The perceived poverty of supernatural explanations

When it comes to arguments for design, in favour of some form of theism, the arguments tend to concentrate on areas where the is scant empirical evidence, where the science is speculative.
Examples of this sort are theistic hypothesis for the origin of the universe, for the supposed fine tuning of the free parameters of the universe and for the origin of life on Earth. It seems that people believe that wherever there is a gap in our knowledge, there is justification for pushing God into it.

As far as I can tell, however, these arguments fail, for a number of reasons.
"God hypothesis" in general seem to lack empirical content. They are literally explanations for any possible empirical evidence. If you're unable to confirm or falsify an hypothesis, then you have no means of knowing whether it is (provisionally) correct or incorrect. Proponents of such "God hypothesis" tend to retreat into mystery, claiming that since God is outside of the "world", then we cannot expect to find "scientific evidence" of it's existence or actions. Perhaps this is correct, and I'm willing to entertain the notion, at least for arguments sake. This does not get the theist off the hook, however.

As argued at length by Greg Dawes in "Theism and Explanation", a "God hypothesis" is an intentional explanation, rather than the sort of mechanistic explanation we usually find in science. Rather than giving a "God hypothesis" a free pass, however, this simply requires a different sort of explanation be tendered. The proponent of the "God hypothesis" ought to supply detail of the intentions of the putative agent, it's character, it's goals and desires, it's capabilities. From this detail the phenomena to explained should follow, such as why we find ourselves in a material universe, why the "fine tuned" parameters have the specific values they do, or why life was started on this particular planet, using the particular processes we see around us. To avoid an ad-hoc explanation, the "God hypothesis" should also provide further "predictions" of empirical observations we should find which also follow from the intentional explanation as provided. These would allow us to test the explanation.

Providing an explanation of the sort Dawes argues is required, would constrain the "God" of the hypothesis in, I'm sure, many ways. And it is an open question as to whether a possibly successful intentional explanation of this sort could or would be accepted by a theist. The deity, so constrained by explanatory requirements, may not match up with a theistic believers "internal" beliefs about who or what God is.

So, we have good reason for not accepting the simple God hypothesis which are generally presented by theists.

I think, apart from the explanatory problems with "God hypothesis" as they currently seem to stand, there is also good reason in many cases, to expect that a naturalistic explanation is preferable, even where there is little to no empirical support for such an hypothesis.

A naturalistic explanation would not require the expansion of our ontology to include "immaterial minds". If we were to have solid external reasons to accept the existence of God, then perhaps the explanation would become preferable, but at present this does not seem to be the case. Natural explanations, even when speculative, tend to be extensions of existing scientific knowledge (origin of life research relies upon biochemistry, fine tuning explanations rely upon existing physics models, as do origin of the universe explanations). The science that these models are based upon seem to be solidly attested, and while the speculative hypothesis may extend the science in ways which are not yet evidenced, they tend to do so cautiously. Naturalistic (scientific) explanations are also usually formulated to be open to empirical confirmation/falsification.

Another reason to prefer a naturalistic explanation is simply the lessons of history. For every phenomena which has a satisfactory explanation, that explanation is a naturalistic (scientific) one. Claiming that a current gap in our knowledge is likely or certain to have a supernatural explanation is like betting on a horse has lost every race it has entered. It is to put yourself in a position comparable to a believer in Zeus, Thor or Yahweh some centuries or millennia ago, claiming that because there is no alternative explanation for lightning, it simply must be whatever god the believer had faith in.

Is a supernatural explanation for religious experience reasonable?

Religious believers often give an account of some experience as evidence for their beliefs, or at least as evidence for why they personally belief. These experiences, the proponent often claims, are direct evidence for the existence of the object of their beliefs. In the case of Christians, these experiences are claimed to indicate the truth of Christianity, or at least provide the believer (and perhaps others) with (possibly overwhelming) reasons to believe.

The description of the experiences that I'm familiar with don't seem to hold any mystical quality. The believer tends to describe something which does not seem entirely out of the ordinary for a brain/mind to produce - feelings of love, of the presence of another person, feelings of peace and tranquillity. These feelings tend to then be interpreted in a manner which is consistent with the believers faith tradition. Sometimes the interpretation leads to something slightly different to the person's current faith tradition, but rarely if ever does it appear that the interpretation is something completely outside the persons current belief system. There don't seem to be many accounts of Buddhists experiencing a Trinitarian deity while deep in meditation, of or Christians experiencing a loss of individuality and oneness with "reality". I would expect experiences which differ from what is "expected" by the person to be interpreted in light of their current beliefs regardless.

