From what I can tell, the main reason is the outcome of the following social trends in the early 20th century. 1. Reacting to British Idealism, Russell and Moore found what comes to be known as "Analytic Philosophy" with Wittgenstein playing a major role. Moore and Russell are "infidels" with Russell being very outspoken about it (and given Russell's childhood, who *wouldn't* be an atheist?! It's very sad: a tortured genius.). Wittgenstein, though perhaps a theist of some sort, doesn't want to talk about it. Both men are revered in the new school. 2. Catholics, already having their own systematic tradition, said "Pff" to analytic philosophy. 3. Protestantism splits in the 20's between the "Mainline'ers" and the "Fundamentalists." The latter are suspicious of reason generally, and the former aren't sure they believe anything in the first place (though there are some fantastic exceptions). So as I see it, widespread atheism in academic philosophy is mostly the result of social trends among Christian groups.
What's surprising, and exceptional (and thus evidential) are those cases which buck the trends, the adult converts like PvI, and the fact, indicated in the surveys, that those theists who go into PR manage to keep their belief in an intellectually respectable way. The more I think about it, the more this survey boosts my confidence in theism (though we're still only talking a few percent at most. I'd say between 1-3% boost, but the numbers fluctuate day to day.
So what percentage is your confidence in theism now at? 92%? 74%?
Trent:
What about adult converts in the other direction? Isn't JJC Smart one of them?
Is there evidence that philosophers who responded that they are or lean theist (i) accept divine revelation at all, or (ii) accept Christian revelation in particular?
I should say, I realize that my above comment comes off as snarky. I didn't mean it to. It was just a ribbing.
I'm wondering where the arguments come in. Aren't many naturalists naturalists (or at least atheists) because they find some version of the argument from evil convincing? Clayton's mentioned this before on the blog (right?). And then some find a naturalistic view of the universe to be the most simple and elegant way of understanding it.
Furthermore, Christians will probably think that there are spiritual/supernatural forces at work as to why many philosophers are naturalists. (And as Plantinga's pointed out, naturalists will oftentimes return the favor by saying that there are evolutionary, but non-truth related, forces at work as to why many philosophers are theists.) Plus, there are other psychological factors at work. Turning from realism to nominalism requires little change in one's lifestyle. On the other hand, people often think that the move from a naturalistic worldview to a religious worldview (or vice versa) requires a fundamental change or alteration in one's ultimate purpose, lifestyle, and allegiances (and perhaps even one's closest set of friends!).
None of this disputes your claim about what you take to be the "main" reason for why many philosophers are naturalists, but I take these factors to be important (perhaps as important) as what you mention.
oh wait, I missed the "outside the PR specialization" part... and I know that a lot of my reasons apply to nonphilosophers... still, I think that they're reasons why nonPR-focused philosophers are naturalists.
"I'm wondering where the arguments come in. Aren't many naturalists naturalists (or at least atheists) because they find some version of the argument from evil convincing? Clayton's mentioned this before on the blog (right?)."
It wouldn't surprise me if I said it. If philosophers were polled, I wouldn't be surprised to discover some tight correlations between atheists/people who think the argument from evil is sound (although they might not be as confident as David Lewis who I think said that it's obvious that the argument in its crudest forms succeeds!) and agnostics/people who can't see how you could decide between arguments from evil & arguments for theism.
Certainly, for many, being a theist explains why they are interested in PR. But I wonder how many philosophers are theists because they are interested PR. For me, it was the latter. I was agnostic and my interest in PR led me to consider arguments that inclined my mind toward theism. I wonder what proportion of those who work in PR are like me in this regard.
Robert, maybe this says something about me, but it din't come off snarky *at all* because I keep a spreadsheet of this. As of time of writing my credence in theism--without consulting the spreadsheet--I estimate to be about 90%. My average is lower than that. Sometimes it's as high as 95% and rarely lower than 66&%. The mode is probably something like 75%. This is all sans spreadsheet. The spreadsheet numbers are much higher. It's an interesting epistemic phenomenon I wish to explore at length some day.
Andrew, as I think Mike said, I don't think most atheists have given much thought at all to the arguments. So many I talk to just dismiss it out of hand. There are, of course, the fantastic exceptions, but those guys prove the rule.
Also, I did have in mind some of the social factors of the type you mention.
Clayton, I don't doubt that many/most atheists would *mention* evil. But I bet they haven't read much about it. As one with a professional interest in evil (that didn't sound good) and who personally struggles with the existential side deeply (I'm inclined to say "terribly"), I testify that the literature can make a huge impact on initial thoughts. I've published and presented against certain replies to the problem of evil, but I've found others to be amazingly illuminating.
Josh, I was heading toward atheism when I encountered the literature as well. I think it is fair to say that I am a theist because of my study of PR more than vice versa (though I was a theist at the time of entering graduate school). It's obviously a two-way street here.
All, remember that my central thesis has been autobiographical, but I do think it's a reasonable position. What seems most clear to me in all this, though, is the following.
R1 It is not the case that the general preponderance of atheism in the profession (taking into account the stuff we've talked about) counts in favor of the truth of atheism.
Do you agree with that Clayton?
I tried to comment on the previous post, but it seems to have gotten lost. If there's a small difference between the view of the experts in some area of philosophy and the view of other philosophers, it probably makes sense to favor the expert judgment. However, I philosophy is sufficiently interconnected, and people know enough about fields outside their specialty, that I find it suspicious when there's a huge difference in views between the experts and other philosophers. It suggests to me that something other than the arguments must be at work (since the arguments aren't only known to the experts; the experts only know a little more about them). I'll also note that philosophy of religion is the only example I noticed where there was this pattern of huge difference between experts and others, and this seems unlikely to be because the difference in familiarity with the subject between experts and other philosophers is greater (nobody who does history of philosophy, for example, can avoid encountering a good deal of philosophy of religion).
