In my previous message I raised a number of objections against the simulation hypothesis. The first was the proposal that “the moon is a hollow alien space station” which is a claim that later becomes defended by ad hoc explanations to the point that it is no longer falsifiable. Even if one were to present evidence to the contrary or in order to explain why there is no evidence for it is because “the aliens deceive us.” Those who are not skeptical enough towards proposals without evidence are very vulnerable to conspiracy theories and bad philosophy. In fact, some of these cases result from lowering the evidential demand too low, when in general the skeptical move is to raise the bar. And in other respects places more certainty on claims that have less evidence and less certainty on claims with more evidence. I would argue that this is an inversion of an otherwise grounded approach of increasing our credence in the light of increasing evidence. One might refer to such an approach as common sense.
And if a radical skeptic wishes to push the bar as high as it can go, then he must abandon the simulation hypothesis, but must be careful not to push the bar so high that it can no longer defend itself, if it can even be defended at all (the weight of radical skepticism's own scrutiny collapses in on itself.) But this would not only apply to evidences but to rational demonstration. If the simulation hypothesis eliminates the reliability of evidences, it also eliminates the reliability of all rationality, and if so we cannot trust any rational demonstration either for the hypothesis itself or to the formation of a radical skeptical approach.
In order for the proposition “radical agnosticism and skepticism taken to the extreme” to have any meaning, we must at least be able to know what we are thinking about when we formulate the proposition. If I cannot have any confidence that my thoughts correspond to what I think they correspond to, then I cannot even be certain that I am entertaining the proposition I believe I am entertaining. You may think that you are imagining a simulator, but you very well could actually be imagining an aardvark in southern Africa 50 years ago. There would at least need to be some correlation between what we are imagining and what we think we are imagining. Otherwise, the skeptic has undermined the very cognitive faculties by which he formulates his skepticism.
Consider another proposal similar to the simulation hypothesis. Let's say it is argued “we see the trajectory of the advancement of technology and we can imagine that it has already been achieved, and we are in that simulation.” Now consider the proposal that we have already reached the year 3526 at which time a quantum time manipulating device was invented, and once used restarted the timeline to before the emergence of observers and floating out in the great distance of space is this device which one day we might encounter, but yet never have observed. Or worse, the device which would have been our evidence was destroyed once it was caught in the gravitational field of a star. Any number of interesting proposals can be made along the lines of the “advancement of technology” argument.
Likewise, the film Supernova posits that once we travel far enough into space, we will eventually find an alien artifact that, when accidentally triggered, sends a shockwave back toward the ship’s point of origin and restarts the process of life on Earth. The artifact is essentially a means of eliminating competing alien races before they can advance far enough to become a threat. As a fan of science fiction, I have encountered so many possible scenarios that when entertained without evidence raises serious questions. But before we allow our imagination to get too carried away, a skeptic would usually not consider any such proposals as serious contenders for truth until there is evidential justification.
Secondly, I proposed several Cartesian skeptical scenarios. The most famous of which is Descartes' evil-demon hypothesis found in his Meditations. He tried to imagine an all-powerful evil demon systematically deceiving him, casting radical doubt upon the reliability of his senses, his memory, and even his ability to know basic mathematical truths. After proposing the hypothesis he reasoned that if he is being deceived then there must be an “I” that is being deceived which led to his famous line: “Cogito, ergo sum”. I think, therefore I am. It is from here that he then moved to what the “I” can know, then he proposes the ontological argument for God and concludes that the existence of an all-good, all-powerful Being would ensure that he was not in fact being systematically deceived. Now, I did not propose this scenario because I do not think there are objections against it that ultimately succeed, but it is a demonstration of one reasoning from within a skeptical framework trying to work their way out of it.
Thirdly, I proposed that “simulation theory is not a mere neutral proposal”. There are several philosophical positions that must be true in order for the simulation hypothesis to be a real possibility. This is to say that the simulation hypothesis is not immune to the need to establish philosophical justification. In fact, there remains the burden to demonstrate these positions and to defend itself against objections, and where it critiques positions to the contrary need to succeed. That a Cartesian skeptical scenario can be proposed to dismiss the reliability of empirical evidence is not to say that it actually succeeds in achieving the goal for which it was proposed. In other words, the conceivability of an idea does not necessarily mean that it is logically or even metaphysically possible, but even to be probable must have greater evidential support than its alternatives; and what happens to probability when there is no evidence at all. If a proposal has little to no evidence then we should have lower credence, and it would be unreasonable to say that anything with little to no evidence is more probable than not. As I said “if radical skepticism undermines our ability to establish those preconditions, it undermines the epistemic basis of the simulation hypothesis.”
“That theory is essentially the philosophical equivalent of a thought terminating cliché. It is radical agnosticism and skepticism taken to the extreme, and when introduced into a discussion, it renders the gathering and analysis of evidence pointless, because the reality we think we experience could just be fake.”
This is basically what it means to propose a Cartesian skeptical scenario. The weakness of such ideas is that they are a priori appeals based on evidence that the appeal itself says is unreliable. As I stated in my previous reply, without independent evidence for the initial appeal, subsequent defenses simply become ad hoc i.e., additional theories introduced to preserve the original a priori proposal rather than independently establishing its truth. You first assume the skeptical scenario, and then construct explanations that make the scenario compatible with everything we observe. But those explanations do not independently support the scenario; they merely protect the original assumption from certain kinds of refutation. (I will revisit a similar approach for theism a bit later.)
Now let's just assume for a moment your appeal, what must be metaphysically true of the real world in order for the appeal to be possible? This remains the lingering question demanding an answer. Also, is there any correlation between the simulated world and the real world? Arguably yes. Given fine-tuning, beauty, music, etc, which we perceive within the supposed simulation is also presupposed to exist in some manner in the real world in order for the simulator to work, i.e., what must be metaphysically true? So even the simulation theorist is not beyond having reasonable knowledge of the real world. As I stated in my previous response that there is a list of philosophical positions that must be true in order for simulation theory to even work as a possibility. So based upon this, I would argue, that even the simulation theorist, if they are fully committed to its conclusions, cannot take a skeptical posture, least of all one which “is radical agnosticism and skepticism taken to the extreme.” In fact, become even more extreme and simply dismiss the simulation hypothesis altogether, especially since its acceptance can be used as a basis to temper one's skepticism.
