CAN YOU BELIEVE THINGS AT WILL?

Voluntarism vs. Involuntarism
Some philosophers and theologians have claimed that belief is directly subject to the will while others have denied it. These positions may be termed "doxastic voluntarism" and "doxastic involuntarism." To save space, I shall shorten the labels to simply "voluntarism" and "involuntarism." Voluntarism has some linguistic support. In ordinary language, people often say such things as "he chose (or refused) to believe it" and "I find it hard (or easy) to believe." It is a common saying that "people believe whatever they want to believe." These expressions suggest the idea that belief (or the acquisition of belief) is an action and hence a matter of choice and directly subject to the will. That implies that people at least sometimes self-induce their beliefs independently of evidence. Voluntarists claim that people (at least sometimes) choose or self-induce their beliefs by direct acts of will on the basis of how appealing the beliefs are.

In contrast, involuntarists maintain that belief is always involuntary in the way that seeing is involuntary. People have control over whether or not to open their eyes and take a look. But once they do take the look, they cannot control what they see. In an analogous way, people have control over the direction they take with regard to the acquisition of evidence. But once the evidence has been acquired and understood, people do not then have any further control over what they come to believe. Rather, that is totally determined by the evidence itself. One cannot believe contrary to the evidence, or in the total absence of evidence, any more than one can see something that is contrary to what is presented to one's eyes, or in the total absence of light. As for the alleged linguistic support for voluntarism, involuntarists would say that it is insufficient. When people say such things as "he chose to believe it" or "he refused to believe it," that may be just an elliptical or metaphorical way of saying "he came to believe it" or "he came not to believe it" (or "he came to deny it"). And when they say "that is easy (or hard) to believe", they may simply mean "the evidence supports (or is contrary to) that". Alternatively, such statements may be just flat-out false, as is the generalization "people believe whatever they want to believe." Certainly they are false if taken literally, according to involuntarists.

Some involuntarists have gone so far as to claim that it is logically impossible for people to control their beliefs. They have argued as follows. Suppose X were to self-induce belief B by a direct act of will. Then X would know that B was formed in that way. But beliefs formed in that way need not correspond with reality. (If they do correspond, it would be sheer coincidence.) Thus, X would know that B may not correspond with reality and there is no good reason for thinking that it actually does so. But that is the same as knowing both that B may not be true and that there is no good reason for regarding it to be true. Anyone who knows that a proposition may not be true and that there is no good reason to regard it to be true must be at most epistemically neutral regarding the proposition: such a person cannot believe it to be true. Hence, the initial supposition that B is a belief which X had successfully self-induced must be false, and it follows that people cannot possibly form beliefs by a direct act of will. Richard Swinburne puts the point as follows:

“If I choose at will to believe that I now see a table, then I would realize that this belief originated from my will and so had no connection with whether or not there was a table there, and so I would know that I had no reason for trusting my belief, and so I would not really believe.”[1]

I find the given argument unconvincing because it assumes that everyone knows the truth of the various steps in it, which is not so. For example, the argument assumes that everyone knows that self-induced beliefs need not correspond with reality, but on the contrary, maybe not everyone knows that. Some people may think that in the process of self-inducing a belief they somehow make the given proposition true. I would certainly agree that that is a wildly irrational notion, yet there may be people out there who think that way, though they may not have said so. Extreme epistemological relativists, who say things like "we carry around our own separate realities within our minds," might be inclined to think along those lines. Furthermore, perhaps in the very process of self-inducing a belief by an act of will, one could erase from one's mind the realization that the process by which the belief was acquired was that of self-inducement. That too would prevent the involuntarist's conclusion from being derived. It follows that the given attempt to show that direct voluntary control over belief is impossible is a failure. It may always be irrational for people to exercise such control, but such control is possible, and in fact, from my observation of other people and discussions with them, it does seem to me to actually happen on occasion. Furthermore, the claim that it happens is often made and widely accepted within the general population.

