Basil Mitchell

Can God’s Existence be Disproved?

In recent years philosophical criticism of theism has tended to take the form of an attempt to show that it is logically inconsistent, or in some other way logically incoherent through failing some legitimate test of significance or intelligibility. If that could be shown there would be no room for an examination of the rational case for theism of the sort I want to undertake. Not only could there be no good reason for belief in God; there would be no possibility of its being even a matter of faith. The subject has accumulated a considerable literature [1], and the present treatment will inevitably be summary and selective. But it would be wrong to evade the challenge altogether and; in meeting it, we are likely to encounter considerations which will be of importance in the later argument.

Hugh Rice God and Goodness . (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Pp. viii+139. £19.99 (Hbk). ISBN 0 19 825028 2.

The core of Rice’s book is the claim that ‘ there is a universe such as this, obeying laws such as these, because it is good that it should be so ’ (49). What precedes the statement of this claim is discussion of its presuppositions; what follows it is consideration of its implications, together with the further claim that it is equivalent, in all important respects, to traditional theism: what can be said of a personal God can be said equally about this ‘abstract conception of God’. To the extent that Rice is right about this equivalence, the arguments he considers for and against God so conceived and his assessment of these, represent a contribution, and an extremely interesting one, to the familiar debate about the pros and cons of theism. Whatever one makes of Rice’s central claim, his book emerges as a stimulating brief introduction to the philosophy of religion. As such, it has distinct merits. It is written with great clarity and remarkable conciseness. It displays a refreshing independence of mind in its treatment of a range of fundamental philosophical issues. The main tendency of Rice’s argument is to suggest that theism, as he understands it, follows from certain beliefs which we naturally and, he believes, rationally accept: (i) a belief in an ordered universe and in laws of nature, which are central to the scientific outlook; (ii) a belief in rationality and inference to the best explanation, as is exemplified in science, but not only there – this involves him in a reasoned rejection of Humean and other empiricist accounts of science; and (iii) a belief in objective value. Rice considers three objections to the objective status of our ordinary beliefs about good and bad, right and wrong. (a) Metaphysical oddity – but even strict empiricists admit logical truths; why not moral truths? (b) Epistemological oddity – we do not arrive at our knowledge of moral truths in the same was as through deduction or perception. But why assume that these two exhaust the possibilities? (c) The extent of moral disagreement – but we disagree also about the nature and extent of evidential support for factual beliefs, and our reliance on this is an essential part of our acceptance of rationality. In any case ‘should we favour highly metaphysical worries over our firm conviction that it is wrong to torture children?’. (iv) A further belief which it is natural to accept is a belief in necessary

The Role of Theology in Bioethics

To claim at all that there is a role for theology in bioethics is to face a dilemma. Either the principles which apply in the practice of medicine, or in biological research, are such as to approve themselves to all reasonable men, in which case there is no need to ‘bring theology into it’; or religion provides one perspective among others from which the moral issues may be viewed, and it is not clear why in a‘plural society’ this one should be preferred to the others. Theology is either otiose or intrusive.

How is the Concept of Sin related to the Concept of Moral Wrongdoing

The word ‘sin’ is unlikely to be found in the index of a book on moral philosophy. It belongs to the vocabulary of theology. But the serious student of both subjects is bound to wonder how the concept of sin is to be related to the topics that interest moral philosophers. The problem is complicated by the evident fact that ‘sin’ is what W. B. Gallie has called an ‘essentially contested concept’ and that unanimity is as rare among moral philosophers as it is among theologians. It is not a matter, therefore, of applying an agreed philosophical method to a clearly defined theological concept, but of looking for a way of thinking about sin which is theologically defensible and which can approve itself to a reasonably sympathetic moral philosopher.

The Nature of a Cumulative Case

The purpose of Part I was to justify, in an admittedly summary fashion, two assumptions which will be made in the remainder of the book. They are that it is not possible to prove traditional Christian theism or to render it probable in any strict sense of the word; and that it cannot be shown to be necessarily false or logically incoherent.

