Can we choose to believe in God?

Question

Philosophically, arguments both for and against the existence of God can be found.

Alex O'Connor and Joe Schmid have compiled the following:

Arguments For:

1. The Contingency Argument
2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument
3. The Anselmian Ontological Argument
4. The Modal Ontological Argument
5. The Fine-Tuning Argument
6. The Moral Argument
7. The Argument from the Resurrection of Jesus

Arguments Against:

1. The Problem of Evil
2. Divine Hiddenness
3. Religious Confusion
4. The Stone Paradox
5. The Scale of the Universe
6. The Evil God Challenge
7. The Improvability Argument
8. The Argument from Material Causality
9. The Modal Argument from Evil

One could certainly study these arguments in depth, explore the nuances in academic literature, and engage with both apologetic and counter-apologetic perspectives. However, it's difficult to see how one might choose to be convinced by a particular argument. For instance, it's not as if I could simply decide, "Today, I'll find the Kalam Cosmological Argument persuasive," or "Today, the Problem of Evil will seem insurmountable to me."

Statistically speaking, less than 20% of philosophers find belief in God persuasive (source).

Perhaps the question of belief in God isn't best approached through philosophical reasoning alone. There may be alternative paths—beyond logic and debate—through which belief or disbelief can emerge, such as faith, personal experience, cultural upbringing, emotional resonance, propaganda, positive associations, social influences, etc.

Ultimately, whether via philosophical reasoning or otherwise, is belief in God something we can consciously control and choose?

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BONUS MATERIAL

Over 100 Arguments for God ANSWERED - Majesty of Reason (Joe Schmid's YouTube Channel):

​‪@CapturingChristianity‬ and Dr. Chad McIntosh created a video covering 150+ arguments for God's existence. Here's my take on the arguments. Buckle up for some juicy philosophy.

RESOURCES

Every resource mentioned in the video is found in here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qWHRyegTNlBXC9Bupxl2ZSmEUTeXvi0KEeg0W0VW288/edit?tab=t.0

OUTLINE

00:00:00 Intro and Prelims
00:04:24 CC video begins
00:12:26 Cosmological Arguments
02:48:25 Ontological Arguments
04:14:00 Design Arguments
04:43:47 Fine-Tuning Arguments
05:29:41 Moral Arguments
07:00:07 Experiential Arguments
07:54:02 Arguments from Miracles
08:06:52 Metaphysical Arguments
09:21:46 Nomological Arguments
09:31:48 Axiological Arguments
09:57:41 Noological Arguments
10:27:23 Linguistic Arguments
10:35:07 Anthropological Arguments
11:35:53 Pragmatic Arguments
11:40:13 Meta-Arguments
11:43:33 Probability Assessment & Nature of Arguments

LINKS

My website: https://josephschmid.com

My PhilPeople profile: https://philpeople.org/profiles/joseph-schmid

Answer 1

There are lot of personal opinions as responses, so we'll just outline what the appropriate review of the literature should suggest instead.

You ask:

Can we choose to believe in God?

The canonical answer is, it depends on who you ask and what their metaphysical biases are. As Conifold has provided, doxastic voluntarism in religious belief (SEP) is contentious. According to the article:

However, if doxastic involuntarism is true, then it’s difficult to make sense of doxastic religious obligations. If “ought” implies “can”, and we cannot control our religious beliefs, then it seems like there couldn’t be doxastic religious obligations. Thus, the truth of doxastic voluntarism is central to questions about the rationality of religious belief and religious commitment within many traditions.

The easy way out is to simply take the third option offered by the author of the article and dissolve the question by noting the difference between first-order and second-order choice in this context. From the article:

[S]ome authors argue that indirect doxastic control is key to understanding religious doxastic obligations. Even if we cannot directly control our beliefs, we can control our belief-forming practices: what evidence we gather, how we gather evidence, what sources we pay attention to, how much we reflect on our beliefs and evidence, and the like. These practices inevitably influence our beliefs, albeit indirectly.

Thus, as an example hunkering down, a term often used in Evangelical circles, is a way to keep one's beliefs "pure" and "strong" by not tainting one's mind by hearing out other opinions. If you believe in God, and avoid ever questioning your own belief, that is, introducing a requirement of justification, then you may very well choose to continue believing because you have stuck your head in the sand. You may not be able to choose that you believe in God today as a first-order belief, but you can choose to pursue new beliefs that will affect your first-order belief. If you put your head in the sand, it's easy to avoid being affected by inferences.

