Padgett, Alan

English

Asbury Theological Seminary

Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers Volume 12 Issue 3 Article 10 7-1-1995 Messer, DOES GOD'S EXISTENCE NEED PROOF? Alan Padgett Follow this and additional works at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy Recommended Citation Padgett, Alan (1995) "Messer, DOES GOD'S EXISTENCE NEED PROOF?," Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers: Vol. 12 : Iss. 3 , Article 10. Available at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy/vol12/iss3/10 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers by an authorized editor of ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. 434 Faith and Philosophy gious experience is epistemically of little or no value to the theist (apart from the possibility of a good inductive argument, which Gale acknowl-edges he hasn't considered). However, it is at very least arguable that the primary epistemic role that religious experience has to play for the theist is not as the foundation of an argument for God's existence, but rather as a ground for directly or immediately justified religious belief. On this view, religious experience provides one with a non-inferential, non-propositional reason for belief in God in much the same way that my experience of my word processor provides me with a non-inferential, non-propositional rea-son to believe in its existence. It is worth noting that many epistemologists have held that if my word processor belief (and my other physical world beliefs) requires me to have a non-circular justificatory argument, I'm in epistemic hot water. So Gale's construal of the epistemic role of religious experience as primarily inferential is at odds with what the majority of cur-rent defenders of the value of such experience are arguing. Despite this problem, I think that Gale's book is splendid. No one work-ing in philosophical theology can afford not to take note of it. While some of the argumentation will be over the heads of standard undergraduates, I highly recommend it for use in graduate courses in philosophy of religion. Docs God's Existence Need Proof?, by Richard Messer. Oxford: Clarendon Press,1993. Pp.160. $29.95 (cloth). ALAN PADGEIT, Azusa Pacific University This is a helpful book that does a good job of laying out the issues in an important area of philosophy of religion. It illustrates the difference that deep disagreemnt over our basic approach to philosophy makes to theolo-gy and philosophy of religion. The book, however, is not really about arguments for the existence of God, as the title might suggest. Instead, it compares the differing approaches to philosophy in the work of to well-known British scholars, D. Z. Phillips and Richard Swinburne. It con-cludes, in the light of such fundamental philosophical pluralism, that some relativist position is the most reasonable view to adopt. Chapter One looks at the problem of religious language. It begins by discussing Swinburne's theory of religious language, and finds three prin-ciples (assumptions) at work in his philosophy: cognitivity, expressibility, and rationality. He notes that religious language is literal and factual on "most" occasions for Swinburne, and analogical on the others (6). The existence of God is a purported fact which is either true or false, and which claim we make can be assessed on the basis of evidence. Messer labels this the "traditional" school. On the other hand, Phillips and the other "devout" Wittgensteinians (Malcolm, Rhees, Winch), have a very different conception of the meaning of religious language. For them, philosophy is descriptive and "grammatical" rather than analytical or normative. Much of this chapter covers old ground, but it is interesting reading. Messer clearly favors the Wittgensteinian approach. "To think otherwise is BOOK REVIEWS 435 to impose the misconceived cognitive principle upon religious language" (13). Why is such a principle misconceived? Does Swinburne and his school really "impose" it upon religious language, or are they simply expli-cating religious language philosophically? The author doesn't tell us. He does misunderstand one point. Messer writes that "We have seen that Swinburne advocates a survey of what believers take themselves to mean by their religious language in order to find out what it does mean" (16). Of course, this is just a caricature of Swinburne's careful philosophical analysis. In his debate with Phillips, Swinburne did remark that his philosophical analysis would agree with what almost all believers themselves took to be the meaning of their sentences (as opposed to Phillips' analysis) - but that is a very different point than the one Messer takes it to be (8). While Phillips is given a careful analysis in this chapter, Swinburne is something of a whipping boy for the Wittgensteinians. That there might be another way to read Wittgenstein that would be more in keeping with the cognitivity of religious language (e.g., V. Brummer, A. C. Thiselton) is something Messer does not consider. That the Wittgensteinians might simply be deceived -that one can read Wittgenstein carefully and still hold to the cognitivity and expressibility of God-talk - seems outside the imagination of this author. Phillips is an important philosopher whose work deserves more careful analysis and discussion than it often receives. This book is welcome because it takes Phillips seriously, and defends his views against a number of mistaken criticisms (chapt. 