4 March 2005: Locke Me Up

Since homework continues to eat my journal-writing time, and since my publishing of my Social Psychology homework assignment in the previous entry was quite well-received, here's another homework assignment, this time from my Philosophy class.

The assignment was simply to write a two-to-three page critical response to any aspect of any one of the various passages we've read so far this semester.

I think that my small and long-suffering contingent of Atheist readers are going to like this one. Especially the Saint. Yes, you poor godless wretches finally get some equal time on this site, because for this assignment I chose to write a refutation of one of the cornerstones of Enlightenment religious thought: John Locke's alleged proof of the existence of God, from his Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

In case it's been a few weeks since you last read Locke's proof, here it is (as you read it, those of you who enjoy such exercises might wish to try to guess which points I'm going to attack, and how):

Book IV - Chapter X
Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a God

1. We are capable of knowing certainly that there is a God. Though God has given us no innate ideas of himself; though he has stamped no original characters on our minds, wherein we may read his being; yet having furnished us with those faculties our minds are endowed with, he hath not left himself without witness: since we have sense, perception, and reason, and cannot want a clear proof of him, as long as we carry ourselves about us. Nor can we justly complain of our ignorance in this great point; since he has so plentifully provided us with the means to discover and know him; so far as is necessary to the end of our being, and the great concernment of our happiness. But, though this be the most obvious truth that reason discovers, and though its evidence be (if I mistake not) equal to mathematical certainty: yet it requires thought and attention; and the mind must apply itself to a regular deduction of it from some part of our intuitive knowledge, or else we shall be as uncertain and ignorant of this as of other propositions, which are in themselves capable of clear demonstration. To show, therefore, that we are capable of knowing, i.e. being certain that there is a God, and how we may come by this certainty, I think we need go no further than ourselves, and that undoubted knowledge we have of our own existence.

2. For man knows that he himself exists. I think it is beyond question, that man has a clear idea of his own being; he knows certainly he exists, and that he is something. He that can doubt whether he be anything or no, I speak not to; no more than I would argue with pure nothing, or endeavour to convince nonentity that it were something. If any one pretends to be so sceptical as to deny his own existence, (for really to doubt of it is manifestly impossible,) let him for me enjoy his beloved happiness of being nothing, until hunger or some other pain convince him of the contrary. This, then, I think I may take for a truth, which every one's certain knowledge assures him of, beyond the liberty of doubting, viz. that he is something that actually exists.

3 He knows also that nothing cannot produce a being; therefore something must have existed from eternity. In the next place, man knows, by an intuitive certainty, that bare nothing can no more produce any real being, than it can be equal to two right angles. If a man knows not that nonentity, or the absence of all being, cannot be equal to two right angles, it is impossible he should know any demonstration in Euclid. If, therefore, we know there is some real being, and that nonentity cannot produce any real being, it is an evident demonstration, that from eternity there has been something; since what was not from eternity had a beginning; and what had a beginning must be produced by something else.

4. And that eternal Being must be most powerful. Next, it is evident, that what had its being and beginning from another, must also have all that which is in and belongs to its being from another too. All the powers it has must be owing to and received from the same source. This eternal source, then, of all being must also be the source and original of all power; and so this eternal Being must be also the most powerful.

5. And most knowing. Again, a man finds in himself perception and knowledge. We have then got one step further; and we are certain now that there is not only some being, but some knowing, intelligent being in the world. There was a time, then, when there was no knowing being, and when knowledge began to be; or else there has been also a knowing being from eternity. If it be said, there was a time when no being had any knowledge, when that eternal being was void of all understanding; I reply, that then it was impossible there should ever have been any knowledge: it being as impossible that things wholly void of knowledge, and operating blindly, and without any perception, should produce a knowing being, as it is impossible that a triangle should make itself three angles bigger than two right ones. For it is as repugnant to the idea of senseless matter, that it should put into itself sense, perception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea of a triangle, that it should put into itself greater angles than two right ones.

6. And therefore God. Thus, from the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth,- That there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing Being; which whether any one will please to call God, it matters not. The thing is evident; and from this idea duly considered, will easily be deduced all those other attributes, which we ought to ascribe to this eternal Being. If, nevertheless, any one should be found so senselessly arrogant, as to suppose man alone knowing and wise, but yet the product of mere ignorance and chance; and that all the rest of the universe acted only by that blind haphazard; I shall leave with him that very rational and emphatical rebuke of Tully (I. ii. De Leg.), to be considered at his leisure: "What can be more sillily arrogant and misbecoming, than for a man to think that he has a mind and understanding in him, but yet in all the universe beside there is no such thing? Or that those things, which with the utmost stretch of his reason he can scarce comprehend, should be moved and managed without any reason at all?" Quid est enim verius, quam neminem esse oportere tam stulte arrogantem, ut in se mentem et rationem putet inesse, in caelo mundoque non putet? Aut ea quae vix summa ingenii ratione comprehendat, nulla ratione moveri putet?

