Eric Rasmusen
15 April 2008
Abstract
THIS IS ROUGH AND INCOMPLETE DRAFTLogic and Biblical evidence suggest that God wishes that some but not all humans become convinced of His existence and desires. If so, this suggests that attempts to either prove or disprove such things as God's existence, past miracles, or present supernatural intervention are doomed to failure, because God could and would take care to evade any such efforts.
Daddy wanted to see if three-year-old twins Billy and Joey would behave if left to themselves. He decided to hide and watch them. He said to Billy, "Billy, I'm going to pretend I'm leaving the house and you won't see me. I'll be there hiding and watching you, though, so be good." Then he went out the front door, walked quietly around the house, and came in the back. Billy went upstairs to tell Joey."Joey, Daddy said he's here watching us but we can't see him." Joey went downstairs to the living room to see. He didn't see Daddy watching him from the kitchen.
"Don't tell lies, Billy. He's not here," said Joey.
"Yes he is. I'll find him."
"No he's not. I'll go everywhere there is, and you'll see."
With that, the twins set out to search the house, one to show Daddy was there, and one to show that he wasn't. As they searched, Daddy easily evaded them, moving out of one room as they searched it and into the next. "Daddy, come out and show Joey he's wrong!" said Billy. But no answer came back. Joey started crowing in triumph over his proof that Daddy wasn't there, and Daddy felt sorry for Billy, but not too sorry, so he clapped his hands together.
"I hear Daddy--- he *is* here," said Billy.
"That's just some bird noise, that's not Daddy," said Joey. "Let's stop looking. Let's just take a cookie from the jar. Nobody will know."
"Daddy wouldn't like that..." said Billy.
"He wouldn't even know," said Joey. "I'm going to eat *six* cookies!" And he headed for the cookie jar. Billy looked on, wavering....
In everyday life we must answer questions such as whether a pair of shoes will be durable, whether it will rain today, or whether your friend is angry with you. We are used to balancing evidence, seeing how it fits with theory, and using authorities while remaining aware that they are fallible. Whether God exists and is active in the world is an issue no different in kind, it seems, only in difficulty. While we may not be able to comprehend God, we should be able at least to detect his impact on the world and thereby test for his existence. It should be even more straightforward to test non-transcendent claims such as miraculous healings or answered prayers--- claims non-transcendent in the sense that while we may not hope to understand how they work, we should be able to test whether they work. As Quine said in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism,"
As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries -- not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.
The idea of God as an active agent in the past or present world is no more and no less suitable for scientific analysis than the idea of quantum packets of energy. It may be harder to prove or disprove God's existence to the satisfaction of intelligent minds, but there is nothing sacrilegious, impious, or unreasonable in an empirical approach, even if one thinks that certainty comes only with divine inspiration. Someone without divine inspiration cannot, of course, rely on it, and must look at the evidence (which of course includes the behavior of those who purport to have that inspiration).
I claim, however, that the empirical approach is likely to fail, to end in indecision. I will argue that if God does not exist, it may be possible to show that He does not exist, but if He does exist, both proof and disproof will be impossible.
In much of my own field of economics, a person making a decision takes the world as given and tries to figure out how to make the best of his situations by using the actions under his control. Thus, if you are trying to decide whether to sell your computer on eBay, you look at the prices there and decide whether it's worthwhile for you to part with your old computer that price. The part of economics I have studied most, however, is game theory, which studies situations where the behavior of different people interacts. If Dell decides to sell ten thousand more computers, it can't take the market environment as a given. When it tries to sell those computers, its rivals will react by reducing their prices, and what looked like it would be a profitable move may turn out not to be in the end. One of the most important insights in game theory is that when you change your behavior to try to gain an advantage over a rival, you will be sorely disappointed if you fail to take into account that your rival can change his behavior too. You are shooting at a moving target.
God is a moving target too.
What if He doesn't want us to succeed in either proving or disproving His existence? He would then tantalize us, providing just enough evidence so that we could not rule out His existence, but not enough for us to confirm it either. Science can detect the powers of nature, because those powers are not trying to hide. It cannot detect God, because He deliberately evades detection.
The concealment argument applies to a number of things we might try to prove. Here is a list of projects I think doomed to failure, but whose failure will prove nothing either way, either for belief in God or against it.
