In a web article entitled 'Shermer's Last Law' I read the following quote:
I had encountered this argument before, attributed to Michael Shermer, the editor of the Skeptic, though I was unaware that the argument actually originated with sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke. This shouldn't have surprised me though, as many quasi-intellectual arguments against religion that have been popular over the last half-century originated in Clarke's writings. (Clarke and Carl Sagan remain two of the most influential figures in what I call 'pop atheism', despite the rise of the new atheists.)
The above argument is similar in many respects to the popular historical argument for the incompatibility of science and theism that was repeated by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their book The Grand Design, a few years ago. In it these eminent scientists made the following argument:
End quote. The argument is simple and superficially clever: 'Once, when people were ignorant, they invented gods to explain certain natural phenomena. Now, we have science, and the gods are no longer necessary to explain why the sun rises or the seas wax and wane. So religion (in all forms) is obsolete. Science has replaced God.'
This argument, like that of Clarke above, makes one basic logical error: It equates the gods of polytheistic religions with the God of monotheism. It assumes that, if you get rid of the gods, you have no need of God, either. It assumes, in essence, that there is no fundamental, philosophically significant distinction between belief in the gods and belief in God.
This is not true. In fact, metaphysically speaking polytheism is much closer to naturalism than to theism. This claim would no doubt enrage (well...at least irk) many atheists, but it is true nonetheless. Allow me to explain why.
In polytheism the gods are nature gods. That is, they have power over certain aspects of nature, but in order to do so they must exist within nature. Thor has power over the weather (specifically thunderstorms), Poseidon has power over the sea, Mars has power over the fate of soldiers, etc. This holds true for all polytheistic mythologies: Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Hindu, Norse, Celtic, Gallic, Polynesian, etc.
A good example of this would be the ancient Greek Stoics, most of whom believed in one supreme deity, though this god was very different from the God of theism. Specifically, the god of the ancient Stoics was a material being. He existed within the material world and shaped it and gave it order (made it habitable for humanity); but, as a material being himself, was not the creator of material reality. This distinction leads inevitably to one of the most important distinctions in metaphysics.
The most fundamental discipline of metaphysics is ontology, the study of being. One of the basic questions studied in ontology is 'What is ultimate reality?' or 'What is the source of all existence?' Different metaphysical systems give different answers. Naturalism answers that 'nature' is 'ultimate reality' and that all nature ultimately reduces to matter and energy (which are interchangeable) and the laws that govern the behaviour of material objects. Obviously, defining what 'matter' actually is is a more difficult question to answer. Theists, in contrast, believe that God is ultimate reality. God exists and all things in nature derive their existence from God. (Note: It is this conclusion that is at the heart of all cosmological arguments. This is why the cosmological argument has, historically, been regarded as the core argument for the existence of God. Whilst some ancient polytheists would have advanced arguments like William Paley's design argument for the existence of the gods, it is not possible to give a cosmological argument for polytheism.)
This much most people may already know. But what about this: what do polytheists believe is ultimate reality? The answer is the same as the one given by advocates of naturalism (including atheists & agnostics): nature. The gods, you must remember are a part of nature. They depend on the prior existence of 'nature' to exist. By contrast, for theists nature depends on God for its existence. For this reason, at least, polytheism is closer to naturalism than to theism.
What relevance has this to the arguments of Shermer, Clarke, and Hawking/Mlodinow? Well, it shows that scientific explanations of nature do not supersede theistic explanations, as they do polytheistic explanations. If the atheist wishes to exclude polytheistic explanations s/he can point out that laws of nature provide an adequate explanation of natural phenomena, and therefore polytheistic deities are no longer needed. Admittedly, the atheist cannot claim to have proven the non-existence of Thor or Zeus, but s/he can claim that these beings are no longer necessary to explain natural phenomena. It is nowhere near as simple for the atheist when dealing with theism, even though most atheists like to believe that the same argument applies to both polytheism and theism.
In reality even if scientists were to provide scientific explanations of all natural phenomena (a difficult task), this would not exclude God, nor would it prove that all that needs explaining has been explained by science. The biggest questions of all remain unanswered, questions that go beyond the empirical, quantitative methods of the physical sciences: 'Why does the universe exist at all?' and 'Why are there laws of nature, i.e. order in the universe?' Although some physicists claim to be able to answer these questions, physics cannot, even in principle answer these questions, because science must presuppose the existence of some kind of 'nature' that is governed by some kind of order or 'laws'. Science, proceding form these basic assumptions, can then study the structure and development of physical reality. How physical reality comes to exist is beyond the scope of the empirical and quantitative methods of science, which must presuppose some kind of structure and number (features of material things) in order to begin.
