Do science and rationality support atheism?No, says a nuclear physicist. To understand why, you must be prepared to face the Fundamental Question of Philosophy: Why is there anything rather than nothing? The challenge of militant Islam is focusing new attention on religion. Many, especially in Europe, are turning from being indifferent to religion to being militantly anti-religious. Christian and Islamic fundamentalism are both being blamed for roles in the bloody war on terrorism. Thus secular Europeans have voiced dismay at American religiosity and worry that faith-based reasoning is spreading in Europe, too. Many Britons, for example, believe the Christian faith of Prime Minister Tony Blair helped lead him to entangle Britain in America's war in Iraq. Thus also, the Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins, who calls himself "the world's most prominent atheist", asserts the "irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11".
The resurgence of a militant atheism represented by these remarks has been the immediate impetus for writing this essay. My primary goal is to analyse the question of the rationality of belief in God with emphasis on the claim that such is irrational because it contradicts science. For simplicity, belief in God will be identified with theism and with the assertion God exists. This ignores the distinction between theism, which usually considers God as an active agent in world history, and deism, which does not.
Theism generally comes packaged in a religion. The latter is a complex set of ideas that relate God to all aspects of nature including, especially, human nature. For example, religions explain thunder, stars, good/bad fortune, the existence of humankind, the meaning and proper conduct of life, and so on. Each religion relates these to God or gods. A belief in some religion can and should be distinguished from a belief in God. Religion is a diffuse topic liable to unending disputation whereas theism is not. Unfortunately, most discussions fail to keep this distinction clear. Thus one often reads that religion has made a claim in contradiction to scientific truth, theism is irrational. This is simply a confusion of words and concepts: the rationality of theism does not stand on the scripture of any religion. Relating God to science Another important way in which theism is commonly said to contradict science is in respect to creation. Particular scenarios depend on particular scriptures but God is always the creator of the universe. On the other hand, one often hears that science can or will explain creation (eg, the Big Bang) and so the role -- indeed the primary role -- of God as creator is superfluous or just wrong. Thinking just beyond this shallow point, one realises that science can only explain the creation of something in terms of something else ("something" here includes non-substantials such as laws of nature). After a bit more thought one arrives at the key creation question known as the Fundamental Question of Philosophy: why is there anything at all rather than nothing at all? Analysis of the FQP leads to a clear understanding of the relation between theism and science. As a start, let us try to answer the FQP with science. To do this fairly we grant the stipulation that everything in the universe is explicable, or will ultimately be physically explicable. This means, in particular, that all fields of science are reducible to physics and that every area of knowledge is a proper subject for scientific inquiry. It does not mean that all explanations will be reduced to physics. It means just that they could be, at least in principle. This assumption underlies virtually all of modern science. Biologists seek ultimate causes of biological phenomena in terms of chemistry; chemists, in terms of physics. Even mental phenomena are assumed to be ultimately explicable in terms of the physical brain. Not everyone believes this scheme to be true, but a real scientist would never attempt to base scientific explanations on some sort of non-physical, spiritual essence, force, soul, or will. Even a scientific study of artistic or religious inspiration would not use the classical interpretation of inspirations as the in-taking of a spirit. Science and the fundamental question Returning to the task of answering the FQP, pick anything -- say a drop of water -- and ask yourself: why is there this thing? Why does this drop exist? An attempt to answer this within the framework of science leads to a series of existing things, and a why-question for each of them. The series starting with a drop of water might be sketched as follows. A drop's existence can be understood in terms of its individual water molecules, the particular forces between them, and the general physical laws governing motion: quantum mechanics (QM). Why molecules and inter-molecular forces exist can be understood in terms of atoms, inter-atomic forces, and again, QM. Similarly, atoms and inter-atomic forces, in terms of electrons, nuclei, the electrodynamic forces between them and QM; and so on. Eventually one reaches the most fundamental level of physics, its most basic concepts and equations. All paths of why-questions, starting from all things, all lead to the same end: the basis of physics. At this point, the FQP requires you to ask why this basis -- the set of concepts and equations underlying physics -- exists. The known basis of physics changes in time, and deepens as our understanding of nature deepens. However, at any given time, physics cannot explain the existence of its basis. Its sole job is to explain what is not in its basis in terms of its basis--which