Ars Disputandi
Volume 6 (2006)
: 1566–5399
Brian Clack
. ’ ,
, 
Belief in God: An Introduction to the
Philosophy of Religion
By T.J. Mawson
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; x + 272 pp.; hb. £ 50.00, pb.
£ 15.99;  0–19–927631–5/0–19–928495–4.
[1]
T.J.Mawson has written a lively and engaging introduction to the philosophy of religion, one which makes some significant contributions to contemporary
debates in the subject, and which will provoke a great deal of discussion among
those working in this field. The book’s argument, spread over two parts, runs
like this. In the first part, Mawson focuses on the concept of God, discussing the
central divine attributes (personhood; transcendence; immanence; omnipotence;
omniscience; eternality; freedom; goodness; necessity; creator; revealer; offerer of
eternal life). He argues that the concept of God is a coherent one, and that we can
thus significantly ask whether there are grounds for thinking that such a being
exists. This task is undertaken in the second part of the book. Addressing himself
to one who holds an agnostic ‘fifty/fifty position’, Mawson examines the standard
arguments for and against the existence of God to see whether the evidence might
shift that position into theistic territory, making it ‘more probable than not that
there is a God’ (p. 197). This is by now – post-Swinburne – a familiar move in philosophy of religion, though this is not to say that Mawson does not have anything
new to add here. He dispenses with the ontological, cosmological and design arguments, each of which is shown to have serious flaws. Given that none of these
arguments can provide us with reason to suppose that there is a God, Mawson has
to look around for alternative evidence and he finds this in the arguments from
religious experience and from reports of apparent miracles. Offering a familiar
argument based on the principles of credulity and testimony, Mawson argues
that the prevalence of religious over irreligious experiences makes it reasonable
to believe that physicalism is false, and that there does indeed exist a supernatural
realm. The appeal to miracles is added in to further a cumulative case argument
and maybe even to suggest (‘if the testimonies to the miracles of one religion are
of greater quantity or quality’ (p. 197)) that one religion may possess more truth
than a rival. Once the problem of evil has been dismissed (‘The occurrence of evil
in the world provides us with no reason whatsoever to think that there’s not a
God’ (p. 216)), we are left with the conclusion that theism is more reasonable than
atheism. Finally, Mawson suggests that if one still finds it difficult to believe in
God, then one should start praying, for it is ‘statistically likely’ (p. 232) that such
a process will lead to one thinking that it is (at least) probable that there is a God.
c August 24, 2006, Ars Disputandi. If you would like to cite this article, please do so as follows:
Brian Clack, ‘Review of Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion,’ Ars Disputandi [http://www.
ArsDisputandi.org] 6 (2006), paragraph number.
Brian Clack: Review of Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion
[2]
As can be seen from the above summary, in order to push beyond the
fifty/fifty position, Mawson must rely heavily on the argument from religious
experience. But there are problems here. Alarm bells ring when Mawson defines
a religious experience so broadly that it includes, not just visions and voices, but
‘the difficult-to-articulate feeling that the physical world as a whole . . . needs
some sort of explanation’ (p. 164). One might feel that Mawson has slyly included
this in the category of religious experiences so as to make many of us feel that
we have been recipients of those otherwise elusive mystical states. At any rate,
it surely goes without saying that just because one has had a feeling that the
physical world requires an explanation outside of itself, it does not follow that
there is such an explanation, that there is likely to be a God. So let’s just stick
with the ‘archetypal religious experience’ (a vision or a voice, the sense of a divine
presence) and consider what conclusions we can draw from the fact that people
have reported such experiences. Mawson argues that – given the principle of
credulity – ‘if it seems to you that you are having an experience of God’ then,
unless special circumstances obtain (e.g. substance abuse), it is reasonable for
you to believe that there is a God (p. 166). This may strike some as a perfectly
reasonable argument, though there are surely problems of recognition involved
here. I may certainly have an experience of my friend Adam: I see a familiar
figure walking towards me and recognize him as being my old friend Adam. But
how on earth could I recognize this figure in my vision as being God, or identify
correctly the voice I am hearing as being the voice of God, given that I have never
been introduced to God in the past? Moreover, it does not go without saying
that if I hear a voice claiming to be ‘the voice of God’ then I would automatically
embrace religious faith, rather than, say, rush off to see a psychiatrist. In other
words, it is not easy to determine whether a ‘religious experience’ is grounds for
religious belief or grounds for medication.
[3]
These problems are compounded, I think, when Mawson turns his attention, as he must, to the principle of testimony. Testimony is crucial, since
there are only very few people who have ‘archetypal’ religious experiences, and
those seeking a justification for religious belief must seek to show that these experiences provide grounds for faith for others not in receipt of such experiences.
