Great post, and I agree with a lot of your reflections, and the emphasis on coherence/abduction.
But as a dualist I feel the need to criticize some of your arguments.
With regards to the interaction problem, I don't think there really is a problem there, or at least not anymore than there is a problem for the physicalist. Sure, we don't know the exact mechanism by which mental substance interacts with physical substance and vice versa, but we also don't know exactly how anything interacts with anything. If two billiard balls hit each other, you can always ask a further question of why one imparted its momentum on the other. At some point we just have to say "it just happens". It also sounds a lot less scary if you say "psychophysical laws" rather than mental substance interacting with physical substance. Just as there are laws for how physical matter interacts, there are laws for the relationship between physical and mental states.
Dualists also don't dispute that mental states have a very strong relationship to brain states. That is just obvious. But it is just not clear what the inference is from differences in physical states causing differences in mental states to mental states being physical states - there is nothing surprising about the close connection on dualism. Perhaps if you hold a very strong view where much of your personality is determined by your soul, but I don't know of many contemporary dualists who would hold to such a view - I at least wouldn't want to defend that.
As for the causal closure/conservation of energy argument, you can take two lines. One is just a non-interactionist dualism, where the soul doesn't cause any physical changes, but just supervenes on physical states. Another is just to deny conservation. After all, why should we think that conservation holds in the brain, if we have reason to think that souls can cause actions. Sure, we have observed conservation holding in many other cases, but nobody is disputing that it would hold in those cases. So pointing to cases which neither theory predicts would break causal closure is not going to provide any evidence for or against either theory.
I also think the inference from science explaining complex functional relations to science explaining consciousness is unwarranted. Sure, we can explain all sorts of structural truths in science; how such and such states relate to such and such states, and how one state causes another. But that does nothing to explain the qualitative feel of consciousness.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the thoughtful response!
As you say, I think you can explain all the stuff I bring up in a dualist framework -- I just think it requires more explanation and hangs less well with my observations and other knowledge. Of course there could be psychophysical laws -- I just think you can explain everything without invoking them, and that gives a more coherent view given my understanding of the world.
I’m Catholic, but I really liked your essay, and I mean that. I’ll have to read it again because the topic is too high for me. But you gave a lot of food for thought here, and I love that.
What I think: God is not some abstract mathematical expression or philosophical idea. God is a person. Okay, faith has no direct evidence, but you are aware of your body not of your consciousness. Where is it? And how did it get there?
St. Thomas Aquinas said that the desire to know God is proportional to His attraction. And the more He attracts you, the more you want to know Him. Well, I think faith could be taken as a gravitational field. You know that I like quantum physics. A lot in quantum physics is not visible (not even explainable) and yet it exists. We always think of God as something infinitely vast, but the heart of the universe beats within the most elementary particles. Quantum mechanics challenges the way we see the world. And God, too. God is wonderfully quantum.
Thank you for your beautiful article, and excuse my perhaps too personal comment.
Don't mean to be starting arguments about the existence of God with random strangers on the internet; that’s so 2010s. And I have moved beyond my “New Atheism” and gained much more respect for Christians. I think they are mostly right about sexual morality, for example, for reasons that are entirely Darwinian. (See Louise Perry’s “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution”.) And my mind was changed a while ago about Catholicism in particular by the books of Rodney Stark. But…
So God is a person… Ok, who are His parents? What sort of an environment did they evolve in? What did they eat?
This is what the OP is saying: A person isn’t the sort of thing that just pops into existence or crystalizes out of the dirt, anymore than is, say, a watch.
Persons and other kinds of organisms are extremely complex, functionally-organized arrangements of matter. Natural selection is the only natural process we know of that can create functional organization (aka "design", and I would say just design without scare quotes. But then some would say "by definition" it implies a designer which "by definition" must be a person. But then I'd say that's like saying atom mean that which is indivisible, so atoms aren't really atoms... But then we'd just be having a useless argument over semantics.)
All of the attributes of the mind of a person… Liking friends, hating enemies, liking some things, disliking others, being sexually aroused by some things, disgusted by others, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc etc… All of it makes sense in the light of evolution. These are “design features” for the control system of highly social organism. It is beyond implausible to say there’s something out there (where?) that just happens to have these same features, while being made of…what, spirit stuff? What is that and where did it come from?
This is the same thing the author is trying to convey… , and is why, even if I could be convinced people would be better off if they were Christians (I’m almost there), I absolutely cannot believe it. I have to struggle to not sound condescending sometimes, because, based on the above understanding, any sort of ghost or spirit or god…any sort of disembodied mind is literally one of the most implausible things I can imagine. Any ridiculous hypothetical of the sort internet atheists used to like to talk about, like flying spaghetti monsters…literally more plausible.
Because if you believe that the mind is the activity of the brain, and brains are features of organisms that evolved to coordinate muscular contractions to make organisms move toward opportunities and away from dangers, etc… The idea that something that just coincidentally happens to be almost exactly like the mind of one particular species of ape, but has neither the history nor the parts that actual brains do, that just popped into existence out of nowhere and is made of some kind of mysterious stuff that has so far completely eluded detection…
That’s why however much I may believe Christianity is the source of Western civilization, and may be good at promoting good families and communities etc… I just don’t believe it’s true and don’t see how I possibly could.
Apologies for the rant! The original article expertly explained how I’ve seen things for a long time, and I couldn’t resist the urge to try to drive the point home.
Rant? No way, it was a very interesting comment. I'm afraid I'm not very good at this, Marcus, but I’ll try an answer.
The concept of “person” is biblical. It comes from a concept of relationship (I am the God of the living, that is, I have a relationship with you, now; I am a jealous God, that is, I do desire to relate to you and I want it works, etc.). God’s “categories” of thought are not like ours (My thoughts are not your thoughts), and He doesn’t “move” in the “reality” as we do (My ways are not your ways).
God doesn't belong to the “set of people” with tangible arms, legs, and bodies (taking it mathematically). Which is also possible for us, 'cause we are also what we think (I think, therefore I am). See, you and I are individuals, but we do not belong to the set of tangible individuals in this very moment. But we do have a relationship (meaning dialogue).
God is a “person” because He is the source of all existing relationships in the universe. He is the “root cause” of every relationship, and as a relationship He is a “person”, with whom you can have a dialogue and a mutual listening.
The “substance” of God is one, but it is related in three distinct “persons” (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). Jesus Christ is the Mediator, the one who makes this relationship real in “our” way of experiencing relationships (he who sees Me sees the Father). That’s why Christian faith (not only Catholic) should not be a philosophical thought or a list of ethical and moral values, but the relationship with a “person” made visible and accessible in Christ. That is why I wrote that God is a person.
Evolutionism has valid concepts, but it is not a scientifically acceptable theory. I would rather call it “another kind of religion”. I think that “design features” (involving an intentional plan) and “evolution” (based on natural selection of performing elements) are opposites. Closed systems are entropic, moving not toward order but toward chaos. We may not have God’s certainty, but we certainly know that nothing can evolve for the better in a closed system ruled by entropy.
Thanks for the reply to my comment Marcus, it is an engaging talk, even if it is between strangers :-)
I hate to be the molasses in your fennel soup, but I must question why the alleged one-and-only son of God did not have the insight or the decency to decry slavery. It existed in Israel as it had in every civilzatian since the beginning of time. He was an Agent of Change and certainly (had he the time) He would have ended the sacrifice of sheep and birds in the Temple. But, life goes on.
