True Horizon

Comment by CT

December 3, 2008 @ 7:14 am

As a former Christian, I sympathize with the disappointment and despair that one can feel with the loss of faith. Even now I sense that many who have never been believers cannot fully understand the hope and meaningfulness that a person can find in the Christian faith. I find it objectionable when such people treat the faith of others so cavalierly.

However, it is equally objectionable for intelligent Christians to uncritically promote the dogma that non-believers “have no way to explain the foundation of that goodness or morality” and that “to act morally is to borrow from the theism they claim to reject.” Those who promote such claims share responsibility for some of the despair experienced by those who lose their faith.

Comment by Bob

December 3, 2008 @ 1:28 pm

Well CT,
I’d be interested in you backing up the assertion that I am “uncritically promoting such a dogma” and explain what responsibility it is that you think I share for the despair of others.

What “dogma” is it that I am promoting?

What do you mean that I share responsibility for their despair?

Comment by CT

December 3, 2008 @ 3:17 pm

Bob,

To be fair, I have assumed neither that you are uncritical nor intelligent. In my experience, intelligent Christians all too often propagate the dogma in question without sufficient reflection. The dogma is this: non-believers “have no way to explain the foundation of that goodness or morality” and that “to act morally is to borrow from the theism they claim to reject.”

Since this dogma is prone to mislead a person in a way that would naturally add to her despair if she should lose her faith, those intelligent Christians who uncritically support this dogma share in the responsibility for that despair.

Comment by Bob

December 3, 2008 @ 4:22 pm

CT,
“Dogma” is defined as: the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization, thought to be authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from.

That said, you are misunderstanding my point. I specifically said that “atheists can be good, moral people…” What I said is in reference to a philosophy, not an individual person. So, it is atheISM that has “no way to explain the foundation of that goodness or morality,” not atheISTS.

The difference is this: The naturalistic worldview that confines the atheist cannot account for those things. You can’t come up with things like “goodness” and “morality” when your worldview demands that the whole of reality must consist of nothing more than atoms bumping into one another.

This is not some religious dogma, it is a philosophical proposition which I believe to be true. If you disagree, please offer some argument to refute it.

Comment by CT

December 3, 2008 @ 9:55 pm

There may be no clear line dividing dogma and a “philosophical proposition.” Rare is the widespread doctrine for which no one has provided some kind of philosophical defense. And philosophers themselves often maintain dogmas.

I have simply said that in my experience intelligent Christians all too often propagate the following beliefs without sufficient reflection: “atheism has no way to explain the foundation of goodness or morality” and that “to act morally is to borrow from the theism [atheists] claim to reject.” I used the term “dogma” with reference to this way of holding and propagating these beliefs. But I also don’t know of any adequate defense of these beliefs. Perhaps you have one. If you explain it to me, I’ll change my mind and my terms.

But to begin: you should probably avoid conflating atheism with naturalism.

Comment by Bob

December 3, 2008 @ 10:35 pm

Well, CT, I do not think I am one of those Christians. I think I have engaged in sufficient reflection … and you still haven’t given me any reason to think otherwise. Still waiting for your refutation?

Conversely, I do not accept the implications with which you began your comments: “As a former Christian …” as if your loss of faith demonstrates that your point of view must be correct because it came as the result of intellectual reflection that we “current” Christians have not practiced. FYI it goes the other way too. Many former atheists have considered the evidence and accepted theism. While my belief in theism may be wrong, it is also true that you may have been led to accept a fraudulent view of the world.

Also, I am not conflating atheism with naturalism. The simple fact is that the book in discussion here is written by an atheist with the expressed purpose that “religious readers who open it will be atheists when the put it down” (p. 5). Atheism necessarily results in an naturalistic worldview — and my claim is that the naturalistic worldview is, by definition, morally vacuous.

Comment by CT

December 4, 2008 @ 2:25 am

If you want a refutation, I’ll first need an argument to refute. Or do you take your “philosophical propositions” to be self-evident, not in need of support? That’s one way to go. Is this your way?

You claim, “Atheism necessarily results in an naturalistic worldview.” Is this also supposed to be self-evident? (If you do regard such claims as self-evident, we probably don’t have much common ground.)

