Are Atheists and Theists talking past each other? (Part 1)

Parsing out the metaphysical underpinning of the theistic and atheistic worldview can change how we look at the debate

Contrary to some popular historical narratives, atheism is not a modern phenomenon that has arisen because modern science is finally able to provide an account of the creation of the universe without appealing to a creator. To give one historical counterpoint, at the time of Buddha, over 2500 years ago, atheism was one of many prominent philosophical views. That being said, it is the case that a form of atheism referred to as “new atheism” has developed in conjunction with the trend of taking scientific theories and explanations as metaphysical accounts of the nature of the universe. Most people today who are sympathetic to atheism are likely to be influenced by the particular argumentative style of new atheism which goes something like this: “I have just as much evidence for the existence of God as I have for the existence of an invisible flying spaghetti monster.” From a purely empirical point of view, the argument is quite valid. Empiricism, the theory of knowledge in which the experimental method of modern science is largely rooted, asks us to look towards the evidence of our senses, what we can see, feel, and hear directly as the basis from which to determine what is true. Many scientists and philosophers will make deductions or inductions from this base concerning laws or entities that they cannot directly experience, but for the empiricists, the base is always what is directly observable through the senses. There is value in an empiricist theory of knowledge. Empiricism can keep us honest by discouraging us from making up the existence of entities or theoretical models that we want to exist and instead restricts us to commit ourselves only to those phenomena that we directly experience through the senses and what we can deduce from that experience. If empiricism is the right way to think about how we access truth, this new atheist style of refutation for God’s existence is pretty much a done deal. Most of us do not directly perceive God through our five senses or deduce God from something we perceive through the five senses. Therefore, within an empiricist framework, it follows that we must distrust the existence of these entities and the metaphysical structures in which they are embedded.   

That being said, there are quite a few intelligent thinkers who would warn us against taking empiricism, or any theory of knowledge, for granted. One of these thinkers is Hegel. In his most famous work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel makes use of what he calls a “skeptical” method as a means of putting our ways of knowing up to philosophical scrutiny. The skeptical method takes a certain paradigm of knowledge and investigates whether it is fully self-sufficient or whether it relies on presuppositions that it does not make explicit. When Hegel applies this skeptical method to empiricism, he finds that there is a more fundamental metaphysical framework in which empiricism is embedded. Or to put it another way, in order for empiricism to make sense, for us to make sense of the world as populated by objects that can be perceived through the senses, a certain understanding of what the world is made of must be assumed to be true; namely, that the world, or we could say nature, is composed of discrete subjects and objects. If we are to accept the claim that we can trust the information our senses provide us with as the basis of truth, we must also accept the claim that objects we perceive through those senses are the raw, fundamental “stuff” that makes up reality. If this metaphysical underpinning of empiricism is true, only then would it be fair to say that truth consists of what we perceive through our senses and what we can deduce from those perceptions.

So, a question then arises, is this metaphysical presupposition true? Is the world really made of discrete objects and discrete subjects that we can simply perceive and learn about? Hegel doesn’t think so. The whole second half of the Phenomenology of Spirit is dedicated to proving that that particular metaphysical presupposition, let's call it a subject/object metaphysics, is actually rooted in an even more fundamental metaphysical framework. Instead of simply providing Hegel’s analysis though, I want to turn back to our theme of science vs. religion and suggest that what we think of as “religion,” and especially religious “creation” stories are actually attempts to provide a narrative articulation that expresses a more fundamental metaphysical context from which the world of discrete subjects and objects as it appears to our senses initially arises from. In other words, if we interpret these creation stories in the way I suggest, we find that they are telling us that reality is not fundamentally made of discrete subjects and objects. It is true that in ordinary states of consciousness, it might appear to be that way, but my suggestion is that these religious creation myths attempt to disclose a more primordial process that is continually occurring under the surface which provides the apparent world with this structure. (I emphasize that this experience of a world made of objects only occurs to ordinary perception because through meditation, yogic practices, vision quests, and other means, many report it is possible to directly perceive these more fundamental processes.) 

Inspired by the Biblical account of God as “incomparable,” Hegel writes that the religious acknowledgment of God as the ultimate reality allows, “the one concrete totality to come home to the consciousness of man as his own essence and as the essence of nature. And this one genuine actuality alone evinces itself to him as the supreme power over the particular and the finite, whereby everything otherwise separated and opposed is brought back to a higher and absolute unity.” Hegel takes this notion of God being incomparable quite literally. We know particular objects through contrast. You can only determine the phone or computer you are reading this on as a particular, discrete object by acknowledging its differences from both yourself and other particular objects in your environment. To accept this world of particular objects that arise through contrast and separation as the metaphysical bedrock of reality is to take what Hegel calls the “supreme power of the particular and the finite” as having ultimate authority.

  By positing God we posit something beyond and behind this realm of contrastivly determined particularity and finitude that is its source. God cannot be put into contrast with anything else, because God is the unitary source from which all these discrete, particular objects in the realm of contrast and separation arise. Thus, it is a category mistake to entertain that God can be understood in the same way a computer, phone, or person can be; by saying how he is similar and different to other things in the world. To take the notion of God seriously is not to entertain the possibility that there is one subject or object among the others in the world that is referred to as “God,” but to entertain the possibility that there might be a deeper, more fundamental truth that itself is not subject to the same norms, laws, and descriptions applied to particular objects and subjects, but rather gives rise to that realm and the norms that govern it.  If we want to make an atheistic case against the existence of God, I would contend that it is not philosophically responsible to equate God to a flying spaghetti monster and say he doesn’t exist. Instead, we must understand the underlying metaphysics which religious traditions claim is more fundamental than the realm of separate subjects and objects, and understand how those subjects and objects arise out of this more primordial process. Only once we understand the theistic claim on its own terms, are we then in a place to give our opinion on its truth or falsity. In the next post, we will explore the nature of this deeper process of how the world of particularity arises from God or ‘the One’ in detail. 

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Please feel free to leave a comment if you have clarification questions, feedback, critiques, or anything to add. Philosophy is all about dialogue! I will do my best to respond to all questions and concerns.