A few times I’ve referred to my view about “the God question” as “radical agnosticism.” I thought it might be fun to work through what this means.
For the purposes of this discussion, by “God” I shall mean follow Hart’s definition of God as “the one infinite source of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason absolutely immanent to all things” (The Experience of God, p. 30).
Next, I shall stipulate that our assertions about the world fall into two classes: those that take a truth-value in all possible worlds and those that take a truth-value only in the actual world. This is a contemporary version of “Hume’s Fork”: there are “relations of ideas”, “truths of reason”, analytic a priori claims and then there are “matters of fact”, “truths of fact,” synthetic a posteriori claims. (There are some reasons to be skeptical of this neat distinction but I’ll leave that aside for now.)
Whether or not God exists would therefore seem to be either a “truth of fact” or a “truth of reason”. I shall therefore now argue that it cannot be either.
Truths of fact are either directly observable phenomena or they are posited phenomena. (Though the boundary is strictly methodological and shifts over time.) But there are many presumptive truths of fact — claims with truth-value about the actual world — which we know have turned out to be false. And we know that because of empirical inquiry, and in particular, in the collection of techniques of inquiry called “science”. (I shall not insult anyone’s intelligence by assuming that there is a single thing called “the scientific method”).
Central to disciplined empirical inquiry, including and especially the sciences, is the act of measurement: intersubjectively verifiable assignments of quantitative variation across some interval of spatio-temporal locations. (It might be said that “the Scientific Revolution” is the historical period during which measurement slowly becomes the dominant conception of objectivity.)
But with that notion in place, it is perfectly clear that it is not even possible to take measurements of a perfectly transcendent being. A being that transcends all of space and time cannot be measured, which means that no claims about Him can be subjected to the tribunal of scientific inquiry. And hence no matters of fact about God can be verified one way or the other. That is to say that all claims about God that are restricted to the actual world have an indeterminate truth-value: they cannot be determined to be true or false
The epistemic situation is no better when we turn from a posteriori to a priori claims. In a priori claims, the tribunal is not science but logic, and the central epistemic concept is not measurability but provability. Can the existence of God be proven? Many have thought so!
But here two things must be pointed out: a proof, to be deductively valid, consists of re-organizing the information contained in the initial assumptions. One can generate a logically valid proof of the existence of God. (Gödel, for example, has a logically valid version of the Ontological Argument.) The process of proof-construction is not going to give you more information in the conclusion than was present in the premises.
Logic is limited in another important way: there are multiple logics. What can proved in one logic can be disproven in a different logic. It depends on the choice of logical system. Once you’ve chosen a logical system, and you’ve chosen some premises, then of course one can prove that God exists. But neither the premises nor the rules are “self-evident”, inscribed on the very face of reason or of reality, etc.
Hence we cannot determine that God exists or does not exist on the basis of logic alone, since provability is no more reliable here than measurability is.
On this basis, I conclude that it is not even possible for beings such as ourselves to assign any truth-value at all to the assertion that God exists. This yields a radical agnosticism. Whereas the moderate agnostic can accept the logical possibility of some future evidence or reasoning that would resolve the issue, the radical agnostic insists that beings with minds like ours are completely unable to resolve the issue at all.
Radical agnosticism is at the same time compatible with either utter indifference to the question of the existence of God (“apatheism”) or some quite definite stance (ranging from theism to pantheism to deism to atheism). All that radical agnosticism insists on here is that all definite stances on the God-question are leaps of faith — no matter what direction.
I use “atheism” to refer to a specific metaphysical position: the position that there are no gods or God (as traditionally defined). That’s a claim about the nature of reality. I use “agnosticism” to refer to a specific epistemological position: the position that we don’t know if God exists or not. That’s a claim about knowledge. And “radical agnosticism” is the position that we not only don’t know if God exists or not, but that we cannot know. It’s a much stronger claim.
Why not ask me if I was you, would I believe the same retarded, contradictory premises? I’m not an ancient roman and I’m not anything like you (luckily)
Actually, your statements aren’t about anything. They aren’t even about some supposed god is it is a necessity.
