Maverick Philosopher

Abraham, Isaac, and Trumping 'From Above': A Partial Retraction

I say on my Welcome page:

I write about what interests me whether I am expert in it or not.  Some find this unseemly; I do not. I oppose hyper-professionalization and excessive specialization.  Every once in a while I post something that is mistaken, someone corrects me, and I learn something.  I admit mistakes if mistakes they be.

Time to admit a mistake.  Johannes Argentus comments and I respond (in blue):

Dear Dr. Vallicella,

 

You wrote in your June 01 post:

 

"To get a feel for how there might (epistemic use of 'might') be a trumping or suspension of the moral/ethical, consider the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac. This is an example of what could be called 'trumping from above.'   On Dylan's telling, God said to Abraham: "Kill me a son!"  But Isaac was innocent and in killing him Abraham would be violating God's own Fifth Commandment. Had Abraham slaughtered his son he could not have justified it in terms of the moral code of the Decalogue; nor can I imagine any consequentialist line of moral reasoning that could have justified it; but he could have justified it non-morally by saying that God commanded him to sacrifice his son and that he was obeying the divine command.  If God is absolutely sovereign, then he is sovereign over the moral code as the source  of its existence, its content and its obligatoriness. He is outside of it, not subject to it; it is rather subject to him and his omnipotent will.  We are in the vicinity of something like Kierkegaard's "teleological suspension of the ethical" as conveyed in Fear and Trembling."

 

The key factor for a correct understanding of God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac is the timing of the event with relation to God’s gradual revelation, and with relation to human reason’s gradual illumination and liberation, by God’s word, from the darkness into which it had fallen since the time of original sin.

According to the timing of the event with relation to God’s gradual revelation, there was no problem in God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son because it was centuries before He decreed the prohibition of human sacrifices in the Law given through Moses (Deut 18:10). Thus the command did not contradict any positive divine law known by Abraham.

 

BV:  Excellent criticism.  I mistakenly ignored the proper sequence of Biblical events.  Contrary to what I suggested, God was not putting Abraham in a situation where he  had a non-moral reason to override a known divine absolute moral command. Nevertheless, in commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac God was commanding an absolutely immoral act. The act-type -- slaughtering an innocent human being -- was no less ojectively immoral for being unknown to Abraham.

And according to the timing of the event with relation to human reason’s gradual liberation from darkness, there was no problem either because that process was just starting, and Abraham lived within a culture in which it was a common practice to sacrifice the firstborn son to the personal or local god. Thus the command did not contradict the clouded knowledge that Abraham had of natural law.

The command, then, was not a case of 'trumping from above' a rationally discovered or divinely revealed moral commandment, because Abraham was not aware of any such commandment forbidding the sacrifice of his firstborn, which in his cultural environment was a fairly common practice.

 

BV:  Argentus is right.

 

Neither does the command necessarily show that God is arbitrarily sovereign over the moral code, which would be the case only if the event had taken place after the revelation of the Decalogue. Rather, the event is wholly dependent on Abraham's (and his contemporaries') state of ignorance regarding moral law and more broadly the meaning of life, which required the establishment of the only base on which the whole edifice could be built: absolute trust and obedience to Absolute Being.

Thus, the pedagogical and "that-time-only" nature of the event is fully consistent with the notion that moral law is inherent to human nature and therefore fully determined once human nature is, so that the acts forbidden by the Ten Commandments are not morally bad because they are forbidden, but rather they are forbidden because they are bad, because they are against human nature. Thus, God is absolutely sovereign to design human nature (except of course for logical contradictions), but once designed, He cannot contradict the moral law inherent in that nature because He cannot contradict Himself. Moral design is already in the ontological design.

 

BV:  Whatever the solution to the Euthyphro Dilemma, it remains the case that God commanded Abraham to do something objectively immoral, even if Abraham did not know it was immoral or believed it was not immoral.

Related articles

Sam Harris on the Very Idea of Divine Revelation

Pope Francis' Attempt to Put a Christian Face on Islam

Could I Pass an Ideological Turing Test?

Nietzsche and the New Atheists

The Ten Commandments as Survival Manual

Animal Sacrifice

I recently presented an alternative to the conceit shared by both atheists and immature religionists that religion is static, a closed system of doctrines and practices insusceptible of development and correction and refinement. The following is a bit of evidence for the alternative.

