Arguments Against Theism

Some bioconservatives reject the use of biotechnology for moral enhancement while simultaneously purporting to accept standard theism and process virtue (STPV). Standard theism holds that God is a personal, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, transcendent being. Process virtue holds that intrinsically valuable virtue can only be obtained through a specific process and not by means of biotechnological shortcuts. We describe two internal critiques, one conceptual and the other moral, that arise by combining standard theism and process virtue to reject moral enhancement. First, (...) the conceptual critique argues there is an inconsistency that arises when the process virtue view is applied to the concept of God himself. STPV inconsistently holds that intrinsically valuable virtue must arise through a process, yet also posits the existence of an immutable, omnibenevolent God, whose intrinsically valuable virtue never arose through a process. Theistic bioconservatives must either give up the notion that God has always been perfectly virtuous or give up their claim that virtue must be obtained through a particular kind of process. Second, the moral critique argues that rejecting moral enhancement on a process virtue basis is selfish, which is held to be a vice on all mainstream manifestations of standard theism. Process virtue is selfish because it requires prioritizing the intrinsic value of developing one’s own virtue through a process over using moral enhancement that will improve one’s ability to help others. We conclude that the combination of standard theism and process virtue does not serve as a strong basis from which to oppose moral enhancement. (shrink)

This special issue of Sophia, titled Living without God: A Multicultural Spectrum of Atheism, deals with the intricate issue of approaching atheism—methodologically as well as conceptually—from the perspective of cultural pluralism. What does ‘atheism’ mean in different cultural contexts? Can this term be applied appropriately to different religious discourses which conceptualize God/gods/Goddess/goddesses (and also godlessness) in hugely divergent ways? Or would that rather be a sort of hegemonic homogenization of all possible modalities of living without God, as Jessica Frazier argues (...) (Frazier 2013, 367)? Is my ‘God’ the same as yours? If not, then how can your atheism be the same as mine? In other words, this issue of Sophia raises the question: Is it not high time that we proposed a comparative study of atheism(s) alongside that of religions, rather than believing that atheism is centered in the ‘Western’ experience? Besides, how can we explore the modalities of atheist religiosity such as we find in Buddhism and Jainism and also, arguably, in certain forms of Hinduism, as far as the Indic traditions are concerned? How might these (re-)negotiations of atheism across the multicultural spectrum interrogate our tendency to place atheism within the context of the binary opposition of science and religion? Besides, there is a need to focus on the philosophical negotiations between atheism, theism and agnosticism and the discourses that emerge from such dialogues, including that of postsecularity. (shrink)

Discuto la tesi di Micheletti secondo la quale ogni spiegazione fattuale presuppone premesse di ordine superiore rispetto alla spiegazione (M.Micheletti, “Radical Divine Alterity and the God-World Relationship”). Nella prima sezione del testo introdurrò la tesi, muovendo dalla analisi di alcuni esempi di spiegazione, ed elencherò le ragioni che (apparentemente) richiedono la postulazione di higher-degree propositions per rendere conto di factual propositions. Nella seconda sezione regimenterò logicamente la tesi di Micheletti. Nella terza sezione discuterò la validità della logica della spiegazione così (...) introdotta, con un’attenzione particolare alla analisi semantica della nozione di spiegazione, allo statuto modale delle ragioni che costituiscono una spiegazione, e all’approccio grammaticale alle higher order propositions. Nella quarta e ultima sezione avanzerò brevissime considerazioni conclusive. (shrink)

The paper refers to the argument from hiddenness as presented in John Schellenberg’s book The Hiddenness Argument and the philosophical views expressed there, making this argument understandable. It is argued that conditionals and are not adequately grounded. Schellenberg has not shown that we have the knowledge necessary to accept the premises as true. His justifications referring to relations between people raise doubts. The paper includes an argument that Schellenberg should substantiate its key claim that God has the resources to accommodate (...) the possible consequences of openness to a relationship with finite persons, making them compatible with the flourishing of all concerned and of any relationship that may come to exist between them. At the end of the text, I propose to treat the argument as a rejection of an anthropomorphic God. (shrink)

According to The Debunking Argument, evidence from the cognitive science of religion suggests that it is epistemically inappropriate to persist in believing in the theistic God. In this paper, I focus on a reply to this argument according to which the evidence from cognitive science says nothing about the epistemic propriety of belief in the theistic God, since God may have chosen to create human beliefs in God by means of precisely the systems identified by cognitive scientists. I argue that (...) this reply can be extended to a variety of non-theistic contexts, and consequently that if the reply is sound, then the scope of The Debunking Argument is surprisingly limited. (shrink)

