Doxazo Theos

Continuing to study issues related to the conceptualist argument for God’s existence, I’ve updated the article in a few places. I added the analytic proof for the existence of numbers I posted below, as it nicely illustrates the logic behind Tennant’s argument for the necessary existence of numbers. I also added a brief argument for conceptualism from the nature of intentionality, citing Richard Davis’s recent work on this (Davis, “God and Modal Concretism”, Philosophia Christi 10/1 [2008], 57-74).

I added a few more remarks against fictionalism that parallel coherence theories of truth. I did not foresee assuming a correspondence theory of truth as being much of an issue, but some of the criticisms brought forth in the comments showed that assumption to be a little naive (indeed, argumentative strategies for fictionalism bear a close resemblance to coherence theories of truth, and an even closer resemblance to deflationary theories). An in-depth defense of the conceptualist argument would need to be more sophisticated in its treatment of the nature of truth.

The biggest obstacle to the argument is pending success of fictionalism. Jody Azzouni’s Deflating Existential Consequence: A Case for Nominalism (Oxford, 2004) is very powerful. William Lane Craig told me Brian Leftow has recently embraced fictionalism, but I am yet to see anything published by him along those lines. I am curious about where this would leave his Divine Ideas, a book he’s been working on for some time.

Interestingly enough, if something like fictionalism were true, I don’t think this would necessarily spell disaster for the conceptualist argument. Greg Welty’s theistic conceptual realism, for example, would allow the conceptualist to accept the nominalist’s reductive analyses as descriptively true prior to creation but false sans creation. Such a move would, however, significantly attenuate the force of the conceptualist argument, giving it a sort of fifth wheel status (very similar to how many view the ontological argument). That is to say such a move isn’t suspect on other grounds (Ad hoc? Having the proverbial philosophic cake and eating it, too?). In the mean time, be sure to check out this guy’s high-quality, devestating critique of fictionalism.

Everyone is familiar with Frank Jackson’s wonder woman, Mary.¹ It is said that if Mary gains “what is it like” knowledge (a.k.a., knowledge de se) upon exiting her black and white Truman Show-like scenario, this would count in some way against physicalism (similar is Nagel’s argument in “What Is It Like To Be A Bat?”²). I have often wondered, though, that if the possession of knowledge de se is allowed to count against physicalism, why is it not similarly allowed to count against divine omniscience? Presumably knowledge de se is necessarily had only by its subject. But since God and Mary are not the same subject, Mary knows something God does not know, hence God is not omniscient. Partick Grim has drawn out this reasoning by assuming the first-person indexical used in the context of a thought experiment offered by John Perry.³ To make Perry’s scenario a little more comical, imagine I notice a trail of toilet paper coming from the bathroom down the hall. I think to myself how embarrassing it must be for the person who tracked it out! Curious, I decide to follow the trail to catch a glimpse of the poor lad only to discover that the poor lad is me! I am the one who’s been tracking toilet paper down the hall! My knowledge de se is expressed in

(1) I am tracking toilet paper down the hall

which should be distinguished from

(2) Chad McIntosh is tracking toilet paper down the hall

because the knowledge had in (1) is clearly different from what is had in (2), for anyone could know what is known in (2) but only I can know what is known in (1). Outlining Grim’s argument:

(3)	I know that I am tracking the toilet paper (i.e. I know what I know in knowing (1))
(4)	God cannot know what I know in knowing (1)
(5)	Therefore, there is something knowable that God cannot know
(6)	Therefore, God cannot be omniscient

You could make the argument more theologically knotty by making what is known in (1) sinful (e.g., “I am committing adultery”, which leads to the question of whether God knows what it’s like to sin⁴). Several attempts have been made to counter Grim’s argument: Castañeda, Abbruzzese, Zagzebski, and Nagasawa, most notably the lattermost.⁵

Nagasawa’s solution comes from the Thomistic insight that omniscience should be analyzed as a function of omnipotence.⁶ In Nagasawa’s words, if the content of God’s knowledge is understood as “exercising the epistemic part of His omnipotence—the sum of all the powers that He has to have and He actually has”,⁷ then for him to know what is known in (1) amounts to a logical impossibility—being me (that God and I be the same subject). But because logical impossibility does not count against omnipotence and omniscience is analyzed in terms of omnipotence, logical impossibility doesn’t count against omniscience, either.

