Atheist argument that is causing my friend to doubt...

[derrick09]

Hello everyone,

A philosophy student friend of mine recently brought up this argument that is almost causing him to turn away from his faith, he says that apologists like William Lane Craig tried to respond to this but actually failed to offer a good response and instead mischacterized the argument and gave like a strawman type answer. This argument has to do with J.L Schellenberg's argument from reasonable nonbelief here is the link to the argument as my friend understands it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_f ... _nonbelief

Here is how my friend views the argument...;" If God is perfect, how is it possible for people to rationally believe that he does not exist (or is the question ill-formed from the start (if so why))?"

He says currently since he can't find any good answers to it he will either have to give up believing in the Christian God or conclude that God is not all loving. He says that the Christian philosophers that have responded to the argument are Moser, Craig, Howard-Snyder, and van Inwagen, but to him none of them has given a good answer. I was wondering if some of you have answers that are not so similar to the ones he has studied or know of other top Christian philosophers that may offer that response he is looking for. Thank you guys for your time and God bless.

[cslewislover]

I wouldn't mind looking into this, but I can't look ALL of that up at the moment. Do you have links at all, of the Christian philosophers' responses? Just from what you provided, as a faithful Christian who also views God and man as rational, I don't see what the problem is. It's a matter of the will, not just the brain. I don't see how someone who actually loves Christ could give him up so easily.

[derrick09]

Let's see I have one of Craig's responses right here...

http://www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_video/R ... deness.mp3

[cslewislover]

I'll check that out. That wiki article is not really acceptable (see their notes), and the links I tried didn't work.

Oops, no I won't. I really dislike audio and video resources - too slow!! I'll go to Craig's website and search it.

This article relates to it: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/New ... le&id=5617

and this article relates to it more particularly: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/New ... le&id=6632

Now to read them . . .

Ok. So what, specifically, does your friend not like in the arguments against non-culpable unbelief? I'm wondering really what the specifics are. It seems like he just doesn't want to let God be God, and humans be humans. Belief isn't just a rational process, it's also spiritual - from both God and us. The spiritual aspect of coming to belief is a basic doctrine of the faith. Does your friend not believe in the work of the Holy Spirit? Or does he just think God unfair for some reason? (I obviously haven't spent a ton of time on this yet, but I was curious . . . )

[derrick09]

Well let's see,

My friend said he already has viewed those articles and found the responses lacking. He said the concept of reasonable nonbelief is what's defeating these responses.

[cslewislover]

But that is simply accepting a view that's not biblical, as far as I can tell so far. If you know your bible, and know God, then there just isn't much there. That's why I want to know specifically what he's referring to. What you've told me about what he said, is not specific. Is God unfair, or what? Is God wrong in saying that, though He provides evidence for Himself and that those who seek Him will find Him, that those who deny this will disprove his existence? This doesn't make sense. Either you believe what God has said about Himself, or you don't. But, as I said, I'd like to know what specifically your friend finds fault with. If he just has jumped on the reasonable unbelief boat while leaving the bible behind, then what can be done? It seems like maybe he should be seeking God, not seeking ways to disprove Him.

I'd like to say this a bit more strongly. For those who love Christ, who know the love of Christ for them personally, this kind of stuff just isn't an issue. But, I'd like to help more if I can. Maybe he's just going through some rough patch in his spiritual life.

[derrick09]

Yeah he could be going through a hard time spiritually, he told me he also has issues about the Bible being the inspired word of God. He said to him now, at the most, the Bible is just a collection of stories and accounts of people's dealings with God. So I don't know right off, there is probably more to his issues that what I or anyone else knows.

[cslewislover]

Hmmm, at the MOST the Bible is a collection of stories dealing with God? Well, even if they were only that, if he believed they were about God and were true, then surely there would be something to learn? But then, when someone starts believing like he does, then anything can be picked out that satisfies that person (and the rest left out). If he's young, it may be that he never really had faith - that his belief was only from accepting what his parents and others taught him. This happens frequently, apparently. A person can be taught about God and Christ, but then it's up to them to accept it all, or not, when they are old enough to think for themselves. A lot of people also come back to the faith later, after having "given it up" during their early adult years.

[derrick09]

Ok, here are some more details that he gives as far as the troubling details of this argument...

"The objection strawman's the argument. The argument says that if God is all-loving, then it's not possible for rational non-belief to exist at all. This is the key point. This argument does not concern those who willfully turn themselves away from God or hate Him. Rather, this argument is about those who truly seek after Him, but simply can not because they have no evidence for His existence. "

Ok, those were his own words not mine, so how would we respond to this?

[cslewislover]

Oi. So what does WL Craig say, then, that's strawman? From my view, from what I've read so far, Craig is trying to explain it Biblically, not changing the subject. To say what your friend does, to me sounds like he simply doesn't like the answer! This is one definition of strawman: "In a strawman argument, 1the author attacks an argument different from (and weaker than) the opposition's best argument.' {Stephen Downes Guide to the Logical Fallacies}" Is that REALLY what WL Craig is doing? I very sincerely doubt it. He's a professional philosopher and his reputation is on the line whenever he debates or writes. Besides that, I don't think he's so weak in his faith or his abilities that he'd resort to that. I think your friend is just finding excuses for not believing in God, and trying to take others with him.

