In a 1968 Question article, “On Being an Atheist,” H. J. McCloskey expressed
his deep personal commitments to the nonexistence of God.[1]
In this article, McCloskey presents a negative
appraisal of the traditionally-stated cosmological and teleological arguments
for the existence of God; he argues that the so-called problem of evil renders
traditional theism “irrational and foolish,”[2]
and claims that “atheism is a much more [psychologically] comfortable belief
than theism,”[3] in
the face of life’s tumultuous trials. In
response, the following will examine each of these challenges and attempt to
offer counter-arguments from the perspective of minimal theism, which argues
that God’s existence, as rationally demonstrated from the cumulative and
concurrent force of the various traditional arguments, is the best explanation
for the universe and life.
On
the Cosmological Argument for God’s Existence
Concerning
the traditional cosmological argument (CA hereafter), McCloskey complains that “The
mere existence of the world constitutes no reason for believing in the
existence of such a [necessarily existing] being. If we use the causal argument at all…this
does not entitle us to postulate an all-powerful, all-perfect, uncaused cause.”[4] The weight of McCloskey’s objection is felt
and his complaint is heard by the critically thinking theist. Further units of weight could be added to
this objection. For instance, the
traditionally constructed CA attempts to move from the “existence” of the world
to the “existence” of God, the uncaused Cause.
As Evans and Manis explain, “Cosmological arguments are, as the name
implies, attempts to infer the existence
of God from the existence of the
cosmos or universe.”[5] Within the course of the argument, however, the
term “existence” is indiscriminately used of both entities without
qualification. Thus, the apologist
shifts the meaning of “existence” from the natural to the supernatural, the
physical to the metaphysical, and thereby commits the logical fallacy of
equivocation.[6]
Furthermore,
McCloskey draws the reasonable conclusion that, “All we are entitled to infer
[from the CA] is the existence of a cause commensurate with the effect to be
explained, the universe…We must conclude that [God] is either a malevolent
powerful being or that he is a well-intentioned muddler.”[7] With this conclusion, America’s finest
puritan divine, and arguably her finest philosopher, Jonathon Edwards,
concurs.
I cannot tell whether any man would
have considered the works of creation as effects, if he had never been told
they had a cause…But, allowing that every man is able to demonstrate to
himself, that the world, and all things contained therein, are effects, and had
a beginning, which I take to be a most
absurd supposition, and look upon it to be almost impossible for unassisted
reason to go so far, yet, if effects are
to be ascribed to similar causes, and a good and wise effect must suppose a
good and wise cause, by the same way of reasoning, all the evil and
irregularity in the world must be attributed to an evil and unwise cause. So that either the first cause must be
both good and evil, wise and foolish, or else there must be two first causes,
an evil and irrational, as well as a good and wise principle.[8]
By stringent application of the very pattern of reasoning
used by the apologist to frame the CA, causal reasoning, it would appear that
this so-called proof for God’s existence is buried under the weightiness of
these objections. However, just as every
effect has its sufficient cause, the theist argues that these objections have
their efficient counter-arguments.
All good
philosophizing, as well as good theologizing, is borne out of careful
distinctions and delineations. A
minimalist theistic approach readily concedes that certain past constructions
of the CA, and their proponents, claimed too much in their conclusions.[9]
Nevertheless, this concession does not commit one to the view that the CA in
another form is without its valid merits and implications as “a crucial part of a cumulative case for theism.”[10]
According to Evans and Manis, one of the
necessary distinctions, with respect to strengthening the CA, is the
distinction between two species of the argument, between the temporal and nontemporal forms.[11]
The force
of the temporal forms of the CA hangs much, as the name suggests, on the
temporality of the universe. “Temporal
versions of the argument contend (or assume) that the universe had to have a
beginning, a first moment of existence.
A cause is necessary to explain its existence in that first moment, and
God is inferred to be that cause.”[12] The temporal forms posit God as the uncaused
backstop to an otherwise infinite regression of temporal causes. Such a regress, as would logically follow if
an uncaused cause were not posited, would be absurd.[13] Despite the absurdity and irrationality of an
infinite regression of causes, McCloskey seems prepared to embrace it, in
asking, “after all, why must we postulate some ultimate cause?”[14]
Because
atheist philosophers are willing to go to absurd epistemological lengths to
disarm the CA, the temporal form has been subject to a number of difficult
objections. These would include, but are
not limited to, positing the eternality of the universe itself, as McCloskey
suggested above; inferentially pressing that, if every entity requires a cause
for its existence, then God too must require a cause for his existence; that because
the series of cause-and-effect relations has long since begun, the existence of
the first cause is no longer necessary, and charging the temporal form of the
CA with the fallacy of composition, that is, the part-to-whole fallacy.[15] The temporal form has, since its conception
in antiquity, been subject to many formidable criticisms. It is this original, weaker form that
McCloskey’s article addresses and allegedly buries. The nontemporal form, however, alleviates a
number of these problems.
