SOCRATES AND THE GODS

It might come as a surprise to many that Socrates believed in God(s). Professor of philosophy and classics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Eve Browning,

is at work on a biography of Xenophon. According to her, Xenophon had recorded his “remembrances” of Socrates:

·       Another surprising side of Xenophon’s Socrates is shown through his encounter with a person who not only doesn’t honour the gods, but makes fun of people who do. To this irreligious person, Socrates presents a careful and persuasive line of reasoning about the designed usefulness of all elements of creation. For humans and many other animals, there are ‘eyes so that they can see what can be seen, and ears so that they can hear what can be heard’, eyelids, eyelashes, molars and incisors, erotic desire to aid procreation; all these are ‘the contrivance of some wise craftsman who loves animals’. And what about the cosmos as a whole? ‘Are you, then, of the opinion that … those surpassingly large and infinitely numerous things are in such an orderly condition through some senselessness?’ Human beings even have the spiritual capacity to perceive the existence of gods, ‘who put in order the greatest and noblest things’, and ‘they worry about you!’ https://aeon.co/essays/the-ancient-greek-rebel-leader-who-saw-socrates-solo-dancing

Evidently, Socrates had taken a very philosophical approach to the “gods.” He had deduced the existence of the unseen from what is clearly seen by all. However, hasn’t the recent scientific findings disqualified Socrates’ arguments? Hasn’t Darwin made atheism respectable?

I don’t think so. Even if the embattled theory of evolution has captured the minds of the educated, in context, it should be obvious that this naturalistic theory has done little to explain the many other appearances of design – the origin of the elegant, immutable, and universal laws of science, the fine-tuning of these laws, life, the cell, DNA, consciousness, freewill, logic, and reason… Consequently, Socrates’ rhetorical question remains an unanswered challenge to atheism:

·       “Are you, then, of the opinion that … those surpassingly large and infinitely numerous things are in such an orderly condition through some senselessness?”

Well isn’t Socrates’ challenge just one more instance of the fallacious God-of-the-gaps reasoning, which holds that, “Since there is presently no naturalistic explanation, God must have done it?”

This objection to Socrates might have been substantive if there existed but one example of a natural substance or of a naturally (without intelligence) caused event. However, any substance is made of atoms, and each atom is a marvel of design and ID. If anything, modern science has done far more in support of ID than to disprove it.