CFI UK Debate - Does God Exist?

God and the Bible was the title of an all day event held by CFI UK at the Conway Hall in London.

A morning talk was given by Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou on what she called The Real Religions of the Bible, or The Uncensored Bible. The theme of this talk was those bits of the Bible that are rarely mentioned. Most likely because they are rather priapic, or, at least, that is how it seemed, as the 'penis' references moved into double figures. The God of the Old Testament used to put it about a bit, it seems, and it's not at all clear how immaterial he was. Stavrakopoulou was very articulate and, to every issue raised, thoughtful and nuanced.

In the afternoon Professor Stephen Law and Professor Keith Ward debated whether God exists. This being the CFI, it was clear where the sympathy of the audience lay, and it wasn't with Professor Ward. His presentation was familiar to many of us who have read liberal theologians; his God is a mutable, vague beast that seems to be specially designed to reify the art of goal-posting moving, so that wherever one shoots, one is bound to miss. A couple of things, at least, defined this concept: first, that his God could not do anything he felt was immoral; and second, that his God concept could not run counter to scientific facts. In this way he inoculates his belief from attack, I suppose, because his God is bound to conform to his (Ward's) moral beliefs, so no awkward silences when the Canaanite genocide is mentioned, and if science shows some aspect of his belief to be factually wrong, he will simply change his belief, so no awkward silences when talking snakes are mentioned.

The panel, with some minor celebrity spotting thrown in.

Obviously this means that as Ward's moral sensibilities change during his life, so does his God, and as science changes our view of the universe, so does his God change. I got the impression Ward is distinctly relaxed about this, seeing it as an enlightened approach. I think it is to be encouraged amongst believers, because it seems to be almost the opposite of dogmatic, and comes close to the Humean ideal of proportioning one's belief to the evidence. But I suspect that few Christians would find this Will 'o the Wisp deity satisfying, and, as Stavrakopoulou pointed out, it lacks magic.

Later, in response to the problem of evil, Ward renounced omnipotence as a feature of his God, which puzzled many in the crowd who assumed Ward was a Christian. Someone asked him outright if he were, and his reply was that he was a priest in the Anglican Church. 'Not enough information!', I shouted.

In the end it seems there is something about Ward's experience of the world that renders him a believer; a sense of the noumenal, morals and beauty were mentioned.

Stephen Law did not specifically address Ward's talk, but presented his excellent Evil God challenge, which, briefly, points out the empirical fact that no-one (? Satanists?) believes in an evil god, although practically all (if not all) the arguments for God do not give us any clue to His goodness. If a theist can see that belief in an evil god is ludicrous (and they seem to), they should likewise agree with atheists that belief in God is too, since the arguments for both are effectively the same (although often mirrored).

I think here Ward falls back on his subjective experience; in a discussion of HADD, for example, which Law was citing as a defeater for Ward's belief in a hidden agent, Ward said he thought he had HADD, but it was given to him by God so he could sense Him! How could one argue anyone out of these sorts of beliefs?

An interesting debate, but I think I would have liked to have heard more from Ward about why he doesn't give up his God's benevolence, as well as His omnipotence, given Law's Evil God Challenge (or, indeed, His existence!). Presumably he just has an undeniable intuition that this thing he senses the existence of is good. That may be, but it seems a wholly unsatisfactory response to anyone who does not have that feeling.

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The Death of PoI

I'm a fairly long time listener to the PoI podcasts from the CFI, which were, until recently, conducted by DJ Grothe.

Grothe is a little too accommodationist for my tastes, but is an exemplary interviewer, very good at illuminating the dark corners of a subject. Grothe recently moved on to be replaced by three: Chris Mooney, Robert Price and Karen Stollznow. Alarm bells rang a little at Mooney, who is tragically accommodationist, but the first of his podcasts, on Climategate, was fine, although little could go wrong on *that* subject. Paul Kurtz, the founder of CFI, is known for his softly softly approach to religion, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at the lurch towards theism. I'd heard some good things about Robert Price, so was hopeful that his interviews would be enlightening.

This is the first podcast by Price I've listened to, and I hope he improves! This one actually made my gym session *hurt* more, as I spluttered at the ludicrous assertions therein. It was with Thomas Altizer, a 'radical' theologian who likes Nietzsche's Death of God idea. The broadcast was an embarrassing sequence of mud-slinging, back-slapping and name-dropping. It's *possible* that there's something worth studying in all this, but this has certainly put me off! Consider this exchange; I'm quoting a commenter called Stanley Dorst on the CFI discussion forum, so I'm indebted to him for the transcript:

Early in the interview, as a followup to Altizer’s statement that he considers Nietzsche, Hegel, Blake, and others to be sources for his views, Price says, “One of the first things I question, though I think I understand it better now, is how do you know these thinkers are telling us the truth? What gives them such revelatory authority in your thinking?” Altizer’s response was to say, and I quote:

“Hegel gave us the most purely and comprehensively logical thinking that has ever been created, and it’s all grounded in an absolute self-negation. In Hegel we have this conceptual enactment, this incredible, logical, purely conceptual demonstration of an absolute self-negation, which pervades all of his thinking. In Hegel you have a total realization of the death of God, which is simultaneously a total enactment of reality itself and of totality itself. So that here we can realize a total conception or a total vision of everything, which is inseparable from absolute self-negation and the crucifixion. To me, these are enactments of Christianity, realizations of Christianity.”

Mr. Price seemed to believe that this was actually an answer to his question, because his response was to say, “That does make sense. Why, I wonder, are you the only one or first one to say these things?” I hope that he has the insight, at least in retrospect, to be embarrassed by how obsequious and fawning this response was.

As others have commented, this has the flavour of Sokal. I'm mindful that in any discourse, jargon is *required* to allow detailed analysis to take place, but Grothe would not have allowed Altizer to dribble on like this without some explanation of the terms, and the justifications. Altizer says that one cannot be an atheist without being a Christian atheist. Well, this is obviously incorrect by any dictionary definition of atheism, but presumably Altizer means something else by this; no-one could be that daft. So what was it that he meant? Price knew, so should have elaborated.

Altizer dismisses the new atheists, for their poor theology; but since he doesn't gainsay any of the classic atheist arguments, one cannot imagine what his complaint is - they sell more books, presumably. It raises a question that has occurred to me before; to what extent must one study a subject before one can dismiss it as nonsense. Altizer and Price presumably think that there is much of worth in theological study, but what this is eludes me. A podcast on that subject would be helpful.

It's possible that this was an elaborate April Fool's Day joke (on April 2nd), in which case I applaud the attempt; but don't take up half-an-hour of podcast time on it.

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