The evil-god challenge holds that theism is highly symmetrical to the evil-god hypothesis and thus it is not more reasonable to accept one rather than the other. But, since it is not reasonable to accept the evil-god hypothesis, it is not reasonable to accept theism. This article will primarily focus on defending the challenge from two recent objections which hold that it follows from the nature of moral motivation that theism is intrinsically much more likely to be true than the (...) evil-god hypothesis. However, I will also argue that there is a different intrinsic asymmetry between the hypotheses which favours theism. (shrink)

I first provide an interpretation of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo based on the Fourth Lateran Council, according to which God creates from nothing if and only if God creates everything except God Himself. I then show that this doctrine entails the modal problem that it is both possible and not possible that there is nothing at all except God, or alternatively, that it is both necessary and not necessary that there is something else besides God. I proceed to (...) examine several proposals to solve the problem, and find them all inadequate. Therefore, I conclude that creatio ex nihilo violates modal logic and is necessarily false. (shrink)

The traditional common consent argument for the existence of God has largely been abandoned—and rightly so. In this paper, I attempt to salvage the strongest version of the argument. Surprisingly,...

Logic is the study of the validity of arguments, which is to say the study of when a conclusion follows or does not follow from a set of premises. Logic is an ancient discipline pioneered by Aristotle and developed by some of the greatest thinkers in the Middle Ages. However, in the nineteenth century logic underwent a remarkable transformation into a precise branch of mathematics that changed the nature of logic, and the study of religion, forever. Both religious adherents and (...) critics of religion have sometimes claimed that logic and religion do not mix, but this is a puzzling claim since logic itself is not a set of substantive premises about the world which may come into conflict with religious claims, but a means of testing mathematically which premises come into conflict with which other premises. In fact, sense can be made of whether logic and religion mix, but the question, and the answer, turn out to be more complex than many have thought. (shrink)

Puede obtener un resumen rápido de este libro en p 135 o 326. Si no estás a la velocidad de la psicología evolutiva, primero debe leer uno de los numerosos textos recientes con este término en el título. Uno de los mejores es "el manual de la psicología evolutiva" 2Nd Ed por Buss. Hasta hace unos 15 años, las explicaciones del comportamiento no han sido realmente explicaciones de los procesos mentales, sino descripciones vagas y en gran medida inútiles de lo (...) que la gente hizo y lo que dijeron, sin ninguna idea de por qué. Podríamos decir que la gente se reúne para conmemorar un acontecimiento, alabar a Dios, recibir sus (o sus) bendiciones, etc., pero nada de esto describe los procesos mentales relevantes, por lo que podríamos decir que son explicaciones de la misma manera que explica por qué una manzana cae al suelo si decimos que es porque la lanzamos, y es pesada-no hay ningún mecanismo y ninguna potencia explicativa o predictiva. Este libro continúa la elucidación de la base genética del comportamiento humano que ha sido casi universalmente ignorado y negado por el mundo académico, la religión, la política y el público (véase el excelente libro de Pinker ' ' The Blank Slatè '). Su declaración (P3) de que no tiene sentido preguntar si la religión es genética se confunde como el porcentaje de variación de cualquier comportamiento debido a los genes y el medio ambiente se pueden estudiar, tal como lo son para todos los demás comportamientos (ver por ejemplo, Pinker). El título debe ser "intentos preliminares para explicar algunos aspectos de la religión primitiva", ya que él no trata la conciencia superior en absoluto (por ejemplo, Satori, iluminación, etc.) que son, con mucho, los fenómenos más interesantes y la única parte de la religión de interés personal a las personas inteligentes, educados en el siglo 21. Leyendo todo este libro, nunca adivinaría que esas cosas existirían. de la misma manera, para el inmenso campo de las drogas y la religión. Carece de un marco para la racionalidad y no menciona los sistemas duales de visión del pensamiento que ahora es tan productivo. Para eso sugiero mis documentos recientes. Sin embargo, el libro tiene mucho interés, y a pesar de estar fechada todavía vale la pena leer. Aquellos que deseen un marco completo hasta la fecha para el comportamiento humano de la moderna Dos Sistemas Punto de Vista puede consultar mi libro 'La estructura lógica de la filosofía, la psicología, la mente y lenguaje en Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle ' 2ª Ed (2019). Los interesados en más de mis escritos pueden ver 'Monos parlantes--filosofía, psicología, ciencia, religión y política en un planeta condenado--artículos y reseñas 2006-2019 3a Es (2019) y Delirios utópicos suicidas en el siglo 21 5ª Ed (2019) y otras. (shrink)

