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 9 of 48)
121. Ok, though I am a thiest, I would say that MANY things can be figured out, if you just relax and are willing to learn them. Stressed out people can hardly think about anything but what they are stressed about. But at my yet somewhat tender age, I will admit I could be off, but many things can be understood, Im pretty sure.
Michelle at 6:28PM on Oct 19th 2007
122. You know on the right side of this page, with the pictures under "featured gallery"? What the hell is that picture on the bottom left? Somebody please tell me, it looks disgusting. Clicking on it tells you nothing.
Richard at 6:39PM on Oct 19th 2007
123. So, please enlighten me and tell me once again what it is that I believe.
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No, I won't contribute to the problem. You need to find out for yourself. You're too used to people telling you.
You're more open than most, but you still utterly misunderstand science. Perhaps I was a bit too vitriolic to you in particular, but you are the one that made that silly colombus statement. It was something that I knew when I was twelve, that he didn't prove the world was round, so I thought it rather silly of you to say it. And saying the SCIENTISTS of the day didn't believe him, when the scientists of the day all knew that already, put me over the top.
I'll retract the idiot and substitute "misinformed."
Brian at 6:39PM on Oct 19th 2007
124. Marc:
I didn't call anything laughable. I was quoting someone else and asking why other people's beliefs were more laughable than their own.
Tem at 6:58PM on Oct 19th 2007
125. Fitz wrote: “Kant is one of modernity’s greatest acknowledged philosophers; just because DD has made his work assessable to your average Christian doesn’t make those conundrums for strict materialists any less salient.”
What “conundrums” are you talking about? And what do you mean by “strict materialists?”
Fitz wrote: “Positing a real lack of knowledge for strict materialists opens up considerable space for the efficacy of theism and specific revealed religions.”
Some humans do seem to know some things. For example, I think I know that the earth is not a flat disk that rests on the back of a giant tortoise. But let’s say I don’t know anything. Some of my beliefs are ridiculously plausible, for example, that the earth is not a flat disk that rests on the back of a giant tortoise.
Moreover, I don’t care so much about the “efficacy” of theism or “specific revealed religions.” I care most of all about whether they are true.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that no person knows anything for certain. Why would that be relevant to whether one is warranted in inferring that a super being contributed to the existence of the known universe? Even if we don’t know for certain that such a super being doesn’t exist, that doesn’t mean that it is the more likely hypothesis that a super being contribute to the existence of the known universe. I don’t know for certain that a meteorite contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. But it sure is a reasonable hypothesis. And from my perspective: It is likely that there are no Gods.
“Confronted with this same lack of knowledge strict materialists have been known to posit the most ludicrous & laughable explanations for unanswerable questions (Like there are an infinity of different universes, with this one having produced life, or that space aliens brought life to this planet).”
What do you mean by “strict materialists?” And let’s say that all those hypotheses are ludicrous and laughable. How would the ludicrousness of those hypotheses be relevant to whether I know there is a God? Those hypotheses could be ludicrous and laughable and also there not be a God. The question is: Which hypothesis is more likely?
I don’t have a good idea about what caused the onset of the matter and space that is the known universe. But that I don’t know what caused it doesn’t mean that the “God did it” hypothesis is the most plausible. I don’t what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. But I’m quite confident that a god didn’t cause their extinction by sending down individual lightning blasts to strike each of them down.
“These materialist explanations neither have the historical lineage of religion, the ethical track record nor the number of adherents – yet they a rarely dismissed as equitable to children’s fairy tales.”
What “materialist explanations” are you talking about? And it’s not that important whether a theory has “historical lineage?” When Copernicus came out with heliocentrism, it didn’t have much in the way of historical lineage. But I’m quite sure the earth revolves around the sun.
And “ethical track record?” Whether the earth revolves around the sun is independent of how it affects people’s ethics.
And “number of adherents?” A significant percentage of US citizens think the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
Wes at 7:05PM on Oct 19th 2007
126. I wrote: "The question is: Which hypothesis is more likely?"
Let me be more specific. Is it more likely that there is a God or that there is not a God? And why?
Wes at 7:09PM on Oct 19th 2007
127. Hey Dinesh...I already saw your book on the 99 cent sale table at Wal-Mart. I noticed because it was blocking the aisle to the socks. Thought it was "Christian" of me to let you know so you won't go buying that new car just yet off the book sale.
