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The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism (Veritas)

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J.P. Moreland's The Recalcitrant Imago Dei is a work that outlines a case against naturalism based on what a Christian would define as the "image of God." These recalcitrant (as far as naturalism is concerned) facts include consciousness, free will, rationality, a substantial soul, objective morality, and intrinsic value.

J.P. Moreland has, I believe, outlined a rather magnficent critique of naturalism in this work. Chapter by chapter, he lays out philosophical defeaters for naturalism that are based on some of the most basic facts of human life. Each chapter contains clear, though often intellectually challenging, arguments against naturalism based on such things as consciousness or free will.

The chapter on Consciousness was, I believe, great, but I've read almost all the material in other works (specifically, J.P. Moreland's Consciousness and the Existence of God and William Lane Craig/Moreland's Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology). I believe that current apologists are certainly on to something when they consider the argument from consciousness, which I would consider a rather impressive defeater of naturalism. Moreland's version of the argument is actually an argument for theism, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes it even better.

The next chapter considers the case of the freedom of the will. I believe that Moreland is correct in suggesting that naturalism generally, and physicalism specifically are almost certainly defeaters of the freedom of the will. Morelands argument in this chapter is again similar to some of his other works (here it would be Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview), but there is some material here that is both not recycled and very useful. I believe that this is a chapter I will continue to open to in my debates with physicalists.

One argument that continues to pique my interest is the argument from rationality. In this chapter, Moreland doesn't so much employ an argument from reason for the existence of God as he uses the existence of reason as a defeater for naturalism. I believe many of the aspects of the argument from reason tend to mirror some of the teleological argument's claims, and because of this I generally am biased against it, but I find Moreland's methodology of using it against naturalism rather than as a proof for God quite interesting and will probably use it in application.

The chapter on the substantial soul is, I believe, less useful as an argument against naturalism (I think naturalists who argue that the soul is a physical object are, well, generally ignored nowadays), but the chapter contains several pages of highly useful definitions. It's another chapter I will almost certainly continue to open to in order to clearly outline my responses.

Objective morality is a continual problem that I don't see naturalism having any way around. I'm a huge advocate of the moral argument, and while Moreland doesn't advance any specific moral argument in this chapter, he uses the idea of objective morality as a defeater for naturalism (and vice versa). Further, he argues that naturalism has no way to give humans intrinsic value, due to the idea that, according to naturalism, humans are merely animals and have no significant differences between them and, say, a dog as far as the physical world is concerned. His discussion in this chapter and the previous chapter on the errors of various philosophers using species relations when they should be discussing genus relations is highly interesting, though I'm unsure of the applicability.

The appendix has a few useful things, but it is mostly just Moreland observing various philosophical trends. He does offer an argument against naturalistic dismissivism that I will probably make use of in the future.

Overall, The Recalcitrant Imago Dei is a fantastic work. Although some portions of it are clearly recycled, including almost an entire chapter, it is a work that I will almost certainly use again and again. Moreland's style of writing is almost always clear, but he sometimes suffers from an overuse of philosophical terms that are usually obvious in meaning, but could probably have been better said in a simpler fashion (like qualia, desiderata, etc.). I got this book hoping it would have some good arguments in it to help formulate a general critique of naturalism and I was not disappointed. I recommend this book highly, but be aware of the fact that it is certainly not easy reading.

This book is a concise, deep, challenging, and wide-ranging critique of philosophical naturalism. It argues that there are several aspects of reality which naturalism is unable to account for but that theism can: consciousness, free will, rationality, morality, value, and a substantial human soul. The arguments are controversial and many will disagree, but I would urge anyone who has the time and inclination to read and think about this book, if you are wondering whether naturalism is the most rational worldview, or more rational than theism. If Moreland is right, and I think he is, theism has more explanatory power regarding many central aspects of human persons. I don't agree with everything in the book, of course, but the case is very well made.

