Invalid arguments don’t mean false conclusions
June 19th, 2008 by hayesy
I once talked to a guy who doesn’t believe in God because all the arguments he’s heard used to argue for God have failed.
His reasoning is:
1. Arguments x, y, and z tried to prove God.
2. Arguments x, y, and z failed to proved God.
Therefore,
3. There is no God.
Anyone else see a problem with that? Maybe they were just bad arguments! In philosophy you need to be constantly reminded that to find an argument invalid is not the same as to falsify its conclusion.
(This post was based largely on my comment on another post. If you don’t already read the comments, do. There’s some gold buried down there.)
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Comments
June 19th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Potential candidate for most boring post ever and most uninviting post title ever?
I think so.
June 19th, 2008 at 8:38 am
What he’d heard every single argument presented?
Humans are so arrogant when it comes to their logic and the ability to reason.
Heardy once said in a sermon the atheistic position makes the most profoundly arrogant claim: I have searched all that is, and I know that there is not God.
June 19th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Potential candidate for most boring post ever and most uninviting post title ever? Depends on what interests you. I like this kind of thing. If it’s boring, then so am I
Hmmmm ….
June 19th, 2008 at 10:25 am
I wrote that after spending 5 minutes trying to come up with a title which was semi-inviting and not a paragraph long…. so I was acutely aware that it wasn’t a fun&giggles post
Yeah (your first comment). I still can’t understand how an atheist can go past the point of pure agnosticism empirically. They can do so in opinion, but how they manage to justify it as knowledge is beyond me.
I’m reading Ravi Zacharias at the moment. Its very good – typically complex language makes it hard to read if someone is talking nearby – but he makes a great point: the atheist commits the blunder of absolute negation – “for, to sustain the belief that there is no God, [the atheist] has to demonstrate infinite knowledge.”
I find that quite powerful – what follows in the book is less powerful for me personally, but others might find it interesting:
“[this] is tantamount to saying “I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with infinite knowledge.”
June 20th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Hold the phone, everybody. Sorry, but the comments have brought up a really basic straw man and you’re reinforcing it amongst yourselves; I must protest.
I don’t know, nor have I ever heard of, an atheist who claims absolute knowledge that there are no gods. If anyone does, that’s unjustified. There are some people who positively believe there are no gods – Penn Jillette is one example – but as he writes in that essay, even that’s beyond atheism.
Atheism is the absence of positive belief in any given god, and the resulting conclusion or opinion that there are none. An atheist accepts the possibility that some god(s) may exist who will eventually be revealed, but rates it at a very low probability and therefore lives as if it is not true. It can also be called agnostic atheism: an acceptance of a lack of knowledge of the divine, supplemented by a working hypothesis based on what information is available.
You might think that’s not “true” atheism, but it’s irrelevant. It’s Richard Dawkins’ position (he’s said so explicitly many times, but suffice it to say that the relevant chapter of The God Delusion is called “Why there almost certainly is no God”), and that of all the so-called New Atheists, and that of the majority of self-proclaimed atheists throughout history. Even if your definition is correct, the atheists you’re trying to reach do not identify with it and you’re arguing straight past them. It may be that the latest surge of publicity for atheism has actually shifted the common definition.
Even if you succeeded in convincing the entire New Atheist wave (they have never called themselves New Atheists, by the way) that they’re not real atheists, they’d call themselves something else and there would still be the same number of people with the same position on gods and religion. Is that progress?
Please, please. Accept what atheism is as self-proclaimed atheists understand it, or all you will ever do is antagonise us.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:00 am
What you’re saying may be true for atheists who have actually reflected on their own position. I do not accept that that average Aussie yob who says ”there’s no such thing as God” is actually saying “I have consciously reflected upon my belief system and I believe there is a very low probability that any God exists, so I am therefore going to live as though He doesn’t.”
And why won’t atheists accept Christianity as self-proclaimed Christians understand it?
I also don’t really get it – I’d want to be 100% certain before I told the God of the Universe to shove it … don’t you ever wonder, what if I’m wrong?
June 20th, 2008 at 9:01 am
SmartLX, you do make a very good point, so thanks for turning the spotlight on our strawman.
