“Philosophers Against God” – On Jeremy Fogel’s Book (Column 726)

With God’s help

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

A few days ago I received from my friend Jeremy Fogel a new booklet he published, whose Hebrew title is Philosophers Against God. He wrote that he would be happy to receive critiques for and against his arguments, so I decided to devote a column to it. Almost all of these matters have been discussed by me in the past, and therefore at least in some cases I will allow myself to be brief and refer to earlier sources in my writings instead of detailing everything here.

Deconversion

Jeremy states at the very beginning of the book that his goal is to lead the reader to deconversion. He then clarifies that he does not intend to claim that there is no God or to undermine anyone’s faith. His intention is only to raise questions and to shake religious dogmatism. Later he explains that dogmatism is the mother of all sin and all evil in the world, and therefore this philosophical discussion is important for our practical lives as well. According to him, all the evil in the world is done in the name of God by those who are sure they know what He wants of them and of all of us; if we undermine that dogmatism and leave God and belief in Him as a kind of question, renouncing answers to it, the world will be much better.

Already here I will note that I too see religious fundamentalism and dogmatism as folly that also leads to problematic results. In that sense I too would like to lead us all to questioning, and I even devoted a book to it, Truth and Unstable, as well as quite a bit of my writing in general. But this is more or less the only point on which I agree with Jeremy in this booklet.

Is religious dogmatism really the mother of all sin?

Jeremy assumes, like many others, that belief in God is the mother of all sin. But unfortunately he misses a very essential point here. In the sixth chapter of my book God Plays Dice I addressed a similar claim by Dawkins (in a talkback to the previous column, David noted that the source of this saying is Steven Weinberg), who wrote that in every group there are good people who behave well and bad people who behave badly, but only in religious groups are there good people who behave badly. I must say that although this is very annoying, there is something to it. But as I showed in my book there, there are quite a few logical and factual errors woven into Dawkins’ words.

Some of the greatest mass murderers of the twentieth century were secular and even atheists: from Stalin and his fellow communists (Lenin and Engels), to Pol Pot—no small butcher himself—and more. One can debate Hitler’s religiosity (Dawkins tries to conduct such a discussion, and his tendentiousness there reaches truly absurd heights), but it is irrelevant. It is completely clear that even if he was religious in some sense, he did not murder in the name of religion. His dogmatism was ideological, not religious. The principles of Nazism are not anchored in the New Testament or in Christian thought. In general, the Nazis were much closer to paganism, and in any case we are dealing with a thoroughly secular ideology, not a religion, even if some of its adherents were religious Christians. In addition, many terror organizations around the world are not connected to religion (the Red Brigades, the Japanese Red Army, Baader–Meinhof, Carlos the Jackal, and more and more—most of them lean communist).

Therefore the more accurate claim is that most evils in the world are caused by fundamentalism or dogmatism, but not necessarily religious dogmatism. In that same chapter I showed that Dawkins himself is a zealous fundamentalist, like many of his atheist colleagues. One indication is that he advances patently absurd arguments from within, and an intelligent person like him should not have done so had he thought about things in a balanced way. This is the place to clarify more precisely what fundamentalism means for our purposes.

The problem with fundamentalism: two kinds of doubt

The philosophical definition of fundamentalism for our purposes (this is my definition, not necessarily something accepted in the field) is the placing of some claim(s) beyond critical thought. A person or group that holds position X with absolute certainty and is not prepared to subject it to critical testing or to relinquish it under any circumstances, regardless of arguments raised against it, is fundamentalist.

In this sense, even Mother Teresa (I am speaking of her image as I perceive it; I do not know her herself) was a fundamentalist, since her clinging to the good was absolute and beyond any critique. Likewise, ISIS adherents are fundamentalists, and so are many Haredim and, to a lesser extent, religious people in general. So too with the Church of “Just Not Bibi” and the Church of “Only Bibi.” Note that this definition does not depend on the content of the position the fundamentalist holds, but only on his absolute adherence to it. Mother Teresa’s fundamentalism threatens no one and harms no one (though I tend to think that fundamentalism, regardless of its content, usually brings bad results), and still it is fundamentalism.

In my book Truth and Unstable I attacked fundamentalism, not because of its moral and social consequences but mainly because I believe it is wrong. Nothing can stand beyond critical thinking (including this very principle). Beyond that, I argued there that religious faith need not be fundamentalist. The antithesis to fundamentalism is not skepticism and the absence of beliefs and/or ideologies, but holding them in a non-dogmatic fashion. I, for example, definitely hold beliefs and ideologies, and I am also willing to fight for them and pay prices, yet at the same time I am willing to hear and consider counterarguments and, if necessary, I very much hope I will be willing to relinquish or change my position.

