I promised at the beginning of this paper [“Objectivism and Theism”] that, after presenting the positive case for theism on Objectivist grounds, I would examine Dr. [Nathaniel] Branden’s arguments and state where, in my judgement, he goes astray. To this task I now turn.

God, Goodness, and Freedom

Dr. Branden says that if God is good by nature, then he is not omnipotent. But to call God omnipotent is to say that his will is irresistible, that he can do what he wishes. It says nothing about what he will or will not wish. As before, he is confusing “can do anything” with “might do anything.”

Again, Dr. Branden says that if God is good by nature, then he is not virtuous. He illustrates by pointing out that we would not call a robot virtuous for doing a good thing (say, watering the garden the right amount, taking into account the temperature, recent rains, and so on), since we would know that it was constructed to do so, and had no choice in the matter. But surely the absence of choice is not the only thing involved in our reluctance to call the robot virtuous. For example:

(1) The robot (unlike God) has no mind, no consciousness, no awareness. It literally does not know what it is doing.

(2) The robot (unlike God) has no desires, preferences, values, or velleities. It does not care whether the garden gets watered or not, nor is it at all concerned for the welfare of the people who will eat the produce of the garden. If Dr. Branden wishes to grapple with the real issue here, he might better consider a dog rather than a robot. Dr. Branden, if I correctly understand him, thinks that dogs do not have free will. [01] On the other hand he thinks that they do have goals, and that if a dog rescues its master at the risk of its own life, we may properly say that it has done so because it loves and trusts its master. [02] The argument would have been more to the point (but perhaps a little less plausible?) if Dr. Branden had maintained that no one would call Lassie virtuous, rather than just maintaining that no one would call R2D2 virtuous.

(3) But the greatest objection to calling the robot virtuous is simply that the robot is not the cause or agent of the good deed in question. In a sense, the robot does not water the garden; some man waters the garden by means of the robot. Similarly, a fence does not keep out trespassers, or a sign warn them; the farmer keeps out trespassers with the fence and warns them with the sign. Telescopes do not see; we see by means of telescopes. Computers do not think, or even add; we use computers to add and think with. Thus, if the wording of a sign displays bad spelling, grammar, or manners, we do not blame the sign, but reserve our censure for the author. It is he, not the sign, that has offended us. The sign is a conduit, not a source, of the offense.

God, on the other hand, is alway source and never conduit. He is good, not because someone made him that way, designed him with that nature, but because his nature is the ultimate fact that you can’t get behind. The fact that God is good rather than bad is like the fact that something exists rather than nothing. These are not facts that just happen to be so but could have been otherwise. Nor are they facts that must be so, because they are compelled to be so by some more fundamental facts. They are simply so. They are the fundamental facts. They are axioms.

Thus, a robot is not responsible for its actions, because its designer is. It can always pass the buck, so to speak. But with God and his actions, it is supremely true that the buck stops here. And that makes God morally responsible, and his actions morally significant.

Let us digress for a moment to consider a fallacy that Dr. Branden has brilliantly refuted, that of saying that the fundamental postulates of logic, and reason itself, are accepted only by an arbitrary whim, a blind leap of faith. [03] This position gets a certain plausibility from the fact that neither a whim (“I just have a hunch that horse number eight will win.”) nor the Axiom of Identity (“A is A.”) is logically deduced from more fundamental premises. But thereafter they part company. The concept of a whim, as Dr. Branden points out, is genetically dependent on the contrasting concept of the logically buttressed belief, on the concept of reasoning. The axioms of logic, on the other hand, are the only context in which the notion of the logically buttressed belief is possible. They are not the negation of such beliefs, but the basis of them. And this makes all the difference in the world.

Now let us consider what we know about the nature of God. In Part One of this paper, I argued at great length that the notion of man as a rational, moral agent makes sense only in the context of the premise that man was created by a being whose fundamental nature is such that he is never mistaken and never “blanks out.” And, as Miss Rand has point out, any deviation from goodness always involves blanking out. Thus, the creator is all-good by nature, and our own status as agents free to choose between right and wrong is logically dependent on his existence and nature, just as our actual procedures of drawing logical inferences are dependent on the axioms of logic.

On the other hand, our whole concept of a robot is not merely that it lacks free will, but that it is an artifact, something made by a person with free will, in order that it may act as he chooses. Thus, a robot is defined in contrast with free persons, in the context of free persons. The notion of a robot is genetically dependent on the notion of a free moral agent, from which it is intended to be distinguished. To those who believe that, because God is not free to be bad, his actions have no moral significance, I can give no better advice than that they study Dr. Branden’s article, just cited. When they have learned from Dr. Branden the difference between an axiom and a whim, then they should be prepared to grasp the difference between God and a wind-up toy.

I have called the preceding paragraphs a digression because I have for the most part tried to keep the argument of Part Two independent of anything in Part One. But even without reference to Part One, Dr. Branden’s contention involves him in serious difficulties.

