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6 Inference to the Best Explanation “Tracks,” said Piglet. “Paw-marks.” He gave a little squeak of excitement. “Oh, Pooh! Do you think it’s a—a—a Woozle?” “It may be,” said Pooh. “Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. You never can tell with Woozles.” A. A. Milne Let me begin this, the penultimate chapter of my enquiry, by summarising the conclusions I have reached. I began by identifying a number of objections to proposed religious explanations. The fi rst is that theistic explanations exclude no possible state of affairs; the second is that the actions of an agent who can work miracles would be unpredictable; the third maintains that the very concept of God is incoherent; the fourth suggests that the will of God cannot be a cause and hence cannot be invoked in an explanation. I did, in a footnote, allude to a fi fth objection. 1 It is the idea, based on Hume’s principle of proportioning cause to effect, 2 that we would never be warranted in positing a being of infi nite power in order to explain a fi nite effect. 3 I have not dwelt on this objection since at least some of its force is captured by my optimality condition (5.3.3). As the reader will recall, this suggests that if you posit a being of infi nite power and goodness, the explanandum may not correspond to how we would expect him to act. After examining each of these objections, I decided that none constitutes a “silver bullet,” a decisive objection which would warrant a summary dismissal of a theistic hypothesis. With regard to the fi rst objection, I suggested ways in which proposed theistic explanations could be formulated so as to have empirical content. With regard to the second objection, I argued that if we assume that the divine agent is a rational agent—an assumption that underlies all intentional explanations—then his behaviour is not entirely unpredictable. With regard to the fi fth objection, I suggested that we cannot, a priori, exclude the bare possibility that a proposed theistic explanation might satisfy the optimality condition. It does, however, constitute a signifi cant hurdle for the theist. What about the objections three and four, both of which argue that there is something incoherent about the very idea of a theistic explanation? There is certainly a prima facie case here for the theist to answer. One could argue that he is obliged to show that his hypothesis does not embody contradictory claims. Can this be done? I don’t know. Richard Swinburne admits that the theist can avoid the charge of incoherence only by appealing
102 Theism and Explanation to the fact his language about God is being used analogically (3.3.3). 4 But if we cannot attribute any literal meaning to this analogical language—if our talk of a divine agent must remain shrouded in a cloud of unknowing—it is hard to see how we could demonstrate its internal coherence. How could we ever be confi dent that it does not embody hidden contradictions? Does this constitute a decisive objection to any proposed theistic explanation? Probably not. I shall argue later (7.6) that an inability to offer a literal description of divine action counts against proposed theistic explanations. It gives us reason to prefer explanations that are more informative. But it is not clear, at least to me, that it immediately disqualifi es them. And I have argued that there are occasions in which we would be acting rationally in accepting an apparently inconsistent hypothesis, at least in the sense of continuing to work on it (3.3.4). If this is true, then even if you could show that a theistic hypothesis was internally incoherent, this would not necessarily warrant its immediate dismissal, if that hypothesis had other features in its favour. What those features might be, and whether a proposed theistic explanation might ever possess them, are questions I shall be addressing in these fi nal chapters. If the atheist concedes this much, then she lacks a silver bullet. Even if she believes that there exists a strong presumption against proposed theistic explanations—a position I shall defend myself—she must argue against them on a case-by-case basis. But her argument can take one of two forms. She can argue that such a proposed explanation is not even a potential explanation of the fact in question. According to this view, even if the theist’s account of divine action were true, it would not explain the explanandum. In Chapter 5, I outlined one way in which this might be done, namely, by invoking the optimality condition (5.3.3). The atheist could undermine the force of a proposed theistic explanation by arguing that there exists a better way in which God could have achieved his posited goal. And the obvious candidate for a “better” way would be one involving less suffering. But the atheist can also adopt a second line of criticism, one that focuses on the reasons we might have to accept a proposed theistic explanation, one that has been shown to have some explanatory force. This is a de facto rather than an in principle argument. It suggests that even if the theist has a potential explanation of the fact in question, we have insuffi cient reason to regard it as the actual explanation. It lacks the qualities that would warrant its acceptance. The question this raises is: What are those qualities? What would constitute a suffi cient reason for accepting a theistic hypothesis, given that it has been shown to be a potential explanation of the fact in question? It is to this question that my fi nal chapters will be devoted. 6.1 INDUCTION AND ABDUCTION I shall approach the answer indirectly, by examining Richard Swinburne’s arguments for the existence of God. In a number of publications, Swinburne
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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 Theism and Explanation Could it m
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4 Theism and Explanation While I ho
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6 Theism and Explanation experiment
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8 Theism and Explanation Plantinga
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10 Theism and Explanation explanati
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12 Theism and Explanation by refere
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14 Theism and Explanation explanati
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16 Theism and Explanation God creat
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2 On Explanations in General “Exp
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On Explanations in General 21 of ou
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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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3.2.2 Positing a Divine Agent What
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Page 156 and 157: Conclusion 145 explanation that met
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Page 160 and 161: 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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