Balancing between theism and atheism

The problem of evil consists of three main parts:

• The problem of suffering.

• The problem of evil choices.

• The problem of hiddenness (which is an evil at most conditionally on God’s existing).

The theist has trouble explaining why there is so much suffering. The atheist, however, has trouble explaining why there is any suffering, given that suffering presupposes consciousness, and the atheist has trouble explaining why there is any consciousness.

Of course, there are atheist-friendly naturalistic accounts of consciousness. But they all face serious difficulties. This parallels the fact that theists have theodical accounts of why God permits so much suffering, accounts that also face serious difficulties.

So, on the above, considerations of suffering are a net tie between theism and atheism.

The theist does not actually have all that much trouble explaining why there are evil choices. Libertarian free will does the job. Of course, there are some problems with libertarian accounts of free will. These problems are not, I think, nearly as serious as the problems that theists have with explaining why there is so much suffering or atheists have with explaining why there is consciousness. Moreover, there is a parallel problem for the atheist. Evil choices can only exist given free will. Prima facie the most plausible accounts of free will are libertarian agent-causal ones. But those are problematic for the atheist, who will find it difficult to explaining where libertarian agents come from. The atheist probably has to embrace a compatibilist theory, which has at least as many problems as libertarian agent-causalism.

So, considerations of evil choices look at best as a net tie for the atheist.

Finally, there is the problem of hiddenness for the theist. But while the theist has trouble explaining how we don’t all know something so important as the existence of God, the atheist has epistemological trouble of her own: she has trouble explaining how she knows that there is no God. After all, knowledge of the highly abstract facts that enter into arguments regarding the existence of God is not the sort of knowledge that seems to be accessible to evolved natural beings.

So, considerations of knowledge of the existence or non-existence of God look as a net tie.

The problem of evil, however, exhausts the powerful arguments for atheism. But the above considerations far from exhaust the powerful arguments for theism.

The above reasoning no doubt has difficulties. But I want to propose it as a strategy for settling disputes in cases where it's hard to assign probabilities. For even if it's hard to assign probabilities, we can have good intuitions that two considerations are a wash, that they provide equal evidence. And if we can line up arguments in such a way, being more careful with issues of statistical dependence than I was above, then we can come to a view as to which way some bunch of evidence points.

A plan for your life

Consider this argument:

1. There is a comprehensive plan for your life not of your making.
2. The best hypothesis to explain (1) is that the plan is God's.
3. So, probably, God exists.

More could be said about (2) and the inference to (3). But I want to focus on (1). It seems pretty clear that (1) begs the question against the atheist or agnostic: the only reason to think (1) is true is that one thinks there is a Planner, and this the atheist and agnostic do not believe.

But I think this is too quick. I think a lot of people may have an intuition of (1) that is not simply based on a belief in a Planner. That intuition may be basic or it may be inferred inductively from various events in the person's life having an apparent plot, and more than a plot, a plan made with the person in sight. I remember a student who professed to be an atheist telling me that she feels that her life has a plan, and that she doesn't know if she can fit this with her atheism. (I told her she needed to figure this out.) She may have been exceptional: many atheists probably do not have the intuition of (1). But at least in regard to her, the argument wouldn't have begged the question.

And even if the intuition of (1) were always based on theism, that would not make the argument question begging in every case. For one could use Dan Johnson's brilliant observation on the ontological argument here. Suppose someone is reasonably a theist (e.g., due to a sensus divinitatis), then reasonably infers (1), then for some unreasonable reason (say, the wrong kind of social pressures) becomes an atheist but still maintains the belief in (1). Her belief in (1) remains reasonable—it is her atheism that is unreasonable on this story. (I don't need any claim like that every atheist is unreasonable. But this one I am supposing to be.) Then she would be reasonable in inferring back to theism from (1).

Gratuitous and objective evil

Suppose, highly controversially, that no defensible atheist account of objective value is possible. Now consider a paradigmatic apparently gratuitous horrendous evil E—say, one of the really awful things done to children described by Ivan in the Brothers Karamazov. The following two claims are both intuitive:

1. E is gratuitous

2. E is objectively evil.

But if there is no defensible account of objective evil on atheism, then (1) and (2) are in serious tension. For if there cannot be objective evil on atheism, then (2) cannot be true on atheism. Thus, (2) implies theism. But on the other hand, (1) implies atheism, since E gratuitous just in case if God existed, then E would be an evil that God has conclusive moral reason to prevent.

On our initial assumption about atheism, then, we need to choose between (1) and (2). And here there is no difficulty. That the things described by Ivan are objectively evil is way more clear than that God would have conclusive moral reason to prevent them, even if the latter claim is very likely in isolation.

Is a defensible atheist account of objective value possible? I used to think there was no special difficulty, but I’ve since come to be convinced that probably the only tenable account of objective value is an Aristotelian one based on form, and that human form requires something like a divine source. That said, even if objective value is something the atheist can defend, nonetheless knowledge of objective value is very difficult for the atheist. For objective value has to be (I know this is controversial) non-natural, and on atheism it is very difficult to explain how we could acquire the power to get in touch with non-natural aspects of reality.

But if knowledge of objective value is very difficult for the atheist, then we have tension between:

1. E is gratuitous

2. I know that E is objectively evil.

And (3) is still, I think, significantly more plausible than (1).

Can an atheist love God?

One standard answer is this: An atheist can love God under a a description different from standard theistic ones (cf. this article). For instance, God is the truth, and an atheist might love the truth.

But there is a second story that could perhaps be told. St. Augustine said that to love someone, one must know the beloved to exist. This is at least a little too strong, I think. One might believe but not know that the beloved exists. But even that might be too strong. Suppose that George believes there is no life after death and knows his wife, Patricia, has died. Could we not say that, nonetheless, his love for his wife could survive her death? Love is a matter of will, not intellect. Certainly, as long as George thinks Patricia is alive he can love her. But a mere change of belief is not a change of will. It seems, thus, that unless there is a shift in his will, he can continue to love Patricia even after she is dead and even though he does not believe she is alive. Moreover, it does not seem right to say that George is just loving the past Patricia in some eternalist (or growing block) sense. Besides, one could tell a story where George comes to believe that Patricia never existed--maybe he comes to believe that he had always hallucinated her. But if love is a matter of will, not intellect, then he can continue to love Patricia even after he acquires this belief.

If so, then an atheist could love God. But, likely, not every atheist does. (Just as, likely, not every theist does.) Some atheists would be relieved to learn God exists (J.J.C. Smart sounds that way in his volume with John Haldane), but some atheists might be rather dismayed.

Even if it is possible to love someone whom one believes not to exist, it is not clear that one can love someone who doesn't exist. Love is of a particular individual, and there is typically[note 1] no way to individuate totally non-existent beings.

