Is Pope Francis an Atheist?
By: Will Mclaughlin
Tags: Faith, Philosophy, Atheism, Religion, Christianity

As a person whose professional life has been spent primarily in the world of religion, but whose undergraduate education was mainly in philosophy and whose family and friends represent the full spectrum of religious belief or lack thereof, I’ve long been fascinated with atheism. As a teenager, I spent many a late night chatting with my atheist uncle (I still do, sometimes), and today I spend many a class period embroiled in conversation with my atheist students.

Over the course of those many discussions, and having read many of the books and articles, and seen many of the debates and TV interviews, I’ve noticed one argument in particular that keeps coming up. This particular argument is logically fallacious, and I think it’s worth pointing out the fallacy so that more intellectually rigorous discussion can, I hope, take its place. In one common enough form, the argument goes like this:

We are all atheists with respect to Zeus and Thor. Only the atheist has realized that the biblical god is no different.

That version, which is Sam Harris (an atheist and neuroscientist renowned for his book, The End of Faith — that’s not an affiliate link) quoting Richard Dawkins (an atheist and evolutionary biologist renowned for several books, including The God Delusion — also not an affiliate link) in a 2005 blog post called “An Atheist Manifesto,” is succinct and easy enough to understand, so I’m going to use it as the basis for a logical critique.

What is Atheism?

Consider Harris’s language (because his 2005 link to Dawkins’s original is dead, I’m going to consider it Harris’s formulation of the argument): “We are all atheists with respect to Zeus and Thor.” There’s a subtle issue here that many people, including scientists with PhDs like Harris and Dawkins, might miss.

This argument moves atheism out of the realm of the absolute and into the realm of the relative. In this first premise, Harris isn’t talking about absolute atheists, who believe in no gods at all, but “relative atheists,” atheists who are atheists only “with respect to” this or that god. In this line of reasoning, one’s disbelief in Zeus makes one an atheist, and not merely an “a-Zeus-ist.”

This is a radical shift in the standard definition of the term “atheist.” Generally, in English, atheism refers to a disbelief (alternatively, a lack of belief) that there is any divine being, not just the belief that this or that mythological character is not one.

To relate all this to the title of this piece, this definition of “atheism” would allow us to call Pope Francis, the global spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church, an atheist. Because, in Harris’s words, he is an atheist with respect to Zeus and Thor. If you, like me, find this definition of atheism somehow amiss, it’s worth examining why. I think I’ve come up with an answer:

Differences of Degree and of Kind

I don’t want to tout the value of my own philosophical education too much, but I think I’ve noticed something that Harris and Dawkins haven’t. (Harris, who got a BA in philosophy from Stanford, definitely should have.)

There are at least two ways in which any two things can be different. The difference between them can be one of degree, or one of kind. The idea, basically, is that small differences between two things mean that those things are still in the same “kind,” but one of them has more or less of some quality or ingredient than the other. Large differences, on the other hand, make the two things in question different in kind, meaning that they’re no longer even the same kind of thing. An example may be helpful:

Imagine two recipes. One calls for four cups of flour, a cup and a half of water, a teaspoon of salt, and two teaspoons of yeast. The other calls for all the same ingredients, except that it uses three teaspoons of yeast instead of two. If you mix the ingredients for these different recipes in two adjacent mixing bowls, they will come out largely the same. The extra teaspoon of yeast in the second recipe, we could say, is only a difference of degree.

Continuing with the recipes, though, another difference soon presents itself. In both recipes, you knead the dough, let it rise, punch it down, and form it into a loaf. So far, so good. But the next step involves another difference. The first recipe, the one with only two teaspoons of yeast, tells you to bake the loaf at 350 degrees for 30–35 minutes. The second recipe, with three teaspoons of yeast, tells you to let the loaf rest without baking for 30 minutes, then serve.

Half an hour after you put the first loaf into the oven, and it comes out with a delightful golden brown crust and the satisfying, hollow thump of a perfectly baked loaf of bread, it becomes clear that now these two items are different in kind, meaning that they’re no longer the same kind of thing. One is a loaf of bread, the other is a loaf of raw dough.

Similarly, theism and atheism are different in kind, not merely in degree. It simply is not accurate to think of Christians (or Jews, or Muslims, or whichever other theists you want to consider) as being “atheists” with respect to all gods but their own. Atheism is an absolute, rather than a relative, concept. One is not an atheist with respect to this or that god. One simply is an atheist. Full stop.

Consider another analogy: Pope Francis is celibate, and I am aware of no reason to suspect that he has been unfaithful to his commitment of celibacy. Sam Harris is married, and I am aware of no reason to suspect that he has been unfaithful to his marital commitment.

Normally, “celibacy” refers, absolutely, to abstention from sexual relations. If, instead, we make it a relative term, as Harris has done with “atheism,” we need no longer stop at the statement that a person is celibate. Rather, we can (and perhaps must) clarify that a person is celibate with respect to this or that (or these or those) others. By this reasoning, Sam Harris is celibate with respect to all women other than his wife. I am celibate with respect to Emma Watson (sigh). Pope Francis, then, like me or Harris, is celibate. He just happens to be celibate with respect to everyone.

Surely, though, this isn’t how celibacy works? To call someone celibate is to assert that they have no sexual relationships at all, right? Surely, just one sexual partner makes a person no longer celibate? If so, then celibacy is an absolute concept, admitting of no exceptions. All it takes is one, and we’re talking about a difference of kind.

Similarly, atheism is an absolute concept. This nonsense of being an atheist with respect to this or that god is not really how the notion of atheism works. All it takes is one, and you’re not an atheist anymore, but a theist.

A Word of Caution

Lest the argument above be taken out of context or misinterpreted, I would like to clarify that I’m not trying to strike at the heart of atheism, here. In fact, I sympathize with the atheists I know, and sometimes find atheism quite attractive. Nevertheless, I don’t find it intellectually convincing. Still, my point here is to say that many atheists have good reasons for their atheism, and my intent here was not to dissuade them. Certainly, I don’t think a little bit of logic and semantics is going to convince anyone of the existence of God.

Rather, my purpose here was to point out that this one, particular argument that some very prominent atheists have made, atheists who happen to also be smart people with PhDs from rather prestigious universities, has a gigantic logical flaw. It is no more accurate to call Pope Francis, or any other obvious and self-proclaimed theist, an atheist than it is to call a married person, like Sam Harris himself, celibate. That simply isn’t how the terms, or the ideas that they represent, work.

So, with this one, particular, flawed argument out of the way, perhaps more serious discussion between theists and atheists can take place. This one need not take up any more of our time.