Is Theism or Atheism Verifiable or Falsifiable?

A rather interesting question to consider regarding atheism and theism is this one: is either theism or atheism verifiable or falsifiable?

First, let us consider theism. A scientist might claim that theism is not verifiable, on the grounds that there are no experiments or observations that we might make that would show the existence of some type of deity. But this claim is not valid, and is typically based on a presumption of the nonexistence of any deity. When talking about whether something is verifiable, the rules of the game are that we temporarily suppose the thing to be true, and then we imagine whether there are any observations we might make that would verify such a thing is true.

Following such a protocol, we can indeed imagine observations that might confirm the existence of a deity, if a deity exists. For one thing, it is possible that such a deity might reveal itself in some spectacular way to the entire world. An act such as writing a giant glowing message in space or causing the sun to blink out a message in Morse code would presumably cause us to have an observation that would verify the existence of a deity. It is also possible that when we die, we will have some supernatural experience that would qualify as a verification of the existence of a deity. Indeed, some people who have near-death experiences claim to have had such experiences.

So theism is verifiable, in the sense that hypothetically there are observations that we might make that could verify the existence of a deity. I may note here that there is no sound basis for distinguishing between that which is verifiable and that which is “scientifically verifiable.” The term “scientifically verifiable” implies a kind of conformity or similarity to existing methods of scientists, or the current assumptions of scientists. But when talking about what is verifiable or falsifiable, there is no reason why we should make such a restriction. It is all too possible that something might be verified or falsified in some way that does not conform to existing methods or expectations of today's scientists.

Now let's consider: is theism falsifiable? An atheist might argue that theism has already been falsified, because there is so much evil and suffering in the world. But this argument is not valid for two reasons, a simple reason and a complex reason. The simple reason is that evil or suffering could never show the nonexistence or unlikelihood of any deity. At best it might show the nonexistence or unlikelihood of an omnipotent deity, leaving unscathed the possibility of a deity with finite power. The complex reason is that there is always the possibility that earthly experience may be some tiny thread in a vast tapestry, one that might include a happy afterlife for everyone. It could be our earthly experience is some microscopic fraction of some commendable million-year plan in which suffering is necessary for diversity, growth, variety of experience, moral freedom and other good things (and necessary for the avoidance of the evils discussed here). It is possible that if we were to understand this million-year “big picture,” we might conclude that earthly suffering is quite compatible with the existence of an omnipotent deity. 

Considering the two reasons listed above, we must conclude that theism is not falsifiable. Even if we imagine the most disastrous observations we can imagine, they would not actually qualify as proof that no deity exists. For example, imagine an asteroid strikes our planet and kills almost everyone, or perhaps every single human. While that might cast much doubt on the idea of an omnipotent deity who rules over our planet with loving care, it would leave unscathed the possibility of a somewhat less than omnipotent deity who might not have the power or inclination to watch over each of billions of planets in the universe. In addition, there would still be the possibility that an omnipotent deity does exist, and that such a disaster is some necessary part of some million-year plan in which devastating setbacks are a vital ingredient. The possibility that everyone will have a happy afterlife despite such a disaster takes the power out of emotional arguments such as “but no deity would allow the little children to die.”

It seems, therefore, that theism is verifiable, but not falsifiable. We can imagine some hypothetical observations that might cause us to say with great conviction, “Now that proves it – there is a deity.” But we cannot imagine some hypothetical observations that might warrant us saying with great conviction, “Now that proves it – there is no deity.”

Now what about atheism: is it verifiable, falsifiable, or neither? The points I have just made about theism not being falsifiable can be used to help establish that atheism is not verifiable. For atheism to be verifiable, we would have to make some observation or observations that show that no deity exists. Such observations could not be made. Even if we were to witness the most horrible tragedy here on our planet, that would still leave undamaged the possibility that the universe was designed or created by a still-existing deity with less than perfect power, who lacks the power to guarantee pain-free conditions on each of the countless planets in the vast universe. Even the possibility of an omnipotent deity would still be standing, because there would still be the possibility that the terrible tragedy was a necessary ingredient in some million-year plan too complex for us to understand (and it would still be possible that all of the loss of life wasn't really a final snuffing out of consciousness, because of the possibility of an afterlife).