So, where does this leave the believer (and us). We seem to have a large number of disparate experiences, and incompatible interpretations of those experiences. The interpretations, as pointed out, always seem to be in line with the faith tradition of the person. This seems to indicate that not all of these experiences can be veridical. For, how can the foundation of reality be both a Trinitarian person, as well as an impersonal "force"?

This leaves the believer having to claim that, while their experience was veridical, the experience of others was not so, though on what grounds they are able to make this distinction I do not know. Believers of very different faiths seems similarly sincere in their beliefs, and in the veridical nature of their experiences. I'd expect that the simple existence of experiences which don't comport to their faith tradition, or to the interpretation of their own experience, ought to lead to at least a little caution in accepting a particular experience as truthful.

But, is that all we can say regarding religious experiences? Are we left with a comparison of subjective experiences and the associated subjective interpretations of those experiences? I don't think so.

There is evidence from science that purely physical stimulation of the brain can elicit experiences of a similar nature to those described by those who have had a so called religious experience. This fact, that the experience could be an entirely physical reaction within the brain, should also, I'd think, add some doubt to the believer as to how the experience arose. If the person's brain is capable of generating the experience, without the need for contact with something outside of the person (whether God or something else), then how can you tell whether your experience was caused by something other than your brain? It seems to me that the believer is left with making a bare assertion that this was the case, and I'm not sure what sort of evidence could be brought forward to justify this assertion.

So, if the above is reasonable, then surely the believer ought to be in an agnostic position regarding the nature of their experience. Is this, then, all that can be said? Again, I think we can argue further.

Surely we can ask how it is that these experiences can influence the world? It seems that somehow the experience must have an empirical effect, and empirical effects are open to investigation. Such experiences entail that the laws of physics break down in the small area of tissue within our skulls. Regardless of whether the person is a substance dualist or a materialist when it comes to questions of the relationship between the mind and the brain, at some stage something non-material must effect something material. Whether it is the person's purported immaterial mind influencing the brain to cause the experience (which on this account would not be amenable to empirical investigation), or whether the "something else" outside of the brain which caused the person's brain to elicit this experience, some interaction has taken place. We would have a breakdown of the regular behaviour of particles. So what, you might ask, isn't God able to cause miracles? Perhaps, but this would still require the breakdown of the laws of physics as we understand them, and some of those laws are rather well supported by theory and empirical evidence. One such law which would need to break down is the law of conservation of matter/energy. While this is "suspended" for very short periods of time over very small distances in quantum mechanics, it is, as I understand it, maintained globally, and always when we get to the realm of classical physics.

So where does this leave the believer?
We have multiple conflicting experiences and interpretations given by believers in various different and conflicting faiths, seemingly without any objective means to differentiate between "real" experiences and "correct" interpretations, which indicates that not everyone's experience can be "real", nor can everyone's interpretation be "correct".
We have evidence that the experiences can in fact be elicited physically, indicating that these experiences could possibly be entirely physical in nature, and that these experiences could simply be part and parcel of "brain ownership".
Finally, we have models of reality which are solidly attested by the evidence, which indicate that any claim of some "supernatural" or "immaterial" interaction is implausible.

Now, the believer is within their rights to claim that their experience is veridical, but as far as I see it, for the claim to be rational they would need to (1) provide some methodology by which to distinguish "real" experiences from the dross, (2) some means of identifying whether an experience was not simply a physical occurrence in the brain, and finally (3) some string evidence that the laws of physics as we know them do not apply, or at least don't always apply, within our skulls.

So far responses to (1) seem to amount to special pleading for the persons specific interpretation and faith tradition. responses to (2) seem to plead that the individual can simply tell whether the experience was extra-physical in some way. Responses to (3) seem to appeal to mystery.

In short, I don't see that any of the responses I've seen, to explain religious experience, give the person who had the experience, let alone a third party, reason to accept it as evidence in favour of their beliefs.

