91 - The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God

The Miracle of Theism: Arguments
For and Against the Existence of God
By John L. Mackie
New York, Oxford, 1982. 268 pp. $27.29, $9.95 (paper).

My former teacher, Reinhold Niebuhr, once remarked "nothing is so irrelevant as the answer to an unasked question." J. L. Mackie, Oxford don, writes as a confessed atheist. Nevertheless, the question whether there is a God must be asked, for it "is a genuine, meaningful question... too important for us to take sides about it casually or arbitrarily, Neither the affirmative nor the negative answer is obviously right" (p. 1).

After giving a "full and fair hearing to the opposing case," the author's conclusion is that "the balance of probabilities... comes out strongly against the existence of a God" (p. 253). Though brief (8 pages) he addresses, following his conclusion, what he suspects is "the most lasting obstacle to the acceptance of atheism... a lingering notion that such acceptance would be morally and practically disastrous" (p. 254).

Mackie's question will not even be asked by those who "think they have other sources of information which make arguments of this kind unnecessary. They rely on revelations, intuitive certainties, authoritative traditions, 'what everyone knows'; they may not even raise the question whether God exists" (p. 5).

In countering the repeated attempts of the last century to retreat to "reliance on revelation, perhaps a biblical tradition, for reasoned discussion of theistic doctrines" (p. 6), Mackie recalls Descartes' ironic dedicatory letter of his Meditations on the First Philosophy addressed to the Faculty of Theology in Paris:

Although it is quite true that the existence of God is to be believed since it is

92 - The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God

taught in sacred Scriptures, and that... the sacred Scriptures are to be believed because they come from God... nevertheless this cannot be submitted to infidels, who would consider that the reasoning proceeded in a circle (p. 6).

But, as Mackie emphasizes, for those who think this question should not be unasked, "... not only infidels but Descartes himself and any sensible person ... can see that this reasoning is circular, and cannot be used to decide whether there is a God or not. Once that question is raised it must be examined either by deductive reasoning, or if that yields no decision, by arguments to the best explanation; for in such a context nothing else can have any coherent bearing on the issue" (p. 6). Philosophers and theologians are aware that the arguments on both sides of the question are centuries old.

Though-Mackie has addressed the question for many years, most of the material in this book is new. In the first eight chapters, in addition to taking another look at the best known of the classical "proofs," he engages in dialogue with some contemporary interpretations. Special attention is given to Richard Swinburne's inductive version of several classical arguments (The Coherence of Theism and The Existence Of God); Alvin Plantingas' modal version of the ontological argument (The Nature of Necessity); and a provocative analysis of the very different case developed by Hans Küng in Does God Exist?

Chapter 9, the longest chapter in the book, raises the perennial problem for theism, "that of evil." Chapters 10-13 present more " characteristically modern approaches of defending theism" with references to Pascal, William James, Kierkegaard. Wittgenstein is appealed to for a view of theistic affirmations which do not involve the literal assertions of the classical proofs, and John Leslie's theory of extreme axiarchism (Value and Existence) is a Platonic update suggesting the notion of objective value as a replacement, or at least a supplement of "the concept of a personal God" (e.g. Tillich). The final chapter is devoted to Küng's book and the author's conclusions.

The Miracle of Theism would serve as an excellent text in the philosophy of religion. It would also serve as a book for a parish study group if one agrees with Leslie Dewart that

It would not be unreasonable to suppose... that if a Christian should wish to understand, appreciate and develop the truth of his own theistic belief, he might usefully approach the subject through a consideration of atheism. (The Future of Belief-Theism in a World Come of Age, p. 52).

One caveat to the above, but surely not an insurmountable one, is the fact that an adequate appreciation of the book requires some exposure to Greek philosophy and the theological classics of the West. Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Newman are dealt with in some detail and among the moderns Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud. David Hume is quoted more than three times as often as any other author.

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The God whose existence Mackie finds highly unlikely is the God of classical theism. For Protestants, whose theistic affirmations have always been more scriptural than philosophical, the book may be more palatable. For Catholics who have not been persuaded of the necessity for the "dehellenization" of the Christian conception of God, the book will present a greater challenge.

This reviewer found the book deficient in the author's failure to deal with the concept of God as it has been restated in neo-classical theism (Whitehead) or in expositions which have taken their philosophical nomenclature from the writings of Heidegger-neither author is referred to in the text.

Robert P. Montgomery
John Jay-College
New York, New York