Science and theism

Suppose I am a theistic scientist, and I come up with a simple and elegant theory that fits the data. You ask me:

1. But what reason do you have to believe that the theory is true?

I am likely to answer:

2. There is a good God who created a world exemplifying genuine values like simplicity and beauty.

Indeed, if there is a good God, it is more likely that a simple and elegant theory that fits the data is true than if there is no God at all. Whatever one thinks about induction and inference to best explanation, it seems exactly right to say that:

3. If (2) is true, its truth significantly raises the probability that a simple and elegant theory that fits the data is true.

But now imagine two scientists, one a theist and one an atheist, and they have together come with a simple and elegant theory that fits the data. It may very well be the case that the theist should assign a probability of 0.6 to the theory—after all, there may be other simple and elegant theories that fit the data that they have failed to discover, and which fit well with the world being the sort that is created by a God who loves lawlike simplicity. But if (3) is true, the atheist scientist's credence in the theory should be significantly lower. It seems likely, then, that if the theist assigns 0.6, the atheist scientist may very well need to assign something below 0.5.

If this is right, then you will have cases where a theist and atheist scientist agree on the scientific evidence, but the theist weakly assents to the theory but the atheist is more skeptical of the scientific theory.

In general, assuming rationality on both sides, we would expect atheists to be significantly more sceptical of scientific claims than theists who, in turn, should be bolder theorizers. But I think we do not observe this. Hence, on one or both sides, there is some irrationality—or else I am wrong about (3).

Cartesian-style ontological arguments

Cartesian-style ontological arguments run like this:

1. God has all perfections.

2. Existence is a perfection.

3. So, God exists.

These arguments are singularly unconvincing. Here is a simple reason they are unconvincing. Suppose we are undecided on whether there are any leprechauns and, if so, whether they have a king, and someone tells us:

4. The leprechaun king is very magical.

This sure sounds plausible in a certain frame of mind, and we may accept it. When we accept (4), while remaining undecided on whether there are leprechauns and, if so, whether they have a king, what we are accepting seems to be the conditional:

5. If the leprechaun king exists, he is very magical.

By analogy, when the agnostic accepts (1), it seems they are accepting the conditional:

6. If God exists, God has all perfections.

Given premise (2), we can conclude:

7. If God exists, God exists.

But every atheist accepts (7).

It seems to make little difference if in (2) we replace “existence” with “necessary existence”. For then we just get:

8. If God exists, God necessarily exists.

That’s not quite as trivial as (7), but doesn’t seem to get us any closer to the existence of God.

The above seems to perfectly capture why it is that Cartesian-style ontological arguments are unconvincing.

Even if the above is adequate as a criticism of Cartesian-style ontological arguments, I think there is still an interesting question of what sort of a conditional we have in (5)–(8)?

It’s not a material conditional, for then (5) would be trivially true given that there are no leprechauns, while (5) is non-trivially true.

Should it be a subjunctive conditional, like “If the leprechaun king existed, he would be very magical”? I don’t think so. For suppose that in the closest possible leprechaun world to ours, for some completely accidental reason, the leprechaun king is very magical, but in typical possible worlds with leprechauns, leprechaun kings are are actually rather a dud with regard to magicality. Then it’s true that if the leprechaun king existed, he would be very magical, but that shouldn’t lead us to say that the leprechaun king is very magical.

Perhaps it should be a strict conditional: “Necessarily, if the leprechaun king exists, he is very magical.” That actually sounds fairly plausible, and in light of this we would actually want to deny (4). For it is not necessary that the leprechaun king be very magical. But if we take it to be a strict conditional, we still have a triviality problem. Imagine an atheist who thinks that God is impossible. Then the strict conditional

9. Necessarily, if God exists, God has all perfections

is true, but so is:

10. Necessarily, if God exists, God has exactly 65% of the perfections.

But while it seems that our atheist would be likely to want to say that God has all perfections (indeed, that might be a part of why the atheist thinks God necessarily does not exist, for instance because they think that the perfections are contradictory), it doesn’t sound right to say that God has exactly 65% of the perfections, even if you think that necessarily there is no God.

I think the best bet is to make the conditional be a strict relevant conditional:

11. Necessarily and relevantly, if God exists, God has all perfections.

It is interesting to ask whether (11) helps Cartesian-style ontological arguments. Given (11), if all goes well (it’ll depend on the modal relevance logic) we should get:

12. Necessarily and relevantly, if God exists, God exists.

That sounds right but is of no help. We also get:

13. Necessarily and relevantly, if God exists, God necessarily exists.

Again, that sounds right, and is less trivial, but still doesn’t seem to get us to the existence of God, barring some clever argument.

Divine command theory and atheism

Suppose that the captain impersonates an admiral and yells: “Turn hard to starboard!” The sailors ought to turn hard to starboard and the captain had the authority to command them this. But nonetheless the captain has failed to issue a valid order. For in order to issue a valid order, the captain needs to make herself heard as the captain. The sailors’ obligation to turn to starboard is not a command-obligation but rather is an obligation of conscience to do what one believes, correctly or not, to be the commands of legitimate authority. A sailor who refused to turn would be acting badly, but would not be disobeying an order: she wouldn’t be disobeying the captain’s order, since the captain did not order anything qua captain, or the admiral’s order, since the admiral didn’t order anything.

The same thing would be true, though perhaps less clearly, if the admiral impersonated the captain and told the crew to turn to starboard. The admiral had the authority to issue the order (or so I assume), but to do that she would have to have made herself heard as the admiral.

Similarly, if the captain is a telepath and induces in the helmsman a strong moral belief that he should turn the ship to starboard, no order has been issued to the helmsman. If the helmsman refuses to turn, he is disobeying conscience but he is not disobeying the captain.

Now, consider the command version of the divine command theory: God’s commands (rather than will) define moral obligation. Now we have a prima facie problem with atheists. The atheist believes in an obligation to refrain from stealing, but is not aware of it as a divine command. Therefore, it seems that no command has been validly issued to the atheist: the case seems relevantly like that of the telepath captain. Thus it follows that on the command version of the divine command theory, the atheist has no obligations.

This was a bit too quick, however. For a promulgation condition on commands that requires actual cognitive uptake is too strong. If the captain is yelling orders as captain but the helmsman has deliberately plugged her ears so as not to hear the orders, the helmsman’s failure to hear does not impugn the validity of the orders.

But suppose instead that the helmsman is hard of hearing due to a recent explosion, and the captain whispers the order while knowing the helmsman won’t hear it. In this case, the order is invalid. It seems, roughly, that if the captain could easily make the command heard as her command but does not do so, and the failure to hear it as her command is not something the other party is antecedently at fault for, then the command is invalid.