The ancients sacrificed animals outside them on the altar of divine worship.  Progress was made when more spiritually advanced individuals realized that it is the animal in them that needs sacrificing. Slaughtering a prized animal such as a lamb and offering it up is crude and external and superstitious.  What needs to be offered up is our base nature which is grounded in our animality but is a perversion of it.

But what if God commands Abraham to sacrifice that animal outside him that is is own son Isaac?  Abraham should conclude that it cannot be God who is so commanding him.  I argue this out in detail in Abraham, Isaac, and an Aspect of the Problem of Revelation and in Kant on Abraham and Isaac.

Addendum (1/7/13):  S.N. was reminded of this quotation fromPorphyry, De Abstinentia II, 61:

θεοῖς δὲ ἀρίστη μὲν καταρχή· νοῦς καθαρὸς καὶ ψυχὴ ἀπαθής

The best offering to the gods indeed is this: a pure mind and a soul free from passions.

That is my meaning exactly.

 

Related articles

Mature Religion is Open-Ended Too: More Quest Than Conclusions

James Rachels’ Argument from Moral Autonomy Against the Existence of God*

A guest post by Peter Lupu.  Minor edits and a comment (in blue) by BV.

In an intriguing paper “God and Moral Autonomy”, James Rachels offers what he calls “The Moral Autonomy Argument” against the existence of God. The argument is based on a certain analysis of the concept of worship and its alleged incompatibility with moral autonomy (pp. 9-10; all references are to the Web version). I will first present Rachels’ argument verbatim. Next I will point out that in order for the argument to be valid, additional premises are required. I will then supply the additional premises and recast the argument accordingly in a manner consistent with what I take to be Rachels’ original intent. While the resulting argument is valid, I will argue that it is not sound. Despite its deficiency, however, Rachels’ argument points towards something important. In the final section I will try to flesh out this important element.

Rachels’ Argument Verbatim (p. 10):

“1. If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship.

2. No being could possibly be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one’s role as an autonomous moral agent.

3. Therefore, there cannot be any being who is God.”

Obviously, this argument is not valid. While the two premises have the form of if-then conditionals, the conclusion is not a conditional statement. There is no way of deriving an unconditional statement from conditional premises alone. Clearly, some additional premises are required. Let me now recast the argument in a valid form. I shall take the liberty to reword some of the premises so that their logical form is more apparent.

(A) First Modified Argument from Moral Autonomy:

1*) Necessarily, if God exists, then God is a fitting object of worship;

2*) If worship requires abandoning autonomous moral agency, then it is not the case that God is a fitting object of worship;  

3*) Worship requires abandoning autonomous moral agency.

Therefore,

4*) God does not exist.

Argument (A) is valid. The question is whether it is sound. Rachels maintains that premise (1*) is something like a logical truth. He says: “That God is not to be judged, challenged, defied, or disobeyed is at bottom a truth of logic. To do any of these things is incompatible with taking him as one to be worshiped.” (p. 8). So we are asked to assume that the very concept of God includes the concept of being worthy or fitting of worship, in the sense that being worthy or fitting of worship logically excludes one from being able to judge, challenge, defy, or disobey God. Let us grant this claim for now.

Rachels further claims that premise (3*) is supported by “a long tradition in moral philosophy, from Plato to Kant,…” (p. 9). Such support would go something like this. Worshiping any being worthy of worship requires the worshiper to recognize such a being as having absolute authority. Absolute authority in turn entails an “unqualified claim of obedience.” (p.9). But, no human being, qua autonomous moral agent, can recognize an “unqualified claim of obedience”. Hence, no human being qua autonomous moral agent can recognize any such absolute authority. Therefore, human beings cannot worship God without abandoning their autonomous moral agency.

What about premise (2*)? I think premise (2*) is false. And this fact reveals the underlying problem with Rachels’ argument. For suppose that the antecedent of premise (2*) is true. Does it follow from this fact alone that God is not a fitting object for worship? No such thing follows, for it may still be true that God is a fitting object of worship by creatures that are not autonomous moral agents. Or to put the matter somewhat more precisely: even if we suppose that worship requires abandoning autonomous moral agency, what follows from this assumption is that God is not a fitting object of worship by a being, qua autonomous moral agent. Of course, God may still be a fitting object of worship by a being as long as that being abandons their autonomy while worshiping.

