Here’s a nice short piece by Frank Pastore. It’s entitled “Why Atheism Fails: The Four Big Bangs”. The four problems, posed somewhat more precisely than Pastore himself does, are:
- How did the universe come about given that it’s non-eternal?
- How could life have emerged from non-living matter?
- How could mind and self-consciousness have emerged from matter?
- How could there be objective good and evil if materialism is true?
Though Pastore doesn’t develop any of these questions in much detail, these are all good questions. And materialists have yet to spell out convincing answers to them. Indeed, it is quite unclear that they can do so within the constraints of their metaphysics. Of course, some materialists will simply deny the presuppositions of the questions. Some, for example, will deny the existence of objective good and evil. Others will deny the existence of self-conscious minds. Others will insist on the eternity of the physical universe (or of some sort of physical meta-verse). The first two moves carry a heavy burden because of their radical departure from common sense. The last one is sheer speculation. Whether there is a physical meta-verse is not something that any conceivable empirical data is going to be able to confirm.
Pastore does fall into the common conflation of atheism and materialism. Technically speaking, one can be an atheist without being a materialist. (The converse is not true, however, since no standard account of God allows God to be a material being.) Pastore’s conflation is understandable, however, because a great many (if not most) atheists are materialists.
PS. Some of the comments on Pastore’s article are amusing, but I wouldn’t put much stock in most of them. Anyone who thinks these problems are easily and painlessly solved by materialists has at best a superficial understanding of the difficulties. Likewise, anyone who thinks that a non-materialist worldview like theism doesn’t face some difficult problems needs to read up on some of the standard objections.
Actually, another question I find more interesting, and one that tends to get overlooked, is ‘why is the universe comprehensible?’
That’s a good point, John.
A theist has an easy time with that question. Since the world is the creation of an intelligent God, it is intrinsically intelligible. Since our minds are fashioned by God to operate well in this world, it is intelligible to us.
Materialists, on the other hand, either have to deny that the world is intrinsically intelligible (down that road lies postmodernism) or take its intelligibility as a brute fact and explain how it can be intelligible to us by telling an evolutionary-type just-so story.
For myself, I think theistic answer is the more plausible of the two. But, of course, others will disagree.
“Pastore does fall into the common conflation of atheism and materialism. Technically speaking, one can be an atheist without being a materialist. (The converse is not true, however, since no standard account of God allows God to be a material being.) Pastore’s conflation is understandable, however, because a great many (if not most) atheists are materialists.“
I understand what you’re saying and why — I care very much about the meanings and uses of words — but in the end, I must end up disagreeing with you that there is a substantive distinction between ‘materialism’ and ‘atheism.’
Not to put to fine a point on it, but most any “spiritual” (i.e. assertedly non-materialistic) ‘atheism’ is but an incoherent gloss of “spirit” over the top of the underlying ‘materialism’ of the particular -ism. In other words, this “spirit” is just pasted on to the system as an attempt to circumvent the clear implications of the underlying ‘materialism;’ it’s pasted on, it doesn’t follow, it’s a distraction.
Or else, one gets something like Buddhism, which is both ‘atheistic’ and ‘non-materialistic’ (thus, meeting your statement that “Technically speaking, one can be an atheist without being a materialist.“), but which is also incoherent all-the-way-down, from its first posits/assumptions.
As I see it, the difficulty that educated persons such as yourself have in seeing that ‘atheism’ must inherently be ‘materialistic’ (or, if not, than must be inherently incoherent from its first premise, in which case, it is utterly irrelevent to the rational person) follows from the fact that the word ‘atheism’ — and more importantly the word ‘theism’ — is/are used in two contradictory ways. As I see it, the two usages of ‘theism’ are in even more opposition than the two usages of ‘atheism.’ For, of course, the term ‘atheism’ is derivative of the term ‘theism.’ And almost always the term ‘atheism’ is understood in context to mean “denial of the Biblical conception of God”. It’s for this reason that I rarely use the word ‘theism’ (and never call myself a “theist”).
