The Lack of Reason for God, Chapter 2
Sep. 24th, 2014 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blimixThis is part of a series examining the the logic of Timothy Keller's book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.
Standard disclaimer: This, despite being a public post, is not an invitation for a religion debate with strangers. Been there, done that, still jaded.
Last week: In Chapter 1, Keller addressed the divisiveness of Christianity.
Chapter 2
(Page numbers are from the hardcover version of the book.)
Keller takes on the argument from evil: A god who is good and powerful would prevent horrible, pointless evils from occurring. But horrible, pointless evils do occur. Thus, god does not exist, or is not good, or is not powerful.
p. 23. "Despite the confident assertion of the columnist, the effort to demonstrate that evil disproves the existence of God 'is now acknowledged on (almost) all sides to be completely bankrupt.'"
I presume that Keller puts this in quotes in order to assert the claim while distancing himself from responsibility for its untruth. (We've seen him do the same thing in chapter 1.) Also, note his broadening of the claim: Nobody says that evil disproves god, only that it disproves the Christian god. Jews are like, "Yo, God, that Holocaust thing? What the fuck, man?"
pp. 23-25. Keller invokes the idea that bad things are really good in ways we don't understand. The biggest problem with this idea isn't that it is easily refuted, but that it undermines the Christian god even more thoroughly than the argument from evil does.
The issue is that most of us have a very good idea of what we mean by "good," despite the difficulties in defining it. Keller's argument requires giving up that idea. To assert that everything god does, and everything that god allows to happen, is good is to assert that genocide is good, that the annual death of hundreds of thousands of children and pregnant women from malaria is good, that Halliburton is good, that Bieber Fever is good, ad infinitum. You are forced to admit that you believe that these things are good from a universal perspective, even when you can't see how they can possibly be good (which is exactly what Keller asserts*). This is a direct claim that you have no way of knowing what is good, by which you could judge god's actions.
If that is true, then how can you know, assert, or even slightly suspect, that god is good?
You can't.
Of course Christians believe that god is good anyway. This depends on doublethink. Regardless of the above admission, they really do have an idea of what they think is good. When they refer to beneficial events as good, they know exactly what they mean by "good". When Christian apologists refer to god inflicting slaughter, misery, destruction, and destitution as good in some mysterious way that only god understands, they are asserting that god isn't good in the sense in which they know and use the word "good," but only in some other, inaccessible sense that no human could ever use to communicate about goodness.
This usage boils down to: "God and his actions have a property that is a homonym of 'good,' but is not anything like what you and I mean by 'good'."
This is no defense at all against the argument that god isn't good. It is merely an attempt to dodge the argument altogether by pretending that we don't mean anything by the word "good".
* Keller's examples include nonfatal diseases, and life-altering losses that lead to positive changes in perspective. He understandably shies away from less defensible topics such as war and infant mortality: He knows he would lose his readers if he tried to justify these as good, even if only to god.
The statement, "His actions aren't good in a way that we understand, but are good in a way that makes sense from his perspective" can be aptly applied to a psychopathic serial killer. This is not coincidence.
The statement, "He does terrible things to me, but it's for my own good" is a symptom of an extremely abusive relationship. This is also not coincidence. If you find yourself saying things like this, about a person or about a god, you need to get out of that relationship and get away as fast as possible.
On the "God is good anyway" topic, my book club friend points out that Keller is now taking the opposite stance from the one he presented in chapter 1, regarding the "blind men and the elephant" metaphor. He had basically said, "You can't call Christianity one of the blind men, with limited access to truth, unless you claim to see the whole elephant -- to know the whole truth." Here, he says (to paraphrase), "You only see evil as evil because you are one of the blind men, who cannot see the whole elephant. But from a position of seeing the whole truth, you would know that evil is good." Keller is occupying the position which he already forbade the rest of us. This resonates with my suspicion that a Christian who asserts, "God is good, and you cannot judge him as evil," really means, "You can't know God; only I can know God."
p. 26. Keller claims that the existence of evil is more problematic for atheists than for theists. His summary of an argument by C.S. Lewis goes thusly: "People, we believe, ought not to suffer, be excluded, die of hunger or oppression. But the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction, and violence of the strong against the weak -- these things are all perfectly natural. On what basis, then, does the atheist judge the natural world to be horribly wrong, unfair, and unjust?" (His emphasis.)
Let's get this straight: The world is brutal and unjust, so atheists shouldn't have a sense of justice, so they shouldn't call the world brutal and unjust. I fear that if I bother to refute this, the implication that it was needed at all would be an insult to my readers. But in the interest of completeness, let me briefly suggest that, sometime in the last twelve thousand years, some humans have managed to develop senses of morality and justice, which were not among the senses that nature originally gave our species.
