In his opening case Quentin Smith argues that the existence of the universe is self-explanatory because it is self-caused, and that this conclusion is inconsistent with theism. However, to be consistent with his principle that a causal explanation of each part of the universe logically explains the existence of the whole, and that the Big Bang caused the sequence of states following it, he must claim that the Big Bang provides an additional explanation of the sequence of states following it. But then the theist can claim that this is the sort of additional explanation that God provides for the existence of the universe, and that God is essential to providing a complete explanation of our universe, even though the universe contains no beginning point. Moreover, Smith's explanation of the existence of the universe may be fatally circular, or lead to an infinite regress where, no matter what part one starts with, the part of the universe doing the explaining is always further in need of an explanation—until one posits God to close the regress.

Paul Draper rightly argues that fine-tuning gives us no reason to believe in a generic design hypothesis that tells us nothing about the motives of the designer. He also correctly notes that "The Case for Cosmic Design" does not establish the existence of God; but it nevertheless offers evidence for the existence of God. Fine-tuning is more surprising under the naturalistic single-universe hypothesis than under theism, and thus constitutes evidence for theism over the naturalistic single-universe hypothesis. When all of the evidence is considered, whether theism is objectively more likely to be true than the naturalistic single-universe hypothesis is an open question that depends upon a difficult assessment of the prior epistemic probability of theism. Since there are independent motivations for believing theism apart from fine-tuning and other design evidence, that evidence counts in favor of theism even if we cannot show that theism is true. Moreover, unless we have good reason to believe that the existence of evil is very improbable under theism, the combination of the fine-tuning data and the existence of evil supports theism over the naturalistic single-universe hypothesis. It is reasonable under the theistic hypothesis to think that the existence of limited, vulnerable moral agents is an overall good despite the evils that almost certainly would accompany the existence of such agents.

Robin Collins offers three design arguments for the existence of God, with the primary fine-tuning argument contending that life or intelligent life depends for its existence on the fact that a number of physical parameters of the universe have (numerical) values that fall within a range of life-permitting values that is very narrow. Such fine-tuning entails, Collins argues, that the existence of life is much more surprising on naturalism than on theism.

Quentin Smith challenges the view that naturalism leaves nature unexplained by arguing that the universe explains itself. Since space and time break down at the Big Bang singularity, there was no first instant—no earliest instant of time—of the finitely old time-series that makes up the universe. Each instantaneous state in any earliest interval is caused to exist and hence explained by earlier instantaneous states, leaving no logical space for God or any other external cause of the universe. Moreover, the contingency of the universe does not entail that there is no reason for its existence; every part of the universe has a reason in earlier parts, and the universe as a whole has a reason in the existence of its parts. Furthermore, there is a concrete sequence of causes and effects that actualized the possibility of a universe at least 15 billion years old and at least 13 billion light years in radius. This is why our universe exists rather than some other imaginable one.

Robin Collins argues that three facts implicate a designer of the universe—that life depends upon the precise tuning of physical constants, that the laws of physics show evidence of beauty, and that the universe is intelligible. But Collins' case is pervaded by vague arguments which shift between defending theism specifically and defending a more generic design hypothesis. This provides the appearance of having all of the advantages of the generic design hypothesis, such as greater initial plausibility, while masking the implication that intelligent life is just as unlikely given design with unspecified motives as it is given "chance." If design is to provide us with any expectations at all about what the world would be like, Collins has to defend theism in particular throughout. Moreover, while on single-universe naturalism the existence of anything as impressive as human beings may be very unlikely, on theism the existence of intelligent beings as unimpressive and flawed as humans is also very unlikely. And given that human beings do exist, single-universe naturalism, but not theism, entails that they exist in this particular universe.

According to conventional religious wisdom, if there is no God, then the existence of the universe is just a big accident—a "brute fact" that has no explanation. According to conventional antireligious wisdom, Charles Darwin's Origin of Species put the last nail in the coffin for the argument from design. Quentin Smith takes on the first of these sacred cows, concluding that there is a coherent sense in which the universe explains itself, while Robin Collins takes on the second adage, concluding that the presence of life in the universe is much more surprising on naturalism than on theism.