Originally I wanted to lay out that the hypothesis itself is in part constructed from empirical observation from our experience, but if that experience is fake, then it would be unreliable to tell us anything about the real world. In other words, the simulation hypothesis derives its conceptual content from empirical knowledge while simultaneously being used as a reason to radically distrust the empirical knowledge from which its conceptual content was derived. But then I thought that in this case simulation theory does not automatically produce radical skepticism. To get from “we might be simulated” to “we cannot know anything about reality,” the simulation theorist needs an additional epistemological argument showing that the simulated world is systematically disconnected from the reality producing it. In fact, if I am correct, perhaps you start with radical skepticism and then reason that since empirical observation is already suspect then why not gravitate towards a theory that explains why it is suspect. Perhaps radical skepticism as an epistemological methodology is not strong enough on its own, or needs some further justification?
I could reasonably argue that there would exist a high degree of symmetry between the simulator and the order and structure of the real world that would be required for a computer to actually function as a simulator. We could reason from simulated evidences to real world philosophical implications, in fact, it would be demanded, if we were to be consistent. If the structure and order of our simulated world can provide reasonable grounds for conclusions about the reality that lies beyond it, then our experience cannot simply be dismissed as epistemically worthless merely because it might be simulated. We would instead have to determine which inferences from the simulated world to the real world are legitimate and which are not, and this would be true because of the philosophical positions that must be true of the real world, especially if we could build ourselves a simulator like in the film Free Guy. But once we begin making such distinctions, i.e., what would and would not be legitimate inferences, then we have already moved away from radical skepticism and toward an epistemology that allows for genuine knowledge of reality, even if that knowledge is mediated through a simulated world. As I stated, if we must assume a great deal about the nature of the real world in order to be philosophically consistent in order to substantiate the existence of a simulator then this conclusion is unavoidable.
Additionally, you would need to apply the same criteria consistently both to the simulated world and to the proposal itself. Even in making the proposal you are already making a claim of knowledge about the real world, or at least to some eventual real world (The possibility exists that like Inception we could be four layers down with simulations within simulations.) And this scenario would require a high degree of similarity between the simulator in the real world with the simulator in the simulation running its own simulation. More on this in a moment.) But are you applying a radical skepticism to the thesis itself? To say nothing of whether or not radical skepticism as an approach can withstand being subjected to itself. But I must ask precisely what exists as a logical priority within your mind? Are you an adherent of simulation hypothesis and therefore conclude your skepticism because all evidences would be simulated or are you an adherent to radical skepticism and have found simulation theory to coincide with that epistemological approach? And how do you arrive at such a logical hierarchy if one goes as far as to say that even logic is unreliable? Or how are you even capable of following my train of thought if it is not governed by fixed logical rules which allow for the communication of thought? This also raises the question of what form of simulation theory you are proposing, e.g., are we in a Matrix scenario or are we in a Free Guy scenario and are merely code? What must be philosophically true in either case would need to be demonstrated.
Now assuming for a moment that we are in an Inception scenario in relation to layers of a simulation within a simulation. Such a series of simulations could not exist in an infinite regress, and so at some point we would arrive at the real world. And if it can be shown that some degree of correlation exists between the simulated world and the real world, then the argument for God's existence from contingency still works within the real world even if the starting point is from within a simulated world, in fact, given what must be metaphysically true of the real world in order for a simulator to exist, then the real world is itself contingent. This means that whether we live in a simulator or in the real world, we could still be a theist, we could call such a view theistic simulationism.
I will lay out the argument this way: the simulation is filled with contingent things, the simulator is also a contingent thing, and at some point the simulator in the real world is a contingent thing. Now contingent things cannot bring themselves into existence but are brought into existence by another. That is to say that they are not the cause of themselves. The entire simulated world is itself contingent, and the simulator would be its cause. But this would not explain why nothing is not the case as it relates to the real world. The simulator would require an explanation for its existence. We could then posit a super intelligent race of beings who invented the simulator. Now at this point in the explanation we are philosophically sitting precisely where we would be had there been no simulation at all. Every argument from evidences which I could make based on my observations would apply to the alien race observing their own world.
A similar argument could be made that our planet was seeded by an alien race, and maybe that race was seeded by another, but at some point we still need to go much farther in our explanations. In the real world, wherever it may be, requires an explanation for its existence. Why? Because no contingent thing can be its own cause. Now suppose someone says that the entire set of all contingent things is itself necessary, then it must be shown how in this precise case a collection as a whole can have an attribute which is not contained in any of its members. Suppose someone says it is an emergent property such as when we combine two hydrogen atoms with one oxygen atom. Neither hydrogen nor oxygen are wet. But necessity cannot arise from the mere aggregation of things that are individually non-necessary. Metaphysical necessity cannot be explained merely as an emergent property of a collection of contingent beings, because while emergence can explain features arising from the organization or interaction of contingent constituents, necessity concerns WHY the whole cannot fail to exist in the first place.
One of the reasons someone might gravitate towards simulation theory is that it offers to them some degree of explanatory power. The same is true of one who postulates the origin of life on our planet to the seeding by an alien race. They all attempt to offer some explanation, some sufficient reason that explains reality. But are not such proposals insufficient to explain beyond themselves? Would we not be more satisfied with a unitary theory of everything, one which uniformly draws into itself the totality of reality, one which gives a sufficient reason why there is something rather than nothing? The argument from contingency presents such a conclusion by positing something that is necessary which grounds why any contingent thing ultimately exists. While an accidentally ordered causal chain could in theory exist as an infinite regress (though some analytic philosophers would reject this claim), such a causal chain must exist as part of an essentially ordered causal chain, one which terminates in necessity. So whether we live in a simulation or in the real world, the real world demands an explanation for why anything exists at all, why is there something rather than nothing. Such a position could be maintained even by the theistic simulationist. (For the moment I will forego the nature of this necessary being but on theism, this is what we call God. And this proposal also addresses the false problem of “what caused God”.)
