Why God Probably Does Not Exist: My Presentation And Defence Of An Evidential Problem Of Evil

Introduction

I recently posted a version of the argument for atheism from gratuitous suffering in an attempt to demonstrate why the most common theodicies presented by religious apologists fail to address the actual suffering that we encounter (you can read about that here). In that essay, my aim was not to present a version of the argument that I thought successfully demonstrated or argued for the non-existence of a god. It was only to respond to common arguments against the problem of evil. Here, my aim is to present the problem of evil in a way that explains why I think the existence of seeming gratuitous suffering is evidence against the proposition that a god exists.

Importantly, the argument I will defend here is a probabilistic one or an inference to the best explanation. This means that I will attempt to present evidence that makes the proposition of atheism more likely than theism instead of presenting an argument that attempts to prove the truth of atheism or the falsity of theism. I will not be presenting the argument in its entirety, as that will likely take up an entire book. To consider all of the evidence would simply take too long. So, in this essay, I specifically focus on the evidence for a type of suffering that I think makes theism highly unlikely. I will briefly mention and discuss the rest of the potential evidence near the end, but this will only be to demonstrate the idea, not substantially support the further evidence. For these reasons, although I would call the holistic or entire argument the evidential argument for atheism, here, I will present an argument I call the evidential problem of gratuitous suffering against theism.

Definitions and Argument

Theism: posits that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving being exists who created and actively participates in the workings of our world – holds that the world unfolds according to a principle of benevolence
Atheism: posits that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving being does not exist – holds that the world unfolds according to a principle of indifference

P1: The prior probability or likelihood of theism and atheism are equal
P2: If theism is true, then the existence of seeming gratuitous suffering is not expected because an all-loving being would not want to cause unnecessary suffering (principle of benevolence)
P3: If atheism is true, then the existence of seeming gratuitous suffering is expected because no force or power exists to stop/oppose it (principle of indifference)
P4: From P2 and P3, the existence of seeming gratuitous suffering is more expected if atheism is true than if theism is true
P5: Therefore, if seeming gratuitous suffering exists, nothing else considered, atheism is more likely than theism
P6: The total evidence supports the existence of seeming gratuitous suffering (if we don’t assume other goods not in evidence, i.e. “speculate”) – these include animal predation and death, rape and sexual assault, mental degradation, the seemingly random distribution of pain and pleasure, the lack of moral growth in general, the variety and disagreement of moral beliefs, that we can get pregnant before we are ready for children, and the seeming lack of reasons or justifications
P7: Therefore, seeming gratuitous suffering likely exists
C: Therefore, from P1, P5, and P7, atheism is more likely than theism

Argument Breakdown: The Likelihoods of Theism and Atheism

I think I’m being charitable with P1. At least intuitively, the idea of a god being possible seems deeply implausible to me. But I must admit that this is just based on intuition, and I am not totally sure what is driving that intuition. So, I think it is better to be charitable and suppose that theism is at least as plausible as atheism. But, of course, some theists will certainly disagree. For example, if you are a fan of presuppositional apologetics and you believe that a transcendental divine being is required as an epistemological grounding, then, even before the argument can get off the ground, you would have to believe the likelihood of theism is 100%. Similarly, if you think the ontological argument for god is sound, then you will think god must necessarily exist. I’m not sure if I’ll ever write an essay on these views specifically, as they will require a substantial amount of effort in order to refute the nonsense logic and reasons involved. For now, you will just have to accept that I think the best way for us humans to determine if there is or is not a god is via natural theology or by appealing to evidence and reasons. As such, I’m more comfortable with starting out in a semi-neutral position, assuming theism is, on the face of it, as likely as its negation and then seeing where the evidence leads us.

However, we will have to return to this point near the end so I can briefly discuss and respond to the many arguments that attempt to demonstrate that theism is highly likely.

Argument Breakdown: Setting Expectations

P2 seems clearly true to me. At least, if the concepts we apply to god are at all analogous to how we use those concepts in our lives, then god being all-loving would imply that god is concerned with our well-being and wants the best for us. If god loves us, and god understands what is good for us, and that includes the fact that suffering is intrinsically bad for us without further justification, then it follows that god would not want us to experience any suffering that is not ultimately required for our well-being. This overall compassion and love, combined with god’s ultimate power and knowledge, means that we should not expect to find much suffering in our lives, and where we do, the suffering should serve some greater good. This is why I say the world, under theism, unfolds according to a principle of benevolence; everything that happens happens under the supervision and providence of a being concerned with goodness and our well-being. Nothing would happen that does not allow for some greater good, or that mitigates some greater evil – we would not expect gratuitous suffering, i.e. suffering that is not required to bring about some greater good or stop some greater evil.

