Against the Stream

Agnosticism and Justified Belief

Spurred on by Lindsay Beyerstein's recent post on agnosticism, coupled with a BookTV discussion with Sam Harris, the author of The End of Faith, and BabaWawa's "special presentation" on Heaven the other night, I've been thinking about the question of justified belief.

As a Christian, and more so I think as a theologian, I have a responsibility to make an account of why I believe what I believe, and I to offer a justification for it. But what kind of a justification ought to be considered adequate? Harris made the point on BookTV that "religious moderates," in contrast to religious conservatives, don't like to deal with argument and evidence. I suppose that there's some truth to that, insofar as a lot of religious liberals are rooted in Freidrich Schleiermacher's conception of religion as a "feeling of absolute dependence." Of course, Schleiermacher was not trying to substitute feelings for arguments; he was offering a phenomenological description of where religious instincts come from. Nevertheless, it has opened the door to a great deal of wishy-washy-ness with regard to the very germane questions of justification in Christian faith.

Of course, Harris wasn't really all that interested in engaging religious "moderates" or "liberals" so much as he was interested in setting up a strawman that was easy to knock down (after all, is it really true that charismatic evangelicals are more interested in evidence than moderate mainline Christians? I'll ask the friend of mine who once told me "don't bother telling me these things, I already know what I believe").

Lindsay, taking on the difference between agnosticism and atheism, makes a very germane point about the linguistic distortions that believers often use to pummel non-believers:

    People often like to play "gotcha" with self-professed atheists. If you say that you don't believe in God, they counter with "Well, isn't that just like a religion, then?" These people are twisting the normal vocabulary of knowledge and belief. If we talk about belief in God the same way we talk about belief in other propositions, then it's perfectly natural to call yourself a non-believer.

Agreed. Indeed, I pretty much agree with the overall point she's making. But I'd like to add a wrinkle to the discussion by trying to expand a little bit about what constitutes justified belief.

Most philosophically oriented atheists will argue for something like a "strong evidentialist" position. This point of view argues that it is illegitimate to believe in anything unless you have sufficient evidence, and the kind of evidence that counts as sufficient is something akin to the kind of evidence that you would need to demonstrate a scientific theory. Since you can never know for sure whether God exists or not, you are only justified in believing if you can overcome a fairly high burden of proof. Lindsay makes this very point:

    In fact, most atheists lack religious beliefs for the same reason they lack other beliefs--insufficient evidence.

    I'm an atheist. I can't prove there isn't a God. (I'm not even sure that the concept of God has been sufficiently well defined that I would recognize a proof of that particular entity's non-existence.)

    I can't prove that the phone company didn't kill Kennedy, either. But if someone asks me whether I believe that the phone company whacked JFK, I say no. When I do, nobody asks me to supply proof of the phone company's innocence, or accuses me of taking the phone company's innocence as an article of faith.

The representative of the atheist position on the Waters special made the same basic argument the other night, and it is a hard argument to dispute, provided you agree with the proposition that the only justified belief is one that rises to approximately the same level as a scientific proof.

An interesting twist on this came when Anthony Flew declared last winter that he now felt, on the basis of some arguments about intelligent design, that the evidence was now sufficient to conclude that there was some kind of a God. I have to confess to being a bit embarrassed for Flew, since for such a distinguished philosopher, he's chosen a really rotten ground for belief.

The real problem, and the one I would ask my atheist friends to consider, is that the standard of proof for religious faith is of a wholly different character than for a scientific theory. The philosophical touchstones for thinking about the warrants for religious belief go back to Pascal and Leibniz, not Hume.

Look at the question from this perspective: Suppose I'm trying to figure out the way the universe works, or seeking to make sense of my life. I've got lots of theories of human nature that I can base my self-conception on. I could be a Freudian, a Marxist, a Nietszchean; I could be a liberal democrat or an aficionado of Ayn Rand. I could be any of these things, and many more. Or I could be a Christian. On what theory of human nature should I rest my self-conception? Does Christianity answer the fundamental question of human life any worse than these other theories, or any other theory at all? I would suggest that it is at least as good a theory of human nature as these others, and it is better than many of them.

So then, I think that Christianity ought to be given respect because it offers interesting and (for many) compelling answers to the questions of human life. This doesn't mean it's true, of course. It could be completely wrong and still be interesting and compelling. So, am I justified in believing it?

Here's where Leibniz comes in. A lot of folks misinterpret Leibniz, thinking that in his "best of all possible worlds" scenario he's making a case that his analysis of evil is the way that the world must be. But that's not right. Leibniz is doing what a Christian philosopher should do: He's taking account of the objections to Christian belief, one of which is the existence of evil in the world. A careful reading of the Theodicy would reveal that he actually offers several explanations for the existence of evil. But why?

