Review of the 36 Arguments for the Existence of God # 32. THE ARGUMENT FROM PRAGMATISM (WILLIAM JAMES LEAP OF FAITH)
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Pastor Jennifer v2
Feb 23, 2012, 9:08:34 PM2/23/12
to Evidence For God
32. THE ARGUMENT FROM PRAGMATISM (WILLIAM JAMES LEAP OF FAITH)
(from R Goldstein)
1. The consequences for the believer’s life of believing should be
considered as part of the evidence for the truth of the belief (just
as the effectiveness of a scientific theory in its practical
applications is considered evidence for the truth of the theory). Call
this the pragmatic evidence for the belief.
2. Certain beliefs effect a change for the better in the believer’s
life- the necessary condition being that they are believed.
3. The belief in God is a belief that effects a change for the better
in a person’s life.
4. If one tries to decide whether or not to believe in God based on
the evidence available, one will never get the chance to evaluate the
pragmatic evidence for the beneficial consequences of believing in God
(from 2 and 3).
5. One ought to make “the leap of faith” (the term is James’s) and
believe in God, and only then evaluate the evidence (from 1 and 4).
The argument can be read out of William James’s classic essay “The
Will to Believe.” The first premise, as presented here, is a little
less radical than James’s pragmatic definitions of truth, according to
which a proposition is true if believing that it is true has a
cumulative beneficial effect on the believer’s life. The pragmatic
definition of truth has severe problems, including possible
incoherence: in evaluating the effects of the belief on the believer,
we have to know the truth about what those effects are, which forces
us to fall back on the old-fashioned notion of truth. To make the best
case for The Argument from Pragmatism, therefore, the first premise is
to be interpreted as claiming only that the pragmatic consequences of
belief are a relevant source of evidence in ascertaining the truth,
not that they can actually be equated with the truth.
FLAW 1:
What exactly does effecting “a change for the better in the believer’s
life” mean? For an antebellum Southerner, there was more to be gained
in believing that slavery was morally permissible than in believing it
heinous. It often doesn’t pay to be an iconoclast or a revolutionary
thinker, no matter how much truer your ideas are than the ideas of
opposing you. It didn’t improve Galileo’s life to believe that the
earth moved around the sun rather than that the sun and the heavens
revolve around the earth. (Of course, you could say that it’s always
intrinsically better to believe something true than something false,
but there you’re just using the language of pragmatism to mask a non-
pragmatic notion of truth.)
FLAW 2:
The Argument from Pragmatism implies an extreme relativism regarding
the truth, because the effects of belief differ for different
believers. A profligate, impulsive drunkard may have to believe in a
primitive retributive God who will send him to hell if he doesn’t stay
out of barroom fights, whereas a contemplative mensch may be better
off with an abstract deistic presence who completes his deepest
existential worldview. But either there is a vengeful God who sends
sinners to hell or there isn’t. If one allows pragmatic consequences
to determine truth, then truth becomes relative to the believer, which
is incoherent.
FLAW 3:
Why should we only consider the pragmatic effects on the believer’s
life? What about the effects on everyone else? The history of
religious intolerance, such as inquisitions, fatwas, and suicide
bombers suggests that the effects on one person’s life of another
person’s believing in God can be pretty grim.
FLAW 4:
The Argument from Pragmatism suffers from the first flaw of the
Argument from Decision Theory (# 31) – namely, the assumption that the
belief in God is like a faucet that one can turn on and off as the
need arises. If I make the leap of faith in order to evaluate the
pragmatic consequences of belief, then, if those consequences are not
so good can I leap back into disbelief? Isn’t a leap of faith a one-
way maneuver? “The will to believe” is an oxymoron: beliefs are
forced on a person (ideally by logic and evidence); they are not
chosen for their consequences.
(from R Goldstein)
1. The consequences for the believer’s life of believing should be
considered as part of the evidence for the truth of the belief (just
as the effectiveness of a scientific theory in its practical
applications is considered evidence for the truth of the theory). Call
this the pragmatic evidence for the belief.
2. Certain beliefs effect a change for the better in the believer’s
life- the necessary condition being that they are believed.
3. The belief in God is a belief that effects a change for the better
in a person’s life.
4. If one tries to decide whether or not to believe in God based on
the evidence available, one will never get the chance to evaluate the
pragmatic evidence for the beneficial consequences of believing in God
(from 2 and 3).
5. One ought to make “the leap of faith” (the term is James’s) and
believe in God, and only then evaluate the evidence (from 1 and 4).
The argument can be read out of William James’s classic essay “The
Will to Believe.” The first premise, as presented here, is a little
less radical than James’s pragmatic definitions of truth, according to
which a proposition is true if believing that it is true has a
cumulative beneficial effect on the believer’s life. The pragmatic
definition of truth has severe problems, including possible
incoherence: in evaluating the effects of the belief on the believer,
we have to know the truth about what those effects are, which forces
us to fall back on the old-fashioned notion of truth. To make the best
case for The Argument from Pragmatism, therefore, the first premise is
to be interpreted as claiming only that the pragmatic consequences of
belief are a relevant source of evidence in ascertaining the truth,
not that they can actually be equated with the truth.
FLAW 1:
What exactly does effecting “a change for the better in the believer’s
life” mean? For an antebellum Southerner, there was more to be gained
in believing that slavery was morally permissible than in believing it
heinous. It often doesn’t pay to be an iconoclast or a revolutionary
thinker, no matter how much truer your ideas are than the ideas of
opposing you. It didn’t improve Galileo’s life to believe that the
earth moved around the sun rather than that the sun and the heavens
revolve around the earth. (Of course, you could say that it’s always
intrinsically better to believe something true than something false,
but there you’re just using the language of pragmatism to mask a non-
pragmatic notion of truth.)
FLAW 2:
The Argument from Pragmatism implies an extreme relativism regarding
the truth, because the effects of belief differ for different
believers. A profligate, impulsive drunkard may have to believe in a
primitive retributive God who will send him to hell if he doesn’t stay
out of barroom fights, whereas a contemplative mensch may be better
off with an abstract deistic presence who completes his deepest
existential worldview. But either there is a vengeful God who sends
sinners to hell or there isn’t. If one allows pragmatic consequences
to determine truth, then truth becomes relative to the believer, which
is incoherent.
FLAW 3:
Why should we only consider the pragmatic effects on the believer’s
life? What about the effects on everyone else? The history of
religious intolerance, such as inquisitions, fatwas, and suicide
bombers suggests that the effects on one person’s life of another
person’s believing in God can be pretty grim.
FLAW 4:
The Argument from Pragmatism suffers from the first flaw of the
Argument from Decision Theory (# 31) – namely, the assumption that the
belief in God is like a faucet that one can turn on and off as the
need arises. If I make the leap of faith in order to evaluate the
pragmatic consequences of belief, then, if those consequences are not
so good can I leap back into disbelief? Isn’t a leap of faith a one-
way maneuver? “The will to believe” is an oxymoron: beliefs are
forced on a person (ideally by logic and evidence); they are not
chosen for their consequences.
Brock
Feb 25, 2012, 11:14:54 AM2/25/12
to Evidence For God
On Feb 23, 9:08 pm, Pastor Jennifer v2
* there is no one "THE ARGUMENT ...", rather it refers to a general
category of arguments, thus to defeat one specific example is not
adequate to dismiss the category
* the argument, to the degree it is a paraphrase, doesn't adequately
represent (either intentionally or accidentally) the argument as put
forward by a proponent, and faces the danger of being simply a straw-
man
Regards,
Brock
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