Response to the McCloskey article on economic methodology

¶ … Atheist

When dealing with the subject of religion or spirituality the idea of philosophical or logical proof is not always applicable. If an individual believes in the existence of a Supreme Being, they do so based on faith -- on their feelings and need to believe, most certainly not because there is a concrete syllogism to prove God as a fact. Faith, in fact, cannot be philosophically correct, nor can it be incorrect because it is based on feelings. One cannot persuade someone with faith not to believe, most of the time any logical argument has no point because of the individual's unquestioning faith in the existence of a Higher Power. An atheist, on the other hand, cannot intrinsically believe in a "thing" or "being" that has never physically appeared to them, or with finite proof.

Thus, the best argument for the non-existence of God is that lack of empirical, scientific evidence of the physical presence and/or existence. Believers have numerous proofs that are non-scientific -- proof by design (too many coincidences), their own feelings, miracles of Jesus and of the Bible, etc. In the same way, this view says that God is omniscient and transcends both time and space. If one accepts these arguments, then we must ask how our world was created? For creation, in fact, to have taken place then God would have to have morphed from a non-creator (unchanging and immutable), to a creator, and then back again -- forming a contradiction. This contradiction forms the basis of the argument on the existence of God. On one hand, since God is not human, his actions cannot be rationalized as human. But our own actions and reactions as human are personal and unique, a benefit of the free will we have. Thus, based on McCloskey's arguments, it is foolish to argue for or against the existence of God based on nature or natural circumstances. Instead, the existence of God comes down to a simple, non-provable issue -- faith (McClosky, 1968).

This idea of faith also centers around what we may call a cosmological argument - the universe and the created worlds exist and therefore there must be a creator. When we look logically at the universe as a thing (a thesis), then we see that no law governed the initial Big Bang that set the universe in motion. We do assume that matter existed in some form, but in those primeval days there was no guarantee that matter would coalesce and evolve into animate and conscious matter in a few million (or billion) years. If a Supreme Being, however, created the universe, then it would seem logical that he would have made sure that animate and intelligent matter were part of the overall design phase. Actually, while we know we are animate, because we can conceive of the nature of God and of ourselves, we do not know if the universe is actually animate. The organization of these thoughts (physics, science, religion, etc.) are our own -- and perhaps if we are explaining and defining those thoughts, we are also explaining and defining the notion of God.

Humans are entitled to require causation, at least in order to believe that there was a first cause, or first singularity, or beginning. Of course, the mathematical and physical complexities of proving causality, at least cosmological, abound; even the most advanced physicists cannot formulize the actual moment of creation, but that is not really the germane argument for needing just cause. if, as William Craig has commented, the Big Bang is really like a metaphysical first principle, then everything which comes to be has a cause of its own to come to be in the first place (Craig and Smith, 1995, p.156). Quentin Smith, however, challenges this view, and buttresses our argument to McCloskey, but stating, "it is probably true that either the universe began without cause at the beginning of the current expansion, either subsequent to infinite density…. As a finite value…. Or in a vacuum fluctuation from a larger space time continuum (Smith, 1992). Rhetorically, one cannot have nothing from nothing -- but science still agrees that most of the universe that we can observe is temporally finite.

Really, the teleological argument for atheism is the argument for creation vs. evolution. The indisputability of proof and objections require basic science, but McCloskey implies the need for a designer. Was it pure coincidence or obvious design? A simple question, yet a difficult proof. Teleology focuses on the purpose of the design of a thing -- and applied to our question of creation and evolution, there is a teleological premise that there cannot be a design without a designer. If we find an object that looks manufactured, we assume it had a maker. But since the process of evolution is billions of years in the making, we have a hard time with the argument of everything being made as part of a million (or billion) to one lucky coincidence. If this information is applied to everything in the universe a new question must be asked, "If the universe did not evolve from random chance, where did it come from?" The universe we live in is a contingent entity. This means that the universe itself cannot account for its own formation, and it is "contingent" because it depends on something outside of itself as the only logical explanation for its existence. So, was the universe created by a supreme being that superseded it? or, did the universe create itself spontaneously.

Spontaneous creation if an effect without a cause, and therefore untrue. But if something created the universe then something had to create the creator. We simply cannot know because we have an unassumed First Causality. Logically, our minds are mechanistic, and we continually see cause and effect as part of the paradigm of the universe; because we see it, then we internalize it and it must be so.

Either the Universe had a beginning, or it did not. But all available evidence indicates that the Universe did have a beginning. If the Universe had a beginning, it either had a cause or it did not. One thing we know assuredly, however: it is correct-logically and scientifically-to acknowledge that the Universe had a cause, because the Universe is an effect, and requires an adequate antecedent cause. Nothing causeless happens (Thompson, 2003).

Too, if we believe there had to be causation, then we also must attribute our intrinsic behaviors to the notion of the light and the dark, or as we have come to know it, good vs. evil. In its very basic logical format, then, if God created everything, he also created free will and the capacity to move toward evil and away from good. This poses a clear contradiction, for if God all things (omnipotent and omniscient), then evil could not exist. If God is omniscient, God must know that there are instances of evil in the world; if God is omnipotent then God must be able to prevent these instances from occurring; if God is perfectly good, then God must want to prevent occurrences of evil. But there are instances of evil in the world, so God must either not exist, or does not have the character traditionally ascribed by theists. Equally if God is not all of these things, then he is not really God, because he is not perfect, leaving room for a God above God.

Richard Swinburne, however, says evil is necessary if there is greater good. How can we have day without night -- thus how can we have good (positive energy) without evil (negative energy)? Strictly speaking, we must then put the concepts of good and evil with the creator, and the choice we have about it as part of creation. Humans then, must learn to act responsibly; evil is wrong choices, but Swinburne argues that we must be in a mature and responsible situation to see the results of wrong actions; and move toward right actions (Swinburne, 2004).