I explained there that this is the postmodern error. For them, the necessary antithesis to fundamentalism and dogmatism is absolute doubt. But this is a mistake. The antithesis to fundamentalism is the absence of certainty. But the absence of certainty is not doubt. I, for instance, believe in God—but certainly not with certainty. Does that sound to you equivalent to someone who is wholly uncertain about God’s existence?! Even our acquaintance Dawkins divides the faith–atheism scale into seven levels. I’ll list them from memory: absolute believer (with certainty), believer very likely, fairly believing, skeptical regarding belief, fairly atheist, atheist very likely, and absolute atheist. He presents himself as a six out of seven, though his forceful writing indicates he is quite close to level seven (as I wrote above, he is a fundamentalist).

The problem I see in fundamentalism is not its social harms and the cruel extremism that usually represents it in our consciousness. I see a philosophical problem in fundamentalism, and this exists even in Mother Teresa’s fundamentalism. Absolute faith in something is simply an error, before the question of whether it is harmful or not. The reason is that we have no possibility of reaching any conclusion with certainty. True, this error magnifies problems that exist within problematic contents. Cruel or immoral conceptions are problematic, but when someone holds them fundamentally the problem is greatly magnified. There are people with communist views who do not murder and do not support murder, and there are fundamentalist communists who did advocate murder. There are Muslims who do not murder and do not support murder, and there are fundamentalist Muslims who do. The primary problem is usually not the problematic content but the dogmatic grip on it.

As noted above, fundamentalism does not necessarily come from a religious source. I brought examples of horrific and extremely cruel dogmatism on the part of overtly secular groups. The conclusion is that evil and problematic outcomes stem from a problematic ideology, religious or not, and they are only magnified when those ideologies are held fundamentally, whether for religious reasons or otherwise. Therefore, instead of writing a book against God, Jeremy should have written a book against certainty and against fundamentalism in general, irrespective of God. Such a book should examine the relation between truth and certainty and point out that holding to the truth does not mean holding it with certainty. There one could also show that while God is not a necessary basis for fundamentalism, He is a necessary basis for truth (at least on the axiological plane). It would also be worth pointing out there that an assault on God is an assault on the very notion of truth, and although a fundamentalist world is an evil and mistaken world, I would not want to live in a bland, boring, meaningless world in which there is no truth and nothing to live for or even to fight for. Oops—I just remembered that there already is such a book: Truth and Unstable. 😊

In passing I will note that although philosophically God is the basis for truth and from that also for fundamentalism, practically, as we have seen, there are quite a few extreme and dangerous fundamentalists unconnected to Him. They are indeed philosophically mistaken (just as one who thinks there is binding morality without God is mistaken, as I showed in column 456—I’ll note that the debate referenced there was moderated by Jeremy Fogel), but that does not make them any less dangerous.

On questions and answers

Jeremy repeatedly writes in his book that questions are far more important, beautiful, and sacred than answers. Here too, in my view, he goes too far. I am very much in favor of questions, and I am unwilling to leave anything outside the realm of inquiry. But why exalt the question—and even more so the absence of answers—so fanatically and dogmatically? What is wrong with answers? Jeremy writes that questions are always better and wiser than answers. I do not know whence he draws this claim (incidentally, this very claim is not a question; it is quite categorical for someone who dislikes categorical answers), and I see little substance to it.

There are wonderful answers and weak answers, just as there are wonderful questions and weak questions. In my eyes, the willingness to ask is indeed very important—but not because questions are a lofty ideal and answers are submission to small-mindedness. Questions are important because they are the best means of arriving at more and more answers and not settling for the answers we have. Questions are a means to fight fundamentalism, but fighting it does not mean adopting a skeptical stance. Questions about dogmatic claims arise in order to seek alternative answers. For every question we should propose an answer, yet recognize that it is neither absolute nor certain. It is indeed important to reach answers to the best of our ability; it is just not right or desirable to hold them dogmatically and absolutely. As I wrote above: when fighting absolutes, the alternative is not necessarily skepticism and the absence of answers.

Synthetic maturity as an alternative to fundamentalism

In my books Two Carts and Truth and Unstable, I described a three-stage maturation process of a person and paralleled it to the three-stage maturation of our civilization as a whole:

• In the first stage, childhood, the child accepts what he is told as absolute truth. This is a dogmatic stage. If father or mother or the teacher says X, he accepts it as self-evident. In the development of our civilization this is the pagan stage, where dogmatic beliefs were taken for granted from the sages, magicians, or elders of the tribe.
• At some point comes adolescent rebellion, where the youth challenges the adults who explain things and says: Who says? Prove it! His presumption is that he is a rational being unwilling to accept things without proof. He views the adults as dogmatic creatures who make claims without proofs. In the development of our civilization one can see the beginning of adolescence in Greece. There philosophy and logic began to develop and take shape, expressing the fact that the Greeks ceased to accept dogmas as self-evident. Not for nothing does Jeremy sing praises to Socrates, who wandered and asked questions and thereby undermined the prevailing conventions (though he was executed for it).

