ON INCOHERENCE
15th August 2003
[This article is an enlarged version of a short one I wrote for HUMANISM SCOTLAND]
'Philosophy" literally means 'love of wisdom'. There ought to be a word 'phobosophy' meaning 'aversion to wisdom'. An example of phobosophy is the tendency to think incoherently - to entertain two, or more, mutually incompatible ideas simultaneously.
In the words of Aristotle (quoted by Aldous Huxley) "In framing an ideal we may assume what we wish but we should avoid impossibilities". Incoherence is just such an impossibiity - a logical impossibility not avoided as often as it should be.
The BBC broadcast recently a discussion of what 'we', the conquerors, ought to do about the future governance of Iraq. The remarkably incoherent notion that 'freedom and democracy' should be imposed upon the people of Iraq was implicit in some of the speakers' opinions. It is incoherent to tell the people of Iraq that, in the interest of freedom, they must be governed in accordance with 'our' ideas of freedom and democracy whether they like it or not. Perhaps they prefer, and think they need, a strong government. A country with such diverse elements, encased in artificial frontiers imposed upon them by the victors of the 1914-18 war, can hardly be expected to long for a government based upon the model of 'the Western World' with its sense of enjoying high degrees of homogeneity, freedom and wealth.
Of course, when you come to think of it, the classic definition of democracy - government of the people by the people and for the people - is rather unsatisfactory. There are always rulers and ruled and the variations are simply variations in the popular acceptability of the rulers - the "powers that be" as Paul has it in Romans Chapter Six.
The late Lord Hailsham - a Tory jurist of great distinction - once said that democracy, as understood in practice in countries such as the UK, would be more accurately described as "elective dictatorship'. I think that is a far better account of reality than is the words attributed to Lincoln.
We can, and do, have a reasonably acceptable elective dictatorship in the UK because there is a wide measure of simple liberal freedom and the standard of living of the ruled is acceptable, in general, to them. T'will not be ever thus - perhaps we 'Westerners' may come to need a 'strong man' regime when the going gets rougher ?
People have been religious thinkers long before they became, in any sense, political thinkers of the contemporary 'Western' sort. Perhaps religion has so habituated us to incoherence - as defined in my opening paragraph - that we slip easily into political incoherence.
There is of course much good wise thought to be found in the Bible and much that is erroneous and evil as well. But for an exhaustive account of this phobosophical aspect of the Bible readers might wish to look at a specialist website - Biblical Errancy.
In our debates with religious believers we very often concentrate upon challenging their assumptions'; very often we demand to know the evidence for them. When dealing with believers of the more unsophisticated sort - the doorstep Jehovah's Witnesses for example - we can generally get the better of them because they do not think in terms of evidence but in terms of catch phrases.
What evidence can they produce, poor things, for the existence of God, the Divinity of Jesus, the Innerancy of the Bible, Redemption and the Heaven/Hell option that they allege faces us all? Arguing with JW's is waste of time; the best way of getting rid of them is to say that you are a blood donor and must keep an appointment for that very purpose within the next half hour.
The more sophisticated believers know better than that. They point out - and the experience can be a chastening one - that secularists also make questionable assumptions for which evidence is, ultimately, sparse. Given that all parties to such discussions are philosophically literate it is usually a matter of saying which set of assumptions you happen to prefer. I happen to prefer the assumption that the universe is a self sufficient entity that originated, works, develops and will in the end decay ...... according to its own internal dynamic. I accept that such an assumption takes a lot of swallowing. 'They' prefer the assumption that the universe is NOT a self sufficient entity that originated, works, develops and will in the end decay ..... according to its own internal dynamic but that it is the work of a sustaining creator with whom we have to maintain a mysterious relationship called 'belief'. They accept that such an assumption takes a lot of swallowing.
The divide between believers and unbelievers then rather fades and the more important divide - between those who really think they know and those who know they only think - becomes more prominent. The assumptions game can be soon over when the protagonists either agree to differ or to discuss specific issues of daily life - or they start to fight.
