End of Faith, Chapter Two

I've put this off long enough. On to chapter two which is entitled 'The Nature of Belief'. After spending several pages stating what to me are very obvious claims such as, "When I answer the phone it is either my brother on the other end or it isn't.", Harris makes many other staggeringly astute observations. He then moves on to a section entitled 'Faith & Evidence' where he tries to show that beliefs require, nay demand, causal answers rather than answers along the lines of 'it makes me feel good.' Apparently, Harris believes that people of faith believe in their God because it makes them feel good. Here is where he starts to make major blunders in his line of reasoning. The first one comes at the beginning of the chapter on page 51 where he states, "What must a brain do in order to believe that a given statement is true or false? We currently have no idea." Really? No idea at all? Harris puts forth an epistemological assertion that we have no idea what must happen in order for us to believe a given statement is true or false and then proceeds to tell us what that process must be in the rest of the chapter! Now, I don't have a problem with someone trying his best to put forth a hypothesis where one is needed, but he ignores some very important literature on religious epistemology. If he were simply writing from a naturalistic viewpoint about the nature of belief I could let this slide. But his main point in writing this book is to examine religious beliefs as well as the role of faith. Harris does not even give a hint that there have been Christians writing about epistemology for years. For me, or anyone else, to take Mr. Harris seriously he must first interact with and comment on any one of the following:

Warrant: The Current Debate

Warrant and Proper Function and

Warranted Christian Belief

all by Alvin Plantinga. All three of these books were published before 2004 (End of Faith's pub. date) so Harris has no excuse for not knowing they were available. There are plenty of other options he had at his disposal as well:

A Realist Conception of Truth by William Alston
Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience by William Alston

Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous by W. Jay Wood
Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge (various authors)
Faith Beyond Reason: A Kierkegaardian Account by C. Stephen Evans
Why Believe?: Reason and Mystery As Pointers to God by C. Stephen Evans

Epistemic Justification by Richard Swinburne
Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology by Nicholas Wolterstorff

This list does not include the numerous articles on religious epistemology found in several different journals nor does it include other books that contain chapters or sections devoted to religious epistemology. The list given does not included the many books written about the role of Faith & Reason over the years. Harris probably will not be persuaded (much) by these books due to his radical naturalistic and utilitarian frame of mind. But to not even acknowledge that Christians have wrestled with and spilled much ink on the topic at hand is disingenuous at best. Until Harris shows a willingness to even make an attempt to engage the arguments put forth by any of these books, I'm afraid I cannot take him seriously, nor should anyone else for that matter.

Two more big blunders on Harris' part happens simultaneously. His misuse of the word 'believe' and his misrepresentation of Pascal's wager. On page 62 he states that in answer to the question why do I believe that God exists one should not answer 'because it makes me feel good' or 'that it is prudent to do so' (Pascal). Harris continues with "Of course, I can say this, but I cannot mean by the word "believe" what I mean when I say things like... "I believe there is an oak in my yard because I can see it." I left out the first example of the make-up of water to deal with this oak tree example first. Harris is confusing the meaning and use of the word 'believe' here. When someone is making a statement about whether or not there is an oak tree in their yard or not belief does not come into play. You either know you have an oak tree or not. Your belief doesn't enter into it. If you are unsure if the tree in question is in fact an oak tree one would consult various references to determine whether or not it is in fact an oak tree or not. Then belief would have no more place in the statement. It would simply be a matter of fact, "I have an oak tree in my yard."

But maybe I have over-analyzed Harris' point. Maybe his point is that he believes that there is a tree (regardless of whether it is an oak, elm, birch, or even a larch) in his yard because he sees a tree. This would seem to fit in with his demand for empirical evidence for all things religious. The question is, then, do we need to provide this kind of evidence for believing in God? I would argue we do not. My reason lies in the realm of categories. God is a different category than trees or water and is not subject to empirical testing and/or evidence. Harris' kind of evidence requires that God can somehow be placed in a lab and studied. How can we do this? We cannot take a being who by definition is beyond us and place that being in a lab to study. This, to me, is the naturalists downfall. Thinking (believing?) that by naturalistic means we can ascertain the existence (and thereby our justification for believing in) of a supernatural being. No amount of prodding, poking, or measuring will tell us one way or another whether or not a supernatural being exists! We only will know if such a being exists (for the most part) if that being initiates contact with us. As far as the Christian view is concerned we can also know of God's existence through nature and observing it as well as an internal 'knowing' of what's right and wrong by God having 'written' his law on our hearts. Again, if Harris would have taken the time to look into any of the previously listed books, many of his concerns at least would have been addressed even if he wasn't convinced by them.

