As for making convincing arguments about God in the paradigm of reason, with A priori logic, let us test how effective that really is. A priori reasoning means reasoning with pure logic alone, with no external examination or analysis. It does not depend on any external proofs. This kind of A priori reasoning requires axioms, i.e. first principles or assumptions. These assumptions have to be intuitively tenable, they must make intuitive sense. For e.g.
All dolphins are mammals.
All mammals have kidneys.
Therefore all dolphins have kidneys.
The first assumption of this argument, its primary axiom is that all dolphins are mammals.That makes intuitive sense, we can believe it to be true. It is a fact.
A priori arguments about God are called the Ontological arguments. This is a version of the great philosopher Rene Descartes’ Ontological argument. (From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
I have an idea of a supremely perfect being.
Necessary existence is a perfection.
Then a supreme perfect being necessarily exists.
The problem here is that the idea of a supremely perfect being does not provide me, and I am sure to many of us, any intuitive appeal or satisfaction. In fact, it feels counter-intuitive. Don’t we often encourage each other in our failures by saying, “It is ok. Noone is perfect”. What is a supremely perfect being? What does that perfect look like? Is there a way to see, to feel, to confirm?
Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias’ argument about there being a moral lawgiver, because the binary opposites of evil and good have been defined, falls short at the last moment. There is a moral lawgiver and that moral law giver must be God? How? Where’s the logical link, the rational connection? Our intuitions tell us that evil and suffering are bad and harmful because we feel pain. Our intuitions tell us that good exists because we feel pleasure, comfort and kindness. But our intuitions don’t tell us that the moral lawgiver must be God. We cannot feel so! It seems to be a matter of faith alone.
Regardless of whether God exists or not, logic and reasoning in themselves might never give us the answer. A priori reasoning, with no inputs from experience and no means of validation might prove to be dangerously misleading. The logic might look good only if you ignore the abysmally poor appeal to intuition and experience. You might arrive at seriously flawed conclusions, either way, in God’s favour or not.
You cannot treat physics like mathematics, as a system of logic alone, can you?
We may be rational beings, we aspire to be, but trying to fit these conceptions in four lines of logic on paper could be foolhardy. The logic might look pretty, but it could be a deceptive red herring.
Let us consider a hypothetical argument in logic, only to illustrate a possible fallacy:
Earth is the centre of the solar system.
We see the sun rise in the east and set in the west.
Hence the sun must revolve around earth.
For someone in the civilization of Aristotle and Ptolemy, this geo-centric argument would have been perfect. The first axiom had intuitive validity for them, but in fact, as we know now, it is wrong! Arguments as this depend wholly on the validity of its first principles, its assumptions. In the Greece of 4th century B.C., earth being the centre of the solar system was considered common sense knowing, just as we today know, without batting an eyelid, the exact opposite. When common sense intuition itself can undergo such a dramatic reversal, who can say it is truly reliable?
As a matter of fact then, mind-bending twists and somersaults in logic, both by the atheists and the believers do not necessarily give any credence to the truth of either of their arguments. It is effectively only word play, with no real bearing or connection with the existence or non existence of God. You could, quite convincingly, argue either way. Make perfect logical sense in one moment, and yet in the next moment be completely refutable. A case in example:
Dr. William Lane Craig comes in once again, to bear on this issue, as he makes versatile use of logic to prove the existence of God. This is his argument for the absence of gratuitous evil in the presence of God. Gratuitous evil is suffering that is undeserved, unjustified and illogical.
If God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist.
God exists.
Therefore, gratuitous evil does not exist.
This logic is all right, but you could stumble intuitively. God exists; how can one be sure of that? Now listen to this counter argument by Dr. Walter Armstrong. Dr. Armstrong, atheist American philosopher is the professor of practical ethics at Duke University. He is not only certain that God is inessential to morality but also that a moral code must be completely independent of religion. He argues for the existence of Gratuitous evil and for the absence of God like this:
If God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist.
Gratuitous evil exists.
Therefore, God does not exist.
Just by being arranged differently, these arguments are supposed to refute each other!
Don’t you see the irony?!
On an intellectual level, both these arguments make logical sense, but on an intuitive level, both could fail. The principal axioms, meaning the primary assumptions of both these arguments are different, the first assumes that God exists, and the second assumes that gratuitous evil exists. How do we know?
The validity of these assumptions depends mainly on the kind of intuitive satisfaction they provide a person. This intuitive satisfaction is subjective; it is wholly arbitrary. You could feel either of those things to be true. An atheist could ‘feel’ undeserved evil exists, while a believer might not. There is no objective standard to this ‘feeling’.
Of course the assumption of God’s existence is a much more troubling matter than that of gratuitous evil. You could say that it seems more commonsensical that undeserved evil exists in the world and less that God does, but our common sense intuition has failed us many times. We were once so unabashedly convinced about the earth being the centre of our solar system that we had the heretics who made the claims of earth revolving around the sun hanged. What was counter-intuitive once is common sense intuition today. In the sixteenth century all technological necessities of the current era, the mobile, the air travel, space travel would have been totally counterintuitive, right? What seem commonsensical and obvious today have not always been so.
Intuition itself has been subject to tremendous relativism. Across times, cultures and minds. Common sense intuition is a matter of conditioning, a matter of education, we must not forget. It might not always be sound and unfailing. We may think we are ‘rational’ people, but our rationality is a contingent feature. Dependent on our times, our upbringings, our conditioning. Rationality is relative, and any proud claims of superiority on its basis is just self- deceptive foolishness.
In fact, I suspect that the distinctly human notions of God and morals cannot be dealt with in a system of logic alone. In a closed, a priori system of rationalism. As far as God, morals, choices, meaning and purpose is concerned, the first axiom, the principle assumption can be make or break.
For these arguments then, logic might just be nonsensical. Rationalism might be naively futile.
Read more: The Horrors of Scriptures