Now, it seems that there are atheists who are not at fault for their atheism, and whose failure to hear divine commands as divine commands is not something they are at fault for. But God could easily (everything is easy to an omnipotent being) make them hear them as such. So, on the command version of divine command theory, these atheists have never been validly commanded, and hence have no obligations—which is clearly false.

Maybe I will get some pushback on the claim that there are atheists who are not at fault for atheism. Let’s consider, then, the case of Alice, a life-long atheist who is at fault for her atheism and who was never aware of any divine command as a divine command. Then, at some point t₁ of time, Alice did the first thing that made her be at fault for her atheism and/or her failure to be aware of divine commands as divine commands. Perhaps an argument for theism was being offered to her by Bob, but she refused to listen to Bob out of racism.

Now to be at fault, you have to culpably do something wrong. And, according to divine command theory, the wrong is always a violation of a (valid) divine command. So, at t₁, Alice’s action was the violation of a valid divine command. But at t₁, Alice wasn’t aware of the command as one from God, since we’ve assumed that Alice was never aware of any divine command as a divine command. And Alice’s failure to be aware of the command as one from God was not due to any antecedent fault of hers, since we have assumed that t₁ is the time of Alice’s first action that made her be at fault with respect to this failure.

Thus, it seems that the divine command theorist who takes the command part of the theory seriously has to say that those who are now atheists are atheists because they disobeyed a command from God which they were aware of as a command from God. This is deeply implausible. It is way more implausible than the already not very plausible response to the hiddenness argument that says that all atheists are morally guilty for their atheism.

But perhaps we want to distinguish epistemic from moral fault, and say that a command can still be valid if it fails to be heard due to an epistemic fault that the commander could have easily overcome, even when that epistemic fault does not correspond to a moral one. I do not think this is plausible. Being unable to parse complex sentences might be an epistemic fault. But if I issue a complex command to someone I know to be incapable of parsing such complex sentences, when I could easily have used a simpler sentence with the same content, I do not validly command.

Miscellaneous thoughts on lying

1. Self-help book idea: A Year Without a Lie.

2. A number of vices in some sense require a willingness to lie. One can't really commit adultery without being willing to lie. Here the "can't" is of a restricted prudential rationality. For instance, in many cases one can't cheat on one's taxes without either lying (writing down a falsehood on a tax return) or at least being willing to lie (destroying records and not filing, while planning to lie about the destruction should one get an audit). It would probably be hard to be an unscrupulous politician without a willingness to lie.

An absolute unwillingness to lie will keep one from a number of vices. What about a merely prima facie unwillingness? An unwillingness to lie unless by lying one prevents a great evil? Well, psychologically speaking, such an unwillingness is likely to be weaker. Moreover, such a conditional unwillingness is unlikely to keep one from lying to one's spouse if one commits adultery since one is likely to think that by so lying one is preventing a great evil—especially if one has children. Similarly, it may not keep one from lying to a tax auditor, since a tax fraud conviction may result in a great evil to oneself and one's family. So there is reason to adopt an absolute unwillingness to lie in order to keep oneself from other vices.

3. There is a value in being the sort of person who can be trusted no matter what. If one is known to conscientiously follow the rule not to lie unless by lying one prevents a great evil, then before relying on one's testimony, others may have to try to figure out whether one might not think one is preventing a great evil, and this will lower the value of one's testimony.

Then there will be circumstances in which one's testimony is of no weight, and yet it is of vital importance that one's testimony have weight. Suppose, for instance, that I believe that my friend is innocent of murder. I testify to the court: "He spent the evening with me, talking about Spinoza." Suppose all the other evidence is against my friend. If I am the sort of person who lies to prevent great evils, then I am the sort of person who would provide a friend whom I believe to be innocent with a false alibi under those circumstances, because I would thereby be preventing the great evil of his being falsely convicted—indeed, his life might be stake. Therefore, for my testimony to carry the weight that it is desparately important for it to carry, I have to be believed to be the sort of person who wouldn't lie even to save one's friend from what I believe to be an unjust murder conviction.

Or, for a more common case, consider an innocent wife who is asked by a jealous husband whether she was faithful to him. If she is known to follow the rule of not lying unless lying prevents a great evil, her testimony to her innocence is of little worth, because quite possibly a great evil would be prevented by her lying if she were unfaithful. But it is crucially important that her testimony be believed, and this requires that she be known to follow the rule of not lying simpliciter.

Now, granted, such cases may be rare. But I think they are no rarer than the cases where lying is needed to prevent a great evil, and in fact they are more common. Here's a handwaving argument for this. Both kinds of cases are a species of this situation: It prevents a great evil if one's interlocutor comes to believe that p. But it seems unlikely that most species of this situation are such that in fact p is false. There are two views on the matter that one might hold. One might think that this situation occurs just as often with p false as with p true. But a more correct view of this is that true belief is somewhat more likely to be beneficial to society than false belief. If so, then a majority (though perhaps a modest one) of cases of this situation are ones where in fact p is true. (To get the desired conclusion from this, one has to either assume that that the speaker knows whether p, or, more weakly, that the speaker is more likely to be right about p than to be wrong about p.)

So it is at least as important, and likely more important, that one be believed no matter what than that one be able to lie to prevent great evils.

Therefore, it is a good thing to be such as to be believed to be unwilling to lie, no matter what. But the best way to ensure that one is believed to have that sort of character is to have that sort of character. Moreover, if one fails to have that sort of character, but pretends to do so, such a constant pretence is likely to be harmful to one's character. And it is unlikely that someone who constantly pretends to have a character other than she does is going to be the sort of person whom people believe no matter what. Therefore, there is good reason—even good consequentialist reason—to adopt an absolute unwillingness to lie.

4. The above points apply particularly strongly to Christians because it is particularly crucial that people believe our testimony about Christ. We believe, after all, that whether people have faith in Christ affects their eternal well-being. Thus, whenever we speak with someone about Christ, this is a situation where a great evil and a great good are at stake in our testimony being trusted.

Suppose that I thought it was acceptable to lie to prevent great evils. Then if I have an atheist friend who trusted me, I might well conclude that the right thing for me to do is to testify to having seen some miracle that I haven't in fact seen. (I might try to limit the extent of the lie, for instance by choosing some miracle that I read about and that I believe happened, and lying only about whether I myself had witnessed it.) But of course if I am known to be the sort of person who lies to prevent great evils, my atheist friend would have no reason to trust me. On the other hand, if I am known to be the sort of person who would not lie even to save someone from eternal damnation (not that one's words literally do that—but they may in some way contribute, because God's grace works through them), then if I tell my atheist friend that I have seen something miraculous (not that any of the miracles that I've seen are going to be that convincing to the atheist, since they're all miracles of the beauty of nature, and miracles of moral transformation in myself—I am a sinner in a bad way, but you should just think what I'd have been like without Christ!), my friend may very well believe me. And likewise if I testify to less overtly miraculous things.