Trent,
I think there is a (perhaps small) selection effect going on. Let me explain.
My own view of the history of analytic philosophy is that, from early on, it is best understood as a project for outlining a naturalist worldview. (More precisely, for giving modernity some intellectual underpinnings.) It starts with the tools provided by British empiricism and adds the development of formal logic. There are some questions inherited from the ancestors: questions about knowledge (roughly, What kind of empiricists shall we be?) and logic for example. Philosophy of science grows out of epistemology and philosophy of language grows out of the interest in logic. The rest of the principal questions are questions about how to fit human experience into a naturalistic framework: a naturalist philosophy of mind, a naturalist ethics (or understanding of ethical discourse), a naturalist account of political and social life, a compatibilist account of free will, and so on.
The actual tools by which the original project was to be pursued—conceptual analysis, formalization of arguments, appeals to ordinary language—are now widely acknowledged to be insufficient. But the project remains, in many philosophers’ minds, in a more or less implicit or explicit fashion.
This project affects the way history of philosophy is taught (more so earlier in the analytic tradition than now): it is the explanation for teaching ancient Greece and Enlightenment Europe as “the history of philosophy” and for portraying Socrates as a skeptical rationalist rather than a man on a self-proclaimed mission from God.
Philosophy of religion is an impediment to this project, since the naturalist is engaging questions which he thinks are already settled or anyway practically irrelevant. Metaphysics is something of a sideshow, since the basic metaphysical package is the scientific/naturalist one.
By now, analytic philosophy is more of a textual tradition than anything else, and there is a reasonably strong contingent of Christians in the discipline. But it is not an accident that many analytic philosophers want to see a naturalistic worldview articulated and developed, and that they are not as common in philosophy of religion and metaphysics as elsewhere.
It suggests to me that something other than the arguments must be at work. . .
Something other than the arguments is always at work. It is never true (near enough) that an atheist becomes a theist because of some theistic argument. It is never the case (near enough) that a theist becomes an atheist because of some atheological argument. It is never true (near enough) that a body/mind dualist becomes a physicalist or physicalist a body/mind dualist because of some argument or other. It does make one wonder what all the care and fuss about the arguments are; it does make one wonder why so many complain about Plato's bad arguments. You can reach the general rule by induction: good arguments against your position constitute tests of how well you rebutt, or the bizarre lengths you are prepared to go in response to, good arguments against your position.
"R1 It is not the case that the general preponderance of atheism in the profession (taking into account the stuff we've talked about) counts in favor of the truth of atheism."
I don't have much of a view about this, but the following doesn't strike me as implausible:
There are many people for whom the observation that there are so many atheists in the profession counts as evidence for atheism.
That's perfectly consistent with saying lots of things that you want to say (e.g., there are many people for whom the observation that there are so many theists who specialize in PR counts as evidence for theism, there are various defeaters that can defeat the justification provided by the evidence, there are many people for whom this observation about the atheism of the profession at large doesn't count as evidence for atheism, etc...).
As a general comment, I guess I'd say that the atheists outside of PR should care to know why so many in PR are theists, the theists inside of PR should care to know why they are the exception to the rule (the hypothesis that they are uniquely epistemically virtuous seems like _a_ hypothesis, but not one that I'd bet on), and I think that as epistemologists we should appreciate that the question as to whether our colleagues are epistemically responsible is an immensely complicated one.
There's also an opportunity here. I could be wrong, but you seem to be convinced that the atheists who don't specialize in PR are failing to live up to the standards of epistemic responsibility because they have not explored the literature on the problem of evil in sufficient depth. I'm not sure I believe that. (You said that there's lots of people in PR who maintain their theism in intellectually responsible ways and I think that there are lots outside of PR who maintain their atheism in intellectually responsible ways. These points are, I think, perfectly consistent and I was careful to say 'lots' rather than 'most'. A certain young prof. of mine from graduate school was right when he said that you're just not supposed to have views until you finish your Ph.D., and I don't think he thought that you were entitled to have lots of views on a great many things just because you wrote a Ph.D. on unrelated topics.) Here's the opportunity:
Show us the arguments!
(Whatever happened to that blog?)
Maybe someone (you? someone else?) can identify, say, ten readings (hopefully less) that clearly demonstrate that there are responses to the argument from evil that neutralize that argument show that atheists outside of PR are being epistemically irresponsible. They'd have to contain considerations that your typical competent atheist outside of PR hadn't thought of that shows that arguments from atrocity and natural disaster don't justify their belief in atheism.
I think this would be a real service to the profession in a number of ways. You say that you don't see why specialists would care what non-specialists think, but I don't think you really mean it. I think you care. (Hell (can I write that here?), I want all the philosophers to think that the knowledge account of assertion is almost right, that mentalism is false, that evidence consists of true propositions, that epistemic disjunctivism is perfectly harmless, that the false, justified belief is a myth, etc...).
Maybe someone (you? someone else?) can identify, say, ten readings (hopefully less) that clearly demonstrate that there are responses to the argument from evil that neutralize that argument show that atheists outside of PR are being epistemically irresponsible.
Let me put out the call.
Listen up. We're looking for someone who still needs to be instructed that no argument for any interesting philosophical thesis "clearly demonstrates" that thesis.
Seriously, if there were "epistemic irresponsibility" in this case, it would not be a failure to appreciate arguments that clearly neutralize the argument(s)/problem(s) from evil, but something closer to a failure to so much as consider the arguments before forming an opinion. This is an empirical matter, but I'd certainly bet that the most that would be produced is some intro. to philosophy version of the argument and the responses to it. Again, this is empirical stuff.
I would not call it irresponsible if someone did not consider the arguments and had no credence either way (not everyone is interested in everything). Finally, what I expect is that, if the arguments were considered, it would be concluded that rational people could believe that there are adequate solutions to problem(s)/argument(s) from evil.
