Mailbag: The Best Argument for Now? A Question about the Abductive Moral Argument

James writes:

In Good God, and God & Cosmos, Baggett and Walls argue that William Lane Craig’s deductive argument for morality isn't as persuasive to intellectual atheists, and that abductive arguments are preferred because they are more persuasive to unbelievers as they avoid the problems with the atheological premise of the Deductive Argument. However, what if the atheist were to ask, "Do you mean that's the best argument FOR NOW, or is it possible that there could be a better explanation than your best explanation down the road?" Granted, this objection would be an argumentum ignorantium, but for the Abductivist himself has conceded that his own argument wasn't designed to provide certainty, so how can the Abductivist answer this objection without begging the question that his current explanation is the best explanation, and will ALWAYS be the best explanation?

For the record, I like both arguments. I, however, use the deductive argument more frequently because I haven't been able to have a quality conversation with an unbeliever for any longer than 5 minutes since the 2016 election LOL

In Christ, 

James A., PhD

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Hi James,

Thanks for your e-mail to MoralApologetics. This is Dave Baggett, co-author of God and Cosmos & Good God. You note that in those books we issue a critical verdict on WLC's deductive moral argument. This is true. And that we talk about how abduction can avoid the atheological premise of the deductive variant. Yes. Then you write, what if the atheist were to ask, "Do you mean that's the best argument FOR NOW, or is it that there could be a better explanation than your best explanation down the road?" 

Yeah, I think this is a good question. The nature of abduction seems to leave open the possibility of a better explanation. If we're talking about the BEST explanation, a certain tentativeness seems built in. Otherwise we’d talk of the “best possible explanation,” which some students seem to think abduction means, before I point out that it’s not. If a better explanation comes along, it could unseat the current winner. That seems right.

Of course I can't imagine what that would be in the case of accounting for moral facts. Naturalistic accounts just seem inherently limited, axiarchic approaches seem deficient, pantheistic and panentheistic accounts seem wrongheaded, etc. So though it's theoretically possible there could be a better explanation, it's awfully hard to imagine what it would or could be. It's also the case that our analysis is predicated on Anselmianism, which literally involves a being than whom none greater can be conceived—which makes it all the harder to top when it comes to explanatory potential! 🙂

All that said, I've laid off criticizing Craig's approach in recent years. He and I co-taught a class on the moral argument at Houston Baptist, and I found that our approaches deeply dovetailed at so many points that the number of disagreements in approach seemed small by comparison. And we now have a contract with Baker Academic to write a book together on the subject, one in which we'll be mainly talking about the resonances of our perspectives, not any remaining differences, at least for the most part. (By the way, it was hearing Craig give an argument for the historicity of the resurrection in abductive terms years ago that most inspired me to go that route.)

I've also realized in recent years that talk of "best explanation" is awfully ambitious. I usually rest content with speaking of a robust account, or powerful account, or even adequate account.
Of course, all of this pertains to the matter of how best to couch the moral argument. As long as folks are intelligently pushing the moral argument, which can come in deductive, inductive, abductive, or even other forms (like Evans' Reformed-sounding "natural signs" approach)—or even embodying it by the life they live like Fred Rogers did—I'm happy to hear it and rejoice these important truths are being accentuated one way or another. (The fun aspect of inductive variants is distinguishing between what Swinburne calls P- and C-inductive arguments here: does the moral evidence increase the evidence for theism just a bit, or enough to make it more likely than not?)

Bottom line: What's really great is God himself, not any particular discursive analysis. Proponents of various stripes of the moral argument agree on a whole lot more than they might disagree on, and it’s vital we not lose the proverbial forest for the trees.

I've also seen, at the same time, that a helpful feature of abduction is that, when dealing with an individual, we don't have to take on every potential theory out there. We can just focus on contrasting a theist picture with the picture of morality that our interlocutor provides. This helps delimit the conversation and not have to do more than is practicable in a conversation or two. The ultimate aspirations of abduction when it comes to so heady a topic as ours is a human quest spanning generations to which any of us at most contributes but one voice. 