Thus, I accept voluntarism. Although I find myself totally unable to control my beliefs by direct acts of will, I think that there are people who can actually do such a thing. In a similar way, some people may be able to blush at will, though there would be very few like that, if any. And some people no doubt have more control over their emotions than others, that is, make themselves angry or afraid or make themselves love their neighbors (as the Bible commands). Perhaps it is possible to train oneself to gain such control over one's own states, somewhat like the way that yogis have managed to gain control over such bodily factors as pulse rate and blood pressure. Maybe biofeedback equipment could be used for such training. All of these things are at least logically possible. I would say they are psychologically possible as well, and actually happen, though only rarely. I put the willful self-inducement of belief into the same category.

The Bible
I think a good case could be made for saying that the Bible presupposes voluntarism. In Rom. 1:18, St. Paul refers to "men who suppress the truth by their wickedness" and in Eph. 4:18 he mentions "the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts." Both of those passages imply that people have direct control over their beliefs. In addition, according to 1 John 3:23, God has commanded people "to believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ." Certainly that presupposes that belief is directly subject to the will, for it makes no sense to command people to do something that is not under their direct control. Also, in many passages it is implied that to disbelieve and to disobey are equivalent (e.g., Heb. 3:18-19) or that all nonbelievers are automatically sinners (Heb. 3:12; Rev. 21:8), which is a common biblical theme, and which again seems to presuppose voluntarism.

There is also reason to take the story of Adam and Eve as presupposing voluntarism. According to the story, God told them one thing and the serpent contradicted it. Then Eve came to believe what the serpent said (that eating the fruit would not be fatal but would instead make them wise like God). However, the serpent presented no evidence, so why did Eve believe what the serpent said? I take the Christian interpretation to be that she willfully chose to believe it, and therein lay her sin. It seems that in order for God's punishment of Eve to be just, considering that she was presented with conflicting messages regarding the fruit, it is necessary that her coming to believe the serpent’s message be an act of will on her part. But that presupposes voluntarism. So, on the assumption that it was just for God to punish Eve, voluntarism must be true.

Furthermore, the whole biblical doctrine of "salvation by faith" seems to presuppose that belief is directly subject to the will. In the Great Commission, when a missionary has preached the gospel message to people, "whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 16:16). That implies that it is a matter of choice whether or not to believe. For God to justly condemn people for their nonbelief requires that they be culpable for it (or for whatever actions or omissions of theirs led to the nonbelief), and that, in turn, it might be argued, requires that belief and nonbelief be directly subject to the will. Billy Graham, the great evangelist, often said in his sermons and newspaper columns: "There is only one thing that will send you into eternity separated from God, and that is your refusal to accept God's truth." His monthly publication is entitled Decision, and he has spoken repeatedly of a "decision for Christ," which is taken to be a decision to do certain things, including believing the gospel message. Such claims, which are based on the Bible, seem clearly to presuppose voluntarism.

Two Initial Groups
Initially, we could, in the abstract, divide people into two groups, those who are able to directly control their own beliefs by means of their wills and those who are not able to do that. It would be an open question whether or not the first group is empty. Assuming it is not empty, people within it could be arranged in a spectrum according to how easy it is for them to directly control their own beliefs and how often they do it. Some people do it easily and frequently and others are totally unable to do it at all, with still others falling between these two extremes. The extreme positions on the spectrum could be called the "voluntaristic end" and the "involuntaristic end." It would then be an empirical question whether there are people at the voluntaristic end, and if so, how many. My own encounters with students and others have led me to the hypothesis that there do indeed exist people who are able to directly control their beliefs and that they are arranged all along the described spectrum. I would say, then, that some people are more or less able to control their own beliefs by direct acts of will, while others, myself included, totally lack that ability. Just what the various numbers might be, I cannot say for sure. However, I would venture the guess that at least 10% of people can directly control their beliefs, at least on some occasions and to a slight extent.

