What's wrong with this argument against the existence of God?

[Perplexity]

“There’s nothing so ridiculous it can’t be found in the books of philosophers.”

We don’t need to read a book. We don’t need to look at Perplexity’s reams and reams of meaningless bluster.

Statement (2) is so obviously false and blatantly misleading no discussion is needed.
It’s wrong. Period.

He’s right, don’t study an argument before offering objections to it. Don’t make sure you understand what you’re disagreeing with before you disagree with it.

If this kind of behavior is what it takes to remain theist, I feel secure in my atheism.

 

[Abba]

Abba’s counter-argument of Schellenberg’s argument against the existence of God:

1. If God exists, then God is all loving.
2. If an all loving God exists, He would reveal himself to humanity.
3. God has revealed Himself to humanity.
4. Therefore, an all loving God exist.
5. Therefore, God exist.

 

[Perplexity]

Abba’s counter-argument of Schellenberg’s argument against the existence of God:

1. If God exists, then God is all loving.
2. If an all loving God exists, He would reveal himself to humanity.
3. God has revealed Himself to humanity.
4. Therefore, an all loving God exist.
5. Therefore, God exist.

I like where this is going; but, in its present formulation it’s invalid. (3) affirms the consequent of (2), so neither (4) nor (5) can be deduced.

You could change (3) so as to make for a Modus Ponens, but then the argument loses its footing:

1’. If God exists, then God is all loving. [Premise]
2’. If an all loving God exists, He reveals himself to humanity. [Premise]
3’. God exists. [Premise]
4’. Therefore, God is all loving. (1’), (3’) M.P.]
5’. Therefore, He reveals himself to humanity. (2’), (4’), M.P.]

 

[Abba]

I like where this is going,

Hopefully, to help you to recognize the existence of God. I pray that with God’s help we can take some of the scales that are covering your eyes so you can at least see a glimpse. Keep in mind that you are seeking a real God, the God, who right now knows how many hair you have on your head and all your thoughts and loves you dearly. He is worth seeking.

 

[empther]

I prefer this formula:

1. nature alone couldn’t cause human intelligence
2. nature alone couldn’t cause human loyalty to family, friends, country, and the world at large
3. nature alone couldn’t cause human esthetics
4. nature alone couldn’t cause human imagination
5. nature alone couldn’t cause human creativity
6. but all these things exist
7. therefore, they had to be created by God.

 

[Lisa44]

I just recently learned about this argument for atheism on another thread. It is by a current professor of Oxford, J.L. Schellenberg, and he presents the argument in his book entitled: Divine Hiddennes and Human Reason.

1. If God exists, then God is all loving.
2. If an all loving God exists, reasonable non-belief does not occur.
3. Reasonable non-belief occurs.
4. Therefore, an all loving God doesn’t exist.
5. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

Do you think this is a good argument? Does it prove logically that God does not exist? It does not look like a good argument to me.

No I don’t and the reason is because of the first premise. Where does he get that from? I would like someone to prove that God is the only God, and that secondly he is all loving.
Did I miss the proof for that?

From wikipedia:
While Schellenberg claims he hasn’t seen any serious objections to this premise by theist philosophers, there certainly are other conceptions of God. Daniel Howard-Snyder writes about the possibility of believing in an unsurpassably great personal god that is nevertheless dispassionate towards its creatures. Drawing on to the Stoic concept of Eudaimonia, one can think of a god more akin to a wise sage than the loving parent that Schellenberg envisions.[6]

Theodore Drange, in his attempt to improve the argument (see below), claims there are many theists who do not view God as perfectly loving, and “some Christians think of him as an angry deity bent on punishing people for their sins.”[7] Drange concludes that the argument should be put forward only in relation to theists who already accept the first premise and believe in a god who is perfectly loving.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_nonbelief

 

[Abba]

No I don’t and the reason is because of the first premise. Where does he get that from? I would like someone to prove that God is the only God, and that secondly he is all loving.
Did I miss the proof for that?

