Driving to work yesterday, my local public radio station was talking about a recent incident in which a student at Fullerton Union High School was disqualified from a competition by an assistant principal. The student, asked onstage where he’d like to be in ten years, said he hoped that gay marriage would become legal and he could be married to someone he loved. The assistant principle thought this was outrageous and immediately pulled him from the competition. Most interesting to me were the uniformly astonished reactions from the radio voices — how could it be, in this age of anti-bullying efforts and growing acceptance of homosexuality, that an authority figure could act so callously? You mean to say that there are still grownups out there who are willing to say out loud that homosexuality is immoral?
There are. And if you want to know why, at least part of the answer can be found in several discussions popping up in my newsreader about what Jesus thought about homosexuality. Here’s a Christian mother who travels the difficult road from hatred to acceptance once she learns that her own son is gay. Here’s a theological debate between Ron Dreher and Andrew Sullivan on the precise degree to which sexuality should be considered sinful. And here’s a moving speech by Matthew Vines, a 21-year-old man who tries his best to argue that the traditional understanding of the Bible as strongly anti-homosexuality is mistaken (essentially because that would condemn gay people to being tortured and unloved, and surely the Bible wouldn’t be in favor of that). Personally I think Jesus probably didn’t approve of homosexuality, but since the Gospels were written decades after Jesus died, by people who probably had never met him, I admit the historical record is not exactly definitive. Maybe Jesus was extremely compassionate toward gay people, although that would have been quite out of character for messianic figures from first century A.D. Palestine, so had that been true it would have been worth an explicit mention. It’s an inevitable problem when you are committed to taking your moral cues from two-thousand-year-old semi-mythical stories about a charismatic preacher, rather than trying to found them on reason and reflection.
Which brings me to the Problem of Instructions. This is a challenge to the idea that belief in God is a plausible hypothesis to help us account for the world, much like the Problem of Evil but much less well known, possibly because (as far as I know) I made it up. I mentioned the Problem of Instructions in our recent debate, but I’ve never written it down, so here you go. (I have no doubt that analogous issues have been discussed by real theologians.)
Let’s imagine that we were to take seriously the question of whether the idea of God serves a useful explanatory role in accounting for the reality we experience. What would we do to evaluate this idea? I would argue that we should use the dreaded hypothetico-deductive method. That is, we should try to forget what we actually know of the world, and imagine how the world would most likely be, under the competing hypotheses (1) there exists an extremely powerful, extremely benevolent divine entity who in some sense cares about human beings; and (2) it’s just the laws of physics, without any supernatural guidance or overseer. Then we compare those imaginations to the world we actually see, and decide which is a better fit.
Obviously there will be many aspects of the scenarios we imagine. Let me just focus in on one: the instructions God would give us if he existed, were very powerful, and cared about us here on Earth.
Now, I’ve written textbooks myself. I understand that it is sometimes difficult to write in a way that is perfectly clear to everyone. On the other hand, I’m not God. I would imagine that God’s textbook (if a book were the medium he chose for handing down his instructions, which seems to be the traditional choice) would be fantastically clear. He’s God, he can be as clear as he wants!
If God existed and cared about us human beings down here on Earth acting in the right way, I honestly believe that the very least he could do would be to make it perfectly clear what that right way was. I would expect God’s book of instructions to have several unmistakable characteristics: it would be unique (everyone would know that it was straight from God); it would be crystal clear (no ambiguities of interpretation); it might very well be challenging (no reason to think God’s instructions should be easy to carry out); and it would transcend the petty concerns of particular human places and times, conveying a truly universal perspective. God’s textbook would get nothing but five-star reviews on Amazon.
Now, let’s compare that to what I might expect if God did not exist. I have no trouble believing that there would still be books that claimed to be straight from God; that’s the kind of thing human beings tend to go around claiming. But there would be many such books. Some of them would be monographs from a single purportedly-inspired individual, while some of them would be edited collections of manuscripts collected over the years. In places they would offer good advice, while in other places they would say things that come across as pretty horrible. In parts they would be inspirational, in parts poetic and moving, in parts boring, and very often they would contradict themselves. They would generally reflect the local beliefs and politics of the environment in which they were composed. And, most tellingly, they would be unclear — some vague snippets of wisdom arranged in an unsystematic fashion, often ambiguous and possible to interpret in just about any way you like.
Now that we have our scenarios laid out, we ask ourselves: which of these is more like the real world?
Of course there’s no question that religious believers can wriggle out of the predictions of this thought experiment; wriggling out of the straightforward implications of belief in God is one of the primary activities of believers. It’s not hard to come up with reasons why God’s word might seem unclear to us mere humans, or be distorted over the years. And many will claim that God’s word is perfectly unambiguous to them — it’s just everyone else that has trouble understanding.