The people who seem to insist that their experiences were "real" also seem to have the belief that unless something is "abnormal" with their mind/brain (under extreme stress or suffering from a mental disorder) that their mind/brain is inherently reliable under all circumstances.

I would reply that this is not the case, that our mind/brain can be unreliable under normal circumstances, and that science has indicated what these circumstances might be. Just as an optical illusion can fool the image processing of our mind/brain, so to can other situations fool other parts - and some of this "aberrant" mental processing likely has good reason for occurring under "normal" situations (hyperactive agency detection comes to mind).

Non-theistic moral realism and Divine Command Theory

In the paper "In Defense of Non-Natural Non-Theistic Moral Realism", Eric Wielenberg presents the case for an objective morality which does not require any external foundation.

As the title of the paper makes clear, the view Wielenberg defends posits the existence of ethical facts that are not reducible to natural facts and properties and do not require a theistic foundation. This is not to say that Wielenberg's view is incompatible with theism as well as atheism, simply there are objective ethical facts if atheism is true.

The Basic View

Wielenberg explains that on his view some states of affairs are ethical states of affairs:

"A fundamental category of existing thing is the category of states of affairs. States of affairs are necessarily existing abstract entities that obtain or fail to obtain. Facts are obtaining or actual states of affairs; among these, some are contingent, meaning they obtain in some but not all metaphysically possible worlds, whereas others are necessary, meaning they obtain in all metaphysically possible worlds.
[ . . . ]
Some states of affairs involve ethical properties, properties like moral rightness, moral wrongness, goodness, evil, virtue, vice, and the like. Ethical properties are sui generis properties that are not reducible to other kinds of properties, including natural properties that can be studied by the empirical sciences and supernatural properties involving God. The view I hold is thus best characterized not as naturalism or supernaturalism but rather as non-naturalism.
"

On this view, some ethical states of affairs obtain necessarily, such as the torture of innocents for fun. These obtain necessarily, in all metaphysically possible worlds. Others obtain contingently, such as pushing a button which one knows will result in the torture of an innocent - there are possible worlds where the pushing of the button does not result in the torture.
Wielenberg then claims that some necessarily obtaining ethical states of affairs are brute facts:

"That pain is intrinsically bad is not explained in terms of other states of affairs that obtain. Moreover, at least some necessarily obtaining brute ethical facts are not trivial but substantive.

To ask where such facts come from or on what foundation they rest is misguided

"They come from nowhere, and nothing external to themselves grounds their existence; rather, they are fundamental features of the universe that ground other truths."

Supervenience

Continuing on, Wielenberg defends his view against the claimed "puzzling" nature of such a supervenience relationship, as put forward by Mackie. On Wielenberg's view, this puzzling nature is simply metaphysical necessity, and that the argument from queerness which Mackie put forward begs the question against this view.
Weielnberg then defends against the view, from Wainwright, that only trivial necessary truths don't require explanations. Wielenberg's response is to reject this claim. He supports it by stating that Wainwright's demonstration that some substantive truths have explanations does not support the claim that all of them do. Wielenberg also points out that theists are committed to at least one substantive truth which has no explanation - "God exists". Theists who accept such a truth must also side with Wielenberg and reject Wainwright's principle.
Wielenberg then takes a look at theistic moral theories which purport to provide an explanation for such ethical facts. Such a theory might be preferable to Wielenbergs unexplained brute ethical facts. Weielenberg deals with the theory put forward by R.M. Adams in "Finite and Infinite Goods". In this work, Adams provides an attempt to work out the idea that the Good = God. In this view, Gods nature is the standard of excellence, and other things are excellent in virtue of resembling God's necessarily existing nature. The necessary existence of the divine nature is claimed to enable us to account for the supervenience of the moral on the non-moral. Wielenberg points out that, far from grounding all ethical facts, Adams' view committs him to the existence of basic ethical facts, much like Wielenberg's own view.