In all actuality, the simulation hypothesis is a form of intelligent design. It posits that the reason why everything is so finely tuned is because it has a designer who is intelligent, and the intricacies of the design which we experience would evince just how intelligent that designer actually is, and tells us a great deal about attributes that this designer must have in order to produce this outcome. But why stop at the intelligent designer of the simulation, why not go further and posit an intelligent designer of the real world? In some sense the simulated world serves as a microcosm, or at the very least as something analogous to the real world, and the search for that transcendent, intelligent designer calls for us nonetheless.
“I've personally concluded it is still the most reasonable position to take.”
Perhaps we should establish what it means for a position to be “most reasonable” because a prima facia analysis of the proposal suffers from a list of objections, many of which establish the defect of the starting point, being self-referentially defeating, undercuts its own putative evidences, and an ontological leap from conceivability to reality. One may easily think that such a position is not very reasonable at all. Typically when I think of reasonability, I am considering the nature of reason, and the means by which reason is applied. To its nature I would say that reason is a coherent structure which is both internally consistent and can withstand a reasonable amount of scrutiny. To the means I would say that I can consider an idea reasonable if rational demonstration can be put forth to justify it. But if it suffers under the weight of its own claims, whereby it collapses in on itself, then we are not moving towards rationality; we are sacrificing it on the altar of irrationality. And if this is the case then throw such ideas into the fire of rationality as sophistry and illusion.
Now it is granted that simply because objections can be raised doesn't necessarily mean that any of those objections actually succeeds. (I will come back to this point when I address the 'multiple religious options' objection.) But I will say that I think that any objection that can demonstrate internal inconsistency is a genuine defeater, which means that one must modify their position in accordance with reason or must abandon the idea altogether as unreasonable. I would additionally add that moving from conceivability to reasonable certainty requires a bit of philosophical work, but if one's position does not allow for any genuine philosophizing then it is nonfalsifiable. Again, granting that nonfalsifiability does not eliminate the possibility, but it does weaken the force of the argument, and if it is weakened then very possibly it is not the “most reasonable”, especially if alternatives exist which are more reasonable. Besides, why not just go all in and apply radical skepticism to “the most reasonable position” and say, “I can't know if it is the most reasonable”.
“I remember awhile back you asked what kind of agnostic I was. Am I the kind that says "I don't know," or am I the kind that says "I can't know"? Again, I've settled on the most extreme position and would argue that I indeed can't know.”
I would state this a bit differently. I would say that being agnostic on a certain point is not the same as agnosticism. We are all agnostic as to anything we do not know, simply because we presently lack gnosis. Soft agnosticism, however, is an epistemological position which says “I don't know if we can know” while not making the claim that what is under consideration is unknowable, it simply pushes the lack of knowledge back one level. And to be honest, I think this is a real condition in which one might find themselves. I find such a position to be very reasonable because it could in fact correlate to a real state of affairs, i.e., one may genuinely not know if they can know or not. It touches upon the idea of unknowability as being a real possibility, but not a certainty. But unlike soft agnosticism, which I think can be reasoned with and potentially drawn toward knowledge, what I would call hard agnosticism makes an entirely different claim: “we can know that we cannot know.” I think this proposition suffers from the same kind of problems as one who says, “we can know that God does not exist.” In both cases, the person is making a claim about the limits of knowledge that seems to require precisely the kind of knowledge they are denying is possible. If we take the claim to mean that we can know that nothing can be known, then it is clearly self-contradictory. This is similar to the statement “all is relative,” which cannot itself be relative if it is being asserted as an absolute truth. So let us propose instead: “the only thing we can know is that we cannot know anything else.”
But this too suffers from the problem that knowledge, in order to be knowledge, must be connected to something real and is interconnected with other knowledge, but if no other knowledge is possible, then there is no way to interconnect it. For example, one cannot say they know this one thing without having to affirm that we also know that they know it, because if nothing else can be known then you cannot know that you know it, let alone recognize that you are known as a knower who knows things. Now this is not to say that there exists no proposition that is unknowable and we can know it to be such, but as a broad epistemological principle we cannot say the only thing known is that everything else is unknowable. Now we must modify the claim even further (and this analysis demonstrates that we must modify our view if an objection succeeds). If you could formulate the exact form of radical skepticism you maintain, pertaining to what, and the means you used to reason to it, then I could engage it directly.
Suppose we then say “we can know that everything else is unknowable EXCEPT what can be known in relation to the known.” But as soon as you begin to make this move then you are essentially drifting further from radical skepticism to a restricted form of epistemic realism. What we see here is that if the skeptic continues to move the goalposts in order to avoid self-refutation, then they start to admit that knowledge is possible under certain conditions, and now the skeptic must establish those conditions, offer justification for those conditions, and in doing so extend further than they initially allowed. Now, I am speaking here more generally, but perhaps you may not use radical skepticism as a blanket methodology but only applied to very specific cases, and if so what are the justifications for the specificity of its application? And do you propose: “this offers me the greatest explanatory power I have conceptualized so far”?
Now to this point, in the middle ages St. Anselm in his Cur Deus Homo (why God became man) he popularized what is called the ontological argument for the existence of God. In short, it states that we can conceptualize the highest possible conception, the greatest possible being, and even greater still is such a being who actually exists outside of the mind than merely within it, therefore such a being exists. (That we can conceptualize such, what explains why we can conceptualize it?) In one sense, you yourself are proposing a conception in the mind, that is a possible simulation, and that this conception offers you some degree of explanatory power. Is it the degree of explanatory power which draws you to simulation theory? If on this basis alone, then why not conceptualize something with even greater explanatory power? If this is the reason for the thesis, then it would be even more reasonable to conceptualize that which no greater can be conceived. Why stop short of that which no greater can be conceived? Especially if it offers even more explanatory power than a mere simulation.