Well, this is a very simple and intuitive concept: God created us with free will, and solving problems (that we caused) for us would be contrary to our freedom.
A "disembodied mind" is precisely what I believe God to be. The Creator of the Universe does not have to be anything like us. We cannot comprehend God without first having an understanding of quantum physics. All thoughts come from God and we reflect them in our words and actions.
I can certainly understand why people are turning away from Catholicism and Christianity - too much hocus pocus and not enough piety.
Jung's theories of synchronicity and the chemistry and magic that fill the universe are finally being explored . Richard Dawkins or Darwin could never expain entanglement or how water can change its form by being blessed.
Bravo. I have been a Roman Catholic and a Muslim but in the end, I just could not believe in a God, the soul and life after death. Even consciousness is a product of the brain, not some divine gift exclusive to humans. Thank you for a very interesting and well written piece. I'm new here and hope to learn.
Good post! What you said in your intro, I feel the same way. Been there (repeatedly), done that, bought the tee-shirt, the CD, and the DVD. And of course, we're just the latest entries in a very long list. The question of God isn't one that can be answered by logic or science. Science is Yin to the Yang of faith. And ultimately, theology is personal. As Gandhi said, "In reality there are as many religions as there are individuals."
I would agree that theism generally implies some form of dualism. There are many forms of both, so discussion comes down to specifics. Most arguments for atheism seem to me to assume a Christian form of theism. All three Abrahamic religions are theist and imply dualism, but there are various deist views where God isn't personal or involved. Spinoza's God (Einstein's God) is essentially physicalist and expressed in the amazing (as you say, fine-tuned) physics of reality.
You go from theism to mind in suggesting that equating consciousness with a soul is a simplistic answer, and I would agree. If souls exist, as defined in most forms of Christianity, then they must be something other than our mere consciousness. If anything, the argument would be the soul is what sparks dead matter into consciousness. Which implies some animals have souls, since they seem to have consciousness. Maybe a soul is what sparks a merely conscious mind to higher intelligence. Think of a soul as a form of special (dualistic) energy. Something from the Yang side that rises us above dead matter.
What dumb matter, high-speed silicon, still cannot do is feel. No matter how sophisticated the AI generating music, it cannot be stirred by that music. Perhaps God is found in the ability of dead matter to be stirred. Or not. It may well turn out that physicalism is right when it comes to brains, and mind is just what happens when the right sort of mechanism gets big enough and complicated enough. What it is like to be a brain is what it is like to be a mind.
Which doesn't prove anything, because maybe the "soul" -- the gift from God -- is the ability for the right kind of dead matter to act like that. In this regard, I think it's interesting that although entropy is the ultimate direction and end, physics allows simple rules, plus basic building blocks, plus energy, to create incredibly complex structures such as us. That is essentially Spinoza's God, a God of physicalism and assembly.
While I agree about the futility of arguments or proof, I disagree science and faith must compete. As I said above, I see science as the Yin to the Yang of faith. I've always found them entirely compatible. Faith, like love, is a deliberately irrational act, but it comes with benefits.
Thanks, for the praise and the thoughts! Interesting to hear your thoughts on Spinoza's God. My main exposure to Spinoza was reading Rebecca Goldstein's book, Betraying Spinoza. It's been a long time, but I remember it not making a huge impression. It felt like it never really clicked with me -- if all there is is the physical, why then also call that God? Seems just confusing since we already use that word for something else (an anthropomorphic, personal deity). Maybe Goldstein's description didn't do it justice or I wasn't mature enough when I read it, but it never felt like it added anything to me. I would be curious if you know any resources that articulate it well
My knowledge of Spinoza's God comes mostly from other people who've adapted one aspect or other from it. I've never studied Spinoza directly and don't want to give the impression I'm an authoritative source here! I'm a beachcomber picking up bits and pieces that attract me. I can really only talk about my conception of Spinoza's God. Which is that it is almost a physicalist theory but with a whiff of idealism in attributing an identity, possibly even a self-awareness, to God (and is dual in that regard).
To answer your question about why identify God with physics (with a dash of meta), I suspect it's partially social conditioning and tradition against complete atheism opposed by a need for the physical world to make sense. Taking that to the extreme — denying the existence of any Yang to reality — is called scientism. Many consider scientism a kind of "atheist religion" due to its implicit commitments to a belief about the nature of reality. Both strong theism and strong atheism are gnostic points of view, declarations of certainty. To be truly open-minded on the topic is to understand there can be no certainty.
Another answer, and this is my personal answer, is that a teleological universe is preferable to a non-teleological one. The former suggests an intrinsic meaning to life. Some find that more comforting, I just find it more interesting.
As I mentioned before, that such complex self-assembly is possible in the face of entropy seems "miraculous" to me. As you discuss in your post, a teleological universe — albeit not one conceived by our Earthly apprehensions — explains this "miracle" as well as the apparent fine-tuning.
For me, what isn't ruled out remains an option, and the only trick is reconciling the Yin and Yang of it all. "Spinoza's God" — however we conceive him — is one such version. But I agree with Gandhi about the individuality, so dealer's choice, mix and match at will, smoke'm if you got'm!
Excellent post. I want to see so much more writing like this on Substack--intelligent, thought-provoking, well-written posts. And this bit: "I'm not claiming computers are minds. But computers are indisputably dumb matter and can do intelligent things. It’s really surprising what they are capable of if you think about the fact computers are just refined rock and sand." Wow. Amidst a brilliant post, for some reason, this statement really struck me!
I have come to explain my atheism by saying the belief in God doesn't give human being enough credit. Your post does a magnificent job of detailing exactly what I mean. Nice work.
Excellent read. Bravo, good sir. I'm definitely subscribing because you piqued my interest when you teased an article explaining your firm adherence to compatibilism. I've yet to hear an argument for soft determinism that didn't strike me as 'circle squaring' or seemingly apologetic in nature, but I look forward to your attempt to convince me. When you publish it I will read it because, (of course), I have no free will in the matter. Keep up the great work and all the best.
Thank you! Now I suppose I really have to get around to writing that free will post (or rather, I don't have to, but I will choose to of my own free will 😉)
Thank you for your thoughtful and well-written piece. I agree that both theism and atheism can both give reasonably coherent explanations of what we see. I happen to disagree on which one is more coherent (I'm a Christian, and for what it's worth I trained as a particle physicist before my career led away from active academic research). But I also agree with you that arguing over proofs of God's existence is often unfruitful.
I would like to comment on a couple of specific points you made, in the spirit of hopefully adding more data to the conversation.
First, I think there is a difference between mind/body dualism and physical/spiritual dualism, and I think that is important for your argument. I'm quite happy with the idea that mind is an emergent property of the brain/body. But I think the soul is something different from the mind, as the spiritual world is different from the physical world; a different dimension of reality. I believe humans have body, mind and spirit/soul, and that all are important (i.e. to be truly human, we also need a body, not just a soul). So arguments about dualism have to be very careful to define terms clearly and not to conflate mind and soul (unless of course you are arguing that mind=soul, which many theologians and philosophers would probably take issue with).