All of these apologetics carry with them the implication that God doesn’t really care that much about us down here on Earth. If he did, it would be the snap of his divine fingers to set us straight — absolutely everyone — on all possible issues of interpretation. Part of being omnipotent is the ability to be perfectly clear if he chooses. We can concoct reasons why God might want us to be challenged by the vicissitudes of life, or face an ongoing struggle to be better people; but there’s no reason at all for God to want to keep us in the dark about what being better people actually entails. Religion requires that we believe in a God who wants us to behave in certain ways, but refuses to be clear about what those ways actually are.
Well that would be Dr Who, but outside that particular mythology I think you’re whistling in the dark.
>Shafer, you state that, ” A omnipotent, omnipresent God issuing inarguable instructions precludes the possibility of free will”. I fail to see how giving instructions on how to conduct one’s life negates the possibility of freewill.
We’re not talking about *merely* “giving instructions.” As things are now, Christians already beleive they are given instructions. In Sean’s words, we’re imagining “everyone would know that [instruction] was straight from God; it would be crystal clear (no ambiguities of interpretation).”
I’m saying this scenario would be indistinguishable from coercion and humans would be inexorably compelled by fear.
In a universe with a fully revealed God who interacts plainly and directly with humanity, disobedience would not truly be an option. We’d walk around knowing with absolute certainty what God wanted and that he was always right. Transgression would be insane.
A benevolent omnipotent who values human agency could hardly tolerate such an arrangement. It would have to remove itself from direct contact to prevent oppression.
To paraphrase CS Lewis, the God of Christan theology does not want slaves who become property or cattle who become feed, he wants servants who become sons.
Shafer, even if these instructions are clearly laid out, with no opportunity for misunderstanding, you still have a choice, or freewill, to obey them or not. Even if there is threat of punishment, the fundamental choice is still yours to make. Unless you view other such laws in place that we deal with on a daily basis, eg. state and federal laws, the rules of speech, traffic rules, etc., as violating your personal freedoms, and that you are “inexorably compelled by fear” to follow them, then the same logic should follow for divine law. Either way, that’s your opinion, but I don’t see that as the krux of this topic as a whole. I think the issue is (correct me if I’m mistaken) the plausibility of such instructions existing in the first place and the consequences that follow from people believing that they do in fact exist and subjecting others to punishment in one way or the other for not believing and following the same instructions.
frac wrote:
Apparently, it’s not just this post he hasn’t read.
@15 fraac
Then there’s the energy field created by all living things: surrounding us, penetrating us, binding the galaxy together.
Isn’t that from Star Wars?
“frac wrote:
Then there’s the energy field created by all living things: surrounding us, penetrating us, binding the galaxy together.
Apparently, it’s not just this post he hasn’t read.”
I assumed he was referring to “The Force” and was making a joke… at least I hope so.
Hi Sean,
I skipped the comments, but read the blog post. I have thought about the non-existence of God in many ways, but I have never thought of it this way (Problem of Instructions). It seems so obvious to me now that I learned it from you. There’s no problem of instruction from you, as far as I can tell!
Thank you very, very much.
I always love reading your posts…because I tend to always agree with you! Promise, I’m not trying to be a sheep!
Best Wishes and Happy Easter,
Martin
On a related note (and I’m sure this is not a groundbreaking idea), I have thought about what I call the “Problem of Birth.” We tend to learn the religions of our parents or our guardians, and it stays with us (with some exceptions). For instance, if you were born in Iran, there’s a strong chance you’d be Muslim, and a small chance you’d be Buddhist.
So, if you isolate a child at birth, and have him live in a room for 20 years, he/she is more likely to come up with explanations about how our Universe works that are vastly different than what is written in the Bible(s). However, they would tend to discover the rate of a falling object stays the same regardless of its mass, and so forth…
It would not be fair to this person (whether raised in a room or born in Iran) to go to anti-heaven if they break any of God’s rules, since it was out of their control to learn God’s ways.
One could argue that God has a plan for everyone, etc… but then why even need God at all ? You can say He exists, but whether He does or not makes absolutely no difference to your life, unless you give value to having faith and a reason for believing in something [not based on observations of the real world].