Adolescence ends when the youth realizes that he has no way to reach certainty. Nothing has a proof, for every proof is based on premises, and premises, by virtue of being premises, have no proof. Here a fracture is formed: the youth who decided to be rational and to accept only proven and certain claims now sees that there are no such claims (save for logical tautologies—but that is not very interesting). He stands before a broken trough: his hope to formulate positions in a rational and certain way has been dashed. This is the point where adolescence ends and we reach the threshold of the third period: adulthood. So what do we do? How do we exit this state and become adults?

• To better understand, I will sharpen the problem the youth faces at the threshold of adulthood. He now holds two insights: (A) Only a certain claim is acceptable. (B) There are no certain claims. What can be the next step? There are three possibilities:

1. Remain with both insights and become a skeptic. If only certain claims are acceptable and there are no certain claims, then no claims are acceptable. This is skeptical maturity.
2. Adopt insight A and reject B. That is, remain with the conception that only certain claims are acceptable, but deny that we cannot reach certainty. True, by logical argument one cannot reach certainty (for every argument rests on premises)[1], but there are transcendent sources beyond thought that can grant us certainty. This is certainty based on dogmas above critical thinking. And this is of course fundamentalist maturity.
3. Adopt insight B and reject A. That is, claim that not only certain claims are acceptable. One may adopt claims even if we have no certainty about them, as long as they are within the bounds of the reasonable. Common sense or intuition are the basic tools in this mode of maturity. This is what I called synthetic maturity (the term follows Kant, but I won’t go into it here).

In the development of our civilization, the stage at which we moved from adolescence to adulthood was roughly the mid-twentieth century. Logical positivism was the essence of the adolescent conception that championed certainty and was prepared to accept only proven claims (or the result of direct empirical observations) and well-defined concepts. That conception broke in the mid-twentieth century, and some attribute this to the world wars. For our purposes, this is the stage at which the world matured. Three streams of adults now arose: postmodernism is skeptical maturity; fundamentalism is the second type; and synthetic maturity is the third. These have been wrestling since the mid-twentieth century, with postmodernism unable to cope with fundamentalism because both conceptions agree that only certain claims are acceptable (the difference between them is only whether such claims exist). Therefore the postmodernist has nothing to say to the fundamentalist who presents “higher” sources of truth. No wonder postmodernism digests fundamentalism into itself (via various New Age phenomena). Thus again and again fundamentalist “truth” demands equal status as one of the narratives in the circle of differences in the postmodern world—and it indeed receives it (post-colonialism and attitudes toward Muslim immigration to Europe express this phenomenon). In recent years postmodernism and fundamentalism have practically fused symbiotically (see the postmodern circles worldwide that support Muslim fundamentalism against the West and, of course, against us in Israel).

From here you can understand that the only way to truly confront fundamentalism is the synthetic way, for it is willing to dispute the fundamentalist “truth” and not grant it equal status, even without certainty on its own path. If you want to confront ISIS, it is not right to tell them that they are as right as we are and at most defend ourselves with force in order to be spared. A real alternative must offer an alternative truth, not a postmodern vacuum. In the aforementioned books I also showed that the only basis for synthetics—that is, for uncertain truth—is… God, and therefore a war against Him is a war against life and against the world.

Note that we again encounter the same fallacy described above. The conception that the only way to present an alternative to fundamentalism is skepticism—the conception of skeptical maturity—leads to a colossal failure of the West. Therefore, as I wrote above, the more appropriate fight is not against God but against fundamentalism on the one hand and skepticism on the other. Note that, surprisingly, Jeremy Fogel and his fundamentalist counterparts stand on the same side of the barricade, and their conceptions are harmful in rather similar ways (for one builds the other). To attack fundamentalism, Jeremy chooses to present in opposition a skeptical stance that believes in questions without answers—that is, in doubt as a value. But as I noted, this only plays into its hands, and there is here a very basic philosophical fallacy. In the last sections we saw that same fallacy in the social sphere and in our real world, and it can be properly understood only by descending to its philosophical depth.

Up to here I dealt with the framework of the discussion, and this is actually my main point. I will now nevertheless enter into a critique of the book’s content itself, doing so according to the chapters of the book.

A. Saint David

The first chapter deals with David Hume, and Jeremy claims that with Hume’s winning arguments one can easily dismantle the accepted images of God and His desires. At the end of p. 20 Jeremy Fogel explains that Hume’s attack on faith has two heads, each directed against a different pillar of faith: (1) the possibility of inferring (the existence of) God from nature; (2) the possibility of knowing something about God from miracle stories in the scriptures.