If this is correct, then premise (2*) is false and, therefore, argument (A) is not sound. Clearly, we need to modify Rachels’ argument once again:

(B) Second Modified Argument from Moral Autonomy:

(1**) Necessarily, if God exists, then God is a fitting object of worship by autonomous moral agents;

(2**) If worship requires abandoning autonomous moral agency, then it is not the case that God is a fitting object of worship by autonomous moral agents;           

(3**) Worship requires abandoning autonomous moral agency;

Therefore,

(4**) God does not exist.

Argument (B) is also valid. Is it sound? I believe that a theist may legitimately reject premise (1**). Remember that the necessity in the first premise of each of the above versions of the argument is intended by Rachels to express the claim that the very concept of God logically entails the concept of being worthy of worship, where being worthy (or fitting) of worship logically excludes judging, challenging, defying, or disobeying God. But, clearly, an activity that logically rules out judging, challenging, defying or disobeying another being is an activity that logically requires abandoning the exercise of autonomous moral agency. And a theist may quite legitimately object to such a conception of God. In particular, a theist may consistently maintain that the exercise of worshiping God is not logically inconsistent with judging, challenging, defying, or even disobeying God. And if worshiping is not logically inconsistent with any of these activities, then worshiping is not logically inconsistent with maintaining one’s autonomous moral agency. Therefore, a theist can legitimately reject premise (1**). Therefore, the argument cannot be sound.

Comment by BV:  It is not clear why the theist could not reject (3**).  Why does worship require the abandonment of autonomous moral agency? Granted, if x is God, then God has absolute authority, which includes the right to command and the right to be obeyed.  But equally, if if x is indeed God, then God will not command anything immoral; he will not command anything  that would not coincide with what we would impose on ourselves if we are acting autonomously.  Contrapositively, if x commands anything which is by our moral lights immoral, such as the slaughtering of one's innocent son, then x is not God.

Rachels attempts to meet this objection as follows: "Thus our own judgment that some actions are right and others wrong is logically prior to our recognition of any being as God. The upshot is that we cannot justify the suspension of our own judgment on the grounds that we are deferring to God's command; for if, by our own best judgment, the command is wrong, this gives us good reason to withhold the title "God" from the commander."  True, but why should we think that obeying God ever involves suspending our own judgment?  Rachels is assuming that there are circumstances in which there is a discrepancy between what God commands and what the creature knows is right.  But it is open to the theist to deny that there are ever any such circumstances.  In the case of Abraham and Isaac, the theist can say that what Abraham thought was a divine command did not come from God at all.  Of course, the Bible portrays the command as coming from God, but the theist is under no obligation to take at face value everything that is in the Bible. 

Kant, who was a theist, famously remarked that two things filled him with wonder: "the starry skies above me, and the moral law within me."  Now the moral law stands above me as a sensible (phenomenal) being subject to inclinations.  It is in one sense outside me as commanding my respect and my submission to its dictates.  In respecting the universal moral law do I abandon my autonomy?  Not at all.  I am truly autonomous only in fulfilling the moral law.  So the theist could say that God and the moral law are one, and that worshipping God is like respecting the moral law.  Just as it is no injury to my autonomy that the moral law imposes restrictions on my behavior, it is no injury to my autonomy that God issues commands.  We needn't follow Rachels in assuming that there is a discrepancy between what God commands and what by our lights (when they are 'shining properly') it is right to do.

If God is a tyrant for whom might makes right, then I grant that worship and autonomy are incompatible.  But if the object of worship is a concrete embodiment of the moral law that is in me, the following of which constitutes my autonomy, then worship and autonomy are not incompatible.

            I wish now to propose an argument, similar to Rachels, but without the objectionable assumptions accompanying the first premise of Rachels’ argument. Let us stipulate that the term ‘God!’ expresses the concept of a being that is just like the theistic concept of God, except that the following is true of this being:

(!) God! is worthy or fitting of submission; where fitting of submission logically excludes judging, challenging, defying, or disobeying God!.

With the help of (!) I shall now restate Rachels’ argument and prove that God! does not exist, provided autonomous moral agents exist. The argument assumes that at least some autonomous moral agents exist.

(C) Third Modified Argument from Moral Autonomy.