Importantly, I think we are also justified in expecting to be able to know or at least have some idea of, what these greater goods and evils are. For what reason would god have in hiding these from us? What good does it serve if we do not know why we suffer; if we don’t know why god would make the world in the way he did? Could it be that we are incapable of understanding the good, as many apologists claim? Why would we be? How could something be good for us but not understandable or appreciable to us? I know theists have claimed that god has his reasons, but why should I believe that? And why should god keep them from me? Some poeple even believe we will understand one day, so why not now? At the very least, why is it that no one seems to know the reasons? It seems like a bad decision in itself to leave us in the dark because we are far less likely to find our way, so to speak. It is certainly not by necessity, as god could have made us with the ability to understand, so you have to believe there is a reason why god would leave us ignorant. Therefore, if suffering has some reason, and this reason is concerned with our well-being, I think we should expect to be capable of, and better off for, knowing these reasons. It is also trivially true that it is more likely that we wouldn’t know what the reasons for suffering are if there are none than if there were reasons, seeing as the existence of these reasons is the minimal requirement for us to be able to know about them. This means that we would not expect to find seeming gratuitous suffering in the world if theism is true. And this is not to say that it would never seem like some suffering is gratuitous to some people. But that so much suffering would exist without anyone even being able to start to explain why, over many eras, especially when it is baked into the nature and function of our world, seems highly unlikely.

And just to be extra clear, I am not arguing that if theism is true, then seeming gratuitous suffering would not or cannot exist. I am only making a probabilistic argument about what is expected and more likely given some view. Given that god is perfectly all-loving, it is unexpected that seemingly gratuitous suffering would exist.

P3, then, seems equally true to me. If atheism is true, then the universe will operate with indifference. We would either not expect any sort of goodness or badness, or if we did, then we would expect these to be randomly distributed, seemingly without some pattern or reason. This would include suffering; if we are just creatures in a universe that can experience pain and pleasure, and nothing exists that guides and wills the distribution of these pains and pleasures, then we would expect to find them distributed randomly, to good and bad people, people who can learn from them and those who cannot, to guilty and innocent alike. In other words, suffering would happen without good reason; it would seem gratuitous.

P4 is a combination of the previous two premises and states, which, given what we would expect if each were true, would be more likely given the previously mentioned phenomena – in our case, gratuitous suffering. If we accept that seeming gratuitous suffering is expected if atheism is true, and we accept that seeming gratuitous suffering is not expected if theism is true, then it is trivially true that gratuitous suffering is more expected under atheism than theism.

The premise P5 captures the inference commonly known as an inference to the best explanation. It logically follows from P4. It does not lead to a logically certain conclusion as a deductive inference would. Rather, it allows that the conclusion reached could be wrong, as other factors not taken into consideration could change how we see things. Regardless, given the evidence we have at hand, we are justified in reaching a certain conclusion because it is the most likely explanation that accounts for the evidence. Making use of this sort of inference, we can conclude that, baring any further assumptions, given that theism posits a principle of benevolence and atheism a principle of indifference (P2 and P3), and, therefore, that seeming gratuitous suffering is more expected given atheism being true (P4), we can conclude that gratuitous suffering would be evidence in favour of atheism over theism.

Argument Breakdown: Seeming Gratuitous Suffering

A big part of my argument is the seeming existence of gratuitous suffering, as stated in P6. So, I will have to spend the most time on this point. To start, let me clarify what I mean by seeming gratuitous suffering. I specifically employ the word seeming because to conclusion that we know gratuitous suffering exists is too hard a burden to meet. This is perhaps the most plausible rebuttal to the deductive problem of evil. In such a deductive argument, the premise that states gratuitous suffering exists can only be justified by demonstrating that no good comes from a particular instance of suffering. But, seeing as we are limited beings with limited cognitive capacities and understanding, along with us not knowing everything and being restricted in time and space, there remains a logical possibility that some reason, or some greater good, or some greater evil, exists that justifies the suffering. God’s ways, if he exists, are mysterious, after all. Thus, we simply cannot conclusively demonstrate the existence of actual unnecessary suffering. The same is not true of seeming gratuitous suffering. I have already tried to briefly explain why we would not expect to find seeming gratuitous suffering if theism is true. We might not always know why something happens, and god could possibly have some reasons we are incapable of appreciating. But to live in a world with so much suffering that over and over again seems to only lead to more suffering and heartache seems ridiculously unlikely if a perfect, all-loving being exists. Suffering would, by and large, seem to be for the good and would seem necessary. Importantly, here, the burden of proof for demonstrating that seeming gratuitous suffering exists is also much lower, as we would only need to refer to instances of suffering that we, in general, simply cannot think of any good reason for why it exists. I only need to demonstrate that suffering, for the most part, seems gratuitous.

So, what are these instances of suffering that, in general, seem gratuitous? I think there are many (hence why I think the problem of evil can seem like overwhelming evidence against god), but here we will focus on some of the most plausible cases I can justify in a blog post. These include 1) animal predation and death, 2) rape and sexual assault, 3) natural mental degradation, 4) the seemingly random distribution of pain and pleasure, 5) the lack of moral growth in general, 6) the variety and disagreement of moral beliefs, 7) the fact that we can get pregnant before we are ready for children, and 8) the seeming lack of reasons or justifications in general. To drive the point home, I will briefly focus on each of these individually.