From what has been said, it is plain to me we have a more certain knowledge of the existence of a God, than of anything our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I presume I may say, that we more certainly know that there is a God, than that there is anything else without us. When I say we know, I mean there is such a knowledge within our reach which we cannot miss, if we will but apply our minds to that, as we do to several other inquiries.

And here's what I wrote about it (got me another A, plus enthusiastic comments in the margins):

In Book Four, Chapter Ten of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke claims to prove, through reason, the existence of God, whom he defines as “an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing Being.” But Locke’s proof is faulty, depending as it does upon some very questionable and unsupported assumptions.

Starting from the solid enough premise that “Man knows that he himself exists” (basically a restatement of Descartes’ ever-reliable “I think, therefore I am”) Locke argues that “Nothing cannot produce a Being; therefore Something must have existed from Eternity.” But it is neither self-evident nor, I suspect, provable that “Nothing cannot produce a Being.” It’s true that in the ordinary course of our lives, Being doesn’t appear to spring from Nothingness – but it seems to me that the Creation of the Universe, whatever its details, would qualify as an extraordinary event, some qualities of which could reasonably be expected to differ significantly from the qualities of the events we witness in the ordinary course of our lives.

As an explanation of the Creation of the Universe, Locke’s “Being” that “must have existed from Eternity” seems to me neither more nor less plausible (and neither more nor less provable) than, for instance, the explanation that the Universe did spring from Nothing, or that (as Stephen Hawking claims) the space/time continuum is a self-contained cyclical system with neither a beginning nor an ending, or that (as some Kabbalists and other mystics claim) God originally sprang from Nothing.

At this point, then, Locke has already blown his proof of God’s existence, and has also failed to prove that any God that might exist is necessarily eternal. However, since he doesn’t realize that he’s blown it, he goes on from there to attempt to prove the rest of his definition of God: that God is “most powerful” and “most knowing.” Even if, for argument’s sake, we grant Locke the existence of God (and an eternal God, at that), his proofs that this God must of necessity be “most powerful” and “most knowing” still don’t hold up.

Locke’s argument that “this eternal Being must also be the most powerful” is based on the assertion that “it is evident, that what had its being and beginning from another, must also have all that which is in and belongs to its being from another too. All the powers it has must be owing to and received from the same source.” But this is not evident; simple observation of the natural world provides numerous examples of phenomena that run contrary to this principle. Biological evolution is perhaps the most powerful and pervasive example: all life forms, from squids to humans to hummingbirds, evolved from simple microscopic organisms that plainly did not possess the attributes and powers of squids, humans, or hummingbirds. Of course, Locke was writing long before Darwin, and didn’t know about this particular example. But surely he must have known that by mixing sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter, a chemist could make gunpowder, which has the power to explode with great force despite the fact that this explosive power is not contained in any of the individual ingredients, nor in the person of the chemist.

Locke’s argument that God is “most knowing” hinges on the same flawed assumptions as his other arguments. Starting from the fact that “a man finds in himself perception and knowledge,” and that thus “there is not only some being, but some knowing, intelligent being in the world,” he again bases his reasoning on the dubious assertion that a given quality cannot develop where it does not already exist: “it being as impossible that things wholly void of knowledge, and operating blindly, and without any perception, should produce a knowing being...”

I’ve seen many other attempts to prove the existence of some or other version of God, and I’ve seen many attempts to prove the nonexistence of God. None of these proofs hold up under logical scrutiny; most are considerably more flawed than Locke’s. The proofs of God’s existence that I’ve seen all ultimately rest on some unprovable assumption or another. The proofs of God’s nonexistence that I’ve seen are even worse – they all seem to boil down to some variant of the Straw Man Fallacy: “I can refute this particular proof of God’s existence, therefore God doesn’t exist,” or “By proving that some of the things that this or that particular group believes about God are untrue (e.g., by presenting evidence that some story in the Old Testament could not be a literally accurate historical account), I have proven that no God can exist,” or “Some of the people who believe in God don’t believe in the Theory of Evolution, therefore, the mountain of scientific evidence that supports the Theory of Evolution disproves the existence of any God.”

I don’t believe that the existence of God can be proven or disproven with reason. Some specific claims about God can be demonstrated false beyond reasonable doubt, but this proves nothing about God except that it’s as possible for humans to have inaccurate ideas about God as it is for them to have inaccurate ideas about anything else. There is no way to determine empirically whether we live in a Godless Universe, or whether, for instance, we live in a Universe created by a God whose plan for the evolution of human consciousness calls for God’s existence to remain unproven to us.

It surprises me that Locke fails to recognize that proving God’s existence is beyond the power of reason, given that he places so much emphasis on knowing reason’s limitations. In other chapters of his essay, Locke makes some excellent arguments for the importance of knowing “the measures and boundaries between faith and reason.” So it is ironic that, in his attempted proof of God’s existence, he inadvertently provides his own negative example.

 

Other news: exciting leaps and transformations in my aikido as I integrate recent work; more substitute teaching at K Sensei’s dojo; my own dojo developing into a very nice social group (without losing the asocial integrity of the work on the mat); testing Rhiannon for 4th kyu on the 13th; just finished this semester’s first round of midterms; going to crawl off to bed and get some sleep now.