The above also gives the Christian reason to believe responsibly—this may or may not imply evidentialism.

Laws and theodicy: Some steps in the dialectic

The following steps are quite standard in the problem of evil dialectics:

1. Atheist: The world contains many instances of suffering, all of which could easily be averted if there were a God, simply by modifying the laws of nature. For instance, there could be a law of nature saying that knives turn to water before they penetrate hearts, etc.
2. Theist: Such laws of nature would be unduly complex. For instance, they would have to specify exactly when knives turn to water, in what way (does the process happen all at once, starting at the tip, etc.), how close they need to be to the heart for the process to start, etc. Simplicity of law is intrinsically valuable—a world all of whose laws are as elegant as General Relativity is a world of great value, in its diversity reflecting God's infinity in its and in its simplicity God's unity.
3. Atheist: Any value of such simplicity is far outweighed by the disvalue of suffering for persons.

At this point, we have a serious clash of intuitions and it may not be efficient for the theist to try to bridge it. Instead, the theist might try to argue that humans couldn't coexist with the more complex laws. I am inclined to think that that isn't the best answer.[note 1] Instead I want to consider the following dialectical moves:

4. Theist: It is valuable for us to be able to figure out the laws, both for the sake of the understanding itself and to enable us to exercise more meaningful agency. But laws complex enough to stop every kind of suffering would be too complex for us to figure out.
5. Atheist: But God could give us more powerful intellects.

It is at this dialectical point that I want to jump into the fray. Three moves are open to the theist. The first is that there is a value in having a range of beings in the world, ranging through completely mindless electrons, unconscious plants, barely conscious lower animals, moderately smart higher animals, moderately smart human beings, perhaps even smarter non-human persons somewhere else, and in any case a whole range of superhuman intelligences (angels). This great chain of being is of significant value. It is valuable that the chain not have significant gaps in it, as there would be if God refrained from creating agents—us—with intellects that are not all that impressive compared to what is higher up. (And, O how great the glory of God, God then became one of these lower agents, and raised another to be the queen of heaven.)

The second move is to note that there is something odd about complaining that God did not create in our place a smarter species. Whom did God wrong or behave less than perfectly lovingly towards by not creating a smarter species in our place? That smarter species? But you cannot wrong or behave less than perfectly lovingly towards someone who never exists. Or us? But I think our existence is overall worthwhile.

The third and most challenging move is to note that there is a value in having enmattered intellects which do a significant part—if the materialists are right (they're not), all—of their thinking by use of a physical organ (the brain), an organ whose morphology arose through natural physical processes of not too small probability. Now, a more complex set of laws given such conditions might require a more complex brain. But it could well be that the energy usage and evolution of such a more complex brain would require further complexification of the laws. I do not know that this is so, but neither do I know that this is not so, and I doubt that anyone is in a position to claim that it is not so. But the further complexification of the laws may require a further complexification of the brain. And so on. There might be a fixed point to this sequence—a brain that can understand the laws of nature that it is governed by. But we do not know that there is such a fixed point. It's fun and humbling to note how easily our thinking hits up against things that none of us know.

Righting wrongs

The following argument is sound:

1. (Premise) All injustices are righted.
2. (Premise) If God does not exist, some injustices are not righted.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Of course, an argument can be sound but no good. Recall Plantinga's example, which was basically: "God exists or 2+2=5; but not 2+2=5; therefore, God exists", the logic is impeccable, and all the premises are true, but ordinarily only someone who is already a theist will accept the first premise. Is the present argument like this?

Well, I think (2) is fairly plausible. Think of someone innocent who is murdered. Who is there to right that injustice, unless it be God? Of course, one might posit other supernatural hypotheses than that of the existence of God that would suffice to ensure that injustices are righted, but the other hypotheses just do not strike me as very plausible—finite beings like the Furies aren't likely to be able to know and right all injustices.

Of course, premise (1) is not going to be at all plausible to the typical atheist. However, it may well be that some people have an intuition to the effect of (1). This intuition may be related to intuitions about how everything has a purpose, how bad things come to good, etc. These intuitions are ones that even an atheist can have (I once had an atheist student who had such an intuition about her own life—she wondered if the intuition was compatible with her atheism, and I told her that was something she'd need to figure out herself). So the argument need not always be question-begging.

Projection and the imago Dei

There is some pleasing initial symmetry between how a theist (or at least Jew, Christian or Muslim) can explain features of human nature by invoking the doctrine that we are in the image of God and using this explanatory schema:

1. Humans are (actually, normally or ideally) F because God is actually F

and how an atheist can explain features attributed to God by projection:

2. The concept of God includes being actually F because humans are (actually, normally or ideally) F.

Note, however, that while schemata (1) and (2) are formally on par, schema (1) has the advantage that it has a broader explanatory scope than (2) does. Schema (1) explains a number of features (whether actual or normative) of the nature of all human beings, while schema (2) only explains a number of features of the thinking of a modest majority (the 55% who are monotheists) of human beings.

There is also another interesting asymmetry between (1) and (2). Theist can without any damage to their intellectual system embrace both (1) and a number of the instances of (2) that the atheist embraces, since given the imago Dei doctrine, projection of normative or ideal human features onto God can be expected to track truth with some probability. On the other hand, the atheist cannot embrace any instances of (1).

Note, too, that evolutionary explanations do not undercut (1), since there can be multiple correct explanations of one phenomenon. (This phenomenon is known to people working on Bayesian inference.)

A bad argument from hiddenness

Consider the following variant of the argument from hiddenness:

1. If God exists, no mature human is ignorant of God’s existence through no fault of their own.

2. Some mature humans are ignorant of God’s existence through no fault of their own.

3. So, God doesn’t exist.

It’s occurred to me that premises like (3) are either nonsense, or trivially false, or far beyond our capacity to know to be true.

For to evaluate whether some x is ignorant of God’s existence through no fault of their own requires asking something like this:

4. Would x still have been ignorant of God’s existence had x lived a morally perfect life?

But it does not seem likely that there is a sensible positive answer to (4). Here is a quick argument for this. Those who deny Molinism are going to say that either the proposition asked about in (4) has no truth value or that it is trivially false. And even some Molinists will say this about (4), because Molinists are committed to there being conditionals of free will only when the antecedent is maximally specified, while “x lived a morally perfect life” is too unspecified. The question is much like:

5. Had Napoleon been born in South America, would he still have been a great military leader?

There are many ways for Napoleon to have been in South America, and they are apt to result in different answers to the question about whether he was a great military leader.

