No Arguments for Atheism?

Really?

Subscriber Jerry recently commented:

From what I understand, there is no argument for atheism. If an atheist is asked why anything exists, they have no coherent reply. I have searched several arguments on why atheists believe what they do and have found none that actually defend atheism. Their main argument is the supposed absurdity of specific religions.

There certainly are arguments for atheism. (Whether they are successful, of course, is up for debate). Before I survey just a few of these arguments, here is something I think is extremely important: Understanding what the position opposite of you actually holds. Unfortunately, it is fairly common among theists and atheists to have painfully little understanding of the position that is not their own and, because of this, they often caricature the other side or dismiss it on grounds that are quite unjustified. How good is your position, really, if it has never been tested but is utilized only to knock down the flimsiest of strawmen? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to believe anything that isn’t rigorous, and the only way to know if something you believe is rigorous is to try your hardest to knock it down or have somebody else try to.

Obviously – obviously! – I am no apologist for atheism. But as someone who spent many years as an atheist, trying to make good philosophical sense of things, I can fairly say that I understand the atheist perspective, particularly metaphysical naturalism. I know what atheists say, because I read their works about questions of existence, consciousness, rationality, morality, etc. And, as it happens, I often find their work instructive, helpful, and interesting, even if, ultimately, I disagree with considerable amounts of it. I have profited in various ways – always have – from reading people who majorly disagree with me, not only on matters of metaphysics or philosophy of religion, but politics as well. I have had my views changed and refined because of intelligent critics and believe I am substantially better off for it. I used to be a libertarian atheist. Now I am a conservative (in the truly traditional sense) Catholic.

I say all of this not to disparage but to encourage. Of course, it takes bravery to face up to intelligent opposition. What if you face an objection you cannot (at this moment) overcome? What if your worldview falls apart? What if you wind up spinning frictionlessly off into the void? My answer to this? Been there, done that, my friend. All of it. But hey: Nobody said philosophy was easy or even that it cannot be downright terrifying at times. My only advice is if you persist and focus intensely on getting at the truth of things, I think there is reason to be optimistic. Just also be unrelenting.

OK, sermon ended. Let’s now look at arguments for atheism.

While this is by no means exhaustive, one might at least begin to map the territory as follows.

First, there are arguments against the coherence of theism. Second, there are arguments for the superiority of naturalism with respect to explanatory comprehensiveness or simplicity or both.

In the first category, one finds all manner of paradoxes raised against different notions of God. In effect, these arguments aim to show that some absurdity or contradictory state of affairs is raised either just internally to the notion of God (think omnipotence paradoxes: Can God create a stone too heavy for Him to lift?) or by putting some understanding of God up against some undeniable fact of the world, for example, God as perfectly good as the foundation of a world where there is immense suffering. Ultimately, arguments in this first category are meant to prove, presumably in a definitive way, that God does not exist. And believe me, there are many arguments to consider here.

I do not - again, obviously - think any of these arguments are successful; I consider the most pressing in my book, for those interested. But they are certainly arguments for atheism, not just against some particular religion, and they are arguments that are taken seriously by brilliant minds on both sides of the debate.

The second category, interestingly enough, is actually the launching point of my book The Best Argument for God, where I initially consider what many consider – that is, apart from the problem of evil – the best argument against God. It goes something like this:

• If two theories explain just as much, believe the simpler.

• Atheism and theism explain just as much; atheism is simpler.

• So, believe atheism.

Again – obviously! – I don’t think this argument wins the day. But I do think it is a serious argument, when actually defended by serious atheists. That is why I spent an entire book not only trying to break it but to positively reverse it into the following:

• Atheism can only explain some, but not all, of what theism can, but only when strapped with loads more complexity. So, believe theism.

In fact, I wanted to focus on this argument because it creates the opportunity to dive significantly into each respective worldview and see what sorts of explanations they offer for all the relevant, largely agreed-upon data that a worldview is supposed to explain, from contingency, to consciousness, to rationality, to morality, to suffering, etc. Also, to consider the theoretical virtue of simplicity.

Obviously (how many times am I going to say this?), I’m just giving an outline of how the debate sometimes goes; I’m not trying to settle it. But I don’t think theists should  be saying there are no arguments for atheism, any more than atheists should be  saying there are no arguments or theism. There are, quite obviously (there I go again), arguments for both theism and atheism. The question - the only really interesting question, to my mind - is which side has the better of them?

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