Arguing about Gods 1st Edition

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 simpler 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 $120 on a philosophy book published by Cambridge University Press. And certainly no philosopher who has defended the consensus gentium argument. (e.g., Loren Meierding, "The Consensus Gentium Argument," Faith and Philosophy 15/3 (1998), pp. 271-297. Linda Zagzebski, "Epistemic Self-Trust and the Consensus Gentium Argument," and Thomas Kelly, "Consensus Gentium: Reflections on the `Common Consent' Argument for the Existence of God" in Clark and VanArragon (eds.), Evidence and Religious Belief (Oxford, 2011), chs. 2, 8.).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.

Oppy provides a masterful and in depth examinations of the major arguments for and against God critiquing in depth the major arguments concerning God's existence. While he focuses mostly on the arguments for God, including the cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments, he also spends time criticizing the argument from evil, and tempering the conclusions that can reasonably be made from it.

Given Oppy's skilled dismantling of theistic arguments, as well as his stance of being "firmly of the belief that there are no supernatural entities of any kind," it may come as a surprise that he still concludes that there are no arguments, either for or against the existence of God, that ought to change a rational person's mind. But surely there must be some beginning stance that is more rational than another, and which could be the deciding factor in the rationality of theism. Arguing About Gods could have seriously benefited from an examination of the burden of proof, or what presuppositions count as rational.

Even given Oppy's measured conclusions, the book still provides plenty of resources for readers to form their own conclusions, and there are few books that provide a deeper coverage of the arguments. This book will provide much food for thought for those who are already familiar with academic philosophy, and who are looking for one of the best argued and well thought out books on philosophy of religion.

In contrast with most, if not all, of the other reviewers of this book, I write my comments as a Christian theist. At this time I have browsed, not carefully read the book, so perhaps my conclusion will change later, but I purchased the book because it's description reflected an observation I have made with increasing conviction the longer I live: that God has leveled the playing field, so that people have access to Him not on the basis of the power of their minds, but on the basis of the purity of their motives. As Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Matt. 5:8 NIV). It seems to me, then, that reasonable people who WANT to find justification for belief in God will do so, while those who do NOT WANT to believe in God will find convincing arguments for disbelief. That, it appears to me, is the conclusion of Graham Oppy in Arguing about Gods, though he would frame it differently. I think my fellow atheist reviewers have it wrong: Oppy, regardless of his personal worldview, is not dismantling theism and strengthening atheism's position; that appears to be a projection of their own wishful thinking. In fact, the controlling sentence of the entire book is this one: "I think that such theists and atheists are mistaken. While they may be entirely within their rights to suppose that the arguments that they defend are sound, I do not think that they have any reason to suppose that their arguments are rationally compelling, that is, that they provide reasonable opponents with compelling internal reasons to change their views" (p. 34). As a Christian theist--and as someone who has read a fair amount about theory construction and about the philosophy and psychology of science--Oppy's view makes sense to me. All theory and data are interdependent, and no worldview develops without untestable (and often unacknowledged) presuppositions, including worldviews heavily indebted to science, for science itself proceeds on the basis of assumptions that are not scientifically valid and falsifiable, such as faith in the regularity of nature and in the reliability of mental processes. Therefore, I accept Oppy's demonstration that theistic arguments are not compelling, in the sense that no rational person could possibly disagree. I only wish many atheists were as even-handed as Oppy, for it seems that too many times any limitation noted in an intellectual defense of theism is interpreted as a defeat of that defense rather than simply a humbling of it. And isn't that precisely the kind of arrogant overconfidence that Oppy is trying to dispell? Rational people, because of the internal logic of their system of thinking, can arrive at different conclusions because they begin with different presuppositions, values, and motivations. I recommend the book for thinkers who can keep their biases in check. If the reader is looking for "evidence" for his or her worldview, the value and point of the book will be lost. I also suggest some additional reading in the disciplines of theory construction, philosophy of science, and psychology of science, since knowledge about these disciplines would help address one of the noted weaknesses in this book: insufficient attention to the relative merits of competing presuppositions, known in philosophy of science as "abduction" or inference to the best explanation.