You lost me with your personal comment on the Gospels. In the New Testament the Gospels mention nothing of homosesuality. Only Paul talks against it, and the letters of Paul were written years, not decades, after Christ’s death. Not only that, but the clearest Biblical arguments against homosexuality comes from the Torah –which predates the Gospel writers. If you can’t get these details straight, then how can I take the rest of your claims seriously? This attempt at scripture is akin to a Creationist’s attempt at science. This is preaching to the choir, while poking at the mob.
hi sean —
i don’t consider myself religious and am not especially theologically literate. in high school i wrote an essay with an argument similar in spirit to the one you’ve presented. the problem with the argument, as has been very, very widely discussed by philosophers for centuries (does one not have a duty to educate oneself just a little bit before writing to the world?) concerns the ethical role of human freedom (kant might be a fun place to start, but the person to read here is kierkegaard — it really is cool stuff, and it directly touches on the interpretation issues), which has played a central role in christian thought (to my limited understanding). i see this blog post as a rather unsophisticated contribution to a potentially interesting question. sentences like “but there’s no reason at all for God to want to keep us in the dark about what being better people actually entails” are, i would say, almost obviously making overly strong assumptions that there is an ideal or that it can or should be articulated. i also think that tacking your discussion onto a legitimate outrage about people’s bigotry is unhelpful — much as it might seem in the US, homophobia is not unique to believers.
sean
On a different tack, I am curious as to the first comment by wldmr was first, and tracked in a mere 50 minutes after the post. Sean, I think you’re being watched closely, good on you.
I enjoyed the argument, but the comment stream it generated fascinates me.
But such a God is indistinguishable from no God so why posit his existence in the absence of no evidence for it?
Related to this:
The relevant experiment is to have children raised without the concept of a God, i.e. nobody teaches them to believe in God but nobody tells them there is no God either, it is just never mentioned, while in the same time they are given comprehensive scientific education so they have the current scientific cosmological model fully internalized. How many such children, when then confronted with the idea of God, would take it seriously? I am ready to be almost none.
The problem is that because we live in a society that carries thousands of years of religious cultural baggage and which is still very much religious, that experiment is almost never played out in practice, and everyone takes the idea seriously.
The other day two men knocked on our door, wanting to talk to me about god, waving some leaflet into my face. I was carrying a half-dressed toddler on my arm, another toddler crying in the background, and was supposed to be on a phone conference five minutes earlier. I mumbled something like “We’re atheists, thank you, and good bye,” upon which the younger of the two threw his arms in the air and said “Oooh-ohh, we have to talk to you!” I was like “No, actually it means you better don’t talk to me.” and he said “Well, one isn’t born as an atheist!”
I actually had to laugh about that. “I completely disagree,” I said, “We’re all born atheists. But some of us are later told funny stories about gods, stories we’re not supposed to question. Luckily my parents were enlightened enough to save me from that.” And with that I finally closed the door.
But as you can tell I was thinking about that later. I’m not anti-religious. But I can be quite hostile to people who think they can tell what’s right and wrong from stories that a handful of men invented some thousand years ago. Here is what I’d like to ask then. If you had never been given a Bible, what’s the chance you’d have figured out all these alleged rules you’re supposed to live by? And if you can’t, why should anybody care?
@1: “I don’t see why “instructions” are necessarily a means to express concern for his creation.”
You imply that your god is a bad teacher. Ask any who cares about his/her subject and pupils.
“not because of some oversight on the part of the deity, but by design.”
Who, in this argument, designs?
@2: “still offers comfort”
This implies that god does play an explanatory role.
“Perhaps God is too sophisticated to think transcendent clarity is possible or desirable”
Perhaps god is so sophisticated that he doesn’t care or doesn’t play any role. Moreover the instructions Carroll wrote about don’t belong to a transcendent reality. As soon as they are formulated they belong to our naturalistic reality.
“Omniscience implies he already knows the best way.”
This is a circular argument, so you can’t conclude that how we received the instructions is the best way.
The only way you can wriggle out of this is assuming that your god is like the Flying Spaghetti Monster or accept the Ancient religion of the Olympic gods or something similar. Both the problem of evil and the problem of clear instructions show that the Abrahamistic religions are inconsistent.
The bible brigade cherry picks what backs up its ideological positions from the book and glosses over whatever doesn’t. They suit “god” to their own ends.
Why the god speculation anyway. Bit redundant innit? As for what Jesus might have thought. Who knows… or cares. Did he even exist? Does it matter?
@17: “humans would be compelled to obedience by fear.”
From Psalm 34: “O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.”
Not to mention that presumably in christian heaven souls ánd have free will ánd invariably chose to do the right things. That’s the theodicy though.
@19: “there exists a quantum overlay of all other paths and possibilities.”
Your god plays dice.
@25: “does not care about human beings”
Like the Flying Spaghetti Monster indeed.
@34: “the Gospels mention nothing of homosesuality.”
Carroll wrote:
“Maybe Jesus was extremely compassionate toward gay people.”
It rather looks like the personal comment is lost on you.
@35: “the person to read here is kierkegaard”
Kierkegaard detached ethics completely from religion, reducing it (following Feuerbach btw) to mere faith. Hence the debate reduces to:
Theist: Credo.
Atheist: Non-credo.
Religion then is robbed from all rationality. That’s very OK with me – in fact I notice that most non-sophisticated believers believe that way – but understandably Kierkegaard never has enjoyed any popularity amongst religious authorities.