The primary
thrust of the nontemporal form of the CA is that “God is the reason why there is a universe at all,
regardless of whether the universe is young, old or infinitely old.”[16] Nash expresses it by way of a simple pair of
equations. “God minus the world equals
God. The world minus God equals
nothing.”[17] To use an illustration from a series of falling
dominos, in the temporal forms of the CA, God is presented as the necessary
cause that gets the series going; God tips the first domino that subsequently
causes the next to fall, which cause the next to fall, and so forth. The nontemporal form argues that—despite the
temporality of the cosmos—God is the necessary ontological precondition for the existence and continuance of the cosmos. In this, God provides not only the tip of the
first domino in the series but also the surface, the floor or table, on which
the series rests, so to speak.[18] This form of the CA has three integral
features: (1) the principle of sufficient reason, (2) the concept of contingent
being, and (3) the concept of necessary being; these three form the
three-legged stool on which the nontemporal form of the CA rests.
The term
(1) principle of sufficient reason (PSR
hereafter) was coined by Leibniz, but enjoys conceptual precedents as far back
as the pre-Socratics (e.g., Anaximander, Parmenides, Archimedes).[19] The two great rationalists Plato and
Descartes defended the PSR.[20] Plato, in Timaeus
(28a), expressed the PSR, saying, “Now everything that becomes or is created
must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be
created.”[21] According to Spinoza, the PRS is a variant of
the metaphysical axiom ex nihilo, nihil
fit, “from nothing, nothing comes.”[22] The PRS is arguably a necessary precondition
for human inquiry and reasoning.
The PRS has had its dissenters,
however. Hume, the infamous modernist
skeptic, “argues,” as an attending consequent to his critique of the principle
of causation, “that since the ideas of cause and its effect are evidently
distinct, we can clearly conceive or imagine an object without its cause. He
takes the separability of the two ideas to show that there is no necessary
conceptual relation between the ideas of cause and effect insofar as conceiving
the one without the other does not imply any contradiction or absurdity.”[23] In response to Hume, it may first be said
that, “Those who claim that some [or all] events in the world are uncaused are
to that extent irrationalists. Like all
irrationalists, they run into problems when they try to argue their case
rationally! There is no way to prove
rationally (apart, of course, from divine revelation) that any particular event
in the world is causeless.”[24]
Secondly, for sake of the present thesis, Hume’s criticism is a moot
point. Since McCloskey’s objection to
the CA rests on the rigorous use of causal reasoning,[25]
his objection assumes its validity and thereby dismisses Hume’s critique. Thus, Hume’s objection to the PSR may
likewise be dismissed for sake of this present thesis.
Therefore, the PSR is a concept
that may be taken for granted. “As
Richard Taylor sees it, belief in the PSR ‘seems to be almost a part of reason
itself.’”[26] “The nature of reasoning is to inquire after
causes.”[27] Moreover, as Russell, the brilliant atheistic
analytic philosopher of the last century, recognized, “Some at least of these
principles [of thought] must be granted before any argument or proof becomes
possible. When some of them have been
granted, others can be proved, though these others, so long as they are simple,
are just as obvious as the principles taken for granted.”[28] The PSR, then, is a principle of thought that
may be taken for granted with epistemic responsibility and respectability. The first leg of the nontemporal stool is
therefore established.
The second leg of the stool is (2) the
concept of contingent being. It may be reasonably asked, “What is it about
the universe that supports the claim that it requires a cause and that its
cause is God? The usual answer hinges on
what may be termed the contingency of
the universe.”[29] Simply
put, a contingent being is any entity that depends on something else for its
existence; it has its cause, explanation, or sufficient reason in something
other than itself. Subsequently, the
nonexistence of a contingent being is not logically impossible. More formally stated, “If the existence of
some being (call it A) depends on
some other being (B), the
nonexistence of B would entail the
nonexistence of A. The nonexistence of a contingent being is
logically possible.”[30]
Similarly, keeping the logical
notation above, the concept of contingent being can be illustrated by way of
the transcendental form of argument. A
transcendental argument is “an argument that elucidates the conditions for the
possibility of some fundamental phenomenon whose existence is unchallenged or
uncontroversial in the philosophical context in which the argument is
propounded.”[31] Using the transcendental form, it follows
that, if A is the case, then B must necessarily be the case, since B is a necessary or sufficient
precondition of A. A is
the case; therefore B is necessarily
the case.
