed in it? Surely it would be more concerned with inspiring us to be good, and would forgive not condemn our sins anyway? How does making oneself invisible help people to be good? Why is being good better if it’s difficult to be good? This sort of god doesn’t square with the conception of an all-loving god.
Having to believe in god makes sense as a sort of self-induced psychological trick: you’ll only get the visions, feeling of being specially loved, losing the fear of death, etc, if you put yourself under a sort of self-hypnosis.
Yes, and…
Before this argument for God’s hiddenness had to be deployed, the argument was that God was not hidden but OBVIOUS. Common sense in past Christian societies was so calibrated that He was obvious in the magnificence of creation, the universality of ethical knowledge, the mysteries of the physical universe, the love and goodness of individuals and lots of other great things.
Since doubt inspires faith, God has a measurable effect in the universe. This proves, pace atheist demands for material evidence for God, that God exists. But since proof dispels doubt, God’s existence is refuted by this proof of his existence.
Ergo God does not exist because he does by virtue of not existing.
But the proof of God’s non-existence will inspire even greater doubt. Which will inspire even greater faith. Which will have an even greater measurable effect. Which will prove that God exists even more.
Therefore the maximal point of existence for God is the point of his maximal non-existence.
I think I’m having a Jarry moment.
I think we’re missing the point here. This does not have to do so much with the hiddenness of God, as with the overhelming nature of God’s being upon our quivering finiteness, were he (and I do wish people would stop capitalising ‘he’ when referring to supposed entities) to be fully revealed to us. (One is reminded of Shiva’s awesome appearance to Arjuna on the field of battle.)
Surely the response to Swinburne is not so much a question of why belief is important, but why he should think that God, having made us free, could overwhelm us in this fashion? After all, if we are truly free, as Swinburne claims, then his revelation to us, if it occurred, would not be overwhelming, and we should, considering our freedom, be free to disagree with him. The fact that Swinburne thinks that we would not be able to do this should raise questions about the kind of freedom that Swinburne ascribes to human beings as creations.
The fact that, knowing this, as he surely must (or at least might, if he thought about it for a moment or so), Swinburne’s use of this argument to account for God’s hiddenness is in fact doubly misleading. Basically what he is saying is saying that human freedom, given to humans by the creator, would be overwhelmed (viz., would be, in a sense, revoked) if we actually knew this (that it had been so given). Wow! The argument is underwhelming.
All of these explanations orf god’s invisibility are just a circling of the wagons in modernity.
I’m convinced the god business today boils down to the fear of death. We obviously don’t need god for explanation anymore. What we do need is some place for our dead mother to still exist and to go when we too lose biological integrity. And that place is of necessity invisible since we never see mother again. It’s very helpful that god remain invisible – just like mother. Why Faith is a downright “perk”.
Of course theologically we’re banned from the “beatific vision” due to that talking snake. It’s all our own fault and faith – along with agriculture and childbirth – our punishment.
Brian, don’t forget the ultimate perk – being able to believe dead people go to hell or heaven based on whether you are respectively agreeing/disagreeing with them, and irrespective of anything else but your own opinion/emotion.
‘God disapproves of everything that I’m disapproving of, because I only approve of what God approves of.’
Suspect is an understatement.
Let’s see if I understand this. If God shows himself, then he exists.
If God doesn’t show himself, then he exists. The logic is okay, I think. However, normally, that something appears is a sign that it exists, that something appears is otherwise called evidence. Let’s try it again: if there is no evidence that God exists, then God exists. Sorry. Not very convincing.
Imagine (if you are man) that you father several children secretly, and then disappear off the scene. You then play a cruel guessing game with these children whom you made and LOVE deeply, by sending several, mutually exclusive, and obscure messages hinting that their dad is around, but it’s more important that they BELIEVE you’re around than anything else! You could send them money, or, IF YOU REALLY LOVED THEM, knock on their front door, hug them,SHOW them you love them, and care for them directly. But then, of course, it will SPOIL everything, because they would KNOW you existed and loved them rather than just BELIEVING one of your obscure messages! You know what? You would have to be a cruel and malevolent tyrant to behave in such a reprehensible way just because YOU, for selfish/unimaginable/obscure/bizarre reasons wanted them to play along with your silly guessing game. This conflicts badly with basic universal human kindness and sense of right and wrong which evidentally exists outside of any supposed revelation.To justify it all by appealing to some vague notion of free will is nuts. Belief is not a VOLUNTARY action anyway. I can’t MAKE myself believe in what I don’t believe, so the whole game is a non starter anyway! And when I find out that those kids of mine didn’t believe, you can’t imagine what I’ll do to them….! But it’s because I REALLY LOVE them, you understand.
