June 28, 2022

Can Forgiveness Make Sense? (Part 1)

June 28, 2022/ Marybeth Baggett

Author’s Note: This paper was written for and initially presented at the first annual symposium of the Society for Women of Letters (June 2022, Asheville, NC).

The Sunflower

Simon Wiesenthal is a Holocaust survivor renowned for his role in tracking down and bringing to justice fugitive Nazis who fled at the close of World War II. While still a prisoner, Wiesenthal was one day brought to the room of a dying SS member at the Nazi’s request. The soldier wanted to unburden himself of his guilty conscience and find absolution before his imminent demise. To that end, he hoped that Wiesenthal would serve as a stand-in for the specific Jews that he had directly harmed. Forgiveness from him, the logic went, would release the Nazi from his guilt and bring him much-needed peace.

Wiesenthal chronicles this encounter in his 1969 book The Sunflower, and his account is worth reading in its entirety, including the symposium that makes up the second half of the book. It’s difficult for me to convey either the brutality of the atrocities that the Nazi describes or the pathos of his confession. Wiesenthal does so masterfully and, importantly, the author contextualizes that deathbed scene within his own day-to-day horrors of life in the concentration camp. As we well know and as the book vividly reminds us, the Nazi’s confession is a mere drop in the bucket of the hell that Hitler’s forces unleashed on those the German fascists deemed undesirable.

The book’s title refers to the sunflowers planted on the graves of Nazi soldiers to honor them, a ghastly tableau that Wiesenthal could see across the way from the camp. That tribute was a painful contrast to the indignities heaped on the many deaths that daily surrounded Wiesenthal and his fellow prisoners, and this uncanny sense of shared humanity across a gulf of inhumane difference pervades the exchange between Wiesenthal and the dying Nazi.

That meeting also upended the given power dynamic of the Third Reich: the Nazi sought something from the Jew that could not be coerced. Forgiveness would be either freely given or withheld. While the SS man disclosed his secrets, Wiesenthal grappled with how to respond: “He sought my pity, but had he any right to pity? Did a man of this kind deserve anybody’s pity?”[1] It’s clear from the exchange that the Nazi has in fact repented and fully realized his need for the peace that comes only through forgiveness. But was that enough for Wiesenthal to bestow it upon him? And what difference would forgiveness make since, as Wiesenthal notes, “[h]e was confessing his crime to a man who perhaps tomorrow must die at the hands of these same murderers.”[2]

Ultimately, Wiesenthal could not bring himself to share words of forgiveness, leaving instead without opening his mouth. The decision was almost instinctual, involuntary, and it haunted Wiesenthal for many years. He sought counsel from others when he returned to the camp, hoping they might be able to explain and perhaps even justify his visceral rejection of the dying man’s pleas. As the years wore on, he wondered if his response was, in fact, cruel. Out of this mystery and Wiesenthal’s inability to solve it, even a quarter of a century later, came this question, which he posed to notable public figures to solicit their responses: “You,” he asks, “who have just read this sad and tragic episode in my life, can mentally change places with me and ask yourself the crucial question, ‘What would I have done?’”[3]

The Dilemma of Forgiveness

The fifty-three responses that came in were all over the map, though most (thirty four in the expanded edition) argued that Wiesenthal was right not to forgive. Only ten posited that forgiveness was necessary. The other nine were uncertain. Harshest among the denials was Jewish-American writer Cynthia Ozick who condemned the Nazi, seeing even his confession as manipulation and abuse of power. “Let the SS man die unshriven,” she exclaimed. “Let him go to hell.”[4] On the other side, South African bishop Desmond Tutu put a pragmatic spin on his Christian response: “It is clear that if we look only to retributive justice, then we could just as well close up shop. Forgiveness is not some nebulous thing. It is practical politics. Without forgiveness, there is no future.”[5]

Most of us will never be in the position of either the SS officer or the Holocaust survivor, neither needing to be forgiven for such unthinkably heinous wrongs nor needing to forgive such large-scale, unimaginable atrocities inflicted upon us or upon those we love. Nonetheless, reflecting on the extreme case of guilt and injustice that Wiesenthal’s story presents and the crisis of forgiveness it evokes is still worthwhile, doubly so for those of us who claim Christianity since forgiveness is deep down at the very root of our faith.

To begin, let’s think a bit about the impulses behind the different responses to Wiesenthal’s question. Reading them, one realizes the richness of this topic and the complexity of the question that he poses. His respondents dig into the nooks and crannies of what forgiveness is, they search out what it requires, consider the implications of forgiveness or its denial, and weigh the psychological struggle involved. Even if you already have a strong sense about which response is right, I’d encourage you to withhold judgment, just for now, and sit a while with the tension. In Exclusion and Embrace, theologian Miroslav Volf brings to bear the terms of the gospel to the weighty questions of alienation and injustice. Volf’s own history as a Croatian living through the Balkan warfare of the late twentieth century informs his reflections and prevents him from regurgitating simple answers.

Volf’s preface well captures the tension that I’m asking you to consider. The book, he says there, was prompted by a question that Jürgen Moltmann asked him after a talk he gave arguing that we have a moral obligation to embrace our enemies. Could Volf embrace a četnik, one of the Serbian fighters who had so thoroughly ravaged his country and its people? To put the question on Wiesenthal’s terms, could Volf muster fellow human feelings sufficient to forgive one who had done him and those close to him such harm?

“No, I cannot,” Volf finally answered, “but as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to.”[6]

While writing Exclusion and Embrace in an attempt to work out this struggle, Volf confesses, “My thought was pulled in two different directions by the blood of the innocent crying out to God and by the blood of God’s Lamb offered for the guilty.”[7] Herein lies the tension: “How does one remain loyal both to the demand of the oppressed for justice and to the gift of forgiveness that the Crucified offered to the perpetrators?”[8] To opt for one felt a betrayal of the other, either to further disenfranchise the already oppressed or to disavow his faith. Even worse, the longer Volf sat with the tension, the more it seemed that God was at odds with himself, at once delivering the needy and restoring the wrongdoer. Just what kind of toxic, dysfunctional family is God trying to make?

Can these two apparently irreconcilable divine actions somehow align? Surely the God who loves the wronged party also loves the one who hurt him, but mustn’t love of one require punishment of the other? Many of our doubts about the demands of forgiveness stem from our own psychological and imaginative limitations, which makes one wonder whether a rational case for our obligation to forgive matters if it’s simply impracticable for us to carry out.

Scripture’s Mandate

And yet scripture calls us time and again to forgiveness, even going as far as to bind our own forgiveness to the forgiveness we offer others. We see this link explicitly articulated in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18 and in The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4). “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us,” so the fifth petition of the prayer goes. As C. S. Lewis explains in his classic Mere Christianity, “There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven.”[9]

A world without forgiveness, as Bishop Tutu noted, is unimaginable. This side of Eden, sin—and the death it entails—sadly is a persistent presence, at least that’s the case while we wait for God’s kingdom to reach its crescendo and bring to consummation the victory Christ inaugurated on the cross. Ever since Cain, human beings harm each other daily—in big and small ways. Lamech’s attitude to such mistreatment that we find in Genesis 4 makes a certain kind of sense: “I have killed a man for wounding me,” Lamech boasts to his wives. “[A] young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”[10] On human terms, payback for wrongs is logical, necessary even. But who wants to live in a vortex of infinite vengeance, bound forever to lex talionis?

By contrast Jesus’ vision of unlimited forgiveness laid out in Matthew 18—seventy times seven—sure seems more appealing. But might it also feel, at least for some, like a burden, even for far more commonplace hurts than Wiesenthal experienced? Wouldn’t boundless forgiveness simply invite yet more harm? Wouldn’t unending grace exacerbate power imbalances and force the already exploited into deeper levels of oppression?

I confess that this is the burden I personally carried when I came up against my own crisis of forgiveness some years back. Someone I counted as a close friend had thoroughly betrayed me. To use Lewis Smedes’ rubric of the difficult cases of forgiveness, the hurt this person caused me was three-fold: personal, unfair, and deep.[11] No easy Band-aid could fix the problem. Compounding the suffering I endured in the wake of that betrayal was the support my friend garnered from mutual acquaintances who saw my grief and withdrawal from the relationship as the fruit of bitterness and a failure to forgive. The next few years proved a crucible for my faith as, much like Volf, I had to grapple existentially with the dilemma of forgiveness noted above. I didn’t have many resources to help and certainly could have used Smedes’ book, Forgive and Forget, as well as others I’ve more recently found. Instead, voices that flattened out forgiveness—seeing it as either anathema or a piece of cake—only made that process more difficult. Smedes frames the challenge this way: “Forgiving is love’s toughest work, and love’s biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator.”[12]

Love and Forgiveness

Sometimes a word can obscure the complexity of the reality behind it, and my personal experience tells me that’s often the case with forgiveness. I’m drawing my definition of forgiveness from an essay by philosopher Eleonore Stump, where she says forgiveness is an entailment of love, a human obligation.[13] Love, according to Aquinas, is two-fold: (1) a desire for the good of the other and (2) a desire for union with the other. Because these desires are located only within the person harmed, they can be accomplished without any action on the wrongdoer’s part. But Stump is quick to note that desire alone is not sufficient for the realization of the other’s good or for actual union with him or her. Another human agent is involved, and that person’s will and external circumstances may prevent those desires from coming to fruition. It is not good, for example, for either party to remain in a position that gives license for bad behavior to anyone involved. For that reason, forgiveness and reconciliation can, indeed, come apart. Ignoring this distinction is one of many ways that the concept of forgiveness can be watered down.

Before we turn to some more theological considerations, consider first some useful insights Smedes offers in his practical guide to forgiveness. First of all, Smedes emphasizes that forgiveness is a process, at least that’s the case for forgiveness of people who caused us personal, unfair, and deep hurt. Entering into that process requires uncompromising honesty. We cannot forgive harm that we do not acknowledge. As Smedes explains, “There is no real forgiving unless there is first relentless exposure and honest judgment. When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.”[14]

Smedes also acknowledges that forgiveness sometimes involves specialized cases—forgiving people who have died, for example. Life’s vagaries and vicissitudes preclude any one-size-fits-all approach that we might try to impose. The road to forgiveness, we find when we embark upon it, is unique to the harm done and to our current conditions. That is not to say we are thus on our own. We can certainly find solace and guidance in the testimony of others who have traveled their own paths of forgiveness, and his use of such stories is one of the best features of Smedes’ book.

When we undergo a crisis of forgiveness, it’s important then whose voices we listen to because of the many pitfalls that lie on that road. Even Christian voices, as previously noted, can sometimes unwittingly make the task of forgiveness much harder by thinning the concept out. I suggest that we see shades of this diminishment whenever the fifth petition of The Lord’s Prayer is isolated from its broader context and—intentionally or not—when it is launched as an accusation toward those who have been harmed. For all the reasons noted above, we need a bigger story of justice and mercy, one that reveals their inextricable link. We find that story in the full context of The Lord’s Prayer, through its bracing description of the human condition, its astonishing portrayal of the God who longs to liberate us, and its audacious plan for our salvation.

Part 2

[1] Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, Revised and Expanded ed. (New York: Schocken, 1997), 52.

[2] Ibid., 53.

[3] Ibid., 98.

[4] Ibid., 220.

[5] Ibid., 268.

[6] Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), 9.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Revised and amplified ed. (New York: Harper, 2001), 116.

[10] Unless otherwise noted, all biblical passages referenced are in the English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001) biblegateway.com, accessed May 29, 2022.

[11] Lewis Smedes, Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve (New York: HarperOne, 1996).

[12] Ibid., xvi.

[13] Eleonore Stump, “The Sunflower: Guilt, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation,” in Forgiveness and Its Moral Dimensions, ed. Brandon Warmke, Dana Kay Nelkin, and Michael McKenna (New York: Oxford UP, 2021), 172-196.

[14] Smedes, 79.

Marybeth Baggett (associate editor) is professor of English and Cultural Apologetics at Houston Baptist University. She earned her PhD in Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and — along with her husband— recently has published Telling Tales: Intimations of the Sacred in Popular Culture (Moral Apologetics Press, 2021).

June 07, 2022

Mailbag: What about the Cudworth Objection?

June 07, 2022/ David Baggett

Question:
I am writing to you because I am currently working on an article that is critical of certain versions of the moral argument and I am researching the work that you have done on the topic. I have read both Good God and God and Cosmos. Recently, as I was reviewing your arguments concerning moral obligation, I was re-reading a passage from chapter 9 of God and Cosmos, specifically the section titled, "Moral Obligations." What caught my attention is something that you say on p. 289: "[God's] commands would furnish powerful new reasons or performing various acts."
I hope that you might have time to consider and respond to a couple of questions about what you say here. The focus of my article is precisely on the question of whether God's commands can provide us with additional reasons. My view, roughly, is that divine commands provide additional reasons only when there is an antecedent obligation to obey God. In the absence of such an antecedent obligation, divine commands are normatively impotent (i.e., they add nothing to our reasons to engage in any action). My question is this: Do you agree that God's commands provide additional reasons only given the existence of such a prior obligation or do you think that God's commands can provide such reasons without such a prior obligation? If the latter, do you have an argument for the conclusion that God's commands can provide additional reasons in the absence of any prior obligation to obey God (and have you provided such an argument in any of your published works?).
Please forgive me if you have addressed these questions in your books or other writings. I have tried to track down answers, but I have not found anything that directly addresses these questions. If I have missed something, I sincerely apologize.

Thank you very much for you time,
Jason

Answer:

Hi Jason! Thanks for the note. Hope you are well. I'll offer what I have, which isn't much!

What a fun project you're working on. Appreciate the question, and it's an important one, I think. I suspect the answer to your question is "yes," that DCT provides new reasons iff we're antecedently obligated to obey God. The question then boils down to why whether we're obligated to obey God and, if so, why. This is the "prior obligations objection," and it's a thorny challenge, I think. We first discussed it a bit on pp. 122-123 of Good God, though not by name. There we took up the question of God's authority--does he have the authority to give us binding commands? And we try tying our answer to his great-making properties. That was at least our first go trying to address what we considered the crux of the issue.

In a later book that my wife and I wrote together called The Morals of the Story, we discuss it at a bit more length, though still altogether too briefly. Here we discuss it explicitly by name, on pages 147-149. The objection is tied to Cudworth historically, so sometimes gets dubbed the "Cudworth objection." At any rate, we mention what Jer and I said about it in Good God, but also discuss a half dozen possible solutions to the puzzle that Evans provides in God and Moral Obligation. We don't really discuss them at length as much as point readers to take a look at what he says on pages 98-101 of his book. We also mention Hare's solution echoing Scotus and Pufendorf that you can find on p. 58 of God's Command.

'm sure there's quite a bit more to say about this important objection, but so far those are the only places I've addressed it. I'm inclined to think that if we can answer the question of God's authority well, it will address the matter. Although Evans made mention of the possibility of bootstrapping, most worry that there's something circular to punting to God's command to account for the authority of God's command--even though God does tell us to obey him. I'm left wanting more, and understand others who do as well. So far I've rested somewhat content with the sketch of an answer provided by the considerations Evans, Hare, and Jer and I have offered, but as I say I'm sure quite a bit more can and should be said.

The reason I retain such openness to DCT is not because I think it's the only possible way to ground ethics in God, but just because, honestly, it strikes me as intuitive that God would be the one able to issue authoritative commands owing to who he is and who we are as creatures, and because the objections to it I've heard usually strike me as admitting to a solution. So it's never seemed an obviously bad theory to me, although I'm more strongly committed to a dependence relation of morality on God in one way or another than specifically this way. Regarding this objection, if bootstrapping isn't enough, as I suspect it isn't, it would show that a key foundational principle on which DCT is predicated is an obligation not attributable to DCT. But since I don't think that all moral realities are grounded in DCT, this doesn't bother me too much. Maybe it should bother me more than it does, but at least I console myself by the reminder that other moral theories, at their root, encounter a similar challenge. For example, the utilitarian is confronted with the question, Why maximize utility? Appealing to the maximization of utility doesn't help much. It makes some amount of sense, to me anyway, that so foundational a grounding principle might have a slightly different moral rationale than the rest of the theory. And if, for the DCT'ist, it comes down to something as foundational as good moral reasons, and even an obligation, to obey our Creator who loves us, is perfect, who desires our well-being, etc., then I feel like we're on the right track.

As I say, I have tended to divide the two questions you're tying together, though I can see why you think them intimately connected: does God have authority to issue us binding commands, and does DCT offer us distinctive ("powerful new") reasons to perform various acts. I find that explicit connection intriguing, and wondering if there's something new you're pointing out there or if there are just two conceptually distinct questions here.

Blessings in your work! I look forward to what you come up with.

Best,

Dave

Think About It!

May 11, 2022/ Dale Kratt

What is theistic moral apologetics, what is its aim, what is its rationale, how does it work, and how does it fit into the broader field of Christian apologetics and metaethics? I take moral apologetics in the following way.

Contemporary theistic moral apologetics is a specialized field in the broader field of Christian apologetics that seeks to work within, to draw from and contribute to the broader field of theistic metaethics. Metaethics, broadly considered, is understood to be the critical and comparative theory of various ethical systems. It is theory of theory and is understood as a 2nd order[1] discipline in the field of ethical theory and is a relatively modern development in the field of ethical thinking. Theistic meta-ethics is a God-centered metaethics.
Theistic moral apologetics seeks to critically engage non-theistic metaethical thinkers of all persuasions on all fronts at the level of technical philosophy. These thinkers might be historical and/or contemporary thinkers. This engagement typically requires answering standard objections that are often leveled against theistic metaethics as well as developing some version or element of the moral argument for the existence of God in the context of such critical engagement. This would typically be considered a venture in natural theology.
Theistic moral apologetics seeks also to critically engage 1st order ethical disputes by making explicit and laying bare the moral and metaphysical assumptions that are often unstated in such disputes and developing a reasoned case for a theistic ethical and metaphysical perspective concerning such disputes if such a reasoned case is relevant.
Christian Theistic moral apologetics also seeks to develop a distinctively Trinitarian and Christ-centered metaethical way of understanding things. Such work takes the Christian apologist beyond a generalized theism to a distinctively Christian metaethical theism. This should involve…
1. Working deliberately from the historical events of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ with the clear understanding that Christianity never reduces to a mere system of morality.
2. Working deliberately from the revelation of God in the Scriptures.
3. Engaging and thoroughly thinking through Christian ethical issues and questions that are unique to the believing Christian and Christian community.
4. Engaging and thoroughly thinking through the various distinctive areas of Christian ethical practice both within the church and within the world in which the church is situated.

These tasks should be undertaken at two distinct but related levels. First, they should be developed at the level of technical philosophy and theology, as required, and secondly, they should be developed at the non-technical lay level. This second level involves taking the complex things of the first level and making them accessible for a lay audience.

Natural Theology and Christian Apologetics

Natural theology and Christian apologetics are related but nevertheless distinct enterprises.[2] While natural theology arguably reaches all the way back to ancient Greek philosophy[3] and embraces a wider range of theological positions than traditional theism, Christian apologetics must trace its origins and purposes back to the beginnings of the person of Jesus Christ. Apologetics necessarily involves the defense of the veracity of the message and meaning of Jesus and the content of the Christian faith.[4] Theistic moral apologetics, although part of natural theology, is not necessarily distinctively Christian. It can certainly serve as an important step towards a distinctively Christian theism, but it deliberately limits its arguments to Theism proper.

This limit provides certain polemical advantages. As a part of natural theology the argument boasts a wide umbrella and could be endorsed by any theist whatsoever whether they are Jewish, Islamic,[5] even non-religious or non-traditional theists. In this respect the moral argument for God’s existence is broader than Christian theism and can be appropriated by a much larger audience. This makes the argument much more versatile and serviceable across the various areas of philosophy, metaethics, and various other disciplines. As such it can be pitted readily against various versions of atheism. It is versatile in that it can be joined with other arguments for God’s existence to generate a much stronger overall cumulative case for Theism. This also gives the argument a much wider applicability.[6] In any area wherein human moral concerns are central the moral argument for God’s existence is relevant; for example, in the various human sciences, as well as the field of political and economic philosophy. The argument fits well with questions involving the nature and basis for law and justice, or the basis for human rights, or endorsing human dignity, or our understanding of aesthetics and beauty, religious experience, and even engaging in the rough and tumble of the practice of politics and economics as well.

The moral argument, if successful, also fills in a considerable amount of detail concerning who God is and the kind of God the argument might endorse. A too vaguely thin Theism will not suffice for the moral argument. The thicker character and being of God that the argument leads to is strongly relevant to the whole content and nature of the human moral domain in which our lives and experience is immersed. Furthermore, given the intense debates concerning the moral order and the moral nature of humanity, it would be unconscionable that Christian philosophers would not challenge the current various secularist moral systems of our time as well as abandon our duty to guard fidelity, the content of the faith, and the pastoral responsibilities that are a regular and ongoing part of the life of the church in the world.

[1] The distinction between 1st order and 2nd order moral theorizing is a common but important distinction in metaethics. The focus of a 1st order moral proposition is the question, what is moral? An example of a 1st order ethical/moral/normative truth would be that murder is wrong; it is immoral to murder, it is moral to refrain from murder. 2nd order metaethics focuses on the question of the nature of morality itself; what morality itself is and not particularly on the content of 1st order moral truths. Typically, metaethics concerns questions of moral ontology (the nature of morality), moral epistemology (knowledge of moral truths), moral language (the meaning of moral terms), and a cluster of related questions like the connection between morality and rationality, or morality and motivation.

[2] For useful overviews of the history and concepts of natural theology, see Russell Re Manning, John Hedley Brooke, and Fraser N. Watts, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013); James Brent, “Natural Theology,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d., accessed September 11, 2021, https://iep.utm.edu/theo-nat/; Andrew Chignell and Derk Pereboom, “Natural Theology and Natural Religion,” ed. Edward N Zalta, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford, CA, Fall 2020), accessed September 11, 2021, URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/natural-theology/>; also see Charles Taliaferro, “The Project of Natural Theology,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, ed. William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 1–23. C. P. Ruloff and Peter Horban, eds., Contemporary Arguments in Natural Theology: God and Rational Belief (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021).

[3] Werner Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers: The Gifford Lectures, 1936, trans. Edward S Robinson (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2003/1936).

[4] See Jude 3, where Jude exhorts Christians to “…contend earnestly for the faith once for all handed down to the saints” (NASB). For a good overview of the history of Christian apologetics see Benjamin K. Forrest, Joshua D. Chatraw, and Alister E. McGrath, eds., The History of Apologetics: A Biographical and Methodological Introduction (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academic, 2020).

[5] Robert R. Reilly, The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2011). Reilly has shown that some of the elements of orthodox Islamic theology make it very difficult to square with a strong moral argument; particularly the tendency of reducing Allah to sheer divine will as well as a tendency, as a result of this, toward impersonalism.

[6] For a very useful summary overview of the relation of the arguments concerning God and the moral order, see Anne Jeffrey, God and Morality (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Peter Byrne and Stephen Evans, “Moral Arguments for the Existence of God,” ed. Edward N. Zalta, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford, CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab, Spring 2013).

