The following is adapted from my new book What's So Great About Christianity. For more information about the book, see my website dineshdsouza.com.
Bestselling atheist tracts like Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, and Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great portray religion as an unreasonable form of "blind faith," often leading to fanaticism and even violence. Some of these atheists call themselves "brights," implying that they are the smart people who base their opinions on reason and science and don't fall for silly superstitions. But for all their credentials and learning, the atheists have been duped by a fallacy. This may be called the Fallacy of the Enlightenment, and it was first pointed out by that great Enlightenment philosopher, Immanuel Kant.
The Fallacy of the Enlightenment is the glib assumption that human beings can continually find out more and more until eventually there is nothing more to discover. The Enlightenment Fallacy holds that human reason and science can, in principle, unmask the whole of reality. In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant showed that this premise is false. In fact, he argued, that human knowledge is constrained not merely by how much reality is out there but also by the limited sensory apparatus of perception we bring to that reality.
Consider a tape recorder. Being the kind of instrument it is, a tape recorder can capture only one mode of reality: sound. Tape recorders can "hear" but they cannot see or touch or smell. Thus all aspects of reality that cannot be captured in sound are beyond the reach of a tape recorder. The same, Kant says, is true of human beings. The only way we apprehend reality is through our five senses. But why should we believe, Kant asked, that our five-mode instrument for apprehending reality is sufficient for capturing all of reality? What makes us think that there is no reality lies beyond our perception, reality that simply cannot be apprehended by our five senses?
Moreover, the reality we apprehend is merely our experience or "take" on reality. How can you know that your experience of things is in any way like the things-in-themselves? Normally you answer this question by considering the two things separately and then comparing them. I can tell if my daughter's drawing of her teacher looks like the teacher by placing the portrait and alongside the person. I compare the copy or portrait with the original.
Kant points out, however, that we can never compare our experience of reality to reality itself. All we have is the experience, and that's all we can ever have. We have only the copies, but we never have the originals. So we have no basis for presuming that the two are even comparable. When we equate experience and reality, we are making an unjustified leap.
It is essential to recognize that Kant isn't diminishing the importance of experience or what he called the phenomenal world. That world is very important, because it is the only one our senses and reason have access to. It is entirely rational for us to believe in this phenomenal world and to use science and reason to discover its operating principles. But Kant contended that science and reason apply to the world of phenomena, of things as they are experienced by us. Science and reason cannot penetrate what Kant termed the noumena: things as they are in themselves.
Some critics have understood Kant to be denying the existence of external reality or of arguing that all of reality is "in the mind." Kant emphatically rejects this. He insists that the noumenon obviously exists because it is what gives rise to phenomena. In other words, our experience is an experience of something. Perhaps the best way to understand this is to see Kant as positing two kinds of reality: the reality that we experience and reality itself. The important thing is not to establish which is more real, but to recognize that human reason operates only in the phenomenal domain of experience. We can know of the existence of the noumenal realm, but at this point reason has reached its limit.
In Kant's view, the limits of human reason cannot be erased by the passage of time or by further investigation and experimentation. Rather, they are intrinsic to the kind of beings that humans are, and to the kind of apparatus that we possess for perceiving reality. The implication of Kant's argument is that reality as a whole is, in principle, inaccessible to human beings. Put another way, there is a great deal that human beings simply will never know.
So powerful is Kant's argument here that his critics have been able to answer him only with derision. When I challenged Daniel Dennett to debunk Kant's argument, he posted an angry response on his website in which he said several people had already refuted Kant. But he didn't provide any refutations, and he didn't name any names. Basically Dennett was relying on the argumentum ad ignorantium-the argument that relies on the ignorance of the audience. In fact, there are no such refutations.
Although Kant's argument seems counterintuitive-in the way that some of the greatest ideas from Copernicus to Einstein are counterintuitive-no one who understands the central doctrines of the world's leading religions should have any difficulty grasping his main point. Kant's philosophical vision is entirely congruent with the teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity.
It is a shared doctrine of those religions that the empirical world we humans inhabit is not the only world there is. Ours is a world of appearances only in which we see things in a limited and distorted way, "through a glass darkly," as the apostle Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians 13:12. Ours is a transient world that is dependent on a higher, timeless reality. That reality is of a completely different order from anything we know, it constitutes the only permanent reality there is, and it sustains our world and presents it to our senses. Christianity teaches that while reason can point to the existence of this higher domain, this is where reason stops: it cannot on its own investigate or comprehend that domain.