In his opening argument, Quentin Smith argued that universe explains its own existence, without remainder, even if the universe has a finite age, for the state of the universe at any particular moment is sufficiently caused by all of its preceding states. Since this complete explanation makes no reference to God, Smith argued, insofar as God is by definition a part of any complete explanation of the universe, God does not exist. In his response, Robin Collins cited the flight of a cannonball as a counterexample to Smith's line of reasoning, but the counterexample is not analogous; unlike the universe, the flight of the cannonball does not have a historically complete explanation in terms of earlier parts of that flight. Being charitable to Collins, however, it is possible that although the universe has no first moment in physical time, it may in some metaphysical time series, allowing one to make room for God in a complete metaphysical explanation of the universe. Smith's argument, then, might not demonstrate the nonexistence of God, but it nevertheless provides a probabilistic argument against the existence of God. And on Collins' own "likelihood principle," the fact that our best scientific theory of the origin and evolution of the universe supports a self-caused universe is much more likely on naturalism than on theism, and thus provides very strong evidence for naturalism over theism.

What was “the Blood of Jezreel”? (2008) Farrell Till Introduction The Jehu Problem Summary of the Solution The Solution in Detail “The Blood of Jezreel” in Context “The Blood of Jezreel” Historically 2 Kings 10:30: A Postponed Judgment? Other Biblical Examples of Deferred Punishment 2 Kings 10:29-31 Viewed in the Light of Exodus 20:3-5 “Jezreel” […]

This article examines Nowicki's novel version of the Kalam Cosmological Argument (N-KCA), and finds it seriously flawed. The N-KCA purportedly shows the factual impossibility of a denumerably infinite set of coexisting concrete entities; and that there would be such a set were an infinite temporal series of events to obtain because each existing substance bears its own necessarily permanent temporal marks and those of its ancestors. Nowicki, professing the A-theory of time, nevertheless maintains that truth-makers of past-event propositions are not tensed facts, according to some correspondence theory of truth, but rather the temporal marks borne by existing substances.

Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity (with no question mark in the title) aims to rebut the "new atheists" on their own ground. Its most evident goals include convincing the reader that there is justification for a theistic world view and demonstrating the cultural superiority of Christianity. In service of the first goal he covers many of the standard arguments, but with little originality, except perhaps for his use of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. His general procedure, illustrated in this case and in a number of others, is to present background material and then make an unjustified transition that purports to establish his case. This triumphant style of reasoning is not likely to convince atheists, or even doubters. Beyond this, almost nothing he says in favor of the truth of Christianity would be persuasive to someone with a different religious view. The book's principal defect is that it presents too many different reasons for its theistic conclusion, rather than treating a few decisive arguments in depth. This suggests that the book is ultimately political, with its implicit goal to reassure those already leaning toward Christianity that they are on the right side.

In The Miracle of Theism and elsewhere John L. Mackie argued that the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly good God is logically incompatible with the existence of evil, as God could have created persons who always freely choose the good. Alvin Plantinga responded with his famous Free Will Defense, in which he claimed that, under certain conditions, it was impossible for God to create a world containing no evil whatsoever. In this refutation, Raymond D. Bradley notes that these conditions--such as actualizing a world containing significantly free creatures or one in which all of God's creatures suffer from "transworld depravity"--were entirely up to God, in that he could have refrained from creating such a world. Since in virtue of his omniscience any such God would have known the consequences of creating the world that he did, he would bear command responsibility for all the evils that resulted from his creation--if he only existed in the first place. In other words, a morally perfect, omnipotent, and omniscient God does not now, and never did, exist.

Alvin Plantinga does not challenge (and thus implicitly concedes) the soundness of Paul Draper's argument for the conclusion that certain facts about good and evil are strong evidence against theism. Plantinga does, however, challenge Draper's view that naturalism is more plausible than theism, which Draper needs to reach the further conclusion that, other evidence held equal, theism is very probably false. In addition, Plantinga challenges the significance of this final conclusion. In this chapter, Draper defends his views on plausibility and then argues that Plantinga's challenge to the significance of his final conclusion fails for two reasons. First, Plantinga fails to show that this further conclusion does not threaten the rationality or warrant of most theistic belief. Second, he mistakenly assumes that, in order to be significant, this conclusion must threaten the rationality or warrant of most theistic belief.