Regarding the “implications” you think you see: you’re reading “into” what I have written. Please don’t do that. It’s unproductive and it has led you astray.

Comment by Bob

December 4, 2008 @ 2:14 pm

CT,
I don’t feel the need to offer a complete philosophical argument, complete with defeaters and rejoinders, — especially since your comments lead me to believe you already know the arguments anyway and just find it somehow entertaining to deny, without explanation, anything I say. But just to play along …

First, goodness and morality are non-physical yet they are real concepts that exist. I am not talking about the epistemological ways in which you can argue that we come to know goodness and morality — I am talking about their ontological existence as objectively real things — what they actually are. They cannot be relativistic because moral relativism is self-defeating. A universe with only physical features and the meaningless interaction of physical stuff has no way to account for non-physical reality. Therefore, the naturalistic worldview one is relegated to as an atheist has no way to explain them.

But no one can live that way. We all know that goodness and morality are real and unavoidable. So, in order to live out their lives, atheists must borrow the existence of goodness and morality from the theistic worldview.

And (should you actually try to refute this) don’t tell me about how atheists can be just as moral as theists. I know that. I never said otherwise. But (again) I am not talking about how they come to know or practice these things, I am talking about the fact that these things actually exist in the first place.

Second, an atheist does not believe there is anything real that exists outside the physical universe. This is a naturalistic view of the world. If you don’t accept that, please explain to me how it could be otherwise. I would love to hear it.

Finally, you began this discussion by claiming that I “share responsibility for some of the despair experienced by those who lose their faith.” How so? My aim here is to seek to find the truth. I’m not claiming I can do that exhaustively but I can come to reasonable conclusions based on all the evidence at hand. If the truth is that those who deny the existence of God are wrong in doing so, their despair is real because they are denying the truth. It seems to me that the loving and compassionate thing to do would be to attempt to convince them to accept the truth. The only way I could share responsibility for their despair is to somehow capitulate to the idea that their despair is unwarranted. I do not think it is unwarranted. In fact, I think atheism makes it inevitable, which is why I would hope to convince them that they have “exchanged the truth of God for a lie.”

Comment by CT

December 5, 2008 @ 6:52 pm

It common for religious people to promote the “philosophical proposition” that there is no foundation of goodness or morality without God. If someone comes to believe this and then loses his faith in the existence of God, he might experience despair. Experiencing despair for this reason is unnecessary if the philosophical proposition is false or unjustified. Those who propagate the philosophical proposition without sufficient reflection may be unnecessarily causing others to experience despair.

Of course, the big question is whether or not we’re right to believe that there is no foundation of goodness or morality without God. So you generously provide an argument. Your argument, however, depends upon the premise that “an atheist does not believe there is anything real that exists outside the physical universe.” You are right to talk about atheism, but you are wrong in your characterization of the atheist. According to the OED, atheism is the “Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a God. Also, Disregard of duty to God, godlessness (practical atheism).” It is far from obvious why the non-existence of God entails that there is nothing “real that exists outside the physical universe.”

Comment by Bob

December 5, 2008 @ 7:27 pm

If someone comes to believe [the “philosophical proposition” that there is no foundation of goodness or morality without God] and then loses his faith in the existence of God, he might experience despair. Experiencing despair for this reason is unnecessary if the philosophical proposition is false or unjustified. Those who propagate the philosophical proposition without sufficient reflection may be unnecessarily causing others to experience despair.

You are correct CT. And my position is that if I AM correct about the existence of God, that person SHOULD experience despair because they have believed in something that is not true.

Are you suggesting that I should not promote my own view of the truth because of the possibility that someone who does not share it with me may despair as a result? If that’s the case, no one should argue for what they consider to be the truth. That doesn’t quite make sense to me.

Your argument, however, depends upon the premise that “an atheist does not believe there is anything real that exists outside the physical universe.” You are right to talk about atheism, but you are wrong in your characterization of the atheist … It is far from obvious why the non-existence of God entails that there is nothing “real that exists outside the physical universe.”

Let me clarify … when I said that the atheist believes that nothing real exists outside the physical universe what I meant was that he/she does not accept any sort of non-physical reality — which is why I link atheism with naturalism.