Except… in my experience… (and I very often ask the question, because it so interests me: “Do you actually believe there is no god? Or are you just not sure…”) most (not all) atheists that I talk to positively believe there are no gods (as you call it).
I’m not quite sure how that differs from claiming “absolute knowledge that there are no gods”; if it is a positive belief it either claims that or is openly unjustified, and therefore no better (I’d say worse, since my belief is justified) than a theist.
There are names for different ‘breeds’ varieties of atheism, but I think everyone uses them differently so that’s not going to help.
But if we accept your point, that there are at least a variety of atheists for whom “theism is the absence of positive belief in any given god, and the resulting conclusion or opinion that there are none” then your point is well made. The arguments from Ravi don’t stick to that type (I don’t think. I’ll reflect more on that)
Michelle – I agree, in my experience very few atheists are as well considered in their position as SmartLX. They are also perhaps less likely to be found on an atheist website or forum, so perhaps are under-represented on the net.
I’m ambivalent about this though:
I’d want to be 100% certain before I told the God of the Universe to shove it … don’t you ever wonder, what if I’m wrong?
Everyone should wonder whether they might be wrong (In fact, it should be their starting assumption). But have you made sure you’re 100% certain that every truth claim which comes along is not right before ignoring it. There is a degree of practicality here. Of course, the importance of being certain rises with the potential consequences.
Christians are often asked if they checked out every other religion before settling on Christianity. I know I didn’t. But I’m equally confident that Christianity is the right one and the others are not, and they rise and fally together because they are based on the same thing. The historical evidence that I have seen confirms that Jesus rose physically from the dead. Christianity is affirmed in the same instant that all other religions are destroyed.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Well no, Michelle, every atheist wouldn’t put it like I did, but how many atheists have you actually pressed to see if they’ll stick to 100% certainty? The “what if you’re wrong” line is a direct appeal to any lingering doubts, so has anyone ever simply responded with, “I’m not wrong”?
Every atheist does have to reflect consciously upon their atheism, because they’re surrounded by people who don’t share it. I don’t know how anybody gets to certainty that way though, and I wouldn’t support those who do.
I’m sure you get a lot of misrepresentations of what you believe. That’s why I keep my view of Christianity, like other religions, as broad and inclusive as possible: you believe in one all-powerful, all-knowing, entirely benevolent God who created the universe and continues to run it, that he sacrificed his son 2000-ish years ago, and that there is a Heaven and a Hell with differing entry requirements. It’s not complete, but I think you’ll agree that it’s right as far as it goes. Correct me if any part of it is wrong. Anyway, I don’t believe it, but I accept that it’s what you believe.
That last question of yours, the “what if you’re wrong” line, is Pascal’s Wager, Michelle, and it’s dodgy for two reasons.
Firstly, you’re considering only two possible options: that there is no god, or your god. If I’m wrong and there’s a god, it could be one of an infinite number; not just the 20,000 or so gods humans have worshipped, but all those not thought of yet. And most possible gods probably aren’t kind towards worshippers of rivals. So there is as much chance of picking the right god as guessing a random number when you don’t know how many decimal places it has. No god is a safe bet.
Secondly, if I were convinced that believing in your god was the only safe bet, I’d still be screwed because I just don’t believe. An omniscient god would see through me instantly if I pretended, and what good would that be? I’d actually have to be convinced, or convince myself, by other means.
I hope that helps you “get it”.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Ah, sorry Hayesy, was replying to Michelle. Will tackle yours next.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:10 am
I take your point Haysey, but I think that this a bigger and more significant truth claim than any other. In my view, the atheist has everything to lose, and nothing to gain.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:13 am
I think they have something to gain, based on what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:
EDIT: Woah! I think just got that verse for the first time in my life! I always think “man, I must have something about Christianity wrong, because if there was no God and afterlife etc I still consider my life more fulfilled and more joyful than many of my friends. But I get it! Paul isn’t comparing himself to atheism – who would have identified with that? He was comparing himself to Judaism! It makes so much sense!
I think.
(Just recieved your comment above: we concur. But why then would we eat, drink, and be merry…. that part doesn’t fit)
HAHA save mormonism? I hope your being ironical!
