The only difference, then, between the God of omni-theism and the deity of aesthetic deism is what motivates them. An omni-theistic God would be morally perfect and so strongly motivated by considerations of the well-being of sentient creatures. An aesthetic deistic God, on the other hand, would prioritize aesthetic goods over moral ones. While such a being would want a beautiful universe, perhaps the best metaphor here is not that of a cosmic artist, but instead that of a cosmic playwright: an author of nature who wants above all to write an interesting story.
Further, containing such a line is hardly necessary for a story to be good. After all, what makes a good story good is often some intense struggle between good and evil, and all good stories contain some mixture of benefit and harm. This suggests that the observed mixture of good and evil in our world decisively favors aesthetic deism over omni-theism. This makes no difference as far as the inference from step 4 to step 5 is concerned. That inference, like the inferences from steps 1 — 3 to step 4 and from step 5 to step 6 , is clearly correct.
The key question, then, is whether premises 1 , 2 , and 3 are all true. In spite of the nearly complete overlap between omni-theism and aesthetic deism, Richard Swinburne 96— would challenge premise 1 on the grounds that aesthetic deism, unlike omni-theism, must posit a bad desire to account for why the deity does not do what is morally best. Omni-theism need not do this, according to Swinburne, because what is morally best just is what is overall best, and thus an omniscient being will of necessity do what is morally best so long as it has no desires other than the desires it has simply by virtue of knowing what the best thing to do is in any given situation.
This challenge depends, however, on a highly questionable motivational intellectualism: it succeeds only if merely believing that an action is good entails a desire to do it. On most theories of motivation, there is a logical gap between the intellect and desire. If such a gap exists, then it would seem that omni-theism is no more probable intrinsically than aesthetic deism.
For example, a deity interested in good narrative would want a world that is complex and yet ordered, that contains beauty, consciousness, intelligence, and moral agency. Perhaps there is more reason to expect the existence of libertarian free will on omni-theism than on aesthetic deism; but unless one starts from the truth of omni-theism, there seems to be little reason to believe that we have such freedom. For example, if open theists are right that not even an omniscient being can know with certainty what libertarian free choices will be made in the future, then aesthetic deism could account for libertarian free will and other sorts of indeterminacy by claiming that a story with genuine surprises is better than one that is completely predictable.
Alternatively, what might be important for the story is only that the characters think they have free will, not that they really have it. Finally, there is premise 3 , which asserts that the data of good and evil decisively favors aesthetic deism over theism.
A full discussion of this premise is not possible here, but recognition of its plausibility appears to be as old as the problem of evil itself. Consider, for example, the Book of Job, whose protagonist, a righteous man who suffers horrifically, accuses God of lacking sufficient commitment to the moral value of justice. Instead, speaking out of the whirlwind, He describes His design of the cosmos and of the animal kingdom in a way clearly intended to emphasize His power and the grandeur of His creation.
On this interpretation, the creator that confronts Job is not the God he expected and definitely not the God of omni-theism, but rather a being much more like the deity of aesthetic deism.
Those who claim that a God might allow evil because it is the inevitable result of the universe being governed by laws of nature also lend support, though unintentionally, to the idea that, if there is an author of nature, then that being is more likely motivated by aesthetic concerns than moral ones.
For example, it may be that producing a universe governed by a few laws expressible as elegant mathematical equations is an impressive accomplishment, not just because of the wisdom and power required for such a task, but also because of the aesthetic value of such a universe.
Much of the aesthetic value of the animal kingdom may also depend on its being the result of a long evolutionary process driven by mechanisms like natural selection. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Unfortunately, such a process, if it is to produce sentient life, may also entail much suffering and countless early deaths. It is arguably far more plausible that in such a scenario the value of preventing horrendous suffering would, from a moral point of view, far outweigh the value of regularity, sublimity, and narrative.
