How many legs would a calf have if you called its tail a leg?”
“Five.”
“No, four. Calling the tail a leg would not make it a leg.”
-Abraham Lincoln
I’ve got that song in my head, “It’s just my imagination… runnin, away from me…” Evidence and certainty is certainly a sticky subject. How we know anything is a heavily studied and debated topic that goes back millennia. One thing is for sure though, one can’t remain in the abstract, general investigative mode as individual truth claims are best tested by taking in the particulars. Let’s look at some examples of people who were hallucinating or even just imagining what they wanted to and see if we can’t become certain of truth in some way.
case: Beautiful Mind
If experiencing the Holy Spirit is the best way to know of his existence, then how do we know whether we are experiencing things correctly or hallucinating? John Nash, diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and subject of the movie Beautiful Mind, is a mathematical genius who was plagued by an unhealthy interest in conspiracy theory and mysterious “hallucinated” voices. How did he overcome such a confusion of real and unreal? Eventually, he just decided to ignore “the voices” and refused to indulge certain urges (e.g. not to suspect conspiracy). It may have helped that his wife (in the movie at least, if I’m remembering it right) pointed out the people he talked about didn’t exist. In other words, counter-evidence presented should probably be reckoned with. However, is it even fair to compare John Nash’s situation to a believer’s experiences of God? One is of counterfeit and the other is the Real. Nash’s sort of scenario is negative, one of experiencing God is life changing in a positive way. Also, not every believer is schizophrenic or suffering from hallucinations, in fact most have a clean bill of mental health. So perhaps claiming the believer has hallucinated is grossly over-simplifying things, and in fact it could possibly be, ironically, seeing evidence where there is none (i.e. claiming that sane people are insane). Is it then fair to claim belief in God is just a product of wishful thinking or imagination? Let’s look at another example.
case: Shirley MacLaine (actress who believes she designs her own life.)
Shirley MacLaine believes that we’re essentially the gods of our own lives and that as the bald kid in the Matrix said, “there is no spoon.” When informed of an acquaintance’s death in a fiery car accident, she’s quoted as saying, “Why did she choose to die that way?” Her desires to manipulate the results of her life end in obvious absurdity. However, some might claim her imaginary view of life is no different than a theist’s viewpoint in that both imagine their spiritual experiences and continue to believe them because it sounds good to them. It’s true that imaginative or wishful thinkers often come to such conclusions first and then look for anything to support them and ignore all opposing evidence (an invalid method to confirm whether the belief is truth). A truth seeker may also start by making or having a conclusion (no problem there), but his or her methods for seeking corroboration should be valid. How is Christianity not wishful thinking? A related issue is sincerity. Who are we to say what’s true if so-and-so believes the opposite as us but with equal or greater sincerity? Well, the answer to both questions is that neither sincerity nor strong wishful desire are a measure for truth at all. We would have to assess the reasons behind the beliefs themselves instead. A wishful thinker might actually have very sound reasons for believing what they desire because it is in fact true. I hoped that when I proposed to my wife that she would accept and she actually did. Should I doubt that I’m now married because it was a result of desire? Or regarding insincerity, am I not actually married if I’m insincere about my marriage? Sincerity is a test of discerning that a person is not knowingly lying, but not whether the object of their sincerity is true or not.
So what if my belief is partially desirable? Not only does a belief in or recognition of Jesus as God provide us with meaning, hope, and joy, but it is also consistent and filled with offensive bad news and challenges to our cultural understandings. As objective truth ought to be cross-cultural, it follows that not all of it will be hotly disputed nor gleefully accepted in any one culture. We tend to compartmentalize reality too much, so it’s difficult for us to see all that’s integrated within a single claim—instead happy to feel that we’ve debunked a claim with one simple argument (e.g. God is a Father. I’m a father. I wouldn’t punish my baby in hell for disobeying me. We are all God’s children. Therefore, God wouldn’t punish anyone in hell. The end. Whoops, I didn’t realize I was greatly minimizing sin, anthropomorphizing God, characterizing God as merely a father, and wrongly assuming that everyone is a “child of God,” biblically speaking.)