More serious note: Judaism is also grounded in historical fact, they just miss some of the later historical events.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Sorry, I did express myself clumsily. I was just curious, it wasn’t an argument.
“there is no god, or your god”. Yes, this is true. Christianity is the only religion, save Mormonism, grounded in historical fact.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:18 am
This is annoying, we’re all overlapping.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Haysey, you reckon that’s written for the atheist or the Jew? I don’t have the whole passage in front of me, but just from those verses, Paul assumes God exists, and that judgement is coming …
June 20th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Seems to have quietened down – that was hectic – should be safe to comment again now
I updated my last comment.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Yes, apologies, Judaism is indeed grounded in history. Mormonism is too, to a point, though it is not verifiable history.
1 Cor 15 – I’ll have to think about it more when I have time, but he does mention people are preaching against the resurrection, which is consistent with the teachings of the Sadducees(?), but I haven’t looked into the passage enough to see if that’s what’s going on here.
I’ll come back to this later, got cupcakes in the oven, my kids have got the Wiggles blaring way too loudly, and Ezekiel has just split grapes all over the floor. One of those days …
June 20th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Yeah, the overlap is a royal pain.
Yes, both of you, if an atheist claims certainty of or even positive belief in absence, that deserves to be challenged. I do it myself on the Ask sites.
Michelle, don’t think I take offence, it’s a good question if you genuinely don’t get it.
For Pascal’s Wager, the general form of “what if you’re wrong”, I paraphrased myself from answers to one of the most common questions I get on the Ask sites. And It’s only ever asked there by believers; it’s always “what if you’re wrong”, never “what if I’m wrong”. I just don’t think it has any effect unless one is already convinced of a particular god, as you are.
You’ve both come to the same point in the end: you’re supported by historical evidence, historical fact. I’d like you to tell me what that evidence is, where your facts come from. This is the stuff that will convince people if it’s bona fide. So please, show me what you’ve got.
June 20th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
There’s no shortage of places to look – the difficulty is finding the worthwhile stuff. You can find loads on the internet, but I generally prefer books because they tend to engage better with primary sources and reference better.
I usually recommend people check out Josh McDowell (so many editions, just pick one…). He has slim books, which might be useful as a launching pad, or weightier stuff, which I found really good. I know the weightier one is fully referenced, so if nothing else it will direct you to other sources – the smaller might be fully referenced, I’m not certain.
He has a more polemic style than I’d like, so I’m moving away from him. He is fairly even handed and does include problematic evidence & opposing arguments, but I want someone more even-handed still. At any rate, he is brilliant and worth checking out. (I read him because his books collect loads and loads of primary sources into nice tidy volumes)
I’ve never read it, but this book might be ok.
F. F. Bruce is, to my understanding, great and very prolific (I’ve never read him myself) – perhaps better if you are looking to go with something more scholarly.
Michelle, jpj, anyone care to add anything?
SmartLX, if you have a particular interest there is probably a book (or five) on it. Do you?
June 20th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Without having checked them out myself, you might find something worthwhile here.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
My particular interest, Hayesy, is you. That evidence which keeps Christians assured that they’re right is what I need to examine, and you rely on the above sources so they’re a good start.
It’ll be good to check out the evidence on my own time while I’m arguing logical and philosophical points online. It should keep everything grounded. Thanks very much.
June 21st, 2008 at 12:30 am
Tit for tat, though. I’m not the first one to examine Josh McDowell’s evidence. It’ll be a long while before I’ve got any decent response, so meanwhile I wonder whether you’ve read any others? This is a very comprehensive response to just about the whole lot. It may be online, but it’s very well referenced. Have a look if you like.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:14 am
Thanks SmartLX – After my last exam on wednesday I’ll be sure to check it out.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Oh, exams, of course. Best of luck with those mate.
June 21st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Thanks
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:36 am
Hi Josh, I’ve just bought and read More Than a Carpenter cover to cover. It was the only McDowell book at Borders in DC (I’m in Washington right now). It’s well known here; the random guy behind me praised the book when I put it on the counter. He’d met McDowell in Michigan.
I’ve got a lot to say about it, but I don’t want to dump it all on you before your exams are done. I’d rather not distract you that much on top of my comments in other threads. So let me know when you’ve got the time and the headspace.
