Philosophy of Religion: Failure and Successful Arguments

Philosophy of Religion: Failure and Successful Arguments
(Note: the time is in the afternoon)
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What counts as a failure or successful arguments for and against the existence of God? We will focus on the philosophy of religion and consult other philosophical questions including free will, ethics, physics and ontology.

We will look at various arguments for and against the existence of God.
(See Appendix for more)

• Cosmological Argument
• Ontological Argument
• Moral Argument
• Argument from personal religious experience

How to judge them as success or failure? One may find some of the arguments convincing or objectionable, and another person finds otherwise. We will not draw any conclusion about the existence of God or the nature of God, but only attempt to find a decent criteria for evaluating a philosophical argument.

We will look at Van Inwagen’s view on this subject. He rejects the idea that philosophical arguments can be “coercive” in the sense that anyone who understands the premises must accept the conclusion. He critiques this model, likening it to Robert Nozick’s tongue-in-cheek idea that a successful argument should be so compelling that anyone who resists it would metaphorically “explode” from cognitive dissonance.
Instead, van Inwagen sees philosophical argumentation more like a debate between parties with opposing views. But even in this model, he believes that philosophical arguments rarely, if ever, cause someone to abandon their deeply held positions. Thus, he concludes that philosophical failure is the norm, not the exception.

We may look arguments in other subjects:

• Argument for and against the existence of free will.
• Argument for and against the existence of absolute ethics.
• Nominalism vs Realism

Appendix:
Arguments against the existence of god.
🔥 1. The Problem of Evil
Core idea: If God is all-powerful and all-good, why does evil exist?

• Logical version: It's logically inconsistent to affirm both God's omnipotence and omnibenevolence while acknowledging the existence of gratuitous evil.
• Evidential version: The sheer scale and intensity of suffering (e.g. natural disasters, genocide) make it unlikely that a benevolent deity exists.
• Notable thinkers: Epicurus, J.L. Mackie, William Rowe

### 🧪 2. The Argument from Lack of Empirical Evidence

Core idea: There’s no observable or testable evidence for God’s existence.

• Science relies on falsifiability and repeatability—God, by definition, evades both.
• Bertrand Russell’s “celestial teapot” analogy illustrates the burden of proof: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

### 🧬 3. The Argument from Poor Design

Core idea: If God designed life, why is it so flawed?

• Human bodies are riddled with inefficiencies (e.g. birth canal design, vulnerability to disease).
• Evolution explains complexity without invoking a designer.
• This challenges the idea of a perfect creator.

### 🌀 4. The Incoherence of Divine Attributes

Core idea: The traditional attributes of God are logically incompatible.

• Can an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy it cannot lift it?
• If God knows everything, including future choices, how can humans have free will?
• These paradoxes suggest that the concept of God may be internally inconsistent.

### 🧠 5. The Argument from Nonbelief

Core idea: If God wants humans to believe and be saved, why is belief so difficult?

• Billions of people don’t believe in God—not out of rebellion, but due to lack of evidence or cultural upbringing.
• A loving, omnipotent God could make belief more accessible.

### 🧹 6. Occam’s Razor

Core idea: The simplest explanation is usually best.

• Naturalistic explanations (e.g. Big Bang, evolution, moral psychology) suffice without invoking a deity.
• Adding “God” to the equation introduces unnecessary complexity.