Paul Draper criticizes Alvin Plantinga's argument that since unplanned evolution is not likely to produce trustworthy cognitive faculties, evolutionary naturalists cannot rationally believe anything--including naturalism itself. Draper contends that this argument rests on a crucial but faulty inference from the premise that the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable given unplanned evolution is low or inscrutable. The conclusion that evolutionary naturalists cannot rationally believe in unplanned evolution does not follow from this "probability thesis." If the thesis were amended to claim that the probability of reliable cognitive faculties given unplanned evolution is low (as opposed to "low or inscrutable"), then it would follow that naturalists cannot trust their cognitive faculties; but this amended thesis is demonstrably false, and thus Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism fails.

Do the claims of evolutionary biology conflict with theistic religion? According to one very popular view, when properly conducted science and religion never conflict because they are isolated within separate domains. Another position is that evolution and theistic religion are in some fairly straightforward way logically incompatible. Are certain facts of evolutionary biology better explained on the hypothesis that naturalism is true, or on the hypothesis that theism is true?

In this chapter, Paul Draper appeals to natural selection in order to show that the failure of many humans and animals to flourish is strong evidence against the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect God. Treating theism and naturalism as hypotheses that aim to explain certain features of our world, Draper sets out to test each hypothesis against various known facts, including facts about human and animal suffering. After demonstrating that, prior to such testing, naturalism is more probable than theism in virtue of its smaller scope and greater simplicity, Draper goes on to argue that naturalism has far greater "predictive power" than theism, concluding that this provides strong grounds for rejecting theism.

In this chapter, Alvin Plantinga argues that naturalism entails that our beliefs cannot affect our behavior, but natural selection only selects for beneficial behaviors. Consequently, natural selection cannot select for beneficial beliefs on naturalism, and thus the probability that human beings have evolved reliable cognitive faculties is low or inscrutable if evolution has occurred without supernatural guidance. Evolutionary naturalism, then, is "self-defeating" in the sense that if it were true, we would have no good grounds to believe that our cognitive faculties are reliable, and thus no good grounds to believe that evolutionary naturalism is true. Moreover, because our cognitive faculties are reliable, evolution actually provides evidence that naturalism is false—and thus there is a "religion/science conflict" between the quasi-religion of evolutionary naturalism and the science of evolution.

Paul Draper's critique of the evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) alleges that it does not follow from the probability thesis that evolutionary naturalists cannot rationally believe in unplanned evolution, but that this conclusion does follow from the amended but demonstrably false thesis that the probability of reliable cognitive faculties given unplanned evolution is low. Though Plantinga disputes that the probability thesis does not entail this conclusion, he does not take up that argument here. Rather, he aims to show (contra Draper) that the probability of reliable cognitive faculties given unplanned evolution is indeed low, given that evolution selects only for "indicators," not full-fledged beliefs. If evolutionary naturalism is true, then both true and false belief content will yield equally adaptive behavior, and thus natural selection will not select for true belief content over false belief content; but then naturalism is indeed self-defeating in the sense that naturalists cannot trust the cognitive faculties that lead them to believe that naturalism is true.

Paul Draper argues that all else held equal, "naturalism is much more probable than theism," and therefore "theism is very probably false"; moreover, naturalism is simpler and smaller in scope than theism, and has much greater predictive power than theism with respect to evolutionary facts about suffering. In this response, Alvin Plantinga disputes that theism has larger scope than naturalism, and argues that what is really at issue for epistemic probability is not simplicity as Draper understands it (as "uniformity"), but "epistemic naturalness"—and that theism is more epistemically natural than naturalism. Moreover, if we treat theism as a hypothesis (rather than as a fact), theism might be subject to prima facie defeat by facts about suffering and misery, but nevertheless explain or predict a whole range of other data better than naturalism, such as our possession of reliable cognitive faculties, the existence of objective morality, the fine-tuning of the universe, the existence of abstract objects, and so on. But if some theists know that theism is true (in virtue of religious experiences. say), then their theism is not subject to defeat by facts about suffering even disregarding these explanatory advantages.