If so, then a morally perfect God would not trade the former for the latter though a deity motivated primarily by aesthetic reasons no doubt would. To summarize, nearly everyone agrees that the world contains both goods and evils. Pleasure and pain, love and hate, achievement and failure, flourishing and languishing, and virtue and vice all exist in great abundance. In spite of that, some see signs of cosmic teleology.
Those who defend the version of the decisive evidence argument stated above need not deny the teleology. Mulgan and Murphy and in particular when it is interpreted as directed towards aesthetic ends instead of towards moral ends. In this section, an argument for the falsity of a more ambitious form of agnosticism will be examined. Because the sort of agnosticism addressed in this section is more ambitious than the sort defended by Le Poidevin, it is conceivable that both arguments succeed in establishing their conclusions.
This form of agnosticism is more ambitious because knowledge is stronger in the logical sense than rational permissibility: it can be rationally permissible to believe propositions that are not known to be true, but a proposition cannot be known to be true by someone who is not rationally permitted to believe it.
Another difference concerns the object of the two forms of agnosticism. In this section, the target is omni-theism versus the local atheistic position that omni-theism is false. The previous section focused on two arguments for the conclusion that this form of local atheism is very probably true.
In this section, the question is whether or not that conclusion, if established, could ground a successful argument against strong agnosticism. This leaves premise 2 , the premise that, if atheism is very probably true, then atheistic belief is rationally permissible. One might attempt to defend this premise by claiming that the probabilities in premise 2 are rational credences and hence the truth of the so-called Lockean thesis Foley justifies 2 :.
The Lockean thesis, however, is itself in need of justification. Fortunately, though, nothing so strong as the Lockean thesis is needed to defend premise 2. Also, the defender of 2 need not equate, as the Lockean thesis does, the attitude of belief with having a high credence. Even this more modest thesis, however, is controversial, because adopting it commits one to the position that rational i.
In other words, it commits one to the position that it is possible for each of a number of beliefs to be rational even though the additional belief that those beliefs are all true is not rational. To see why this is so, imagine that a million lottery tickets have been sold. Each player purchased only a single ticket, and exactly one of the players is certain to win. Now imagine further that an informed observer has a distinct belief about each of the million individual players that that particular player will lose.
According to thesis T , each of those million beliefs is rational. Since, however, it is certain that someone will win, it is also rational for the observer to believe that some player will win. It is not rational, however, to have contradictory beliefs, so it is not rational for the observer to believe that no player will win. This implies, however, that rational belief is not closed under conjunction, for the proposition that no player will win just is the conjunction of all of the propositions that say of some individual player that they will lose.
Defenders of premise 2 will claim, very plausibly, that the implication of T that rational belief is not closed under conjunction is completely innocuous. Others e. They contributed in a variety of ways to making this entry much better than it would otherwise have been. The author is also grateful to Jeanine Diller and Jeffrey Lowder for helpful comments on a preliminary draft of this entry.
Atheism and Agnosticism First published Wed Aug 2, Global Atheism Versus Local Atheisms 4. An Argument for Agnosticism 5. An Argument for Global Atheism? Two Arguments for Local Atheism 6. Such an atheist might be sympathetic to the following sentiments: It is an insult to God to believe in God. Strawson By contrast, anti-God atheists like Thomas Nagel — find the whole idea of a God offensive and hence not only believe but also hope very much that no such being exists.
Consider, for example, this passage written by the agnostic, Anthony Kenny 84—85 : I do not myself know of any argument for the existence of God which I find convincing; in all of them I think I can find flaws.
Global Atheism Versus Local Atheisms Jeanine Diller points out that, just as most theists have a particular concept of God in mind when they assert that God exists, most atheists have a particular concept of God in mind when they assert that God does not exist. It follows from 1 and 2 that 3 There is no firm basis upon which to judge that theism or atheism is more probable than the other.
It follows from 3 that 4 Agnosticism is true: neither theism nor atheism is known to be true. It follows from 1 and 2 that 3 There is good reason to believe that God does not exist.