is why a basis is called a basis. Thus the FQP creates a series of questions all leading to an unanswerable end -- unanswerable, that is, within the framework of science. Science cannot answer why anything (including science itself), rather than nothing, exists. There is nothing in the universe that can explain the existence of the universe. That the answer to the FQP cannot be found within the bounds of science and rationality means only that. It does not mean its answer does not exist. If an answer is assumed to exist, in some sense of the word exist, there can be no error in naming it. The traditional name is God. Thus a very important conclusion: within the framework of science, God is unknowable -- and therefore, unknown. Furthermore, the unknowable God must be conceived to be an indivisible unity. For how can one know of parts of that of which nothing can be known? Common mistakes concerning creation It is worth mentioning two red herrings commonly dragged into this argument. People with a smattering of physics may bring up "quantum mechanical vacuum fluctuations". Could the universe have been created out of nothing via a vacuum fluctuation? Could it have been created all by itself out of nothing (and therefore, it is implied, without need of God)? The scientific answer is No: a physical vacuum is a thing, something rather than nothing. Furthermore, there still remains the question of why quantum mechanics itself exists -- or any natural law for that matter? Others feel that the FQP can have meaning only if one believes that the universe was created at some time, before which there was neither time nor universe. They feel that, therefore, if time extends to the infinite past, then no moment of creation ever existed and therefore it need not be explained. Unfortunately, this still leaves open the question of why the universe exists at all? Furthermore, why, if it exists today, must it continue to do so tomorrow? Alternative views of the FQP Should the Fundamental Question of Philosophy be taken seriously? Many (if not most) people ignore the FQP simply because they are not intellectually serious themselves, but some serious thinkers also ignore it. There seem to be three possible views of the FQP: (1) It is irrational, and hence, uninteresting. (2) It is rational, but scientifically unanswerable and hence uninteresting. (3) It is rational and scientifically unanswerable, but still interesting. In the first of these, the claim of irrationality may rest on the phrase "nothing at all" contained within the FQP. Try to visualise "nothing at all"! It is not empty space because space is something. It is not altogether clear that we can conceive of "nothing at all"; but we cannot coherently talk or ask about that of which we have no conception. In a similar vein, some people may feel that the claim that God created the world ex nihilo (from nothing) is irrational since we have no conception of nihilo. Another possible irrationality in the FQP is contained in the word "why". Some thinkers read motivation into "why", not causality. Since there is no reason to assume that every cause has human-style motivation, and certainly no scientific cause includes motivation, the FQP seems to include an irrational assumption. Many serious people (such as the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume) view scientifically unanswerable questions of this sort as uninteresting. It is also possible to argue that a question which is unanswerable is therefore uninteresting. Why, for instance, hit your head against a stone wall? Or, similarly, one could argue because a question lacks a rational answer, the question is irrational. If this is the case, it is meaningless and therefore uninteresting. As these examples illustrate, "rationality" is ambiguous and "being interesting" is subjective. Hence, the first two views listed above cannot be argued; and no one who maintains either of them can be argued into seriously considering the FQP -- that question which is central to a belief in the concept of God. Tackling the existence of God What if we take the third view, that the FQP is rational and scientifically unanswerable, but interesting nonetheless? The modern and highly influential German metaphysician Martin Heidegger maintained that the FQP is the only genuine philosophical question. Oddly enough, he called himself an atheist -- but also claimed that atheists do not deny the existence of God. Rather, they deny that "God has an existence". This obscure wording serves to emphasise the ambiguity in the concept of existence. Heidegger's basic point was that simply stating that God does or does not exist, without further clarifying the sense of the word "exist", is ambiguous. To say that something "exists" normally means that it is within the universe (of every thing and every being). If we were to say that God "exists" in this sense, it would imply (since God is the reason for or explanation of why anything rather than nothing exists) that the universe explains its own existence. Or, if one prefers to think in terms of creation ex nihilo, that the universe created itself into something out of nothing: no-thing created some-thing out of no-thing! This incoherence amounts to merely a denial either of the meaning of the FQP, or an unwillingness to face its meaning. We now approach the end of our chain of logic. To say that God exists is to understand existence in an enlarged sense. It means that we accept his complete transcendence, that: the reason for the existence of the universe lies completely beyond the universe. In fact, it lies beyond nature -- it is, strictly speaking, "super-natural".
