An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar

by Randal Rauser

  Randal: Alright, I’ve braced myself. Fire when ready!

  Justin: Okay, well, it should be clear by now that the evidential argument from massive theological disagreement makes room for such possibilities. If one wanted to bring up such a thing by itself, it wouldn't be sufficient to undermine the argument. See, we would also need to be provided with compelling independent reasons for thinking that this is how things are likely to go on atheism.

  To your credit, you attempt to fulfill that larger order by suggesting that, possibly, it is some future unnamed selective pressure working on populations that may be up to the task of bringing us from theological disagreement to theological unanimity on atheism.

  Randal: I understand that your argument requires you to find it enormously improbable that religious agreement would emerge via undirected selective pressures.

  Justin: My argument only requires such emergence of religious agreement to be significantly less probable on atheism than it is on theism.

  Randal: Sure, well, your great surprise here doesn't ring true to me. You believe selective pressures had a hand in producing the world's staggering biodiversity, from aardvarks to zebras. And in the midst of that diversity we find extraordinary convergence. To note one example, selective pressures led to the independent evolutionary emergence of eyes more than fifty times. Given that biological diversity and convergence emerge with such regularity, why are you so surprised that selective pressures could also have helped produce something far less amazing, like broad religious agreement in a population?

  Justin: I must admit to being a bit confused here. Earth is a big place, and its environments are varied. From grasslands and deserts to forests and oceans, these different environments have dramatically different selective pressures and ecological niches. Those dramatically different selective pressures are one of the main reasons why we should not be surprised at the wide variety of life that exists.

  Given the wide variety of environments and selective pressures, your claim that a broad religious monolith is somehow far less amazing than the wide variety of life forms is, it seems to me, completely backward.

  Your main claim though, is that it's plausible that, at some time in the future, there will emerge a selective pressure that has been largely silent till now that brings about eventual religious agreement even if atheism is true.

  I think it's important to point out that, not only have we not been provided even a possible candidate for a selective pressure that is up to the ambitious task of eventual broad religious agreement, we also lack an explanation for why such a pressure would plausibly emerge in the future to encourage a unification specifically aimed at metaphysical beliefs about a God that does not even exist!

  Randal: And to think I was going to tell you not to pull any punches. Looks like that won't be necessary!

  Justin: Your proposal amounts to little more than an imaginative and ad hoc “what if?” scenario. Nearly everything we know about how humans react in the face of disagreement generally (and metaphysical disagreement in particular) leads us to expect individuals to dig in their heels when confronted with contrary views that challenge their own beliefs.

  Randal: Okay, now that you’ve said your piece, I need to make two points here.

  First, we need to be crystal clear on your argument. Your premise isn't merely an assertion about belief formation in the actual world. Rather, it ranges across all possible worlds that contain rational agents that could form religious beliefs. With that in mind, I take your claim to be that, granting the truth of atheism, it follows that across that infinite number of possible worlds, the set of worlds in which large numbers of individuals attain religious agreement is substantially smaller than the set in which they do not. This claim is then taken as support for the conclusion that the MTD in the actual world is less surprising on atheism than on theism.

  But if you want to defend that premise, you can't limit yourself to the actual world (i.e., the universe that in fact exists). That is, it isn't enough to challenge me to present specific selective pressures or psychological mechanisms that could naturally cultivate religious agreement in the actual world. Rather, the onus is on you to demonstrate that across the range of possible worlds (that is, the various possible ways things could have been) with individuals who hold religious beliefs, that comparatively few of those worlds will have mechanisms that will be likely to create that religious agreement naturally, that is, apart from divine intervention.

  Justin: Right. So, this is where background knowledge (or background evidence) becomes relevant. While it hasn't yet been stated explicitly, my argument has been operating under the much more limited set of worlds where human beings exist and have come to exist by the selective pressures at work in the actual world.

  Randal: My point still stands, since that subset of possible worlds is still unimaginably vast.

  Second, when it comes to the actual world, I deny your claim that I’ve offered nothing more than an “imaginative ‘what if.’” There are well-known psychological mechanisms that explain how large numbers of human beings come into agreement on particular topics ranging from food to culture to philosophy to religion.

  To note one example, consider the bandwagon effect. This is a very well-studied phenomenon according to which rates of individual adoption of particular beliefs or practices accelerate in proportion to the growing numbers of those who have already adopted the belief or practice. This positive-feedback effect could explain how religious agreement emerges naturally in a world like ours, to say nothing of that infinite number of other possible worlds, with heretofore unimagined psychological mechanisms and selective pressures.

  Justin: I think it is vitally important to realize that the bandwagon effect doesn't work in isolation. There are other psychological tendencies at work in human decision-making. It's just not probable that the bandwagon effect would somehow magically begin to override everything else and bring us toward global theological agreement on atheism.

