Saturday, February 20, 2010
The end of faith? Not any time soon
Polling data suggests that even religiously unaffiliated younger people have a profound spiritual hunger. I think this supports the claim that C. S. Lewis's Argument from Desire is correct in supposing that our very nature hungers for something that only God can satisfy, and also the claim that there is something deeply unnatural about atheism.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
21 comments:
The AfD is assumes that there can be an answer to a contradiction.
Most people conceive of God as a being that can do anything, but this leads to the classic conundrum: can God make a rock so heavy that even he cannot move it?
Okay, the rock thing is kind of silly, but maybe a better example is: can God make a square circle?
I think most theists would say that he cannot.
Yet, the AfD implicitly assumes that God can create logical impossibilities. For example, I desire a challenge and I also desire to succeed in my challenges. However, I can't be granted both at the same time. In order to perceive a challenge I must sometimes fail, and (at least momentarily) frustrate my desire for success. It's not logically possible to satisfy all of my desires simultaneously. There are lots of other conflicting human desires I could talk about.
The AfD needs to persuade us that God can fulfill all our desires simultaneously. (Nature can already satisfy them several at a time, but not all at once.) The theist must also make this case without ruling some desires "disordered" because God can't be both controlling and not controlling our desires at the same time without robbing the theory of explanatory power.
Also, the AfD assumes that evolution would not cause us to have the kinds of conflicting desires that cannot be fulfilled by any single thing. That assumption is wrong.
The end of faith? A lot of careless thinkers imagine God can do this, and that may provide some false comfort for them, but it's a terrible argument for God's existence. Faith will be around until people start being rational.
The AfD doesn't need to do what you decide it has to do in some bizarre ad hoc way. Nor does it "implicitly assume God can create logical impossibilities."
Doctor Strawman, more like.
It seems to me you misunderstand the AfD. The argument doesn't need anything like the fulfilment of all our desires. The AfD simply claims that all our natural desires about something existing and can be fulfilled (not all at once), and that we should tjis (via induction) assume that all our desires are about something existing and can be fulfilled. Where do you have your interpretation of the AfD from?
"Faith will be around until people start being rational." This statement is simply ridiculous. Most of the rational humans in history have been theist. There are some good arguments for atheism, but the arguments of modern atheist are incredibly bad. Atheism or naturalism is a worldview with fundamental problems and flaws, as the rational naturalists readily admit (people like Jaegwon Kim, Thomas Nagel and David Chalmers). Your own ontology and philosophy of mind seems to be only rudimentary reflected and depends on some crude folk-ontology. This to me suggests a lack of rational examination of the evidence.
Anonymous(2),
Do we have a natural desire to fulfill all our natural desires at once?
If we do, then it's an example of a desire for something that cannot be met by anything in our physical environment (although, perhaps drugs might get some people there temporarily), but something entirely natural and expected.
Or consider this: we have a special feeling of reward when our desires are first met, and this feeling fades over time. For example, coming from hunger, I feel better when I first tuck into a meal, than when I am satisfied at the end of the meal. That is, we get a sense of reward when we initially satisfy a desire. Isn't it a natural desire that I should always want to feel that climax of pleasure and reward as a desire is fulfilled?
If so, then I could have all my desires fulfilled (in series, let's say), and still feel that something was missing.
How about a desire to be free from worry? No single Earthly thing could free us from all worry. Isn't this both natural, expected, and unquenchable?
All of these meta-desires are candidates for what the AfD is referring to.
Like so many theistic arguments, the AfD relies on not defining the X that naturalism allegedly cannot explain. Indeed, it's not obvious that God can fulfill this mysterious desire anyway.
As for the rationality question, most theists can't even define what it means to be rational. In my experience, most people (not just theists) think rational means "reflected and settled upon".
Anonymous,
Here's a suggestion for the Anonymous posters. Sign your comments with a fictitious name, like Scooby or BamBam or Dino. It'll make it easier to keep things straight when there are multiple of you on a thread (and you won't have to create a Google account or come out of the closet).