Animal predation and death

One of the most obvious instances of seeming gratuitous suffering is the natural history of our planet. Even today, we can see that the natural order that exists has suffering and predation baked into it. This means the very existence of every animal in the wild is a constant struggle, and seeing things from the cosmic perspective makes it look like some animals exist as mere food and pleasure for others. It also looks like absolutely horrific suffering is part of the design of nature and animals. Consider the lives and habits of many parasites and viruses or the hunting strategies of many insects and snakes. None of these animals are themselves moral agents who do wrong by hurting others. But their existence and nature are what allow for and cause so much suffering. I wouldn’t expect a loving god to create a world with creatures like this.

Not only this, but if you accept the modern scientific consensus that evolutionary theory best explains the existence of animal and plant diversity, then this struggle for survival is part of why entire species exist and went extinct, and we discover that millions and millions of animals lived and died long before humans even arrived on the scene. So much pain and suffering for what? Seemingly nothing.

In the same way that some theists want to say something like, “Look at the beauty of the trees and a sunset; how do you not see God’s love?” I want to say, “Look at the disease, death, and parasites; how do you not feel God’s absence?”

Rape and sexual assault

This section is concerned with some pretty sensitive matters, so I do apologise if discussions of sexual assault are off-putting. But it seems to me like the existence, just the existence, of sexual assault is gratuitous. Of course, humans do this to each other. It is partly the choices of people that lead to assault. To the extent that we are responsible moral agents, this is also the fault of the perpetrator. But in a world that has its entire constitution, nature, and history designed and created by a being, this being is going to be partially responsible for what happens. This is especially the case for phenomena that are only possible because of how we were created. God could have easily created us without the evolutionary history that led to us having strong sexual urges. He could have created our bodies such that we cannot be sexually assaulted. Our bodies are the result of a blind evolutionary process, and the methods we have at our disposal for procreation were always going to be subpar in a universe of indifference. But why would an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful god create us with such fragile and vulnerable bodies and a psychological makeup that can be damaged and corrupted to the extent that we want to take our own lives or have our hopes and dreams destroyed? This is only possible because we have brains running on hormones, unconscious mental processes, and fragile identities – not to mention our physical constitutions in the first place. To the extent that our constitution and facing such assault allows for character growth; there are better options. To the extent that it allows for love; there are better options. To the extent that it is an unfortunate but necessary part of having a body and being around other agents; there are better options.

Furthermore, I have to place myself in the situation of witnessing such an assault and having to decide how I would react. I have not had to face any such thing, but I would like to think that I would intervene. How can a god who knows all things and wants only the best for us not want to do everything in their power to ensure that someone, especially a child, is never harmed in this way? He would not have to take away our free will or cause more harm. God can intervene in the exact way that I would, if not even better. That is why, every time I hear about some violent sexual assault, I lose a little faith in humanity and a little in god. It seems, on the face of it, that sexual assault would be near non-existent if a perfectly loving being was watching over us.

Natural mental degradation

One of the true tragedies of our lives is that time, in the long run, is not our friend. The more time goes on, the more we face challenges that only make it harder, sometimes impossible, to be a good person and live a good life. In particular, mental degradation and disease truly lead to nothing but seeming pain and hurt. Take, for example, diseases like dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s. Not only do these cause the person suffering from them to often go through demeaning pain and anguish, these people also end up being massive burdens for their families, and many times it leads to poverty and emotional hurt. They also commonly strike at the end of our lives when we are least prepared to deal with them and have the least amount of time with those we love. All of this is only possible because of our fragile natures. We are practically built to fall apart over time, and we do not become stronger for it, nor does it help us build strong moral characters; quite the opposite, as dealing with failing mental faculties is frequently the cause of memory issues, emotional outbursts, and irrational behaviour. I cannot think of a single seeming reason for why this would be the case. In fact, this seems to undermine our free will much more than making us morally perfect ever would have; we literally have faulty reasoning and volitional capacities, and these only degrade with time. Furthermore, to think this is good because it allows others to respond with kindness and compassion only makes pawns out of these people, hurting their lives so that others may grow. It is an awful thought that treats people like mere means to an end instead of ends in themselves.

The seemingly random distribution of pain and pleasure

An important aspect of the evidence we have is its distribution. It is a pretty basic point, but if there were good reasons for the suffering, then, at least in general, we would not expect the distribution of suffering to look this random. Perhaps an example would help clarify things. Take the common reason of character growth as an explanation. If this was a good explanation, then we would expect to see suffering occur, in general, to those who can learn the most from it. After all, why would god use suffering meant to strengthen someone’s character in a case where god knows it won’t accomplish this goal? If a perfectly loving god existed and had reasons for allowing suffering, then we would expect to find suffering that seems reasonable, not suffering that is randomly distributed, seemingly without rhyme or reason. Suffering would, on the whole, be judged as a good, not something we should try to avoid at all costs.

