Continuing discussion.

EPS Blog


Monday, April 7, 2008

Interview with Paul Copan: Is Yahweh a Moral Monster?









How should theists listen to these claims?
























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Blogger Clayton Littlejohn said:

There are two issues I'd like to address.

The first concerns the charge that Yahweh is a moral monster. Paul Coplan remarks:

Coplan doesn't actually say that they are wrong to reject those moral standards and doesn't actually say whether, say, God's decision to drown the vast majority of people was morally wrong. It would be nice to know what he thought. At any rate, I don't understand (3). I take it that a standard view held by new atheists is something like this. It is morally wrong to impose the death penalty on adulterers and bizarre to think that while _now_ such actions would be wrong there was a time when such actions were perfectly acceptable (and not just accepted). It's a bit disappointing not to see Coplan address this. Is he really committed to saying that it used to be perfectly fine to kill adulterers? Most new atheists would say that such a commitment is one we'd be wise to avoid. I don't see any explanation as to how that commitment is avoided.

Coplan is quick to dismiss the philosophical abilities of the new atheists, but I don't think this sort of remark would be accepted by significant numbers of sophisticated philosophers:

I think a not insignificant number of philosophers would say that humans have an inherent value that does not depend on their causal ancestry in virtue of their capacities for pleasure and pain, their cognitive abilities, and the capacity to freely act from moral motives. To say that we are valuable because we are God-like as opposed to saying we are valuable because we have these good-making features (that, incidentally, we might share with a god) will strike many if not most philosophers as a pretty elementary mistake.

By Blogger Clayton Littlejohn, at April 11, 2008 at 2:29 PM  

Blogger Johnny-Dee said:

Clayton, I'm not sure how closely this blog is being monitored by Paul Copan or other members of the EPS. Since there hasn't been a reply to your comment for the past few days, I'll jump in, although I'd like to say that I'm not necessarily wedded to Dr. Copan's view; nor am I interested in taking up the mantle as the designated comment-responder for this post. We should, of course, exercise charity (and all of that) when reading a brief blog post that is addressing a difficult topic. (I would strongly recommend reading the entire article to accompany the quick thoughts expressed in this interview.) Having a short post on a complex topic naturally gives rise to questions, and I see that you have a few about Copan's position.

Your first question concerns whether Copan has understood the new atheists' objection to the soundness of the Bible's moral instruction based on certain passages from the OT. The problem, as I understand you, is that there is some kind of inconsistency between affirming a moral rule (such as adulterers ought to be put to death) is acceptable at one place & time, and also saying that the same moral rule is not acceptable now. It looks like what Copan is endorsing is that the OT represents an improvement in moral standards compared to other Ancient Near East Cultures (this comes out more clearly in the complete article this interview promotes). Copan, it seems, would say that Christians today should not think that the OT embodies ideal moral standards. Rather, the OT shows the progressive way of compassion and mercy that ultimately are expressed in the NT. The moral rules of the OT would be acceptable then and not now, presumably because those rules represented a higher moral standard compared to the moral rules of the surrounding cultures. So, when you ask, "Is he really committed to saying that it used to be perfectly fine to kill adulterers?", the answer seems to be something like this: "no, it wasn't morally good to kill adulterers back then, but it was morally progressive compared to the ANE cultures, and that's why we don't endorse these rules today."

I'm not sure what you are referring to when you write, "God's decision to drown the vast majority of people was morally wrong." I presume you mean Noah's flood here. Several answers seem available. First, the circumstances are setup such that all people (besides Noah & his family) are utterly wicked. Given the extremity of the circumstances, I don't see how it is impossible to imagine that they are so evil that everyone deserves the death penalty. Second, it might be the case that this text is not telling literal history, but rather is a piece of divinely inspired fiction, which is inerrant when interpreted as the appropriate kind of literature.

I think your final criticism raises some good points that need to be addressed with philosophical arguments -- arguments that I'm not going to provide. But the crux of the debate seems to turn on this question: can we be justified in believing that human life is valuable if human nature is the product of solely materialistic forces and physical laws? Copan seems to think the answer would be no. You, along with many other philosophers, would answer the question affirmatively. I think this is an important part of the debate, and I'd like to see more arguments from both sides to help sort this one out. I don't think counting the number of philosophers who agree or disagree with a given answer to this question is the right way to see which position is right. (Nor do I think Clayton is necessarily making the kind of mistake that I am highlighting in my previous sentence.)