In this way, any common phenomenon
of human experience may be put for A, and
from A one may infer an ultimate or
necessary cause. Additionally, since any
single contingent feature of experience may be taken up as the major premise,
another unit of logical weight is added to the CA. This offers the nontemporal form of the CA a
luxury that the temporal form McCloskey attacked does not enjoy, namely that
the nontemporal form is not subject to the charge of the fallacy of
composition. The nontemporal form
follows from the indubitable premise that “Some
contingent things exist.”[32] Regarding the entities and events of common
human experience, Evans observes, “they are all contingent: things which do
exist might not have.”[33] In fact, no one has yet discovered anything
but contingent things in our cosmos.[34] Further still, one could argue that our
universe or cosmos—as a whole—is quite easily conceived or imagined to not exist
nor ever come into being. Therefore,
granting the nature of the concept of contingent being, and whether arguing
from the parts or the whole, the second leg of the nontemporal stool is
securely in place.
The concept of contingent being has
as its complimentary counterpart, (3) the concept
of necessary being. “A necessary
being, if it exists, is the compliment of a contingent being,”[35]
as implied several times in the foregoing.
A necessary being is self-caused, self-contained, and thus
self-sufficient. A necessary being would
possess what the old Latin theologians and philosophers called aseity, from a se, which means “from himself.”[36] A necessary being is by definition actus purus, pure actuality. A necessary being therefore depends on
nothing outside or beyond itself for its existence. A necessary being is thereby non-contingent,
but serves as the logical and ontological grounding for the explanation and
existence of all contingent being. Evans
explains the relationship between these two categories of being, as they
related to the CA.
If the cause of a thing is something
contingent, then the existence of that “something” will also require an
explanation. Ultimately, the explanation
of any contingent being’s existence will be incomplete unless it culminates in
the causal activity of a necessary being—a being that cannot fail to exist, a
being that is the cause of the existence of all contingent beings. A necessary being is the only kind of being
whose existence no further explanation.
In short, there is an ultimate explanation for the existence of a
contingent being only if there exists a necessary being.[37]
Hereby, under epistemic compulsion and inevitability, all
being which is not a se, that is,
self-existent, requires for its intelligibility a being which is self-existent,
and thus necessary for contingent being, both logically for its explanation and
ontologically for its existence.
Finally, the third leg of the stool, the concept of necessary being, is
in place for the nontemporal CA.
The full
sum of these three integral concepts, as they relate to and culminate in the
nontemporal form of the CA, is no better expressed than by atheist philosopher J.
L. Mackie.
Nothing occurs without a sufficient
reason why it is so and not otherwise, there must, then, be a sufficient reason
for the world as a whole; a reason why something exists rather than
nothing. Each thing in the world is
contingent, being causally determined by other thing: it would not occur if
other things were otherwise. The world
as a whole, being a collection of such things, is therefore itself
contingent. The series of things and
events, with their causes, with causes of those causes, and so on, may stretch
back infinitely in time; but, if so, then however far back we go, or if we
consider the series as a whole, what we have is still contingent and therefore
requires a sufficient reason outside this series. That is, there must be a sufficient reason for the world which is other than the world. This will have to be a necessary being, which
contains its own sufficient reason for existence. Briefly, things must have a sufficient reason
for their existence, and this must be found ultimately in a necessary
being. There must be something free from
the disease of contingency, a disease that affects everything in the world and
the world as a whole, even if it is infinite in past time.[38]
In light of
the foregoing, McCloskey’s claim that “The mere existence of the world
constitutes no reason for believing in the existence of such a [necessarily
existing] being” may be reevaluated.[39] The PSR in conjunction with the concept of
contingent being drives one to the clear conclusion of the existence of necessary
being. It has been shown that not only
does the mere existence of the world but the entire universe, in part and in
whole, entails the certain existence of necessary being. In fact, a single example of contingent being
within human experience suffices to infer necessary being. The only viable defeater available to
McCloskey and atheists like him, one which would undermine the strength of the
nontemporal CA, is to deny the PSR. It
has been demonstrated, though, that the denial of the PSR leads headlong into
irrationalism. Granted, there have been
and are today philosophers who are willing to reject the PSR and embrace
irrationalism. “So, in the end we are
forced to choose between a first cause and irrationalism. Irrationalism…is self-contradictory. That leaves the cosmological argument is a
strong position indeed.” The minimal
theistic approach to McCloskey’s objection to the CA is therefore vindicated,
by means of the nontemporal form of the argument. Moreover, the implications of the foregoing
could be teased out beyond a minimal or generic theism to a more robust and
consistently Christian conclusion.
Having
concluded that a necessary being, whose existence provides the logical and
ontological grounding for the existence and continuance of the universe—a being
which tips the first domino and is itself the very surface on which the whole
series rests—must exist to account for all contingent existents; and, granting
that under consideration there are only two perspectives, we may infer a further
conclusion, by way of disjunctive syllogism.
Either McCloskey’s atheism or
Christian theism can account for such a necessary being. Atheism plainly cannot account for any entity
beyond the material universe, and is therefore left with only contingent
things. Necessary being is, again,
independent of the universe.