The lack of moral growth in general

The seeming lack of moral growth is related to the point about the distribution of suffering. In this case, what is surprising is not how suffering is distributed but the seeming lack of moral character growth in general. Even if it were the case that we would not always be able to see the reasons for our suffering, what is expected is that we see a trend of moral character growth in general. If god is goodness, made us in order to experience goodness, wants us to experience goodness, and has goodness as his ultimate reason for what he does, then we would, in general, expect to see goodness triumph over evil, especially for the followers of that god. But this is not the case. What we see is that most people are pretty bad at being good and that, if anything, the nature of the world only makes it harder for us to be good; this would be pretty surprising if an all-loving being existed.

So, if god existed, not only would it be surprising to find immoral people in the world, it would be extra surprising if people in general did not tend towards being more moral over time, especially those who follow the true god. I think, if a truly perfect and all-loving being existed and created our world, then we would expect to find a world built around goodness, and circumstances and situations that help people grow and be good. We don’t find this. So, again, I think we have evidence against theism.

The variety and disagreement of moral beliefs

If theism is true, I find it especially surprising that people have a variety of religious and moral beliefs. Once again, I’m not claiming it is logically impossible. I am only saying that it is unexpected that if the world only exists because of some divine agent, and they have a deep sense of goodness and wants that for us, we would have such deep disagreement about what this divine agent wants and what is good. What is expected is that goodness would be obvious, emanating from the nature of the world and the clear expectations of the divine source. We would not have deep disagreements between philosophers over the centuries. We would not have somewhere close to 10,000 distinct religions in the world, each of those having many different denominations and even more people having highly idiosyncratic beliefs about god. We would certainly not expect to disagree about what this god wants from us and considers good. All of this, however, is expected if there are no gods. If god does not exist, then our contemplations of divine agents and their moral decrees are bound to be incorrect, seeing as they do not map onto anything real, and we would find disagreement everywhere we looked.

Just to clarify, it is important to understand that I am not saying morality is more expected under atheism than theism. If there is an objective standard of good, then I think that is more expected if theism is true. In other words, if someone were able to demonstrate the existence of objective moral facts, then I think that would be evidence for theism. What I don’t think is evidence for theism, but rather evidence for atheism, is the seeming existence of subjective moral values and a hell of a lot of disagreements. I think, given the evidence, we are better off if we conclude that morality is subjective. You can read more about that here. A part of that, but a point worth stressing on its own, is all the moral disagreement that exists. Human beings have always disagreed on what is good and bad, and our contemplations of the source of goodness have also varied. The point is that objective morality, with a clear source, would be good evidence for theism, but subjective morality, combined with disagreements about every aspect of morality, would be, is, good evidence for atheism.

The fact that we can get pregnant before we are ready for children

I have already made mention of a few phenomena that seem to be possible only because of our created natures; things like sexual assault and mental degradation. There are, of course, a lot of examples like this. Another one that I think is a serious and obvious problem for theism is our reproductive capacities. Why exactly god needs us to copulate to have young children physically, and why we, the flawed beings we are, are supposed to raise them is anyone’s guess. But think about that: our world exists such that the most vulnerable need the care and love of their parents, but we are also the most fertile when we are young and mostly incompetent. Not only this, but creating children is attached to a process (sex) that seems pleasurable and desirable on its own, leading people to want to do it regardless of the potential consequences, but which does not reliably lead to pregnancy, meaning people feel justified they can take chances. Also, becoming pregnant is not a voluntary act. When you combine all of this, you find that we are made to be naive about the results of sex while very interested in doing it, that the people least ready to have kids are most likely to get them, that children are forced to rely on luck and hope that they end up with good parents, and that people can become pregnant via assault when doing so is clearly not in their best interest. This is a terrible plan! I would not expect this if a perfect god existed.

The seeming lack of reasons or justifications in general

The final point I wish to stress is an important one for each of the previously mentioned instances of seeming gratuitous suffering. I have touched on it, but I feel I need to clarify the point.

I explain above that I would expect to see god’s love and goodness throughout his creation, but I do not see this, and where I do see good, I see a larger amount of bad outweighing it. A similar point is true of god’s providence. As I see it, if our universe existed because of the will of god, and if god had a perfect plan that was maximally good, as well as maximally prudent, then we would expect to see things unfold according to reasons. For example, although I can imagine something happening and people are not immediately able to understand why, if there was a good reason for it happening, then I would expect that the reason would be clear at some point. We would constantly see good coming from evil. Suffering would seem to have, in general, reasons. Now, take the example of a child born in horrible circumstances, say, absolute poverty. In such circumstances, a common occurrence is that innocent children die of starvation. Often, in such cases, their parents are also likely to die, either of hunger or disease. Now, we can imagine life from this young child’s eyes; if sufficiently young, they would have never been able to appreciate any reasons, only suffered. Further, consider the parent, who plausibly suffered their entire life without character growth (as is common) and then had to suffer one of life’s greatest losses. If, as seems reasonable given the long and terrible history of our planet, they died shortly after this, I think one could reasonably look at such a life and conclude that it seemed needlessly awful. The world would not have been any worse if we changed that situation for the better. We can find no good reasons to leave it as it is.

