Review: Stephen Maitzen – Can Theism Ground Morality?

An atheist friend that I chat with online directed me to search for this topic on Google:

CPBD 025: Stephen Maitzen – Can Theism Ground Morality?

My review of the interview that I found on YouTube is too long for me to post on the message board on which we chat, so I'm posting my findings here.


First of all, Maitzen professes to be a "former Christian"... however, he then admits "I was probably an atheist even when I was a professing Christian". This discredits any so-called profession of a conversion from Christianity to Atheism. How can one call oneself a Christian when you don't believe in God? So whatever he was, the fact that he went to church at a younger age is irrelevant  as it's been said, going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going into a a garage makes you a car!

A few general notes regarding the overall tone of the interview; first of all, Maitzen seems especially harsh toward Christianity. He presents a lot of negative evidence against Christianity, and in some few cases, theism in general, but not a lot of positive evidence for his own world view. Secondly, the vast majority of his arguments are specifically against straw-men that he has built as a caricature of the Christian faith.

On the Death of Children

His first major point is his claim that Christians should be happy when a child dies; perhaps they should even facilitate the child's death because this ushers them out of this, I think the term he uses is "concentration camps that is life on Earth" into the presence of God. He doesn't see Christians acting in this way, therefore Christianity is false.

Maitzen obviously hasn't been to a few of the funerals that I've attended. I have personally attended funerals where, while mourning our own loss of the fellowship of a loved one, the mourners broke into spontaneous praise for the God who has erased the suffering of the deceased, and given us assurance that death is not the end.

So, Maitzen's point, while correct in some few ways, is obviously not the whole story. Yes, when a child dies (or any Christian for that matter), a part of us rejoices for that person, even as we weep for ourselves! Christians do, and should, mourn the loss of an infant, but we have an assurance that no other group of people have... the assurance that our relationship with that child will be restored. This assurance is why we rejoice.

When my father passed away, I mourned his passing and the loss of his presence in my life, but I did not mourn for him. He was a very sick man in a lot of pain and discomfort. As he was a Christian, I rejoiced for him for he was no longer in pain, but you couldn't see it on my face because of my grief for myself.

To say that Christians should celebrate the loss of a child is true... but only to the extent that we rejoice for the child and his being present with God. That doesn't heal the loss that we experience personally, nor is it reason not to grieve.

This reason is multiplied when a child dies from neglect, abuse, abortion, or any other form of maltreatment at the hands of other humans. No Christian should celebrate sin at any time.

On Love and Free Will

His second point is this syllogism:

A. If God exists, then there would be no non-believers.
B. Non-believers exist.
C. THEREFORE: God does not exist.

Now a syllogism is only true if it's premises (A and B above) are true. Point B seems to be obviously true, but what of point A?

Maitzen states that if a perfectly loving God exists, and this God wants to relate with humans, then there would be no non-believers. In essence, he states that God would force us to recognize his existence because, being all-powerful he can do so, and being all-loving, he would do so.

Maitzen however ignores the proper definition of "love" in his argument. Love must be given, not demanded. For love to be real, it must permit the option not to love. You can have a robot wake you up in the mornings and say, "I love you, dear!", but it's meaningless! Why? The robot has no choice. It must follow it's programming. (As Maitzen seems to be a determinist, he probably feels this is true for humans as well, but I'll address this point later.) But when your three-year-old daughter climbs up in your lap, gives you a hug and a smile and says, "I love you!", it's priceless! That is love given freely!

So if God were to intrude into our lives and say, "I am GOD and you ARE GOING to love me!", then that "love" is meaningless, God becomes a dictator, and we become robots.

Instead, God says, "I love you, and I want your love in return." But because of the nature of love, He cannot demand our love. Therefore the premise A of the syllogism above is incorrect. God cannot force himself on us. Some of us have turned away from him to the point where we deny his existence so that we can ignore him. And because he desires love, not robots, he is not free to intervene to change that directly. He can place events and people in our lives to call us to himself, but he cannot change us directly.

Oddly enough, the movie "Bruce Almighty" got this point perfectly. When Jim Carrey's character takes over as God, he's told that "The one thing you can't do override someones free will." Carrey later laments to God, "How do I make someone love you if I can't interfere with their free will?"  God says something like, "If you find out, you tell me... I've been trying to do that for centuries!"