In my previous post, Evidence speaks (part two), I mentioned a man in court with a guilty verdict but was innocent. How do we trust evidences brought against (or for) anyone if it can be misleading even assuming an incorruptible court? If someone refutes your evidence, even good evidence, with an alternative story, is it a stalemate? Doesn’t that point to agnosticism being the only humble, safe, honorable position to hold in terms of the existence of God? Let’s look at another court example but of a guilty man.
case: Brown actually murdered James. Prove it. (adapted from Brian Davies’ An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion)
evidence 1: Brown was seen at the scene of the crime.
refutation: Brown has a good excuse for that. He claims he was a witness.
evidence 2: Brown had a motive.
refutation: Many people had a motive to kill James.
evidence 3: Brown’s fingerprints were found on the smoking gun.
refutation: That’s true but is compatible with his innocence.
evidence 4: Brown was seen by five people running from the scene with the smoking gun, wearing a bloody shirt.
refutation: Brown can explain. The killer and Brown fought so that Brown ended up with the gun and chased the killer away. In the process some blood from the killer’s clothes wiped onto Brown’s.
All the evidence points at Brown’s guilt, but the defense has an alternative story to reasonably dismiss each line of evidence one by one. How do we know Brown did it? One thing to keep in mind is that refutations need support too. Anyone can tell a good lie by adding in bits of true data. The advantage for the truth is that it shows up even in lies and half-truths. If one statement is more or less false than another (e.g. “All religions contain truth and it’s up to us to weed it out from the myths.”), then that also means one of them is closer to being true. In this case the defense must provide not merely an alternate explanation but a more plausible explanation than the prosecution’s. Not only that, but the entirety of the evidences must be taken into account together as long as each are valid. This provides a circle of proof around the most likely conclusion or set of conclusions. The more lines of different evidence that are available, the more certain and specific an explanation can become. Any inconsistencies or contradictions in the defendant’s story are possible indicators of a fabricated alibi. So the question in such a case is what evidence is there to support the defense? It’s not “absolute proof” that we need to look for but a verdict “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Does the prosecution fulfill its burden of proof over and against the defense?
Good lines of evidences or clues about the existence of God, therefore, should also surround a particular conclusion or set of conclusions, developing or pointing to the answer as the evidences encircle it. And each line of reasoning must be valid. Core inconsistencies or contradictions in an explanation offered against God’s existence is cause for dismissing their line of attack (or the doubt rising within us). People of opposing worldviews have to support their alternatives just as we are demanded to support our claims to truth. It goes back to examining the reasons someone may have for believing even the most outlandish story (e.g. Jesus resurrected three days later in perfect health and appeared to crowds of skeptics and disappointed believers who had given up on him) by following our criteria for testing truth claims. Is the story consistent and coherent? Is there adequate data to support it? Are the arguments against it implausible or even invalid? Does it fit with experience and reality (e.g. philosophical arguments for God’s existence, reliability of the New Testament, archaeological finds, changed lives, birth of a new religion overnight and its explosive growth, Jesus’ teachings though at times seemingly counter-intuitive work very well, finding yourself continually proven wrong by the wisdom of the Bible, other miracles and fulfilled prophecy, etc)? Does it explain more plausibly than other explanations (e.g. the apostles stole Jesus’ body and made everything up and, though tortured, died in shame rather than confess their lie and go free)?
Once a truth seeker’s foundational criteria are discovered as I have now hopefully begun to establish, we see that the truth can be known though it may not be easy and there is no guarantee this will always be the case. The worst thing we can perhaps do is cloud an issue further with confusion and generalities. Certainty comes in the moving from the abstract generalities to the examination of the details so that we may begin to support a rationale. We may never know who shot JFK, but it is not up to each individual’s interpretation that JFK was shot. Taking the example now of something more spiritual in nature, such as what grounds what is or isn’t moral, this too can be tested for truth if we move from the abstract to the data at hand (not to the exclusion of feelings because they are often rational—I do something bad and feel guilty…). A society’s direction on an issue as a measure for what should or should not be approved has proven woefully inadequate in discovering what’s morally true. So has leaving morality up to the individual. We’ve learned from history that history repeats itself and that sometimes right and wrong get completely turned on their heads with the full approval of society (e.g. It’s OK to commit child sacrifice for the happiness of the group because it “appeases the gods”. It’s OK to kill your baby to make your life easier or “lower crime” as long as its location is still at least halfway through the birth canal. Huh??), therefore the truth seeker’s question is who’s more accurate in their discernment of right and wrong? How do they measure that? And who, if not individual humans nor societies, is authoritative enough to mandate and judge moral behavior? In other words, who’s calling a calf’s tail a calf’s tail?
Erik
Stephen Dawe
Liam