Second, the article you cite (Stirrat & Cornwell, 2013) examines religious belief in a rather narrow cohort of scientists, as it focuses on the Royal Society (membership being generally older British scientists who have reached a certain point in their careers). I would suggest that the 2016 study by Ecklund et al (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023116664353) is more comprehensive; they surveyed over 22,000 scientists across 8 regions worldwide. I don't think I can post an image of their results in the comments, but while they did find that scientists in some regions (UK, US, France) were significantly less likely to consider themselves religious than the general public, scientists in other regions (Taiwan and Hong Kong) were more likely to identify as religious while in other countries (Italy, Turkey) they were less likely to be religious but not as markedly so. The paper makes very interesting reading (and I believe the research has been expanded in Ecklund et al's book "Secularity and Science" (OUP, 2019) but I haven't had the chance to read that yet). More anecdotally, in my own experience working as a physicist in the UK, I found quite a number of my colleagues were Christian or Muslim (or in one case Buddhist).
Having said that, I would like to query the applicability of data like this in discussing what is ultimately a metaphysical question. I find the sociological studies on what scientists believe about God or religion super interesting, but it seems to me that when considering the question itself (e.g. "is there a God?"), scientists do not necessarily have any more expertise than anyone else, certainly if taking it from a NOMA approach. Science (as we think of it today) by definition is concerned with the physical world. If there is a spiritual world, it is by definition not part of the physical world and not accessible to science; i.e. science has limits.
For me, the "data points" that cement my belief in the coherence of the Christian faith centre on the person of Christ and his life and resurrection. I'm sure you've heard the arguments before so no need to go into them, but that, in my personal experience, is what ties everything together.
Finally, I wholeheartedly agree with your closing sentences, "What's more important is to keep digging, trying to understand the world. By learning more about our world, learning the mechanisms behind the seemingly magical, we enrich our worldview in unexpected ways and refine our beliefs towards what is true."
Thanks again for writing this piece and for the thought-provoking conversation it is raising!
I'm not sure of how theologians talk about it, but in all of the philosophy of mind I've been exposed to, for substance dualists, mind and soul are used interchangeably as the word for the immaterial bit. This goes back to Descartes, for whom the rational mind was the immaterial thing that made humans special. I think this might just be a terminology issue. It's fine if you want to say the mind is something different from the soul, and the soul is the non-material part. Whatever you take to be the second substance in substance dualism is what I'm saying I don't see a motivation for, and what I think really mutually reinforces belief in God.
I certainly don't think the surveys of scientists are decisive in any way, but I think it's useful to point out that scientists in general are more secular than the societies they are in (I cited two studies, the one on Royal Society members as well as a Pew Research one of more general scientists). This seems aligned with the study you point to, though of course there is more nuance as you look closer. Not surprisingly given my post, I reject NOMA. I think both naturalism and theism attempt to explain things about the world. Understanding the world can lead us to reconceptualizing things and increase or decrease the coherence of any metaphysical view.
The reason I think it's worth asking what scientists think is because my entire premise is that, as you learn more about what "dumb matter" is capable of, and more about the brain and biology in particular, I think dualism and theism become a less coherent explanation. If you're not happy with the appeal to authority on scientists, it's also worth noting philosophers are also much more secular than society at large (https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4842).
Thanks again for the thoughtful response, and I'm glad the last bit resonated with you.
Thanks for taking the time to reply! I'm afraid my response just now is going to be sparser than I'd like - I'm in the middle of packing up my life and belongings in one country and preparing for an international move, so things are a bit chaotic and I don't have as much time as I'd like 🙃
I agree that for Descartes, mind/soul was kind of the same thing, but I'd argue that owes more to the Aristotelian tradition than to the biblical teaching; the ancient Hebrew idea of soul / spirit was something rather different to the Greek idea that that got passed down to Western Europe. But as you point out, that's not really the main question here.
For me and I think many other Christians (or other theists) who are scientists or have worked in science, seeing what "dumb matter" can do is a source of great wonder and awe. I see the mechanisms of matter as a secondary cause (I guess what Aristotle would call the material cause, though I'm not much of an expert on Aristotelian philosophy), while the metaphysical explanation (i.e. a creator) is the primary cause or final cause. Different levels of explanation; complementary, rather than competing explanations. Personally I find that much more satisfying, because it then has a purpose and leads to a relationship with that creator. In the end, it's the question of why there is something rather than nothing, so I'd argue that God makes the whole picture more coherent because there is then a primary cause and a teleology.
I am grateful for the chance to reflect on and discuss these topics; I feel it's always beneficial to discuss things in a thoughtful way like this, and that is what you have provided with your post! Peace be with you.
Great post. I spent many years fluctuating between belief, agnosticism, atheism, and back again. In my 60s, I finally accepted that what we call God is a human construct, end of story. It makes life much easier.
Well, I love the focus of this. I’ve long argued that theism is only fairly judged by inference to the best explanation, not the idea that if we don’t know we’ll revert to some default idea of not-theism. Because for most people, non-theism is really an unjustified naturalism.
And as soon as you grant we should judge competing explanations, theism is now a formidable player.
The major challenges to any non-theist views are – consciousness and causal origins.
- First up the idea that theism and souls entails dualism isn’t true. For example, the various schools of Hindu Vedanta are idealist substance monists, but all of them are also theists and believe in eternal souls.
- It’s not the complexity of minds that challenges naturalism, it’s the properties of minds, and specifically qualia and intentionality. No amount of increase in quantity (complexity) will produce a change in quality.
- You rightly point out that brain effects mind, but you ignore the hard problem for physicalists that mind effects brain. How can qualitative states like pain, beliefs, intentions, cause changes in physical matter? Trying to answering this lands the physicalist in diabolical trouble.
- One point that I think is seriously misunderstood by non-theists is the causal (cosmological) argument for theism. Most often people respond they’re happy to say we don’t know, but this isn't an option because we do know. This question isn’t waiting on developments in knowledge. And the only explanatory options for naturalists are brute fact or infinite regress. Both of those terms are euphemisms for an embarrassing universe sized hole in their web of beliefs.
In terms of consciousness, I think it's a really interesting question! I have a big interest in the philosophy and science of consciousness, and personally I'm inclined towards a functionalist view of consciousness. I disagree that it's fundamentally flawed to adopt physicalism about consciousness--it's the majority view among philosophers of mind, for example, so it can't be that dumb. I think answering the hard problem (or, more likely, deconstructing it through gradual learning and reconceptualization) is an important problem, but I see it as the analogous problem for physicalism that dualism has with the interaction between material and immaterial.
I don't really understand your point about the cosmological argument -- what do you mean that we do know? We do know what?
Regarding majority views and your inclination to functionalism, have you read Galen Strawson’s, The Consciousness Deniers?
As for causal origins, I meant we do know - the possible answers to this question of why the universe exists (causal origins). You mentioned that atheists consider questions like this god of the gaps, the unstated suggestion is that science can one day explain the origin of the universe. But that’s not true, science can’t explain it and neither can philosophical naturalism/atheism. We already know what the only explanatory options available to the non-theist are - brute fact or infinite regress. These are arguably not even explanations, but euphemisms for the lack of one.
I mention these two points specifically because they can’t be brushed aside as minor holes in our explanatory web of beliefs.
These are “the” questions of human life. Who are we (consciousness) and why are we here (causal origins)?
These are the questions theism confronts and both are beyond the explanatory limits of naturalism. This is where the serious challenge to the atheist and naturalist world view is found. Everything else is a distraction.
