I’ve listened through most of the Frank Turek-Christopher Hitchens debate (I’ll catch the end of it on my commute home). I wish I had time to watch it on video, because I’m sure the facial expressions tell a lot. Even without that, I find Hitchens’s approach to be quite remarkable, in several ways.
1. Hitchens argues through adjectives. His speech is peppered with terms like “vile, totalitarian, sniveling, weak,” applied to theism, and “courageous, moral, bracing, mature,” applied to atheism. His appeal is overwhelmingly of the emotional sort, replete with derision and sarcasm toward his opponent. He ranks high on verbal facility, which he uses as a blunt weapon in argumentation. Had Turek responded in kind, (he didn’t) it would have been little more than a test of who could deliver the better insult.
2. He appeals to a morality whose foundations are mysterious. Since (he says) theism is “vile, totalitarian, sniveling, and weak,” then theism is morally wrong. Turek responded to this but Hitchens didn’t hear what he was saying (for whatever reason). The question (in my terms, not Turek’s) is this: apart from God, what does “wrong” mean? From where does the concept come? How can we explain it? Do we know enough about “wrong” to be able to use it, as Hitchens does, as a premise in an argument? Apart from a transcendent moral lawgiver, it’s hard to see how “wrong” has any standing greater than Hitchens’s emotional reaction to it. To have any force, it must borrow from a theistic worldview. Turek said it was as if Hitchens was “climbing up on God’s lap to slap him in the face.”
3a. Hitchens finds two general sorts of things immoral in theism. The first is of this sort: “God created us in original sin, then demands that we rescue ourselves and earn our way back to being right.” Well, I don’t know where he got that theology from, but it wasn’t from Christian sources. That’s not Christianity. He rejects a distortion of Christianity, not the real thing at all. He was in fact positively surprised, during the first question/answer exchange between himself and Turek, to learn that Christianity believes God will intervene and prevent the ultimate heat death of the cosmos. He had no idea; he sounded stunned to hear it. But that’s basic Christian theology. He argues against Christianity without knowing what it is.
3b. Hitchens also finds various theists’ actions to be reprehensible. Turek rightly pointed out that a complaint against religious persons is not an argument against God. I would add this: this argument applies only if there is some necessary connection between claiming belief in God and acting better. There isn’t. There is, in Christianity, an expected connection between following Jesus Christ and becoming a better person than one was at first; but not all religions follow Christ, not all who claim to be Christians do either, and among those who follow Christ, some of us have a long way to go to catch up. Anyway, the discussion was not about Christianity, it was about God’s existence in general, and the behavior of those who claim to be religious is for the most part irrelevant to the arguments for God. (Response 2 above also applies here.)
4. Hitchens continues to misconstrue the moral argument. He really ought to listen better. (I’ve presented the moral argument a number of times here; this is one of them.)
5. On the origin of the cosmos, Hitchens does not seem to understand what the theory says. He said that before the Big Bang, it was as if all matter in the universe was packed into a suitcase (he was borrowing from an illustration he had earlier employed with one of his children). What was outside the suitcase? “Nobody knows,” he said. A far better answer would be, there was nothing outside the suitcase—nothing, as in zero with the rim kicked off. Not even space. All existence was in the suitcase, materially speaking.
6. He pulled a neat switch on the questions of the origin of life and evolution. Turek asked him if he had any idea how life could have come from non-life. Hitchens said he didn’t know, and that it is the essence of science to say “we don’t know” to many questions, and that the best definition of education is to know what one does not know. He made quite a virtue out of not knowing that answer! But, he said, there is nothing in the world of the cosmos or of life that cannot be explained by material processes. He knows that much for sure!
7. Finally, he kept insisting that he doesn’t have to know; that it’s the theists who claim to have it all figured out and have to prove their position. That is hardly correct, however. In the face of at least two widely acknowledged scientific conundrums—the finely tuned origin of the universe from no knowable precursor, and the origin of life—Hitchens asks us to exercise an awful lot of faith when he says everything is explainable in material terms.
Turek, for his part, presented a set of standard arguments for the existence of God. It was very compressed: seven basic arguments in his opening 20 minutes. Whether he succeeded in making them fully clear and persuasive, I’m not one to judge, because I’m familiar with them in their extended forms and I was mentally filling in gaps as he spoke. I can confidently say this, however: he understood his own position, he understood his opponent’s position, and he used rational argumentation to compare the two. Hitchens did not understand his opponent’s position, he argued through adjectives, and there is reason to wonder how well he even understands his own position.