Sweeping Contingency Under the Rug (Part 4)

May 10, 2022/ Adam Lloyd Johnson

Table of Contents

A Response to the Speculative Notion that the Laws of Nature Might Be Necessary

First of all, it is interesting to note that Wielenberg seems to agree with theists that there must be a necessary foundation of some sort for the existence of objective moral principles and beliefs. For if something is necessary, then that provides the stability needed for morality to be objective as opposed to just a subjective accidental human construct. Theists argue that God provides such a necessary foundation whereas Wielenberg asks his readers to consider that the laws of nature may be necessary. He wrote that “[i]f there is no God but the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, then the fact that there is no God to put in place just the right laws for moral knowledge to arise doesn’t make us any luckier to have moral knowledge than we would be if God did exist because the laws of nature couldn’t have been any different from what they are.”54 Whether one believes that God exists or not, it seems much easier to believe that, if He exists, then He exists necessarily, that is, easier than it is to believe that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary.

Secondly, it is notoriously difficult to make the case that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, as Wielenberg readily admits.55 But even if some laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, this would not mean that the evolutionary path that led to human beings was necessary. Therefore, Wielenberg had to go even further and speculate that the evolutionary process that led to the development of human beings may itself have been necessary in some sense. He summarized this possibility as follows:

These considerations are hardly decisive, but I think they do indicate that it is a mistake simply to assume that it is nomologically possible for us (or other beings) to have evolved to m-possess radically different moral principles than the ones we actually possess. For all we know, m-possessing the DDE [a particular moral principle] is an inevitable outcome of the evolutionary process that made us capable of forming moral judgments in the first place.56

Wielenberg is forced into this remarkable speculation because he realizes that if the evolutionary process which supposedly produced human beings was contingent, if it could have occurred differently, then our moral beliefs could have turned out to be vastly different as well. Charles Darwin himself noted that if our evolutionary path were more similar that of bees, then “there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. Nevertheless, the bee, or any other social animal, would gain in our supposed case some feeling of right or wrong, or a conscience.”57

Wielenberg claimed that theists are not in a position to argue that the laws of nature, as well as the evolutionary path which produced human beings, could have been different based on the fact that we can easily imagine them as being different. He explained his concern as follows:

One might be tempted to argue that the fact that it is easy to imagine the laws of nature being different than they are is an indication of their metaphysical contingency. However, theists typically maintain that God’s existence is metaphysically necessary; yet it is easy to imagine the non-existence of God. Therefore, theists cannot consistently appeal to the conceivability of different laws of nature to support the metaphysical contingency of the actual laws of nature.58

He is correct; just because a person can think of other paths evolution could have taken does not mean that those paths are actually possible. On the other hand, the supposed evolutionary tree would seem to say that evolution not only could have, but in fact did sprout off in many different directions, leading to radically different organisms. Thus the only imagination required is to consider an evolutionary path that results in beings who develop cognitive faculties like ours but do not have similar moral beliefs. It is difficult to think of reasons why we should believe such paths are impossible.

What is more, Wielenberg himself seems to have regularly affirmed that human beings were produced by an evolutionary process that was contingent and accidental. He wrote that “evolutionary processes have endowed us with certain unalienable rights and duties. Evolution has given us these moral properties by giving us the non-moral properties that make such moral properties be instantiated. And if, as I believe, there is no God, then it is in some sense an accident that we have the moral properties that we do.”59 He also wrote that “contemporary atheists typically maintain that human beings are accidental, evolved, mortal, and relatively short-lived…”60 Realizing the implications of this statement, he explained in a footnote that ‘accidental’ should not be understood as a result of entirely random processes because “[a]ccording to contemporary evolutionary theory, evolutionary processes are not, contrary to popular mischaracterizations, entirely chance-driven. Rather, they are driven by a combination of chance and necessity; see Mayr 2001, 119-20.”61 It is important to note that Mayr actually stated that chance rules at the first step of evolution, with the production of variation through random mutation, and that determinism only comes in during the second step through non-random aspects of survival and reproduction based on a particular species’ fixed, or determined, environment.62 Thus, if evolution works as atheists claim, that it was driven by accidental random mutations (which Wielenberg affirms), as well as chance changes in the environment (the success or failure of other competing species, climate changes, meteorites, etc.), then it is very difficult to believe that evolution had to necessarily produce human beings just the way they are.

The suggestion that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary comes dangerously close, for an atheist such as Wielenberg that is, to another line of reasoning: fine-tuning arguments for the existence of God.63 Wielenberg himself admitted that “[t]here is… one view that might seem to require much less luck for moral knowledge than my view does. That is our old friend theism.”64 He continued by quoting the following comment by Parfit, another advocate of robust normative realism: “God might have designed our brains so that, without causal contact, we can reason in ways that lead us to reach true answers to mathematical questions. We might have similar God-given abilities to respond to reasons, and to form true beliefs about these reasons.”65 Mark Linville has even suggested a specific “moral fine-tuning argument… Certain of our moral beliefs – in particular, those that are presupposed in all moral reflection – are truth-aimed because human moral faculties are designed to guide human conduct in light of moral truth.”66

Wielenberg explained that if it is metaphysically necessary that any being capable of forming moral beliefs at all possesses only true moral beliefs, then “there is no luck at all involved in the fact that Bart [a hypothetical person used as an example] m-possesses moral principles that correspond with moral reality rather than m-possessing radically different (and false) moral principles.”67 Possibly recognizing that this may be seen as a hint of fine tuning, he followed this up in a footnote by noting that “[p]erhaps Bart is lucky to exist at all, but that is a separate issue—one that connects with so-called ‘fine-tuning’ arguments, a topic I cannot engage in here.”68

The fine-tuning debate has sparked a lot of discussion over the last couple of decades, instigating a whole host of arguments for and against it. The fine-tuning argument itself, as well as the most common argument against it, the argument for a proposed multi-verse, are both based on the strong intuition that the laws of nature are contingent. Wielenberg’s suggestion that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary would thus effectively rebut the prominent positions on both sides of the fine-tuning debate. At the very least, this should give one pause in accepting Wielenberg’s speculative proposal that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary.

Conclusion

Erik Wielenberg has argued for a position which he calls “godless robust normative realism.” Many have pushed back against positions like this with an argument that I have referred to as the lucky coincidence objection; it seems quite a lucky coincidence that our moral beliefs happen to match up with the objective moral facts postulated by the realist. Wielenberg’s response to this objection was to propose that there is a third factor at play—our cognitive faculties. He proposed that our cognitive faculties both cause moral properties to be instantiated and generate our moral beliefs, thus explaining why it is that the two correspond. I argued that his third-factor model failed to rebut the lucky coincidence objection for two reasons. First, to explain his third-factor model, Wielenberg used several concepts he borrowed from theism, concepts that seem quite out of place within the belief system of atheism. Given atheism, robust causal making and brute ethical facts seem quite fantastical. Thus I argued that atheists, if they are consistent, should reject his model. Second, I argued that he did not rebut the lucky coincidence objection because he did not eliminate contingency, he only moved it to a different location in an attempt to sweep it under the rug. I explained that there is still contingency in his model, namely, in his proposed relationship between our cognitive faculties and our moral beliefs. And where there is contingency, there is luck.

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[54] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 174.

[55] Ibid., 169.

[56] Ibid., 172.

[57] Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998), 102.

[58] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 174.

[59] Ibid., 56.

[60] Ibid., 51.

[61] Ibid.

[62] Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 120–21.

[63] Robin Collins, “The teleological argument: an exploration of the fine-tuning of the universe” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (eds. William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland; Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 202–82.

[64] Ibid., 173.

[65] Derek Parfit, On What Matters, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 493.

[66] Mark D. Linville, “The moral argument,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (eds. William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland; Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 5.

[67] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 168.

[68] Ibid.

Adam Lloyd Johnson serves as a university campus missionary with Ratio Christi. He also teaches classes for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and spends one month each year living and teaching at Rhineland Theological Seminary in Wölmersen, Germany. Adam received his PhD in Theological Studies with an emphasis in Philosophy of Religion from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2020.

Adam grew up in Nebraska and became a Christian as a teenager in 1994. He graduated from the University of Nebraska and then worked in the field of actuarial science for ten years in Lincoln, Nebraska. While in his twenties, he went through a crisis of faith: are there good reasons and evidence to believe God exists and that the Bible is really from Him? His search for answers led him to apologetics and propelled him into ministry with a passion to serve others by equipping Christians and encouraging non-Christians to trust in Christ. Adam served as a Southern Baptist pastor for eight years (2009-2017) but stepped down from the pastorate to serve others full-time in the area of apologetics. He’s been married to his wife Kristin since 1996, and they have four children – Caroline, Will, Xander, and Ray.

Adam has presented his work at the National Apologetics Conference, the Society of Christian Philosophers, the Evangelical Philosophical Society, the International Society of Christian Apologetics, the Canadian Centre for Scholarship and the Christian Faith, the American Academy of Religion, and the Evangelical Theological Society. His work has been published in the Journal of the International Society of Christian Apologetics, Philosophia Christi, the Westminster Theological Journal, and the Canadian Journal for Scholarship and the Christian Faith. Adam has spoken at numerous churches and conferences in America and around the world – Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, Boston, Orlando, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. He is also the editor and co-author of the book A Debate on God and Morality: What is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties? published by Routledge and co-authored with William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Erik Wielenberg, and others.

Sweeping Contingency Under the Rug (Part 3)

May 04, 2022/ Adam Lloyd Johnson

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Contingency in the Relationship Between Cognitive Faculties and Moral Beliefs

Wielenberg used his third factor model to try and show why it is not a lucky coincidence that moral properties and moral beliefs correspond; they correspond because they both come from our cognitive faculties. He summarized his strategy as follows:

Thus, there is a necessary connection between the cognitive faculties and moral rights. Those very cognitive faculties also generate moral beliefs, including the relevant beliefs about rights. The connection between the cognitive faculties and beliefs about moral rights is causal. In this way, the relevant cognitive faculties are responsible for both moral rights and beliefs about those rights, and so the cognitive faculties explain the correlation between moral rights and beliefs about those rights.41

However, including this third-factor in his model does not successfully rebut the lucky coincidence objection because his model still includes contingency, that is, the contingency in the relationship between our cognitive faculties and our moral beliefs. This contingency still leaves his model open to the lucky coincidence objection because, as Wielenberg himself admitted, where there is contingency, there is luck.42

In Wielenberg’s third factor model, he claims our cognitive faculties both make moral properties be instantiated and generate our moral beliefs. He noted that “[i]f these claims are correct, then we have explained the ‘remarkable fact’ [that moral properties and moral beliefs correspond]… it seems to me that if we can explain why (i) x causes y and (ii) x entails z, then we have explained why y and z tend to go together.”43 Assuming for the sake of argument that the first part of his model is correct, that cognitive faculties necessarily make moral properties be instantiated, his model does not avoid the lucky coincidence objection because of the contingency found in the second part, the relationship between cognitive faculties and moral beliefs. His proposed correspondence between moral properties and moral beliefs breaks down because of this difference in causal necessity. There is no good reason to think that beings with cognitive faculties like ours would have the same moral beliefs we do. In addition, we can easily imagine beings with similar cognitive faculties as our own but with radically different types of moral beliefs.

As noted earlier, this point is amplified if one believes, as most atheists do, that our cognitive faculties and moral beliefs came about haphazardly through a random evolutionary process. Wielenberg does not take a position on whether all our moral beliefs can be explained in evolutionary terms but he is “sympathetic to the view that at least some of our moral beliefs can be given evolutionary explanations.”44 In particular, he sketched an evolutionary explanation of how we came to have our beliefs about moral rights.45

Consider the following refutation by analogy. If Wielenberg’s model works in the realm of moral knowledge, then it should also work in other realms of knowledge generated by our cognitive faculties, realms such as science and mathematics. Let us consider his third-factor in the context of Fermat’s Last Theorem.46 For the purpose of this analogy it is sufficient to note that Fermat’s Last Theorem is a mathematical theorem proposed by Pierre de Fermat in 1637. He claimed he had developed a proof of this theorem but such a proof was never found in any of his writings. Despite numerous attempts by mathematicians, there were no published successful proofs of this theorem until 1994. If we insert Fermat’s Last Theorem in Wielenberg’s third-factor model, the two parts of the model would be as follows:

Our cognitive faculties make the property of ‘being able to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem’ be instantiated.
Our cognitive faculties cause us to believe we can prove Fermat’s Last Theorem.

We can easily imagine beings like us who have the cognitive faculties which make them able to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, but who do not have the belief that they can. Similarly, we can easily imagine beings like us who have cognitive faculties which make them have moral properties such as rights and obligations (assuming the first part of Wielenberg’s model is correct), but who do not have the belief that they do. We do not even have to use our imagination because there are such people, that is, human beings who do not think they have moral rights and obligations. The reason that beings with cognitive faculties like ours may not have the belief that they have moral properties is that the causal connection between cognitive faculties and moral beliefs is contingent, not necessary.

Attempting to Avoid Contingency by Claiming That the Laws of Nature are Necessary

Wielenberg understands that, because his model still contains contingency, it remains vulnerable to the lucky coincidence objection. The issue under consideration is how lucky it is for our moral beliefs and objective moral facts to correspond. He noted that “because the basic ethical facts are necessary truths, if there is any luck in the correspondence between our psychological dispositions and moral reality, it must lie entirely on the psychological side of the equation.”47 Therefore, in a final attempt to remove all contingency, he spent the last few pages of his book asking his readers to entertain the idea that laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. If this were the case, he argued, then any being with cognitive faculties like ours would necessarily have moral beliefs similar to ours.48 Eliminating contingency is the only way to ultimately rebut the lucky coincidence objection.

He noted that the amount of lucky coincidence involved in having moral beliefs that correspond with objective moral facts depends on the answer to this question: “[T]o what extent do the actual laws of nature permit the emergence of species of beings that m-possess moral principles radically different from the moral principles we m-possess?”49 He began his answer to this question with the following hypothetical claim, which he calls Extreme Specificity (ES): “The actual laws of nature entail that any being capable of forming moral beliefs at all m-possess all and only the principles included in Moral Truth [all the necessarily true general moral principles, or brute ethical facts].”50 He argues that if the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary in this regard then “there is no luck at all involved in the fact that Bart [a hypothetical person he used as an example] m-possesses moral principles that correspond with moral reality rather than m-possessing radically different (and false) moral principles.”51

Wielenberg concluded that ES must be false and he admitted that “we simply lack the knowledge required to warrant a clear and confident answer” concerning ES, but he did suggest that “we may be relatively close to ES—or at least, closer to ES than some philosophers have suggested.”52 He understands that the closer we are to ES in real life, the smaller amount of luck is entailed by our having moral beliefs that correspond to objective moral facts and properties. He concluded his book by stating that “[a]s far as I can tell, a certain degree of agnosticism is called for with respect to just how lucky we are to have moral knowledge on a view like mine.”53

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[40] Ibid., 36, 145, 156.

[41] Ibid., 145.

[42] Wielenberg agreed that contingency entails luck when he noted that “Where there is no contingency, there is no luck.” Ibid., 167.

[43] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 156.

[44] Ibid., 148.

[45] Ibid., 135–44.

[46] This particular refutation by analogy was developed by Dr. Greg Welty.

[47] Ibid., 167.

[48] Ibid., 166–75.

[49] Ibid., 167.

[50] Ibid., 168. Moral Truth is the set of all necessarily true general moral principles, which, as I have noted, are what he claims are BEFs.

[51] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 168.

[52] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 169.

[53] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 175.

Sweeping Contingency Under the Rug (Part 2)

April 26, 2022/ Adam Lloyd Johnson

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at Convincing Proof

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Atheists Should Reject the Notion that Cognitive Faculties Instantiate Moral Properties

Wielenberg used this third-factor model to respond to Street’s articulation of the lucky coincidence objection, as well other EDA’s made by Harman, Ruse, Joyce, and Kahane.24 Because he believes that moral properties and facts are causally inert, that they “cannot causally affect our senses or our minds,”25 he proposed that a third factor, our cognitive faculties, are responsible for both moral properties as well as our moral beliefs. If moral properties and moral beliefs come from the same source, then this explains the correspondence between these two seemingly unrelated types of things. Thus his third-factor model has two parts to it: 1. Cognitive faculties make moral properties be instantiated; and 2. Cognitive faculties generate moral beliefs.

The first part of Wielenberg’s third-factor model, his claim that cognitive faculties make moral properties be instantiated, is built on the concept of D-supervenience, a term he coined as a way to refer to Michael DePaul’s version of supervenience.26 Wielenberg argued that moral properties D-supervene on non-normative properties, and particularly on our cognitive faculties. He explained that “[g]iven DePaul’s understanding of dependency, if M depends on some base properties B, then M is not identical with, reducible to, or entirely constituted by B, but the instantiation of B explains the instantiation of M; it is B’s instantiation that makes M be instantiated… This making relation (as I shall henceforth refer to it) is distinct from supervenience.”27

His proposed D-supervenience, or making relationship, is distinct because supervenience, as it is normally understood, is merely a relationship of correlation whereas making is actually explanatory. He construes the making relationship involved in D-supervenience as a sort of robust causation, thus describing making as type of causation.28 In his model he maintains that “the making relation is the cement of the foundation of normative reality.”29 Wielenberg summarized well this making relationship in his model when responding to the following question: What is the source of human moral rights and obligations?

I propose the following answer: any being that can reason, suffer, experience happiness, tell the difference between right and wrong, choose between right and wrong, and set goals for itself has certain rights, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and certain obligations, including the duty to refrain from rape (in typical circumstances). Having such cognitive capacities makes one have such rights and duties. Evolutionary processes have produced human beings that can reason, suffer, experience happiness, tell the difference between right and wrong, choose between right and wrong, and set goals for themselves. In this way, evolutionary processes have endowed us with certain unalienable rights and duties. Evolution has given us these moral properties by giving us the non-moral properties that make such moral properties be instantiated. And if, as I believe, there is no God, then it is in some sense an accident that we have the moral properties that we do. But that they are accidental in origin does not make these moral properties unreal or unimportant.30

It should be noted that some have questioned this first part of Wielenberg’s model. For instance, Baggett and Walls, while not opposed to a third-factor approach in principle, argue that the possession of cognitive faculties does not “satisfactorily explain the existence of binding moral obligations and inextirpable human rights.”31 While considering a similar notion, that we should ascribe value to human beings because they have the capacity for rational reflection, C. Stephen Evans makes the point that “many people believe that young infants and people suffering from dementia still have… intrinsic dignity, but in both cases there is no capacity for rational reflection.”32 In other words, Wielenberg’s model seems to imply that if a particular human being does not have sufficient cognitive faculties—if they are unable to “reason, suffer, experience happiness…” etc.—then they do not have moral rights. Surely Wielenberg believes that infants and people suffering from dementia have moral rights, but the fact that his model does not seem to allow for such rights might be an indication that his model is deficient.

Interestingly, to make his case for D-supervenience, Wielenberg uses as an example a belief that theist’s have, namely, that God has the power to make moral properties be instantiated. He pointed out that DePaul, to explain his notion of supervenience as making, used an example from William Paley where Paley claimed God’s commands make certain activities morally obligatory.33 In fact, Wielenberg often borrowed concepts from theism; for example, he also wrote that “[a] paradigmatic example of the sort of robust causation I have in mind is the causal relation that many theists take to hold between a state of affairs being divinely willed and the obtaining of that state of affairs.”34 In addition, he also made the following suggestion:

[I]t may be helpful to consider the doctrine of divine conservation… On at least some versions of this doctrine, there is a robust causal relation between divine willing and every contingent thing at each moment of its existence. One way of construing my proposal… is as a doctrine of non-moral conservation: whatever moral properties are instantiated are conserved or sustained by various underlying non-moral properties via a robust causal relation that holds between the relevant non-moral and moral properties.35

After using this theistic concept as an example, he even felt it necessary to warns his readers that this “should of course not be understood as ascribing agency to non-moral properties.”36

Wielenberg’s numerous appeals to theistic concepts may be part of his strategy to preempt criticism from theists. In other words, it may be more difficult for theists to criticize these concepts within his model because these concepts are found in their models too. That this is part of his strategy is evidenced by his admission that “I highlighted some important common ground between my version of robust normative realism and traditional theism. I will argue… that the existence of this common ground short-circuits some common theistic objections to my brand of robust normative realism.”37 However, such a strategy further distances his position from ROM atheists. If someone rejects theism, it would seem that, to be consistent, she should also reject Wielenberg’s model because it includes many concepts that are borrowed from theism.

By using numerous theistic concepts to build his model, Wielenberg actually illustrated that objective morality is more plausible given theism as opposed to atheism. He touched on this point after he explained that his model “has an ontological commitment shared by many theists” in that it includes the existence of metaphysically necessary brute ethical facts.38 In a footnote he responded to theist C. Stephen Evans’ observation that many atheists find such facts odd:

Evans questions the existence of basic ethical facts as characterized here as follows: ‘The fact that so many naturalists, including philosophers such as Mackie and Nietzsche, find the idea of non-natural moral facts odd or queer, shows that they are indeed the kind of thing one would like to have an explanation for.’ In light of the fact that the very same naturalists have similar doubts about the existence of God, it’s hard to see how traditional theists can consistently press this sort of objection against a view like mine.39

By pointing out that many atheists doubt the existence of brute ethical facts, Evans is not condoning the reason (in this particular case, that the item in question seems to have no explanation) atheists give for this doubt per se. If Evans was condoning their reason, then Wielenberg would be correct—theists would be condoning a reason atheists often give for doubting the existence of God as well. Instead, Evans is making the point that doubting the existence of God is similar to, as well as related to, doubting the existence of brute ethical facts. If an atheist doubts God because there is no explanation for His existence then, if consistent, she should also doubt the existence of Wielenberg’s brute ethical facts because he claims they have no explanation. Theists might not be able to press this particular reason against Wielenberg’s view, but ROM atheists can—and that is what Evans is pointing out. In other words, many of Wielenberg’s concepts (the power of robust causal making and brute ethical facts) seem out of place in the belief system of atheism, as many atheists have recognized. Given atheism, robust causal making and brute ethical facts seem quite fantastical, causing many atheists to doubt such things are real.

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[24] Ibid., 146–65.

[25] Ibid., 86.

[26] Ibid., 10-13. Michael R. DePaul, “Supervenience and Moral Dependence,” Philosophical Studies 51 (1987): 425–39..

[27] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 10–11.

[28] Ibid., 18-19.

[29] Ibid., 38.

[30] Ibid., 56.

[31] Baggett and Walls, God and Cosmos, 209.

[32] C. Stephen Evans, “Moral Arguments for the Existence of God,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ed. Edward N. Zalta, June 12, 2014), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-arguments-god/>.

[33] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 11.

[34] Ibid., 18.

[35] Ibid., 20.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid., 36.

[38] Ibid., 38.

[39] Ibid.

Francis S. Collins as Moral Apologist

April 21, 2022/ David Ochabski

As an atheist, Collins was recommended to read Mere Christianity by Lewis where, in the very book—“Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe”—his ideas of “science and spirit” were rocked “down to their foundation.”

April 20, 2022

Sweeping Contingency Under the Rug (Part 1)

April 20, 2022/ Adam Lloyd Johnson

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at Convincing Proof

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How Erik Wielenberg’s Third Factor Model Fails to Rebut the Lucky Coincidence Objection

Erik Wielenberg describes his view as “godless robust normative realism,” a combination of holding that “robust normative realism is true and there is no God.”1 Enoch describes robust normative realism as the view that “there are response-independent, non-natural, irreducibly normative truths… objective ones, that when successful in our normative inquiries we discover rather than create or construct.”2 Adding ‘godless’ to this, Wielenberg’s position then is that objective moral values and obligations exist, even though God does not.