I have read Strawson's The Consciousness Deniers! I think Strawson misrepresents the functionalist (and even illusionist) view in that piece. As Dennett points out in his response, the claim isn't that consciousness doesn't exist, just that we don't by virtue of having experienced it necessarily know the nature of conscious experience. Regardless, panpsychists like Strawson and Goff I think generally do a good job articulating the intuitions that make various forms of physicalism hard to adopt for some people. I'll almost certainly write a post on this at some point.
I'm afraid I'm still a bit confused on the causal origins bit. You say we know enough that we have to take one of two horns of a dilemma: brute fact or infinite regress. If we define those to be logically exhaustive, sure, I can agree, but what are you trying to get out of that? Regardless of whether you are a theist or atheist you have to accept one horn of the dilemma. If you're a theist you might accept the brute fact of God's existence. To me, that feels arbitrary and not very satisfying--where did God come from? Since I believe minds are complex, it doesn't feel like it explains much. Hence the "God of the gaps" charge atheists often make.
I look forward to reading your ideas about consciousness.
For the point about causal origins that dilemma only applies to non-theists. Theism is the necessary being option, not brute fact. There is the agnostic option, but that isn’t available to a/theism or naturalism, since it rules out knowledge.
All these positions are meta-views, they inform us of who we are because they tell us why the world exists.
Expressed as an oversimplified and crude binary, theism means the world is created as a vehicle to achieve the eternal life of the conscious souls; atheism means the world has no reason, no purpose and the conscious self dies with the physical system it emerges from.
If our choice of a/theism isn’t about those questions, what is it about? It’s not like choosing between two theoretical claims that have no practical consequence for how we live our lives.
And so I see this question as decisive in the a/theism debate. It’s a forced choice, you can’t abstain. Abstaining is practically equivalent to choosing non-theism. And non-theism logically commits you to those two explanations of causal origins. How rationally coherent are they? Saying you don't know the purpose of the universe isn't the same as the universe has no purpose. The latter is a strong claim with basically no justification. It's accepted merely on the basis of not being comfortable with the theism option, without checking if the non-theism option is far more uncomfortable.
Thanks for the articulation of your view! I think it's reasonable to say, on the question of the origins of the universe or any other questions, "I don't know exactly how it happened but certain answers (e.g. theism) seem very unlikely"
Well, it’s that retreat to “I don’t know” that I’m not granting lol. If we agree the correct procedure is to judge competing explanations, and we judge the theism option is unlikely, how much “less” likely (or less reasonable) are the answers available to the non-theist?
But I’m content to leave that as a rhetorical question. I might try and write an article fleshing this argument out in more detail. It seems strong to me but I'm probably missing something, so it's something I’d like to hear atheist response to.
Good stuff. I may take a stab at a substance dualist response if I get the time. Maybe, if we feel like it, we could meet at the crack of dawn and have a duel
are you arguing for a non-theistic deism? maybe I missed the boat or am unaware of some issue
but why is the middle ground excluded and we exclude a coherent epistemic atheistic account claiming what god is not or an empirically consistent theistic account claiming what is ?
E) no version of god has been sufficiently rationally denied to prove it isn't.
F) there are so many distinguishing narratives on god, personal and shared making them all equally true
G) no version of god has been tested to be implausible , much less impossible, or even unlikely or not the case.
H) no empirical evidence disproves these humans narratives of god, none ever has, and none likely ever will
The ontological question is explicitly outside human cognition for me. Shouldn't we be discussing the epistemic, applied, normative, metaethical related parts that instead?
IE Don't tell me what god is or even that it is. Just say how we should relate to it, even if it isn't the way any one claims, or even while it doesn't exist. But all of these at once.
I really appreciate this piece and your thoughtful stance.
Perceiving dualism at the root of religious belief is interesting but I do wonder if the theological arguments at the root of this perception aren't somewhat influenced by ancient greek philosophers. To me who's studying some religions, the notion of soul the way abrahamic religions talk about is troubling and unclear. The root of the notion of soul seems to come from aristotle and plato, instead of "God" or "revelation". Dualism in the sense of Descartes is one way of being religious, but very few believers have truly studied these arguments. But if you ask them to make a distinction between an immaterial soul and an "invisible" one, the answer could be different than what you expect, I believe. Many "force" or material things are invisible, and I'm sure that more people would talk about an invisible God, rather than a truly immaterial one like an abstract concept (like the number 2). That is definitely more a "greek" or philosophers' God (an abstract one) rather than an abrahamic religions.
Interesting, but we all come to this subject with background attitudes (e.g. towards what words like “evidence” and “God” mean), which affect the whole process of thinking about it. In this case, the word “soul” surely just comes with too much baggage of history and implications. It seems to me better avoided. People are also frequently incapable of separating the idea of a God from Judeo-Christianity, as if creating an entire vast universe would then involve “interfering” and “choosing” one little primitive tribe, on one of possibly trillions of planets, to “reveal” more truth to than they can already see around them. Even the baggage that comes with the word “God” gets in the way of exploratory understanding. For instance, of course you can argue about “evidence” for some particular kind of God, and usually end up seeing it as projected fantasy or something – but you can’t argue about Existence. There is something rather than nothing. And only certain modern “researchers” or “philosophers” can argue against the existence of the reality of subjective conscious experience, so there’s something there as well. There is also the repeatedly demonstrated reality of mystical and psychedelic experience as “extensions” of “ordinary” consciousness (if there is anything ordinary about consciousness). The idea that non-conscious matter can “do incredible things” is just utterly irrelevant: there isn’t a computer program that knows it is playing chess, that wants to play chess, that “feels” competitive or enjoys victory; there isn’t anything “incredible” unless there is a conscious mind to design it in the first place and then to even feel it as incredible and describe it as such to other conscious minds. I can only suggest that it is well worthwhile to put in the effort to read Iain McGilchrist, including the entire two volumes of “The Matter with Things”, and then imagine you can start thinking about it again.
I was raised Christian. Now I’m not. I do believe in God, but none of the definitions above really seem to fit. I do think God is in everything and everyone, elemental if you will. Beyond that, I prefer to let the mystery be. Always interesting to hear people talk about this however. Thank you.
Using Hegal’s Dialectic (Thesis - Antithesis- Synthesis), Dr. Willis begins with Theism as a position that is easily overcome by the position taken by Atheists (perfect & just solitary God permits suffering & pain, etc., therefore, bogus), then comes Trinitarianism whereby the Spirit of Holiness and God’s incarnation as a baby in Bethlehem who matures as a suffering servant, becoming the High Priest & also the final sacrifice-atones for the fall. This position, backed by Barth & Moltmann, trumps Atheism.
Theism, Atheism and the Doctrine of the Trinity: The Trinitarian Theologies of Karl Barth and Jürgen Moltmann in Response to Protest Atheism (AAR Academy Series)
Great post, and I agree with a lot of your reflections, and the emphasis on coherence/abduction.
But as a dualist I feel the need to criticize some of your arguments.
With regards to the interaction problem, I don't think there really is a problem there, or at least not anymore than there is a problem for the physicalist. Sure, we don't know the exact mechanism by which mental substance interacts with physical substance and vice versa, but we also don't know exactly how anything interacts with anything. If two billiard balls hit each other, you can always ask a further question of why one imparted its momentum on the other. At some point we just have to say "it just happens". It also sounds a lot less scary if you say "psychophysical laws" rather than mental substance interacting with physical substance. Just as there are laws for how physical matter interacts, there are laws for the relationship between physical and mental states.
