Hopeless Hypotheses

Making skeptical alternatives irrelevant...


In the past two posts, I’ve given a better perspective on Pascal’s wager, and the relationship between naturalism and free will. Pascal’s wager is most useful as a means to realize that, even if atheism is true, the Christian has lost nothing. Everything mankind seeks in life can be found in Christianity, making it worthwhile whether it is true or not. Naturalism leads inexorably to determinism, and eliminates the idea of free will. Whether determinism is true or not is, ultimately, irrelevant. It is impossible for man to live consistently with the belief that he is determined, so any truth behind determinism is worthless.

These two ideas serve as good examples of opposite ends of a value spectrum. On one hand, there is determinism, which is worthless, regardless of its truth value. On the other is Christianity, which is very worthwhile, regardless of its truth value. The idea of something useful, though untrue, goes back at least as far as Plato’s “noble lie”. My conception is more a matter of “value”, not necessarily “utility”. In my experience, which is less than extensive, I don’t know of any suggestion that some nominally important ideas are simply not worth considering, regardless of truth value. My suggestion is that such ideas exist, though there are not many of them.


As I mentioned above, Plato discussed the idea of a “noble lie” in The Republic. Plato’s version was a tool for control; his lie was intended to maintain social order by giving his government-enforced caste system a divine origin. I’m not suggesting that something untrue ought to be promoted simply to give authority more authority. Remember, my contention is that Christianity is, in fact, true. That belief gives me the freedom to seek actual truth in all things. There are, however, voices in the atheist community who do believe that such a “noble lie” is needed, though they don’t consider Christianity a valid system to use. Books such as “By the Grace of Guile”, by Loyal Rue, argue that atheism is certainly the truth. Unfortunately, Rue notes, the natural consequence of atheism is nihilism. Therefore, mankind needs to create a new myth – a benevolent “noble lie”, in order to stave off the inevitable consequences of nihilistic thought^[1].

Rue rightly makes the connection between atheism and nihilism. Nietzsche noted the same thing, put most eloquently in his “Parable of the Madman”^[2]. Note, in particular, how Nietzsche describes the confusion and lost-ness caused by replacing objective values with subjective nihilism:

“Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?”

When treated logically, consistently, and rationally, there is no other consequence in an atheistic worldview. If the same persons who ardently, loudly, vehemently declare that there is no God also note the despair that truth leads to, there must be some truth to the notion that not all ideas are good ideas.

What, then, is a “worthless truth”? Perhaps the term “worthless truth” is misleading, since not all such ideas are necessarily “true”. A better term might be “hopeless hypothesis”. For my purposes, a “hopeless hypothesis” is an idea that, even if true, either must be or should be treated as untrue for all practical purposes. This puts a special onus on anyone claiming a “hopeless hypothesis” to be genuinely true – they have to explain what alternative to believe, and give reasons how and why to do so. Unfortunately, this will always involve some level of irrationality and dishonesty. Therefore, the purveyor of hopeless hypotheses is in no position to criticize others about the truth value of their beliefs, since they can’t even believe what they believe, so to speak.

As I see it, there are not many examples of “hopeless hypotheses”. I’ve already discussed one, which is determinism. Regardless of whether man is or is not determined, we cannot live as though we are. There is no benefit to be gained, no usefulness, no rational benefit to acting out a belief in determinism. The very nature of our sentience requires free will in order to make sense – it’s impossible to give the idea anything more than intellectual acceptance. No one can really convince themselves that they’re NOT a being of choice. This makes determinism a hopeless hypothesis.

Hard predestination is another related example. Hard predestination, or the belief that God pre-determined everything, including our choices about belief or disbelief, obedience and disobedience, is nothing more than theistic determinism. The same ideas apply to hard predestination as apply to determinism. Even if it’s true, we still must act as though it is not true. For that matter, even (most) hard predestination advocates still support evangelism, missions, and so forth. Logically, there would be no point in making any attempt to witness to anyone about Christ, or deny any natural impulses, if we really believed in hard predestination. After all, we’re going to do what we’re going to do, and there’s nothing we can do about it, in a predestined world.

The existence of hopeless hypotheses also creates issues for any worldviews that necessarily lead to, or require as background, a hopeless hypothesis. If a worldview, such as atheism, must lead to some hopeless hypothesis, such as determinism, the worldview itself becomes futile. That is, atheism itself is ultimately useless as a belief, since at least some of the logical outworkings of atheism are useless. Atheists acknowledge that nihilism and determinism are natural consequences of purely rational naturalism. The fact that they seek to counter these natural outworkings supports the idea that atheism is itself a hopeless hypothesis, because of those problems.

The practical use of these ideas is as follows: First, the fact that even atheists see the value in certain ideas, even if they aren’t true, makes logically consistent systems such as Christianity deserving of at least their grudging respect. Second, some ideas being espoused by anti-Christians aren’t worth believing under any circumstances. Let’s face it, at least the Christian worldview is internally consistent – we can live out exactly what we believe. The atheist has to “pretend” to have free will, and “pretend” that life has meaning, even though that’s not a supportable part of their worldview. Thus the lesson from Pascal’s Wager, that Christianity is something worth pursuing even if all we get in eternity is oblivion.

There is no point in believing in determinism, as Dawkins and Hawking seem to agree. There is no point in living out the nihilistic consequences of atheism, as Loyal Rue’s book would indicate. If a skeptic wants to complain about being asked to believe something they don’t think is true, a believer needs only point to these “hopeless hypotheses”. When they complain about the negative impact of Christianity, a believer can point to the disaster that follows living out the atheist worldview. If Christianity is a lie, it is the only one that could be described, from a secularists’ point of view, as “noble”. Atheism, if it is true, is as useless and harmful a belief as could be imagined, a truly hopeless hypothesis.

In my own mind, this isn’t yet a fully developed idea. I think there’s a lot more to be said about the idea of “hopeless hypotheses”. If or when I can put some of those ideas into a form that makes sense, I’ll return to this concept in future posts.

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[1] – Book by Loyal Rue
[2] – The Parable of the Madman