It follows from 1 and 2 that 3 Source physicalism is many times more probable than omni-theism. It follows from 3 that 4 Omni-theism is very probably false. It follows from 4 that 5 Atheism understood here as the denial of omni-theism is very probably true.
It follows from 1 , 2 , and 3 that 4 Aesthetic deism is many times more probable than omni-theism. It follows from 4 that 5 Omni-theism is very probably false. It follows from 5 that 6 Atheism understood here as the denial of omni-theism is very probably true.
It follows from 1 and 2 that 3 Atheistic belief is rationally permissible. It follows from 3 and 4 that 5 Strong agnosticism about omni-theism is false. Bishop, John C. Bullivant, Stephen and Michael Ruse eds. French, Peter A. Wettstein eds. Root ed. Schellenberg eds. Schellenberg, J. However, there is no formal contradiction between 1 and 2 , only an apparent one. The general idea here is that even though something seems to be good, if one just looks a bit closer one would see that underlying the good parts of the world there is a bad biological system linked to unfair competition and cruelty.
Furthermore, there is clearly a contradiction between 1 and the following judgement:. The value judgement expressed by 3 would be an essential part of what might be called existential pessimism. Interestingly, Nagasawa argues, I think rightly that theists have greater metaphysical resources than atheists when trying to resolve the apparent inconsistency between 1 and 2.
This is because the theistic world view includes not only the natural world but also the supernatural realm heaven is perhaps the first thing that comes to mind , whereas atheists can only allude to the natural world.
It is true that since the problem presented by Nagasawa is one of apparent inconsistency, one only needs to find a proposition which in conjunction with 2 entails 1. It is indeed difficult to be optimistic about and thankful for anything at all if one also believes that it is improbable that that which one is optimistic about is true.
In short, even though the problem is presented as one of inconsistency, it is actually, in a sense, a probabilistic problem. More precisely, to show that there is no contradiction between 1 and 2 , theists need to come up with a greater good that can figure in a reason God has for creating a world governed by an evolutionary process that leads to the suffering of innumerable animals, and this must not only be a possible reason that God might have; it has to be a probable one.
Arguably, and with respect to theism, the most common response to probabilistic problems of suffering is to allude to the position known as sceptical theism. Typically, a sceptical theist would argue that we cannot say, with any probability, that there are no greater goods that can figure in a reason God has for permitting seemingly gratuitous suffering in this case systemic suffering.
Regardless of how things seem, it would not be surprising if there were such a greater good beyond our ken, so to speak. The sceptical theist Michael Bergmann argues that such a response to the probabilistic problems of suffering follow from at least the following sceptical theses ST : ST1 We have no good reason for thinking that the possible goods we know of are representative of the possible goods there are.
We have no good reason for thinking that the possible evils we know of are representative of the possible evils there are. We have no good reasons for thinking that the entailment relations between the possible goods and the permission of the possible evils we know of are representative of all such entailments that there are. We have no good reason for thinking that the total moral value or disvalue we perceive in certain complex states of affairs accurately reflects the total moral value or disvalue they really have.
Bergmann claims that ST1 — ST4 are commonsensical and in no sense excessively sceptical. But short of that, ST1 — ST4 do appear to constitute a good starting point. Now, none of the theses include a reference to theism. They are world view neutral in the sense that they are acceptable to both theists and naturalistic atheists. They would simply claim that given the theses one cannot say with any probability that systemic suffering is necessary for a greater good or greater goods that would render the world positive overall.
Unfortunately, when we take a closer look at what ST1 — ST4 actually entail, we see that while they can be used by theists to defeat standard say Rowe-style probabilistic arguments from suffering with the conclusion that God probably does not exist they cannot be used by neither theists or atheists as a solution to the existential problem of systemic suffering.
The scepticism the theses put forward is about us having representative knowledge with respect to possible goods and evils. Not knowing whether or not our knowledge is representative, we cannot make probability claims about the overall value of the world. In other words, only the following judgement seems to follow: 4 The overall value of the world is inscrutable. As the term sceptical theism suggests, Bergmann actually presents the position as consisting of two components.