Dualists also don't dispute that mental states have a very strong relationship to brain states. That is just obvious. But it is just not clear what the inference is from differences in physical states causing differences in mental states to mental states being physical states - there is nothing surprising about the close connection on dualism. Perhaps if you hold a very strong view where much of your personality is determined by your soul, but I don't know of many contemporary dualists who would hold to such a view - I at least wouldn't want to defend that.
As for the causal closure/conservation of energy argument, you can take two lines. One is just a non-interactionist dualism, where the soul doesn't cause any physical changes, but just supervenes on physical states. Another is just to deny conservation. After all, why should we think that conservation holds in the brain, if we have reason to think that souls can cause actions. Sure, we have observed conservation holding in many other cases, but nobody is disputing that it would hold in those cases. So pointing to cases which neither theory predicts would break causal closure is not going to provide any evidence for or against either theory.
I also think the inference from science explaining complex functional relations to science explaining consciousness is unwarranted. Sure, we can explain all sorts of structural truths in science; how such and such states relate to such and such states, and how one state causes another. But that does nothing to explain the qualitative feel of consciousness.
But again, really enjoyed your post!
I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the thoughtful response!
As you say, I think you can explain all the stuff I bring up in a dualist framework -- I just think it requires more explanation and hangs less well with my observations and other knowledge. Of course there could be psychophysical laws -- I just think you can explain everything without invoking them, and that gives a more coherent view given my understanding of the world.
I’m Catholic, but I really liked your essay, and I mean that. I’ll have to read it again because the topic is too high for me. But you gave a lot of food for thought here, and I love that.
What I think: God is not some abstract mathematical expression or philosophical idea. God is a person. Okay, faith has no direct evidence, but you are aware of your body not of your consciousness. Where is it? And how did it get there?
St. Thomas Aquinas said that the desire to know God is proportional to His attraction. And the more He attracts you, the more you want to know Him. Well, I think faith could be taken as a gravitational field. You know that I like quantum physics. A lot in quantum physics is not visible (not even explainable) and yet it exists. We always think of God as something infinitely vast, but the heart of the universe beats within the most elementary particles. Quantum mechanics challenges the way we see the world. And God, too. God is wonderfully quantum.
Thank you for your beautiful article, and excuse my perhaps too personal comment.
Thanks for the praise, and for the comment. No need to worry it's too personal, what's the internet for if not airing our most personal thoughts? 😅
Don't mean to be starting arguments about the existence of God with random strangers on the internet; that’s so 2010s. And I have moved beyond my “New Atheism” and gained much more respect for Christians. I think they are mostly right about sexual morality, for example, for reasons that are entirely Darwinian. (See Louise Perry’s “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution”.) And my mind was changed a while ago about Catholicism in particular by the books of Rodney Stark. But…
So God is a person… Ok, who are His parents? What sort of an environment did they evolve in? What did they eat?
This is what the OP is saying: A person isn’t the sort of thing that just pops into existence or crystalizes out of the dirt, anymore than is, say, a watch.
Persons and other kinds of organisms are extremely complex, functionally-organized arrangements of matter. Natural selection is the only natural process we know of that can create functional organization (aka "design", and I would say just design without scare quotes. But then some would say "by definition" it implies a designer which "by definition" must be a person. But then I'd say that's like saying atom mean that which is indivisible, so atoms aren't really atoms... But then we'd just be having a useless argument over semantics.)
All of the attributes of the mind of a person… Liking friends, hating enemies, liking some things, disliking others, being sexually aroused by some things, disgusted by others, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc etc… All of it makes sense in the light of evolution. These are “design features” for the control system of highly social organism. It is beyond implausible to say there’s something out there (where?) that just happens to have these same features, while being made of…what, spirit stuff? What is that and where did it come from?
This is the same thing the author is trying to convey… , and is why, even if I could be convinced people would be better off if they were Christians (I’m almost there), I absolutely cannot believe it. I have to struggle to not sound condescending sometimes, because, based on the above understanding, any sort of ghost or spirit or god…any sort of disembodied mind is literally one of the most implausible things I can imagine. Any ridiculous hypothetical of the sort internet atheists used to like to talk about, like flying spaghetti monsters…literally more plausible.
Because if you believe that the mind is the activity of the brain, and brains are features of organisms that evolved to coordinate muscular contractions to make organisms move toward opportunities and away from dangers, etc… The idea that something that just coincidentally happens to be almost exactly like the mind of one particular species of ape, but has neither the history nor the parts that actual brains do, that just popped into existence out of nowhere and is made of some kind of mysterious stuff that has so far completely eluded detection…
That’s why however much I may believe Christianity is the source of Western civilization, and may be good at promoting good families and communities etc… I just don’t believe it’s true and don’t see how I possibly could.
Apologies for the rant! The original article expertly explained how I’ve seen things for a long time, and I couldn’t resist the urge to try to drive the point home.
Rant? No way, it was a very interesting comment. I'm afraid I'm not very good at this, Marcus, but I’ll try an answer.
The concept of “person” is biblical. It comes from a concept of relationship (I am the God of the living, that is, I have a relationship with you, now; I am a jealous God, that is, I do desire to relate to you and I want it works, etc.). God’s “categories” of thought are not like ours (My thoughts are not your thoughts), and He doesn’t “move” in the “reality” as we do (My ways are not your ways).
God doesn't belong to the “set of people” with tangible arms, legs, and bodies (taking it mathematically). Which is also possible for us, 'cause we are also what we think (I think, therefore I am). See, you and I are individuals, but we do not belong to the set of tangible individuals in this very moment. But we do have a relationship (meaning dialogue).
God is a “person” because He is the source of all existing relationships in the universe. He is the “root cause” of every relationship, and as a relationship He is a “person”, with whom you can have a dialogue and a mutual listening.
The “substance” of God is one, but it is related in three distinct “persons” (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). Jesus Christ is the Mediator, the one who makes this relationship real in “our” way of experiencing relationships (he who sees Me sees the Father). That’s why Christian faith (not only Catholic) should not be a philosophical thought or a list of ethical and moral values, but the relationship with a “person” made visible and accessible in Christ. That is why I wrote that God is a person.
Evolutionism has valid concepts, but it is not a scientifically acceptable theory. I would rather call it “another kind of religion”. I think that “design features” (involving an intentional plan) and “evolution” (based on natural selection of performing elements) are opposites. Closed systems are entropic, moving not toward order but toward chaos. We may not have God’s certainty, but we certainly know that nothing can evolve for the better in a closed system ruled by entropy.
Thanks for the reply to my comment Marcus, it is an engaging talk, even if it is between strangers :-)
I hate to be the molasses in your fennel soup, but I must question why the alleged one-and-only son of God did not have the insight or the decency to decry slavery. It existed in Israel as it had in every civilzatian since the beginning of time. He was an Agent of Change and certainly (had he the time) He would have ended the sacrifice of sheep and birds in the Temple. But, life goes on.
Well, this is a very simple and intuitive concept: God created us with free will, and solving problems (that we caused) for us would be contrary to our freedom.
A "disembodied mind" is precisely what I believe God to be. The Creator of the Universe does not have to be anything like us. We cannot comprehend God without first having an understanding of quantum physics. All thoughts come from God and we reflect them in our words and actions.
I can certainly understand why people are turning away from Catholicism and Christianity - too much hocus pocus and not enough piety.
“We cannot comprehend God without first having an understanding of quantum physics.”
Yeah. I agree!