It sounds like you are suggesting that there may be physical reality (but not God) outside the physical universe. You can always say that, but if you do, you are postulating an infinite regress of physical causes for this universe .. and that just doesn’t get us anywhere.

At some point there has to be an uncaused cause to start things off. Or are you suggesting that there is an ACTUAL infinite number of prior causes that led to us being here?

Thanks for the reply, by the way. I appreciate that you are attempting to discuss these issues and not just being negative for entertainment’s sake …

Cheers

Comment by CT

December 6, 2008 @ 3:50 pm

Bob, you should of course allow your beliefs to follow reason and evidence, and you should of course share your insights with others. What is to be avoided is acting like an atheist who might propagate highly consequential dogmatic beliefs without properly examining them herself. The atheist may be tempted to do this not out of concern for truth, but with some other agenda in mind. We are all, I think, a bit prone to allowing sectarian allegiances to weaken our allegiances to responsible reasoning. I am suggesting that promoters of the Christian faith have sometimes erred in this way with regard to the rather consequential “philosophical proposition” in question. This suggestion of course leads us to examine the proposition itself: that “atheism has no way to explain the foundation of goodness or morality” and that “to act morally is to borrow from the theism [atheists] claim to reject.”

You claim that the atheist “does not accept any sort of non-physical reality.” As you know, this is not part of the definition of atheism, so you must show that a connection always holds between disbelieving the existence of God and disbelieving any sort of non-physical reality. Without this connection, you will have to modify your philosophical proposition so that it applies only to those atheists who also happen not to believe in any sort of non-physical reality. If you did this, your claim would be more promising, since it is somewhat plausible that value (or perhaps anything normative) is non-physical. You would also have to drop the second part of your claim, the part having to with “borrowing from theism”. This is because you wouldn’t have shown any connection between morality and theism. The only connection would be between morality and the existence of something non-physical.

You mention the idea of an “infinite regress of physical causes for this universe.” Some suggest that the impossibility of this shows that there must be an uncaused cause. Perhaps so, and perhaps the uncaused cause must be God. But all this a bit beside the point, unless you are trying to simply claim that everyone must believe in the existence of God. And even if this is what you are claiming, it is still beside the point insofar as it has nothing to do with the special commitments of value and morality. That is, it isn’t for a foundation of morality that we need God.

So again, we’re interested in finding a tight connection between disbelieving the existence of God and (1) the inability to explain the foundations of goodness and morality, and (2) the inability to act morally without “borrowing from theism.” So far I haven’t found any such connection.

Comment by Bob

December 7, 2008 @ 4:36 am

CT,
You are very good (and I mean that) at dissecting and analyzing my comments. But I still haven’t seen you offer any positive support for your case, whatever it might be. You say you are a “former Christian.” I’d be interested to hear your current stance with regard to the issues discussed in my original post. But anyway, to address your latest …

You claim that the atheist “does not accept any sort of non-physical reality.” As you know, this is not part of the definition of atheism, so you must show that a connection always holds between disbelieving the existence of God and disbelieving any sort of non-physical reality. Without this connection, you will have to modify your philosophical proposition so that it applies only to those atheists who also happen not to believe in any sort of non-physical reality. If you did this, your claim would be more promising,

The atheist in question (Dawkins) is a materialist so that is the view I was addressing in the original post. Yes, there are atheists who admit to the existence of non-physical reality but usually it is only with regard to mathematics, logic, physical laws and the like. I am not aware of any who would attach value/moral claims to the non-physical reality they accept. Maybe you can enlighten me. In any case, the value claims I have heard them put forth are always subjective and relativistic in nature, which, as I said earlier, renders them impotent in an objective sense.

You would also have to drop the second part of your claim, the part having to with “borrowing from theism”. This is because you wouldn’t have shown any connection between morality and theism.

Not here perhaps, but there is a connection. Being a moral realist, I hold that moral imperatives are prescriptive, not just descriptive — therefore requiring a moral lawgiver. While I understand that this does not automatically connect morality and theism, it seems to me that theism is the best explanation for the existence of objective moral truths.

So let me ask: How would you as an atheist (I’m just assuming that label from what you’ve said here and elsewhere — forgive me if I’m wrong) claim to ground (ontologically, not epistemologically) your goodness and morality? I’ve never heard a good answer to that question.

