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.