Monday, March 21, 2011

On Agnosticism and Faith

I’d like to think a bit about agnosticism, and in so doing pick up on some themes that have been brushed up against in comment threads in earlier posts. Specifically, I want to explore what it means to be an agnostic about God. The term “agnostic” was coined by Thomas Huxley in the 19th Century, but I’m not mainly interested in pinning down what he meant by it. Rather, I want to think about how the term is used today—and I expect it is used in some different ways.


This issue is interesting to me for a number of reasons, not least of them being that my wife is a self-described “genetically Catholic, Episcopalian agnostic” (who happens to attend a Lutheran church).

Etymologically, “agnostic” literally means “without knowledge.” But on that definition, many self-professing theists would qualify as agnostics. As so many of my students put it, “Belief in God is a matter of faith, not knowledge.” If agnosticism is to qualify as an authentic alternative to theism and atheism, what kind of alternative is it, given that no small number of theists confess to lacking knowledge about God?

Here, it may be helpful to zero in on what they do claim to have in relation to God, namely faith. Perhaps the agnostic is one who has neither faith nor knowledge when it comes to God. The difficulty here, of course, is that “faith” is a difficult concept, used in different ways—and often without any clear meaning or usage in mind at all.

(More often than not, when my students profess to believe something “on faith” and I ask them what that means, they stare at me blankly. “Do you mean,” I ask, “that you don’t have any good reasons to believe it, but you willfully believe it anyway, just because your parents and community will approve of you if you do?” They shift uncomfortably. Eventually I can get an interesting conversation going, but it takes awhile—because so many use the term “faith” unreflectively, without any clear sense of what they really mean by it.)

Hence, it seems to me that defining agnosticism in relation to faith merely shifts the problem to a different place. Furthermore, it may be that there are different kinds of agnosticism, and that not every kind of agnosticism involves an absence of faith (or an absence of faith in every sense, since there may be different kinds of faith). As such, it may be better to explore the concepts of agnosticism and faith in tandem.

Since faith and agnosticism both seem in some way related to beliefs about God, it may be helpful to begin with the notion of belief. What does it mean to believe something? Here, I tend to be rather influenced by the pragmatic philosopher William James, who held that that a belief’s meaning is given by the difference it makes for what we do and how we live. If this is correct, then to believe X is, most essentially, to behave in certain ways—to operate in the world as if X is true. To believe in the existence of the force of gravity is to operate as if stepping off a precipice (when standing on Earth) will lead to a nasty fall. Those who believe in gravity therefore step off precipices (without parachutes) only when they are suicidal. Those who want to experience floating but believe in gravity will, perhaps, strap on a parachute.

But notice a few things here. First, someone who believes in gravity but wants to die may engage in the same outward behavior (stepping off a precipice) as someone who (inexplicably) does not believe in gravity. The former steps off expecting to die, while the latter steps off expecting to float. The difference lies not in the outward behavior but in aims and expectations.

One might therefore argue that the essence of believing in the existence of the force of gravity lies not in what one does, but in what outcomes one expects—based, perhaps, on what one does, but also based on what one sees happening, etc. This way of understanding belief enables us to distinguish between those who just “go through the motions” of belief—doing the sorts of things that people who believe in gravity (and want to live) do, but who honestly expect to float when they step off cliffs—and those who “really believe it,” that is, who really expect to suffer a nasty fall if they fail to follow the appropriate behavioral protocols.

But defining belief in terms of expectations is problematic, too. Suppose you believe that Marge is secretly in love with you and would appreciate text messages expressing your ardor for her. Suppose, however, that Marge is married and that you are convinced she takes that bond so seriously that she would not respond in any way to amorous texts from people other than her husband, even if they are welcome. And so you don’t expect any discernible response from Marge when you text your little love notes. If you expect anything, it is that your messages will generate a wholly indiscernible internal response, one that will look the same (from your vantage point) as what you would expect to see if some very different things were true about her (for example, that your messages are not welcome but that she thinks the easiest solution is to ignore them).

In other words, if belief is construed in terms of expectations, it needn’t be in terms of what you would expect to observe. And if a belief makes no difference for what you would expect to observe, we are led to Anthony Flew’s pragmatic question framed in terms of his invisible gardener fable: If the person who “believes” in the invisible gardener expects the world to look exactly the same as it would were there no gardener, how is believing in the gardener any different from not believing? Here, the most plausible answer (suggested by R.M. Hare in his response to Flew) is that it makes a difference in terms of how the believer operates in the world. This seems right to me: There is a difference between the believer and the skeptic, but the difference lies not in expectations as much as it does in behavioral dispositions. In other words, we’re pushed back to the behavioral understanding of belief.

Now the implication of all of this might be that beliefs come in different kinds—some of which have their primary meaning given by what we expect to experience under a range of conditions, some of which have their primary meaning given by what we are inclined to do, at least given certain motives. But the line here cannot, I think, be neatly drawn. In most cases, to believe something amounts to having both certain expectations and certain behavioral dispositions.

But now consider a somewhat different example—the case of a trust fall. The idea in a trust fall is that someone falls backwards—presumably into the waiting arms of someone else. Suppose you are preparing to do a trust fall. You are standing at the edge of a table, your back to the floor, and Joe is standing behind you on the floor ready to catch you. If you fall backwards into his arms, assuming you have no desire to be hurt, can we say that you believed Joe would catch you? (Let us suppose that Joe is big enough and strong enough to catch you easily if he chooses to.)

We’d surely say you were putting your trust in Joe. But this trust might be automatic (you know Joe well and confidently expect that he will catch you), or a fairly easy decision (you don’t know much of anything about Joe, but you have no special reason to think he’ll let you fall and so you decide to operate as if he will catch you), or a rather anguished one. Perhaps you and Joe have a deeply conflicted relationship, Joe has betrayed you in the past, but he has apologized and seems to want to establish a new and better relationship.

In the first case, it seems natural to say that you believe Joe will catch you. You behave as if he is going to catch you, and you fully expect him to do so—you might even say that you know he will (although you may be wrong about this, in which case you’ll say “I thought I knew” once you pick your bruised self off the floor).

In the second case, it still seems appropriate to say you believe it (but in a weaker sense). You have no reason not to expect him to catch you, and the context of the game and your general sense of human nature leads you to adopt a defeasible presumption that people in this situation will catch you barring any reason not to.

But it also seems appropriate to say that you have faith that Joe will catch you. You can hardly count on Joe’s reliability in this case, since you know nothing about Joe. You are simply extending to Joe a general confidence you have towards people (a confidence that others, who’ve been burned too many times, don’t have). You are optimistic about Joe because you are optimistic about people in general—but you recognize, perhaps, that your optimism isn’t universally shared, that your reasons for optimism are largely anecdotal in character, and that others who lack your optimism also have anecdotal reasons for their reluctance. In other words, you expect Joe to catch you, but you recognize that your reasons for having this expectation are contestable. Nevertheless, you act as if he will.

In the third case, when you fall backwards into Joe’s arms, “belief” that Joe will catch you seems too strong for what is going on. Furthermore the act of falling seems better described as a gesture of faith than a case of having faith. Faith in this case isn’t something you have so much as it is something you are doing. It is something you are doing in the face of uncertainty, when the stakes are substantial. You don’t expect Joe to catch you, but neither do you expect him to let you fall. Your expectations on the matter are conflicted or ultimately silent. But you decide to operate as if he will catch you.

To decide to fall backward is to give Joe a chance to prove his trustworthiness. You might think gestures of this kind are the only way you can begin to test the sincerity of his overtures of friendship. When you let yourself fall, you operate as if he will catch you, but at best what you have is the hope that he will do so.

But under those same conditions of uncertainty, possessing the same absence of any clear expectations about what Joe will do, you might deciding not to make that venture of faith. You clearly don’t know what Joe would have done. You don’t claim to know that he wouldn’t have caught you Your inner expectations are the same as in the third scenario—conflicted or silent—but your behavior is different.