I'm not at all familiar with the PoE/FWD literature, but in my informal discussions I've never come across a satisfactory response to the objection I raise here. Maybe you guys can help me out. Does the literature contain a respectable rebuttal to this kind of anti-FWD argument?
I've been thinking about Trent's proposal that widespread atheism among philosophers is largely a result of social trends among Christians (I'd add other religious groups, too). In connection with this proposal, I wonder what percentage of philosophers come from secular households.
Suppose 90% of house-holds from population X are religious and God-revering. Suppose that 2% of those from secular households become professional philosophers. And suppose that because certain religions discourage academic philosophy and because many interested in philosophy become theologians or priests/pastors rather than academic philosophers, only 0.1% of those from religious households become professional philosophers. Given these hypothetical stats, if no one changed their religious views from that of their household, a little math shows that just 31% of academic philosophers would be theists. So, you can see why it would be interesting to know what percentage of atheist philosophers come from a secular (non-God revering) household.
Does the literature contain a respectable rebuttal to this kind of anti-FWD argument?
This sort of objection has been around for a while. The "why-doesn't-God-interfere" objection. I've suggested a response to it on PB (somewhere) that states effectively that moral agents can refrain from performing A at any time prior to actually performing A. God can give you every opportunity not to perform A only by not interferring with you at all. The view depends on attributing a high moral value to agents who freely refrain from performing immoral actions. I assume Molinist knowledge for God, and I assume that God's knowledge is a "soft fact". But I do agree that AP's version of FWD needs to be modified in various ways.
Another factor to consider: I bet that many theists interested in philosophy are interested in teaching philosophy at a religious school or seminary that focuses more on teaching than on research (a school not in the list of schools surveyed). So that factor may also lower the % of theists who would be counted among academic philosophers.
Mike - the question isn't so much "why doesn't God interfere?" as "How is God's interference any more problematic than, say, interference by the police?" Do you really want to say that we lack free will because the police sometimes interfere with us (when it becomes obvious that we're about to harm others), thereby failing to give us "every opportunity not to perform A"?
Richard, what do you mean by "God's interference" as opposed to "police interference"?
Police interference typically works like this: they see that someone is about to do something bad or is doing something bad, and they do things to physically stop him from starting to do, or continuing to do, those bad things. E.g., a criminal has a gun and points it an innocent, and the police officer shoots the criminal to stop him from shooting the innocent. Notice that in this case what the police prevent is not the actual mental willing, but rather the physical carrying out of the willing. I would put it as: police don't interfere with your freely willing, they interfere with your freely acting.
Now, God's interference could work like that: God could yell at, or physically restrain, a criminal from doing bad stuff. In this case, the question would be, "Why doesn't God interfere with people's freely acting, given that we think the police should interfere with people's freely acting?"
But sometimes people mean God's interference in another way: they will wonder, "why doesn't God prevent the actual willing from taking place?" In other words, instead of killing the criminal who is about to shoot the innocent, they wonder, "Why doesn't God prevent the criminal from willing the bad act in the first place?" In slogan form: why doesn't God interfere with the people's freely willing given that the we think the police should interfere with people's freely acting?"
I could have written all that more pithily.
Mike - the question isn't so much "why doesn't God interfere?" as "How is God's interference any more problematic than, say, interference by the police?"
But that is the question, isn't it? You at least seem to be asking why God doesn't do what the police do. We think the police should interfere, but then why doesn't God. And you seem to be assuming that the only reason God might have for not interferring is that doing so would be incompatible with our freedom (whereas we all believe that it isn't incompatible).
I agree that our acting freely is compatible with God interfering. So no problem there. I claim that there is something that God's inteference does preclude, and that is our freely refraining from immoral action. For any time t at which God interferes in our immoral action, it is true that we might have freely prevented ourselves from acting immorally at t. That's a reason not to interfere IF there is something very valuable about someone freely keeping himself from performing immoral actions. If so, then there is some value that is available only if he leaves us without interference.
Hi Robert, I meant the former: why doesn't God obstruct evil actions, just like the police do, without interfering with anyone's free will.
"Seriously, if there were "epistemic irresponsibility" in this case, it would not be a failure to appreciate arguments that clearly neutralize the argument(s)/problem(s) from evil, but something closer to a failure to so much as consider the arguments before forming an opinion. This is an empirical matter, but I'd certainly bet that the most that would be produced is some intro. to philosophy version of the argument and the responses to it. Again, this is empirical stuff."
Mike,
I think we disagree less than I'm thinking you think we disagree. Trent seemed to be accusing non-specialist atheists of epistemic irresponsibility. This charge is surely warranted for some, but it's an interesting question how many. That seems to be depend largely upon whether they can reasonably take themselves to know the moves. (There's a largish issue about whether non-specialists can be reasonable in saying that certain views are wrong or not rationally defensible that I think we can bracket as I think I'm conceding a lot to Trent.) That's why I was stressing that we're going to want to see something from the literature that is going to be surprising to the non-specialist. I don't think I disagree(d) with this, "if there were "epistemic irresponsibility" in this case, it would not be a failure to appreciate arguments that clearly neutralize the argument(s)/problem(s) from evil, but something closer to a failure to so much as consider the arguments before forming an opinion."
"We're looking for someone who still needs to be instructed that no argument for any interesting philosophical thesis "clearly demonstrates" that thesis."
Wait, I never said that we were looking for an argument that "clearly demonstrates" some philosophical thesis (e.g., God's non-existence, the impossibility of an argument that makes it reasonable to believe God doesn't exist). I just asked for a list of articles that provides a clear demonstration that arguments that non-specialists have in mind are neutralized. For reasons you seem to be stressing, it's better if they contain considerations that specialists haven't considered rather than ones that they've considered but might not appreciate the significance of. Isn't that much, much more modest? (Isn't Plantinga's FWD often advertised as the thing that shows that the logical argument from evil is dead in the water?)
