tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post719140468434682983..comments2024-03-28T05:47:54.177+00:00Comments on Philosophical Disquisitions: The Problem of Worship - AikinJohn Danaherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-48844694691723558392011-04-01T21:53:59.618+01:002011-04-01T21:53:59.618+01:00Hi John,
Thanks for your detailed reply.
As both...Hi John,<br /><br />Thanks for your detailed reply.<br /><br />As both a Christian and an aspiring philosopher, it's always good to be confronted with arguments against some of my not-yet-articulated practices. So when confronted with the question, "Why worship God?" one of my responses is "Well, duh, because he's God!" But upon thinking about it further, I realize that worship is a very complex concept. <br /><br />Worship involves many things, and it's helpful to distinguish its different aspects. The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms defines it as "the service of praise, adoration, thanksgiving, and petition directed toward God through actions and attitudes."<br /><br />So worship at least involves:<br />(1) Praise<br />(2) Adoration<br />(3) Thanksgiving<br />(4) Petition<br />(5) Service (or obedience)<br /><br />So the question of what makes God worthy of worship can be directed at each of these five aspects of worship. Perhaps the criteria of love, holiness, and beauty that I gave make more sense with these categories. While maybe it doesn't make sense to be obedient to something that is beautiful, it makes much more sense to adore or praise something that is beautiful. On the same note, one could say that God is worthy of praise, adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and perhaps even obedience because he is love, or loving. <br /><br />Now, on Schellenberg's argument from divine hiddenness, I'm not sure what we should think. Certainly the religious believer, in the act of worship, believes that she has felt/been the recipient of divine love. God's love isn't hidden to her, and thus she deems God worthy of all aspects of worship. But the person who hasn't experienced God's love sees no reason why God is worthy of worship. Are we obligated to worship only when we perceive God's love, or, if it is really there, are we obligated to worship whether we perceive it or not? (This might not be on the right track.) <br /><br />Other than love, what might make God worthy of obedience? I like your proposed analogy to political theory. While I don't know too much about political philosophy, it seems plausible to suppose that the theories of gratitude and natural duty offer some help to understanding an obligation to obey God. <br /><br />Additionally, I think that the obligations in the parent/child relationship could be another fruitful analogy. Indeed, perhaps the most natural way for a Christian to respond would be to say that I owe God obedience in virtue of the fact that he has created me. <br /><br />Finally (working backwards, I guess), one theistic response to the problem of autonomy could be to simply deny that we are autonomous beings and bite the bullet on rational agency. I take it that this is what Calvinism amounts to. I'll have to think about the other theistic responses and get back to you on the Rachels post later.Chris Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08457031946921574999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-7680546869199611762011-04-01T19:45:36.362+01:002011-04-01T19:45:36.362+01:00Hi Chris,
Nice to hear from you, and thank you fo...Hi Chris,<br /><br />Nice to hear from you, and thank you for the compliment.<br /><br />1) <i> Does Aikin offer an argument for (5)? </i><br /><br />Not as far as I can tell, certainly not a formal one. He writes as if it is an obvious truth. To be fair to the guy, this is a short article in a journal intended for a general audience, I'll wait to see what he says in his book.<br /><br />To lay my own tentative chips on the table: I think an argument is possible. As I say in the post about Rachels' argument, I reckon an argument could be fashioned out of a formal account of rational agency. <br /><br />The argument for the principle of generic consistency, which I've been looking into elsewhere on this blog (and do plan to get back to at some point) has, I think, some of the necessary resources for this.<br /><br />The argument would probably look something like this (where "autonomy" is understood to mean "determines one's own rules of conduct, not subject to the authority of another"): <br /><br />(a) To be a rational agent is to perform A for purpose P.<br />(b) An agent can perform acts for purpose iff they have autonomy (because?...).<br />(c) Therefore, autonomy is necessary for rational agency.<br /><br />You could then argue that either (i) it is impossible for a human being to deny or repudiate their own rational agency or (ii) rational agency is necessary for morality. Neither of those claims is uncontroversial but they are arguable.<br /><br /><br />2) <i> The "Not this, Not this" Approach </i><br /><br />Yes, I agree that this is frustrating. I presume one could avoid this style of argument. I would do so by drawing an analogy between the concept of political obligation and conditional obedience. I would then try to use theories of political obligation to determine whether God is worthy of conditional obedience.<br /><br />For example, while there is no agreed-upon theory of political obligation (this is philosophy we're talking about!) one could say "These are all the leading theories of political obligation only these could warrant conditional obedience these; based on these theories God doesn't deserve conditional worship; therefore, God doesn't deserve conditional worship".<br /><br />The leading theories of political obligation (based on the Stanford Encyclopedia Article) are (i) consent; (ii) gratitude; (iii) fair play; (iv) membership theory of society; and (iv) natural duty. If it turns out none of these support conditional worship of God, then the conclusion reached in Aikin's article would stand.<br /><br />I'm not going to say that theistic worship does or doesn't pass the test proposed, I'm just saying that this is one way to avoid the style of argument to which you object.<br /><br />3) <i> Love, Holiness and Beauty </i><br /><br />I think the love criterion might be compelling but could be objected to by appealing to the argument from divine hiddenness. Certainly, Schellenberg's defence of that makes considerable reference to what we expect from a being who loves us and how those conditions are not met by God.<br /><br />Your other criteria seem less compelling. I'm not sure what Holiness is and why it warrants worship. And beauty doesn't seem like it could ever warrant conditional obedience. It seems like a category error to be obedient to something that is beautiful.<br /><br />I should also say I'm not at all convinced that the characterisation of worship presented in these arguments (i.e. Aikin's and Rachel's) are fair to the religious account of worship. I'd be very interested to hear, if you are a theist, how you might understand the state of worshipfulness.John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-63087358025499239962011-04-01T14:06:49.740+01:002011-04-01T14:06:49.740+01:00Thanks for carefully and helpfully mapping out the...Thanks for carefully and helpfully mapping out these arguments. I think it's a real testament to your thoroughness as a thinker.<br /><br />Does Aikin provide an argument for proposition (5) on unconditional submission? If so, is it something like Rachels' argument? The reason I'm asking is that without an argument it's not clear to me why I should take (5) to be true.<br /><br />On the question of whether any being can be considered to be worthy of c-worship, rather than actually providing us with a set of properties or criteria that would constitute a being's worthiness of c-worship, Aikin seems to be playing the old Hindu game of neti, neti: not this. not this. I would be nice to have a standard against which to judge worth; otherwise, how would we (or Aikin) know worthiness when we see it? But, then again, perhaps he can get away by simply explaining why certain properties don't confer worthiness.<br /><br />Now, as I see it, most Christians worship God for having (or being) these properties: love, holiness, and beauty. If God really does have these properties, it seems like they make or at least contribute to his being worthy of worship. What do you think?Chris Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08457031946921574999noreply@blogger.com