By the way, I’ve started reading a great book—McCain and Poston’s Best Explanations: New Essays on Inference to the Best Explanation. Highly recommended.
Every best wish in your work; thanks for the note.

Blessings,

Dave

New Developments in Moral Apologetics, Part 4

This installment of new developments on the moral argument features two students of mine wrapping up their doctoral work on the subject. They are also dear friends and both have been very active here at MoralApologetics, and will play a big part in the site’s future and the Center for Moral Apologetics at Houston Baptist University. They are Jonathan Pruitt, long-time Managing Editor extraordinaire of MoralApologetics.com, and Stephen Jordan, who will be spearheading the development of moral apologetics curriculum as part of a new initiative of the Center in the years to come.

Jonathan Pruitt’s work seeks to extend the abductive moral argument made in Jerry Walls’s and my Good God and God and Cosmos to the Christian religion. Like the argument found in Good God, Pruitt’s argument begins by assuming moral realism. Specifically, it assumes there are a range of moral facts in need of explanation, including facts about moral goodness, moral obligations, moral knowledge, moral transformation, and moral rationality.

With respect to moral goodness, the dissertation brings to bear the rich ontology of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. It suggests that the existence of the Trinity best explains deeply held moral intuitions about “the shape of the good,” as it builds upon Robert Adams’s Platonic theistic view of God as the good. If the good is ultimately triune, this could naturally explain why morality is centered on “the other” and the foundational character of love in ethical thinking.

With respect to moral obligations, the dissertation utilizes the fundamentally social nature of the Trinity to suggest that moral obligations, best understood as a certain kind of social standing, is well explained by a Trinitarian God. The Christian worldview has tremendous resources in the domain of moral knowledge as it claims both a divinely inspired book and the ideal moral exemplar in Jesus Christ. In these, one finds both the moral law and the ever elusive concept of “the good life” reified. Additionally, these resources can help turn back some well-known objections to divine command theory.

The Christian view of sanctification and the role of the Holy Spirit explain how one can be morally transformed, while remaining within the logical boundaries required by such transformation. Though Kant had to postulate God as judge and eternal life to solve what Henry Sidgwick later called “the dualism of practical reason,” the Christian worldview comes with these features included. The public and evidential nature of the Resurrection supplies concrete evidence for moral faith and, in conjunction with Christian eschatology, solves moral problems not explicitly articulated until nearly two millennia later. Thus, Christianity handily accounts for moral rationality. Pruitt’s work, in the end, highlights how some of the most distinctively Christian ideas map closely onto well-known problems in ethical theory. He suggests that precisely where Christianity is most different, it most ably marshals explanatory resources to account for the moral facts.

Stephen Jordan’s developing work is called “Morality and the Personhood of God: A Moral Argument for the Existence of a Personal God.” The concept that God is personal is a necessary and fundamental part of religious belief.[1] If God were not personal, it would be odd to think of him as moral or loving; it would also seem inconsistent to speak of him as One with whom humans can have a personal relationship, One who can be trusted, cares for the people he created, listens to their prayers, acts on their behalf, has their best interests at heart, and so on. In short, to talk of such matters in a sensible manner and to experience them in everyday life seemingly requires that God is personal.

Is there evidence that a personal God actually exists? Enter the moral argument. The moral argument, like other classical arguments for God’s existence, is able to provide evidence for believing in God’s existence, but—unlike other arguments, or perhaps better than the other arguments—is able to shed an incredible amount of light on God’s character (i.e., what God is like). For example, in order to account for morality, God must be good, loving, and holy. Additionally, through surveying moral categories such as moral knowledge, moral values, moral obligations, and moral transformation, it becomes apparent that the source of the moral law, in order to account for the deeply personal nature of morality, must also be personal, and personal to the highest degree possible.

If the moral argument suggests that God must be personal in order to account for the personal nature of morality, the next step in the process involves considering the various explanations for God’s personal nature. There are several belief systems that set forth the notion of a personal God, with some conceptions coming nearer to adequately accounting for what is required of a personal God than others. Christianity, however, uniquely demonstrates that not only is God personal, but that he has always been personal. If the only sense in which God is personal is in his personal interactions with human persons, then one could say that God’s personality was frustrated before he created human persons or that God became personal only after he created human persons. To say these sorts of things presents all sorts of theological and philosophical problems, such as that God would be dependent on something other than himself and therefore not self-sufficient.