There is a crisis in philosophical rationality today—in which modern logicisimplicated—thatcanbetracedtotheabandonmentofacommonbackground of principles. The situation has no parallel within the pre-modern tradition, which not only admits of such principles, but also refers them back to a set of assumptions grounded in a clearly religious frame of mind. Modern conceptions of rationality claim complete independence from religious sources, as from tradition more generally, and typically end up disposing of first principles altogether. The result is a fragmentation of reason, which can be (...) seen to be dramatically exemplified in the realm of modern logic, populated by countless different systems and incompatible conceptions of what it is to be a logic. Many of the conceptual choices that became implicit in the philosophical discussions eventually leading to the rejection of the religious picture, and ultimately to the aforementioned crisis, were themselves originally linked to religious premises, so that all along, a kind of religious subconscious has subsisted throughout those disputations; however, the lack of any proper recognition of this background obstructs the possibility of making a reasonable assessment of the nature and causes of the crisis. Alasdair MacIntyre, whose thought inspires the argument developed here, reached similar conclusions regarding practical rationality and the effects of abandoning the teleological framework of Aristotelian philosophy. MacIntyre’s arguments can be adapted, as he suggests, to deal with reason more generally, and his insistence upon the tradition-laden character of rational enquiry can help point toward the grounding of human reason in religion. (shrink)

An essay concerning the arguments from natural theology for the existence of a theistic God. This is the second edition of an essay that I felt compelled to write in 2006. The first edition was quite uncritical of the various arguments examined. However, after further study, I felt the need to revise the arguments and, ultimately, the conclusion. Although I may no longer agree with everything written in this essay it remains an important part of my spiritual journey. Some ideas (...) in this essay may be oversimplified and reflect the infancy of my own understanding. (shrink)

This is the handbook of abstracts of the 1st World Congress on Logic and Religion, which took place in João Pessoa, Brazil, April 01-05, 2015. -/- .

According to J. L. Schellenberg, a perfectly loving God wouldn't permit the occurrence of non-resistant non-believers – that is, non-believers who are both capable of believing in and relating to God, but who fail to believe through no fault of their own. Since non-resistant non-believers exist, says Schellenberg, it follows that God doesn't. A popular response to this argument is some version or other of the greater good defence. God, it's argued, is justified in hiding himself when done for the (...) sake of some greater good. But proponents of this defence have overlooked or neglected an important sub-argument in Schellenberg's case – what I call the ‘pre-eminent good argument’. In this article, I identify the nature of the argument and offer a solution to it. (shrink)

This chapter appeals to natural selection in order to show that the failure of many humans and animals to flourish is strong evidence against the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect God. Treating theism and naturalism as hypotheses that aim to explain certain features of our world, Draper sets out to test each hypothesis against various known facts, including facts about human and animal suffering. After demonstrating that, prior to such testing, naturalism is more probable than theism in (...) virtue of its smaller scope (i.e. greater modesty) and greater simplicity, Draper goes on to argue that naturalism has far greater "predictive power" than theism, concluding that this provides strong grounds for rejecting theism. (shrink)

Scientific debates about the nature of light have nothing to do with the philosophical problem of evil if you focus on the subject matter of those debates, but quite a bit to do with it if you focus on the structure of the reasoning in those debates. Some theories of light have been shown to be improbable, at least other evidence held equal, by comparing them to incompatible theories, both with respect to how well they fit certain data and (at (...) least implicitly) with respect to how probable they are intrinsically. Similarly, (a popular form of) theism can be shown to be improbable, at least other evidence held equal, by comparing it to the incompatible theory that physical reality is the source of mental reality. This theory of “source physicalism” fits a variety of data about good and evil much better than theism does. Further, primarily because of its modesty, source physicalism is many times more probable intrinsically than theism. It follows that, other evidence held equal, theism is very probably false. (shrink)