In his non-theistic model Wielenberg claims that moral facts and properties are objectively real and that we as human beings can have accurate moral knowledge of these facts and properties. These types of models have been critiqued by both theists and atheists alike. One common objection against such models is as follows: If there are such things as objective moral facts and properties, and assuming they are causally inert, it would be quite a lucky coincidence if our moral beliefs happened to correspond to them. Call this the “lucky coincidence” objection. Proponents of Evolutionary Debunking Arguments (EDA’s) point out that this objection is amplified for a person if she believes that our moral beliefs have developed contingently through a haphazard evolutionary process.

The lucky coincidence objection would never have been raised if moral facts and properties somehow caused our moral beliefs. However, most proponents of robust normative realism believe that this is not the case. For instance, Wielenberg explained that “[a]n important feature of my view is that while many of the non-moral properties upon which moral properties D-supervene can produce causal effects, the moral properties themselves are epiphenomenal—they have no causal impact on the rest of reality. That aspect of moral properties makes the question of how we could have knowledge of them particularly press.”3 He summarized the lucky coincidence objection well when he noted that “if moral facts do not explain the moral beliefs of human beings, then those beliefs being correct would involve a lucky coincidence that is incompatible with genuine knowledge.”4

Wielenberg attempted to address the lucky coincidence objection by proposing that a third factor, namely, our cognitive faculties, explains why there is a correspondence between objective moral properties and our moral beliefs. He argued that human cognitive faculties do two things: they make objective moral properties be instantiated and they also generate our moral beliefs. Because moral properties and moral beliefs both stem from the same thing, our cognitive faculties, this secures a correlation between them, while also allowing for the fact that moral properties themselves are causally inert. He explained that cognitive faculties “both entail certain moral facts and causally contribute to the presence of moral beliefs that correspond to those moral facts. On that model, it is not at all unlikely that moral beliefs and moral facts will correspond.”5 He used his third-factor model to deflect criticism from several prominent EDA proponents including Gilbert Harman, Michael Ruse, Sharon Street, and Richard Joyce.6

In this paper I argue that Wielenberg’s third-factor model fails to rebut the lucky coincidence objection for two reasons. First, those who reject theism, if they are consistent, should also reject Wielenberg’s notion that cognitive faculties make moral properties be instantiated. Second, Wielenberg does not eliminate the lucky coincidence objection with his third-factor model, but only moves it somewhere else as he attempts to sweep contingency under the rug. Even if cognitive faculties do make moral properties be instantiated, the correspondence between moral properties and moral beliefs breaks down because, while his proposed relationship between cognitive faculties and moral properties is necessary, his proposed relationship between cognitive faculties and moral beliefs is contingent. And where there is contingency, there is luck.

Atheists Like Wielenberg Who Argue for Objective Morality Have to Battle on Two Fronts

Theists often argue that the existence of objective morality is best explained by the existence of God. Robert Adams, one of the most well-known contemporary proponents of this moral argument for God, has made the following argument:

Morality is objective, “certain things are morally right and others are morally wrong.”7
Objective morality is best explained by theism, “the most adequate answer is provided by a theory that entails the existence of God.”8
Therefore, there is good reason to think theism is true, “my metaethical views provide me with a reason of some weight for believing in the existence of God.”9

Similarly, William Lane Craig has been an influential voice in this conversation. He has regularly argued for the following two contentions:10

If theism is true, we have a sound foundation for morality.
If theism is false, we do not have a sound foundation for morality.

Nearly all theists agree that theism provides a more sound foundation for objective morality than atheism, though they may disagree on exactly how God provides such a foundation. Though theists may disagree on the details, an immaterial and personal God, as the ultimate source of all things, provides a much more fitting explanation for objective morality, which itself is both immaterial and personal. For instance, Baggett and Walls argue that “[t]he authority of moral obligations needs an account… Theism—entailing a loving, perfect God who commands, who knows us better than we know ourselves, who knows truly what is in our ultimate best interest, and who desires the best for us—can, we submit, most effectively provide it.”11

Interestingly enough, many atheists agree with Craig’s two contentions. Let us call such individuals ROM atheists, that is, atheists who Reject Objective Morality (ROM). Of Craig’s two contentions, the second one is heard more often from ROM atheists. Bertrand Russell wrote that “Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms…”12 Jacques Monod lamented that ““…[m]an at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he emerged only by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty.”13 Richard Dawkins wrote that:

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good; nothing but blind pitiless indifference… DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.14

Michael Ruse, explained that “…Darwinian theory shows that in fact morality is a function of (subjective) feelings, but it shows also that we have (and must have) the illusion of objectivity… In a sense, therefore, morality is a collective illusion foisted upon us by our genes.”15

However, some ROM even express agreement with Craig’s first contention, that theism provides a better explanation for objective morality than atheism. J. L. Mackie wrote:

[W]e might well argue… that objective intrinsically prescriptive features, supervening upon natural ones, constitute so odd a cluster of qualities and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events, without an all-powerful God to create them. If, then, there are such intrinsically prescriptive objective values, they make the existence of a god more probable than it would have been without them.16

More recently, Paul Draper proposed that “…the probability that moral agents exist given naturalism is extremely low, much lower than it is given theism… [there] is the possibility that some ‘historical outcomes’ like the existence of embodied moral agents are much more probable on theism than on naturalism and hence significantly raise the ratio of the probability of theism to the probability of naturalism.”17

Thus, in making his case for godless robust normative realism, Wielenberg finds himself in a difficult minority position, having to argue against critiques from two sides—theists and ROM atheists. He began his book explaining that he is, in large part, responding to atheists such as Gilbert Harman, whom Wielenberg said “suggested that we ought to take seriously the possible truth of nihilism,” and J. L. Mackie, of whom Wielenberg wrote “[i]nterestingly, Mackie himself, although an atheist, suggested that theism might be able to answer his worries about the queerness of the alleged supervenience relation between moral and natural properties.”18 Wielenberg differs from ROM atheists in that he believes in the existence of non-natural moral facts and properties. He believes these properties “are sui generis, a fundamental type of property not reducible to or fully constituted by some other type of property. Contra the Thaleans, all is not water, or physical, or natural.”19 Most likely referring to ROM atheists, he admits that “some have found this sort of view to be deeply puzzling if not wildly implausible.”20

In particular, Wielenberg admits that “it is not only theistic philosophers who have found robust normative realism to be problematic. A number of contemporary non-theist philosophers charge that robust normative realism runs into trouble when it comes to accounting for human moral knowledge.”21 Sharon Street’s colorful articulation of the lucky coincidence objection below is quite memorable:

[A]llowing our evaluative judgments to be shaped by evolutionary influences is analogous to setting out for Bermuda and letting the course of your boat be determined by the wind and tides: just as the push of wind and tides on your boat has nothing to do with where you want to go, so the historical push of natural selection on the content of our evaluative judgments has nothing to do with evaluative truth… Of course it’s possible that as a matter of sheer chance, some large portion of our evaluative judgments ended up true, due to a happy coincidence between the realist’s independent evaluative truths and the evaluative directions in which natural selection tended to push us, but this would require a fluke of luck that’s not only extremely unlikely, in view of the huge universe of logically possible evaluative judgments and truths, but also astoundingly convenient to the realist.22

Street’s concern is that if there are such things as objective moral facts and properties, then it would be quite the lucky coincidence if our moral beliefs corresponded to them, given that our moral beliefs developed haphazardly through an evolutionary process which selected for survival and reproduction, not an ability to know truth correctly. While discussing the difficulty of explaining why we should think objective moral facts and our moral beliefs correspond, Wielenberg reminded his readers that robust normative realists like himself are “hamstrung in this task by the fact that there is no causal connection between moral facts and moral beliefs.”23 In response to this lucky coincidence objection, he proposed his third-factor model.

Table of Contents

Footnotes

[1] Erik J. Wielenberg, Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 57. Other proponents of robust normative realism include Michael Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), Derek Parfit, On What Matters (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), David Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), and Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).

[2] David Enoch, “An Outline of an Argument for Robust Metanormative Realism,” in Oxford Studies in Metaethics (ed. Russ Shafer-Landau; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 21.

[3] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 13–14.

[4] Ibid., 153.

[5] Ibid., 154.

[6] Ibid., 146–64.

[7] Robert M. Adams, “Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief,” in Rationality and Religious Belief (ed. C. F. Delaney; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 116.

[8] Ibid., 117.

[9] Ibid.

[10] William Lane Craig, “Opening Statement by William Lane Craig,” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics (eds. Nathan L. King and Robert K. Garcia; Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 30.

[11] David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls, God and Cosmos: Moral Truth and Human Meaning (Oxford University Press, 2016), 290.

[12] Bertrand Russell, “The Free Man’s Worship,” The Independent Review 1 (1903): 416.

[13] Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (New York: Knopf, 1971), 180.

[14] Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life, Repr. (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 133.

[15] Michael Ruse, Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy (New York: Blackwell, 1986), 253.

[16] J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 115–16.

[17] Paul Draper, “Cosmic Fine-Tuning and Terrestrial Suffering: Parallel Problems for Naturalism and Theism,” American Philosophical Quarterly 41.4 (2004): 311.

[18] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, viii.

[19] Ibid., 14.

[20] Ibid., 16.

[21] Ibid., 85.

[22] Sharon Street, “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value,” Philosophical Studies 127 (2006): 121–22.

[23] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 155.

Mailbag: Are Divine Commands Necessary for Moral Obligations?

April 19, 2022/ David Baggett

Dr. Baggett, do you have any responses to Erik Wielenberg’s 2022 paper in JESP called “Divine Commands Are Unnecessary for Moral Obligation”?

Nick

Hey Nick!

I had a chance to take a quick look at Wielenberg’s article. It’s much in the spirit of his view that moral obligations come about as a result of various moral reasons adding up (an approach of which I'm skeptical). The example he uses—going home from the bar since he’d promised his wife—does indeed seem to me like a real obligation, but it’s not at all clear to me that it’s divorced from divine commands. Even if it, though, I surely don’t see its best explanation divorced from a theistic account of morality more generally.

Divine command theory is of course just one among other efforts to root deontic stuff in God; it also comes in lots of forms, including a minimal form that doesn't have the implication he insists it does--a version that simply affirms that if God commands us to do X, then we're obligated to do X, which doesn't imply a divine command is a necessary condition for a duty.

At any rate, the central piece of the scenario depicted strikes me as about promise keeping. Why should be keep our promises, though? What explains that? Perhaps more generally, why is there a moral obligation to be truthful—at least in most cases at least?

Wielenberg is a moral realist, and I accord him accolades for that; in certain respects this makes him an ally. But this is also why much of what he says initially sounds so plausible when perhaps it shouldn't. Moral realists read it and think, “Yeah, that’s true!” But what makes it true that there are any objective moral obligations at all?

In his book he offers his own account, of course, but it’s also an account exceedingly subject to criticisms of various sorts—several are starting to make a cottage industry extolling its deficiencies. And the fact remains that error theorists, expressivists, constructivists, and plenty of sensibility theorists would all deny that there are any objective moral duties—most all of them from his secular camp. I think they're wrong, of course, but the point is he helps himself to a generous portion of realism in what almost seems like an effort to preach to the choir.

He wants to say that theists, by their own commitments, should admit that this duty to go home from the bar is a duty—and divorced from divine commands. I don’t track with that. If we’re going to start seeing things from a theistic perspective, I’m not in the least inclined to explain such a duty in a way that appeals only to the relationship between a man and his wife. Even when David sinned with Bathsheba, afterwards he cried out to God, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.” Morally bad behavior is always first and foremost (even if not exclusively) against God himself. The man who loves God most loves his wife best.

A man need not realize that God’s at the center of things, and of course an atheist would deny it. But that hardly settles the metaphysics of the matter. If there is indeed a binding duty here, the question is what best explains it? This sort of abductive question is my preferred approach, which leaves open the room for other explanations that can explain things to some degree, but just not as well. This very phenomenon, it seems to me, is what Wielenberg wants to take advantage of to go his pluralist route. But if God does in fact explain the full range of moral phenomena best, then there is good philosophical reason to gravitate to such an explanation; Wielenberg’s characterization of such an approach as “monistic” almost seems to be a subtle argument by derision.

Wielenberg as something of a naturalist (admittedly something of a Platonist too, which generates a tension with his acceptance of causal closure and such) nevertheless affirms meaningful agency, or at least thinks the arguments against such freedom aren’t decisive. But I’m much more inclined to see his worldview as precluding substantive moral freedom, without which moral duties become notoriously hard to make sense of. So there’s also that.

So those are a few quick reflections off the cuff anyway. Thanks for asking! Pass along your own thoughts when you get a chance.

Blessings,

Dave

David Baggett is professor of philosophy and director of the Center for Moral Apologetics at Houston Baptist University. Author or editor of about fifteen books, he's a two-time winner of Christianity Today book awards. He's currently under contract for his fourth and fifth books with Oxford University Press: a book on moral realism with Jerry Walls, and a collection on the moral argument with Yale's John Hare.

The Advantages of Different Approaches to the Moral Argument

April 08, 2022/ Managing Editor

From Capturing Christianity:

In this joint interview, I'm joined by Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. David Baggett to discuss the merits of different versions of the moral argument for God's existence.

April 06, 2022

Is God Necessary for Morality? Evaluating the Exchange Between Linville and Antony

April 06, 2022/ Adam Lloyd Johnson

Editor’s note: this article was originally published at Convincing Proof.

1. What is the Issue?

Mark D. Linville and Louise Antony recently participated in written debate titled “Is God Necessary for Morality?”1 Linville argued that God is necessary for morality whereas Antony argued that God is not necessary for morality. In this paper I will interact with the arguments made by these two authors. Throughout I will also put forth my case that God is the best explanation for objective morality.

The first thing I want to cover is how this debate was framed. Developing a title for a debate is very important because it frames the debate by setting forth what each side will be arguing for. I believe it was unfortunate to frame the debate with the title “Is God Necessary for Morality?” because it puts the theist in a tough spot in that he has to argue that it’s impossible for morality to exist if there is no God, which, though I believe this is true, is a daunting task to try and argue. It’s very difficult to make the case that something is ‘necessary.’ Even though we believe that many things are necessary, it’s difficult to make the case that something is in fact necessary.

For example, one reason that it’s such a daunting task in this context is that the atheist doesn’t have to argue that her position is the best explanation for morality, but only that it’s ‘possible’ for morality to exist without God. In other words, she doesn’t have to argue that there is no God to defeat the theist in such an argument, but merely that it’s ‘possible’ for morality to exist without God. In order to defeat the ‘God is necessary for morality’ position, she doesn’t have to argue that ‘morality exists without God’ is the actual situation in reality but merely that it’s a possible situation. In other words, framing the debate this way just puts the bar too high for the theist and too low for the atheist.

A better approach would be to title the debate “What Is the Best Explanation for Morality?” because the issue under consideration is how to explain an important part of reality: objective moral truth. Since Linville, a theist, and Antony, an atheist, are both moral realists, they agree that there are real objective moral truths. But they disagree as to what is the best explanation for these real objective moral truths, that is, where they come from, what constitutes them, and how they can even be real and objective in the first place.

1.1. How do we determine who is correct?

Several advocates on both sides of this disagreement agree with me that this issue should be evaluated as an inference to the best explanation, that is, abductively. David Baggett, a proponent of theistic metaethical explanations, explained,

An inquiry into the ‘best explanation’ invokes the process of abduction, a common form of reasoning that distinguishes itself from deduction in a few ways. Most importantly, whereas a deductive argument makes an effort at forging an airtight evidential connection between premises and conclusion, an abductive approach asks, less ambitiously, what the best explanation of the relevant phenomena is. It typically uses criteria like explanatory scope and power (along with plausibility, conformity with other beliefs, etc.) to narrow down the explanation candidates to the best explanation, and warrants, potentially anyway, to infer that the best explanation is likely the true explanation.2

Similarly, Enoch, a proponent of non-theistic non-natural moral realism, argued that inference to the best explanation is a viable approach for this issue.3 He explicitly noted the importance of plausibility when he wrote that “the game being played is … that of overall plausibility points ….”4 and that “… the plausibility-points game is comparative: the view that we should endorse is the one that has–when all considerations are taken into account–the most plausibility points overall.”5 Which model has more plausibility points, the theist’s or the atheist’s?

Here’s a simple example of how this process works. Let’s say you are a farmer, your crops have produced a harvest 10 times greater than you’ve ever seen, and you don’t know why. Your friend Toni comes to you and presents a possible explanation: the weather conditions this year (sun, rain, wind, etc.) were just so perfect that they caused your crops to produce this tremendous amount. Another friend, Lenny, approaches you with an alternative explanation: a local scientist developed a new super-fertilizer and secretly put it on your crops to test its effectiveness. Now you have two explanations to consider. Which one best fits the evidence? It will take some work on your part to fully explore both explanations and see which one is most plausible and best fits the evidence. This is called abductive reasoning and it’s basically an inference to the best explanation.

There’s a sense in which Linville began his argument by framing it along these lines, that is, as an inference to the best explanation. He explained that he was going to argue that objective morality does not find a good ‘fit’ within the sort of word in which the atheist thinks we find ourselves in (p. 55). He also explained that he was going to argue that objective morality finds a more natural ‘fit’ within a theistic framework (p. 55). However, Antony recognized that, because the debate was framed the way it was, all she had to do was show that atheism doesn’t conflict in any way with morality (p. 67). In other words, she didn’t have to argue that the ‘actual’ situation was that there is no God and morality is objectively real, all she had to do is argue that it’s possible (there’s no conflict between these two things) for morality to be objectively real even if there is no God. However, even she noted how she was going to go one step further and sketch a promising beginning to a naturalistic explanation of morality (p. 66). So there’s a sense in which Antony too is arguing this issue as an inference to the best explanation, even though the debate wasn’t framed this way via the title.

Before I move on, I want to affirm Antony’s explanation of the differences between the definitions of atheism, materialism, and naturalism (p. 67). Sometimes people use those three terms interchangeably to mean the same thing (there is no God) but technically they have different definitions. Atheism is the belief that there is no God. Materialism is the belief that the only thing that exists is the material universe (space, time, and matter). Naturalism is the belief that everything can be explained in terms of natural processes. Now atheism, materialism, and naturalism are obviously related and connected, but they are not all one and the same. For example, as Antony notes, most atheists affirm materialism and naturalism but not all atheists do. For example, I wrote my dissertation against an atheist, Erik Wielenberg, who rejects naturalism and materialism because he believes certain thing exist beyond the material universe, namely, what he describes as platonic abstract objects. Now it seems like Antony herself does affirm naturalism because she wrote that she was going to focus on Linville’s arguments that were directed at naturalism.

This raises another issue. At one level this debate between Linville and Antony has to do with a debate between theism and atheism—which is the better explanation for objective morality? Craig has often framed the theist’s side of this debate as follows: “I. If theism is true, we have a sound foundation for morality. II. If theism is false, we do not have a sound foundation for morality.”6 While we can make some general arguments about how atheism and objective morality don’t seem to fit well together, a comprehensive case for these contentions would involve evaluating and debunking all the atheistic explanations for how objective morality could exist without God. Therefore yes, at one level this debate is between theism and atheism, but at another level, it is specifically between a particular theistic model (Linville’s) and a particular atheistic model (Antony’s naturalistic atheism), both of which are trying to describe reality, how things really are. The point is that even if we can show how Antony’s particular naturalistic atheistic explanation of morality is not a plausible explanation of morality, it only rules out her particular atheistic explanation for objective morality, not necessarily all atheistic explanations for morality, such as Wielenberg’s non-naturalistic atheistic model. The same is true of Linville’s theistic explanation of objective morality; even if Antony can show that Linville’s particular theistic explanation of morality isn’t a plausible explanation, it only rules out his particular theistic explanation, not necessarily all theistic explanations. That’s one of the reasons this topic is so vast and interesting!

1.2. Considering All the Evidence For and Against Theism

Before I start considering the objections Antony raised against theistic explanations of objective morality, there is one more topic to consider, a topic that both Antony and Linville mentioned. Antony was the first one to mention it (p. 69) when she explained she was confident that if we were to consider the total evidence, that there would be more evidence overall for atheism than theism. In other words, she maintained that atheism, as opposed to theism, does a better job explaining the total evidence we have before us – scientific evidence, moral evidence, historical evidence, philosophical evidence, etc. She’s still doing an abductive inference to the best explanation here but she’s talking about what’s the best explanation for all of reality and existence. Thus, instead of asking what the best explanation of morality is, we could ask what’s the best explanation overall for all of reality – morality, the universe, human beings, free will, consciousness, mathematics, etc. Linville responded to her assertion by saying that, based on the total evidence, and especially all the good evidence for the existence of God, he’d place his money on theism (p. 80). In other words, he maintained that theism, as opposed to atheism, is a better explanation for all that we see in reality – morality, the universe, human beings, free will, consciousness, mathematics, etc.

There’s a sense in which it’s important to separate these two conversations:

What is the better explanation for morality, theism or atheism?
What is the better explanation for all of reality, theism or atheism?

The first question is more narrow and has to do with a specific aspect of reality, i.e. morality, and the question ‘What is the best explanation for this part of reality?’ The second question is more broad and focuses on whether or not God exists. It’s important to separate these two issues conceptually because we could imagine a situation where, hypothetically, we conclude that atheism is a better explanation for morality (a particular aspect of reality), but overall theism is a better explanation for the vast majority of the other aspects of reality (the universe, human beings, free will, consciousness, mathematics, etc.). In such a hypothetical situation we’d conclude that theism is true, even though atheism seems to be a better explanation for objective morality. Thus, this conversation concerning which is the better explanation for morality, theism or atheism, is just a small part of the much longer discussion concerning whether the overall evidence points to the existence or nonexistence of God.

The moral argument is a common argument for the existence of God. Most moral arguments for God have the following structure:7

Morality is objective, “certain things are morally right and others are morally wrong.”8
Objective morality is best explained by theism, “the most adequate answer is provided by a theory that entails the existence of God.”9
Therefore, there is good reason to think theism is true, and so “my metaethical views provide me with a reason of some weight for believing in the existence of God.”10

I believe the moral argument for God is a strong argument. However, even if the moral argument for God is somehow shown to be wrong, there are many other arguments for the existence of God. If all that theists had was the moral argument, their overall case for God’s existence would be fairly weak. But that is not the case; the moral argument for God is merely one among many arguments that theists have provided for God’s existence. Theists from various cultures throughout the ages have developed several different lines of evidence and arguments for their belief in God—cosmological arguments, teleological arguments, contingency arguments, and ontological arguments, just to name a few.

2. Objections to Theistic Explanations of Objective Morality

In this section I’ll discuss the two objections that Antony raised against theistic explanations of objective morality – the Euthyphro Dilemma and the Competing Supernatural Explanations objection. I’ll also defend theistic explanations of objective morality by refuting these objections.