Summary
The upshot of this is that it is simply foolish to assert that science and rationality support atheism. Finally, it is possible to reach a rational belief in the existence of God. One must have first the mental (and perhaps, emotional) wherewithal to ask the fundamental question. Then one must understand and accept the fact that its answer is unknowable through science. God, the answer, transcends the universe of knowable things. Edward A. Remler is a professor emeritus at the College of William and Mary, in Virginia. He has worked in nuclear and particle physics theory for the last 50 years. |
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Comments (78)
Eric said...One of the many things that bugs me about these arguments is that they always posit “god.” But...whose god? Why not “gods?” It seems like they always come ‘round to somebody who’s read a bit too much Aquinas using it all as a backing for a very specific interpretation of the abrahamic religions.
I’m also a little tired of the argument that there *needs* to be a first cause. Yes, it’s nice for there to be one when you’re trying to wrap your brain around it, but it seems to me, on a cosmological scale, it could be a bit like asking where the starting point of a circle is. “Common sense” tends to break down in the physics of time and space. Frankly, using science to prove the existence of god is like trying to use Hamlet to teach chemistry - I’m sure with enough interesting intepretation it can be done, but it’s not getting us any closer to understanding either side of it.
United States | Tuesday, 21 August 2007 at 7:39 am
Pez said...Dissociating a belief in god from a belief in religion is well and good for the purposes of supporting a belief in god. The problem I have with this is that people who believe in god but do not associate themselves with a religion are in the vast minority; perhaps it can rationalise some people’s belief, but for the vast majority it is inadequate.
My other problem is that it doesn’t support it’s conclusion that belief in god is rational.
How does science being unable to explain fundamentally why things exist make a belief in god rational? How do we know what it requires for nothing to become something?
We don’t so we can’t conclude it requires a god.
Equally we can’t conclude it doesn’t require a god but for me at least it is irrational to believe in something without requirement or evidence. Our existence isn’t evidence of a god because we don’t know what existence requires
United Kingdom | Tuesday, 21 August 2007 at 10:59 am
David Fairthorne said...David Fairthorne: “The professor claims to have proved the existence of God.”
redewenur: “I haven’t found that claim.”
Thanks, redewenur, for pointing that out. The professor merely claims that theism does not contradict science, which is by no means the same as claiming that science supports theism. I agree that science has nothing to say about the existence or nonexistence of God or gods. [Funnily enough atheist Richard Dawkins makes the opposite claim in “The God Delusion”, that the nonexistence of God is a scientific hypothesis, implying that it could conceivably be falsified by scientific methods.]
But I am still confused by the professor’s uses of the word “God”. Near the beginning he seems to be using the word “God” to mean a supernatural entity (that may or may not exist). But then he *defines* the word “God” as the answer to the FQP. The answer to a question is merely a series of words, not a supernatural being. The existence of a verbal answer to the FQP is not the same as the existence of a supernatural being. Besides I find it misleading to use the same word to mean two different things. I can only suppose that his definition of God is not quite what he intended. Perhaps he meant to define God as a supernatural entity referred to in an answer to the FQP, as opposed to the answer itself. If you think I am splitting hairs, I am in the company of many distinguished philosophers!
Canada | Tuesday, 21 August 2007 at 12:44 pm
Kaell said...Umm, this is just equivocation through deceptive redefinition. Why can’t you use the terms as people mean then rather than redefine them? My guess is intent to deceive through confused equivocation of the terms.
If you redefine ‘Theistic God’ to mean the force that holds people to the Earth, and then provide a good argument for Gravity, and conclude that ‘Theistic Gods’ exist, this is merely linguistic trickery intended to deceive.
All you’ve proven is that there is something at a deeper layer that (if you assume certain natures of the universe which are as of yet unproven and could be disproved) is necessary and as yet unknown, possibly unknowable. This is completely irrelevant to the argument about the irrationality of THEISM (not your redefinition of the term). And THEISM is still irrational.
-Kaell
United States | Tuesday, 21 August 2007 at 3:17 pm
n33kos said...This is sometimes referred to as the presuppositional method.
It has been around for quite some time, and the further we delve into things like quantum physics, we find its significance more and more apparent.