My subtitle, "Why Christians Should Be Agnostics," is provocative. I do not mean that Christians should be agnostics in the sense that they should not only believe that God's existence or nonexistence cannot be proved but also that a person should live neither as an atheist nor a Christian. Rather, I argue that if God exists, then agnosticism, atheism, and Christianity will all be beliefs that reasonable men might hold, because God deliberately creates conditions under which it is hard to determine the truth. His existence is still open to argument and persuasion, and is still of the utmost importance to how a person should conduct his life, but we cannot hope to find proof conclusive enough to persuade any open-minded person.
Christianity does not deduce that God does not want to be detected from the fact that He is hard to detectm, though that argument does carry us a certain distance. It uses independent evidence-- the Bible. In Section 8 below I show this with various Bible verses.
The current situation is compatible with a theory that (a) God does not want to be detected perfectly, but (b) God does want Man to use reason to look for him.
Suppose we wanted to try to decide whether prayers for sick people work. We could collect data on people diagnosed with cancer, and see whether churchgoers go into spontaneous remission more often than a control group of atheists. According to the concealment argument, even if God answers prayers, we would find nothing in our sample. God would treat the sample differently from prayers in general and would choose not to answer those prayers. Or, he would cure more atheists than usual in the sample we use for our control group. He might at the same time be answering every prayer for a person not in the sample. Our scientific study would be trivially easy for him to evade. And since He has perfect foreknowledge, it not enough for us to go back and collect data from 20 years ago, because He would have foreseen that, and arranged for those past prayers to be answered accordingly. You can't win playing poker with the Omnipotent. (Recall the Gary Larson Far Side cartoon of God in a game show.)
Another scientific approach to studying the efficacy of prayer would be to try to find and document specific cases thoroughly. (See, e.g, the 2005 Duke prayer study at http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8638.) That has the immediate problem that most illnesses have occasional spontaneous cures for no apparent reason even apart from prayer or laying on of hands. If we could find and confirm a whole series of such cures, however, in a small space of time and place, this would be convincing evidence. The Roman Catholic Church does this when it decides who to call "saints". A candidate must have two miracles to his credit, and those miracles are ordinarily miraculous occurrences that follow prayers to the candidate. The fact that the seeming miracles follow prayers is supposed to confirm that they are indeed miracles, which is a valid argument if we can be sure that there are not so many prayers to the person that we would expect a few such events simply by chance. The concealment argument says that such efforts will fail to be convincing. God may well do miracles, but not in such a way that they can be checked. He will perform them on a systematic basis only in places or times so obscure (or unfriendly for skeptical inquiry) that the evidence will be thin-- in ancient Palestine or modern Mongolia.
Christianity depends critically on ancient miracles. Without the Resurrection, not much is left of Christianity. Christianity does not depend on current miracles, however, though it is compatible with them. "Cessationists" believe that miracles ceased after the time of the apostles; on the other hand, many Christians believe that they still occur. Some Christians do make miracles a central part of their doctrine, notably Roman Catholics. They assert that miracles are common and public in their doctrine of transubstantiation, according to which the Communion bread is transformed by the priest into human flesh. Special explanation is then required for why nobody can detect this miracle. Dropping that doctrine would not strike at the foundations of Christianity, however, any more than would dropping the doctrine that saints and other people can perform miracles.
Proving the existence of God from Nature, according to the concealment argument, is similarly doomed to failure. That old argument, carefully laid out by Paley, is that plants and animals function so wonderfully and complexly that a divine being must have created them. Even in Paley's day, there was the problem that the divine being was not necessarily Jehovah, but could instead be any of a number of gods. Since then, evolution has provided another and better explanation for the wonders of Nature. It shows how complex animals could come about, and also why they are not better designed than they are. This last-- the numerous defects in physiology-- is the Achilles Heel of intelligent design. Such things as the appendix and weak back muscles in humans can be explained by evolution, but not by a competent divine designer.
The concealment argument suggests that we should have expected there to be some material explanation for the wonders of Nature--- evolution, or something else. Paley's argument would be too strong otherwise, because God would not have left such clear tracks. Instead, he would obscure the evidence and provide an alternative theory.
