Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

128 Theism and Explanation
this mechanism lack analogy; it is also wholly mysterious. It is true that if
you hold to some kind of substance dualism—if you believe that the human
mind is a kind of immaterial substance—you might argue that there does
exist an analogy to God’s relationship to the world. It is the relationship of
an immaterial mind to a material body. On this view, God’s relationship to
the world is no more or less mysterious than my relationship to my body.
But this alleged analogy is a tenuous one. For we know that certain features
of our bodies seem to be at least closely related to the workings of the mind.
Even substance dualists attribute a particular role to the brain, which functions
as the means by which body and soul can communicate. So even on
a dualist view, the relationship of mind and body is not quite as mysterious
as God’s relationship to the world.
My argument at this point resembles that offered by J. L. Mackie against
Swinburne’s cosmological argument. Mackie concedes that “if there were a
god with the traditional attributes and powers, he would be able and perhaps
willing to create such a universe as this.” 47 But he goes on to argue that
we have to weigh in our scales the likelihood or unlikelihood that
there is a god with these attributes and powers. And the key power
. . . is that of fulfi lling intentions directly, without any physical or
causal mediation, without materials or instruments. There is nothing
in our background knowledge that makes it comprehensible, let alone
likely, that anything should have such a power. All our knowledge of
intention-fulfi lment is of embodied intentions being fulfi lled indirectly
by way of bodily changes and movements which are causally related to
the intended result, and where the ability thus to fulfi l intentions itself
has a causal history, either of evolutionary development or of learning
or of both. 48
In setting out his argument. Mackie refers to the prior probability of the
theistic hypothesis. But there is no need to do so. The same conclusion
could be reached by arguing that the theistic hypothesis lacks an explanatory
virtue, one that would contribute to its acceptance.
7.2.2 The Relevance of Background Knowledge
Swinburne, it should be noted, had already attempted to ward off this objection.
49 He did so by simply denying the relevance of background knowledge
to an assessment of the theistic hypothesis. Swinburne concedes that in
normal circumstances, the prior probability of a theory is a function of our
background knowledge, as well as the theory’s simplicity and scope. And
a theory is consistent with our background knowledge “in so far as the
kinds of entities and laws that it postulates are similar to those that probably
(on our evidence) exist and operate in other fi elds.” 50 I have already
examined Swinburne’s example of the poltergeist (3.2.2). He argues that