I don't think that you're wrong that, "no argument for any interesting philosophical thesis "clearly demonstrates" that thesis". Isn't the task going to be reasonably easy if the non-specialists are coming to the table with arguments they think establish with some high degree of probability God's non-existence? All you have to do is find articles that show that the atheists' arguments do no such thing. We're not looking for a proof of the impossibility of a convincing argument from evil, but papers that set out in clear ways moves that non-specialists haven't thought of that should lead them to significantly lower their confidence in their versions of the argument from evil.
Trent,
Isn't is possible that there are so many naturalists because science continues to provide precise and testable naturalistic explanations, and the research program of vague and often untestable supernaturalism continues to lose credibility?
Everybody:
Here's a hypothesis about the prevalence of atheists. The moderately educated religious person who has read no philosophy already has answers that are at least subjectively satisfying to quite a number of the questions that philosophy investigates: What is the point of our lives? (Maybe to glorify the God in whose image we are.) What is the ultimate explanation of the world? (Maybe God's desire to diffuse his goodness.) Is there an objective morality? (Yes.) Are we just a bunches of atoms in a void? (No.) How ought we to live? (Loving God and neighbor, and obeying the Ten Commandments.) How can evolved creatures like us we know about morality and other deep truths? (We are not created through a completely random process, but by a God who desires us to know and love him.) Are we free? (Yes, and we will be judged.)
The atheist does not have much in the way of subjectively satisfying answers to such questions, and the naturalism to which atheists tend to be drawn in our culture threatens the conclusion that some central answers about the point of our lives and how we ought to live either have no answers or have no answers that we can know (standard intuitive argument which may be questioned but has prima facie force: if naturalism is true, there is no explanatory connection between normative facts about how we ought to live and our beliefs, because only natural, and not normative, facts are explanatory; but if there is no explanatory connection between a belief and what it is about, the presumption is that the belief is not knowledge). Thus every atheist has an existential need for philosophy.
Consequently, we would expect atheists to be proportionately more likely to take philosophy courses as undergraduates, while religious people who have taken no philosophy will already take themselves to have a lot of the answers. (And I think they are rigth. Indeed, together with the Church Fathers, I would say that the intelligent and serious Christian tends to know many more of the important philosophical truths than the typical non-theist philosopher does.) Furthermore, those seriously religious people who have an interest in the questions that goes beyond the simpler (though by and large correct, and importantly so) answers to these questions will be split between those who go to philosophy and and those who go to theology graduate school, perhaps with the latter being more common. On the other hand, atheists are less likely to seek answers in a seminary.
To explain the predominance of theists in PR, I think there are two more factors, in addition to the ones that have been discussed above. (Maybe these ones have been mentioned, too.)
1. For atheists the belief that God doesn't exist is likely to be less motivationally central than for theists the belief that God exists is. (Just as for monotheists the belief that Apollo doesn't exist isn't all that central.) Hence the atheist is less likely to explore PR.
2. PR has two main parts: the investigation whether there is a God, and the investigation of what God is like (intrinsically or relative to us). The latter is an unlikely interest for an atheist (sure, one can investigate it hypothetically), while theists are likely to be interested in both. This decreases the appeal of PR to atheists.
RC:
I posted a response to the argument on your blog. Basically, the issue is that a free will defense only needs to show that some evil is compossible with God's existence. But unless your police force is truly totalitarian, forcing people to come to meetings on time and all that, which does not appear desirable, all evil will not be eliminated.
I consider myself an atheist to the extent that I do not accept theism. I choose to reject the theistic vision of God. My father was a Congregational Minister (not UCC). I was a Sunday School teacher, sang in the choir, and gave sermons/talks at youth meetings as well as to larger Church congregations. I was a leader in my local/state's youth group and at one time considered following in my father's footsteps. I started to question theism when I was in the service and tried to reconcile why a God of love who I was trying to serve would want me to kill my fellow man which lead to a breakdown. This has lead to a life-time (45 years now since my military days) of considering arguments on all sides of the issue of the rationality of believing in a theistic God. I have yet to find one that satisfies me as to answering the problem of evil (to be honest, I find arguments on both sides of the issue unconvincing) although I do admit that I think that the argument from intelligent design has some merit relative to there being a creator. For that matter, I have come to the conclusion that the existence of evil poses no problem for God, if he exists, because He can do damn well what he has the power and the desire to do. The real problem of evil is why we continue to allow it to happen in our own lives? I think that it is possible for a person to be rational and believe in God (look at most, if not all of the member of this blog - you support your positions with reason even if I disagree with the reasoning) and another person can be rational and not believe in God. Hence the need and value of dialogue. The reason I bring this all up is that I decided to study philosophy as a therapeutic way of dealing with my existential crisis. Unfortunately, I am still as uncertain (maybe more so) as I was when I was 18, only now I have more theories/perspectives to deal with (and add to) my uncertainty.
Wait, I never said that we were looking for an argument that "clearly demonstrates" some philosophical thesis . . .
Well, you asked for arguments that clearly demonstrate that the argument from evil is ineffective. That's a philosophical thesis, isn't it? You say,
Maybe someone ... can identify, say, ten readings ... that clearly demonstrate that there are responses to the argument from evil that neutralize that argument . . .
Anyway, you suggest that the task will be easy,
Isn't the task going to be reasonably easy if the non-specialists are coming to the table with arguments they think establish with some high degree of probability God's non-existence? All you have to do is find articles that show that the atheists' arguments do no such thing.
No, it's not going to be easy. I presume we're talking about highly trained philosophers. As I said, I think it can be shown that theists are rational in their beliefs, in spite of the problems of evil and the remaining atheological arguments. It can be shown, as Rowe holds, that a reasonable person could assess the public evidence in such a way that theism is a perfectly reasonable position to take.