Thus when Christopher Hitchens and other atheists routinely dismiss religious claims on the grounds that "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence," they are making what philosophers like to call a category mistake. We learn from Kant that within the domain of experience, human reason is sovereign, but it is in no way unreasonable to believe things on faith that simply cannot be adjudicated by reason.
When atheists summarily dismiss the immortality of the soul or the afterlife on the grounds that they have never found any empirical proofs for either, they are asking for experiential evidence in a domain which is entirely beyond the reach of experience. In this domain, Kant argues, the absence of evidence cannot be used as the evidence for absence.
Notice that Kant's argument is entirely secular: It does not employ any religious vocabulary, nor does it rely on any kind of faith. But in showing the limits of reason, Kant's philosophy "opens the door to faith," as the philosopher himself noted.
So the new atheists and self-styled "brights" can do their strutting, but Kant has exposed their ignorant boast that atheism operates on a higher intellectual plane than theism. Rather, as Kant showed, reason must know its limits in order to be truly reasonable. The atheist foolishly presumes that reason is in principle capable of figuring out all that there is, while the theist at least knows that there is a reality greater than, and beyond, that which our senses and our minds can ever apprehend.
Reader Comments ( Page 10 of 48)
136. Marc,
When you grow up and stop reciting utterly wrong crap (like the "everyone thought the Earth was flat in Columbus' time" garbage), then people might take you seriously.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 9:54PM on Oct 19th 2007
137. "Truth" and "LIAm",
Wow--you sure told us atheists! I'm so wounded by your stupidity.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 9:57PM on Oct 19th 2007
138. ManofMettl,
"Alright, well, first off, the circumstantial evidence would rely on whether you believe in the “historical” person known as Jesus Christ and what was recorded of him and his life – to include the great wonders and signs He performed (i.e. miracles); indeed, these were done expressly to “show” his proclaimed divinity…"
We can separate the two. There probably was a jesus, but the miracles and son-of-god stuff--no way. Not possible.
"The second evidence is deductive: “Something cannot come from nothing.”"
Then where did god come from? Oh, I know you can't answer that, and I know that you stupidly think, like Dinesh, that metaphysics is dual-realm. It's not. Get over your Pythagorean hangover. There is only one realm: this. There isn't some special alternate realm where god exists. There's just this. There's no apart from the universe. The universe couldn't be created.
And still: where did god come from?
Knight_of_BAAWA at 9:59PM on Oct 19th 2007
139. Father John,
You have false humility. That's worse than none at all.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 10:01PM on Oct 19th 2007
140. Well, "Immanual Kant was a real pissant, I drink therefore I am" (monty python)
web jones at 6:49PM on Oct 20th 2007
141. There is no such thing as 'unreasonable' reason. Something is either proved by evidence and is therefore reasonable to believe, or it is not.
Secondly, reason is able to figure out all that there is. We now know how babies are made (an egg joins with a sperm inside a woman's uterus, starts dividing, implants itself into the woman's uterus and grows over 9-10 months into a human being).
We know know how the sun works (nuclear reaction caused by severe heat and pressure, which is astoundingly efficient, cause light and heat as a byproduct).
Etc. etc. etc....... We now know a lot about how the universe works, including how people can 'come back to life' after apparently being dead (shock a person's heart back into beating, it starts the blood flowing again, returns oxygen to the brain when done in a reasonable amount of time, and the person comes back to life).
There is no such thing as just 'suddenly' coming back to life like Jesus was supposed to have done. More likely, they THOUGHT he was dead after taking him off the cross, but he actually wasn't, someone found him alive in the cave, treated his injuries, he healed, and he snuck back into the cave when he found that the people were going to open it back up.
Or, the whole "Jesus crucified thing" is simply a MYTH, that didn't happen (or happened to someone else who was NOT Jesus) and is totally fabricated.
Reason CAN explain everything in this world, WHEN PEOPLE ARE OPEN TO REASON! That's the problem here today: religionists are not open to reason and facts anymore because they have 'faith' which as I have said before, distorts reality!
Faith is something that we should LOATHE when it is given to some being who apparently doesn't want to show up on this planet, but should be LAUDED when it is given to someone who is actually here and has proven themself worthy of faith!
Christopher Kidwell at 10:23PM on Oct 19th 2007
142. Man of Mettl wrote:
“Alright, well, first off, the circumstantial evidence would rely on whether you believe in the “historical” person known as Jesus Christ and what was recorded of him and his life – to include the great wonders and signs He performed (i.e. miracles); indeed, these were done expressly to “show” his proclaimed divinity...”