Answer 2

See Conifold's comment on Doxastic voluntarism (voluntary control over beliefs):

Doxastic voluntarism (voluntary control over beliefs) is highly controversial, and not just with respect to belief in God. Positions include having only indirect control (keeping open mind, seeking evidence, reflecting on it, etc.), mere acceptance or acting as if rather than belief being sufficient for faith, or even having direct control, although this is rare, see SEP, Doxastic Voluntarism: Religious Faith

Simpler said, faith is not faith if it is grounded in reason. Most people follow the same religion of their parents not because the arguments were more compelling than that of other religions (else all humans would converge towards the same religion), but by indoctrination and adoption.

Religious indoctrination is not based on objective evidence and reason, but based on scripturally alleged revelation. The philosophical arguments for gods are made on top of that for fun, but not a necessary prerequisite for faith.

Answer 3

Can we choose to believe in God.

Bottom line... No.

We cannot, because I cannot.

So when you ask "Can we...", the instrumental word is "we".

I am not able. No amount of compulsion by others would ever be able to change that.

It is not that I choose to not believe.

I actually am unable to.

I have actually tried to believe. (I was young, I was less informed, and most importantly I had a major crush on an angelic young lass, who herself had a crush on your God).

Inspired by love and desire, I actually tried to believe in your God. And actually completely failed.

Just could not manage to get myself to consider the concepts and claims as plausible. (I probably read too much science fiction, and played too much D&D to ever consider a God as realistic and plausible).

So. No. "We" cannot choose to believe in your God, philosophically. Because 1/2 of the "we" that is "us" can not.

Answer 4

It's rather surprising that neither the IEP entry about doxastic voluntarism nor the SEP entry mentions Moore's paradox:

"It rains, but I don't believe it."

The opinion that we can change our actually held beliefs at will, seems to run afoul of that paradox. Of course, what someone believes may change -- either by reasoning or by finding evidence or by getting whacked on the head, but that doesn't imply that the content of what we actually believe is under our direct control.

As to religious belief, opinions are also divided. It's possible to interpret religious language as emotive language that mainly expresses a personal attitude towards the world without making any empirical claims. (This is possible also from a religious point of view. I knew some Christians who viewed their own religious speech like that.) In a fideist account some form of pre-reflective, un-reasoned faith is the basis of religion. This seems to imply that some form of religious experience is crucial, but it's unclear what the role of "rational argument" is. Even if religious experience (or for instance an important transition like religious conversion) can be studied and analysed psychologically, it's unclear if a believer can (after the conversion) distance themselves from it.

Empirically, it seems clear to me that hardly anyone becomes a religious believer by simple reasoning. At least, I never met someone like that. All rational arguments for (or against) the existence of God seem to me like preaching to the choir.

Answer 5

I would answer yes, but with a few caveats, provisions, and conditions:

First, I'd distinguish between two senses of "belief": (1) Considering claim to be true; vs., (2) Trusting in the truth of the claim. For instance, it is possible to look at the evidence and acknowledge that a particular roller coaster is quite safe; and yet, to nervously hesitate to hop in and buckle up! The terms "faith" and "belief" are often used of both concepts, and I think that can result in some confusion if they're conflated too tightly in some contexts. I think the question here clearly refers to the first concept. (I think we also have a choice in the second one.)

Second, I'd say that the power of choice is often "upstream" of the particular belief in question. If we can choose to cross a river, I think it matters little, in this context, whether we have the ability to directly swim across (immediate choice), or whether we must choose to leave behind some bulky luggage and enter a canoe first, in order to paddle across (mediate choice, then immediate choice, to cross the river). Either way, choices play a deciding role. Similarly, I'd say that sometimes, direct choice of a belief is not possible because of other goals and biases that come into play. Jesus made a similar argument in John 5:44: "How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?" So before direct voluntarism is realistic, sometimes, other choices must be made first.

So I'd argue that choice is indeed possible in many cases. I don't think it's an "all-or-nothing" approach, though; it's not like we can change every belief at will. But if the evidence is sufficiently strong that it would otherwise "tip the scales" in favor of a belief when using the balances of a normal, everyday, practical epistemology, and it's not tipped in that direction because of counterweights like subjective goals and desires (which I argue play a far more critical role in actual epistemology than we may think), then I do believe that we have the ability to make a deliberate decision to acknowledge and remove these subjective counterweights, making direct voluntarism realistic in that moment. I'd point to politics as a great example--how often do people believe what they want to believe about their candidate, or about the opponent?