Jung's theories of synchronicity and the chemistry and magic that fill the universe are finally being explored . Richard Dawkins or Darwin could never expain entanglement or how water can change its form by being blessed.
I'm not a fan of Jung at all, but that would take too long to explain :)
Bravo. I have been a Roman Catholic and a Muslim but in the end, I just could not believe in a God, the soul and life after death. Even consciousness is a product of the brain, not some divine gift exclusive to humans. Thank you for a very interesting and well written piece. I'm new here and hope to learn.
Thank you so much!
Good post! What you said in your intro, I feel the same way. Been there (repeatedly), done that, bought the tee-shirt, the CD, and the DVD. And of course, we're just the latest entries in a very long list. The question of God isn't one that can be answered by logic or science. Science is Yin to the Yang of faith. And ultimately, theology is personal. As Gandhi said, "In reality there are as many religions as there are individuals."
I would agree that theism generally implies some form of dualism. There are many forms of both, so discussion comes down to specifics. Most arguments for atheism seem to me to assume a Christian form of theism. All three Abrahamic religions are theist and imply dualism, but there are various deist views where God isn't personal or involved. Spinoza's God (Einstein's God) is essentially physicalist and expressed in the amazing (as you say, fine-tuned) physics of reality.
You go from theism to mind in suggesting that equating consciousness with a soul is a simplistic answer, and I would agree. If souls exist, as defined in most forms of Christianity, then they must be something other than our mere consciousness. If anything, the argument would be the soul is what sparks dead matter into consciousness. Which implies some animals have souls, since they seem to have consciousness. Maybe a soul is what sparks a merely conscious mind to higher intelligence. Think of a soul as a form of special (dualistic) energy. Something from the Yang side that rises us above dead matter.
What dumb matter, high-speed silicon, still cannot do is feel. No matter how sophisticated the AI generating music, it cannot be stirred by that music. Perhaps God is found in the ability of dead matter to be stirred. Or not. It may well turn out that physicalism is right when it comes to brains, and mind is just what happens when the right sort of mechanism gets big enough and complicated enough. What it is like to be a brain is what it is like to be a mind.
Which doesn't prove anything, because maybe the "soul" -- the gift from God -- is the ability for the right kind of dead matter to act like that. In this regard, I think it's interesting that although entropy is the ultimate direction and end, physics allows simple rules, plus basic building blocks, plus energy, to create incredibly complex structures such as us. That is essentially Spinoza's God, a God of physicalism and assembly.
While I agree about the futility of arguments or proof, I disagree science and faith must compete. As I said above, I see science as the Yin to the Yang of faith. I've always found them entirely compatible. Faith, like love, is a deliberately irrational act, but it comes with benefits.
Thanks, for the praise and the thoughts! Interesting to hear your thoughts on Spinoza's God. My main exposure to Spinoza was reading Rebecca Goldstein's book, Betraying Spinoza. It's been a long time, but I remember it not making a huge impression. It felt like it never really clicked with me -- if all there is is the physical, why then also call that God? Seems just confusing since we already use that word for something else (an anthropomorphic, personal deity). Maybe Goldstein's description didn't do it justice or I wasn't mature enough when I read it, but it never felt like it added anything to me. I would be curious if you know any resources that articulate it well
My knowledge of Spinoza's God comes mostly from other people who've adapted one aspect or other from it. I've never studied Spinoza directly and don't want to give the impression I'm an authoritative source here! I'm a beachcomber picking up bits and pieces that attract me. I can really only talk about my conception of Spinoza's God. Which is that it is almost a physicalist theory but with a whiff of idealism in attributing an identity, possibly even a self-awareness, to God (and is dual in that regard).
To answer your question about why identify God with physics (with a dash of meta), I suspect it's partially social conditioning and tradition against complete atheism opposed by a need for the physical world to make sense. Taking that to the extreme — denying the existence of any Yang to reality — is called scientism. Many consider scientism a kind of "atheist religion" due to its implicit commitments to a belief about the nature of reality. Both strong theism and strong atheism are gnostic points of view, declarations of certainty. To be truly open-minded on the topic is to understand there can be no certainty.
Another answer, and this is my personal answer, is that a teleological universe is preferable to a non-teleological one. The former suggests an intrinsic meaning to life. Some find that more comforting, I just find it more interesting.
As I mentioned before, that such complex self-assembly is possible in the face of entropy seems "miraculous" to me. As you discuss in your post, a teleological universe — albeit not one conceived by our Earthly apprehensions — explains this "miracle" as well as the apparent fine-tuning.
For me, what isn't ruled out remains an option, and the only trick is reconciling the Yin and Yang of it all. "Spinoza's God" — however we conceive him — is one such version. But I agree with Gandhi about the individuality, so dealer's choice, mix and match at will, smoke'm if you got'm!
Excellent post. I want to see so much more writing like this on Substack--intelligent, thought-provoking, well-written posts. And this bit: "I'm not claiming computers are minds. But computers are indisputably dumb matter and can do intelligent things. It’s really surprising what they are capable of if you think about the fact computers are just refined rock and sand." Wow. Amidst a brilliant post, for some reason, this statement really struck me!
Thank you so much! I'm glad that part stood out--we take for granted how wildly cool computers (and surprising) computers are
I have come to explain my atheism by saying the belief in God doesn't give human being enough credit. Your post does a magnificent job of detailing exactly what I mean. Nice work.
Excellent read. Bravo, good sir. I'm definitely subscribing because you piqued my interest when you teased an article explaining your firm adherence to compatibilism. I've yet to hear an argument for soft determinism that didn't strike me as 'circle squaring' or seemingly apologetic in nature, but I look forward to your attempt to convince me. When you publish it I will read it because, (of course), I have no free will in the matter. Keep up the great work and all the best.
Thank you! Now I suppose I really have to get around to writing that free will post (or rather, I don't have to, but I will choose to of my own free will 😉)
Nice.
Thank you for your thoughtful and well-written piece. I agree that both theism and atheism can both give reasonably coherent explanations of what we see. I happen to disagree on which one is more coherent (I'm a Christian, and for what it's worth I trained as a particle physicist before my career led away from active academic research). But I also agree with you that arguing over proofs of God's existence is often unfruitful.
I would like to comment on a couple of specific points you made, in the spirit of hopefully adding more data to the conversation.
First, I think there is a difference between mind/body dualism and physical/spiritual dualism, and I think that is important for your argument. I'm quite happy with the idea that mind is an emergent property of the brain/body. But I think the soul is something different from the mind, as the spiritual world is different from the physical world; a different dimension of reality. I believe humans have body, mind and spirit/soul, and that all are important (i.e. to be truly human, we also need a body, not just a soul). So arguments about dualism have to be very careful to define terms clearly and not to conflate mind and soul (unless of course you are arguing that mind=soul, which many theologians and philosophers would probably take issue with).
Second, the article you cite (Stirrat & Cornwell, 2013) examines religious belief in a rather narrow cohort of scientists, as it focuses on the Royal Society (membership being generally older British scientists who have reached a certain point in their careers). I would suggest that the 2016 study by Ecklund et al (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023116664353) is more comprehensive; they surveyed over 22,000 scientists across 8 regions worldwide. I don't think I can post an image of their results in the comments, but while they did find that scientists in some regions (UK, US, France) were significantly less likely to consider themselves religious than the general public, scientists in other regions (Taiwan and Hong Kong) were more likely to identify as religious while in other countries (Italy, Turkey) they were less likely to be religious but not as markedly so. The paper makes very interesting reading (and I believe the research has been expanded in Ecklund et al's book "Secularity and Science" (OUP, 2019) but I haven't had the chance to read that yet). More anecdotally, in my own experience working as a physicist in the UK, I found quite a number of my colleagues were Christian or Muslim (or in one case Buddhist).
