1957. Is Theism Vacuous. The Southern Presbyterian Journal. 10 Jul.
Is Theism Vacuous?
By Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D.
The philosophy of humanism, naturalism, logical positivism, or
by whatever other name this viewpoint is called, has no use for God. Theism is said
to be a worthless philosophy because the advantages it claims are found upon examination
to be fraudulent.
All the representatives of this viewpoint, which is in fact atheistic
although they do not appreciate the appellation, use the same general type of argument.
There is little reason for selecting one man's expression than another's. For purposes
of definiteness, however, the phraseology of Professor A. J. Ayer, of the University
of London, will be followed.
Theism makes three claims. The first is that a supernatural deity
is an explanation of the world's existence. This claim fails, says Ayer, "because
it is no explanation of anything merely to say that God designed it; it would be
an explanation only if there were some way of testing the deity's intentions independently
of the actual course of events, for in that case the religious hypothesis would
have some predictive power; but a hypothesis which is consistent with anything that
happens, or could conceivably happen, is altogether vacuous."
In these lines Professor Ayer assumes that to explain is to predict.
A hypothesis that does not predict does not explain. The law of freely falling bodies
explains because it predicts exactly where the body will be at the end of each second,
and experiment confirms the predictions. This theory of explanation, by the way,
is rather hard on the evolutionists, for evolution never predicts what the next
emerging species will be. However, let this pass, for the main point at present
is not evolution, nor even the meaning of explanation.
Let us, instead, give prediction its full value. The laws of
physics predict and their predictions can be tested by experiment. Theism, argues
Ayer, does not predict; it is consistent with any conceivable event; therefore it
is a useless hypothesis.
Now, the humanist must admit that if the law of freely falling
bodies is to be verified, the experiment must be performed. Should a scientist never
drop a marble, should he never measure the time and distance, he could not in honesty
complain that the law was unverifiable and vacuous. In the same way, before theism
can be so rejected, it ought to be tested. A test, however, requires a prediction,
and the- ism does not predict.
But is this so? Has Professor Ayer correctly represented theism?
No, he has not. The theistic hypothesis predicts that disbelief in God is severely
punished in the future life; and therefore necessarily predicts that there is a
future life. This is easily tested by experiment. Professor Ayer should commit suicide
and see what happens.
At this point, strange to say, the logical positivists lost their
usual enthusiasm for experimentation. To save face, they must now invent some ad
hoc limitation on verification. All hypotheses must be verifiable before death —
even the hypothesis that concerns a life after death. But is not this limitation
the equivalent of requiring a verification of freely falling bodies before they
fall?
However the humanists may try to escape this uncomfortable situation,
it is more than likely that their ad hoc limitation will apply to their own position
as well as to theism. Although they reject the theistic hypothesis on the grounds
stated, they accept the non-theistic hypothesis which labors under precisely the
same difficulties. In their humanistic philosophy they have formulated, and they
are guiding their lives by, the hypothesis that God does not punish and that there
is no life after death. So far as predicting the future is concerned, both hypotheses
are on a level. They may both be tested or verified by suicide, or at least by death;
and without death neither can be. In respect of hypotheses and verification the
theist is more consistent than the humanist is.
In addition to its inconsistency a positive error of humanism
must be noted. Professor Ayer has represented theism as consistent with anything
that could conceivably happen. Such a view of theism may have somewhere once been
held. In the early eighteenth century English deism perhaps fitted this description;
but nearly all theism, and certainly all Christian theism escapes Ayer's strictures.
Not only would the unreality of heaven and hell (and Ayer certainly holds that this
is a conceivable state of affairs) disprove Christianity, but even within this life,
within the sphere of history, definite predictions are made. For example, the Messianic
prophecies are not consistent with anything that could have conceivably happened.
Then too, the prophecies of Christ's return, even though they are not so definite
as the law of freely falling bodies, are not consistent with anything that might
conceivably happen.
Thus the humanistic objection to theism falls back on those who
made it, and shows that they apply their principles inconsistently as well as distort
the position they oppose.
In the second place, theism claims to give assurance that life
is worth living. This claim too, the humanists say is fraudulent. Professor Ayer
argues: even if one's life did fit some design, it would not, on the theistic hypothesis,
be a design of one's own choosing; nor could a man make God's design his own, for
man has no means of knowing what God's design is; and furthermore, the promise of
an after life does not aid theism, for if one does not find the present life worth
living, there is no good reason to wish it prolonged.
This second objection with its three parts is very easy to answer,
and its weakness may be taken as an indication of the difficult positivists' experience
in coming to grips with theism as it really is. For, clearly, the fact that the
design of the world is not of human choosing does not militate against such a design.
It is utterly unreasonable to require the design of the universe or of the course
of history to have been chosen by you or me.
Perhaps humanism here depends on an ambiguity. The original reference
was to a design of the universe into which one's life might be fitted; but possibly
there has been a shift of meaning from this universal design to the design of an
individual life. If this is the ambiguity on which positivism rests its case, Christian
theism has an answer for this second meaning also. It is not too simple an answer;
dealing, as this question does, with the relation of human choice to God's design
the Bible reveals great profundity; but though many people fail to understand, the
Bible nonetheless has an answer.
Christian theism teaches that all men live, move, and have their
being in God. Of the Christian in particular it says that God works in us both to
will and to do. Therefore the design of a Christian's life (and in reality of all
others too) is his own choosing and God's choosing as well. Thus this part of the
objection rests upon ambiguity and some misrepresentation.