A Trinitarian conception of God, which is a distinctly Christian concept, solves the sorts of problems alluded to above, suggesting that God has always been personal in and through the inner personal relations of the three Persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the fundamental reason why the Judeo-Christian God, the God of the Bible, is such a powerful explanation for the deeply personal nature of morality: he is intrinsically personal himself.

While there is certainly more involved, there are two key tasks to this version of the moral argument: (1) demonstrate that morality points in the direction of a personal source; and (2) explain how a Trinitarian conception of God provides the best explanation for the deeply personal nature of morality.[2]

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[1] A definition of “personal God” looks something like this: A Being who thinks, feels, and wills, and who is capable of loving and being loved by other beings.

[2] There are essentially three tasks involved in the moral apologetics enterprise: (1) provide reasons for believing in objective moral facts; (2) address secular theories; and (3) explain why theism, particularly Christian theism, is the best explanation for morality as a whole. While this project largely focuses on the third and final task, there are discussions throughout that give attention to the first two tasks as well. For instance, there is a chapter that provides fifteen reasons for believing in objective moral facts, and there are several chapters that briefly respond to opposing theories.

A NEW Moral Argument for the Christian God

From Crash Course Apologetics

Dr. Bobby Conway runs an apologetics YouTube ministry called “The One Minute Apologist.” He is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Birmingham. The topic of his dissertation is a moral argument for the existence of the Christian God from the existence of objective guilt. The link to his channel is below along with a livestream he did outlining some of the major points of his argument. You should definitely subscribe to his channel!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXkg...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDTNj...

An Abductive Moral Argument for a Good God (Interview with Dr. David Baggett)

From Crash Course Apologetics:

Dr. David Baggett earned his Ph.D. from Wayne State University and he is currently professor of philosophy at Liberty University School of Divinity. There are various moral arguments for the existence of God, but Dr. Baggett's is intriguing because his moral argument points uniquely combines the others in a way that points specifically to the Christian God. If this interests you, check out his book called The Morals of the Story: Good News About a Good God published by IVP in 2018.

Making the Case: Apologetic Preaching and Abductive Argumentation

            Doing apologetics requires some level of logical argumentation. Groothuis explains that “apologetics means philosophical engagement, and philosophy trades in logic.” Though logic and argumentation may be difficult for some Christians, apologetics without arguments quickly reduces to assertions and becomes a denial of Peter’s command to “be ready to give a defense” (1 Pet. 3:15). Is there, though, a preferred style of argumentation for apologetics, especially apologetic preaching? While I think that all forms of valid argumentation could have a place in apologetics at some point, it is in abductive argumentation that apologetic preaching may find its greatest ally.

What is Abductive Argumentation?

            Simply stated, abductive argumentation hopes to arrive at an inference to the best explanation without claiming a standard of certainty usually associated with other types of logical arguments (e.g., deduction or induction). This is not to deny any Christian’s testimony and the certainty they possess based on the coming together of reason and faith in their minds and heart. Rather, abduction seeks to point toward certainty without “demanding it” based on the outcome of a particular logical construct. Admittedly, discussions of argumentation can quickly get to a pretty heady level, and that is certainly not the goal of using abduction in apologetic preaching. However, preachers will make some type of argument, so the matter is really how they will argue, not if they will. Here’s an example of how abduction might be stated in the form of premises and conclusion related to a moral argument for God’s existence.

            P1: Most of us recognize that some things are morally good, and some are bad.

            P2: We applaud the child on the playground who stands up to the bully. We boo the bully    for picking on others.

            P3: If the bully changes his ways, we praise him for becoming a better boy. If the bully         reverts to his bullying, we consider him to have started acting badly again.

            P4: Why do we conclude that standing up to the bully is good, or that bullying another is       bad? We do so because we have a standard of what is good and bad by which to assess what    we and others do.