Furthermore, contingent being is, in the final analysis, unintelligible
apart from the sufficient reason of necessary being. Therefore, atheism cannot account for either
necessary being or the final intelligibility of contingent beings and events,
which have their logical explanation in necessary being. The conclusions above, however, are perfectly
congruent with the traditional doctrines of creation and providence, as founded
on the triune God, and as defined and defended by orthodox Christian
theism. Therefore, Christian theism
alone, when contrasted with McCloskey’s atheism, provides the necessary
precondition for the intelligibility of all things contingent.
McCloskey
further complained that the CA does not, in and of itself, entitle the
conclusion of a first cause with certain of the attributes of traditional
theisms’ Deity. Minimal theism grants
this much. It is worth restating that
the CA does not stand alone as a singular, definitive proof for the God of
Christian theism. Rather, it warrants
pride of place among select other arguments in the cumulative case for
Christianity. However, even if taken
alone, the argument goes far enough to put an otherwise skeptical person in a
noetic posture of a willingness to listen to further entailments of the
argument, as demonstrated above, or the several other concomitant arguments and
evidences which work in concurrence with the CA. As Evans and Manis wisely witness, “If
someone should accept the conclusion [of the nontemporal CA], the proper
attitude for him to adopt is surely a desire to learn more about God.”[40] The CA has served as one of the innumerable
means that God has used to bring his elect to himself.
On
the Teleological-Design Argument for God’s Existence
Regarding
the teleological-design argument (TDA hereafter), McCloskey claims that “One
can reject the argument from design by rejecting its premise, that there is
evidence of design and purpose.”[41] “To get the proof going,” he continues,
“genuine indisputable examples of design or purpose are needed.”[42] McCloskey declares that examples that were
once interpreted as obvious tokens of design and purpose have since been
utterly displaced by the theory of evolution.
This, McCloskey believes, is a “very conclusive objection.”[43] Can the TDA be responsibly dismissed so
easily?
An answer
to McCloskey’s allegedly conclusive objection begins by an indirect challenge
to the crux of the objection, namely his criterion of indisputability. Even if we grant the criterion of
indisputability, still McCloskey suggests that many such examples of
indisputable evidences of design and purpose existed by consensus until they were
washed away in the watershed of the evolutionary theory. Were they all washed away, however?
Darwin
himself lists a number of organs that trouble his theory, not least the
eye. Concerning the eye, Darwin admits,
“To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting
the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and
for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been
formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest
possible degree.”[44]
Understandably,
Darwin goes on from these remarks and attempts to explain away the absurdity of
the eye within his theoretical framework.
However, the explanations hardly live up to McCloskey’s criterion of
indisputability. The point is that the
very so-called theory by which McCloskey wishes to wash design and purpose out
from the universe fails to meet the very standard he has set. This is special pleading. Furthermore, since neither view, whether it
be atheistic evolution or minimal theism, can present any example which is
“indisputable,” McCloskey’s criterion is no less seemingly absurd than Darwin’s
evolving-eye. What indisputable evidence
does McCloskey have that indisputability is the proper criterion? It would seem that, in order to get the objection going, as McCloskey likes to put it,
he would be obliged to present such evidence.
If, as
McCloskey believes, evolution has washed away design and purpose, then a more
direct attack on atheistic evolution goes a long way in disarming this sort of
objection to the TDA. Assume atheistic
evolution is true, for argument’s sake, and two conclusions follow that render
McCloskey’s dismissal of the TDA’s first premise perfectly dismissible. First, C. S. Lewis sets up Professor
Haldane’s criticism of evolution by observing that “All possible
knowledge…depends on the validity of reasoning…Unless human reasoning is valid
no science can be true. It follows that
no account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible
for our thinking to be real insight. A
theory which explained everything else in the whole universe but which made it
impossible to believe that our thinking was valid, would be utterly out of
court.”[45] Lewis then cites Haldane’s observation in all
its succinct strength. “If my mental
processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no
reason to suppose that my beliefs are true…and hence I have no reason to
believe my brain to be composed of atoms.”[46] It is seen, then, that if evolution is taken
for granted, and is imagined to eliminate the elements of design and purpose—not
least in human cognitive faculties—then we are left without a reason to trust
our reason. Thus, as Lewis said, the
theory upon which McCloskey’s objection rests should be “utterly out of court.”[47]
A second thing that occurs, if evolution is
accepted as true, is that the theory itself is seen to ride upon the very telos, the purpose and order, McCloskey wishes it to wash away. Bavinck makes this much plain.