Do I have a desire that the desire that all desires be fulfilled is satisfied? This is an absurd question, yet your treatment of desires allows for all kinds of questions like this. Once we accept a more psychological view of desires this absurd consequence disappears, along with your objection to the AfD. The following propositions seem to be a good first approach to get rid of the consequence.
-There are no meta-desires, meta-meta-desires or n-meta-desires
-Not all desires concern the present
-conflicting actual desires are impossible
-if a person claims to have conflicting actual desires, you can ask questions until you notice that she formulated her desires in a misleading way
"As for the rationality question, most theists can't even define what it means to be rational."
I'm absolutely certain that you can't define what rationality means. This is a highly disputed philosophical topic. Your statement is as weird as claiming "in my opinion atheists can't solve the problem of other minds".
I'll eventually register here, thanks for reminding me.
Coming to speak about the Argument from Desire. There is something similiar to this argument in the Catechism of the Catholic Church right in the the first chapter.
"The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for[...]
In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behaviour: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being"
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P9.HTM
Now this does not mean that Lewis got his idea from the Catechism, but I'm curious from where did he get it?
Anonymous,
-There are no meta-desires, meta-meta-desires or n-meta-desires
-Not all desires concern the present
-conflicting actual desires are impossible
-if a person claims to have conflicting actual desires, you can ask questions until you notice that she formulated her desires in a misleading way
Where did you get this stuff? Conflicting actual desires are impossible?
How about my desire to eat a donut versus my desire to be thin? Or a desire to steal a donut versus a desire to be a fair person? Or a desire to sleep with another woman versus the desire to be a faithful husband?
These are clearly conflicting.
What psychology tells us is that we have lots of drives, and these drives DO conflict. The drives serve different purposes and are dominant at different times and dominant (typically) in different environments. However, there are countless situations in which our drives will be in conflict.
I may be able to find scenarios in which my desires do not consciously conflict (e.g., when there is only one overwhelming stimulus), but that doesn't mean my desires don't conflict generally.
"How about my desire to eat a donut versus my desire to be thin?"
She wants to eat the donut and she wants to be thin. Those are logically consistent desires. A problem would be the following set of desires: a) the desire to eat a donut b) the desire to be thin c) the desire to be in a situation where a) and b) exclude each other. But clearly nobody would entertain such a set of desires.
The AfD only claims that each of the desires has an object that satisfies it. Clearly this is true for the desire to eat a donut and for the desire to be thin.
Also you haven't shown how to escape the infinite regress problem.
Anonymous,
So you're saying the AfD denies that I have a basic desire to be free from disappointment, or to be free from dissatisfaction?
If I eat the donut, I will be fat and frustrated. If I don't eat the donut, I will be thin and (gastronomically) frustrated. The desire to be free from frustration is not a desire? Is it not Scottish enough?
Infinite regress? I don't know what you're referring to.
"So you're saying the AfD denies that I have a basic desire to be free from disappointment, or to be free from dissatisfaction?"
I don't think it does. Contingently conflicting desires are no problem for the AfD. After all I might have the desire for union with god but also a desire for certain sins, yet I can't satisfy both at the same moment.
What would be a problem for the AfD is a logically inconsistent desire, for this desire can't be satisfied in any possible world. It doesn't have an object to satisfy it. This ruins the induction.
My argument was that there are no such logically contradictory desires. Here is a trivial definition of desire that makes it more plausible that there are no logically contradictory desires:
desire=df wish that state of affair x obtains.
Now your idea of meta-desires would suggest a way to construct logically inconsistent desires. But the problem of regress shows that metadesires are problematic.
Oh and even if we'd allow for meta-desires I don't think anybody has logically inconsistent meta-desires. We might have the following meta-desire:
a) To be successful at t
b) To be without success at t+1
But I can't imagine someone who has the following meta-desire:
a)To be successful at t
b)to be without success at t
Anonymous,
desire=df wish that state of affair x obtains.