Love properly understood is a verb... not a feeling. It's committing to do what's best for an individual even at your own expense. It was love that drove Jesus to the cross... although it cost him everything, he willingly gave his all to die in our place. He did this freely... that's love from God to us. But what of love from us to God?

The late atheist, Christopher Hitchens stated that heaven would be hell to him because he wanted no part of it. Would a loving God force you into his presence when you did not want to be there? If we consistently in this life push God away and reject him, we are saying that we don't want his love, we don't want him, we don't love him, and we want nothing to do with him. As Frank Turek says, "If you don't want God in this life, then you will not want him in the next!" If you don't want him, God cannot force you to be with him and be a loving God, and so he cannot force you into Heaven!

On Morality

Maitzen then launches into an attack on Christian Morality. He asserts that Christians believe that killing a child is wrong because it brings harm to the child. But the child goes to Heaven, so isn't the child actually helped by being murdered? Therefore Christians who murder children would actually helping the child, and not sinning.

Again, this is a straw-man argument. Murder is wrong, not because of the harm it brings to the victim, but because it destroys a human being made in the image of God himself, and it usurps God's authority as the Giver and Taker of life in a manner not delegated to men by God.

Murder, indeed, all sin, is an offence against God. We see this illustrated in scripture where Jesus forgives sin. But many of those he forgave had never met this man called Jesus; how could he forgive them when they had never even been around him to sin against him? This enraged the religious leaders who said, "This man puts himself in the place of God!"

Exactly!

And being God, he could forgive sins against God.

He then asserts that God's perfection destroys moral responsibility. "Adding God to Morality turns Morality upside down!"

So, how does Maitzen arrive at his conclusion?

He claims that a good God could not allow suffering unless it was somehow for the sufferer's greater good. Therefore, Christians have no moral reason to prevent, and a moral commandment not to prevent suffering; anyone who attempts to relieve suffering is going against the will of God. Maitzen and the host claim that since Christians view the world as being in the control of a perfect being, then we have no obligation to relieve suffering!"

This argument is simply sophomoric. Did Jesus himself not alleviate suffering while he was here? Are we not commanded in scripture to help those in need?

The argument makes God the author of evil; classical theology views evil as the absense of Good, just as darkness is the absence of light. Maitzen's claims turn God into the enforcer and author of karma, which is not a Christian concept. Therefore, his entire argument is a straw man argument.

But that doesn't address why God allows evil to abound. Maitzen then begins a long discourse explaining why the Christian view that Free Will is the greatest good is incoherent. And his explanation is superb! He's exactly right... except for one important fact....

In Christianity, the greatest good is not Free Will... it's Love! Therefore, he again is raging against a straw man.

We've already seen how Free Will is required for Love to have meaning. Free will must exist if love is to exist.

On the Nature of Evil

The host then responds to Maitzen by saying that evil must be for a higher purpose. This is the old, "everything happens for a reason" claim, implying that God is behind every event, both good and evil. This view is not biblical.

The bible tells us that God cannot sin, cannot be tempted with sin, and is not the author of either sin or temptation. It never asserts that evil happens because God intends it for a higher purpose. What it does claim in Romans 8:28 is that "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

God doesn't cause evil, but he is able to work through evil to bring about good.

So why then does God not stop evil? I'm always curious to know if the person asking this question would be happy if God replied, "Okay... let's start with YOU! You want to listen to dirty jokes?  I'll take away your hearing so you can't sin in that way. You want to tell lies? Let's remove your ability to speak! You want to beat up on your wife and kids? I'll put you in a wheelchair!"

But again, that's not love, and it doesn't fix the problem. The problem is in the heart of men. The book of Jeremiah says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked..." (17:9)

Doctors who focus on treating symptoms instead of root causes lose a lot of patients. God wants to fix the root cause by transforming the heart of men by establishing a relationship with them. But because of the nature of love, he cannot force them to be a part of this relationship. It's their choice!

When a parent appropriately disciplines a child, he is showing love to that child. However, there comes a time when the parent must allow the child his freedom. One cannot live one's children's lives for them. If they choose to walk away from you and have nothing to do with you, do you really make any progress with them by having the police pick them up and bring them back to your house so that you can lock them away in the basement?  That's not love, and it's certainly not love being shown from the child to the parent.

Were God to override our will and change our hearts without our permission, then he is no better than this parent, and our response back to him is not love.

And so, Maltzen is outraged that God will not stop the torture of babies for fun. How would he have him do so? By killing or maiming the torturer? By forcing him to capitulate and overriding his free will, destroying all chance for the man to every know God in a true relationship of love?

