Chapter 4. Reasons Not to Believe Steven Steyl

Reasons Not to Believe Steven Steyl - Chapter 4

Philosophical arguments against theism have been debated for centuries, often focusing on concerns that belief sets must resolve rather than proofs of God's non-existence.

Introduction

• Arguments against God, religious belief, and the supernatural have long attracted philosophers.
• Atheism as a socially viable alternative has taken root in recent centuries.
• Many arguments associated with atheism have been debated in philosophical circles for much longer.
• These debates often take the form of concerns that any adequate belief set must resolve.
• Theism encompasses a multitude of belief sets (monotheism, polytheism, pantheism).
• Philosophical arguments against theism often target monotheism, especially the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam).
• Critiques of theism focus on the "omniGod," possessing omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence.
• The omniGod is usually viewed through personalism, where God is a person of some sort.
• Personalists conceive of God as responsive or reflective, with emotional responses to worldly events.
• Classical theists like Augustine and Aquinas have a non-personal concept of God.
• Classical theism characterizes God as:
  • Simple: all properties are identical to one another and to God.
  • Immutable: properties cannot change.
  • Impassible: unable to be acted upon.
  • Timeless: existing outside of time.
• Focus will be on the personalist omniGod due to its popularity and familiarity.

The Incoherence of Divine Attributes

• The omni-properties are either internally or externally incoherent.
• A god with these traits cannot possibly exist.
• Omnipotence is a common target for arguments, leading to paradoxes.
• Paradoxes often relate to God's ability to restrict their own power.
• Can God create a stone too heavy for them to lift?
• Can God create something indestructible?
• If yes, there are things God cannot do.
• If no, God is incapable of limiting themself.
• Omnipotence, defined as the ability to do anything, is internally inconsistent.
• Descartes suggests God can create such a stone because God is not bound by logic.
• This raises questions about whether such a god can be reasoned about at all.
• Theists typically make claims about God that are only tenable because they are logical.
• If God is not constrained by logic, there is no reason to accept the statement that God always does what is good.
• Defending omnipotence by claiming God is beyond logic may undermine other important claims about God.
• Another option is to revise the definition of omnipotence.
• Qualify the definition by appending "except that which is logically impossible."
• Thomas Aquinas defended the view that God can do all things that are possible.
• $God \text{ can do all things that are possible}$
• This maneuver may not satisfy conditions of adequacy for an object of worship.
• It is open to the omniGod theist to challenge the supposed inconsistency or revise their account of omnipotence.
• Inconsistencies may arise between the omni-properties themselves.
• The set of traits attributed to God may generate contradictions.
• Omniscience may interfere with free will.
• If God knows with certainty that they will do $x$ at time $t$, then omniscience seems to interfere with free will.
• If omniscience interferes with free will, it may also interfere with omnipotence.
• If God cannot be mistaken about how they will act at $t$, then God is incapable of doing anything other than $x$.
• If God lacks free will, then God lacks omnipotence.
• Omniscience may also conflict with omnibenevolence.
• The freedom to do otherwise is a precondition for morally good action.
• If God infallibly knows how they will act, there seems to be a lack of moral freedom.
• If God lacks free will, then God lacks omnibenevolence.
• The conclusion could be: if God is omniscient, God cannot be omnipotent or omnibenevolent.
• Omnibenevolence may interfere with free will.
• If God lacks free will, then God lacks omnipotence.
• If omnibenevolence amounts to moral perfection, then God necessarily does what is morally best.
• God cannot do anything that is morally suboptimal.
• All omni-properties can be brought into prima facie conflict with any of the others.
• If these inconsistencies hold, the omniGod cannot exist.

Problems of Evil

• The omni-properties may be inconsistent with observable or indispensable facts about the world.
• There is an apparent inconsistency between the omni-properties and the existence of evil.
• The problem of evil questions how an almighty, loving creator could allow evil to exist.
• The apparent tension between evil and the omniGod has led to arguments from evil.
• These arguments aim to show that belief in God is unreasonable or irrational.
• Focus is on moral evils, for which some agent is morally responsible.
• J.L. Mackie's argument from evil is influential.
• Mackie argued that belief in the omniGod is irrational because evil could not coexist with a God who possesses omnipotence and omnibenevolence.
• If God is omnipotent, there are “no limits to what [they] can do”.
• If God is omnibenevolent, they are “opposed to evil, in such a way that [they] always eliminate[ ] evil as far as [they] can”.
• Together, these suggest that if the omniGod existed, evil would not.
• Evil does exist.
• If evil exists, then God is either not omnipotent or not perfectly good.
• The omniGod does not exist.
• David Hume questioned if God is willing but not able (impotent), able but not willing (malevolent), or both able and willing (whence then is evil?).
• The free will defense argues that free will is valuable and ought to be preserved.
• Libertarian free will is the capacity to choose actions without external causation.
• Libertarian free will requires God's non-interference.
• God cannot force us to act in certain ways without sacrificing libertarian free will.
• God must choose either to allow free will (risking evil) or intercede (sacrificing free will).
• It could be better that God leaves our free will intact.
• The free will defense makes sense of evils like murder and theft, which are freely chosen.
• Some evils, like natural disasters, seem to have nothing to do with free will.
• The free will defense may not explain natural evils.
• The free will defense yields only a partial solution to the problem of evil.

The Problem of Hell

• Hell is universally seen as an evil of the worst order, raising an acute problem of evil.
• The problem is exacerbated by hell’s finality and direct administration (or permission) by God.
• Some non-believers are consigned to hell for committing no special sin other than non-belief.
• Philosophers of religion are concerned about the philosophical defensibility of such accounts of hell.
• Some embrace a universalist eschatology, where every person eventually reaches heaven.

Divine Hiddenness

• The omniGod is hidden from many, leading to objections to omniGod theism.
• God's apparent absence raises questions about divine withdrawal.
• Objections may arise if God's nature or plans are hidden.
• Divine hiddenness is examined in the context of non-resistant non-belief.
• John Schellenberg argues that the existence of an omnibenevolent God is inconsistent with the existence of non-resistant non-believers.
• A perfectly loving God would not allow for non-resistant non-belief, because belief constitutes a precondition for personal relationship.
• Resistance involves actions or omissions that