It might be maintained that belief is subject to the will but not immediately, only over an extended period of time. H. H. Price held such a view. He said the following:

 Can one make oneself believe something, or make oneself go on believing it, just by an effort of will? ... It seems to me pretty clear that one cannot do it directly, by just making a voluntary effort here and now. ... Indirectly, though not directly, and over a period of time, though not instantaneously, one can voluntarily control one's beliefs - at least up to a point. ... Pascal recommends somewhere that if a man's religious faith is weak, he should "Use holy water and order masses be said."

By such methods - by dwelling upon a proposition continually and repeatedly, by considering again and again what it would be like if it were true and imagining in detail what it would be like (if you can), by acting as if the proposition were true on all occasions to which its truth or falsity is relevant, and by increasing the number of these occasions wherever possible - by such means you will gradually get into a state of believing the proposition. You will wake up one fine day and find that you do believe it. ... Of course the state you have got into is one of non-reasonable belief, just because it is independent of the evidence ... But the point at present is that it is a state of belief, and of very firm belief too; and that it is brought into existence by your own voluntary efforts. ... Everyone admits, of course, that such a state can be produced in us involuntarily, by what is called "Social Conditioning" (the process which Hume in the Treatise calls "education"). But it was worthwhile to point out that it can be produced voluntarily too, though only with considerable effort and trouble, continued over a long period of time.[2]

I would call this view also a form of voluntarism, though it is not as robust a form as that which proclaims it possible to control one's beliefs not only over an extended time but also immediately.

Strong Voluntarism
Voluntarism can be thought of as a series of views ranging from strong to weak, where the strong form maintains that direct and immediate self-inducement of belief is very common, and so should be considered (statistically) "normal." It is the way beliefs are usually formed. The basic principle of strong voluntarism is: "People usually believe whatever they want to believe." If evidence plays any role at all, it is merely an advisory role, influencing the will but not in any way determining it. At the other end of the spectrum is weak voluntarism, which only grants that some people sometimes form beliefs through direct acts of the will, but it is very rare and not "normal" in any sense. Perhaps it can be done at all only over an extended period of time, as Price maintains. Evidence still dominates the belief-formation process in almost all cases. Price would be classified as a weak voluntarist, and I would put myself in that category as well. However, I would differ with Price on the issue whether people ever self-induce beliefs by immediate acts of will. He denies that it ever happens, but I think it does, on occasion. Price and I would both be weak rather than strong voluntarists because we would both regard belief acquisition through self-inducement to be rare and abnormal. The usual way by which people form beliefs is through an assessment of the evidence presented to them, that assessment being an automatic process which does not involve the will.

I have two main objections to strong voluntarism. One is simply an appeal to observation. I have talked to many people about the matter and at least 90% of them claim not to have much, if any, control over their beliefs. The majority are like me, claiming to have no such control whatever. I assume that if they do indeed have control then they themselves would be aware of it. Since so many people deny ever (or often) self-inducing belief by a direct act of will, I conclude that the strong voluntarist's claim that it is very common and is the usual mode of belief acquisition is simply false.

My second objection is that if self-inducement of belief by a direct act of will should ever occur, it would be an irrational mode of belief acquisition. It would be symptomatic of insanity, at least to a slight degree. But if most people were irrational or insane, then society could not function adequately. Since society does (thus far) function adequately, it must be that most people are not irrational or insane. Hence, the strong voluntarist's claim that self-inducement of belief by a direct act of will is the usual mode of belief acquisition must be false. This appeal to the idea of rationality will be discussed further below.

I think it could be established that the Bible not only presupposes voluntarism, but strong voluntarism as well, in which case it can be attacked by the above arguments against strong voluntarism. The main reason for taking the Bible that way has to do with the crucial and sweeping role played by voluntarism within Scripture. As pointed out above, according to the Bible, God commanded people to believe in his son. Disbelieving and disobeying are taken as equivalent, throughout. And the doctrine of salvation by faith assumes that people generally have control over their beliefs. This would be an objection to the fundamentalists’ inerrancy doctrine. The Bible presupposes strong voluntarism, which is false; therefore, the Bible is not inerrant.

