Last month, Russell Blackford took part in a debate in the Australian “Intelligence Squared” series on the topic “atheists are wrong.” The video is now available on ABC’s website.
There were six (!) speakers in the debate, and Russell was by far the best. Jane Caro was funny and made some good points, though her focus was really too narrow. In the future, I hope Russell does some one-on-one debates.
But Russell isn’t what really stood out. The most notable thing was how awful the arguments on the affirmative side were. Here’s a snippet of the speech given by Anglican archbishop Peter Jensen:
My problem with many contemporary atheists is that they seem like flat-earthers: they look at our world, its origin, character, nature and history, and declare that it can all be explained on simple materialistic principles. They are simplistic. They turn a world charged with grandeur into grey on grey. They forget that William of Ockham and even Galileo are actually ours, not theirs.They fail to give an adequate account of all reality. How can something come from nothing? How does the personal arise from the impersonal? Where does the moral law come from? What is love? What is the good life? What do we make of the constant, almost universal religious experience of human beings? What are the limits of science?
I know that atheists have their answers, but the answers are commonly stressed out in trying to avoid the obvious.
This amounts to a very un-self-aware version of “it’s just obvious I’m right.” Combined with that are two obvious fallacies: bundling up atheism with a narrow philosophical materialism, and treating “God did it” as the default answer to any questions we have trouble answering (though I’m a little confused by some of his questions: does he think the limits of science are God?).
I’m pointing this out just because some religion critic critics (in particular critics of Dawkins and Dennett) have the idea that nobody makes arguments as terrible as the ones they attack, or at least nobody of any importance. But in fact you get arguments like this not just from Ray Comfort, but also from philosophy professors, theologians, and church higher-ups.
Chris,
The quote that you have from the archbishop is certainly displays a lack of rigor, carefulness, and development, but is it really fallacious? When one speaks in generalities, it is all to easy for another person to turn it around and say something like “Hasty Generalization Fallacy”. Would you say that it is false that most atheists are committed to the view that the universe can be explained on entirely materialistic principles? There is a reason people bundle these concepts together. Sure, there are exceptions to this rule (certain forms of Buddhism are the obvious example), but the bundling of atheism with some form of materialism/physicalism/naturalism is not entirely unwarranted. We could don our philosopher’s cap and nit pick as to whether epiphenomenalism, or some supervening qualia are compatible with “narrow philosophical materialism” or whether one who is a Platonist about numbers can and still be a physicalist about reality. But those are tangential to the overarching point that most atheists are committed to a purely natural account of the universe. Most lay people would call this view “materialism”. And I think the charitable person would understand the archbishop to be making that point.
I am not really sure that the second fallacy is being committed here either. “God of the gaps” is a kind of argument from ignorance. The archbishop commits this fallacy only if he reasons that because the atheist cannot account for phenomena x, y, and z, that theism is true. But it seems to me that his point is 1)atheism fails to provide an account for x, y, and z and 2) theism provides an account for x, y, and z that comports to our experience of those phenomena. Therefore, theism offers a better account of reality and is to be preferred to atheism. This is not ad ignorantiam but an inductive argument for the best explanation (and a weak one in this case). The atheist’s task, then, should be to argue why theism does not provide a good account for x, y, and z. It is merely a straw man to say that the theist offers no reasons to think theism is true. Again, the charitable person would assess the strength of the claim that theism can account for those phenomena. The archbishop’s case is not very well developed, though we have a sense that he does think theism can provide explanations for those phenomena. He only had time to partially develop the historicity of Jesus argument, and only in a partial thumbnail sketch.
Generally speaking, panel-style debates are like this. The speakers have no time to develop their points and so the audience is left scratching their heads. But we shouldn’t assume that since someone didn’t have the time to fully develop their case, that they are committing the fallacy of arguing from ignorance. That, in itself, is an example of the fallacy of arguing from ignorance, i.e. because the archbishop did not fully draw out his argument, he did not have an argument for his claims at all.
*Apologies for not closing my italics above!
Hmmm… well, Jensen did qualify that he was talking about “contemporary atheists,” so maybe he didn’t mean make a claim about atheism itself, but just the currently dominant crop of atheists. But then he ends up saying something like “Oh, I don’t really have a problem with not believing in God, it’s just Dawkins’ et al’s darn materialism that gets me.” I don’t think he wanted to say that, but then, I wonder if he knew what he wanted to say.