This is only one example and a pretty tame one if you know the history of our planet and the many wars that have raged. Given how common this is and how, although we may speculate that there will be a good reason one day, we do not find any reasons now, I believe it is arguably reasonable to conclude this is evidence against god, seeing as it is utterly unexpected if an all-loving, perfect being existed. Things would not look this random and human-driven; the world would seem to follow a plan, and specifically, a good one. Simply speculating that there are really good reasons we will one day know of is not justified at this point.

Argument Breakdown: Reaching Our Conclusion

I think I have done a good enough job of presenting the evidence of seeming gratuitous suffering. As I see it, if you do not just assume god does exist and has a reason for every instance of suffering, then the types, degrees, variety, scope, and lack of reasons are all instances of seeming gratuitous suffering. From here, and given the previously supported premises, the conclusion naturally follows: atheism is more likely than theism.

The most basic way I can formulate the argument is as follows: given that I do not find theism more or less plausible than atheism on the face of it and that, if theism were true, I would not expect to find a world full of seemingly gratuitous suffering, the fact that I do find instances of seeming gratuitous suffering means I have some evidence to believe that atheism is more likely since it better accounts for the evidence. To be specific, it is because it better explains the evidence without having to make further, not in evidence and therefore less likely to be true, assumptions and speculate about what might account for the evidence.

Once again, just to stress the inference that is being supported, I agree if we have reason to believe that god exists, then we would have reason to believe there are good reasons for seeming gratuitous suffering. But without those reasons that make it more likely god exists than not, only considering theism at face value, seeming gratuitous suffering makes it less likely to be true. This is why it is important to state that the gratuitous suffering is seeming, as this seeming suffering, on its own, makes theism less likely because it is unexpected. It is not because it is completely impossible, because, as I explained, there might, could, logically, exist some unknown reason. All of this, however, at present, is mere speculation that is not in evidence. So, if you already have reason to think theism is true, then assessing the seeming gratuitous suffering would not move your needle of plausibility much. But if you start out on equal or neutral grounds, then the seeming suffering can and should move the needle toward implausibility as it is evidence for atheism over theism.

Discussing Likely Objections

An inaccurate view of God’s nature

Some of the most likely objections that I expect are those claiming that the argument does not accurately capture god’s character or their theistic beliefs. These sorts of responses take the “god’s ways are mysterious” sentiment to the next level. It seems to want to assign the property of all-loving to god but not add any content to that property. God is loving, and that means he is loving, and anything he would do is loving. But what does that lovingness encompass or entail? As I said, if that word means anything, then it is going to, even if only roughly, map onto our usual usage. Our usual usage includes caring for the well-being of those you love and wanting the best for them. Specifically, for creatures capable of pleasure and pain, seeing as those concepts definitionally mean what we prefer and what we don’t, a loving being would want us to experience as much pleasure and as little pain as possible. Now, if your definition of a loving god does not lead you to expect loving responses and actions from god, then I think my first response would be to say you are either very confused, sophistic, or just indoctrinated. I think arguing with this definition is silly. If you don’t believe in this conception of god, then great; the argument is aimed at god as I define him. If you believe a non-loving, whether that means neutral or evil, god exists, I’ll respond with a different argument for why I don’t, and you can be certain I would not want to worship such a god.

Two examples of such a response might be to claim that god is not “a being” but being itself or that god has other goods that might allow god to permit suffering to exist in service of these other goods.

Regarding the first, I have received a few casual responses from theists who claim I am anthropomorphising their god and misunderstanding god as some kind of being like we understand them. Rather, god is a totally different kind of being, something wholly alien to our intuitions. God is not some man in the sky, they say; rather, god is the sustainer and reason for all of existence. He is not some person who can be understood and has certain intentions or human traits. The problem I have with this is that I am certainly not the one anthropomorphising god. I am actually pretty open to the idea that there must exist some necessary grounding or that being itself is something that sustains existence. If that is what you think you have reason to believe in, then any argument that makes reference to a loving being and suffering is not going to be directed at your beliefs. But if you want to say god has certain beliefs, intentions, a plan, feelings for us, the capacity to make decisions, and a mind, then we are not merely talking about the concept of being itself. This is a god that is a person, and if you want to claim god is loving and cares for us, then you cannot have this completely abstract notion of god. I do not have to use the notion of some silly bearded man-in-the-sky strawman to make my point. I only need to make reference to a loving being.