If you’re interested, this same issue is addressed in a 1980’s debate between Dr.Greg Bahnsen and Dr. Gordon Stein, the latter being a well respected atheist, and the prior being a prominent Christian theist. The debate is called “does God exist?” if I remember correctly. Rather entertaining, these men had fantastic minds, and as they are both dead, they now know who was really right about it all :)
United States | Tuesday, 21 August 2007 at 3:20 pm
Kaell said...Oh, and I forgot to add, you’re trying the cosmological argument in essence, which is ad-hoc reasoning, and fallacious. You’re assuming that laws of physics need a cause basically, a justification for their existence. And yet you abandon this requirement when it comes to the topic of a god. Why is this? Under what form of logic is this valid? The answer is, none.
Any answer you provide for why a god exists without a ‘why’ answer for its existence, can be used for some non-god law or force or something else. But as I said in the last post, you’re just naming whatever this thing is “god”, which doesn’t shed any light on anything to say “whatever the answer is, name it God, therefor God exists”.
United States | Tuesday, 21 August 2007 at 3:25 pm
David Fairthorne said...I agree with the author’s conclusion that science has nothing to say about the existence or non-existence of God or gods. And I thank the author for making possible this interesting debate.
I also agree strongly with commentator “secularskeptic” who says that the Fundamental Question of Philosophy is a currently unanswerable problem. But I would go further by saying that that question can never be answered by scientific means.
And I also agree strongly with commentator “exmoron” who refutes the historic “first cause” argument, explains the “God of the gaps” concept, and says most clearly that God is an unknowable concept, being outside the purview of science. But again I would go further by saying that if it’s outside the purview of science it probably isn’t worth knowing anyway.
Commentator Gareth Edwards asked what would remain of a God without religion. The religions with most of us are familiar have *theistic* Gods who intervene in people’s daily lives, often in a highly disruptive way, by telling us what to do and what not to do, often on pain of death and eternal suffering in the supposed hereafter. A religion-less God would be a *deistic* God who just designed and created the universe and left it to evolve. That assumes that there was a beginning of time; but Stephen Hawking in “A brief history of time” suggested one possible scenario in which space and time had no beginning or end; in that case a deistic God would have nothing to create or design, so may as well not exist (by the parsimony principle known as Ockham’s razor).
Canada | Tuesday, 21 August 2007 at 3:27 pm
Sean said...This is well written, but when you define God as “the event that began the universe”, you seem to be ‘moving the goalposts’ quite a distance from their original location. As an agnostic, and under that strict definition, I would be more than willing to accept the possibility of the existence of God. However, in terms of contemporary debate over God’s existence, this seems to me hardly comparable to the entity most people argue over. In fact, the ambiguity of the required qualities for “God” is a central reason why I am agnostic, and why I regard the question of its existence as irrelevant.
Must God be unlimited in scope of power? Is God what we would refer to as a singular conscious entity, a collection of consciousnesses, or is it an unconscious force? If it is an entity, does it have a gender? Must God necessarily be benevolent, or can God be evil or neutral? Does God play an active role in the universe? Is there more than one God? Is God a static or dynamic being? Can God influence free will? Those who would normally unite under the banner of theists, but are of different religious faiths, would each provide a different set of answers, and thus a different definition of God. If even the simple uniform definition for what we are trying to seek or prove cannot be agreed upon, then the search itself is fruitless.
Enemies of religion should stop asking the question, “does God exist”. It is a barren path, as no answer given can possibly be satisfactory. You are right in observing that religion is not the same as theism, and thus theism in insulated from most typical complaints.
However, the sword is double-edged; Under these conditions, religion is no longer protected by theism. If we are being honest, we must admit that the extreme majority of those interested in a confirmation of theism are those that need it to confirm THEIR God. Therefore, the compelling and relevant question shouldn’t be “does God exist?”, but rather “does YOUR God exist?”
United States | Tuesday, 21 August 2007 at 8:12 pm
Free Thinker said...Why is it that people who believe in God never explain where God came from? Why is it more logical for them to believe that God has always existed than to believe that the universe does not require God to explain it? God is only a mythology that the less intelligent of the human species still believe in. I feel for them as human evolution is leaving them behind. Their only hope is to stop using their belief in God to oppress other people. Then they will be allowed their delusion as it will be safe for the rest of humanity to allow it to persist.
