There are two words that can instantly set my wife and me against each other: Santa Claus. If we are blessed with children in the future, should we tell them the traditional story about an omniscient man in red who dispenses gifts at Christmas? Laura thinks that it’s a fun, magical part of childhood that causes no real harm. I think encouraging belief in a mythical figure comes perilously close to lying to children. Even worse, what if our child grows up and decides that God is just a made-up story like Santa?
Some atheists see God as no different from Santa Claus. There’s no real evidence for either one, they say; and since no one feels obligated to prove that Santa Claus does not exist, why should anyone feel obligated to prove that God does not exist? The lack of evidence is proof enough.
No Evidence = No God
One of the most entertaining debates on the existence of God I’ve ever seen was the 2003 debate between biologist Lewis Wolpert and philosopher William Lane Craig.50 Craig offered five arguments for the existence of God, including the kalām cosmological argument, the fine-tuning argument, the argument from objective moral values, the argument from personal experience, and the argument from the Resurrection of Christ.
After he made these arguments, the following exchange took place:
Wolpert: A tiny bit of evidence would be a good beginning.
Moderator: He’s offered you evidence.
Wolpert: Oh, that’s not evidence!
Craig: Certainly, that’s more than a tiny bit of evidence . . . Wolpert: Noooooo!
Craig: . . . that God exists.
Wolpert: That’s total speculation!
Wolpert said that although no argument could convince him that God exists, sufficient
“evidence” could convince him that theism was true. Of course, what Wolpert meant by
“evidence” was empirical evidence: that which can be observed with the five senses.
This presupposes the idea that unless there is empirical evidence for something, then that thing can’t be proven to exist. But consider the following three examples.
Beyond the reach of science
The existence of other minds is not proven by direct scientific evidence alone. The mind, which is a collection of immaterial thoughts, cannot be observed like the brain, which is a three-pound lump of tissue that resides in your skull (though observing the brain will require surgery or dissection). Since I can’t observe other people’s thoughts, I must assume that they actually have thoughts and therefore have a mind like I do. Only with this unscientific assumption can I believe that they have a mind and aren’t just
sophisticated robots or mental illusions.
Secondly, the existence of moral truths such as “It is wrong to cause suffering simply to increase suffering in the world” cannot be proven scientifically. These statements are also not true by definition like the statement “All triangles have three sides.” The only part science plays in proving this particular statement is true is by telling us what suffering is like and how it occurs. Science does not tell us if (or when) suffering should not be caused.51
Finally, the existence of abstract objects cannot be proven scientifically. As Jim Holt writes in the New York Times, although most mathematicians are atheists, the majority of them still believe in heaven. Here’s what they mean: If you erased everything in the universe except for forty-seven particles, would numbers like forty-eight still exist even though there could never be forty-eight of anything? According to Holt, most mathematicians think numbers would still exist, but instead of existing in the physical universe these numbers and mathematical objects exist in an abstract “heavenly” realm.52 Detection of these real but abstract objects does not use the scientific method but instead uses a kind of “extrasensory perception,” or intuition. As Holt concludes, “You might say that mathematicians are no strangers to belief in the unseen.”53
Other minds, moral truths, and abstract objects cannot be proven with science, yet most people, including atheists, agree they exist. So an atheist can only say, “There is no evidence for God” if he narrowly restricts the word evidence to mean direct, empirical evidence. Of course, there is no empirical evidence or scientific experiment that can prove the belief that all true beliefs must be validated with the scientific method! This is a philosophical viewpoint called scientism, and it is ultimately self-defeating.54
A universe that looks godless
Some atheists argue that God does not exist simply because the universe seems like the kind of place we would expect if there was no God. Nicholas Everitt, in his book The Non-existence of God, makes what he calls an “argument from scale.” He claims that if God existed, then the universe would not be billions of years old and billions of light years across. He says that “given the central role of humanity, what would be the point of a universe which came into existence and then existed for unimaginable aeons without the presence of the very species that supplied its rationale?”55 I empathize with Everitt that the immensity of the universe does make humans, supposedly God’s crowning achievement, look pretty insignificant. But looks can be deceiving.
After all, the inefficiency of creating a grand universe would be a problem only for a being that is limited in time and resources. For example, after I completed my graduate studies I drove across the country without stopping, because I didn’t have a lot of time or money to spare and needed to get back to a regular job as soon as possible. But if I wasn’t starting a job for six months and had just received a large inheritance, I might have gone on a long, scenic trip instead. In the same way, since God has unlimited time and resources, he has no problem making a grand cosmos for human beings. It’s not as if God “loses track of us” in the expansive universe he created.
Moreover, the human brain is the most complex thing in the universe, so why not think that God made a grand universe for these brains to explore? Who hasn’t been out in the middle of nowhere at night and just looked at the stars? I think billions of years of cosmic evolution were worth it for a view like that.