2.1. The Euthyphro Dilemma

The Euthyphro Dilemma is often presented as a rebuttal to the moral argument for God’s existence or theistic explanations of objective morality. In Plato’s Euthyphro, Socrates asked “Is that which is holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?”11 The dilemma can be restated in monotheistic terms as follows: Either 1. Morality is based on God’s commands; thus He could have arbitrarily commanded any heinous act and it would be morally right, or 2. Morality is based on necessary truths that even God cannot change; thus morality is independent of God and out of His control.12 I trust you can see how theists would want to avoid both horns. But the key question is, are these the only two horns? In other words, is it a false dilemma to say that these are the only two options?

Linville claimed his argument bypassed the Euthyphro Dilemma because it “appeals to God not as the ground of morality but as the agent and architect of a kind of moral teleology that is unavailable on garden-variety atheism” (p. 79). I’m not exactly sure what Linville is getting at here. I’m sure he was constrained by a certain word count limit in his debate with Antony so unfortunately he couldn’t elaborate. However, in order to avoid both horns of the Euthyphfro Dilemma, many theists, possibly even including Plato himself, have proposed that morality is dependent upon God’s nature in such a way that He could not command something that violates His moral nature.13 For example, Robert M. Adams’s version of the Divine Command Theory is an important contemporary example of grounding morality in God’s nature. He explained that “[t]he part played by God in my account of the nature of the good is similar to that of the Form of the Beautiful or the Good in Plato’s Symposium and Republic. God is the supreme Good, and the goodness of other things consists in a sort of resemblance to God.”14 His view is Platonic in the sense that “[t]he role that belongs to the Form of the Good in Plato’s thought is assigned to God, and the goodness of other things is understood in terms of their standing in some relation, usually conceived as a sort of resemblance, to God.”[15] This is not a new idea; in the first chapter of Monologian, Anselm argued that there must be one thing through which all good things are good, and that it alone is supremely good.[16] Also, Thomas Aquinas wrote that “Nothing… will be called good except in so far as it has a certain likeness of the divine goodness.”17

If morality is dependent upon God’s nature in this way, then both horns of the Euthyphro Dilemma are avoided. First, His commands would not be arbitrary because they would have to be consistent with His moral nature. Second, morality would not be independent of God, but dependent upon Him, that is, upon His moral nature. However, this proposed solution agrees with the Euthyphro Dilemma that morality is based on necessary truths that God cannot change or control. However, these necessary truths that God cannot change are truths concerning His moral nature, thus these moral truths which constrain God are not independent of God but are ‘within’ God Himself in a sense. Baggett and Walls noted that “a careful distinction between questions of dependence and control allows an answer to the Euthyphro Dilemma that can serve as an important component of any thoroughly theistic metaphysic with a strong commitment to moral realism… Moral truths can be objective, unalterable, and necessary, and yet still dependent on God.”18 They concluded that “if such dependence or even identity obtains or is even possible, then the Euthyphro Dilemma is effectively defused and the moral argument for God’s existence accordingly gains strength.”19 Many atheists, including Erik Wielenberg, agree that this solution successfully refutes the Euthyphro Dilemma objection against theistic explanations of objective morality and the moral argument for the existence of God. Wielenberg even encourages his fellow atheists to move beyond the Euthyphro Dilemma in their attempt to critique theistic metaethical models.

2.2. Competing Supernatural Explanations

The second objection that Antony raised against theistic explanations of objective morality is an objection that she called “Competing Supernatural Explanations.” She noted that this problem is hardly ever discussed (p. 68). I agree that this problem is hardly ever discussed. The reason it’s hardly ever discussed is that it is a very poor objection. Basically her complaint is that a person can’t, or at least shouldn’t, immediately jump from the evidence under consideration (objective morality) to the conclusion that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-benevolent being who created the universe. According to this objection, the reason a person can’t make this jump is because there are many other alternative hypotheses as well. She listed just four of them:

There is an all-powerful, all-knowing, malevolent being who created the universe.
There is an all-powerful, all-knowing, morally indifferent being who created the universe.
There is a very powerful, but not omnipotent, benevolent being who created the universe.
There are two competing beings, one a very powerful, but not omnipotent, benevolent being who created the universe, and the other an equally powerful malevolent being who constantly interferes in the affairs of the creatures created by the benevolent being.

Linville addressed this objection well when he explained that it’s similar to when some religious fideists dislike arguments for the existence of God because they don’t get us all the way to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (p. 79). He then went on to rhetorically ask “whoever expected that any one argument should accomplish all that?” (p. 79) In other words, Antony doesn’t understand Linville’s (and most theist’s, including myself) position here. Theists aren’t saying that, starting with objective morality, we can build a case for a specific concept of what God is like (say, the Christian concept of God). Instead, what we’re doing is bringing a particular concept of God (in this case, the Christian concept) to the table and saying that God, as Christians understand Him, is the best explanation for the evidence under consideration (objective morality). This is another reason it’s important to frame this debate as an inference to the best explanation.

Consider again my silly example of a farmer whose harvest is 10 times greater this year then ever before. As a reminder, Toni presented a possible explanation for this—the weather conditions this year (sun, rain, wind, etc.) were just so perfect that they caused your crops to produce this tremendous amount. Lenny, on the other hand, had an alternative explanation—a local scientist developed a new super-fertilizer and secretly put it on your crops to test its effectiveness. Imagine if Toni raised the following objection to Lenny’s explanation: Lenny’s explanation is a bad explanation because there are millions of scientists in the world. Well, what does that have to do with anything? Of course there are millions of scientists in the world, but so what? Now, if you think another scientist is the one who did it, great, present your case for that. But just because there are millions of possible scientists in the world who could of don this, that doesn’t mean that Lenny’s hypothesis that a particular scientist is the one who did it is a bad explanation.

In such a scenario Toni, just like Antony, is confused about Lenny’s position. Lenny isn’t constructing a concept about this scientist ‘merely’ from the direct evidence at hand (increased harvest). No, Lenny has all sorts of information about this particular scientist from other sources. For example, Lenny knows that this scientist lives nearby, that he focuses his research on helping crops produce more, and that this scientist has done this to other farmers nearby in the recent past. He takes all that information from other sources, say newspapers, interviews, television, etc. and then puts his hypothesis forth as the best explanation for this particular situation, that is, this farmer’s crops producing a harvest 10 times greater than ever before.

Similarly, Linville and other theists aren’t building an idea of God ‘merely’ from the direct evidence at hand (objective morality). If they were doing that, then Antony’s objection would be viable. But no, Linville and other theists have a fairly thorough concept of God based on all sorts of other evidence, reasoning, Scripture, etc. and they are bringing that concept to the table and saying that this particular concept of God seems to be the best explanation for objective morality. Surely, if someone else wants to come along and argue for one of the other four possible hypothesis that Antony mentioned, they’re certainly free to do so. But that doesn’t have any impact whatsoever on the strength, or weakness, of the explanation that Linville is putting forth.

Further, imagine the argument in reverse. What if Linville said, well, there’s just so many different atheistic explanations of objective morality that have been put forth by different atheists. Therefore, we must conclude that any one atheistic explanation must be wrong. That would be completely illogical and Antony would rightly dismiss any such argument.

3. Objections to Atheistic Explanations of Objective Morality

In this section I’ll discuss the main objection that Linville raised against atheistic explanations of objective morality – Evolutionary Debunking Arguments. Then I’ll address four attempts that atheists have made to deflect this objection, the first two of which were covered by Antony in her debate with Linville. I will argue that none of these four attempts to deflect this objection are successful.

3.1. Evolutionary Debunking Arguments

Evolutionary Debunking Arguments are merely a small part of a larger objection to atheistic explanations of objective morality, an objection I call the Lucky Coincidence Objection. Linville also frames his evolutionary debunking argument in terms of a lucky coincidence on p. 63. The Lucky Coincidence Objection can be summarized as follows: Granting, for the sake of argument, that there are such things as objective moral truths, it would be quite a lucky coincidence if our moral beliefs happened to match up with them. Both theists and atheists have raised the Lucky Coincidence Objection against atheistic models of objective morality. Wielenberg himself admitted that “… it is not only theistic philosophers who have found robust normative realism to be problematic. A number of contemporary non-theist philosophers charge that robust normative realism runs into trouble when it comes to accounting for human moral knowledge.”20

Proponents of evolutionary debunking arguments merely point out that this lucky coincidence objection is amplified for a person if she believes our moral beliefs have developed contingently through a haphazard evolutionary process. In other words, if God does not exist and evolution is true, then it is unlikely our moral beliefs reliably correspond with objective moral truth, again, assuming there is such a thing. These proponents claim that our moral beliefs are not true but are merely human constructs that nature selected because they increased our prospects for survival and reproduction. As the television show Survivor has entertainingly illustrated, a group that works together well—which involves moral aspects such as fairness, reciprocity, and self sacrifice—is better able to outwit, outplay, and outlast a group that does not. Similarly, as the story is often told, there was an evolutionary advantage to groups that adopted these made up moral principles; working together well, they could better compete against other groups in the battle for scarce resources.21

In response to this issue, some have concluded that there’s more than merely an epistemological problem here, that is, a problem with how humans can know moral truth. These folks have gone one step further and concluded that evolutionary debunking arguments show us not only that we should we doubt we have accurate moral knowledge, but that they should also cause us to doubt that there are objective moral truths in the first place. This extension of the objection extends it beyond an epistemological problem (how can we know something) to be an ontological problem (what does and does not exist). For example, noted atheist and evolutionary debunking argument proponent, Michael Ruse, turned this issue into more of an ontological argument when he wrote that “… Darwinian theory shows that in fact morality is a function of (subjective) feelings, but it shows also that we have (and must have) the illusion of objectivity.… In a sense, therefore, morality is a collective illusion foisted upon us by our genes.”22 He also wrote,

The position of the modern evolutionist … is that humans have an awareness of morality … because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth.… Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves.… Nevertheless … such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction … and any deeper meaning is illusory….23

Linville explained this distinction between the epistemological and ontological aspects of evolutionary debunking arguments and explained that he was only going to argue the epistemological issue here and not the further ontological issue. For example, Linville wrote that “perhaps Ruse is right, but I’ll argue for a weaker claim that on evolutionary naturalism, even if there are objective moral facts we are never in a position to know them” (p. 56). Linville also wrote that a “Darwinian genealogy of human morality strongly suggests either a non-realist account of morality (Ruse) or at least the skeptical conclusion that we can’t know whether our moral beliefs are true, which is the burden of this essay” (p. 65). Thus Linville acknowledged the potential ontological problem here but chose to only focus on the epistemological problem raised by evolutionary debunking arguments.

I think Ruse’s ontological conclusions, that evolutionary debunking arguments should cause us to doubt that there are objective moral truths in the first place, are appropriate and I affirm them. But it’s much more difficult to make such an ontological argument against the existence of moral truth than it is to merely make an epistemological argument against our ability to know moral truth. That’s why most people, including Linville in this debate, only went after the epistemological aspect and didn’t make any ontological conclusions, even though he did mention Ruse’s ontological conclusions concerning evolutionary debunking arguments.

Even though the basic framework of evolutionary debunking arguments might be as old as the theory of evolution itself (it seems even Darwin made such arguments), most contemporary versions follow Gilbert Harman’s approach in his 1977 work The Nature of Morality.24 For example, Richard Joyce specifically acknowledged his argument’s connection with Harman’s.25 Wielenberg noted that “… Harman was perhaps the first contemporary philosopher to outline a case against moral knowledge based on the claim that human moral beliefs can be explained without appealing to any moral truths.… [M]any epistemological evolutionary debunking arguments can be understood as variations on Harman’s basic idea.”26 Since Harman, evolutionary debunking arguments have grown in popularity, due in part to the rise of sociobiology, now commonly called evolutionary psychology, which began with E. O. Wilson’s 1975 work Sociobiology: The New Synthesis.27 Other well-known proponents of evolutionary debunking arguments include Joshua Greene, Peter Singer, Sharon Street, and Richard Joyce.28

Sharon Street provided a memorable summary of her evolutionary debunking argument when she wrote:

[A]llowing our evaluative judgments to be shaped by evolutionary influences is analogous to setting out for Bermuda and letting the course of your boat be determined by the wind and tides: just as the push of wind and tides on your boat has nothing to do with where you want to go, so the historical push of natural selection on the content of our evaluative judgments has nothing to do with evaluative truth…. Of course it’s possible that as a matter of sheer chance, some large portion of our evaluative judgments ended up true, due to a happy coincidence between the realist’s independent evaluative truths and the evaluative directions in which natural selection tended to push us, but this would require a fluke of luck that’s not only extremely unlikely, in view of the huge universe of logically possible evaluative judgments and truths, but also astoundingly convenient to the realist.29

Street’s concern is that if there are such things as objective moral truths, then it would be quite the lucky coincidence if our moral beliefs corresponded to them, given that such beliefs developed haphazardly through an evolutionary process which selected for survival and reproduction, not for an ability to know truth. If evolution works as many claim, that it was driven by accidental random mutations, as well as chance changes in the environment (climate changes, meteorites, etc.), then it would be quite a lucky coincidence if it just so happened to shape our moral judgments such that they matched up with what atheistic moral realists claim are independent objective moral truths.

The lucky coincidence objection would lose much of its bite if moral facts and properties somehow played a causal role in forming our moral beliefs. However, most proponents of atheistic moral realism reject the idea that objective moral truth has such causal power. For instance, Wielenberg explained that an “… important feature of my view is that while many of the non-moral properties upon which moral properties D-supervene can produce causal effects, the moral properties themselves are epiphenomenal—they have no causal impact on the rest of reality. That aspect of moral properties makes the question of how we could have knowledge of them particularly pressing.”30 While discussing the difficulty of explaining why we should think objective moral facts and our moral beliefs correspond, Wielenberg reminded his readers that robust normative realists like himself are “hamstrung in this task by the fact that there is no causal connection between moral facts and moral beliefs.”31 He summed up this objection remarkably well when he noted that “if moral facts do not explain the moral beliefs of human beings, then those beliefs being correct would involve a lucky coincidence that is incompatible with genuine knowledge.”32

Atheistic moral realists, including Wielenberg, have tried to refute evolutionary debunking arguments because such arguments aim to show that our moral convictions are the result of an accidental random process, rendering such convictions arbitrary and potentially meaningless. Thus these realists maintain that morality is objectively real, and that we can have true moral knowledge, even if atheism and evolution are true.33

Below I will present an evolutionary debunking argument using Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism as a base. I use Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism as the basis for my evolutionary debunking argument because, first, his argument is about the reliability of our cognitive faculties, which, as Wielenberg points out, is the crux of all evolutionary debunking arguments.34 Second, because Plantinga is a theist like myself, he and I agree that our cognitive faculties, including those that produce our moral beliefs are, for the most part, reliable.35 This position is in contrast to atheists who usually use evolutionary debunking arguments to argue that our moral intuitions really are unreliable. Instead, Plantinga and I only argue that if atheism and evolution were true, then our cognitive faculties would be unreliable. Third, Plantinga’s evolutionary argument is broader in that it applies, not just to moral intuitions, but to all cognitive faculties; for this reason it is a more consistent position. Again, this position is in contrast with atheists who often apply evolutionary debunking arguments only to moral and religious beliefs while maintaining that our cognitive faculties provide us with reliable beliefs in other areas. I’ll have more to say about this below in section 3.2.4 when I discuss the Modal Security Response.

As for constructing an evolutionary debunking argument based on Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism, the first three premises of his argument can be summarized as follows:36

The probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given atheism and evolution, is low.
If someone believes atheism and evolution, and sees that the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given atheism and evolution, is low, then they have a defeater for their belief that our cognitive faculties are reliable.
If someone has a defeater for the reliability of their cognitive faculties, then they have a defeater for any belief produced by their cognitive faculties.

This argument can be applied explicitly to our moral beliefs as follows:

Our moral beliefs are produced by our cognitive faculties.
Therefore, if someone believes atheism and evolution, then they have a defeater for their belief that their moral beliefs are reliable.

Given atheism and evolution, there is no good reason to think our moral intuitions point to, or are connected with, moral truth that exists beyond our own subjective preferences. If the origination of our moral beliefs can be explained by their evolutionary survival value, then what reason is there to think they also happen to be objectively true? Surely there is no objective evidence for them; all we have to go on is our subjective intuitions and there is no reason to think those are reliable, given atheism and evolution.

3.2. Responses to Evolutionary Debunking Arguments

In this section I will discuss four attempts that atheists have made to deflect evolutionary debunking arguments. The first two attempts were presented by Antony in her debate with Linville but others, including Wielenberg, have presented similar attempts. The third attempt is Wielenberg’s third-factor model and the fourth attempt is the modal security response. I will argue that none of these four attempts are successful in deflecting the force of evolutionary debunking arguments.

3.2.1. Our Moral Beliefs Are Accurate

Antony attempted to deflect evolutionary debunking arguments by claiming that we have ample evidence that our moral beliefs are in fact accurate. She called this attempt of hers an Argument from Arbitrariness (p. 70) but that seemed to me a strange and awkward name for her argument. Regardless, she explained that “if we have direct evidence that an extant capacity [in this case our capacity for accurate moral beliefs] is reliable, then the fact that its origin was chancy [because it was developed via the haphazard evolutionary process] should do nothing to reduce our confidence in it” (p. 72).

Wielenberg made a very similar argument in an article he wrote concerning Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism in which he presented two critiques.37 First, he argued that Plantinga’s first premise (the probability of our cognitive faculties, given atheism and evolution, is low) should be rejected in light of the substantial evidence that our cognitive faculties are reliable. He admitted that if all we knew was that some creatures developed by way of an evolutionary process, then it “seems right that it would be unreasonable for us to believe that the cognitive faculties of such creatures are reliable.”38 However, he continued by claiming we know much more than that, for instance, we know these creatures have reliable cognitive faculties. He wrote that, for instance, “… I have all sorts of evidence for the reliability of my faculties. For example, most of my perceptual beliefs about medium-sized physical objects turn out to be true; such beliefs are deliverances of perception, so perception seems to be reliable. I know all sorts of things, and I wouldn’t know these things if I weren’t reliable.”39 I trust that you can see the similarities between Wielenberg’s pushback to Plantinga’s argument and Antony’s pushback to Linville’s argument.

Similar to Antony, Wielenberg argued that, even if Plantinga’s first premise was granted, this still should not lead to premise two (if someone believes atheism and evolution are true, and sees that the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given atheism and evolution, is low, then they have a defeater for their belief that our cognitive faculties are in fact reliable). Again, because we have so much evidence that our cognitive faculties are reliable, even if we came to see that the probability of this, given atheism and evolution, is low, we would have to conclude that, though it was unlikely, evolution must have indeed pulled it off and produced for us reliable cognitive faculties. This is almost the exact same strategy Antony took and she used two examples to make her point – arriving at Bermuda and winning the lottery, which I’ll discuss below.

In response to this idea that we have a lot of evidence for the reliability of our cognitive faculties, including our moral faculty that generates our moral beliefs, I must point out that there is a great problem with Wielenberg and Antony’s strategy here. If someone believes atheism and evolution, and then comes to see that the probability of their cognitive faculties being reliable is low in this scenario, it would not be possible for them to use arguments or evidence to try and prove their cognitive faculties are reliable. Any such attempt would fail because, to even begin such a move, they would have to first assume their cognitive faculties were reliable, which is the very issue under consideration.40 As Plantinga pointed out, “any such procedure would therefore be viciously circular.”41 In attempting such a strategy, one would be utilizing the very cognitive faculties under question in order to evaluate their reliability. Thus it does Wielenberg no good in this context to try and argue for, or provide evidence of, the reliability of our cognitive faculties.

Similarly, it does Antony no good in this context to try and argue for, or provide evidence of, the reliability of our capacity to form moral beliefs. And this driven by the fact that the only way we have to “verify” the accuracy of our moral beliefs is to use the very moral-belief-generating capacity that we have doubts about in the first place. It would be similar to if we had doubts that a particular yard stick was really 36 inches long and then we used that exact same yard stick to measure itself and prove that yes, see, it is 36 inches long, because it says it is. Antony is doing the exact same thing because, given atheism and evolution, there is nothing objective for us as humans to ‘check’ our moral beliefs against except our very own moral beliefs, which is the very thing being questioned.

This point was driven home for me when I learned that the argument Wielenberg provided for objective morality, ironically, centers on subjective thought experiments. To try and make his case that some activities are intrinsically good, which he admitted is “notoriously difficult to prove,” he echoed G. E. Moore’s claim that we have a special form of cognition called moral intuition which gives us access to moral properties. Following Moore, Wielenberg appealed to “thought experiments as a source of intuitions about which things might be intrinsically valuable.”42

After encouraging his readers to participate in a thought experiment where they consider a universe consisting of only two people in a loving relationship, he asks “Does it seem to you that something good happens in such a universe?”43 Since it does seem good to us, he concluded that it is, though at the same time acknowledging, “I do not see any way of proving that a given thing is intrinsically good.”44 Yet he goes on to conclude that by “… engaging in intrinsically valuable activities a person can make her life meaningful in one important sense: she can make her life good for her.”45 This line of reasoning seems to be a subjective, possibly relative, foundation for meaning and purpose, a shaky foundation indeed for the model of objective morality Wielenberg attempted to build. He ended this section, titled “Intrinsic Value and the Meaning of Life,” with the comment that his concept of intrinsic value “is central to my approach to ethics.”46 In this section, which is the second section of his book after a brief two-paragraph introduction, he then began building his model on top of this foundation of subjective intuitions.

Thus Wielenberg’s entire model, which claims brute ethical facts are the best explanation for objective morality, is based on subjective intuitions that some situations are morally better than others. Most atheists readily dismiss theists who base their belief in God on subjective intuitions. To be consistent, such atheists should also dismiss Wielenberg’s brute ethical facts, which he claims are part of the best explanation for objective morality, since the only evidence he gives for them are these subjective intuitions. In other words, it seems as though all that atheists have to go on for their belief in objective morality is our moral intuitions. But, given atheism and evolution, why trust that our moral intuition is reliable in the first place? Thus, given atheism and evolution, there seems to be no good reason to believe that our moral beliefs match up with objective moral truth, assuming there is such a thing.

In addition, as I’ve been explaining in this section, it is important to note that atheists have good reason to doubt the reliability of their moral intuition. As I’ve been showing, evolutionary debunking arguments make the case that those who believe in atheism and evolution have good reason not to trust their intuitions as a guide for what is true because, according to evolutionary theory, nature selected beliefs, feelings, and intuitions because they resulted in greater chances of survival or reproduction, not because they were true. Given atheism and evolution, it seems much more likely that our intuitive subjective belief in objective morality was merely something nature selected because it led to greater chances of survival and reproduction, not because it is true.

The major problem here is that, given atheism and evolution, we don’t have anything objective to verify whether our moral beliefs, or our moral intuition which generates our moral beliefs, are correct or not. It seems as though Antony doesn’t quite grasp this point considering the various examples that she used to push back against evolutionary debunking arguments. For example, when she tried to refute Sharon Street’s memorable Bermuda example, she said well, while we’re on the sea on our way to Bermuda we would have no basis for thinking we’ll wind up in Bermuda. However, once we’ve arrived at Bermuda we’d have to assume, by jove, that we got lucky and made it because here we are! (p. 73) Now that we’re at Bermuda, there can be little doubt that we’ve arrived at Bermuda, even if we must marvel at our good fortune (p. 73).