Interestingly enough there seems to exist a correlation between the higher conceptualizations with the higher explanatory power. The higher and more comprehensive the conceptions toward which our intellect reaches, the greater their explanatory power. To be sure, it isn't the mere fact of a conception that makes that conception true in reality, and in fact, I do not think that is a feature of the argument I am setting forth. If, like yourself, you are using a priori reasoning to develop a conception to be used as an explanation, then why not ascend to the highest conception possible, one which no greater can be conceived; take your intellect directly to the furthest reaches of human conception. The mere fact that the intellect can reach this level of conceivability might indicate that what is being conceived actually correlates to something outside of the mind because our ability to do so also requires an explanation. Now if you are going to engage in a prior reason with the simulation thought experiment, it is only fair that I can engage in the exact same kind of reasoning to conceive that which no greater can be conceived which also happens to offer the greatest explanatory power, a unified theory of everything, and this is what I call God.
“As a wild example, even if God were supposedly to reveal Himself to me in the current life, I would always wonder in the back of my mind if it was due to a temporary bout with mental illness, a brief hallucination, part of the simulation, or...perhaps another possible explanation I just wasn't creative enough to think of?”
You would be right to exercise caution at the very least. As I previously stated “exercise caution, remain tentative in our conclusions while undergoing further study, and subject evidence to a proportional amount of fair-minded scrutiny.” In fact, along these lines, did you know that any time a supposed miracle, or Marian apparition, or possible demon possession that the Catholic Church requires that ALL naturalistic explanations be exhausted. In fact, if there is a supposed case of demon possession in a particular location, the local bishop will NOT permit the rite of exorcism be used unless all naturalistic factors have been evaluated. So unless the demon is speaking through the person, using knowledge that the person could not have known, or fluently speak languages they never learned, or began to levitate, or have strength that could not be contributed to the person, or become violently blasphemous in relation to religious things (such as physical pain when sprinkled with holy water), etc, then no exorcism will be performed. In fact, the priest may even test the person with non-holy water, under the guise that it was holy water, to see if they respond with revulsion to see if it is false. I understand that you may be very, very skeptical of such things, but my point is not here to defend any particular case as demonic, only to show that in some sense the Church itself offers as much caution as any reasonable person would and remain grounded in reality. But I also raise the issue because unlike a naturalist, a theistic simulationist might easily say that demonic possession is a feature programmed into the simulation. In other words, the idea of the demonic, while not a metaphysical possibility on naturalism is a possibility on simulation theory.
Now to the point of “always wondering”, I suppose this may have more to do with your intuitions than it has to do with whether or not it is possible for God to reveal Himself. If you do an introspective analysis would you possibly find that your agnosticism is more the product of an attitude, more the product of reasoning, a combination of the two, or a single factor? I agree, that there have been many people who have claimed that God has revealed something to them, in fact, there are those who not only merely claim it, but are genuinely sincere that He did. And in a lot of these cases, I find the claim to be suspect, especially when what they say God revealed is some ridiculous notion or some prophecy that was supposed to come true, and simply didn't! Or the ideas expressed are contrary to common sense or simply inconsistent with the history of Christian thought, etc. Joseph Smith made incredible claims about God, claimed to be a prophet, but I have very good reasons to reject his claims. In fact, if there were claims that were true, I would want to establish criteria which I can apply to each situation in order to determine if an alternative explanation is more likely. With that said, is it reasonable to “always wonder”? If you could establish your encounter with God 'beyond a reasonable doubt', would it still be reasonable to wonder? What exactly would that encounter have to be in order to establish this degree of certitude? To be sure, we can draw a distinction between absolute certainty which would entail the impossibility of error, and reasonable certainty by which we are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. What this means is that for the most part, and for most things, we reasonably accept many things for which we do not have absolute certainty, and yet, I would say that it would be unreasonable to reject something simply because we were not absolutely certain (whatever that would mean). I will add that while intuitions are good, and in some ways useful, they are vulnerable to cognitive penetration. What this means is that our intuitions can change upon rational demonstration. Not only this but our intuitions can be biased. For instance, if you say “I would be willing to accept any explanation for something, no matter how absurd, just as long I avoid the acceptance of this one particular explanation.” Now such a biased intuition can be shown for what it is if after establishing criteria for their assessment of things they then apply it unequally simply because they become dismissive immediately of one possibility.
However, could there exist a “possible explanation I just wasn't creative enough to think of?” Of course it is possible. But how many reasonable explanations do you think could possibly exist if after establishing what you would accept as “evidence” for God but then deny it as soon as it occurs? Would it not already be an expectation which you would set that goes beyond any possible natural explanation to begin with? While we have not discussed the exact nature of the proposed revelation, I would argue that God very seldom does give private revelations. (I will shortly develop a response to the Divine Hiddenness problem.)
In fact, according to the Catholic Church, no one, and I mean no one, is obligated to believe in any so-called private revelations. And even to those who sincerely claim that they have received a private revelation, the Church teaches us to exercise extreme caution and to be very prudent. The Church insists upon discernment concerning such things, so you would be acting rightly to remain tentative in your conclusions, and even morally permitted in doing so. Even in the case of vindicatory miracles such as those that have been highly witnessed and documented at Fatima which relate to an apparition or message related to it, while such places a stronger claim demanding additional rational consideration, the Church holds that it still does not constitute an object of divine faith, that is something obligatory. (I should add that recently a few Princeton philosophy professors who were agnostic recently became Catholic after studying the evidence for vindicatory miracles, so they are nothing to wave a stick at.) So perhaps you would be happy to hear that even in your case, if you had received a private revelation, that the Church would not require that such experience would be binding upon the conscience, even if it were objectively authentic.