Rationality and Commitment

The problem before us is that, if systems of religious belief require and admit of rational justification, as has been argued, they ought only to be accepted more or less provisionally; yet the religious believer characteristically gives whole-hearted assent to his beliefs. Either, then, our account of religious faith is inadequate or such faith has to be condemned as inherently irrational. At this stage in the argument, as on earlier occasions, it is worth noticing that it is not only in connection with religious belief that the problem arises. Mention has been made earlier of the analogies that exist between systems of religious and political belief. Both are, characteristically, involved in a ‘form of life’. If we take, for example, liberal democracy, we find that, at the level of theory, it is enormously complex, and in practice it can work successfully only if the institutions in which it is embodied are supported by the appropriate attitudes and skills of a very wide range of types of people. The apparatus of representative government and of the courts of law in a liberal society depends for its continued effectiveness on the continuing trust of the great majority.

Faith and Knowledge

The position we have now arrived at is that, in its intellectual aspect, traditional Christian theism may be regarded as a world-view or metaphysical system which is in competition with other such systems and must be judged by its capacity to make sense of all the available evidence. It has been argued that it is an error to hold that such expressions as ‘make sense of’ can only be understood in terms of particular systems, for this is to presuppose what I have been contesting, that reasoning is always to be construed as the following of rules, whose character may to some extent vary from one system to another.

A Strategy for the Defence of the Rationality of Theism

The point of the comparison between such procedures as those of history and critical exegesis and those of theology was to suggest that theology is not alone in relying on arguments which have force but cannot be regarded as demonstrations or as based on strict probabilities. If there are such cumulative arguments, theological reasoning would certainly seem to make use of them. Thus I. M. Crombie, in his paper ‘Theology and Falsification’, discusses what he calls ‘theistic interpretations of our experience’ [1]. Those who so interpret need not be so inexpert in logic as to suppose that there is anything of the nature of a deductive or inductive argument which leads from a premiss asserting the existence of the area of experience in question to a conclusion expressing belief in God…. All that is necessary is that he [the theist] should be honestly convinced that, in interpreting them [his experiences], as he does, theistically, he is in some sense facing them more honestly, bringing out more of what they contain or involve than could be done by interpreting them in any other way. The one interpretation is preferred to the other, not because the latter is thought to be refutable on paper, but because it is judged to be unconvincing in the light of familiarity with the facts. There is a partial parallel to this in historical judgment. Where you and I differ in our interpretation of a series of events, there is nothing outside the events in question which can over-rule either of us, so that each man must accept the interpretation which seems, on fair and critical scrutiny, the most convincing to him.

Rational Choice between Scientific Paradigms

Our discussion up to this point of the rationality of religious belief has proved inconclusive because the analogies we have claimed to discern between religious systems of thought and other systems have turned out to be themselves ambiguous. The analogies were intended to suggest that the same sort of disagreement as occurs between theists and atheists is also found between proponents of rival scientific paradigms and rival philosophical theories. But the analogies are open to attack on two grounds. The first is that, even if the analogies hold in other relevant respects, they do not give any support to the claim that the disagreement between theists and atheists is capable of rational solution. For there is a precisely similar doubt as to whether a rational choice can be made between scientific paradigms and philosophical theories. The second is that in any case the analogies do not hold in all the relevant respects. There are peculiarities of the religious case which should prevent us assimilating it to the others.

Faith and Revelation

If it is true, as my argument has suggested, not only of systems of religious belief, but also of secular world-views and moral and political theories that they require and admit of rational justification, but are not, and ought not to be, accepted by their adherents in a merely tentative and provisional manner, the complaint that, by assimilating the religious case to these others, I have overlooked the committed character of religious belief, loses much of its force. No doubt the character of religious faith is in important respects different, but the resemblances should not be neglected.