I have dealt at length with both of these challenges in several places in the past, so I will not enter into great detail here. The first challenge attacks the physico-theological proof, what is called “the argument from design” or Paley’s “watchmaker” argument. The watchmaker argument says that if we see a watch somewhere we will not assume it arose by chance. Something so complex was certainly made by a maker (a watchmaker). If so, the universe—which is much more complex—was certainly made by some maker.

Jeremy claims that evolution refuted these arguments, which is of course a misunderstanding. In my book God Plays Dice, and later in the third dialogue of my book The First Being, I explained this argument at great length and why evolution does not touch it at all. In short: evolution offers an explanation for the emergence of life within the laws—that is, given the system of laws in our universe. But the argument from the laws wonders whence those laws themselves came. This has no scientific explanation and cannot have one. On p. 23 Jeremy himself raises a similar (though not identical) distinction when he writes that nowadays theological claims rely on physics rather than biology (because there, in his opinion, Darwin solved the problem). The question is how we got to the stage of biology at all—that is, who is responsible for the fine-tuning of the laws of physics. Against this he raises several hackneyed rejoinders (the anthropic principle, multiverses, what is so special about our world that it needs explanation?!). I will not go into them here since I explained in the aforementioned books why none of them hold water.

But all this is not about Hume, for these are modern debates (Darwin published his book in 1870, and Hume died almost a century earlier). From p. 28 Jeremy presents Hume’s rejoinders against the physico-theological argument. Essentially there are two main claims:

1. The analogy between the universe and a watch is unfounded. A tiger is also a complex creature and no one asks who made it. A watch is an object that serves a purpose, and therefore it is clear someone made it.

This is a very strange claim. First, if I were to show a watch to a person from Africa who had never seen such a thing and does not know what it is for, would he not ask himself who assembled this odd and complex object? Second, why indeed not ask who made the tiger? I certainly wonder about that, and my answer is: God. Jeremy’s mistake is that he thinks these questions are based on experience, and they are not. They are based on logic and philosophy (indeed, to some extent even on mathematics). The probability that something complex will arise spontaneously is very small (this is essentially the second law of thermodynamics). This is not a result of experience but of calculation. Therefore this principle is true for tigers just as for watches. Hume was an empiricist and therefore fell into this error, but from a contemporary philosopher I would expect more. To be clear, I am not claiming this is a scientific thesis or that the second law of thermodynamics proves God’s existence. I am using it only to define complexity objectively and to clarify the argument that denies the possibility that complex things arise spontaneously.

2. If every complex thing requires a maker, as the physico-theological argument assumes, and therefore there must be a God who created our universe—then who created God Himself?

Here there is a misunderstanding. There are only two possibilities: either there is an infinite regress of causes, or there is a beginning to the chain of causes. The first possibility is a fallacy (an infinite regress), which leads us to the second. The first link in the chain is called “God.” The question “who created God” has no answer and requires none. No one created Him. He exists without needing a prior cause (ancient philosophy described this, not very successfully, as “self-cause.” Likewise “God who created Himself,” in Jeremy’s phrasing, is absurd. God was never created). If God too needed a cause for His existence, we would be trapped in an infinite regress.

One may of course wonder whether the existence of such a link does not refute the premise that a complex thing needs a maker, and my answer is no. A complex thing of the kinds known to us in the world (which by nature do not exist eternally) requires a maker. Therefore the first link in the chain should be of a different kind—one that does not require an external cause for its existence. That is God.

On p. 31 Jeremy raises a third claim: even if there is such a God who created the universe, who says this is our religious God? And who says He is one? The answer is of course: no one. Philosophy can take us only to domains accessible to it. It can prove that the universe had a Creator, but the claim that He wants us to don tefillin or to eat the Eucharist is a claim not accessible to philosophy. Believers do not arrive at it by philosophical means either, but by revelation. Which brings us to the second pillar Hume challenges: the possibility of receiving a tradition about a miracle or a revelation.

Here I will not enter into this argument, since I dealt with it in great detail in columns 671–673 (written following a debate I had with Jeremy). To my (objective) judgment, I completely dismantled there Hume’s argument against miracles and tradition and showed it to be a collection of question-beggings that does not hold a drop of water. I sent those columns to Jeremy, but now I see that this somehow did not prevent him from enthusing over Hume’s argument as is customary among our atheist cousins (in those columns I described the superlatives this argument receives from them, unjustly). Hume’s arguments against the uniqueness of biblical traditions (p. 35 ff.) are likewise far from convincing, and I hope you will forgive me for not entering here. Even Jeremy’s own claim (I think Hume did not raise it) that tradition is based on a single book rather than on thousands of transmitters across generations is incorrect, and I explained that to him back then (I believe this was already discussed in our podcast). Tradition is transmitted orally by many thousands of people and is accompanied by the Torah scroll. The tradition is not based on the book; rather, the book’s reliability is based on it.

