CHAPTER XXI

PRAGMATIC ARGUMENTS

THE discouraging lack of evidence as yet found by a strictly scientific method to support traditional theological beliefs has given rise in recent years to a number of closely related arguments which aim to base the proof of dogma upon practical needs in place of evidence. These arguments we may group under the rather loose and fluctuating term "pragmatism"; and to the consideration of some of their commoner variations we may now turn.

Can we trust a belief:

I. Because its untruth would be intolerable? The apostle Paul, in a familiar passage, wrote: "If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen; and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. . . . If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. . . . If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 1 To him the possibility of his being deceived was so abhorrent that his mind refused to entertain it; the implications of such a situation were so unpleasant that it could not be the true situation. In similar vein we are told by many modern apologists that atheism must be mistaken because it is so dreadful and dangerous: it drives men to despair, it paralyzes their energies, it leads naturally to a reckless disregard of morality. Schiller tells us that the belief in God and immortality will alone save us, and must therefore be accepted; our phi

1 1 Cor. 15: 13, 14, 19, 32.

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losophy must "support, or at least not paralyze, moral effort." Mallock tells us that although "scientific observation and analysis can discover no place in the universe" for God, and though "the mind is incapable of representing consistently to itself" the theistic idea, yet "our whole system of practical life involves the assertion " of it. "Some system of doctrine equivalent in its effects to the doctrines of theistic religion is an element absolutely essential to the higher civilization of man.' ."2 In fine, these beliefs are essential to an optimistic view of the universe, and optimism is our duty; they are essential to keep man moral, so they must be true. Their untruth would be intolerable.

This argument, which has properly been called the "reductio ad horrendum," may be answered in several ways:

(1) Perhaps the universe is "intolerably" bad; how can we know until we investigate? What right have we to assume that it is constructed so as to comfort and inspire us? If it is n't, we must make the best of it. We may hide our heads, like the ostrich, from so unpleasant a thought; but wincing and averting our eyes will not alter the facts, whatever they are. Our lives are continually offering instances of catastrophes that would have been intolerable to contemplate that have nevertheless come to pass; we have daily evidence of Nature's indifference to our hopes and desires. It is notorious that many of our purest longings remain unfulfilled. If optimism means being cheery under all circumstances, then optimism is clearly our duty; if it means assuming, in despite or in advance of the evidence, that the world is as we should like it, then it may still be our duty, and is certainly our privilege, to cultivate such a faith; but such an attitude of ours can in no wise inform us of what the cosmic facts really are.

1 Humanism, pp. 347, 5.

2 Religion as a Credible Doctrine, pp. 249, 259.

(2) The loss of beliefs that once seemed essential to men's happiness may after all prove not intolerable. Often they are replaced by other equally stimulating beliefs. It may be that only a part of a complex belief is really essential to a man's happiness, and that part may be preserved in a new view. Thus, some of those who believe in "creative evolution" — a tendency inherent in the universe to develop of itself toward ideals - maintain that for them it quite satisfactorily takes the place of the theistic conception. Some who find it impossible to believe in personal immortality declare that "ideal immortality” is a worthy and inspiring substitute. Comte felt that his natural religion could supply all the consolation and inspiration of the current supernatural doctrines. "Tastes differ and tastes change. A Viking or a Maori warrior might well find that the prospect of an immortality without fighting made the universe intolerable." 1 Indeed, men can stand even a complete loss of theological beliefs without a paralysis of their practical life. It is a matter for plain observation that atheists are about as often energetic and good and happy as theists; men who are agnostic with regard to a future life nevertheless act with enthusiasm and joy while they live. It is, after all, a gratuitous apprehension to fear that men are going to sit still and fold their hands and die of despair, or plunge into depths of depravity, if they cease to credit what seems to the believer so essential. There is very little actual relation between cosmic beliefs and morality or energy or happiness. What is agonizing and paralyzing is the transition-period, during which a belief is being renounced, and while the sweetness which it once had for the heart refuses to be forgotten. The man bred to a certain cosmic conception may indeed never get over the loss of it. But his children, who grow up without those beliefs, will very likely never feel

1 McTaggart, op. cit., p. 52.

their lack. It is a matter of adjustment; we can adapt ourselves to altered conditions, mental as well as physical, far more easily than we suppose.1

(3) If it be said that men can get along without the theistic beliefs or what not · merely in their unreflective hours, and because they are short-sighted and illogical, it may be replied that the lack of logic is rather with those who suppose their particular beliefs to be a necessary implication of morality or of a hopeful view of the universe. The reasons for morality, at least, are purely natural and have nothing to fear from theological skepticism; morality being simply the best way to live, that way remains the best way even if there be no personal God or no heaven. If any men are restrained from vice and sin simply by their fear of God's anger, or by the hope of reward, they are in sad need of moral education. To "eat, drink, and be merry" if that means to indulge in immoral dissipation is a shortsighted and foolish philosophy of life, even if this life be all. Teach men the rationale of morality and it will no more be disturbed by theological perturbations than agriculture or transportation. A sensible man would not cease to want to live in the best way simply because life was brief and there

1 Professor Pitkin (in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. 8, p. 302) calls attention to "the normal man's invincible indifference in practical life to the intellectualist's demand that we allow metaphysics to sour our breakfast porridge and paralyze the nerves which give us a good time. What may be truth of the cosmos through all the reaches of time is not, as a matter of fact, true of little spots in it at some brief moments; and men, who live and move only in little spots and only at brief moments, always have reacted and always will react only to these intimate near tracts of time and space." It is not true "that a theory about the cosmic drift must regulate our practical attitudes, feeling, and conduct from moment to moment," or that "if the world is n't engineered so as to guarantee unlimited bliss for all hands, your knowledge of this must logically pervade your dinner, the evening at the theatre, and to-morrow's boat-ride; must, in short, throw its lights or its shadows across each hour.

As a matter of psychological fact, these lights and shadows do not fall upon men's paths as the logic of the case demands."

was no God watching him. And if a man is not sensible, and chooses the worse way? Well, so do men now. Motives and encouragements and driving forces exist on all hands if they do not keep men up to their best, it is because of our failure properly to utilize them. Certain incentives might be lost, but plenty would remain.

And how could the mere fact of God's existence guarantee us immortality or a desirable outcome of the universe? For if he is omnipotent, he still evidently does not remove what are to us evils; seeing that he has permitted so much that crosses our desires, how can we be sure that he will not cross our other desires? If he is not omnipotent, how can we be sure that he can secure immortality for us? or the ultimate victory of good? In short, theism alone does not imply the fulfillment of our desires, nor does atheism necessarily imply their non-fulfillment. So the theological beliefs which are defended on the ground that they alone imply the satisfaction of our needs often do not really guarantee any such satisfaction.

(4) Finally, this argument, that if a state of things would be bad it cannot be true, is immoral; for it logically implies that if a fact is true it cannot be bad. If we are to refuse to believe in an atheistic world because it would be an evil, we may logically refuse to hold any of our acts evil, since they are actual facts. But "it is our duty to be humble in judging of reality, and imperious in judging of goodness. What is real is real, however we may condemn it. On the other hand, what we condemn - if we condemn rightlyis bad, even if it were the essence of all reality. The moral evil of the argument from consequences seems to me to be that it makes us imperious in the wrong place, where our humility is wrong and servile. When the reality of a thing is uncertain, the argument encourages us to suppose that our approval of a thing can determine its reality. And