The problem with Antony’s analogy is that it doesn’t fit the scenario that evolutionary debunking arguments are describing. According to evolutionary debunking arguments, there’s no way to verify our moral beliefs are correct because there’s nothing objective we have to compare them with. To fit this scenario better, Antony would have to have her hypothetical people arrive on an island that had no signs, no people, and no way for them to verify that in fact Bermuda is the island they arrived at. Antony claims that we can assess the judgments our moral intuition produce in the normal way, through reason and evidence (p. 73). But she fails to realize that in trying to assess the judgments of our moral intuition we invariably must use our moral intuitions, the very thing we have doubts about in the first place. It’s circular to use our moral reasoning to verify that our moral reasoning is accurate!

Similarly, Antony’s lottery winner analogy also fails. Antony said to consider someone who won the lottery but then realizes her chances of winning were very slim. Should she therefore doubt that she did in fact win? Not at all says Antony (p. 81). Again, Antony is assuming we are in a situation where we can somehow verify our moral intuition is reliable and therefore trust our moral beliefs. But, given atheism and evolution, how could we verify they are correct without using our very moral intuition that is being doubted? The better lottery analogy would be a situation where the person had no way of verifying whether her lottery ticket number was the winner or not. In such a situation, she should very much doubt she has the winning ticket because the chances of that are extremely small.

Of course another way to look at this is to start out assuming our moral intuitions are reliable and thus our moral beliefs are correct. In other words, we could start out assuming we in fact did make it to Bermuda. But then if we use the inference to the best explanation, we could ask: which is the more plausible explanation for the fact that we in fact did arrive in Bermuda? Is it more plausible that we got here accidently through the random process of wind and waves? Or is it more plausible that someone guided us somehow here, either a human person or a supernatural person? Linville makes a similar move when he talked about finding a working watch – the present argument wouldn’t be whether or not the watch works, but assuming it does, would it be more plausible to think a monkey created it or that a human watchmaker did? (p. 80)

Antony seems to anticipate this response to her argument. In other words, she wrote that a theist might object that she is question begging to appeal to the evidence and reasoning that we ordinarily take to support our moral judgments (p. 73). But she went on to claim that doing this would undercut the theist’s own argument (p. 73). She explained that the argument which Linville seemed to present began by assuming in the first premise that our cognitive faculties, including the ones that generate our moral beliefs, are reliable but then goes on to show that if evolution and atheism is true then they aren’t reliable. But, according to premise one our cognitive faculties are reliable, thus we do have true moral knowledge and therefore there is a contradiction with believing we have accurate moral beliefs and believing that atheism and evolution are true. Antony said that this was the argument that Linville was making and she pointed out that whatever theists use to support that first premise, that we do in fact have true moral knowledge, the atheist can co-opt and use as well. Antony is correct that this specific argument that Linville presented does rest on such a premise, that we do in fact have reliable cognitive abilities that generate moral knowledge.

Of course Linville, and other theists, could, and sometimes do, make their evolutionary debunking argument in a different way such that they would avoid relying on such an initial premise that affirms our moral knowledge is accurate. However, the following question could be asked here: In this endeavor, is it appropriate to start out assuming that our cognitive faculties are reliable, and specifically our cognitive ability that generates our moral beliefs (which some call our moral intuition)? I believe the answer is yes, it is appropriate to begin with the initial assumption that our moral intuition is, for the most part, reliable. We seem to all do this; we believe that we are correct when we conclude that rape is wrong, that strangling babies for fun is wrong, that loving others is right, etc. Both sides in this debate, the atheists such as Antony and the theists such as Linville, do begin from the position that our moral intuitions are reliable. But the question becomes, which side’s theory best explains why these moral intuitions are reliable? In other words, even though both sides begin by assuming our moral intuitions are reliable, which side’s explanation better confirms that yes, in fact, we can and should trust our initial moral intuitions?

It seems to me that the atheistic position raises serious doubts about the reliability of our moral intuition. This is especially true if atheism is paired with a belief in evolution. Then I think there is a great amount of justified concern that our moral intuitions are really reliable. Linville drove this point home when he talked about C. S. Lewis’ remark about naturalists who followed their naturalism all the way to its likely implications (p. 80-81). It’d be similar if we found ourselves believing that looticoffliers (a term I just made up that represents entities that don’t exist but that we believe do exist) are real, but then we came to understand that atheism and evolution are true, and that a haphazard evolutionary process is what produced our beliefs in looticoffliers. Certainly in such a scenario we’d have a strong reason to doubt the reliability of our belief in looticoffliers. The same applies to our belief in objective morality.

Lastly, it’s important to note that Plantinga’s evolutionary debunking argument is not arguing about how things actually are, but how things would be if evolution and atheism were true. As noted above, because Plantinga does not believe atheism is true, he does not face the implications of his argument and so can safely maintain our cognitive faculties are reliable; he wrote, “Of course we all commonsensically assume that our cognitive faculties are for the most part reliable, at least over a large area of their functioning.… I don’t mean to argue that this natural assumption is false; like everyone else, I believe that our cognitive faculties are, in fact, mostly reliable.”47 He even pointed out that this belief in the reliability of our cognitive faculties is properly basic.48 However, the scenario under question is how things would be if atheism and evolution were true. Plantinga noted that “… in this context we can’t just assume, of course, that if N&E [atheism and evolution], N [atheism] including materialism, were true, then things would still be the way they are.”49 In other words, if someone is convinced their cognitive faculties are reliable, and comes to see the probability of having reliable cognitive faculties is low given atheism and evolution, then this would be a good reason to doubt evolution and/or atheism. As we’ll see in the next section, raising doubts about the evolutionary process is the strategy Antony and Wielenberg took, but maybe what they should doubt instead is their atheism.

3.2.2. Our Moral Beliefs Did Not Come from Evolution

Antony also attempted to deflect evolutionary debunking arguments by claiming that we don’t even have substantial evidence that our moral beliefs really came from evolutionary processes (p. 83). She called this attempt of hers an Argument from Screening Off (p. 70) but that seems to me a strange and awkward name for her argument. Regardless, she explained that “morality is just one of several capacities specific to human beings – language and mathematics being others – for which no adequate evolutionary account exists … I must protest again that we do not have any reason to suppose that we know the evolutionary history of our moral attitudes. The hypothesis that a trait is the product of natural selections is an empirical hypothesis that must be constructed with biological detail and supported by evidence. A superficially plausible story is simply not enough” (p. 83).

Antony went further and even speculated that, possibly, our moral reasoning and intuition that generates our moral beliefs is a spandrel of evolution (p. 74). This doesn’t help her position at all. If I understand the concept of evolutionary spandrels correctly, they are just accidental byproducts of the haphazard random evolutionary process. If we have concerns about the reliability of our moral reasoning if it came about via the haphazard random evolutionary process, then we should have, not less, but more concerns if our moral reasoning was merely an accidental byproduct of this haphazard process. It doesn’t seem to me that it would help her case at all to suppose our moral reasoning is a spandrel of evolution instead of a direct result of evolution.

In his second critique of Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism, Wielenberg similarly argued that we do not know enough about how evolution worked to confidently assert Plantinga’s first premise (the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given atheism and evolution, is low). He admitted there are cases where, despite having lots of good evidence for the reliability of their cognitive faculties, a person could become convinced concerning certain claims about his origin that would require him to doubt the reliability of his cognitive faculties. However, the theory of evolution does not meet this threshold because it is missing too much crucial information. He explained that “… while a typical reflective naturalist [atheist] believes that he has an understanding of some of the basic principles of evolution, he also believes that there are important causal factors of the actual process of evolution that led to the development of human cognitive faculties here on earth of which he is unaware.”50 In sum, the less we know about how the actual evolutionary process took place, the less confidence we should place in Plantinga’s first premise.

Wielenberg argued that, because our knowledge about how the evolutionary process formed our cognitive faculties is so incomplete, it should not undercut the vast amount of positive evidence we have for the reliability of our cognitive faculties. Therefore, we should place less confidence in Plantinga’s first premise and more confidence in the evaluation of our own cognitive faculties. He concluded that “… it would take a lot of information about one’s origin–it takes a developed, detailed, fleshed-out scenario that is not missing any crucial information, before the grounds for doubt are serious enough to annihilate or undercut all one’s evidence for the reliability of one’s faculties.”51 In other words, the evidence that our cognitive faculties are reliable is much greater than the evidence for Plantinga’s first premise (the probability of our cognitive faculties, given atheism and evolution, is low).

In response to Antonty and Wielenberg’s critique that we do not know enough about how evolution worked, it should be noted that most evolutionary debunking arguments, including Plantinga’s, are based on what contemporary scientists have reported about the process of evolution. Plantinga makes it clear that his argument only applies to someone who believes that atheism and evolution are true. Therefore, the hypothetical person in Plantinga’s argument does believe what contemporary scientists currently say about the evolutionary process that developed our cognitive faculties. If someone does not believe evolution is true, or believes there are a lot of holes in the theory, like the skeptic Wielenberg described, then this argument does not apply to that person. As I mentioned above though, evolutionary debunking arguments are merely a subset of a larger objection for atheistic explanations of objective morality, that is, the lucky coincidence objection. Thus, even if an atheist rejected evolutionary debunking arguments because they reject evolution, they’d still have to deal with the lucky coincidence objection.

Certainly there are various aspects about the theory of evolution that many do not find very credible; Plantinga himself has concerns with it.52 Regardless, the force of evolutionary debunking arguments depend, not on whether the contemporary theory of evolution is true, but on how much credibility a particular atheist attributes to it. The more an atheist believes in evolution, the more force that evolutionary debunking arguments have against them. The fact is that evolutionary scientists do claim to understand how evolution worked, and many atheists are confident that they are correct. In fact, the theory of evolution is, for many atheists, a key part of their belief system. It is to this type of atheist that evolutionary debunking arguments most strongly apply.

In his article against Plantinga’s argument, Wielenberg presents several hypothetical scenarios about someone finding out how he originated and then claims these scenarios more accurately reflect the position an atheist finds himself in when considering evolution. In the first scenario, the hypothetical person discovers that he came about “… by some process or other and have no idea at all what the process may be.”53 Each consecutive scenario increases the amount of information the person knows about how he originated. The fifth and final scenario, the one Wielenberg claims most resembles the situation of a reflective atheist concerning evolution, is as follows:

I believe I was created by a certain machine. I believe that the machine operates according to certain principles, and I understand all or most of these principles. I cannot make a very good estimate of the probability of such a machine producing cognitively reliable creatures, but I suspect the probability is relatively low. I cannot make a very good estimate of the probability in question because I believe that whether or not a given being is cognitively reliable depends on the initial condition of the machine at the start of the creation process and I have no idea what the initial conditions of the machine were at the start of the process that created me. Now I realize that all the creatures around me were created in this machine as well. I further notice that the vast majority of them are cognitively reliable.54

The problem with this scenario is that it does not represent the typical atheist. It may represent how Wielenberg understands evolution, but most atheists believe they understand fairly well how evolution played out. It seems the more scientific or educated an atheist is, the louder he claims he can explain how evolution produced us and our beliefs.55 It is the very cornerstone of their explanation—that nature selects for the ability to survive and reproduce, not the ability to know truth—which has led many, including Thomas Nagel, Barry Stroud, Patricia Churchland, and even Charles Darwin himself, to doubt the reliability of our cognitive faculties.56

With respect to our moral beliefs in particular, naturalist Joshua Greene, whom Wielenberg described as one of the central figures in contemporary moral psychology,57 and whose work Wielenberg highly praised,58 wrote,

I view science as offering a “behind the scenes” look at human morality. Just as a well-researched biography can, depending on what it reveals, boost or deflate one’s esteem for its subject, the scientific investigation of human morality can help us to understand human moral nature, and in so doing change our opinion of it…. Understanding where our moral instincts come from and how they work can … lead us to doubt that our moral convictions stem from perceptions of moral truth rather than projections of moral attitudes.59

The contention here is that Greene, Darwin, Dawkins, Nagel, Stroud, and Churchland more closely represent the typical atheist than Wielenberg’s hypothetical so-called reflective atheist.

In order to drive home how arbitrary our moral beliefs would be if they were developed by a haphazard evolutionary process, proponents of evolutionary debunking arguments often point out that if our evolutionary path would have taken a different direction, then our moral beliefs would be radically different. Linville made such an argument using wolves and Antony noted how Ruse made such an argument with termites – “instead of evolving from ‘savannah-dwelling primates,’ we, like termites, could have evolved needing to “dwell in darkness, eat each other’s feces, and cannibalize the dead.’ If the latter were the case, we would ‘extol such as beautiful and moral’ and ‘find it morally disgusting to live in the open air, dispose of body waste and bury the dead.’” (p. 76). Antony’s response to these examples of termites and wolves was to exclaim that “I think that Linville’s wolves would surprise him …. If they developed the cognitive tools to notice and reflect upon their social practice, it might occur to a few of them that the benefits of their rigid hierarchical social system could be realized without granting absolute power to any one wolf” (p. 76).

Antony’s strategy here is very close to one that Wielenberg took. Wielenberg, in an attempt to remove all contingency (and therefore luck) from his model, spent the last few pages of his book Robust Ethics asking readers to entertain the idea that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. By ‘necessary’ he meant that something must be the case in all possible worlds, whereas something is ‘contingent’ if it is possible for it not to be the case.60 If the laws of nature were necessary in this sense, he argued, then any being with cognitive faculties like ours would necessarily have moral beliefs similar to ours.61 I trust you see how similar this move is to the move Antony made. Wielenberg made this move because he understands that eliminating all contingency is the only way to ultimately rebut the lucky coincidence objection.

It is interesting to note that Wielenberg seems to agree with theists that there must be a necessary foundation of some sort for objective morality. Both sides then, theists and atheists, recognize that contingent things are not enough, there must be something necessary that provides the stability needed for morality to be objective as opposed to just a subjective, accidental human belief. Theists argue that God provides such a necessary foundation whereas Wielenberg asked his readers here to consider that the laws of nature may be necessary.

In his attempt to deflect the lucky coincidence objection made by theists who argue that the existence of God is the best explanation for why our moral beliefs correspond to moral truth, Wielenberg wrote that “… the question of whether God’s existence would decrease how lucky we would have to be to possess moral knowledge depends on the modal status of the laws of nature.”62 He continued by considering two possible scenarios. First, if the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, then it would not matter if God does not exist. He wrote that “[i]f there is no God but the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, then the fact that there is no God to put in place just the right laws for moral knowledge to arise doesn’t make us any luckier to have moral knowledge than we would be if God did exist because the laws of nature couldn’t have been any different from what they are.”63 He argued that, “[c]onsequently, to make the case that the truth of theism would make our possession of moral knowledge less lucky than atheism, one would need to make the case that the laws of nature are not metaphysically necessary.”64

Wielenberg seems to ignore the fact that the inverse is also true: To make the case that the truth of atheism would make our possession of moral knowledge no more lucky than if theism were true, which is what Wielenberg is trying to do, one would need to make the case that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. But Wielenberg makes no such attempt. Certainly one can speculate that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, but such an assertion is notoriously difficult to prove, as Wielenberg himself admits.65

Also, even if some of the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, this would not mean that the evolutionary path that led to human beings was necessary. Therefore, Wielenberg had to go even further and speculate that the evolutionary process that led to the development of human beings may itself have been necessary in some sense. He summarized this possibility as follows:

These considerations are hardly decisive, but I think they do indicate that it is a mistake simply to assume that it is nomologically possible for us (or other beings) to have evolved to m-possess radically different moral principles than the ones we actually possess. For all we know, m-possessing the DDE [a particular moral principle] is an inevitable outcome of the evolutionary process that made us capable of forming moral judgments in the first place.66

Wielenberg is forced into this remarkable speculation because he realizes that if the evolutionary process which supposedly produced human beings was contingent, if it could have occurred differently, then our cognitive faculties could be different, which in turn may have resulted in vastly different moral beliefs. Similar to the termites and wolves already discussed, Charles Darwin himself recognized this and used bees as an example:

If … men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. Nevertheless, the bee, or any other social animal, would gain in our supposed case … some feeling of right or wrong, or a conscience. For each individual would have an inward sense of possessing certain stronger or enduring instincts, and others less strong or enduring.… In this case an inward monitor would tell the animal that it would have been better to have followed the one impulse rather than the other. The one course ought to have been followed, and the other ought not; the one would have been right and the other wrong.…67

Fellow moral robust realist David Enoch agreed that “[i]t is indeed true that had the causal forces shaping our intellectual and other normative faculties been very different, had they ‘aimed’ at things that are of no value at all or that are of disvalue, we would have been systematically mistaken in our normative beliefs. And we are indeed epistemically lucky that this (presumably) isn’t the case…. So yes, some brute luck may remain.”68 He went on to call the fact that our moral beliefs do line up with objective moral truth a miracle, albeit, in his estimation, a small miracle. After presenting a third-factor model similar to Wielenberg’s, he concluded his discussion as follows: “Let me not give the impression that this suggested way of coping with the epistemological challenge is ideal. Indeed, because of the (perhaps) remaining small miracle perhaps Robust Realism [his non-naturalist atheistic explanation of objective morality] does lose some plausibility points here.”69

As for Wielenberg’s speculative solution that our evolutionary path might have been necessary, he wrote that the amount of lucky coincidence involved in having moral beliefs that are correlated with objective moral truth depends on the answer to this question: “[T]o what extent do the actual laws of nature permit the emergence of species of beings that m-possess moral principles radically different from the moral principles we m-possess?”70 He began his answer to this question with the following hypothetical claim, which he called Extreme Specificity (ES): “The actual laws of nature entail that any being capable of forming moral beliefs at all m-possess all and only the principles included in Moral Truth.”71 He argued that if the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary in this regard then “… there is no luck at all involved in the fact that Bart [a hypothetical person he used as an example] m-possesses moral principles that correspond with moral reality rather than m-possessing radically different (and false) moral principles.”72 This is the same strategy Antony used when surmised that Linville’s wolves would surprise him.

Wielenberg is clear that he does not believe Extreme Specificity is true; he admitted that “we simply lack the knowledge required to warrant a clear and confident answer” concerning Extreme Specificity, but he did suggest that “… we may be relatively close to ES [Extreme Specificity]—or at least, closer to ES than some philosophers have suggested.”73 He even postulated that “[f]or all we know, m-possessing the DDE [a particular moral principle] is an inevitable outcome of the evolutionary process that made us capable of forming moral judgments in the first place.”74 He understands that the closer we are to Extreme Specificity in the actual world, the smaller amount of luck is entailed by our having moral beliefs that correspond to objective moral truth. He concluded his book by stating that “[a]s far as I can tell, a certain degree of agnosticism is called for with respect to just how lucky we are to have moral knowledge on a view like mine.”75

Anticipating how some would respond to this speculation, Wielenberg preemptively argued that just because one can think of other ways evolution could have played out (possibly more like the evolutionary paths of wolves, termites, or bees) does not mean that those ways are actually possible. He explained his point as follows:

One might be tempted to argue that the fact that it is easy to imagine the laws of nature being different than they are is an indication of their metaphysical contingency. However, theists typically maintain that God’s existence is metaphysically necessary; yet it is easy to imagine the non-existence of God. Therefore, theists cannot consistently appeal to the conceivability of different laws of nature to support the metaphysical contingency of the actual laws of nature.76

In response, it should be noted that the supposed evolutionary tree would seem to say that evolution not only could have, but in fact did sprout off in many different directions, leading to wildly different organisms. In addition, since he is the one suggesting that the laws of nature and the evolutionary path which led to human beings may be necessary, the onus would be on him to provide evidence for this claim.

In addition, Wielenberg himself inconsistently affirmed that human beings were produced by an evolutionary process that was accidental and thus contingent. He wrote that “… evolutionary processes have endowed us with certain unalienable rights and duties. Evolution has given us these moral properties by giving us the non-moral properties that make such moral properties be instantiated. And if, as I believe, there is no God, then it is in some sense an accident that we have the moral properties that we do.”77 He also wrote that “contemporary atheists typically maintain that human beings are accidental, evolved, mortal, and relatively short-lived….”78

Realizing the implications of these statements, Wielenberg explained in a footnote that, in the context of evolution, ‘accidental’ should not be understood as a result of entirely random processes because “[a]ccording to contemporary evolutionary theory, evolutionary processes are not, contrary to popular mischaracterizations, entirely chance-driven. Rather, they are driven by a combination of chance and necessity; see Mayr 2001, 119-20.”79 It is important to note that Mayr actually stated that chance rules at the first step of evolution, with the production of variation through random mutation, and that determinism only comes in during the second step through non-random aspects of survival and reproduction based on a particular species’ fixed, or determined, environment.80 Thus, if evolution worked as many claim, that it was driven by accidental random mutations, which Wielenberg agrees to,81 as well as chance changes in the environment, such as the success of other organisms, climate changes, meteorites, etc., then it is very difficult to think that evolution had to necessarily produce human beings just the way they are and to have the moral beliefs they do.

Lastly, the suggestion that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary comes dangerously close, for an atheist such as Wielenberg that is, to another line of reasoning—fine-tuning arguments for the existence of God.82 Wielenberg recognized this when he explained that if it is metaphysically necessary that any being capable of forming moral beliefs at all possesses only true moral beliefs, then “… there is no luck at all involved in the fact that Bart [a hypothetical person he used as an example] m-possesses moral principles that correspond with moral reality rather than m-possessing radically different (and false) moral principles.”83 Recognizing that this may be seen as a hint of fine-tuning, he followed this up in a footnote by noting that “[p]erhaps Bart is lucky to exist at all, but that is a separate issue—one that connects with so-called ‘fine-tuning’ arguments, a topic I cannot engage in here.”84

The important point is that the fine-tuning debate has sparked a lot of discussion over the last couple of decades, instigating a whole host of arguments for and against it. The fine-tuning argument itself, as well as the most common argument against it, the argument for a proposed multiverse, are both based on the strong intuition that the laws of nature are not necessary but contingent. Wielenberg’s suggestion that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary would thus effectively rebut the prominent positions on both sides of the fine-tuning debate. At the very least, this should give one pause in accepting Wielenberg’s speculative proposal that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. Whether one believes that God exists or not, it seems much more plausible that, if He does exist, then He exists necessarily, that is, more plausible than the idea that the laws of nature are necessary.