The problem with Mawson’s argument concerning testimony, I think, is that he
holds a somewhat quaint view of human psychology, one in which people have
only two possible motives when they testify to something: truth-directed motives
and non-truth-directed motives (cf p. 175). This is important for Mawson, since
once we have established that the recipient of a religious experience is neither a
frothing-at-the-mouth ‘religious nutter’ (p. 167) nor trying to extract money from
us by means of their testimony (p. 174), then we are left with the conclusion that
this person has a truth-directed motive, and it thus becomes reasonable for the
non-recipient to believe on the basis of the recipient’s experience. Mawson seems
here unaware of the possibility that people may have unconsciously-generated
motivations to believe or to have ‘religious experiences’. Hence, the recipient of
the religious experience may be neither lying nor insane, but may simply have
an overwhelming unconscious desire to experience something ‘higher’. MawArs Disputandi 6 (2006), http://www.ArsDisputandi.org
Brian Clack: Review of Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion
son does not consider anything like this possibility. This is because his account
of human psychology is markedly rationalistic. Indicative of this is his striking
remark that persons are ‘essentially rational; to the extent that one is irrational,
one undermines one’s status as a person’ (p. 104). Now, it may (perhaps) be a
philosophical ideal for one to be entirely rational, to be motivated solely by the
pursuit of truth and to always behave reasonably; but as a description of how
human beings actually are, the contention is an error. Human beings are not like this.
It is passion and emotion – not reason – which seem to be the driving impulses
in the human mind. Indeed, the great contribution of the psychoanalytic understanding of the mind (and, really, Mawson tends to write as though Freud had
never existed) is that the heart of our being is not rational thought but unconscious
wishful impulses. A consideration of this has to be important in understanding
the motivations lying behind religious belief. I’m not suggesting that Mawson
has to accept the Freudian perspective, but it is a position which really should be
included here, and not simply ignored.
[4]
Moving on to Mawson’s treatment of atheistic arguments, he contends
that there is only one such argument: the problem of evil. That is an odd thing to
contend, because there are other atheistic arguments – those arguments we may
call ‘natural histories of religion’ – which try to demonstrate either that the belief
in God arose out of the primitive condition of human beings and is to that extent
rationally suspect (Hume, Tylor, Frazer), or that God is merely a projection of
the human essence (Feuerbach), or of human society (Durkheim) or of a fatherideal (Freud). Projectionist theories certainly require consideration in a book on
the philosophy of religion. While these may not disprove God’s existence, the
realisation that, in the absence of any evidence concerning the divine nature, the
idea of God nevertheless perfectly mirrors some human ideal must give us reason
to think that God may simply be the projection of something important to us. It
may even be that Mawson’s God represents the projection of his own philosophical
ideals. These ideals concern goodness, knowledge, invulnerability (God cannot
‘feel fear, uncertainty, or doubt’ (p. 35)), and, of course, perfect reasonableness.
[5]
Just as an aside here, consider what Mawson says about God’s reasonableness: ‘God is not rational in the more or less haphazard way that we are; he
is supremely rational. He never does anything less than fully reasonable’ (p. 18).
This strikes me as peculiar. It is certainly at odds with the Bible, where God
appears frequently to be unreasonable and temperamental. But more to the point,
to say that ‘God is supremely reasonable’ just seems religiously insignificant. It’s
rather like saying ‘God would be able to park a car perfectly’: you wouldn’t
necessarily want to say that this claim is wrong, but rather just irrelevant. And I
think the same goes for ‘supreme reasonableness’. Where – outside of an Oxford
seminar room – would believers praise God for being ‘reasonable’?
[6]
Back to the problem of evil. Mawson’s argument is the familiar one: evils
resulting from the bad acts of human beings are justifiable in terms of the gift of
free will; natural evils are the inevitable result of those natural laws necessary for
the enjoyment of freedom; and there will, anyway, be bounteous compensation
for all this pain and suffering in the afterlife. In this context, it is important to take
Ars Disputandi 6 (2006), http://www.ArsDisputandi.org
Brian Clack: Review of Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion
note of Mawson’s account of the afterlife. It is an astonishingly detailed account.