Also, I'd distinguish universal and general practical ability. Whether someone can choose to cross the river by swimming (natural ability), or by using a canoe available to them (practical ability), the end result is the same. Likewise, as a Christian, I don't have to maintain that we have the natural ability to believe the gospel; in fact, I think we need God's "epistemological bulldozers" to clear away debris from our fallen thinking (John 6:44). But God's bulldozers are clearing away debris for us all, so the end result is the same (John 12:32; John 16:8). And even if these bulldozers aren't available all the time everywhere (as one example, someone saying "No thanks" often enough), that doesn't negate the practical ability of most people generally. That is, I think a lot of arguments to the contrary over-generalize, seeming to have an "all or nothing" approach; whereas I'm arguing for a general ability regarding certain beliefs.

So if we accept those premises, the only question remaining is this particular case's evidence. Here's my "500 mph flyover" take on the listed arguments. :) In the for column, I'd personally add the argument from design in life (apparent design implies a designer), a transcendental argument--e.g., "one accident (our brain) cannot be trusted to give an accurate account of another (life, the universe)"; and an overall sense of the spiritual (meaning, purpose, love, beauty, expectation of an afterlife, etc.), for example. I'm not big on the ontological arguments, but perhaps I just don't understand them well enough.

As for the arguments against, I think the problem of evil is the most persuasive; but if it's possible for God to bring greater good out of it all (and given our finiteness, there's no way we could prove the contrary, even in theory), then it boils down to a matter of trust in God's character. Some of the other arguments seem to assume too many things, and thus don't apply against Christianity--for example, "divine hiddenness," in the less subjective formulations, could simply be rephrased as God "knocking on the door" vs. "breaking down the door," so that faith can be a choice. A plurality of false religions is exactly what we'd expect if the devil is active and deceiving the nations. The stone paradox is either a misunderstanding of omnipotence, or else simply a self-referential conceptual illusion. And I consider it impossible for an "evil god" to have survived from eternity past as omnipotent, omniscient, and full of life, for example.

So in summary, given these conditions and clarifications, then yes! I do believe it's quite possible for us to choose to believe in God.

Answer 6

1. European Enlightenment considers thinking for oneself a characteristic of maturity.

2. Accordingly, the best way to establish a personal decision are one’s own mental efforts on the basis of one’s rational capability.

   Not just choosing, but deciding from a rational position after having checked the arguments.

3. “There may be alternative paths—beyond logic and debate—through which belief or disbelief can emerge.” But as long as we do not know those alternative paths, philosophy is dependent on logic and debate.

Answer 7

We all make judgements on truth.

When we're children, we've not been told what gravity is, or how it works. We intuitively understand that a dropped object will rapidly move towards the ground, and don't particularly question it. We might get a handwave explanation, and accept it unquestioningly.

I'd say that in most cases, kids don't question it until they actually come to be taught the material. You get to physics class, and you're shown the usual "feather vs brick" drop experiment. Gravity is explained. Mass is explained. Perhaps Newton's laws.

You observe what's happening around you, and compare it to what you've been told; does the theory explain the reality in a satisfactory and complete manner? The answer is yes, at least for most people. We're of course frustrated that we don't understand the precise and complete picture of physics we'd like to, but we get that we're, at least probably, closer to the objective truth than we were before.

We have decided that, given the evidence in front of us, it is more likely that prevailing theories of gravity explain the reality of objects falling towards other objects, rather than say, magnetism, or small objects loving big objects because they love them.

So it goes with God.

I converted from atheist to Catholicism a couple of years ago. The process was a long and complicated one. But it started the same way the above example starts; with somebody telling me a theory.

The theory in this case is that a being we call God exists. That this being created the world, sustains it, and had a son called Jesus Christ, who was also God (!) and died for our sins. There's of course more to it than that, but that's the quick jist.

Does the theory explain reality in a satisfactory and complete manner?

I did a lot of reading and had a lot of arguments with many very patient people. I had certain direct life experiences that also affected my choice; much as one who observes an experiment gathers data, one who merely lives their lives is also gathering data; this is especially true when we are dealing with issues of metaphysics.

We call this direct, lived evidence, at least for spiritual matters, "personal revelation".

We also have further empirical evidence; the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, for example, is broadly indisputable, even in atheistic circles.

Ultimately, after weighing up the logical arguments and evidence for and against, the conclusion I came to was that Catholicism was objectively true, and provided a complete and satisfactory explanation for reality.

Epistemology

It is of course uncertain whether gravity itself is true, because it is uncertain whether any of the reality we are experiencing is, in fact, real. It's hard to escape from solipsism.

