Philosophy of Religion
Philosophers of religion often speak as though they are concerned with determining whether God exists. But I think this is a misleading way for them to speak. Why? Well, consider the following scenario:
One day, when on a mountain, Moses heard a voice. This voice told him certain things, and Moses was convinced that it was the voice of an all-powerful creator. But it turns out that Moses was wrong about who was talking to him. It was not an all-powerful creator, but a local teenager playing a practical joke. Still, Moses introduced a name to refer to the being who was speaking to him.
Suppose that we found out (through historical research and other means) that this scenario actually occurred. And suppose also that we found out that our use of "God" traces back to Moses' use of the name he introduced to refer to the being who was speaking to him. It seems to me that if we found this out, we would have found out that when we use the word "God", we are referring to that teenager who played a practical joke on Moses. And so we would have found out that God exists, since that teenager surely exists (or, at least existed). However, it seems to me that even if we found this out, the question that philosophers of religion characterized as the question of whether God exists would not be answered. So, the question that philosophers of religion have characterized in that way is not the question of whether God exists, since we would surely have answered that question if we found out that the scenario presented above actually occurred.
What, then, is the question that philosophers of religion are asking, the question that they have mischaracterized as the question of whether God exists? I take it that the question that they are asking concerns whether there is a being of a particular sort. For instance, perhaps it is the question of whether there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being. Thus, what philosophers of religion are doing is asking a purely descriptive ontological question.
It is important to note that the characterization of what I take to be the central question of the philosophy of religion has interesting consequences. For instance, it suggests that even if we answer the question of whether there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being in the negative (perhaps because of worries involving the problem of evil), there are still many questions for a philosopher of religion to address. For instance, the philosopher of religion may still wonder about the following questions:
Is there a very powerful (but not omnipotent), very knowledgeable (but not omniscient), and very good (but not omnibenevolent) being?
Is there some necessarily existent concrete being on which the contingent things depend?
Is there a being who desired there to be life, who knew that there could be no life unless the physical constants were within a certain range, and who had the ability to make the physical constants be in the range that allowed for life?
And so forth. The point being that even if a philosopher of religion grants that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being, there is still work for him or her to do, still other questions for him or her to evaluate the evidence concerning. It may be, at the end, that the evidence will support (to some degree or other) an affirmative answer to some of these questions. And for others of these questions, it may be that the evidence supports neither an affirmative answer nor a negative answer, so that we ought, rationally, to be agnostic. And then, after having considering all of these questions and asking answers to them our evidence supports, it will be up to the philosopher of religion to investigate the religious significance of the answers he or she has provided.
One day, when on a mountain, Moses heard a voice. This voice told him certain things, and Moses was convinced that it was the voice of an all-powerful creator. But it turns out that Moses was wrong about who was talking to him. It was not an all-powerful creator, but a local teenager playing a practical joke. Still, Moses introduced a name to refer to the being who was speaking to him.
Suppose that we found out (through historical research and other means) that this scenario actually occurred. And suppose also that we found out that our use of "God" traces back to Moses' use of the name he introduced to refer to the being who was speaking to him. It seems to me that if we found this out, we would have found out that when we use the word "God", we are referring to that teenager who played a practical joke on Moses. And so we would have found out that God exists, since that teenager surely exists (or, at least existed). However, it seems to me that even if we found this out, the question that philosophers of religion characterized as the question of whether God exists would not be answered. So, the question that philosophers of religion have characterized in that way is not the question of whether God exists, since we would surely have answered that question if we found out that the scenario presented above actually occurred.
What, then, is the question that philosophers of religion are asking, the question that they have mischaracterized as the question of whether God exists? I take it that the question that they are asking concerns whether there is a being of a particular sort. For instance, perhaps it is the question of whether there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being. Thus, what philosophers of religion are doing is asking a purely descriptive ontological question.
It is important to note that the characterization of what I take to be the central question of the philosophy of religion has interesting consequences. For instance, it suggests that even if we answer the question of whether there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being in the negative (perhaps because of worries involving the problem of evil), there are still many questions for a philosopher of religion to address. For instance, the philosopher of religion may still wonder about the following questions:
Is there a very powerful (but not omnipotent), very knowledgeable (but not omniscient), and very good (but not omnibenevolent) being?
Is there some necessarily existent concrete being on which the contingent things depend?
Is there a being who desired there to be life, who knew that there could be no life unless the physical constants were within a certain range, and who had the ability to make the physical constants be in the range that allowed for life?
And so forth. The point being that even if a philosopher of religion grants that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being, there is still work for him or her to do, still other questions for him or her to evaluate the evidence concerning. It may be, at the end, that the evidence will support (to some degree or other) an affirmative answer to some of these questions. And for others of these questions, it may be that the evidence supports neither an affirmative answer nor a negative answer, so that we ought, rationally, to be agnostic. And then, after having considering all of these questions and asking answers to them our evidence supports, it will be up to the philosopher of religion to investigate the religious significance of the answers he or she has provided.
posted by Greg at 12:50 PM
9 Comments:
"It seems to me that if we found this out, we would have found out that when we use the word "God", we are referring to that teenager who played a practical joke on Moses."
Do you really have that intuition, or have you just read too many causal theorists? I'd be willing to bet that most folk would not consider their term 'God' to refer to the teenager in that scenario. It's not your typical name -- closer to an abbreviated description, really. Or so it is in my idiolect, at least.