But even if (4) has a truth value, perhaps because (4) is to be interpreted in some probabilistic way or because we have an expansive version of Molinism that makes (4) make sense, it is far beyond our epistemic powers to know the answer to (4) to be true. Here is why. Our lives are full of wrongdoing. Our lives would likely be unrecognizable had they been morally perfect. To ask what we would have thought and known in the counterfactual scenario where we live a morally perfect life is to ask about a scenario further from actuality than Napoleon’s being born in South America.

Now, that said, there are times when we can evaluate counterfactuals that involve a massive change to the antecedent on the basis of certain generalities. For instance, while we have no answer to (5), we do have a negative answer to:

6. Had Napoleon suffered a massive head injury rendering him incapable of interpersonal communication, would he still have been a great military leader?

Similarly, if an atheist had suffered a head injury removing the capacity for higher level thought, the shape of their life would have been very different, but at least we can say that they wouldn’t have been an atheist, because they wouldn’t have had the concepts necessary to form the belief that there is no God. So, indeed, sometimes counterfactuals that take us far afield can be evaluated sensibly on general grounds.

But I do not think we have good general grounds for a positive answer to (4), unless we have independent grounds to doubt the truth and rationality of theism:

7. There are no good grounds for reasonably believing in God, and a person who lives a morally innocent life won’t believe things groundlessly, so they won’t believe in God.

8. There are people who grow up in societies where there is no concept of God, and they would not be aware of God no matter what the shape of their lives would have been.

Obviously, (7) requires independent grounds to doubt the rationality of theism. And if God exists, then for all we know, he has a general practice of making those who are morally perfect be aware of him, so (8) is dubious if God exists.

Of course, an atheist might think (7) is true, but this is unlikely to be a helpful move in an argument against the existence of God. After all, similarly, a theist might think the following is true:

9. God will ensure that every morally perfect mature human is aware of him.

Indeed, a typical Christian thinks that there have only ever been one or two people—Jesus and maybe Mary—who have been morally perfect, and both candidates were aware of God.

The argument from highly intelligent saints who are Christians

1. There have been many highly intelligent saints who were Christians.

2. If there have been may highly intelligent saints who were Christians, then probably (insofar as the above evidence goes) the central doctrines of Christianity are true.

3. So, probably (insofar as the above evidence goes), the central doctrines of Christianity are true.

(An interesting variant is to replace “are true” in (2) and (3) with “are approximately true”, and then to combine the conclusion with my previous post.)

I do not plan to defend 1. That’s too easy. Note, though, that while easy, it’s not trivial. I am not claiming that there were many highly intelligent people who were canonized “Saints” by the Catholic or Orthodox Church, though that’s true. Nor am I claiming that there were many highly intelligent people who were Christian saints. I am claiming that there are may highly intelligent people who were saints simpliciter, as well as being Christian.

What is a saint like? Saints are deeply morally good people who, insofar as it depends on them, lead a deeply flourishing human life. Their lives are meaningful and when seen closely—which may be difficult, as many saints are very unostentatious—these lives are deeply compelling to others. Saints tightly integrate the important components of their lives. In particular, those saints who are highly intelligent—and not all saints are intelligent, though all are wise—integrate their intellectual life and their moral life. Highly intelligent saints are reflective. They have an active and humble conscience that is on the lookout for correction, and this requires integration between the intellectual life and the moral life.

An intelligent saint who is a Christian is also a Christian saint. For Christianity is not the sort of doctrine that can be held on the peripheries of a well-lived life. Someone who is a Christian but to whose life Christianity is not central is neither a saint simpliciter nor a Christian saint. For a central part of being Christian is believing that Christianity should be central to one’s life, and an intelligent saint—in either sense—will see this and thus either conscientiously act on such a belief, making Christianity be central to her life, or else conclude that Christianity is false.

Now, the existence of a highly intelligent saint who is a Christian is evidence for coherence between central moral truths and the truth of Christianity. For if they were not coherent, the reflectiveness of the highly intelligent saint would likely have seen the incoherence, and her commitment to morality would have led to the rejection of Christianity. But it’s not just that the moral truths and the truth of Christianity cohere: the truths of Christianity support and motivate the moral life. For the saint who is a Christian is, as I just argued, also a Christian saint. And a Christian saint is motivated in the moral life by considerations central to Christianity—the love of God as shown in creation and in the incarnate Son’s sacrificial death on the cross.

It is difficult to have a coherent theory that includes in a highly integrated way deeply metaphysical beliefs and correct moral views in a way where the metaphysical beliefs support the moral ones. That a theory is such is significant evidence for the theory’s truth. More generally and loosely, I think that a person whose life is deeply compelling is likely to be right in those central beliefs of her that are tightly interwoven with what makes her life compelling. But the saint’s moral life is compelling, and if she is a Christian, then her central Christian beliefs are tightly interwoven with her moral life.

Hence, 2 is true.

Of course, the above is not all the evidence there is. What about highly intelligent saints who are not Christians? The existence of such may well weaken the argument. But at least, I think, the argument makes Christianity an intellectually serious option.

And there may be something we can say more specifically on a case by case basis about saints outside of Christianity. Crucial to my argument was that one cannot be a saint and a Christian and have the Christianity be peripheral to one’s moral life. But one can be a saint and an atheist and have the atheism be peripheral to one’s moral life. Atheism is a negative doctrine, after all. If one turns it into a positive motivational doctrine, one gets something like Russell’s “A Free Man’s Worship”. But that is too proud, too haughty, too cold, too dark to be the central motivational doctrine of a saint. A saint who is an atheist is, I suspect, not as likely to be an atheist saint as a saint who is a Christian is to be a Christian saint.

Eastern religions have their saints, but there is an obvious tension between the irrealism to which Eastern religions tend and moral truths about the importance of love of others, of corporal care for the needs of others. One can adhere to an irrealist philosophy and despite this live a life of service to others, but it is unlikely that the service to others be central to one’s life in the way that moral sainthood requires.

What about Jewish and Muslim saints? Well, it may be that many of the motivationally central parts of Judaism and Islam are shared by Christianity—though the converse is not true, given the motivational centrality of the Incarnation to Christianity. One might object that the transcendence and simplicitly of God as taught in Judaism and Islam is motivationally central. But classical Christian theism embraces the transcendence and simplicity of God—and the Incarnation and Trinity, too.

Cats versus nothing

Suppose I insisted that the Big Bang happened due to a cat generating an extremely high energy hairball. You would think I’m crazy. But why is the cat theory any worse than a theory on which the Big Bang happened for no reason at all?

