If Richard Were God . . . 

Although Sense and Goodness Without God offers no rational explanation of why people should be moral, Richard routinely accuses God of gross immorality. Further, the book is filled with suggestions as to how the universe’s “incompetent and perverse” engineer, if he exists, should have done things. Here are a few of Richard’s recommendations: 

God is supposed to be your bud, your pal. . . . God would act like a friend and a parent if he really were one.[i] 

[I]f I were to make a universe, . . . I would make it a law of the universe that the more good a person really was the more invulnerable they would be to harm or illness.[ii] 

[I]f I were omnipotent, whenever I got fed up with all the killing I would just snap my fingers and turn all guns into flowers. . . . Likewise, if I wanted people to know which church was teaching the right way to salvation, I would protect all such churches with mysterious energy fields . . . and its bibles would glow in the dark so they could always be read.[iii] 

[S]ince we know that people raised by good, loving parents are always better off, and more morally and mentally stable, God could simply allow only good loving parents to conceive children.[iv] 

[I]f God can have a mind without a physical brain, it is inexplicable why we need them. It is far more probable that such a god would create beings with minds like His, minds that could not be damaged or destroyed, rather than minds needlessly dependent on something so fragile as a brain.[v] 

In short, God should be much more involved in the world, and he shouldn’t have made an imperfect universe. God shouldn’t remain hidden; instead, he should appear to all people at all times, so that everyone will know that he exists. As these apparent injustices seem to be Richard’s only substantial objection to theism, I will address this point in some detail.  

In his monthly column (“Skeptic”) for Scientific American, Michael Shermer has proposed an interesting principle, affectionately named “Shermer’s Last Law.” It states that “Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God.”[vi] Hence, if an advanced alien were to come to earth and dazzle us with its advanced technology, this alien would seem like God to us. Of course, this implies that the reverse is also true. If God appeared to the entire world tomorrow morning, he would be indistinguishable from an advanced alien. Hence, according to Shermer’s Last Law, God could never—even in principle—give enough evidence for everyone to conclude that he exists. Even in the face of a barrage of miracles or a parting of the Pacific Ocean, the skeptic would be free to say, “Wow, those aliens are pretty amazing, huh?” 

There has always been a way out for nonbelievers. Jesus’ enemies attributed his miracles to Beelzebub.[vii] Carrier attributes the origin of life to natural causes, and the resurrection of Jesus to an incredible ensemble of mass-hallucinations. Shermer offers an invincible piece of armor for the skeptic, who can never be sure that God exists. 

Nevertheless, there is one way for God to prove his existence to everyone: He could take away our free will and program us to believe in him, whether we like it or not. Hence, all atheist demands for certainty are ultimately objections to God’s gift of free will. Barring the elimination of choice, there is nothing God could do to convince an impassioned skeptic armed with Shermer’s Last Law. We could even imagine a skeptic living in a world of constant miracles appealing to arguments similar to Richard’s: “If God really loved me, he wouldn’t leave me in doubt as to whether these ‘miracles’ I’m seeing are from God or an alien. Surely a good God would never leave us confused as to his existence. Besides, this God seems to be forcing himself on everyone when he knows that we can’t even be certain that he exists. If I were God, I wouldn’t force myself on ignorant people. Should he hold us responsible for a choice we can’t reasonably make? Of course not! Hence, even if this God is real, he is immoral, unfit for worship.” 

It seems, then, that an atheist can never be sure that God exists, regardless of what God does. So Richard’s accusations can’t mean that God should prove himself to everyone. This means that when it comes to things like the existence of God or evidence for miracles, Richard must demand something less than certainty.  

The question thus becomes: How much evidence should God give? Atheists complain that God should give far more evidence; theists typically hold that the evidence is sufficient to warrant belief in God. So who’s right? If we’re going to claim that God has or hasn’t given enough evidence, we should at least have some criteria for what would constitute sufficient evidence. Tragically, the only atheist criterion seems to be: “God should give enough evidence to convince me! Until then, I won’t believe.” But that’s an incredibly subjective criterion, and, in the case of skeptics such as Michael Shermer (and, I think, Richard Carrier), it is impossible to satisfy. It also assumes that God is only interested in belief, and not in the type or quality of belief. In lieu of reasonable atheistic demands for evidence, I offer the following criteria:  

Criterion One: God should give enough evidence to cause an open-minded person to become interested in religious matters.

Criterion Two: God should give a sign or miracle such that a truly interested person could only deny it by absurd or implausible speculations. 