Now clearly, the first and second cases are not cases of agnosticism. But what about the third and the fourth? Here, the most helpful thing might be to distinguish between two dimensions or parameters of belief—one having to do with expectations, the other having to do with behavior. We might then say that in terms of expectations, cases three and four are both instances of agnosticism; but in terms of behavior, case three exemplifies a kind of pragmatic faith and case four exemplifies the absence of such faith. (Case four, however, needs to be distinguished from case five, in which you fully expect that were you to fall, Joe wouldn't catch you, and so you refuse to fall so as to save yourself from the expected pain).

Now I don’t want to go too far with the analogy between believing that Joe will catch you and believing that there is a loving God who transcends the material world and is operating to redeem its evils. And I’ve barely touched in this post on the issue of evidence and the justifiability of belief. My interest here is in providing some talking points for defining notions of “agnosticism” and “faith,” and perhaps distinguishing some different species of each. And so, with that in mind, I’ll stop here and ask what others think.

49 comments:

  1. For me, agnosticism means I don't pretend to know things that I don't know (or can't know). It means I'm content sitting with the discomfort of the questions, instead of feeling pushed to accept anyone else's answers.

    After being a philosophy major, with every argument for and against any minute concept, I'm certain only of how much I don't know. The real question is, how will I live?

    I'm far more interested in how people treat one another, in the heaven and hell that exist right here on earth, than I am in latching onto something that will give me "the answers" for the wrong reasons.

    I'd venture there's as much variation among people who call themselves "agnostics" as there are "Christians" or any other group.

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  2. Agnosticism for me entails open-mindedness with a slight bias towards Christianity, primarily because so many others seem to have "faith" (aka peer pressure). I remain humble of my own understanding at this point in my life, yet cautious that others may be deluded too. I do not have a personal interaction with God. After spiritual abuse, elements in Christianity set an internal psychological reaction that can push me further away, so I constantly fight the battle of protecting myself from Christianity while still trying to embrace it.

    The major instigator of my journey from devout Christianity to agnosticism was historical Jesus studies - not so much the studies themselves, but because so many scholars loose faith in the resurrection.

    One final note - I'm not excited about being agnostic, and it is actually quite humiliating and disheartening. But such is life.

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  3. Hi, Eric-

    Let me make a critique of the James dictum you cite defining belief "... the difference it makes for what we do and how we live."

    To look at many religionists, belief means no such thing. It alters their actual behavior not a whit, other than the weekly trip to church. They still fear death, have no practical expectation of a second coming, commit sin at prodigious rates, etc. Belief in this case seems to be the exact opposite from something that alters behavior, rather something mostly declarative by which we can rationalize behavior that otherwise would have to be rationalized in some other, perhaps less socially acceptable or mythically elaborated way.

    James was right in terms of pragmatism and effective belief, but not in terms of religious belief. Indeed, the Freudians and their ilk made a living from separating actual belief (Freudian slips, neurotic symptoms, private rituals, etc..) from professed beliefs and socially acceptable rationalizations.

    "But what about the third and the fourth?" The third and fourth cases can be summarized as .. you are making a bet. You are betting the odds that your model of the world is correct. Call it faith or a gambling addiction .. whatever! Believers might be classed as those who feel pressured that the gamble of faith is important enough to plunge into without much (or any) knowledge, while agnostics putatively see the whole thing as unimportant. At least they resist the pressure to make an uninformed choice. Atheists see the importance of the religious choice very well, in its personal, social, political, and other terms, and are, frankly, appalled by it.

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  4. Hi Eric

    I suppose I see an important difference between personal and communal knowledge. On a personal level, I really do appear to be free to make up any old thing and believe it.

    But I live amongst others, and so I am not just interested in predicting what gravity will do to me, I also feel a compulsion to pass this knowledge on to my children, for instance. Predictive knowledge is unique in this respect, in that I can with some confidence extend the belief to others. When we speak of gravity, it's not just some thing I believe in because I find it personally useful, it is something that I want others to believe in too. What's more, I can use the predictive power of the model to convince others it's a pretty useful way of seeing the world.

    This usefulness doesn't appear to extend to the other pragmatic form of knowledge, that of narrative. I might find one story particularly useful, while understanding that for somebody else it is of no use at all. At this point, I do think it's helpful to think of this type of knowledge as less true, in that it's not applicable beyond the personal context.

    So, for me, to be agnostic is to acknowledge front and centre that our personal stories are just that, things we believe in because doing so makes us feel super. The tricky bit seems to be that for some, the feeling of superness depends upon the belief that their own story is indeed universally applicable (so for example, moral absolutes exist).

    This appears to create a problem, in that there is no obvious way of justifying such a belief to others (and the discussion threads on this blog are a good case study I suspect). To therefore believe a non evidence based narrative applies to others seems to me to entail a certain intellectual arrogance. It's my discomfort with this that leads me to agnosticism.

    Bernard

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  5. Bernard,

    Your comment nicely summarizes a perspective you've been helpfully expressing and developing on this blog for some time. I find it a plausible and defensible position, but I also have some uncertainties about--related to my affinity for (but puzzles about) the kind of way-of-believing described by the philosopher Allen Stairs (sketched out in this earlier post).

    Here's a quick way to encapsulate my concern. As you put it, "to be agnostic is to acknowledge front and centre that our personal stories are just that, things we believe in because doing so makes us feel super," rather than because we have any compelling reasons to think they are true (or, put in pragmatic terms, because there is some shared experiential basis for concluding that embracing them is pragmatically better--not just for me but for everyone--than not doing so). You worry that failing to acknowledge this reality rises to the level of intellectual arrogance.

    I essentially agree with that, which is why I take such a strong stand against religious fundamentalism. My suspicion, however, is that there are ways to acknowledge this while adopting a stance towards one's own narrative that most people wouldn't classify as agnostic--or at least no as agnostic in every respect. And I think Stairs is attempting to describe such a stance.

    The other question I have has to do with the social character of most of the narratives that people adopt. That is, the narrative that unify and give meaning to our experience are not generally something we make up out of whole cloth, but rather something that we have received from our community. It is part of a tradition. This fact magnifies the risks of intellectual arrogance on a collective level--people feel strength in numbers and are willing to behave as agents of a group towards members of other groups in ways that they would never behave as individuals acting as such towards other individuals.

    But the social character of our narratives also means that they are susceptible to evolution over generations in light of intersubjective (rather than merely private) experience. The narratives are tested against the experience not only of one individual, but a community; not only of one historically-situated community, but multiple generations. If a narrative speaks to some but not to others (making some feel super but not others), but it is a shared or communal narrative rather than a merely private one, there becomes a certain pressure towards overcoming the divergence. That is, there a push towards finding ways to incorporate diverse human experiences into the narrative-- tweaking it so that it encompasses more than it did before, a fits better with the scope and diversity of the human condition.

    This, in a nutshell, is the Hegelian vision for how worldviews evolve: a collective, intersubjective critique and refinement of inherited narratives, in the light of diverse and communal attempts to live out the narrative (attempts which expose its deficiencies but also point the path to overcoming them). Hegel sees this as the primary pathway towards discovering the most important but also elusive truths about reality (the noumenal, if you will).

    If Hegel is right, then progress towards uncovering these truths depends upon communal attempts to live out an inherited narrative critically. Living it out seems to be at odds with what we might call "strong agnosticism." But living it out critically may demand a kind of "weak agnosticism"--and the existence and witness of strong agnostics may be essential for countering the propensity for intellectual arrogance that can attend communal solidarity. In other words, we need strong agnostics around to put pressure on those who are not agnostics to "wear their beliefs lightly" (to borrow Stair's expression).

    Thoughts?

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  6. Hi, Eric, Bernard-

    This evolution of worldviews that you refer to has a fundamental defect, which is that, even in an intersubjective and communal basis, it fails to engage directly/successfully with the materials it claims to be about. We could be talking about an enormous communal illusion/cult which intersubjectively satisfies many of the needs of the person and community- for togetherness, for narrative, for explanation, for security and the like, without being in the least true. Indeed, it might do so by explicitly locating its theories in a "super" natural realm by definition inaccessible and unattainable, except after the convenient point of death which is such an important motivating element of these theories, but from which, nevertheless, no news or data ever return.