Leibniz believes, as it seems that Lindsay would as well, that you can't prove God's existence, but you also can't prove his non-existence. The question of God's being is undetermined (and possibly undeterminable!). But Leibniz argues that, if you've got a theory, like Christianity, that makes sense of human life, and is not per se irrational (that is to say, self-contradictory), then it is sufficient to justify belief in that theory on the basis of possibilities. In other words, the existence of evil is a real argument against Christianity. But Christians don't need to prove that evil is justified, they just need to offer a theory that accounts for evil, like the "best of all possible worlds" theory. The ability to provide a possible set of circumstances in which religious faith can be true offers a sufficient warrant to justify belief.

This is of course, a long way from a proof. And for a lot of atheists, it would be insufficient to demonstrate God's existence. But it's not intended to be a demonstration. It's intended to offer an account of a justified belief. Because Christianity is attractive on other grounds (as Pascal would have it: It is worthy of respect because it explains the human condition, and it is attractive because it holds out the possibility that the believer may be happy), it is sufficient to justify belief. But being respectable and attractive still doesn't make Christianity true.

The question is, does it provide a sufficient justification for belief? Must religious belief be justifiable only on the terms set by atheists? Or may it be justifiable on other, less burdensome grounds? We believe all sorts of things with less than scientific proof (My mother loves me; my bank is not cheating me right now; I won't get into an accident if I go through the stop light when it's green at a reasonable rate of speed). Sometimes, we believe these things mistakenly, but if we were to require the kind of proof that Lindsay requires for a belief in God, we'd become paralyzed into inaction. I want to suggest that justified faith in God is much closer to the kind of faith we have in the ordinary events of our lives than it is like a scientific theory.

Another approach, taken by Alvin Plantinga, is to argue that we have as much basis to believe in the existence of God as we do to believe in the existence of minds outside of ourselves (that is to say, I believe that Lindsay has a mind, and she believes that I have one). If we aren't irrational for believing in other minds, are we irrational for believing in God?

So, my question is this: If I believe something that is intellectually worthy of respect and makes me happy, and if furthermore I can provide a coherent account of it that encompasses the various objections to my belief, do I have a rational, justified, warranted belief, or not? If not, why not? Can I have a rational justified, warranted belief in something that is in fact wrong, though I don't know it to be so?

I'm certainly hoping that some others in the philosophical blogosphere take a look at this post and offer their own analysis. I'm interested in hearing what they say. I should point out that I don't take ownership over most of this argument, which has its origins in my philosophy professors Diogenes Allen and Wentzel van Huyssteen, as well as Plantinga, Michael Stenmark, Nicholas Rescher and others. Of course, to the degree that I've muddled their arguments, the fault is mine.

EDIT: A post-Christmas review of this post revealed many, many typos and misspellings. That's what I get for trying to write in a coffee shop with a cold!

Can a Case Be Made?

Let's entertain for a moment the possibility that Bush had some justification for the wiretapping. What kind of a justification was it, and what were its parameters. Kevin Drum thinks that Jonah Goldberg (of all people!) makes a good case. I'll link to Jonah, but quote Kevin below:

I think that's exactly right. With the caveat that we still don't know exactly what this program entails, it appears to be just the kind of thing people have in mind when they say that the executive branch should be given a lot of leeway during wartime because only the executive can act speedily enough when the country is under attack.

"Under attack" describes 9/11, and the president had every reason to suppose that those attacks might continue. If Bush had ordered the NSA to broaden its mandate immediately, and then gone to Congress a few weeks or a month later to get permanent authorization for a change in the law, I'd probably have no problem with it.

But that's not what he did. In fact, he did just the opposite. He deliberately declined to ask the FISA court to authorize his program because he knew they'd turn him down. Likewise, he declined to ask Congress to authorize the program because after consulting with congressional leaders he concluded that Congress would turn him down too. But like it or not, once the initial emergency was past he no longer had the authority to act unilaterally. He's our president, not our king, and even though he likes to style himself a "wartime president" he still has to obey the law. Somebody ought to remind him of that occasionally.

Me? I think that the totality of Jonah's case is weak, though he may be right that Bush will suffer no long-term consequences (alas!). Even I'm willing to acknowledge the need for short term emergency measures when we're under attack, but I believe in the rule of law and the separation of powers. Bush's version of the Imperial Presidency is simply too imperious for me.

The Slope Slips Some More

From the New York Times, via Atrios:

Undercover New York City police officers have conducted covert surveillance in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident, a series of videotapes show.

In glimpses and in glaring detail, the videotape images reveal the robust presence of disguised officers or others working with them at seven public gatherings since August 2004.

The officers hoist protest signs. They hold flowers with mourners. They ride in bicycle events. At the vigil for the cyclist, an officer in biking gear wore a button that said, "I am a shameless agitator." She also carried a camera and videotaped the roughly 15 people present.