In general, in my book The First Being I present a complete picture of the chain of arguments that lead me to faith, and there I address all these claims in detail. Here I only noted the main points in his remarks.

B. Against God?

In this chapter Jeremy tries to clarify Hume’s motives and aims. His claim is that Hume did not come to undermine God’s existence but only the certainty we can have about His existence, and even if He exists we can have no certainty regarding what He wants of us. He also explains that Hume’s motivation was the danger inherent in religious fanaticism and certainty.

Note: Jeremy claims that Hume’s arguments show that we have no way to know with certainty that God exists (an epistemic claim), but that does not mean there is no God (an ontic claim). I fully agree. But from here Jeremy slips without noticing to the conclusion that one can know of God’s existence—just not with certainty. To my understanding this was not Hume’s view, nor does it follow from Jeremy’s arguments. I will explain now, and I hope Jeremy will forgive me if I disagree with him and with his admired lecturer, Edward Craig.

Hume was an empiricist, and as such he believed that we have no way to know anything about the world except through empirical observation; that is, the only source of information we can have about reality is observation. What is not observable we have no way to know (not even without certainty). Regarding it we must be in complete doubt. I remind you of what I explained above: lack of certainty is not doubt. To know something with high probability is knowledge without certainty, but I would not call it doubt. By contrast, the inability to know something means I doubt it—not merely that I lack certainty about it. Thus, for example, if Hume shows that the principle of causality and causal relations are not the result of observation, the conclusion for him is not that we have no certainty that there is causality, but that we have no way to know that there is causality, meaning we have no way to know it even without certainty. That is, for him the principle of causality is a mere subjective invention (which I strongly dispute). Admit there is a difference between that and saying the principle of causality is uncertain (a statement I accept).

From here you can also understand that even if Jeremy and Craig are right—that Hume’s motivation in undermining dogmatism was to erode religious dogmatism—he took a path too extreme. He showed that we have no way to know that there is a God, not merely that we cannot be certain about Him. Moreover, if his intention was only to erode dogmatism, there is no need for Hume’s extreme empiricism. There is no thesis in the universe that can be held with certainty, except for logical tautologies. For that one needs no argument—only minimal grasp of cognition and thought. Even the evidence of the senses, the most “absolute” fact for the empiricist, rests on the uncertain assumption that our senses reliably reflect reality (and do not merely generate hallucinations). That too is not a certain assumption. To oppose certainty, no complex arguments like Hume’s are required, which proves he did not intend only to erode believers’ dogmatism but to undermine God’s existence—or at least our ability to know of His existence. True, he did not prove that God does not exist, but he argued that we ought to be in doubt regarding Him (and not merely that our knowledge is uncertain).

I will add something else. In my opinion, a thinker’s motivation is irrelevant to the philosophical discussion. One must discuss his arguments on their merits, examine whether they are valid, and to what extent his conclusions are reasonable. This mixing—repeated throughout the book—bothers me greatly. If you have a claim, present arguments for it and against alternatives. Do not explain to me how harmful and ugly my position is; rather, show me that it is incorrect and explain why. Dubious conjectures about Hume’s motives do not contribute to the philosophical discussion, even if they add a pinch of topical salt and pepper. When the arguments do not hold water, we are left with the motives, and in effect this becomes preaching against dogmatism and fundamentalism instead of arguing against them.

I do indeed agree that dogmatism and fundamentalism—not necessarily religious—lead to ills. The way to fight them is to erode (by argument, not by preaching) certainty and dogmatism, but not to erode belief in God per se. What Jeremy and Hume try to do is to attack belief, not certainty about it. All the arguments there concern the very ability to know, not the degree of certainty of that knowledge.

C. The holy hum of doubt

In this chapter Jeremy turns to Socrates. The chapter’s main theme is the sanctity of doubt and questioning and disdain for answers. I already touched on this point above. Socrates is a model of one who challenges every assumption and seeks definitions for every concept. He made people think and define, and showed them that they do not truly understand concepts and claims that seem clear to them. Here too one may interpret doubt and questioning as the great ideal, but to me these are means. The goal is to define better and to find answers. True, for that one must adopt a stance that challenges every concept and insight—but those are means, not ends. What is the point of inquiry if it is not meant to make us wiser? To turn inquiry itself into a value is very odd. Perhaps we will not reach an answer—but that does not mean answers have no value. It only means we need not panic when we lack an answer; but that is not an ideal state.