(1!) Necessarily, if God! exists, then God! is a fitting object of submission by autonomous moral agents;

(2!) If submission requires abandoning autonomous moral agency, then it is not the case that God! is a fitting object of submission by autonomous moral agents; 

(3!) Submission requires abandoning autonomous moral agency;

Therefore,

(4!) God! does not exist.

Argument (C) is valid. Is it sound? I think it is. I think that every one of the premises is true and I am willing to defend this claim. Premise (1!) is true by stipulation. Premise (3!) is also true. For submission requires recognizing the absolute authority of another and doing so is not possible while retaining ones autonomy. What about premise (2!)? Premise (2!) might initially appear somewhat strange. But premise (2!) simply states the consequences of our stipulation regarding the concept of God!, when this concept is applied to the requirement that autonomous agents must submit to a being such as God!. I think that given the stipulation expressed by (!), premise (2!) is true. Hence, it is true that God! does not exist.

A theist of course would be correct to vehemently deny that the concept of God! as stipulated is identical to the concept of God in his sense: i.e., that his concept of God includes (!). And it follows, then, that such a theist must also deny that worship is the same as submission. In particular, such a theist must deny that his God requires submission from autonomous agents. But, then, such a theist must cease to include in the concept of worship elements that belong more properly to the concept of submission.

It also follows that any religion, religious institution, or religious figure that promotes the idea that worshiping a deity requires submission to this deity presupposes that such a deity is God!. But since a being such as God! cannot exist alongside with autonomous moral agents that are required to submit to such a deity, it follows that anyone who promotes such things is promoting the existence of false gods.  

  

* I thank Mark Vuletic for bringing to my attention the paper by James Rachels “God and Moral Autonomy”. The paper is available on the Secular Web at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_rachels/autonomy.html. Rachel’s paper anticipates some of the things I say about submission in my essay “Why I am a Quasi-Atheist” by about thirteen years.

The God of Philosophy and the God of Religion

Steven Nemes by e-mail:

 

In posts of months past you claimed there was no distinction between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; they're the same thing, if God can be called a thing at all; you asked for an argument that they were [not the same], if I am not mistaken. Here is my attempt to satisfy that request.

 

The God of the philosophers is immutable, as a result of his simplicity; this implies that he cannot be affected and respond to the goings on of the natural order, including us. Whatever happens in the natural order, God is [not] changed or affected in response to it. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, however, does seem to be so affected, on any reasonable reading of the relevant religious texts: in Christianity, he enters into the world to provide a means of salvation from sin, which presupposes his consciousness of sin freely committed by created agents; in Judaism, I would guess, he talks to and responds to the prayers of prophets and great leaders, destroys civilizations because of their sins (which again is an instance of responding to occurrences in the natural order), etc. I won't talk about Islam because I don't know enough. 

 

In short: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob seems to be affected in various ways and acts in response to goings-on in the natural order, whereas the God of the philosophers, by his very nature as immutable, cannot be so affected. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob offers a way of salvation because of human sin, and promises judgment in the future for those who don't repent; the God of the philosophers, on the other hand, cannot be said to do anything in response to what goes on in the natural order.

 

[. . .]

 

Your argument is this:

 

1. The God of the philosophers is ontologically simple, and therefore immutable: he cannot change, and so cannot be affected by anything that occurs in the created realm.

2. The God of the monotheistic religions is not immutable: he affects and is affected by goings-on in the created realm.

3. If there is a property P such that x has P but y does not, then x is not identical to y. (Contrapositive of the Indiscernibility of Identicals)

Therefore

4. The God of the philosophers is not identical to the God of the monotheistic religions.

 

The argument is valid (correct in point of logical form) if 'God of the philosophers' means 'God as conceived by the philosophers' and 'God of the montheistic religions' means 'God as conceived within the monotheistic religions.'  And I do think that is what you mean by the phrases in question. (Correct me if I am wrong.) 

 

But whether or not the argument is valid, it is not probative because the first  premise is false and the second is dubious.

 

Ad (1).  Only some philosophers hold that God is ontologically simple; Alvin Plantinga is a prominent contemporary theist who does not.  One cannot therefore build ontological simplicity into the definition of 'God of the philosophers.'  As for immutability, some philosophers think of God as mutable, Charles Hartshorne, for example.  So one cannot pack immutability into the definition either.  And similarly for other attributes.  For some, there are broadly logical limits on divine power, for others there are no limits on divine power. There are different views about the omni-attributes.  There are different views about the divine modal status.  There are different views about how the causa prima is related to the realm of secondary causes, etc.