Interestingly, this point is proven most compellingly by those who would wish to refute it: Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. These three scientists attempt to deal with this issue in very similar ways: Krauss in his book A Universe from Nothing and Hawking+Mlodinow in their book The Grand Design.
The science behind their arguments is somewhat complicated, but their errors are philosophical, not scientific per se, so the science is not actually that relevant. They attempt to show that they can get something from 'nothing' (and that science can speculatively explain how this happens) - provided they are first allowed to redefine 'nothing' as 'something'. This 'something' can take the form of a quantum vacuum or a force/law of nature (e.g. gravity). What they are really saying is: 'Hey, we can get something really complex and massive from something relatively simple.' Which is interesting as far as it goes, but is not getting something from nothing, nor explaining why that something (i.e., the cosmos) exists. The very fact that these atheist physicists must presuppose something physical shows that science is bounded by the physical. In fact, it illustrates nicely exactly what the boundaries of physical/material/natural explanations are. To provide a scientific explanation of nature one must provide a physical explanation, but any physical explanation presupposes something physical and some kind of mechanism or law to explain how X causes Y. If one wishes to explain the metaphysical question of existence, one must go beyond science. So the question of the existence of God is still very much open. Science has not even come close to shutting it down. No materialist explanation of existence is possible.
Atheists can, of course, dismiss questions like 'Why does the universe exist?' and 'Why are there laws of nature?', but to do so they would have to acknowledge that they don't have answers to the two most fundamental questions of metaphysics, whereas theists do have potential answers. They could try to dismiss metaphysics (as Krauss, Hawking, Mlodinow and other 'scientific atheists' do), but they can't really dismiss metaphysics without some kind of philosophical justification. To simply appeal to the success of 'science' as their authority for for doing so is not a good justification. The fact that the subjects discussed in metaphysics go beyond what the various methods of the physical sciences can discover is not a good reason to dismiss metaphysics, rather it would seem to be a good reason for studying metaphysics, especially when we find that many 'scientific atheists' became scientists in part because they want answers to fundamental questions about reality. If science cannot provide such answers - and often it can't - then metaphysics is essential.
To bring it full circle again, I should point out that polytheists have the same problem: they can't answer these two fundamental questions, either. Because the gods of polytheism depend for their existence of the existence of the cosmos (nature), polytheists cannot, even in principle, answer these questions within the bounds of their own belief system. Perhaps this is why some more philosophically-minded polytheists (e.g. Aristotle, Vedic Hindus) either 'converted' to theism or synthesized theism and polytheism, with God as the creator of all things, including the gods, and the gods acting as intermediaries between God and 'lower' beings (e.g., humans). Some Greek, Roman and Hindu philosophers and theologians believed in just such a synthesis, particularly in late antiquity. (This system is similar in some respects to the role of angels and demons in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The big differences being that religious theists do not worship or sacrifice to angels and angels, according to these religions, do not exist as part of material reality.)
Nothing I've said above proves that theism is true. What I have shown here is that theism and polytheism are fundamentally different - as different as theism and naturalism. I have further shown that many popular atheist arguments, predicated on a supposed fundamental similarity between polytheism and monotheism, are poorly conceived. Of course, these are not the only atheist arguments. They are also not the only atheist arguments that are poorly conceived.
'In [Arthur C.] Clarke’s 1953 novel, called Childhood’s End, humanity
reaches something like a singularity and must then make the transition
to a higher state of consciousness. One character early in the story
opines that “science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by
disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware,
the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now.” '
I had encountered this argument before, attributed to Michael Shermer, the editor of the Skeptic, though I was unaware that the argument actually originated with sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke. This shouldn't have surprised me though, as many quasi-intellectual arguments against religion that have been popular over the last half-century originated in Clarke's writings. (Clarke and Carl Sagan remain two of the most influential figures in what I call 'pop atheism', despite the rise of the new atheists.)
The above argument is similar in many respects to the popular historical argument for the incompatibility of science and theism that was repeated by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their book The Grand Design, a few years ago. In it these eminent scientists made the following argument:
"In ancient times it was natural to ascribe the violent acts of nature to a pantheon of mischievous or malevolent deities. Calamities were often taken as a sign that we had somehow offended the gods. For example, in about 5600 BC the Mount Mazama volcano in Oregon erupted, raining rock and burning ash for years, and leading to the many years of rainfall that eventually filled the volcanic crater today called Crater Lake. The Klamath Indians of Oregon have a legend that faithfully matches every geologic detail of the event but adds a bit of drama by portraying a human as the cause of the catastrophe. The human capacity for guilt is such that people can always find ways to blame themselves. As the legend goes, Llao, the chief of the Below World, falls in love with the beautiful human daughter of a Klamath chief. She spurns him, and in revenge Llao tries to destroy the Klamath with fire. Luckily, according to the legend, Skell, the chief of the Above World, pities the humans and does battle with his underworld counterpart. Eventually Llao, injured, falls back inside Mount Mazama, leaving a huge hole, the crater that eventually filled with water.
