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My tummy hurts. Ergo, there is no god.

This argument may be absurd but it is not intended as a reductio ad absurdum. Although a very simplistic form, this enthymeme encapsulates one of the primary atheological arguments -- the argument from evil.

The structure of the argument becomes more obvious once we include the unstated premises:

1. Tummy aches are a form of harm being done to the physical and/or psychological well-being of a sentient creature.
2. Harm is evil.
3. God--an omniscient, wholly good being--would prevent evil.
4. God did not prevent my tummy ache
5. Ergo, there is no god.

This argument is a type known as the evidential problem of evil, the primary remaining form since the logical problem of evil has been solved.*

The evidential problem of evil is the problem of determining whether the existence of evil constitutes evidence against the existence of God. As the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains, "Evidential arguments purport to show that evil counts against theism in the sense that the existence of evil lowers the probability that God exists."

One of the strongest and most famous examples of this type of argument can be found in William Rowe's 1979 paper, "The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism." Rowe outlines his argument as follows:

In debates over the existence of God and man, the ontological status of vampires rarely enters the discussion. Whether Count Dracula and his kin exist hardly seems to be a relevant concern. But after reading a fascinating paper by a pair of physicists, I've become convinced that the existence--or rather the non-existence--of vampires lends support to the argument from fine-tuning.

In "Ghosts, Vampires and Zombies: Cinema Fiction vs Physics Reality" (PDF), Costas J. Efthimiou and Sohang Gandhi use math and physics to illuminate inconsistencies associated with the popular myths about ghosts, zombies, and vampires. "The fact of the matter is," they note, "if vampires truly feed with even a tiny fraction of the frequency that they are depicted to in the movies and folklore, then the human race would have been wiped out quite quickly after the first vampire appeared."

Vampires feed on human blood which not only causes the victim to suffer blood loss but also to bear the indignity of turning into a vampire themselves. Each feeding therefore decreases the human population by one and increases the vampire population by one. If only one vampire where to exist on earth it wouldn't be long before the entire human population was decimated.

To illustrate this point, the authors of the paper show what would happen if the first vampire made his appearance in the year 1600. They note that the global population of humans at the start of that year is estimated to be 536,870,911. Using the conservative estimate that a vampire would only need to feed once a month, they are able to calculate the effect on the human race.

In debates over the existence of God and man, the ontological status of vampires rarely enters the discussion. Whether Count Dracula and his kin exist hardly seems to be a relevant concern. But after reading a fascinating paper by a pair of physicists, I've become convinced that the existence--or rather the non-existence--of vampires lends support to the argument from fine-tuning.

In "Ghosts, Vampires and Zombies: Cinema Fiction vs Physics Reality" (PDF), Costas J. Efthimiou and Sohang Gandhi use math and physics to illuminate inconsistencies associated with the popular myths about ghosts, zombies, and vampires. "The fact of the matter is," they note, "if vampires truly feed with even a tiny fraction of the frequency that they are depicted to in the movies and folklore, then the human race would have been wiped out quite quickly after the first vampire appeared."

Vampires feed on human blood which not only causes the victim to suffer blood loss but also to bear the indignity of turning into a vampire themselves. Each feeding therefore decreases the human population by one and increases the vampire population by one. If only one vampire where to exist on earth it wouldn't be long before the entire human population was decimated.

To illustrate this point, the authors of the paper show what would happen if the first vampire made his appearance in the year 1600. They note that the global population of humans at the start of that year is estimated to be 536,870,911. Using the conservative estimate that a vampire would only need to feed once a month, they are able to calculate the effect on the human race.

[Note: Here at EO I’ve decided to honor my favorite bizarre worldview by hosting an Atheism Appreciation Week. For the rest of the week I’ll have posts dedicated to atheism and its related beliefs.]

Throughout history children have been awed and thrilled by retellings of their culture's creation story. Aztec's would tell of the Lady of the Skirt of Snakes, Phoenicians about the Zophashamin, and Jews and Christians about the one true God -- Jehovah. But there is one unfortunate group -- the children of materialists -- that has no creation myth to call its own. When an inquisitive tyke asks who created the sun, the animals, and mankind, their materialist parents can only tell them to read a book by Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins.

No child, though, should have to go without an answer which is why I've decided to take the elements of materialism and shape them into an accurate, though mythic, narrative. This is what our culture has been missing for far too long -- a creation story for young materialists.