There might have been a guy named Jesus who lived about the time of the person you have in mind. However, that people claim he did miracles is completely irrelevant to whether you and I know that he did. People often lie and get things wrong. And I don’t know of any person to have turned loafs into fishes or anything similar, and I’ve known a lot of people.
The second evidence is deductive: “Something cannot come from nothing.”
First, there may be cases of things coming from nothing at the quantum level. Some people claim that there are things called quantum energy fluctuations. Some people claim that these are examples of “something coming from nothing.” However, I don’t know enough about the theory of quantum energy fluctuations to comment on the theory.
Second, the known universe may not have come from “nothing.” Maybe there are additional universes. But even if it is the cast that there are universes other than the one in which we live, where did the other universes come from?
Third, there is fairly good reason to believe that “something can come from nothing,” because our universe may have come from “nothing” and it exists. But I guess what you are saying is that things can start to exist only if an intelligent super-being specifically causes them to exist. But then we have an infinite regress. Something would have had to have caused the super being. Ad infinitum. And an infinite regress of super beings doesn’t make sense. So, the regress ends somewhere. Is it more reasonable to believe that the regress ends with an intelligent super-being or with something other than an intelligent super-being? I think the latter. I haven’t experienced anything remotely similar to such a being.
Moreover, that a universe exists doesn’t enable you to reasonably infer that a super being caused it to exist. I know that event X caused event Y only if I’ve experienced events similar to X cause events similar to Y. For example, I don’t know exactly which series of events resulted in the first cell forming on earth.
Wes at 10:33PM on Oct 19th 2007
143. Knight_of_BAAWA, I now feel silly that I actually believed that you are as dumb as you put on. I have figured out that you are just out to ruffle some feathers, beacause no one could be as ignorant as you. :o)
Marc at 10:40PM on Oct 19th 2007
144. Father John wrote: “The real issue of scientific materialism is that it is also a "faith based" system.”
What do you mean by “scientific materialism?” I agree that I don’t know for certain that there aren’t any gods. But that I don’t know something for certain doesn’t mean that it is no more plausible than not. For example, it is likely that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
“Just because WE, in our arrogance, don't know something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.”
I agree. For example, there may be intelligent life on other planets.
“Because we cannot measure "spiritual" beings doesn't mean they don't exist, simply that we have no way of measuring them. However, this does not mean that we can't make good guesses about the existence of such beings. Physicists make good guesses all the time about particles they have no way of measuring..yet. And yet, it is likely that most, if not all, of the postulated particles exist. The great error of scientific materialists (aka "atheists") is the belief that the inability to perceive something or have the equipment to measure it necessarily leads to its non-existence. If there is one thing the history of science should tell us is that today's "certainty" is tomorrow's belly laugh. What atheists/scientific materialists are lacking is a shred of humility. The belief that we are the apex of the Universe and can or even should be ABLE to "know everything" is prima facie absurd. But it is what drives a good deal of the atheist/Theist debate.”
Okay, what beings do you think exist? Some alleged beings probably don’t exist. For example, Vampires and leprechauns.
Wes at 10:40PM on Oct 19th 2007
145. What, really, is the point of this blog supposed to be?
Even assuming that everything Kant stated was correct, it still does not follow from his argument that there is anything "out there," let alone a god(s), let alone the Christian conception of a god with specific, defined attributes.
Reason cannot "point to the existence of this higher domain" (whatever Dinesh means by "this"), nor can it prove "that there is a reality greater than, and beyond."
According to Kant's argument (assuming it's true), reason can point to the POSSIBILITY of some sort of, let's say, "true reality" beyond our comprehension; but that doesn't mean that IF this "true reality" exists it would even be anything different from the reality we experience. It could be the same reality, or it could be something completely off the wall and unimaginable; so it is in no way justifiable, according to Kant's argument, to imagine this "true reality" contains a god, or anything remotely similar to a god.
Once again, another provocatively titled blog with no logic behind it.
JK at 10:46PM on Oct 19th 2007
146. Keep trying to convince yourself of that, Marc. I realize that you're just pouting, but grow up.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 10:55PM on Oct 19th 2007
147. Atheists are not very bright? C'mon Dinesh, don't be coy, simply say they are stupid, that would be more "Christian-like".
david at 11:07PM on Oct 19th 2007
148. Truth wrote:
“Many of the great advances in human history were the result of intuitive leaps, not plodding deductive, or inductive thinking. From whence come they, Horatio? All of of the ponderous, grandiose, palaver of self-aggrandized sophists throughout history trumpeting their oh-so-rational opinions has resulted in nothing but the petty, smug, self satisfaction of the deluded author, and the damage caused by idiotic ideologies like Marxism.”