From wikipedia:
While Schellenberg claims he hasn’t seen any serious objections to this premise by theist philosophers, there certainly are other conceptions of God. Daniel Howard-Snyder writes about the possibility of believing in an unsurpassably great personal god that is nevertheless dispassionate towards its creatures. Drawing on to the Stoic concept of Eudaimonia, one can think of a god more akin to a wise sage than the loving parent that Schellenberg envisions.[6]

Theodore Drange, in his attempt to improve the argument (see below), claims there are many theists who do not view God as perfectly loving, and “some Christians think of him as an angry deity bent on punishing people for their sins.”[7] Drange concludes that the argument should be put forward only in relation to theists who already accept the first premise and believe in a god who is perfectly loving.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_nonbelief

I agree with you. I am just going along with the structure of his argument. Certainly, premise one would need to be proven or demonstrated or it could only be directed to those who already accept the premise because they believe/know God is a loving God. At is stands and as someone already pointed out; premise 1 directs the argument to the Christian God.

Another problem with the first premise is that ‘God is a loving God’ needs to be defined. A ‘loving’ God may make His beloved suffer for their own good. Is Schellenberg denying that an all loving God would permit suffering?

This not to mention that Schellenberg premise 2 is pompous, pretentious and arrogant. He is pretending to know it all and from this position evaluating the fact that reasonable non-belief would not exist if an all loving God exists.

I just used the same structure.

 

[Abba]

I am rushing out the door. I will respond more precisely later. I wrote the response in a rush.

I have a busy day ahead…

 

[empther]

This not to mention that Schellenberg premise 2 is pompous, pretentious and arrogant. He is pretending to know it all and from this position evaluating the fact that reasonable non-belief would not exist if an all loving God exists.

Schellenberg is one of those people who think they’ve thought up a new idea and make a career ot it. His idea is thousands of years old. It’s right there in Genesis.

God might clearly reveal himself to the world, he could appear on Jan Leno’s show or something,
but he can’t make every man love him.

Quite the opposite would happen. Judas had no doubt Jesus was God. Look what he did.
Consider the Hebrews after the ten plagues the parting of the Red Sea and the pillar of fire. They saw with their own eyes that God exists. Then they worshipped the golden calf.

Trust in God sometimes requires mystery and imagination. This is what gives people a loophole to get into Heaven despite their faults.

Adam and Eve were created with crystal clear vision of what was right and wrong, but they chose wrong anyways, and irreversibly so. To give them another chance, God clouded their understanding, and so it was always possible for them to repent.

 

[JDaniel]

I just recently learned about this argument for atheism on another thread. It is by a current professor of Oxford, J.L. Schellenberg, and he presents the argument in his book entitled: Divine Hiddennes and Human Reason.

1. If God exists, then God is all loving.
2. If an all loving God exists, reasonable non-belief does not occur.

Abba:

No True Scotsman, or, in this case, No True (“all loving”) God . . . “would allow a scintilla of disbelief.” What’s the ground for this? Sounds to me as though he has fabricated an arbitrary modification to the definition of the attribute, “All Loving.” And, it certainly is not a codicil that most people would agree with, nor did the Revealers agree with it.

Do you think this is a good argument? Does it prove logically that God does not exist? It does not look like a good argument to me.

I think not. But, he is trying!

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

ASimon:

#2 and #3 are the major issues, it seems to me. While I obviously agree that reasonable non-belief does exist, I don’t quite see how that’s the result of God not being all-loving.

I concur, although I find it a stretch to think that non-belief is “reasonable.”

For that matter, I don’t see why God must necessarily be all-loving (unless this proof is directed toward the Christan God, in which case, the all-loving bit is presupposed).

Now this is problematic. A simple dialectical induction can do more than “show” that God must be (and is) “All Loving.” That God is All Loving is intuitive. Even though I live in America, I cannot infer that all the rest of the world is greatly suffering. (I’ve been to a number of places in the rest of the world.) Life has its moments of toughness, but it has far more, I think, moments of happiness and fun.

