Gordon Clark: Is Theism Vacuous (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

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.