Additionally, we would also need to establish exactly what we would consider evidence in relation to God. And we would need to be careful to not demand any kind of evidence that would treat God as some material contingent being. If one were to demand that God appear to them as if He were Q on Star Trek, then they would be greatly disappointed. God is not another contingent being among other contingent beings. In fact, God is not just another being among other beings at all, He is ipsum esse subsistens (subsistent Being Itself). As the contingency argument demonstrated, we are not looking for another contingent being like a tree, a cat, or a man; we reasoned to that which is necessary. If it is necessary then it cannot have ANY of the attributes of contingency. If a contingent thing derives its being from another, then a necessary being does not derive its being from another. If being is not received then it is simply possessed, i.e., existence and essence are identical in God. On the other hand, existence and essence are distinct in all contingent beings. Therefore, it is not possible for God not to exist because He is the necessary being. If we were to demand any attributes of contingency then this is a metaphysical impossibility.
Which brings me to my next two points as it relates to your “wild example”. The first is called 'the God of the Gaps fallacy'. The second is called 'the problem from Divine Hiddenness'. The first objection is based on the history of speculation as it relates to unknown causes of natural phenomena. And this actually relates directly to your point: “due to a temporary bout with mental illness, a brief hallucination, part of the simulation, or...” Just because the cause is presently unknown does not mean that we jump to the conclusion that the cause must have been supernatural. Just because we have gaps in our understanding of nature doesn't mean we simply place God into each of those gaps, hence 'God of the gaps'. Because as we have developed a great deal of scientific knowledge we have been able to fill some of those gaps with very reasonable naturalistic explanations, so the God of the gaps continues to shrink. It is true that some people throughout history once posited the possibility that planetary motion was due to angels pushing them around until Newtonian physics was developed. Many such cases could be compiled. And you would be avoiding this fallacy to be extremely cautious not to attribute your experience to God so quickly, nor would I expect you to do this, for I myself would not even do this. But this would not be an argument against theism itself, but it does press the question of the relationship between nature and nature's God.
I would propose that God is the author of nature (as in the contingency argument; that which is necessary is the explanation for why anything contingent exists at all), so he leaves nature to do what nature does. It seems far more likely to me that if God designed nature to be what it is, then for the most part it should function as it was designed. Not only this but if God were intervening all the time then maybe it was not a good design in the first place, and if he did our experience of reality would become highly unpredictable, like when Bruce Almighty approved all the prayers. (This also reminds me of a scene in Futurama where God told Bender something along the lines of “You know you did it right when they're not sure if you did anything at all.”)
While one could make the argument that perhaps there are simply some things which nature cannot do given the boundaries of its nature, that God simply supplied nature at certain points what it could not do for itself. (But I am not making this argument.) My approach actually completely avoids any possibility of any kind of God of the gaps problems. Some modern-day versions of this problem can be shown in the intelligent design movement in their proposal that since some interconnecting mechanisms appear to be irreducibly complex therefore God or angels must have intervened at certain points in the history of the universe, and this would help to overcome the astronomical improbability of life emerging on our planet by means of mere random chance. (To be honest, such a phrase needs to be qualified since it is only chance within a very specific framework, and there are other proposals that can address this improbability.) Some may go as far as saying that such is impossible by mere naturalistic mechanisms, therefore it drives us to accept a supernatural cause from outside of nature, as I stated previously. (Perhaps some think that this is a healthy method for converting one to theism, which I don't.) But for the sake of our discussion, let's assume, as I think you would, and is the direction I lean in, that these are presently unknown variables which have not yet been discovered, and I would want to avoid ANY possibility that we would potentially become victim to yet another God of the gaps fallacy. So I would maintain that nature was designed to be as it is so that the elements necessary for life could ultimately emerge through the processes of stellar nucleosynthesis, etc. Since God is not an additional thing within nature, then I would not expect Him to be part of nature's process.
My overall point is to touch upon one of the reasons that there doesn't appear to be a plethora of supernatural events in our daily lives, and to put it simply, God designed nature to be what it is, and He leaves it to its own course. Yet it was so fine-tuned in such a way that such would arise from the nature of the things themselves. Therefore, God only needs to bring into existence that which did not previously exist. And to be sure, this is a philosophical claim to explain why any contingent being exists, but has absolutely no bearing on how they exist once they exist. While naturalistic explanations are preferable for how nature functions in its own right, nature itself cannot account for why nature exists at all, there could be nothing at all.
Since I have established my view of the relationship between nature and nature's God, we now move onto Divine Hiddenness. This objection simply states that there is a problem with the proposal that God wants to be known but at the same time there are those who 'want to believe' in Him but are simply unconvinced, or at least seemingly don't know how they could be convinced. In other words, “why isn't God more obvious?” As some frame it “why are there those who seem to be 'nonresistant nonbelievers'”? It would seem that God would do everything He could to prevent anyone from being deprived of the means by which to be convinced. This objection is actually incredibly useful because it gives the theist an opportunity to explain precisely why this is the case, and a very good reason why God does what He does. As I mentioned in the previous defense against the God of the gaps fallacy, the theist needs a finely-tuned relationship between nature and nature's God, and in this argument I will defend the idea that there is a finely-tuned epistemic relationship.
Now before I explain my position on epistemic fine-tuning, I need to explain my Argument from Participation in the Good. It is necessary for me to do so because my theodicy to the problem of evil and to the problem of divine hiddenness are a subcategory of the argument from Participation in the Good. This will become abundantly apparent as I proceed. I will first present the argument from Participation in the Good and then will show how it applies to each of the stated problems.
For the sake of space, assume for a moment that God is Goodness Himself. He is a perfect being with no defects; which is another way of saying that God is pure actuality having no potentials within Him to actualize i.e., he has no attributes of contingency. As a perfect Being he is not subject to change, because any change would presuppose that He could change for the better or for the worse and in each case He would not be always perfect. In creating nature, He did so in such a way that nature itself is inherently good, and so to some degree nature itself participates in goodness, which God possesses in an eminent manner. This concept of the participation in the Good extends to moral acts as well, i.e., as moral agents we have the potential to develop virtue so as to participate in the Good to a greater degree. From this perspective, it is therefore God's modus operandi to fine-tune the relationship between nature and Himself in such a way as to create occasions for the greatest possible union with the Good.