What do you mean by “intuitive leaps?” And let’s say you are right that "many of the great advances in human history were the result of intuitive leaps, not plodding deductive, or inductive thinking." That is, of course, completely irrelevant to whether we know that there is a God.
“Truly great minds understand the concept of awe, and intuitively understand that they aren't the author of this amazing universe, but are open to a greatness that is infinite compared to their own finite intellect, and even more finite lifespan.”
Many great minds don’t believe that. Here is a list of some:
Maybe Confucius, Chinese philosopher (551-479 BCE).
Anaxagoras, Greek philosopher (500?-428? BCE).
Diagoras "the Atheist" of Melos, Greek poet, (5th cent. BCE).
Protagoras, Greek philosopher (481?-411 BCE).
Democritus, Greek philosopher (460?-357 BCE).]
Epicurus, Greek philosopher (341-270 BCE).
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher (106-43 BCE).
Lucretius, Roman philosopher and poet (96?-55 BCE).
Lucius Annaeus Seneca "the Younger," Roman stoic philosopher, writer, and politician (4-65).
Thomas Edison
Arthur Miller
Christopher Marlow
Perhaps Voltaire
David Hume
Dennis Diderot
Maybe Frege
Jeremy Bentham
Perhaps Laplace
Mary Wollstonecraft
Lord Byron
Arthur Schopenhauer,
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Auguste Comte
Feuerbach
John Stuart Mill
Charles Darwin (agnostic)
Edgar Allen Poe
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (agnostic)
Karl Marx
Probably Walt Whitman
Susan B. Anthony (agnostic)
Thomas Henry Huxley
Robert Green Ingersoll
Andrew Carnegie
Mark Twain
Thomas Hardy
Ambrose Bierce
Nietzsche
Freud
George Bernard Shaw
Joseph Conrad
Clarence Darrow
Peirre Curie
Marie Curie
H.G. Wells
Frank Llyd Wright
Bertrand Russell
Robert Frost
James Joyce
Virginia Woolf
DH Lawrence
Diego Rivera
Irving Berlin
Nehru
Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock
Charlie Chaplin
Rudolph Carnap
Haldane
Ernest Hemmingway
Nabakov
Linus Carl Pauling
Karl Popper
George Orwell
Simone de Beauvoir
AJ Ayer
Albert Camus
Francois Mitterrand
Richard Feynman
Isaac Asimov
Gene Roddenberry
Maybe Charles Schultz
Carl Sagan
Thomas Nagel
Maybe Wittgenstein
Stephen J Gould
Paul Dirac
Mooto Kimura
Jean Paul Sartre
Ernst Mayr
Francis Crick
Amartya Sen
Alan Turing
Steven Weinberg
Maybe Bill Gates
Richard Rorty
Donald Davidson
WVO Quine
John Dewey
“Rationalists, atheists, etc. will always hate any concept they can't reduce to their method and level of understanding.”
I’m not exactly sure what you have in mind. But I’m an atheist, and I don’t think I hate what you are talking about. But I’m not exactly sure what you are talking about.
“They are the Procrustians of truth and knowledge: if they can't understand it, they try to destroy it.”
I’m an atheist, and I’m not that way.
“They talk of evolution ad nauseum, but if atheists were the intellectuals that human beings relied on throughout history we'd still be living in caves.”
Humans have relied on a lot of atheists and agnostics. Please consider the list I presented. And we are not in caves. Moreover, let’s say that you are right. That is, of course, completely irrelevant to whether you and I know that one or more Gods exist.
Wes at 11:10PM on Oct 19th 2007
149. @ 134
To quote you from a previous post:
Knight_of_BAAWA at 2:50PM on Oct 19th 2007 "It's not impossible to know what's impossible."
ManOfMettl at 11:12PM on Oct 19th 2007
150. Truth wrote: "Many of the great advances in human history were the result of intuitive leaps, not plodding deductive, or inductive thinking."
Many atheists engage in what I think you mean by "intuitive leaps." I think one could say that Nietzsche, Sartre, Walt Whitman, Gene Roddenberry and Charlie Chaplin did some intuitive leaping.
Wes at 11:16PM on Oct 19th 2007