Stachehunter at 7:19PM on Oct 19th 2007
128. 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. 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. Rationalists, atheists, etc. will always hate any concept they can't reduce to their method and level of understanding. They are the Procrustians of truth and knowledge: if they can't understand it, they try to destroy it. 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.
Truth at 7:52PM on Oct 19th 2007
129. Atheists arent very bright because they dont believe in a power greater than themselves. They are "self involved" and unfortunately for them Jesus warned "those who deny me, will be denied by the Father"...to be in the darness for eternity is enough for me to open my mind and my heart to the possibility of a creator that loves me and all that he created... better to seek and find than be lost forever.
LIAM at 7:54PM on Oct 19th 2007
130. Hello Wes @ 121:
Your question: “Is it more likely that there is a God or that there is not a God? And why?”
I am going to respectfully assume that you are probably a very evidence-based individual. Now, keeping this in mind, I think that the best approach to address your valid questions is to consider that there is at least both circumstantial and deductive evidence for a Creator (God).
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…
The second evidence is deductive: “Something cannot come from nothing.”
If we all agree that the universe is “something” -- comprised of matter in various forms (and I will not include “empty space” and “time” because these are an result/effect of matter in motion) then I will proceed to further simplify that all matter is potential energy. Matter can be changed into energy through nuclear fission – BUT – matter cannot be “created” through nuclear fusion alone… Nuclear fusion only changes one form of matter into another. So the question we are faced with is how did primordial matter arise and come to be created.
Since no scientific law that we know of can explain how matter was “created”, then it must have been due to a metaphysical/transcendental act – i.e. God.
And my scientific rationale for the existence of God is predicated on the Law of Conservation of Energy, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another… Because if there is “Something” which is capable of changing things or acting on them, but is not actually doing so, there cannot be change (for That which has a potentiality need not exercise it).
Respectfully,
ManOfMettl
ManOfMettl at 8:11PM on Oct 19th 2007
131. DD is trying to elevate himself by putting his perceived enemies down. Christians have made millions by doing this for decades. The only thing is, everytime DD writes one of his laughably inane columns, he just proves once again that Christians are not the brightest bulbs in the marquee. His team might score more points if people like him and his brother in ignorance, Ann Coulter, just kept their thoughts to themselves. But, lucky for our side, (the enlightened side, I mean) they just keep throwing more fuel on the self-immolating fire.
Yes, lots of people still like to believe in them, just like they like to believe in God and the tooth fairy, but that just proves how incredibly simple a lot of Americans are. And George Bush is their astoundingly incurious King.
Brian's posts on this subject are wonderful in their intelligence and reason. He is light-years ahead of DD in his thought and writing, yet Brian doesn't have the forum that DD has... America--is this country great, or what??
Ajock8 at 9:06PM on Oct 19th 2007
132. Experience of the world is not the world it’s only a copy and that’s all we have. Therefore we aren’t justified in equating experience to reality
I’d just like to throw in there that its not really even a copy in that what’s in our brains when we see (visually for example) a mountain is nothing like the mountain although there’s some kind of correspondence between the neural state and the mountain. Put another way, if experience is a copy that requires an extended meaning of ‘copy’
Does that mean we don’t know reality? No, actually, by itself, it doesn’t. It just means that the naïve thought (or argument) that the copy is precise is in error or, more precisely, may be in error. It is perhaps likely to be in error, given the nature of the senses, and given some examples of the senses being misleading but it does not follow that the error is invariable. Maybe we’re just lucky and, even though it sounds improbable, we might just have some precise knowledge of reality
Yes but quantum indeterminacy sets ultimate limits so you couldn’t even get lucky. Not so because it’s not clear whether the indeterminacy is truly a limit on perception or one on reality itself (may be reality in the small is itself blurry)