  EVALUATING PREMISE TWO

  Randal: Yeah, well I never suggested the bandwagon effect would magically override everything else. I offer it simply as one part of a very plausible account of how we might expect religious agreement to emerge naturally, wholly apart from divine intervention.

  Anyway, what about the other leg of your argument, the claim that God would surely ensure a single world religion or set of doctrines? Interestingly, the Christian agrees with you that God will eventually secure religious commonality, indeed, unanimity, at least where it comes to the most important issues. Where the disagreement lies is in your claim that God would not allow the degree of religious disagreement we presently witness prior to the emergence of that future agreement.

  And my reply here is that you simply don't know enough about how an omniscient, perfectly good, and maximally wise being would act to justify the claim that this being would be unlikely to actualize a world with the degree of religious disagreement that we presently find.

  Justin: Well, I hear you, but let me unpack this premise a bit further.

  I want to argue that, if theism is true, we have strong reason to expect believers in God to be in theological agreement (rather than the MTD we observe) at least on the most important issues relating to personal relationship with God. This truth follows by way of unsurpassable divine love and its bias toward meaningful, conscious relationship with her loved ones. Those creatures who currently believe in God have already proven themselves willing and eager for deep divine relationship—it's just that they profoundly disagree with each other on some important issues. God, because she (i) desires her creatures to be in proper relationship with her, (ii) values truth, and (iii) recognizes that some aspects of theological disagreement can have a negative effect on potential human-divine relationships, can always be expected to prevent widespread disagreement on at least the most important issues.

  Randal: Yeah, well I don't see that God would always be expected to prevent widespread disagreement. Maybe I
can offer an illustration.

  Justin: Okay, just make sure this illustration is filled with action, suspense, adventure, and mystery.

  Randal: Not a problem. So a few weeks ago I was doing one of those team-building exercises with work colleagues…

  Justin: You’re killing me here, Randal.

  Randal: Wait, it gets better! The leader gave us a crisis to overcome and a series of resources to draw upon. Our challenge was to use teamwork to figure out the best way to utilize the resources to meet the crisis. As often happens in exercises like this, we had to weather some disagreement and debate as part of the process. But here's the thing: all that debate served to bring us to the unanimity that emerged only at the end of the exercise. Needless to say, had the leader simply provided us with the full list of proper resources at the beginning, he would have short-circuited the entire team-building process.

  On my understanding of God and his action in history, a parallel to this scenario is not only possible, it is highly plausible. In short, we find ourselves with widespread disagreement on particular matters, at least in significant part due to the good of working together in community to try and achieve greater unanimity.

  And, in point of fact, that's what you and I are doing right now. The fact that we disagree forces us to reason carefully and listen charitably to each other. And there is value in that journey from disagreement toward agreement. The value isn't limited to the fact that you will eventually admit that I'm right. There is also value in the debate itself.

  Justin: I have a bit of a worry here, Randal. So, I want to suggest that this team-builder story you’ve presented as an analogy is actually a false analogy. There is a hugely relevant difference between the team-building disagreement story and the MTD story playing out around the actual world.

  Randal: Did I hear that right? Did you say false?

  Justin: But it's easily remedied with a modification. This modified version would be one in which you and your colleagues are given a handout stating that there is a crisis of some sort to fix. But in communicating with your colleagues, you find that although they agree that there is, in fact, a crisis of some sort, nevertheless the handouts they’ve been given assert that the nature of the crisis is quite different and requires a very different strategy. Bizarre team-building exercise, I know.

  If the leader's purpose in organizing the event really was to encourage teamwork and crisis management, they should be expected to clear up the confusion. Otherwise the event will be nothing more than a perpetual stalemate of disagreement.

  Randal: I appreciate your effort but the original analogy works just fine. My point is that a benevolent overseer can have good reasons to allow disagreement on important issues given the intrinsic value in the team-building that comes with communal dialogue and debate.

  Moreover, our leader did clear up any remaining confusion at the end of the exercise. But when we’re talking God's action in history, we’re not yet at the end of the exercise: we’re still in the middle. And I'd say it is presumptuous of you to judge the exercise of theological disagreement in human history as not being worth it when we’re very much in the middle and we see things from a terribly limited vantage point. That's like rejecting the value of a day-long team-building exercise after five minutes.

  Justin: But Randal, that is fundamentally different. We aren't talking about tying up loose ends of some trivial exercise here. We are talking about fundamental disagreements about the very nature of a much bigger issue about which many people have incompatible beliefs. Moreover, I dare to assume that huge swaths of people didn't die in their ignorance before this team-building exercise was finished and all was revealed.

  RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AND KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

  Randal: True, nobody died before the game was over. But Justin, you seem to assume that a meaningful relationship with God is dependent on having the right beliefs about God, from which it follows that all those who have the wrong beliefs about God are thereby precluded from having meaningful relationship with God. I’ll grant that if a person holds that assumption, the problem of MTD will seem particularly problematic.