Hey Mike,
"Well, you asked for arguments that clearly demonstrate that the argument from evil is ineffective. That's a philosophical thesis, isn't it?"
Just to be clear, there are the arguments from evil (actual and possible) and there are the arguments from evil that non-specialists have in mind that serve as the basis of their beliefs. An assessment of epistemic responsibility is going to focus on the arguments non-specialists have in mind, not the actual or possible variations that exist or could be developed but don't serve as the basis of any of their beliefs. The worse those arguments are, the easier it will be to show that the specialists can neutralize those (i.e., offering undermining and/or overriding defeaters). I would think that the task of providing the defeaters would be relatively easy. If we're counting 'The argument Dr. Billy Atheist offered isn't nearly as powerful as he thinks it is' as a philosophical thesis, then I don't think it's crazy to say that _some_ philosophical theses can be clearly demonstrated. (Again, that was supposed to be what happened with Mackie's argument and Plantinga's response. Ask around to see if the atheists have something more sophisticated in mind, if not, refer them to P's FWD or some improvement upon that and that's the end of it.)
Look, I think there's an opportunity here. If the atheism of philosophical peers who aren't familiar with the literature is based on arguments that specialists know better than to place confidence in, I don't see why contributors to Prosblogion wouldn't respond to the survey by identifying things that should be read. I think that's more constructive than simply saying (as some have) that fellow professional philosophers are being epistemically irresponsible. Maybe I was reading too much into Trent's remarks from earlier, but I thought he was suggesting that there were good responses to the arguments that non-specialists find convincing that would show that these arguments shouldn't be convincing.
I'm sort of puzzled by the last bit. I don't think I've said that theists aren't rational in their beliefs in spite of the problems of evil. I don't believe that, so if I've said something that suggests otherwise I'm sorry but I've misspoken.
Hi Clayton,
In my experience, it can often be surprising what arguments work for what people. I have a friend who is both a philosopher and a hard-bitten atheist, and when he encountered Robin Collins's version of the argument from design, he was quite impressed. Not enough to move him from atheism to agnosticism, but enough for him to conclude that theism had some genuine evidence in its favor.
This surprised me, because while I'm moved by the cosmological argument, I'm not affected by any version of the argument from design I've encountered.
The moral of the story: it's surprising what arguments are going to impress people, so it's hard to say what things atheists should read that will make them rethink their off-the-cuff rejection of theism.
Despite that preamble, I think van Inwagen's point about evil and vaguenes (in The Problem of Evil as well as in "On the Magnitude, Distribution, and Duration of Evil: A Theodicy"), as well as R. Adams's point about there being no best world, are both clever responses to the PoE that should cause atheists to rethink things.
look, I think there's an opportunity here. If the atheism of philosophical peers who aren't familiar with the literature is based on arguments that specialists know better than to place confidence in, I don't see why contributors to Prosblogion wouldn't respond to the survey by identifying things that should be read. I think that's more constructive than simply saying (as some have) that fellow professional philosophers are being epistemically irresponsible
It's nice that you want to take this opportunity to help the atheists out. But I don't think the problem is that they just can't figure out who to read. If so, tell the poor devils to go read van Inwagen and Plantinga on POE. As a homework assignment ask them to show that transworld sanctified essences are not a problem for FWD...:).
I'm sort of puzzled by the last bit. I don't think I've said that theists aren't rational in their beliefs in spite of the problems of evil.
I wasn't replying to any view I thought you held. I claim that epistemic irresponsibility, to the extent that it exists, consists in not seeing that the evidence does not make it irrational to be a theist.
Hi Robert! Fair point: Anthony Flew must have ticked the ‘theist’ box. Aristotle would have ticked the ‘theist’ box too.
But the explanation in this post is given in terms of 20th century ‘social trends among Christian groups'. It assumes that theist philosophers accept divine revelation and that the revelation accepted by theist philosophers is Christian revelation in particular. I wonder what the evidence is for this assumption. Because if it’s based on the prevalent religious tradition in the countries targeted by the survey, then Christian theism - as opposed to 'plain' theism - among philosophers may have little to do with philosophy.
(I made this point in an earlier comment which must have been swallowed up.)
Alexander
I am not sure what you mean when you write that "1. For atheists the belief that God doesn't exist is likely to be less motivationally central than for theists the belief that God exists is. (Just as for monotheists the belief that Apollo doesn't exist isn't all that central.) Hence the atheist is less likely to explore PR."
I think that being an atheist, or a theist, is to commit oneself to a set of beliefs about the way the world is and our place within it. I subscribe to a 'web of belief' approach to understanding epistemic issues and I am inclined to think that the idea of there not being a God (or there being one) is foundational to that system. If we accept James's notion that a true idea helps us makes sense of the world and is not contradicted by any of our experiences then it seems to me that the non-existence of God would be motivational in so far as it supports other ideas that we hold to be true because we accept a certain 'picture' of the world as being true. The same would hold true for the theist. I have had experiences that contradict, not in a logical sense of contradiction, but in my ability to hold on to the truth-value of that belief in the face of the experiences I have had a belief in God. Now it is possible, and likely, that others have had similar experiences but that these experiences have reinforced their belief in God. For example, when I discuss the existence of God, the experiences/examples I bring up to 'demonstrate' that God does not exist, are those that others bring up to 'demonstrate' that He does exist. This is the main reason why I think demonstrations of consistency are not helpful in solving the existential point of the problem of evil. I can agree that Plantinga 'solves' the logical problem of evil, but not believing in God has never been a logical problem for me.
Anyhow, can you clarify what you meant?
Also, as an atheist, I would be interested in 10 works that theists think I should be familiar with. I would like to know if I have read them or not, and if not, to read them.