How then could we know reality? 1. Revelation and scripture is said to be one source. 2. Yes indeed, the senses mediate knower and known, and ‘all we have is experience,’ but perhaps the brain is wired to recreate experience in the image of the real despite the filtering of the senses. I don’t believe that argument but I put it forward just to show that the Kantian point that Dinesh makes is a practical point rather than a logical one. The error in the leap to the logical insufficiency of knowledge is motivated by the natural and security based desire to not overstate our confidence in our knowledge. We confuse not knowing that we know with either (a) not knowing or (b) knowing that we don’t know (just as absence of evidence gets famously confused with evidence of absence.) I take back what I said about not believing the argument and will just say that, without further exploration, I maintain reservations about the argument. (3) Adaptation. Here we are in the world. We are often successful in getting what we want. I know how to go to the grocery store. A lot of what I do with some success is based in perception and knowledge. Surely then, even though experience is not reality, there is some degree and kind of faithfulness to experience. I used the word ‘kind’ due to the fact that if it’s a copy, it is so in some extended meaning of ‘copy.’ Well, if adaptation allows sufficient faithfulness that permits adequate negotiation of the world, can’t faithfulness be ‘exact’ on occasion? Perhaps, sometimes, or for knowledge of some things, the brain is wired… I wouldn’t practically depend on that but that’s not the point; the point is the logical one that the Kantian absence of evidence of faithfulness is not evidence of absence of faithfulness, that from examples of sensory distortion, we cannot make the counter-Humean leap that the senses always distort, and even if the senses did always distort or filter it doesn’t follow that brain can never recreate. (4) I will now talk about necessary objects and the discussion will show what I mean by necessary objects. We’ve seen that what’s in experience may be only an inexact copy. Let’s look at solipsism. Solipsism is the position that there is only experience but that the impression that the experience is about something is a mistake, i.e., even though we have ‘experience of a world there is no world.’ I don’t think anyone is truly a solipsist (although I seem to recall reading that it is a psychopathological condition) but the philosophical interest in it is that much can or may be learned from trying to disprove it or to ascertain whether it is even logically coherent (it has been claimed that solipsism is logically consistent.) Just for argument’s sake, let’s go with solipsism for a moment—there is experience but the things ‘experienced’ don’t exist. It now appears that nothing exists, that there is no world. Is the conclusion correct? No it is not for even though experience has no objects, there is experience itself. In other words, even in the solipsist extreme of the gap between experience and reality, there is being (experience) there is reality (experience.) We are not used to thinking of experience as something in itself but it is. In fact, we could say that experience is its own object and though it can be argued that that is true the argument would take us somewhat astray and, further, we don’t need to depend on the argument here. Now from the fact that there is being (experience) it follows that there is a world or, more, not just a world but the world or Universe (all being, i.e., all experience.) So what has happened to the solipsist contention that there is no world. First, the solipsist has no basis to make that claim and ‘his’ or ‘her’ claim should have been, ‘there is no basis in experience for the existence of a / the world.’ But now even the solipsist will agree that there is the world—the world of all experiences—and ‘he’ or ‘she,’ unless the ‘ego’ gets in the way will admit that there is a world but that there is no external world, i.e., there is no world that is the object of experience. Thus, being and Universe are necessary objects, i.e., their existence does not depend on the faithfulness of experience. There are other necessary objects but the point has been made. You may be thinking, but the consequence is very trivial. Well it’s not. We adopted the solipsist stance to show the power of the argument for the existence of necessary objects—even if experience is altogether unfaithful there is being (experience) there are objects (experiences) and there is the Universe (all experiences.) A solipsist universe is imaginable but this (and as it turns out as all being the only) Universe is not a solipsist universe (the point can actually be proven and the point to the proof is that we are here concerned with certain and not merely practical knowledge) and, now, the foregoing conclusions become, there is being and there is the Universe that exist independently of experience of them. You may still be thinking, ‘a lot of words for a relatively trivial conclusion.’ Again, the response is that it’s not trivial and for three reasons. First, the Kantian argument that ‘all we have is experience’ and therefore we don’t have any precise empirical purchase on reality has been disproved. Second, the tools of analysis that have been developed in the disproof are, though seemingly trivial, very powerful, e.g. in disproving the ‘obvious’ Kantian analysis of experience. Third, the consequences of these ‘trivial’ results are immense
What are the immense consequences? I’ve recently outlined some of them in previous posts. For the consequences much more information, though, you can go to my website http://www.horizons-2000.org; to the main essay http://www.horizons-2000.org/Journey-in-Being.html; and to my blog http://www.horizons-2000.org/weblog/weblog.html