    So, Hegel was right in describing this social process of changing and evolving views, but that in no way amounts to something akin to the scientific method in its ability to arrive at ... truth.

    That is the problem Bernard points to- that, inherited or evolved or not, these worldviews are not compelling from a logical/empirical standpoint, and thus can not function as any kind of intersubjective truth in the way they claim, rather only as (inter) subjective narratives.

    But the consciousness that they are purely subjective narratives completely vitiates their purpose and power, leading to the tenacious rationalization and emotion attached to maintaining that they amount to something more.

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  7. Burk--Hegel has things to say about the kind of view you espouse here. One day soon I'll offer the promised post/series on Hegel. Probably this summer, when I have more time.

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  8. Eric,

    I believe that skepticism or agnosticism is simply “belief” in the opposite direction. We are all believers in some things and agnostics or non-believers in other things. I can only be skeptical about one thing because I believe in this other thing. Belief is always the other side of the coin. We are all skeptics and believers at the same time. If we ask why one does not believe in such and such, we will usually find out he believes in this other thing that allows him to be skeptical or agnostic about the first thing. Many agnostics will say they are skeptical about the existence of God because they “believe” in the efficacy or superiority of science and its explanation of the natural world. But, they are still believers in something—this thing called “Science”. The idea of the person who stands apart, the quiet skeptic looking down on all the gullible “believers”, is really a myth. When one asserts his skepticism, he is always already asserting his belief at the same time.

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  9. Burk,

    “That is the problem Bernard points to- that, inherited or evolved or not, these worldviews are not compelling from a logical/empirical standpoint, and thus can not function as any kind of intersubjective truth in the way they claim, rather only as (inter) subjective narratives.”

    But the “logical/empirical” standpoint is also the result of a communally inherited and evolved worldview. It has a historical and philosophical genealogy. It is a subjective narrative also but one that masquerades as objective.

    Did you think that view just dropped directly from heaven, chiseled in stone?

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  10. Hi Eric

    Yes, it's an interesting thought. Our narratives certainly occur within a cultural and biological context, as well as a personal one. Hence, there is a valuable urge to merge our narratives, or at least to find ways of making them accommodating. I even might go so far as to say that this very process of marrying narratives is the essential challenge of being human. How do we learn to understand and accept one anther's narratives? It's ever so difficult isn't it?

    However, even with narratives going through this cultural/historical refining process, (and sadly, this is too often one of domination and obliteration) I don't think the evolutionary analogy holds. Because there is neither fidelity of transfer, nor a stable enough context for selection to occur, narratives are free to remain diverse, and there is no clear reason why they should converge upon a model that is more generally acceptable. The same thing can be seen in aesthetics, I think. If we were to ask people what the greatest novel of all time is, there would be only limited convergence. The individual context of reading means that the arguments of others are rarely compelling.

    So, the pragmatist in me accepts that should the process you outline ever occur to the extent that certain narratives gained a level of compulsion, as do our predictive models, then we it would be reasonable to describe them using the same terms. Until then, I am swayed by the fact that while I appreciate the beauty and compassion at the heart of your own religious story, I have no sense that it offers me any more of these qualities than I can find in my own alternative narrative. And, I suspect, this is equally true in reverse.

    This observation compels me towards agnosticism.

    Bernard

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  11. Hi Darrell

    I'm not sure how far I'd go with this claim that we're all believers. I suspect there's still an important distinction between those who see their own narrative is a make-do, stitched together affair; and those who believe it gets them in touch with some deeper truth.

    For me, a genuine agnosticism can extend a fair way down. I'd be interested in any specific example you could give of a belief you think I might hold that underpins my agnosticism but which I fail to subject to this same degree of doubt.


    Bernard

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  12. Hi Eric,

    As I understand it, I think the idea of evolving worldviews (values, beliefs) is sound. I take it to mean that the distribution of values and beliefs within a population changes with time in a roughly undirected Darwinian manner. Values and beliefs apt at jumping from mind to mind will naturally tend to spread while others will stall. This is not the whole picture as we must also take into account the parallel more or less steady increase in our knowledge of the world. The whole thing is so frighteningly complex it's very difficult to figure out what's going on. But here's a few thoughts.

    As far as values/worldviews are concerned, what should we expect from a Darwinian process? For one, clearly self-destructive beliefs (it's good to jump down a cliff) should not spread. Values should also vary according to circumstances. For example, in a small population threatened with extinction, having children may be seen as a duty while in today's overcrowded world we don't regard childless couples as immoral. We should also expect ”feel-good” beliefs (that are also non directly threatening) to develop. For example, that we have cosmic significance and that Earth's resources are there for our benefit, to do with them as we please. The latter belief might very well lead to our downfall which shows that evolution of worldviews (like biological evolution) has no foresight.

    All in all, beliefs directly related to survival will tend to be true (don't try to befriend a tiger) while others, although they may prove useful, are no better than random (earthquakes are a punishment from God). To develop our knowledge beyond those small limits appears to require an explicit effort – which leads to science.

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  13. Bernard,

    I think if you were to tell us what underpins your agnosticism, you might answer your own question. In the reasoning, in the assertions, in the articulation of your arguments, your beliefs would probably become evident. If you were to tell us that you even doubted your own agnosticism, we would then ask why and the same process would follow where in the telling the belief side would become evident. Even if one said he doubted everything, he would still need some positive assertive reasons for doing so, but this (someone who doubts everything) hardly describes anyone in real life.

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  15. Hi Darrell

    Okay, I think I see what you're getting at. So certainly the key thing that underpins my agnosticism is a certain sense of the rules of logic, those systems of thought that as far as we can tell produce systems of statements that are consistent with one another. And to some extent these rules are underpinned by the rules of language, which in turn appear to have at least a degree of innate grounding. What else? Well deductive reasoning itself appears to rely upon induction, insomuch as we are forced to assume that those arguments which in the past have proved logically valid will continue to be so, so inductive assumptions are in there as well.

    Now, I would argue that to the extent that anybody engages in a discussion of this nature, they are playing by these rules, and hence we can assume them as a pragmatic step, simply to make a conversation like this viable. Whether they have an applicability beyond such a conversation, I'm less sure. Certainly they have a practical applicability. They allow me to learn, and hence respond to patterns in my life, rather than meet each situation anew, which would see me quickly dead I suspect.

    Beyond this, I don't think anything underpins my beliefs at all, and hence my interest in this notion of shared beliefs, those things that we can all accept (that the sun is hot, that there is something wrong with a self-contradictory argument). Now, you often speak as if you believe an agnostic like me has an unexamined world view that goes beyond these shared rules of discourse. I am claiming, for now at least, that your claim is wrong, and am putting the challenge to you to produce the counter-example.

    Bernard

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  16. Hello all,

    To anyone looking for additional resources on these issues, I read (parts of) a couple books a couple years ago which could be of interest. Both books are written by J. L. Schellenberg. His Prolegomena makes many fruitful distinctions between and within the concepts of belief, faith, and skepticism. This book is a rather dry and technical, however. One result of this book which is relevant to Dr. Reitan's post, is that skepticism (i.e., agnosticism) is a necessary condition for having faith. Taking off from this point, another of his books, The Will to Imagine (an obvious allusion to James' Will to Believe), explores the possibilites of a faith which flourishes through the exercise of imagination rather than being grounded by evidence (which he links with belief, not faith).

    Oh, and Dr. Reitan, if you get a chance, I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on Schellenberg's "Hiddenness Argument," specifically the one he develops in his other book The Wisdom to Doubt. I found this argument personally more compelling than the argument from evil.

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  17. Bernard,

    “So certainly the key thing that underpins my agnosticism is a certain sense of the rules of logic, those systems of thought that as far as we can tell produce systems of statements that are consistent with one another. And to some extent these rules are underpinned by the rules of language, which in turn appear to have at least a degree of innate grounding. What else? Well deductive reasoning itself appears to rely upon induction, insomuch as we are forced to assume that those arguments which in the past have proved logically valid will continue to be so, so inductive assumptions are in there as well.”

    Why would such lead to or underpin agnosticism? Theist and atheist alike follow rules of logic, make consistent statements, follow rules of language, use deductive reasoning, induction, and so on. So what?

