Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

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Potential Theistic Explanations 89 is not the optimal way of achieving the posited divine goal. But what does “optimal” mean in this context? It means the most rational way of achieving the posited goal, given perfect knowledge and power as well as moral perfection. But this merely shifts the question, which now becomes: What does it mean for an action to be the most rational action in pursuit of a goal? What we need here are criteria of rational action. I shall offer three such criteria (Appendix 1.3), although my list does not pretend to be exhaustive. In general, an agent is acting rationally in pursuing a particular goal if she acts consistently with her beliefs and desires, in a way which is likely to attain the goal, and which requires the least expenditure of time and effort. This gives us three criteria of rational action: consistency, effi cacy, and effi ciency. At least one of these seems inapplicable to a divine agent, namely the criterion of effi ciency. A divine agent has no need to conserve his time and energy. 30 Nor does he need to create creatures that would achieve their goals effi ciently, unless that effi ciency had some desirable consequence (such as the minimising suffering). This may enable the theist to respond to an earlier objection—the idea that God has no need to choose means to an end, since he could achieve his ends directly, by way of basic actions (4.3.3.1). The theist could respond that while this course of action might appear to be more effi cient, God has no need to act effi ciently. However, the theist still needs to specify why God has chosen this particular means, to achieve the posited goal. And here another criterion of rational action comes into play. We expect a rational agent to act in a way that is consistent with his other beliefs and desires, or (if you prefer) consistent with his character. 31 From God’s point of view, it may not matter that evolution by natural selection (for example) takes a long time. He has plenty of time to waste. But on the assumption that God is morally perfect, it does matter if natural selection necessitates considerable suffering. Would it be rational for an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent being to choose this particular way of bringing living creatures into existence? We can now see that at least some forms of the atheist’s argument from evil are, in fact, suboptimality arguments. 32 They try to render the theistic hypothesis of divine creation implausible by suggesting that God could have created a world containing less suffering. 33 At this point, we can also understand the appeal of an uncompromising, young-earth creationism, one that takes the opening chapters of Genesis at face value. Remember the criterion of independent specifi cation? Let’s apply it to the creation of the world. If we were to specify how an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect God would create a world, independently of what we now know of the world’s origins, what would we come up with? One could argue that we would produce an account that at least resembles Genesis 1. After all, such a deity would not need to engage in a lengthy process of creation. He would not need to “use” evolution, for instance, in order to produce beings like us. He could achieve his ends
90 Theism and Explanation directly, simply by willing them or (as the book of Genesis has it) by speaking his creative word. In one such act, or in a series of such acts (perhaps over six days—why not?), 34 he could have created every aspect of the world as we now fi nd it. And if God were a rational agent, would he not have chosen this, the most painless way of bringing creatures into existence? My discussion has assumed that a hypothesis has what we might call “explanatory force” if it is at least a potential explanation of the fact in question. What I am suggesting here is that if we were to choose between two theistic hypotheses, the one being the Genesis account and the other being some form of theistic evolution, we would have more confi dence in the explanatory force of the fi rst than the second. Now it may be that we can have little confi dence that any theistic hypothesis has explanatory force (5.5)—that it really is a potential explanation of any state of affairs. But insofar as we can make such judgements—and I think we can, albeit cautiously—then the Genesis account of creation has greater explanatory force than any story about a divinely-guided process of evolution. Natural selection is not what we would expect, given the posited character and capacities of God. I should, perhaps, add that this is not an argument in favour of a literal reading of Genesis 1–3. The reader will not be surprised to learn that I am no supporter of young-earth creationism. But one can regard a hypothesis as a potential explanation of some state of affairs—one can agree that it has explanatory force—while believing that there are excellent reasons why we should not accept it. What those reasons might be is a question to which I shall return. 5.4 ARGUMENTS AGAINST OPTIMALITY There are a number of objections that could be raised to my optimality condition. I shall consider four. The fi rst is that God is not obliged to act optimally; the second is that there is no optimal divine action; the third is that we cannot make such judgements; the fourth is that talk of intelligent design does not entail that the design in question is optimal. Let me address each objection in turn. 5.4.1 God is Not Obliged to Act Optimally The fi rst objection is that the optimality condition is simply inapplicable to a divine agent. Such an agent, it might be argued, is supremely free. He can act in any way he chooses, and is not obliged to choose the optimal course of action (assuming there is one). As Laura Garcia argues, “God has no need to minimize the amount of time or effort or expense and he is not subject to time constraints, natural laws, etc. It may be that a given means is optimal with respect to its cost to other goals or purposes of his, but even
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Theism and Explanation
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Theism and Explanation Gregory W. D
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To Anna who never tires of asking
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Acknowledgements My thanks are due
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2 On Explanations in General “Exp
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On Explanations in General 23 merel
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Figure 2.2 Swinburne’s conception
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On Explanations in General 27 simil
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On Explanations in General 29 condi
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On Explanations in General 31 could
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3 What are Theistic Explanations? I
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What are Theistic Explanations? 35
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Successful Theistic Explanations 13
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8 Conclusion Miss Binney spoke as i
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Conclusion 145 explanation that met
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Appendix Intentional Explanations M
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Appendix 149 attend any discussion
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Appendix 151 explanation is a causa
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Appendix 153 we assume is a “myth
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Appendix 155 Will this suffi ce as
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Appendix 157 reasoning, Schueler su
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Appendix 159 action, one that has a
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Appendix 161 estimate of her charac
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Appendix 163 causal laws do exist.
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Appendix 165 this is the explanatio
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Notes NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 1. Numbers
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Notes 169 James Maclaurin has remin
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Notes 171 19. Musgrave, “Scientif
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Notes 173 the most explicit in its
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Notes 175 any true proposition, the
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Notes 177 weaker but to their mind
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Notes 179 15. Hume, “Dialogues,
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Notes 181 19. Swinburne, Is There a
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Notes 183 it will also confi rm H 2
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Notes 185 91. I am grateful to Geor
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Notes 187 this be a fatal objection
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Notes 189 71. Lakatos, “Falsifi c
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192 Bibliography Behe, Michael J. D
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194 Bibliography Dembski, William A
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196 Bibliography . A Treatise of Hu
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198 Bibliography Melnyk, Andrew. A
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200 Bibliography Rundle, Bede. 2004
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Index A abduction: and induction, 1
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defences, and theodicies, 134-35 de
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intelligent design theory: argument
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preemption, causal. See causal pree
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tsunami, Boxing Day, 60, 61, 68, 14
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