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Very nice analysis.
I tried doing a podcast years ago to address the things you are currently doing. Family life has ketp me too busy to other things.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
How does “God” solve these problems? Morality is philosophically difficult. Period. “God” doesn’t change that.
If you can wave your hands and posit a “transcendent moral lawgiver”, then why can’t Hitchens do the same with regards to transcendent moral imperitives? Why can’t morality just “be”, in the same way — to your mind — God just “is”? i.e., If God doesn’t require an explanation/origin, then why should morality?
Also, why should we give your “transcendent lawgiver” the time of day? How do we know his morality is the morality (without begging the question)?
Regarding 3a & 3b, I find it ironic that you won’t take the bad behavior of Christians as evidence against Christianity, when you have, in the past, made entire series’ of posts about the “positive outcomes” of the “Christian” lifestyle.
All of existence? Really? How could we possibly know that?
Good questions, Jordan.
If transcendent moral imperatives apply without a God, then what form do they take? Do humans have moral duties or obligations? To what or to whom? Have these moral imperatives always existed throughout eternity past, or did they arise with sentient beings? If they arose with sentient beings, what makes them transcendent? All of these questions are unanswered without a God.
And that leads back to your earlier questions. God is not the big bad policeman in the sky. He is your Creator, the Creator of all that exists other than himself. All reality is under his domain. Moral excellence is at the very foundation of all reality. If that isn’t a sufficient basis for morality–that it is at the very foundation of everything that exists–then what about that is lacking?
Because he said so. He is also the Sovereign, the ruler, the judge: whether you like it or not. If you don’t want to give him the time of day, that’s your choice. It will have consequences.
Did you read the linked post?
That answer is very standard, orthodox cosmology; it is the Big Bang theory in one of its very commonly scientifically presented forms. There are some evidence-free conjectures of multiple universes, but as I said, that’s asking for more faith than I can muster. Moreover, the scientific consensus is that for this universe at least, there was nothing outside the “suitcase.” No time, no space, no nothing; not even a perfect vacuum, for a vacuum needs a place to be, and there was no space outside the “suitcase.” That’s what the Big Bang theory says.
As for me, I believe there was God outside the suitcase.
But their counterparts regarding a transcendent lawgiver are equally unanswered. That’s my point: Theism does not have the upper hand when it comes to explaining or grounding morality. It just pushes the problem back a step.
I’m not arguing for transcendent moral imperatives; rather, I’m arguing against the idea that God makes better sense of ethics than something like transcendent moral imperatives. i.e., I’m basically saying that God doesn’t help when it comes to answering difficult philosophical questions about morality, such as those you raise above. Just ask those same questions about God, qua transcendent moral lawgiver, and you’ll get answers just as weak and arbitrary as any I could give with respect to transcendent moral imperatives.
Those are just naked assertions. I could just as easily assert, willy nilly, that “moral excellence” per se is at the very foundation of reality, without God. I’d just be cutting out the middle man, if you will. You posit God to get morality, while I, Ockam’s Razor in hand, posit morality — and only morality (since, when it comes right down to it, that’s what we’re all after, right?). Why bring God into it?
More naked assertions!
Why should we believe him? Is there some sort of, say, transcendent moral imperative, external to God, that prescribes such belief, or are you just begging the question?
Jordan,
Actually they are not naked assertions. They are statements that have some historical, experiential and philosophical backing – some credibility that we can hang our hat on. Your assertion about morality as the foundation for all reality has none of these that I can see other than maybe some form of Platonism.
- Historical in that the concept of God has been perceived by all people groups throughout history. More specific to Christianity, the events surrounding the resurrection of Christ are well accepted.
- Experiential in that morality is perceived more like a law than a strong personal preference, and that our experience says laws come from the mind of a law giver.
- Philosophical in that a necessary, non-contingent source best describes the grounding of reality.
You can assert anything you want, but the best assertions have a good connection to reality.
Tom and others can correct me if I’m wrong, but the reason why morality is grounded in who God is (not some transcendent moral imperative, external to God) is because God is the grounding of all reality. He is that necessary, non-contingent source. You believe him because without him there would be nothing to believe.
Steve is right about the naked assertions, Jordan (thanks, Steve).