God bless,
jd

 

[maryh10000]

1. If God exists, then God is all loving.

I don’t think that’s adequately demonstrated, but I’ll give it to you since I believe in that the best description of God is the Christian one.

1. If an all loving God exists, reasonable non-belief does not occur.

You are

1. ignoring the factor of time
   The premise is unclear. It seems to state that no reasonable non-belief for any amount of time would ever exist in any person. Obviously, a person may exist in a state of reasonable non-belief for a period of time and yet be provided evidence that causes him to change to belief later on.
2. assuming that reasonable non-belief is always contrary to love
   If one moves from unreasonable non-belief through a period of non-belief, that would be a good thing. Once a person begins to apply reason, s/he is on the path to belief in the Christian God (not supported in this particular argument, but I believe you can see my point).
3. Reasonable non-belief occurs.
   Granted.
4. Therefore, an all loving God doesn’t exist.
5. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

I am not saying at this point that my answer to the second point disproves it. I have just pointed out that reasonable non-belief occurs in time and that therefore not ALL reasonable non-belief is necessary inconsistent with love.

Before going any further, I would like you to be more specific about the reasonable non-belief that you make this claim for.

As for the judgments of Schellenberg’s character or motives in making this argument, I cannot tell what they are from the form of the argument itself, and they certainly are irrelevant to the logic of the argument itself.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Perplexity

3. Reasonable non-belief occurs.
**
Charlegmange II is the main objector here. But, given the clarification of what Schellenberg means by reasonable non-belief, I don’t think his objections apply anymore. There certainly are individuals which mean the description.

“Perhaps the majority of theologians would go father still and allow that inculpable disbelief occurs. Take, for example, the view of theologians at Vatican II, as reported by Karl Rahner: “The council makes no reference to the traditional textbook view that positive atheism cannot be entertained for any considerable period of time by a fully developed person of normal intelligence without involving blame on his part. The Council actually assumed a contrary thesis, i.e. that it is possible for a normal adult to hold an explicit atheism for a long period of time-even to his life’s end-without this implying moral blame on the part of such an unbeliever.”” - p. 69. **

I am unmoved!

Rahner cannot speak for the Council, or for the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or for Scripture.

“The fool in his heart say there is no God.” Psalm 14

Self-deception, lying to oneself, is not a free pass into heaven … all the more so because unbelief violates the 1st and greatest Commandment … to love God.

The person who denies God does so on his own authority … a rather flimsy authority at that.

I prefer the view of Plato:

“Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding.”

There is nothing reasonable about this disease of a soul, and only faith is the cure for it.

 

[maryh10000]

I’m going to try and defend Schellenberg’s argument from some objections I’ve seen on this thread. My citations will be from his book.

Thank you.

Let’s get clearer on what reasonable non-belief is first, I think this will help with all the responses to (2) actually.

“S is inculpably in doubt about the truth of G if (1) S believes that epistemic parity obtains between G and not-G, and (2) S has not knowingly (self-deceptively or non-self deceptively) neglected to submit this belief to adequate investigation.” - p. 64.

This is what Schellenberg means by ‘reasonable non-belief.’

So Schellenberg equates “reasonable doubt” and “reasonable non-belief”. It is not clear to me that the too are the same. I may have reasonable doubt about something and yet still believe it to be true. Or is the assumption that belief cannot exist in the presence of any reasonable doubt?

If what Schellenberg means by “reasonable non-belief” is in fact “reasonable doubt”, then he must first show the equivalence of the two. Has he?

Edit: tonyrey first pointed out that the above argument refers to doubt.

 

[inocente]

1. If God exists, then God is all loving.
2. If an all loving God exists, reasonable non-belief does not occur.

Premise 2 says that if just one person, for instance Schellenberg, deems it reasonable not to believe in God then God doesn’t exist. Schellenberg is more powerful than God!

I’d have thought he would have learned that “all loving” and “reasonable non-belief” are subjective value judgments, and that he can’t just make up a definition of God to knock it down.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

The answer to this argument lies in a joke:

Q: What is the difference between God and an atheist?

