How Reasonable is Theistic Belief?

How Reasonable is Theistic Belief?

by Prof. Redentor Dela Rosa (one of our FB Friend)

Originally posted on his Personal Blog: CatholicPosition.blogspot.com

Many atheists and even theists have the impression that the arguments for the existence of God employed by theists are arguments to prove the existence of God. But this is a wrong impression. Theists who understand their arguments know that the arguments for God’s existence are in no way arguments proving the existence of God. To prove the existence of God is impossible. What the arguments accomplish, rather, is simply to warrant that belief in God is reasonable.

The nature of the arguments in theism is speculative or inferential. John Henry Newman in his Grammar of Assent, explained that assent to an inference is an assent to the probability of the conclusion. If one assents to the truth claim of the conclusion arrived through inference, then one is already jumping into a belief. This explains why even if the theistic arguments are strong; professing that God exists will always be an act of belief or faith. The question that remains now is how reasonable is theistic belief?

In my experience of debating, and reading literatures on this topic, I arrived, without the least doubt, at the conclusion that the belief that there must be God is a lot more reasonable than disbelief, so much so that if I refuse to believe, I will be causing great pain to my reason. In the succeeding discussion, I will demonstrate why.

Even if the Big Bang theory has not been proposed, still it is easy to establish that the universe or the space-time dimension has a beginning. The basis for this is because time is a succession or duration and space is an expanse. And succession or duration or expanse are necessarily finite, that is, they have a beginning and end. St. Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval theologian and philosopher, has already pointed out that regressing back in time cannot be infinite. One can regress indefinitely; but indefinity is not identical to infinity. If we analyze it deeply, there cannot be an infinite succession or regression. No matter how long one will extend back in time, one will always end with a beginning; or no matter how long one extends forward in time, one will always end. Every extension backward or forward is also its end. The reason that one can always extend is because one always has a definite end. The very essence of endless or indefinite succession or extension is that it always has an end. If it has no end, or if it is infinite, then one cannot extend anymore just as one cannot add anything to what is infinite. It is always possible to add another digit to a number precisely because the result of every addition is always finite.

This means that the universe had a beginning, a starting point. No matter how much we extend the age of the universe back in time, it will always have a point of beginning, for duration or multitude cannot extend to infinity since there is no such thing as an infinite multitude, regression, succession or duration.

If the universe had a beginning, then is it necessary to conclude a supernatural creator? The answer is yes. Because any alternative explanation, as long as they belong to the category, natural, will always need an explanation for its own existence since whatever that belongs to the category, natural, will always be finite or has a beginning in existence and does not contain within itself an explanation for its existence.

We often hear from atheists objecting that in principle, a scientific explanation for the existence of the natural realm is possible. The human race might not be able to reach that point of knowledge acquisition, yet, the nature of their argument is implying that a naturalistic explanation must be available even if humanity will not be able to actually discover it – perhaps, a more intellectually evolved organisms will be able to. Their optimism is based on what they call as the “narrowing of gaps.” But this thinking of atheists only proves that they didn’t really fully understand the true value of the theist argument. Their objection actually misses the point.

Thus, in order to escape from the vicious circle, the only alternative is to posit a cause that has the following properties: 1) It must not belong to the category, natural, in other words, supernatural. 2) It must be outside time and space, that is, not having duration and extension. 4) It must be without beginning and end, that is, eternal. Finally, 5) It must be a necessary being, that is, it possesses within itself the reason for its own existence; or it is existence itself.

The last property needs to be explained. It means that there are two kinds of beings, namely, contingent and necessary beings. All things that belong to the category natural are contingent, that is, they have a beginning of existence, and hence, needs an explanation for their existence. Indeed, they don’t contain within themselves the explanation for their existence. But if all beings are contingent, then we will have a series of things each having a beginning. But as explained above, we cannot regress to an infinite series. This means that a series of contingent things always has a beginning or starting point. This means that if all things are contingent, then nothing can possibly exist because nothing in the series can exist through its own causation to start the series. If all beings are contingent, then reality as we know it couldn’t possibly happen. If all beings are contingent, then nothing is possible, that is, none can possibly exist. Hence, in order that something can exist, or in order that the physical contingent universe can exist, there must be two kinds of being; the necessary being and the rest of (contingent) beings.

To sum up; if there is a physical universe (contingent being), there must be a necessary being. If there is no necessary being, neither can there be a contingent being.

So, how reasonable is theistic belief? If we can use numbers, I would say 99.999% reasonable. This means that atheism is only 0.001% reasonable, or perhaps, lesser.

It would be incomplete if we don’t include these exchanges between the author and one Atheist commenter. 

Mark Monsanto said...

The following criteria AREN'T reasonable as well:

“1) It must not belong to the category, natural, in other words, supernatural. 2) It must be outside time and space, that is, not having duration and extension. 4) It must be without beginning and end, that is, eternal. Finally, 5) It must be a necessary being, that is, it possesses within itself the reason for its own existence; or it is existence itself.”

These are all based on non-empirical assumptions.

Redentor de la Rosa said...