Here’s my view, which is close to Alex’s.
The best interpretation of the history of early analytic philosophy is that it is a project to develop a naturalistic worldview (more precisely, to develop some intellectual underpinnings for modernity, which includes naturalism). The project starts with the tools of British empiricism and adds formal logic. Some of its major questions are inherited from the ancestors: questions about knowledge (roughly, What kind of empiricists shall we be?) and about logic. Philosophy of science develops from epistemology, and philosophy of language develops out of logic. The rest of the major questions are about how to fit human experience into a naturalistic worldview: a compatibilist theory of free will, a materialist philosophy of mind, a naturalist ethics or at least a naturalist way of understanding ethical discourse, a view of society and politics and law which does not appeal to transcendent purposes, etc.
The actual tools which were originally going to further this project—conceptual analysis, the formalization of arguments, appeals to ordinary language—are now widely acknowledged to be insufficient. And analytic philosophy has evolved into more of a textual tradition and lip-service to a set of argumentative virtues (rigor, clarity…) than anything else. However, for many analytic philosophers, the original project retains some force, implicitly or explicitly.
In this project of developing a naturalistic worldview, philosophy of religion is basically an impediment, because it engages with questions the naturalist regards as settled or anyway practically irrelevant. And metaphysics is a sideshow, because the basic metaphysical picture is given by scientific naturalism.
Conversely, for those theists interested in developing a philosophically robust theistic worldview, philosophy of religion and metaphysics are very important areas of inquiry. And as Alex and Trent point out, many theists are not motivated to enter analytic philosophy in the first place because either (a) they do not think the answers to their major questions are going to be found through autonomous human reason and/or scientific inquiry or (b) they have their own philosophical tradition.
The bottom line is that there is an important selection effect going on which sorts theists into philosophy of religion and atheists out of it. I could not say how powerful the effect is.
Hey Mike and Robert,
I can't speak for all the atheists, but I can say that it's hard to know where to start. There's a ton of literature and we know that every literature contains way more literature than should be literature. With the new year around the corner, I know that some of us want to exercise more, learn French, and be more epistemically responsible!
So, atheists who want to know where to start can start with Plantinga's FWD, van Inwagen's Oxford book, van Inwagen on the magnitude of evil, and Adams on no best possible world. Show that transworld sanctified essences are not a problem for FWD and you win a prize. Explain what transworld sanctified essences are and you'll win a smaller prize.
Before we get too caught up in assessments of epistemic responsibility, it would be helpful to know more about the break-down between "accept atheism" and "lean toward atheism."
It seems perfectly acceptable to "lean toward" a position outside of your area of expertise, even if you aren't up-to-date on all the new moves in the debate. In fact, when I took the survey, I used the "lean toward" option as a way of expressing a certain kind of agnosticism. Specifically, I was recognizing that although I have philosophical tendencies, intuitions, etc., that make certain positions seem more plausible to me, I also don't have the relevant standing to judge those positions to be true. Hence, I lean toward them.
Maybe my understanding of "lean toward" is idiosyncratic, or just plain wrong, but insofar as there are others like me in their use of the "lean toward" option, perhaps a great many atheist responses were of the "lean toward" variety rather than the "accept" variety, and so we shouldn't think of anyone as being epistemically irresponsible.
Hi Clayton,
I'll boil down my recommendations to two books:
(1) Daniel Howard-Snyder, editor, The Evidential Problem of Evil (Indiana, 1996).
(2) Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (Cornell, 1999).
I like Robert's recommendations. I'd add van Inwagen's _God, Knowledge and Mystery_, and his _The Problem of Evil_. I'd also recommend the in this regard often wildly underestimated, _The Nature of Necessity_.
I think Hasker is worth mentioning in this regard as well--the papers in his Routledge collection are almost all very good. I particulary like that he, like M. Adams, is worried about the broadly affective/motivational or 'existential' problems evil raises.
Also, in principle at least, Philosophy Compass can be helpful in bridging the specialist-nonspecialist gap--this seems precisely what it's meant to do. (One might doubt that it actually succeeds, although in my estimation most of the Compass articles I've looked at have been pretty helpful.) In fact, as luck would have it (and to shamelessly self-promote), I've published not just one but two survey articles on natural evil there (in which I did my best to catalogue the most significant views defended in print):
http://www.blackwellcompass.com/subject/philosophy/section_home?section=phco-religion
At the Notre Dame conference, Eleonore Stump mentioned that she has a forthcoming, 700-page book on the problem of evil. That may very well end up on the "must-read" list.
Eleonore Stump mentioned that she has a forthcoming, 700-page book on the problem of evil. That may very well end up on the "must-read" list.
Or the must-bench-press list.
Trent (and others),
I'm a bit struck by the assumption behind this post. Namely, if one is a naturalist, one is not a theist, and vice versa. Of course, we need to define what we mean by 'naturalist' and 'theist'. I am assuming that by 'theism' you must mean omniGod theism and you must mean that this includes the acceptance of supernaturalism. But there are philosophers of religion who count themselves as theists but reject both omniGod theism and supernaturalism (John Bishop, Philip Clayton, Peter Forrest, John Leslie come to mind most quickly--I don't know if Mark Johnston and Eric Steinhart actually accept the views of God they have defended). Some of these people defend views that some may argue actually entail supernaturalism, their claims to the contrary notwithstanding (Forrest may be a case of this). And my guess is that many who post on this blog would insist that such individuals are not "really" theists (or those who refer to themselves as Christians certainly can't be "real" Christians). But this is to restrict 'theism' to refer only to variants of traditional theism. This would be like substance dualists claiming that other views of the mind are not "really" theories of the mind (so functionalism is a theory of "schminds" not "minds"). But this would be preposterous. It would be to cut off debate at the knees, effectively stifling any progress in philosophical theology.