In the beginning was Nothing and Nothing created Everything. When Nothing decided to create Everything, she filled a tiny dot with Time, Chance, and Everything and had it explode. The explosion spread Everything into Everywhere carrying Time and Chance with it to keep it company. The three stretched out together leaving bits of themselves wherever they went. One of those places was the planet Earth.

For no particular Reason -- for Reason is rarely particular -- Time and Chance took a liking to this wet little blue rock and so decided to stick around and see what adventures they might have. The pair thought the Earth was intriguing and pretty, but also rather dull and static. They fixed upon an idea to change Everything (just a little) by creating a special Something. Time and Chance roamed the planet, splashing through the oceans and scampering through the mud, in search of materials. But though they looked Everywhere there was a Missing Ingredient that they needed in order to make a Something that could create more of the same Somethings.

They called to their friend Everything to help. Since Everything had been Everywhere she would no doubt be able to find the Missing Ingredient. And indeed she did, hidden away in a small alcove called Somewhere, Everything found what Time and Chance had needed all along: Information. Everything put the Information on a piece of ice and rock that happened to be passing by the planet Pluto and sent it back to her friends on Earth.

Now that they had Information, Time and Chance were finally able to create a self-replicating Something which they called Life. Once they created the Life they found that it not only became more Somethings it began to become Otherthings too! The Somethings and the Otherthings began to fill all the Earth -- from the bottom of the oceans to the top of the sky. Their creation, which began as a single Something eventually became millions of Otherthings.

[Note: Here at EO I’ve decided to honor my favorite bizarre worldview by hosting an Atheism Appreciation Week. For the rest of the week I’ll have posts dedicated to atheism and its related beliefs.]

Yesterday I walked to the moon. (Humor me for a few minutes.) Since I was able to take my laptop and had a wireless Internet connection, I was able to send an email to NASA. Though I'm unclear on the process they used, they were able to verify that I was, to their great surprise, reporting from the lunar surface. When they asked me how I got there I told them that I couldn't be completely certain, but I was pretty sure that I had walked to the moon.

As you can expect, they were rather skeptical. NASA didn't possess any data of a spacecraft leaving earth's atmosphere over the last 24-hour period. In fact, they didn't have any evidence that would provide a suitable explanation at all. But while they could not come to a decisive conclusion about how I got there, they were sure of one thing: I didn't walk to the moon.

The reason is rather obvious. Once we understand all the physical parameters and factors required (i.e., feet, a pathway, superhuman speed and stamina) we could reasonably conclude that it is simply not logically possible to walk from Washington, D.C. to the Sea of Tranquility. Excluding this possibility doesn't help us explain how I got up there but it does aid in understanding how I didn't.

The reason I bring up this rather absurd hypothetical example is because I believe it can help us better understand how to judge presuppositions and philosophical systems. While we may be at a loss to explain how certain events occur, we can certainly rule out any explanations that are logically impossible.

[Note: This is the fourth post in the series examining the uses of theistic arguments in Christian apologetics.]

[Note: This is post four in the series, Dismantling Implausibility Structures: The Uses of Theistic Arguments.]

"The heavens tell of the glory of God," claimed the Psalmist, "The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship." The ancient musician intuited aesthetically what modern cosmology is able to show mathematically. The arrangement of natural laws and other features provides not only stirring examples of the handiwork of our Creator but provides us with a strong argument for His existence.

Teleological arguments are arguments from the order in the universe to the existence of God. One of the most persuasive yet least proffered arguments of this type is the argument based on the "fine-tuning" of the universe for the existence of life forms. At least two dozen demandingly exact physical constants must be in place for carbon-based life to exist (see list at end of post), the slightest variation in any of these conditions -- even to a minuscule degree -- would have rendered the universe unfit for the existence of any kind of life.

Such a remarkable set of "coincidences" surely demands an explanation. Indeed, as I hope to show, it can form the basis of one of the most sound teleological argument:

[Note: Regular posting will resume next Monday. This week I’ll be reexamining the uses of theistic arguments in Christian apologetics.]

"Can you prove God exists?"

Although I've been asked that question hundreds of times since I became a Christian, how I've answered has varied considerably over the years. When I was young I would defer, claiming that while I couldn't perform such a feat myself, other more knowledgeable Christians could present such proofs. As my confidence in my apologetic skills grew, my response became a resoundingly eager, "Of course." Years of being proven wrong, however, transformed my answer into a more humble, "no."