So atheism is not verifiable. But is it falsifiable? Yes, it is. We could falsify atheism merely by having some observations that might convince us that some deity exists. It is easy to imagine how such observations could occur – for example, there might appear a giant “God exists” sign in outer space that stretched millions of miles. Or one day the world might be visibly taken over by some divine power.  Or after dying you might see some magnificent heavenly scene that would be sufficient evidence of a deity's existence.

Now, an atheist might agree that atheism is falsifiable, and might claim this as a strength. He might argue that this shows that atheism is a really scientific claim. It has been argued that all really scientific claims are falsifiable.

But this would seem to be a case of trying to claim an advantage that isn't really there. For one, thing it is not actually true that all valid scientific claims are falsifiable. If Karl Popper thought this, then he didn't think things through. Here is one example of a major scientific theory that could never be falsified: the theory that extraterrestrial life exists. If we lived in a tiny little universe, we might be able to falsify such a theory, by quickly exploring all planets. But we live instead in a universe of billions of galaxies, a large fraction of which have billions of stars. Even if you imagine a fleet of a million warp-speed spaceships traveling throughout the universe trying to falsify the theory that extraterrestrial life exists, we must imagine that such a search would take many millions of years to check all the countless trillions of planets scattered throughout billions of galaxies. Even if such a search found no extraterrestrial life, it would still not falsify the theory that extraterrestrial life exists. For it would still be all too possible that the search had failed to find extraterrestrial life that was hiding or hard-to-find, and it would still be all too possible that while such a search (spanning millions of years) was going on, some other extraterrestrial life had arisen on the planets that had already been checked.

Too many of these to falsify the theory that extraterrestrial life exists

So the theory that extraterrestrial life exists cannot be falsified. This example shows that it just isn't true that all scientific theories can be falsified. So the fact that atheism could be falsified does not give the atheist anything to brag about.

None of these considerations touch on whether atheism is more plausible than theism. But these considerations may provide a kind of pragmatic reason for not investing too much time in a thesis such as atheism. Our earthly life is short, and it is perhaps best for us to concentrate on claims that might one day be verified through some confirmation event. Just as it may make little sense for a scientist to devote decades on some physical theory that could never be verified, it may (from a purely practical standpoint) be inadvisable for an atheist to devote great energies to a doctrine that can never ultimately result in him being able to say: that proves it, I was right all along.

Five Evils of an "Evil Free" Universe

One of the main arguments against theism is called the argument from evil. This argument basically says that if a deity existed, he would not allow evil to exist. But before accepting such an argument, we must ask ourselves: could there actually be a universe without evil?

It may seem very easy to imagine such a universe. We simply imagine a universe filled with planets containing only happy, smiling people. Wouldn't that qualify as an "evil free" universe? But we commit a fallacy when we imagine such a universe, a fallacy I might call the snapshot fallacy. The snapshot fallacy is the fallacy of assuming that we can get a decent model of a possible universe by describing a single moment of time in that universe's history. A universe is not a static thing, but something that persists for billions of years. So any model or idea of a universe (whether scientific or philosophical) must consider not just one moment of time, but a huge length of time – a billion years at least.

A person using the argument from evil might say: no problem, we can just imagine a universe without evil existing for a billion years – a billion years of happy planets filled with nothing but happy smiling faces. But would such a universe actually be a universe without evil? I think not. It seems that such an “evil free” universe would actually have some very serious evils of its own. Below is a list of some of them.

The Evil of Boredom

One great evil of such an “evil free" universe is that it would be boring. Imagine you have been living in such a universe for a thousand years. You wake up one day and say “Let me check the news.” You go to your favorite news web site, and the main banner says, “Another perfect day.” You click on the smaller headlines looking for something interesting, but it's hard to find something very interesting. They're all just stories about perfect people having perfect days. You certainly can't go out and do something dangerous, since neither death nor serious injury is allowed in your universe.