3.2.3. Erik Wielenberg’s Third Factor Model

One of the ways that Erik Wielenberg attempted to address Evolutionary Debunking Arguments was by proposing that a third factor, namely, our cognitive faculties, explains why there is a correspondence between objective moral truth and our moral beliefs. He used this third factor model to try and show why it is not a lucky coincidence that moral truth and moral beliefs correspond; they correspond because they both stem from our cognitive faculties. He summarized this idea as follows:

[T]here is a necessary connection between the cognitive faculties and moral rights [those who have such cognitive faculties necessarily have moral rights]. Those very cognitive faculties also generate moral beliefs, including the relevant beliefs about rights. The connection between the cognitive faculties and beliefs about moral rights is causal. In this way, the relevant cognitive faculties are responsible for both moral rights and beliefs about those rights, and so the cognitive faculties explain the correlation between moral rights and beliefs about those rights.85

In other words, he posited that our cognitive faculties do more than generate our moral knowledge, they also instantiate ontologically our moral rights and obligations in the first place. Thus, our cognitive faculties explain why there is a match between our moral beliefs and objective moral truth. He wrote that

… the presence of the very cognitive faculties that cause (or at least causally contribute to) my belief that I have certain rights also entails that I have those very rights.… [C]ertain non-moral features of the world [our cognitive faculties] both entail certain moral facts and causally contribute to the presence of moral beliefs that correspond to those moral facts.86

Thus he argued that there is a correlation between our beliefs about moral rights and the fact that we do indeed have these rights in that both stem from a third factor–our cognitive faculties.87 He noted that “[i]f these claims are correct, then we have explained the ‘remarkable fact’ [that moral properties and moral beliefs correspond].… [I]t seems to me that if we can explain why (i) x causes y and (ii) x entails z, then we have explained why y and z tend to go together.”88

To summarize, Wielenberg claimed that this third factor (human cognitive faculties) do two things: they make objective moral properties be instantiated and they also generate our moral beliefs. Because moral properties and moral beliefs both stem from the same thing, our cognitive faculties, this secures a correlation between them, while also allowing for the fact that moral properties themselves are causally inert. He explained that cognitive faculties “… both entail certain moral facts and causally contribute to the presence of moral beliefs that correspond to those moral facts. On that model, it is not at all unlikely that moral beliefs and moral facts will correspond.”89 He used his third-factor model to try to deflect criticism from several prominent evolutionary debunking arguments from Gilbert Harman, Michael Ruse, Sharon Street, and Richard Joyce.90

Let me take some time and more fully explain the part of this third factor model that Wielenberg refers to as hi proposed making relationship in which natural non-moral properties are responsible for making moral properties to be instantiated. The importance of this proposal to his model is made clear by his explanation that “the making relation is the cement of the foundation of normative reality.”91 He construed this relationship as a type of causation when he wrote that “… whatever moral properties are instantiated are conserved or sustained by various underlying non-moral properties via a robust causal relation that holds between the relevant non-moral and moral properties.”92 Wielenberg summarized this making relationship well when he responded to the question: What is the source of human moral rights and obligations?

I propose the following answer: any being that can reason, suffer, experience happiness, tell the difference between right and wrong, choose between right and wrong, and set goals for itself has certain rights, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and certain obligations, including the duty to refrain from rape (in typical circumstances). Having such cognitive capacities makes one have such rights and duties. Evolutionary processes have produced human beings that can reason, suffer, experience happiness, tell the difference between right and wrong, choose between right and wrong, and set goals for themselves. In this way, evolutionary processes have endowed us with certain unalienable rights and duties. Evolution has given us these moral properties by giving us the non-moral properties that make such moral properties be instantiated. And if, as I believe, there is no God, then it is in some sense an accident that we have the moral properties that we do. But that they are accidental in origin does not make these moral properties unreal or unimportant.93

Wielenberg claimed this making relationship is brute in that it has no ontological explanation and no foundation external to itself.94 Though this making relationship has always necessarily existed timelessly as a brute fact, moral goodness itself was not exemplified until the correct non-moral properties arose. He explained that

… if a given entity is good, it is good in virtue of or because of certain non-moral properties of that entity. Pleasure, for instance, is good because of the qualitative feel that pleasure has. Persons are valuable, and possess certain rights, because of certain capacities they have—for instance, the capacity to experience pain, and to reason. When an entity possessing the right sort of non-moral properties comes into existence, that entity will also possess the property of being good. When such entities are produced by entities or processes that do not possess moral properties, then value arises from valuelessness. More precisely, in such cases, entities that have the property of being good arise from entities or processes that do not have this property. For example, for many years the universe was devoid of sentient life. Eventually, valueless processes produced beings that could experience pleasure, and, at some point, the first episode of pleasure occurred. At that moment, the property of goodness was exemplified for the first time.95

In this section I will argue that Wielenberg’s third-factor model fails to rebut the lucky coincidence objection. First I will argue against the first part of his third-factor model, his idea that cognitive faculties make moral properties to be instantiated. Second, I will point out that the second part of his third-factor model, his idea that our cognitive faculties generate our moral beliefs, is contingent and thus is still vulnerable to the lucky coincidence objection.

First I will argue against Wielenberg’s suggestion that cognitive faculties make moral properties to be instantiated. Given atheism, why think that cognitive faculties are anything more than instrumental accidents of evolution that nature selected for because they led to greater chances of survival or reproduction? Mark Linville has argued that human cognitive faculties are not a viable source of moral properties such as moral value, rights, or duties if they are merely instrumental abilities developed from a haphazard evolutionary process, much like opposable thumbs. He wrote that “… it is better for a human to have a pair of thumbs than not. But that is because having them allows people to open beer bottles and play the tuba. It does not follow (obviously), that thumbed creatures enjoy some special value not shared by their thumbless companions. To get anything like a real rights view up and running would seem to require more than appeal to such instrumentally valuable human characteristics.”96 Linville makes a similar point in his debate with Antony (p. 61). Peter Singer famously claimed that our insistence of human moral rights is an unwarranted species-ist type of chauvinism on our part.97 Given atheism, it is hard to see why he is wrong. If our cognitive faculties arose accidentally as helpful adaptions to our environment then, as James Rachels pointed out, we “… are not entitled … to regard our own adaptive behavior as ‘better’ or ‘higher’ than that of a cockroach, who, after all, is adapted equally well to life in its own environmental niche.”98

Another problem with Wielenberg’s idea that our cognitive faculties instantiate moral properties is that different human beings have different levels of cognitive abilities. Wielenberg’s model would seem to indicate then that we should attribute less moral rights and duties to those who have lesser cognitive faculties such as infants or those with mental handicaps. This is a very precarious path that could be used to justify all sorts of horrendous practices such as eugenics, forced sterilizations, and involuntary euthanasia. Angus Menuge summarized his concern with this part of Wielenberg’s model as follows: “[I]t is obvious that even amongst those who have the relevant cognitive faculties, there is wide variation in cognitive powers and capacities. Human rights are supposed to be equal, but it is implausible … to claim that all of these human beings would have the same human rights: if cognitive powers and capacities come in degrees, so would human rights.”99

John Hare contrasted a notion like Wielenberg’s to a common belief among theists concerning the moral value of all human beings; he wrote,

It is unclear why we should give status to members of a species who do not themselves have the relevant capacities … for example, infants born with severe mental retardation, if it is the existence of just those capacities in some of its members that is supposed to make the species valuable in the particular way that moral status implies. I myself do not see how to overcome this difficulty [however] [w]ithin the Abrahamic faiths we do have a way to do this, starting from the premise that humans are created in the image of God.100

While considering a similar notion, that we should ascribe value to human beings because they have the capacity for rational reflection, Evans made the point that “many people believe that young infants and people suffering from dementia still have … intrinsic dignity, but in both cases there is no capacity for rational reflection.”101 In other words, Wielenberg’s model seems to imply that if a particular human being does not have sufficient cognitive faculties, then they have less moral rights, or none at all. Surely Wielenberg himself does not believe that infants and people suffering from dementia have less moral rights, but the fact that his model seems to minimize, if not eradicate, such rights is an indication that his model is dangerously wrong.

Also, Wielenberg’s proposed making relationship between moral and natural properties is suspect because it is an extravagant ontological claim. Wielenberg has conceded “… that the appeal to the making relation makes robust normative realism less attractive in some respects than at least some of its competitors…. [I]t is plausible that, everything else being equal, a theory that posits more kinds of properties and relations is less attractive than a theory that posits fewer kinds of theories and relations.”102 Platonists have historically struggled to explain how their proposed abstract objects are able to connect with concrete objects in the physical world. Sometimes known as the problem of exemplification, this issue dates all the way back to Plato and his critics. It is fairly well agreed upon that abstract objects, if they exist, are non-causal entities; so much so that being non-causal is usually part of the definition of abstract objects. Therefore, the abstract objects themselves are unable to cause their connection with concrete objects. Many Platonists, including Plato himself, have even suggested a theistic being as the agent that causes abstract objects to be exemplified in concrete objects.103

At least when it comes to understanding how moral properties can be connected to non-moral properties, the idea that the former supervenes on the latter is currently the most popular explanation. However, some have criticized the idea of supervenience by claiming it is not an explanation at all but merely a filler word used to signify something for which we have no explanation.104 In addition, as Wielenberg noted, some have “suggested that such supervenience is more at home in a theistic universe than in a non-theistic one.”105 He went on to quote William Wainwright’s comment that “… the connection between the base property and the supervenient property can seem mysterious. For, in the absence of further explanation, the (necessary) connection between these radically different sorts of properties … is just an inexplicable brute fact.”106

Wielenberg rejects the three explanations discussed above for how moral properties connect with the physical world—that the moral properties themselves cause the connection, that a theistic being causes the connection, or that moral properties simply supervene upon natural properties. Instead, he has proposed that it is the concrete objects which cause this connection. Craig summarized his position as follows: “Wielenberg recognizes that it would be implausible to say that this just happens, as if by magic. Rather he claims that the physical objects cause the abstract objects to supervene on physical situations.”107

While Wielenberg sometimes uses the term supervenience to explain this phenomenon, his explanation of the process makes it clear he is proposing something much more elaborate than simple supervenience. He explained that his proposed making relationship is a form of robust causal D-supervenience where the concrete natural properties (our cognitive faculties) actually cause the abstract moral properties to be instantiated. He coined the term D-supervenience as a way to refer to Michael DePaul’s version of supervenience.108 He explained that “… given DePaul’s understanding of dependency, if M depends on some base properties B, then M is not identical with, reducible to, or entirely constituted by B, but the instantiation of B explains the instantiation of M; it is B’s instantiation that makes M be instantiated…. This making relation (as I shall henceforth refer to it) is distinct from supervenience.”109 His proposed D-supervenience, or making relationship, is distinct because supervenience, as it is normally understood, is merely a relationship of correlation whereas making is actually explanatory and causal. Thus he construes the making relationship involved in D-supervenience as a sort of robust causation, thus describing making as type of causation.110

William Lane Craig has been one of the most vocal critics of Wielenberg’s proposed making relationship between natural properties and moral properties. First, since natural properties are not agents, how do they know which moral properties to instantiate? Craig rhetorically asked “What if instead of picking out moral goodness, some physical situation might pick out moral badness? Indeed, what if it picks out some other abstract object like √2 to instantiate, so that two people’s loving each other has the property of being √2 instead of being good?”111 In addition, Craig pointed out that Wielenberg “imputes to physical objects causal powers that are mysterious and completely unknown to contemporary physics.”112

In response, Wielenberg pointed out that in his model this

… relation is a causal relation of a robust sort: the act’s being a case of causing pain just for fun necessarily causes the act’s wrongness. This causal relation holds between instances of properties—property-tokens—and so does not involve causation between concrete and abstract entities. This point is important because it means that Craig’s objections to causation between concrete and abstract entities are directed against a doctrine that is not part of my view.113

This seems to be a distinction without a difference that does not help Wielenberg’s case at all. He admits as much in a footnote to the above quote where he wrote,

I should note, however, that some of Craig’s concerns about my theory of robust causation are relevant to causation between property tokens. E.g., I offer no account of how such causation works nor do I offer an explanation of why certain nonmoral property tokens cause one moral property token rather than another. While I don’t see these as serious weaknesses in my view, I want to make clear that I am not suggesting that Craig’s misunderstanding of my account of robust causation renders all of his objections to such causation irrelevant.114

In several places he claimed that this causal relationship is brute, unexplained, and necessary, and that he does not see this as a serious weakness of his model. He argued that “[e]xplanation, as they say, must come to an end somewhere. Why does being an instance of torturing someone just for fun entail moral wrongness? Because being an instance of torturing someone just for fun makes an act wrong.… Eventually we hit bottom; no further explanation is available. But I don’t see why possessing this sort of explanatory bottom is a problematic feature for a view to have.”115 Later he added that this causal relationship is necessary: “There is a necessary connection between the cognitive faculties and moral rights.”116

Wielenberg’s insistence on these unexplained necessary connections between non-moral properties and moral properties has caused some to accuse his model of being conveniently ad hoc. First, consider the following quote by Shelly Kagan:

An adequate justification for a set of principles requires an explanation of those principles—an explanation of why exactly these goals, restrictions, and so on, should be given weight, and not others. Short of this, the principles will not be free of the taint of arbitrariness which led us to move beyond our … ad hoc shopping lists.… Unless we can offer a coherent explanation of our principles (or show that they need no further justification), we cannot consider them justified, and we may have reason to reject them.… This need for explanation in moral theory cannot be overemphasized.117

For instance, concerning models like Wielenberg’s, Craig, reflecting Kagan’s concern above, wrote that “[i]f our approach to metaethical theory is to be serious metaphysics rather than just a ‘shopping list’ approach, whereby one simply helps oneself to the supervenient moral properties or principles needed to do the job, then some sort of explanation is required for why moral properties supervene on certain natural states or why such principles are true.”118

Second, now that I’ve critiqued the first part of Wielenberg’s third-factor model, his idea that cognitive faculties make moral properties to be instantiated, I will now point out that the second part of his third-factor model, his idea that our cognitive faculties generate our moral beliefs, is contingent and thus remains vulnerable to the overall lucky coincidence objection. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Wielenberg is correct in that cognitive faculties do necessarily make moral properties to be instantiated (see my concerns about this claim above), the correspondence between moral properties and moral beliefs breaks down because, while his proposed relationship between cognitive faculties and moral properties is necessary, his proposed relationship between cognitive faculties and moral beliefs is contingent. There is no good reason to think that beings with cognitive faculties like ours would come to have the same moral beliefs we do. We can easily imagine beings with similar cognitive faculties as our own but with radically different types of moral beliefs.

As noted earlier, this point is amplified if one believes, as most atheists do, that our cognitive faculties and moral beliefs came about haphazardly through a random evolutionary process. Wielenberg himself does not take a position on whether all our moral beliefs can be explained in evolutionary terms but he is “sympathetic to the view that at least some of our moral beliefs can be given evolutionary explanations.”119 In particular, he sketched an evolutionary explanation of how we came to have our beliefs about moral rights.120

The reason that beings with cognitive faculties like ours may not have the belief that they have moral properties such as rights is that the causal connection between cognitive faculties and moral beliefs is contingent, not necessary. Thus his model still includes contingency, that is, the contingency in the relationship between our cognitive faculties and our moral beliefs. This contingency still leaves his third factor model open to the lucky coincidence objection because, as Wielenberg himself admitted, where there is contingency, there is luck.121 Thus he does not eliminate the lucky coincidence objection with his third-factor model, but only moves it somewhere else as he attempts to sweep contingency under the rug.

It is important to note that Wielenberg describes this making relationship between cognitive faculties and moral properties, the first part of his third-factor model, as a necessary relationship, that it obtains in all possible worlds.122 This is the key difference to note between the first and second part of his third-factor model. While he proposed that the first part, the making relationship between cognitive faculties and moral properties, is necessary, he proposed that the second part of his third-factor model, the relationship between cognitive faculties and our moral beliefs, is contingent. Wielenberg admitted that “… because the basic ethical facts are necessary truths, if there is any luck in the correspondence between our psychological dispositions and moral reality, it must lie entirely on the psychological side of the equation.”123 His proposed correspondence between moral properties and moral beliefs breaks down because of this difference in causal necessity between the first and second part of his third-factor model.

Consider the following refutation by analogy. If Wielenberg’s model works in the realm of moral knowledge, then it should also work in other realms of knowledge generated by our cognitive faculties, realms such as science and mathematics. Let us consider his third factor in the context of Fermat’s Last Theorem.124 For the purpose of this analogy, it is sufficient to note that Fermat’s Last Theorem is a mathematical theorem proposed by Pierre de Fermat in 1637. He claimed he had developed a proof of this theorem but such a proof was never found in any of his writings. Despite numerous attempts by mathematicians, there were no published successful proofs of this theorem until 1994. If we insert Fermat’s Last Theorem in Wielenberg’s third-factor model, the two parts of the model would be as follows:

Our cognitive faculties make the property of ‘being able to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem’ be instantiated.
Our cognitive faculties cause us to believe we can prove Fermat’s Last Theorem.

It is easy to imagine beings like us who have the cognitive faculties which make them able to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, but who do not have the belief that they can. Similarly, it is easy to imagine beings like us who have cognitive faculties which make them have moral properties such as rights and obligations (assuming the first part of Wielenberg’s third factor model is correct), but who do not have the belief that they have such properties. Our imagination is not even necessary, for there are in fact such people, that is, humans who do not think they, or others, have moral rights and obligations. The reason that beings with cognitive faculties like ours may not believe that they have moral properties is that the causal connection between cognitive faculties and moral beliefs is contingent, not necessary.

To summarize, it has been argued in this section that Wielenberg does not avoid the lucky coincidence objection with his third-factor model. First, there are serious problems with the first part of his third factor model, his proposed making relationship between moral and nonmoral properties. Second, there is still contingency in the second part of this third factor model, that is, the idea that our cognitive faculties generate our moral beliefs. For this second issue, I showed that Wielenberg did not eliminate contingency, he only moved it to a different location in an attempt to sweep it under the rug. Therefore there is still contingency in his third-factor model, namely, in the second part, his proposed relationship between our cognitive faculties and our moral beliefs. And where there is contingency, there is luck.

3.2.4. The Modal Security Response

Justin Clarke-Doane wrote a paper titled “Debunking Arguments: Mathematics, Logic, and Modal Security” that will be published in Robert Richards and Michael Ruse (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Evolutionary Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In this paper Clarke-Doane presented a response to evolutionary debunking arguments concerning objective morality. It seems to me that his argument can be summarized as follows:

If evolutionary debunking arguments undermine our moral beliefs, then they also undermine all our other beliefs, such as our mathematical beliefs.
We are confident that our cognitive faculties that produce our beliefs, specifically our mathematical beliefs, are reliable for the most part.
Since we don’t allow evolutionary debunking arguments to undermine many of our beliefs, such as our mathematical beliefs, then we shouldn’t allow them to undermine our moral beliefs either.

In a nutshell, he is arguing that if we allow evolutionary debunking arguments to undermine our moral beliefs, then, to be consistent, we have to allow them to undermine all our beliefs, including our mathematical beliefs. But we are so very confident that many of our beliefs, and especially our mathematical beliefs, are accurate. Therefore, we should reject any evolutionary debunking arguments that attempt to undermine our beliefs, including our moral beliefs.

Clarke-Doane gives several examples of proponents of evolutionary debunking arguments that selectively apply their argument to only certain beliefs, namely, our moral beliefs, but inconsistently don’t apply them to our other beliefs (p. 4). In this I agree with Clarke-Doane; it is inconsistent to apply evolutionary debunking arguments to only some of our beliefs. That is why I affirmed Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary debunking argument above, because he consistently applied it to all of our beliefs. As I explained above, Plantinga’s evolutionary argument is broader in that it applies, not just to our moral intuitions, but to all of our cognitive faculties; for this reason it is a more consistent position. This position is in contrast with atheists who often apply evolutionary debunking arguments only to moral and religious beliefs while maintaining that our cognitive faculties provide us with reliable beliefs in other areas.

Telling such an evolutionary story is a common tactic employed by atheists, including Wielenberg, to try and explain away religious beliefs as false. In an effort to brush off C. S. Lewis’s argument for God’s existence from human desire for, and belief in, ultimate joy, Wielenberg wrote of such desires that “evolutionary psychology … predicts that human beings will tend to hold a number of false beliefs.… ”125 Wielenberg has spent a considerable amount of time trying to defend his assertion that we have true moral beliefs from evolutionary debunking arguments. Clearly Wielenberg did not realize his inconsistency in affirming evolutionary debunking arguments to dismiss the reliability of our religious beliefs while rejecting such arguments when it comes to the reliability of our moral beliefs. Shafer-Landau rightly pointed out the inconsistency of applying evolutionary debunking arguments to only some of our beliefs when he wrote,

If we are required to suspend judgment about all perceptual beliefs—as we must, if required to do so in the moral case—then we will most likely not be in a position to confirm the reliability of our perceptual faculties. We must presuppose the truth of at least some central, widely uncontroversial perceptual beliefs in order to get the confirmation of our perceptual faculties off the ground. But if we are allowed such liberties in the perceptual realm, then we should be given similar license for morality. And then the debunking game is up.126

Thus I wholeheartedly affirm the first premise of Clarke-Doane’s argument as I summarized it above. Given atheism and evolution, there is no good reason to assume any of our cognitive faculties are reliable and thus we have reason to question all of our beliefs. Thus, given atheism and evolution, there results a certain global skepticism about all our beliefs. This is famously known as “Darwin’s Doubt” because Darwin himself seems to be the first to recognize this predicament. For instance, he began to doubt the reliability of his own cognitive faculties when he became convinced humans had come about through an evolutionary process. In 1881 he wrote to W. Graham, in response to his Creed of Science, that “… you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is not the result of chance. But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”127

Where I disagree with Clarke-Doane’s argument is in his premise 2 and 3 as I summarized it above. I would maintain that, given evolution and atheism, we should rightfully doubt the reliability of our cognitive faculties and thus doubt that all of our beliefs are accurate, including our mathematical beliefs. Someone might claim that we could simply check the accuracy of our mathematical beliefs by comparing it to objective mathematical truths. However, such a strategy would be viciously circular because, as discussed above, we’d be using our own mathematical abilities to verify our own mathematical abilities, which is the very thing being doubted. If we have doubts about the length of a yard stick, we don’t want to use that yard stick to measure itself to see if it really is indeed 36 inches.

Footnotes

[1] Michael L. Peterson and Raymond J. VanArragon, eds., Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, 2nd ed. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2020), 55–84. When quoting Linville and Antony from this book, I’ll simply put the page number in parenthesis within my text.

[2] David Baggett, “Psychopathy and Supererogation,” in God and Morality: What Is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties? (New York: Routledge, 2020), forthcoming.

[3] David Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 57–58.

[4] Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously, 14–15.

[5] Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously, 267.

[6] William Lane Craig, Is Goodness without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics, ed. Nathan L. King and Robert K. Garcia (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 30.

[7] Robert M. Adams, “Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief,” in Rationality and Religious Belief, ed. C.F. Delaney (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 116–140.

[8] Adams, Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief, 116.

[9] Adams, Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief, 117.

[10] Adams, Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief, 117.

[11] Plato, Euthyphro, 9e.

[12] For a brief summary see C. Stephen Evans, God and Moral Obligation (Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2014), 89–91. For a fuller treatment see John Milliken, “Euthyphro, the Good, and the Right,” Philosophia Christi 11.1 (2009): 145–55.

[13] William Lane Craig, “The Most Gruesome of Guests,” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics (eds. Nathan L. King and Robert K. Garcia; Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 171–73.

[14] Robert Merrihew Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; repr., 2002), 7.

[15] Ibid., 14.

[16] Anselm, “Monologion,” in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works (eds. Brian Davies and G. R. Evans; Oxford World’s Classics, New York: Oxford University Press), 5–82.

[17] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, Chapter 40.

[18] David Baggett and Jerry Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 91.

[19] Baggett and Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality, 93.

[20] Erik J. Wielenberg, Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 85.

[21] Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012), 189–220. See also Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Vintage, 1998), 282.

[22] Michael Ruse, Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy (New York: Blackwell, 1986), 253.

[23] Michael Ruse, The Darwinian Paradigm: Essays on Its History, Philosophy and Religious Implications (New York: Routledge, 1989), 261–69.

[24] Gilbert Harman, The Nature of Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).

[25] Joyce, The Evolution of Morality, 184.

[26] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 147.

[27] Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975).

[28] Joshua Greene, Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them (New York: Penguin Press, 2013). Peter Singer, “Ethics and Sociobiology,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 11:1 (1982): 40–64. Sharon Street, “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value,” Philosophical Studies 127 (2006): 109–166. Richard Joyce, The Evolution of Morality (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 184.

