I’m familiar with a number of arguments for theism that I find convincing and worth defending, and while I think on scale my reasons for believing theism are stronger, I’m also willing to admit that there are arguments for atheism which do carry at least some weight. In this post, I want cover two arguments that I find to be the most compelling to me, although you shouldn’t think I find these arguments to be overwhelming or without good answers.
The Impossibility of Unembodied Minds
If God exists, then He is, at least fundamentally, a mind which exists without a body. Now here it may be possible, though I think unlikely, for God to have a body contingently (that is to say He wills to have a body for whatever reason), which is what any Mormon ought to say who maintains God has a body since no necessary being can be essentially a physical one. So God, if he exists, is essentially an immaterial and personal being. The argument then comes from the atheist that all the minds we are familiar with are embodied. Everywhere we know there is mind, there is brain. We might put the argument like this,
- God would be a mind able to exist without a body.
- No mind can exist without a body.
- Therefore, God does not exist.
I think the first premise is true and the second seems to have support from experience. In our experience, whenever we encounter a mind there is also a body with it. This said, I would still deny the second premise on the basis that the arguments against materialism and for dualism seem to be better than their adversaries. If dualism (in the relevant forms) is true, then in fact it is possible for the mind to exist without the body. I am thinking here of arguments for the soul like the modal argument and the various sub-arguments to the argument from reason (of Reppert, though Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument is certainly relevant) against materialism. Besides that, there are arguments (such as the one given in my previous post for a Thomistian Cosmological Argument) for the existence of just such a mind which I find to be more convincing. Altogether then, I am willing to say this argument does carry a bit of weight for atheism even if I don’t find it compelling enough with regard to the overall cases.
The Problem of Natural Pain and Suffering
While the argument from evil in the sense of the moral evil of persons and their actions is not one which has ever made me raise an eyebrow, given the free-will of persons, nonetheless when I reflect on natural evil and suffering I am a bit troubled. One might think about the various natural disasters, which don’t seem to be instigated by any moral agents, and, especially if you are convinced of an evolutionary past (let me confess I’m not), the pain and suffering in the animal kingdom that goes on all the time. It becomes difficult to understand why God would allow such natural cruelty as a part of His creation.
This argument is not as strong as the last one, but it does make you think. To begin with, this argument seems to be primarily emotional (and emotions are not the best indicators of truth). As a logical argument, no contradiction can be demonstrated between the existence of God and natural evil. In fact, we can prove they are not contradictory by suggesting the possibility that God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing it (this is part of the response to general problem of evil). Remember this is the atheist’s argument, so the theist does not have to prove the possibility is the reality. As the atheist’s argument, it is their task to show that this solution could not be the case, which is itself an impossible task. Lacking the overall view of the grand scheme of intricate and complicated causal relationships between all the events that have happened, are happening, and will happen, it would be arbitrary speculation (or an absurd claim to having the knowledge God would have) for the atheist to say God could not have sufficient reasons for permitting natural evil. If one takes a Christian perspective, it becomes even easier to think of some reasons God could have. For instance, if God desires as many people as possible to repent and turn to Him, then it is not at all implausible that the greatest numbers of persons acquiring salvation can only be found in worlds with natural and moral evil (think of how effective evangelical work is in places of disaster as opposed to the more comfortable U.S. and Europe).
Also worth mentioning, with regard to animal suffering, is the scientific support for three different levels of pain awareness, with the highest level only being found in humans and the great apes. It looks as though God has spared the animal kingdom of the kind of pain we deal with ourselves. Michael Murray explains this in his book Nature Red in Tooth and Claw and I’ll give you the link below to a response Murray has given as a guest author on a Q&A where he addresses the problem of animal pain,
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/animal-suffering1
So There You Have It
These are the two arguments for atheism which I would say carry the most weight. There are probably a host of other arguments you can think of, but frankly I find most of these to be either silly or based on a misunderstanding (like the “Who made God?” nonsense). For instance, I once met a person (sorry, but no names) who argued that if Catholicism were not true then theism could not be true. A strange premise in itself, the person then offered an argument against being Catholic that seemed to be based more on his/her personal experience with the Church more than on any problems with its teachings (I’ve noticed a problem with theistic shortsightedness where a person finds they disagree with the teachings/character of the particular group they’ve grown up in and jumped to abandoning theism altogether rather than that particular view of it, I’ve seen this with many ex-Mormons). If you think there is another argument worth adding to the list, please leave me a comment about it!
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