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Conformity and Rationality, Part 4: Rational Belief in God

And by "By," I Mean "Near"

In my part three of this series, we considered a case where you discovered that your philosophy professor — who was more familiar with the evidence and arguments than you were, had greater intellectual abilities and more education than you did, and so on — rejected the existence of God, or thought abortion was morally permissible, or claimed that Christianity was irrational.

Given all of the advantages your professor had over you, he would surely be more likely than you to get the right answer to a given philosophical question. So how — without being flagrantly dogmatic, at least — could you maintain your original beliefs in the face of your prof's conviction that you were wrong?

In my last article, we also saw that nonconformism appears to be true and that conformism appears to be false.¹ If this is right, however, then the fact that an epistemic peer disagrees with you doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't continue to believe whatever you did before you discovered the disagreement. Thus, if conformism is false, there's no simple argument from the fact that your prof's an epistemic peer who doesn't believe in God to the conclusion that it would be irrational for you to continue to believe in God.

This left us with a nagging question, however. Just because conformism is false, it doesn't follow that it's always rational for you to disagree with an epistemic peer. After all, we also saw clear cases where it wasn't.² So, the question of how you should respond to the belief of your prof seems wide open. If he was an uneducated ignoramus and, therefore, your epistemic inferior, you could rationally dismiss the fact that he doesn't believe in God. But as we've said, he's not. He's more familiar with the evidence and arguments than you are, plus he has greater intellectual abilities and more education than you do, and so on. So what should you do?

Hamburgers Galore

We can get our bearings on this question by starting with simpler cases. So, consider the White Castle scenarios again:

White Castle 1

You regard me as your epistemic peer. After going to White Castle with 37 of our friends and agreeing to split the $543.56 bill 39 ways, you and I do the math in our heads. You conclude that each of us owes $11.42, and I conclude that we each owe $13.94.

White Castle 2

You regard me as your epistemic peer. After going to White Castle by ourselves and deciding to split the $4 bill equally between the two of us, you and I do the math in our heads. You reason out loud that half of four is two, so each of us owes $2. I respond perfectly straight-faced, "half of four isn't two, it's 2.26, so we each owe $2.26."

Given the fact that we are epistemic peers, in White Castle 1 it seems obvious that it would be irrational for you to remain confident that each of us owes $11.42, whereas, in White Castle 2, it seems obvious that it would not be irrational for you to remain confident that each of us owes $2. But what makes the difference?

The obvious answer is the difference in the difficulties of the calculations relative to your math ability. You can simply see that half of $4 is $2 in a way that you cannot see whether or not $543.56 divided by 39 equals $11.42.

Given this, however, you are infinitely more justified in being confident that half of $4 is $2 than you are in being confident that $543.56 divided by 39 equals $11.42.³ That is, given the simplicity of $4÷$2, it wouldn't at all be dogmatic for you to be highly confident (indeed, fully certain) that you each owe $2.

Given the complexity of $543.56÷39, exactly the opposite is the case. Having done the math a single time in your head, it would be very dogmatic for you to be highly confident that you each owe $11.42.

This difference in justified confidence, however, makes a clear difference in the significance of the fact that you disagree with someone who you regard as an epistemic peer. Your level of justified confidence that half of two is four is so high that, rather than losing confidence when you discover that I disagree with you, the rational response consists in your thinking I'm joking, that I've lost my mind, or something like that. In short, instead of losing confidence that we each owe $2, rationality requires that you quit thinking of me as your epistemic peer.

Una Montaña Grande!

Or, consider another case — one that involves empirical knowledge rather than a priori knowledge.⁴

Pikes Peak 1

You regard me as your epistemic peer. The two of us vacationed in Colorado when we were six, but we've never been back, never looked at a map, and never talked to anybody who lived there. We are presently talking about Colorado's mountains. You say that there's a big mountain right outside of Colorado Springs, and I say that there isn't.

Pikes Peak 2

You regard me as your epistemic peer. The two of us have lived in Colorado Springs our entire lives, and each of us has been to the top of Pikes Peak, the huge mountain directly west of Colorado Springs, more times than we can count. We are presently standing in Acacia Park (which is in downtown Colorado Springs and has an excellent view of Pikes Peak) telling tourists about Colorado's mountains. After you say that the big mountain looming over town is called Pikes Peak, I say that, not only is it not called Pikes Peak, there's no mountain there at all.

In Pikes Peak 1, it seems obvious that it would be irrational for you to remain confident that there's a big mountain west of Colorado Springs after you discover that I think there isn't one there, whereas, in Pikes Peak 2, it seems obvious that it would not be irrational for you to remain confident that there's a big mountain west of Colorado Springs, even after you discover that I think there's no mountain there at all.