 

The point is that 'God of the philosophers' does not pick out some one definite conception of God.  There are many philosophical conceptions of God even within monotheism.  There is no God of the philosophers if the phrase means 'God as conceived by the philosophers.'  Premise (1) therefore rests on a false presupposition.

 

I read 'God of the philosophers' differently.  What the phrase refers to is an approach to the divine reality, the approach by way of discursive reason applied to the data of experience, the approach exemplified by Aquinas in the Five Ways, for instance.  Or the approach exemplified by Descartes in the theistic arguments of his Meditations on First Philosophy.  The God of the philosophers, then, is God approached by way of discursive reason.  It is essential to realize that what Aquinas, Descartes, and others were groping towards using their unaided discursive intellects was not a concept, an idea, an ens rationis, or anything merely immanent to their own thinking. It was nothing merely excogitated, or projected, or abtract, or merely immanent to their minds.  It was, instead, the real concrete God, transcendent of the mind and independent of all modes of approach thereto.

 

To think otherwise is to commit the mistake I expose in Pascal and Buber on the God of the Philosophers.

 

My claim is that what the philosopher seeks to know by discursive reason is the same as what the mystic seeks to know by direct, albeit nonsensible, experience, and is the same as what the religionist seeks to contact by way of belief on the basis of revelation.  They approach one and the same God, but in three different ways.  To employ a crude analogy: if there are three routes up K2, it does not follow  that there are three summits.  There is and can be only one summit.  Similarly, there is an can be only one God.  Reason, mystical intuition, and faith are three routes to the same 'summit.'

 

Ad (2).  It is certainly true that God is portrayed in many passages of the Bible as changing and thus as changeable.  But it doesn't follow straightaway that the God of religion is changeable.  For perhaps those passages can be taken in a merely figurative way and interpreted so as to be consistent with God's immutability.  Just as one must distinguish between philosophical conceptions of God and God, one must distinguish between Biblical portrayals of God and God.  The God of religion is God as approached via faith in revelation; but what exactly the content of revelation is is something to be worked out by hard theological work.  The Bible does not supply its own theology.  One cannot simply read it and know what it means.  One has toreason about what one reads.  But that is not to say that theology is philosophy.  Theology accepts revelation as data; philosophy does not.

 

Consider Genesis 3, 8:  "And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden."  Obviously, this passage cannot be taken literally, for if so taken, one would have to say that God, a purely spiritual being, has feet.  But if he was walking around on his feet, was he shod or not?  And what was his shoe size?  Were his toenails properly trimmed?  How many corns and calluses did he have, if any?  There must be answers to these questions and a thousand more  if God was literally walking through the garden and making noise as he did so.  And furthermore, he had to have physical eyes if Adam and Eve though they could hide from him behind trees.

 

Since we know that a purely spiritual being cannot have feet, and since we know that only a purely spiritual being could be the cause of the existence of the physical universe, we know that the passage in question cannot be taken literally.  So what exactly the content of revelation is in Genesis and elsewhere is not easy to discern.  But we can be sure that any portrayals of God that imply that he has physical attributes must be taken figuratively so as not to conflict with God's spiritual nature.  It may well be, though I am not prepared to argue it in detail, that portrayals of God as mutable must also be taken figuratively.  So I find your second premise doubtful.

 

So I persist in my view that the 'distinction' between the God of the philosophers and the God of the religionists is entirely bogus.  In fact my view strikes me as self-evident if one construes the relevant phrases in my way.  The God of the philosophers is the divine reality, if there is one, which is approached by discursive reason applied to the data of experience, with no use being made of the putative date of revelation.  The God of the religionists is the divine reality, if there is one, that is approached via faith on the basis of revelation.  Clearly, there can be only one divine reality.  For if there were two, neither would be divine given that only an absolute reality can be divine and given that the divine is that than which no greater can be conceived.  Since there can be only one divine reality, the God of the philosophers and the God of the religionists is the same.

