Does god convict us of thought crimes?
Some atheists, most predominantly the late Christopher Hitchens, have expressed disgust and indignation with the god of the bible, who seems to convict and condemn us not only for our actions, but also our innermost thoughts and desires. In an acceptance speech in 2007, Hitchens said, “Who, but someone servile and stupid and pathetic, wants it to be true that they can be convicted of thought-crime at any minute of the day, or night as they’re sleeping, for thinking the wrong thing?”
Hitchens is correct in stating that the god of the bible holds us accountable for our thoughts and intentions. Matthew 5:28 tells us that even looking lustfully at a woman is on par with committing adultery. Similarly, Mathew 5:22 states that anyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be subject to judgement. Jesus clearly taught that moral values and duties apply not only to our actions, but our thoughts and intentions as well.
Are these complaints from Hitchens, and others, legitimate? It is important to keep in mind that these ideas are just that: complaints and nothing more. Such rhetoric serves to distract from the real philosophical questions of god’s existence, and does nothing to invalidate the alleged divinity of Christ, nor disprove the existence of god. At best, these ideas establish that the arguer does not like the idea of the Christian god.
However, if god does exist, would it be immoral and despotic for him to hold us accountable for our innermost thoughts and desires? To answer this question, we need to determine whether there are sufficient reasons for god to do so, and whether moral values and duties apply to our mental life in reality. There are at least two reasons for thinking the moral realm is not limited to our physical actions, but applies to our thought-life as well.
First, if the behavioural outcome of certain thoughts and intentions is a morally wrong action, then that person can be held morally responsible for developing and entertaining those thoughts and intentions. Criminal law already intuitively recognizes this inherent moral value to our mental life. For example, one can be arrested and convicted on charges of conspiring to murder – that is, one can be held morally responsible for intending to murder a person prior to having actually committed the crime.
The person being convicted has not done anything wrong physically or behaviourally. If law enforcement officials somehow became aware that the individual was planning to murder someone on a certain date and witnessed the individual purchasing firearms, or overheard their conversation about the intended murder, these acts conversing, purchasing firearms etc. would not be morally wrong actions in themselves. The individual is not arrested for conversing about the topic of murder or for purchasing firearms. Rather, the moral wrongness is a direct property of the individual’s private, subjective, mental life – namely, the individual’s intention to murder, thereby demonstrating the inherent applicability of moral value to one’s thought-life.
Second, your inner thoughts and intentions may not force you to commit an immoral act, but they may prevent you from making a moral act. In a sense, this would be a sin of omission. The atheist could argue that there is nothing inherently wrong with thinking thoughts of intentional murder or hatred toward another person, so long as those thoughts in no way manifest themselves as behaviour or actions towards another person. Moral rightness or wrongness is therefore applicable only to the actions, not the thoughts. This is somewhat true, a person could live with hatred for someone, yet never express their hatred outwardly. But does that entail that a person’s hatred would have absolutely no behavioural manifestations?
A person who is genuinely filled with hatred and loathing for another person, will not go out of their way to be kind and loving to that person. There exist many moral obligations and duties, which are crucial for the proper functioning of a morally healthy society. Charity (not necessarily financial charity) and cooperation are two examples. A hate-filled person will have no desire to be charitable or cooperative with the person he hates. By allowing one’s self to hate another person, one may not act directly on this hatred, but one is more likely to refrain from fulfilling certain moral obligations he has to others, which, on a large scale, could result in moral, social, and even economic decline in a society.
So, our thoughts and intentions can result in morally wrong actions towards others, and also the omission of moral obligations and duties we have to others. For these reasons it seems reasonable, if not acutely practical, that god, if he exists, has sufficient grounds for holding us accountable for our thought-life in addition to our actions, and is, therefore, acting in accordance with his perfect, moral nature by doing so.