In any case, being one among the guilty parties who rejects supernaturalism but describes himself as a theist (admittedly, some sort of pan/panentheist--I'm not sure what my view should be called since I'm working it out), I wasn't sure what to say about my commitments about theism versus atheism when I took the poll. I believe I chose theist. I had similar problems with "naturalism". I could be a methodological naturalist and reject ontological naturalism. That would be strange, I know. But it is not a wholly untenable combination. And it certainly is common to find ontological naturalists who reject methodological naturalism in philosophy. Again, I chose "naturalism"--finding the choice just as uncomfortable as "theist" since some ways of characterizing "meta-philosophical" naturalism--which is what the question was about (not ontological naturalism)--simply amount to giving up on philosophy altogether. I have a feeling that many who chose "naturalism" (and many who chose "non-naturalism") were thinking about ontological naturalism.
Well said Andrei! I wondered too if the issue is philosophers’ belief in the ‘God of the philosophers’ or philosophers’ belief in a particular revealed religion: Someone actually suggested above a Christian explanation in terms of ‘spiritual/supernatural forces at work as to why many philosophers are naturalists’. It's not clear that this is an argument meant to cut ice with philosophers or appease Christian believers. I doubt that who’s not a Christian is a naturalist; I think most theists are not Christians.
Let me second Robert's recommendation of Eleonore Stump's new book. For what little it's worth, I think very highly of it and think it's the sort of thing that's going to shift a a whole lot of the literature. Also, for what it's worth, let me second his recommendation of Dan H-S's book. (Full disclosure: Eleonore is a colleague of mine and Dan was a Professor of mine in undergrad.)
Oddly, I can't recall having ever met in person a professional philosopher whom I knew to be a non-Christian theist, but I don't get out as much as other people. Of course, I've met a lot of philosophers of whom I know neither whether they are Christians nor whether they are theists. It would be interesting to see the religious distribution among analytic theists.
I'm a bit struck by the assumption behind this post. Namely, if one is a naturalist, one is not a theist, and vice versa.
Not sure why that's striking, even in light of the rest of the comment. There are naturalist "theists", but they certainly seem in the vast minority. It seems already to strain the language a bit--unless I'm not using the word especially competently--to categorize those who do not believe in a personal God as theists. I take it that naturalist theists (maybe Hobbes is an exception) do not believe in a personal God. It might be right to say that they don't believe in God at all, but believe that god exists. I don't mean to suggest that naturalists have a lesser god, but only that it doesn't seem to be a theistic god. But maybe my use is too restrictive or maybe I'm failing my obligation to be inclusive or something.
Oddly, I can't recall having ever met in person a professional philosopher whom I knew to be a non-Christian theist, but I don't get out as much as other people.
You've never met a Jewish or Muslim philosopher? And, you and I have not yet met, but I am more than sure that by the lights of 99% of Christian believers I would not count as a Christian (being that I am an open theist, soteriological universalist, who denies the veracity of (all of ) the Old Testament and much of the New Testament, never the less I am a theist (and I would call myself a Christian of a sort).
Hi APR! If most theist philosophers subscribe to Christian revelation then, if philosophers who are/lean atheist do their homework and read the bibliography suggested above are they likely in your view to lean (a) theist, or (b) Christian?
Unfamiliarity with intricate arguments in philosophy of religion can't be the explanation for why so many more philosophers of religion than philosophers in general lean towards theism as an implication of subscribing to Christianity. Not if we live in societies where most people adhere to theistic religion while only 15% of philosophers surveyed are/lean theist. The population at large can hardly be more familiar with intricate arguments in philosophy of religion compared to the average philosopher.
There are other essential reads like Peterson's introduction, the van Inwagen anthology, but my favs are Hick and Swinburne. The latter mostly from The Existence of God, I don't want to publicly endorse all the stuff in the Providence book. The most essential reading, though, will be Alex and I's book which does not much exist yet (notes, emails, a presentation). You'll be notified when it does! Oh, and Paul Draper mentioned to me that he has one coming out relatively soon.
It should go without saying, of course, that just reading a book or two ain't gonna do the job. It takes years of reflection to even get to a point to really understand the issue well (unless your much smarter than me, which you probably are). I'll post below a passage from Pascal which is the basis of my paper for Jon K's PR conf. this Feb. It'll be online in Jan sometime, it's an extension of my work in intellectual responsibility.
Pascal Pensee #194 (I think this is not the Krailsheimer number, as I recall.)
Also, it is just an excerpt, the whole thing is very much worth reading.
-----------------
The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us, and which touches us so profoundly, that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing what it is. All our actions and thoughts must take such different courses, according as there are or are not eternal joys to hope for, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment, unless we regulate our course by our view of this point which ought to be our ultimate end.
Thus our first interest and our first duty is to enlighten ourselves on this subject, whereon depends all our conduct. Therefore among those who do not believe, I make a vast difference between those who strive with all their power to inform themselves, and those who live without troubling or thinking about it.
I can have only compassion for those who sincerely bewail their doubt, who regard it as the greatest of misfortunes, and who, sparing no effort to escape it, make of this inquiry their principal and most serious occupations.
But as for those who pass their life without thinking of this ultimate end of life, and who, for this sole reason that they do not find within themselves the lights which convince them of it, neglect to seek them elsewhere, and to examine thoroughly whether this opinion is one of those which people receive with credulous simplicity, or one of those which, although obscure in themselves, have nevertheless a solid and immovable foundation, I look upon them in a manner quite different.
This carelessness in a matter which concerns themselves, their eternity, their all, moves me more to anger than pity; it astonishes and shocks me; it is to me monstrous. I do not say this out of the pious zeal of a spiritual devotion. I expect, on the contrary, that we ought to have this feeling from principles of human interest and self-love; for this we need only see what the least enlightened persons see.