The second part is entirely misrepresentation. Man cannot choose
God's design for himself, it was said, because he has no means of knowing what God's
purposes are. Of course we admit that many of God's purposes remain unknown to us.
We do not know, apart from subsequent events, what God's purpose was in the American
revolution, the Russian revolution, the invention of the airplane, or in the prevalence
of cancer.
At the same time God has revealed to us enough of His purpose
for us to serve Him. By placing our faith in Jesus Christ, by obeying His commandments,
by carrying the gospel to all mankind, we make God's purposes our own.
Only if God had given us no revelation would there be any force
in this objection. Now, as was said above in this article, deism was a theory without
revelation; and it may well be admitted that these objections have some force in
that direction. But if the positivists wish
to produce a general refutation of theism, they ought not to limit themselves to
an eighteenth century form that did not manage to survive, but they ought to formulate
an argument that is applicable to theism in its most commonly known form. This they
have not succeeded in doing.
There was a third part to this second objection. The promise
of an after life, said Professor Ayer, does not aid theism, for if one does not
find the present life worth living, there is no good reason to wish it prolonged.
Corliss Lamont also, in his book, The Illusion of Immortality,
uses essentially the same line of argument.
This argument, however, is once more factually mistaken. Christian
theism does not promise a mere continuation of our present mode of existence with
all its ills and frustrations. If this were the case, the humanist contention
would be pertinent. But this is not the case, and the objection misses its mark.
Once again, one wonders why these men set up a man of straw instead
of addressing themselves to the Christian position as it really is. Perhaps they
think that their readers do not understand Christianity and will not notice their
misrepresentations. Perhaps they themselves do not know what Christianity is. Strange
as it may seem, this is possible; for even among people who attend church there
are many who are woefully ignorant of the Bible's contents. They do not all sit
in the pews, either. Professing atheists are all the more likely to be ignorant
of the Bible. Strange it may seem to Christians; but true it certainly is.
Professor Ayer, of the University of London, whose phraseology
has been followed, also offers a third argument. Theism, he says, and says rightly,
claims to answer the question how a man ought to live. This claim, he continues,
theism cannot make good.
The reason why theism is said to provide no basis for a moral
life is that the t heist has to rely on his own moral sense in order to decide what
the deity wishes him to do. Immanuel Kant, though his is quite a different type
of philosophy, substantiates this particular point of view. Briefly it is that theism
can- not be the basis of morality, for morality is the basis of theism. That is
to say, if there is a God at all, knowledge of his nature is to be deduced from
our concepts of what is right and wrong. God commands what is good, but we must
first know what is good before we can know what God commands.
The answer to this objection is a forthright denial of its main
assertion. The majority of people think it is easy to solve moral problems. They
are so conditioned by their parents and by society that they sometimes come to think
that a knowledge of right and wrong is innate. Therefore it would seem plausible
that we could discover what God commands by this inborn knowledge of moral principles.
Now, it is to be admitted that all men have an innate knowledge
of the general distinction between right and wrong; but the fact that they have
no such knowledge of what in particular is right and wrong is obvious from the conscientious
differences existing among various societies. A conscientious lama of Tibet will
think a certain action right that a pigmy of Africa will think wrong. The Navajo
Indians, I am told seriously believe that it is immoral for a young husband to see
the face of his mother-in-law. The Greeks of antiquity thought there was nothing
wrong in throwing unwanted babies to the wolves. Christians disagree. Since philosophers
as well as other people differ on what in the concrete is right and wrong, this
should suffice to show, not only that moral theory can provide no stable basis for
theism, but even more disastrously that there is no stability in an independent
morality.
Professor Ayer, to support the need of moral theory prior to
any theism or any revelation, says, "A revelation that runs counter to our
morality is not accepted as genuine." In this there is some factual truth.
When Christian missionaries preach to savage tribes, and when pastors preach to
American congregations, the people often reject the message because they do not
like the morality that goes with it. In both cases the people must be persuaded
to accept both the theism and the moral standards it implies. This is such a change
in outlook that we do not believe that it can result from mere persuasion; it requires
the irresistible regenerating power of the Holy Spirit to change the moral ideas
of the hearer.
In a society deeply influenced by Christianity, as in England
or in America, there is a tendency, even among scholars, to suppose that the Christian
standards of morality, or standards somewhat resembling them, may be discovered
apart from Biblical revelation. But consideration of the rest of the world ought
to indicate that our standards of justice, honesty, and mercy never have been developed
independently of the Hebrew-Christian Scriptures. It is not theism that is based
on ethics; but ethics that is based on theism.
Ethics is not independent. One's ethics is determined by one's
general philosophy. And such is the ethical confusion of the world that Professor
Ayer is badly mistaken when he says, "the theist has to rely on his own moral
sense in order to decide what it is that his deity wishes him to do." Not at
all. He must first learn God's commands in the Bible. If these commands do not agree with his own moral
sense, his morality must be changed. For it is the will of God alone that determines
what is right and what is wrong. Ethics depends on theism; and theism makes good
its claim.
In this article three objections to theism have been examined;
and it appears that theism has little to fear from them. Theism may have more to
fear from an inadequate preaching of the whole gospel that leaves so many people
in ignorance of what the Bible teaches.
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