The whole thing about having not enough evidence for God is nothing. Man is without excuse. If your friend wants to think that some men who make such arguments, and even himself, are above God, then that's his choice. We have free will. God says man is without excuse. God isn't evil or unfair, it's men who want certain types of proofs who condemn themselves. I was agnostic for a long time, so it's not like I didn't go through a lot of questioning (and insulting the faithful) myself. Well, I need to go for now.

[derrick09]

Ok, thank you for your time and take care, if he has anything else to add to it I'll add it on later in the day. Thanks again and God bless.

[cslewislover]

Do you remember the story of the poor man Lazarus and the rich man who is in "hell"? Jesus tells us that no matter how much evidence you may give some people, they will never believe. We can't prove to everyone the fact of God's existence, or of His love - God can't even do it! He brought back from the dead both the other Lazarus (interesting!!) and Jesus himself, yet still there were those who were witnesses who didn't believe.

[Gabrielman]

Here is how my friend views the argument...;" If God is perfect, how is it possible for people to rationally believe that he does not exist (or is the question ill-formed from the start (if so why))?"

Let's start here. I read the argument, and from what I can tell it is based not only on a complete misunderstanding of God's word, but also from arrogance and a frail attempt at debunking God. More than likely out of fear of a God. If God is real, they are wrong, and they cannot do as they please without consequences.

Let's go through this piece by piece shall we?

1.If there is a God, he is perfectly loving

If there is a God, then he is perfectly loving, they got this part right, in a sense. God loves everybody, and His love is unconditional. However they fail to say what "perfectly loving" means...

2.If a perfectly loving God exists, reasonable nonbelief does not occur.

Which brings us to this. They assume that if God is perfectly love that He would not allow for reasonable non-belief to occur. However this is where the argument falls apart. First we must ask, what is reasonable non-belief? Is it when someone fails to believe in something due to a certain amount of evidence. If this is so, then how much evidence is required for that non belief. This is where the argument fails, for each person it is different. You could see only a slight bit of evidence, (for arguments sake let's just say a one page report on evolution) and lose your faith, or if you did not already have faith, never have faith. However to someone else that may not be anywhere near enough evidence for non-belief. God does not control how much it takes for you to not have faith or to lose it, that is entirely up to you as a person. There are some people who, no matter the evidence you give, will never cease to believe in God, and the opposite is true too. There are those who will never believe no matter how overwhelming the evidence you give is.

Now then, what is the amount of evidence for "reasonable" non-belief? Who determines this? If we can say that it is determined by one's self, then it is totally subjective and therefore those who do not have faith based on the evidence have brought it upon themselves, and this was not caused by God. Further more the argument "Well why doesn't God just reveal Himself to me so I can believe" would be see as unreasonable to many and brings up a whole mess of issues. One that would no longer be belief, you would know He is there, and two there would be no faith because you would not believe, and three there would be no choice, you could not choose to believe in God if you already knew He was there. (In the Bible it is written that those who have not seen, but believe have more faith than those who had seen and believe. Also there were those in the Bible who did see and did not believe, the NT is full of examples of all of that) Further more God does reveal Himself to people today and they testify to this. God will reveal Himself to some one who is seeking God truly and needs it, but when it comes to using that as an argument, the atheist does it out of spite and not out of desire to have faith in God. They are not seeking God, they are seeking excuses to not believe in Him. God allows us to decide for ourselves via free will and allows us to decided what will cause us to believe in Him.

3.Reasonable nonbelief occurs.

Again, what is "reasonable" non-belief? What dictates what is reasonable and what is not? The example I gave before should suffice with how each of us chooses what is reasonable to us. But let me show how everybody has differences in what they see as reasonable. You may have an account with say... $50,000 in it, and see it as reasonable to move half of that to another bank to keep at least half safe in the instance that one of them gets robbed, so you will have at least half of that emergency money (we will call it that ) for use right away in case something happens to you and the bank gets robbed. Another individual may see that as unreasonable, arguing that you should move the funds to five different banks, given the rise in crime each year and the frequency at which banks are robbed. Both can be seen as reasonable and both are different, so I ask again what is a reasonable amount of evidence for non-belief?
4 and 5 fall apart from there seeing as the base for this argument is frail at best and based on ones preconceived notions of what is reasonable and what a perfectly loving God is.

[derrick09]

Say, I was going to mention, after telling my friend about the help I"m trying to get him, he's going to join the site and participate in this very discussion, so I guess I'll get out of the way and have him tell you all the specifics himself. By the way he's a very professional and classy individual so none of you all will have any trouble out of him. But anyway with that said, I'll get out of the way and let him join in on the conversation.

[cslewislover]

Ok. Hopefully some others will join in too, and give their two cents. But I think any of us would need to know what specifically are the straw man arguments. It seems to me that this scenario might be happening: a person like Craig gives info that he has, but the other side just doesn't see how it's relevant - even though it is - so they think it's a straw man argument. It happens here a lot. We believe the bible is authentic and reliable (based on evidences), but if the other party does not have that same belief, then they view our use of it as nothing relevant.