Mark, you're missing the main point. Actually, the main point of the article is to explain how reasonable is the assumption of a "non-empirical" (supernatural) cause of the universe. And the article argued that it's 99.999% reasonable than compared to the assumption that the universe is caused by something which can be found in the universe itself, or that it's caused by nothing, or that it has no cause and is eternal. These last three assumptions are in fact not even probable; they're, rather, absurd.

To be frank with you, your (and all atheists') refusal to at least allow the possibility of a supernatural realm is actually only an irrational and fanatical bias. Do we human beings have any a priori basis or principle or law dictating our reason to reject anything that has a touch of supernatural? Is there anything written in the essences of things that forbid our rationality to entertain the possibility of the supernatural? What I know is that humanity is even identical to the supernatural for there's no point in time where the supernatural is not believed by men. Why not allow the possibility of the supernatural if it is the most reasonable? Why cling and insists unreasonably to what is merely empirical? I tell you, your behavior is nothing else than an invincible bias; and that's your fault.

Mark Monsanto said...

//Mark, you're missing the main point. Actually, the main point of the article is to explain how reasonable is the assumption of a "non-empirical" (supernatural) cause of the universe.//

Sorry, but I am NOT like Lawrence Krauss or Victor Stenger, the three assumptions that you mentioned are the one being proposed by those fellow. I am more on the “I Don’t Know (IDK)” type of Atheist who is happy enough as it is due to the non-availability of the answer. I don’t find it irrational to say “IDK” on a phenomenon which is still unexplainable; I find it more irrational to proposed assumption which we cannot verify at all.

I find it absurd as well from the assumptions being explained on the article. If someone will posit on the supernatural then you have to consider all Fictional Comic Book, mythology & literary superstitions as well because all of those belongs to the same.

//What I know is that humanity is even identical to the supernatural for there's no point in time where the supernatural is not believed by men.//

That statement of yours is a fallacy of “Argumentum ad populum” – it concludes a suggestion to be true just because many or most people believe it. In other words, the basic idea of the argument is: "If many believe so, it is so."

I presume that you’re a Christian, so all of the dogmas which don’t belong to your Church teaching are being discarded by you – would you buy on a gift of 72 Virgins in heaven if someone will die at war for a certain cause? I don’t think so. You won’t accept it just because the majority of all Islamic Jihadist fanatics said so, same as your response as a parallel.

Redentor de la Rosa said...

You cannot simply say "you don't know" because there are a lot of things there that we do know. For instance, we know that the cause of the universe must not be within itself since we know that nothing can cause itself for in that case it would exists prior to itself, which is absurd. We know that it cannot be caused by nothing; we know that the universe is not eternal; and lastly, we know that the universe has a cause for we know that it has a beginning. Based on these things that we know, we know that the cause must be outside the universe or the entire physical reality. Now we also know that we have no a priori basis why we shouldn't accept the existence of the supernatural; on the contrary, we know that the supernatural is co-natural to our reason, that is, it has been easily accepted by men even though they are highly intelligent and academically oriented. Further, we human beings have also within our immediate grasp two faculties which are, arguably, supernatural, namely, the intellect and freewill. Hence, after considering all these things that we know, the believer indeed is justified in his belief; for his belief, given all the circumstantial evidences, is very reasonable. Now if you say that you don't know, then you're not arguing at all. In argumentation, you're not giving a claim; hence, we don't have an issue here. In that case too, you're not an atheist because atheism is a complex proposition. It is not simply unbelief as many others wrongly construed it. It also includes the proposition that the universe is caused by something merely within its own category.

//I find it absurd as well from the assumptions being explained on the article. If someone will posit on the supernatural then you have to consider all Fictional Comic Book, mythology & literary superstitions as well because all of those belongs to the same.//

They don't follow. Admitting the supernatural does not mean admitting all that are superstitious and "fictional supernatural." Even the supernatural is governed by metaphysical laws. For instance, we cannot admit many of the "supernatural gods and goddesses of Roman, Greek, etc., mythologies. We cannot also accept the many "supernatural" esoteric doctrines of Eastern religions. What is the reason? The answer is because we can rigorously establish (through philosophical investigation) the nature of the supernatural. This investigation is generally treated in the branches of philosophy called Metaphysics, Theodicy, and Philo of Religion. The 72 virgins is one of those "supernatural doctrines" which we can eliminate or rationally demonstrate as false through those branches of Philosophy.

//That statement of yours is a fallacy of “Argumentum ad populum”//

I didn't commit an ad populum fallacy since I am not in that specific point arguing that the supernatural is true because it is believed by men in all times. No, that is not my argument. I am using it only to argue that the supernatural is not a priori rejected by our rationality (by the law of our reasoning) because if it is, then nobody should have believed on it. An example of what is rejected by our reason a priori is the proposition, "nothing can produce something." This is immediately rejected by the law of our reasoning so much so that no sane man will ever accept such proposition. But the proposition, "there is a supernatural realm," is not rejected by our rationality a priori, which explains why there is not a point in time that it has never been believed by men. That is why I said that your rejection of the supernatural is merely a bias because we don't have, in the first place, an a priori basis to reject it.