In one, rather absurd, form, this argument has already been made. This is the Creationist idea that God made the world with fossils and ancient rocks some 5000 years ago, purposely making them look old, so the world is observationally equivalent to one several billions of years old. That, of course, cannot be refuted, except for its lack of supporting evidence.
More plausibly, I think, God made the world several billion years ago and used evolution to bring it to its present state. Since time has little relevance for Him, spending billions of years to prepare for a few thousand relevant years is of little importance-- or, it could be that He had some purpose in a world without humans. At any rate, He created a world which by 2001 has enough signs of divine intervention to tantalize us, but too few to convince us of His existence. Life would not be possible without happy coincidences such as that water is one of the few substances whose solid form floats on its liquid form (otherwise, all lakes would freeze in winter), or that when helium collides in stars it happens to form carbon. On the other hand, there are the appendices and bad backs. In the end, Nature shows some evidence of God, but nothing conclusive.
Thus, in theory God might choose to conceal Himself from scholarly proof. But not only could God evade us in this way: we have reason to believe that He does want to evade us. If He simply wanted us to believe in Him, He could of course exhibit miracles that would persuade everyone. So we must start with the idea that God wishes to stay concealed from some people. But that means that He is not going to give away his presence by scientific evidence any more than by miracles; He wants people to believe for other reasons. He does want some people to believe, however, and so He does not provide false evidence against Himself either; He provides partial evidence, that cannot convince anyone either way.
Consider the case for scientific investigation of God. By using archaeology, we can verify the stories in the Bible, and even find additional evidence about the Jewish kings and prophets. We could hope to find additional letters of Paul, and the original manuscript of the book of John. We could find Noah's ark and the ark of the covenant. By using statistics, we could verify the effectiveness of prayer. We could see whether prayed-for people lived longer, and whether prayer averted disasters. By using astronomy, we could find the star that marked Jesus's birth, and evidence of supernatural intervention in the ordering of the planets. If only natural forces were at work, we would find that they explained everything we saw; if supernatural forces were at work, we would detect them.
It is quite plausible that new manuscripts and inscriptions will turn up in the Holy Land, or that new scientific techniques will allow us to read faded writing that is currently illegible.
See "James Ossuary Inscription" http://dreamwater.org/bccox/ossuary.html (11/03/2002).
"Papyrus Reveals New Clues to Ancient World," James Owen National Geographic News news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/04/0425_050425_papyrus.html (April 25, 2005)
But the concealment argument says that it will not lend dramatic support for the Bible's accuracy, though it may help a little, as the James Ossuary Description would have.
Similarly, lack of discoveries should not discourage the Christian. It is not like the dismaying gaps in the evidence for evolution; here, we should expect the gaps to exist, as part of the theory.
We cannot answer the question of why it is that God wants to remain concealed from some people, but that is not necessary for this argument. It is enough that if God exists, He wants to be concealed, and that we have no strong reason to believe that God must wish to save everyone.
As far as I know, the concealment argument is new, but it is hard to believe that someone has not thought of it already. C.S. Lewis alludes to a form of it in Screwtape Letters. Screwtape writes to his nephew saying that in past centuries, devils found the best strategy was to appear and make humans fear them, but in the 20th century, the grand strategy is to remain concealed and make humans believe that devils do not exist.
The concealment argument raises a number of questions:
1. Is there any support in the Bible for the concealment argument?
2. Does the concealment argument support other religions as much as Christianity?
3. Does the concealment argument support belief in ESP, spiritualism, and ghosts?
4. Is there any way that Christianity could be refuted, if we accept the concealment argument?
5. Does the concealment argument imply that God lies, and is this not contrary to the Bible and any notion of a true god?
"One of the features of modern science that seems so unnatural concerns the role that theories play. In everyday life, we hold beliefs (sometimes referred to as theories) which are often granted the status of absolute truth. The dogmas of received religion are rarely challenged by the members of the sect that hold them. In contrast, theories in science are merely our current best guesses (even though human frailty often leads us into treating them as absolute truth!). They act like a crutch to help us struggle a little further down the road of exploration in the hope that a more precise theory will be encountered along the way. ...We can use the Frequentist and Bayesian approaches to statistics to understand this. The Frequentist approach takes some hypothesis as the one to be tested, and asks how unlikely it is that we observe what we do observe if that "null" hypothesis is true. If it sufficiently unlikely, we reject the null hypothesis, without necessarily adopting any other hypothesis instead. The Bayesian approach looks at all possible hypotheses simultaneously and asks which of them are most probable, given our initial beliefs as to how likely each is (our "prior beliefs") and the data we observe....a common habit among scientists that non-scientists seem to find very perplexing (if not positively disturbing, judging by some of the comments that have been made to me). This is the fact that scientists are prepared to adopt theories that they happily admit are flawed."