The newspapers of Utopia are boring

Very bored, you turn on your television, trying to find an interesting movie. But the movies are boring. There has been no war, death, or illness in your universe. No one has ever faced any real danger, since neither serious injury nor death are allowed in your universe. So while you might be able to find a mildly interesting movie like Meet the Fockers or When Harry Met Sally, you cannot find any really stirring movie such as Gone With the Wind, The Godfather, Doctor Zhivago, or Titanic. 

 

Now imagine that this goes on for thousands and millions of years. You eventually are so bored with your living that perhaps you yearn for the escape of death – but that cannot ever happen, because death is an evil, and you are in an “evil free" universe.

Do you get the idea? It's the very real evil of boredom.

The Evil of Restriction

Consider your freedom in the universe we currently live in. You have the freedom to be good, and also the freedom to shoot someone. You have the freedom to give money to charity, and the freedom to steal money from your local church. But how would things be in an “evil free” universe? Presumably you would not have such freedom. You could only speculate on how things might work – perhaps if you wanted to shoot someone, your gun would suddenly be too hot to handle, or your hand would get a jolt of electricity from the sky. Or, if you tried to steal money from your roommate, perhaps you would suddenly become immobile. Regardless of how it would work, the result would be that you wouldn't be so free.

We regard freedom as being a very great good. We are told again and again: it's okay to empty our country's treasury (or go deep into national debt), and okay to lose lives and limbs of our soldiers, because they are fighting for freedom. So if freedom is such a great good, what should we call a lack of freedom? We might call it an evil. Indeed, we might call the restrictions on conduct in an “evil free” universe to be itself an evil – an evil we might call the evil of restriction.

The Evil of Stagnation

One of the most central aspects of our universe is the opportunities it allows for different types of rising from a lower state to a higher state, or from a less desirable state to a more desirable state. Such opportunities can exist on a personal level, a national level, or a planetary level. A person can rise from a state of poverty and ignorance to a state of wealth and wisdom. A nation can rise from a lowly, primitive state to a much more exalted and advanced state. A species can arise from a cave-dwelling state to a star-exploring state. One can use the words progress or evolution to describe such risings from a low state to a much higher state, but our language is weak in words to describe such ascents. But such risings from low states to higher states are the life blood of the stories that hold our interest.

But what if there were no such opportunities? What if we lived in a universe in which everyone had the same kind of life-story, a life-story that could never be something like “I traveled a long journey upward from the lowly anguish of poverty and ignorance, and ascended to the top of the mountain” but could only be something like this: “I started out thousands of years ago in a state of complete comfort and happiness, and now here I am centuries later, still existing in that same state of comfort and happiness”? And what if the tale of every country and every species was never anything more stirring than this: “They started out in a perfectly desirable state, and always kept existing in that same perfectly desirable state, ending up after their long journey exactly as they were when they began”?

There would, of course, be a certain problem with such a situation, and we might call that problem the evil of stagnation.

The Evil of Non-Appreciation

If we have experiences with suffering, unhappiness and hardship, this makes us more likely to appreciate and enjoy times of comfort and happiness. But imagine if there had never been suffering, unhappiness, or hardship. Would we appreciate the comfort and happiness we had? No, we would not. In fact, we would be completely blasé and complacent about our pain-free life. We would be like some spoiled “silver spoon” billionaire's son who never fully appreciated a delicious meal and stylish, roomy houses and fine clothes because he had never experienced anything else. The result would be a serious evil: the evil of non-appreciation.

It's easy to say that this would not be a big factor, but some simple math suggests otherwise. Let's imagine a person named John who has a 70 year life with some unhappiness and hardships, followed by a million year afterlife of heavenly bliss. Then let's imagine a person named Bill who experiences nothing but a million and 70 years of comfort and happiness. Suppose that John's experience with unhappiness and hardships makes him enjoy his afterlife 10% more because he appreciates it more. The result may be that John experiences a total net amount of happiness more than 9% greater than Bill experiences, even taking into account John's 70 years of unhappiness.