In recent years…many practitioners of
the natural sciences have returned to vitalism and even to teleology. The Darwinian doctrine of descent was
initially characterized by the attempt to everywhere substitute the causes for
the purpose, but rather brought to light the indispensability of the
teleological view. The theory of natural
selection, after all, aimed at explaining the functionality of things. Matter, force, and motion are obviously not
enough: there also has to be direction, and direction is inconceivable without
purpose…Teleology and causality certainly do not exclude each other. Anyone positing a goal will then apply the
means needed to reach that goal. There
is even ample room within a teleological worldview for mechanical
causality. The latter only exceeds its
power and competence when it seeks to explain all phenomena in the world, from
matter and metabolism—also the conscious and the mental.[48]
McCloskey’s objection indeed did attempt to displace all
genuine purpose in the universe, and he thought to do so by means of
evolutionary theory. As Bavinck
explains, however, the mechanisms of evolution drive one to, not away from,
teleology in the universe. Without telos,
natural selection is literally going nowhere. Darwinian biology, therefore, presupposes
theistic teleology.
Therefore, even granting the truth
of evolution for argument’s sake, McCloskey’s objection from evolution cannot
get going. If atheistic evolution were
true, then we have no reason for believing it is so. More generously, however, if evolution were
true, then it would presuppose the order and purpose of the major premise of
the theists’ TDA, which McCloskey had hoped it would wash away. It might be said that McCloskey’s objection to
the TDA could be termed the Backwash Fallacy; evolution needs teleology rather
than negates it. At very least the TDA demonstrates the higher degree of
plausibility that theism has against its competitors, especially
evolution. The TDA, like the CA, is an
integral part of the cumulative case for Christian theism, making theism all
the more the best case explanation for the universe and human experience.
On
the Problem of Evil
Beyond his objections
and criticisms of the traditional CA and TDA, McCloskey speaks with even more
certainty on the nonexistence of God based on the so-called problem of
evil. “It is because evil exists,” says
he, “that we believe God does not exist.”[49] McCloskey presents two primary lines of
attack. First, he uses the logical
construction of the problem, hoping to reveal a contradiction between the
existence of evil and the existence of God.
Or, as he declares elsewhere, “There is a clear prima facie case that evil and God are incompatible—both cannot
exist.”[50] Secondly, he anticipates and challenges the
free will theodicy. These will be taken
up in their respective order.
Regarding
McCloskey’s challenge to the logical problem of evil, the answer is
two-fold. First, the atheist must be
challenged on his premise that genuine, objective evil is meaningful, and that
within the confines of an atheistic worldview.
This is to ask, for whom is evil really a problem? McCloskey may be brought under the weight of
his own epistemological criterion mentioned earlier in the section on the TDA,
that is, indisputability. The atheist
must be challenged in his very predication of acts, events, or states of affair
as either evil or good.
McCloskey must, according to his own criterion, provide genuine,
indisputable examples of evil in human experience, and also provide a
universal, objective, and absolute standard by which to judge X as good or evil. McCloskey has, in the final analysis, only
three options: some form of (1) social relativism, (2) personal relativism, or (3)
consequentialism.[51]
None of
these three options is able to provide the necessary standard to meaningfully
predicate evil to any thing or situation.
If (1) social relativism is the case, then Hitler’s Nazi regime was
indeed doing “good” in their extermination of the Jews, Pols, Christians, and
Gypsies, since that society deemed the presence of such political nonconformists
as “evil” and their elimination as “good.”
Trans-social ethic judgments are meaningless, if social relativism is
the case. Such judgments are
meaningfully made all the time by all people, however; therefore, social
relativism itself is meaningless.
Alternatively, (2) personal
relativism is another option for McCloskey.[52] However, assuming the truth of personal
relativism, for argument’s sake, when two individuals predicate some event X as “evil,” they are not saying the
same thing at all. For example, if Kevin
says, “Child molestation is ‘evil’” and Bryan says, “Child molestation is ‘evil,’”
neither means what the other does. Both Bryan
and Kevin are only describing the subjective feelings and disposition each
personally holds toward the proposition.
What Bryan feels and what Kevin feels are not identical. Therefore, the proposition “child molestation
is evil” has as many meanings as it has individual persons who state it. Hence, according to personal relativism, the
proposition “child molestation is evil” is hardly different than “my tummy is
sour.” Both propositions may be incorrigible
beliefs, but neither says a thing about objective, absolute standards of
morality or their application.
Finally,
McCloskey could opt for some flavor of (3) consequentialism, such as
utilitarianism. Utilitarianism envisages
the greatest happiness or good for the greatest number.[53] “The irrelevance of such a notion for making
ethical determinations is that one would need to be able to rate and compare
happiness, as well as to be able to calculate all of the consequences of any
given action or trait. This is simply
impossible for finite minds (even with the help of computers).”[54] Clark concurs and further presses the need
for a means of calculation.