Okay, so you're suggesting that if x can refer to the fulfillment of desires, then I could then formulate a desire to fulfill my desire to have my desires fulfilled, and so on.
But there is no infinite regress for two or three reasons.
First, I won't desire a 2-metadesire before I satisfy a 1-metadesire.
Second, I don't care about the mathematical structure of my desires. To see this, consider the integers. Does the infinity of integers cause me to be unable to count to finite numbers? It doesn't. If desires are biological mechanisms, the regresses are capped by our mechanical capacities. If we had more time, and found ways to satisfy our first-order metadesires, maybe we would formulate second-order ones. But, as with counting, this presents no problems.
Third, it's not clear that I can progress beyond first order anyway.
Oh and even if we'd allow for meta-desires I don't think anybody has logically inconsistent meta-desires.
Meta-desires will sink the AfD.
What is the desire for God? This is the desire we're talking about. IIRC, the story goes that, while we may find temporary satisfaction in Earthly pleasures, there will always be something missing.
It seems plausible to me that this desire is for the high we get when our desires are initially fulfilled, a desire not to be at all dissatisfied, or a desire to be free from worry (each of which is a meta-desire).
We can satisfy all our Earthly desires sequentially, and still leave our meta-desires unfulfilled.
In fact, if you combine natural desires with the ability to abstract, you'll get meta-desires automatically.
Moreover, God is very poorly defined in this regard. In a sense, God is defined as that which will quench all my thirsts simultaneously so that I no longer want. Yet, it's not at all obvious that God can satiate our meta-desires.
So, I would like to know what desire the AfD refers to, more specifically.
It seems plausible to me that this desire is for the high we get when our desires are initially fulfilled, a desire not to be at
"In fact, if you combine natural desires with the ability to abstract, you'll get meta-desires automatically."
This I find a very plausible way to avoid the regress. It also makes desires something concrete, namely psychological states.
"We can satisfy all our Earthly desires sequentially, and still leave our meta-desires unfulfilled.
I don't think this is possible. For this to be so, we'd need logically inconsistent meta-desires. You mention the example of a worry-free life and the desire for a challenge. Given a certain sense of both words they are compatible. Then they are both satisfied given all other lower-level desires are satisfied.
Given another interpretation they are not compatible, but then nobody would hold the two desires. I know of nobody who would wish for the absence of any worry and also wish for worry about success in order to have a challenge. It would mean to wish that a state of affairs obtains and obtains not.
"Moreover, God is very poorly defined in this regard. In a sense, God is defined as that which will quench all my thirsts simultaneously so that I no longer want. Yet, it's not at all obvious that God can satiate our meta-desires."
I agree with you on the first part. This is not a clear cut deductive argument that leads to christian theism. I think it makes most sense as a inference to the best explanation. But I don't think god is invoked to satiate any meta-desires. I think Lewis takes it that we have some basic desire for god, If I remember correctly he calls it "joy".
Sorry for the weird text at the beginning.
The claim that there is something deeply unnatural about atheism strikes me as an odd overstatement. For instance, theism is but one way to satisfy a spiritual hunger. Just ask the nontheistic Buddhists.
Whether buddhists are really nontheistic is itself open to quite a lot of debate. They may not believe in a creator-God, but what they do believe is fundamental to reality seems downright compatible with some form of theism.
Anon: there are nontheistic Buddhists, while some are hard to categorize. My friend is an atheist monk spends half his time meditating. The sect to which he belongs is nontheistic.
At any rate, spirituality is not identical to theism.
Symantecs.
"Spirituality" is *fundamentally* contradictory to materialism. Saying otherwise is having your cake and eating it too.
And, atheism is implicitly materialistic. Saying otherwise is cowardice.
(Obligatory IMHO implied)
Post a Comment