In any case, your proposed reading of Jensen’s argument is also fallacious. You seem to be assuming that any account is automatically better than no account, but sometimes, all the explanations you can come up with have nothing to recommend them, and you have to admit you don’t know the right explanation. Plus, it’s misleading to complain about atheism not being able to do X, it’s like complaining about a-unicornism not doing enough.
I think the stupid argument is the “accounting for the moral law” argument as if it were a Law in the senses that the laws of physics and chemistry are laws independent of human agents.
1. The guy’s a bishop, so he probably actually believes that moral law is the same kind of law as physics and chemistry. It is a standard apologetic tactic to claim this, and then insist that the other side explain why “the moral law” isn’t an objective fact of the universe. This is because apologists are all weasels.
2. Inferences to the best explanation and arguments from ignorance may not be exactly the same thing, but they’re close.
Argument from ignorance:
a. You can’t explain X.
b. Therefore Y explains X.
Inference to the best explanation as used in religious discourse:
a. You can’t explain X.
b. I have a hypothesis that explains X.
c. I have arbitrarily disallowed admitting that we haven’t got a good explanation of X.
d. I have also arbitrarily declared that believing some explanation is better than believing no explanation.
e. Therefore, if you accept all of the above, we should provisionally accept my hypothesis.
f. Because I’m a total jerk, I’m going to elide from that to a claim that we should conclusively accept my hypothesis.
Chris,
You said:
1. I did not endorse Jensen’s argument. In fact, I was critical of it. So I think you may have missed my point. I was merely suggesting that it was not an argument from ignorance. I do not think that any given explanation is preferable to admitting ignorance. But if the archbishop has reasons to think his theism can account for a given phenomenon, we should evaluate those claims to see if they stand up to critical scrutiny.
2. I don’t think your unicorn example makes the point you want it to make. There in fact was a phenomenon that needs to be explained: the existence of long horns that would wash up on the beach. So the “unicornist” said that those horns are best explained through the existence of unicorns, who shed their horns either in battle, or throughout their lives like certain kinds of deer. If I follow what you are saying, you think the “a-unicornist” should simply say that there is no explanation for these horns at all and we need not explain what they are or where they come from. But we can offer a better explanation for those horns. We know that horns actually came from narwhals, whose horns still wash up on beaches. We can do genetic testing on them, and compare them to those horns in the past that were thought to be unicorn horns. So I think the “a-unicornists” have offered better explanations for a given phenomenon than their unicornists counter-parts. So if you are correct that sometimes no explanation is preferable to a bad explanation, I don’t think unicorns are the best analogy to make this point. Do you have another?
My comment about unicorns was a bit cryptic, let me explain further: Imagine a believer in unicorns saying, “My belief in unicorns fills me with a sense of wonder, and a-unicornism can’t provide a sense of wonder.” I take it that this is technically true, but misleading: people who disbelieve in unicorns may experience a sense of wonder at the universe, but it isn’t their “a-unicornism” that’s providing them with this. In other words, just because non-belief can’t provide something doesn’t mean non-believers can’t have it.
But on the “a bad explanation is worse than no explanation” point: you stress that Jensen thought the God hypothesis “can account” for certain things. But just because something is a possible account doesn’t make it any good. I couldn’t find my keys yesterday and until I found them was totally stumped as to what might have happened to them. In a sense, one possible explanation was “God made my keys disappear.” But “magical gnomes stole my keys” is also, in a sense, a possible explanation. The mere possibility of those explanations does not justify inferring either of them.
Chris,
I agree with you that we should not uncritically prefer bad explanations to lack of explanations. However, I still think you are not properly characterizing the situation.
Jensen is not saying that atheists merely lack explanations for certain phenomena. He is saying that their explanations fail. I take this to mean much more than “Atheists have yet to explain x, y, or z” or “Atheists reserve judgment on how to explain x, y, and z”. The claim is that materialistic atheism cannot, even in principle, adequately account for certain phenomena.
So let us suppose the following:
1. Phenomena x, y, and z are undisputed facts of reality.
2. World-View A, though logically coherent, cannot in principle adequately explain phenomena x, y, and z.
3. World-View B is logically coherent and it can in principle adequately explain phenomena x, y, and z.
I think if these three points were to obtain, it would be plainly obvious that World-View B is preferable to World-View A, caeteris paribus. That is not to say that World-View B is the best explanation full-stop.