Indirect Self-inducement
Even if the will were never to play any direct role in the process of belief formation, even over an extended period of time, it might play an indirect role. I am here using the term "indirect" differently from Price, for he apparently regarded any instance of belief formation over an extended time to be indirect, whereas I do not. I would still call it "direct," even if it occurs over an extended time, provided that it is just a single individual trying to come to believe something on his own solely through a use of the will. Price's terminology has the drawback of having to draw a temporal distinction between direct and indirect. That is, on his view, how many seconds or minutes must one spend on the self-inducement of a belief before it becomes an "indirect" self-inducement? My terminology avoids such a puzzle because I would call it direct no matter how long it takes, so long as just one individual is involved. However, I do think it possible for the will to play an indirect role in belief formation and that might come about in two different ways. These ways are captured by what I shall call the "outside-aid model" and the "investigation model."

The outside-aid model applies when someone who does not have a particular belief wants to have it for some reason other than knowing the truth, but is unable to self-induce the belief directly, i.e., on his own, even over an extended period of time. The person may then undertake a program of voluntary "brainwashing" by others in an attempt to acquire the given belief. For example, suppose that a man wants to give up smoking. He knows that if he were to believe that his next cigarette would kill him instantly, then that would certainly cause him to give up smoking. So, the man may then hire a hypnotist to instill in his mind the false belief that his next cigarette would kill him instantly. If he is successful, then through the use of an outside aid, namely the hypnotist, the person would have indirectly self-induced a particular belief.

Another example is where a man desires a certain set of religious beliefs, say, because he thinks they will bring him happiness and peace of mind. Although he is unable to self-induce the given beliefs directly, i.e., on his own, even over an extended period of time, he may join a religious cult that he knows will make great efforts to instill in him the given beliefs. Over a period of time, after frequently performing the cult's rituals and proclaiming the given beliefs in the presence of other members, with their encouragement, such a person may actually come to acquire the beliefs. Again, through the use of an outside aid, he would have indirectly self-induced one or more desired beliefs. It is important to note here, though, that the motivation for acquiring beliefs in accord with the outside-aid model is something other than knowing the truth.

The investigation model applies whenever we make choices regarding which propositions to consider and to try to verify or falsify, and how strenuously such attempts are to be pursued. Such choices indirectly affect what beliefs we end up with. Even the simple act of choosing to open or close one's eyes affects one's subsequent beliefs. So it is clear that even if the will is not used directly to form beliefs, it is involved in the belief-formation process in an indirect way. Suppose, for example, that because of time constraints I have to choose between reading one book or another book, and cannot read both. I am aware that both books contain good evidence or persuasive arguments. So if I pick one book to read, then I would acquire a certain set of new beliefs. But if I pick the other book, then I would acquire a different (though not conflicting) set of new beliefs. By an act of will, I choose which book to read, and I thereby indirectly bring about my own future beliefs. So, in effect, I have indirectly caused beliefs in myself through an act of will. In addition to choosing the book, my will could be involved as I acquire beliefs during the reading. For example, I may choose to pay very close attention to the reading by eliminating distractions, taking caffeine for alertness, reading slowly, and concentrating on it very hard. I could willfully use such techniques as underlining important passages or writing notes as I go along. I could think hard to try to work out the logical entailments of what is written and I could willfully dwell upon the connections between those entailments and my own prior beliefs. There are many choices to be made in such a process and they do have an effect on what beliefs I end up with. Thus, in an indirect way, my acts of will are part of the process by which I acquire beliefs.