And Yet Again on the God of the Philosophers: A Summing Up

This topic is generating some interest.  I 've gotten a good bit of e-mail on it.   Herewith, a summing-up by way of commentary on an e-mail I received.  Joshua Orsak writes:

I wanted to email you to tell you how once again you have elevated the medium of the Internet blog with your recent threads on "The God of the Philosophers" and "The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob". As a minister, a person interested in  mystical experience, AND with a keen interest and even passion for philosophy, I have always found myself perplexed why we have to bifurcate our heart-based and mind-based encounter with the world like that. Personally, I've always thought of philosophy (of religion) and religion as encountering the same Divine reality in different ways. In philosophy we study God as an object, in religion we encounter Him as a subject.

Robert Oakes Weighs in on the God of the Philosophers

I got a phone call from philosopher of religion Robert Oakes yesterday.  In the course of a lengthy chat, I mentioned my recent post on Pascal and Buber and asked him what he thought of it.  Today I received the following from him by e-mail:

Very good to talk with you.  Short comment on that El Stupido notion of Buber-Pascal. The idea, presumably, is that the God of  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob  is a proper object of worship, while the God of the Philosophers is  a bloodless abstraction. But, of course, God (for the philosophical  theist) is that than which a greater is metaphysically impossible. So: is a being Who is worthy of worship greater (ceteris paribus) than one who is not? Of course. End of issue, No?

An admirable instance of  pithiness.  Bob's argument could be extended as follows.  A quintessentially philosophical definition of 'God' is the one that derives from Anselm of Canterbury:  God is that than which no greater can be conceived.  Borrowing the phrase 'great-making property' from Plantinga, we can say that God instantiates all great-making properties.  Now being worthy of worship is a great-making property. Because no concept, idea, or abstraction is worthy of worship, it follows from the philosophical definition alone, without appeal to any (putative) revelation or anything from religion, that the God of the philosophers cannot be a concept, idea, or abstraction. 

But not only that.  It also follows from the Anselmian definition that nothing short of a worship-worthy being could be God.  So a First Cause could not count as God for a philosophical theist who operates with the concept of God  in Judeo-Christian monotheism.  Within this tradition the God of philosophy is not different from the God of  religion.  It is the same God, but approached via discursive reason rather than via  faith in revelation.

 

Still More on the God of the Philosophers Versus the God of Abraham, et al.

Ken e-mails and I respond in blue:

I turn on my computer and check out the Maverick Philosopher and suddenly half of my day is shot. First I have to look up the word 'pellucidity' and then I am stuck trying to figure out why your claim about the phrases 'God-P' and 'God-R' does not seem right to me.

It sounds like I'm doing something right!  You can look up a word without getting out of your chair.  Here's a tip that you may already be aware of:  type 'define: pellucidity' (without the inverted commas) into the Google search box and you will get a page of definitions, some of them from reputable sources.  (I don't consider Wikipedia a particularly reputable source.) Needless to say, this works for almost any word inserted after the colon and not just for 'pellucidity'!

I agree that the sentence [from Martin Buber], "What the philosophers describe by the name of God cannot be more than an idea," is false but to state that that 'God-P' and 'God-R' have the same referent, if they have a referent, seems false to me as it carries an assumption of the monotheism of the 'God-R' that may not be present in 'God-P.' The idea that there is and can only be one God is one that does not have to be accepted in 'God-P' and I do not believe that it would be possible, except by defining 'God-P' ='God-R', for 'God-P' and 'God-R' to always have the same referent. Maybe you can point out where I am wrong and what I missed.

Well, every discussion occurs within a context, a context  which cannot be ignored or set aside, since the very meaning of the terms of the debate is influenced by the context.  The present immediate context is Pascal's exclamation, "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob -- not of the philosophers and scholars"  and Buber's comment thereon.  The Pascalian exclamation and the Buberian comment themselves fit  into a wider context, Judeo-Christian monotheism.  The question before us  is whether, within this Judeo-Christian monotheistic context, there is any merit to the notion that what philosophers qua philosophers talk about and argue for and against is numerically different from what religionists qua religionists talk about and try to relate themselves to. My answer is plain from my earlier posts: this notion has no merit whatsoever.