I hope you do not hold theists accountable to explain everything we believe, and the reasons we believe it, every time we mention some part of what we believe. I know that you know how unreasonable that would be. My assertions were for the purpose of describing what we believe about God. I think you can allow us the right to say what it is that we mean when we use the term “God.”
Further: I understand that you would disagree with statements like “Because God said so.” But the question you asked was of the following sort: If there is a God, and if he has a moral view, why should I care about his morality any more than about my own? The question, in other words, was in the context of a hypothetical that you yourself posed: “If there is a God.” (That’s not a direct quote, but that was the sense of what you wrote.) I took it one step further and interpreted your hypothetical as “If there is a God the way you understand him, Tom, why should I care what he thinks about morality?” And I answered that question in terms of the hypothetical situation you offered. You can’t charge “naked assertion” when someone answers in that context.
Now, is there a solution in theism to the grounding problem, or does our approach just push the problem back a step as you say? I’ll add to what Steve has already said, which I agree with.
You wrote,
Theism claims that God is the ground, not just of morality, but of all reality. God is the one noncontingent being. He is known through many and multiple ways (which I am not going to rehearse here). Moral rightness inheres in his nature (see here and here for further on that.) Though we are discussing ethics in this thread, this that you wrote is not entirely correct:
We are not positing God to get morality. For one thing, we have morality and we know it. What we are rather trying to do is to explain morality, and to show where it is grounded. (I think you know that, but Hitchens and others keep missing it so I thought I would repeat it.) Second, we do not posit God only to explain morality. God explains far more than that, which I will (also) not rehearse here. If God were posited only for this purpose, that would be weak, but that’s not the case.
And now back to you: if you are going to posit “just morality,” then what is its nature? (I’ve asked these questions already, and I’m eager for your answer.) Is there duty or obligation in it? Is there someone or something to whom we owe this duty or obligation? If so, what or who is it? If not, what is morality? Has it always existed, or did it arise with sentience? If it has always existed, then in what did it inhere? If it arose with sentient beings, then what about it is transcendent? And finally, if it is not transcendent, then what purchase does it have on the individual? Why should the individual care about it?
I disagree. I have not seen any evidence for the sort of God that you guys need in order to ground morality. There may be some evidence of a sort of intelligent designer (although I would argue that this evidence is far outweighed by counterevidence, that’s a separate issue), but what does that have to do with the assertions Tom is making about morality?
How is that relevant in any way to Tom’s assertions about God, and about morality (via God) being the foundation of reality? The resurrection doesn’t require that God be the source of morality or the creator of the universe, etc.
That’s a stretched analogy. Moral imperatives feel nothing like legal ones. Laws are hypothetical — i.e., do X, and Y will result — and are obeyed out of self-interest. Moral imperatives, on the other hand, are purely prescriptive. The two are nothing alike.
Does that source have to be “grounded”; if not, why should reality? And why does this source have to be intelligent, much less moral?
Now, on to Tom…
I meant: If there is an objective morality, why should we believe God when he claims to be its source? How do we know he’s not lying, unless we beg the question?
I could claim that X is the ground, not just of morality, but of all reality, and X could be pretty much anything. It could be a giant Cosmic teapot. It could be an Invisible Pink Unicorn. Etc. But you’d probably ask some sensible questions, like: Why doesn’t X have to be grounded, same as reality? Why should be believe that X, specifically, is the source/ground of morality? Why can’t morality exist independently of X? Etc. And then you’d see where I’m coming from.
Ok, now I’ll play the role (even though, as I said, I don’t necessarily believe this) of someone who posits transcendent moral imperatives, sans God:
Same as the nature of logic, esthetics, etc. It just is. What is the nature of God?
No, it’s much deeper than mere duty or obligation. In fact, it is the basis of duty and obligation. Morality consists of pure “oughts.” You ought to fulfill your duties and obligations because there is a moral imperative to do so.
See above. Morality is the basis of obligation/duty.
It has always existed.
It’s noncontingent. It just is (again, like logic, esthetics, etc.).
Because there is a moral imperative to care about it–i.e., by definition, you ought to care about it.
Jordan
My objection to your respose to Tom’s questions is that you don’t believe what you are saying. You think it isn’t a very good explanation for moral grounding (for good reason) and that a better one is available. This is exactly what Tom and I are saying so why not discuss what you actually believe about moral grounding? That would be more productive.