As to the problem of divine hiddenness, there is a very good reason that God has placed us in this particular epistemic situation. If God were overly apparent and too easily discovered, this could diminish or even foreclose certain goods that involve actually seeking Him, as our nature is inclined to do. This also occasions virtues that might otherwise not be possible, such as engaging in interpersonal relationships whereby we assist others on their intellectual journey toward God. As moral agents with the potential for both virtue and vice, such a situation is perfectly fine-tuned so that we may be morally obligated to seek Him, and thus potentially culpable if we fail to do so, while at the same time making our seeking of Him morally praiseworthy. If the goal is to maximize our participation in the Good, then this epistemic fine-tuning is exactly what we would expect. As this relates to your “wild example”, given this epistemic fine-tuning, not receiving overt divine revelation is predicted on this view. While I do not discount that God has and does on occasion go beyond this, which would be quite apparent given Christianity's claim that God became incarnate and worked miracles during the earthly ministry of Jesus, or that He has at times given private revelations, Eucharistic miracles, the stigmata, healing, demonic deliverance, Marian apparitions, etc. The vast majority of the time, and in the lives of the vast majority of people, including myself, have the occasion to merit virtue to pursue God by ordinary means. In fact, and interestingly enough, St. Alphonsus of Liguori once said that if any one did receive the privilege of the extraordinary means, that one should pray that God would take them away so that they may pursue Him out of pure love for Him. Even with Eucharistic miracles, such are occurring within contexts where people are already pursuing Him, and many of the Saints who have had experiences like St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Catherine of Siena, they had already developed a high degree of virtue when they had them. Now, I don't want my point to be lost; the reason for this epistemic fine-tuning is directly related to participation in the Good. Similarly, the problem of evil enjoys the same explanation. Without sin there is no forgiveness, without fear there is no courage, without temptation there is no perseverance, without pain there is no fortitude, etc., etc. God permits evil to be a possibility in order that we may enter into greater union with Him, who is Goodness Himself. Such allows us to participate in goods that would otherwise not be possible. Another way of stating all of this is that if God wants us to maximally participate in the Good, then evil and ignorance are permitted as real possibilities in order to achieve this greater end. Therefore, it would not be sufficient for one to merely be non-resistant; they must virtuously follow reason where it leads. This requires a high degree of intellectual cultivation.
“An atheist and a religious person believe almost exactly the same thing. An atheist believes all religions are made up. A religious person believes all religions are made up...except one.”
While this is a funny bit, it is not really a good argument. Allow me to explain: The reasons why an atheist may reject any God are not the same reasons why a Christian theist may reject other conceptions of God. Now, such would be arbitrary if we simply said “this one instead of that one” for no good reasons. It is often said by atheists that choosing the Christian God is special pleading. But unfortunately they are using the fallacy incorrectly. I will give an example. Once an atheist tried to claim I was committing the fallacy of special pleading, and when I asked them to define the term they quoted something like “Special pleading is an informal fallacy wherein a person claims an exception to a general or universal principle.” But then I showed from several sources that the actual definition is something more like, “Special pleading is an informal fallacy wherein a person claims an exception to a general or universal principle, but the exception is unjustified.” In each case they continued to omit the clause or similar clauses related to justification. Or "Applying standards, principles, and/or rules to other people or circumstances, while making oneself or certain circumstances exempt from the same critical criteria, without providing adequate justification." And yet another: "Special pleading occurs when someone dismisses a specific case as an exception to a rule without adequate reasons." In each case, they left out the one way for something not to be a case of special pleading, namely, that there must be "adequate justification, sufficient reason". And for whatever reason they were unwilling to concede this point, and they could have without conceding my broader argument.
Now for just a brief moment I want to circle back to an earlier comment where this becomes pertinent before I continue. In philosophy, distinctions are often made between what is logically possible, metaphysically possible, and epistemically possible. For example, from Lois Lane's epistemic perspective, she might say that Clark Kent is not Superman. Given what she knows, this is epistemically possible, but since Clark Kent is Superman, it is not metaphysically possible. While simulation theory may be epistemically possible, if positions incompatible with it are metaphysically plausible or even probable, while simulation theory remains merely epistemically possible, then simulation theory has not thereby established itself as a plausible metaphysical option. Indeed, if there are sufficient reasons to regard simulation theory as metaphysically implausible, then it should be ruled out as a serious contender for what is actually the case. This is important because mere epistemic possibility itself does not do much philosophical lifting. It is the beginning of inquiry, not the conclusion of it. To say that something is epistemically possible is simply to say that it has not been ruled out by what we presently know. But once sufficient reasons are given to regard it as implausible, it can no longer reasonably be treated as a serious possible option merely because it remains technically unfalsified. It may remain an epistemic possibility, but as an explanation it remains in the ether—possible in the weakest sense, but without sufficient warrant to make it a serious contender.
“...it occurred to me why most people who enjoy philosophy such as yourself really dislike "simulation theory." That theory is essentially the philosophical equivalent of a thought terminating cliché.”
As a philosopher it isn't that I don't like skeptical scenarios being proposed as epistemic possibilities, its just bad philosophy to say it is therefore plausible or even probable enough in order to do any real philosophical work. Easily proposed; easily dismissed. G. K. Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy says “There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.” By nature we have a deep interest in cultivating our faculties, and this is especially true of the intellect. Imagine someone proposing a thought experiment that causes one to become physically stagnated leading to poor health. Likewise, by not cultivating the intellect we are impoverishing our nature. From experience our intellect is naturally drawn to the good, the true, and the beautiful. It is the fulfillment of this innate desire to perceive these attributes to a maximal degree. And this desire terminates when it perceives goodness, truth, and beauty itself, which I call God. As I have said, skepticism only has utility inasmuch as it leads to conviction.