In debating with believers it is more profitable (taking Aristotle's advice) to point out incoherencies in their customary positions - to show that 'if you believe this then, logically, you cannot believe that'. Here we will stick to instances of incoherence in religion as ordinarily received. Here are some examples.
There is the problem of evil. We are supposed to be the creatures of an all good all just all powerful all informed Creator but (in the title words of a very good book by Rabbi Harold Kushner) - Bad Things Happen to Good People. The creator of all things must be, in coherence, the creator of evil as well, as of good. Interestingly, Frankenstein's monster castigates his creator for making him so horrible.
The stock response to this difficulty is that evil tempts us to abuse our free will - although the Lord's Prayer asks that we not be delivered into temptation. How very incoherent with the notion of virtuous resistance to evil is the stock excuse for God having created it in the first place But the theory has some merit - albeit a bit thin. After all, most of us have been tenpted needlessly to lie, to steal, to commit adultery and so on.
But one of the alleged evils of our world is the "abomination" of homosexuality. The 'test of resistance' theory simply does not hold up in this area precisely because a large majority of us have no homosexual urges to resist.
Again, the well known words about doing those things we ought not to have done .... leaving undone those things we ought to have done .... there is no health in us .... exemplify incoherence. (We may all assume that the word 'health' is not to be read as sound in wind and limb but, rather, as moral health or some such phrase).
If the confessions as to wrongful acts and omissions are genuine then there IS some moral health in us. Confession of error or omission is the first step towards doing better in future. That step is morally healthy. If there is indeed no (moral) health in us then the preceding confessions are NOT genuine; they are void. The package does not hold together logically; it is incoherent.
Then there is the notion that "God knows best'. This is the standard fall back answer when bad things happen to good people. Those people who endure the 'bad things' are told that God moves mysteriously and what seems bad can really be "all for the best" (as my mother used to say). One has to admit to this being plausible because there are indeed examples of good emerging from evil but it is very unsatisfactory as dogma.
If people really believe that 'God knows best' then they would not pray for (say) the recovery of the sick. God would, knowing best, not stand in need of our advice as to the best outcome. To offer such prayers, while believing that God knows best, is an obvious case of incoherence; the two things simply cannot, logically, be held together.
Then there is notion of the just and merciful God. It is of course perfectly possible to have a just and merciful man. A judge who is prepared to consider the possibility that the guilty verdict returned by the jury may be a little less certain than might have been hoped will hand down a lesser sentence - within the limits allowed to him. This is a fair example of justice 'tempered with mercy' and it rests upon an acceptancer of human fallibility.
But God is held to be infallible; therefore His judgment as to appropriate punishment is absolute and if He tempers it with mercy He is reneging on justice. One of my first introductions to the idea of a just and merciful God was to the effect that He would strike me dead for my scepticism. This not only seemed to me to be remarkably merciless but it was not until later that I came to the conclusion that to couple justice with mercy in God is incoherent unless His fallibility is acknowledged - and that is not on the cards in received religion.
Another interesting piece of incoherence is that God allows evil to exist in order to test, by temptation, our readiness to use our Free Will in accordance with His wishes. This notion is no worse than a bit thin when we consider such possible acts as theft, murder, adultery and other things that feature in the Decalogue because most of us are tempted sometimes in those matters.
The 'testing resistance to evil temptation' theory of evil is not coherent with the Biblical injunction against the "abomination" of homosexuality. After all, most of us have little or no homosexual urge and so that this supposed abomination is no test at all for most of us. The resist temptation theory of evil simply does not apply to most of us in face of this particular alleged evil - the abomination of homosexuality. In this connection the temptation theory of evil is incoherent with a belief that homosexuality is abominable.
In fairness, one has to ask what evolutionary mileage is gained by the fact that a significant fraction of the human race is, in fact, homosexually motivated? That is another matter outside the scope of this essay.
Free floating assumptions are all very well so long as they do not sink one another. If they do then, taken together, they constitute an instance of the error of incoherence. That logical imposssibility is avoidable; the necessity to make SOME assumptions is inescapable and, following Aristotle, we are free to make them as we wish. But I think not absolutely free; we must not make even coherent assumptions that lead to the hurt of other people,
E.S.