Granted, we haven’t ever seen such a high energy hairball coming from a cat. But we likewise haven’t seen something come from nothing.

Granted, we know something about the causal powers of cats, namely that they lack the power to originate high energy hairballs. But likewise we know about the causal power of nothing, namely that where there is nothing, there is no causal power.

However, this last response is too quick. For when we talk of the universe coming from nothing versus the universe coming from a cat, we are equivocating on “coming from”. When the atheist says the universe came from nothing, they don’t mean that nothing was something that originated the universe. Rather, they simply deny that there was something that originated the universe. Cats don’t have the power to generate universes, so universes don’t get generated by cats. Similarly, where there is nothing, there is no power to generate universes, so universes don’t get generated by nothing. But the atheist doesn’t say that the universe is generated by (a?) nothing—they simply deny that it was generated by something.

Thus, the problem with the universe coming from a cat is with the origination: cats just aren’t the sorts of things to originate universes.

I guess that’s right, but I still feel the pull of the thought that a cat comes closer to making it possible for a universe to come into being than nothingness does. After all, where there is a cat, there are some causal powers. And where there is nothing, there aren’t any.

Perhaps another way to make the argument go through is to say this: There is nothing less absurd about the universe appearing causelessly ex nihilo than there is about a cat causelessly ex nihilo gaining a universe-creating power.

Johnson's framework for theistic arguments

Occasionally, I've been offering theistic arguments that border on begging the question. Here, for instance, is one that's basically due to Kant, but transposed into an argument in a way that Kant would not approve of:

1. (Premise) We should be grateful for the wondrous universe.
2. (Premise) If something is not the product of agency, we should not be grateful for it.
3. Therefore, the wondrous universe is the product of agency.

The argument is indisputably valid.[note 1] Moreover, if theism is true, it is also sound, and I do take theism to be true. But soundness is, of course, not enough for a good argument. While premise (2) is pretty plausible (in the objective sense of "should"), it feels like premise (1) "begs the question".

Nonetheless, I think there could be something to (1)-(3). Dan Johnson, in the January 2009 issue of Faith and Philosophy has a fascinating little article on the ontological and cosmological arguments. He argues that a certain kind of circularity is not vicious. Suppose that I know p₁. I then infer p₂ from p₁ in such a way that I also know p₂. I then non-rationally (or irrationally) stop believing p₁, but as it happens, I continue to believe p₂. It will then often be the case that there will be a good argument from p₂ back to p₁ (perhaps given some auxiliary premises), and if I use that argument, I will be able to regain my knowledge of p₁. This is true even though there is a circularity: from p₁, to p₂, and back to p₁. Here is an uncontroversial example: I am told my hotel room is 314. I infer that my hotel room is the first three digits of pi. I then forget that my hotel room is 314, but continue to believe it is the first three digits of pi. I then infer that my hotel room is 314.

Johnson proposes that by the sensus divinitatis one may come to know that God exists (actually, throughout this, I can't remember if he talks of knowledge or justified belief). One may then infer from this various things, such as that possibly God exists. Then, one irrationally rejects the existence of God (it does not have to be a part of the theory that every rejection of the existence of God is irrational), but some of the things one inferred from that belief remain. And arguments like the S5 ontological argument then make it possible to recover the knowledge of the existence of God from the things that one had inferred from that belief. Johnson also applies this to the cosmological argument.

This same structure may be present in my Kantian argument. By the sensus divinitatis one comes to know that God exists (obviously this is not a Kantian idea!). One infers that the universe is such that we should be grateful for it. One then irrationally comes to be an atheist (again, there is need be no claim that every atheist is irrationally such), but one continues to believe that gratitude is an appropriate response to the universe. And if that belief is sufficiently deeply engrained, one can reason back from it to theism or at least to agency behind the universe.

Now let me move a little beyond the Johnson paper. I think it is not necessary for this structure that the initial knowledge of God's existence come from the sensus divinitatis. Any other way of having knowledge of God's existence will do—say, by argument or testimony. In fact, it is not even necessary for this structure that one oneself ever had the knowledge or even belief that God exists. Suppose, for instance, one's parents knew that God exists (in whatever way), and inferred from this that the universe is worthy of gratitude. They then instilled this belief in one, and did so in such a way as to be knowledge-transmitting. (Surely, value beliefs can be instilled in such a way.) But they did not instill the belief that God exists (maybe because they thought that the existence of God was something everybody should figure out for themselves). One then knows (1), and can infer (3).

This transmission can be mediated by the wider culture, too. Culture can transmit knowledge, whether scientific or normative, and arguments can work at a cultural level. It could be that a theistic culture where the existence of God was known grew into a culture where (1) was known. The knowledge of (1) can remain even if the culture non-rationally rejects the existence of God (as American culture has not done, and might or might not do in the future). And then the individual can acquire the knowledge of (1) from the culture (we don't need to attribute knowledge to the culture if we don't want to; we can just talk of knowledge had by individuals participating in the culture), and then infer (3).

I think there are probably many consequences of theism that are embedded in the culture, from which consequences one can infer back to theism. If the participants in the culture knew theism to be true when these consequences were derived, then it is perfectly legitimate to reason back from these consequences to theism.

Believing of God that he exists

One formulation of Schellenberg’s argument from hiddenness depends on the premise:

(4) If for any capable finite person S and time t, God is at t open to being in a personal relationship with S at t, then for any capable finite person S and time t, it is not the case that S is at t nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.

Schellenberg argues that God is always open to personal relationships if he exists, and that there are people nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief to the proposition that God exists, and so God doesn’t exist.

I want to worry about a logical problem behind (4). Schellenberg attempts to derive (4) from a principle he calls Not Open that says, with some important provisos that won’t matter for this post, that “if a person A … is … in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that B exists” but B could have gotten A to believe that B exists, “then it is not the case that B is … open … to having a personal relationship with A”.

It seems that Schellenberg gets (4) by substituting “God” for “B” in Not Open. But “the proposition that B exists” creates a hyperintensional context for “B”, and hence one cannot blithely substitute equals for equals, or even necessarily coextensive expressions, in Not Open.

Compare: If I have a personal relationship with Clark Kent, I then automatically have a personal relationship with Superman, even if I do not believe the proposition that Superman exists, because Superman and Clark Kent are in fact the same person. It is perhaps necessary for a personal relationship with Superman is that I believe of Superman that he exists, but I need not believe it of him under the description “Superman”.

So it seems to me that the only thing Schellenberg can get from Not Open is something like:

(4*) If for any capable finite person S and time t, God is at t open to being in a personal relationship with S at t, then for any capable finite person S and time t, it is not the case that S is at t nonresistantly in a state where he does not believe of God that he (or it) exists.