            P5: The Christian claims that this standard is based on who God is, and that our sense of good and evil relates to our being made in God’s image.

            C: Thus, Christianity provides a reasonable explanation—possibly the best explanation—for     the human experience of good and evil.

The goal of making an abductive case like this is to let it build in a cumulative manner that moves intentionally toward the goal of offering—not necessarily demanding—that the Christian conclusion is reasonable and may be the best answer. In preaching particularly this type of abductive approach provides a couple of important benefits.

A Couple of Reasons Abduction Helps in Apologetic Preaching

            First, because it claims to come to an inference to the best explanation, abduction offers a manner of apologetic reasoning in preaching that avoids being overly dogmatic. As Baggett and Baggett explain, “the procedure of abduction goes like this: we come across something that needs to be explained, then we identify a range of possible explanations, and then we narrow the list down to the best one.” Some apologists might chafe at this approach, claiming that the apologetic enterprise should insist on certainty, and that apologetic preaching, especially, should prefer more than an inference to the best explanation as an outcome. However, there is a sense in which claims to absolute certainty may lack explanatory power when it comes to how faith forms around what is “hoped for...[and] unseen” (Heb. 11:1-2). Is the Christian worldview compelling? Absolutely. Is there evidence worthy of consideration? Of course. However, the ideas of certainty associated with argumentation are not something found in the pages of the Bible, but in the later developments of modern thought, which has a decided bias against the idea of biblical faith. Abduction is a way to keep the apologist in check against the temptation to overconfidence in the power of his arguments, and to help him remember that there is more involved in coming to faith than syllogisms and rationality.

            Second, abduction can help preachers avoid oversimplification. This is an error that apologists fall into when they think a simple syllogism is all that is needed to make the case for some aspect of Christian truth. Rather than accepting that one cannot with absolute epistemic certainty prove the existence of God and the truth of Christianity, apologists may assume that their personal convictions are equivalent to philosophical standards of truth and certainty. They assume that belief is simply a matter of following the premises to the logical conclusion and expect that their hearers only need to follow the logic of an argument to come to belief in God or some other Christian claim. Yet, conversion is ordinarily a process that takes time and possibly numerous conversations, and it is only the exception that finds a person coming to Christ after hearing only one argument. Like Paul in Athens sharing the gospel on Mars Hill (Acts 17:22-34), the abductive argument in the hands of the apologetic preacher offers a reasonable explanation of the audience’s circumstances while presenting the Christian worldview. Some may scoff, some may decide to hear more, and some may believe—whatever the outcome may be, the cumulative abductive case for faith has been made.

Conclusion

There is certainly much more that could be said about abduction in apologetic preaching, but I trust its conduciveness to humility and avoiding oversimplification are somewhat clear. In the next installment I will present a model for developing apologetic messages.

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T. J. shares a passion for the moral argument(s) and brings much to his new post. He is, in his own words, a “mere Christian with genuine fascination and awe for the breadth and depth of God’s gracious kingdom.” He became a Christian in 1978, and began pastoral ministry in 1984. He has worked as a youth pastor, senior pastor, church planter, church-based seminary professor, a chaplain assistant in the Army, and a chaplain in the Army National Guard. A southern Illinois native, T. J. is a graduate of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale with a BA in Political Science; Liberty University with an MAR in Church Ministries, an MDiv in Chaplaincy, and a ThM in Theology; Luther Rice College and Seminary with an MA in Apologetics; and Piedmont International University with a DMin in Pastoral Counseling. He is currently writing his dissertation on crisis leadership in the epistle of Jude for the PhD in Leadership at Piedmont, as well as pursuing a PhD in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty, hoping to write his dissertation on some aspect of the intersection of moral apologetics and the pastorate. He is the author of several books, including God Help Us: Encouragement for Evangelism, and Thinking of Worship: A Liturgical Miscellany, as well as journal articles on liturgics, pastoral counseling, homiletics, and apologetics. He and his wife have five children. T. J.’s preaching may be heard at www.sermonaudio.com/fellowshipinchrist.