Bob Murphy's theistic case for libertarianism

Miscellaneous General
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Robert Murphy’s theism has been very interesting to me. Its interestingness is the coexistence of his theism and his belief in free market, and that he is very confident in and passionate about both ideas. To me, his stance is another reminding sign that different ideas can coexist peacefully in one human mind. It reminds me that I cannot be so sure about my logical inferences, when similar minds can conclude completely differently.

When I got to know about Invisible Hand, I learned to see the world differently. This idea made me capable of seeing the human phenomena, as they do not need to be intended or designed. When I got to know about Spontaneous Order, I learned that there is no need for a Central Planner to put things in order. I learned that institutions, norms, values, and so on, can come into existence without being intended or designed.

But there are people, and intelligent ones, who reject statism, the idea that there should be an authority to organize people, to manage opposing interests in order to create a productive order. They are so intelligent and intuitive to see the unseen, the invisible. They are so smart that they do not need a whole and absolute authority on top of human societies to be able to explain complicated human phenomena.

But when it comes to explaining the universe, these intelligent minds still need an absolute entity on top of everything to explain it. Without a deity, they cannot overcome their perplexity.

I abandoned socialism and theism quite in the same time. My naturalist atheism coexists consistently with my belief in free markets. But their consistency in my mind does not guarantee their being certain. What I see opposing ideas, live peacefully in other intelligent minds.

O, Certain Truth! Where are you?

PS: Am I the first one from Iran on this forum?

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Reza, at issue with this coexistence is whether the deity is conceived of as a top down planner of the present order or a bottom up creator of the conditions for the present order. When sophisticated people attempt to create a theistic theory of evolution, they say that evolution was God’s process for creating man and animals. They will put God at the center of the big bang, and his rationality echoing in every aspect of the mathematics that drives the universe. Very diplomatic.

Have you ever witnessed the kind of cosmological conversation where two parties attempt to pull the rug out from under each others’ feet by jumping to lower and lower levels: “it is only by chance we are here”, “that’s because God’s plan is mysterious and looks like chance” “Oh, so I guess we are lucky to have God”, and on and on the regress goes? In such chicken and egg arguments, God usually moves from being the guy with the white beard sitting on a cloud into some like an abstract meta-law of the universe. At which point, the distinction pretty nominal.

On most days, I think I live in a rational universe which caused me, so I possess a reflection of its rationality with which to find the principles to live my life in it. (Maybe the universe is rational only because it built me to think it so, so what?) But this is arguably a less poetic version of “God put you in the world in his image and he’s hoping you’ll find Him.” Now the planners, as I see it, tend to be those believers who see a specific white-bearded cloud guy that they have some special hotline by which they understand “His law” that short circuits any discussion. Their faith in God replaces their cognition of God entirely, and as such they attack others without conscience (without God in their hearts, he is ever on their lips, and they make an idol in his place).

Now to nitty-gritty theological points, while I find it easy to reconcile some of Christianity, with its mysterious undercover man/God and who left us with the gift of will and reason, other points of Christian theology, like the inherent sinfulness of man, are difficult to reconcile with economic and especially anarchistic ideas.

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Now to nitty-gritty theological points, while I find it easy to reconcile some of Christianity, with its mysterious undercover man/God and who left us with the gift of will and reason, other points of Christian theology, like the inherent sinfulness of man, are difficult to reconcile with economic and especially anarchistic ideas.

What version ox Xtianity; Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, Nesotarian, Angelican, one of the hundreds of Protestant doctrians, some vaugue offshoots such as Mormonism or a type of gnostic cult?

Assuming you mean “original sin”, on not even a quick 101 glance:

  1. Catholic: Though Adam’s sinful act is not the responsibility of his descendants, the state of human nature that has resulted from that sinful act has consequences that plague them: “Human nature, without being entirely corrupted, has been harmed in its natural powers, is subject to ignorance, suffering and the power of death, and has a tendency to sin. This tendency is called concupiscence” (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 77)

  2. Orthodox/ most “Apostolic” eastern forms of Xtianity: Do not accept Augustine’s concept of “original sin”

http://www.stmaryorthodoxchurch.org/orthodoxy/articles/2004-hughes-sin.php

  1. Various Protestant movements do not believe in it (nor do Mormons if you wish to seperate them from Protestants)

It’s not clear cut. Don’t let the cool, hip “pop intellectual” views of Xtianity dictate a view of complex theological doctrins. It is too broad a topic, and for atheists, like myself; it should not be worth the time to figure out what is or is not compatible with Xtianity, unless of course I had some agenda or propaganda to spread against it.

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You are absolutely right. I did overstep and over generalize in that example. In fact, I was reacting to a pop source I had recently read and its particular conception of the consequences of original sin.

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Why do Austrians reject Hegel’s Geist, his divine historical absolute? Why do Austrians reject Marx’s Material Productive Forces as a whole, which is said to be behind human actions?

The explanation that comes to my mind at the very first, is that the way Austrians see and interpret human phenomena, there is no need for such a super-human, super-natural entity to explain them. Austrians and others who perceive the free market idea, are capable to see human action, and are able to interpret social phenomena as the consequence of individual human interactions. So they do not get trapped in super-natural, super-human arguments, which are based on hypothesized and baseless imaginations. Those who put forward those ABSOLUTE and WHOLE entities, to provide an explanation for complicated phenomena, CANNOT see the invisible. The Invisible Hand and the Spontaneous Order have not come to a focal point in their minds, they may have heard about them, but they have not digested and absorbed these ideas. But for those, who have well absorbed these ideas, the coexistence of theism and the idea of free markets seems very strange to me.

Let me put forward my explanation for God.

Ancient human beings could not interpret the complicated order in the nature; so they jumped to a higher level and created God to put an end to their perplexity; God came into existence to provide an explanation for the complicated order. In that time, human minds had not been sophisticated enough to perceive or even create ideas like evolution, invisible hand, or spontaneous order.

God was a temporary relief, not an effective and final solution. Man created a supernatural God, and added another entity to the in-exist and in-order world to explain the existence and order, WITHOUT providing an explanation for prior existence of this new entity. Man refrained to provide an explanation for God itself, because this was against the purpose of creating God; the purpose was to end the perplexity, not to make more confusion.

Man did not have any experiences that something was in disorder and then came into order, without being ORDERED. So God was an explanation for the in-order world, in line with his expectations and experiences. BUT this meta-solution was completely against man’s expectations and experiences; he did not have even one experience that something came into existence from NOTHING.

God has never been an idea, consistent with natural experiences of man.

Through the time, God lost most part of its absolute authority, and became something like a formal monarch. It descended from his position of ever-controlling the world to a lower position of creating the universe at once and then abandoning it to operate according to natural laws, or as you say the position of “a bottom up creator of the conditions for the present order”.

I agree that this theology that is dominant for centuries, allows theists to somehow reconcile their thoughts with Big Bang and Evolution. Indeed, Darwin’s and Hawking’s theories still leave room for such a powerless God, but in their picture, God is an UNNECESSARY and REDUNDANT item.

But WHAT A GOD IS IT that the world can be explained WITHOUT!? A redundant God is no God.