While ingenious, Nagasawa’s solution stands or falls on that controversial Thomistic view of omniscience. But traditionally theists have held that omniscience is a categorical rather than a modal notion.⁸ Understood as posterior omnipotence, one’s definition of omniscience winds up being similar to William Haskar’s⁹:

(O)	S is omniscient = def. iff S knows only and all true propositions which are such that it is logically possible for S to know them

But (O) has serious problems. First, it assumes there is a difference between a truth and a truth which is logically possible to know. But this looks like a distinction without a difference, for the only sufficient condition there is for a proposition to be logically possible to know is for it to be true. One is free to offer a counterexample to this by citing a proposition that could be true but logically impossible to know, but in the absence of such, (O) seems to stipulate a gratuitous condition for omniscience.¹⁰ Second and more fundamentally, (O) does not intuitively capture the scope of omniscience. According to (O), it remains possible that S be ignorant of an infinite number of truths yet still be omniscient! This problem is similar to one that plagues conceptions of omnipotence which are akin to (O). Not surprisingly, for if the scope of (O) is delineable from omnipotence then whatever defect one’s conception of omnipotence has will be inherited by (O). Consider Wierenga’s¹¹:

(P)	S is omnipotent = def. iff S can do anything which is such that S’s doing it is logically possible

Not quite as famous as Jackson’s Mary is Plantinga’s McEar¹². McEar is the hypothetical agent who essentially has the power to do only one thing, namely, scratch his ear. If omnipotence is the power to do whatever one’s essential nature logically permits, then McEar is omnipotent. The same consequence would follow from (O): agents whose essential natures permit only limited actions would thereby possess only the epistemic powers permissible by the scope of those natures.

While the Thomistic line is attractive, I remain unsure in lieu of the above difficulties. In the end, it seems to me that Nagasawa et al. have taken a central assumption of Grim’s for granted: that divine omniscience entails knowledge of everything. But the traditional definition of omniscience doesn’t suffer either from modal overkill or requires what is known in (1) to be known by God:

(O’)	S is omniscient = def. iff p is true, then S knows that p and does not believe not-p

What is required by (O’) is propositional knowledge, knowledge de dicto. Because knowledge de se does not take truths as its object, other subjects’ knowledge de se is not required of an omniscient being to know. That God does not know what I know in (1), therefore, is not an example of a truth God fails to know. Grim’s argument is crafted under a faulty conception of divine omniscience (I.e., (O)), and the attempted replies have largely bought into it. But under (O’) no such problems surface.¹³ So even if all the premises in Grim’s argument were true, the conclusion would not follow. Indeed, “The only reason one would prefer (O) to (O’)”, observes Craig, “is due to an ulterior motivation to salvage the attribute of omniscience for a cognitively limited deity rather than to deny outright that God is omniscient.”¹⁴ Ironically, then, the attempt by Nagasawa et al. to expand omniscience to include the object of (1) with (O) actually winds up restricting it, leaving them with a quasi from of divine omniscience, or something near enough.¹⁵

In conclusion, the reason why knowledge de se counts against physicalism and not divine omniscience is because the former has as a necessary condition everything be reducible to knowledge de dicto, but no such stipulation is placed on latter.
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In The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus famously remarked that “there is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide”. Camus later reasoned that because suicide amounts to using your freedom to take away our freedom, one should rationally opt against it. Camus’ reasoning resurfaces in what Thomas V. Morris has dubbed The Suicide Argument:

(1)	I should rid the world of bad things, so far as it is in my control to do so
(2)	An utterly absurd and meaningless life is a bad thing
(3)	My life is utterly absurd and meaningless
(4)	It is within my control to rid the world of my life
(5)	Thus, I should rid the world of my life

The starting premise seems true, at least as a prima facie moral principle. I think most people would find it unobjectionable. Certainly we can say that intuitively, it is more plausibly true than not. The same could be said for (2). If morality is objective, then an utterly absurd and meaningless life is either good or bad, and of course it would not be a good thing. Even if morality is subjective, I hardly see anyone ascribing a value other than bad to an utterly absurd and meaningless life. In either case, an utterly absurd and meaningless life would be bad and not value-neutral. Hence, (2) is plausibly true as well. What about (3)? First, ponder what Morris calls The Endowment Thesis:

(ET)	Something has meaning iff it is endowed with meaning or significance by a purposive personal agent or group of such agents

As it stands, I think (ET) is false. For it is possible for a being to have intrinsic meaning—meaning not endowed by another. One thinks of Swinburne’s conception of an ontologically necessary being, whose sufficient reason and meaning is in itself, for example. So maybe we can tweak (ET) a bit:

(ET’)

Something has meaning iff it is either ontologically necessary or endowed with meaning or significance by a purposive personal agent or group of such agents

Even if you don’t think an ontologically necessary being exists, (ET’) should be open for agreement to virtually everyone. Either something has intrinsic meaning or its meaning is derivative and extrinsic. The only thing which could have intrinsic meaning is an ontologically necessary being. It seems rather obvious that if there were no purposive personal agent(s) at all, then nothing would have meaning. Everything would just be. So (ET’) seems secure.

So what about (3)? If Christian theism is true, then (3) is false. What about naturalism? It is hard to say. Most, I imagine, would become indignant by such a remark. For certainly we can and do create meaning for our lives as we see fit. In fact, we greet life like this every day—we go to and fro, doing things for various purposes which thereby impart meaning to our lives. Apart from an ontologically necessary being’s endowments, any meaning would therefore come via our control. So the naturalist can reason that because (4) is true, as a consequence (3) must be false.

The problem with this is its failure to take into account the prior, ontological distinction between relative and objective or ultimate meaning. To see the difference, consider the chain of events:

E₁, E₂, E₃, … E_n

Every event leading up to E_n has meaning relative to the accomplishment of the chain itself. Once E_n is reached, the chain as a whole accrues ultimate meaning. It’s like a game of chess. Only if the game has ultimate meaning does each individual move have significance. Our lives are like the chain of events. Relative meaning is within our control. Ultimate meaning is not (either life has ultimate meaning or it does not—such seems beyond our endowing capabilities). Even though we can and do endow relative meaning to our lives, our lives as a whole remain meaningless unless it is endowed ultimate meaning. I submit that the only being capable of endowing life with ultimate meaning is an ontologically necessary being. Therefore, even if (4) is true the naturalist can’t use it to say (3) is false. Indeed, it is hard to see how the naturalist could deny (3). In fact, Morris points out that any reason supporting (3) could probably support

(6) Every human’s life is utterly absurd and meaningless

just as well, which would lead to an even more dramatic conclusion:

(7) I should rid the world of every human life

Now obviously nobody should accept this argument, and I’m not at all saying anyone should (God forbid). What I’m saying is, with Camus, the only way out of this argument for the naturalist seems to be the denial of (1). The naturalist is therefore left with saying we should not rid the world of bad things, so far as they are within our control—an unwelcome conclusion if there ever was one.