Your suggestion seems to be that the God(s) of the philosophers needn't be one, but could be many, even if the God of the religionists must be one.  My answer to you is very simple:  in the precise context I have specified, namely, the context of Judeo-Christian monotheism, both the God of the philosophers and the God of the religionists is one.  Polytheism is simply not a Jamesian live option within this tradition and certainly  was not for Pascal and Buber whose utterances provide the immediate context of my remarks.

Of course, there is nothing to stop you or anyone from shifting the context.  Philosophers are free to make a case for polytheism if they care to.   Within the community of polytheists, the question could arise whether the gods of the philosophers (the gods the polytheistic philosophers argue for) are the same as the gods of the religionists (the gods the polytheistic religionists invoke in prayer, etc.)  But that question is not my question.

Note that I am not merely stipulating that 'God-R' and 'God-P' have the same reference.  That would be arbitrary and unmotivated.  What I am doing is unpacking the concept of God what we already have and work with in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  My point is that within this tradition, pace Pascal and Buber and many others, it makes no sense to imagine that what the philosophers are talking about when they talk about God is numerically different from what the religionists talk about when they talk about God.

Finally, none of my discussion presupposes the existence of God.  As I said, I am unpacking the concept of God, and this concept is what it is whether or not it is instantiated.

More on the God of the Philosophers

Spencer Case, 'on the ground' in Afghanistan, e-mails:

Your recent post discussing the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham and Isaac caught my interest. Having grown up in a religious home, I have always been of the opinion that arguments for theism argue for something different than what believers take themselves to believe in. After all, how many religious people take themselves to be praying to an unmoved mover or a-being-greater-than-which-cannot-be-conceived? For this reason, I have not felt that my atheism could be threatened by any of the arguments for theism, even if they turn out to be successful because they argue not for God but for God*.

No doubt it could be true that you could make an identification between the God of the philosophers and the God of the believers if you have established the existence of both. My point is none of the arguments for the existence of God even try to argue for the God of the believers.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Well, Spencer, it looks as if my earlier post, despite its pellucidity and penetration, made no impression on you.

Let's use 'God-P' to mean 'God of the philosophers' and 'God-R' to mean 'God of the religionists.'  Now my claim is that the two phrases, though the differ in sense, have the same referent, if they have a referent.  Thus I do not assume that they in fact have a common referent; my claim is that, if they have a referent, then they have a common referent.  You are undoubtedly familiar with Frege's distinction between Sinn and Bedeutung.  To use his old example, 'morning star' and 'evening star' have the same referent despite their difference in sense and in mode of presentation (Darstellungsweise).    One and the same celestial body -- the planet Venus -- is presented in two different ways.  Now in this case we know that the terms 'morning star' and 'evening star' have a common referent whereas in the God case we do not know this.  So my claim is merely that 'God-P' and 'God-R' refer to one and the same entity if they refer to anything.

It may help to distinguish between REFERENCE and REFERENT.  'Meinong's favorite impossible object' and 'the round square' both lack a referent; but they have the same REFERENCE despite their manifest difference in sense.

Therefore, I reject your assertion that one needs to establish the existence of a common referent of 'God-P' and 'God-R' as a condition of establishing that they refer to the same thing if they refer at all. 

Your main argument seems to be as follows:

1.  The philosophical arguments for God are arguments for the existence of God-P, not of God-R.

2.  Religious people qua religious people do not believe in or affirm the existence of God-P, but of God-R. (E.g. religious people who think about God or address God in prayer are not relating to an unmoved mover.)

3.  Atheism is the denial of the existence of God-R.  Therefore:

4.  The philosophical God arguments, even if sound, have no tendency to show that atheism is false.

A very interesting argument!  I reject the argument  by rejecting the assumption on which it is based, namely, that God-P is not identical to God-R.  To the contrary, I claim that they are the same God, albeit approached in different ways.  The philosopher qua philosopher approaches God via discursive reason unassisted by scriptural or other revelation, whereas the religionist approaches God via faith and revelation.  Now it may be (it is epistemically possible that) there is no God; but that does not alter the fact that the REFERENCE of the God-talk of philosophers and that of religionists is the same.

Think about it:  when Aquinas was working out his Five Ways, was he trying to establish the existence of a mere concept or abstract idea?  How could a mere concept create heaven and earth?  Was he trying to prove the existence of something numerically different from the God of the Bible?  Of course not.  Aquinas was a philosopher, a religionist, and a mystic.  It was the same God he was aiming at (and from his point of view, contacting) in his philosophical reasoning, his prayerful devotions, and his mystical experiences.