Cheers.
July 20th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Hey SmartLX – sorry, I forgot about this. If you’re still keen to, then dump away my good friend!
July 24th, 2008 at 4:06 am
Welcome back Hayesy. My online time is limited while I’m travelling in France and Japan (this AZERTY keyboard really throws me), but I worked much of my planned response into one of my answers to something more general. Click my name atop this post for the link.
Darn it, I was sure I replied here back in London.
July 24th, 2008 at 9:13 am
[Cool! Have a great holiday!]
Hrmmm
I don’t know how to leave a comment over there. I would have liked to clear up your statement “This book not only came highly recommended…
I hope you don’t refer to me! Here’s what I said:
“I usually recommend people check out Josh McDowell (so many editions, just pick one…). He has slim books, which might be useful as a launching pad, or weightier stuff, which I found really good. I know the weightier one is fully referenced, so if nothing else it will direct you to other sources – the smaller might be fully referenced, I’m not certain.
He has a more polemic style than I’d like, so I’m moving away from him. He is fairly even handed and does include problematic evidence & opposing arguments, but I want someone more even-handed still. At any rate, he is brilliant and worth checking out. (I read him because his books collect loads and loads of primary sources into nice tidy volumes)”
I thought I said that I hadn’t actually read More Than A Carpenter, but apparently I forgot, sorry. I was refering McDowell on the basis of the whopping 700-page (minute font!) book I read, in which he does deal with hundreds and hundreds of primary sources (as well as quotes from experts, yes). I’m sorry, I didn’t realise More Than A Carpenter was based so heavily on quotes.
If you are genuinely interested, there are plenty of books which do engage with primary sources. The problem is they get bigger very quickly.
I’ve heard good things about F. F. Bruce, but you will see the problem if you click the above link – he has written so much! You can read that list, if you like, and see if any catch your interest – quite a few are online.
I’m actually in limbo at the moment. When I was little, a simple answer satisfied. When I was a bit older, I needed a more thorough answer. Josh McDowell’s weightier books are quite thorough, but I think I’m just passing into the next level of need which requires more than an argument supported by evidence. I now want a balanced treatment of all the evidence. I need to find new authors. If I do, I’ll be sure to let you go.
And if you haven’t been completely scared off by More Than A Carpenter, see if you can get hold of one of Josh’s more thorough books. (Such as this one, there are lots of different editions saying similar things) You might find them in the library of a theological college.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
You can’t leave comments over there. It focuses on the answers only. That’s what differentiates it from the other Ask site. I tried to get them to change that.
I wasn’t just referring to you by “highly recommended”. There was the guy in the bookstore, and a plethora of good reviews by Christians I found online after I got the book. I did get the impression you were recommending him more than it seems you were; perhaps I skimmed over the sentence in bold.
Meanwhile, I do need to keep looking at this stuff. And it sounds like you’re in a good place with what you demand from the books. I’ll let you know if I find someone you’d like.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Is the New Testament History? by Paul Barnett is chock full of primary and secondary sources and is very good for summing everything up in one without being the size of a full encyclopedia set. It does also happen to be one of the driest books I’ve ever read because it’s pretty much a big history essay.
He was the Anglican Bishop of North Sydney from 1990 to 2001 but also has a PhD on the interaction between the New Testament and Jewish history of the first century. So it does lean in Christianity’s favour but it’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about historically.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Forgot to link it.
He’s released a new version named Is the New Testament Reliable?
http://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Reliable-Paul-Barnett/dp/0830827684
July 28th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Thanks Luke – I flipped through an old edition of that book on a bus. It seems pretty good, but suffers from many of the same problems as does McDowell’s – in at least one place his conclusion seemed to overstep that which the evidence demonstrated.
He’s not a scholar.Sorry, I should say he’s not a historian (primarily)But, with those in mind, it looked like a good book.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:56 am
I’ve only just realised the odd thing about all this. Took me a while to find the thread again so I could tell you.
Hayesy, Michelle, if there’s evidence for Jesus and the resurrection, why bother with Pascal’s Wager? Why ask what if at all?
