Russell: A Mathematician who Rejects Belief
Russell: A Mathematician who Rejects Belief
Russell: A mathematician who rejects belief
The choice of Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Bertrand Russell, mathematician and philosopher of the twentieth century, is an example of a philosopher scientist who declared his atheism by reason. Oscillating, earlier in his life, between the Christian faith and atheism he became an ardent atheist until his death.
His Final decision denying the existence of God is deliberated by a meditative choice.
In his treatise My Conception of the World ' He explains his reasoning concerning his choice of disbelief. He expounds on his rejection of faith in systematic responses to specific questions giving his reasons of rejection:
The Three dilemmas
To the question: Have you known what we call the religious impulse?' He replies: Yes, being adolescent, I was deeply religious. Religion gave me more than everything except perhaps for mathematics. And it is precisely this concern of the religion which led me (I recognize that my case is rather particular) to seek which good reasons I had to grant my credit to religion. I was attached to three questions, which seemed to me to be the essential questions: God, immortality, the free will.' (1)
Russell notes that by examining these questions he begins to lose faith:
I examined them by the opposite order, thus starting with free will. And little by little, I came to a conclusion; it is that I did not have any reason to believe in these three things.' (2)
His realization of unbelief is completed gradually through the process of reasoning where faith has disappeared completely:
I expected the worst of disappointments, but curiously, that was not the case.' (3)
The Free Will
To the question: Can one know how you were convinced to give up these three notions?' He answered: With regard to the free will, I used an argument which did not have big value; and I believe today that it remains conclusive. Being always the case, I considered that all movements of matter to be determined by the laws of dynamics: likewise, the lips of a man move by a material determination of this kind, and thus I did not see what influence it could have on the words which he was saying. An argument without value but which seemed to me convincing.' (4)
From movement Russell concludes the not existence' of an influence of some power, rather than a possibility of control, contrary to Aristotle, who considered the prime motor as fundamental.
The soul is not immortal
The second argument in connection to his renunciation of the soul and thus of the immortality supposed by religion is displayed as follows:
Immortality: well, obviously, in all evidence, is the relationship between body and soul, whatever it may be, appears to me much more intimate than one normally believes, there is no reason to suppose that the soul remains when a brain disintegrates.' (5)
This argument is based entirely on the assumption that there is no reason to suppose', which represents a personal point of view, a choice between belief and disbelief in the existence of the soul.
The renunciation of God by Russell is argued out, a priori, in the following manner:
Rejection of God
1. Russell refuses plainly the arguments in favor of the existence of God:
As for Godwe have produced many arguments to establish his existence; I thought, and I still think, that they all are void of value, and that no one would have ever accepted them.' (6)
2. From this refusal, he denies his belief in God:
Hence, there is no need to draw conclusion from it and to believe. In other words: I refuse these arguments, because they do not indicate any validity for the existence of God and thus I do not believe in God.' (7)
Concerning the proposal that, the laws of dynamics contradict the existence of free will', Russell states:
I insist here, that it was my knowledge as a teenager then. I thought then, relating to the laws of dynamics that all movements of matter, from those of primitive nebula, were fully determined, and this is also valid for all words. I thus thought that from the laws of dynamics, primitive nebula contained power and precisely as Mr. X would say on any occasion. It follows that Mr. X did not exert any free will on
what he had to say.' (8)
Skepticism about the Existence of God
To the question: Can you say with certainty that God does not exist, or else is it a simple absence of proof?' Russell answers:
No, of course not, I do not think that this inexistence is a certain thing.
I think that the question arises exactly on the same level as do the Olympian or Norwegian gods. They can also exist, these gods of Olympus or of Valhalla; I am unable to prove the contrary; but I also think that the God of the Christians does not have more probability than the others. I see in them a possibility, that is all.' (9)
In these arguments we observe how Russell moved from a choice of belief to a choice of disbelief through personal rationalization. His final choice of rejection of the existence of God remained valid throughout the rest of his life.
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1. Bertrand Russell, My Conception of the world, translated by Louis Evard, Gallimard Editions, Paris, 1962. p. 21-22.
2. Ibid., p. 22.
3. Ibid., p. 22.
4. Ibid., p 22-23.
5. Ibid., p. 23.
6. Ibid., p. 23.
7. Ibid., p. 23.
8. Ibid., p. 23-24.
9. Ibid., p. 24.
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