Arguments like those set forth by Gervais or Sam Harris will say something like, “Why not Thor?” Or they will say that “the Christian is atheistic regarding 1,000 other gods; I just believe in one less.” But the classical theist does not set out to disprove the epistemic possibility of every conceivable god, just as anyone doesn't have to disprove all possibilities before having any credence at all. Other concepts of gods may remain possible, but they can be shown to be improbable when compared to classical theism's explanatory power. The point is that epistemic possibility alone does not make something a serious metaphysical contender. Rather, we set forth arguments from contingency in order to satisfy the principle of sufficient reason. We reason that there must ultimately be something that is necessary rather than contingent, and if a necessary being cannot possess the attributes of contingency, then proposed god-concepts that are metaphysically deficient—because they are themselves dependent, caused, composite, or otherwise contingent—do not qualify as serious contenders for the necessary being that explains contingent reality. If a concept does not satisfy the metaphysical requirements for being the ultimate explanation of contingent reality, then this is the "adequate justification, sufficient reason".
Now, I have stated several times that if contingent reality requires a sufficient reason for why there is something rather than nothing, and if this explanation ultimately terminates in something necessary rather than contingent, then we can propose the following: This necessary being could not be dependent upon anything outside itself to be its cause; it could not be composed of form and matter; it could not have a real metaphysical distinction between essence and existence; it could have no potentials to actualize; it could not change; and it could not be finite or limited in its being. It is from this that we arrive at the traditional attributes of classical theism: the necessary being is infinite, simple, eternal, actus purus, ipsum esse subsistens, existing through itself (aseity), immaterial, incorporeal, and perfect. These are not arbitrary attributes that we have simply assigned to God; they are conclusions that follow from asking what a being must be like if it is to be the ultimate explanation of contingent reality.
This would certainly exclude conceptions such as Thor, the other Norse gods, Mbombo, Apsu, Tiamat, Pangu, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, the various gods of the Roman and Greek pantheons, the invisible pink unicorn, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, insofar as these are conceived as finite, dependent, composite, changeable, or otherwise contingent beings. The point is not merely that the classical theist happens to prefer one god-concept over thousands of alternatives. Rather, many of these alternatives fail to satisfy the very metaphysical conditions required of an ultimate necessary explanation. They neither correspond to the necessary being arrived at through the metaphysical argument nor possess the explanatory power required to account for contingent reality. Even taken altogether, an infinite collection of contingent beings would remain contingent and therefore would not supply the necessary ground that the argument requires.
To this I would not simply say that “all but one religion is made up”; this is an oversimplification. Earlier I raised the point of epistemic fine-tuning, and that concept applies here as well. Within this framework, most people naturally gravitate toward that which has been “the most convincing” perspective presented to their intellect so far, and this can be an organic process as one cultivates the intellect. Man's longing for truth sets him on an intellectual journey, and many formulations of what he has grasped so far are easily systematized and organized into a “religion.” Given man's inherent longing for truth, epistemic fine-tuning, the intellectual process, the impact of vice in darkening the intellect, the goods that pertain to making a difference in the lives of others, etc., a plurality of religions is actually what we would expect. This is not an argument against theism; it logically follows from a proper understanding of the relationship between nature and nature's God. There are rays of truth in many religions, either understood fully or in part, and these truths can be recognized by the human intellect even when they are embedded within a broader framework that contains error. A religion, therefore, need not be wholly fabricated in order to be mistaken. It may contain genuine apprehensions of truth while simultaneously misunderstanding, obscuring, or combining those truths with error.
“With so many religions to pick from, how would we know which religion might be the correct one if any? I would say the short answer is we can't.” And “how would you know which religion, if any, represents it? Perhaps the higher power doesn't even have a religion ascribed to it and just treats us like an ant farm requiring nothing from us in particular. Maybe there's still no heaven or hell or any afterlife. And even if one of the religions is true, at that point you're just playing religion roulette and hoping you get lucky, because there are a LOT of them out there to choose from!”
Both in my response to the plurality of religions and the plurality of god-concepts we can have reasonable certainty concerning classical theism. Now this may lean us towards Judaism, Islam, Christianity, but it certainly requires adherence to classical theism. But let's take a moment to explore some other concepts we can use to evaluate claims to divine revelation. Now, it is one thing to say that there is a necessary being, and another to claim that this being has at some point revealed Himself. In order to begin our evaluation I will propose three categories related to two modes of knowing: 1) there are things we can know by reason alone, 2) some things can be known both through reason and by what has been revealed, and 3) some things can be known by revelation alone. We might ask of the second category whether or not there is congruity between what can be known by reason and what can be known by revelation. If it can be shown that some supposed revelation on a particular point is contrary to what can be demonstrated by means of reason, then we could reasonably reject the proposed revelation as inauthentic. But if that supposed revelation is in perfect uniformity with what we can know by means of reason, then this offers rational vindicatory evidence that the revelation may be authentic. Now, consider the third category of those things which could only be known by means of revelation, which happen to be beyond rational demonstration, while not being contradictory to it. And to be sure, the third category is far smaller than the other two.
Aquinas' Exposition of Boethius's De Trinitate is instructive here concerning the threefold use of philosophy (I will paraphrase): First, to demonstrate the truths that reason can establish and that faith presupposes, such as God's existence and unity. Second, to help us better understand the truths of faith through philosophical analogies. Third, to defend the faith against objections by showing either that they are false or that they do not disprove the faith.
A clear example of this would be the notion that God became incarnate. Earlier we employed the concept of epistemic fine-tuning in response to the divine hiddenness objection, which involved God's desire to situate us in such a way as to maximize our union with the Good, which is ultimately God Himself. The Incarnation provides a profound example of this principle: God makes Himself known to us in a manner suited to our nature, by assuming that nature. It can easily be argued that, given our nature—and the fact that this nature was caused to be so by nature's God—the inherent desire to perfect the intellect is ordered toward our ultimate end, i.e., the beatific vision. As we did with the ontological argument, we can ask what the highest conceivable mode of divine self-revelation would be. If God desires to reveal Himself to creatures made in His image and likeness, what more profound act of self-revelation could there be than for God Himself to assume our nature? The Incarnation is therefore uniquely suited to creatures whose ultimate end is union with God: the God who is the object of our intellect becomes, in the Incarnation, the object of our senses and our human encounter as well. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). And again, “Then he [Jesus] said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:27-29). And as it relates to vindicatory miracles: “And just then some people were carrying a paralyzed man lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” Then some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” But Jesus, perceiving their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Stand up, take your bed and go to your home.” And he stood up and went to his home” (Matthew 9:2-7).