Under the Frequentist approach, we cannot reject either of these two null hypotheses:
H0': God exists.
HO'': God does not exist.
The test has "low power", because the available data could arise with reasonable probability under either hypothesis. On the other hand, if you insist on rejecting any theory that does not fit the data extremely closely, you will reject both of these null hypotheses. Either way, you are left not knowing what to believe.
A Bayesian, on the other hand, must come out with one hypothesis or the other being more probable. If he starts with unbiased prior beliefs, then even if the data does not tell him much, he will adopt whichever hypothesis seems even slightly more likely-- but be ready to change to the other if even a little new information arrives to support it. He uses this formula, Bayes's Rule:
Prob(God|data) = Prob(data|God) Prob(God)/[Prob(data|God) + Prob(data|no God)]
Suppose we have diffuse priors-- 50-50 for God existing or not. Then
Prob(God|data) = Prob(data|God) (.5)/[Prob(data|God) + Prob(data|no God)]
and
Prob(God|data) = .5 {Prob(data|God)/[Prob(data|God) + Prob(data|no God)]}
We should believe God exists if
Prob(data|God)>Prob(data|no God)
The upshot is that if we insist on a scientific approach of testing a null hypothesis and looking for falsifiability, we will get nowhere. If we use a more practical Bayesian approach, we will get somewhere, but not with any certainty. We must be modest in our belief on some topics.
This is true even if which belief we adopt has huge importance. If our question is whether the landmine you know was buried is to the left or to the right, and you must take one path or the other or be killed by falling artillery shells, you should make your best decisions and go boldly.
Dawkins, says on page 72 of The Ancestor's Tale:
It is in the nature of sedimentary rock that its materials are
continually being recycled. Old mountains such as the Scottish
Highlands have been slowly ground down by wind and water, yielding
materials which later settle into sediments and may ultimately push up
again somewhere else as new mountains like the Alps, and the cycle
resumes. In a world of such recycling, we have to curb our importunate
demands for a continuous fossil record to bridge every gap in
evolution. It isn't just bad luck,
that fossils are often missing, but an inherent consequence of
the way sedimentary rocks are made. It would be positively worrying if
there were no gaps in the fossil record. Old rocks, with their
fossils, are actively being destroyed by the very process that goes to
make new ones.
Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD. KJV Ezekiel 39:29The following passages say that some people learn things that will be hid from others, and not because they are smarter:
The secret things belong unto Jehovah our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. ASV Deuteronomy 29:29
...but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory:... ASV 1 Corinthians 2:7
Now to him that is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, ASV Romans 16:25
...even the mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations: but now hath it been manifested to his saints,... ASV Colossians 1:26
...and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath been hid in God who created all things;... ASV Ephesians 3:9
The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. ASV Matthew 13:44The following passages say that some God wants some people to be left in ignorance.