3). On the other hand, the overall scholar-ship is uneven. Messer often misunderstands Swinburne, or else has not read him very carefully. For example, he writes, "I am not aware of Swinburne writing on the subject of relativity" (120) even though Swinburne is quite explicit about differing criteria for rationality and induction in Faith and Reason. This may be a result of the author's lack of sympathy with analytic phi-losophy. Messer is a relativist, and he uses the disagreement between Phillips and Swinburne as evidence in favor of relativism. He discusses different types of relativism in Chapter Four. He distinguishes between conceptual, preconceptual, epistemological, surface and depth relativism. He does not seem to have read very much on this topic, as he writes: "I shall now distinguish between relativism and relativity. I am not aware of a clear distinction being made between these two in the literature" (78). It turns out that "relativity" is simply the socio-historical fact of disagree-ment, or pluralism, while relativism is based upon incommensurability. The difference and distinction between the fact of pluralism, and rela-tivism, is a common one in the literature. Messer assumes that incommensurability is true, rather than arguing for it. To be fair, he does mount an argument, but it goes no farther than the assertion of the "fact of relativity" (i.e., diversity of opinion, theory, and criteria). He believes that Phillips, Swinburne, and their schools "dispute the fact of relativity" (80). He often writes as if he has made some new discovery in noting the deep differences between philosophers and cultures in their conceptions of truth, beauty and goodness. But don't we live in a postmodern age? Even new philosophy students are aware of these things. 436 Fnith and Philosophy Here Messer needs to attend to his own distinction. No modern philosopher of any standing is going to dispute the fact of relativity, that is, the socio-historical fact of disagreement about criteria for rationality, etc. Of course both Swinburne, Phillips, and many other philosophers will dis-pute relativism, simply because they don't find such a view very com-pelling on its intellectual merits. Just because one rejects Enlightenment rationalism does not mean that one should follow Messer into bed with Rorty and Kaufman. Because he often fails to pay attention to the distinc-tion between pluralism and relativism, Messer merely assumes relativism to be true in this book, rather than arguing for such a position. Messer does have an interesting, informative and clear discussion of the works of Gordon Kaufman, Richard Rorty, and Joseph Runzo. These are the sorts of thinkers Messer finds himself most in agreement and sympathy with. On the assumption that relativism of some sort is true, Messer in his final chapter (Six) returns to the proofs. What value can they possibly be, since "the relativity which is germane to an acceptance of the appropriate-ness or inappropriateness of the Proofs within the Western philosophical tradition admits of no solution at all" (73). It turns out that they are impor-tant because their discussion leads to important issues in philosophy -that is, they are pragmatically useful in teaching and learning philosophy. Hardly a new idea, but there it is. This is an interesting and clear book, whose main strength lies in its analysis of and dialogue with Phillips, and of relativist philosophers such as Rorty. I recommend it for bright undergraduates, and graduate students, for whom it is (I suppose) written. Apart from numerous errors of exposition concerning the thought of some theologians and philosophers, the main disappointment with this volume is that the author does not tackle the real issue. He does not discuss in any helpful way the deep philosophical problems surrounding relativism and incommensurability. I would have thought, for example, that instead of spending space discussing Dilthey in his chapter on relativism, much more important debates could have been canvassed. For example, Gadamer and Ricoeur are clearly aware of the claims of incommensura-bility, but do not become relativists. Why? Their reply to Derrida is of particular importance to Messer's thesis. Alasdair MacIntyre also has a very significant reply to relativists, arguing on an historical basis that incommensurability may only be the starting point for a longer dialogue and learning process in which some persons learn "a second first lan-guage." All of this is to say that these issues are much more complicated that Messer appears to think, and Messer does philosophy a disservice by ducking them. Students of philosophy interested in Wittgenstein and the philosophy of religion, or in relativism and religion, should read this book carefully. In particular, its explication of Phillips's philosophy is helpful, given the mis-conception of that work by various analytic philosophers. The flaws in exposition, and the undefended relativism, will have to be endured by patient readers. 

Richard Messer, DOES GOD\u27S EXISTENCE NEED PROOF?

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1544&amp;context=faithandphilosophy

Richard Messer, DOES GOD\u27S EXISTENCE NEED PROOF?

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