And by what moral code does Maltzen judge God in this matter? Though he rages against the supposed immorality of God, he never establishes how morality exists in the first place! If it's simply his opinion that God should behave differently, then I daresay that you, I, or God himself can simply have another opinion?  Whose morality shall we follow?

On Free Will vs. Determinism

Maitzen also professes a belief in determinism, which is the only logical recourse for the atheist. He states that "determinism is compatible with our legal system", but free-will is not.

What??

Let's try to unpack this: Determinism, a philosophy that says that all of man's actions, thoughts, behaviors and desires are caused by material causes and free will is an illusion, is somehow compatible with our legal system? To believe this, one must believe:

1. "Criminals" cannot be "guilty" of the crimes they commit, because they had no choice.
2. Lawmakers had no choice but to make the laws they make.
3. Judges and juries have no choice but to rule the way they do.

So if criminals cannot be guilty, why not simply abolish all laws? Oh, wait, you would have to be pre-determined to do that...

In other words, the entire experience of our lives is something over which we have absolutely no control. You didn't choose what to have for breakfast this morning; that was predetermined, actually by the big bang. What was set in motion then will play itself out, and we're simply along for the ride. You are at the mercy of the biochemical reactions going off in your head.

What then, and what good then is consciousness? Life becomes nothing more than a roller-coaster careening wildly out of control to the whim of impersonal, uncaring, natural forces, headed toward oblivion and we have no choice but to watch without even the option to jump off, because even one's suicide would necessarily be a pre-determined action!

"Why" is a meaningless question, because the only answer the determinist can give is "because".

How then is this belief compatible with our legal system which is based on belief that men should behave in accordance with the law, and that society has the right to inflict punishment on them when they do not obey?

On Meaning and Morality

Maitzen asserts the existence of morality with no justification or basis for it. As a determinist, I can't imagine how the concept is even coherent with his position, but he seems to place some value in the concept of morality.

Regarding meaning, as in Ultimate Meaning, he says the concept is incoherent, we shouldn't seek it, we shouldn't want it.

He correctly understands that God has something to do with the end purpose of mankind and ultimate meaning as defined by the Christian faith, but his misses the mark.

Maitzen understands Christianity to assert that following God's commandments are the meaning of life and the end purpose of man. He is wrong. God Himself is the meaning of life and the end purpose of man. Man's highest purpose is to know God in a relationship, not simply to do what he says. The value of relationship is something that he ignores throughout the interview, and something as a former church-goer, he should have known.

In past conversations with atheists, they seem to agree that life is ultimately meaningless, but they do find meaning in relationships with their spouses, their children, their families. This should be a huge clue that ultimate meaning would also be relational.

But because God is an infinite being, it would take an eternity to fully come to know him in his infinity. This is exactly what the Christian faith teaches, that those who want to do so can spend an eternity in a relationship with an infinite God who loves them, and is in turn loved by them.

Maitzen's interpretation of Heaven is sitting around on a cloud, playing a harp, prasing and glorifying a narcissistic God. Unfortunately, popular media, and even some Christians, agree with this. But our main goal in Heaven is not to glorify God (even though we will), or to serve God (even though we will), but to know God.

In Summary

Maitzen is a professor of Philosophy of Religion. He states that the "Philosophy of Religion is too important to leave to the theist."  I'd love to ask him why he thinks so; after all, if our lives are predetermined, then I have no choice but to believe in Christianity, he has no choice but to be an atheist, and those he teaches have no choice but to believe what they believe. Then again, he would have no choice but to teach!

I have to ask myself if he believes he had a choice in coming to his deterministic position. If not, then the position is not one arrived at by considering the evidence, it's just his particular biochemical makeup. Why then should I believe anything he says, because none of it has been properly thought out. How are the results of his biochemical processes different than the patterns of sediment left on the streets after a muddy rain. No one would contend that these patterns had any meaning; why then should I trust the biochemical reactions of his brain?

Determinism leads to all sorts of absurdities, but is ultimately self defeating. If behavior is determined, then you can never know that, because your own thoughts are predetermined.

All in all, the interview was a sophomoric attack on Theism in general and Christianity in particular, built on straw man arguments, misconceptions and poor reasoning. I must thank Mr. Maitzen though; his fallacious arguments convinced me even more deeply that Christianity is true. Many of his objections would be fatal to other religions, but Christianity, properly understood, withstands every charge he lays against it.