Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism

Reply to Haldane 151
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Reply to Haldane
J.J.C. Smart
1 Methodology
John Haldane’s defence of theism is based on a well thought out and sophisticated
metaphysics. In this he is right: theism cannot be defended without
an appropriate metaphysics. I look back with horror on my unregenerate
religious days when I failed to come to terms with reconciling my churchgoing
on the one hand with my philosophical and scientific opinions on the
other hand. Here my pro-religious emotions were at war with my intellect
and I tried to reconcile the two in what I came to see later as an evasive
manner, and which I am tempted to think of as partly inspired by neo-
Wittgensteinian ideas even though this is perhaps unfair to Wittgenstein. 1
Wittgenstein himself seems to have had a conflict between his respect for
religious ideas and his inability actually to believe them. Haldane has no
weakness of this sort and he is aware of the need to defend theism in the
context of a system of metaphysical ideas. My metaphysics is naturalistic,
whereas Haldane holds that naturalism does not do justice to the real facts. In
particular he holds that naturalism cannot deal with the following important
differences: the animate from the non-animate, the reproductive from the
non-reproductive, and the mental from the non-mental. 2 Also he has problems
for naturalism over the individuation of species and over the emergence
of consciousness. Perhaps the matter of consciousness is the most contentious,
and I will postpone saying something about it until later. The question
has indeed been discussed in an earlier ‘Great Debates’ volume. 3
Let us consider the important differences mentioned above. In reading
Haldane’s discussion here the reader may suppose that Haldane is open to the
objection that his apologetic is that of a ‘God of the gaps’. Haldane recognizes