Beliefs are not directly chosen: part 2

This is a direct follow up to my post on the involuntary nature of belief acquisition.

William Lane Craig recently answered a “question of the week” on his website. The questioner said, in part,

I believe God exists, but I am troubled with a question.

Christians are supposed to think that God will punish atheists for choosing not to believe. But how can an sincere atheist be blamed for not believing? I don't think belief is a choice.

In response, Craig said, in part,

we can agree that a person cannot be held morally responsible for failing to discharge a duty of which he is uninformed. So the entire question is: are people sufficiently informed to be held morally responsible for failing to believe in God? The biblical answer to that question is unequivocal. First, God has provided a revelation of Himself in nature that is sufficiently clear for all cognitively normal persons to know that God exists. Paul writes to the Roman church:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened (Rom. 1. 18-21).

In Paul’s view God’s properties, His eternal power and deity, are clearly revealed in creation, so that people who fail to believe in an eternal, powerful Creator of the world are without excuse. Indeed, Paul says that they actually do know that God exists, but they suppress this truth because of their unrighteousness. As result they become so clouded in their thinking that they may actually deceive themselves into thinking that they are open-minded inquirers honestly pursuing the truth. The human capacity for rationalization and self-deception, I’m sure we’ve all observed, is very great, indeed, and in the biblical view atheists are prey to it.

Craig agrees that God won’t blame people for something they didn’t have any direct control over.

But then he goes on to insist that beliefs are chosen – that we do indeed have direct control over beliefs. In fact, Craig’s answer goes on to say that “anyone who fails to believe in God by the end of his lifetime does so only by a stubborn resistance to the work of the Holy Spirit”.

At this point I’d ask readers to consider the points I made in part 1. Aside from what I said in part 1, I’d like to add a few things.

As I explained before, our experience shows us that beliefs aren’t directly chosen. So if Paul really were saying (or implying) otherwise, then he’d be wrong. If Paul said it on behalf of God, or with God’s inspiration, then God was mistaken. I don’t think God can make mistakes (and Craig agrees), so I don’t think we should attribute mistakes to God. So again, if Paul were really saying what Craig thinks he was saying, then Paul was wrong.

(This raises questions about the nature of scripture and the Bible. I’ll share my views in another post).

Having said that, I think Craig is misinterpreting Paul. In verse 21 Paul says, “although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him”. Paul seems to be talking about believers who turned their backs on God, not people who merely lack belief.

On this point, Craig may want to point out that the passage also says,

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse

Here Paul could be interpreted as saying that the creation itself (the world around us) reveals “God’s... eternal power and divine nature”. And on that view, self-proclaimed atheists are just refusing to acknowledge what is “plain to them”.

Once again, I think Craig is misinterpreting Paul or that Paul himself was just wrong.

First, God is not “plain” to sincere atheists. If he were then self-proclaimed “atheists” would really just be believers who have forsaken God. But on the contrary, there really are people who do not have any belief in God whatsoever. Here’s an alternative interpretation of the text: Paul was talking about people who already believed, people for whom God was “plain”. Since they believed God created the world, all they had to do was look at the marvels in the world in order to see God’s magnificence (his “eternal power”). Despite knowing God and his power, they still ended up turning their backs on him.

Second, let’s assume that Craig’s interpretation is correct - that Paul really was saying that God’s existence is obvious from the world around us. If so, then Paul was overlooking something (and so is Craig): Even IF certain features of the world point to a higher intelligence, they do not point to Christian theism. In other words, somebody could look at those features and (on the basis of those features) have just as much reason for inferring polytheism, or panpsychism, or idealism, or Islam, or deism, some non-traditional monotheism.

Beliefs are not directly chosen: Part 1

A while back, in a different blog, I posted two essays on hell. I argued that the Jewish and Christian scriptures could be reasonably interpreted as supporting a form of universalism. I also made a few philosophical arguments.

I haven't touched the essays in a long time and they both need a lot of work. I want to eventually include new themes and expand upon those already mentioned.

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

I want to share an expert from part 2. You may need to read both parts in order to fully appreciate the footnote I include at the end of the excerpt.

[...] specific religious beliefs are often “an accident of geography”, i.e. largely (though not entirely) influenced by environment and geographic location. People who grow up in the Middle East are more likely to have Islamic beliefs by no choice of their own; it is a matter of conditioning. They usually do not feel any pull towards Christianity, just as Christians usually do not feel any pull towards Islam. And although some Muslims convert to Christianity (and vice versa), they usually are not swayed by apologists on the other side. We do not choose what we believe, or at least most people do not. Instead, people can choose to perform an investigation, but the result of that investigation is not chosen – the mind involuntarily assents to a particular conclusion based on what strikes the investigator as most reasonable. Whether something appears more reasonable depends on several factors (including neurobiological and cultural).

An agnostic may be “moved” into becoming a Christian, but similarly, a Christian may be reluctantly swayed by atheists. For example, Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman grew up Christian, but “painfully” became an agnostic during his scholarly education. He did not want to lose his Christian faith, but he had no choice. Many atheists are reluctant atheists in the sense that they truly yearn to have a belief in God, but simply cannot produce it (by no fault of their own).