The Evil of Low Diversity

Nowadays many people regard diversity as a good. For example, colleges often proudly say: we don't want uniformity and homogeneity in our college; we value diversity. Diversity is a good thing. We might say that one of our universe's best characteristics is its very high degree of diversity. On our planet we have a very high degree of diversity in life forms and in human beings. But the universe offers much richer diversity.

Considering the universe as a whole, we might consider with awe the staggering degree of diversity it contains. There is a diversity of life forms, a diversity of histories, a diversity of physical locations, an unimaginable degree of variety. This has non-trivial consequences. For one thing, it means that exploring different planets in the universe (whether physically or by receiving radio or television signals) will prove to be a source of endless abundant pleasure and fascination, because there is such a huge variety of planets.

But imagine there isn't so much variety. Imagine things are much, much more monochromatic, because every planet is in a state of perfection. This lack of variation and variety is itself a certain type of evil, which we might call the evil of low diversity. 
 

All Possible Universes Have Serious Evils

These considerations lead to an important conclusion: viewing a universe from a proper perspective that includes huge vistas of time, it must be said that every possible universe has serious evils. While a perpetually pleasant pain-free universe may seem like an “evil free” universe if one considers it at a single instant of time (the snapshot fallacy), as soon as we fully and vividly imagine that universe persisting on in such a state for billions of years, we realize that such a universe would actually have serious evils such as the ones I have listed. One cannot evade such a consequence by imagining that the “evil free” universe lasts for a relatively short length of time, for such a universe would then have the evil of death, and the evil of its one demise. Nor can we imagine a truly evil-free universe by imagining an unpopulated universe, as that universe would have its own evils such as evils of low-diversity and evils of non-experience.

I may note that my list of five evils of an "evil free" universe is by no means complete. There are no doubt quite a few others that I have not mentioned.

But while a perpetually pleasant universe would have the evils I have mentioned, would it not be better than our universe? That depends on various unknowns regarding our universe. Some of the unknowns are as follows:

1. Is there a life after death?
2. If there is a life after death, how long does it last?
3. If there is a life after death, what percentage of people experience bliss in such an afterlife?
4. If someone first experiences earthly sadness and then moves on to a blissful state in an afterlife, will he enjoy such a state only slightly more (because of greater appreciation and contrast), or will he enjoy it very much more?
5. Do the civilized species on planets such as ours eventually reach a state of great abundance and comfort because of scientific and technical progress?
6. Do such civilized species typically exist in such a state for a period many times longer (possibly thousands of times longer) than the time length that they exist in widespread discomfort?
7. If the latter hypothesis is true, could it be that the number of civilized species now existing in abundance and comfort is many times greater than the number of civilized species such as ours (considering the universe as a whole)? What is the ratio between these two numbers? Could it be as high as 100 to 1 or 1000 to 1, given the great age of the universe?
8. For the average person living in our universe, what is the ratio between the number of years spent living in happiness and the number of years spent living in unhappiness (including time spent living in an afterlife)?

Under some sets of answers to these questions, we might judge that a perpetually pleasant universe is superior to our own universe. Under other plausible sets of answers to these questions, it might be right to judge that a perpetually pleasant universe is no better than our universe, or inferior to our universe. This point can easily be supported with specific hypothetical examples, but I will save that for another blog post. Here I may briefly note that in any universe in which the ratio of happiness to misery is very high (say 100 to 1 or 1000 to 1), considered over a billion-year time span, there is a large possibility that the existence of suffering and pain may be ultimately justifiable largely on the grounds that it leads to a greater net ratio of happiness compared to unhappiness or pleasure compared to pain, partially because of factors discussed above. Because of the possibility of an afterlife, and the possibility that our planet is untypical (being inhabited by an unusually primitive civilization), it is entirely possible that we live in a such a universe. The possibility of an afterlife cannot be excluded in such a discussion, as it is a possible consequence of the existence of a deity, which is exactly what is being debated.