[29] Street, “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value,” 121–22.

[30] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 13–14.

[31] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 155.

[32] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 153.

[33] See Michael Martin, Atheism, Morality, and Meaning (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2003); Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Morality without God? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); David Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Michael Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Russ Shafer-Landau, “Evolutionary Debunking, Moral Realism and Moral Knowledge, ” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 7:1 (2012): 1–37.

[34] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 163.

[35] Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies, 313, 326, 335.

[36] Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies, 314. Though Plantinga’s argument uses naturalism in place of atheism, atheism is being used here because, as explained previously, Wielenberg is not a naturalist.

[37] Erik Wielenberg, “How to Be an Alethically Rational Naturalist,” Synthese 131:1 (2002): 81–98.

[38] Wielenberg, “How to Be an Alethically Rational Naturalist,” 85.

[39] Wielenberg, “How to Be an Alethically Rational Naturalist,” 90.

[40] Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies, 346.

[41] Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies, 341.

[42] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 3.

[43] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 4.

[44] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 4.

[45] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 5.

[46] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 6.

[47] Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies, 326.

[48] Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies, 341.

[49] Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies, 336.

[50] Wielenberg, “How to Be an Alethically Rational Naturalist,” 91.

[51] Wielenberg, “How to Be an Alethically Rational Naturalist,” 93.

[52] Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies, 225–64.

[53] Wielenberg, “How to Be an Alethically Rational Naturalist,” 87.

[54] Wielenberg, “How to Be an Alethically Rational Naturalist,” 95.

[55] Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

[56] See quotes by these contemporary thinkers pointing out their doubts about our cognitive faculties in Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies, 315.

[57] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 110.

[58] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 123.

[59] Joshua Greene, “From Neural ‘Is’ to Moral ‘Ought’: What Are the Moral Implications of Neuroscientific Moral Psychology?” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4 (2003): 848–849.

[60] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 36, explained that he adopted these from Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 44–45.

[61] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 166–75.

[62] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 174.

[63] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 174.

[64] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 174.

[65] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 69.

[66] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 172.

[67] Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2nd ed. (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1909), 100–101.

[68] David Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 173.

[69] Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously, 175.

[70] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 167.

[71] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 168. Moral Truth is the set of all necessarily true general moral principles, which, as has been noted, are what he claims are brute ethical facts.

[72] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 168.

[73] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 169.

[74] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 172.

[75] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 175.

[76] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 174. Emphasis added.

[77] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 56. Emphasis added.

[78] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 51. Emphasis added.

[79] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 51.

[80] Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 120–21.

[81] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 51, 56.

[82] Robin Collins, “The teleological argument: an exploration of the fine-tuning of the universe,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, eds. William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 202–82.

[83] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 168.

[84] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 168.

[85] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 145.

[86] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 153–54.

[87] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 56.

[88] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 156.

[89] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 154.

[90] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 146–64.

[91] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 38.

[92] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 20.

[93] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 56.

[94] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 37.

[95] Erik J. Wielenberg, “Objective Morality and the Nature of Morality,” American Theological Inquiry 3.2 (2010): 80.

[96] Mark Linville, God and Morality: What Is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties?, ed. Adam Lloyd Johnson (New York: Routledge, 2020), forthcoming.

[97] Peter Singer, Animal Rights and Human Obligations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1976).

[98] James Rachels, Created From Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 70.

[99] Angus Menuge, “Vindicating the Dilemma for Evolutionary Ethics: A Response to Erik Wielenberg” (presented at the Evangelical Philosophical Society Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, November 2018), 11.

[100] John Hare, God’s Command, Oxford Studies in Theological Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 27.

[101] C. Stephen Evans, “Moral Arguments for the Existence of God,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1.

[102] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 35.

[103] F. C. Copleston, Greece and Rome, vol. 1 of A History of Philosophy (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1946), Part 1, 214-217; Part 2, 33, 38.

[104] J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (New York: Penguin, 1977), 41.

[105] Erik J. Wielenberg, “In Defense of Non-Natural, Non-Theistic Moral Realism,” Faith and Philosophy 26.1 (2009): 27.

[106] William J. Wainwright, Religion and Morality (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 66.

[107] Craig, “Erik Wielenberg’s Metaphysics of Morals,” 336.

[108] Michael R. DePaul, “Supervenience and Moral Dependence,” Philosophical Studies 51 (1987): 425–39.

[109] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 10–11.

[110] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 19.

[111] Craig, “Erik Wielenberg’s Metaphysics of Morals,” 337.

[112] Craig, “Erik Wielenberg’s Metaphysics of Morals,” 337.

[113] Wielenberg, “Reply to Craig, Murphy, McNabb, and Johnson,” 366.

[114] Wielenberg, “Reply to Craig, Murphy, McNabb, and Johnson,” 366.

[115] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 24.

[116] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 145.

[117] Shelly Kagan, The Limits of Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 13.

[118] Craig, Is Goodness without God Good Enough?, 180.

[119] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 148.

[120] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 135–44.

[121] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 167.

[122] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 36, 145, 156.

[123] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 167.

[124] This particular refutation by analogy was suggested by Dr. Greg Welty.

[125] Erik Wielenberg, God and the Reach of Reason: C.S. Lewis, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 118–19.

[126] Russ Shafer-Landau, “Evolutionary Debunking, Moral Realism and Moral Knowledge,” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 7:1 (2012): 23.

[127] Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters, ed. Francis Darwin (London: J. Murray, 1902), 64.

What Does the Euthyphro Dilemma Reveal about the Moral System of Islam? Part 2

March 31, 2022/ Sherene Nicholas Khouri

Part 1

A second example about divine subjectivity in Islam is the story of Zaynab bent Jahsh. Zaynab was prophet Mohammad’s first cousin. He wanted her to marry his adopted son, Zayd bin Haritha. In the beginning, Zaynab and her family refused this marriage because of the low social status of Zayd. Allah had to interfere to defend Zayd by giving Mohammad Surah 33:36 “It is not for a believer, man or woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decreed a matter that they should have any option in their decision. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger, he has indeed strayed into a plain error.” This verse gives Mohammad a great authority—similar to the authority of Allah himself. Zaynab finally accepts and marries Zayd.

According to Islamic sources, after some time, prophet Mohammad sees Zaynab and is captivated by her beauty. Zayd takes notice and asks Mohammad if he should divorce her. Ibn Ishaq writes Zayd’s question: “Should I divorce her for you, O Prophet of Allah? The Prophet says no, then Surah 33:37 came down and Allah’s command was accomplished.”[1] This is to say that after Zayd had married Zaynab, Allah issued another command to allow prophet Mohammad to marry Zaynab. “But when Zayd had accomplished his want of her, We [Allah] gave her to you [Mohammad] as a wife, so that there should be no difficulty for the believers in respect of the wives of their adopted sons, when they have accomplished their want of them; and Allah's command shall be performed.” In other words, Allah issues a command for Zayd to marry Zaynab, then he changes it by issuing another command having Zayd to divorce her and allowing Mohammad to marry her.

This incident might have several social and psychological implications for Muslim women; however, for present purposes, we will concentrate on Allah’s command. This story shows that Allah’s truth is not objective or final. His commands alter to accommodate a private situation. At one point he instructs Zaynab to marry Zayd, and at a later time, he orders her to marry the prophet himself. It seems as if Allah is accommodating the preference of his prophet (playing favoritism), or he is changing his mind and commands based on new circumstances.

Allah’s command changed regarding adoption as well. Both Sunni and Shi’ite scholars agree that adoption is prohibited in Islam. They rely on Surah 33:5 in their legislation, “Nor has He (Allâh) made your adopted sons your sons. Such is (only) your (manner of) speech by your mouths. But God tells the truth, and He shows the way. Call them by (the names of) their fathers, that is better in the sight of God.”[2] Zayd was Mohammad’s adopted son until Mohammad fell in love with Zaynab and asked her to marry him. At that point, Allah changed his decree and declared adoption is wrong.

This is another example which shows morality is subjective in Islam because it is completely dependent on Allah’s commands. His discretion changes with time, and also his decree. While morality is due to Allah’s fiat, it is grounded in his mutable nature. Thus, it is subjective, and Allah’s commands seem to benefit some [the prophet] and dismiss others [like Zaynab].

The Divine Command Theory reveals a great weakness in Allah’s moral character because his commands look arbitrary. There is no reason to think that Allah will not issue an abhorrent command simply because he can make right and good bad or vice versa. In the example of adoption, Mohammad adopted Zayd because adoption was good, but then Allah changed his discretion and made adoption bad. Consequently, Mohammad forbids it. The Judeo-Christian worldview, on the other hand, believes that “the moral truth in question would be a reflection of his [God] very nature, upheld by his faithfulness to it in this and all possible circumstances. It’s potentially a veridical window of insight into an aspect of his own holy and loving character. To issue a command at variance with it would be to deny himself, which God simply can’t do.”[3] God in Christianity cannot deny himself; he is restrained by his ultimate goodness because he is the Good. God does not change his mind; whatever he pronounces as good and right remains unchanging because of the immutable good nature of God.

In the Judeo-Christian faith, morality is based on the good nature of God, not on “no reason” for God’s command nor for the benefit of certain people. God has reasons for each command and the reasons are based on his loving nature. The command “to love your neighbor as yourself” resonates with God’s relational character. God in the Judeo-Christian faith wants to establish a relationship with all humanity, not only certain people—who obey him blindly.

[1] Muhammad Ibn Ishaq Al-Matlbi, Kitab al-Siyar wa-l-Maghazi (Damascus, Syria: Dar al-Fikir, 1978), 262.

[2] Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, "Dear Maulana Questions" section of Shama newsletter (Vancouver, B.C., Canada) 1990, accessed January 24, 2021. URL: https://www.al-islam.org/articles/adoption-islam-sayyid-muhammad-rizvi. Dar al-Ifta Al-Missiyyah, “Is it permissible for an unmarried woman adopt a child?,” accessed January 24, 2021. URL: https://www.dar-alifta.org/Foreign/ViewFatwa.aspx?ID=4845.

[3] David Baggett & Jerry Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (Oxford University Press, 2011), 131.

Sherene Khouri was born into a religiously diverse family in Damascus, Syria. She became a believer when she was 11 years old. Sherene and her husband were missionaries in Saudi Arabia. Their house was open for meetings and they were involved with the locals until the government knew about their ministry and gave them three days’ notice to leave the country. In 2006, they went back to Syria and started serving the Lord with RZIM International ministry. They travel around the Middle Eastern region—Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and United Arab Emirates. Sherene was also involved in her local church among the young youth, young adults, and women’s ministry. In 2013, the civil war broke out in Syria. Sherene and her husband’s car was vandalized 3 times and they had to immigrate to the United States of America. In 2019, Shere became an American citizen.

Sherene holds a Ph.D. candidate in Apologetics and Theology at Liberty University. She holds a Master of Art in Christian Apologetics from Liberty University and a Bachelor of Science in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute. She is also working on a Master of Theology in Global Studies at Liberty University. Her specialty is answering Islamic objections to the Christian faith.

Mailbag: "What's a Good Stopping Point?"

March 29, 2022/ David Baggett

Hayyan writes:

Hey Dr. Baggett, hope you're well.
I'd like to get your thoughts on the objection to the moral Argument which goes something like this...
It seems at some point on every theory of Morality there's gonna be a point where one hits a brick wall and must say “it just is.” For example, if you're an atheist and believe reducing suffering is good, if asked why you might just have to reply “it just is.” Similarly, if you're a theist and let's assume the theory we hold is that God's nature is the standard of Goodness, well why? And if one says well because God is the greatest possible being, and then one asks, Why is goodness Great? It seems we'd have to say “it just is” again.
Similarly in any theory one could continue asking ‘why is that Good’ and at some point the reply is going to be ‘it just is.’
I'd like to know what you make of that.
Thank you for your work.
Hayyan

Hi Hayyan, thanks for the note. I tend to agree there has to be an appropriate starting (or stopping) point. Otherwise we'll have what some might call an "'infinite regress." This is the whole point of something like foundationalism in epistemology, predicated on axiomatic starting points. This is how Euclid did mathematics, building on certain axioms. There are other approaches; we could adopt, say, a coherentist rather than foundationalist model, but the problems with coherentism seem even worse. One might have a wholly coherent set of beliefs, none of which correspond with reality at all, for example. So there seems something right about building your system of knowledge on a foundationalist model of some sort, and this goes for ethics as much as other areas.

What I think ethics has going for it is that there are really suitable-seeming axiomiatic ethical truths on which nearly everyone agrees. Like: "It's wrong to torture children for fun." As Thomas Reid put it, there are certain nonnegotiable moral facts to which we should pay homage. This is at least a strong prima facie case for something like moral realism. It seems utterly clear to us that certain things are morally the case. This is saying more than simply this is the way it just is. Presumably the idea is that our epistemic faculties are such that we cannot help but apprehend these basic metaphysical (or logical or ethical) truths, and then on their basis we can build our theories, engage in reflective equilibrium, etc.

What I find to be suitable candidates in the arena of ethics for such properly basic truths are things like "Gratuitous torture is morally bad," and other judgments in that sort of vicinity. Really clear-cut things like that, which we deny on pain of what seems patent irrationality or perversity. What possible reasons could I adduce for rejecting such axioms that I could be more sure of than the axioms themselves? I think we are hard pressed to say.

I don't put a claim like "God functions at the foundation of morality," however, into the same category. God might be the first and final cause of all things, and something of the ultimate brute fact, but epistemologically anyway, we need reasons and evidence and arguments to take seriously the efficacy of theistic ethics. That's not an appropriate time simply to say it's a properly basic truth requiring no evidence.

Indeed, I take the direct experiential evidence we have of moral realism to raise questions about what it is about reality that would provide a robust, and ultimately best explanation of such nonnegotiable moral truths. This is where attentiveness to a wide range of moral evidence is needed, and careful argumentation to show that God can provide a compelling explanation of moral data otherwise hard to make sense of—the rationality of morality, the convergence of our moral judgments with objective moral truth, the ultimate airtight connection between happiness and holiness, the grounds for authoritative moral obligations, the solution to Sidgwick's dualism of practical reason, etc.

This is what gives me confidence in the theoretical advantages of a theistic ethic. We can then ask, if we're convinced this is so, how much evidence such a case provides for the truth of theism. Maybe it adds a little, maybe a lot. Maybe a cumulative moral case in itself makes theism more likely than not. That's a complicated question. But the evidence from morality certainly, to my thinking, adds to the evidential case for theism.

Having worked that through, we can then ask, "But what made God exist?" Or something like that. But God is the one reality for which we have the most principled reasons to think is without any external cause. Necessary existence is part and parcel of who he is. This is the import of something like the modal ontological argument. To ask what caused God is to ask a malformed question predicated on a fundamental understanding, as if God were merely one more item in the furniture of reality rather than the very ground of being itself.

So, regarding God, the point goes well beyond simply "It just is." At least as I see things, the "brick wall" to which you refer is actually the theoretically adequate appropriate stopping point in our explanations that gives us reason to think it's a proper foundation on which to construct our account of reality and avoid the otherwise intractable infinite regress of explanations.

More generally, though, we can't help but do moral theory on the foundation of what seems to us the case. Suppose someone were to say, "But that's not enough." On what basis would they say it? Presumably because it seems to them not to be enough! So rather than providing a counterexample to the method, they are following it impeccably. It just seems to be an inescapable feature of our epistemic situation. Sadly, Cartesian certainty requires more, but is just beyond our ken. Fortunately, knowledge doesn't require such certainty, so hankering after it is misguided. Hope some of that helps!

Blessings, Dave

The Morality of Force

March 23, 2022/ Tony Williams

From the Old Testament prophet Micah (chapter 4), we read:

For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore;
but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.

The use of force against another person or group of people is now a topic of frequent conversation in my personal and professional life. I can’t seem to escape the conversations. It is something I seem to have to wrestle with on a daily basis.

For starters, I am the father of two boys who use force upon one another on a regular basis. Anyone who has more than one boy can likely identify. I am often interceding, and occasionally am forced to use necessary force to break things up or discipline the guilty party if one can be determined beyond a reasonable doubt (which is rare).

I am also now in a position at a police department and am responsible for, among other things, the policies and training which have to do with the use of force officers use in their daily tours of duty. The process of trying to navigate through police use of force is a very tricky business in 2022 as lawmakers demand more accountability and transparency, dare I say perfection, by police agencies following very public failures of officers to use reasonable force that were understandably condemned by society and the vast majority of police officers.

In addition, recent events in Eastern Europe have shocked the world, and caused many governments to suddenly come alive to the concept of the morality of force with the first military incursion on European soil since World War II. This stems from the aggressive use of military force by a dictator who seems unafraid to increase the ferocity of his attacks to target non-combatants and using weapons that cause massive destruction and human misery.

Whether it be the short-lived, interpersonal violence between two brothers, the use of force by a government against its citizens, or the use of military force to achieve a political agenda, use of force is a critical issue for Christians and non-Christians to have a consensus on, in terms of how we make judgements of right or wrong, good or bad.

We all intuitively know that there are times that people seem to objectively agree that a use of force is wrong or right. Thousands of laws and legal precedents are available to help us make judgements, but we aren’t all legal scholars, despite what social media would lead you to believe.

When it comes down to examining the question of morality in force used against others, I have found one consistent word at the center of every evaluation, judgment and public opinion poll; reasonable.

The statute in Illinois for the use of force by a police officer does not spell out every circumstance or technique that officers should use, but says that any use of force should be “objectively reasonable”. This, of course, translates into the policies that guide how a police officer’s use of force is to be conducted and evaluated.

In fact, the root word “reason” appears in the conversation on force long before the Illinois lawmakers decided to use the term. It appears in the fourth amendment of the Bill of Rights where the framers of the constitution indicate that people should be free from unreasonable search and seizure of their property and their person. Whether it is a search of your house or your arrest or the use of deadly force against you, the framers demanded that it not be unreasonable on the part of the government.

The idea of force being “reasonable” can translate nicely across the spectrum mentioned above. Are the actions of an angry brother, or a police officer facing resistance, or a country using the might of its army to take territory reasonable?

With the brothers fighting, the parent asks if the force was reasonable. Was this a matter of bullying, or retaliation for theft of a toy, or was it self-defense?

When an officer uses force, the supervisor or the attorney or the judge or the media asks, what was the purpose of the force that was used? The questions posed to determine reasonableness of force by police (see the facts of Supreme Court case Graham v. Connor) ask the questions, what was the offense that led to the force, was the person actively resisting and was the person a threat to anyone?

As nation rises against nation we see the same kinds of questions playing out in deliberations in government and in the media. What is the offense that caused a country to strike another? Was the act an appropriate response to the threat, and what is the danger in not resorting to elevating a conflict into an all-out war?

If the use of force at an interpersonal level, a societal level and an international level all seem to take reasonableness into consideration, one problem develops. This problem is that reasonableness tends to be in the eye of the beholder. Bias and a lack of information continue to be the sources of disagreement for what constitutes reasonable force.

A parent may give one child more credibility than another, potentially trampling the truth. A police officer’s actions can be considered totally understandable to other officers based on an entire sequence of events that lasts 30 minutes, but society might justifiably dispute that determination based on only viewing a video that only depicts 30 seconds of the interaction. A country can claim that an existential threat exists, or ownership of disputed borderlands, but the rest of the world has reacted to unjustified force by nations who fail to provide adequate justification for their actions in the form of sanctions, blockades and world wars.

If the idea of reasonableness is what drives our understanding of moral righteousness in conflict, how can we possibly hope to do it right by everyone, all the time?

Perhaps the answer was provided by the most important pastor in the most important sermon. Jesus, in His Sermon on the Mount, tells His listeners, “So, whatever you wish others to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12, ESV).

One way to test your worldview is to see how it plays out in the real world. Does it work for real people? Unfortunately, we live in a world where we don’t often see people treating others as sane people would want to be treated. But if you play out a hypothetical world in your imagination where everyone is sane and treats others the way a sane person would want to be treated, things get a lot more peaceful really quick.

Who, outside of the varying degrees of broken, tormented souls who make the decision to harm themselves, would want to inflict harm upon himself physically, mentally or emotionally? We live in a reality where everyone thinks they should be treated like the most important person in the world. If we treated other people like they were the most important person in the world, imagine how the average human interaction would change.

Can it be that simple? If we allow ourselves to consider the hypothetical, and every man and woman obeyed this simple command to treat others as you would like to be treated, how fast could we beat our swords into plowshares? I see no other worldview with a morality plan of action that allows this to be the case.

Tony Williams is currently serving in his 20th year as a police officer in a city in Southern Illinois. He has been studying apologetics in his spare time for two decades, since a crisis of faith led him to the discovery of vast and ever-increasing evidence for his faith. Tony received a bachelor's degree in University Studies from Southern Illinois University in 2019. His career in law enforcement has provided valuable insight into the concepts of truth, evidence, confession, testimony, cultural competency, morality, and most of all, the compelling need for Christ in the lives of the lost. Tony plans to pursue postgraduate studies in apologetics in the near future to sharpen his understanding of the various facets of Christian apologetics. Tony has been married for 9 years and has two sons. He and his family currently reside in Southern Illinois.

March 17, 2022

What Does the Euthyphro Dilemma Reveal about the Moral System of Islam? Part 1

March 17, 2022/ Sherene Nicholas Khouri

Many people believe that all religions are the same, that they all have the same goal, and they all aim at the same end, namely, to encourage their followers to do what is good. Islam as a religion has a unique ethical system, which relies mainly on Allah’s commands. This article will link Divine Command Theory (one horn of the Euthyphro Dilemma), particularly a strong version of voluntarism, to the Islamic understanding of morality.

The Euthyphro Dilemma, in contemporary terms, asks this question? Is something moral because God commands it, or does God command what is moral?

In other words, who defines the standard of goodness/rightness? Is it God because he is higher and above the standard of goodness and rightness—making goodness a function of divine caprice? Or is the standard of goodness/rightness above God— making Him submissive to it?

Most Muslims will likely agree with the first horn of the dilemma, the Divine Command Theory. God is above all standards, He has the complete freedom to mandate any law, and every ethical norm is defined by His will and command. He does not succumb to any condition or standard because he defines the specifications and the guidelines of goodness/rightness. In other words, the difference between right and wrong, and good and evil for that matter, is a function of God’s discretion.

Confining our attention for the moment to axiological matters, the first horn of the dilemma makes goodness arbitrary if God does not have a good nature. If good and bad are due to God’s mandate, can God’s fiat render theft and adultery to be good things? Shifting our focus to deontic questions, can God simply make torturing children for fun to be right? The Islamic literature, taken at face value, reveals that analogously abhorrent commands are not only possible under the Islamic worldview, but real.

Since goodness is defined by Allah, on a strongly voluntarist reading, then he can command adultery and thereby make it good. It is known in Islam that polygamy is permissible. Not only permissible, but it is also ordered to prevent evil. Allah tells Muslims, “if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphan-girls then marry (other) women of your choice, two or three, or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one or (the slaves) that your right hands possess. That is nearer to prevent you from doing injustice” (Surah 4:3 Al-Hilali & Khan). In the Qur’an Polygamy is given to Muslim men to prevent adultery. Polygamy is ordered in the Qur’an; therefore, it is not considered bad or wrong (Surah 4:3). Most Muslims do not discuss whether marrying four wives is considered an adulterous act because Allah commands it. Whatever Allah commands is halal (permissible).

