Luke Ford

In his 2-15-98 newsletter The Prager Perspective, Dennis writes under the headline: "Do Good Secular People Have Better Characters than Good Religious People?"

Prager attacks the secular belief that good religious people are at a lower level of moral development than good secular people because the religious act out of fear of divine punishment.

Dennis write: "The belief in divine reward and punishment has only a minimal impact on the moral behavior of nearly all religious adults. This is easily demonstrated: If the belief in divine reward and punishment [DRP] were instrumental in motivating moral conduct, nearly all religious people would be exceptionally ethical."

Elsewhere, however, Dennis has written and spoken about the significant effect that belief in divine reward and punishment (DRP) exerts on the religious. He often tells the story of a male friend who said that the main reason he did not commit adultery was that it was prohibited in the Ten Commandments. Therefore he believed that God highly disapproved.

In his new view, Prager claims that afterlife reward and punishment must play a minimal role or all religious people would be good. But that is fuzzy thinking. Divine reward and punishment is only one element, though a significant one, in what motivates people. Motivations are complex, and even if the religious believed strongly in afterlife reward and punishment, this would still be but one in a complex series of motivations.

Dennis writes: "The secular cannot have it both ways. They cannot argue that good religious people who believe in divine reward and punishment are inferior in character to good secular people and at the same time argue that religion doesn't make people act better. Either you argue that the belief in divine reward and punishment causes people to behave better - and then you can argue that such people do not deserve particular credit for their ethical behavior. Or you can argue that such religious beliefs do not end to make people behave better, in which case religious people who act ethically do so primarily for other reasons - but then you must ascribe as much moral character to good religious people as to good secular people."

Prager's claim is not necessarily true. A secularist could argue that belief in DRP makes some people act better and some people act worse, and that those who act better should not receive as much moral credit because they do it for inferior motives. There are many valid secular rejoinders to Prager's claims.

DP: "…all promises of divine personal reward or punishment are for the afterlife, not this life." That may be Prager's personal opinion as a rational philosopher, but it is not the majority view of Judaism. Judaism and the Torah fill with examples of good rewarding the good and punishing the evil in this life. Check out the blessings and curses in Deuteronomy and Numbers about God making the rain to fall in its season, if Israel obeys his will.

Dennis then writes in a way that exemplifies why many good people think of him as arrogant: "While some religious people irrationally believe that if they act religiously, God will reward them in this life by, for example, making them immune to disease or to being hit by a drunk driver or get cancer."

Is it irrational to believe that God rewards those who follow His will? While it does seem irrational to believe that God will make you immune to terrible things, it may be rational to believe that following God's will reduces the chances of many bad things happening to you. For instance, the religious are probably more likely to not drive drunk.

DP writes: "…Protestant Christians believed they are saved irrespective of how they behave…" That may be Prager's characterization of Protestants, but it is not one that they would hold, nor one that most disinterested observers of Protestants would hold.

DP: "It is preposterous to argue that if a religious person who has spent a lifetime doing good and resisting bad were convincingly shown, or taught by a religious leader, that there was no reward and punishment after this life, he or she would then begin lying, stealing and murdering."

Is it preposterous? Many keen observers hold that the great majority of us are always on the precipice of acting evil, and that small or big changes may precipitate small or big changes in our ethical behavior.

Does anyone else find it obnoxious that Prager uses such phrases as "he or she?"

DP: "I, for one, would sink into despair if I believed that Hitler had the same fate - death and then oblivion - as the millions of innocent men, women and children that he had murdered. The thought that the murderers and torturers of the world get away with all their evil…would drive me to despair."

Yet elsewhere Prager writes and says that he believes that this life is more important than the next life. If this life is important, and Prager is as sensitive to moral suffering as he presents himself, and is consistent, then he should be incapable of happiness? DP devotes a chapter of his book on Happiness to this question.