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  18. Hi Darrell

    I am interested in this idea:

    if we take as our starting point only those things which everybody in the discussion agrees upon, under what circumstances can we, using the tool set we agree upon, advance beyond our initial beliefs?

    In terms of science, we clearly can. Scientific beliefs have advanced mightily in the last 400 years, and the major findings appear to have taken everybody with them. So long as we establish shared standards of evidence and are open to falsification, an expanding of the shared ground appears possible.

    Because I'm not yet convinced we can do the same in areas of philosophy and theology (because it seems to me extra assumptions that are not shared must be brought in, in order to make any headway) I claim that this shared set of knowledge in itself leads one to agnosticism. From there one can certainly progress to a personal theistic or atheistic belief, but the warrant to extend this to others is limited by the need to introduce personal assumptions (or world views as you'd put it).

    So, something like the fallibilism Eric speaks of seems necessary. This is not an argument entirely without holes, I have a thought experiment regarding induction which I can't answer in mind, but it's a work in progress.

    So, you can assist me by showing how either atheism or theism can be established without making leaps not sanctioned by the communal rules of reasoning and evidence. I, at the moment, don't think this can be done, but I'm open to offers.

    Bernard

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  19. Bernard,
    You have switched the focus of the discussion a bit, but it will still allow us to demonstrate one of your hidden or unstated “beliefs.”

    I’m not interested right now in the fact that you believe “scientific beliefs” have “taken” us places or that as long as we share “standards” of “evidence” we can come to the same conclusions or that you “believe” theology and philosophy have extra assumptions.
    My only point was to assert that for you to be agnostic about the existence of God, you must believe and make positive assertions in some other source or direction for you to doubt the other source, and that is what you have done in your explanation. You are asserting your positive “belief” in the efficacy of “science” and, more importantly, a way of thinking about science (empiricism) that allows you to doubt certain other things (like God’s existence) or the efficacy of theology and philosophy.

    Here is what I believe you are missing: Your view of science, its history, and the way you think science “works” is a philosophy. You just told us a story or narrative of how you think we should view the world.

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  20. Hi Darrell

    You'll need to be a bit more specific I'm afraid.

    I'm interested in the difference between what are in essence shared beliefs, those that are built in to the very fabric of the conversation, by dint of the way we reason, or how we speak about evidence, and those where there is a very great deal of diversity across time, space and culture.

    That I carry certain beliefs into any such analysis is of course indisputable. I would never attempt to claim otherwise. But, I think there is a difference between those beliefs everybody in the conversation shares (the sun is hot) and those where the decision to jump one way or the other is at least to some extent unconstrained.

    Specifically, I think it is unreasonable to claim my own personal leaps are relevant to another. Hence, the difference between saying 'I choose to believe there is/isn't a God' and saying 'there is/isn't a God.' The second type of statement, it seems to me, is the same as saying 'red is the best colour for a car.' A personal belief/taste/opinion, but not a statement about a conclusion any other thinking person considering the same evidence should also reach.

    What I enjoy about philosophical conversation is the potential to reveal inconsistencies in my own thinking. In other words, sometimes I mistakenly believe the assumptions I bring in lead logically to a certain conclusion, only to have a flaw in the logic pointed out.

    If I am interpreting you correctly, you are saying that within this narrative I am presenting, there are starting assumptions I believe are universal, but which you yourself don't hold. I'd be interested to know specifically what they are.

    Bernard

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  21. Eric,

    You start by discussing what it means to believe something. As this question is both difficult and fundamental, I think a better approach is to break it down and ask first what the meaning of a belief (or of a proposition which is the semantic instantiation of a belief) is, secondly what it means to hold that this belief is true (i.e. to believe it), and thirdly how the latter affects one’s life (in all relevant ways, such as in how one acts, what one expects, how one experiences life, etc – here faith may play a major role). I have some thoughts about these issues, which are indeed fundamental for all philosophy, but would rather comment right away on the issue of agnosticism:

    Perhaps one can start with what agnosticism is clearly not. So, first, agnosticism is not ignorance. For example, I personally have no idea and am thus quite ignorant about who the next prime minister of New Zealand will be, but this does not make me an agnostic about this issue. Curiously, only somebody who knows something about an issue can one be agnostic about it. Secondly, agnosticism is not really the state of having weighted all the arguments pro and contra and having found that they exactly cancel themselves out. This is practically never the case, as evidenced by the fact that agnostics often speak with a language that clearly evidences which beliefs they favor or feel more confident about or think have more warrant. I suppose the most general definition of agnosticism is that it refers to the choice not to adopt a particular belief one knows quite a bit about, even when one has some confidence that it is true (i.e. when one would be willing to place a bet in its favor).

    An interesting question is why somebody would choose to be an agnostic. There are probably many reasons, but I think most of them follow a similar pattern, namely the desire to avoid the consequences of adopting a particular belief. Here are some examples: First, the agnostic may wish not to have the burden to explain or justify her belief. That’s the case of atheists claiming that it’s not really the case that they believe that God does not exist, but rather lack any belief in the matter of existence of God. Secondly, the agnostic may wish to avoid the differences that adopting a belief would cause in the way she will act or will experience life. An example here would be a person who finds that naturalism is probably true but judges the naturalistic worldview to be bleak and life stifling and thus chooses not to adopt it. Thirdly there may be social grounds for agnosticism. A person may find a belief probable but also dislike the social group characterized by that belief and thus wish not to feel like belonging to that group. Conversely a person may wish not to be rejected by a group that shares a belief she finds rather improbable. Or perhaps one wishes not to hurt loved ones who hold some belief, and act and experience life by that belief. In all these cases assuming agnosticism is a safe non-hypocritical choice. Fourthly a person may wish to avoid the risk of adopting a belief that is in fact false. Many people judge that what matters is to avoid holding false beliefs. Which, I say, is definitely not a good choice given the fact that not adopting a true belief is often at least as harmful as adopting a false belief. Up to here I have only discussed negative reasons (i.e. one’s wish to avoid something) for adopting an agnostic position. Perhaps there are positive reasons too, such as judging that the agnostic position is the most intellectually sophisticated one, and wishing to be seen as being sophisticated in that sense.

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  22. Hi, Darrell-

    I think the only thing of this sort you can point to is the implication by Bernard that what you take as proof of god is not sufficient to be convincing. Such things as scriptures, personal accounts, traditions, etc. are perhaps what you assume to provide evidence enough for belief. And the agnostic is skeptical, for alot of good reasons we have been through. You have said that one has to take it on faith in the end, which is where an agnostic is unwilling to go. It doesn't mean that they have another model to go with. There are those who are capable of saying.. "I don't know".

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  23. Hi Dianelos

    Thanks for that contribution, it got me thinking how I might explain to someone why I personally enjoy agnosticism. Interestingly, there is very little crossover with the list you offer. For what it's worth, here's mine:

    1 - Personal honesty. If I can find no good reason to believe either way, then it feels fraudulent to pretend. So, to take consciousness as an example, I don't find the arguments against consciousness being a physical phenomenon at all compelling, but equally I don't believe our physical model of thinking is anywhere near complete enough to establish the contrary case. What else can I do but be agnostic?

    2 - Curiosity. I find it easier to retain intellectual clarity when I am not seeking to establish or defend a position in advance.

    3 - Definitional clarity. There appears to me to be an important difference between those things that can be collectively believed, and those for which the warrant to believe does not extend beyond the individual, and agnosticism keeps this distinction sharp for me.

    4 - Respect. By taking as my starting point the understanding that our most precious beliefs and values are the product of a personal, cultural and biological journey, I am not tempted into the arrogant position of believing I have found a truth that others are missing.

    5 - Celebration of fiction. The ability to conjure narrative out of nothing but our imaginations is for me one of the most marvelous human gifts, and so to attempt to recast these imaginings as insights into some alternative realm, to my mind at least, diminishes them.

    I don't for one moment think any of these should appeal to you, any more than your reasons for believing in God appeal to me. That is sort of the point of agnosticism. Each to their own, at least up to the point where values collide, where the agnostic, understanding their point of view is just one of many, will seek to shape a compromise. Isn't that in itself sort of beautiful?

