An abductive moral argument against God’s existence

Does naturalism better explain the fact of ethical disagreement in the world better than theism does? There can be no doubt that there is much disagreement when it comes to ethics. When it comes to normative ethics and meta-ethics, ethicists disagree on a lot of things (i.e. moral realism, divine command theory, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, …

Dysteleological Arguments against God’s existence

There are many dysteleological arguments against the existence of God. Dysteleological arguments are usually put forth against design arguments for God's existence. The project isn't so much to show that God does not exist from these arguments, rather, the point is supposed to be that design arguments aren't any good (or are undermined). Why accept design arguments but …

The argument from divine hiddenness as a deductive argument

In his book, The Hiddenness Argument, J.L. Schellenberg argues that the hiddenness argument trumps arguments for God's existence because the hiddenness argument is a deductive argument. However, according to Schellenberg, arguments for God's existence tend to be inductive. Since the conclusions of deductive arguments necessarily follow from the premises, this trumps the structure of inductive …

Skeptical theism and Divine Hiddenness Part 2

On a previous blog post, I talked about the relationship between skeptical theism and the problem of divine hiddenness. Particularly, I argued that skeptical theism (by itself) will not work as a response to the argument from divine hiddenness (i.e. it fails). In that post, I didn't consider every objection, but I have since thought …

Reply to Travis Dumsday: Does the argument from evil undermine the hiddenness argument?

Travis Dumsday has recently published a paper arguing that the argument from evil undermines the argument from divine hiddenness. Dumsday's point is that the existence of vast amounts of suffering in the world will possibly make it to where some nonbelievers can't be convinced of God's existence no matter how much evidence God presents to them. Thus, …

Paul Draper and the argument from divine hiddenness

Atheist Philosopher Paul Draper seems to not have bought into J.L. Schellenberg’s hiddenness argument. Schellenberg’s argument is that if God exists, then nonresistant nonbelief will not exist. Why? Because if God exists, God would always be open to a relationship with God’s creatures, and the belief that "God exists" is necessary in order to have …

Applying the hiddenness argument to animals

In terms of non-human animals, nothing has been said about them with regards to the problem of divine hiddenness. At least, nobody has formed formulated the hiddenness argument in terms to include animals. Here, I want to show that the problem of divine hiddenness includes animals. Non-human animals in our actual world aren't resistant to …

Evidential argument (problem) from hell

The evidential argument from hell argues that the existence of hell (if it exists) makes God's existence improbable. The argument can be construed as follows: 1. If God exists, God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent 2. (Assumption) Hell exists 3.  If God exists, there would be no hell unless hell is necessary in order to bring …

The Argument From Trauma

C.S. Lewis has an argument for the existence of God known as the argument from nostalgia. Alvin Plantinga sums up the argument with, "Lewis speaks of the nostalgia that often engulfs us upon beholding a splendid land or seascape; these somehow speak to us of their maker. Not sure just what the argument is; but …

The larger world of philosophy of religion

If you look through the philosophy of religion literature, you will probably notice that most of the papers have to do with either classical theism or naturalism. With theism, more specifically, you'll notice that most of those papers are by Christian theists. But, I think there is a much larger world outside of theism vs. …