Comment by CT

December 8, 2008 @ 7:22 am

Bob,

Your request that I explain my own stance is quite reasonable at this point, even though I would have liked to first press you further on your account - especially about how a “moral lawgiver” is supposed to ground “objective moral truths.”

First a bit of autobiography. In the experience of gradually losing faith in Christianity, there were times when my justification for morality struck me as less than sufficient to withstand strong urges to behave in a self-interested, but immoral, manner. There were regrettable occasions in which I believe I used these very thoughts to rationalize my self-interested behavior. I regret such occasions primarily because of the people I affected, the people against whom I acted in an unjustifiable way. In experiencing this regret over what I had done to other people, it occurred to me that perhaps I was getting an insight into the nature of morality, and an answer to the question “why be moral?” I was struck by the thought that the fact that a certain behavior of mine would hurt someone was in itself a sufficient reason for me not to do it. These sorts of grounds certainly seemed sufficient. Moreover, taking this sort of concern for the interests others to be a sufficient reason for curbing my selfishness seemed somehow better than certain of my previous theological justifications. To use the words of one philosopher, to respect the interests of another person because God has commanded this of me seemed to be “one thought too many.”

(It’s getting late, but I shall continue and actually address your questions, and with less narrative.)

Comment by Bob

December 8, 2008 @ 4:05 pm

CT,
I appreciate your transparency here and, though I know you said you would continue, I would like to briefly address what you’ve said so far.

In the experience of gradually losing faith in Christianity, there were times when my justification for morality struck me as less than sufficient to withstand strong urges to behave in a self-interested, but immoral, manner. There were regrettable occasions in which I believe I used these very thoughts to rationalize my self-interested behavior.

You and EVERYBODY else. This, I think, points exactly to the objective moral realism to which I claim to hold. We all have this experience for a reason — we are all guilty of violating the moral law. Notably, we don’t need a Bible, or a church, or a religion, or any person to point this out to us. We experience it firsthand. And that is my point. I believe this common experience comes because the moral good we fail to live up to is built into the fabric of the universe itself — like gravity — we can’t avoid it. I should note that the “tug” between self-interested behavior and “properly moral” behavior cannot itself be either one of them, but rather a third, external standard by which you judge. That, I contend, is objective morality.

it occurred to me that perhaps I was getting an insight into the nature of morality, and an answer to the question “why be moral?” I was struck by the thought that the fact that a certain behavior of mine would hurt someone was in itself a sufficient reason for me not to do it.

You describe EXACTLY the insight that drew C.S. Lewis from atheism to Christianity. To paraphrase him, from where did this insight come? On what basis do you realize that there is such a thing as morality? And to quote him (from Mere Christianity): “Anyone studying man from the outside … not knowing our language and consequently not able to get any inside knowledge from us, but merely observing what we did, would never get the slightest evidence that we had this moral law … observation would only show what we did, and the moral law is about what we ought to do.”

To use the words of one philosopher, to respect the interests of another person because God has commanded this of me seemed to be “one thought too many.”

Here I think you are addressing the age-old “Divine Command” dilemma: i.e. do we do good because God commands it or does God command it because it’s good? I would say this is a false dilemma. The good we innately know does not derive from God’s command but from the essence of what God is. Again, it is built into the fabric of the universe. We can’t get rid of the idea no matter how hard we try.

Again, we all have this notion and we don’t need the Bible or Christianity to get it. My contention is that Christianity best accounts not only for the source of this awareness, but for the solution to the violation of it that we all recognize in our own self-interested actions.

I look forward to your continued comments. Perhaps you could address how atheism could account for such a thing or offer a solution to it’s violation.

Cheers …

Comment by CT

December 11, 2008 @ 4:56 am

Bob,

I seem to have failed to submit properly my last comment. I’ll try again.