Jordan,
I always love it when I see statements like this:
It reminds me of Sam Harris repeatedly insisting in The End of Faith that he had never seen any evidence for God. I got to wonder what he would actually count as evidence if he did see it, and then I finally got my answer when he described God as something for which no evidence was even conceivable. He had ruled out the possibility of evidence just by his own ability to conceive of it!
That’s what it reminds me of, though I don’t say it’s what you are doing. But you have been reading this blog (and presumably other sources) enough to have seen evidences. You haven’t been persuaded by them, but they have been presented.
I suggest you temper your statement by saying “I haven’t seen any convincing or persuasive evidence. Otherwise I’ll conclude that you’re making the same a priori error Harris was making.
Further, just because you don’t think this evidence is convincing, you go too far when you call our assertions “naked.” Steve was exactly right when he pointed to the long heritage of thought behind them. You can wave it all off as if it didn’t happen, but you would be wrong.
You have it backwards. The resurrection demonstrates (actually it contributes to the demonstration, for there is more besides) that God is God. It is part of the demonstration of God’s moral character besides, and in its theological context it is a major part of how God deals with humans in our moral imperfection.
In fact, the sacrifice he made on our behalf there is part of the answer to another question you asked:
Then you ask,
Several questions there need answering.
Why doesn’t X have to be grounded? The ground is the ground. It doesn’t need grounding, by definition. God is necessary, eternal, non-created, non-contingent, non-dependent, self-existent. He needs no relationship to others, though he freely chose to create the universe and its inhabitants. This is the kind of being that requires no grounding.
Why should we believe X is the source/ground of morality? If X is the source/ground of all reality, as you hypothesize for purposes of this question (prior to what I quoted from you most recently here), then X is indisputably a good candidate for being the source/ground of reality, don’t you think? If morality is a part of reality, and if X is the source/ground of all reality, then morality is included in that for which X is the source/ground.
But I am not arguing for just any X. Your proposed possible Xs (“a giant Cosmic teapot. It could be an Invisible Pink Unicorn. Etc.”) are not necessary, non-contingent beings. X in my understanding is the necessary being God, that than which no greater can be conceived. So that provides all the more assurance that this particular X, God, is the ground of morality.
Why can’t morality exist independently of X? Then you would have violated the terms of your own hypothetical question. X would not be the source/ground of all reality, but only of part of it, the part not including wherever/whatever it is that morality comes from.
Obligation or duty to what or to whom? You’re not getting to a credible answer so far.
Whoa, hold on there. I never said a better explanation is available! I’m actually quite sympathetic to moral anti-realism (although, of course, I’m not happy about this). I’m saying atheists have equally good (read: lousy) explanations at their disposal, so you Christians ought to quit being so smug when it comes to ethics.
Tom,
About the resurrection, and related evidences, being a demonstration of God’s moral perfection, omnipotence, and whatnot, I’m just not seeing it. At best, this sort of evidence supports the existence of some sort of superhuman(s), but not necessarily an intelligent or ethical one, and it doesn’t really tell us much about his/her/its/their motives. And, quite frankly, even if you were to persuade me to believe that the resurrection actually occured, and that God was responsible, I would probably take it as evidence of God’s immorality, since I find the whole Biblical salvation scheme pretty detestable!
And why can’t reality itself be the ground? (Side note: I think for every distinguished philosopher who takes the Ontological Argument seriously, there must be 100 who think its utterly absurd).
To whatever/whomever you’ve got an obligation/duty to. There is moral imperative, preceding the obligation/duty itself, to fulfill said obligation/duty. Otherwise, why should you fulfill it?
Jordan,
There’s a good example of an emotional response. Now, though, we have an opportunity to see where we are in the course of our conversation. Clearly you don’t like what you read about the God of the Bible. Clearly many of us do like what we read about him. Do you think you are, possibly, more nearly right than I am? If so, on what basis of comparison? Is there any basis, other than the emotional experience of detestation, that can give you some degree of confidence that you are more nearly right than I am?
Please be careful to stay on the subject. This is not about whether the resurrection happened or whether God exists, or whether the Bible is true. It is about whether the assertions regarding God in the Bible should be regarded as representing something morally good or not. How do we decide?
I suppose it could, if you could just explain how it could be so if reality itself is ultimately impersonal, or if its personality exists only in contingent persons like ourselves. Without some kind of explanation, I don’t really know what it is that you’re asserting.
