Objections to God’s Existence

Abstract

Objections to God’s existence come in two kinds. Firstly, there are the types of argument which seek to undermine positive arguments for God’s existence, the kind of dialectic seen in the previous chapter. Secondly, there are arguments which seek to independently show that the existence of such a thing as the God of classical theism is impossible or irrational to believe. Of this latter kind the two most powerful in contemporary discussions are the problem of evil and the arguments in favour of naturalism. The problem of evil arises in different forms, but basically seeks to argue the incompatibility of a good and all-powerful God with the manifest evil and suffering present in the world. Naturalism, on the other hand, argues for the explanatory redundancy of God. Defenders of naturalism hold that God is an outmoded concept, deriving from a prescientific age, used to conceal our ignorance of the workings of reality. As we grow in knowledge, the vacuity of the notion of God emerges — explaining the rise of atheism among intellectuals and the more highly educated.