By Blogger Johnny-Dee, at April 14, 2008 at 2:30 PM  

Blogger Nacisse said:

that certain acts are acceptable at one time and place and not at another time and place just seems obviously true - to me ... that it may be right for a person in situation X to kill someone committing crime N and yet not right for person in situation Y to kill someone committing crime N seems not bizarre but true.. suppose that person in situation X has a stun-gun and can stop crime N without killing - so killing would seem wrong. yet for person in situation Y who has no non-lethal way to stop crime N (say he only has a gun) then it would seem right to kill in order to stop crime N (assuming it is seen to be a sever crime -- the severity of a crime can also be dependent on place and time, too I'd say.).

something can be good for one person (or culture, i'd say) to do and bad for another person (or culture) to do. for example, it might be good for a bachelor to go to Africa and spend all his time and money helping the poor. yet it would be wrong for a family man with dependents to abandon them and do the same, i'd say... so it doesn't seem bizarre to think the rightness or wrongness of actions is dependent on things like time and place; if the family man had gone to Africa in a time before he had dependents it would have been fine but now not so much ...

i think there are real goods (charity, for example) and real wrongs (adultery) but whether a person or group should try and pursue a good or how they should deal with a wrong would seem to be time and place dependent... so It is morally wrong to impose the death penalty on adulterers now but it could have been right at another time and place - at lest the idea doesn't seem that bizarre..

By Blogger Nacisse, at April 14, 2008 at 6:15 PM  

Blogger Steven Carr said:

Why not send the article to so that they can let their readers know that theologians answer the claims of Dawkins?

By Blogger Steven Carr, at April 16, 2008 at 11:09 AM  

Blogger Paul Copan said:

Thanks to you all for your comments!

I appreciate your clarifying response to Clayton, Johnny-Dee, and I don't have much to add. Yes, I think I've taken pains throughout the article to make distinctions between the covenant conditions under which national Israel lived in the Old Testament given its civil and judicial laws (think of the fitting, useful analogy of Israel's making marriage vows to be faithful to Yahweh) and the church's being an interethnic community scattered among the nations whose ultimate citizenship is a heavenly one.
Johnny-Dee was right when he commented that naturalism has a difficult time moving from valueless processes to valuable, rights-bearing human beings. A valueless context makes a lot less sense of the emergence of value than does a context of a supremely valuable Being who makes humans in his image. I have written extensively on this topic, and I have an essay coming out in October in Robert Stewart, ed. The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue (Fortress Press) that deals pretty comprehensively with this topic.

As for Nacisse's comments, I see that you rightly do note that there are objective moral standards. There are certain things that are always wrong, no matter what the era or civilization (torturing babies for fun, committing adultery). I've also pointed out that Jesus himself mentioned that certain inferior conditions and structures were permitted because of the human hardness of heart (Matthew 19:8). And, as I mentioned above, the special conditions of being God's covenant people brought with it certain temporary, stringent requirements that are not necessarily intended to be for all time.

Stephen Carr's point seems to miss mine. He assumes that God, if he existed, would have prerogatives no different than human beings. As for his "no wonder" comment (that people are looking to the new atheists' arguments--rather than Christian philosophers--for more coherent and substantial arguments), I think Richard Dawkins' own comments in the recent "Expelled" movie are both humorous and telling. (I don't think I need to comment further!) In fact, I'm coediting a forthcoming book with B&H Academic in which various philosophers respond to the philosophical naivete of Dawkins and much of the new atheism. Also, I'm contributing to another forthcoming book in which scientists, theologians, and philosophers respond in force to the range of anti-theistic/-Christian arguments marshaled by the new atheists.

Yes, a lot of people are taken in by the rhetoric of certain new atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, but their blustery argumentation lacks philosophical rigor and substance--a point noted by friend and foe alike. Michael Ruse, an atheist himself, confesses that he is embarrassed to call himself an atheist in light of Dawkins' non sequiturs and, I'm sorry to say so, emotional tirades.

Again, I appreciate your interaction.

Best wishes,


By Blogger Paul Copan, at April 22, 2008 at 6:21 AM  

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