Customer Reviews

Arguing about Gods

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If I were asked to shelf three of the most formidable cases for atheism to date, the first would be J. L. Mackie's The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God (Oxford, 1983). Only recently have there been worthy shelf-neighbors to Mackie. On one side of Mackie I would put J. Howard Sobel's Logic and Theism: Arguments For and Against Beliefs in God (Cambridge, 2003). On the other I would put Graham Oppy's recent book, Arguing About Gods (Cambridge, 2006).

In Arguing About Gods, Oppy painstakingly examines a daunting range of arguments for "othodoxly conceived monotheistic gods", or what has been called 'the God of the philosophers' (as opposed to, say, the concept of God specific to only one religion). The survey and critique that initially sets the tone of Oppy's project is commendable, in both depth and conservation with contemporary philosophers of religion. About two thirds of the way into the book, however, those virtues begin to wear thin. Many of the arguments Oppy later considers become increasingly straw-man in character.

For example, take what he gathers to be the argument from mathematical knowledge (Argument 3 in subsection 6, "Arguments from Puzzling Phenomena" of Ch.7 on miscellaneous arguments):

1. There is no (agreed) naturalistic explanation of how we are able to come by knowledge of mathematics.
2. Our knowledge of mathematics is (best) explained as the result of an orthodoxly conceived monotheistic god's so constituting us that we are able to have that knowledge.
3. (Therefore) There is an orthodoxly conceived monotheistic god.

Though he frames the argument up in terms of mathematical knowledge, he mentions how knowledge of other phenomena, such as logic, metaphysics, modality, morality, etc. could be appealed to in order to achieve the same purpose. So what he has in mind here is the argument from abstract objects. Oppy begins his critique by observing how "The (alleged) fact that there is no agreed naturalistic explanation of how hw are able to come by knowledge of mathematics is not a strong ground for drawing conclusions about the existence of orthodoxly conceived monotheistic gods...". And, of course, most would agree with Oppy on this score. In fact, most of those prepared to defend sophisticated versions of an argument from abstract objects would probably agree, too. Therefore it is highly unlikely that (1) would be the premise of any noteworthy argument from abstract objects. So a defender of the argument from abstract objects can agree with Oppy that "the (alleged) fact that there is no agreed naturalistic explanation of how we are able to come by knowledge of mathematics is not a string ground for drawing conclusions about the existence of [God]." But Oppy proceeds to suggest what he thinks is needed for a good argument from abstract objects. He writes:

"If there is to be a worthwhile argument from our knowledge of [abstract objects] to the existence of [God], then it must be the case that the hypothesis, that [God] so made us that we are able to obtain [knowledge of abstracta], is a better explanation of the fact that we are able to come by [knowledge of abstracta] than is any (naturalistic) alternative."

Oppy then says what he takes to be main problem with this strategy; namely, that such a hypothesis "does not provide us with much in the way of details about what it is in virtue of which we are able to obtain [knowledge of abstracta]." He asks, "What is it about the way in which we were (allegedly) made by [God] that makes it possible for us to obtain [knowledge of abstracta]?" But ready replies are available to defenders of the argument.

First, defenders of the argument will likely complain that Oppy misidentifies the strongest form of the argument. The best argument for God from abstracta isn't epistemological, but strictly ontological. Moreover, the logic behind the argument is deductive, being something closer to

(1) If abstracta exist, God exists
(2) Abstracta exist
(3) Therefore, God exists

Not, as Oppy suggests, one that offers a theistic hypothesis as the best (inductive) explanation. Epistemological questions of how we come to have knowledge of abstracta are largely beside the point, unless you can show how the argument entails epistemological difficulties (a la the epistemological argument against Platonism). Second, the defender of the argument from abstract objects has a direct reply to Oppy's question anyway. "What is it about the way in which we were (allegedly) made by [God] that makes it possible for us to obtain [knowledge of abstracta]?" The Christian can point out that humans are created in the image of God, the blueprint of which includes a hook-up between mind and abstracta. For example, Robert Adams writes:

"If God of his very nature knows the necessary truths, and if he has created us, he could have constructed us in such a way that we would at least commonly recognize necessary truths as necessary. In this way there would be a causal connection between what is necessarily true about real objects and our believing it to be necessarily true about them. It would not be an incredible accident or an inexplicable mystery that our beliefs agreed with the objects in this. [Adams, The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology (Oxford, 1987), 218]"

In the absence of a preemptive response to this possibility, or an any equally plausible (naturalistic) alternative, it seems Oppy has done little against the argument from abstract objects. If this wasn't the best example, take a slightly different one. Oppy outlines what he calls "the argument from common consensus":

1. Everyone believes that such-and-such- orthodoxly conceived monotheistic god exists.
2. Propositions that everyone believes must be true.
3. (Therefore) Such-and-such orthodoxly conceived monotheistic god exists.

Of course the criticisms he fires at the argument from consensus are good ones. But who in the world endorses this argument? Certainly not anyone spending $114.66 on a philosophy book published by Cambridge University Press. The brief treatments of the straw-man arguments that make up the whole of chapter 7 (aside from a good discussion on arguments from consciousness) seriously detract from an otherwise masterful book. If your main course is hearty enough, you won't need junk food at the end.

Dr. Oppy's book (along with Dr. Sobel's Logic and Theism) is the strongest atheist book written since Mackie's "The Miracle of Theism". It contains powerful insights into the epistemology of argument and the the main arguments for the existence of God including excellent discussions of the Kalam Cosmological Argument and Godel's Ontological Argument. However, AAB is not for those who are ignorant of philosophy, especially recent philosophy of religion and logic. I would also recommend you reading it along side with Dr. Oppy's other book, "Philosophical Perspectives on Infinity", which tackles all of the associated mathematical questions. These books were originally planned to be one book "God and Infinity", but it would have been too big for a single entity.