Now, to believe of x that it exists is to believe, for some y such that in fact y = x, that y exists.

But then all that’s needed to believe of God that he exists is to believe in the existence of something that is in fact coextensive with God. For instance, suppose an atheist believes that her mother is the being that loves her most. Then she presumably believes that the being that loves her most exists. In doing so, she believes of the being that loves her most that it exists. But in fact, assuming theism is true, the being that loves her most is God. So she believes of God that it (or he) exists.

At this point it is really hard to find non-controversial cases of the relevant kind of nonbelief that (4*) expresses. By “non-controversial”, I mean cases that do not presuppose the non-existence of God. For if God does in fact exist, he falls under many descriptions: “The being who loves me most”, “The existent being that Jean Vanier loves the most”, “The most powerful conscious being active on earth”, etc.

It is true that Schellenberg needs only one case. So even if it is true, on the assumption that God exists, that the typical atheist or agnostic believes of God that he exists, perhaps there are some people who don’t. But they will be hard to find—most atheists, I take it, think there is someone who loves them most (or loves them most in some particular respect), etc. I think the most plausible cases of examples are small children and the developmentally challenged. But those aren’t the cases Schellenberg’s argument focuses on, so I assume that’s not the line he would want to push.

The above shows that the doxastic prerequisite for a personal relationship with B is not just believing of B that it exists, since that’s too easy to get. What seems needed (at least if the whole doxastic line is to get off the ground—which I am not confident it does) is to believe of B that it exists and to believe it under a description sufficiently relevant to the relationship. For instance, suppose Alice falsely believes that her brother no longer exists, and suppose that not only does Alice’s brother still exist but he has been working out in secret and is now the fastest man alive. Alice believes that the fastest man alive exists, and mistakenly thinks he is Usain Bolt rather than her brother. So she does count as believing of her brother that he exists, but because she believes this under the description “the fastest man alive”, a description that she wrongly attaches to Bolt, her belief doesn’t help her have a relationship with her brother.

So probably (4*) should be revised to:

(4**) If for any capable finite person S and time t, God is at t open to being in a personal relationship with S at t, then for any capable finite person S and time t, it is not the case that S is at t nonresistantly in a state where he does not believe of God that he (or it) exists, under a description relevant to his personal relationship with God.

This doesn’t destroy the hiddenness argument. But it does make the hiddenness argument harder to defend, for one must find someone who does not believe in anything that would be coextensive with God if God exists under a description that would be relevant to a personal relationship with God. But there are, plausibly, many descriptions of God that would be so relevant.

A different move is to say that there can be descriptions D that in fact are descriptions precisely of x but some cases of believing that D exists are not cases of believing of x that it exists. Again, one will need to introduce some relevance criterion for the descriptions, though.

[Note added later: This was, of course, written before the revelations about Jean Vanier's abusiveness. I would certainly have chosen a different example if I were writing this post now.]

Literalism and inerrantism

In the popular imagination, the doctrines of literalism and inerrantism about Scripture go hand-in-hand. And there may well be a positive correlation between adherence to these doctrines.

But isn't this a strange marriage? Inerrantism is basically the doctrine that every proposition asserted by Scripture is true (perhaps with an "oeconomic necessity" operator applied). On the other hand, literalism is something like the doctrine that narrative sentences in Scripture, with the exception of those that the Bible marks otherwise and those that sufficiently closely stylistically and/or contextually resemble those so market, are to be understood pretty much the way they would be understood if their vocabulary were mildly modernized and they were embedded in a present-day work of history. (It's clear that literalism is much harder to define then inerrancy—it's a slippery doctrine. It has some charateristic marks, though, such as thinking that Genesis 1 and 2 are meant to be, basically, history.)

An obvious difference is that it would be hard to both be an atheist and accept inerrance (one would have to have a really wacky interpretation of Scripture), but it is quite possible (and it actually happens, perhaps quite often) for an atheist to be a literalist.

In fact one would expect a negative correlation between adherence to literalism and adherence to inerrantism. If one is an inerrantist, then one of the exegetical tools available to one is an inference from "p is false" to "Scripture does not assert p", and this exegetical tool, together with modern science, should result in the rejection of literalism.

The meaning of life and the afterlife

Consider this intuition:

1. If this earthly life is all there is, our lives are insufficiently meaningful.

I think this is an intuition a lot of ordinary people have. But now let's turn this fact—the fact that people have the intuition in (1)—into a puzzle. It doesn't seem at all easy to find an argument for (1). After all, it seems like our earthly lives are meaningful on their own: they provide opportunities for the practice of the intellectual and moral virtues, and such practice seems to be "sufficiently" meaningful. (Sufficiently for what? I guess sufficiently for us to say that our lives "have real meaning". This is vague.) Maybe there is some easy-to-fall-for unsound argument (compare the case of the common intuition that there is a problem between omniscience and free will; there, it is easy to attribute that intuition to the existence of a modally fallacious argument together with the mistaken idea that backwards causation is impossible, which mistaken idea may rest on some fallacious arguments as well), but I don't actually know of one. Rather, the intuition about (1) seems quite direct.

Maybe there is a non-cognitive explanation, tied to the selective advantages of our believing (1). As a general methodological principle, however, I want to avoid such non-cognitive evolutionary explanations of beliefs absent particular evidence, because that path leads to scepticism, besides being strewn with unevidenced just-so tales.

Let me suggest one cognitive explanation: People intuit (1) because they have a more basic perception that:

2. The main meaning of our earthly lives comes from or is largely shaped by the meaning that these lives have in the light of our lives after death.

Now, there is an argument from (2) to one interpretation of (1). If (2) holds, the main kind of meaning that our lives have is in fact dependent on an afterlife. Thus, there is a true counterfactual that says that:

3. If there were no afterlife, then our lives would be insufficiently meaningful, where "insufficiently" is measured relative to the kind of meaning that they in fact have.

And then people report the counterfactual fact in (3) as (1).

Now let me add one further twist. After all, there are people who don't believe in an afterlife but who still find (1) very plausible—and their belief in (1) then makes them feel terrible. (Cf. Mickey in the middle portion of Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters.) They cannot justify (1) by means of (3). Nonetheless, (1) appears well-entrenched.

Here I want to use a really clever idea that Dan Johnson gives in a recent issue of Faith and Philosophy to examine our justification for the possibility premise in the ontological argument. Johnson thinks that the premise that possibly God exists is a premise that we derive from the claim that God exists, and the latter claim is one we have prior knowledge of by means of the sensus divinitatis. An atheist may then lose the justified belief that God exists, while keeping the derived belief that possibly God exists, with this derived being still justified by its past justification. The S5 ontological argument can then be used to leverage this derived belief into a full-blown belief that God exists. This is circular—and yet perfectly justified, as long as the atheist did not have good reason to cease believing in God. Johnson makes a similar move with regard to the cosmological argument, but I am less willing to go there with him.