” homophobia is not unique to believers.”
No and what exactly does that prove, except that ethics are man made?
@37: “The relevant experiment is to have children raised without the concept of a God, i.e. nobody teaches them to believe in God but nobody tells them there is no God either.”
That’s a bit like my son. His mother was muslim (now she’s kind of christian), I’m an atheist. He went to a catholic school for three years and to a muslim school for another three years; both of the very liberal kind. He also knows since he was 6 that I’m an atheist, but until he was 13 or 14 I never discussed it with him. He took the initiative.
He is as firm an atheist as I am.
“… but there’s no reason at all for God to want to keep us in the dark about what being better people actually entails.”
Well, that’s why God sent us Jesus! Read the four Gospels. QED
Before Dr. Carroll usurps all the other musings that have occurred to me (I could have sworn, but maybe I actually read them in another of his blog posts), besides the Problem of Instruction (great title, wish I had thought of that), let me also mention the Problem of Technology (all the biblical miracles involve technologies and myths current to the times, e.g., tablets carved in stone rather than etched in titanium so they would last longer, walking on water and water into wine borrowed from Greek mythology, etc.) and the Problem of It Never Happens When The Cameras are Rolling (needs a better title), that is, God or his angels used to show up all the time (and still does, to the bi-polar–in my experience and I don’t mean to make fun of them, they can’t help it), but not to anyone who has a camera phone.
All these things can be rationalized by the faithful, of course. I have seen an apologist argue that believing the moon is made of green cheese is rationally defendable.
“I assumed he was referring to “The Force” and was making a joke…”
I was referring to God – the stuff that’s beyond our reckoning, although maybe particle physicists can get close. As opposed to God the biological or psychological need. Each interesting unique subjects, none commonly discussed by self-described ‘atheists’ would who rather engage in the most pathetic, illogical, juvenile debates with the only people they could beat in a fight.
“I was referring to God ”
Fraac it is very easy to mistake your posts as a parody. I suggest you calm down and read a book on the origin of religions. J. Anderson Thomson’s “why we believe in god(s)” would be a good start. It is a nice simple short read. You should be able to understand it.
Chemicalscum: no one believes in gods because the Bible or any religion’s origin story is logically consistent. To argue on that basis is to utterly misunderstand human nature.
Haven’t you noticed that the only famous astrophysicist to recognise that everyday religious people need to be seduced, not argued with, is Neil Tyson, a big sexy guy? You pick the fights you can win in a need to feel good as a man, I guess.
Sean’s argument is a good one. I frequently make what I think is essentially the same argument in a semi-humourous way when some one asks me if I’ve heard from Jesus or some similar question, I say “no, but my number is in the phone book. Next time you talk to him tell him to call. me” (Yes I deliberately make it a sexist remark)
@Lord Says Revised: God díd create us as perfect beings, but we became imperfect by the deed of Eve who ate from the forbidden fruit. A perfect argument for holding back women for at leatst 19 centuries!
Yeah! This is a cool discussion by a lapsed catholic on the week before easter….
It is NOT self-evident that “instructions” need to have been written. In transformational therapy a direction and mentors react to the situation and “client” to evoke change – no proscriptions are available.
Guidance is a valid form of education.
The “bible” is a collection of fragments written over a long period of time; most not contemporaneous with the events described, so internal inconsistencies are not at all surprising – And there are not only the Aramaic/Greek versions of the “bible” – there is the Q’uran, the Bhagavad Gita, the creation tales of the plains indians, the inuit, the south american indians, African tribes, even the old Greek myths, and the Sumerian and Akkadian creation stories and religious beliefs — there ARE some similarities and consistencies. Which does NOT prove or disprove the existence of a/the god – only that most people are human, have a mother and father, and may have children of their own.
There IS NO rational test which which can prove or disprove a phenomenon which is defined as being “beyond man”.
Most Biblical strictures against homosexuality were based on circumstances and assumptions which have long since ceased to apply. such as worries about population decline, and taboos relating to magical fertile fluids such as milk and sperm (Onan was in trouble just for spilling his seed; so on that basis one can well appreciate that sodomy would have been frowned on even more.)
Also, although it may be hard to believe today, other religious cults competing with Judaism in Old and New Testament times were financed, and made inviting to would be converts, by temple prostitutes of both sexes. See http://www.ralliance.org/CultTempleProstitutes.html St Paul’s criticism of homosexuals, for example, was obviously directed against male temple prostitutes.
As for God handing down to mankind the ultimate and categorical manual of ethics, it won’t happen. God is obviously an avid scientist, and having evidently endowed matter with the ability to create life itself by evolution, including the freedom to make mistakes, why should God suddenly choose to limit and ordain our ethical decisions (which are arguably simply a continuation of evolution) just when the experiment is getting interesting?