People get confused by the phrases 'God of the philosophers' and 'God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.'  They think that because the phrases are different, and their senses also, that the phrases cannot have the same reference.  But the reference is the same even if there in is no God.  For the concept of God we are operating with is the concept of a being that satisfies both narrowly philosophical and narrowly religious exigencies.  And this is so whether or not the concept is instantiated.  The philosopher qua  philosopher wants an explanation of the existence and intelligibility of contingent beings and finds his explanation in God, who is the real-ground of existence and intelligibility.  The religionist qua religionist has a soteriological interest: he seeks a solution to our awful predicament in this life, and finds his solution is a relationship with a personal Being.  Now what needs to be understood is that that real-ground and this personal Being are the same.

Or do you think that God can't walk down the street and chew gum at the same time?

Kant on Abraham and Isaac

What I said about Abraham and Isaac yesterday is so close to Kant's view of the matter that I could be accused of repackaging Kant's ideas without attribution. When I wrote the post, though, I had forgotten the Kant passage. So let me reproduce it now. It is from The Conflict of the Faculties (1798), the last book Kant published before his death in 1804 except for his lectures on anthropology:

. . . if God should really speak to man, man could still never know that it was God speaking. It is quite impossible for man to apprehend the infinite by his senses, distinguish it from sensible beings, and recognize it as such. But in some cases man can be sure that the voice he hears is not God's; for if the voice commands him to do something contrary to the moral law, then no matter how majestic the apparition may be, and no matter how it may seem to surpass the whole of nature, he must consider it an illusion. (115)

A footnote to this paragraph reads:

We can use, as an example, the myth of the sacrifice that Abraham was going to make by butchering and burning his only son at God's command (the poor child, without knowing it, even brought the wood for the fire). Abraham should have replied to this supposedly divine voice: "That I ought not kill my good son is quite certain. But that you, this apparition, are God — of that I am not certain, and never can be, not even is [read: if] this voice rings down to me from (visible) heaven." (115)

Here is what I wrote yesterday:

Which is more certain, that I should not kill my innocent son, or that God exists, has commanded me to kill my son, and that I must obey this command? That I must not kill my innocent son is a deliverance of our ordinary moral sense. But wouldn't a command from the supreme moral authority in the universe trump a deliverance of our ordinary moral sense? Presumably it would — but only if the putative divine command were truly a divine command. How would one know that it is?

Kant's argument, put as concisely as possible, is that:

1. It is certain that one ought not kill one's innocent son.
2. It is not certain that a seemingly divine command to kill one's innocent son is truly a divine command.
Therefore
3. One ought to trust one's moral sense and not the putative divine revelation.
Therefore
4. ". . . if it [a scriptural text] contains statements that contradict practical reason, it must be interpreted in the interests of practical reason." (65)

Whether or not one accepts this argument that I am attributing to Kant — you are invited to note that I cobbled it together from disparate passages — you must, if you are rational, see that there is a problem here, one that cannot be ignored, namely, the problem of adjudicating between putative personal and Biblical revelation, on the one hand, and (practical) reason on the other. Something has to give. My judgment is that Kant is right in the passage just quoted, and that our sense of the moral law trumps any contra-moral personal revelation (e.g. a voice commanding an immoral act) and also any Bible passage that seems to endorse the acquiescence in a personal revelation that commands an immoral act.

But why not the other way around?  Why not say that the Bible passage trumps our sense of the moral law? The short answer is that our sense of the moral law has superior epistemic credentials. If we know anything about morality, we know that we ought not kill our innocent children. If we don't know that, then we don't know anything about morality. But a voice commanding one to kill an innocent child has no claim on our belief.

Infirm as reason is, it is yet a divine spark within us, an element in the imago Dei.  Insofar forth, it is inviolable.

 

Abraham, Isaac, and an Aspect of the Problem of Revelation

God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."

Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Which is more certain, that I should not kill my innocent son, or that God exists, has commanded me to kill my son, and that I must obey this command? That I must not kill my innocent son is a deliverance of our ordinary moral sense. But wouldn't a command from the supreme moral authority in the universe trump a deliverance of our ordinary moral sense? Presumably it would — but only if the putative divine command were truly a divine command. How would one know that it is?