Aware of the many alleged prophecies in the Bible, many Christians eagerly point to them as evidence for Christianity without realizing certain constraints under which prophecy needs to be placed in order to have evidential value. When such constraints are in place, however, I think fulfilled prophecy could serve as powerful evidence. The great atheist J. L. Mackie agrees:

[It] is worth noting that successful prophecy could be regarded as a form of miracle for which there could in principle be good evidence. If someone is reliably recorded as having prophesied at t₁ an event at t₂ which could not be predicted at t₁ on any natural grounds, and the event occurs at t₂, then at any later time t₃ we can assess the evidence for the claims both that the prophecy was made at t₁ and that its accuracy cannot be explained either causally (for example, on the ground that it brought about its own fulfillment) or as accidental, and hence that it was probably miraculous.¹

Mackie therefore seems to have the following three conditions in mind that must be met for prophecy to be regarded as evidence:

(1)	The recording of the events must be historically reliable
(2)	The events cannot be artificially forged or coerced into being fulfilled
(3)	Fulfillment by coincidence or chance must be ruled out

Now that the proper restrictions are in place, the question can be asked, Does the Bible contain alleged fulfilled prophecy that meets conditions (1) through (3)? I think it does (if I can assert that without argument for the sake of brevity here). Another way alleged fulfilled prophecy could be used as evidence is by casting it into the form of a design argument. Consider prophecy in the context of Debmski’s so-called Generic Chance Elimination Argument²:

(1)	Some event e has occurred at t2
(2)	The occurrence of e at t2 was outside the control of human efforts
(3)	e was reliably predicted at t1 to occur at t2
(4)	The probability of the e occurring at t2 by chance is very small
(5)	The occurrence of e was only possible at t2
(6)	Given (5), the occurrence of e at t2 remains highly improbable
(7)	The probability of e occurring at t2 by chance is highly improbable
(8)	Contingent circumstances x are necessary for e to have occurred at t2
(9)	We can infer (3) from contingent circumstances x
(10)	One is warranted in inferring that the occurrence of e at t2 was not by chance

The main things to be worked out would be actually calculating the probability in (4) and elaborating on the contingent circumstances in (8). Regarding the former, the work of Peter Winebrenner Stoner and Robert C. Newman comes to mind, where they calculate the probability of individual and collective prophecies’ occurrence by chance.³ Regarding the latter, one would just need to spell out in detail what were the contingent states of affairs (people, places, events, etc.) necessary for the fulfillment of the prophecy.

By way of application, consider the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. This event was allegedly prophesied in Zechariah 9.9 which, replete with Messianic language, says “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” This prophecy is taken to be fulfilled by Jesus as he triumphantly rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, evoking bystanders to rejoice greatly, shouting in triumph, “‘Hosanna! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest!’” (Mark 11.1-11; see also Matt 21.1-11; Luke 19.28-38; John 12.12-16). Stoner and Newman estimate the probability of this prophecy occurring by chance to be 10⁶. The contingent states of affairs necessary for the fulfillment of this prophecy would include things like a messianic figure entering Jerusalem on a donkey accompanied by the scripture-alluding shouts of the bystanders.

The triumphal entry is also a prime candidate for Mackie’s threefold criteria. (1) We have copies of the book of Zechariah predating the time of Christ by at least 100 years. Moreover, the triumphal entry recorded in Mark is very reliable, given Markan priority and the independent source of John’s account. (2) Many of the contingent states of affairs mentioned earlier were not within Jesus’ control (such as the crowd’s reaction) and so couldn’t have been forged. (3) The likelihood of this occurring by chance, as argued by Stoner and Newman, is obviously very low.
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The issue of intellectual responsibility, or epistemic duties, is at times a thorny one. It is a question at the heart of internalist views of justification, such as deontologism. For the sake of a point, let’s just breeze through whether a deotological view of justification is necessarily internalist. Let’s also suppose that knowledge is justified true belief, where a true belief’s degree of justification is considerably affected by deontic factors. Additionally, let’s suppose the project of reformed epistemology is largely correct and the belief that God exists is a candidate for bonafied knowledge. Now consider the following:

Judy is a 9-year old who has adopted the Christian faith of her parents as a result of being raised in a loving, Christ-centered household. Jay is a 21-year old college student who has adopted the Christian faith of his parents as a result of being raised in a loving, Christ-centered household.

