Book Review

God's still in the quad: a failed case for unbelief

An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism

Toulouse 1619. Burning at the stake is Giulio Cesare Vanini, an Italian philosopher. There is nothing particularly surprising about this: he is an ostentatious foreigner with a comical name who also happens to be accused of atheism. It is the nature of the evidence that arouses interest: Vanini’s book. For it claims to provide arguments in support of theism. Suspicion is aroused because these arguments are very weak indeed. His judges detect a kind of Trojan Horse strategy: Vanini is smuggling a case for atheism into the fortress of theism under cover of being a believer. His design is to destroy theism from within by revealing how flimsy its support is. He writes so readers will think, 'Well, if that is the best that can be said for theism. . . '.

So Vanini was burnt, and that leaves an ugly taste in the mouth. But I remember being struck by a deeper worry when I first heard the story. What if Vanini was not a cunning atheist after all but just a bad philosopher? Enough to give one pause before picking up a philosophical book on atheism, even one designed 'to be read in a comfortable afternoon beside a swimming pool'.

Atheism was a broad church in 1619; the criteria for entry were flexible and various. It is different now. This reflects what Daniel Harbour, the author of this book, would call a shift in 'world view', a change in our 'set of assumptions about the natural world'. When theism dominated, there were as many different kinds of atheist as there were theistic positions to be challenged. In times and places where this situation is reversed, it is possible for atheists to be united in the tutored serenity of refusal.

In this context, as Harbour recognises, the question commanding most philosophical attention is not whether to be an atheist, but how. Atheists are free to choose how accommodating or how disobliging to be. Harbour leaves us in no doubt of his own inclination. He concludes: 'I can only concur with King David: ‘The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.’ The intelligent person, with a wealth of reasons, would have said it out loud.'

These reasons turn out to spring from a single source: 'we ought to be atheists in virtue of our basic desire to understand ourselves and the world of which we are a part.' What is oddly uncomfortable about the grammar here – the use of 'in virtue of' – reflects something straightforwardly uncomfortable about the thought expressed. It is a good deal too close to saying that we ought to believe something because we desire something. We might have hoped that, if we ought to believe that God does not exist, it is because that claim is true: indeed, that if that claim is true, we ought to believe it no matter what we desire. But Harbour, self-confessedly, is not bothered by questions of truth and falsity: 'In this book, I shall not try to prove atheism true or theism false. Rather, I want to show that atheism is superior to theism.'

Harbour thinks atheism is superior in two respects: 'logically' and 'morally'. He calls his arguments first sallies in a 'new (a)theism debate'. But any philosopher of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries would recognise that Harbour is merely commandeering the standard theist arsenal.

For example, Harbour calls atheism logically superior because it accords better with our science-generated 'world view'. But in 1692, Richard Bentley used the same argument to prove the converse. He was taking on the so-called 'mechanical atheists' who attempted to account for the motions of the planets without appeal to divine Providence. We need to explain what science has shown, Bentley insists: that the natural world is mechanical; that gravity, or 'spontaneous attraction', is 'the great basis of all mechanism'; that gravity is quite unlike common motion in being neither innate nor essential to matter. Against the background of a certain 'world view', Harbour takes it as 'plausible and probably correct' that the explanation does not require God. Bentley adopts a different set of assumptions, but is equally impressed with the findings of science. And so it is equally plausible for him to claim that gravity cannot itself be mechanical; that it is instead 'the immediate fiat and Finger of God, and the execution of the divine law'.

So Harbour’s 'logical' argument is inconclusive. What can be done? The problem, of course, is the in-built relativism of the argument: that (a)theism is superior relative to some world view. For, if the argument is to be conclusive, we need grounds for choosing one 'world view' over another.

And this is where Harbour comes unstuck. For he claims that, if we are able to choose anything, it is by assessing it in relation to our 'world view'. If he is correct about this, no grounds for choosing one 'world view' over another could be offered. For if we cannot choose anything without already having a 'world view', a 'world view' is not something we can choose. And since we cannot choose one 'world view' over another, there is nothing to be done; Harbour’s 'logical' argument fails. Indeed, it is self-defeating. The relativist premise both gives the argument what strength it has and engineers its downfall.

Harbour’s second argument is for the 'moral' superiority of atheism. His central point is that atheism 'and the worldview to which it belongs are more conducive to morality than theism, so, if one is to have greater influence in society, it is atheism'. Again, this argument-style is appropriated from theists. Indeed, Robert Boyle locates the connection between right-thinking and right-acting more deeply still. It is not just that atheists are prone to immorality; 'immorality is the original cause of their infidelity'.

It is the experience of slaves, women and Jews under theistic regimes that persuades Harbour of the moral benefits of atheism. This is, of course, rather one-sided. The fact that theists have treated people shamefully does not show that theism is false, nor that it is inherently incapable of structuring a decent way of living. We should distinguish between theism and the history of theism. Some of those who have believed that God exists have acted badly, partly under the influence of this belief. But that does not show theism is false or necessarily an impediment to morality. Consider an analogy with the history of science. Some physicists who have believed the atom can be split have acted badly, partly under the influence of this belief. But that does not show that atoms cannot be split, nor that science is necessarily immoral.

We might concede Harbour’s points for the sake of a deeper response: his argument is unpersuasive even if we agree that atheism is more conducive to morality. For that does not make atheism true. It is a disturbing thought, but morality may sometimes be better served if people believe what is false. For example, people generally believe it is permissible to be partial to their families and friends when distributing scarce resources. Even if this attitude is not morally justified, we may not want to cure people of it – lives would, on the whole, go better if valuable time and energy were not lost in costly impartialist re-education.

Similarly, depending on our moral view and on the whole social context, it may be that atheism is both more conducive to morality and false. Suppose that the whole social context of some people were such that, if they believed God existed, they could not but believe that God was jealous and vengeful, and that they could not but act as God acts. On most accounts, it would be more conducive to morality if this people were atheist. This is nevertheless compatible with the truth of the claim 'God exists'. For then it would be better if people believed what is false. So Harbour’s alternative argument, from morality, also fails.

To end on a more positive note. In the theistic world of 1619, Vanini was burnt for publishing flimsy evidence for theism. Unsuccessful atheists, thankfully, need not fear a similar fate in our largely atheistic world. There is evidence here of something good about the 'world view' Harbour endorses so enthusiastically.

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