Fourth Rebuttal
As I continue to read Mr. Adams' rebuttals, I grow increasingly incredulous as to the things he suggests. In fact, it appears that Adams is now being evasive about his atheism altogether. Let us look at the points that he makes in this last rebuttal and see how they hold. Concerning the incredulous gnome he first says:
"What, and the existence of an omnipotent being who created a massive universe just for a few bickering lifeforms isn't incredible? I for one find it incredible."
But we are not concerned about Adams' incredulity over the statement "God exists", but rather why he finds it incredible to begin with. This, to me, is question-begging. He wants to maintain that "a gnome exists" is untenable (as do I), but then he suggests that, "Well, the gnome is incredible and so must God's existence be as well." But until he fashions a connection between this analogy, there is no reason, a priori, to accept the illustration as representative of the very thing we are trying to prove or disprove.
I think Adams is really trying to find out how to substantiate the non-existence of God by finding out what sort of evidence we use for the gnome's non-existence. He states, "What exactly is it that makes a belief in God more tenable than a belief in a gnome? " Aside from the statements I made about "a pink, invisible, infinite gnome exists" as being initially implausible (or possessing a low degree of prior probability), there are some dividing characteristics that demonstrate a radical difference between "God exists" and "a gnome exists." Gnomes do not enjoy any explanatory power, they are not competitive models to rival hypotheses, and they have no historical or literary frame of reference. Essentially, what is it about gnomes whose existence would grant any explanation of the known facts about our world? On this basis the disbeliever in gnomes could rationally dismiss its existence. God, on the other hand, enjoys a great deal of explanatory power. The two I have been mentioning are (i) God is needed to explain moral values, and (ii) God is needed to explain the origin of the universe. In addition, there are numerous frames of reference for God's existence evinced in various ancient manuscripts (most notably the Old and New Testaments). The fact that nobody takes "a gnome exists" seriously is why Adams is desperate for a disconfirming of God's existence.
NO GOOD EVIDENCE TO FAVOR ATHEISM AS TRUE
Adams had suggested originally that the Problem of Evil showed God to be incompatible with the existence of evil. And I showed that this is not the case. In his third rebuttal, he stated that "evil" was just a locution for "harm and pain", and I gave good reasons to suggest that God could not eliminate those factors and maintain rational and responsible thought. So Adams now responds with:
"He suggests that God does not wish for there to be a place without suffering and also implies that God does not wish to interfere with our lives. So you don't accept that heaven exists?"
The problem with equating heaven with possible worlds is fundamental. Heaven is the outcome of a possible world and not a possible world itself. Heaven contains those who have gone through the valley of decision, so to speak, and have made those choices necessary for entrance into that kingdom. But we are contending with possible worlds here, not the outcomes of possible worlds.
In Adams' confusion he adds, "Does he not recognise that we are self-aware just as he is? Why should we be granted less rights than he?" G. W. F. Leibniz explained that it is logically necessary that we are inferior to God's nature. If a being such as God were to exist (one who is all-powerful, perfect, and the creator of all things), then it follows reasonably that any emanation or creation would be rendered unequally. Basically, no product of another can be ontologically superior to its maker. This just seems to follow. Consider also that an eternal being cannot bring into existence another and label it "eternal." It appears that there is an inherent and logical exclusivity of God and creation.
Adams then states, "If God is anything less than infinitely powerful, he is not a God, since there is the potential at least for other life forms to gain similar power." But I had suggested that the existence of evil is no infringement on God's omnipotence as long as He has a morally sufficient reason for allowing these things. In the failure of showing any incompatibility between "God exists" and "evil exists", Adams cannot maintain that God is impotent.
He continues with:
"An omnipotent God could have created us so that it was not necessary for us to experience evil in order to 'build our character'."
But he failed to consider my response to this in my third rebuttal which he even quoted. I said:
"But maybe Adams is now arguing that there are other possible worlds in which the same good effects occur but with no evil causes. Now, I cannot even begin to test a hypothesis that suggests that another chain of causality is possible in producing the same maximally good events. How does one do this?"
But in my anticipation of his answer to these questions, he simply dismisses it. So, until he responds to this there is no reason to think that another possible world is morally superior.
Adams then cries out, 'But God did not have to make us so that we sought harm anyway! HE did not have to make us capable of harm. He did not have to make us at all." But these are not objections. Just because one may not understand why God acts in a certain way does not mean that it is not the best possible world. I submit that God did not create us to seek after harm; harm is the product of our own free choices that would otherwise be non-existent should God intervene every time someone is about to be harmed.