Due to space, I cannot at this time dive into the reliability of the New Testament documents, the historicity of Christ, and evidences from Church history, but what would be instructive is to focus on an objection that is often related to the nature of faith. It is often claimed that “faith” is blind faith, and therefore it is not reasonable to believe something for no other reason than that one simply believes it. This cuts sharply against the relationship between the two modes of knowing stated above. Faith is a term used to describe our intellectual assent to divine revelation. Faith is a theological virtue whereby the intellect assents to truths revealed by God because of the authority of God who reveals them. Faith, therefore, is not belief without reason, nor is it a substitute for reason. Rather, it is a distinct mode of knowing that rests upon divine authority, while reason can establish the credibility and reasonableness of accepting that revelation. In other words, if reason can demonstrate that God exists, and if this God revealed Himself, then it would be unreasonable not to assent to it. (While one could propose the Evil God objection, the contingency argument dismisses the idea of a moral defect in a perfect being.)
While faith is not merely an intellectual assent, it is in large part the intellectual journey towards truth. As I showed in the second category, there are things which can be known by means of reason or by means of revelation whereby credence can be given to what is revealed overall. If when the two modes are overlapped it can be shown that revelation is reliable then this adds a justification for taking that which cannot be rationally demonstrated should be taken seriously. In this relationship between reason and revelation, one can come to know something in category two from revelation alone. In this case, the intellect is elevated to that which can be known by reason even if it was not initially arrived at by means of reason. Therefore, the theological virtue of faith both perfects and elevates the intellect beyond what it could do if it were left to itself. Faith is intellective because it perfects and elevates the intellect, enabling it to assent to truths that transcend what natural reason can establish on its own. If it can be shown that 95% of what is contained in the Christian revelation can also be demonstrated by reason alone, and if no other claims to revelation can offer this degree of probability as to its authenticity, then it is highly reasonable to accept the remaining 5%, especially since that this too can be supported by reason, and reason can defend the faith against objections by showing either that they are false or that they do not disprove the faith. It is this harmony between reason and revelation that serves as the rational evidence for taking it highly seriously as the top contender. This greatly lowers our credence in relation to any other alternative, so it is not a matter of there being a lot to choose from, or that we are playing religion roulette, it is whether or not we allow reason to take us as far as reason can go. If 95% or more of what is contained in the Christian revelation can be demonstrated by reason alone, then we have a high degree of reasonable certainty that this represents nature's God.
“The possibility of God, angels, heaven, the afterlife and so on, if they exist, are well outside what we can perceive.”
The distinction between empirical perception and intellectual perception is instructive at this point. As was shown with the contingency argument, God is not contingent, and therefore we should not expect the kinds of evidences which would only be proper to a contingent thing. Some have objected that this is some kind of cope in order to explain why we cannot see and touch God, but as I have shown, we first establish the necessary being and then we establish the kinds of evidences that would be proper to it, and we do this by reasoning from effect back to the cause. We cannot see the wind but we can see its effects. The world of contingency is the effect, and the necessary being is the cause.
In view of this, God is not beyond all perception, only the perception of sense, which is what we would expect of a necessary being. Heaven would basically just be the ultimate end of our intellectual perception, i.e., the beatific vision. Now, you have proposed: “I don't see how religion differs all that much from simulation theory.” At this point I think you may have begun to see at least one way in which religion differs from the simulation hypothesis. And for clarification, religion is a moral virtue by which we offer to God His due honor, it is a matter of justice that the necessary being is treated as such. To the point of the afterlife one could assess the evidences from near-death experiences which in part would be expected if we have an immaterial soul which is a defensible philosophical position. (For the sake of space I will not expound upon this point, but in a previous response I touched upon the intellect's ability to understand universals.) On the one hand, the simulation hypothesis is implausible when compared to classical theism. Since simulation theory presupposes many philosophical positions to be true, and if those positions can be shown to be weak or implausible, then it has far less privilege of being called a serious contender for truth, whereas classical theism enjoys a prominent place in human thought. Simulation theory undermines its own justification which eliminates one's ability to reason to it in the first place. Classical theism does not suffer from this epistemic incoherence. It is far more probable that we are actually perceiving reality as it is and as such we can have the rational evidence we need to move to reasonable certainty. It is for this reason that simulation theory does not share the same epistemic boat as classical theism. On the other hand, classical theism affirms our basic observations of the world, its intelligibility, the correspondence between that which exists outside of the mind with what is inside of the mind, and all of which leads us to reasonable certainty. So while the simulation theory has no intellectual evidence, but rather attempts to defend itself through ad hoc maneuvering (a process which the theory itself rejects), classical theism has a rich intellectual history based on the real world.
“This is why I think Pascal's Wager (which you brought up before) ultimately isn't particularly useful.”
The usefulness of Pascal's Wager is more easily seen in the case of someone who is sitting on the epistemic fence. For example, if one's credence is 50/50, and they are teetering back and forth on a razor's edge, then Pascal's Wager can push someone to 49/51 in favor of theism. If someone's credence is 90/10 in favor of non-theism, then its usefulness is not as apparent since a shift to 89/11 would have no substantiate effect. So it is useful in this particular situation. According to the Wager, whether God exists of not, virtue always enriches the lives who pursue it, and if God does exist then we are all the better for it, whereas a life of vice always weakens the will, darkens the intellect, distorts the passions, and even if God does not exist then this is still a horrible state of affairs, and all the more worse if God does exist. Most people who take the Wager seriously can see the reasonableness of the evaluation as the basic cost/benefit analysis adds further reason to lean beyond whatever our credence may be.