    Bernard

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  24. Bernard and Burk,

    “That I carry certain beliefs into any such analysis is of course indisputable. I would never attempt to claim otherwise.”

    “And the agnostic is skeptical, for alot of good reasons…”

    I know you have other concerns and interests about all this, but I think the above statements by both you prove my point. It is not that the agnostic is skeptical, although he is. The more interesting aspects are his “beliefs” and his positive assertions, his “good reasons” for why he is skeptical. In this sense he is a “believer.” I know this raises many questions you are eager to get to, but this was my only point really and all I have for this post.

    “You have said that one has to take it on faith in the end, which is where an agnostic is unwilling to go.”

    Burk, what you always miss though is you think “faith” means or equals “without reasons or evidence” which is not what I mean by the word “faith” nor do I think Eric means such when he uses the word. If an agnostic thinks that is what faith means, then he shouldn’t "go there" nor should anyone else.

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  25. Hi Darrell

    If that really is your point, then surely it's a trivial one.

    Bernard

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  26. Sorry Darrell

    That last comment was cut impolitely short by a fourteen month old boy, eager to establish his keyboard skills.

    I meant this: If all we are interested in establishing is that no system of thinking can be justified all the way to its core, then I'm not sure anybody in this discussion would claim otherwise.

    But, just because all systems of thought require beliefs, doesn't in itself make all beliefs equal, and the interesting (non-trivial) question becomes, what makes one set of beliefs better than another?

    My agnostic answer is that when we can establish a belief that stands at the best available hypothesis, which we can measure by the fact that no alternative hypothesis is being promoted, then this is worth believing in, at least tentatively, in order to get the ball rolling. Can I be sure the observed laws of physics won't collapse tomorrow? No. Can I use the assumption they won't as a starting point? Sure. Because those with whom I investigate will be making the same assumption, and because if we give up induction it is not clear what alternative method of consideration we could use.

    Should we, for now, make use of general relativity, or the laws of electromagnetic radiation? Sure, not because we're sure they're right, but because we know of no better-established alternative.

    My claim is that when it comes to considering the narrative component of these beliefs, so whether the laws of physics sit as part of some master plan for example, there appears to be no way of judging one proposal against another, beyond testing its compatibility with one's other personal stories.

    Now, to some extent you and Dianelos are right, I do still choose between these stories, I yield to their emotional appeal. My agnosticism is about explicitly acknowledging this is all I am doing, promoting one story over another, purely for matters of personal taste. I don't often hear theists doing the same, and entertain the suspicion this is because they see their beliefs as something more than just culturally invented stories.

    Bernard

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  27. Hi Bernard,

    I wasn’t thinking of you specifically, but it’s interesting to discuss this matter directly with an agnostic. I have a few comments on your list:

    1. Honesty. Imagine two people evaluating the pros and contras of a particular belief, and both deciding that even though the evidence is not conclusive that belief is probably true. One then embraces that belief, but the other remains agnostic about it. I don’t think “honesty” describes the latter’s choice, nor “dishonesty” the former’s. If anything, the agnostic chooses a position that kind of hides from others that she does in fact find the belief in question to be probably true.

    2. Curiosity. When one adopts a belief, especially when one adopts it not only intellectually but also in faith, then one interiorizes this belief, lets it impact one’s life, change one’s experiences, affect one’s choices. In all these senses one is then much better capable of continuing to evaluate the truth of that belief, than one who keeps her distance. So, it seems to me, curious people will not tend to be agnostics.

    3. Definitional clarity. I suppose there are beliefs the truth of which can only be warranted individually, but I don’t see why an agnostic has some advantage in this context. Rather, it seems to me, the agnostic has the disadvantage of tending to reject true beliefs of this kind.

    4. Respect. That’s a curious idea. I mean it is a fact that there are true and false beliefs, and that many (indeed all) people hold some false beliefs. Therefore it’s a fact that some people have found some truths others have missed. So what’s the idea? That by limiting the beliefs one holds to a minimum, the agnostic does not become part of the successful group thus showing more respect to the unsuccessful group? I don’t see that at all. Wouldn’t it show more respect and more consideration doing some work to clarify where truth lies, work that is hampered by choosing not to adopt a belief?

    5. Celebration of fiction. If you think that the narratives by which we interpret our experience of life are a matter of “conjuring narratives out of nothing but our imaginations” then I think you have misunderstood very badly what “interpretation” means. To interpret means to conjure (I’d rather say to “build”) a view which seems to explain an experience (whether private or public). The fact that building such interpretations is creative work does not mean that they are based on nothing but our imaginations. And such interpretations are *testable* both in the public arena of society and in the private arena of one’s subjective life. Indeed testable on different levels, such as empirically, conceptually, esthetically, pragmatically, etc.

    I think that truth, Bernard, is like a beautiful woman. One must take risks to know her, indeed one must fall in love with her and open one’s life to her. That’s the only way. Keeping her at arm’s length until “compelling” evidence is found that she is worth one’s while – that is not how knowledge is found, not conceptual knowledge and certainly not experiential knowledge either of other people or of God.

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  28. Hi Dianelos

    Thanks for your thoughtful response.

    Your points capture for me very well the things that make me nervous of taking a believer's stance.

    One thing that I do find interesting is the notion of a thing being probably true. In practice, we must make best guesses all the time, particularly when it comes to anticipating outcomes. I understand what it means for something to be probably true in a measurable sense then, when we have past outcomes as our guide and can use the notion of long run averages as a rough and ready reckoner.

    When it comes to conceptual truths though, I have no sense at all of probably true and probably not true. So, take something like the notion of God existing. We appear to have no evidence either way, nor do we have any system of reasoning that can not be called into question by those of another persuasion. What then does it mean to say there probably is or probably is not a God? I can make no sense of statements like this. They appear only to take on the feeling of probability when filtered through one's personal story telling devices.


    Bernard

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  29. A few very quick thoughts/comments.

    1. Dianelos, your thoughts on agnosticism relate, I think, to my earlier discussion of Kierkegaard's fideism. It would be interesting to explore further the conditions under which a passional commitment to X is a necessary prerequisite for knowledge about X, or a prior trust in the truth of X is the only way to test it's truth. And it would also be worth considering when, even when some prior trust in the truth of X is required to test X, one should NOT extend that trust (when the risks of error rule out the leap of faith).

    2. Again for Dianelos--I'm having a parallel e-mail discussion about the nature of belief with my co-author John, who is not sympathetic to defining belief pragmatically and favors understanding "believing X" as a case of "thinking about X" (representing X in one's consciousness) in which one adopts an epistemic pro-attitude towards it--or, put another way, one gives intellectual assent to X. My difficulty here is in unpacking the idea of the act of intellectual assent. Given this parallel conversation, I'm intrigued by your brief mention of having thoughts about the nature of belief and would like to hear more.

    3. Bernard, I'm curious if you've wrestled with the distinction between agnosticism and skepticism. Is there a difference between being a skeptic about God's existence and being an agnostic, and if so in what does the difference lie?

    4. Bernard again: I ask about this distinction in part because I'm in the process of reviewing a book that bills itself as the agnostic contribution to the current God debates--but really seems to do little more than raise skeptical arguments against BOTH specific religious doctrines AND the atheist conviction that there is no God (very often rehashing arguments that each side has already leveled against the other). But it seems to me that someone could accept those skeptical arguments and yet not adopt an agnostic posture, and that the really interesting issue is what such a posture involves and what can be said for (and against) the adoption of such a posture. I wish the book I'm reviewing was about THAT (the agnostics deserve a more interesting and original contribution to the discussion).

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  30. Hi Dianelos,

    You have a peculiar definition of agnosticism when you write that it refers to the choice not to adopt a particular belief one knows quite a bit about, even when one has some confidence that it is true . I have always seen this rather as the affirmation of a lack of knowledge or even the impossibility of knowing. You may be right to point out that holding back one's beliefs when one has confidence they are true is not always healthy. But I don't think this describes accurately anybody's position here - one more example of what happens when we use words differently.