Regarding the second example, I have seen some theists argue that there are other goods that are either known or unknown that justify the existence of suffering. Of course, I have discussed a number of these proposals already, but one particular instance of this response is an interesting one and worth exploring to help clarify my point. Some theists might want to argue that god is not primarily concerned with the lives of human beings, but has other more important or equally valuable aims. If, for example, god also wants the good of the universe as a whole, then he might allow suffering due to randomness or the unfolding of time according to natural laws. If the universe is one that follows certain regularities and gives birth to beautiful entities like galaxies and stars, then, for the good of the universe, god might allow it to unfold according to these natural laws, even when that introduces some suffering to the universe. So, as I understand this criticism, it is again a misunderstanding to expect a perfectly loving god to be wholly and only concerned with the good of sentient creatures. Now, I have a few problems with this, including that I am unsure what it actually means to want the good for something that is neither aware nor can feel pain and suffering, but here I will just respond with the same point I made before. This simply does not seem like a perfectly loving being to me. Rather, it seems like you are describing an aesthetic god or a being concerned with beauty, structure, and design. You just are not describing the infinitely loving god that so many theists worship as this being wants the best for them and even created the universe so that its goodness can be instantiated. Once again, my argument is aimed at a morally perfect and all-loving god like the one people tend to worship and make positive claims about.

With the above in mind, I am personally not convinced that if a god exists, that god would necessarily have to be morally perfect. So, I take my argument not to be a total refutation of the divine or supernatural; only a good reason to think an all-loving, perfect being, i.e. the God of classical theism, does not exist. That does mean, at least if we only consider the seeming gratuitous suffering in the world, that views like aesthetic deism, pandeism, panpsychism, and some types of polytheism are still on the table.

Theism is a priori more likely

The next set of responses I expect theists to raise concerns the prior likelihood of theism. As briefly mentioned, the most common reasons to think God is necessary are either epistemological or something like the ontological argument for God. As I also mentioned, I cannot possibly fully unpack and respond to these views in this essay. For now, then, let me put it this way: I am highly sceptical of attempts to use our concepts and how we understand them as a priori reasons to conclude something is necessary or exists. I am not convinced that our understanding and concepts are robust or justified enough to draw conclusions about completely alien things. So, for example, to conclude that causation has exactly the same nature, whether applied within the cosmos or applied to the cosmos itself, seems, to me, to be a far too hasty generalisation. Similarly, taking a particular definition of a concept and then adding “existence” as a property to that concept also seems to want to take our understanding of a thing and pretend it maps onto reality in ways that we intuitively understand. Both of these would be misapplications of our reasoning faculties to situations and contexts in which they were not developed.

In short, here are the two main responses I would level against transcendental arguments from reason and ontological arguments: 1) transcendental arguments from reason fail to accurately capture our mental and rational faculties, mistakenly inferring that rationality and order must come from somewhere else (that logic in transcendent) because they are not natural, rather than concluding they are ways we organise and evaluate the world (computational and pragmatic theories of reasoning) – to me, they also seem to misunderstand the relationship between mental states and brain states under naturalism, mistakenly concluding that mental states play no causal role (a view I find deeply implausible); and 2) ontological arguments mistakenly apply the concept of existence as a predicate, inferring that because we define a thing as existent, therefore, it must exist. This mistake can be made clear via parody arguments, such as concluding that an evil god must exist or that both the greatest solvent and the greatest insoluble entity exist – these lead to contradictory conclusions that demonstrate the faulty nature of the argument. I will have similar responses for all of these types of arguments. Any argument that is presented as proof that god exists, I argue, will fail as they always include unjustified premises or unjustified inferences. Our best hope, both the atheist and the theist, is to evaluate the evidence we have at hand and conclude which theory is most likely. I find this to be the case for pretty much every single debate in philosophy.

The total evidence actually supports theism

A related set of responses is concerned with the total evidence available. This, I think, is the most plausible response. Rather than arguing with the structure of the argument (an inference to the best explanation is widely accepted as a valid form of inference), or the expectations of the theories (these, too, are mostly uncontroversial), this response adds additional factors to the equation in an attempt to provide additional evidence that might support theism over atheism. I think the best way for me to address this additional evidence is to explain why I think most examples are either better evidence for atheism or equally likely.

Here are the most common additions that theists will mention as evidence for theism: 1) the existence of consciousness, 2) the existence of morality, 3) the existence of free will, 4) the existence of religions, 5) the existence of miracles, 6) the existence of supernatural experiences, and 7) certain historical facts or events (like the resurrection). I will address each in turn. I’m hoping my responses, as they build on one another, become shorter as each section progresses.

The existence of consciousness

The fact that there are conscious beings capable of meaningful decisions and reasoning, to many people, seems much more likely if some divine mind exists and created our world. I must admit, this does, on the face of it, seem intuitive. I think it is likely that had I lived before the Middle Ages or such, I would simply agree. If the thing that grounds existence is a conscious agent, then we would expect to find, if they are created, other beings that are conscious agents. But I have a few problems with adding this as evidence against atheism as I defined it.

First, as I explained, atheism, in this argument, is the belief that there does not exist an all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing being and, therefore, that atheism is compatible with some conceptions of the supernatural. To make the point here, we can use aesthetic deism. Aesthetic deists believe that a god exists but that this being is not primarily interested in moral or loving aims but rather aesthetic aims, such as what a good writer might have. The simple fact of consciousness is equally expected by aesthetic deism and theism, but aesthetic deism better accounts for the seeming gratuitous suffering. Therefore, my argument can include the evidence of consciousness and still reach the same conclusion. Furthermore, if I rather wanted to make the comparison between aesthetic deism and naturalism, then I would again likely appeal to the seeming lack of reasons and random distribution of pleasure and pain in our universe as something more likely on naturalism, as naturalism implies complete indifference. In contrast, aesthetic deism implies being partial to at least aesthetic aims.