Obviously Judy’s parents’ faith serves as sufficient justification for her belief that God exists, whereas Jay’s almost certainly does not. Although still a Christian at 21, Jay can no longer claim to know God exists because he failed to fulfill his epistemic duty of appropriating the source of justification as he became of age. Of course there is a lot of ambiguity here, such as why and when a source of justification becomes insufficient, but the point is this: I suspect there are many Judys and many Jays in the Church today. I bet there are even those younger than Judy who can rightly enjoy knowledge of God’s existence and others much older than Jay, perhaps having spent their whole life in a church setting, who can’t. Intellectual responsibility should therefore be of paramount importance to every Christian’s life.

I mentioned earlier that if God is essentially good (by “good” I just mean the attribute of omnibenevolence, a.k.a. all-loving, morally perfect, etc.), then he can plausibly be taken to be Trinitarian also. Could there be good reasons for thinking God essentially has the attribute of is goodness?

Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne argues that “it is logically necessary that an omniscient and perfectly free being be perfectly good,” where a being is “morally perfectly good” just in case he always does the morally best action (Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism [Oxford, ed. 1993], p. 188; Ch 11 respectively). Unfortunately, Swinburne’s argument is less than clear. As best as I can gather from the text, Swinburne’s argument seems to be as follows:

(1)	An omniscient being knows all true propositions
(2)	A perfectly free being will always do an action if he judges that there is overriding reason for doing it rather than refraining from doing it
(3)	An action is morally good if, all things considered, it is better to do than not to do
(4)	There is overriding reason to do morally good actions than to refrain from doing them
(5)	A judgment about what is and is not a morally good action is either a true or false proposition
(6)	Therefore, an omniscient being will always make judgments about overriding reasons for doing actions which are true judgments
(7)	Therefore, an omniscient and perfectly free being will always do a morally good action

Though I am less than confident in my ability to structure it validly, I think this is a good argument at heart. One of the most attractive features of this argument is its independence of the notion of God as a greatest conceivable being, thus bypassing problems of whether perfect goodness is a great-making property.

As has been pointed out, contra Kant, existential statements are not always synthetic. For example, we can offer analytic proofs for the existence of numbers. Case in point, Neil Tennet’s argument for the existence of 0. John Baggaley also mentions this in his article on the ontological argument. Consider the following proof:

(1) a exists ≡ (∃y) a=y
(2) (number x) F(x)=0 ≡_df ¬(∃x)F(x)
(3) F(x) is x≠x

Statements entailing the existence of analytic truths, such as “There is no possible world such that there are no things that are not self-identical” entail there is something ‘=’ to nothing. But obviously nothing does not exist. So what is there to be equal to? Well, the number 0 itself. Therefore,

(4) (∃y) y=0

But as I mentioned before, this may have profound theistic implications.

Consider the first premise:

(1) A perfect being would be omnibenevolent

An omnibenevolent being displays perfect love. It is a being that is “morally perfect” or “all-loving” or “all-good”. An omnibenevolent being is surely greater than a mere benevolent one, or one not essentially benevolent at all. Surprisingly, it is this premise which seems most susceptible to attack. But if it could be established, which seems reasonable to think it could, it seems the nature of omnibenevolence would lead to a trinitarian conclusion. Crucial to omnibenevolence is the perfect exemplification of love. It is love maximally exemplified.

(2)	Omnibenevolence is possible only within a community of at least three persons

What about (2)? At first this seems just arbitrary, but it actually can enjoy some support by reflecting upon the nature of love. A relational display of love is clearly superior to that of a non-relational display. For example, love between two persons is more virtuous and rich than love only concentrated inward (in fact, we have a few contumelious words to describe the later sort of love). Maybe I would even go so far as to say that perfect love is necessarily relational, involving giving and receiving. When love is not relational it is defective and incomplete; we associate undesirable attitudes with it (pride, arrogance, narcissism, etc.). If perfect love is necessarily relational, then for it to be exemplified we need more than one person. Are two persons sufficient for perfect love? Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne thinks not:

Love involves sharing, giving to the other what of one’s own is good for him and receiving from the other what of his is good for one; and love involves co-operating with another to benefit third parties. This latter is crucial for worthwhile love. There would be something deeply unsatisfactory (even if for inadequate humans sometimes unavoidable) about marriage in which the parties were concerned solely with each other and did not use their mutual love to bring forth good to others, for example by begetting, nourishing, and educating children, but possibly in other ways instead. Love must share and love must co-operate in sharing. The best love would share all that it had. (Richard Swinburne, The Christian God [Oxford, 1994], 177-178)

Perfect love, then, would seem to not only require reciprocracy, but community. Because the love between two persons could be greater (say, by inviting another to share in it), it seems then a community of three persons is sufficient for the exemplification of perfect love. Because three persons are sufficient, we needn’t posit any more. Swinburne concludes:

…perfection includes perfect love. There is something profoundly imperfect and therefore inadequately divine in a solitary divine individual. If such an individual is love, he must share, and sharing with finite beings such as humans is not sharing all of one’s nature and so is imperfect sharing. A divine individual’s love has to be manifested in a sharing with another divine individual…(Ibid, 190)

Which brings us to our conclusion

(3)	Therefore, a perfect being must be composed of at least three persons

Few trends in academia have astonished me more than atheistic moral realism (AMR), the view that moral principles are akin to abstract objects. Because abstract objects are plausibly taken to be necessary and universal, it would seem a comparative neoplatonic form of morality could sufficiently ground the objectivity of moral principles apart from God. This view is championed by atheist philosopher Michael Martin, and others have jumped on the bandwagon as well (Paul Kurtz, Louis Pojman, et. al.). Without detailing a critique, here are some reasons this view strikes me as immanently suspect.

First, if moral principles are treated as platonic abstract objects, then AMR faces the same difficulties Platonism does. Chiefly, the epistemological objection. If moral principles have the same properties as abstract objects (existence a se and causal inefficacy), then such a view would render moral principles unknowable. Knowledge of external objects entails a relation of sorts—one where information about that object can pass from it to us. But how can an unextended, causally effete abstract object enter a relation?

Similarly, abstract objects themselves aren’t exactly complimentary to a naturalistic worldview, much less moral ones (a further defense of these two points can be found here). The late atheist J. L. Mackie:

If there were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe. Correspondingly, if we were aware of them, it would have to be by some special faculty of … perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else. (Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong [Penguin, 1977], 38)

Second, even if we could have knowledge of abstract moral principles somehow and they weren’t in tension with naturalism, such principles would nonetheless be unintelligible. Just what it means to say that moral principles such as justice and charitableness exist alone all by themselves is wholly unclear. I understand what these principles mean when associated with persons (the judge exacted justice; his charitableness is admirable), but to say there exists entities called justice and charitableness apart from persons, or at least states of affairs, is rather uninformative.

Third, even if we could have knowledge of abstract moral principles and they weren’t in tension with naturalism and they were intelligible to us, why should we feel obliged to obey them? Why should be duty-bound by them? They just are. Ethicist Richard Taylor points this out:

A duty is something that is owed…But something can be owed only to some person or persons. There can be no such thing as duty in isolation…Our obligations can … be understood as those that are imposed by God…But what if this higher-than-human lawgiver is no longer taken into account? Does the concept of moral obligation…still make sense?…the concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone. (Ethics, Faith and Reason [Prentice Hall, 1984], 83-84)

Nothing about a brute given conveys normativity. The problem would be even more pressing were such principles to conflict with my own self-interests.