Criterion One (if met by God) would reveal those who are open to spiritual claims. Criterion Two (if met by God) would show these people what to believe. It would be difficult to argue that God hasn’t met Criterion One. A skeptic may say, “But God hasn’t given enough evidence to convince me!” but that misses the point, which has nothing to do with convincing anyone. The point is that there is certainly enough going on in our world to promote an interest in religious matters. Indeed, Richard has dedicated his life to discussing spiritual topics, and he spends his days writing arguments against things like the apparent fine-tuning of the universe, the resurrection of Jesus, etc. He writes against these ideas because people are interested in them and because he himself is interested in them. Thus, there is enough evidence to inspire interest in religious matters. 

But what about Criterion Two? Is there a sign or miracle that can only be denied by a person who is clearly not open to it? Indeed there is. Those who deny the resurrection of Jesus do so by resorting to absurd contentions and by adjusting their method of investigation so that no amount of evidence could ever convince them. Although Richard says that one would “really have to look hard to find an event in a worse condition than [the resurrection] as far as evidence goes,”[viii] his exaggeration is hollow, for his approach to Jesus is simply impossible to justify. 

In his debate with Mike Licona, Richard laid out his case against the resurrection (in more detail than we find in Sense and Goodness). His case may be summed up as follows. Jesus died on the cross. His disciples, longing to make sense of the tragedy, searched the scriptures and concluded that his death had meaning. Several of Jesus’ followers experienced grief hallucinations, in which they saw visions of the risen Christ, telling them that everything was okay. For some reason (Richard never explains why), these disciples concluded that Jesus had been resurrected without his earthly body (a radical concept for first century Jews). When Christianity began to spread, Saul of Tarsus, a devout Pharisee, attempted to destroy Christianity. Nevertheless, he also experienced a hallucination in which Jesus told him to convert to Christianity. Strangely, Paul also adopted the radical view that Jesus’ earthly body wasn’t resurrected. A few decades later, some Christians made up the empty tomb story to illustrate their belief that Jesus’ body was empty of his spirit, but they forgot to tell everyone that it was only a story. Later Christians took the invention seriously and concluded that there really was an empty tomb, and that Jesus’ body must have been involved in his resurrection (the normal Jewish view). Thus, the followers of Christ came full circle, believing first in the Jewish idea that the body that dies is the same body that rises, second in the unorthodox view of a completely different, spiritual resurrection body (Note: given the Jewish understanding, a “spiritual resurrection” was practically an oxymoron), and third in the Jewish idea that the body that dies is the same body that rises. That seems problematic, considering the overwhelming amount of evidence against such a position. (For more on this, see my review of the Carrier-Licona debate.) Nevertheless, Richard’s problem is far greater than mere evidence, which he is free to twist to his liking. The main problem with his view is that it is completely inconsistent with his belief that Jesus never existed.  

Prior to his debate with Licona, Richard said, “Jesus might have existed . . . But until a better historicist theory is advanced, I have to conclude it is at least somewhat more probable that Jesus didn't exist than that he did.”[ix]  Then, at the debate, Richard argued: 

There are many theories contrary to what Mr. Licona has argued, but there isn’t time tonight to look at them all. I will instead present the one theory I think is most probably correct, which I only have time to summarize. Shortly after the death of Jesus, his disciples prayed, meditated, and searched the scriptures for some meaning to justify the tragedy and some way to preserve and promote the noble program of moral reform Jesus had died for. As a result, some had prophetic dreams or visions in which Jesus appeared to them, reassuring them, and telling them just what they wanted to hear.[x] 

Since the debate, Richard has again argued that Jesus never existed.[xi] Thus, we have a problem. Richard believes that Jesus probably never existed. He also says that the theory he thinks is “most probably correct” is that Jesus’ disciples experienced visions of him after he died. Putting these views together, we arrive at Richard’s true position on the resurrection of Jesus. As incoherent as it may seem, he apparently believes something like the following: 

