Tuesday, June 26, 2007

God

This is an interesting New York Times blog containing an interesting argument by Stanley Fish. The atheist’s claim that God does not exist - because actual religions are a bundle of contradictions that could not possibly be constructed by an omniscient God - does not undermine the case for the existence of God. Nor, of course, does recognising that it does not undermine the argument establish that God does exist.

‘It is God (if there is one) who is perfect and infinite; men are finite and confined within historical perspectives. And any effort to apprehend him – including the efforts of the compilers of the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran – will necessarily fall short of a transparency that will be achieved (if it is achieved) only at a future moment of beatific vision. Now – any now, whether it be 2007 or 6,000 years ago – we see through a glass darkly (1 Corinthians, 13:12); one day, it is hoped, we shall see face to face.

In short, it is the unfathomable and unbridgeable distance between deity and creature that assures the failure of the latter to comprehend or prove in the sense of validating the former.
If divinity, by definition, exceeds human measure, the demand that the existence of God be proven makes no sense because the machinery of proof, whatever it was, could not extend itself far enough to apprehend him.

Proving the existence of God would be possible only if God were an item in his own field; that is, if he were the kind of object that could be brought into view by a very large telescope or an incredibly powerful microscope. God, however – again if there is a God – is not in the world; the world is in him; and therefore there is no perspective, however technologically sophisticated, from which he could be spied. As that which encompasses everything, he cannot be discerned by anything or anyone because there is no possibility of achieving the requisite distance from his presence that discerning him would require.

The criticism made by atheists that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated is no criticism at all; for a God whose existence could be demonstrated wouldn’t be a God; he would just be another object in the field of human vision.

This does not mean that my arguments constitute a proof of the truth of religion; for if I were to claim that I would be making the atheists’ mistake from the other direction. Nor are they arguments in which I have a personal investment. Their purpose and function is simply to show how the atheists’ arguments miss their mark and, indeed, could not possibly hit it.

At various points Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens all testify to their admiration for Shakespeare, who, they seem to think, is more godly than God. They would do well to remember one of the bard’s most famous lines, uttered by Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”’

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The idea of Gods whose only role is to avoid investigation regarding their existence is meaningless.

The only meaningful Gods are ones that make an effort to communicate with us. A burning bush, a virgin birth, an incarnation here and there, a few miracles, a real-estate deal for some consideration, a book transcript.

Now we can genuinely investigate the veracity of these communications. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell it seems likely that many of these communications are unlikely to have actually occurred. So at best we can say that Gods are meaningless.

Anonymous said...

What you seem to be saying is that we can't disprove the existence of God, because he doesnt conform to our laws or logic.

Isn't that just a bit too bloody convenient?

You save yourself having to make a logical and reasoned argument backed with evidence by saying 'oh he doesnt conform to our logic'.

Rubbish.

Anonymous said...

Yes, well, Harry, I couldn't log into the NYT site easily so I gave up. Perhaps you could paraphrase that Fishy argument or just cut and paste it (ackowledging it, of course, as reference - we wouldn't want you to be extradited to the US for a copyright violation to then end up doing time at Leavenworth. Make no mistake though, your pal JHW would give you up in flash.

I suppose your champing at the bit to see what my point is?

The point is that non-believers, and this is a general point that holds true for deist fantasies of all kinds, DO NOT HAVE DISPROVE ANYTHING.

This smells of not just a copout but the kind of doctrinarie polemics about transubstation, or how many angels can dance on head of a pin etcetera.

Besides, it is very question-begging of you Harry, to introduce a topic for discussion which allegedly is undiscussable. It is time you put the case of red back under the bed for the time being, that is, if there are still any left in the box. I too get religious, morose and mortal all of a sudden at the tail end of a vintage run,

hc said...

Rabee, I think the word 'only' in your first line overstates things. There is no necessary reason for a respected deity to be communicative.

Panadawn, Don't be hostile - I am an athiest - its an entertaining argument that's all. Nothing here proves God does exist as is clear in the closing remarks.