Second, even if the above were not true, more specific facts about consciousness lead me to conclude that they are less likely given theism than some kind of naturalism (which is compatible with atheism). For example, consciousness seems highly related to physical brains, only occurring in beings with sufficiently complex nervous systems, as far as we can tell. More specifically, it, at least to me, seems likely to be an emergent property. That is to say, I think source physicalism is likely true. Now, the fact that consciousness emerged from non-conscious matter and is sustained by it does seem less likely on theism than on naturalism. There is also the type of consciousness that exists, in that the beings that possess consciousness in our world seem to be pretty bad agents in general. Their consciousness is easily warped, and experiences are changed and distorted. They lie, steal, cheat, murder, rape, and disagree on almost every aspect of life. And so again, given all of these facts about consciousness, I am either happy to accept that we are unsure of its expectedness given the rival hypotheses, or I’m going to conclude atheism is once again more likely. It really depends on how our best science and philosophy progress in the future.

The existence of morality

Just like consciousness, on the face of it, the fact that there exist beings that care about morality and care about being loving and kind is much more expected if the universe was created by a loving and kind agent than if it were indifferent. However, as before, and as I did explain, certain facts about morality make it less likely that theism is true. These include the fact that we have constant moral disagreements and that we are pretty poor moral agents ourselves.

But we can add to this. I think we have really good reasons to support the fact that we humans have evolved just like every other animal on this planet. One of these evolved traits is our reciprocal, empathetic, altruistic natures for creatures closely related to us. Our intuitive moral behaviours and responses are deeply flawed because of this history, and much of human life often entails curbing our initial impressions. All of this is expected if atheism is true and highly expected if naturalism is true. It is certainly unexpected if a perfectly all-loving being existed.

Finally, I’ll just plug another one of my blog posts here, where I argue that divine command theory, probably the most popular view of morality for most religiously inclined people, has serious flaws that should lead you to conclude it is a bad account of ethics.

The existence of free will

I have a lot to say about free will. It is one of my favourite philosophical topics. But I do not have the space here to go into the details. You will have to be content with me being brief.

Basically, I think it would be obviously true that if we possess libertarian free will, that is most expected if a supernatural agent capable of undetermined meaningful volition exists. However, I am deeply sceptical of libertarian free will, both as being conceptually plausible and as an accurate description of our moral and volitional psychology. I think we have some kind of compatibilist free will, and that, to me, seems equally plausible on both theism and atheism. Furthermore, the more detail you add about our psychology, the more likely atheism sounds to me.

The existence of religions

Once again, the same thing is true. I think it is, in fact, very improbable that if theism were true, we would have so much religious disagreement. Furthermore, add in the fact that all our religions have a very human historical development and that they tend to serve the people with power or comfort those without, theism seems less and less likely the more I look at all our religions. In short, if there was only one religion that might be evidence for that religion’s conception of theism, but seeing as there are so many, and they are all on a level playing field, the best conclusion is simply to accept each one, like all the rest, is likely false.

The existence of miracles

This is a sensitive topic for many believers, but it is a topic ripe with evidence for atheism. I wrote a blog post about why I think miracles don’t make for good religious justification. You can read about that here.

As it stands, I’m pretty sceptical of miracle claims. But, for here, I don’t want to focus on that particular issue of mine. I will just put it this way: if theism were true, I would not expect the evidence of miracles to be this poor or the further fact that miracle claims have only gone down as time has progressed. Not only this, but I cannot help but mention the fact that miracles are pretty useful to scammers and fraudsters. In fact, the history of miracle claims and subsequent investigations have time and time again revealed that it was merely people lying. That fact alone – that the divine agent would not intervene to ensure the reliability of their miraculous interventions – is unexpected if theism is true. If atheism is true, this is not that surprising to me.

The existence of supernatural experiences

Similar to the existence of consciousness, the existence of phenomena such as speaking in tongues, experiencing the presence of god, and near-death experiences might seem like evidence for theism until we look at the details.

In each of these cases, we find wildly varying subjective experiences deeply tied to and dependent on the person’s previous experiences and beliefs. This means that religious experiences always happen to fit the person’s prior experiences. Muslims experience Allah, Christians experience Jesus, and Buddhists the cosmic energy. This should definitely cause scepticism for all believers, as they should doubt that they are uniquely capable of accurately drawing conclusions from religious experiences and see just how much our biases and expectations drive such experiences. In fact, the most likely explanation is that we are systematically in error about the causes of religious experiences, and this is most expected if there is no perfect and all-loving being trying to communicate with us.