If beliefs are freely chosen, then I could will myself into believing that Bill Clinton is really an alien from Mars. But no matter how hard I try to force myself into believing that claim, I will never believe it apart from convincing evidence (or what I perceive to be convincing evidence).

If God imposes retributive punishment onto people because of their beliefs, then God punishes them for something they cannot control, which means that God would hold them responsible for something they are not actually responsible for. To drive home this point, consider the following scenario. Tim is a father to three children whom he loves dearly. The love Tim has for his children can be described as patient, unfailing, embracing, and something that compels him to do whatever he can to achieve the best interest of his children. As a demonstration of his love for his children, Tim places wonderful gifts beneath the Christmas tree. So far, there is nothing inconsistent about his behavior. However, Tim goes on to tell his children that if they do not believe that he is the person who placed the gifts beneath the tree, then the children will suffer a horrible fate: They will be separated from Tim for the rest of their lives. More than that, the children must acquire the belief by Christmas Eve (Christmas day will be too late). Tim says it will be okay if they acquire the belief by 11:59 PM on Christmas Eve, but no later. If they acquire it a minute later, then it will be “too late”, regardless of how sincere the children are.

Most of us would characterize Tim’s behavior as appalling. We also recognize the sharp contrast between loving and unloving behavior in this scenario. [10] There are people with such split personalities, where one aspect feels love and expresses love, while the other aspect feels rage and expresses it through violence. But surely God is not like that – not if God “is love”, has “love” for all human beings (including “enemies”), and expresses that “love” to them (see chapter 2). Love, when properly defined, is mutually exclusive with the type of behavior exhibited by hypothetical Tim. But it is also incompatible with the idea that God imposes endless misery onto people who fail to acquire certain beliefs before they physically die (see chapter 2 for a more thorough defense of this argument).

A few additional points should be made. It should be pointed out that disbelieving in Jesus’ divinity and resurrection is not the same as outright rejecting Jesus. Before going further, allow me to define my use of “reject”. I am using it in a social sense, e.g. “I asked a girl out to dinner, but she rejected me” (something that cannot occur if the girl does not believe in the existence of the person she is rejecting). Genuine atheists cannot reject Jesus in that sense of the word because they do not believe that Jesus exists to be rejected. People can reject something only if it exists to be rejected (or if they think that the thing exists). Likewise, Muslims do not reject Jesus (in the aforementioned sense of “reject”); they simply have a different set of beliefs about Jesus’ nature and ministry. However, if these same persons were to become convinced of Jesus’ divinity and resurrection, but turned Jesus away, then we could claim that they have rejected Jesus. One cannot knowingly reject a gift unless one believes that the gift exists in the first place. To clarify, I am not denying that some people will/do reject God, but instead I am attempting to demonstrate that Christians should not be so condemning towards those with non-Christian beliefs.

[FOOTNOTE 10: Of course, Tim could still be “just” and demonstrate justice without it violating his love. For example, if Tim’s son (Randy) were to damage his neighbor’s property, then Tim may force Randy to get a job in order to pay off the debt. This is not only just, but also educational. Tim’s love for Randy is consistent with his discipline. Perhaps Tim himself will pay off the debt, but then require Randy to some chores. Again, this is consistent with Tim’s love. But if Tim were to force Randy to do chores for eternity, then the debt will never be paid off. At that point, Tim would simply be punishing Randy for the sake of punishment, rather than for the sake of the person being punished. Moreover, Randy’s siblings (Jamie and Jessie) are fully aware of Randy’s situation and still love him; in fact, they love Randy as much as they love themselves. Not only does this disturb Jessie and Jamie, it also creates tension between them and their father.]

[END OF EXCEPRT]

Sean Hannity's failure to be "fair and balanced"

How many factual mistakes are professional reporters/anchors allowed to make before they’re reprimanded or fired?

This is part 1 of a series that highlights false claims made by reporters or anchors.

A while back Sean Hannity played carefully-edited footage of Barack Obama on taxes. You really have to see and hear it for yourself. Click here.

Hannity prefaced the video by saying,

the president had a rare moment of honesty in his speech. I hope voters around the country are watching this

Hannity then aired footage of Obama saying:

taxes are scheduled to go up substantially next year [pause] for everybody

The clip then ended and Hannity added,

Alright and I’m sure that the anointed one will make sure that it happens

However, that was only the second half of Obama’s sentence. Here is the full sentence:

Under the tax plan passed by the last administration, taxes are scheduled to go up substantially next year ... [pause] for everybody. By the way, this was by design.

So Obama was saying that taxes are scheduled to go up because of Bush’s tax plan, not his own. The clip that Sean Hannity played omitted the first half of Obama’s sentence. It was removed to make it look like Obama is the one planning on raising taxes “for everybody”.

That is outrageous. Sean Hannity was either

a) intentionally / knowingly tricking people

or

b) was himself being tricked by someone higher up in the Fox News food chain.

In either case, this is one obvious example of Fox News failing to be “fair and balanced”. Obama has consistently said that the only group he was ever planning to raise taxes on is the group of people making more than 250,000 dollars a year.