But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but to the intent that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that thou mayest know the thoughts of thy heart. ASV Daniel 2:30
At that season Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes:... ASV Matthew 11:25
All things have been delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him. ASV Matthew 11:27
Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. KJV Psalms 31:20The following passages say that God deliberately works in the minds and hearts of some people so they will not see Him
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. ASV Proverbs 25:2
But they understood not this saying, and it was concealed from them, that they should not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.ASV Luke 9:45
Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. ASV Isaiah 45:15
but their minds were hardened: for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remaineth, it not being revealed to them that it is done away in Christ. ASV 2 Corinthians 3:14
For Jehovah hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes, the prophets; and your heads, the seers, hath he covered. ASV Isaiah 29:10Even miracles do not persuade some people:
And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? 11 And he answered and said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. 12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath. 13 Therefore speak I to them in parables; because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 14 And unto them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; And seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive: 15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them. 16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear. 17 For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which ye see, and saw them not; and to hear the things which ye hear, and heard them not. ASV Matthew 13:10
They know not, neither do they consider: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand. ASV Isaiah 44:18
But though he had done so many signs before them, yet they believed not on him: that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? For this cause they could not believe, for that Isaiah said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and he hardened their heart; Lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, And should turn, And I should heal them. These things said Isaiah, because he saw his glory; and he spake of him. ASV John 12:37-41
And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Spirit through Isaiah the prophet unto your fathers, 26 saying, Go thou unto this people, and say, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; And seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive: 27 For this people's heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest, haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them. ASV Acts 28:25
What then? that which Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the election obtained it, and the rest were hardened: 8 according as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, unto this very day. 9 And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, And a stumblingblock, and a recompense unto them: 10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, And bow thou down their back always. ASV Romans 11:7
... and refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them, but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and forsookest them not. ASV Nehemiah 9:17Those who by investigation hope to prove or disprove facts about God will be disappointed:
And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead. ASV Luke 16:31
For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And the discernment of the discerning will I bring to nought. 20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. 22 Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom: 23 but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness; 24 but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. ASV I Corinthians 1:18
... but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong;... ASV 1 Corinthians 1:27
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He that taketh the wise in their craftiness: 20 and again, The Lord knoweth the reasonings of the wise that they are vain. ASV 1 Corinthians 3:19
By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear.ASV Hebrews 11:3
There are even examples in the Bible where using experiments to test for God's presence is raised. I quote below from Luke (the Temptations in the Wilderness), and Exodus (water from a stone in Massah).
Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the LORD? And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore [is] this [that] thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. And the LORD said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not? KJV. Exodus 17: 3-7.
Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted [him] in Massah.KJV. Deu 6:16
And he [Satan-ER] brought him [Jesus-ER] to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in [their] hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. KJV. Luk 4:9-12.
I quite agree. A principle of Judaism and Christianity is that God has purposely obscured His existence. Religions which do not have this principle must explain why the existence of God or gods is not obvious and subject to rigorous proof.
566. We understand nothing of the works of God, if we do not take as a principle that He has willed to blind some and enlighten others.
578. There is sufficient clearness to enlighten the elect, and sufficient obscurity to humble them. There is sufficient obscurity to blind the reprobate, and sufficient clearness to condemn them and make them inexcusable. Saint Augustine, Montaigne, Sebond...
585. ... God being thus hidden, every religion which does not affirm that God is hidden is not true; and every religion which does not give the reason of it is not instructive. Our religion does all this: Vere tu es Deus absconditus.*
* Is. 45. 15.
A good general point-- obscurity may or may not hide profundity, but clear mistakes or clear truths help us know whether it is worthwhile trying to clear up the obscurities. If, however, Noah's Flood is wrong, does that cast doubt on Isaiah?
598. It is not by that which is obscure in Mahomet, and which may be interpreted in a mysterious sense, that I would have him judged, but by what is clear, as his paradise and the rest. In that he is ridiculous. And since what is clear is ridiculous, it is not right to take his obscurities for mysteries.It is not the same with the Scripture. I agree that there are in it obscurities as strange as those of Mahomet; but there are admirably clear passages, and the prophecies are manifestly fulfilled. The cases are, therefore, not on a par. We must not confound and put on one level things which only resemble each other in their obscurity, and not in the clearness, which requires us to reverence the obscurities.
There is more place for figurative meanings that we moderns allow. One nice thing about Pascal is that he takes prophecy seriously enough to look for unfulfilled prophecies as well as fulfilled ones. Pascal, Pensees, TS ELiot translation.http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-8.txt, number 229:
678... A cipher has two meanings. When we find out an important letter in which we discover a clear meaning, and in which it is nevertheless said that the meaning is veiled and obscure, that it is hidden, so that we might read the letter without seeing it, and interpret it without understanding it, what must we think but that here is a cipher with a double meaning, and the more so if we find obvious contradictions in the literal meaning? The prophets have clearly said that Israel would be always loved by God and that the law would be eternal; and they have said that their meaning would not be understood and that it was veiled....