I’ll elaborate. If the resurrection is certain and there’s proof to demonstrate this fact to all comers (if you only know where to look…and apparently you do), then advising someone to play the odds and worship just in case is an unnecessary, relatively weak argument. Better to just publicise the proof, let it speak for itself, get it acknowledged by the community at large and settle this business once and for all.
So why don’t you? Why do only a tiny proportion of Christians in the world (e.g. Josh McDowell and William Lane Craig) bother to try? In your own certainty, why are you still using probability-based appeals like “what if you’re wrong”?
August 27th, 2008 at 9:57 am
I don’t bother with it, as an argument. It fails logically and emotionally, as an argument.
Where it is helpful is in making people see the magnitude of the question. In waking people out of their indifference.
By the by, this week I decided ‘proof’ is a bad word. Proof is only offered by one discipline: mathematics. All other disciplines offer only probabilities.
Have you any suggestions for publicising the proof?
I’d love to do just what you suggest – but the issues faced are:
a) indifference
b) willful ignorance – people don’t want to believe
c) privelidged presuppositions – I went to a debate this week in which the atheist said, and I quote, “You can show me all the history you want, I won’t be convinced – science tells us that people do not rise from the dead.”
The head of the philosophy faculty at an emminent university, apparently unaware that he has not only gone beyond the limits of science, but also presupposed the conclusion.
People irrationally privelidge their presuppositions over their perceptions.
d) simple practicalities of communicating a message. As you’ve seen, it can be done very badly.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Right, I think this all comes back to my comment being misunderstood. It’s NOT a valid argument. I never meant to use it as one. It was a question, given your insistence that atheists don’t claim to have 100% certainty of God’s non-existence.
advising someone to play the odds and worship just in case
Not at all what I meant. That would be stupid, as if you could somehow fool God?!
August 27th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
My thoughts exactly!
August 27th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Michelle, that last thing is EXACTLY what I say when people do use it as an argument. Sorry, but some do. And I’m sure you didn’t mean it as a fully-fledged argument (probably the wrong word to use), but…in your ideal world, what would I have concluded when you suggested I ask myself, “What if I’m wrong?”
Hayesy, dead right about “proof”. Good man.
I do realise it’s difficult to publicise your evidence, but it renders all other arguments moot if it’s accepted so it’s got to be worth it.
You need to start with historians, not the general public and certainly not people who are just there to take the opposite side of a debate. Go to universities, colleges; go to the staff, those who know what constitutes historical evidence better than any of us, and who apply the utmost scrutiny to other matters. Present what you’ve got in that context, on their turf and by their rules, and you won’t meet indifference and you can call them out on presuppositions. Either you’ll get a fair hearing, or you will come out knowing precisely why what you’ve got is not history. What you do with that hypothetical knowledge will be up to you.
One big reason the young-earth creationist movement (which I know you’re not in) lacks respect is that it takes a bottom-up approach, hoping that majority support by lay people will override what they see as an academic anti-religious cabal. It tries the top-down thing too, but it just hasn’t got the support of the biologists at the top. That’s who they need in order to get real biology cred.
Likewise, if you want something to be acknowledged as history, bring historians round. Not just quotes of them like McDowell uses, get endorsement they’re willing to repeat. Then bring THEM to the public. It’s as simple as that, I think.
September 1st, 2008 at 7:56 pm
It’s not bad advice – I’m seriously considering it.
A lecturer at Macquarie University and PhD in history, John Dickson, writes books, makes doccos, and gives lectures on this subject. I might write to him and ask about his experiences & advice.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:16 am
Good on you, but it’s important that you don’t limit yourself to those who identify themselves as “New Testament historians” as Dickson does. They’ll tell you what you want to hear, because they have already accepted it themselves.
By all means write to folks like Dickson to help prepare yourself, but when you then talk to those who aren’t convinced don’t just parrot his arguments or you will indeed meet with dismissal. Bring your own perspective, or you’ll come across as a propagandist and discussing Jesus with you will not be a welcome prospect.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
haha Dickson isn’t the limit – he isn’t even the starting place. I was just going to get his advice. But that he has accepted it is revealing.
I fully understand your (good!) advice not to come across as a propagandist, but surely historical arguments are prone to be repeated if they are true. (As in, one cannot concuct original evidence…)