In the outside-aid model, evidence plays no significant role, but the investigation model has the will working together with evidence to form beliefs. Also, unlike the outside-aid model, the investigation model always has knowledge of the truth as at least part of one's motivation for acquiring beliefs. However, one might have additional reasons for trying to acquire one set of true beliefs rather than another set of true beliefs in a situation where it is not possible to acquire both sets (e.g., deciding which book to read). The additional reasons usually appeal to one's prior beliefs regarding which set of beliefs will be more useful or valuable in terms of one's overall goals. And those prior beliefs may have been acquired in normal ways, on the basis of evidence, and not in a way that conforms to the investigation model. Ultimately, the chain of beliefs began with evidence and is based upon that.

The indirect control of beliefs in accord with the investigation model is quite common. Every day we make decisions about what to read (or hear on the radio or view on TV), where to go, what to do, and how hard to concentrate on any incoming data, and those decisions affect what beliefs we come to acquire. This position regarding beliefs (that they could be brought about indirectly by acts of will) is compatible with involuntarism. The voluntarism-involuntarism issue only concerns direct acts of will, whether performed over a short span of time or a long one.

The other form of indirect control, in accord with the outside-aid model, seems to me to be considerably less common. I would judge that it is even less common than the direct control of belief (whether performed immediately or over an extended period of time). Of all instances of belief formation that occur daily, I would estimate that fewer than 1% are either indirect self-inducements in accord with the outside-aid model or direct self-inducements by the will. More than 99% are induced by evidence, not by the will, except perhaps indirectly (with the will working together with the evidence) in accord with the investigation model. [I would guess that although at least 10% of people are able to directly control their beliefs and do so at least occasionally, most of them employ that ability only very rarely.]

The Rationality Issue
We are now in a position to divide people into the following two additional groups:

Type A: those who sometimes self-induce belief or nonbelief by a direct act of will, either immediately or over an extended period of time, or else who have in the past indirectly affected their own beliefs by an act of will in accord with the outside-aid model.

Type B: those who are not of Type A but who at least sometimes indirectly affect their own beliefs by an act of will in accord with the investigation model.

It is an empirical question how many people fall into each group. My own view is that each group has members, but type-B people are in the vast majority. I would be very surprised if the class of people who belong to type A should turn out to comprise more than 20% of the population.

I want to propose that there is a kind of irrationality inherent in group A, i.e., in either directly controlling one's own beliefs or indirectly bringing them about in accord with the outside-aid model. In that regard, I agree with Price's comment about the matter in the quotation above. ("The state you have got into is one of non-reasonable belief.") I would say that beliefs are like "a road map through the pathways of life," where the more closely the map matches the actual roads, the better. To interject one's will into the process of belief formation, where the goal is anything other than coming to know the truth, would go counter to that function of belief, for it would be interjecting something additional to experience, thereby preventing the belief from representing reality exactly as experienced. It would be like capriciously inserting new lines on a road map. Obviously a map will be less useful if it contains lines that do not correspond to actual roads. It seems more reasonable to relegate the will to its proper role, the performance of actions, and keep it as far away as possible from the process of belief formation. I think there do exist type-A people, but they are to some extent irrational and tend to "lose touch with reality." Normal people (i.e., type-B people), who are motivated in the belief-formation process solely by the desire to acquire useful knowledge, do not do that.

An objection might be raised here. People have various goals other than coming to know the truth, and one of those other goals might supply an adequate rational justification for self-inducing belief. For example, suppose I want to give up smoking and I know that my coming to believe a certain false proposition would cause me to accomplish that. Would it not be rational for me to self-induce belief in that proposition, either directly (if I could accomplish that) or indirectly, say, with the aid of a hypnotist? Though not rational in an epistemological sense, it seems it would be rational in a prudential or practical sense. Consider also optimism, which may be defined as belief that good things will happen in the future, where the belief goes beyond the available evidence and so would need to be self-induced by an act of will. Health professionals have pointed out that optimists are healthier and live longer. Wouldn't that make it rational in a prudential sense to become an optimist, assuming it is in one's power to do so?