    You seem to be making the point that we often have to act on insufficient knowledge. You are right, of course. Most of our decisions are like that. I don't know which of restaurants A or B is better but it's time to eat, I have to choose one of them. So I do but this is no reason to form the belief that, say, A is the better one. I can very well remain “agnostic” about this even after I make a choice.

    One of Bernard's point, I think, is very important. He writes “I find it easier to retain intellectual clarity when I am not seeking to establish or defend a position in advance”. He is perfectly right. When faced with two hypothesis, taking side, hoping that the one we like the most will win, can only introduce bias and cloud our judgment. How can one look objectively at the evidence if one desires a particular result?

    A classic example is the case of the Martian canals. Here we have Percival Lowell, a trained observer, seeing things that nobody else could and drawing maps of the canal system with details his instrument couldn't possibly show. Lowell took side, wanted the canals to be real and, to use your words, interiorized his belief until it changed his experience. But he was dead wrong. Taking side is no way to find the truth.

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  31. Hello Eric

    Scepticism vs agnosticism? Good question. My thoughts here will be tentative at best. If we confine ourselves specifically to agnosticism/scepticism about God, then the two clearly feed off one another. There are very many things I am not agnostic about - the existence of this computer before me, for example. I am aware of the arguments for idealism, but they do not sway me. I can not be certain the computer exists, but I believe it does. This is not to do with probabilities, which I can't quite grasp the meaning of in such a context, but with the pragmatic argument. I can't see how adopting the idealist stance would help me in my interactions with the computer. I can't quite see what it would add. (And I go further and see this belief as a public belief, insomuch as I am confident I can convince other people that it is helpful to think of the computer as existing).

    Within this context agnosticism with regard to God is not scepticism as such. Sure, I don't buy either the arguments for or against God, but then I am of the opinion that no argument works all the way down. Arguments are just extensions of starting assumptions, and so scepticism, if uniformly applied, would stop me believing in anything, which is pragmatically hopeless.

    Agnosticism then, differs for me in that it is the claim that the starting positions required to generate arguments for or against God are both easily held by reasonable people, and there is no hope of resolving the argument publicly. One believes in God for pragmatic reasons, and pragmatic worth in this case is built upon the individual biological, cultural and personal context.

    This is very different from the belief that fire is hot. Was it Protagoras who noted 'the fire burns the same everywhere, but the law of the land differs from place to place'? Scepticism, it seems to me, would lead to a denial of the facts of fire too, as it resists the pragmatic rescue. The laws of the land however take their pragmatic value form the beliefs upon which they are built. Acknowledging this difference is to me at the heart of agnosticism.

    Bernard

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  32. Bernard,

    No worries, I have children so I understand.

    “I meant this: If all we are interested in establishing is that no system of thinking can be justified all the way to its core, then I'm not sure anybody in this discussion would claim otherwise.”

    I would love to hear Burk’s response to that, because I’m not so sure he believes such. But, I agree, and that was where I was going with my response to your observations that, “I'm not sure how far I'd go with this claim that we're all believers” and, “For me, a genuine agnosticism can extend a fair way down.”

    I think a key point here is that empiricism only goes so “far down” and it still is wielded as a tool within a philosophical framework, and one in which in and of itself cannot be founded empirically. Even to choose empiricism is to start out from a faith position and shows again where the agnostic is still a believer of sorts.

    “So, take something like the notion of God existing. We appear to have no evidence either way…”

    It is never that we have no evidence either way. This issue is how do we interpret the evidence we have? And, further, I propose that we are always already interpreting the evidence through our beliefs, our faith, our passions, our hearts really, all the way down as it were, and thus why we “see” the same evidence differently.

    That one could say “We have no evidence either way” is to already commit one’s self to a certain “belief” about, well, what counts as evidence but many other things as well. One’s hand is already showing.

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  33. Hi Darrell

    Yeah, I accept that. It's a fair point.

    I'm not sure what you think of this idea that some of our starting positions, though undoubtedly leaps of faith in some respect (and induction seems a classic example here) can still be relied upon by everybody in the conversation. I do think that's true, and if it does turn out to be the case, then calling reliance upon inductive reasoning a world view has the potential to be misleading, maybe? I say that in the sense that there don't appear to be any functioning alternative world views live in the conversation.

    I suppose what I'm getting at is if any two people are to enter into a conversation about what constitutes a reasonable belief, then leaving off the table those beliefs that are shared by both participants seems a good first move. Hence, if we say we prefer physical models with strong predictive value over those that make consistently erroneous predictions, most of the time everybody in the conversation will say, okay, that's a reasonable belief from the get go, and hence litigating it becomes somehow futile (unless one claims it is not only a reasonable belief, but a stone hard cold fact of the world, which I sometimes think is your objection - and a fair one).

    When we move into positions where the participants disagree, it is interesting to me to discover what the disagreement is based upon. If it is an error of reasoning from one party, that's excellent, as they may well be grateful to have the flaw exposed. If it's a lack of base knowledge, some fact that when presented is readily accepted, that's grand too.

    But when it is simply that the world views diverge, so the starting assumptions are profoundly different (as is the case with consciousness I suspect) I am at a loss to know how to proceed. My instinct is to say, well both participants are being entirely reasonable, and there appears to be no good reason to choose one starting assumption over the other. So I will simply own the fact that here I am making a personal leap, in essence telling myself a story in the face of coherent alternative stories. This distinction seems ever so important to me, but that might just be my world view coming through.

    Bernard

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  34. Eric

    A further thought. There appears to be a paradox of sorts at the heart of religious pragmatism, at least for me. At the point where I acknowledge that the value of religious belief is simply how it helps me feel and behave, it loses its power to help me feel and behave that way. There is a vicious loop here somehow, of the same sort that comes from understanding the joy of believing in Santa. For the child, it brings a sense of magic and wonder into their lives. But at the point where the child can fully understand how the belief brings in its wonder, the wonder ceases to be available, for the child understands they were committing to an invention.

    So too, to say I choose to believe in God because this gives me access to a sense of peace/purpose/wonder/love falls over for me, because all that baggage is available only if my belief is not a matter of pure pragmatics. I would almost need to believe it was more than that, that it was a belief in something real, and I can't quite marry that to pragmatism. If I could, the religious outlook would be deeply tempting.

    Bernard

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  35. Eric,

    I am very much with Kierkegaard in this. First and foremost we are existential beings, and therefore all meaning and all truth are relevant only to the degree that they are existentially significant. It is a fact about the human condition that the effect of thought and of embracing beliefs goes far beyond the intellect (or the formation of one’s noetic structure) and impacts not only our expectations and choices but also, literally and significantly, how we experience life. Life is a dialectical and dynamic process, a process by which we evolve as persons.

    Please give me a little time to put my thoughts in order before responding at any depth.

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  36. Hi Bernard,

    You write: “So, take something like the notion of God existing. We appear to have no evidence either way, nor do we have any system of reasoning that can not be called into question by those of another persuasion.

    There is plenty of evidence for and against the existence of God. For example, the existence of evil is evidence against God. Our ethical sense is evidence for God. Theists have proposed literally dozens of arguments for the existence of God. So, the only question is how good the various pieces of evidence are, i.e. how successfully they justify belief in the existence or non-existence of God. Now my point is that it is (for all practical reasons) never the case that one finds that the evidence for and against the existence of God exactly cancel each other out, so it’s never the case that one finds no reason to think that theism is probably true or probably false. Similarly a juror at a trial always leans one way or the other, but decides for “guilty” only when the total of evidence is deemed to be conclusive beyond reasonable doubt.

    What then does it mean to say there probably is or probably is not a God? I can make no sense of statements like this.

    I understand. Interestingly enough the concept of “probable truth” allows for a precise definition, even when it is not possible or practical to directly check the truth of a belief.

    In Bergman’s “The Fifth Seal” there is this scene where Death comes to the knight, who in order to escape his fate challenges Death to a game of chess. Suppose you found yourself in a similar situation: If your life depended on giving the right “yes” or “no” answer to the question “Does God exist?” how would you answer? If you answer “yes” then it means that, according to the evidence for and against you know of and in your evaluation of it to the best of your ability, it is more probable that God exists than that God does not exist. Conversely, of course, if you answer “no”. Incidentally, this kind of probability is called “epistemic probability” in order to distinguish it from the more common concept based on statistical results.