The conversation about this topic seems like a dead-end. Many female TV anchors have broached this topic with various Arab Imams in interviews. They asked the Imams, “Does not God care about my feelings?” The answers of the Imams were, “Do you know better than Allah? Do you dare to question Allah?” Allah is the ultimate authority in the world, and he knows what is best and right for humanity. Therefore, women should obey the Qur’an without questioning Allah’s decree. “O you who believe! do not put questions about things which if declared to you may trouble you” (Surah 5:101). Asking Muslims not to question Allah and just obey him blindly is a great weakness in Islamic theology because God created human beings with the faculty of thinking. So, to create them with rational capacity and ask them not to use it is a contradictory matter.

Polygamy in Islam shows favoritism to men against women. It is true that this decree was given in a male dominating culture; however, it implies divine subjectivity because It dismisses women’s human’s worth, rights, and dignity. It is still the official practice in all Islamic majority countries, and is allowed under Shari’a law. Divine favoritism displays subjective morality in Islam because permitting polygamy for men and dismissing women’s feelings and rights is completely dependent on Allah’s commands.

In the Judeo-Christian faith, morality is objective because it is based on the immutable character of God. God does not change his mind. He did not order monogamy, then changed his mind and allowed polygyny/polygamy. Monogamy was and is the official practice in Christianity. God did not approve polygamy despite the fact that it was practiced in the Old Testament. He created one man and one woman as his suitable helper (Gen 2:18), but things changed after the fall. Lamech, for instance, was the first man who started practicing polygyny (Gen 4:19). It was not God who intended it, neither included it in his original design. Moreover, Lamech was a criminal, he killed a man for wounding him and a young man for injuring him. This is to say that the first person who originated this act was a violent selfish killer who did not care about his wives’ feelings, thus following his model is morally imprudent. Additionally, Moses’s law never encouraged polygamy. On the contrary, polygyny was detestable (Deut 17:17). Patriarchs and kings who practiced polygyny did it according to their own discretions, and not according to God’s commands or design.

Part 2

Sherene is a Ph.D. candidate in Apologetics and Theology at Liberty University. She holds a Master of Art in Christian Apologetics from Liberty University and a Bachelor of Science in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute. She is also working on a Master of Theology in Global Studies at Liberty University. Her specialty is answering Islamic objections to the Christian faith.

The Case for a Personal God from Morality: Love

March 10, 2022/ Stephen S. Jordan

The Case for a Personal God from Morality: Love[1]

Love is one of the most often used words in languages across the world, the most referenced topic in songs throughout history, and the focal point of countless movies and TV shows of our day, among other things. Love is something that intrigues human minds and enraptures human hearts; this has always been the case, and it will continue to be the case moving forward. There is certainly more to say about love, but this much is clear: Love is a basic need of every human person.

Previously, I attempted to show how guilt and justice provide evidence not only for God’s existence, but of his personal nature. Here, I focus on a third feature of morality that gestures in the direction of a personal God: love. In what follows, I briefly discuss these three items: (1) the personal nature of love; (2) how love points toward the existence of a personal God; and (3) how Christianity provides a powerful account of an intrinsically personal God of love.

The Personal Nature of Love

There are various ways to explain love, but one key feature of love is its deeply personal nature. In order for genuine love to exist there must be both a subject and an object, a giver and receiver of love. True love is more than self-love, which easily slips into narcissism. It is a self-giving love, where the fullness of love is shared in reciprocal fashion among two or more persons. As Richard of St. Victor claims, “One never says that someone properly possesses love if he only loves himself; for it to be true love, it must go out towards another. Consequently, where a plurality of persons is lacking, it is impossible for there to be love.”[2]

No one considers a human person loving if he ignores the needs of others, instead looking out for his own interests. While it is important for a human person to love himself—in the sense of desiring to take care of himself, maximize his potential, and so on—the concept of self-love is a slippery slope that leads to pride and selfishness if pushed too far. Proper love is outward rather than inward focused, and therefore deeply personal in nature.[3]

How Love Points Toward a Personal God

Where does the moral value of love come from? Apart from religion, the coherence of an ethic of love is difficult to establish. This is not to say that those who do not adhere to a specific religion cannot be loving persons. Rather, the point here is that worldviews such as naturalism and Platonism face challenges when it comes to grounding a coherent ethic of love. For example, the notion of love and respect for persons and the principle of the survival of the fittest are mutually exclusive.[4] (If you love and respect another person, you should not kill them in order to survive.) Thus, a naturalist view has trouble accounting for the existence of love on a metaphysical level. Additionally, to say that love just exists in a transcendent realm of values—which is the approach that Platonism takes—seemingly misses the point that true love exists within the context of personal relationships.[5]

What about God? Within various belief systems throughout the world, God is described as loving. If God is loving, then he is personal—because genuine love does not exist in isolation, but rather in community with other persons. If this is the case, the question becomes: Which religions of the world claim that God is personal and which one(s) provide(s) the best explanation of his essentially loving nature?[6]

Christian Theism

Although time and space do not permit a thorough treatment of the previous question, I want to briefly suggest that Christianity provides an utterly unique account of the personhood of God and his essentially loving nature. This is due to the fact that Christianity is the only religion in the world that makes the claim that God is one Being who exists in three distinct, but not separate Persons. As I stated earlier, in order for genuine love to exist, there must be both a subject and an object, a giver and receiver of love. In other words, there must be more than one person present in order for love to be possible.

On the Christian view, this is the case within God himself.[7] Among the three Persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—there exist loving, personal relationships.[8] This is why 1 John 4:8, which states that “God is love,” has such profound Trinitarian implications. Expounding upon 1 John 4:8, Millard Erickson suggests, “In a sense, God being love virtually requires that he be more than one person. Love, to be love, must have both a subject and an object. Thus, if there were not multiplicity in the person of the Godhead, God could not really be love prior to this creation of other subjects.”[9] According to C. S. Lewis, “All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that ‘God is love.’ But they seem not to notice that the words ‘God is love’ have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love.”[10]

For these reasons, a Trinitarian view of God, which is distinctly Christian, provides a robust account of an intrinsically personal God of love.

Stephen S. Jordan (Ph.D.) is currently the Campus Pastor at Liberty Christian Academy in Lynchburg (VA), where he previously served as a high school Bible teacher for nearly a decade. He is also a Bible teacher at Liberty University Online Academy, an Associate Editor at www.moralapologetics.com, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at The Center for the Foundations of Ethics at Houston Baptist University. Prior to these positions, Stephen served as a youth pastor in North Carolina for several years and taught courses at a local Seminary Extension for a year. He possesses four graduate degrees (MAR, MRE, MDiv, ThM) and a PhD in Theology and Apologetics. His doctoral dissertation was on the moral argument, where he argued for the existence of a personal God from morality. Stephen and his wife, along with their four children, reside in Goode, Virginia. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his family, being outdoors, fitness, sports, reading, and building relationships with people over good food.

[1] Portions of this article are adapted from my unpublished doctoral dissertation at Liberty University.

[2] Richard of St. Victor, De Trinitate, III.2

[3] On the Christian view, we might say that proper love is, at least first and foremost, upward focused (Mt. 22:37).

[4] R.Z. Friedman, “Does the ‘Death of God’ Really Matter?” International Philosophical Quarterly 23 (1983): 322.

[5] Actually, Erik Wielenberg, a modern Platonist, claims that not all values are properties of persons; he also denies that all values have external foundations. See Erik J. Wielenberg, Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 46.

[6] If God is the greatest conceivable being, then it appears that he must be essentially loving. How could he be the greatest conceivable being if he was unloving? Of course, some might suggest that love is not a great-making property, arguing instead that the greatest conceivable being is not essentially loving, but still loving in some sense. However, if love is the supreme ethic, as many conclude, it is difficult to understand how God could be anything less than essentially loving.

[7] According to Clement Webb, “Where, then, shall we look for an example of what is really meant by a ‘personal God?’ We shall plainly be most likely to do so with good hope of success in the one historical religion of which, as we have seen, Personality in God (though not, until quite modern times, ‘the Personality of God’) has been a recognized tenet—that is to say, in Christianity.” Clement C. J. Webb, God and Personality (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1920), 81.

[8] This is the doctrine of perichoresis. There are several instances where perichoresis is described in Scripture. First, perichoresis is seen in John 14:11, when Jesus says, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Second, the loving communion among the three Persons of the Godhead is also evidenced in John 17:1 and John 16:14. In John 17:1, Jesus prays to the Father: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.” In John 16:14, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit “will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Therefore, the Father glorifies the Son and the Son glorifies the Father, while the Holy Spirit also glorifies the Son. The mutual giving and receiving of glory within the Trinity is evidence of the close, loving relations that exist within God. Third, the Father sends the Son (Jn. 3:16), and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and was sent by the Son (Jn. 15:26), which is another example of perichoresis. Fourth, 1 John 4:8 says, “God is love.” This verse has profound Trinitarian implications.

[9] Millard Erickson, God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1995), 221-222. Within the Trinity, the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father; the Father loves the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit loves the Father; the Son loves the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit loves the Son.

[10] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2001), 174. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis suggests (via a demon), “This impossibility He calls love, and this same monotonous panacea can be detected under all He does and even all He is—or claims to be. Thus He is not content, even Himself, to be a sheer arithmetical unity; He claims to be three as well as one, in order that this nonsense about Love may find a foothold in His own nature.” C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2001), 94.

February 23, 2022

Moral Reasoning in the Brain | The Science of Morality

February 23, 2022/ David Ochabski

Moral reasoning refers to the ways in which people ascertain what is good, bad, right, wrong, virtuous, and vicious. It involves a number of processes including moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral motivation, and moral action. Various models have been proposed to show how the cognitive and affective (or rational and emotional) aspects of our psychology play a role in the processes of moral reasoning. The primary regions of the brain associated with moral reasoning include the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, and the temporal lobe. These anatomical structures are intimately involved in morally relevant functions, such as the following.

February 09, 2022

Humans of New York and Philosophy: How to See a Face

February 09, 2022/ Managing Editor

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at AndPhilosophy.com.

By Roberto Sirvent and Duncan Reyburn

Even in our image-saturated world, the face remains the primary signal of identity. From infancy, the face initiates that all-important moment of genuine recognition. We find ourselves mirrored in the lives of others as they welcome us into the world. “Meaning is a physiognomy,” says Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations; which is to say that the face is a gateway not only to understanding people but to actually understanding anything at all. Even our idioms express this: we face up to the truth or even face the music; we can put on a brave face, lose face, or save face; and we consider the face of things even while we recognize that there is more to everything than what the face on its own reveals.

The face is a challenge to quite a lot of the philosophy that can be overly preoccupied with the communion of mind and mind and of thought with thought. The face is a stark reminder of our raw materiality. Those of us who would like to live in a bubble detached from our flesh and blood have only to look at the faces of others to discover that life in a bubble simply will not work. We have to face the facts.

Read the full article at AndPhilosophy.com.

February 07, 2022

The Moral Universe of Desmond Doss

February 07, 2022/ Jonathan Pruitt

Desmond Doss was born February 7, 1919, in Lynchburg, Virginia. He would have been 103 this year. Growing up, Doss was enamored with an illustration of the Ten Commandments hanging in his living room. Constantly, he would drag a kitchen chair to the spot so he could get a better look. There, he read the words, “Thou shalt not kill,” and studied the picture of Cain standing over the dead body of Abel. Doss’s wife said that while he stood in front of the picture, the young Desmond imagined Jesus saying to him, “Desmond, if you love Me, you will not kill, but save life as I would if I were in your place. Follow My Example.”[1]

In 1942, Doss was drafted into the World War II. During his training, his convictions and resolve were incessantly tested. He was maligned and mocked. He was denied furlough because he would not train with a weapon. His commanding officers sought to dismiss him on grounds of insanity. And despite the grueling series of trials, Doss insisted that he stay at his post, saying, “I’d be a very poor Christian if I accepted a discharge implying that I was mentally unbalanced because of my religion.”[2]

Doss faced the harrowing danger of war and carried no weapon. On May 5, 1945, at the Battle of Okinawa, he saved nearly a hundred men, including even some of the enemy. Though wounded himself, he climbed a towering cliff dozens of times, into enemy mortar fire, to pull soldiers to safety. At the top of the escarpment, Doss kept praying, “Lord, help me get one more.”[3] Sometime later, he was seriously injured by a grenade and was being taken away from the fray on a litter when he crawled off and tended to the wounds of another man who was more seriously injured. Doss would be the only Conscientious Objector to earn the Medal of Honor during the war.

Doss risked his own life over and over, and not only for the sake of his friends, but even for those whom he had every reason to consider his enemies. He acted for the sake of others, and at his own expense.

From the point of view of moral apologetics, there are many lessons to be drawn from the case of Desmond T. Doss. But here I only make two observations. First about moral rationality and then about moral goodness.

Moral Rationality

Moral rationality has to do with how morality and reason are ultimately harmonized. It must be rational, in the end, to be moral, or else, as Henry Sidgwick argued, we will have competing and contradictory purposes for acting. Doss’s biography gives no evidence that he acted for the sake of his own interest, but Doss did have faith that God was just and would reward him. Doss himself said,

God wrote the Ten Commandments on tables of stone with His own finger. He said it was perfect and that nothing is to be added to it or taken away from it. We are to be judged by this law of liberty, so whether we accept or reject it is a matter of life or death.[4]

From Doss’s perspective, “life” would be the reward for his obedience to God’s command. God judges and rewards human beings, ensuring the connection between virtue and happiness. On that day in May 1945, Doss said that he remembered the promises of God and that gave him the assurance he needed to act.[5] The ultimate rationality of morality, at least in Doss’s own mind, was likely a necessary condition for the good he did.[6]

Moral Goodness

There are many competing conceptions of the good. Some think of the good as identical to utility or pleasure. Christian philosopher H. P. Owen didn’t think much of this idea. Instead, Owen argued that when we encounter the good, we know we ought to desire it, even if we don’t. Owen imagines a friend who is “honest and kind in all his dealings.” In this friend, Owen finds a goodness that confronts and compels; it demands admiration.[7]

It is difficult to explain away our sense that what Doss did was deeply good in terms of mere chemistry and evolutionary psychology, as some have attempted to do.[8] There would be a gaping chasm between what seems obvious, that the heroic deed was good, and reality, that it was only the outworking of physics. Or if goodness is pleasure, it seems incredibly odd to try to explain the goodness of saving a hundred men in terms of a particular state of mind. One must check how they feel about the events before rendering a moral judgment. If the good is total utility, then we must withhold judgment because the complete ramifications of Doss’s actions have yet to be resolved. Whether it’s good or not remains to be seen, on this view.

In Doss’s story, we find an example of goodness that, as Owen suggests, confronts us and compels our admiration. For many, the power and clarity of conscience provides the clear and unassailable apprehension “this is good.” And this is a matter of fact about objective reality, no mere trifling statement about our own feelings, a fact held with the same credulity one might believe “the sun shines.” One would be hard pressed to say that any person asserting, “What Doss did that day was good” was not a competent user of good in at least that instance.

The good that is perceived in the work of Doss on that day can be recalcitrant for some who think of the good too narrowly or reductively. But if God himself is the good, and he gave his own life as ransom for many, then the veridical nature of our perception is easily explained.

[1] Frances Doss, Desmond Doss: Conscientious Objector (Pacific Press, 2005), 7.

Doss clearly thought that following Jesus entailed limited pacificism (Doss, according to his biography, did think that one could resist with force, just not lethal force). Christians disagree about whether Christ has obliged his followers to be pacifists. The issue of pacificism is not the concern here, though. Rather, I focus only on Doss’s exemplary moral character and integrity.

[2] Doss, 78.

[3] Doss, 151.

[4] Doss, 11. (from the preface by Desmond Doss).

[5] Doss, 102.

[6] Frances Doss also records multiple accounts of God’s rewarding of Doss’s faithfulness prior to the Battle of Okinawa. One example: Doss felt convicted to pay his tithe, though that would leave him unable to pay his rent. He did so, then, unbidden, the landowner cut his rent by half and he was able to pay.

[7] H. P. Owen, The Moral Argument for Christian Theism (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1965), 20.

[8] See for example the explanation of love given in terms of evolutionary psychology in Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), 214.

The Managing Editor of MoralApologetics.com, Jonathan has been a vital part of the Moral Apologetics team since its inception. Currently, he serves as adjunct instructor of philosophy for Grand Canyon University and Liberty University. He also is affiliate faculty at Colorado Christian University. Prior to these positions, he was ordained as a minister and served as spiritual life director. He is the author or co-author of several articles on metaethics, theology, and history of philosophy. With a Master’s in Global Apologetics and a graduate of Biola’s Master’s program in philosophy, he recently finished his doctoral dissertation in which he extends a four-fold moral argument from mere theism to a distinctively Christian picture of God. Jonathan, his wife Sara, and their two children presently live in Lynchburg, Virginia. You can find his personal website at JonathanRPruitt.com

January 27, 2022

Are You a Pure Apologist?

January 27, 2022/ T. J. Gentry

Purity is a fascinating thing. Perhaps you’ve never thought about it in terms of a definition, but according to one dictionary something that is pure is “without any extraneous or unnecessary elements.” Think of how important purity is in everyday life. What would we do without pure water, or, to think of it in a negative way, would we want to drink impure water? What about pure air? Impurities in the air cause serious problems, don’t they? On and on I could go with examples of the importance of purity in everyday life, but I want to think with you for a moment about purity as it relates to apologists. Right away, you might ask how the two relate. You likely think of purity in the moral realm, at least I hope you do, but what about purity in other areas? What about the intellect, the method, the vision of an apologist? Is there anything important to consider in these areas? I think there is, and with this in mind, I want to consider what it means to be a “pure” apologist by focusing on four areas: 1) intellectual purity; 2) methodological purity; 3) visional purity; and 4) moral purity.

Before we go further, a quick qualifier is in order concerning how I will use purity in these instances. I realize, as I am sure you do, that we all carry the vestigial remains of our fallenness in each of these areas and that absolute purity is not something we can achieve in this life. Also, I am not trying to impinge on the individuality of each apologist, deny freedom of expression and the uniqueness each of us possesses in conducting our work, or mandate an inflexible and wooden black-and-white/either-or approach. I do, however, want to challenge every apologist to consider how they might avoid, to hearken back to the definition of purity given above, bringing “extraneous or unnecessary elements” into their practice of defending the faith.

Intellectual Purity

Intellectual purity for apologists means two things, as I see it. First, making sure that we know the facts of a particular argument or position and guarding those facts by not allowing unrelated matters or secondary concerns to come into our considerations. For example, when arguing for the veracity of the New Testament, make sure to stay with the germane and reliable evidence in our favor. Don’t chase rabbit trails, fun as that may sometimes be. Staying intellectually pure in this way helps focus the argument and such focus gives it greater power. Second, intellectual purity for an apologist can relate to the discipline of regularly feeding the mind with good apologetic material. I make it a regular habit to read and reread the books by Dave Baggett, keeping my mind fresh on the details of his immensely helpful approach to making a moral argument. Remember, apologist, our commitment to ongoing intellectual development and purity is one of the ways the Lord continually renews our minds.

Methodological Purity

Methodological purity for apologists is, first, to learn and apply the basic skills of argumentation without becoming argumentative and divisive. My preference is to argue abductively (most of the time), and to do so in a very gentle and giving manner. Nothing turns a questioner away from us and our Lord more quickly than a heavy-handed, dogmatic approach when making our case. Further, if you are an evidentialist, then be an evidentialist. If a classical apologist, then be a classical apologist. Rarely is an apologist able to move in and out of different apologetic methodologies without diluting their presentations and confusing their hearers. Pick a camp and, if possible, stay in it. This helps your skill as a defender, and we all should want to be skilled. Please don’t fall into the trap of thinking your method is the only or best method. Choose your approach and hold it lightly. Do hold it, but remember the method is the vehicle, and there are numerous ways to get there.

Visional Purity

Visional purity speaks to the need to stay focused on the goal, which is the person and the glory of God. We are not given the high calling as apologists to win arguments. We are called to win people. Don’t confuse the two, or you will find yourself, as one of the elders in a church I served years ago said, “right but alone.” Also, keep your vision as an apologist rigidly fixed on the glory of God and showing Him love by loving others in the process. It’s easy to miss this last point, especially if we reduce those we engage to the status of opponents. You’ve never met an opponent; not really. You have, however, met those for whom Jesus died and for whom He longs to have a relationship. Keep that at the forefront of your minds and hearts, friends.

Moral Purity

If the enemy of our souls cannot corrupt our intellect he will go after our morals. This is axiomatic in the apologetic realm, and there is no more direct route to ineffectiveness and disqualification as an apologist than to compromise yourself morally. Seek holiness above all else and you will be far less likely to disparage the message and dishonor the Savior. Because apologists spend so much time in the rational and objective realms of evidence and logical discourse, it can be easy to neglect the development of the heart. Don’t fall prey to the sin that wants to dominate you and silence your witness. In the end, it doesn’t matter how smart you are if you are morally impure.

In closing, I hope you will consider a bit from C. S. Lewis’s third letter from Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood. In giving counsel on how to best manage the unfortunate effects of Wormwood’s charge having recently converted to Christianity, Screwtape reminds him to “aggravate that most useful human characteristic, the horrors and neglect of the obvious.” Apologists I trust it is obvious we need to guard purity of intellect, method, vision, and morality. May God help us do so.

Dr. Thomas J. Gentry (aka., TJ Gentry) serves as the pastor of First Christian Church of West Frankfort, Illinois, the Executive Editor of MoralApologetics.com, and Executive VP of Bellator Christi Ministries. Dr. Gentry is a world-class scholar holding 5 doctorate degrees and 6 masters degrees. Additionally, he is a prolific writer as he has published 7 books including Pulpit Apologist, Absent from the Body, Present with the Lord, and You Shall Be My Witnesses: Reflections on Sharing the Gospel. Be on the lookout for two additional books that he will soon publish. In addition to his impressive resume, Dr. Gentry proudly served his country as an officer in the United States Army and serves as a martial arts instructor.

Articles

The Sunflower

The Dilemma of Forgiveness

Scripture’s Mandate

Love and Forgiveness

Conclusion

How Erik Wielenberg’s Third Factor Model Fails to Rebut the Lucky Coincidence Objection

Atheists Like Wielenberg Who Argue for Objective Morality Have to Battle on Two Fronts

1. What is the Issue?

1.1. How do we determine who is correct?

1.2. Considering All the Evidence For and Against Theism

2. Objections to Theistic Explanations of Objective Morality

2.1. The Euthyphro Dilemma

2.2. Competing Supernatural Explanations

3. Objections to Atheistic Explanations of Objective Morality

3.1. Evolutionary Debunking Arguments

3.2. Responses to Evolutionary Debunking Arguments

3.2.1. Our Moral Beliefs Are Accurate

3.2.2. Our Moral Beliefs Did Not Come from Evolution

3.2.3. Erik Wielenberg’s Third Factor Model

3.2.4. The Modal Security Response

Footnotes

By Roberto Sirvent and Duncan Reyburn

Moral Rationality

Moral Goodness

Intellectual Purity

Methodological Purity

Visional Purity

Moral Purity

Moral Apologetics

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