"Among such facts are the following: That the Good exists, that the Good is loving, that the Good is merciful, and that the Good is just"

Given this, Wielenberg notes that perhaps there is some reason to prefer Adams view over his own, but it is not to be found in the issues of conceivability, supervenience or explanation which have been considered.

mysterious, Floating Values

Wielenberg's then addresses the claim that, put forward by W. Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, that it is puzzling how, for example, the concept of justice can "just exist" as a "mere abstraction". Wielenberg notes that:

"With respect to justice, my view is that there are various obtaining states of affairs concerning justice, and that when individual people have the property of being just, it is (in part) in virtue of the obtaining of some of these states of affairs. For instance, I hold that it is just to give people what they deserve; thus, anyone who gives others what they deserve thereby instantiates the property of justice. The state of affairs that it is just to give people what they deserve obtains whether or not any people actually exist, just as various states of affairs about dinosaurs obtain even though there are no longer any dinosaurs. In this way, my approach cashes out the idea of justice “just existing” in terms of facts about justice. This approach is perfectly intelligible and coherent and no more posits mysterious, floating entities than does any view committed to the existence of properties and states of affairs."

Wielenberg notes that, while his view does violate the some principles suggested by Craig & Moreland, that "(i) all values are properties of persons and (ii) all values have external foundations". He points out that (i) and (ii) are false - Craig & Moreland don't provide arguments for the principles, and Adam's approach mentioned above, to which Craig and Moreland often appeal, also violates the same principles. Wielenberg also points out that Craig's own view violates the second principle in the following section.

Rights and Duties without God

In this section, Wielenberg defends against the charge that without God, humans do not have moral duties, because they are nothing more than animals. The specific example used are claims from William Lane Craig. Wielenberg reasons that while we may be animals, we also have the capability to reason, suffer, fall in love, set goals etc, and that it is precisely these properties which are being denied in the "nothing more" characterisation of humans in a godless universe, which ground human moral rights and obligations. If one were to point out that rape is wrong because it causes harm to the victim in various ways, the proponent of the "nothing more" argument might ask why think this is so? This response seems to indicate an assumption of Craig's; namely that objective morality requires a foundation external to itself. But why accept this, Wielenberg asks, when his own view, resting all non-brute ethical facts at least in part on a set of basic ethical fasts is a possiblity? Such basic ethical facts would be the axioms of morality and do not have an external foundation. Rather, as Wielenberg notes, they are the foundation of morality.
Craig claims that objective morality requires an external foundation is not only presented without argument, and therefore begs the question against a view such as Wilenbergs, but Craig's own approach to objective morality violates the same principle, as Wielenberg demonstrates. Craig claims that moral duties are grounded in the commands of a holy and loving God, and that commands issuing from such a God become moral duties for us. This explanation, however, depends on an ungrounded ethical fact - what grounds the claim "If the Good commands you to do something you are morally obligated to do it"? Such an ethical claim, among other which Craig's view seems to commit him to, as was pointed out with Adams' view earlier, the existence of the same sort of brute ethical facts upon which Wielenberg's own view commits him.
Wielenberg then presents his own view on the source of human moral rights and obligations:

"I propose the following answer: Necessarily, any being that can reason, suffer, experience happiness, tell the difference between right and wrong, choose between right and wrong, and set goals for itself has certain rights, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and certain obligations, including the duty to refrain from rape (in typical circumstances). Evolutionary processes have produced human beings that can reason, suffer, experience happiness, tell the difference between right and wrong, choose between right and wrong, and set goals for themselves. In this way, evolutionary processes have endowed us with certain unalienable rights and duties. Evolution has given us these moral properties by giving us the non-moral properties upon which they supervene. And if, as I believe, there is no God, then it is in some sense an accident that we have the moral properties that we do. But that they are accidental in origin does not make these moral properties unreal or unimportant."

Conclusion

Wielenberg concludes by stating that it is his view that much of the scepticism of objective ethical truth in a godless universe stems from the assertion that all such truths must ultimately rest on a non-ethical foundation. Since the body of the paper argued against that assertion, Wielenberg thinks we ought to not just examine it, but reject it. As theistic ethics are also committed to views like his own, they are also committed to rejecting the assumptions.

"With this assumption out of the way, one of the main obstacles to non-natural non-theistic moral realism has been removed."

Can a Divine Command metaethic be correct?

A paper by Steve Maitzen, entitled "A semantic attack on Divine-Command metaethics" purports to show that DCM is either false of vacuous.

