A BRIEF CASE FOR AN EMERGENT CASE
Even if the individual arguments for theism do not have much going for them, even though I think they do, that is still compatible with their being a strong cumulative case for theism. That is, even if the distributive and incremental cumulative cases do not justify theism over naturalism, something called an emergent case still might. Indeed, I think the emergent case is good evidence for theism in addition to other epistemic advantages theism has over naturalism. In order to get the idea of how an emergent case for theism would unfold, I can do no better than quote Paul Draper:
“…The explanandum, whether it is complexity of one sort or another, morality, consciousness, religious experience, or free will, is in each case better explained by naturalism than by theism, partly because theism is so much more extravagant, metaphysically speaking, than naturalism. Typically, these naturalistic explanations are reductive or even eliminative. Thus, there is a sense in which the phenomenon in question, or at least the phenomenon interpreted robustly, is explained naturalistically by being explained away. Thus, the mental is either eliminated as illusion (a postulate of naïve folk psychology) or it is reduced to the physical. Free will is either eliminated as illusion (more folk psychology) or it is reduced to something compatible with causal determinism. Morality is either eliminated as illusion (a product of selfish genes ensuring their own survival by deceiving their hosts) or it is reduced to something subjective or culturally relative. Fine-tuning is either eliminated as illusion (free physical parameters will not be free when we discover the true fundamental laws of physics from which their values all follow) or it is reduced to a byproduct of multiple universes and observational selection. The naturalistic explanation is in each case better than the theistic explanation because of its metaphysical modesty-other things beings equal, it is better to subtract by elimination or reduction than to add a supernatural person to one’s ontology, especially since naturalistic explanations have successfully replaced supernaturalist ones so many times in the past…It does not follow, however, from the fact that theism is not the best explanation of any member of some set of facts, that it is not the best explanation of the conjunction of the members of that set. Reductive and eliminative explanations are fine up to a point. The more phenomena one attempts to explain (away), however, the less good those explanations appear when looked at cumulatively. At some point, metaphysical extravagance combined with a world that in multiple respects is really how it appears to be beats metaphysical modesty combined with a world that is not at all similar to how it appears. This is partly because every reduction or elimination of some phenomenon in which we are naturally disposed to believe makes us or should make us less confident in our cognitive faculties. If a worldview requires us to explain away too many phenomena, phenomena that our cognitive faculties tell us are real, then we must reject that worldview because believing it is ultimately self-defeating: believing it leads or should lead to doubting the reliability of the very cognitive faculties that generate our worldviews. If for reasons like this naturalism is ultimately self-defeating, then a cumulative case for theism may emerge.”[1]
Although Draper isn’t impressed in the end with an emergent case for theism, it seems to me that the considerations he raises, and other relevant considerations (the notion of causality and the beginning of the universe, our sense of doing things for reasons we give, and the like) do some significant damage to metaphysical naturalism.
[1] Taliaferro, Charles. "Cumulative Cases." In A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, 422-423. 2nd ed. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Even if the individual arguments for theism do not have much going for them, even though I think they do, that is still compatible with their being a strong cumulative case for theism. That is, even if the distributive and incremental cumulative cases do not justify theism over naturalism, something called an emergent case still might. Indeed, I think the emergent case is good evidence for theism in addition to other epistemic advantages theism has over naturalism. In order to get the idea of how an emergent case for theism would unfold, I can do no better than quote Paul Draper:
“…The explanandum, whether it is complexity of one sort or another, morality, consciousness, religious experience, or free will, is in each case better explained by naturalism than by theism, partly because theism is so much more extravagant, metaphysically speaking, than naturalism. Typically, these naturalistic explanations are reductive or even eliminative. Thus, there is a sense in which the phenomenon in question, or at least the phenomenon interpreted robustly, is explained naturalistically by being explained away. Thus, the mental is either eliminated as illusion (a postulate of naïve folk psychology) or it is reduced to the physical. Free will is either eliminated as illusion (more folk psychology) or it is reduced to something compatible with causal determinism. Morality is either eliminated as illusion (a product of selfish genes ensuring their own survival by deceiving their hosts) or it is reduced to something subjective or culturally relative. Fine-tuning is either eliminated as illusion (free physical parameters will not be free when we discover the true fundamental laws of physics from which their values all follow) or it is reduced to a byproduct of multiple universes and observational selection. The naturalistic explanation is in each case better than the theistic explanation because of its metaphysical modesty-other things beings equal, it is better to subtract by elimination or reduction than to add a supernatural person to one’s ontology, especially since naturalistic explanations have successfully replaced supernaturalist ones so many times in the past…It does not follow, however, from the fact that theism is not the best explanation of any member of some set of facts, that it is not the best explanation of the conjunction of the members of that set. Reductive and eliminative explanations are fine up to a point. The more phenomena one attempts to explain (away), however, the less good those explanations appear when looked at cumulatively. At some point, metaphysical extravagance combined with a world that in multiple respects is really how it appears to be beats metaphysical modesty combined with a world that is not at all similar to how it appears. This is partly because every reduction or elimination of some phenomenon in which we are naturally disposed to believe makes us or should make us less confident in our cognitive faculties. If a worldview requires us to explain away too many phenomena, phenomena that our cognitive faculties tell us are real, then we must reject that worldview because believing it is ultimately self-defeating: believing it leads or should lead to doubting the reliability of the very cognitive faculties that generate our worldviews. If for reasons like this naturalism is ultimately self-defeating, then a cumulative case for theism may emerge.”[1]
Although Draper isn’t impressed in the end with an emergent case for theism, it seems to me that the considerations he raises, and other relevant considerations (the notion of causality and the beginning of the universe, our sense of doing things for reasons we give, and the like) do some significant damage to metaphysical naturalism.
[1] Taliaferro, Charles. "Cumulative Cases." In A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, 422-423. 2nd ed. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
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