A friend of mine in Ratio Christi here in Phoenix asked me about where I’ve written about Graham Oppy. You can find my analysis of his views in two of the chapters in my early book “The Clarity of God’s Existence” as well as a review of his book “Arguing About Gods” that I wrote. Because I had written about him in “Clarity,” and because I wanted my ideas reviewed not just by those who are sympathetic but by the best known philosophers who would disagree with me, I asked Oppy to review “Clarity” for the journal Sophia way back in 2009. He was kind enough to do so and the outcome was what I would have predicted.
I haven’t kept up with Oppy since that time but given what I had read in “Arguing About Gods” his review of my book was more along the same lines. We cannot know if God exists, therefore unbelief is definitely not inexcusable, it is preposterous to say that unbelief is inexcusable, and if Christianity is to make any sense it must do so by giving up any claims about redemption and unbelief as a sin.
What is interesting about that response is it is what I predicted in the book. My argument wasn’t directly that it is clear that God exists, but instead that if unbelief is without excuse then it must be clear that God exists. I noted that philosophers/theologians who deny it is clear that God exists also modify the claim that unbelief is without excuse and instead say something like we need Christ as an example (usually one among many such examples-pluralism). An important part of my work was to show how this equation works out in various thinkers and it turns out it also applies to Oppy.
I did make suggestions on how it might be argued that unbelief is without excuse. I also argued that it is an important part of historic Christianity as summarized in the Westminster Confession of Faith. There the opening line is that the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God so as to leave men without excuse.
Oppy struggles on the first step of showing that God is eternal. Specifically, in showing that something must be eternal. The contradiction to “something is eternal” is that “nothing is eternal.” He suggests that perhaps “nothing is eternal” in the sense that there is not an individual being that is eternal but instead that there is a beginningless expanse of temporal beings. Of course, then something is eternal, namely, the expanse. So that isn’t the same as “nothing is eternal” at all. Why didn’t he see this?
He then struggles with the idea of the distinction between being and non-being, including that perhaps imaginary things are somehow non-being. But of course these exist as ideas in the mind so they are not the same as non-being. Why did he miss this distinction?
He also has a hard time on why a contradiction isn’t meaningful and leads to silence. He suggests that he could make contradictory claims about his breakfast but they are still about something (his breakfast). However, the specifics of the claims are not meaningful. If he were to say “I had breakfast today” and also “I didn’t have breakfast today” he isn’t yet saying anything about what he did today. Did he or did he not have breakfast? On that point he is silent and hasn’t said anything meaningful. Why didn’t he catch this?
His observations continue in this fashion with comments that are easily replied to. Why didn’t he wrestle with the central point of the book? Why didn’t he think about the relationship between knowledge of God and inexcusability? I have an idea about this.
At the end of his review he says: “It seems to me to be a very hard saying to claim that the central truth of Christianity is that unbelief is inexcusable. While it is understandable how a religion whose central claim is that we are all loved by our Creator–and that we are all destined to spend eternity in His embrace, having been forgiven for the many wrongs that we have done–has widespread appeal, I cannot see how a religion whose central claim is that unbelief is inexcusable could gain widespread assent.”
That is to agree with the original point of my book. Oppy doesn’t think that it is clear that God exists and so what would appeal to him is a kind of universal pluralism. But that is just a statement about Oppy and his preferences not about reality and what is clear about God’s existence. Oppy himself does not believe he has done anything wrong in this area and so rejects the idea that he needs redemption for unbelief.
And that’s what is so interesting about this paragraph. Oppy doesn’t think that the central claims of Christianity are about redemption from sin through Christ? And yet he says “forgiven for the many wrongs we have done.” Well what are these wrongs? Why are they wrong? If they are wrong then is the person without excuse? Do these include the failure to know what can be known about God (think of the greatest commandment to love God)?
Paul said it this way: For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). Oppy may object to making the crucifixion and the need for atonement central to Christianity but Paul does not object to that. I suspect he felt this tension: if it is true that unbelief is without excuse then this applies to Oppy and he needs redemption. It means he hasn’t sought God as he should have and has no excuse for this. But the other alternative is for him to double down on his skeptical position and deny that anything is clear about God.
Apparently Oppy thinks that it is plausible that we have done some things wrong and need forgiveness. Does he object to that forgiveness requiring the death of Christ? Then his objection isn’t simply with me.