In that context it would then be the human writers’ thoughts and character the bible witnesses (you know…like the posts on this message board), as I noted earlier. If, however, as you say the bible witnesses the truth of some god, then that god is contingent by definition. If, otoh, this supposed god is actually a necessity, then the bible is simply ramblings and opinions and is of no use for anything.
You should make up your mind sometime about your own theology, just for…you know…consistency…
But hey…I suppose since your posts make no difference as you note, then perhaps consistency makes no difference either. Perhaps nothing you claim makes a difference. Not even anything about this god of yours apparently…
Another ‘we’ I don’t get. If you don’t think there is only one correct definition of ‘atheism’ but that it’s really a matter of preference, I agree with you. I think, however, that others have said something else on this matter.
The question of whether all atheists have ‘non-belief’ in common seems to me to be largely a function of what one means by ‘atheist’. As I’ve said they have an infinite number of other properties in common too. We’re interested in a DEFINING sort of commonality, aren’t we? For my own part, I’m not even sure that all atheists have ANYTHiNG very interesting in common. The term does suggest to me some sort of disagreement with theism, though. That’s why, as above indicated, I prefer ‘non-theism’ for the catch-all concept you and patrick are interested in.
But for about the 80th time, IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER. My goal has been to show that it’s a matter of preference rather than right or wrong. As long as people are clear, who cares how they want to define that term. I take this is a political matter for some people. It’s not for me.
I’m not equivocating I’m honestly saying that in one respect king Midas is a cautionary tale and in another he is a person.
There is nothing illogical about this and it is in fact the way we normally speak in English.
peace
No no no no no. We use the same WORDs to refer to both (and for fairly obvious reasons). That is all. Talk about being bewitched by polysemy!
I (we?) argue that the question of whether all atheists have ‘non-belief’ in common seems to me to be largely a function of what one means by ‘god’EDIT: no, I didn’t read that carefully…
That makes sense to me.
You are assuming that the Bible is not the word of God. If it is then it can witness the thoughts and Character of it’s divine author.
Just as the universality of natural laws witnesses God’s faithfulness
Why, Contingent on what? You are going to have to explain yourself. I have no idea what you are getting at.
peace
Walto, do you agree lack of belief is necessary, although maybe not sufficient, for atheism regardless of the definition of god? (provided that the definition of god doesn’t piggyback on some other concept)
For example, in the most abstract sense “god = uncaused cause of the universe” would you say it’s granted to believe such a thing cannot exist?
fifthmonarchyman,
You’re a witness, natural laws are a witness, the Bible is a witness. Midas is a king and a story. It’s right out of Through the Looking Glass. Alice had some nice responses to equivocations of that sort, IIRC.
OK, we use the same words to refer to God as truth and God as person and for obvious reasons. Happy now?
peace
Yep, god has become a metaphoric personification of a fantastic tale. Exactly so, you hit the nail in the head… except for the truth part
Walto, one problem here is that you and some others are defining atheism as a bucket into which one places people.
I do not place people in buckets, nor assign them to tribes. I have trouble talking about politics and religion, because I have trouble with categories. I have to have them, but they’re jiggly, and the containers leak.
I think what Patrick and I are trying to say is there’s an irreducible core to atheism. I think it would be contradictory to be an atheist and believe in a god or in gods.
You may wish to define atheism, but I do not want to fit in any of your buckets. I will try to wriggle out. This may be why, when this topic came up earlier, I resisted calling myself an atheist. In addition to it being pejorative, it seems to imply things I don’t accept.
As fot the claims of fifth and mung, they simply aren’t worth a response. To the extent that the ground of being exists, it is vacuous. Pun intended.
I agree with that. My preferred def is stronger rather than weaker (less restrictive).
I appreciate the narrative form
Designer creates a teleological process and the raw materials , yadda yadda the Grand Canyon,so is that not exactly no intervention and not exactly non intelligent intervention, specifics really aren’t important in ID
But here is the twist, even a Designer who can create the Universe from scratch can’t design a teleological process which results in intelligence or a bacterial flagellum. The Designer at some point must do something which cannot be named nor described but somehow can be calculated and assigned a probability..
