Worldview Obstacle Course Racing (WOCR)

One way to think about worldview comparison is along the lines of an obstacle course race. A worldview is simply a “Big Picture” theory of everything. Philosophers engaged in worldview comparison are ultimately trying to determine which worldview makes the most sense of experience — that is, how well do they explain “ large-scale” features of reality.

Consider worldviews like classical theism (= hypothesis of perfection) and naturalism (= hypothesis of indifference) to be the obstacle course race competitors. And take the relevant explanatory targets – say, contingency, consciousness, moral facts and knowledge, etc. – to be obstacles the competitors must clear.

The goal is to clear the obstacles before the other competitor and with just one’s natural ability. That is, with just what one would expect from a rudimentary or “bare” classical theism or naturalism. On the other hand, if someone must equip their competitor with special equipment to overcome each obstacle, that’s a complication of their theory (adjunct hypothesis type stuff) and frequently disqualifying because of how it lowers the intrinsic likelihood of their theory.

To list just some of the obstacles that any serious worldview must overcome (explain):

-        Contingency (that something exists that needn’t)

-        Consciousness

-        Rationality

-        Knowledge

-        Moral facts

-        Moral knowledge

-        Physical fine-tuning

-        Complexly ordered living systems

-        Love

-        Suffering and Evil

Importantly, obstacles often come in a particular order, and must be cleared in that order — competitors can’t skip around however they like. For example, if some worldview cannot explain the emergence of consciousness, then it does not even get the chance to explain the emergence of suffering, since suffering is logically dependent upon consciousness. Such a worldview would have been eliminated from the race before that latter obstacle could be attempted. (This observation is highly relevant, though frequently overlooked, when it comes to evaluating the Problem of Evil, for if naturalism is “stuck” at some prior obstacle – and there are many obstacles prior to suffering – then even if classical theism offers only a very weak explanation of suffering, a very weak explanation is still better than no explanation.)

Now, if a worldview fails to explain some explanatory target – that is, cannot offer any plausible account – that worldview is eliminated from the race. Such is the equivalent of falling off the rolling log and into the water in American Ninja Warrior — you’re done, son. From there, assuming the other competitor can clear the remaining obstacles, even with immense struggle, then that competitor wins. On the other hand, if a worldview struggles to explain some explanatory target – that is, if it offers a rather weak or questionable explanation – that worldview lags behind the other. Maybe that competitor still finishes, but it doesn’t finish first.

Of course, it may be that the competitors frequently go back and forth, with each doing better on some obstacles than others. For example, perhaps theism clears the obstacle of contingency easily but is slowed down significantly by suffering and evil, where naturalism catches up, or even pulls ahead.

However, I don’t think that is right.

My suggestion (the entire focus of my forthcoming book, in fact) is that a rudimentary classical theism can clear all relevant obstacles with slickness and ease. The root of classical of theism predicts everything above (God, as a being of pure perfection, strongly anticipates a world like ours, even a world with a distribution of suffering like ours, once the underlying principles, and their probable consequences, are properly grasped), whereas a rudimentary naturalism predicts none of it. Naturalism must be strapped with special equipment (many an adjunct hypothesis, as it were) to stay in the race, and even when that is done, naturalism still cannot clear certain hurdles and struggles seriously with others.

To give just one example, let us consider the the fact that something exists but (for all we know) need not have. That is, the fact of contingency.

That something exists is undeniable, but surprising. Why should anything exist? Why isn’t everything… blank? Classical theism provides a good explanation of this phenomena, but seeing why requires understanding what God is. God is a being with a necessary nature, whose essence just is its existence. In other words, God exists because God cannot not exist. That something must exist explains why anything does exist. Further, that something must exist – that is, that something has as necessary nature – is explained by a being (namely, God) whose essence is simply “to be,” and that is purely actual (has no potency for non-existence) and non-composite (hence does not require an extrinsic unifier of parts, physical or metaphysical). All that is to say God is an entity which does not fall under any of the usual categories of things requiring an external cause, of entities that are restrictedly intelligible and pointing beyond themselves for some source of their existence.

Moreover, we can see (by definition and logic) that not everything can be caused. After all, if everything (even collectively) were caused, then we would need something beyond everything to act as cause. Beyond everything, however, is nothing. Thus, not everything can be caused. So, there must be at least one uncaused thing. What could be uncaused? Answer: something could be uncaused if its nature is self-sufficient rather than dependent. How can something be self-sufficient? Answer: because it has a necessary nature. But how can something have a necessary nature? Answer: because its nature not only includes but is identical to the simple act of existence, existing through itself. This is the hypothesis of classical theism – that there is a being whose essence or nature is not really distinct from its act of existence – and this hypothesis not only makes probable, but entails, that something (at least one thing) will exist. Namely, God. That gives us a necessary existent, and contingent existents flow from God’s free creative act. (Creation is anticipated by way of other principles, such as the convertibility of being and goodness and that the good is naturally self-diffusive; with these in place, it becomes not unlikely that God – qua subsistent being and subsistent goodness – would create, including a world like ours that features other persons, though God is demanded to create).  

What’s more, classical theism is an extremely simple theory, since it posits just one fundamental entity that is absolutely, ontologically simple (not composed of parts). No naturalistic theory can make such a powerful prediction with as much theoretical simplicity at the fundamental level. Atheism just says God does not exist. But ask yourself: does saying God does not exist cause us to expect anything else will exist? Surely not. Thus, atheism must begin building more into their theory – that is, making matters more complicated. The atheist will have to say something exists and explain what and why (that is, begin building their theory of naturalism, which is philosophical atheism), and whatever they posit at the fundamental level must 1) exclude God and 2) be more complicated than God. Why? Because God, as pure perfection, is the simplest fundamental reality conceivable; thus, to exclude God means positing a fundamental reality that is inherently imperfect and more theoretically complicated (contains arbitrary limits and boundaries). For God has all possible power, all possible knowledge, all possible value and goodness – he is the limit case instance of each, completely unbounded. Moreover, all (infinite) or none (zero) are simple descriptions, whereas anything with arbitrary cut offs, which requires more information to explain, is inherently more complicated. For the naturalistic theory to exclude (compete with) classical theism, it cannot posit a fundamental entity with all possible power, since all possible power would include all possible knowledge (since the power to know is, after all, a power). But naturalism cannot posit a fundamental entity with no power either, because then it couldn’t produce or explain anything. Thus, whatever the naturalist posits, it must be an entity with some degree of power, whatever that is. Maybe it has just enough power to produce exactly the number of ergs of energy our universe has, and no more. Notice, however, that that theory is not only more complicated than classical theism, it posits something that would crucially seem to require a deeper explanation: why just that amount of power and no more? So the naturalistic theory ultimately explains less even with more complexity.

Moreover, even if the naturalist, in following the theist, wants to say something exists because something must exist, they cannot provide a principled explanation for why something must exist like classical theism does, or why something has a necessary nature. After all, the traditional argument for classical theism is that the only thing that could make sense as a necessary existent is something which escapes entirely the usual categories of things requiring a cause – and the only thing that could do that is a being with no real distinction between its essence (what it is) and existence (that it is) and is non-composite and purely actual. If correct, then naturalism, even with increased complexity, cannot explain as much as theism, particularly when it comes to the question of How Come Anything?

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