  Justin: Okay.

  Randal: But here's the thing: no theist is obliged to hold that assumption. On the contrary, it could be that a wide range of people can all be in different degrees of meaningful relationship with God despite having a range of false (and conflicting) beliefs about him.

  Justin: Okay, I think I agree, but I'm not entirely sure how this is supposed to be a problem for the argument. Perhaps you could whip up another one of those Rauserian analogies?

  Randal: One Rauser analogy coming right up!

  So consider the analogy of a child's relationship to her mother. This relationship begins in utero when the developing fetus is nurtured by her mother's body and begins to react to the sound of her mother's voice differently from other auditory stimuli. It continues after birth as the baby is breastfed, cradled in her mother's arms, and rocked to sleep. Conscious awareness of her mother is acquired gradually over time, but it emerges out of a prior preconscious relationship, which is itself profound and serves as the basis for that later relationship of awareness.

  So one can have knowledge and relationship despite some false beliefs or even with no beliefs.

  When one grants this fact, and then adds to it the further possibility that God allows temporary theological disagreement with the intent of achieving a range of substantial goods analogous to the team-building analogy, one finds a substantial rebuttal to your proposed objection.

  Justin: Well, hold on, Randal. I'm not entirely sure this rebuttal has the teeth you attribute to it.

  I am certainly not disallowing the possibility of nonconscious relationships of the sort that you describe. Of course, God would desire meaningful, conscious relationships over other forms of relationship. She would desire this because the previously mentioned rich pool of benefits and values are uniquely available to relationships between two persons (finite and divine) capable of recognizing, appreciating, and interacting with each other. In other words, the goods require a meaningful, conscious relationship.

  Secondly, I’ve not advocated any claim that suggests that, on theism, one must have all and only correct beliefs about God. From the beginning, I’ve restricted the scope of the relevant disagreements to which this argument refers to theological matters necessary for a conscious and meaningful relationship with God. Therefore, my argument allows for plenty of false beliefs about many other subjects.

  Randal: If one need not have correct beliefs about God to be in relationship with God, then many people across the spectrum of theological opinions could be in relationship with God despite their disagreement with each other. And that deals a serious blow to the weight of your objection.

  As for my analogy of the fetus/infant in relationship with its mother, it's interesting that you are only willing to grant the mere possibility of a relationship here. As a parent who has raised a child, I am confident that the fetus/infant's relationship with her mother is most certainly meaningful—profoundly so. It seems to me that your emphasis on relationship being mediated through correct beliefs suffers from an impoverished vision of relationship.

  Justin: Hmm, see I think it's just the opposite. I think it's you who are advocating for an impoverished view of relationship.5

  If a particular relationship is not a conscious two-way street where there is a give and take, a mutual back and forth from the participants, then it's barely worth the label. A fetus without the cognitive hardware for forming the most basic beliefs or making associations is incapable of meaningful relationship.

  That said, I do think there is an important distinction to be made here. A parent's love for their preconscious fetus may be enormous and meaningful, but the actual relationship between the parent and fetus is no more substantive than the “relationship” I have with my favorite pair of shoes.

  Randal: I do agree that conscious and cognitive relationships offer the additional va
lue of objectual and propositional knowledge of the one with whom one is in relation. And I believe that those who are in a noncognitive relation with God at present will eventually move into that kind of knowledge just as a noncognitive infant eventually acquires objectual and then propositional knowledge of her mother. However, your claim that the relationship of a mother to her noncognitive or nonverbal infant is no more substantive than your “relationship” with a pair of your shoes is, frankly, bizarre.

  Justin: Well, that's just because you haven't walked a mile in my shoes. But more seriously, like my shoes, a preconscious fetus has no awareness of themselves being in a relationship. There is no mutual awareness. There is no substantive interaction.

  It's not just that conscious relationships offer additional value though. I think that conscious relationships with God specifically make possible a whole swath of additional benefits to finite beings. Benefits include but are not limited to moral strength and valuable experiential knowledge.

  Randal: We’ve been talking about relationships, but what is a relationship such that it can be meaningful? A relationship is, minimally, a connection between individuals. There are all sorts of trivial relationships that are not part of our discussion. For example, I have a relationship with every human being on earth in the minimal sense that we all exemplify the same property of being human.

  But by focusing on meaningful relationships, I take it we mean existentially meaningful in that the relationship is somehow formative or constitutive for both persons. And a mother/child relationship surely qualifies here. In a mother/child relationship, each individual shares a profound, existentially definitive connection with the other. This relationship is defined by deep mutual bonding, asymmetric dependence, rich nonverbal communication, and the sharing of complex emotional experiences. It also becomes definitive for the individuals in the relationship. To see that you just need to listen to a mother talk about how she has been changed by motherhood.