Surely there is a certain perverseness in the suggestion that the more trustworthy, the more reliable someone is, the less he exhibits good moral character by his trustworthiness, and that someone who can be trusted unconditionally is by that very fact seen to be morally worthless. One is reminded of Professor Peikoff’s altogether just strictures against those philosophers who say that the truths of logic and mathematics are void of factual content, and furnish no information except about the speech habits of those who use them. He says,

The ultimate result of the theory of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy is the following verdict pronounced on human cognition: ... if the proposition represents knowledge which is certain, then it does not represent knowledge of reality.... If a proposition is conclusively demonstrated — so that to deny it is obviously to endorse a logical contradiction — then, in virtue of this fact, the proposition is written of as a product of convention or arbitrary whim....
  This theory represents a total epistemological inversion: it penalizes cognitive success for being success. Just as the altruist mentality penalizes the good for being the good, so the analytic-synthetic mentality penalized knowledge for being knowledge. Just as, according to altruism, a man is entitled only to why he has not earned, so, according to this theory, a man is entitled to claim as knowledge only what he has not proved. [04]

Just as in the philosophers of whom Professor Peikoff complains stand epistemology on its head, so Dr. Branden stands ethics on its head by saying that if God is completely good, then He is not good at all.

In Kant’s version of morality, as Miss Rand points out,

If one has no desire to be evil, one cannot be good; if one has one can. [05]

She goes on to say:

You will find that on every fundamental issue, Kant’s philosophy is the exact opposite of Objectivism. [06]
  ... a system as consistently evil as his cannot be constructed innocently. [07)
  This who accept any part of Kant’s philosophy — metaphysics, epistemological, or moral — deserve it. [08] 

References
[Editor’s notes are in blue.]

* The title refers to Nathaniel Branden’s lecture “The Concept of God,” from his lecture series “The Basic Principles of Objectivism.” That lecture is fully transcribed in his book The Vision of Ayn Rand, chapter 4. Partial and perhaps complete audios seem to be available throughout the Internet. See also R.A. Childs, “The Epistemological Basis of Anarchism,” Note 19.

[01] M. Adler, The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes (New York: Holt Rhinehart & Winston, page 153; quoted by Branden in The Psychology of Self-Esteem.). [James added: “also quotes from AS and above.” I am not sure what he had in mind.]
  For example, when an animal has acquired the disposition to discriminate between triangles and circles — in spite of differences in their size, shape, color, or position, and whether or not they are constituted by continuous lines or dots — that acquired disposition in the animal is the perceptual attainment I have called a perceptual abstraction. This disposition is only operative in the presence of the appropriate sensory stimulus, and never in its absence, i.e., the animal does not exercise its acquired disposition to recognize certain shapes as triangles or certain colors as red when a triangular shape or a red patch is not perceptually present and actually perceived.

[02] N. Branden, “Self-Esteem and Romantic Love,” 6/12/2f-3b. [References of this form refer to The Objectivist Newsletter, so that volume 6, number 12 would be December 1967. After volume 4, the name of the publication was The Objectivist. The page numbers for the latter are those of the original format, not those in the bound volume. A parallel passage can be found in Branden, The Psychology of Self-Esteem (New York: Bantam Books, 1969; pages 198–202).]

[03] N. Branden, “‘The Stolen Concept’” 2/1/2j-aa [January 1963].
  To declare that the axioms of logic are “arbitrary” is to ignore the context which gives rise to such a concept as the “arbitrary.” An arbitrary idea is one accepted by chance, caprice, or whim; it stands in contradistinction to an idea accepted for logical reasons, from which it is intended to be distinguished. The existence of such a concept as an “arbitrary” idea is made possible only by the existence of logically necessary ideas; the former is not a primary; it is genetically dependent on the latter. To maintain that logic is “arbitrary” is to divest the concept of meaning.

N. Branden “‘The Stolen Concept’” 2/1/4h [January 1963].
  One of the most grotesque instances of the stolen concept fallacy may be observed in the prevalent claim — made by new-mystics and old-fashioned mystics alike — that the acceptance of reason rests ultimately on “an act of faith.”
  Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by the senses. Faith is the acceptance of ideas or allegations without sensory evidence or rational demonstration. “Faith in reason” is a contradiction in terms. “Faith” is a concept that possess meaning only in contradistinction to reason. The concept of “faith” cannot antecede reason, it cannot provide grounds for the acceptance of reason — it is the revolt against reason.

[04] L. Peikoff, “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy” 6/9/14c-f [The Objectivist, September 1967] & IOE 160-61 [A. Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, H. Binswanger and L. Peikoff, eds. (New York: New American Library, pages 118–19; expanded 2nd edition)].

[05] A. Rand, FNI 32 [For the New Intellectual (New York: Signet Books, page 32).

[06] A. Rand, “Brief Summary” 16/9/4c [The Objectivist, September 1971].

[07] A. Rand, “The Age of Envy” 10/8/8c [August 1971].

[08] A. Rand, FNI 32.