Topics Religion

Question What makes god, GOD? or in other words: what gives "him" authority? Is it the fact that he "knows all", or the fact that he can "create", or the lack thereof?

Accepted:
June 8, 2007

Comments

As we know, there are a small number oftraditional arguments, and many hundreds of variations, that purportto prove the existence of a perfect, necessary or all-creating being.What is sometimes glossed over in presentations of these arguments isthe last step, which must be something like 'we have proved the existenceof X, and X is the being that we call “God”'. This last stepinvolves more than just attaching a name to something. Rather, it isarguing that the properties of X are such that X must be deemed to'have authority' as you put it above; that is, a being that should beworshiped, obeyed, or whatever. Now, if the properties of X are thatof an all-powerful, all-creating or perhaps all-knowing being, doesour concept of this being demand worship? That is, even were I to accept theexistence of a being matching this description, with what force doesit follow that I also accept this being's authority? These problemsconfront the philosophy of religion when it deals with thetraditional arguments, and crucially when it interprets them asattempts to establish knowledge of something.

Accordingly, one solution to suchproblems is to see the whole question as only arising within thesphere of faith. Kant is a good source for a related and neatsolution. He argues that that the only satisfactory proof for theexistence of God is a moral proof: faith in God is rigorouslyentailed by our belief that it is possible for us to be moral. Iwon't go into the details here. If Kant is right, however, two thingsfollow. First, as above, the existence of God is not an object ofknowledge, but of a kind of moral conviction. Second, and mostimportantly for your question, the authority of God is identical withthe authority of morality. That is, it is not the case that some ruleis a moral duty for us because it is commanded by God, because thenwe would be caught in the trap you suggest. Rather, the opposite: Godis recognised, so to speak, as having authority insofar as he isconceived of as an ideal moral being. If morality has 'authority' over us, then so must God.

You might also look at the response to Question 27.

I think yours is an excellent -- but too infrequently asked -- question. It's not at all obvious, once you start to think about it, what is supposed to give God the right to legislate for anyone, much less for everyone.

Would it be because He is as powerful as it is possible to be? Well, might is not supposed to make right – just because someone can beat you up doesn’t mean he has the right to do so. How about the fact that He created us? Well, human parents create children – that is, they take deliberate steps to bring it about that a child comes into existence – all the time. Do they have the right to make rules for their children? Yes and no. Yes, while the children are young, vulnerable, and dependent on their parents for their material existence. (And even here there are limits – the government ought to step in and terminate parental authority if the parents are negligent or abusive.) But no, once the children are mature – we do not (at least not in my society, not at this point in time) think that parents have the right to decide on their children’s careers, places of residence, spouses – and certainly not on what values the children must or must not endorse. It will be objected to the last part of what I said that parents are not the “real” Creators of their children, or that they do not “fully” create them – that God is the real Creator. In this sense, there is only one creator of anything. But in that case, we have no basis for evaluating the suggestion that Creation confers authority on the Creator – it appears to be an unargued-for premise.

Another thing that might be said is that God’s authority stems from His perfect goodness. But again, goodness in a person does not necessarily give them the right to command you to do things. If God is perfectly good, then we should certainly do what He tells us to do, because He is perfectly reliable about what’s right and what’s wrong. But then it’s not His command that has authority over us, it’s goodness itself.

Douglas Burnham, in his response to your question, seems to think that the point immediately above is somehow a vindication of God’s moral authority, as long as the question is “seen as” “only arising within the sphere of faith.” I don’t know what he means by this – I don’t know what it is for a question to “only arise within a sphere.” Perhaps he means that one would only be prompted to ask the question if one was already a believer, but I doubt that’s what he means, since it seems to be so obviously false. It seems that the question might well be posed, for example, by an unbeliever who is being proselytized by a believer: “What gives this ‘God’ you tell me about the standing to regulate my life?” So I’m left wondering what he does mean.

I also don’t know what Prof. Burnham means when he says that, according to the Kantian “solution” (which he seems to be endorsing), “the existence of God is not an object of knowledge, but a kind of moral conviction.” If he’s recommending that people stop using the sentence “God exists” to assert that a certain kind of being exists, and that they insist starting meaning by it, “I’m really committed to being morally good,” then fine, but good luck with that. If he thinks that this is generally what’s meant, I respectfully disagree a whole lot. If he were right, then it would be self-contradictory for an atheist to express commitment to moral values. But I’m an atheist and [now watch this] I think torture is morally wrong. You need a really tortured re-interpretation of something I say in order to get a contradiction!

Two points of clarification. In my response above, I am certainlynot endorsing Kant's solution, and I apologise if my wording gave that impression. Rather, I was giving his argument as an example of how some philosophers reply to the very fine question 'What makes God, GOD?'. That is, I am claiming that his versionof the moral argument is philosophically interesting in that it triesto avoid the problem that Professor Antony and I both believebedevils (so to speak) the traditional arguments. It does this bytrying to show that faith is entailed by, and indeed incorporatedwithin, moral action. Does Kant's argument work? Well, it certainlydoesn't threaten my atheism -- but it is certainly also not'tortured' in the manner Professor Antony suggests. (On the point ofthe supposed contradiction between moral and atheistic beliefs seethe end of sec. 87 of Kant's Critique of Judgement.)

I should also clarify what Imeant by 'in the sphere of faith'. Historically, when Anselmdeveloped the ontological argument, his aim was probably not toconvince atheists (after all, his audience were his fellow 'men ofGod'). I suspect that the argument should rather be seen as ananalysis of whether one's faith can be reconciled with reason. Thishistorical point matters because it explains why philosophers likeAnselm tended to be less interested in the question of God'sauthority, for that authority was never really in doubt in the firstplace. Kant's point is slightly different: the existence of God isnot and could never be a question of knowledge where that isdefined according to the paradigm of knowledge of objective states of affairs inthe world. Therefore, the person who has faith in God does not knowGod, but (i) this does not entail that they are irrational; (ii) the authority of God does not derive from attributes of force or power, which at best inspire fear; nor(iii) does the believer's certainty have to be down-graded. Similarly, the certaintyof my moral convictions is not lessened by the fact that theseconvictions are not knowledge of the above type either. All thesepoints are not, I think, mere historical curiosities. As I said above they are 'philosophically interesting'. Distinctionsand analyses are evoked that may have value for contemporarydebates.

Question What makes god, GOD? or in other words: what gives "him" authority? Is it the fact that he "knows all", or the fact that he can "create", or the lack thereof? Accepted:June 8, 2007

Question What makes god, GOD? or in other words: what gives "him" authority? Is it the fact that he "knows all", or the fact that he can "create", or the lack thereof?

Accepted:
June 8, 2007