    The above is a rough answer. One can define epistemic probability quantitatively based on the concept of the best strategy to win a betting game where one accepts odds according to one’s computation of the epistemic probabilities of one’s beliefs. Incidentally, epistemic probability is a function of a belief and of a set of evidence, and is objective in the sense that it does not depend on one’s cognitive ability, the idea being that if one judges badly then one will get the wrong value of epistemic probability.

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  37. Darrell, Bernard-

    I would indeed take some issue with this dismissal of justification. I agree with Hume that induction is basically a probabalistic enterprise, as is everything else we call knowledge. But how then to deploy the word "truth"?

    This is where empiricism turns out to be unavoidable, since truth means literally to correspond with reality, whose test is empricism. Thus it is a tautology to engage in empirical investigation to establish truth, other than in formal systems like mathematics, where one begins with axioms rather than empirical observations.

    Thus religion is at base an empirical pursuit, where legends and tall tales (staffs turning into snakes, frogs raining from the sky, dead being raised to life, etc.) are taken as signs (evidence) for the operations of forces out of the common run or materialist understanding.

    Or our mystical feelings are spun into supernatural forces benevolently communicating with our better natures, even when they could just as well be brought on by the proverbial odd bit of beef we had for dinner. It is all an exercise in figuring out how the world works, and the race should go, not to those with greater faith and imagination, but to those with better evidence and more detailed / explanatory theories.

    Perhaps truth is a dangerous explosive, best kept confined to only the most solid, evident, and rationally justified theories. This is especially true when proclaiming truths that, through their social valence, injure those who have reason to doubt.

    This is the policy of scientists, who are notorious for caveating their claims to the point of obfuscation. Yet it is curiously the opposite with religionists, who not infrequently build cathedrals of nonsense (i.e. absolute truth) on crumbs of evidence. Standards of evidence and reasoning are indeed the issue and the distinction.

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  38. Bernard,

    “I'm not sure what you think of this idea that some of our starting positions, though undoubtedly leaps of faith in some respect (and induction seems a classic example here) can still be relied upon by everybody in the conversation.”

    I absolutely agree.

    “I do think that's true, and if it does turn out to be the case, then calling reliance upon inductive reasoning a world view has the potential to be misleading, maybe?”

    I’m not calling induction a world-view. What I’m saying is that we use induction as one tool employed within an overall and comprehensive matrix of world-view.

    “I suppose what I'm getting at is if any two people are to enter into a conversation about what constitutes a reasonable belief, then leaving off the table those beliefs that are shared by both participants seems a good first move.”

    I agree to an extent—although did you mean beliefs that are “not” shared? If so, I would say we have done that. I don’t think anyone in this conversation believes gravity to be a myth or the world is flat, to put it simply.

    “When we move into positions where the participants disagree, it is interesting to me to discover what the disagreement is based upon.”

    Yes! That is what is interesting to me as well. And one of the best conversation stoppers one can hear from the philosophical naturalist/atheistic side (which I’m not accusing you of) is for them to assert that the disagreement lies with the fact that one side just considers the “evidence” while the other side considers the evidence but then also decides to project fantasies.

    “…So I will simply own the fact that here I am making a personal leap, in essence telling myself a story in the face of coherent alternative stories. This distinction seems ever so important to me, but that might just be my world view coming through.”

    I think you have nailed it exactly—it is the most important distinction. The character of all divergent world-views is narrative, including the atheist narrative. This aspect does not make them false. It makes them honest. We are all faced with the “facts” and the “evidence” but we have to tell a story for all those “facts” and “evidence” to make sense of our lives and our world. No narrative, by itself, makes total sense of existence. But some proximate it better than others. How? Some resonate. Some draw us. Some strike us deeply. Some change our lives. Some pull us up short. Some don’t fit with our experience of life. Some do.

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  39. Hi Dianelos

    Your betting strategy definition of probability appears circular to me. the question seems to still be, but how do we calculate such probabilities in the first place? And the answer, as best I can see, is we draw upon our personal histories, prejudices and inclinations to do this. At this point, saying something is probably true is saying 'it feels probably true to me.' My interest is how we then treat the person who in good faith, applying the very same principles, concludes 'it feels probably untrue to me.' While under most circumstances one is right and one is wrong, there doesn't appear to be any way of determining which is which. We can't use your proposed principles of game betting, simply because those principles, carefully applied by those with different starting assumptions, yield the different answers in the first place.

    Perhaps a concrete example raised by you will make my point clearer. You offer that the existence of moral truths are evidence in favour of God's existence. Well yes, if moral truths exist. The trouble is, I don't think they do, and I've never seen any compelling argument to the contrary. It seems the evidence for or against God's existence (whether there is a hard problem with consciousness is another good example) all begins with this culturally informed leap of faith. This is what I mean when I say there is no evidence. There is plenty good evidence of the way the world appears to be, but in every case it seems easy enough to fit it into a picture of a world with or without God.

    Perhaps this reflects the very danger of rejecting agnosticism. We begin to see all the data through the filter of our preformed conclusions.

    Bernard

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  40. Hi Burk

    Induction is always the stumbling block for me. I'm not sure one can call it probably true without appealing to inductive principals.

    Bernard

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  41. Hi JP,

    You write: “ You may be right to point out that holding back one's beliefs when one has confidence they are true is not always healthy.

    Actually I tried to describe what I think agnosticism is, and not my evaluation of it. Having said that, I do think that agnosticism is in general not a good choice. But sometimes it is: Embracing a belief entails taking risks as well as accepting other consequences. There are states of affairs where it is quite wise to choose to be an agnostic even if one thinks that the belief in question is probably true (or, in other words, even if one has some confidence that the belief in question is true). I mentioned such an example previously, namely somebody who judges that naturalism is probably true but who, after considering the consequences of embracing a naturalistic worldview, chooses to become an agnostic instead.

    But I don't think this describes accurately anybody's position here - one more example of what happens when we use words differently.

    As I said I think that all agnostics think that a belief is either probably true or else probably false when they choose to be agnostic about it. Perhaps Bernard will tell us how he would respond if his life depended on giving the right “yes” or “no” answer to the question of whether God exists. Whatever his answer may be, it will show what he actually believes to be probably true, even though he has chosen to remain an agnostic about this issue.

    I don't know which of restaurants A or B is better but it's time to eat, I have to choose one of them. So I do but this is no reason to form the belief that, say, A is the better one. I can very well remain “agnostic” about this even after I make a choice.

    In this particular example, I’d say it’s not that one is an agnostic about which restaurant is better, but rather one is ignorant. But you are right, whether agnostic or ignorant one sometimes has to make a choice. In the case of ignorance the choice can’t be reached by any other method than by flipping a coin. In the case of agnosticism though, the reasonable choice is to pick the belief one thinks is more probably true.

    [Bernard] is perfectly right. When faced with two hypothesis, taking side, hoping that the one we like the most will win, can only introduce bias and cloud our judgment. How can one look objectively at the evidence if one desires a particular result?

    Right, that’s a potential problem. Embracing a belief entails investing in it, which by itself makes it more difficult to think neutrally or freely about it. One of the most common and insidious fallacies is to beg the question, and it is easier to commit that fallacy if one is committed to or has invested a lot in a particular belief. We do see people (in politics, in religion, etc) sometimes become very dogmatic. (That’s why I say it’s a good idea to approach an argument with an agnostic state of mind. I am not really against agnosticism as an epistemic tool; I am against agnosticism as a life stance.)

    A related problem is overspecialization. I wouldn’t say that scientists like Richard Dawkins are dogmatic, but they still grossly and continuously beg the question for the simple reason that they are unable to see things except through the lens of what their field of specialization happens to be. As they say, to a hammer everything looks like a nail.

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  42. Burk,

    “I would indeed take some issue with this dismissal of justification.”

    Neither I nor Bernard was dismissing justification. The question is—what justifies?

    “…since truth means literally to correspond with reality, whose test is empricism.”