Now, however, if asked I have a more nuanced reply: I can certainly provide rational arguments for God's existence -- whether they are convincing on an individual level is another matter. I've come to realize that the problem lies not with the arguments but with the nature of belief itself. Belief in God, like almost all beliefs, can be rationally avoided. Skeptics can always find reasons, however implausible they might be, for refusing to concede that God exists.

Are we to conclude that theological arguments are therefore useless? Certainly not. For while they will not convince those whose passions rule their reason and prevent them from facing the truth, such arguments can be useful for shoring up a individual's or a society's plausibility structures.

In the early 1800’s, Thomas Jefferson sat down with a pair of scissors and the King James Bible and began one of the most idiotic literary enterprises ever undertaken by a man of genius. Over the course of several evenings, Jefferson meticulously scoured the Gospels and cut out any mention of miracles or claims to divinity.

The virgin birth—snip—the water into wine—snip—the healing of lepers and blind men—snip, snip—and the Resurrection—snip, snip, snip, snip—were all redacted in order to pare away the “amphibologisms” and “misconceptions” of the gospel authors. What remained was “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man” which the former President proceeded to paste back together in order to produce a collection of What Jesus Really Said. The resulting book has become known as The Jefferson Bible.

What Jefferson never explains, though, is how he knew that Jesus gave us the Sermon on the Mount but not the prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. He believed such matters were as “distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill” yet never explains his peculiar methodology. No one—except members of the Jesus Seminar--would take such ridiculous textual criticism seriously. Yet while they may not adopt his methodology, many non-Christians in our culture have adopted Jefferson’s Jesus.

To be fair, Jefferson and other are certainly justified in being skeptical of the assertions mad in the Gospels. The claims that a man can be born of a virgin, heal the sick, raise the dead, and even come back to life himself would be absurd if we were talking about a normal mortal man. But that is why Jesus claims to divinity change the equation. If the first century Palestinian Jew really is God, then his actions become entirely plausible. On the other hand, if he is not who he claims to be—or at least who the Gospel writers claim that the claims to be—then we have an obligation to dismiss him completely.

The argument that Jesus was either God or a morally flawed man is often referred to by the trilemma “Liar, Lord or Lunatic.” Countless apologists, from the early church fathers to C.S. Lewis, have used it to limit the range of choices people have when answering the question Christ once posed to his disciple Peter: “Who do you say I am?”

Philosopher Peter Kreeft considers the trilemma to be the “most important argument in Christian apologetics.” Yet there are at least three groups of Christians who tend to scorn this argument. All of them, I believe, do so from the same motivation: a fear of appearing unsophisticated.

[Note: This is post four in the series, Dismantling Implausibility Structures: The Uses of Theistic Arguments.]

As we near the end of this series, I want to ensure that the purpose is properly understood. My aim is not to “prove” the existence of God, for that would be a laughably presumptuous task. And even if I were able to do so, God doesn’t need my help in showing that he exist. After all, there has never existed a human that, if they would be honest with themselves, could truly doubt that God exists.

Some people may find such a claim rude and presumptuous. It does seem to imply that that I know what all mankind should know. But I think that there are indeed certain things that appear, at least on the most basic level, to be rather uncontestable and incapable of being truly denied by any human. The set of such propositions is relatively small and there are only three that I would claim to know for certain: “I exist”; “there is an objective standard of good”; and “God exists.” The last point may still be doubted but, as I hope to show, to do so requires denying the second claim as well. For if God does not exist, we cannot be “good.”*

[Note: This is post four in the series, Dismantling Implausibility Structures: The Uses of Theistic Arguments.]

"The heavens tell of the glory of God," claimed the Psalmist, "The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship." The ancient musician intuited aesthetically what modern cosmology is able to show mathematically. The arrangement of natural laws and other features provides not only stirring examples of the handiwork of our Creator but provides us with a strong argument for His existence.

Teleological arguments are arguments from the order in the universe to the existence of God. One of the most persuasive yet least proffered arguments of this type is the argument based on the "fine-tuning" of the universe for the existence of life forms. At least two dozen demandingly exact physical constants must be in place for carbon-based life to exist (see list at end of post), The slightest variation in any of these conditions -- even to a minuscule degree -- would have rendered the universe unfit for the existence of any kind of life.

Such a remarkable set of "coincidences" surely demands an explanation. Indeed, as I hope to show, it can form the basis of one of the most sound teleological argument:

[Note: This is post three in the series, Dismantling Implausibility Structures: The Uses of Theistic Arguments.]