Richard,
Well, I have read a lot about the causal theory of reference. (Have I read "too many causal theorists"? That I'm not sure of. How many is too many?) And my judgments concerning the cases that motivate the causal theory of reference line up with those of its proponents. In addition, I have a similar judgment concerning this case.
As for whether or not most folk would think that the word "God" refers to the teenager in the scenario described, I don't know. I have some evidence that they would, because I presented the case to my wife, who has no philosophical training, and she too thought that the word "God" refers to the teenager in the scenario described. And even supposing that most folk would deny that "God" refers to that teenager in the scenario described, I'm not sure that they would be right. I admit that this would provide some evidence (perhaps even strong evidence) for the claim that "God" does not refer to the teenager in the situation described. However, I think that this evidence would need to be balanced against the evidence in favor of the causal theory of reference for proper names and the evidence in favor of the claim that "God" is a proper name. And I tend to think that the latter evidence is stronger than the former.
But suppose that you are right that "God" does not refer to the teenager in the situation described. And suppose, in addition, that "God" is not a proper name, but an abbreviated definite description. Perhaps it abbreviates "the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent creator of the world". I take it that this would not affect my main point, which is just that even should it turn out that the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent creator of the world does not exist, there are still interesting questions for a philosopher of religion (or at least a metaphysician) to ask. For instance: Is there a every powerful, very knowledgeable, and very good creator of the world? Is there a necessarily existing concrete being on which the contingent things depend? And so forth. And, in addition, it is an interesting question whether affirmative answers to these questions would have religious significance.
Fair enough, though I also think that a "very powerful, very knowledgeable, and very good creator of the world" would still qualify as 'God'. Perhaps something close to the traditional account of phil. religion can be saved by saying that it is concerned with whether there exists any being that deserves to be called 'God'. But this is rather loose and unilluminating, so I guess your explication would remain helpful in any case.
And I would simply point out, in addition, that there would still be other interesting questions for at least a metaphysician to ask, even should it turn out that there is nothing that deserves to be called 'God', as it were. For instance, the question I mentioned before about whether there is a necessarily existing concrete being on which the contingent things depend.
I think the definition of god generally used just needs the "very powerful" part (although that usually comes with very knowledgeable and at least worship worthy). After all the gods of Olympus and other such ancient gods were considered gods.
If someone met Aphrodite would they really say "hey you’re not a god"?
GNZ
actually... "supernaturally AND very powerful and sentient"
Anonymous,
I think that "god" is ambiguous in English between its use as a proper name (on which use it is usually capitalized and not preceded by any article, definite of indefinite: "God") and a kind term (on which use it is usually not capitalized and is preceded by an article: "is a god" or "A god..."). In my post, I am addressing the use of "God" as a proper name. So, although it may be the case that the property of being a god entails the properties of being supernatural, being very powerful, and being sentient (and, in fact, might even be analyzed as the conjunction of those properties), it is not at all clear to me that these remarks entail anything concerning God, if such there be.
OK fair enough. I guess that means there is only one.
But what if there is one god who is supernaturally powerful (more so than all humans combined, but not omnipotent), no smarter than the gods of the old times (which were sometimes not that smart), an somewhat mischevious and sometimes cruel (again as the gods of the old times).
If such a being came to earth and revealed himself to us - would we call him God? If not then on what points would we deny him that title?
I'm not entirely sure I understand your question. I take it that you are asking whether our word "God" would refer to a being who is supernaturally powerful, no smarter than the ancient Greek gods are described as being in the myth, and somewhat mischievious and cruel if such a being revealed itself to us.
In response, I say that our word "God" either refers to something or it does not. If it does not, then even if such a being revealed itself to us, our word "God" would not refer to it. (Although we might, of course, choose to change the reference of our word "God" so that it does refer to that being. But the question at issue in my post is what our word "God" in fact refers to.) If it does, then either it refers to that being or it does not. If it does not, then our word "God" does not refer to it. (Although, again, we might change the reference of the word so that it does.) And if it does, then, of course, it does.
My point in the post is that what, if anything, our word "God" refers to depends on how that word came into our language. There are two ways I can think of. Either it was introduced to something that the person who introduced it had causal contact with or it was introduced via a definite description (for instance, "the unique being who is very powerful, very knowledgeable, and very good"). (Technically speaking, there is a third option: That a distinct word was introduced in such a way and then we introduced our word "God" to refer to the same thing as that word.) The word "God", then, refers to the thing that the person had causal contact with if it was introduced in the first way and to the thing, if any, that satisfies the definite description if it was introduced in the second way. My point can be put as follows: We don't know how the word "God" was introduced into our language. Perhaps it was introduced to refer to something with which the speaker had causal contact. If so, then it might not refer to something that is very powerful, very knowledgeable, and very good (let alone something that is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnisbenevolent). However, even if we found this out that it was introduced in this way and so does not refer to a being that is very powerful, very knowledgeable, and very good, there would still be interesting questions for a philosopher of religion to ask ("Is there something that is very powerful, very knowledgeable, and very good?"). And it seems like those questions are just what philosophers of religions are actually concerned to ask. So, it is misleading for a philosopher of religion to say that he is interested in the answer to the question "Does God exist?".
Does that help to clarify things?
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