Indeed, in such an approach we are very aware that all our understandings and conclusions are uncertain. Such an approach does lead to lack of certainty—but not necessarily to doubt in the sense described in the previous chapter. Therefore I very much connect to, and identify with, Socratic sophism. But this hymn to inquiry and challenge, which I fully share, does not dovetail with the trend of undermining our very ability to know anything and of deifying the question at the expense of answers. It does dovetail with the trend of showing that we cannot know anything with certainty. The blurring and lack of distinction between these two states—uncertainty and doubt—and in particular the overly smooth, unwitting transitions between them, are what troubled me throughout the book.

I will only note that the portrayal of Abraham our forefather as a dogmatic antithesis to the inquisitive, challenging Socrates is highly tendentious. True, Abraham heeded without challenge the command to bind his son, but as Jeremy himself notes, he also bargained with the Holy One, blessed be He, like a horse trader over the city of Sodom. Commentators have long explained the differences between these cases. It seems that despite his reservations, Jeremy again tacitly assumes that anyone who has a position—and in particular if he is willing to pay prices for it—is not a skeptic and is therefore dogmatic. But no: he indeed is not a skeptic, but not necessarily dogmatic either. He holds positions and values, only not with certainty. Lack of certainty does not mean lack of position and values, nor an unwillingness to pay prices for them. Again we see a confusion between lack of certainty and doubt and an ignoring of the middle state between dogmatism and skepticism.

Finally, I must recall that Socrates ended his life by giving his life for the sanctity of Athenian law. Is that not fundamentalist dogmatism, like that of Abraham our forefather? Why does this not bother Jeremy in his admiration for Socrates? Where was Socrates’ vaunted skepticism when he could have cut corners regarding the law, saved his life, and no less—continued to impart his great and edifying wisdom to the public? It seems he too was willing to pay prices for his ethical stance, though as Socrates we may assume he probably was not convinced it was true—just like Abraham our forefather.

D. Pyrrho’s enlightened skepticism

The fourth chapter is a paean to Pyrrhonian skepticism. In it Jeremy surprisingly gives credence to various mythical stories—say, about Kalanos’s prophecies regarding Alexander’s death that came true—and somewhat forgets his sacred skepticism toward similar stories on the Jewish–Christian side. Likewise with the (Talmudic) myth about a meeting between Alexander and the Jewish priests, which probably never happened (for Shimon the Righteous did not live in Alexander’s time). But the bottom line for our purposes is that the Pyrrhonians were skeptics. They did not hold that we cannot know anything with certainty (a trivial claim, as noted), but that we cannot know anything. Period. Does Jeremy’s booklet come to support this or to oppose dogmatism? This chapter brings to a peak the dissonance between what Jeremy declares (that he opposes dogmatism) and what he actually does (he opposes holding any claims at all). True, on p. 85 Jeremy adopts an interpretation according to which Pyrrho too obeyed common sense and merely relinquished certainty—but this is highly implausible. Even if he was a thoroughgoing skeptic, that does not mean he would not step aside for a speeding wagon; only the rationale he would give would be “that’s what I feel like doing,” not “that is the right thing to do.” Likewise, contemporary skeptics do not claim they will jump off a roof because they have no way of knowing whether it is less safe than walking to the sidewalk. Everyone acts by their feelings; skeptics just attribute it to feeling, while others attribute it to truth and falsehood (even if uncertain).

From p. 87 to the end of the chapter he discusses the problem of evil. It is a bit odd to devote two and a half pages of a small booklet to this issue, but he presents Sextus Empiricus’s argument as follows:

If the gods cared for all things, nothing bad or evil would exist in the universe. But people say that everything is full of evil. Therefore we should not say that the gods care for all. But if they care even for some things, why precisely these and not others… Either the gods both want to and can care for all, or they want to but cannot, or they can but do not want to, or they neither want to nor can.

Jeremy notes the expression “people say” and learns from it that the skeptical Empiricus suspends judgment even about whether evil exists at all. The decisiveness with which Jeremy speaks about Anne Frank’s fate and God’s share in it does not reflect similar skepticism.

As for Empiricus’s argument, Jeremy explains that if they cannot, then they are weak, and if they do not want to, then they are evil, and thus we are left in doubt whether gods exist at all (for if they have no effect, one cannot discern their existence and infer it from anything).