Furthermore, we have plausible accounts of what is happening in these cases that are compatible with naturalism. We are able to induce similar experiences in people using chemicals, and similar experiences seem to happen when in highly stressful situations, and these experiences do not converge on a single theistic position. If naturalism were true, we would expect these sorts of spiritual experiences to be in error. So we might even have, if these are plausible naturalistic cases, evidence that naturalistic atheism is more likely than theism.

Certain historical facts or events

There are no doubt many more phenomena and occurrences that theists will want to add to the evidence. A final one I want to discuss here that I think is rather implausible is historical accounts of religious figures or events. For example, I was gifted a copy of the (in)famous Evidence That Demands A Verdict, a book that attempts to appeal to historical events and literary theory to argue that the Bible is a reliable source of actual history, and so we can take its other supernatural claims as plausibly supported. Now, this book covers a lot of territory and is a good example of the historical argument that a theist might make for their religion. What it is also an example of is how much you have to rely on cherry-picked evidence and just-so-sounding stories and apply the same shallow level of scepticism to each claim in the Bible. There is a reason the book is not taken seriously by critical and historical scholars; it, unfortunately, assumes the verdict it wants at the start and then sets out to find evidence for it rather than taking the evidence as a whole and reaching a particular conclusion. It is Christian apologetics 101, written for Christians, not for people who aren’t already convinced. The book’s arguments are fond of jumping from mere possibility to plausibility, something only someone who already believes would do.

For our purposes here, I’ll focus specifically on what we can actually reasonably gain from these types of historical arguments. At best, they can demonstrate that authors were paying attention to their surroundings. They do not provide very good evidence for actual supernatural claims. The reason is that supernatural explanations are about as unlikely as they come. Nothing about the Biblical narrative is unexplainable through natural means. What I mean by that is that thanks to what we know today; people are often mistaken, people will often lie, supernatural claims are widespread but always deemed implausible by those not in that particular religious tradition, and people are easily fooled, it is much more likely and plausible that the narratives and beliefs of the people in the Bible are due to people who were mistaken and legends that grow. Even if it is possible that Jesus rose from the dead, it is historically more likely to be another religious fiction, like all the others. For that reason, even if I were to accept that a strong historical argument makes a supernatural event possible, that would only be very weak evidence for theism, and the overwhelming evidence we have still points to atheism.

My Final Verdict

We have reached a point where I feel comfortable speaking more generally about the argument. This formal presentation is, as I think all such arguments and explanations are, a representation of how I see the world, the life I have lived, and the conclusions I draw from them. I wanted to present this argument not just as an intellectual exercise but as a way to try to justify and explain my beliefs. I have thought long and hard about this, and I went through a journey of religious growth and commitment to, ultimately, disillusionment. The argument, as presented, captures a large part of this. I went from thinking theism is pretty obviously true (thanks to fundamentalist indoctrination) to seeing that the issue is far from being settled, and I started to appreciate how a variety of positions can be reasonable. Thus, the “theism and atheism are a priori equally likely” belief was born. From there, I learned a lot more. I started to learn about philosophy, critical thinking and argumentation, and specifically about science and how evidence works. This changed the way I think about rationality and beliefs. From there, I learned a lot more about church history, the creation of the Bible, our planet’s natural history, and how science made progress. I also learned about other religions, was exposed to better critical scholarship, and became familiar with the terrible state of this world of ours. All of this has slowly but surely moved my needle of credence in theism and atheism. As it stands, the world just does not look like a world that was created by some perfect and all-loving being. The evidence does not match up, and I have no further reasons to suppose God must exist and, therefore, strain myself in trying to account for what ultimately seems unaccountable.

Finally, we can ask: how much more likely is atheism than theism? Enough to conclude atheism is true? Enough to only remain agnostic? Enough to conclude that theism is irrational to believe? I’m not sure. To explain my own view, I am inclined to be sceptical of any argument that wants to make some certain conclusion. I also do not think that there is no evidence for theism. Supernatural occurrences in general, the seeming fine-tuning of our universe, and religious experiences are, although I think weak, still some evidence for theism. But I think the preponderance of evidence should lead those not already committed to theism to either be agnostic or to affirm atheism. As for myself, I think I am truly on the line. Given this pretty broad definition of atheism, I think we are actually justified in being agnostic regarding the final verdict, seeing as the argument makes some kind of atheism more likely than theism but still remains silent on whether a god of some kind exists. For the most part, I think we should be agnostic in the sense that we should believe no one is wholly justified in concluding theism is definitely true or atheism (the more strict kind) is definitely true. And then, looking at my own background knowledge and the sort of epistemology I think is sound, I am inclined to conclude that theism can be rationally justified but that the evidence to me makes it less likely than atheism. Therefore, I will live and act according to my best understanding and view of the world, which, for the most part, is naturalistic. My beliefs regarding theism are thus fallible, and so I am happy to endorse a kind of global agnosticism, but my personal expectations and the evidence lead me to endorse a kind of local atheism. I’m not sure, and I don’t think anybody is justifiably so, but to me, the evidence points to a perfectly loving being not existing.

Casual Philosophy