The first component is the scepticism presented in ST1 — ST4 and the second is just theism. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the latter component is often ignored, as it is the former that is used to refute standard probabilistic arguments from suffering against belief in God. However, with respect to the existential problem of systemic suffering it might be important to see whether things change if we also consider the world view of theism, and perhaps also what happens when the scepticism in ST1 — ST4 is considered in conjunction with naturalistic atheism instead of theism.
Recall that Nagasawa thinks that theists have better metaphysical world view-related resources for solving his problem than atheist who do not believe that there is anything beyond the natural world. It is in my view fairly easy to show that theists are in a better position here, even a much better position than Nagasawa suggests.
Obviously, theists would accept i , and ii follows from the definition of God; that is to say, from the following three world view-related premises:.
An all-powerful God can make sure that there is no suffering that is not necessary for a greater good. We may conclude that if we accept theism, systemic suffering is necessary for a greater good.
In other words, on theism, the following value judgement seems true: 5 The world is overall good despite systemic suffering. So given theism on its own the world is actually overall good, despite the existence of systemic suffering.
Now what follows if we combine theism with the scepticism in ST1 — ST4 is not that the value of the world is inscrutable. To elaborate, ST1 — ST2 entail that it would not be surprising if there were goods beyond our ken which make the world overall good, despite systemic suffering.
ST4 entails that it would not be surprising if there were complex states of affairs within our ken which render the world overall good despite systemic suffering perhaps we are just making imprecise value judgements. In other words, the goods that render the world overall good are either beyond our ken or within our ken, or perhaps it is a combination of the two.
However, when we instead combine naturalistic atheism with the scepticism presented in ST1 — ST4 , nothing really interesting happens. Atheists deny the existence of a perfectly good, all-powerful and all-knowing God. The question now is whether such existential hope is consistent with systemic suffering.
Indeed, it is difficult to hope for anything at all if the thing one hopes for does not at least constitute a possibility. Moreover, if this is recognised, then ST1 — ST4 show that it is at least possible that the world is overall good. Recall that the value judgement in 4 , according to which the value of the world is inscrutable, followed from those theses. In addition, if the value of the world is inscrutable then hope is at least possible.
Interestingly, sceptical atheism does not suggest existential pessimism either. A necessary condition for existential pessimism is that one thinks that the world is probably overall bad. However, if the value of the world is inscribable, no probability judgement either positive or negative is really justified. There is a fairly extensive literature about sceptical theism and in particular on whether the scepticism of ST1 — ST4 entails overly sceptical views.
Here I do not have time to evaluate these objections in any detail but will briefly consider whether Sceptical theism or sceptical atheism has an easier time responding to some of them.
However, if we cannot know whether our known sample of goods are representative of the goods there are, we cannot know which of the two alternatives we should choose. We would be morally paralyzed. As far as I can see, by basing moral choices on something other than inductive reasoning from a known sample of goods and evils, one can avoid moral scepticism and thus avoid situations of moral aporia.
Here we uncover a potential world view-related advantage that one might think sceptical theists have. Craig The objections to these arguments have been numerous and vigorously argued.
Arguments from Nonbelief Another recent group of inductive atheistic arguments has focused on widespread nonbelief itself as evidence that atheism is justified. Atheistic Naturalism The final family of inductive arguments we will consider involves drawing a positive atheistic conclusion from broad, naturalized grounds.
See Atrans, Boyer, Dennett 5. Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism In 20 th century moral theory, a view about the nature of moral value claims arose that has an analogue in discussions of atheism. Drange , Diamond and Lizenbury , Nielsen Few would disagree that many religious utterances are non-cognitive such as religious ceremonies, rituals, and liturgies. Future Prospects for Atheism 20 th century developments in epistemology, philosophy of science, logic, and philosophy of language indicate that many of the presumptions that supported old fashioned natural theology and atheology are mistaken.