I suppose you’re right about Dawkins. Materialism or naturalism is not really my thing. And religion and moral topics aren’t Dawkins’s forte. For my part, I currently lean towards the view that we can only explain normative stuff in terms of other normative stuff. You won’t get reasons, values, or moral obligations from essentially non-normative kinds of things. Among the various things that are normative, we might be able to say that reasons are fundamental (and, again, here I mean “reasons” in a fully normative sense). That is, we might be able to explain value (e.g., “goodness”), duties, rights, etc. in terms of special sorts of reasons. We can also often explain or justify one reason, or type of reason, in terms of some other, perhaps more fundamental/general type of reason. What we will never be able to do (at least a currently tend to think) is to fully analyze reasons in terms of non-normative stuff such as psychological facts (e.g., what we happen to desire), cultural/anthropological facts, physical features of the world, or even facts about God.

You write, “I am not aware of any who would attach value/moral claims to the non-physical reality they accept. Maybe you can enlighten me.” Here I would recommend T.M. Scanlon’s What We Owe To Each Other (especially chapter one), and Russ Schafer-Landau’s Moral Realism: A Defense. Neither of these books is an easy read. However, judging from my interaction with you, I think you will find them accessible. The views proposed in these books are by no means marginal in contemporary academic philosophy.

I think we share the idea that morality is “objective.” We simply differ on the question of whether or not God can/should/must be appealed to in order to ground this objectivity.

Comment by Bob

December 12, 2008 @ 12:00 am

CT,
FYI, sometimes there is quite delay between when you comment and when it gets posted. I have to moderate comments (for spam and commenters who aren’t as, shall we say, “civil” as others) and, being that I travel a lot and am without internet access for long periods of time, it sometimes takes me a while to get to them. But, just so you know, I only got one comment from you this time (the one directly above).

Anyway, you said:

For my part, I currently lean towards the view that we can only explain normative stuff in terms of other normative stuff. You won’t get reasons, values, or moral obligations from essentially non-normative kinds of things

and

I think we share the idea that morality is “objective.” We simply differ on the question of whether or not God can/should/must be appealed to in order to ground this objectivity.

I completely agree with you on both points … and I don’t think a materialist explanation of reality can account for these normative type of things. Materialism can only be descriptive, it cannot be prescriptive.

What I don’t understand is your explanation. Specifically:

Among the various things that are normative, we might be able to say that reasons are fundamental (and, again, here I mean “reasons” in a fully normative sense). That is, we might be able to explain value (e.g., “goodness”), duties, rights, etc. in terms of special sorts of reasons. We can also often explain or justify one reason, or type of reason, in terms of some other, perhaps more fundamental/general type of reason.

It seems to me that the attempt to explain values, duties, rights etc. in terms of “reasons” is circular. Human reason is the intellectual ability to comprehend abstract notions and discern between competing ideas. If I understand you, you are saying that one would have “reasons” for accepting objective values etc. and that the “reasons” are normative. But I would say any reasons you might give for accepting objective values are themselves subjective.

I guess my point would be that, if you accept the existence of objective value as you say you do, those things exist on their own — it doesn’t matter what my reasons for accepting them are. Again, I like to equate it to gravity — if I offered you reasons why I don’t believe in gravity, I wouldn’t suddenly float off into space. My knowledge of gravity is irrelevant to its existence.

Likewise, the reality of values etc. is independent of my belief in them and my reasons for accepting any or all of them. It seems to me that something like that can only owe its existence to a mind that is vastly superior to mine.

Am I understanding you correctly?

Comment by CT

December 14, 2008 @ 3:50 am

Bob, I think we’re making real progress towards understanding each other. It is true that I accept a type of “circularity” insofar I claim that normative stuff can only be explained in terms of other normative stuff. Perhaps, however, it’s more accurate to say that I fully acknowledge that explanations have to come to an end somewhere. Explanations of normativity, I suggest, end at reasons. I’ll make two remarks on this point, and then add a clarification.

First, I would suppose that many theists also accept the idea that explanations must come to an end at some point. The only disagreement regards what they count as a satisfactory end point. The theist tends to prefer God.

Second, I propose that there are good reasons for stopping the explanation of normative stuff at reasons, rather than trying to go further. You agree with me that the normative cannot be explained in terms of the non-normative. Thus, one cannot fully explain objective value in terms of physical facts. It seems to me equally difficult to fully explain reasons in terms of non-normative facts about God or our relationship to him. You suggest that something like an objective value “can only owe its existence to a mind that is vastly superior to mine.” I don’t understand this at all. What, in particular, is the superior mind supposed to contribute which makes objective values possible? I suggest that objective values might be explained in terms of objective reasons, but that the explanation might have to end with certain sorts of objective reasons. I don’t see how to get further explanatory value from positing a superior mind.