Jesus never existed. Nevertheless, he had close companions who did exist. (If you’re wondering how a person who didn’t exist could have followers, you may be forgetting that nonexistent people can be very, very crafty.) These followers became extremely distraught when Jesus (who didn’t exist) was tortured and crucified by Roman soldiers (who did exist). Jesus (who didn’t exist) may or may not have been placed in a tomb (which may or may not have existed). In light of the death of their nonexistent leader, the minds of these followers were so overcome by emotion that they soon experienced grief hallucinations, in which they saw visions of the risen Jesus (whom no one had ever seen to begin with). Strangely, these disciples came to believe that Jesus was resurrected without his body (probably because nonexistent people don’t have bodies). This caused them to become bold evangelists of the risen Lord they had never seen. James (who did exist), the brother of Jesus, also experienced grief hallucinations when he heard that his brother (who didn’t exist) had been nailed to a cross (many of which did exist). James joined the other followers, and the group became so bold that it attracted the attention of a man named Saul (who did exist). While Saul wanted to destroy Christianity because it went against everything he believed in, he was overwhelmingly attracted to its humble message of social reform. Thus, in the midst of a murderous rampage against Christianity, Saul also hallucinated and experienced a vision of Jesus (who never existed). The Apostle Paul (who previously existed as Saul) later met with Jesus’ followers to make sure that his teachings were in line with those of Jesus. He was pleased to learn that his teachings indeed matched up with the words of the non-existent Jesus, and he continued to spread Christianity throughout the Roman world.  

If that’s the best a Columbia-educated historian can come up with, Criterion Two has been met. Indeed, upon close inspection, all theories that attempt to explain away Jesus’ resurrection are ultimately at odds with the historical evidence, or highly illogical, or both. Thus, both criteria have been met. There is evidence sufficient to spark interest in the divine, and there is a divine sign that reduces all its opponents to absurdity. Until atheists come up with better criteria for how much evidence is fair, they have no basis for arguing that God hasn’t given enough evidence. After all, no amount of evidence is sufficient when someone is set against believing in something. Even if we had all witnessed Jesus’ resurrection, the skeptic could always say, “Those aliens are at it again.”  

Nevertheless, one may still wonder why God doesn’t turn guns into flowers, or make glow-in-the-dark Bibles, or place mysterious force fields around churches. Why doesn’t God walk around with us, clearly showing everyone that he is here? Interestingly, Richard accidentally stumbles upon the Christian answer in the midst of one of his attacks against God: 

Likewise, as a loving parent, I would think it a horrible failure on my part if I didn’t educate my children well, and supervise them kindly, teaching them how to live safe and well and warning them of unknown or unexpected dangers. If they asked me to butt out I would. But if they didn’t, it would be unconscionable to ignore them, to offer them no comfort or protection or advice.[xii] 

“If they asked me to butt out I would.” Here Richard unwittingly alludes to an interesting piece of Christian history. According to the Bible, God was once with us, in a beautiful world. But we chose to disobey him. In effect, we chose to live apart from God.  In response, God gave us what we wanted. He partially (not completely) withdrew from our universe, and withdrew some of his sustaining power. Thence came earthquakes, disease, famine, bloodshed, and the many other things Richard complains about. God’s message was clear: “Since you’d like to live without me, let me give you a taste of a universe that isn’t completely sustained by me.” God later returned in the person of Jesus Christ, and we rejected him again. Jesus then rose from the dead in a glorified body, as if to say to the world, “Look! I’m the one who can fix all this!” But people continue to reject him. We’ve asked God to butt out. Some of us want him to butt back in, and he has promised to do that. But as long as the world is governed by sin, we can’t expect God’s complete presence in it. Richard can complain that this isn’t fair. He can say that it’s all nonsense, or that there’s no evidence for any of it. But he can’t reasonably say that it’s illogical or incoherent. Those terms are much more aptly applied to his own position. 

Perhaps Richard’s complaints here reveal something of the nature of atheism. If we were to assemble all of his “If I were God . . .” arguments and were to condense them into a single syllogism, I think we would be left with the following: 

Premise One: If God exists, then he would do things just as I would do them.

Premise Two: God doesn’t do things as I would do them.

Conclusion: Therefore, God does not exist. 

In other words, Richard’s underlying belief is: “If God exists, he should be just like me.” Since God isn’t just like Richard, God must not exist. This mode of thinking may seem strange to the uninitiated, but it is the foundation of all atheism, and of Richard’s book in particular. It is the ultimate hubris, and the unstated accusation of every atheist in the world.  

No matter what God does, atheists are always free to complain. They can always look for a way around the evidence to avoid the presence of God. But if a person consistently rejects the evidence, resorting to claims about mass-hallucinations among the close companions of a non-existent person, God is under no obligation to offer him further evidence. Those who wear blindfolds shouldn’t blame the sun for not lighting their path.  

Go to chapter 8