This is a sharp and elegant formulation of the problem of evil. But it contains quite a few holes. For example, who says it is problematic if they cannot? Perhaps the gods are not omnipotent? And even if they are omnipotent, who says it is even possible to create a world without evil? I, for one, have argued several times that I think it is impossible, and the burden of proof lies on the one who raises the challenge. Before challenging the gods for not solving the problem of evil, one must show that there is a solution that does not involve a logical contradiction (see, for example, column 547 and others). And if you are not even sure there is evil, I do not understand how you infer from this that there is no God or gods. If you are a skeptic, then in any case you doubt everything and need no arguments to do so. I do not see why it is preferable to doubt the existence of evil and from there deduce that there is doubt about God. Doubt the claim that God exists directly. It seems to me much less plausible than the claim that evil exists.

In short, after two and a half such profound pages, Jeremy brings Sextus Empiricus’s conclusion:

From here we can also infer that those who unequivocally claim that the gods exist are likely guilty of impiety; for if they claim that the gods are responsible for all things, they will claim that the gods cause evil; and if they say the gods are responsible only for some things or for none, they will be forced to say that the gods are weak or evil—statements that are clearly the speech of heretics.

At most, you have refuted the claim that the gods are omnipotent or absolutely good. That is indeed heresy according to conventional religious conceptions, but what has that to do with skepticism?! It is a conclusion like any other. In this case, as noted, it is a mistaken conclusion—but that is the most one can get from Sextus Empiricus’s arguments.

Jeremy’s conclusion again pulls the matter to his direction, unjustly:

Whoever claims to know with certainty the solution to the problem of evil limits his concept of God to a mistaken image of divinity. To approach God coarsely, to believe in Him coarsely, is to make God evil and weak—and that is heresy! Pyrrhonian teaching asks us to cast off belief in a God we can know with certainty. It does not tell us not to believe; it tells us not to believe with certain belief. For if we believe with certain belief, we are obliged to call God evil or weak and thus to sin in heresy. Therefore the believer who believes is the heretic. Whoever believes does not believe.

Here the tendentiousness leads Jeremy to a crude logical error. There is no connection between Empiricus’s argument and the question of certainty. He (wrongly) shows that if you believe in a God, that God is evil or weak—but this is true whether your belief is certain or not. If there is a God, then He is evil and weak. The doubt concerns at most whether there is a God. But on the assumption that He exists, He is necessarily evil or weak. Therefore Empiricus’s argument is not an argument against certainty but, at best, against the ability to know at all—that is, a skeptical argument.

But even that is not correct. If you pay attention, the conclusion of this argument is not skeptical at all, but perfectly certain: there cannot be a God, because if there is, He is necessarily evil or weak. Everything here speaks the language of necessity and certainty, for this is a conceptual–analytic analysis, not a typical philosophical argument. But Jeremy, as is his wont, insists on pulling even the thoroughgoing skeptic toward anti-dogmatism—and you can see again that this fallacy accompanies his entire booklet.

E. He who believes does not believe

The end of the previous chapter leads us to the final chapter. Here Jeremy writes the following:

I am not claiming here that every doubt is necessarily blessed. I suppose there are doubts with destructive potential, such as doubting a person’s character without reason, or doubting science in a way not meant to promote it. And perhaps excessive doubt in action can hinder the focus, speed, and determination that firefighters or surgeons, for example, need in heroic moments of saving lives. Perhaps too sweeping self-doubt does not allow for creativity, and perhaps it is impossible to love if one constantly doubts the sincerity of one’s beloved.

But even if not every doubt is blessed, doubt about theological certainty is not like any doubt. It is not just doubt. It is the holiest of holy doubts!…

Here a fallacy that was in the subtext throughout the book now comes to light. What does “blessed doubt” or “unblessed doubt” mean? Do we choose our doubts by whether they help or harm us? In what doubt benefits us we will doubt, and in what it does not—we will not? This is shabby pragmatism, and the last person I would expect to rely on it is a philosopher. It subordinates the “is” to the “ought” in the most unphilosophical way I can imagine. Either everything is in doubt, or it is not. If indeed all things are doubtful, then all are doubtful—whether helpful or harmful. And if it is in our hands, that means we are not truly skeptics but choose to doubt for agenda-driven reasons.

I will say more. The very determination of whether a given doubt is blessed or improper itself shows that we are not dealing with skepticism. For how will you determine the blessedness or otherwise of doubt? What certain criterion will you use to decide that doubt X is blessed and doubt Y is not? This implies that you have criteria by which you assess doubt, and those criteria themselves are apparently not in doubt.

This reminds me of a Dawkins argument about morality (around p. 316 of his The God Delusion), which I criticized in the last part of the first chapter of my book God Plays Dice. I will describe it briefly. He explains that all morality is nothing but an evolutionary construction, and adds that this construction is indeed blessed (that is, correct). Again, I do not understand what criterion you use to judge constructions and decide whether they are blessed or not. You determine that the moral construction is blessed because its outcome is moral—but morality itself is a construction. So whence your criterion?