Again, the difference has to do with justified confidence. In the second case, you can see a big mountain to the west of Colorado Springs, whereas, in the first case, all you have is a dull memory. Your level of justified confidence in the second case is so high that, rather than losing confidence when you discover that I disagree with you, the rational response consists in your thinking I'm joking, that I've lost my mind, or something like that. Instead of questioning whether there's really a big mountain directly west of Colorado Springs, you ought to give up on the notion that I'm your epistemic peer.

God

So what should we say about the case where you disagree with your professor about belief in God? Our answer has to be that whether or not you are rational all depends on the details of your belief in God — specifically, why you believe in Him. For example, compare the following:

Miracle

You believe in God because He has worked miraculously in your life.

Uncle Bob

You believe in God because your Uncle Bob — who's an unemployed high school drop-out who spends most of each day drunk on the couch — got really wasted and told you he thought God might exist.

Argument

You believe in God because you notice that the world is filled with cause-effect chains, you find yourself incapable of conceiving of a cause-effect chain without a first cause, and it seems overwhelmingly obvious to you that, because a first cause would (by definition) have to be uncaused, the start of all the cause-effect chains that fill the world would have to be God.

Let's start by admitting that if your sole reason for belief in God is that Uncle Bob chugged a Budweiser, crushed the can on his forehead, and told you he thought God might exist, then your degree of justified confidence in God's existence is extremely low. If you were rational, you wouldn't put much stock in Bob's say-so. And since your smart, educated professor's opinion surely counts more than Bob's opinion does, it seems pretty clear that, as soon as you find out that your prof doesn't believe in God, it's irrational for you to continue to believe in Him.⁵

But what about Miracle and Argument? If either of these is your situation, how should you respond to your prof's atheism?

The first thing to notice about Miracle and Argument is that, in these scenarios, there are important resemblances between your belief in God, your belief that there's a big mountain west of Colorado Springs (in Pikes Peak 2) and your belief that half of $4 is $2 (in White Castle 2).

That God exists is surely not as obvious as that half of $4 is $2 (at least, I don't think it is), and it's undoubtedly more controversial than that there's a big mountain west of Colorado Springs. The point, however, is that people believe that half of $4 is $2 for roughly the same reasons as you believe God exists in Argument, and they believe there's a big mountain west of Colorado Springs for roughly the same reasons as you believe that God exists in Miracle.

Let me explain.

The gist of Miracle is that you've had experiences that are (for all you can tell) of God. But suppose you come across a skeptic who, even while staring straight at Pikes Peak and agreeing that he's looking to the west, claims that there is nothing to the west of Colorado Springs except a huge corn field. In this case, you would quickly discover that you believe there's a big mountain west of Colorado Springs for no other reason than that, when you stand in Colorado Springs and look west, you have experiences that are (for all you can tell) of a big mountain.

Likewise, the gist of Argument is that, when you sit and think about it, it just seems obvious to you that God has to exist. But suppose you come across a skeptic who, even while doing the math, claims that half of $4 is $2.26. In this case, you would quickly discover that you believe half of $4 is $2 for no other reason than that, when you sit and think about it, it just seems obvious to you that half of $4 has to be $2.

So, if you can have a high degree of justified confidence that there's a big mountain to the west of Colorado Springs and that half of $4 is $2, then why can't you have high degrees of justified confidence that God exists — at least, if your basis for belief in God resembles Miracle or Argument?

And if you can have high degrees of justified confidence in a scenario that resembles Miracle or Argument, then why couldn't you reject the conclusion that your prof is an epistemic peer instead of losing confidence in the existence of God? After all, this is the appropriate response when confronted with someone who doesn't think that there's a big mountain to the west of Colorado Springs or that half of $4 is $2.

Of course, the answer to this question really depends on details we don't have the space to get into.⁶ But the point is this:

If you believe A and a person whom you regard as an epistemic peer believes not-A, and if you have more justification for believing A than you do for believing that that person is your epistemic peer, the rational course of action does not consist in rejecting A. To the contrary, it consists in rejecting the belief that that person is your epistemic peer.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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What are your reasons for believing in God? According to Blake's criteria, are they rational?

Join the discussion!

Since this principle applies to belief in God just as much as it applies to any other belief, it follows that, if you are more justified in your belief in God than you are in your belief that your prof is your epistemic peer, the fact that you know your prof is an atheist doesn't render you irrational in your belief in God.

So, if we have good enough reasons for our beliefs in God, encountering smart, educated people who don't believe in God is not sufficient to render us irrational in our theism.

And that's all I've got to say about that.