Unfamiliarity with intricate arguments in philosophy of religion can't be the explanation for why so many more philosophers of religion than philosophers in general lean towards theism as an implication of subscribing to Christianity.... The population at large can hardly be more familiar with intricate arguments in philosophy of religion compared to the average philosopher.
That's an intuitive argument, but I'm not sure it can be right. It goes like this. if (i) U(nfamiliarity) explained A(theism) then (ii) anyone instantiating U would instantiate A (or, not so many U's would be non-A's). But (iii) not all U's are A's (or, lots of U's are non-A's), witness the proportion of naive theists to atheists. So not (i). But I'm not sure you can get to that conclusion. It's true that not taking anti-biotics explains lots of deaths by infection, though vast numbers of people who never took anti-biotics (viz. anyone existing before the 20's) survived infections. Indeed most people now survive infections without anti-biotics, though failing to take them surely explains lots of deaths by infection.
Fine, thanks. But the question in the first instance is whether all non-Christians count as non-theists or naturalists; Andrei Buckareff queried implicit definitions. Is it the claim that if non-Christian philosophers (e.g. Muslims) become familiar with intricate arguments in philosophy of religion then they are they likely to lean towards Christian revelation?
It’s not clear if the explanation in terms of ‘spiritual/supernatural forces’ shows why there are so many naturalists or so few Christians; I take Christians to be a minority among the current overall theist majority. I’m not sure either what difference it makes if one has met Anthony Flew or Andrei or Aristotle in person or not.
What's surprising, and exceptional (and thus evidential) are those cases which buck the trends, the adult converts like PvI, and the fact, indicated in the surveys, that those theists who go into PR manage to keep their belief in an intellectually respectable way. The more I think about it, the more this survey boosts my confidence in theism (though we're still only talking a few percent at most. I'd say between 1-3% boost, but the numbers fluctuate day to day.
I have no doubt that theists in PR manage to maintain their theism in highly nuanced ways. What I'm curious about, however, is whether or not any large pool of intelligent, well-trained, committed believers in virtually any position (including atheism and naturalism) can come together and do the same. My suspicion is that they can.
It's unusual for any major philosophical position to be considered refuted (i.e., no longer respectably defensible). It would be absolutely shocking if the community of philosophers of religion conceded that their central question - the existence of God - had been definitively answered either way.
Is it the claim that if non-Christian philosophers (e.g. Muslims) become familiar with intricate arguments in philosophy of religion then they are they likely to lean towards Christian revelation?
I don't think that's it, though it might be that quasi-theistic naturalists (pick a better name if that's no good) and non-theistic naturalists would increase their credence for theism on greater familiarity with the arguments. For what it's worth, to repeat my view, I think we could reasonably expect that even the more virulent atheistic members of this group would come to something like Rowe's friendly atheism. That would be no small achievement.
Some scattered remarks:
1. I meant my remark about not knowing that I've met a non-Christian theistic philosopher as weak support for the hypothesis that most theistic philosophers are Christians--in a small-to-medium sized (but definitely non-random) sample, all theistic philosophers are Christians. (The remark needs one qualification: there was a fellow grad student at Pitt who practices Judaism, and I assume he was a theist. And of course I've corresponded with non-Christian theistic philosophers.) I have no statistical data, however.
2. As for the proposed (I can't remember by whom) supernatural Christian explanation of the prevalence of theism within PR, I think it's important to note that this does not require the hypothesis in (1). After all, there could well be supernatural explanations of why a non-Christian is a theists, even if Christianity is correct, since if Christianity is correct, being a theist is and of itself valuable.
3. I do think theism rules out naturalism. Naturalism either denies the existence of non-natural beings or else denies the possibility of natural states of affairs having a causal explanation in terms of a non-natural state of affairs. If the former, then naturalism denies the existence of God; if the latter, then naturalism denies that God created the world. For God is a paradigm case of a non-natural being, and a divine willing is a paradigm case of a non-natural state of affairs.
Fair enough, thanks. Still, if there’s no suggestion that there are intricate arguments in philosophy of religion which privilege Christian revelation over Islamic revelation and if most theist philosophers are Christians, then most theist philosophers are committed to theism as a corollary of being committed to Christian revelation. So most theist philosophers aren’t theist because they’re privy to nuanced philosophy of religion arguments that elude non-specialists.
Quentin Smith's answer? It's an accident!
"[T]he vast majority of naturalist philosophers have come to hold (since the late 1960s) an unjustified belief in naturalism. Their justifications have been defeated by arguments developed by theistic philosophers, and now naturalist philosophers, for the most part, live in darkness about the justification for naturalism. They may have a true belief in naturalism, but they have no knowledge that naturalism is true since they do not have an undefeated justification for their belief. If naturalism is true, then their belief in naturalism is accidentally true."
http://www.qsmithwmu.com/metaphilosophy_of_naturalism.htm
Bryan Frances's paper "Spirituality, Expertise, and Philosophers" seems to be relevant to this discussion. The paper is here:
http://www.fordham.edu/philosophy/frances/spirituality.pdf
This post by Mike Almeida above-- "Something other than the arguments is always at work. It is never true (near enough) that an atheist becomes a theist because of some theistic argument. It is never the case (near enough) that a theist becomes an atheist because of some atheological argument"—reminds me of Paul Moser's recent works such as The Elusive God, and more importantly, his new book that just came out: The Evidence for God: Religious Knowledge Reexamined. Here is the publisher's description of the book:
http://www.cup.es/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521736282
Moser is not against arguments or evidence for God's existence but the way he conceives arguments or evidence for God’s reality is significantly different from the standard theistic arguments and the nature of theistic evidence. These two books by Moser seem to address issues such as: why aren’t theistic arguments effective in persuading atheists to become theists more often than not? Same thing for atheological arguments.
Maybe the point made by Almeida above is correct. Maybe Moser is correct too.