If it were possible, the question would
still remain whether the calculation could be complete and correct…The
possibility of measurement depends on the identity of a unit. In order to measure heat, a degree of
temperature had to be invented. No one
has yet invented a unit of pleasure [or happiness, or good, etc.]; therefore
there can be no sum. There must also be
a unit of pain [or unhappiness, or evil, etc.], and this unit must be
commensurable with the unit of pleasure.
One cannot add an inch to a degree to an ounce and get a total. It is doubtful that pains and pleasures are
commensurable, and at any rate there is no unit. Therefore, the required calculation is
impossible.[55]
From these
three alternatives, by which McCloskey could predicate any given situation or
entity X as either good or evil, it
is demonstrable that the atheist completely lack a veritable, “indisputable” criteria
for making ethical judgments, much less speak meaningfully about the existence
of “evil.” Thus, as Bahnsen concludes,
“Philosophically speaking, the problem of evil turns out to be, therefore, a
problem for the unbeliever himself. In
order to use the argument from evil against the Christian worldview, he must
first be able to show that his judgments about the existence of evil are
meaningful—which is precisely what his unbelieving worldview is unable to do.”[56] Evans and Manis add, “The charge of
contradiction,” that McCloskey and other atheists make, “is a strong one, and
the burden of proof is on them to show exactly what the contradiction is. Unless they can do so, there is no good
reason to conclude,” as McCloskey does above, “that the existence of evil proves that there is no God.”[57] McCloskey cannot get his objection from evil
going, since on his presuppositions he is perfectly unable to present a
genuine, indisputable example of evil.
Secondly,
then, McCloskey challenges the free will defense by asking, “might not God have
very easily so have arranged the world and biased man to virtue that men always
freely chose what is right?”[58] Both this question and its answer are
subtle.
The crux of
this challenge is the supposition that it is logically possible that God could
create a possible world wherein genuine human freedom exists and evil does
not. In response to this challenge, as
articulated by atheologian J. L. Mackie, Plantinga has developed what he has
termed the Free Will Defense.[59] Premised on the concept of libertarian human
freedom (a premise that Plantinga assumes only for sake of argument),[60]
and the law of non-contradiction, Plantinga argues that certain logically
possible states of affairs could obtain by, which God would be prevented from
the possibility of creating a world of both autonomous humans and evil.
Roughly illustrated, consider two
propositions. (1) S freely performs action P. (2) S
freely performs action ~P. It is easily granted that both
propositions represent logically possible states of affairs; either proposition
may be true, but it cannot be the case that both are true (at the same time in
the same sense). If God created an
actual world in which (1) is true, then there is a possible world that would be
logically impossible for God to create, namely a world in which (2) is
true. It turns out that if we assume
libertarian free will, and we assume that either (1) or (2) must be true, then
there are logically possible worlds which even an omnipotent being cannot bring
into existence.[61] Therefore,
we may grant that McCloskey utopian vision of a world of absolutely free moral
actors and free of evil is possible, but it is logically possible that certain
possible worlds cannot be created by God, and such has no bearing on the
attribute of omnipotence. The alleged
omniscience problem is eclipsed by a logical problem, which makes the objection
from evil no real problem.
On
Atheism as Comforting
Imagine
yourself in a Boeing 747 with 378 other passengers on board. You are trying to get comfortable enough to take
a nap in your middle coach seat. The
flight is from New York to London. Far
more comforting than the coach seat is the fact that you know that someone, who
is perfectly able, is controlling this half-million pound bullet cruising over
the Atlantic at nearly Mach 1. Suddenly,
over the intercom comes the frantic announcement that your greatest comfort,
the pilot, is dead. No one else on the
plane has the competency or capacity to take his place. You sense the speed increasing as you feel
the nose of the plane tip toward the black icy waters thousands of feet
below. Imagine further, the plane is this
world, the passengers are humanity, and the ocean is a universal nihilistic
heat death with only more nothingness at bottom. This
is the cosmos that Nietzsche described as the “absolutization of nothingness.”[62] This imaginary horror story is just one
logical entailment of McCloskey’s atheistic worldview.
Jean-Paul
Sartre was a relatively consistent atheist.
He recognized that no finite point has any meaning unless it has an
infinite reference point.[63] With this remark, the consistent theist
readily agrees. To state the argument
negatively, if there is no God, then there is no meaning in human
experience. Even the scriptures make
this plain. Thus says the Preacher,
So I returned, and considered all the
oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were
oppressed, and they had no comforter;
and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. Wherefore
I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet
alive.
Yea, better is he than both they, which
hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun
(Eccl. 4:1—3 KJV).
Indeed, humanity left alone under the sun, without God, is
summed well up by the Preacher. “Vanity
of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity!” (1:2).
