FLAW: The first premise cannot be proved. Our world could conceivably be one in which randomness and contingency have free reign, no matter what the intuitions of some scientists are. Maybe some things just are (“stuff happens”), including the fundamental laws of nature. Philosophers sometimes call this just-is-ness “contingency,” and if the fundamental laws of nature are contingent, then, even if everything that happens in the world is explainable by those laws, the laws themselves couldn’t be explained. There is a sense in which this argument recalls The Argument from the Improbable Self. Both demand explanations for just this-ness, whether of just this universe or just this me.
The Argument from the Intelligibility of the Universe fleshes out the consequences of the powerful first premise, but some might regard the argument as a reductio ad absurdum of that premise.
COMMENT: Spinoza’s argument, if sound, invalidates all the other arguments, the ones that try to establish the existence of a more traditional God-that is, a God who stands distinct from the world described by the laws of nature, as well as distinct from the world of human meaning, purpose, and morality. Spinoza’s argument claims that any transcendent God, standing outside of that for which he is invoked as explanation, is invalidated by the first powerful premise, that all things are part of the same explanatory fabric. The mere coherence of The Argument from the Intelligibility of the Universe, therefore, is sufficient to reveal the invalidity of the other theistic arguments. This is why Spinoza, although he offered a proof of what he called “God,” is often regarded as the most effective of all atheists.
36. The Argument from the Abundance of Arguments
The more arguments there are for a proposition, the more confidence we should have in it, even if every argument is imperfect. (Science itself proceeds by accumulating evidence, each piece by itself being inconclusive.)
There is not just one argument for the existence of God, but many- thirty-five (with additional variations) so far, in this list alone.
The arguments, though not flawless, are persuasive enough that they have convinced billions of people, and for millennia have been taken seriously by history’s greatest minds.
The probability that each one is true must be significantly greater than zero (from 3).
For God not to exist, every one of the arguments for his existence must be false, which is extremely unlikely (from 4). Imagine, for the sake of argument, that each argument has an average probability of only.2 of being true, which means that it has a probability of.8 of being false. Then the probability that all thirty-five are false is (1 -.835) =.004, an extremely low probability.
It is extremely probable that God exists (from 5).
FLAW 1: Premise 3 is vulnerable to the same criticisms as The Argument from the Consensus of Humanity. The flaws that accompany each argument may be extremely damaging, even fatal, notwithstanding the fact that they have been taken seriously by many people throughout history. In other words, the average probability of any of the arguments’ being true may be far less than.2, in which case the probability that all of them are false could be high.
FLAW 2: This argument treats all the other arguments as being on an equal footing, distributing equal probabilities to them all, and rewarding all of them, too, with the commendation of being taken seriously by history’s greatest minds. Many of the arguments on this list have been completely demolished by such minds as David Hume and Baruch Spinoza: their probability is zero.
COMMENT: The Argument from the Abundance of Arguments may be the most psychologically important of the thirty-six. Few people rest their belief in God on a single, decisive logical argument. Instead, people are swept away by the sheer number of reasons that make God’s existence seem plausible-holding out an explanation as to why the universe went to the bother of existing, and why it is this particular universe, with its sublime improbabilities, including us humans; and, even more particularly, explaining the existence of each one of us who know ourselves as unique conscious individuals, who make free and moral choices that grant meaning and purpose to our lives; and, even more personally, giving hope that desperate prayers may not go unheard and unanswered, and that the terrors of death can be subdued in immortality. Religions, too, do not justify themselves with a single logical argument, but minister to all of these spiritual needs and provide a space in our lives where the largest questions with which we grapple all come together, which is a space that can become among the most expansive and loving of which we are capable, or the most constricted and hating of which we are capable-in other words, a space as contradictory as human nature itself.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to shout out my gratitude to both the Guggenheim Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, for supporting the writing of this novel. Among the wonderful fellows at the Radcliffe Institute during the year of my residence was Megan Marshall, who was one of the first of my readers. I thank her for her comments and her friendship.
Gabriel Love was another early reader who provided me with essential feedback. Elaine Pfefferblit’s comments were, as always, illuminating.
I am grateful to the following people for being, I’d wager, the only ones in the world who would not respond “huh?” when sent my bizarre questions but answered them with precision and playfulness: Douglas Hofstadter, Martin Seligman, and, pivotally, Doron Zeilberger.
Readers may be surprised to learn that I did not make up the Kabbalistic musings on such Jewish delicacies as potato kugel, but learned of them from the article “Holy Kugeclass="underline" The Sanctification of Ashkenazic Ethnic Foods in Hasidism,” by Allan Nadler, reprinted in Food & Judaism, edited by Leonard Greenspoon, Creighton University Press, 2005.
It is a gift for me to be able to avail myself of the wealth of smarts, from the most practical to the most literary, that Tina Bennett provides. Stephanie Koven has been wonderful in her efforts on behalf of this book. I thank the stars to have been able to place my work in the hands of Dan Frank, an editor with whom I have long dreamed of working.
The gratitude and love that I owe my partner, Steve Pinker, are too deep and too many for the telling. Suffice it to say that, among all the profusion of his talents, is his perfect knowledge of love.
I selfishly raised my two daughters, Yael Goldstein Love and Danielle Blau, to be astute critics, and they have never let me down. Each has become a consummate artist in her own right. This book is dedicated to Danielle, who helped me, through all the years, not to lose Azarya. It is often her voice and her purity of vision that I hear and see in him.
About the Author
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, a novelist and philosopher, was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” prize for her ability to “dramatize the concerns of philosophy without sacrificing the demands of imaginative storytelling.” Her first novel was the critically acclaimed best seller The Mind-Body Problem. She has received numerous prizes for her five other works of fiction, including National Jewish Book Awards for Strange Attractors and Mazel and the Whiting Writers’ Award for The Dark Sister. Her two most recent books are Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel and Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity, winner of the Koret Prize. She has been awarded two honorary doctorates, Guggenheim and Radcliffe fellowships, and is a Humanist Laureate and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She lives in Boston and Truro, Massachusetts.