Jack, I agree it is believers who have an onus of proof not nonbelievers. This is a version of the article unedited. Pity you can't access the site - other good stuff there:

Sure it is. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens think that this fact about religion is enough to invalidate its claims.
“[R]eligion and the churches,” declares Hitchens “are manufactured, and this salient fact is too obvious to ignore.” True to his faith, Dawkins finds that the manufacturing and growth of religion is best described in evolutionary terms: “[R]eligions, like languages, evolve with sufficient randomness, from beginnings that are sufficiently arbitrary, to generate the bewildering – and sometimes dangerous – richness of diversity.” Harris finds a historical origin for religion and religious traditions, and it is not flattering: “The Bible, it seems certain, was the work of sand-strewn men and women who thought the earth was flat and for whom a wheelbarrow would have been a breathtaking example of emerging technology.”
And, they continue, it wasn’t even the work of sand-strewn men who labored in the same place at the same time. Rather, it was pieced together from fragments and contradictory sources and then had claimed for it a spurious unity: “Ever since the nineteenth century, scholarly theologians have made an overwhelming case that the gospels are not reliable accounts of what happened in the history of the real world” (Dawkins).
Hitchens adds that “the sciences of textual criticism, archaeology, physics, and molecular biology have shown religious myths to be false and man-made.” And yet, wonders Harris, “nearly 230 million Americans believe that a book showing neither unity of style nor internal consistency was authored by an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent deity.”
So there’s the triple-pronged case. Religions are humanly constructed traditions and at their center are corrupted texts that were cobbled together by provincial, ignorant men who knew less about the world than any high-school teenager alive today. Sounds devastating, but when you get right down to it, all it amounts to is the assertion that God didn’t write the books or establish the terms of worship, men did, and that the results are (to put it charitably) less than perfect.
But that is exactly what you would expect. It is God (if there is one) who is perfect and infinite; men are finite and confined within historical perspectives. And any effort to apprehend him – including the efforts of the compilers of the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran – will necessarily fall short of a transparency that will be achieved (if it is achieved) only at a future moment of beatific vision. Now – any now, whether it be 2007 or 6,000 years ago – we see through a glass darkly (1 Corinthians, 13:12); one day, it is hoped, we shall see face to face.
In short, it is the unfathomable and unbridgeable distance between deity and creature that assures the failure of the latter to comprehend or prove (in the sense of validating) the former.
O.L. (in a comment on June 11), identifies the “religion is man-made claim” as the “strongest foundation of atheism” because “it undermines the divinity of god.” No, it undermines the divinity of man, which is, after all, the entire point of religion: man is not divine, but mortal (capable of death), and he is dependent upon a creator who by definition cannot be contained within human categories of perception and description. “How unsearchable are his Judgments and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor” (Romans, 11:33-34). It is no wonder, then, that the attempts to contain him – in scriptures, in ceremonies, in prayer – are flawed, incomplete and forever inadequate. Rather than telling against divinity, the radical imperfection, even corruption, of religious texts and traditions can be read as a proof of divinity, or at least of the extent to which divinity exceeds human measure.
If divinity, by definition, exceeds human measure, the demand that the existence of God be proven makes no sense because the machinery of proof, whatever it was, could not extend itself far enough to apprehend him.
Proving the existence of God would be possible only if God were an item in his own field; that is, if he were the kind of object that could be brought into view by a very large telescope or an incredibly powerful microscope. God, however – again if there is a God – is not in the world; the world is in him; and therefore there is no perspective, however technologically sophisticated, from which he could be spied. As that which encompasses everything, he cannot be discerned by anything or anyone because there is no possibility of achieving the requisite distance from his presence that discerning him would require.
The criticism made by atheists that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated is no criticism at all; for a God whose existence could be demonstrated wouldn’t be a God; he would just be another object in the field of human vision.
This does not mean that my arguments constitute a proof of the truth of religion; for if I were to claim that I would be making the atheists’ mistake from the other direction. Nor are they arguments in which I have a personal investment. Their purpose and function is simply to show how the atheists’ arguments miss their mark and, indeed, could not possibly hit it.
At various points Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens all testify to their admiration for Shakespeare, who, they seem to think, is more godly than God. They would do well to remember one of the bard’s most famous lines, uttered by Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Anonymous said...

There are many forms of communication (not just on the internet). A quick plague, incitement to genocide, compacts with one's tribe, incarnation.

God's that don't communicate with us are not interesting to us. The successful Gods have been those that found a good way of getting their message across. We are not interested in abstract Gods that don't talk to the human condition.

Would you have even known of JWH had he not appeared on TV for the last three decades? God's that are bad communicators simply don't last.

Anonymous said...

Heh, sorry for the hostility.

It's a debate I admittedly have little patience for.

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson (I think it was he?), The only response to an illogical point of view is to ridicule it, because to be debated with, an argument must first be reasonable.

Steve said...

Well, I for one think you make an excellent point, Harry. I am a little surprised, however, to see you call yourself an atheist, as I thought the logic of your arguments means that you should categorise yourself as an agnostic only.

hc said...

Steve, I agree with Sir Henry that proposing something irrefutable does not imply any case for uncertainty. Athiesm makes more sense.

Sir Henry. I apologise for question-beginning but I think it is sometimes worthwhile to focus on fallacies within arguments that overall seem sound.