I am willing to concede the prudential rationality of self-inducement of belief in special cases. However, I also want to maintain the epistemic irrationality of it. Belief that does not fit the available evidence is always epistemically irrational, by definition. Furthermore, the alleged prudential rationality of self-induced belief must be examined with care. After all, it is a form of self-deception. I suspect that despite the alleged health-related evidence in favor of optimism, there may be drawbacks to it which have not been fully explored. And the same would apply to the hypnosis example. One obvious drawback would be the risk of shock should it be discovered that one's belief is false. ("What a bummer!") Of course, anyone who believes anything at all risks such shock, but those who willfully believe beyond what is warranted by the evidence run the greater risk. Another drawback would be that of falling into bad epistemic habits. Even if a particular case of self-inducement of belief were to have some practical benefits, such action might set a precedent and incline a person towards further willful self-inducement of belief that would have negative effects later on. For example, a person who initially had misgivings about willfully self-inducing a belief would tend to lose those misgivings the more often such actions are performed. Overall, beliefs not based on the available evidence tend to distort one's view of reality, which in turn would probably have harmful practical effects down the road. People who are "out of touch with reality" do not normally lead happy lives.

Another point that needs to be made here is that in some cases a person's beliefs are caused, not solely by an act of will but a combination of will and evidence. The evidence might warrant belief of a certain degree, D1, but the person's will is used to induce belief to some other degree, D2, where D2 is greater (or less) than D1. I would say that such belief is epistemically irrational to the extent that its degree, D2, deviates from D1 (the degree of belief warranted by the evidence), which may be only a very slight amount. Of course, the act of self-inducing the belief to degree D2 might be prudentially rational, given certain special circumstances surrounding it, as discussed above, and in that way the person in question might be said to be prudentially rational in performing such an act. Yet, such cases seem doubtful for the reasons stated (the risk of shock and the risk of falling into bad epistemic habits). I would thus be reluctant to praise people for their alleged prudential rationality if what they did was to willfully self-induce belief to a degree unwarranted by the evidence. I would always be more inclined to view such people as being psychologically abnormal.

The Culpability Issue
In the philosophy of religion, the question might be raised whether atheists are in any way culpable for their nonbelief. Let us call the claim that they are culpable either for their nonbelief itself or for their actions or omissions that led to the nonbelief the "Culpability Thesis." Then the question could be posed whether that thesis is true. We need to ask, first of all, what it is, exactly, that nonbelievers are culpable for. Presumably it is not for the nonbelief itself but for actions or omissions that led to the nonbelief. But which is it? Are nonbelievers culpable for things they did or for things that they neglected to do, or might it be both? The second initial question is that of whether the Culpability Thesis entails or presupposes strong voluntarism. That is, in order for atheists to be culpable, is it necessary that people usually (and rationally) self-induce their beliefs by direct acts of will?

Let us assume that people are only culpable for the actions they perform or fail to perform, that being the prevailing view, so the Culpability Thesis may be expressed as follows:

 If atheists are presented with evidence for God’s existence by a missionary but fail to believe it, then that is always because of certain actions which they performed (such as willfully "tuning out" the missionary's message or self-inducing the belief that it is false) or because of certain willful non-actions on their part (such as refusing to investigate the evidence) or for a combination of such factors. All such atheists are culpable for such actions or (willful) non-actions.