This is what I mean about the term ‘theism:’ The term is used to lump together Jewish-Christian “theism” with, say, classical pagan “theism,” as though the two systems of “theism” have anything in common other than the word “god.”
I use the classical paganism as my example, since that (and to a lesser degree, Norse/Germanic paganism) is the paganism I am familiar with — but it’s not the content of a particular paganism that concerns me, it’s the structure, the underlying assumptions. Thus, while I am unaware of any paganism that can be put into the same pigeon-hole with Jewish-Christian “theism,” I do not insist that there are none.
Now, the reason that classical pagan “theism” and Jewish-Christian “theism” cannot coherently be classed together has to do with the underlying assumptions: the primary assumption of classical pagan “theism” is ‘materialism;’ the primary assumption of Jewish-Christian “theism” is ‘non-materialism.’
That is, classical pagan “theism” (as are all paganisms of which I am aware) is inherently ‘materialistic;’ and is thus in absolute contrast to Biblical “theism.” So, apparently one *can* be both a “theist” and a ‘materialist.’ But, of course, you qualified the statement that “The converse is not true” with the proviso that “no standard account of God allows God to be a material being.” What I’m trying to do here is show you that you do already understand the over-all distinction I wish to make about the contradictory usages of the them ‘theism,’ but likely haven’t yet consciously thought it out.
Consider again you own statement: “The converse [that one can be a ‘materialistic’ “theist”] is not true, however, since no standard account of God allows God to be a material being.” What are these “standard account[s] of God?” They will, of course, be conceptions very akin to the Jewish-Christian/Biblical conception of God — that is, a God who exists independently of the “material universe” or “nature;” which is to say, a God who is not an effect of the “material universe,” but *may* be its cause.
In contrast, the classical Greek/Roman gods, the Norse/Germanic gods, the Egyptian gods, the Sumerian/Babylonian gods, etc, *were* effects of the “material universe;” there were not its cause, rather, it caused them — just as “western atheism” (i.e. the ‘atheism’ which is posited in denial of the the Jewish-Christian conception of God) must, by its very nature, assert is true of humans and all other living (and non-living) things.
At the other extreme, suppose there is some “theism” which posits that there is indeed a God (of the “standard account of God” variety), but simultaneously asserts that this God is not the cause of “material universe” or “nature.” What then must we realize of this “theism” in regard to the “materialism/non-materialism” question? Simply this: that this “theism” cannot be other than ‘materialistic;’ for in denying that the “material universe” or “nature” is caused by a God who is not an effect of the natural system, ‘materialism’ is the only option available to that “theism.” So, again, it appears that one *can* be both a “theist” and a ‘materialist’ — and this case the “theism” accords to the “standard account of God.” But, this particular posited God is utterly irrelevant to us and to our attempt to understand the reality we inhabit.
So, back to my disagreement that one can be both an ‘atheist and a ‘non-materialist’ — or, to be more precise, while agreeing with the technicality (which technicality is quite dependent upon just what one means by “theism” and “atheism”), insisting that this particular technicality is quite irrelevant to the reality we actually line in and seek to understand. And also insisting that this particular technicality also depends upon a misunderstanding about ‘materialism’ and ‘non-materialism’ — which is to say, the technicality vanishes upon examination.
Both ‘materialism’ and ‘non-materialism’ are attempts to explain reality. For both these -isms, this “reality” includes the “material universe” or “nature.” ‘Materialism’ stops there, saying that that is all there is, and that we therefore are entirely effects of “nature.” On the other hand, ‘non-materialism’ says that the “material universe” or “nature” is not all there is to reality, and that we are not *merely* effects of “nature.” — Any so-called ‘non-materialism’ which includes the posit that we are entirely effects of “nature” is, definitionally, ‘materialism.’