Rather than summarizing the entire book, as a previous reviewer has already done, I will focus on the last chapter which is entitled "Naturalism, Objective Morality, Intrinsic Value and Human Persons." Moreland begins the chapter by noting 3 features of the moral order:

1. objective, intrinsic value and an objective moral law;

2. the reality of human moral action; and

3. intrinsic value and human rights.

His claim is that these features of moral reality fit very well within a biblical theistic worldview. By contrast, some naturalist philosophers believe that naturalism yields defeaters for these aspects of moral reality. Moreland alludes to naturalists John Bishop and Michael Ruse as examples of such philosophers. (As a side note, other naturalists, such as Erik Wielenberg, would disagree. But Moreland's points count against a naturalist view which seeks to accomodate such non-natural properties within its ontology if he's right that these features have better metaphysical fit within a theistic framework.)

Moreland offers an argument that the following features are defeaters for a naturalist worldview. To fully appreciate and evaluate his argument of course requires reading the chapter in the book, but I'll give a quick summary of his points.

1. The existence of objective moral value: If the universe starts with the Big Bang, and over its history we find the arrangement of microphysical entities into increasingly complex physical compounds, how does value arise? How can a naturalist, as a naturalist, embrace non-natural, objective, values?

2. The nature of the moral law: The moral order presents itself imperatively, that is, as something which commands action. The sense of guilt one feels for falling short of the moral law is best explained if a good God is the source or ultimate exemplification of that law. As Moreland puts it, "One cannot sense shame and guilt towards a Platonic form (p. 147)."

3. The instantiation of morally relevant value properties: Even if a naturalist allows for the existence of some Platonic realm of the Forms, the naturalist has no explanation for why these universals were and are instantiated in the physical universe.

4. The intersection of intrinsic value and human persons: How is it that human beings are able to do as morality requires, and that such obedience to the moral law also happens to contribute to human flourishing? Theism has an obvious answer to such questions, but it is not clear, and is far from obvious, how naturalism would account for this.

5. Knowledge of intrinsic value and the moral law: Given that such values are not empirically detectable and cannot stand in physical causal relations with the brain, how is it that we could know such things? Evolutionary explanations fall short because of what is selected for in such processes on naturalistic versions of evolutionary theory.

6. The nature of moral action: Here, I will simply quote Moreland, "...evolutionary naturalism would seem to predict a world of wantons. Since genuine moral agents understand moral duty and conflicts involving moral duty, wantons cannot be depicted as such. What is at issue is whether evolutionary naturalism has the intellectual resources to avoid implying a wanton world. In my view, evolutionary naturalism does not have those resources (p. 153)."

7. An adequate answer to the question, "Why should I be moral?": Both naturalists and theists can respond, "Because it is the moral thing to do." But beyond this, when thinking about the question outside of the moral point of view, the issue becomes why is it rational to adopt the moral point of view rather than an egoistic one? According to Moreland, this is a problem for the naturalist. But the theist can offer a variety of reasons to adopt the moral point of view--the moral law is true; it is an expression of the non-arbitrary character of a good, loving, wise, and just God; and we were designed to function properly when living a moral life.
The rest of the chapter includes a discussion of the value of human beings and rights, and I'll leave it to the interested reader to explore.

The book is easily worth the price, and I highly recommend it for those inclined to do the work of reading and considering the arguments it contains.

It is sad that the book is outside of the $20 comfort-zone of most wallets. Many people will find this book tempting based on reviews and descriptions, then pass it up because of the expense. Do not be one of those people if the topics involved interest you. This book is gold. The previous reviewer said all that really needs saying. I will add that Moreland's book does not so much prove that God exists so much as it proves that atheistic naturalism ("physicalism") is intrinsically untenable (or at least unreasonable) for obvious reasons not often considered. That is enough to seriously altar the nature of the philosophical dialogue between the theist and the atheist.

Buy this book.