BERTRAND RUSSELL AND THE NATURAL LAW PROOF

The mathematician, Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1950). As an atheist, he wrote against various theistic proofs. One of them was the proof from natural laws, claiming that these laws require a law-Giver.

However, Russell fails to engage the theistic argumentation. He cites an example of a “natural law,” which no apologist would cite as such:

·       There is, as we all know, a law that if you throw dice you will get double sixes only about once in thirty-six times, and we do not regard that as evidence that the fall of the dice is regulated by design; on the contrary, if the double sixes came every time we should think that there was design.

This is not a “natural” law, but a logical law of chance and probability. No one would claim that “the fall of the dice is regulated by design,” unless they were trying to argue that logic is a matter of design.

Russell then obfuscated:

·       but natural laws are a description of how things do in fact behave, and being a mere description of what they in fact do, you cannot argue that there must be somebody who told them to do that, because even supposing that there were you are then faced with the question, ‘Why did God issue just those natural laws and no others?’ https://users.drew.edu/jlenz/whynot.html

Of course the laws describe “how things do…behave,” but they are more than that. They also identify causal agents.

Russell then asked an irrelevant question: “Why did God issue just those natural laws and no others?” He assumes that if we cannot answer this in any comprehensive manner, our theory must be wrong. Well, let’s apply this same standard to Russell and ask: “What are time, space, light, and matter?” No one can answer this definitively. However, we do not dismiss science because of this. Nor should we dismiss the proof of God from “natural” laws.

However, Russell never engages the heart of the “natural” law argument. A law-Giver is necessary to account for:

·       The universal and uniform impact of the laws throughout the universe. Their effect is not localized as are radio waves, suggesting that they emanate from the Transcendent.

·       Their immutability in a universe of molecules-in-motion.

·       Their elegance, which reveals incredible design.

·       Their precise fine-tuning. 

·       The origin of the natural laws even before there was such a thing as natural.

However, Russell and the other atheists claim that the many theistic proofs have been rendered invalid over recent years. Instead, the findings of science have revivified them.