I define an ‘evidential argument from evil’ as an attempt to show that something we know about evil, while not provably incompatible with theism, is evidence against theism in the precise sense that it lowers the epistemic probability of theism being true. Such arguments must show that, for some statement e about evil that we know to be true, the antecedent probability of e given the denial theism – Pr(e/~G) – is greater than the antecedent probability of e given theism (...) – Pr(e/G). To show that e is strong evidence against theism, such arguments must show that Pr(e/~G) is many times greater than Pr(e/G). Skeptical theists seek to refute such arguments by denying that Pr(e/G) can be assessed with sufficient specificity to draw any interesting conclusions about how it compares to Pr(e/~G). Skeptical atheists seek refute such arguments by denying that Pr(e/~G) can be assessed with sufficient specificity to draw any interesting conclusions about how it compares to Pr(e/G). I argue that skeptical atheism is the more serious challenge of the two. I close by briefly discussing the implications of these results for the project of constructing a successful argument from evil against theism. (shrink)

Long before skeptical theism was called “skeptical theism,” Stephen Wykstra (1984) defended a version of it based on an epistemological principle he called CORNEA. In this paper, I use elementary confirmation theory to analyze CORNEA’s core. This enables me to show precisely what is right about Wykstra’s very influential defense of skeptical theism and, perhaps more importantly, precisely what is wrong with it. A key premise of that defense is that, on the assumption that God exists, we wouldn’t expect to (...) know what God’s reasons for allowing certain evils are. I show that, while that premise together with CORNEA’s core shows that our inability to adequately explain the existence of those evils in terms of theism is not strong evidence against theism, it fails to show that the evils themselves are not strong evidence against theism. (shrink)

Lougheed argues that a possible solution to the problem of divine hiddenness is that God hides in order to increase the axiological value of the world. In a world where God exists, the goods associated with theism necessarily obtain. But Lougheed also claims that in such a world it’s possible to experience the goods of atheism, even if they don’t actually obtain. This is what makes a world with a hidden God more valuable than a world where God is unhidden, (...) and also more valuable than an atheistic world with no God. We show that Lougheed never considers the comparison between a world where God hides and an atheistic world. We argue that it’s possible for a person to experience theistic goods in a world where God does not exist, a possibility Lougheed never considers. If this is right it undermines his axiological solution to divine hiddenness. We conclude by showing how our discussion of the axiology of theism connects to the existential question of whether God exists; that is, we show that the axiological question is dependent on the existential question. (shrink)

Contemporary arguments for and against the existence of God are often formulated within a broadly Bayesian framework. Arguments of this sort focus on a specific feature of the world that is taken to provide probabilistic evidence for or against the existence of God: the existence of life in a ‘fine-tuned’ universe, the magnitude of suffering, divine hiddenness, etc. In each case, the idea is that things were more likely to be this way if God existed than if God did not (...) exist—or the other way around. Less attention, however, has been paid to the deeper question of what it takes for something to count as evidence for or against the existence of God. What exactly is being claimed when it is said that some feature of the world is more or less likely given the existence of God, and how should we go about assessing such a claim? This paper is about epistemological issues—and in particular, certain potential cognitive errors—that arise when we reason probabilistically about the existence of God. The moral is not that we should refrain from reasoning in this way, but that we should be mindful of potential errors when we do. (shrink)

Volume 80, Issue 3, July 2019, Page 303-304.

This chapter outlines an alternative interpretation of Hume’s philosophy, one that aims, among other things, to explain some of the most perplexing puzzles concerning the relationship between Hume’s skepticism and his naturalism. The key to solving these puzzles, it is argued, rests with recognizing Hume’s fundamental irreligious aims and objectives, beginning with his first and greatest work, A Treatise of Human Nature. The irreligious interpretation not only reconfigures our understanding of the unity and structure of Hume’s thought, it also provides (...) a radically different picture of the way in which Hume’s philosophy is rooted in its historical context. By altering our understanding of the fundamentals of Hume’s philosophy in this way, the irreligious interpretation also challenges the adequacy of the familiar and entrenched framework of “British Empiricism.”. (shrink)

Philosophical atheism claims not only that there are no sufficient reasons for believing there is a God, but also that there are sufficient reasons for thinking no such deity exists. The purpose of this article is to explicate the typical commitments of this position. After distinguished several related views, the article will then consider typical grounds for the rejection of theistic commitments, first by showing that the theistic position makes a stronger claim and therefore carries the burden of proof. The (...) article will then consider rejections of theistic attempts to shift this burden and atheist responses, including considerations of both natural and revealed theology. The intent is to present the general shape of rejections and commitments rather than proffering conclusive refutations and defenses. (shrink)

