In trying to explain his religious views Marc Moffett outs himself as an Indifferentist. If you haven't heard of indifferentism don't be surprised I think Marc made it up. His claim is that agnosticism is too broad a label, but it seems to me his proposal looks more like agnosticism+. Agnosticism+ being I don't know if God exists or not, and even if he does it does not matter for anything I do. Or as Marc says his view is that resolving the question of whether or not there is a being is not of great philosophical or scientific importance. Indifferentism arises from the conjunction of the following four claims:
1. Almost every major philosophical/scientific question can be answered more or less completely without any appeal to God. 2. Atheism is unwarranted: we do not have adequate grounds for believing that every philosophical/scientific question can be answered adequately without any appeal to God. 3. Those philosophical/scientific questions which may require an appeal to God are not ones on which most other philosophical/scientific answers hinge. And, moreover, it is likely we will have to answer most or all of the questions which don't appeal to God before we can determine whether or not an appeal to God is needed to answer the remaining ones. 4. Those philosophical/scientific questions which may require an appeal to God are not ones on which have immediate practical bearing on my life (e.g., not questions of ethics, well-being, etc.).A couple of passing thoughts� It is interesting that while Marc is indifferent about God's actual existence he seems to have some fairly particular ideas about what God would be like if he did exist. Why think that if the arguments for God's existence don't show that God does indeed exist that they do show what he would be like? Most theists have some fairly specific basic beliefs about God that color their arguments about God's attributes and nature. Yet I am dubious that an agnostic can lay claim to such basic notions. Perhaps they can accept the testimony of a trusted theist about Gods nature, but then why not accept the claims about God's existence. I think no one will be surprised that I find claims 1, 3, and 4 all problematic. It would be nice to hear even a limited defense or account of the first claim. It seems to me that in an area like ethics a number of philosophers are going to agree that that questions can be answered with out a direct appeal to God, but they still might think that ethical reasoning at least makes an indirect appeal to God. One might be inclined to think that an individual needs to put the issue of God's existence to bed to settle possible religious ethical claims. However, Marc thinks that his indifferentism holds in the face religious ethical obligations because: "If I am warranted in being agnostic about God's existence, then I am warranted in not following any purported religious or spiritual moral principle." So much for ignorance of the law is no defense!
Matt, thanks for the link to my post. I would love to partake of a little of that collective help you spoke of in our exchange on RR :^).
On the question of the specifics of God's nature. I argue in the exchange with Chad for basically the following claim. If I can know that God exists and is not a deciever, then I can know that I have no specific spiritual or religious normative obligations (e.g., that I ought to believe in Him). The basic line is that agnosticism is an epistemically warranted position in the sense that one could arrive at this position while fully and completely discharging all of one's epistemic obligations. I also take it that normative obligations are such that my life will lessened if I do not fulfill them. But if agnosticism is warranted, then through no epistemic fault of my own I could reasonably fail to abide by the purported religious/spiritual obligations. But this is incompatible with God's not being a deciever. I know that isn't fully worked out, but I think it is a fairly interesting little argument.
What I am less sure of is whether or not I can argue that if there is a God, He is not a deciever. More accurately, I am unsure that I can argue against a deciever God without just wholesalde arguing against any God--that is, arguing for theism. I think I can see various ways of doing this, but nothing that I have worked out sufficiently to post at the moment. But if I can't argue for this claim, then it might seem that indifferentism isn't feasible.
But here is the wrinkle. If my argument above goes through and if I can't argue that God (if He exists) isn't a deciever, then I should be able to argue for the following conclusion: if God exists then he is either a deciever or I have no specifically religious/spiritual obligations. But arguable if God is a deciever, then I should be indifferent to His existence (after all, the logical space here is so vast that I couldn't make any practical decisions on this basis). So maybe I can defend my indifferentism eithe way.