Now here’s the clarification. By “reasons” I mean real or good reasons in the following sense. Sometimes we say that something like “Suzy’s reason for jumping through the window was such and such, but that this wasn’t really a reason for her to jump out the window.” When I talk about reasons, I mean to be talking about what is really a reason, and not simply what someone might mistakenly take to be a reason. Thus, the reason that I speak of are, in the appropriate sense, independent of our beliefs in them. They are not “subjective.”

Comment by Bob

December 16, 2008 @ 3:01 am

CT,
I have tried but I honestly do not understand what you mean by “objective reasons.” I don’t see how you can ever identify such a thing. Can you give me an example?

If I have a reason for believing something, that is the result of an act of discernment within my own mind. How do you get to an objective reason “independent of our beliefs in them”? How could/would you ever be able to know such a thing?

Comment by CT

December 16, 2008 @ 6:00 am

Bob,

I take it that by calling a reason “objective” we simply mean that it is in some sense independent of our particular beliefs, feelings, points of view, etc. I actually meant to be borrowing the term from you.

As examples, I assume that I have an objective reason to avoid misleading you for the sake of my own entertainment. I also have an objective reason to believe that 2 plus 2 equals 4. I would continue to have such reasons even if I mistakenly didn’t believe that I had such reasons.

Your present worry seems to be epistemological–about how we identify objective values. This strikes me as a separate issue from the question of what explains objective reasons, or of how objective reasons are possible. I had assumed that we were talking about these latter questions.

Comment by Bob

December 17, 2008 @ 2:12 pm

I assume that I have an objective reason to avoid misleading you for the sake of my own entertainment. I also have an objective reason to believe that 2 plus 2 equals 4. I would continue to have such reasons even if I mistakenly didn’t believe that I had such reasons.

Well, you have identified the source of our miscommunication. I take the first example (to avoid misleading you for the sake of my own entertainment) to be a sample of objective morality — of something that would be wrong and that we would both know it to be wrong without any further justification except our own reflection on it.

I take the second sample (2 plus 2 equals 4) as an objective truth — something that is everywhere and always true for everyone.

Each of these make the exact point I have been trying to explain — that objective truth and morality are simply built into the fabric of the universe.

You are calling these objective “reasons” but my point is that these are not reasons at all — they are simply facts. How we come to know them (THROUGH reason) is the epistemological question but their existence is indisputable.

Comment by CT

December 17, 2008 @ 4:55 pm

Their “existence is indisputable.”

Well, at least neither one of us disputes these facts. I perfectly agree that it is a fact that we have the (objective) reasons I mentioned. It is a fact that I should not deceive you for the sake of my own entertainment. It is a fact that it would be morally wrong for me to do so. It is also a fact that I should not believe that 2+2=6. I take it disagreement isn’t about any of these claims. Rather, our disagreement concerns your claim that the explanations of these facts must/should refer to God. But why do you think this?

Comment by Bob

December 17, 2008 @ 6:33 pm

… because I can’t come up with a better explanation. Given all the scientific, historical, archeological, philosophical … evidence that ALSO exists, it seems to me that the best possible inference is that there is a perfect moral lawgiver who grounds objective truth and morality.

My whole point (in the long-forgotten original post :-)) is that Naturalism shows me NO HOPE of being able to explain ANY of these things, let alone a grounding for the existence of morality and truth that we both have agreed ACTUALLY DO EXIST.

Your explanation would be … ?

Comment by CT

December 18, 2008 @ 11:45 pm

Out of curiosity, do you also think that we need a perfect arithmetic lawgiver to explain why we should not believe that 2+2=6, and a perfect logic lawgiver to explain why one should not believe a contradiction? Do we need a perfect dental hygiene lawgiver to explain why one should floss regularly?

In general, I don’t see why we need to posit a lawgiver to explain normative facts. I also don’t really see how the normativity would be explained in terms of a lawgiver. Thus, it’s not clear to me why you think that positing a “perfect moral lawgiver” even counts as an explanation.