A: God doesn’t think He’s an atheist.

Most atheist arguments against God rely upon the atheist being able to state, with certainty, what God would or would not do, or should or should not do, to be able to satisfy the atheist’s philosophical demands. Assumption of the right to decide how God should and must act does not constitute a sound argument. It’s just a simple domain error on the part of the atheist.

Thus, the atheist may insist that God’s omnibenevolence requires that He must act this way or that, while the atheist overlooks that God is not only all-Good, but all-Just. The balance between those two attributes can be balanced only if God is also omniscient. As God sees The Big Picture from His proleptic perspective, only He can decide if an action is good and just, based on the almost infinite chain of events and actions and reactions that each moral choice and action cause to reverberate down through our perception of time.

So, if the need for humans to exercise free will is a greater good that, say, God treating us all like his special little pets and not permitting any harm or doubt to come to any of us - thus, abrogating our ability to show compassion, fortitude, courage, faith, hope, or charity - it would be difficult for an atheist to argue that his perspective is the “correct” one on the morality of how God should act. The atheist lacks the necessary perspective or knowledge to judge God’s actions.

All Schellenberg’s argument proves is that God is not an atheist, nor does He think like one. For which we should all be thankful.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Arizona

**The atheist lacks the necessary perspective or knowledge to judge God’s actions. **

Precisely. The only perspective he allows God to have is the human perspective … and the human perspective of an atheist at that.

How logical is that?

 

[Perplexity]

Perplexity

3. Reasonable non-belief occurs.
**
Charlegmange II is the main objector here. But, given the clarification of what Schellenberg means by reasonable non-belief, I don’t think his objections apply anymore. There certainly are individuals which mean the description.

“Perhaps the majority of theologians would go father still and allow that inculpable disbelief occurs. Take, for example, the view of theologians at Vatican II, as reported by Karl Rahner: “The council makes no reference to the traditional textbook view that positive atheism cannot be entertained for any considerable period of time by a fully developed person of normal intelligence without involving blame on his part. The Council actually assumed a contrary thesis, i.e. that it is possible for a normal adult to hold an explicit atheism for a long period of time-even to his life’s end-without this implying moral blame on the part of such an unbeliever.”” - p. 69. **

I am unmoved!

Rahner cannot speak for the Council, or for the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or for Scripture.

“The fool in his heart say there is no God.” Psalm 14

Self-deception, lying to oneself, is not a free pass into heaven … all the more so because unbelief violates the 1st and greatest Commandment … to love God.

The person who denies God does so on his own authority … a rather flimsy authority at that.

I prefer the view of Plato:

“Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding.”

There is nothing reasonable about this disease of a soul, and only faith is the cure for it.

Ironically, if you can only object to this argument by appealing to your theology, your theology is severely undermined. Theism must be established before Christian theism is, so if you leave theism unguarded (as you have), there’s no point in appealing to a theology.

 

[Perplexity]

Schellenberg equates “reasonable doubt” and “reasonable non-belief”. It is not clear to me that the too are the same. I may have reasonable doubt about something and yet still believe it to be true. Or is the assumption that belief cannot exist in the presence of any reasonable doubt?

If what Schellenberg means by “reasonable non-belief” is in fact “reasonable doubt”, then he must first show the equivalence of the two. Has he?

Edit: tonyrey first pointed out that the above argument refers to doubt.

Schellenberg draws all sorts of distinctions here. He devotes an entire chapter to this (and remarks about it elsewhere as well). I think the reason he interchanges these is because non-belief doesn’t involve ignorance. That is, it is a doubt. (in deliberately not believing, S is doubting)

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Perplexity

Ironically, if you can only object to this argument by appealing to your theology, your theology is severely undermined.

You perhaps did not notice that I also appealed to Plato, who was not a Catholic.

The syllogism to which you refer can only appeal to someone who is already an atheist.

How’s that for irony?