One of the outcomes of the discussions / essays of the site and my thought is the unification of the phenomenal and the noumenal realms. It is a unification of the here-and-now empirical but also conceptual reality and what Dinesh describes as ‘a reality greater than, and beyond, that which our senses and our minds can ever apprehend.’ Of course, what is shown is that while the greater reality is profound and while there is more than mere difficulty in the apprehension, it is in error to think that the greater reality is absolutely beyond our apprehension
One of the consequences of the developments of my thought that is available on my website is that ‘Jesus Christ has arisen from the dead in countless cosmological systems.’ First, let me say that, of course, there is no intent to make fun of or slight Christians or Christianity (or any other faith.) Also, my website is not especially about religion but I cite this particular result because of the context of this post. Second, the quote may sound both absurd and whimsical. However, it is not absurd and follows in impeccable logic from the necessary objects and the kind of demonstration employed above. Finally, the purpose of the quote is to bring home the power of the thinking in terms of what is familiar to many. On the site itself I have applied the power of the thinking to an entire range of philosophical and academic disciplines and human concerns
Unfortunately, the consequences stated in the previous paragraph, give no support to the historical accuracy except that they show (and this may have been obvious anyway) that although they are improbable, they are not absurd
Regarding the articles of Christian (and other) faith, especially such articles as the resurrection and the cosmology (genesis and eschatology) where does that leave us? As many will know there is much that has been written regarding the ‘historical Jesus’ which is an attempt to infer the facts of His life (and perhaps the meaning of those facts) and on empirical / historical proof of the articles
I have never been persuaded by the empirical proofs—either from the direct examination of evidence or the indirect ones that argue ‘such and such happening was predicted by the Bible and therefore the Bible must be accurate.’ I suspect that many Christians will have already come to the position that empirical proof is beside the point
Regarding history, what is the alternative to the empirical approach? The only one I know of is revelation which has the connotations of direct bridge, intuition and so on… As far as I can tell revelation is not better than empirical proof. You may say that ‘this’ is the word but for me, I want to know how you know in a way that satisfies me (I would be satisfied with empirical proof but don’t demand it—I have a ‘belief’ in empirical proof but I am not an empiricist, i.e., I do not think / believe that experience-in-the-world is the only source of knowledge)
There is an exception to my problem with the words of the scripture. It is the case where someone says that he or she has had direct revelation whether from the core of being / God. My problem, then, is in seeing / knowing that that is true
I want to end on the following note. I’ve been following this blog for a few weeks. I was attracted to it because I’m interested in some of the issues, because it stood as a challenge in some ways, and partly because Dinesh is from India (Goa.) In the beginning I was a little irritated. I saw the arguments as somewhat subtly shifting emphasis so as to make a point that did not quite hold or to put the onus of proof where it did not belong. Obviously the blogs are intelligent regardless of whether one agrees. Lately, though, I’ve been impressed by the intelligence and the respect for those with opposing positions. I do think that the blog has in common with some of the opposing positions that both ‘camps’ are at least somewhat extreme. I don’t want to continue posting but this (the extremes) is because this is not where my real interest lies; however, I’ve learned a lot recently. I’ve often found that you can learn, not only from those with whom you are inclined to agree, but also from those with whom you serious disagreement
Anil Mitra at 8:21PM on Oct 19th 2007
133. Re my recent post #126. I often think of improvements after posting but can't modify the post itself. For improvements you can go to my weblog http://www.horizons-2000.org/weblog/weblog.html
Anil Mitra at 9:13PM on Oct 19th 2007
134. The real issue of scientific materialism is that it is also a "faith based" system. At most, science, reason and sensate perception can only say "We can't measure this YET." Just because WE, in our arrogance, don't know something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The numerous species "discovered" by us had an independent existence prior to our discovery of them. 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.
Father John at 9:33PM on Oct 19th 2007
135. I have to say that the more Dinesh writes, the more I realize what he is: a person who even if we went back in time and PROVED that there was no 'god' who created the universe, HE STILL WOULDN'T BELIEVE IT!
I am just thinking of IGNORING Dinesh from now on, because he simply is NOT WORTH MY TIME, just like the other religionists are not worth my time.
I will spend MY TIME teaching children that this life is all that you get and that we should make our OWN paradise on Earth for everyone.
Christopher Kidwell at 9:36PM on Oct 19th 2007