I may never write again.
walto, to petrushka:
walto,
So you were wrong when you wrote this…
…and you now retract that statement, correct?
walto,
Also, you keep making the haystack/stone argument, most recently here, to petrushka:
I don’t recall anyone defining an atheist as “anything that doesn’t believe in God”. Who are you arguing against, and could you please link to their definition of the word “atheist” — the definition that, according to you, includes haystacks and stones?
walto,
Hmmm. Is that my position? I guess; I don’t fully recognise it. Still, the point is it is other peoples’ conceptions that I reject. I have only formed a conception of ‘God’ from what other people say they believe. I have to assimilate a notion in order to reject or accept it. The common theme of things-I-reject involves some kind of entity possessed of awareness, intent and ‘powers’. If that’s a ‘definition’ of God, so be it. (It’s also a definition of certain sci-fi protagonists, ‘gotcha’ fans).
I noticed in my brief skim (I do have a life, honest!) that the word ‘pejorative’ came up in relation to ‘atheist’. Over this side of the pond, there is nothing at all pejorative about the word. It is simply descriptive.
Allow me to help. I was referring to this:
I’m happy that’s it’s sunny out today. And I guess, yeah, it’s a good thing if you now understand that you’ve been equivocating when you call God identical to truth. So we’re getting somewhere finally. Arguments are harder to make when people use words carefully, especially arguments with fantastical conclusions. We can now see that when you’ve said that if people believe there are truths they must believe in God, it is an entailment claim. That is, the best you can do is argue that they OUGHT to believe in God if they believe there are truths–because, in your view, there couldn’t be one without the other.
Then, of course an entirely separate argument must now be brought to get that there could be no truths without God. That’s a big task, certainly, and I don’t think you can achieve it, but, either way, it’s always better to understand what you need to be doing than to be completely confused about what you’re even arguing for. You won’t have to hear “Huh? What the hell are you talking about? That makes absolutely no sense at all!” So it’s progress.
In addition, it’s good to understand the evils of equivocation in all fields of study, not just here. That’s why it’s taught in critical thinking classes.
Nonsense.
Assuming facts not in evidence.
For a definition of “helpful” meaning “not at all helpful.”
Feel good nonsense that doesn’t even rise to the level of a deepity.
Many of your statements are not even grammatically correct and nothing you’ve said in this comment conveys any information whatsoever.
What word would you use to describe someone who lacks belief in a god or gods without asserting positively that such entities do not exist?
walto,
Sure, but I don’t recognise your version as a particularly accurate paraphrase of mine.
walto,
It’s a nice try, but I think FMM is still fundamentally confused about the basic conceptual issues.
When he says “God is Truth,” the very best understanding I can put on that assertion is that God is the guarantor of true claims. It’s basically a Cartesian view: God’s infallible mind underwrites the relation between my own fallible mind and how the world really is.
Ergo, anyone who believes that there is a relation between one’s own fallible mind and how the world really is must therefore be logically committed to the existence of God. To think that any of one’s own thoughts are true is to be logically committed to the existence of God, since otherwise one would not be rationally entitled to reject skepticism. Conversely, anyone who thinks that God does not exist does not have, and could not have, any reason to believe that their own cognitive capacities are reliable.
We have seen that FMM seems to deny that his version of presuppositionalism depends on this Cartesian starting-point. But I have no other way of making sense of anything he says.
Given this, what FMM ought to say is not that “God is truth” but rather that “God is the ground of the relation between truths and truth-makers”. But that is already too sophisticated, I fear, for him to appreciate.
I agree mostly with what you’re saying here. I do think that in one sense the essential characteristics of atheism constitute a definition of sorts, but not a comprehensive definition. All atheists lack belief in a god or gods. That’s the essential characteristic. That is not the full position of any atheists that I know personally, however.