Suppose you had a world-view such that there can be absolutely no adequate explanation for you having lost your keys. It’s not just that you lack an explanation, but that no possible explanation works given other presuppositions that you take to be true. A world-view that is equally coherent, but can provide an explanation for your lost keys would be preferable, even if it involves something as implausible as magical gnomes.
A good atheistic response to Jensen would be to say that even if current atheistic explanations for certain phenomena fail and others are not forthcoming, adequate explanations are possible in principle given an atheistic world-view. So give the atheist some time. You could then point out some phenomena for which theists cannot account.
Perhaps a less desirable tactic is to argue that no world-view can be both fully coherent and adequately explain all phenomena. The most preferable world-view might be maximally coherent and has the maximum amount of explanatory power. You could then argue that certain varieties of atheistic world-views are superior to theistic world-views in this way.
You write:
So let us suppose the following:
1. Phenomena x, y, and z are undisputed facts of reality.
2. World-View A, though logically coherent, cannot in principle adequately explain phenomena x, y, and z.
3. World-View B is logically coherent and it can in principle adequately explain phenomena x, y, and z.
I think if these three points were to obtain, it would be plainly obvious that World-View B is preferable to World-View A, caeteris paribus. That is not to say that World-View B is the best explanation full-stop.
I don’t think this is “plainly obvious.” I think it’s misleading at best. And I don’t think I need to tell you why, since you’ve engaged in a bit of ass-covering against the obvious objections.
So instead, I’m just going to say that when people like Jensen give what are prima facie crappy arguments, atheists are under no obligation to come up with elaborate explanations for why maybe the argument isn’t as crappy as it looked at first, especially when it’s not clear the alternative interpretation of the argument is any good either.
Chris,
I’m not really concerned with “ass-covering.” I’m just interested in discussing what constitutes “God of the Gaps” and what does not. And I’d like to know when it is fair to say that one world-view is superior to another. Frankly, I am not personally invested in proving the archbishop right.
I’m only telling you how I understand the archbishop’s argument. He is saying that material atheism cannot account for personal individuation, morality, love, etc. I think it is wrong to interpret this to mean that atheists have NOT YET provided an adequate explanation. I think his point is that they CANNOT provide an explanation given their materialist presuppositions.
All of this set aside, my general point is that fallacy-mongering is unproductive and closes both parties off from real dialogue. I don’t think it is particularly helpful for theist or atheists to appeal to them in a dismissive manner. Still, there are times when you have to call a spade a spade, e.g. after you’ve asked for the point to be clarified and it becomes plainly obvious that they are guilty of fallacious reasoning.
Whether you agree with me or not (or think I’m still ass-covering), I’d still be interested to know why, given (1)-(3), the conclusion that World-View B is preferable to A is misleading. I may be incorrect in applying this argument to the archbishop’s comments, but it is not clear to me why the general claim is itself misleading. Please clarify.
(1)-(3) is clearly insufficient to show that B is preferable to A, because maybe B solves the problems with A by introducing equally large problems. This is, I take it, why you included the “ceteris paribus” clause in your previous comment. But it’s the “ceteris paribus” claim that I think is misleading and ass-covering: if worldview B solves problem x by introducing problem y, it’s just plain silly to focus on one half of that and say, “oh well, at least ceteris paribus it’s an improvement.”
I feel horribly condescending typing this out, but to give the obvious example, it’s plausible that, on the view that only the universe exists, it’s going to be impossible to account for the existence of the universe. I’m not sure that’s actually true, but let’s run with it. Even so, saying, “okay, let’s account for the existence of the universe by saying God created it” isn’t obviously an improvement, because now you have a God unaccounted for. Now, there are ways theists have argued that that is in fact an improvement, but it would be absurd to say, “oh, forget about that problem, at least we’ve accounted for the existence of the universe, and ceteris paribus that’s an improvement.”
As for whether it’s better to ask for clarification, when someone declares, “okay, I guess I know there are responses to this argument, but anyway I’m obviously right,” I think it’s unlikely that calls for clarification aren’t going to get you anywhere. (There’s also the fact in my experience, when people give prima facie crappy arguments for the existence of God, there usually isn’t a better argument lurking underneath. But your experience may be different there.)