684. Contradiction.- We can only describe a good character by reconciling all contrary qualities, and it is not enough to keep up a series of harmonious qualities, without reconciling contradictory ones. To understand the meaning of an author, we must make all the contrary passages agree.Thus, to understand Scripture, we must have a meaning in which all the contrary passages are reconciled. It is not enough to have one which suits many concurring passages; but it is necessary to have one which reconciles even contradictory passages.
Every author has a meaning in which all the contradictory passages agree, or he has no meaning at all. We cannot affirm the latter of Scripture and the prophets; they undoubtedly are full of good sense. We must, then, seek for a meaning which reconciles all discrepancies.
The true meaning, then, is not that of the Jews; but in Jesus Christ all the contradictions are reconciled.
The Jews could not reconcile the cessation of the royalty and principality, foretold by Hosea, with the prophecy of Jacob.
If we take the law, the sacrifices, and the kingdom as realities, we cannot reconcile all the passages. They must then necessarily be only types. We cannot even reconcile the passages of the same author, nor of the same book, nor sometimes of the same chapter, which indicates copiously what was the meaning of the author. As when Ezekiel, chap. 20., Says that man will not live by the commandments of God and will live by them....
728. It was not lawful to sacrifice outside of Jerusalem, which was the place that the Lord had chosen, nor even to eat the tithes elsewhere. Deut. 12. 5, etc.; Deut. 14. 23, etc.; 15. 20; 16. 2, 7, 11, 15.Hosea foretold that they should be without a king, without a prince, without a sacrifice, and without an idol; and this prophecy is now fulfilled, as they cannot make a lawful sacrifice out of Jerusalem.
This is what I see and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and I see only darkness everywhere. Nature presents to me nothing which is not matter of doubt and concern. If I saw nothing there which revealed a Divinity, I would come to a negative conclusion; if I saw everywhere the signs of a Creator, I would remain peacefully in faith. But, seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied; wherefore I have a hundred time wished that if a God maintains nature, she should testify to Him unequivocally, and that, if the signs she gives are deceptive, she should suppress them altogether; that she should say everything or nothing, that I might see which cause I ought to follow. Whereas in my present state, ignorant of what I am or of what I ought to do, I know neither my condition nor my duty. My heart inclines wholly to know where is the true good, in order to follow it; nothing would be too dear to me for eternity. I envy those whom I see living in the faith with such carelessness, and who make such a bad use of a gift of which it seems to me I would make such a different use.
The argument is as valid for ghosts and ESP as for supernatural works by God. The difference is in what other evidence is available. Christianity does not say you should believe in God because of the miracles he is currently working, even if it says he is currently working miracles. Rather, you should believe in God because He has touched you directly or because of reliable historical records of past miracles.
1. There are no past records of ESP and ghosts that are even halfway convincing.
2. There are convincing alternative explanations of why people think they have seen ESP and ghosts are work. People don't understand probability, and so think ESP is at work when mere chance is. There are many well-known psychological sensory and reasoning pitfalls that would lead to belief in ESP. Examples are our tendency to remember success and forget failures (in guessing, for instance) and our tendency to see patterns in randomness.
It is also easy to see why people would believe in ghosts. We are naturally nervous in the dark and in strange places. On seeing shadows or movements caused by wind, we naturally wonder if there is some person or animal doing it. When we find there is not, we easily jump to the conclusion that it is a ghost, not our imaginations or wind. Creaking floorways are a good example.
3. There is no good explanation for why ghosts and ESP-workers would want privacy-- rather, the reverse would seem true-- they should want publicity. Ghosts apparently want to scare people, and ESP-workers should want to confound skeptics.
4. There is no consistent theory of ghosts or ESP. It is purely an observational idea, with no theory behind it. Thus, even the people who believe they have seen evidence are unable to come up with a theory that makes sense of the evidence.
I am being generous here, with my qualifier, because I want to exclude false statements that might be metaphors, hyperbole, or are so minor as not to be worth worrying about. What remains problematic are false statements on which doctrine is based.
Black Muslims. This religion claims that the mad scientist Yakob invented white people in about 4000 B.C. This is clearly wrong, and discredits the religion's founders.
Mormonism. Mormons claim that American Indians are descended from Israelite immigrants, and that there were no humans in the Americas before 1000 B.C. This is clearly wrong, disproven by Carbon-14 dating, the pattern of the spread of artifacts, and the genetic characteristics of Indians and Semites. This discredits the entire Book of Mormon, and with it, Joseph Smith, the religion's founder.