Without God, who is the Comforter (Jn. 14:16, 26; 16:7), there is no comfort
for the creature. Not only is God the
Comforter, he is likewise the infinite reference point, the necessary
precondition, of any comfort we may extend to others and by which we console ourselves
(2 Cor. 1:4). Thus, for the Christian
theist the doxological verse rings true, “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
mercies, and the God of all comfort”
(1:3, italics added).
Did God foreknow, even foreordain,
all the suffering and evil experienced in his world? The biblical response is yes. Does this, then, involve mystery within the
theistic frame of reference?
Indeed. As Carson notes, however,
“To say that something is mysterious is not to say that nothing can be said of
it.”[64] Much may be said about suffering and evil,
God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, creation, fall, and providence, and
many other related doctrines of Christian theism. On the one hand, then, the theist can say something, in fact many things about
evil and its answer. McCloskey, on the
other hand, as seen above, cannot even get the conversation started. The atheistic worldview fails to provide the
necessary conditions for meaningful contemplation and conversation about the
human predicament; much less can it provide a solution. So, again, because the theist has an infinite
reference point for meaningfully predicating suffering and calamity and its
solution and comfort, and the atheist cannot, the argument for the comforting
nature of theism can be made from the impossibility of the contrary. If there is no God, then there is no final
meaning, as Sartre candidly confessed.
If there is no final meaning; then suffering and evil has no real meaning. If human suffering is ultimately meaningless,
then the notion of atheistic comfort is utterly meaningless. Therefore, if there is no God, as McCloskey
argues, then the notion of comfort is utterly meaningless. In McCloskey’s worldview, the plane is going
down and there is not even a reason to care, much less comfort.
Conclusion
In the
foregoing, it has been seen that McCloskey’s negative assessment of the traditional
cosmological and teleological arguments for God’s existence is
unwarranted. Many of McCloskey’s several
objections to the temporal CA, admittedly, carried some logical weight. However, the nontemporal form of the CA
creates a dilemma, either one accepts the conclusion for God or embraces irrationalism. Against the TDA, McCloskey demanded
indisputable examples of purpose and design before conceding the major premise. This criterion is unreasonable. McCloskey further suggested that evolutionary
theory washed design and purpose from the universe. However, evolution itself, if accepted, needs
the very purpose he needed to be rid of.
What is more is that evolutionists simply cannot produce the
indisputable evidence for their theory that McCloskey himself requires of
others. McCloskey therefore refutes
himself. Both the CA and the TDA survive
McCloskey’s criticisms, and both serve as strong elements of a cumulative case
for Christian theism.
Mixed
throughout the undercurrent of the entire article, however, was McCloskey’s
fixation on the so-called problem of evil, serving as his linchpin argument
against theism. It was demonstrated that
with this argument, when left with only the ethical paradigms available to
atheists—personal or social relativism, or consequentialism—McCloskey simply
does not have the necessary presuppositions for making meaningful ethical
judgments. This neuters the atheistic
challenge from evil, since upon such a worldview moral predication is merely
subjective. Moreover, his challenge to
God’s omnipotence, suggesting that God could have and should have created a
world of free men and freedom of evil, was disarmed by Plantinga’s Free Will
Defense. Plantinga’s argument
demonstrated that, granting genuine free will in man, there are possible worlds
that God is logically unable to
create. Hence, the charge that theism,
from the existence of evil, has a source of serious incoherence within its
framework was eliminated.
Finally,
despite McCloskey’s argument against theism as comforting, it was seen that
atheism cannot even provide meaningful evidence that humanity is in need of
comfort. Atheism renders all our cries,
calamities, cares, and comforting unintelligible. Therefore, McCloskey’s article is not so much
a good argument for atheism as it is a mere expression of it. Additionally, while no single argument for
minimal theism will rationally and logically drive one to find their rest in
God, by the work of the Holy Spirit, these theistic ‘proofs’ help to dispose
one to a posture much closer to kneeling, closer to kneeling before the
cross-throne of Jesus Christ.
Bibliography
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Always Ready: Directions for Defending
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Press, 2004.
Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation. Vol.
2, edited by John Bolt. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004.
Beckwith, Francis
J. and Gregory Koukl. Relativism: Feet
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Audi, 925—926. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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Schaeffer,
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[1]
McCloskey, H. J. “On Being an Atheist,” Question,
no. 1 (1968, February): 51—54.
[2]
Ibid., 52.
[3]
Ibid., 51. Brackets and term added by
present writer for clarity.
[4]
Ibid., 51. Brackets imported from McCloskey’s earlier comments within the same
paragraph for clarity’s sake.
[5]
C. Stephen Evans and R. Zachary Manis, Philosophy
of Religion: Thinking About Faith. 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL:
IVP Academic, 2009), 67. Italics added for emphasis.
[6]
Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. 2nd
ed. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998), 136.
[7]
McCloskey, “On Being an Atheist,” 51, 52.