New York: Oxford University Press. An evolutionary and anthropological account of religious beliefs and institutions. Amherst, N. New York: Basic Books. An influential anthropological and evolutionary work. Religion exists to sustain important aspects of social psychology. Clifford, W. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Famously, Clifford argues that it is wrong always and anywhere to believe anything on the basis of insufficient evidence.
Important and influential argument in discussions of atheism and faith. Cowan, J. No being can have the power to do everything that is not self-contradictory. That God has that sort of omnipotence is itself self-contradictory. Craig, William L. Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology. Darwin, Charles, London: John Murray. Twelve years after The Origin of Species, Darwin makes a thorough and compelling case for the evolution of humans. He also expands on numerous details of the theory.
No explicit mention of humans is made, but the theological implications are clear for the teleological argument. Dennett, Daniel, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Viking Penguin. Important work among the so-called New Atheists. Dennett argues that religion can and should be studying by science. Diamond, Malcolm L. A collection of articles addressing the logical coherence of the properties of God. Drange, Theodore, a.
Nonbelief and Evil. Drange gives an argument from evil against the existence of the God of evangelical Christianity, and an argument that the God of evangelical Christianity could and would bring about widespread belief, therefore such a God does not exist. Drange, Theodore, b. A useful discussion of several property pairs that are not logically compatible in the same being such as: perfect-creator, immutable-creator, immutable-omniscient, and transcendence-omnipresence.
Drange, Theodore, Drange argues that non-cognitivism is not the best way to understand theistic claims. Everitt, Nicholas, The Non-Existence of God. London: Routledge. Everitt considers and rejects significant recent arguments for the existence of God. Offers insightful analyses of ontological, cosmological, teleological, miracle, and pragmatic arguments.
The argument from scale and deductive atheological arguments are of particular interest Findlay, J. Influential early argument. If there is a God, then he will be a necessary being and the ontological argument will succeed. But the ontological argument and our efforts to make it work have not been successful.
So there is no God. Flew, A. The meaning, function, analysis, and falsification of theological claims and discourse are considered. Flew, Antony. Flew, Antony, Buffalo, N. Freddoso, ed. Notre Dame, Ind. Gives an account of omnipotence in terms of possible worlds logic and with the notion of two world sharing histories. It attempts to avoid a number of paradoxes. Gale, Richard, On the Nature and Existence of God.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gale gives a careful, advanced analysis of several important deductive atheological arguments as well as the ontological and cosmological arguments, and concludes that none for theism are successful.
Grim, Patrick, God cannot be omniscient because it is not possible for him to have indexical knowledge such as what I know when I know that I am making a mess. Grim outlines several recent attempts to salvage a workable definition of omnipotence from Flint and Freddoso, Wierenga, and Hoffman and Rosenkrantz.
Indexical problems with omniscience and a Cantorian problem render it impossible too. Gutting, Gary, Religious Belief and Religious Skepticism. Useful for addressing important 20 th century linguistic and epistemological turns in theism discussions. Harris, Sam, The End of Faith. Another influential New Atheist work, although it does not contend with the best philosophical arguments for God.
Harris argues that faith is not an acceptable justification for religious belief, particularly given the dangerousness of religious agendas worldwide. A popular, non-scholarly book that has had a broad impact on the discussion.
Hoffman, Joshua and Rosenkrantz, A good overview of the various attempts to construct a philosophically viable account of omnipotence. Howard-Snyder, Daniel and Moser, Paul, eds. Divine Hiddenness: New Essays. Cambridge University Press. If there is a God, then why is his existence not more obvious? Howard-Snyder, Daniel, Howard-Snyder argues that there is a prima facie good reason for God to refrain from entering into a personal relationship with inculpable nonbelievers, so there are good reasons for God to permit inculpable nonbelief.