I’d have to say that the “convenience” of this argument about 0.1% strength to the notion that the argument is completely ridiculous on its face.
Derek, you’re right. The sort of God Christians often conjure would be a total bastard and unworthy of worship if it existed.
Silverwhistle,
Ah, but all the “game-playing” is just to see whether we *choose* to take the path of ‘righteous’ nonsense for ourselves. It’s completely down to our free will…except for all the praying/chanting/preaching about all the scary stuff that’ll happen if we don’t ‘choose’ correctly/etc, etc
It’s the only way we can possibly know whether we’re “good” or not. And who to revile, beat with sticks, that sort of thing.
:-)
Non-theistic life’s so much easier not having to worry about all that stuff…
A while ago at Pharyngula a commenter called Pablo pointed out that this argument was bollocks if you take Christian theology seriously, as Satan himself knew perfectly well that God existed and that didn’t stop him exercising his free will to rebel.
Michael, wasn’t satan originally an angel? Do angels have free will too? I thought just people did. How utterly ridiculous. The internal contradictions of christianity unto itself would be funny if not for the sobering fact that grown-up still believe it, and dedicate their intellectual lives to justifying it.
I mean really: given his full exposure to the Sheer Splendour, Satan wasn’t so much a blasphemous villain as a dumb-ass, no?
Michael – Rose is absolutely right, and Pablo, alas, isn’t…
Old pretty-boy Beezlebubby is God’s patsy, if we’re playing by “Bible” rules (and not also allowing the esoteric ramblings of some half-starved fanatics who were quite probably ritually scourging themselves while offering praise to God for their ability to feel the pain…*pause for breath*…and later got beatified for their ‘piety’, revealed ‘wisdom’, and ‘miracles’).
Angels don’t have free will, so Beezlebubby’s ‘sin’ of excessive pride/rebellion/job of deceiver & tempter in chief, is also entirely God’s plan/fault…oh, and of course, God’s ‘righteous justice’ isn’t done yet. Satan’s got a whole heap o’ trouble heading his way…whenever God finally decides to get round to it. Although of course, he could have destroyed Beezley immediately after he’d ‘sinned’, but then that wouldn’t have been half as much fun.
But we mustn’t question his sense of timing (or any of the rest of it), because that would be questioning his judgement, and you don’t want to be doing that with such a spiteful deity…
:-)
But if the rebel angels were God’s doing why do we have to have free will? We’re a step below the angels, not above them, so why do we get to make moral choices while they don’t?
I wonder if Sylvia Browne would know…
Andy,
Is that good orthodox theology?! I don’t think so – I think the angels are the next level up (you know, same floor as dry goods and foundation garments).
I know I’m going from memory here, but as I recall the standard Scottish Presbyterian version was that the angels were God’s ‘servants’, while we were his ‘children’. So perhaps more “different” than “better”…but we were always portrayed as the ultimate end product of his creative output. Even though angels were cleverer, funkier, etc, than we were.
Like I said, the angels get to be in heaven all the while, they’ve got supernatural powers, they’re closer to God in spirit, etc, but they’re supposed to be doing God’s hoovering & tidying, essentially.
I mean, hey, he didn’t waste one of his offspring on trying to redeem the ‘fallen angels’, now did he?
:-)))
Ah well I think I was thinking of the Catholic version – the Great Chain of Being and so on. Anyway you’re probably right.
Next floor: soft toys and garden tools.
You will find snakes in the basement, as they are relegated to this position as punishment for the serpent’s actions in the Garden of Eden.
Ground floor: yew trees. Top floor: oak trees.
B&W excommunicators – banned from Scala Naturæ shop. ._.
Tingey –
heh!
Yeah, that’s been my favourite version since I was 12!