... to do more at the moment than roll my eyes --
Victor Reppert: Should God have to make everything clear?
One theme of atheists is that if God were to exist, he would make everything clear, and there would not be a multiplicity of religions. Why think a God, if God existed, would make everything clear. If everything were clear, we would have no real choices. There would be one choice, and all other choices would be punished, and everyone would know what that punishment was and do the right thing for selfish motives.Addendum 2013/01/14:
So, what what is I was rolling my eyes over?
One might think me to be rolling my eyes over that particular "[o]ne theme of atheists[, which] is that if God were to exist, he would make everything clear, and there would not be a multiplicity of religions", but one would be mistaken.
Oh, don't get me wrong, that popular "theme" is bad enough, and it's frequently (perhaps even generally) offered not as an intellectually honest, albeit mistaken, objection to the claims and logic of Biblical religion, but as a red-herring, as a pointless rabbit-trail, as a distraction to avoid confronting the atheist's own illogic and irrationality. Yet, 'frequently', or even 'generally', does not equal 'always'.
No, I am rolling my eyes over Mr Reppert's response to that "theme" (which response seems to be very popular with "theists").
I see two main objections to such a response:
1) To the extent that the particular 'atheist' raised the original objection as an intellectually honest, albeit mistaken (and, in fact, illogical), argument against the claims and logic of Biblical religion, such a response is nothing more than a dodge.
2) To the extent that the particular 'atheist' raised the original objection as an intellectually dishonest argument against the claims and logic of Biblical religion, such a response is nothing more than a dodge.
Ah! But the dodges are quite different ... as I intend to explain with a later addendum to this post.
Addendum 2013/01/19:
1) To the extent that the particular 'atheist' raised the original objection as an intellectually honest, albeit mistaken (and, in fact, illogical), argument against the claims and logic of Biblical religion, such a response is nothing more than a dodge.
"One theme of atheists is that if God were to exist, he would make everything clear, and there would not be a multiplicity of religions. Why think a God, if God existed, would make everything clear. If everything were clear, we would have no real choices. There would be one choice, and all other choices would be punished, and everyone would know what that punishment was and do the right thing for selfish motives."
Assuming that the 'atheist' intends to be offering a logical and rational objection to "religion" (and one ought to operate by that assumption, so long as one can), if one sets out to answer his objection, then one has the obligation to take him, and his objection, seriously. But, since this objection is illogical, taking the 'atheist' seriously means trying to help him see (*) that his objection doesn't even apply, seeing as it is illogical. And, moreover, even if it weren't illogical, it doesn't even begin to touch the truth known via reason that atheism is false, can be shown and know to be false, and cannot be true (as see here, for example)
Non-exhaustively, and in no particular order, here are some of the ways in which this popular objection is illogical:
1) The premise that "if God were to exist, he would make everything clear" is easliy deniable. It certainly isn't a self-evident truth; it's really just an unsupported, and unsupportable, assertion. Thus, from the very start, the argument certainly appears to be unsound. And do note, the burden of proof does not lie with the denier of this proposition, but with its asserter.
2) While it is never explicitly stated, a twin assertion/premise almost always being made with the assertion that "if God were to exist,he would make everything clear" is that God would have the moral obligation to "make everything clear." Again, this is easily deniable; it isn't a self-evident truth, and there is no valid reason ever offered for believing it true.
3) There is a triplet assertion/premise, never explicitly stated: "if God were to exist,he *could* make everything clear" Such an assertion denies human freedom; in this case, the freedom to ignore or deny what has been shown to be true. But, we all know -- including those who explicitly deny it -- that we *are* free, including that we are free to deny what we know to be true: we are free to lie, not only to others, but to ourselves.
4) The inference as stated is also easily deniable, and further, we all know from experience that it is false (and illogical, as the implication does not follow from the conditional): "[if God were to make everything clear,] there would not be a multiplicity of religions" For, to assert such a thing is to assert that we are not (nor could be) free to ignore or deny what is clearly true (as see #3 above). But, as I said, we all know that anyone is free to ignore or deny what is clearly true and what he knows to be true.
To lay out the argument contained in that "theme", it is something like this:
(Premise #1):___________"if God were to exist,he would make everything clear"
(Inference/Premise #2):___"if God were to exist,he could make everything clear"
(Inference/Premise #3):___"if God were to exist,he should make everything clear"
(Inference/Premise #4):___"if God were to make everything clear, there would not be a multiplicity of religions"
(Observation #1):________"There *is* a multiplicity of religions"
(Conclusion):___________"God does not exist."