Fourth, even if we could have knowledge of abstract moral principles and they weren’t in tension with naturalism and they were intelligible to us and we did feel obliged to obey them, why obey certain ones as opposed to others? For every moral value we deem good, surely there exists another which is bad. For example, opposing charitableness would be greed; justice, injustice, and so forth. Why choose to obey the former as opposed to the latter? Pain of arbitrariness seems unavoidable. This in turn lands us right back into the relativism AMR sought to avoid: how can we go about criticizing a person who chooses to obey difference abstract moral principles than the ones we have? To avoid this we can deny the existence of those moral values we see as bad and claim only ones like charitibleness exist (this seems to be the position of Martin and others). But this move itself is completely arbitrary. It seems awfully convenient that only those values we deem good happen to exist and that we have evolved in such a way as to incorporate them into daily living. As is often said, “It’s as if the moral realm knew we were coming!”

Fifth, even if we could have knowledge of abstract moral principles and they weren’t in tension with naturalism and they were intelligible to us and we did feel obliged to obey certain ones as opposed to others, why think they’re any more applicable to us humans than any other creature? If the moral realm just exists wholly apart from creatures, wouldn’t it be just as true and binding for one species as another? To say not would be guilty of speciesism.

Sixth, even if we could have knowledge of abstract moral principles and they weren’t in tension with naturalism and they were intelligible to us and we did feel obliged to obey certain ones as opposed to others and didn’t occasion speciesism, AMR is patently ad hoc. Traditionally, the atheist has agreed with the theist that if morality is objective, God is needed. Consequently, the atheist has bitten the bullet and defended moral relativism. Only recently, however, has AMR been seriously entertained. To me this shows that theism had the upper hand in the debate and that the unlivability of relativism is finally being recognized. Rather than stomach the moral relativism their own view logically leads to, atheists are now borrowing from a theistic metaphysic—sort of like having their philosophic cake and eating it, too.

Finally, even if we could have knowledge of abstract moral principles and they weren’t in tension with naturalism and they were intelligible to us and we did feel obliged to obey certain ones as opposed to others and this didn’t occasion speciesism and AMR wasn’t patently ad hoc, the theistic grounding of the objectivity of morality should be preferred. This is because objective morality fits better into a background theory of theism than atheism. Moreland notes this well:

If evolutionary theory is all there is to the development of the cosmos from the big bang to man, then any view which postulates the brute existence of morals would seem to do so in an ad hoc way. The general background theory would count against the veridicality of the claim to know that morals exist, even though it would still be logically possible for them to exist. If theism is true, one’s background theory explains the existence of human morality. But if one denies God and accepts evolution, then it would seem more reasonable to accept an evolutionary, subjectivist view of morality. The existence of objective values would still be possible, but it would be unlikely and ad hoc, given this background theory. The claim to intuitively perceive such values would have such a background theory as a defeater. The background theory of theism supports such claims and makes them prima facie justified because it removes the background theory (atheistic evolution as the only account for human life and morality) which is the defeater. (Scaling the Secular City [Baker, 1987], 125)

More could be said on this point, such as how theism’s account of objective morality is simpler and has more scope. In other words, Pr(OM|N) < Pr(OM|T), where (OM) is objective morality, (N) is naturalism, and (T), theism.

In conclusion, then, if we could have knowledge of abstract moral principles and they weren’t in tension with naturalism and they were intelligible to us and we did feel obliged to obey certain ones as opposed to others and this didn’t occasion speciesism and AMR wasn’t patently ad hoc and Pr(OM|N) ≥ Pr(OM|T), then I guess AMR isn’t that implausible, afterall.

I was recently asked an interesting question: What is the difference between brainwashing and preaching? At first I thought it a hard question, but as I reflected on it the answer became apparent.

In short, the autonomy of the subject. Brainwashing has as its aim the coercion of assent, whereas preaching respects the listener’s freedom to assent. This is why if a person were brainwashed to accept Jesus, the person’s belief would doubtlfully be salvific, even if it were true. This is a great example of why mere true belief is not sufficient for knowledge. In addition, what is needed is for true beliefs to be arrived at in an appropriate manner, conferring justification or warrant. Brainwashing precludes the possibility of knowledge whereas preaching does not.

John 8.32:

And Jesus said to them…”You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (my italics)