That’s the question restated. It’s not an answer at all.
It may be emotional, inasmuch as it is accompanied by certain strong negative emotions (can any normal human being think about these things emotionlessly?), but it is also a moral response. God’s actions throughout most of the OT deeply offend my moral intuition. Unfortunately, I can’t really speak my mind fully on this subject, as it would only come across as blasphemous, and you’d probably have to ban me from your blog. I guess I’ll just leave it at that.
But do you really? Do you like the Flood, for example? Was it good that God wiped out every man, woman, child, and animal (excepting those on the Ark)? Was it good that he asked Abraham to murder his son as a test, and that Abraham passed because he was willing to go through with it (I would have failed him, since I think murder is wrong no matter what… but what do I know?)? Was it good that he chose to place the Tree in the Garden of Eden (what was he thinking!?), and then allowed Satan to tempt Adam and Eve into eating from the Tree (again, what was he thinking?), and then decided to punish all of humanity, for all time, because of the (pretty trivial, when you think about it) sins of two people? Was it good that he used his own son as a bizarre sort of atonement-by-proxy human sacrifice? Etc., etc.
See, to me, none of these things are good. In fact, they are downright immoral. Christianity distorts morality by declaring that God is morally perfect, and then portraying him as… (I’m self-censoring here)… shall we say, morally not-so-perfect. That’s my main beef with it.
I see 3 options:
1. We can use our moral intuition, in which case God doesn’t fair too well as a moral role-model. In fact, I would say that, if God exists, and the OT is an accurate portrayal, then we have moral obligation to oppose him. The only excuse not to do so is self-interest (i.e., we don’t want to go to Hell), something that was exploited to no end in my fundamentalist upbringing.
2. We can allow a confusing, seemingly self-contradictory hodgepodge of ancient religious writings to short-circuit & distort our moral intuition, just so that we can point to something tangible, and external to ourselves, as a “source” of morality.
3. We can embrace moral anti-realism, and just admit that we’re both wrong, and that “morality” is just a euphemism for emotional preference.
Pick your poison. I opt for #1 when I’m in a good mood.
Jordan,
Our moral intuitions must be tempered by reason. Your moral intuition may say that God is immoral but if morality is grounded in God then what does reason say about your intuition? It says your intuition must be wrong and that a proper understanding requires knowledge that you and I don’t possess.
The only other option is that morality isn’t grounded in God – it is external to him and God is beholden to it just as you and I are.
The problem here is that morality is impotent without justice so I don’t see how this situation works. If God, or anyone else, violated the moral grounding of reality then what is reality itself going to do about it? Nothing as far as I can tell because it is powerless to do something. This looks like the same uncaring universe that the atheists and moral relativists speak of today.
Jordan,
I’m looking carefully through your response for a basis for morality, and I find you are continuing to focus on your emotional response. You call it “moral intution,” but I don’t know what that really is. I do know that it’s notoriously unreliable, for persons’ moral intuitions are incredibly variable. So you trust your own at your own peril.
And what about my moral intuition? I look to a trustworthy source to guide it. I’m not at all certain I’m entirely on the right track with it, but I do at least believe there is something like a right track to be sought after, and that there is a source of guidance to move a person toward that direction.
God’s actions in the OT deeply offend you. I’ll note in passing that this is more of the same emotional response, which has its place but should not be trusted as normative. Was God good when he did what he did in the time of Noah, or in the case of Amalek? The destruction of evil is a good thing, is it not? I refer you to Paul Copan’s excellent paper, Is Yahweh a Moral Monster?* (pdf) for more on this.
You are quite the moral absolutist, it seems…
Your three options do not cover the territory adequately, especially the one intended to most approximate Biblical morality:
This is an understandable mischaracterization, given the level of teaching that most people have concerning the Bible; nonetheless it is a mischaracterization. The Bible is not self-contradictory; as a collection of 66 books by 40-some authors it is astonishingly non-hodgepodge (you would have great trouble assembling as coherent a collection as this anywhere else, considering it was written in multiple languages, multiple countries, across the span of thousands of years). The so-called “short-circuiting” of moral intuition begs the question of where moral intuition comes from, and assumes that what you call that intuition has not been short-circuited already by culture, upbringing, and your own desires. And we Christians don’t point to the Bible as our source just so we can have a source. We point to it because we have reason to believe it is trustworthy.
*Incorrect link fixed at 3:20 pm EDT.