Exactly. I share very few other views with the people in Atheism+ or with the odious PZ Myers, but I don’t deny that we’re all atheists. Sticking to the essential characteristics is the most open and expansive approach.
You are leaving out those atheists who simply lack belief, often because no theist has ever presented any evidence to support the claim that a god or gods exist. You’re talking about strong or gnostic atheism. That’s only a subset of all atheists.
I’ve been saying this a lot to you lately, but have another “Hear, hear!”
Really? You wrote, ‘An atheist doesn’t need to deny God at all’ I cast it as ‘I have also responded to Allan who claimed that he didn’t need to define God at all to maintain there aren’t any such thingies.’ Where do you think I went astray?
It wasn’t a big issue when I was living in Europe, but it’s very different in the U.S. Atheists are trusted less than rapists. The odds of an atheist getting elected are remarkably low.
The Nones are surging in recent polls, so hopefully this will change. We’re not there yet, by any stretch.
I think my sticking point is the idea that, being an atheist, I’m making a claim about gods. But suppose someone sidled up to me and insisted that water had a memory, and so I could be cured by exposing it to certain molecules and then giving it to me. I’d say they were talking nonsense. “Ah, so you claim that water has no memory, huh?”. “Get bent! I’m rejecting a claim, not making one”.
Maybe you’re right, KN, but you know me, charitable to the very core! 😉
Allan Miller,
I very much like that idea of ‘rejecting a claim’: it’s got some of the features of ‘failure’ but seems more active–without requiring an affirmative assertion of anything. It may be precisely what everybody has been (or at least I have been) casting around for here the last few days. Bravo!
I never said God was identical to truth I said God is truth. There is more to God than truth but God is at least truth.
I never said that people who believe there are truths must beleive in God. You are reading way to much into what I say.
I say that Truth exists because God is truth.
Again you are reading way way to much into what I say.
I am not making an argument. I am stating what I know.
If you think that there can be truth with out God that is perfectly fine with me. What you need to do is explain how that can be the case and how you could know.
Again it is not equivocation we just use the same word to mean God as truth and God as person for obvious reasons.
We are talking about the same God after all.
When we talk about King Midas as a cautionary tale we are talking about his life and the results of his choices.
When we talk about King Midas as a person we are talking about who he is.
These are just different aspects of King Midas.
It’s not equivocation unless we say that his life and the results of his choices are a person in their own right.
peace
No that is not what I’m saying I saying literally God is truth. It’s his essence
It’s not about sophistication it’s about accuracy. God is also the ground of the relation between the truth and the truth maker but that is not what I’m discussion here .
As always thinking of the Trinity is a good way to understand the concept
The Father——-Truth maker
the Son ———–Truth
The Holy Spirit ——The relation between the Truth and Truth maker
Each of these persons is God
I hope that helps
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
I don’t know why truth can be dealt with that way but not – say – evil, or falsehood. Whatever relativistic dodge one may respond with regarding those may equally be applied to capital-T-ruth.
King Midas (he of the Golden Touch). Not a real person. Just saying.
fifthmonarchyman,
No that’s wrong. It’s dead easy to equivocate if we’re not particularly careful with terms that have more than one meaning. To wit:
King Midas weighed in at 165 pounds dripping wet.
King Midas is a cautionary tale.
Therefore, at least one cautionary tale weighed in at 165 pounds, dripping wet.
The rest of your post is mostly backsliding, which makes me UNhappy. For one brief, shining moment you seemed to get that God isn’t truth. Now you’re back with a worse gambit–confusing the ‘is’ of identity with the ‘is’ of predication. Even if it were true that God had truth as one of his properties (he can’t, but let’s take this in baby steps), god wouldn’t BE truth plus some other stuff, He’d exemplify truth plus some other stuff. Not the same thing. Just another (even more dangerous based on the history of philosophy) equivocation.
So yeah, you’re making me sad now, and making KN look right about your prospects for grasping this stuff.
