Is Belief in God Really So Hard to Defend?
Not really, so long as you have the right expectations.
When it comes to belief in God or religiosity, there are essentially two ways a believing philosopher can approach this—one easy, one hard.
The easy approach is simply to show that belief in God or Christianity is obviously no less reasonable than, say, belief in materialism. Honestly, I think this is one of the easiest things in the world to accomplish—at least when engaging with any fair-minded individual. And that’s mostly because I don’t think rational belief is all that difficult to come by. People can rationally believe all sorts of things, even things I think are totally, obviously wrong, just because of the (epistemic) circumstances they find themselves in. In other words, rational belief comes kind of on the cheap. (Sometimes, I think it comes a little too cheap, but we’ll save that conversation for another time.)
The hard approach, on the other hand, is to either prove some particular position absolutely correct or demonstrate that some non-religious position is totally irrational—or both. That’s really hard to do!
Going back to the easy approach: really, just think about it. Sure, there are objections—lots of them—that can be raised against the existence of God or Christianity in general. But there are no fewer objections, in number or difficulty, that can be raised against any form of atheistic naturalism I can think of, especially materialism. Minimally, it seems no less reasonable to believe that reality has a perfect foundation than an imperfect one. And you know me—I’m ultimately going to argue that it’s far more reasonable to believe the former than the latter—but let’s not even press it that far.
Theists have the problem of evil and some tricky “Does God even make sense?” problems. I think there are good answers to these—or at least good enough. But man, when I think about the objections to materialism—trying to explain why anything exists at all, how consciousness came onto the scene, rationality, integrated functional complexity, the common moral intuition that we shouldn’t torture little babies for fun, or Warren DiMartini’s solo in Ratt’s Lay It Down (why does everyone cite Mozart’s 5th?!)—I mean, jeez.
Whatever difficulty someone might have in believing in God, surely such difficulties should be matched—if not exceeded—for any “ideally agnostic” party when it comes to believing in some atheistic alternative.
When thinking about this matter, I often come back to something a very smart atheist philosopher once said. Effectively, he suggested that if one believes in the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), then that person should believe in God. As it happens, he just didn’t believe in PSR. But let’s be honest here, all of us for a moment: surely it’s not irrational to believe in PSR (at least not a restricted version). If anything, it seems among the most rational beliefs a person could have! And as many philosophers have argued, it might even be essential for the very possibility of rational belief as such. (I defend such arguments in my book The Best Argument for God, for those interested.)
But again, let’s not even take it that far—let’s just say, minimally, that one could rationally believe in PSR or not. Well, if what that one smart atheist philosopher said is right about PSR and God (and I think it is), then surely it must be rational to believe in God as well—absent any otherwise super-obvious defeaters, which, frankly, I don’t think exist.
Anyway, I think there’s value—whatever that may be (25 cents?)—in this kind of philosophical stage-setting before diving into the technical weeds of things. The point of my little ramble here is to emphasize that people looking to defend religious belief shouldn’t set before themselves the monumental task of proving it outright—or even trying to demonstrate that some form of atheism or irreligion is strictly irrational.
Again, that’s really hard to do!
Rather, I think it’s much more valuable—and certainly far more manageable—to simply show that it’s at least as reasonable an option as any other. Then, move on to the obvious beauties and benefits of religious living that are not obviously found in the alternative.
Some objections:
"is obviously no less reasonable than, say, belief in materialism. "
No, materialism, atheism, or agnosticism is nonsense. So, belief in a creator is a no-brainer and follows from evidence and basic logic—both of which the materialist/atheist/agnostic does not have. The basis for atheism is the absurdity that one cannot prove a creator QED or with a slam dunk argument. Though proof of a creator comes close to a slam dunk, it is more like an uncontested layup.
There is no underlying logic that supports atheism/materialism/agnosticism.
"The hard approach, on the other hand, is to either prove some particular position absolutely correct or demonstrate that some non-religious position is totally irrational—or both. That’s really hard to do!"
But this is a foolish approach. If one goes to the end result and assumes this is the objective, the approach will be challenging. However, when one goes through various steps, all these steps are relatively straightforward. Bypassing them leads to unnecessary complications.
First, start by saying there must be a creator or first cause. Then, proceed slowly but surely to what this cause must be like. You may find that you will eventually reach the Judeo-Christian God.
"Going back to the easy approach: really, just think about it. Sure, there are objections—lots of them—that can be raised against the existence of God or Christianity in general."
There are no objections, not even a few, let alone many, to the proof of a creator.
"Theists have the problem of evil and some tricky “Does God even make sense?” problems."
No, if one defines evil, which I have never seen done intelligently, it is usually just some things that individuals would prefer not to be part of their existence. The issue here is that theists jump ahead to their chosen God and then try to second guess this God as to what is essential in the world this God has created. If one proceeds in steps, then this objection will never come up.
Before the Judeo/Christian God hypothesis, there should be several steps and by then, the issue of unwanted things might disappear. But even if they don't, there are good reasons for doubt. If there is no doubt, then existence becomes meaningless. This should be part of the next section, which was introduced a couple of weeks ago, "No Worldview Is Without Difficulties."
This is by design because, without it, existence would be meaningless in the sense that those existing want no payment for this magnificent gift.