Having said that, I would like to query the applicability of data like this in discussing what is ultimately a metaphysical question. I find the sociological studies on what scientists believe about God or religion super interesting, but it seems to me that when considering the question itself (e.g. "is there a God?"), scientists do not necessarily have any more expertise than anyone else, certainly if taking it from a NOMA approach. Science (as we think of it today) by definition is concerned with the physical world. If there is a spiritual world, it is by definition not part of the physical world and not accessible to science; i.e. science has limits.
For me, the "data points" that cement my belief in the coherence of the Christian faith centre on the person of Christ and his life and resurrection. I'm sure you've heard the arguments before so no need to go into them, but that, in my personal experience, is what ties everything together.
Finally, I wholeheartedly agree with your closing sentences, "What's more important is to keep digging, trying to understand the world. By learning more about our world, learning the mechanisms behind the seemingly magical, we enrich our worldview in unexpected ways and refine our beliefs towards what is true."
Thanks again for writing this piece and for the thought-provoking conversation it is raising!
Thanks for the long and thoughtful response!
A couple of comments:
I'm not sure of how theologians talk about it, but in all of the philosophy of mind I've been exposed to, for substance dualists, mind and soul are used interchangeably as the word for the immaterial bit. This goes back to Descartes, for whom the rational mind was the immaterial thing that made humans special. I think this might just be a terminology issue. It's fine if you want to say the mind is something different from the soul, and the soul is the non-material part. Whatever you take to be the second substance in substance dualism is what I'm saying I don't see a motivation for, and what I think really mutually reinforces belief in God.
I certainly don't think the surveys of scientists are decisive in any way, but I think it's useful to point out that scientists in general are more secular than the societies they are in (I cited two studies, the one on Royal Society members as well as a Pew Research one of more general scientists). This seems aligned with the study you point to, though of course there is more nuance as you look closer. Not surprisingly given my post, I reject NOMA. I think both naturalism and theism attempt to explain things about the world. Understanding the world can lead us to reconceptualizing things and increase or decrease the coherence of any metaphysical view.
The reason I think it's worth asking what scientists think is because my entire premise is that, as you learn more about what "dumb matter" is capable of, and more about the brain and biology in particular, I think dualism and theism become a less coherent explanation. If you're not happy with the appeal to authority on scientists, it's also worth noting philosophers are also much more secular than society at large (https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4842).
Thanks again for the thoughtful response, and I'm glad the last bit resonated with you.
Thanks for taking the time to reply! I'm afraid my response just now is going to be sparser than I'd like - I'm in the middle of packing up my life and belongings in one country and preparing for an international move, so things are a bit chaotic and I don't have as much time as I'd like 🙃
I agree that for Descartes, mind/soul was kind of the same thing, but I'd argue that owes more to the Aristotelian tradition than to the biblical teaching; the ancient Hebrew idea of soul / spirit was something rather different to the Greek idea that that got passed down to Western Europe. But as you point out, that's not really the main question here.
For me and I think many other Christians (or other theists) who are scientists or have worked in science, seeing what "dumb matter" can do is a source of great wonder and awe. I see the mechanisms of matter as a secondary cause (I guess what Aristotle would call the material cause, though I'm not much of an expert on Aristotelian philosophy), while the metaphysical explanation (i.e. a creator) is the primary cause or final cause. Different levels of explanation; complementary, rather than competing explanations. Personally I find that much more satisfying, because it then has a purpose and leads to a relationship with that creator. In the end, it's the question of why there is something rather than nothing, so I'd argue that God makes the whole picture more coherent because there is then a primary cause and a teleology.
I am grateful for the chance to reflect on and discuss these topics; I feel it's always beneficial to discuss things in a thoughtful way like this, and that is what you have provided with your post! Peace be with you.
My Catholic upbringing compels me to respond: And also with you
Great post. I spent many years fluctuating between belief, agnosticism, atheism, and back again. In my 60s, I finally accepted that what we call God is a human construct, end of story. It makes life much easier.
Well, I love the focus of this. I’ve long argued that theism is only fairly judged by inference to the best explanation, not the idea that if we don’t know we’ll revert to some default idea of not-theism. Because for most people, non-theism is really an unjustified naturalism.
And as soon as you grant we should judge competing explanations, theism is now a formidable player.
The major challenges to any non-theist views are – consciousness and causal origins.
- First up the idea that theism and souls entails dualism isn’t true. For example, the various schools of Hindu Vedanta are idealist substance monists, but all of them are also theists and believe in eternal souls.
- It’s not the complexity of minds that challenges naturalism, it’s the properties of minds, and specifically qualia and intentionality. No amount of increase in quantity (complexity) will produce a change in quality.
- You rightly point out that brain effects mind, but you ignore the hard problem for physicalists that mind effects brain. How can qualitative states like pain, beliefs, intentions, cause changes in physical matter? Trying to answering this lands the physicalist in diabolical trouble.
- One point that I think is seriously misunderstood by non-theists is the causal (cosmological) argument for theism. Most often people respond they’re happy to say we don’t know, but this isn't an option because we do know. This question isn’t waiting on developments in knowledge. And the only explanatory options for naturalists are brute fact or infinite regress. Both of those terms are euphemisms for an embarrassing universe sized hole in their web of beliefs.
Thanks for the response!
In terms of consciousness, I think it's a really interesting question! I have a big interest in the philosophy and science of consciousness, and personally I'm inclined towards a functionalist view of consciousness. I disagree that it's fundamentally flawed to adopt physicalism about consciousness--it's the majority view among philosophers of mind, for example, so it can't be that dumb. I think answering the hard problem (or, more likely, deconstructing it through gradual learning and reconceptualization) is an important problem, but I see it as the analogous problem for physicalism that dualism has with the interaction between material and immaterial.
I don't really understand your point about the cosmological argument -- what do you mean that we do know? We do know what?
Regarding majority views and your inclination to functionalism, have you read Galen Strawson’s, The Consciousness Deniers?
As for causal origins, I meant we do know - the possible answers to this question of why the universe exists (causal origins). You mentioned that atheists consider questions like this god of the gaps, the unstated suggestion is that science can one day explain the origin of the universe. But that’s not true, science can’t explain it and neither can philosophical naturalism/atheism. We already know what the only explanatory options available to the non-theist are - brute fact or infinite regress. These are arguably not even explanations, but euphemisms for the lack of one.
I mention these two points specifically because they can’t be brushed aside as minor holes in our explanatory web of beliefs.
These are “the” questions of human life. Who are we (consciousness) and why are we here (causal origins)?
These are the questions theism confronts and both are beyond the explanatory limits of naturalism. This is where the serious challenge to the atheist and naturalist world view is found. Everything else is a distraction.
I have read Strawson's The Consciousness Deniers! I think Strawson misrepresents the functionalist (and even illusionist) view in that piece. As Dennett points out in his response, the claim isn't that consciousness doesn't exist, just that we don't by virtue of having experienced it necessarily know the nature of conscious experience. Regardless, panpsychists like Strawson and Goff I think generally do a good job articulating the intuitions that make various forms of physicalism hard to adopt for some people. I'll almost certainly write a post on this at some point.