Oddly, on p. 330 of his book Dawkins himself notes a similar fallacy, but for some reason he directs his arrows precisely at believers:

Even if it were true that we need God in order to be moral, that would surely not make God’s existence any more likely, only more desirable (many people do not notice the difference between the two).

He is absolutely right. What is strange is that this does not stop him from falling into the other side of the same fallacy when he speaks about evolutionary morality, where he explains that although evolution created morality, this creation is blessed (by what criterion?). The fact that evolution created morality gives it no validity, and certainly one cannot judge it by its own criteria.

I have nothing left but to end with Jeremy’s own words (pp. 92–93):

This kind of illusory confidence, by the way, is also dangerous when it settles in other layers of the human experience, not only the religious layer. In politics too it is dangerous to be certain that your position is always just, and in that field as well a bit of doubt promotes moderation and heals zealotry. In general, it is worth interrogating ourselves now and then about all our positions—being, if you like, auto-Socratic. Even avowed atheists would do well sometimes to doubt their stance… [here comes a very typical story about Ayer the atheist who dared to blaspheme holy atheism and got battered for it by members of the atheist church; such examples abound in our environs, of course]

I can only agree with every word of this passage.

In conclusion

I will conclude with a few words directed mainly to Jeremy, as an open letter. I already addressed at the beginning of the column the mistaken link you draw between fundamentalism and religious faith. Here, in conclusion, I will address your remarks on faith in God itself.

One can, of course, dispute this or that argument—yours or mine—and hold this or that position regarding God or atheism; but my feeling on reading the book was that these weighty subjects are handled rather dismissively. You do take care to say now and then that you are not blaspheming the concepts of truth but only certainty; yet as I showed here, throughout the book you in fact do the opposite (and repeatedly blur the distinction between these two levels). The book is replete with very categorical pronouncements about burying faith and the arguments that support it, while in practice no truly strong, fundamental arguments are presented to justify this. To ground so categorical (and dogmatic) a stance, I would expect a more serious treatment of the objections to your arguments—not to dismiss them with straw. It would have sufficed had you seriously and systematically addressed the arguments I raised in my books and various posts (over which we debated, and some of which I sent you).

I must say I have similar feelings when reading many atheist (deconversion) websites, as well as many shallow sites of religious outreach. Shallow treatment of arguments accompanied by categorical pronouncements. Incidentally, this is exactly the feeling that made—and makes—me write my long, meticulous, wearying books and posts, in which I try to deal to the best of my ability (I hope successfully) with all counter-arguments and rejoinders that arise, leaving no claims or arguments untreated. My goal is to give these subjects and arguments the respectful attention they deserve, for the subject is important and fundamental. You yourself try to persuade the reader that the subject is not mere detached philosophy but very significant for the conduct of our lives (as noted above, I am not sure I was convinced by your arguments: regarding fundamentalism yes, but regarding faith not necessarily). But at least on your own terms I would expect a more thorough and in-depth treatment of the arguments. It is not reasonable that a thin booklet like this—which, in addition to its limited scope, mostly does not deal with arguments at all but with hymns of praise to David Hume, Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, and Socrates—should suffice to ground a stance in deep disputes over which multitudes have labored for over a thousand years of systematic theology; thinkers and preachers, believers and atheists, have advanced arguments, refuted, contended, debated, and remained lying by the wayside without a clear knockout (each community, of course, convinced absolute justice is on its side). A booklet like this, like the sites I mentioned on both sides, may (or might) speak to the captive audience or to a very shallow audience on the other side. From a philosophical discussion I would expect more.

You thank many people for their assistance. I do not know almost any of them, but I suspect you did not receive serious feedback from them; otherwise the product should have been different—more balanced. I give my feedback here only after the book was published and therefore it comes out somewhat negative, and I ask your forgiveness. In such a situation the feedback can no longer fix the book that has already come out, so at least I try to balance the picture it presents. I am sure your intention is good and I know your philosophical abilities are excellent. But precisely because of this, and because you asked me for honest feedback (which I very much appreciate), and especially because I agree with the book’s fundamental aim and with the dangers of dogmatism—religious or otherwise—precisely for that reason I permit myself to write and publish this critique.

[1] In the history of philosophy there were several heroic attempts to overcome this obstacle and present valid arguments that prove some conclusion without premises (in Kant’s language, “ontological arguments”). Thus, for example, Anselm’s ontological proof of God’s existence (see a detailed analysis in the first dialogue of my book The First Being, and Gödel’s version in column 160), Descartes’s cogito (see it in column 363), logical determinism (see column 459), and more. Needless to say, all these arguments fail. As Kant already argued against Anselm, one cannot prove a factual claim on the basis of conceptual analysis without premises (though in my book The First Being I criticized this critique of Kant).