Many of the arguments for and against robust moral realism parallel arguments for and against theism. In this article, I consider one of the shared challenges: the explanatory challenge. The article begins with a presentation of Harman's formulation of the explanatory challenge as applied to moral realism and theism. I then examine two responses offered by robust moral realists to the explanatory challenge, one by Russ Shafer-Landau and another by David Enoch. Shafer-Landau argues that the moral realist can plausibly respond (...) to the challenge in a way unavailable to theists. I argue that Shafer-Landau's response is implausible as it stands and that once revised, it will apply to theism just as well. I then argue that Enoch's response, to the extent that it is plausible, can be used to defend theism as well. (shrink)

Many theist as well as many atheist philosophers have maintained that if God exists, then every instance of undeserved, unwanted suffering ultimately benefits the sufferer. Recently, several authors have argued that this implication of theism conflicts with ordinary morality. I show that these arguments all rest on a common mistake. Defenders of these arguments overlook the role of merely potential instances of suffering in determining our moral obligations toward suffering.

In a topic as controversial as the Turin Shroud, it is always surprising to note that there remains a large area of consensus among scholars who hold opposite opinions on the origin of this piece of fabric. According to the consensus view, neither science nor history can prove that the Turin Shroud shows signs of the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. However, the reasons provided for this important claim are not convincing, especially in light of recent developments in historiography and (...) analytic philosophy. (shrink)

The main thesis developed and defended in this superb book is that Hume implicitly "denies the existence . . . of a morally assessable god" (8), not just the existence of an overall "morally praiseworthy god" (8). Holden characterizes these as "strong" and "weak" moral atheism, respectively (7–9). While the idea of Hume as a moral atheist is not new, Holden's case for that proposition makes two new and important contributions to the discussion of the issue. The first is his (...) detailed piecing-together of points made by Hume in various writings into two arguments for "strong" moral atheism and his attribution of the arguments to Hume. He calls them the "argument from sentimentalism" and the "argument from .. (shrink)

The latest volume in the Great Debate in Philosophy series has Smart and Haldane defending the virtues of atheism and theism, respectively. In keeping with the format of this series, each author presents an original essay defending his views, then responds to the other’s views. Additionally, in this volume, Smart and Haldane jointly write a helpful introduction to begin the volume, an insightful afterword to conclude it, and a useful bibliography with which the reader can pursue issues raised in their (...) discussions. (shrink)

Patrick Grim and Einar Duenger Bohn have recently argued that there can be no perfectly knowing Being. In particular, they urge that the object of omniscience is logically absurd or requires an impossible maximal point of all knowledge. I argue that, given a more classical notion of omniscience found in Aquinas and Augustine, we can shift the focus of perfect knowledge from what that being must know to the mode of that being’s understanding. Since Grim and Bohn focus on the (...) object rather than mode of God’s knowledge, this classical approach to omniscience undermines their objections. (shrink)

In this volume, the sixth in Blackwell's Great Debates in Philosophy series, Smart and Haldane discuss the case for and against religious belief. The debate is unusual in beginning with the negative side. After a short jointly authored introduction, there is a fairly extended presentation of the atheist position by Smart. Haldane then offers an equally extended defense of theism. The authors respond to one another in the same order, and the book concludes with a brief co-authored treatment of antirealism, (...) which both reject. The discussion is broad-ranging, in part reflecting the size of the topic. It addresses the existence of God and the problem of evil, along with related issues having to do with God's nature and his involvement with the world: necessary being, eternity versus sempiternity, the relation between divine sovereignty and human freedom, and the possibility of miracles. But there is also discussion of subjects having to do with revealed religion, such as the reliability of scripture, and the roles of faith and reason in the life of the believer. The fact that the book commences with the case for atheism also contributes to its scope, since without a specific version of theism on which to focus, Smart has to aim broadly. The result is that topics that might otherwise have been ignored—moral arguments, and Pascal's wager, to cite two—are at least broached, though not pursued. (shrink)

Chris Dragos has recently presented two objections to criticisms I've published against Peter van Inwagen's No-Minimum argument. He also suggests that the best way to criticize the No-Minimum argument is via the concept of divine satisficing. In this article I argue that both of Dragos's objections fail, and I question whether satisficing is relevant to the viability of the No-Minimum argument.