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Realism, Non-Realism and Atheism: Why Believe in an Objectively Real God?

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World Views and Perceiving God

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Abstract

The transcendent God has for many become an unavailable God. As Jean-Paul Sartre proclaims in his play The Devil and the Good Lord:

I supplicated, I demanded a sign, I sent messages to Heaven, no reply. Heaven ignored my very name. Each minute I wondered what I could be in the eyes of God. Now I know the answer: nothing. God does not see me, God does not hear me, God does not know me … I am going to tell you a colossal joke: God doesn’t exist.1

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Notes

  1. John A. T. Robinson, Honest to God (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963), p. 43. (Italics mine.)

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  2. For a classic presentation of verificationism against theism see A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (New York: Dover, 1952), Introduction, pp. 5–16, and pp. 115–17.

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  3. A clear and concise response is offered by George I. Mavrodes in ‘God and Verification’, Canadian Journal of Theology, Vol. 10 (1964)

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  4. reprinted in Malcolm L. Diamond and Thomas V. Litzenburg, Jr. (eds), The Logic of God: Theology and Verification (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975), p. 223

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  5. See also Alvin Plantinga, God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967), pp. 156–68.

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  6. See Hick, ‘Theology and Verification’, Theology Today, Vol. 17 (1960)

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  7. reprinted in Basil Mitchell (ed.), The Philosophy of Religion (Oxford University Press, Oxford Readings in Philosophy, 1971), pp. 53–71

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  8. David Hume, in Nelson Pike (ed.), Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), Part V (pp. 48 and 51).

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  9. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan, repr. 1973), pp. 500–24.

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  10. Immanuel Kant, in Allen W. Wood and Gertrude M. Clark (eds), Lectures on Philosophical Theology (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press: 1978), p. 161.

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  30. See Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), p. 20.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chapman University, California, USA

    Joseph Runzo (Professor of Philosophy and of Religion)

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  1. Joseph Runzo
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Copyright information

© 1993 Joseph Runzo

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Runzo, J. (1993). Realism, Non-Realism and Atheism: Why Believe in an Objectively Real God?. In: World Views and Perceiving God. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23106-5_7

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