Therefore, inculpable nonbelief does not imply atheism. Hume, David, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. Hume offers his famous dialogues between Philo, Demea, and Cleanthes in which he explores the empirical evidence for the existence of God. No work in the philosophy of religion except perhaps Anselm or Aquinas has received more attention or had more influence. Kitcher, Philip, Abusing Science Cambridge, Mass. A useful, but somewhat dated and non-scholarly, presentation of the theory of evolution and critique of creationist arguments against it.
Kretzmann, Norman, A perfect being is not subject to change. A perfect being knows everything. A being that knows everything always knows what time it is. A being that always knows what time it is subject to change. Therefore, a perfect being is subject to change. Therefore, a perfect being is not a perfect being. Therefore, there is no perfect being. Mackie, J.
The Miracle of Theism. An influential and comprehensive work. He rejects many classic and contemporary ontological, cosmological, moral, teleological, evil, and pragmatic arguments.
Madden, Edward and Peter Hare, eds. Evil and the Concept of God. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Madden and Hare argue against a full range of theodicies suggesting that the problem of evil cannot be adequately answered by philosophical theology. Manson, Neil A. The best recent academic collection of discussions of the design argument. Martin, Michael, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, One of the very best attempts to give a comprehensive argument for atheism.
Martin, Michael and Ricki Monnier, eds. The Impossibility of God. An important collection of deductive atheological arguments—the only one of its kind. A significant body of articles arguing for the conclusion that God not only does not exist, but is impossible.
The Improbability of God. The companion to The Impossibility of God. An important collection of inductive atheological arguments distinct from the problem of evil. Matson, Wallace I. The Existence of God. Ithaca, N. Matson critically scrutinizes the important arguments of the day for the existence of God. He concludes that none of them is conclusive and that the problem of evil tips the balance against.
Mavrodes, George, Mavrodes defends limiting omnipotence to exclude logically impossible acts. McCormick, Matthew, McCormick argues, on Kantian grounds, that being in all places and all times precludes being conscious because omnipresence would make it impossible for God to make an essential conceptual distinction between the self and not-self. God is traditionally conceived of as an agent, capable of setting goals, willing and performing actions.
God can never act, however, because no state of affairs that deviates from the dictates of his power, knowledge, and perfection can arise.
Therefore, God is impossible. Morris, Thomas, ed. A valuable set of discussions about the logical viability of different properties of God and their compatibility. Nielsen, Kai, Philosophy and Atheism.
New York: Prometheus. A useful collection of essays from Nielsen that addresses various, particularly epistemological, aspects of atheism. Naturalism and Religion. Defends naturalism as atheistic and adequate to answer a number of larger philosophical questions. Considers some famous objections to naturalism including fideism and Wittgenstein. Oppy, Graham Ontological Arguments and Belief in God , N.
Perhaps the best and most thorough analysis of the important versions of the ontological argument. Oppy, Graham, Arguing About Gods. There are no successful arguments for the existence of orthodoxly conceived monotheistic gods. He sees these all as fitting into a larger argument for agnosticism.
Papineau, David, A good general discussion of philosophical naturalism. Rowe, William, A watershed work giving an inductive argument from evil for the non-existence of God. This article has been anthologized and responded as much or more than any other single work in atheism. Rowe, William L. Craig Ed. A good but brief survey of philosophical atheism. The Cosmological Argument. Can God Be Free? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rowe argues against their compatibility with this principle: If an omniscient being creates a world when there is a better world that it could have created instead, then it is possible that there exist a being better than it—a being whose degree of goodness is such that it could not create that world when there is a better world it could have created instead. Salmon, Wesley, In general, since it is exceedingly rare for things to be brought into being by intelligence, and it is common for orderly things to come into existence by non-intelligence, it is more probable that the orderly universe is not the product of intelligent design.
Schellenberg, J. Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. Schellenberg argues that the absence of strong evidence for theism implies that atheism is true. Peterson and VanArragon. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. This state of divine hiddenness itself implies that there is no God, independent of any positive arguments for atheism. Smart, J. An outdated and idiosyncratic survey of the topic. Heavily influenced by positivism from the early 20 th century. Atheism and Theism.
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