Alternately -- and this is the version I think is far more commonly intended -- the 'atheist' may mean to argue something like this:
(Hidden Assumption #1):___"if God were to exist,he should make everything clear"
(Hidden Assumption #2):___"if God were to exist,he could make everything clear"
(Explicit Premise #3):___"if God were to exist,he would make everything clear"
(Inference/Premise #4):___"if God were to make everything clear, there would not be a multiplicity of religions"
(Observation #1):________"There *is* a multiplicity of religions"
(Conclusion):___________"God does not exist."
Or, to simplify both versions -- while still making exactly the same argument -- it can be stated thusly:
(Premise #1):___________"if God were to exist, there would not be a multiplicity of religions"
(Observation #1):________"There *is* a multiplicity of religions"
(Conclusion):___________"God does not exist."
As I've already explained, the inference contained in the first premise does not follow from anything. It's unsupported and unsupportable; it ignores human freedom and human susceptibility to error. The argument is not only unsound, it is invalid.
To look at this in a slightly different way, what the 'atheist' is *really* saying is: "IF God existed, THEN he woud not allow me to deny that he exists. SINCE I do deny that God exists, THEREFORE God does not exist."
This is not not just illogical, it's irrational.
And, to look at this in yet a slightly different way, and to state something I long ago noticed about 'atheists', they are demanding that God force himself upon them. Which is to say, 'atheists' demand that God must prove himself to them by being a cosmic rapist; whereas Christianity avows that God is a cosmic lover, that he does not force himself upon anyone but makes himself plain to anyone willing to know him.
Then, there is the fact, which should never be overlooked, that reason alone demonstrates to us that atheism is false. For, reason alone demonstrates to us that to assert atheism is also to assert that we cannot reason -- this absurd second assertion is a logically inescapable entailment of the first assertion. Therefore, since the second assertion is absurd and is a logical entailment of the first assertion, reason alone demonstrates to us that the first assertion is itself absurd. Do note, the argument to which I linked assumes atheistic presuppositions and then still shows -- on those very presuppositions -- that there is, after all, a Creator-God, who is personal and transcendant of time-and-space.
But, Mr Reppert's response, however popular it is with some Christians and Jews, does not take the 'atheist' and his objection seriously. It dodges the question the 'atheist' thinks he's asking, and it dodges the real task of attempting to help him see that he isn't reasoning correctly.
And the very feeble motion this response makes toward flagging the illogic of the objection is itself illogical. For, Reppert didn't actually point out that the dual proposition that "if God were to exist, he would make everything clear, and there would not be a multiplicity of religions" doesn't follow from anything and disregards human freedom to ignore any evidence at all; he rather offered a false, and illogical, proposition as argument against the former proposition: "If everything were clear, we would have no real choices" -- which false proposition *also* happens to be a common "theme of atheists".
(*) His reaction to *that* may well help one determine whether the assumption that he intended a logical and rational objection to "religion" is a valid, much less defensible, assumption, after all.
2) To the extent that the particular 'atheist' raised the original objection as an intellectually dishonest argument against the claims and logic of Biblical religion, such a response is nothing more than a dodge.
"One theme of atheists is that if God were to exist, he would make everything clear, and there would not be a multiplicity of religions. Why think a God, if God existed, would make everything clear. If everything were clear, we would have no real choices. There would be one choice, and all other choices would be punished, and everyone would know what that punishment was and do the right thing for selfish motives."
Look at the heart of Mr Reppert's response to this common "theme", as he put it, of 'atheists' -- "If everything were clear, we would have no real choices." This "answer" doesn't even approach being the truth of the matter -- choice isn't a function of, or result of, ignorance, but of freedom, of agency. Likewise, the number of potential choices available to an agent at any particular nexus is not a function of his knowledge or ignorance (that he may know of all the potential choices he might make is a different matter).
Consider: were someone to ask you, "What does one plus one make?" -- it is not the case that there is only one answer you could possibly choose to give as response to the question. There is only one correct answer to the question, and we all know what that correct answer is, but there are literally an infinity of infinities of responses you could freely choose to make. You know the one, single correct answer to the question; but, being an agent, being free to choose or not choose any available option, you are not constrained to give that one, single correct answer to the question.
To put it bluntly, just as you can choose to guess when you do not know the correct answer, you can choose to lie when you do know the correct anwer.
This is false: utterly false, and false on multiple levels.
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