The afterlife, we are told, ‘will be an embodied one, where we eat, drink, and sing’
(p. 86). No evidence is presented in support of this claim, of course, for there could
be no such evidence. No, these claims about the afterlife are generated entirely
from wishes: the theist wants there to be an afterlife in which there is ‘intellectual,
moral, emotional, and . . . physical fulfilment’ (ibid); the belief is a direct result of
that desire. Indeed, the sections of this book dealing with the afterlife are written
entirely in the optative mood. Witness the following passage:
If Rachel has a desire to see her sadly deceased pet hamster again, then . . .
it would be less than ideal for Rachel were she to find in Heaven that her
hamster had not been brought back to life too. . . . So I see no reason why if
there were a God, he would not bring back Rachel’s pet hamster for no other
reason than that Rachel, as by then a resident of Heaven, wants him to bring
it back. (p. 102)
[7]
Theists never seem able to answer the straightforward question: If God is so
concerned about our happiness, then why is this happiness withheld from us in
this physical life (the only life of which we have knowledge)? Why would God
care so much about children and hamsters in the next world when he seems to care
so little about them in this world? It is very hard to escape Freud’s conclusion that
religious belief (and, in particular, the belief in a felicitous afterlife) is ‘a product
of our wishes too unmistakeable to lay claim to reality’.
[8]
If this conclusion is the correct one, then dire consequences follow for
Mawson’s treatment of the problem of evil. For evil is here justified principally on
the grounds that ‘any evil a creature suffers in this world could be compensated
for by God in the next’ (p. 208), and that ‘the suffering of this world [is] a prelude
to an infinite afterlife of perfect fulfilment’ (p. 212). But if belief in the afterlife is
rooted in nothing more substantial than the wishes of religious believers, then we
can have precious little confidence that such compensation is really going to be
enjoyed. It can, moreover, be argued that the belief in a compensatory afterlife is
not merely a fantasy, but is indeed a pernicious fantasy, blinding religious believers
to the seriousness of the all-too-prevalent suffering of the world. With this in mind,
consider Mawson’s concluding words on the problem of evil:
[A]fter our finite lives here an infinite life awaits us hereafter. For every
creature who suffers, there will come a day when they say that as individuals
their suffering has been more than adequately compensated for and on which
they will be able to see how their suffering fitted into a greater whole that was
overall worth it. On that day, even those who were broken on the wheels of
the machine as they turned will thank God for it (p. 215).
[9]
Now: take a moment and think of a real (not an imagined) instance of
terrible suffering. Now re-read Mawson’s words, and then measure your level of
discomfort (mine went off the scale). Only someone whose sensitivity to suffering
has been deadened by religious morphine could think that (for example) the
children slaughtered in the Beslan school massacre, and their parents forever
broken by the pain of that terrible event, will one day ‘thank God for it’.
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Brian Clack: Review of Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion
[10]
It is telling that in this chapter on evil, Mawson never once makes
reference to a real case of suffering, instead appealing to imaginary examples (of
one person P causing excruciating agony to another person Q ‘just because he
doesn’t like the cut of Q’s jib’ (p. 205); and of ‘Bambi’ burning to death in a forest
fire (p. 207)). It is very easy to make a theodicy sound plausible when you refer to
abstract people called P and Q, rather than to a real child with a real name with
real parents crying real tears. Theodicy always tends to fall apart in the face of
actual suffering. Mawson’s refusal to examine real cases of suffering springs in
part from his insistence that philosophers are ‘loath to engage with . . . empirical
facts’ (p. 176). It strikes me, on the other hand, that a philosophy of religion that
does not take into account the real facts of the world as we encounter them is
always going to be insubstantial and somewhat free-floating. Indeed, it seems
a much more fruitful approach to start with what we know about life and the
world, rather than from some abstract concept of God which seems rooted in no
experience of the world at all.
[11]
I want finally to make some comments about the status of Belief in God
as ‘an introduction to the philosophy of religion’. An introductory text should
ideally engage the interest of the beginning student and demonstrate to him/her
the fascinating, exciting nature of the subject; it should explain the arguments
of principal philosophers of religion; and, by presenting contrasting views and
perspectives, it should provide a space for the student to draw their own conclusions about religious belief. Mawson cannot be faulted with regard to the first
feature: his style is contagiously enthusiastic, and there is not a dull moment in
the book. With regard to the second feature, however, Mawson does not spend
much time introducing and discussing other philosophers. So, for example, readers could go through the chapter on the ontological argument without knowing
that it was originally propounded by (the unmentioned) St Anselm. It is the third
feature, though, that seems most problematically absent here. Mawson does not
present alternatives to his own perspective in a respectful manner. Rather, views
which run counter to Mawson’s own are ridiculed and too-easily dismissed. For
example, both moral non-objectivism (pp. 54–57) and determinism (p. 141) are
presented as absurd positions (which they are not) and then (of course) easily
knocked down. An ideal introductory text would not do this, and would instead
let the student decide between fairly-presented competing perspectives. Moreover, the fact that non-realist and revisionary accounts of religious belief are not
even mentioned here entail that Belief in God is inevitably somewhat one-sided. So
while Mawson has presented a provocative and stimulating argument concerning
the nature and existence of God, this book cannot unreservedly be recommended
as an ideal starting point for students.
Ars Disputandi 6 (2006), http://www.ArsDisputandi.org