Beyond collecting information, some of the undercover officers or their associates are seen on the tape having influence on events. At a demonstration last year during the Republican National Convention, the sham arrest of a man secretly working with the police led to a bruising confrontation between officers in riot gear and bystanders.

Until Sept. 11, the secret monitoring of events where people expressed their opinions was among the most tightly limited of police powers.

Provided with images from the tape, the Police Department's chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, did not dispute that they showed officers at work but said that disguised officers had always attended such gatherings - not to investigate political activities but to keep order and protect free speech. Activists, however, say that police officers masquerading as protesters and bicycle riders distort their messages and provoke trouble.

But don't worry; after all, your civil liberties aren't in danger. Are they?

Im. Peach. Him!

I didn't say it when his incompetence led to September 11th (President's Daily Briefing, anyone?). I didn't say it when he he took us to war in Iraq unjustly and dishonestly. I didn't say it when he imprisoned U.S. citizens without charge as "enemy combatents," or when he held foreign detainees in violation of the Geneva Convention. I didn't even say it when we discovered that his administration had systematically and self-consciously developed a legal cover to justify torture!

It wasn't because these things weren't serious, but it was because I felt that the bar to impeachment needed to be unambiguously high and difficult to surmount. Well, friends. He's now surmounted it. Not only has he authorized the surveillance of American citizens in direct violation of Federal law. Not only has he done it many, many times. But he's admitted to it and he's even standing up and justifying it in the name of the War on Terror.

Please, please, make no mistake. This isn't a transitory problem that happened and will be remedied. They're proud (retroactively) of what they've done. They think it's honorable. And, lest you think it's a temporary measure to handle an emergency situation, the President himself has said that he intends to continue authorizing these wiretaps for as long as Americans are in danger. Please, dwell on that sentence. Let it haunt you. Let it keep you up at night. If the President gets away with this claim, if he is not impeached, if he is not removed from office and disgraced, along with all of those who knew about and supported this action, then he has opened the door for any president to do essentially anything, as long as he can justify it by claiming that he's doing it to protect the American people.

Even if you massage the statement to mean "for the duration of the war on terror," ask yourself, how long will that be?

We keep playing this game by calling the war on terror a war, pretending that it has a foreseeable goal and a determinable duration, but the nature of terrorism as such means that we may be at war in principle forever, and the President has arrogated to himself the executive authority to do whatever he sees fit in the name of national security, completely independently of legislative or judicial oversight, for the duration of that war.

Repeat after me: "Eurasia is our friend. We have always been friends with Eurasia. East Asia is our enemy. East Asia has always been our enemy."

It is time. From this day forth my mantra will be: Impeach Him!

George Bush: Exploitative Son-of-a-Bitch

Listening to George W. Bush's speech at Princeton today, I find myself angrier than I've been at him in a long time. On the one hand, he's simply repeating the same basic talking points again and again, so I should be used to it by now. But he's finally just gotten back under my skin.

But what really burned my onion was his exploitation of the memory of a young marine named Ryan McLaughlin, who died recently in Iraq. It's one thing to trot out soldiers to act as window dressing for his policies when they're alive and can defend themselves. It's another thing altogether to drape the corpses of brave young men over his his podium like some grotesque banner in honor of complete administrative incompetence.

I keep a little calendar in my head, and every morning I tick off another day on the calendar, bringing me closer and closer to the day when George Bush is no longer the President of the United States.

Warriors of Christmas

I wrote this editorial for The Daily Southtown, a suburban Chicago paper. Comments welcome.

Where Would Jesus Shop?

Krugman today. Good. Go read.

Oh, ok, here's the point:

Think about what happens when Wal-Mart opens a store in a previously untouched city or county. The new store takes sales away from stores that are already in the area; these stores lay off workers or even go out of business. Because Wal-Mart's big-box stores employ fewer workers per dollar of sales than the smaller stores they replace, overall retail employment surely goes down, not up, when Wal-Mart comes to town. And if the jobs lost come from employers who pay more generously than Wal-Mart does, overall wages will fall when Wal-Mart moves in.

This isn't just speculation on my part. A recent study by David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine and two associates at the Public Policy Institute of California, "The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets," uses sophisticated statistical analysis to estimate the effects on jobs and wages as Wal-Mart spread out from its original center in Arkansas.

The authors find that retail employment did, indeed, fall when Wal-Mart arrived in a new county. It's not clear in their data whether overall employment in a county rose or fell when a Wal-Mart store opened. But it's clear that average wages fell: "residents of local labor markets," the study reports, "earn less following the opening of Wal-Mart stores."

Walmart: Instrument of economic destruction.

I knew there was a reason I liked Bradley Whitford

Get the IRS Out of My Church!