I'm afraid I'm still a bit confused on the causal origins bit. You say we know enough that we have to take one of two horns of a dilemma: brute fact or infinite regress. If we define those to be logically exhaustive, sure, I can agree, but what are you trying to get out of that? Regardless of whether you are a theist or atheist you have to accept one horn of the dilemma. If you're a theist you might accept the brute fact of God's existence. To me, that feels arbitrary and not very satisfying--where did God come from? Since I believe minds are complex, it doesn't feel like it explains much. Hence the "God of the gaps" charge atheists often make.
I look forward to reading your ideas about consciousness.
For the point about causal origins that dilemma only applies to non-theists. Theism is the necessary being option, not brute fact. There is the agnostic option, but that isn’t available to a/theism or naturalism, since it rules out knowledge.
All these positions are meta-views, they inform us of who we are because they tell us why the world exists.
Expressed as an oversimplified and crude binary, theism means the world is created as a vehicle to achieve the eternal life of the conscious souls; atheism means the world has no reason, no purpose and the conscious self dies with the physical system it emerges from.
If our choice of a/theism isn’t about those questions, what is it about? It’s not like choosing between two theoretical claims that have no practical consequence for how we live our lives.
And so I see this question as decisive in the a/theism debate. It’s a forced choice, you can’t abstain. Abstaining is practically equivalent to choosing non-theism. And non-theism logically commits you to those two explanations of causal origins. How rationally coherent are they? Saying you don't know the purpose of the universe isn't the same as the universe has no purpose. The latter is a strong claim with basically no justification. It's accepted merely on the basis of not being comfortable with the theism option, without checking if the non-theism option is far more uncomfortable.
Thanks for the articulation of your view! I think it's reasonable to say, on the question of the origins of the universe or any other questions, "I don't know exactly how it happened but certain answers (e.g. theism) seem very unlikely"
Well, it’s that retreat to “I don’t know” that I’m not granting lol. If we agree the correct procedure is to judge competing explanations, and we judge the theism option is unlikely, how much “less” likely (or less reasonable) are the answers available to the non-theist?
But I’m content to leave that as a rhetorical question. I might try and write an article fleshing this argument out in more detail. It seems strong to me but I'm probably missing something, so it's something I’d like to hear atheist response to.
Thanks for a thought provoking article!
Good stuff. I may take a stab at a substance dualist response if I get the time. Maybe, if we feel like it, we could meet at the crack of dawn and have a duel
I'll have my pistol polished and loaded
Us
https://youtu.be/sDsn-RRmDXU?si=US2ABcOelnPhRNfn
https://kaiserbasileus.substack.com/p/to-grok-god
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Also, you mentioned coherence. This is the set of philosophical understandings with maximum coherence, internally to be rational and externally to be useful: https://philosocom.com/post/metaphysics-in-a-nutshell
are you arguing for a non-theistic deism? maybe I missed the boat or am unaware of some issue
but why is the middle ground excluded and we exclude a coherent epistemic atheistic account claiming what god is not or an empirically consistent theistic account claiming what is ?
a) igtheism - no version of god can be defined sufficiently specifically to discuss rationally, much less to verify
b)! all versions of god are either an untestable force or a personified untestable force, making them all equally indistinguishable from fiction
c) no version of god has ever been demonstrated to be possible, much less plausible, much less likely, much less actual
d) no empirical or logical evidence supports any version of god and never has and never will
Your project of understanding god is utterly counter-productive to your own development and the good of humanity.
I want to say something like all have the same commitments in a quietest sense and move on to something applied.
But also,
E) no version of god has been sufficiently rationally denied to prove it isn't.
F) there are so many distinguishing narratives on god, personal and shared making them all equally true
G) no version of god has been tested to be implausible , much less impossible, or even unlikely or not the case.
H) no empirical evidence disproves these humans narratives of god, none ever has, and none likely ever will
The ontological question is explicitly outside human cognition for me. Shouldn't we be discussing the epistemic, applied, normative, metaethical related parts that instead?
IE Don't tell me what god is or even that it is. Just say how we should relate to it, even if it isn't the way any one claims, or even while it doesn't exist. But all of these at once.
I really appreciate this piece and your thoughtful stance.
Perceiving dualism at the root of religious belief is interesting but I do wonder if the theological arguments at the root of this perception aren't somewhat influenced by ancient greek philosophers. To me who's studying some religions, the notion of soul the way abrahamic religions talk about is troubling and unclear. The root of the notion of soul seems to come from aristotle and plato, instead of "God" or "revelation". Dualism in the sense of Descartes is one way of being religious, but very few believers have truly studied these arguments. But if you ask them to make a distinction between an immaterial soul and an "invisible" one, the answer could be different than what you expect, I believe. Many "force" or material things are invisible, and I'm sure that more people would talk about an invisible God, rather than a truly immaterial one like an abstract concept (like the number 2). That is definitely more a "greek" or philosophers' God (an abstract one) rather than an abrahamic religions.
Interesting, but we all come to this subject with background attitudes (e.g. towards what words like “evidence” and “God” mean), which affect the whole process of thinking about it. In this case, the word “soul” surely just comes with too much baggage of history and implications. It seems to me better avoided. People are also frequently incapable of separating the idea of a God from Judeo-Christianity, as if creating an entire vast universe would then involve “interfering” and “choosing” one little primitive tribe, on one of possibly trillions of planets, to “reveal” more truth to than they can already see around them. Even the baggage that comes with the word “God” gets in the way of exploratory understanding. For instance, of course you can argue about “evidence” for some particular kind of God, and usually end up seeing it as projected fantasy or something – but you can’t argue about Existence. There is something rather than nothing. And only certain modern “researchers” or “philosophers” can argue against the existence of the reality of subjective conscious experience, so there’s something there as well. There is also the repeatedly demonstrated reality of mystical and psychedelic experience as “extensions” of “ordinary” consciousness (if there is anything ordinary about consciousness). The idea that non-conscious matter can “do incredible things” is just utterly irrelevant: there isn’t a computer program that knows it is playing chess, that wants to play chess, that “feels” competitive or enjoys victory; there isn’t anything “incredible” unless there is a conscious mind to design it in the first place and then to even feel it as incredible and describe it as such to other conscious minds. I can only suggest that it is well worthwhile to put in the effort to read Iain McGilchrist, including the entire two volumes of “The Matter with Things”, and then imagine you can start thinking about it again.
I was raised Christian. Now I’m not. I do believe in God, but none of the definitions above really seem to fit. I do think God is in everything and everyone, elemental if you will. Beyond that, I prefer to let the mystery be. Always interesting to hear people talk about this however. Thank you.
Using Hegal’s Dialectic (Thesis - Antithesis- Synthesis), Dr. Willis begins with Theism as a position that is easily overcome by the position taken by Atheists (perfect & just solitary God permits suffering & pain, etc., therefore, bogus), then comes Trinitarianism whereby the Spirit of Holiness and God’s incarnation as a baby in Bethlehem who matures as a suffering servant, becoming the High Priest & also the final sacrifice-atones for the fall. This position, backed by Barth & Moltmann, trumps Atheism.
Theism, Atheism and the Doctrine of the Trinity: The Trinitarian Theologies of Karl Barth and Jürgen Moltmann in Response to Protest Atheism (AAR Academy Series)