As worded here, it is not immediately clear whether or not the Culpability Thesis entails strong voluntarism, for the actions or omissions for which atheists are culpable need not be willful self-inducements of belief or refusals to believe, but prior actions or omissions of the sort appealed to in the Investigation Model. We need to inquire why atheists would "tune out" a missionary and refuse to investigate his claims any further. It seems that in most cases they have a prior belief that the missionary's message is false. But how did they acquire that prior belief? If it was totally a matter of the assessment of evidence, then voluntarism need not enter the picture. But if the Culpability Thesis were to include the idea that such prior beliefs are never supported by any good evidence and must always have been willfully self-induced, then it seems it would entail or presuppose strong voluntarism. That is, since there are so many atheists in the world who have contemplated the proposition that God exists but rejected it, if that is always due to some willful self-inducement of belief or nonbelief on their part, then such an action must be a common phenomenon, which is the view of strong voluntarism. I believe that that is a plausible way to interpret the thesis. From my observations, almost all advocates of the Culpability Thesis are also strong voluntarists.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that the Culpability Thesis does not entail or presuppose strong voluntarism. How, then, might it be attacked? I would say that a person, X, is culpable for an action, A, only if all of the following conditions obtain:

(1) X is sane.

(2) X leads to harm either for X or for one or more persons other than X.

(3) X was aware of the given harm but performed A anyway, for a selfish reason.

A voluntaristic example of someone who would satisfy all three conditions would be a mother who has some evidence that her children are ill but who wants them not to be ill because she does not want to devote time and money to them. Suppose she willfully self-induces nonbelief in the proposition that her children are ill. She knows that the action (self-inducing such nonbelief) would harm her children but she performs it anyway, because it provides her with comfort. If such a woman could be regarded to be sane, then all three conditions would be satisfied and she would be culpable for her self-inducement of nonbelief. To make the example less voluntaristic, we could eliminate the belief aspect and merely suppose that the mother refuses to seek medical treatment for her children in order to devote her time and money to selfish pursuits. Again, all three conditions would be satisfied.

The question might be raised whether these conditions can all be satisfied in the case, say, of some atheist, Mr. X, who hears the gospel message but comes not to believe it. Let us assume that Mr. X is sane, so condition (1) is satisfied. How might condition (2) be satisfied? Mr. X may be a role model for his children and the children are subsequently harmed in some way by his nonbelief. (We need not elaborate how.) That would take care of condition (2). But what about condition (3)? I cannot see how condition (3) might be satisfied. If Mr. X rejects the missionary's message, then he cannot be aware of any harm that his nonbelief might have on his children. Nor can he be aware of any harm that it might have for himself. To be aware of that is to be aware of the truth of the message itself, but we are assuming that he does not believe the message. Furthermore, even if atheists were to be aware of harm that might befall them as a consequence of their nonbelief, how could they perform actions or omissions that lead to such nonbelief for selfish reasons? That makes no sense. If people do things for selfish reasons, then it is because they expect some benefit to follow, not because they expect harm to follow. The Culpability Thesis claims that atheists are culpable for actions or omissions that brought about their nonbelief because they were aware of the harm that such nonbelief would eventually cause them and went ahead and brought about the nonbelief anyway, for selfish reasons. Such a claim strikes me as utterly absurd. But satisfaction of condition (3) is crucial for culpability. Since it is not satisfied, it turns out that atheists are not culpable for any actions or omissions that lead to their nonbelief. That, then, would be another objection to the Culpability Thesis. It fails to explain how atheists might be in any way culpable for their nonbelief.

I conclude, then, that even if the Culpability Thesis were taken in a way that does not entail strong voluntarism, it can still be refuted. We can put forward a reasonable definition of "culpable" and argue that atheists do not satisfy the definition. But if they are not in any way culpable for their nonbelief, then what are we to make of the fact that no divine actions have occurred to prevent such nonbelief? It seems that the very best explanation for that fact is the hypothesis that God does not exist. That is my Argument from Nonbelief in a nutshell.

NOTES

1. Richard Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 25.

2. H. H. Price, "Belief and Will", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 28 (1954), pp. 1-26; reprinted in Stuart Hampshire, ed., Philosophy of Mind (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), the quotations taken from pp. 106 & 110; also reprinted in Robert R. Ammerman and Marcus G. Singer, eds., Belief, Knowledge, and Truth (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970), the quotations taken from pp. 68 & 71-72.