United States | Tuesday, 21 August 2007 at 8:36 pm
David Fairthorne said...In my opinion gods exist only in the human imagination, usually as part of religions. Religions serve the psychologically important purpose of justifying wishful thinking about hopes and fears. This can be seen in the development of cargo cults. In theocracies, religions are given legitimacy and are perpetuated by the force of law. Gods without religions are of philosophical interest, but have no practical consequences.
The recent books by Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens are mainly aimed against the destructive consequences of religious faiths. They do not dwell on the philosophical arguments for and against the existence of God or gods. An older book called “Atheism - the case against God” by George H Smith, written in 1974 and now regarded as a classic, uses philosophical, psychological and practical arguments. Also the Wikipedia article “Existence of God” clearly summarizes the arguments for and against, with pointers to other articles on each argument.
Canada | Wednesday, 22 August 2007 at 6:28 am
Prof. Slayer said...The prof still hasn’t answered the FQP because he still has the universe coming out of something and posits God as the cause. So why God would be the next question and so on ad infinitum. All he has done is slipped in the cosmological (first cause) argument and jumped from natural to supernatural.
The cosmological argument is like asking…
Question: “What is north of America?”
Answer: “Canada”.
Question: “Okay, what is north of Canada?”
Answer: “The Arctic Circle”
Question: “What is North of The Arctic Circle?”
Answer: “The North Pole”
Question: “What is north of the North Pole?”
Answer: “Um, nothing”.
The cosmological argument is ultimately fallacious, just as it is when asking what is further north than north.
And none of this explains why there is something rather than nothing.
Prof Slayer.
United Kingdom | Thursday, 23 August 2007 at 5:56 am
Dawson said...This is silly.
The concept of one god would not exist were it not for religion. It took thousands of years for humans to develop the idea of there being only one general, kind of vague god, and that only came about from slowly abandoning principals of religion that no longer suited societies. The notion of a deistic god is a fairly new phenomenon. Therefore there is no reason to find ways to support the existence of one creator god as if it were some universal concept that humans have held forever. It’s like supporting the idea that a democracy is the penultimate form of government; it’s actually quite new and experimental.
I am beginning to agree with the idea that agnostics are the worst of the lot. They have the sense to understand that religion is innane, yet they are unable to move their skepticism to Point Zero. Does it not make more sense to start from the point of imagining that no god exists? And then work from there to find evidence, or even the need, for a god? It is bad philosophy as well as bad science to stop at a comfortable spot and work “upwards” from there.
It’s difficult for people to understand that they are believing in supernatural creatures just like their stone age ancestors did, who were illiterate, had short lives, were extremely superstitious and didn’t know enough to wash their hands after taking a crap. Apparently, though, they knew something that we don’t. I always thought it was the other way around.
-- | Thursday, 23 August 2007 at 10:45 am
ck :-) said...Gentlemen!
So, to the question: “do science and rationality (S&R;) support the “doctrine or belief that there is no God?” Looks like, the score is still that this “doctrine or belief” has no relation to S&R;and cannot be supported. The discussions have drifted quite a bit, but our nuclear physicist is still correct. Great article! Great debate! Thank you!
ck :-)
Philippines | Thursday, 23 August 2007 at 10:16 pm
Andy said...Thanks for the very interesting and compelling article, Dr. Remler.
United States | Friday, 24 August 2007 at 6:34 am
Reginald Selkirk said...I’m sorry, but I missed a few things in your article. You says that science cannot answer the FQP, and therefore cannot support atheism. But does theism or deism? If you assume there is a God (an assumption not backed by any evidence whatsoever, and thus vulnerable to Occam’s razor), then why does God exist? You simply change FQP from “Why something instead of nothing?” to “Why God rather than nothing?”.
Also, early in the essay you acknowledge that theism and deism are not the same. You should therefore make it clear to your readers that your argument, a deistic argument, does not justify theism as it is practiced by the majority of religionists on the planet today.
You also jump very quickly from “the origin of the universe has not been, and perhaps cannot be, answered by science” to using the word “God.” ‘God’, as used by most people, refers to a “person” with intelligence, consciousness or purpose. using the term merely to refer to an unknown cause seems presumptious.
-- | Friday, 24 August 2007 at 7:20 am
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