We do not know the answers to the questions listed above. So we are in no position to judge whether our universe is inferior to some perpetually pleasant universe that we can imagine. This is one reason why the main argument for atheism (the argument from evil) is not valid. Another reason the argument is not valid is that a theist can defeat it (with great simplicity) by simply conceding the possibility of a deity with somewhat less than infinite power.

The Professor's Cosmic Confusions

There was an interview in the New York Times a few days ago with Tim Maudlin. The topic was the relation between religious ideas and modern cosmology. Since Maudlin is a professor of philosophy at New York University, and the author of a book on the philosophy of physics, readers might have expected some keen insights, but what they got instead was very shaky reasoning. 

Maudlin spends the first part of the interview trying to suggest that cosmology has discredited religious thinking because it shows that the universe is very big, that man is not the center of the universe, and that the universe was not created specifically for the human species. Maudlin asserts, “Theism, as religious people typically hold it, does not merely state that some entity created the universe, but that the universe was created specifically with humans in mind as the most important part of creation.“ This is what is called a straw man argument, an attempt to discredit something by presenting some ridiculous caricature of it. Not many serious astronomically-literate thinkers of the past fifty years have maintained that our vast universe was created mainly for the sake of the human species, or that man is the most important species in the universe. Theism may simply be defined as the belief that some higher power created the universe. The outdated belief that man is the most important part of the universe is an entirely separate belief that is not at all a consequence of theism. Discrediting that outdated belief does absolutely nothing to discredit theism.

The interviewer then mentions that some have argued that the universe's fundamental constants seem to be fine-tuned (as discussed here), and that may suggest that the universe was designed by some intelligence interested in having intelligent creatures exist. Here is Maudlin's reply:

Our physical theories contain quite a large number of “constants of nature,” of which we have no deeper account. There seem to be more of them than most physicists are comfortable with, and we don’t know for sure whether these “constants” are really constant rather than variable. This gives rise to questions about “fine-tuning” of these constants. One thing to keep in mind is that the true number and status of the “constants of nature” is not part of any well-established physical theory: It is part of what we don’t yet know rather than what we do know...Since we don’t even know if the “constants” are constant, we certainly don’t know enough to draw any conclusions about the best account of why they have the particular values they have right now and around here. Since we don’t know how the various “constants” might be related to each other by deeper physics, the game of trying to figure out the effect of changing just one and leaving the rest alone also is not well founded.

These statements are a combination of misinformed falsehoods and irrelevancies. Very far from being “part of what we don't yet know rather than what we do know,” the fundamental constants are some of the more well-understood aspects of nature. We pretty much know everything about them except why they have the numerical values that they have. We know the fundamental constants of nature (things such as the gravitational constant, the proton charge, the proton mass, and the speed of light) so well that we have measured their values to six decimal places or more, as shown in the table below. Maudlin's claim that the constants of nature are “not part of any well-established physical theory” is hilarious. The constants of nature are, in fact, fundamental parts of the most well-established theories in modern science: Einstein's theory of special relativity, Einstein's theory of general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of Physics. We also know with a very high likelihood that the constants of nature have varied by almost no amount over the course of billions of years. Studies of quasars and isotopes typically produce a result such as a variation of less than 1 part in 100,000 over a billion years. Whether they vary by a very tiny amount over billions of years is irrelevant to discussions of whether such fine-tuned constants support the idea that the universe was purposefully created.

“Trying to figure out the effect of changing just one [constant] and leaving the rest alone” is not a game, but a perfectly serious scientific task which quite a few scientists have engaged in over the past five decades, publishing their results in scientific papers (100 examples can be found here). Far from being “not well founded,” such results are numerically rigorous and as well-founded as any other scientific results. In short, almost everything Maudlin says on this topic is off-base.

Fundamental physical constants

Maudlin also reasons as follows:

One thing is for sure: If there were some deity who desired that we know of its existence, there would be simple, clear ways to convey that information. I would say that any theistic argument that starts with the constants of nature cannot end with a deity who is interested in us knowing of its existence.