In contrast to ‘materialism’ and ‘non-materialism,’ there is what we might call “anti-materialism” — which would be the denial that the “material universe” or “nature” is real. Buddhism, as an example, is “anti-materialistic,” rather than being ‘non-materialistic’ (but then, Buddhism *also* denies that “spirit” is real).
So yes, an “anti-materialist” is certainly not a ‘materialist’ and can certainly be an ‘atheist’ — just as a “theist” *could* be a ‘materialist’ — thus “Technically speaking, one can be an atheist without being a materialist.” But what rational person really cares about the technicality, since the technicality depends upon and follows from an inherent irrationality and incoherence at the very foundation of the -ism that the “not-a-materialist” espouses?
Thanks for the comments, Ilion. I don’t have time to respond in detail, so I’ll just make a couple points.
(1) As the term is used in academic philosophy of religion, ‘theism’ refers exclusively to ‘monotheism’ of a broadly Judeo-Christian sort. That usage may be objectionably narrow in some contexts, but it’s standard usage nonetheless. You are right that ancient polytheisms are essentially materialistic.
(2) There have in fact been nonmaterialist atheists. As my philosophical friend BV pointed out to me, McTaggart was one such. And occasionally I find modern-day atheists who bring up the point, usually to deflect the force of some objection against materialism. Such moves run into other problems and may all be untenable at the end of the day, but they can’t be simply dismissed out of hand.
“I don’t have time to respond in detail, so I’ll just make a couple points.“
I guess I’d better make this post shorted than the last.
“(1) As the term is used in academic philosophy of religion, ‘theism’ refers exclusively to ‘monotheism’ of a broadly Judeo-Christian sort.“
I understand that — I’m not trying to tell anyone not to use the term; though I would suggest thinking about finding another term.
I understand that you professionals need a term that can encompass Christian theology while not being co-terminous with that theology. And I have no idea what alternative to suggest to you.
“That usage may be objectionably narrow in some contexts, but it’s standard usage nonetheless.“
Whether it’s too narow in some contexts, it’s certainly far too broad in others, specificly that that the average person deals with day-to-day.
And, as I think I made clear, I don’t shy away from using ‘atheist’ or ‘atheism’ (though, for some reason I generally put the words in single quotes.) — which is rather hard to explain, considering the provenance of those two words. But, aside from the set of ‘atheists’ who try to redefine ‘atheism’ to be functionally equivalent to ‘agnosticism,’ it is almost always quite clear that a person using those words is using them in relation to the Biblical conception of God.
But on the other hand, when one encounters “theism,” it’s oftentimes not at all clear that the word is being used in relation to the Biblical conception of God. There is enough ambiguity in the word that a certain sort of person, from the shallow “village atheist” to the even more shallow “public intellectual,” feels quite at ease in using the word to present a case against Zeus — which is somehow supposed to be a case against the God of the Bible.
“(2) There have in fact been nonmaterialist atheists.“
One can consider oneself to be all sorts of odd combinations of things; but is the position coherent? I cannot see that it is, any more than I can see how one might coherently be a “Christian materialist.”
Of course, I *also* believe that straight-up ‘materialism’ and/or ‘atheism’ is ultimately incoherent upon close examination — from which follows an argument that we can indeed, and contrary to what we were taught, prove that there exists a Creator-God.
“And occasionally I find modern-day atheists who bring up the point, usually to deflect the force of some objection against materialism. Such moves run into other problems and may all be untenable at the end of the day, but they can’t be simply dismissed out of hand.“
It’s never my intention to dismiss anything out of hand. I dismiss ‘materialism’ and ‘atheism’ (in case one insists upon seeing then as distinct things, rather than different ways of looking at the same thing, as I see them) for the same reason I dismiss Buddhism … they are incoherent. To accept/assert ‘materialism’ or ‘atheism’ as true, we must end up dening some other thing we know without doubt is true; namely, that we ourselves exist.
That last just happens to be the gist of the argument for a proof of God that I’d mentioned.