The Metaphysics of Materialism

Materialist determinism is a perpetually popular view in the modern world. It is the metaphysical viewpoint which denies metaphysics by positing that: 1. Reality is made of matter and only matter. The only reality is matter and the physical forces which operate within material interaction. This raises the thorny question of what exactly matter is. But let’s bracket this and assume there is something called “matter”, and it is the only constituent of reality (as opposed to “spirit” or “mind” or “consciousness”). 2. The events in reality are causally determined by material laws and forces, such that even the workings of mind and consciousness are determined by the physical states which preceded them. There is no free will or choice. All are illusory experiences formed in brains after events have happened. All phenomena can be fully explained in a mechanistic way through the matter and forces at work in an event, without any reference to choices or intentions or motives or thoughts.

However, as elegant as materialist determinism seems to be, it has some rather impractical and non-elegant implications. 

If materialist determinism is true, then everything that “is” is as it “ought” to be. There is simply no other way for things to be than the way they are. Two exceedingly odd observations arise from this: First, there is an immense amount of suffering and death in the world that most humans think ought to not happen, and ought to be changed. And we spend an inordinate amount of resources to try and change the world to be more “just” and “right”, so that it has less “unwarranted” death and suffering. Where does this perverse sense of “ought” come from if how things are is how they ought to be? We are feeling and intending in a way that is against our nature. Unless of course this perverse “ought” is nature’s way of tricking us into becoming more efficient at surviving and reproducing. In which case, why are we so hard to change? Why do we stick with survival strategies which help fewer of us survive and thrive?  This is odd if materialist determinism is true. 

But what is perhaps odder is that if materialist determinism is true, then all religions are true as well, in the sense of “true = how things must be”. All religious sages and saints and messiahs were destined to be in exactly how they are. All religious texts were destined to be exactly as they are. All religious organizations and movements are exactly what they are supposed to be. All beliefs about gods and demons, heavens and hells, rituals and morals, are exactly as nature determined they must be. Nature inexorably created biological and social systems so that all of these phenomena had to happen exactly as they did. Imagine a world machine made of pure matter and physical forces which inexorably creates creatures and societies which are founded on the very idea that there is more to this world than mere matter and physical forces. That is beyond miraculous. And it is also beyond critique. Because if materialist determinism is true, then there is simply no reason to critique religions and spiritualities as “untrue”. Because they are exactly what had to happen and there is no way they cannot be exactly as they are. 

To put it briefly: If materialist determinism is true in any meaningful way, then there is no way to critique anything at all in the world, or try to change things so they are another way. It is what it is. All of it. Every single aspect of the world must be the way it is. And nothing will change the way things change and persist. The only way to critique the world, or anything in it, is to posit that there is something which transcends the world and allows us to get another viewpoint on it other than the way it is. Those who hold to materialist determinism often critique social systems for being unjust, or critique religions for being untrue. But ironically, for their critiques to be true, materialist determinism must be false. There must be something which transcends matter in order to critique matter. There must be real freedom to envision events other than the way they are, in order to say there could be a better way. 

So, materialist determinism turns out to seem rather naive, simplistic, and unrealistically reductionistic. If we assume there is a valid way to critique or change the world, we also must assume something transcends the world. The question, of course, is what is the nature of that transcendent reality.