Islam. Islam has no central falsehoods that I know of. It could happen that evidence disproved the existence of Mohammed, but current evidence does not do so. The Koran does talk about genies, but they are not central, and at most their nonexistence would invalidate parts of the Koran.
Christianity. Christianity has no central falsehoods. . Jesus refers to Jonah and the Queen of Sheba and Adam, but not in a way we can prove wrong. Even if we could, those mentions are peripheral, and could be attributed to corruptions in the text. To be discredited, Christianity would need some dramatic discovery such as evidence that a Roman had forged all four Gospels for political purposes. It is refutable, but we cannot use lack of refuting evidence as affirmative evidence forChristianity because the probability that refuting evidence would have survived is so low.
(2) Personal Scandals. Did the founders of the religion do things contrary to the religions they promoted, or in contradiction to its claims?
Most obviously, this refers to sins. These include false statements that are immoral-- "lies", as opposed to "mistakes".
It also refers to defects contrary to the religions claimed. A founder who claims divinity, as Jesus did, must meet a higher standard than one who did not, such as Mohammed.
Black Muslims. Elijah Muhammed's 13 illegitimate children and lavish lifestyle.
Mormonism. Joseph Smith's hieroglyphic translation. Not Smith's infidelity to his wife, perhaps, since polygamy became a Mormon doctrine.
Islam. Mohammed's extensive polygamy was perhaps reasonable for a prophet, even though he only allowed regular Moslems 4 wives.
Christianity. Jesus had no scandals, and Christian doctrine allows--in fact, insists-- on other people being sinful. Peter denying Christ and David committing adultery are examples.
(3) Literary Quality. If the religion relies on writings, do they include passages of exceptional literary quality?
Not all religions rely on writings. Hinduism and Roman paganism do not, for example. If a religion does, however, then we should expect at least a few signs of divinity in those writings, signs apparent to outsiders who do not accept the overall message. We could not expect God's prophet to be incompetent or mediocre if the religion claims the prophet's writings are inspired and important. We need not expect every passage to be brilliant, or any passage to be undisputably more brilliant than the work of secular authors, but we should expect some passages to be in the same rank as good uninspired authors.
Black Muslims. Nobody claims any good writing as scripture for this religion. The closest is the Autobiography of Malcolm X, but that is no way a religious book, and Malcolm X moved to real Islam eventually anyway.
Mormonism. Mark Twain famously said that it was miraculous Joseph Smith didn't fall asleep writing it down. It is obviously a low-quality imitation of the King James Bible.
Islam. Nothing interesting in the Koran survives translation from Arabic to English. This is surprising, since I am told that it is beautiful in Arabic, and much of the Biblical poetry in Hebrew, a closely related Semitic language, does survive translation. But Islam itself says that the Koran cannot and should not be translated out of its original Arabic, so a non-speaker like myself must give it the benefit of the doubt.
Christianity. The Bible is famous for its literary quality in both Old and New Testament. The quality is not uniformly high, but it is beyond dispute that certain passages shine, which is enough to satisfy the Literary Quality criterion. (Examples: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want... ," "Though I speak with the tongues of angels, if I have not love,...").
I have purposely included Islam in this comparison to show that these criterion are not as far as we can go in ruling out false religions. I would rule out Islam on other grounds, but not because of historical proofs. Roman paganism cannot be ruled out on these grounds either, since it has neither founder nor important texts. But these three criteria are a start.
In fact, let me show how Christianity conceivably could have been disproved on these grounds:
(1) Historical and scientific claims. Suppose Roman records were found showing that Jesus had been set free by Pontius Pilate and died twenty years later of a plague.
Or suppose that in the Gospel of Mark there was a passage in which Jesus said that because the earth was flat, one of the most important duties of a Christian was to wear his hair cut flat on his head.
(2) Personal Scandals. Suppose Roman records were found showing that Jesus was convicted of embezzling.
(3) Literary Quality. Suppose that instead of the New Testament, all we had were some of the apocryphal childhood gospels and First Clement, an uncontroversial but uninspiring epistle from an early bishop of Rome.
So Christianity survives the simplest tests we use in evaluating religions.
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