I then said that natural laws may be the preferred system because they maximize free will with the best possible moral universe. He adds, "There are no 'natural laws' for an omnipotent being such as God - such a being would determine exactly which laws were 'natural'". I fail to see how God's creating natural laws in any way impinges upon His omnipotence. Perhaps Adams is growing desperate here. So he tosses a trivial objection to God's omnipotence by using a classic, and abandoned, line or reasoning:
"For example, could an all-powerful God create a rock so massive that even he could not lift it? If he could, then by subsequently failing to lift such a rock, he is not all-poerful [sic]. If he is not poweerful [sic] enough to create a rock that he cannot lift, then he is not all-powerful. Whether or not he can create such a rock, then, a being cannot be omnipotent. Therefore a God cannot exist."
This is as absurd as the person who challenges the greatest omnipotent Mathematician who is challenged to create a polygon that has only three sides but is a square. But triangular squares, and square circles for that matter, are not "things" since, by definition, contradict each other. The same is said about God's creating a rock so big that He cannot lift it. This is a systematic statement designed to produce a no-win situation. Just ask yourself, "What is a rock so big that God cannot lift?" There will be a silence as to the answer because such an animal is mutually exclusive and not cognitively possible.
TWO GOOD REASONS TO SUGGEST THAT THEISM IS TRUE
In Adams' objection to God's existence, he postulated the problem of evil. I turned it on its head by noting that it actually bespeaks God's existence. He replied by saying that there are not absolute moral values and I objected by noting that this is a mistake. About my objections, he now says, "Let each person do freely whatever he wishes so long as it does not impose upon another's freedom." Does this mean that freedom is a value of some sort? If I can do whatever I want, then there is no reason to suggest that freedom is relevant to my unbridled lusts. I should go for the gusto and forget about what others think unless they turn around and try to diminish my untempered hedonism. But other than that, there is no basis to render freedom as an objectively good thing. In his comment about the hypothetical little girl who is raped, he states, "I recognise the girl as a fellow human being and do not wish to see her suffer." Perhaps he is suggesting that harm and pain are gratuitous evils (that is, evils that seem to have no purpose). In this case he may be suggesting:
(1) If God exists, then gratuitous evil does not exist.
(2) Gratuitous evil exists.
(3) Therefore, God does not exist.
But there is a serious problem with taking this sort of approach. Notice that in order for gratuitous evil to be true, it is contingent upon whether or not God exists. But this is precisely what we are disputing over. So it seems that making harm and pain gratuitous evils only succeeds at begging the question. I submit that if God exists then there is no gratuitous evil and things such as harm and pain are permitted for morally sufficient reasons. Adams simply cannot beg the question on this issue.
I have also been defending the cosmological argument for God's existence and he replied with something like, "Well, our universe may be an oscillating one and may not have a beginning." But I quoted a prominent atheist who denied such a cosmology and gave a reason why. I also added that there is still the problem of an actual infinite. But doesn't respond to this at all. Indeed, atheism's force is now shrinking in light of this cosmological evidence. So instead of dealing with the objections I gave, Adams retreats to his original objection and re-states:
"Mr Guthrie continues by arguing again that the Universe must have had a 'first cause', that first cause being God. However, such a suggestion is flawed. It simply moves the emphasis from 'the universe must have had a first cause' to 'the universe's creator must have had a first cause'."
But I had already responded to this originally in my first rebuttal by saying:
"[T]he implication of the cosmological argument I advanced is composed of these three statements:
(1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause for its existence.
(2) The universe began to exist.
(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause for its existence.
No one is suggesting that everything that exists has a cause for its existence and, as such, God would need a cause. Instead, I have argued that only those things which begin to exist need a cause. Thus Adams makes a category mistake by asking who or what created God, much like asking what color the note C is. Worse than that, this objection does nothing to explain what I initially argued: What caused the beginning of the universe? Where did it come from and why does it exist instead of nothing? The evidence points to a timeless, changeless being."
As atheist philosopher Quentin Smith poignantly observes, "'God created the Big Bang' has taken hold on popular consciousness and become a staple in the theistic component of 'educated common sense.' By contrast, the response of atheists and agnostics to this development has been comparatively lame" ("Atheism, Theism, and Big Bang Cosmology", Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 195).
In debating Adams on this topic, nothing could be closer to the truth. Remember, if Adams is going to convince anybody that my arguments fail to prove God's existence, then he has to actually deal with the objections.
So Adams concludes with, "We must accept that we do not know if, or exactly how the universe began. The fact that we do not know does not mean that we must automatically default to 'God did it'". But since things do not just pop into existence uncaused out of nothing, there must be an agent behind its inception. The nature of the first cause is inferred from the facts of the Big Bang. That is, the cause of the universe would obviously be causally prior to space and time. This means that the cause must be timeless and incorporeal. If a cause is timeless then it is eternal. But since eternal causes would naturally yield eternal effect (like cold temperatures would constantly cause freezing), there must be a personality behind the cause. In any case, Adams' skepticism is a much weaker thesis than atheism. He now seems to be concerned with questioning God's existence instead of disproving it.
Given the relatively weak arguments produced by Adams for atheism and the two arguments I gave supporting God's existence, it seems very clear that theism is the victor in this debate.