Faith is trust. Most of us have faith that we aren't in fact brains in jars. Most of us have faith that other people exist, and that the ground won't melt today, and that we are in fact, real, and walking upon a sphere of mostly-carbon.

"Cogito ergo sum." The only thing we can be truly certain of is our own existence. Everything else is faith; trust built upon a foundation of evidence and reason. It must be so; even Christians are not expected to believe without being told what it is we believe. (Google "Invincible Ignorance").

Is that a decision?

This next question is trickier. What I've described above is a judgement.

The question we must ask ourselves is; when we decide that gravity is responsible for falling apples, and not, for example, magnetism, are we making a free choice?

My contention is yes. You are free to discount evidence and arguments as you see fit. After all, no single piece of it is fully convincing (though I found the First Mover argument particularly compelling).

What matters most is a sincere pursuit of truth. If you're actually looking, I believe you will find. The issue many have is that they do not look for the truth; they look for what they want to find. In scientific terms, we might call this cherry picking.

This could very easily descend into a discussion on free will. I'll leave my argument here; there are libraries filled with books on that topic.

If you're choosing to believe in God just because it's convenient to you, I don't even know if you actually believe. The antithesis also holds true. But to those who seek truth, and accept God, they find that His existence holds just as true as their own.

Answer 8

Surely to be able to express belief/unbelief in something, there needs to at least the potential to conceptualise that something. I am convinced there are people who understand the Newtonian Theory of Gravity - I believe it represents a good model of gravity but I do not believe its true. The whole idea of God is by definition beyond the limitations of human understanding. It lacks even the potential to be understood and therefore any conceptualisation must be wrong. Because any concept of God is self contradictory it must surely be the case that I must reject any human conceptualisation of God. Yet, the universe exists.

Answer 9

Some people have a pre-reflective faith in God, others that there is no God, and presumably the same can be said of much, including the soul and immortality. If you take the example of the 'soul', this can be corrected, through culture, reflection, etc.: people change their mind, and maybe that's part of the appeal both to faith and philosophy.

Whether that is a "choice" strikes me as a phenomenological or anthropological question; in my experience you can "choose" not to be swept up by a culture.

Answer 10

The choice to believe in god, or not believe in god isn't necessarily under your control. You need a definition of god to know what it is you're believing. Wild animals have no concept of god, therefore they cannot choose to believe in god. The issue isn't under their control. Another point I can raise is, that a human can either believe god exists or believe it's possible god exists, they aren't the same. I'm an atheist, always have been always will be, and not by choice. I knew at an extremely young age, that only matter exists. The myriad of conclusions that follow from that knowledge contain among them the non existence of god.

Now let's consider the mind of someone who believes god exists. Clearly they don't know only matter exists, because the knowledge of the non existence of god follows from that knowledge. Furthermore, they don't know the fundamental principle of epistemology which is:

For any reasoning agent R, and any proposition P: if R knows P then P is true.

I can prove to them I know only matter exists, but because they are trapped in their own mind, they can't use my knowledge to increase theirs, because they don't know the fundamental principle of epistemology. Their mental growth will be slow.

Now take someone who believes it's possible god exists. They will simultaneously believe it's possible god doesn't exist. Let G be the statement 'god exists'. Thus we are dealing with someone who KNOWS ◊G and ◊not G. Now If A and B then (if A then B). Therefore if they learn the propositional calculus then they can know if ◊G then ◊not G. Thus by equivalence of the contrapositive they can know if not◊not G then not◊G. Now suppose they know SQML. Thus can know if ◻G then ◻not G. Similarly, we can show that they can know if ◻not G then ◻G. Therefore, they can know ◻G if and only if ◻not G, which is a paradox. Therefore, their enhanced logical mind can know that they are forbidden from knowing ◊G and ◊not G, which they thought they knew. Therefore, they are faced with a decision. Learn not ◊G or learn ◻G. Suppose ◻G. Then it's necessary that some matter was created. But it's possible that no matter was created. Therefore, not ◻G. Therefore, by disjunctive syllogism not ◊G. Therefore, if a reasoning agent knows SQML, then they can learn that it is necessary that god doesn't exist. So, if their mental growth is under their control they have no choice but to switch from agnosticism to atheism.

Answer 11

Can we choose to believe in God?

No, we do not choose our beliefs. They come from a complex amalgam of intuition, experience, thought and the cultural traditions and society we are born into. We do not choose a belief in the same way we can choose a brand of soap.

For example, today you may not believe in God but come tommorow, you cannot then choose to believe in God. In fact, all you would be doing is pretending to believe in God whilst secretly not believing in Him at all.