Brackets added.
[8]
As cited by Reymond, A New Systematic
Theology, 138—39. Italics original.
[9]
See, e.g., Evans and Manis, Philosophy of
Religion, 70, 77.
[10]
Ibid., 70. Italics original.
[11]
Ibid., 68.
[12]
Ibid.
[13]
John M. Frame, Apologetics to the Glory
of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1994), 110—12.
[14]
McCloskey, “On Being an Atheist,” 52.
[15]
Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 70—73.
[16]
Ibid., 69. Italics added.
[17]
Ronald H. Nash, Faith and Reason: Searching
for a Rational Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988), 125.
[18]
Ibid.
[19]
Yitzhak Melamed, “Principle of
Sufficient Reason,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, September 14, 2010, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/
(accessed December 05, 2011).
[20]
Ibid.
[21]
Plato, “Timaeus.” in Plato: Collected
Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1989), 1161.
[22]
Melamed, “Principle of Sufficient Reason,” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/.
[23]
Ibid.
[24]
Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God, 111.
Brackets added; parenthesis original.
[25]
McCloskey, “On Being an Atheist,” 51.
[26]
As cited by Nash, Faith and Reason, 127.
[27]
Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God, 111.
[28]
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of
Philosophy (New York, NY: Barnes and Noble, 2004), 49—50. Brackets added for clarity.
[29]
Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 69.
Italics original.
[30]
Nash, Faith and Reason, 127.
Parentheses original.
[31]
Anthony Brueckner, “Transcendental Argument,” in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed., ed.
Robert Audi (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 925.
[32]
Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 70.
Italics added to emphasize the particularistic nature of the claim.
[33]
Ibid., 69.
[34]
Nash, Faith and Reason, 127. Op cit.
[35]
Ibid., 128.
[36]
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishers, 1994), 160.
[37]
Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 69.
[38]
As cited by Nash, Faith and Reason,
128.
[39]
McCloskey, “On Being an Atheist,” 51.
[40]
Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 77.
[41]
McCloskey, “On Being an Atheist,” 52.
[42]
Ibid.
[43]
Ibid.
[44]
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species By
Means of Natural Selection: or, The Preservation of the Favoured Races in the
Struggle for Life (New York, NY: Avenel Books), 217.
[45]
C. S. Lewis, Miracles (New York, NY:
Harper Collins, 2001), 21.
[46]
Ibid., 22.
[47]
More recently, other Christian philosophers have developed similar yet more
sophisticated lines of this reasoning.
Plantinga, for instance, has developed what he terms Darwin’s Doubt. See Alvin Plantinga, “Is Naturalism
Irrational?” in The Analytic Theist: An
Alvin Plantinga Reader, ed. James F. Sennett, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1998), 72—96.
[48]
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: God
and Creation, vol. 2, edited by John Bolt (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2004), 83.
[49]
McCloskey, “On Being an Atheist,” 52.
[50]
H. J. McCloskey, “God and Evil,” in Readings
in the Philosophy of Religion: An Analytic Approach, 2nd ed.,
ed. Baruch A. Brody (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc, 1974), 277.
[51]
Gregory Bahnsen, Always Ready: Directions
for Defending the Faith, ed. Robert R. Booth (Nacogdoches, TX: Covenant
Media Press, 2004), 168—169.
[52]
For a sound, tough-minded response to both social relativism and personal
relativism see Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Books, 1998).
[53]
Gordon H Clark, “Utilitarianism,” in Baker
Dictionary of Christian Ethics, ed. Carl F. H. Henry (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Book House, 1973), 691.
[54]
Bahnsen, Always Ready, 168—169.
Parenthesis original.
[55]
Clark, “Utilitarianism,” 691. Brackets added.
[56]
Bahnsen, Always Ready, 169.
[57]
Evans and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 168.
[58]
McCloskey, “On Being an Atheist,” 53.
[59]
See Alvin Plantinga, “Free Will Defense,” in The Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader, ed. James F.
Sennett, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 22—49.
[60]
See Evans and Manis, Philosophy of
Religion, 166. That Plantinga would actually affirm the doctrine of
libertarian human freedom is certainly unlikely, since such would be contrary
to his otherwise Calvinistic theology as the founder of what is called Reformed
Epistemology, which rests firmly on the teachings and doctrines of Calvin and
the Reformed tradition.
[61]Evans
and Manis, Philosophy of Religion, 165. Op cit.
[62]
Strauss, James D. “Nihilism,” in Baker
Dictionary of Christian Ethics, ed. Carl F. H. Henry (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Book House, 1973), 462.
[63]
As cited by Francis A. Schaeffer, He is
There and He is Not Silent, in Trilogy:
Three Essential Books in One (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 277.
[64]
Donald A. Carson, How Long, O Lord?: Reflections
on Suffering and Evil, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2006), 205.
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