Comment by Bob

December 19, 2008 @ 1:11 am

Out of curiosity, do you also think that we need a perfect arithmetic lawgiver to explain why we should not believe that 2+2=6, and a perfect logic lawgiver to explain why one should not believe a contradiction? Do we need a perfect dental hygiene lawgiver to explain why one should floss regularly?

I’ll ignore the sarcasm this time but your rhetorical questions are false analogies re: my claim.

My claim, which YOU agreed with, was that objective truth and morality exist. I then responded by offering a cumulative case view — i.e. that there are more lines of argument/evidence that, taken together, paint a picture of a metaphysical reality that offers a coherent explanation for each. A subset of that explanation includes a moral lawgiver.

No, there is not an arithmetic giver, but the source involved must have included the non-physical reality we call mathematics which, by the way, has logical laws to which its adherence is not optional. How do you explain that? How do you explain the existence of logic at all, for that matter? I will ignore the dental hygiene example for the nonsense that it is.

Once again, you are quick to dismiss my claims (without any supporting argument, I might add), but you have yet to offer your or some other atheistic/naturalistic alternative explanation for any of these things like: math, logic, value, truth, goodness …

Still waiting.

Comment by CT

December 19, 2008 @ 2:32 am

Let’s suppose that “all the scientific, historical, archeological, philosophical” evidence points to the existence of God. Following this “cumulative case,” let us simply assume that God in fact exists. Now, how is God’s existence supposed to explain “objective morality”? How does God’s existence explain moral obligation?

You suggest that with God we have a “perfect moral lawgiver.” As my questions above indicate, it is far from clear how the idea of such a lawgiver is supposed to work. Moreover, it is far from obvious why we need to a lawgiver in order to have laws. Thus, even if the “cumulative case” shows that there is a God, you haven’t given any reason for thinking that God’s existence is what makes “objective morality” possible.

On the view I suggested, moral obligations can be explained in terms of reasons. I suggested that reasons are fundamental (see post 33569). I addressed your worries about circularity, and I clarified what I mean by “reasons” (see post 33996). I conceded long ago your point about naturalism, as I have always been focused on your claims about atheism.

Comment by Bob

December 20, 2008 @ 4:18 pm

CT, you said:

moral obligations can be explained in terms of reasons. I suggested that reasons are fundamental (see post 33569)

I re-read that post and from what I can tell, a summary is this: “I believe there are such things as objective moral obligations … and I have reasons to think this is true.”

I just don’t see how this grounds morality. I have reasons too. But my reasons do not somehow create the morality. They only explain why I believe it exists. My reasons for believing in morality do not create the ontologically real thing that morality is.

I conceded long ago your point about naturalism, as I have always been focused on your claims about atheism … how is God’s existence supposed to explain “objective morality”? How does God’s existence explain moral obligation?

So we agree that we have moral obligations. I would think that you would also agree that moral obligations only exist between persons. I have no “moral obligation” to the computer I am typing on right now. I do have a moral obligation to treat you (or anyone else) with love and kindness. So, if moral obligations only seem to exist between persons, it seems to me that the source (or basis) for that morality must also be found in relation to a person.

In anticipation of the objection I have heard in the past, I would also say that I am morally obligated to treat other sentient beings (like animals) kindly. But that is a different kind of thing because the obligation is not mutual. No animal feels morally obliged to be kind to me. A predatory animal surely doesn’t. Conversely, I feel the obligation to treat the animal kindly even if I am inclined to eat him for dinner.

I cannot justify my actions toward another person in the same way. I can eat a cow for dinner but I can’t eat grandma.

So, which is more reasonable to believe — that moral obligation is grounded in a person or that it just appeared out of nowhere? I honestly don’t see how you explain the actual objective existence of such a thing on an atheistic view. Where does it come from? It seems to me that the the standard must exist prior to the “normative reasons” you offer for measuring your actions in relation to the standard.

Comment by CT

December 29, 2008 @ 10:53 pm

I posted a response some time ago (perhaps 5 days ago). Have you received it?

Comment by Bob

December 30, 2008 @ 8:01 pm

No, CT, I have not.