As an aside, Keller is working from a common misconception about the works of Charles Darwin. Even in his seminal work On the Origin of Species, Darwin wrote much more commonly about the love and cooperation he observed among animals than about violence and survival of the fittest.
pp. 27-31. Keller goes to great lengths to argue that Jesus suffered tremendously more than anybody else ever has, in order to demonstrate that god totally gets our suffering, which in turn lets him off the hook for all the suffering he has caused.
This is absurd enough that it does not need me to refute it. (My book club friend also points out that belief in Jesus is required for this argument, making it unsuited for convincing non-Christians.)
pp. 31-34. Keller argues that the Christian heaven is not an immaterial paradise, but is a future in which all past wrongs will be set right. The undoing of our past sorrows, he says, will make that future sweeter than it would have been had they never occurred.
There is no reason to believe this, aside from wishful thinking. There is no evidence for it at all. He backs it up only by putting his own spin on a few selected bible quotes: A technique that one can use to support any assertion at all. This certainly has no force to appeal to nonbelievers.
Only some Christians hold this view of heaven. (Thanks to my book club friend for pointing that out.) Even given acceptance of this future-heaven, Keller's reasoning only applies to those people who get into the "new kingdom," thus leaving out sinners, non-believers, believers in the wrong god, believers in the wrong version of the right god, and your family pet. None of the evil done to these people gets undone in this view of Heaven; god retains his moral culpability even in Keller's wishful scenario.
p. 34. "Dostoevsky put it perfectly when he wrote: 'I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage...'"
How convenient to have the authority of such a great thinker as Dostoevsky to back you up! Oh, but Keller neglects to mention that these are the words of Dostoevsky's fictional character Ivan, not Dostoevsky speaking for himself.
Keller does throw in a disclaimer, hidden in a footnote on page 251: "I think it should be stated that Dostoevsky does not say it will be possible to justify the evil itself. Evil may be used by God to bring about even greater good than if it had not occurred, but it nonetheless remains evil, and therefore inexcusable and unjustifiable in itself."
Then why cite Dostoevsky to justify god's evil acts? Does Keller trust his reader to check neither footnotes nor sources? (Actually, that sounds quite likely.)
Next week: Restrictions on intellectual freedom.
The whole series.
Standard disclaimer: This, despite being a public post, is not an invitation for a religion debate with strangers. Been there, done that, still jaded.
Last week: In Chapter 1, Keller addressed the divisiveness of Christianity.
(Page numbers are from the hardcover version of the book.)
Keller takes on the argument from evil: A god who is good and powerful would prevent horrible, pointless evils from occurring. But horrible, pointless evils do occur. Thus, god does not exist, or is not good, or is not powerful.
p. 23. "Despite the confident assertion of the columnist, the effort to demonstrate that evil disproves the existence of God 'is now acknowledged on (almost) all sides to be completely bankrupt.'"
I presume that Keller puts this in quotes in order to assert the claim while distancing himself from responsibility for its untruth. (We've seen him do the same thing in chapter 1.) Also, note his broadening of the claim: Nobody says that evil disproves god, only that it disproves the Christian god. Jews are like, "Yo, God, that Holocaust thing? What the fuck, man?"
pp. 23-25. Keller invokes the idea that bad things are really good in ways we don't understand. The biggest problem with this idea isn't that it is easily refuted, but that it undermines the Christian god even more thoroughly than the argument from evil does.
The issue is that most of us have a very good idea of what we mean by "good," despite the difficulties in defining it. Keller's argument requires giving up that idea. To assert that everything god does, and everything that god allows to happen, is good is to assert that genocide is good, that the annual death of hundreds of thousands of children and pregnant women from malaria is good, that Halliburton is good, that Bieber Fever is good, ad infinitum. You are forced to admit that you believe that these things are good from a universal perspective, even when you can't see how they can possibly be good (which is exactly what Keller asserts*). This is a direct claim that you have no way of knowing what is good, by which you could judge god's actions.
If that is true, then how can you know, assert, or even slightly suspect, that god is good?
You can't.
Of course Christians believe that god is good anyway. This depends on doublethink. Regardless of the above admission, they really do have an idea of what they think is good. When they refer to beneficial events as good, they know exactly what they mean by "good". When Christian apologists refer to god inflicting slaughter, misery, destruction, and destitution as good in some mysterious way that only god understands, they are asserting that god isn't good in the sense in which they know and use the word "good," but only in some other, inaccessible sense that no human could ever use to communicate about goodness.