This argument is irrelevant because whether a creator wants us to know of his existence is a separate issue from whether such a creator exists. It is entirely possible that there exists a creator who is not particularly interested in whether tiny small-brained bit-player creatures such as us are certain of that creator's existence at this point in our development. A theist could also argue that the creator has left signs of his work in nature (the Big Bang, the exact equality of the proton charge and electron charge, the extreme fine-tuning of the cosmological constant, the improbable smoothness of the universe, and so forth), and that the gradual unveiling of such signs over decades (with the help of science) is ultimately more uplifting than some one-shot affair of seeing something like a “God exists” sign in the sky.

Perhaps realizing that he has failed to shoot down the idea that the universe's fine-tuning may suggest a cosmic creator, Maudlin then resorts to the favorite last resort of the champions of blind chance: a theory of an infinity (or near-infinity) of other universes. When all else fails, pull a multiverse out of your hat. Maudlin concedes that “this idea is highly speculative, and there is no direct evidence in its favor. “ One might also add that postulating an infinity of universes fails from the standpoint of Occam's Razor (“entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”), because it leads you to the most complicated explanation possible rather than the simplest explanation. Moreover, a multiverse fails as an explanation because it postulates a situation in which there may be a likelihood of some universe being habitable, but does not change the odds of our universe being habitable, which are exactly the same regardless of whether a multiverse exists. There is also the fact that while we know many things are due to coincidence and we know that many things are due to design, in the history of explanation there is not one verified case of anything being successfully explained by assuming a multiverse; so in that sense a multiverse explanation is not on solid intellectual ground. We may also wonder: if Maudlin doesn't think the fine-tuning of physical constants is such a big deal (as he suggests), then why he is going to the extreme of suggesting a vast number of universes to try to explain it?  

Discussing whether the Big Bang (the sudden origin of the universe about 13 billion years ago) may support the idea that the universe had a creator, Maudlin says, “I think we don’t know enough to make any plausible guess about even whether there was an initial state, much less what it might have been. This goes beyond what we have good evidence or theory for.” Most cosmologists would disagree with that statement. Such scientists say that we do have good evidence that the universe suddenly began about 13 billion years ago in the event called the Big Bang. The evidence includes the cosmic background radiation and the expansion of the universe (“rewinding the tape” on a universe in which galaxies are all flying farther and farther apart from each other leads inevitably to a point of sudden origin in a state of incredible density).

Schematic diagram of Big Bang and expanding universe

There is abundant evidence that something like the Big Bang was the beginning of our universe, which is why Penzias and Wilson won the Nobel Prize. There may be some small degree of uncertainty in regard to this beginning, a little wiggle room for doubt, but it is not accurate to claim as Maudlin does that “we don’t know enough to make any plausible guess about even whether there was an initial state.” We do have enough not just to make a plausible guess, but to make a high-probability conclusion: the evidence very clearly indicates us that there very probably was a sudden beginning 13 billion years ago. It also indicates that the initial physical state of the universe had "an enormous amount of fine-tuning," in the words of a recent scientific paper on the topic, discussed here.

Maudlin also states, “As yet, there is no direct experimental evidence of a deity, and in order for the postulation of a deity to play an explanatory role there would have to be a lot of detail about how it would act.” But, in fact, modern scientists do grant an explanatory role for things for which there is no direct experimental evidence, even when they don't have any details about such things or how they act. Two such things are dark matter and dark energy, both of which are completely mysterious, not understood in any detail, and not things that have been confirmed by any experiment. Scientists are willing to adopt completely vague ideas of the likely existence of dark matter and dark energy, without any details, because they find postulating such things useful in explaining certain hard-to-explain characteristics of our universe. So by requiring a “lot of detail” about an explanatory factor before making an explanatory assumption, Maudlin is setting up some artificially high hurdle for the hypothesis of a divine creator, one that scientific assumptions are not required to meet.

Postscript: A huge team of scientists (the Planck satellite team) has just released a paper finding that two of the fundamental constants of nature (the fine structure constant and the electron mass) have changed by less than 1 percent since the beginning of the universe.