In his Introduction, Kai Nielsen asks the reader to accept two premises. He gives no compelling or logical reason for the reader to accept them. In reality, he cannot give a compelling or logical reason for the reader to accept them because both are invalid. After a brief opening in which he gives his biased representation of “Religious people in our culture” in general, Nielsen becomes more specific with his subject by naming Judaism and Christianity. He says:
Can we reasonably believe that such claims—and indeed the central claims of Judaism and Christianity as well—make statements which are either true or false? I believe that we should answer all those questions in the negative. Religious belief—or at least belief in God—should be impossible for someone living in our century, who thinks carefully about these matters and who has a tolerable scientific education and good philosophical training. It is not so hard to convolute oneself into religious belief if one has philosophical expertise but little knowledge of the world and it is easy enough to be a believer if one is a scientist and philosophically naive. However, if we have a scientific education and a philosophical sophistication, along with a willingness to reflect on such matters, these things, taken together, should undermine religious belief (126).
This initial premise is overstated and false on its face. If one must be both a philosopher and a scientist to discover the truth about God, why must one not be both a philosopher and a scientist to discover truth about any other topic? Shall all philosophers and scientists become sophisticated in both disciplines before pronouncing the discovery of any truth, or just truths about God and his existence? This is a case of special pleading, in which Nielsen foregoes truths about other topics and presents a premise without a shred of evidence or logic as to why his premise is correct.
Not only has Nielsen started his discussion based upon a faulty premise, but he leaves out another discipline that one would assume would have to be the third leg of his stool: theology. One may become proficient in theology without having to believe in God, just as one might become proficient in Greek history without having visited Greece. If one must be proficient in both scientific education and philosophical training to conclude matters of truth with regard to theology, can it not also follow that one must be proficient in both philosophical training and theology to conclude matters of truth with regard to science? Both premises are absurd.
However, to determine the deeper truths about any matter within a certain discipline, it is apparent that one may have expertise in other disciplines but one must have sophistication in the discipline in question. Kai Nielsen does not.
In his second premise, Nielsen goes on to say that he wonders (and asks his readers to do so as well) about God-talk: “Believers and nonbelievers alike know how to use religious vocabulary nondeviantly, but, to put it at first crudely, we can, if we reflect, come to wonder if such talk makes sense” (127). Why does it not make sense? He goes on:
Our familiarity with Christian or Jewish discourse may dull our perceptions here. Yet if we try for a moment to look at our own religious talk with the eyes of an anthropologist coming from an alien culture, we should at least begin to feel the strangeness of talk of God in which God is said to be “omnipresent, almighty Father whose realm extends beyond the bounds of space and time.” What is the realm beyond space and time? Try to think very literally about this (127).
His statement here is revealing. Primarily it reveals his own lack of theological knowledge. Secondarily, he asks the reader to accept yet another faulty premise. He asks the reader to “Try to think very literally about” God-talk. But this tactic can be applied to technical terminology of almost any discipline with equally disastrous effects. One example should suffice. When one tries to think very literally about technical philosophical terminology, one will find the same absurdity that Nielsen claims to arrive at with relation to God-talk. For example, “begging (or begs) the question” is a technical term in philosophy that when thought of very literally becomes something different than what it means in philosophical discussion. Jack Lynch (Associate Professor in the English department Rutgers University), provides this explanation: “Begging the question — from the Latin petitio principii — is a logical fallacy; it means assuming your conclusion in the course of your argument" (“Begging the Question” http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/b.html).
When people “think very literally” about this technical term (begs the question), they believe it has something to do with asking a question. Have philosophers’ familiarity with philosophical discourse dulled their perceptions here? To the philosophically untrained, the term “begs the question” means to ask a follow up question of some sort or raising a question. This one example shows the misunderstanding that can come from taking technical terminology (yes even God-talk) “very literally.” To take God-talk very literally is to make the terminology seem absurd; of course, this is Nielsen’s strategy, and it is called a straw man tactic. Nielsen has now asked the reader to accept two faulty premises, and in neither case does he give any valid reason to accept them.