This usage boils down to: "God and his actions have a property that is a homonym of 'good,' but is not anything like what you and I mean by 'good'."
This is no defense at all against the argument that god isn't good. It is merely an attempt to dodge the argument altogether by pretending that we don't mean anything by the word "good".
* Keller's examples include nonfatal diseases, and life-altering losses that lead to positive changes in perspective. He understandably shies away from less defensible topics such as war and infant mortality: He knows he would lose his readers if he tried to justify these as good, even if only to god.
The statement, "His actions aren't good in a way that we understand, but are good in a way that makes sense from his perspective" can be aptly applied to a psychopathic serial killer. This is not coincidence.
The statement, "He does terrible things to me, but it's for my own good" is a symptom of an extremely abusive relationship. This is also not coincidence. If you find yourself saying things like this, about a person or about a god, you need to get out of that relationship and get away as fast as possible.
On the "God is good anyway" topic, my book club friend points out that Keller is now taking the opposite stance from the one he presented in chapter 1, regarding the "blind men and the elephant" metaphor. He had basically said, "You can't call Christianity one of the blind men, with limited access to truth, unless you claim to see the whole elephant -- to know the whole truth." Here, he says (to paraphrase), "You only see evil as evil because you are one of the blind men, who cannot see the whole elephant. But from a position of seeing the whole truth, you would know that evil is good." Keller is occupying the position which he already forbade the rest of us. This resonates with my suspicion that a Christian who asserts, "God is good, and you cannot judge him as evil," really means, "You can't know God; only I can know God."
p. 26. Keller claims that the existence of evil is more problematic for atheists than for theists. His summary of an argument by C.S. Lewis goes thusly: "People, we believe, ought not to suffer, be excluded, die of hunger or oppression. But the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction, and violence of the strong against the weak -- these things are all perfectly natural. On what basis, then, does the atheist judge the natural world to be horribly wrong, unfair, and unjust?" (His emphasis.)
Let's get this straight: The world is brutal and unjust, so atheists shouldn't have a sense of justice, so they shouldn't call the world brutal and unjust. I fear that if I bother to refute this, the implication that it was needed at all would be an insult to my readers. But in the interest of completeness, let me briefly suggest that, sometime in the last twelve thousand years, some humans have managed to develop senses of morality and justice, which were not among the senses that nature originally gave our species.
As an aside, Keller is working from a common misconception about the works of Charles Darwin. Even in his seminal work On the Origin of Species, Darwin wrote much more commonly about the love and cooperation he observed among animals than about violence and survival of the fittest.
pp. 27-31. Keller goes to great lengths to argue that Jesus suffered tremendously more than anybody else ever has, in order to demonstrate that god totally gets our suffering, which in turn lets him off the hook for all the suffering he has caused.
This is absurd enough that it does not need me to refute it. (My book club friend also points out that belief in Jesus is required for this argument, making it unsuited for convincing non-Christians.)
pp. 31-34. Keller argues that the Christian heaven is not an immaterial paradise, but is a future in which all past wrongs will be set right. The undoing of our past sorrows, he says, will make that future sweeter than it would have been had they never occurred.
There is no reason to believe this, aside from wishful thinking. There is no evidence for it at all. He backs it up only by putting his own spin on a few selected bible quotes: A technique that one can use to support any assertion at all. This certainly has no force to appeal to nonbelievers.
Only some Christians hold this view of heaven. (Thanks to my book club friend for pointing that out.) Even given acceptance of this future-heaven, Keller's reasoning only applies to those people who get into the "new kingdom," thus leaving out sinners, non-believers, believers in the wrong god, believers in the wrong version of the right god, and your family pet. None of the evil done to these people gets undone in this view of Heaven; god retains his moral culpability even in Keller's wishful scenario.
p. 34. "Dostoevsky put it perfectly when he wrote: 'I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage...'"
How convenient to have the authority of such a great thinker as Dostoevsky to back you up! Oh, but Keller neglects to mention that these are the words of Dostoevsky's fictional character Ivan, not Dostoevsky speaking for himself.
Keller does throw in a disclaimer, hidden in a footnote on page 251: "I think it should be stated that Dostoevsky does not say it will be possible to justify the evil itself. Evil may be used by God to bring about even greater good than if it had not occurred, but it nonetheless remains evil, and therefore inexcusable and unjustifiable in itself."
Then why cite Dostoevsky to justify god's evil acts? Does Keller trust his reader to check neither footnotes nor sources? (Actually, that sounds quite likely.)
Next week: Restrictions on intellectual freedom.
The whole series.