I chose him just for that reason. You can acknowledge the existence of King Midas the cautionary tale with out accepting the existence of the person
peace
I’ve been pretending he was real. Doesn’t matter. Even fictional persons may be confused with cautionary tales. I’m trying to think of a real person that has a cautionary tale named after them. Benedict Arnold maybe?
By contrast, I see him taking some standard sayings from Christianity.
Personally, I have no problem with “God is truth” as a metaphor, or as a slogan (except that I disagree). But FMM is a kind of literalist, and wants to read that literally. And he won’t allow himself to admit that, taken literally, it is nonsense.
I don’t think that it is Cartesian, but more on the order of Pythagorean/Platonic. Not that the Cartesian point of view isn’t informed by Scholasticism (thus Pythagorean/Platonic views) however, Descartes seems to be retreating from God as Infinite Truth from whom True Ideas radiate to lesser minds like the sun radiates light and warmth (God is still infinite truth, but God’s relation to truth as known by humans is not so simple any more), to the idea that God is Infinite thus good and thus will guarantee truth.
I mean, why shouldn’t God and Truth be the same thing? If Truth has being, why not as perfection, as Infinite God? It’s not that hard to think, really, especially in a more mystical mood. Descartes is separating truth and God in a way, since he’s more modern and realizes that truth sort of has to be worked out after all (as he himself did in important ways), but Truth as participation in God, the One, or infinity, has a certain attraction, and FMM’s rather hackneyed aphorisms seem to hark back to beliefs earlier than Descartes.
Or, participating in the existence of God as Truth.
Why not just believe dreams, if you have no ability to recognize God-given truth from error? And how are you going to know God-given truth except by participating in God, or some such thing? Especially, how do you know axioms, when they have no proofs and seem more than mere observation?
Of course it doesn’t really work that way, only it took a good long while to realize this (and some still don’t). Axioms can be swapped out, they’re not Absolute Truth as Pythagoreans/Platonists thought, nor is anything else, really. Basically, truth-values are assigned, which isn’t to say that some are assigned for very good reasons–constant reliability, say.
I think it makes a good deal more sense as Participation in the Good than as a truly Cartesian starting point. But he seems not to have a real outside view of it at all, rather an insider’s acceptance of the slogans, hence the slogans are all that we get from him.
But how would God be the ground of such a relationship without being Truth itself? Actually, I don’t know either way (it’s a nonsense question when it comes to actual discovery), it’s just that it sort of ends the whole problem of such questions to say that God is Truth and God/Truth is thereby the ground of the relation between truths and knowers of truth (I don’t think “truth-makers” would be right). Participate in God/Truth, and you know Truth.
Oddly, that belief leads to a whole lot of competing “truths” rather than to One Truth, which is generally “resolved” by the believer claiming to be Right and the others Wrong. We’re concerned about the fact that resolution is not had via participation in Truth/God, but that’s because we’re not blessed with the narrowness and certainty of the True Believer. According to the latter, anyway. In the end we look to evidence to decide, which indicates that Platonic/Pythagorean Truth isn’t really quite what it’s cracked up to be, and the evidence really rules–even rules mathematical axioms.
If you’re reveling in your remarkable grasp of Truth, however, and thinking poorly of those who do not so participate in Truth/God, such conclusions mercifully are not reached, nor is their state of blessedness in question.
Glen Davidson
You are taking the absence of something (i.e. the lack of belief) as an essence? Does that even make sense?
I think Allan’s point is that one does not need to maintain that “there aren’t any such thingies”. It is sufficient to not recognize any such thingies.
Yes, I like his use of “rejection”: I think it’s perfect.
That’s a very thoughtful post. I haven’t really tried to completely suss out FMM’s God–truth connection, just took the matter as Neil has above, i.e., calling God “truth” must be metaphorical since it’s literal nonsense, so let’s try to consider what some picture might be that makes the existence of truths ENTAIL the existence of God.
KN gives one such picture and you do another but they strike me as more complicated than a theist might require. Couldn’t somebody just try something like this?–
1. (Nec.) There would be nothing (including any truths) without God.