Finally, Harris' misrepresentation of Pascal's wager. Harris seems to equate Pascal's wager with the same kind of answer as "I believe in God because it makes me feel good." This is not what Pascal was getting at. I will finish with a lengthy (but good!) quote from Peter Kreeft's web site on Pascal's Wager. He articulates it better than I can:

To understand Pascal's Wager you have to understand the background of the argument. Pascal lived in a time of great scepticism. Medieval philosophy was dead, and medieval theology was being ignored or sneered at by the new intellectuals of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. Montaigne, the great sceptical essayist, was the most popular writer of the day. The classic arguments for the existence of God were no longer popularly believed. What could the Christian apologist say to the sceptical mind of this age? Suppose such a typical mind lacked both the gift of faith and the confidence in reason to prove God's existence; could there be a third ladder out of the pit of unbelief into the light of belief?

Pascal's Wager claims to be that third ladder. Pascal well knew that it was a low ladder. If you believe in God only as a bet, that is certainly not a deep, mature, or adequate faith. But it is something, it is a start, it is enough to dam the tide of atheism. The Wager appeals not to a high ideal, like faith, hope, love, or proof, but to a low one: the instinct for self-preservation, the desire to be happy and not unhappy. But on that low natural level, it has tremendous force. Thus Pascal prefaces his argument with the words, "Let us now speak according to our natural lights."

Imagine you are playing a game for two prizes. You wager blue chips to win blue prizes and red chips to win red prizes. The blue chips are your mind, your reason, and the blue prize is the truth about God's existence. The red chips are your will, your desires, and the red prize is heavenly happiness. Everyone wants both prizes, truth and happiness. Now suppose there is no way of calculating how to play the blue chips. Suppose your reason cannot win you the truth. In that case, you can still calculate how to play the red chips. Believe in God not because your reason can prove with certainty that it is true that God exists but because your will seeks happiness, and God is your only chance of attaining happiness eternally.

Pascal says, "Either God is, or he is not. But to which view shall we be inclined? Reason cannot decide this question. [Remember that Pascal's Wager is an argument for sceptics.] Infinite chaos separates us. At the far end of this infinite distance [death] a coin is being spun that will come down heads [God] or tails [no God]. How will you wager?"

The most powerful part of Pascal's argument comes next. It is not his refutation of atheism as a foolish wager (that comes last) but his refutation of agnosticism as impossible. Agnosticism, not-knowing, maintaining a sceptical, uncommitted attitude, seems to be the most reasonable option. The agnostic says, "The right thing is not to wager at all." Pascal replies, "But you must wager. There is no choice. You are already committed [embarked]." We are not outside observers of life, but participants. We are like ships that need to get home, sailing past a port that has signs on it proclaiming that it is our true home and our true happiness. The ships are our own lives and the signs on the port say "God". The agnostic says he will neither put in at that port (believe) nor turn away from it (disbelieve) but stay anchored a reasonable distance away until the weather clears and he can see better whether this is the true port or a fake (for there are a lot of fakes around). Why is this attitude unreasonable, even impossible? Because we are moving. The ship of life is moving along the waters of time, and there comes a point of no return, when our fuel runs out, when it is too late. The Wager works because of the fact of death.

Suppose Romeo proposes to Juliet and Juliet says, "Give me some time to make up my mind." Suppose Romeo keeps coming back day after day, and Juliet keeps saying the same thing day after day: "Perhaps tomorrow." In the words of a small, female, red-haired American philosopher, "Tomorrow is always a day away. And there comes a time when there are no more tomorrows. Then "maybe" becomes "no". Romeo will die. Corpses do not marry. Christianity is God's marriage proposal to the soul. Saying "maybe" and "perhaps tomorrow" cannot continue indefinitely because life does not continue indefinitely. The weather will never clear enough for the agnostic navigator to be sure whether the port is true home or false just by looking at it through binoculars from a distance. He has to take a chance, on this port or some other, or he will never get home.