Anyway, applying Johnson's idea to the case at hand is a cinch. We have a prior intuition that (2). From this, we derive (3) and then (1), right sense of "sufficiently". Even if we lose a belief in an afterlife, we can hold on to (1), which is a kind of shadow of the deep intuition that (2). We can even give an argument from (1) to (2), which is in a sense circular, but not viciously so:

4. Given the fact that a finite life of intellectual and moral virtue could be meaningful, (1) only has a reasonable interpretation on which it is true if (3) and (2) are true.
5. The intuition in (1) does have a reasonable interpretation on which it is true.
6. Therefore, (2) is true.

I think we do, in fact, have a very resilient (but perhaps not indestructible) pull towards (5).

Naturalism and the problem of pain

Here's one way to formulate the argument from pain against theism: "Granted, beings like us need an intense sensation normally triggered by damage that in turn normally triggers strongly aversive behavior. But if God were designing us, we would not expect this sensation to be painful. We would instead expect some intense non-painful sensation to be triggered by damage that in turn triggers strongly aversive behavior. Hence God did not design us." This version of the problem of pain is based on the Possibility Premise:

(PP) It would be possible to have a non-painful sensation that normally has the same triggers as pain and normally leads to the same aversive behavior.

Now, the typical atheist is a naturalist and the best naturalistic theories of mind are functionalist theories on which mental states are defined by their functional interconnections. If functionalism is true, PP is unlikely to be true. This creates a dialectical problem for the typical atheist running the above version of the argument from pain.

Here's one way to see the dialectical problem. Either there is good reason to believe in PP or there isn't. If there isn't, then the theist shouldn't be saddled with PP either. Nothing in theism commits one to PP. It's true that the typical theist is a dualist, and dualism does make PP plausible, but even that is a fairly weak "make plausible": it is easy to be a dualist who denies PP. This is especially true if what pushes one to dualism is not the problem of consciousness but the problem of mental content. Now if there is good reason to believe in PP, then it's fair enough to use PP in an argument against theism. But now the dialectical problem is that PP also provides significant evidence against functionalism, and hence against naturalism, and hence against typical versions of atheism.

Of course, one can give versions of the argument from pain that don't make use of PP. What I say only applies to one version of the argument from pain.

A dilemma for divine command theory

Either God does or does not have moral obligations.

If he has moral obligations, divine command theory seems to be false. Divine command theory comes in two versions: command theory and will theory. On command theory, an action is obligatory if and only if God commands it to one. But no one can impose obligations on himself by commands (one can impose obligations on oneself by promises, of course). On will theory, an action is obligatory if and only if God wills (in a relevant sense) one to do it. But what one wills oneself to do does not impose an obligation. That's all I'll say about this horn, though more can probably be said.

If God has no moral obligations, however, then in particular he has no moral obligation to keep his promises and reveal only truths to us. But the Western monotheistic religions are founded on an utter reliance on God's promises and revelation. Without God having moral obligations, why think that God's promises and revelation are trustworthy? (It would obviously be circular to think so on the basis of God's promises and revelations.) So if God has no moral obligations, Western monotheistic religions are in trouble. But most divine command theorists accept one of the Western monotheistic religions.

Perhaps, though, it is impossible for God to break promises or lie, even though he is under no obligation to keep promises or refrain from lying. But if it is not wrong for him to do these things, why can't he do it? If it's just a brute limitation in what he can do, then that seems to conflict with his omnipotence. Maybe, though, God's inability to promise or lie follows from some other essential attribute of God.

Perhaps his goodness? But goodness in a context where duty is not at issue, i.e., deontologically unconstrained goodness, does not seem sufficient to rule out breaking promises or lying.

Maybe in the case of an omnipotent being, though, it does. Goodness is opposed to inducing false beliefs in others, since false beliefs are intrinsically bad. So in our case, deontologically unconstrained goodness might lead one to break a promise, because one made the promise in ignorance of some aspect of the consequences of keeping it, and to lie because there is no other way of achieving some good. But an omnipotent and omniscient being is not going to suffer from such limitations. Sometimes the only humanly possible way to save someone's feelings from being hurt is by lying to him, and deontologically unconstrained goodness may lead one to do that. But God can directly will to have someone's feelings not be hurt.

But this line of thought is a dangerous one to the theist. For it is pretty much the same line of thought that leads the atheist to conclude that God, if he existed, would prevent various horrendous evils. In response to the atheist, the theist has to insist that there may very well be goods—perhaps but not necessarily beyond our ken—that are served by not preventing the horrendous evils. But if we are impressed by this line of thought, we will likewise be unimpressed by the thought that whatever end might be accomplished by lying or breaking of promises can be accomplished by an omniptoent and omniscient being without these. In particular, a sceptical theist cannot give the response I gave in the preceding paragraph.

There is a different line of thought, though, that might work better, inspired by Steve Evans' version of divine command theory. In addition to the distinction between permissible and impermissible actions, there is a distinction between virtuous and vicious actions, and it is only the permissible/impermissible distinction that is grounded by divine command theory. God, one can say, is essentially virtuous. But lying and breaking promises is vicious. Hence God can't do these actions, not because they are wrong, but because they are vicious. I think this is the best response to the dilemma, but I am not convinced.

One reason I am not convinced is this line of thought. Suppose that what makes lying and promise-breaking vicious is that these things are wrong. This is actually plausible. Consider this line of thought. A lot of people think that in extreme circumstances it is permissible to lie or break a promise (we might, though, argue that an omnipotent being doesn't end up in such extreme circumstances—this may be a subtly different line of argument from one that I argued against above, I think). They aren't going to say that lying or breaking promises is always vicious—only that it is vicious when it is wrong, and then because it is wrong. A minority of people, including me, think lying is always wrong (I don't know the promise literature, so I won't talk about promises here). They presumably think lying is always vicious. But surely it is always vicious precisely because it is always wrong. If so, then it is quite plausible that lying and promise-breaking are vicious because, and to the extent that, they are wrong. But the divine command theorist who says that they're vicious but not wrong for God cannot take this line.

Another plausible view is that lying and promise-breaking are wrong, when they are wrong, because they are vicious. But again a divine command theorist cannot take this line of thought, because that would allow one to ground wrongness facts in non-deontological virtue fact, and would make divine command theory unnecessary.

What the divine command theorist needs to hold here is that there is no explanatory relationship between the wrongness of lying and promise breaking and the viciousness of these. And that doesn't seem very plausible, though I do not have a knock-down argument against that.