This extract is a transcript of a radio debate between F.C. Copleston (Catholic priest and religious believer) and Bertrand Russell (philosopher and non-believer), broadcast in 1948 on the BBC.
In the first section, the Argument from Contingency, Copleston argues that God must exist because the universe requires a Necessary Being to explain it, but Russell argues that the universe is a brute fact ..
In the second section, on Religious Experience, Copleston argues that the powerful influence of religious experiences on people's lives makes the existence of God more likely, but Russell argues that these are subjective experiences .
This is a succinct and rather quotable definition of the God of Classical Monotheism - also known as the Judeo-Christian God , the Abrahamic God or the O-O-O God (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent). God is supreme (all-powerful or omnipotent) and a 'personal Being' rather than just a force or an energy. God is transcendent (separate from and outside the universe) and the universe depends on this God for its existence.
With the definition of God agreed upon, Copleston wants to clarify Russell's position:
An atheist claims that God does not exist (or at any rate is very unlikely). This is a difficult thing to prove. Russell has a more modest position. He claims to be an agnostic . An agnostic claims that there is insufficient evidence for belief in God . This put the ball back in the believer's court. Russell the agnostic doesn't have to prove God's non-existence; it's up to Copleston the believer to prove that God does exist.
Copleston clears one more thing up:
This is a question about the subjectivity of moral values. Many believers claim that God is the source of moral values and that without God, there can be no absolute good or absolute evil. This position of regarding good and evil as merely personal opinion is moral relativism . Copleston spells this out for Russell:
Russell's view is that the question of God's existence and the question of objective moral values are quite distinct. Russell is not a moral relativist. He thinks that you can disbelieve in God and still hold that moral values exist . However, this position will cause him difficulties later in the debate (especially in the third section that isn't part of the Edexcel Anthology).
Copleston introduces a version of the Cosmological Argument that draws from Aquinas' 3rd Way but in particular from Leibniz's idea of Sufficient Reason . It is so clear and succinct as to be worth quoting in full:
Copleston's argument can be set out like this:
P1 Everything in the universe is contingent
P2 The universe is the aggregate of all the things in it
C1 Therefore the universe is contingent
P3 Contingent things require an explanation
C2 Therefore the universe requires an explanation
P4 An infinite regress of explanations is not an explanation
C3 Therefore an entity that possesses necessary existence (aseity) is needed to explain the universe
Copleston concludes that the only thing that could explain the universe would be something that existed necessarily - God would be such a being and therefore God is needed to explain the universe.
Critics of the Cosmological Argument normally attack the idea that there cannot be an infinite regress ( P4 ) or else insist that God too must have an explanation. However, Russell attacks the concept of necessary existence ( aseity ):
Russell argues that ideas can be 'necessary' - normally logical ideas, mathematical ideas or definitions like 'a bachelor is an unmarried man'. These things are analytic propositions . He doesn't think a THING or a BEING can be 'necessary'. These things are synthetic propositions . The statement 'God exists' is a synthetic proposition (Russell claims) and therefore cannot be necessarily true in the way that 2+2=4 is necessarily true.
Russell also puts it like this:
Copleston tries in various ways to persuade Russell that God can be 'necessary' while still being a synthetic (factual) proposition. For example, he explains that the existence of all the contingent things in the universe is a factual proposition and the existence of God is being deduced from them. However, Russell will not accept this. He accuses Copleston of making a linguistic mistake, a muddle over words:
It is logically contradictory for something to be 'round-square' and Russell argues that a 'Necessary Being' is a similar sort of contradiction. You can use the words separately, but if you put them together they become nonsense. This is rather similar to many criticisms of the Ontological Argument , which Russell and Copleston also touch upon.
Copleston responds by bringing in Leibniz 's idea of God being a Sufficient Reason : something that makes sense of all the contingent things in the universe that don't explain themselves. Russell questions whether this sort of explanation makes sense either. The only explanations he recognises are proximate reasons and he gives the example of striking a match:
Russell thinks that the only important explanations or reasons for anything consist of immediate causes. If you want to explain a fire, you point to someone striking a match. Copleston things that are bigger reasons that we can look for: what Leibniz calls a Sufficient Reason and Copleston calls an "adequate explanation" or a "total explanation" . Russell is dubious. He's not sure that such a 'total explanation' exists and he doesn't think we should expect there to be such an explanation. He delivers the first of his short, decisive 'zingers':
This exchange probably sums up the entire debate. Russell thinks there's no point in looking for an ultimate explanation, Copleston thinks there is. Copleston also uses the word "dogmatic" to criticise Russell: the word means close-minded or stubborn, as if Russell is deliberately refusing to admit that the universe might have an explanation because it goes against his prejudices.
Russell states his world view in the clearest possible way:.
Although at no point in the debate does he use the phrase ' brute fact ', that is what Russell is saying here: the universe is a brute fact that does not need any further explanation.
So far, Russell has been defending his agnosticism against Copleston's arguments. Now he goes on the offensive:
Russell is accusing Copleston of committing the Fallacy of Composition. A similar criticism of the Cosmological Argument was made by David Hume . This is the idea that qualities of all the components are not necessarily shared by the whole. A wall made out of red bricks will be red, but a wall made out of small bricks won't necessarily be a small wall.
Therefore, just because the universe is made out of contingent things, it doesn't follow automatically that the universe is a contingent thing.
Copleston doesn't have a great reply to this (because there isn't one).
Instead, Copleston shifts from arguing that there must be an explanation for the universe to arguing that it is reasonable to assume that there is. This is a shift from a deductive to an inductive argument. Copleston supports this assumption by the analogy of scientists and police detectives. They make the assumption that there is an explanation behind scientific phenomenon or crimes - and science and police work would be impossible without that assumption. Coplestone concludes it's reasonable to assume that the universe requires an explanation too.
Russell argues that this isn't what scientists do. He suggests a scientist looks for explanations the way a prospector looks for godl, but the scientist doesn't ASSUME there's an explanation before he's found it:
This is where the debate reaches a sort of stalemate. Russell's position is an odd one because most of us assume that there are reasonable explanations for things and, despite what Russell says, most scientists go to work with this assumption too. But Russell has a good philosophical point, which is based on David Hume 's famous Problem of Induction . Hume pointed out that it is a 'habit' or 'custom' of mind that leads us to expect the future to resemble the past. Immanuel Kant goes even further, suggesting that cause-and-effect is just something human minds project onto the universe, not something that is actually 'out there'. So Russell is in good company, even if his views would dismay a lot of actual scientists.
Copleston seems to feel rather cheated by Russell's unusual approach to his argument
If one refused to sit at the chess board and make a move, one cannot, of course, be checkmated - F.C. Copleston
Copleston thinks Russell is refusing to 'play the game', but most readers feel that Russell wins this stage of the argument, even if they don't much like the way he goes about winning it,.
