Rational Persuasiveness and Religious Arguments (Part 2)

This post is part of a short series on Jennifer Faust's article "Do Religious Arguments Persuade?".

In the previous post, we discussed Faust's account of rational persuasion. We saw that when assessing the persuasiveness of an argument {P1...Pn/C} we need to keep in mind the subjective probabilities and antecedent beliefs of the person to whom the argument is addressed.

Specifically, we saw that if we wish to persuade someone through argument we need to ensure that (i) they attach positive probabilities to the premises of the argument; (ii) that the premises raise the probability of the conclusion; (iii) that the premises are more acceptable to the person than the conclusion; and (iv) that the conclusion does not clash wish some stronger antecedent belief.

We further distinguished between peripheral antecedent beliefs and core antecedent beliefs. The former have low subjective probabilities and low epistemic costs associated with them; the latter have high subjective probabilities and epistemic costs associated with them. It follows that persuasive arguments are more likely to work on peripheral beliefs.


1. The Nature of Religious Beliefs
The question we now have to ask is how this account of persuasion affects religious arguments. The first thing to do is to determine the locus of religious beliefs: do they lie at the core or at the periphery? As noted last time, Faust thinks they probably lie at the core.

I think this is broadly correct. I suspect most theists would say that their belief in God is foundational; that it shapes how the understand and interpret the world; that it is the filter through which all evidence and argument must pass. This means that giving up theism would have very high epistemic costs associated with it, which is why most arguments against the existence of God are likely to fail to persuade. I recommend listening to my podcast on Anthony Flew's paper "Theology and Falsification" with this in mind.

Two words of caution about this characterisation of religious beliefs. First, what is true for religion is also likely to be true for a belief in naturalism or some worldview. Second, it is unlikely that all religious beliefs lie at the core. For example, I doubt that the doctrine of transubstantiation is a serious deal-breaker for most Christians. Indeed, I know plenty of Catholics who would be happy to give it up (most of the time they don't even think about it).

The second point is important to bear in mind if one wishes to persuade or argue someone out of their beliefs. I would imagine that most success could be had be carefully planning one's strategy so as to begin by taking out beliefs at the periphery, which may slowly erode the confidence with which the beliefs at the core are held.

2. Begging the Doxastic Question
Having located religious beliefs at the core, Faust proceeds to identify a basic flaw that seems to be shared by most arguments in the philosophy of religion. She calls this flaw "begging the doxastic question" and it is to be distinguished from the classic logical error known as "begging the question" or petitio principii.

An argument begs the question (i.e. is guilty of petitio principii) whenever it explicitly or implicitly assumes what it tries to prove. Faust cites the following example coming from George W. Bush (I'd imagine the statement was primarily made for rhetorical effect):

The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq... and al-Qaida is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida.

This seems to be a straightforward example of the premise being equivalent to the conclusion, i.e. P&Q, therefore P&Q. There is no formal deductive error here because there is no real formal deduction taking place. Other times, arguments that beg the question can be more difficult to spot.

Anyway, Bush's error needs to be contrasted with the problem of begging the doxastic question. Faust argues that this takes place whenever the assignment of some positive degree of probability to one (or more) of the premise is conditional upon the pre-existing acceptance of the conclusion. So this is not straightforwardly circular reasoning. Faust cites the following example as being a classic instance of this phenomenon:

• (1) Republican lawmakers routinely devalue public welfare programs, education funding etc.
• (2) One ought to vote for candidates who value public welfare programs, education funding etc.
• (3) Therefore, one should vote for the Democrats.

Now this isn't even a complete argument since there is a hidden factual premise (namely, one stating that Democrats are more likely to value those things) but in any event Faust says it begs the doxastic question because one's assignment of positive probability to (2) is likely to be conditional on one's acceptance of (3) and not the other way round.

3. Do Religious Arguments Beg the Doxastic Question?

Finally, we come to the crux of the matter: do the types of arguments that are tossed back-and-forth in the philosophy of religion beg the doxastic question? Faust thinks they do and she gives a few examples of which I'll mention just two.

First, there is Anselm's ontological argument. On its face it does not seem to presuppose any beliefs because it is based purely on a conceptual analysis of value, perfection and so on. Presumably, the conceptual analysis should be acceptable to all. However, as Faust points out, assigning a positive probability to Anselm's premises concerning maximal perfection and value will depend on one's pre-existing acceptance of a universal, objective scale of value with a greatest being at the top. Only theist's are likely to accept that idea.

Second, there is the cosmological argument (in all its forms). This argument points to some abstract property of physical (or metaphysical) reality such as time, causality and so on; says that these properties need some explanation; and jumps from this need to the existence of God. The problem here is that accepting God as an explanation will depend on one's pre-existing acceptance of (i) the inadequacy of scientific explanations; and (ii) the plausibility of non-natural forms of explanation. And, of course, theists are the one's who are most likely to accept those premises.

I'm not sure how accurate this representation of religious argumentation is. I have a feeling that carefully-formulated versions of these arguments need not always beg the doxastic question. Nevertheless, I can concede that, at least sometimes, they do and that this can make arguments and dialogues in this area quite frustrating.