2. There are truths.
3. Therefore, Nec. there is God.
Now, of course, you have to get 1, which is no mean feat, but it’s a simple argument anyhow, and I like simple.
I don’t deny that your analysis and KNs are probably deeper than this, but for me clear generally trumps deep, largely because I like to have a sense of the exact structure, but I’m not good at keeping a lot of balls in the air. Deep often requires significant capability on that front.
Anyhow it’s FMM’s argument. He should just try to state it as precisely as he can and then we can assess it.
(BTW, if you two are interested in discussing philosophical writings, I’m trying to find more members for my yahoo group. PM me. Anybody else, too.)
I don’t think he did.
Why not? You have to go back to ancient ideas of the Real and the True, of course, but that’s what you have in the New Testament (if not in a very clear fashion), or, more to the point, it’s what the New Testament assumes, more or less. The point is that God (Plato’s Good turned more theological) is reality (more real than what we see), hence God is also the Truth of reality, and God is Who grants Reality and Truth (which is only the Perfection of Reality, in one view). Reality participates in God, Who is the basis for the Truth and Perfection of said Reality.
Except that it’s God, not King Midas. What is God, source of Reality, going to exemplify? In the end, it has to be God. God might exemplify Reality/Truth, of course, but those are just exemplifying God, hence God is just thinking God, as Aristotle said (God thinks the best thoughts, and thoughts of God are the best thoughts).
Well, it is equivocation, considering that the world just doesn’t work like that at all, but it sort of works out logically so long as we make certain assumptions about God and Reality.
We learned this kind of thinking in philosophy classes in order to avoid getting stuck in it. FMM seems to have learned a bit of it in order to avoid any other way of understanding the reality.
Glen Davidson
I wouldn”t try to dispute any of that, Glen. It’s basically Greek to me (haha) Seriously, my understanding of ancient Greek philosophy is pretty feeble.
In any case, you seem to know much more about it than I do.
Well, it isn’t by definition, unless you are saying that no humans had a hand in putting the words together. Do you believe the bible appeared on Earth completely intact directly from some god? I doubt it. Even Paul makes no bones about the fact that he wrote some of the text (and even notes in a few places that he was not writing from what he thought were God’s thoughts, but rather writing his own thoughts. Ditto for Luke and Peter.)
But all that’s academic. Let’s say for the sake of argument that the bible is the word of some god. Then your claim that “god is truth is definitional” is erroneous since the claim is itself is simply some god’s word in the bible and definitions are meaningless if they are self-referential.
…oh…and again you are question begging, but at this point that’s just details. Your whole argument has just burned itself down.
If it is, then your god is kind of a horny dude:
But even beyond that, most of the writers note their own opinions:
So this god of yours thanks himself as this god remembers Philemon in his (god’s) prayers? I don’t think so. Nor, do the vast majority of scholars (including my sister). Clearly this is not the word of any god, but rather the word of Paul writing about his own feelings.
And then there’s Hebrews:
Where Paul even claims that this god speaks through is son, not through some book or writing. In fact, the Koine Greek word for “word” even means spoken.
So the idea that the bible is some word of some god not only makes no logical or definitional sense, the very document disputes such an assertion.
But if you hold such, then it is merely a witness to what some god thought about the people he chose to write stories. Not very revealing or instructional at all in that case. Anything anyone takes from the bible concerning said god makes that god contingent on those words, when then means your god is not necessity.
Please elaborate. As typed, this makes no sense.
A “necessary” thing is something that occurs regardless of awareness, belief, or concept. Your god – and by association, our acceptance or rejection of said god concept – is totally contingent on your claims, your relating some interpretation of some biblical passage, some explanation, etc. There’s nothing necessary about your god. Can you point to any specific consequence of rejecting your claims about god? No…and you freely admit that anything about your god has nothing to do with your claims anyway. “It’s not about me”…fine, but then nothing you’ve posted about your god establishes anything other than a contingent god. Said god is simply contingent faith or belief or whatever. Otherwise, your particular version of Christianity is irrelevant; nothing any Christian does has any impact on the world whatsoever.