Here’s a way that an atheist could undercut the consensus gentium argument (the argument for theism based on how much belief in God or gods there is in the world), building on my previous post.
Suppose that views about God or “big gods” came into the world as follows: Brilliant very early thinkers came up with plausible arguments for the existence of God. These arguments may have, for instance, included some selection taken from among cosmological, teleological, moral and religious experience arguments. These arguments were rationally taken up by their followers, but eventually supernaturalistic and maybe even theistic belief was simply passed on by testimony, with the selective advantages of supernaturalism (say, social cohesion effects) helping to keep communities where these beliefs were widespread going.
If this is right, then treating the consensus gentium argument as evidence for theism involves double counting. For the theist presumably also counts the evidential force of arguments like cosmological, teleological, moral and religious experience ones, and since on the above story theism (a) started with one or more of these, and (b) its further spread and persistence can be explained naturalistically quite well by selection effects.
Now, the above argument-focused story may not be plausible to all. But the atheist can make a further move. Dilemma. Either the above story is true or not. If it’s true, then the consensus gentium argument involves double counting. If it’s not true, then likely theism started in some way that is not rational, and then spread and persisted by naturalistic selection effects, and that’s not evidence for theism, either. So, either way, we can dismiss consensus gentium?
What do I say to this? As a theist who is convinced that the other arguments for theism do provide significant evidence, I don’t find it particularly hard to just concede the point.
But there is another move: a merely partial concession. The story about how belief in God is helpful to communities is a plausible story. But it is even more plausible on theism! For on theism, there is an additional probability that God would “go out of his way” and have rational animals exist in conditions where belief in God is helpful, precisely as a means to making belief in God persist and spread naturally. Thus, widespread of theistic belief may be probable on naturalism, but on theism is even more so. This may not be strong evidence for theism (the Bayes ratio can’t exceed 2, which is “substantial” but not “strong” on Jeffreys’ scale), but is still some evidence.
2 comments:
This is fascinating, Dr. Pruss. How would you understand these dynamics in light of the evolution of religious belief? For example, it is widely accepted by scholars of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cultures that Israel began with polytheism (like their Canaanite neighbors), then progressively went to henotheism (i.e., worship of one God while acknowledging others), and finally to monotheism (belief that only one true God exists), which most scholars take to have been catalyzed by the destruction of the First Temple.
But Israel is not alone here. Plato and Aristotle, despite living in a deeply polytheistic culture, nonetheless used rational inquiry to deduce an Unmoved Mover or Demiurge responsible for the order and intelligibility of the cosmos. Likewise, in ancient India, Sanskrit philosophers (e.g., Udayana) in the Nyaya schools deduced philosophical monotheism, despite living in an environment that did not seem culturally promotive of such ideas. I'm thinking that someone might be inclined to view these Greek and Indian traditions as much approximative of truth than Israelite history, even though the ultimate conclusion is similar.
But, of course, I should add that truth is independent of how one came to hold it (lest we commit the genetic fallacy). All of these independent traditions may thus display convergent evolutions toward truth, if one is open to it (One might also add the Mohist concept of Tian to the list)
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