Among the indictments of religious believers registered by skeptics is that belief in God is at best irrational and at worst pernicious. Theism, the skeptic often argues, is all blind faith and no evidence, but should a theist try to pin a critic down by asking exactly what he means by "evidence," it often turns out that the word is used as a synonym for "proof."
Well, perhaps there's no proof that a personal God exists, but that's hardly a reason not to believe that one does. After all, we can prove very little of what we believe about the world, yet we don't hold our convictions less firmly for that.
A materialist, for example, would have a very difficult time proving that the world exists objectively, outside his own mind, yet he believes it very firmly.
The skeptic's claim that there's no evidence for God and that theistic belief is thus irrational is, ironically, the reverse of the truth. In my view, it's actually more rational to believe that a personal transcendent creator of the universe exists than to disbelieve it. Moreover, if what I'll argue over the next few days is correct, the logical consequences of atheism turn out to be psychically, morally and politically toxic.
Indeed, though it may come as a surprise to some readers, almost all the evidence that counts on one side or the other of the question of belief in God rests more comfortably on the side of the believer. This is because almost every relevant fact about the world, and every existential characteristic of the human condition, makes more sense when viewed in the light of the hypothesis of theism than it does on the assumption of atheism.
Put differently, the conclusion of theism is what philosophers call an inference to the best explanation.
I don't mean to suggest that there are no facts about the world that militate against the existence of God - there are, of course. The existence of suffering being the most troubling example.
Nor do I mean to suggest that atheism can offer no account at all of the facts of human existence that I discuss in what follows. Perhaps it can. I only argue that on the assumption of atheism the facts are more difficult to explain, in some cases exceedingly so, than they are on the assumption of theism.
If that is the case, it follows that it's more reasonable to believe that the best explanation for these facts is the existence of a personal God.
So, here are eighteen facts about the world and human experience that, over the course of this week, I will argue are easier to explain on the assumption that traditional Judeo-Christian theism is true than on the assumption that metaphysical naturalism (atheism) is true:- The fact that the universe had a beginning
- The fact of cosmic design
- The fact that life's origin is inexplicable on naturalism
- The fact of biological information
- The fact of human consciousness
- The joy we experience in an encounter of beauty
- The fact that we believe our reason to be reliable
- Our sense that we have free will
- Our desire for answers to life's deepest questions
- Our sense of moral obligation
- Our sense of guilt
- Our belief in human dignity
- Our belief in human worth
- Our belief that there are basic human rights
- Our desire for justice
- Our need for meaning and purpose
- Our belief that we have an enduring self
- Our desire to survive our own death
In what follows it will be argued that theism provides an easier, more comfortable explanation for each of the above than does atheism. Some of the phenomena may seem to be more compelling evidence of God than others, but when folded together they amount to a powerful cumulative case for the proposition that it's reasonable to believe that a personal mind, a mind similar to that imputed to the God of Christian theism, undergirds the world.
I claim no originality for the arguments. Others have called attention to these facts with more eloquence and brilliance than I can summon. What may perhaps be helpful, however, is to have these premises gathered into a single cumulative case for the reasonableness of theistic belief.
Tomorrow we'll discuss briefly how each of the first four facts listed above points to the existence of God or something very much like God.