    Three problems here: First, what truth? If we were debating the truth of whether morals were objective or not, what “test” would you perform? What would you weigh, measure, touch, listen for, or take a picture of? Second, empiricism is already a way of looking at the world, a world-view, one that is presupposed, not founded empirically! Third, please explain to us how it is that many, many evangelical/fundamentalist scholars, like JP Moreland, take the same view that you do (the correspondence theory of truth) and come to completely different conclusions? Why doesn’t the fact that this is the case, prove Bernard and mine’s point?

    As to the rest of your response, you are begging the question. I don’t see how you are answering anyone’s true questions or points.

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  43. Hi Darrell

    Given this very broad agreement, it may well be that our disagreement is one of terminology. At the point where I accept that different people bring different narratives, and the test of the viability of these narratives is personal rather than public, I call this acceptance agnosticism. Why? Because I make the next step, which is that while we can judge the personal success of our narrative, we have no way of judging it against the personal success of somebody else's constructions. Hence we are unable to conclude which narrative is more true, in any useful sense. Hence, when it comes to those matter son which there is rational divergence, what sense does it make to speak in a non-agnostic manner, to say not 'I choose to believe X' but rather 'X is true'?

    I'm not sure if you go as far as this next step or not. perhaps you do, and prefer not to use the term agnostic for some good reason.

    Bernard

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  44. Hi Bernard,

    You write: “the question seems to still be, but how do we calculate such probabilities in the first place?

    As far as the definition of probable truth (i.e. epistemic probability) is concerned, how one produces one’s estimate of this probability is irrelevant.

    You write: “You offer that the existence of moral truths are evidence in favour of God's existence.

    No, I said that the existence of our moral *sense* is evidence for God’s existence.

    The trouble is, I don't think [moral truths exist], and I've never seen any compelling argument to the contrary.

    I am with philosopher Thomas Nagel (as well as with philosopher Sam Harris) in this. Moral truths such as that “to help a child in need is better than to torture it for fun” are as obvious and as universally perceived as the truth that “elephants are larger than mice”.

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  45. Hi Dianelos,

    You have an interesting choice of examples: [...] the existence of evil is evidence against God. Our ethical sense is evidence for God. And I would disagree with both...

    The existence of evil is certainly strong evidence against the existence of a certain kind of God – a benevolent, all-powerful God interested in humans. But it certainly does not exclude a sadistic God or, more likely, considering our total cosmic insignificance, a God totally indifferent to humans, for whom we are no more important than specks of dust are to us. In fact it takes considerable intellectual gymnastics to explain away evil and rescue the concept of a good God – if it succeeds at all. If not for the fact that we're so used to this idea, perhaps these attempts would be seen as totally unreasonable.

    As for our ethical sense, I don't see at all. The idea that our morality evolved through entirely natural means does not seem to present any difficulty.

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  46. Hi Dianelos

    Clearly not as universally perceived as the elephant and mouse example, given that neither JP nor I seem to perceive this, nor indeed the great majority of people with whom I've discussed It. Here is the very great danger perhaps of failing to differentiate between a belief that is culturally informed, in essence a story, and one that is commonly agreed upon.

    There is nothing wrong with a starting out point of, 'I have a sense that this is a moral truth'. But to go the next step and argue it is 'universally perceived that this is a moral truth' is exactly the sort of misstep agnosticism cautions against. A great many people, while holding both that they would not wish to torture a child, nor live in a world where such action was sanctioned, do not see the undesirability of this action as a moral truth. Rather they see it simply as a taste developed over our shared biological, cultural and environmental histories.

    This alternative interpretation of moral sense means that we can not assume from the get go that its existence says anything about the existence of God. Once again, your personal starting assumptions drive you to the desired conclusion.

    Bernard

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  47. Hi JP,

    You write: “ The existence of evil is certainly strong evidence against the existence of a *certain kind* of God – a benevolent, all-powerful God interested in humans. But it certainly does not exclude a sadistic God or, more likely, considering our total cosmic insignificance, a God totally indifferent to humans, for whom we are no more important than specks of dust are to us.

    “God” is the English name of a particular person (that’s why we write it in upper case), namely one who is perfect in all respects. We may argue if such a person as God exists, but to speak of a “sadistic God” or of a “God who is totally indifferent to humans”, is a contradiction in terms.

    In fact it takes considerable intellectual gymnastics to explain away evil and rescue the concept of a good God – if it succeeds at all.

    That’s a complex issue which is irrelevant in our context. I was responding to the claim that there is no evidence for or against God. There certainly is. The only thing we may reasonably discuss is how convincing this or that evidence for or against God should be.

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  48. Hi Bernard,

    You write: “Clearly not as universally perceived as the elephant and mouse example, given that neither JP nor I seem to perceive this, nor indeed the great majority of people with whom I've discussed It.

    I am afraid you have lost me here. The moral proposition under discussion is ““to help a child in need is better than to torture it for fun”. Are you saying you don’t perceive that this is true? I can’t believe you mean that, but then I am not sure what it is you mean.

    Here is the very great danger perhaps of failing to differentiate between a belief that is culturally informed, in essence a story, and one that is commonly agreed upon.

    I personally don’t think there is one single person of normal cognitive abilities who fails to perceive that to help a child in need is better than to torture it for fun. Similarly I don’t think there is one single person of normal cognitive abilities (including normal eyesight) who fails to perceive that an elephant is larger than a mouse. Whatever exactly you mean by “culturally informed” or “a story in essence” or perhaps “just a feeling” is irrelevant to my claim that some moral truths are as universally agreed upon as the most conspicuous visual truths.

    A great many people, while holding both that they would not wish to torture a child, nor live in a world where such action was sanctioned, do not see the undesirability of this action as a moral truth.

    I don’t see what the relevance of one’s wishes is. It is very often the case that one wishes what one perceives to be morally wrong, and vice-versa. Neither is taste a good analogy for moral perception; it is often the case that we really like what we perceive to be morally wrong, and vice-versa.

    Rather they see it simply as a taste developed over our shared biological, cultural and environmental histories.

    But there are also universally perceived truths about tastes. Everybody perceives that fresh strawberries taste better than rotten ones. It may be the case that that agreement is universal because of our shared biological, cultural and environmental histories, but this would not make the proposition “fresh strawberries taste better than rotten ones” any less than true, or not a matter of perception, or not universally agreed upon. After all, by the same logic, our perception that an elephant is bigger than a mouse is also developed over our shared biological, cultural and environmental histories. As is our perception that 5 is bigger than 4. Or our perception that Halle Berry is more beautiful than Winston Churchill.

    The point I think that Sam Harris makes and Thomas Nagel (as well as I) agree with is that there are many truths in ethics (and I add: as well as in many other fields), which we perceive clearly and directly without the need for some convincing argument or evidence, and which truths are so universally agreed upon that if we found somebody who did not agree we’d have no reason to take her seriously, as Nagel rather diplomatically puts it. (This set of beliefs is I think identical to the set of beliefs Alvin Plantinga calls “incorrigible”.)

    This alternative interpretation of moral sense means that we can not assume from the get go that its existence says anything about the existence of God.

    The claim under discussion is that as a matter of fact we do clearly and universally perceive many truths, including some moral truths. Apparently you disagree with that claimed fact. It is pointless to discuss what the relevance of a fact is, or to what degree this fact justifies theism, as long as you don’t even agree that this fact obtains.

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  49. Hi Dianelos

    As ever, I was just trying to get you to clarify, because sometimes you use a term to mean two things simultaneously.

    When you say we all agree that it is better not to torture children, then it rather depends upon what you mean by better. If you mean, we have an inbuilt tendency to feel distaste at the act, then I wholly agree, just as we have inbuilt taste to avoid severely bitter foods. I suspect that evolution is to thank in both these cases.

    Now, in the sense that agreement equals objectivity, then of course there are objective moral truths (for contemporary humans). This is not however what people here are trying to establish. They are trying to establish there is more to these facts than an evolved behavioural tendency. That their truth is measured by something other than evolution's dictates. They wish to establish that should we evolve to feel differently about torturing children in the future, it would still be wrong.

    Now, you jump between definitions when you claim that naturalism denies us our ability to believe in moral truths.

    Bernard

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