The semantic objection which Maitzen presents is not unique, he admits. Maitzen approvingly quotes John Chandler as getting to the heart of the matter:

If God's will is the only standard of goodness and rightness, the statement 'God is good' reduces to the triviality that what God wills is always in conformity with what God wills, which is true whatever he wills. Consequently, it will not be possible to distinguish God from an omnipotent but evil being, or show that he is worthy of worship. Only if there is a criterion of rightness and goodness independent of God does 'God is good' become a significant, non-trivial claim . . . . [T]he central Christian doctrine of God's goodness cannot be significantly asserted
by a subscriber to [DCM].[1]

Chandler doesn't spell out his reasoning as throroughly as we might hope, which is the task Maitzen is attempting in this paper.

Firstly, Maitzen attempts to work out just what a Divine Command Metaethic consists of. He finds that DCM proponents, such as Adams, have claimed that DCM does not concern the meaning of ethical terms, just their truth conditions, while others claim both (R.M. Adams originally accepted both, but subsequently retreated to simply supporting the claim that DCM supports the truth conditions of ethical terms). Maitzen gives some reasons to think that a DCM must concern meaning, and not just truth conditions. To do so he presents 4 sentences

• (S1) 'God exists.'


• (S2) 'God is omniscient.'


• (S3) 'God is omnipotent.'


• (S4) 'God is morally good.'

A DCM which only gives truth conditions tells us nothing about S4, an ethical sentence, that is not true of the sentences. Worse, according to Maitzen, some entirely non-metaethical theory would tell us all that DCM tells us about that ethical sentence. This makes it difficult to understand just how such a DCM would be a metaethical theory. Maitzen assumes here that the truth and meaning of such sentences differ (or at least, can differ).

Maitzen then argues that no tautology is religiously significant:

" The crucial premise of that reasoning is this: no tautology is religiously significant, even though, contrary to Rachels, all tautologies, all 'empty truisms,' are cognitively significant. In particular, no tautology can contribute to making it the case that, or provide good reasons for thinking that, God is worthy of worship. But, according to traditional theism, the doctrine of God's moral goodness does contribute to making it the case that, does provide good reasons for thinking that, God deserves worship. So no metaethics is compatible with traditional theism if it reduces the doctrine of God's moral goodness to a tautology."

After establishing these claims, that a DCM must concern the truth and meaning of ethical terms, and that no tautology can have religious significance, Maitzen presents his argument:

1. According to no metaethics compatible with traditional theism is the sentence 'God is (morally) good' religiously trivial.


2. Every tautology is religiously trivial; no tautology is religiously significant.


3. If two sentences have the same meaning, then one of them is a tautology only if both are.


4. According to DCM, for any agent x, 'x is (morally) good' has the same meaning as 'x wills what God wills.'


5. Therefore: According to DCM, 'God is (morally) good' has the same meaning as 'God wills what God wills.' [From (4)]


6. 'God wills what God wills' is a tautology.


7. Therefore: According to DCM, 'God is (morally) good' is a tautology. [From (3), (5), (6)][see footnote 2]


8. Therefore: According to DCM, 'God is (morally) good' is religiously trivial. [From (2), (7)]


9. Therefore: DCM is incompatible with traditional theism. [From (1), (8)]


10. Therefore: If traditional theism is true, then DCM is false. [From (9)]


11. If moral nihilism is false and DCM is true, then traditional theism is true.


12. Therefore: If traditional theism is false, then moral nihilism is true or DCM is false. [From (11)]


13. Therefore: If traditional theism is false, then DCM is true only if moral nihilism is true. [From (12)]


14. Traditional theism is true, or traditional theism is false.


15. Therefore: DCM is true only if moral nihilism is true. [From (10), (13), (14)]

The argument looks to be deductively valid, and Maitzen further argues that the premises are sound.
Step 10 is of interest to theists, as it shows that DCM is incompatible with traditional theism. The further steps show that DCM can only be true if moral nihilism is true ("either DCM is false,or else there are no instantiated moral properties, and no moral truths, to which DCM can even apply.")

It seems to be an interesting argument, and if sound would seem to be disastrous to proponents of Divine Command ethics.
Unfortunately I've been unable to find much in the way of commentary or criticism of this paper online. Some further discussion of the paper can be found here

[1] 'Is the Divine Command Theory Defensible?' Religious Studies 20 (1984):
443-452; 446.
[2] The text of the paper states that step 7 follows from 3, 4, & 5. Accoding to Maitzen, this is a mistake, and 3,5,6 is correct