Once it is decided that we must wager; once it is decided that there are only two options, theism and atheism, not three, theism, atheism, and agnosticism; then the rest of the argument is simple. Atheism is a terrible bet. It gives you no chance of winning the red prize. Pascal states the argument this way:

You have two things to lose: the true and the good; and two things to stake: your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to avoid: error and wretchedness. Since you must necessarily choose, your reason is no more affronted by choosing one rather than the other. That is one point cleared up. But your happiness? Let us weigh up the gain and the loss involved in calling heads that God exists. Let us assess the two cases: if you win, you win everything: if you lose, you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then: wager that he does exist.

If God does not exist, it does not matter how you wager, for there is nothing to win after death and nothing to lose after death. But if God does exist, your only chance of winning eternal happiness is to believe, and your only chance of losing it is to refuse to believe. As Pascal says, "I should be much more afraid of being mistaken and then finding out that Christianity is true than of being mistaken in believing it to be true." If you believe too much, you neither win nor lose eternal happiness. But if you believe too little, you risk losing everything.

But is it worth the price? What must be given up to wager that God exists? Whatever it is, it is only finite, and it is most reasonable to wager something finite on the chance of winning an infinite prize. Perhaps you must give up autonomy or illicit pleasures, but you will gain infinite happiness in eternity, and "I tell you that you will gain even in this life "—purpose, peace, hope, joy, the things that put smiles on the lips of martyrs.

Lest we take this argument with less seriousness than Pascal meant it, he concludes: "If my words please you and seem cogent, you must know that they come from a man who went down upon his knees before and after."

To the high-minded objector who refuses to believe for the low motive of saving the eternal skin of his own soul, we may reply that the Wager works quite as well if we change the motive. Let us say we want to give God his due if there is a God. Now if there is a God, justice demands total faith, hope, love, obedience, and worship. If there is a God and we refuse to give him these things, we sin maximally against the truth. But the only chance of doing infinite justice is if God exists and we believe, while the only chance of doing infinite injustice is if God exists and we do not believe. If God does not exist, there is no one there to do infinite justice or infinite injustice to. So the motive of doing justice moves the Wager just as well as the motive of seeking happiness. Pascal used the more selfish motive because we all have that all the time, while only some are motivated by justice, and only some of the time.

Because the whole argument moves on the practical rather than the theoretical level, it is fitting that Pascal next imagines the listener offering the practical objection that he just cannot bring himself to believe. Pascal then answers the objection with stunningly practical psychology, with the suggestion that the prospective convert "act into" his belief if he cannot yet "act out" of it.

If you are unable to believe, it is because of your passions since reason impels you to believe and yet you cannot do so. Concentrate then not on convincing yourself by multiplying proofs of God's existence but by diminishing your passions. You want to find faith, and you do not know the road. You want to be cured of unbelief, and you ask for the remedy: learn from those who were once bound like you and who now wager all they have. . . . They behaved just as if they did believe.

This is the same advice Dostoevsky's guru, Father Zossima, gives to the "woman of little faith" in The Brothers Karamazov. The behavior Pascal mentions is "taking holy water, having Masses said, and so on". The behavior Father Zossima counsels to the same end is "active and indefatigable love of your neighbor." In both cases, living the Faith can be a way of getting the Faith. As Pascal says: "That will make you believe quite naturally and will make you more docile." "But that is what I am afraid of.'' ''But why? What have you to lose?"

An atheist visited the great rabbi and philosopher Martin Buber and demanded that Buber prove the existence of God to him. Buber refused, and the atheist got up to leave in anger. As he left, Buber called after him, "But can you be sure there is no God?" That atheist wrote, forty years later, "I am still an atheist. But Buber's question has haunted me every day of my life." The Wager has just that haunting power.