Denying the reality of God is, I've often claimed, more a matter of the will and passions than of reason and intellect. But there is one argument for the existence of God that appeals to the will in a way that ontological or cosmological arguments are unable to do. Ironically, while those heady forms have been used since ancient times, the moral argument is a product of modernity.

The moral argument for the existence of God takes the simple form:

If objective moral values exist, then God exists.
Objective moral values exist.
Therefore, God exists.

The main premise -- objective moral values exist -- is almost always conceded in practice, even when it is denied in theory. A budding moral relativist may confidently claim in philosophy class that all morality is subjective. But let the professor flunk her based on that opinion and she will cry that she has been treated "unfairly" (and not just unfairly in a subjective sense either).

Moral arguments, therefore, have an intrinsic and intuitive appeal. Once we concede that morality is, in some sense, objective, we have to ponder where this objective standard emanates from. Several forms of the argument have been presented that attempt to build on that query. The moral argument presented by Immanuel Kant* is probably the most famous and the form posed by C.S. Lewis** is undoubtedly the most charming and popular. But the late Quaker theologian Elton Trueblood presents a most interesting variation of the argument:

In the introduction to this series I claimed that theistic arguments are of little value in providing undeniable proofs of God’s existence. Denying the reality of God is, I believe, more a matter of the will and passions than of reason and intellect. This is one of the reasons that ontological arguments, which rely on reason and intuition alone, are almost completely unpersuasive to those of agnostic inclination.

Such arguments, though, are similar to other types of theistic arguments in that their usefulness is independent of their value as convincing proofs. Alvin Plantinga came to a similar conclusion after initially failing to believe that his ontological argument was a “successful piece of natural theology.” He later realized that he had set the standard for success unreasonably high:

In God and Other Minds, I argued first that the theistic proofs or arguments do not succeed. In evaluating these arguments I employed a traditional but wholly improper standard: I took it that these arguments are successful only if they start from propositions that compel assent from every honest and intelligent person and proceed majestically to their conclusion by way of forms of argument that can be rejected only on pain of insincerity or irrationality. Naturally enough, I joined the contemporary chorus in holding that none of the traditional arguments was successful. (I failed to note that no philosophical arguments of any consequence meets that standard; hence the fact that theistic arguments do not is of less significance than I thought.) I then argued that the objections to theistic belief are equally unimpressive; in particular, the deductive argument from evil (the argument that there is a contradiction between the existence of God and the existence of evil), I said, is entirely unsuccessful. So I saw, as I thought, that neither the arguments for the existence of God nor the arguments against it are conclusive. (Warranted Christian Belief, p. 62.)

Although Plantinga’s formulation of the ontological argument is inconclusive, it provides another plank in the defense of the claim that belief in the existence of God is more probable, more plausible, more reasonable, and more rational than its denial.

[Note: This is the second post in the series Dismantling Implausibility Structures: The Uses of Theistic Arguments]

Cosmological arguments are theistic arguments that start from creation and work back to a Creator. They argue a posteriori, from effect to cause and are based on the principle of causality which states that every event has a cause, or that every thing that begins has a cause. One of the oldest incarnations of this form is known as the kalam cosmological argument.

Although the name was given by William Lane Craig, one of the most ardent of defenders of the argument, its history can be traced to Islamic philosophers such as Alfarabi, Al Ghazli, and Avicenna, and scholastic philosophers like Bonaventure. The argument was most famously opposed by Thomas Aquinas, who believed it philosophically possible (though biblically untrue) that God could have caused the universe from eternity.

The basic outline of the kalam argument is:

"Can you prove God exists?"

Although I've been asked that question hundreds of times since I became a Christian, how I�ve answered has varied considerably over the years. When I was young I would defer, claiming that while I couldn't perform such a feat myself, other more knowledgeable Christians could present such proofs. As my confidence in my apologetic skills grew, my response became a resoundingly eager, "Of course." Years of being proven wrong, however, transformed my answer into a more humble, "no.�"

Now, however, if asked I have a more nuanced reply: I can certainly provide rational arguments for God's existence -- whether they are convincing on an individual level is another matter. I've come to realize that the problem lies not with the arguments but with the nature of belief itself. Belief in God, like almost all beliefs, can be rationally avoided. Skeptics can always find reasons, however implausible they might be, for refusing to concede that God exists.

Are we to conclude that theological arguments are therefore useless? Certainly not. For while they will not convince those whose passions rule their reason and prevent them from facing the truth, such arguments can be useful for shoring up a individual's or a society's plausibility structures.