Moving on from his premises, Nielsen attempts to debate some philosophical arguments for God’s existence. The first is the ontological argument for God's existence. Nielsen’s treatment of this argument is brief. He says, in essence, that arguing for an eternal being who exists necessarily fails. “Against this it should be noted that while an eternal being could not come into existence or just cease to exist [the heart of the ontological argument], it still could eternally be the case that there are not eternal beings” (128). Two points here: First, at this stage in my philosophical development, I am no fan of the ontological argument. What I mean is that Anselm’s ontological argument was an attempt to create an a prior argument that served to individually and undeniably prove God's existence. However, I believe that he failed. In his closing remarks in the chapter “The Ontological Argument” William Lane Craig states that " . . . Anselm was wrong in thinking that he had discovered a single argument which, standing independently of all the rest, served to demonstrate God's existence in all his greatness" (To Everyone An Answer, IVP, 2004, p. 136). So, please note that solid Christian philosophers have also discredited Anselm’s ontological argument; they have done this not because God does not exist, but because the ontological argument is not able to stand alone. Thus, Nielsen’s rebuttal of the ontological argument proves nothing. Second, there have been various, positive developments (and improvements) of the ontological argument by other Christian philosophers, but Nielsen chooses to ignore these more sophisticated arguments.
Note too that when Nielsen states that “it still could eternally be the case that there are not eternal beings,” he does not attempt to explain how there could be no eternal being (or beings) throughout eternity and still explain how non-eternal beings do now exist. Yes, this is cosmological, but it flows from his rebuttal of the ontological argument. Something must be eternal otherwise there would be nothing at all. This leads us logically into the next philosophical argument for God’s existence, the cosmological argument.
The cosmological argument reasons for the existence of God from the fact of the existence of the universe and/or that a being (or beings) now exist in the universe. The argument is simple enough. It begins with the perceived facts of experience and reasons that they can only be explained as having been caused. Describing the cosmological argument Nielsen says that Thomas Aquinas argues that there can be no contingent beings without a noncontingent being to start things.
For if there were no such noncontingent being, even now there would be nothing, for something cannot come from nothing. And, since such a series must finally come to an end, nothing could have gotten started in the first place or be ultimately sustained or explained, if there were not at least one self-existent, necessary being who owes its existence to no other reality. All other realities are said to depend upon it (129).
Nielsen’s representation of the argument is fair enough as far as it goes, i.e., the Aquinas' argument. Then, Nielsen goes on to explain why he thinks it fails:
However, this cosmological argument will not do, for it confuses an infinite series with a very long finite series. Nothing will have to have gotten started or needed a first sustainer in the first place, if the series is genuinely infinite, for an infinite series, no matter of what type, can have no first member. And, while there will be no ultimate explanation of why there is anything at all, there is no good reason to believe that we can, let alone must, have explanations of that type (129).
Nielsen’s rebuttal is based primarily upon one thing: “if” — “if the series is genuinely infinite.” But that is a big “if,” and logic militates against it. Saint Bonaventure argued that if the universe had no beginning, this would necessitate an actual infinite set of events in time (i.e., what Neilsen argues for). However, Bonaventure reasoned that an actual infinite set would produce contradictions. For example, let us assume that Infinite Set A contains all possible even numbers. And, Infinite Set B contains both all possible even and all possible odd numbers. Theoretically, Infinite Set B would contain twice as many numbers as Infinite Set A. However, since both Sets are infinite, both would be equal. This is an obvious contradiction. Bonaventure did not deny a potential infinite set (as in the mind of God). In harmony with Zeno’s Paradox, Bonaventure only denied an actual infinite set (i.e., there can be no infinite regress of contingent beings). Bonaventure concluded that since it is impossible to traverse an actual infinite set, then the universe itself cannot be eternal. It had to have a beginning, otherwise (again using Zeno’s Paradox) one could never reach the present moment. However, since we have reached the present, it is proof that the universe had a starting point.
Furthermore, Nielsen’s rebuttal is also weakened by his use of special pleading: he is selective in that he does not address all types of the cosmological argument: Thomas Aquinas used the argument that limited, dependent existence needs a cause for its continuing existence. Saint Bonaventure used the kalaam cosmological argument, which argues that everything that has a beginning needs a cause. And, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s cosmological argument was based upon the principle of sufficient reason: everything that exists must have an adequate explanation for its existence.
In the final analysis, it should be noted that the philosophical position of God’s existence does not stand or fall on one argument. The case for God’s existence should be seen as a cumulative argument, a preponderance of the evidence.
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