Ignorance of nature’s ways led people in ancient times to invent gods to lord it over every aspect of human life. There were gods of love and war; of the sun, earth, and sky; of the oceans and rivers; of rain and thunderstorms; even of earthquakes and volcanoes. When the gods were pleased, mankind was treated to good weather, peace, and freedom from natural disaster and disease. When they were displeased, there came drought, war, pestilence, and epidemics. Since the connection of cause and effect in nature was invisible to their eyes, these gods appeared inscrutable, and people at their mercy. But with Thales of Miletus (ca. 624 BC– ca. 546 BC) about 2,600 years ago, that began to change. The idea arose that nature follows consistent principles that could be deciphered. And so began the long process of replacing the notion of the reign of gods with the concept of a universe that is governed by laws of nature, and created according to a blueprint we could someday learn to read." (from Chapter 2)
Ignorance of nature’s ways led people in ancient times to invent gods to lord it over every aspect of human life. There were gods of love and war; of the sun, earth, and sky; of the oceans and rivers; of rain and thunderstorms; even of earthquakes and volcanoes. When the gods were pleased, mankind was treated to good weather, peace, and freedom from natural disaster and disease. When they were displeased, there came drought, war, pestilence, and epidemics. Since the connection of cause and effect in nature was invisible to their eyes, these gods appeared inscrutable, and people at their mercy. But with Thales of Miletus (ca. 624 BC– ca. 546 BC) about 2,600 years ago, that began to change. The idea arose that nature follows consistent principles that could be deciphered. And so began the long process of replacing the notion of the reign of gods with the concept of a universe that is governed by laws of nature, and created according to a blueprint we could someday learn to read." (from Chapter 2)
End quote. The argument is simple and superficially clever: 'Once, when people were ignorant, they invented gods to explain certain natural phenomena. Now, we have science, and the gods are no longer necessary to explain why the sun rises or the seas wax and wane. So religion (in all forms) is obsolete. Science has replaced God.'
This argument, like that of Clarke above, makes one basic logical error: It equates the gods of polytheistic religions with the God of monotheism. It assumes that, if you get rid of the gods, you have no need of God, either. It assumes, in essence, that there is no fundamental, philosophically significant distinction between belief in the gods and belief in God.
This is not true. In fact, metaphysically speaking polytheism is much closer to naturalism than to theism. This claim would no doubt enrage (well...at least irk) many atheists, but it is true nonetheless. Allow me to explain why.
In polytheism the gods are nature gods. That is, they have power over certain aspects of nature, but in order to do so they must exist within nature. Thor has power over the weather (specifically thunderstorms), Poseidon has power over the sea, Mars has power over the fate of soldiers, etc. This holds true for all polytheistic mythologies: Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Hindu, Norse, Celtic, Gallic, Polynesian, etc.
A good example of this would be the ancient Greek Stoics, most of whom believed in one supreme deity, though this god was very different from the God of theism. Specifically, the god of the ancient Stoics was a material being. He existed within the material world and shaped it and gave it order (made it habitable for humanity); but, as a material being himself, was not the creator of material reality. This distinction leads inevitably to one of the most important distinctions in metaphysics.
The most fundamental discipline of metaphysics is ontology, the study of being. One of the basic questions studied in ontology is 'What is ultimate reality?' or 'What is the source of all existence?' Different metaphysical systems give different answers. Naturalism answers that 'nature' is 'ultimate reality' and that all nature ultimately reduces to matter and energy (which are interchangeable) and the laws that govern the behaviour of material objects. Obviously, defining what 'matter' actually is is a more difficult question to answer. Theists, in contrast, believe that God is ultimate reality. God exists and all things in nature derive their existence from God. (Note: It is this conclusion that is at the heart of all cosmological arguments. This is why the cosmological argument has, historically, been regarded as the core argument for the existence of God. Whilst some ancient polytheists would have advanced arguments like William Paley's design argument for the existence of the gods, it is not possible to give a cosmological argument for polytheism.)
This much most people may already know. But what about this: what do polytheists believe is ultimate reality? The answer is the same as the one given by advocates of naturalism (including atheists & agnostics): nature. The gods, you must remember are a part of nature. They depend on the prior existence of 'nature' to exist. By contrast, for theists nature depends on God for its existence. For this reason, at least, polytheism is closer to naturalism than to theism.
What relevance has this to the arguments of Shermer, Clarke, and Hawking/Mlodinow? Well, it shows that scientific explanations of nature do not supersede theistic explanations, as they do polytheistic explanations. If the atheist wishes to exclude polytheistic explanations s/he can point out that laws of nature provide an adequate explanation of natural phenomena, and therefore polytheistic deities are no longer needed. Admittedly, the atheist cannot claim to have proven the non-existence of Thor or Zeus, but s/he can claim that these beings are no longer necessary to explain natural phenomena. It is nowhere near as simple for the atheist when dealing with theism, even though most atheists like to believe that the same argument applies to both polytheism and theism.
In reality even if scientists were to provide scientific explanations of all natural phenomena (a difficult task), this would not exclude God, nor would it prove that all that needs explaining has been explained by science. The biggest questions of all remain unanswered, questions that go beyond the empirical, quantitative methods of the physical sciences: 'Why does the universe exist at all?' and 'Why are there laws of nature, i.e. order in the universe?' Although some physicists claim to be able to answer these questions, physics cannot, even in principle answer these questions, because science must presuppose the existence of some kind of 'nature' that is governed by some kind of order or 'laws'. Science, proceding form these basic assumptions, can then study the structure and development of physical reality. How physical reality comes to exist is beyond the scope of the empirical and quantitative methods of science, which must presuppose some kind of structure and number (features of material things) in order to begin.
Interestingly, this point is proven most compellingly by those who would wish to refute it: Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. These three scientists attempt to deal with this issue in very similar ways: Krauss in his book A Universe from Nothing and Hawking+Mlodinow in their book The Grand Design.
The science behind their arguments is somewhat complicated, but their errors are philosophical, not scientific per se, so the science is not actually that relevant. They attempt to show that they can get something from 'nothing' (and that science can speculatively explain how this happens) - provided they are first allowed to redefine 'nothing' as 'something'. This 'something' can take the form of a quantum vacuum or a force/law of nature (e.g. gravity). What they are really saying is: 'Hey, we can get something really complex and massive from something relatively simple.' Which is interesting as far as it goes, but is not getting something from nothing, nor explaining why that something (i.e., the cosmos) exists. The very fact that these atheist physicists must presuppose something physical shows that science is bounded by the physical. In fact, it illustrates nicely exactly what the boundaries of physical/material/natural explanations are. To provide a scientific explanation of nature one must provide a physical explanation, but any physical explanation presupposes something physical and some kind of mechanism or law to explain how X causes Y. If one wishes to explain the metaphysical question of existence, one must go beyond science. So the question of the existence of God is still very much open. Science has not even come close to shutting it down. No materialist explanation of existence is possible.
Atheists can, of course, dismiss questions like 'Why does the universe exist?' and 'Why are there laws of nature?', but to do so they would have to acknowledge that they don't have answers to the two most fundamental questions of metaphysics, whereas theists do have potential answers. They could try to dismiss metaphysics (as Krauss, Hawking, Mlodinow and other 'scientific atheists' do), but they can't really dismiss metaphysics without some kind of philosophical justification. To simply appeal to the success of 'science' as their authority for for doing so is not a good justification. The fact that the subjects discussed in metaphysics go beyond what the various methods of the physical sciences can discover is not a good reason to dismiss metaphysics, rather it would seem to be a good reason for studying metaphysics, especially when we find that many 'scientific atheists' became scientists in part because they want answers to fundamental questions about reality. If science cannot provide such answers - and often it can't - then metaphysics is essential.
To bring it full circle again, I should point out that polytheists have the same problem: they can't answer these two fundamental questions, either. Because the gods of polytheism depend for their existence of the existence of the cosmos (nature), polytheists cannot, even in principle, answer these questions within the bounds of their own belief system. Perhaps this is why some more philosophically-minded polytheists (e.g. Aristotle, Vedic Hindus) either 'converted' to theism or synthesized theism and polytheism, with God as the creator of all things, including the gods, and the gods acting as intermediaries between God and 'lower' beings (e.g., humans). Some Greek, Roman and Hindu philosophers and theologians believed in just such a synthesis, particularly in late antiquity. (This system is similar in some respects to the role of angels and demons in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The big differences being that religious theists do not worship or sacrifice to angels and angels, according to these religions, do not exist as part of material reality.)
Nothing I've said above proves that theism is true. What I have shown here is that theism and polytheism are fundamentally different - as different as theism and naturalism. I have further shown that many popular atheist arguments, predicated on a supposed fundamental similarity between polytheism and monotheism, are poorly conceived. Of course, these are not the only atheist arguments. They are also not the only atheist arguments that are poorly conceived.
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