Moreover, how does Everitt know with such confidence that God would not create a world like ours? Suppose God made a universe with only our solar system in it. Would the typical atheist think, in contrast, that such a world proves God exists? He might just as plausibly argue that if God existed, surely he would have created something grander. A small and simple universe, he might argue, is precisely what we would expect if it simply popped into existence from nothing, without a cause. As C. S. Lewis put it, “We treat God as the policeman in the story treated the suspect; whatever he does will be used in evidence against him.”56
A planet that looks godless
An atheist might also argue that our planet looks godless, because if God existed, why are there so many different religions and so many people who don’t believe in him? If God existed, would we even need books and arguments to defend him?
This objection assumes that God would not have morally sufficient reasons for allowing false religions—and even atheism—to exist. One reason may be that he does not want to override our free will. If your parents monitored you with security cameras everywhere you went, it is unlikely you would ever develop a genuine desire to be good or please them. If God made his existence just as obvious, we might behave out of fear of punishment, not for the joy of doing good in order to please God and fulfill our purpose in life.57
Or, if God made his existence obvious, it’s possible humans might resent him and actually choose to not worship him. The late Christopher Hitchens once said that even if God existed he would not worship him because such a being would, in his mind, differ little from an earthly dictator.58 If God constantly watched over us from the sky like a towering Goliath, this might only reinforce the attitude held by people like Hitchens that God has put us in a police state.
Finally, this “divine hiddenness” gives believers the opportunity to lead other people to God, which would be impossible if God’s existence were as obvious as the noonday sun.59 The philosopher Richard Swinburne writes:
The agnosticism of the agnostic also makes possible a great good for the religious believer. It allows the believer to have the awesome choice of helping or not helping the agnostic to understand who is the source of his existence and of his ultimate well-being (helping the agnostic not merely by verbal preaching but by an example of what living a religious life is like).60
Absence of evidence and evidence of absence
Sam Harris is so indignant about the irrationality of belief in God that he wonders why we even need to debate atheism at all. He says “Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not
even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, ‘atheism’ is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a ‘non-astrologer’ or a ‘non-alchemist.’ ”61 But Harris’s attempt to lump theism together with other false beliefs won’t succeed, because he still needs an argument to show that the proposition “God exists” is false.
Yes, there are no “non-astrologers” or “non-alchemists.” That is because those of us who deny these things just say we believe in psychology and chemistry instead. But how would the atheist fill in the following statement: “I don’t believe in God, I believe in ____________?” He can’t fill it in with “science,” because God exists outside of the realm of experimental science.62 There is no science whose methods, when used properly, show God does not exist. An atheist must use principles in philosophy in order not only to refute theism but to prove atheism as well. Atheism has a burden of proof that is not discharged by saying, “Well, it’s just obvious that my view is right.”
But what about the atheist who says, “I can’t prove that leprechauns don’t exist, but the failure to prove they do exist gives us good reason to say leprechauns don’t exist—
and the same is true for God”?
To answer this argument, let’s consider another statement: “Aliens exist.” Is this statement true or false? Based on my knowledge of the world, I would honestly say, “I don’t know.” I’ve never seen a UFO nor had the experience of being abducted by aliens, but other people claim to have experienced those things. Even if all of those experiences were debunked and disproved, it would still be possible that aliens existed somewhere in the universe. Therefore, I must be agnostic when it comes to the question “Do aliens exist?” I cannot give a definite answer.
What is the lesson to be learned? Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. Just because there is no evidence for the existence of X, it doesn’t follow that X does not exist.
Proving a negative
Is it even possible to disprove the existence of God? Atheist critics will sometimes claim, “You can’t prove a universal negative.” Mathematician John Paulos uses a colorful example to make this point:
No matter how absurd the existence claim (there exists a dog who speaks perfect English out of its rear end), we can’t look everywhere and check everything in order to assert with absolute confidence that there’s no entity having the property.63
But, contra Paulos, it is possible to disprove the existence of some beings. I would say the proposition “Santa Claus exists” is false. How do I know this? First, there is no good evidence that he exists. Second, if Santa existed, then good evidence would be available all around us. We would expect to locate Santa’s workshop at the North Pole. We would expect parents to rely on Santa and not place presents under the tree themselves. We would expect NORAD to track Santa’s sleigh on radar. In this case, absence of evidence is evidence of absence because if Santa did exist, then we would reasonably expect to
see certain evidence of his existence. When we look for Santa Claus in places where we expect to find him, he is not there. Therefore, we can say he doesn’t exist.
To make a similar argument against God, an atheist would have to demonstrate that if God existed then the world would look a certain way, and since it doesn’t look that way, God does not exist. But as we saw earlier, the examples that atheists prefer (like a small universe, abundant miracles, and unanimous belief in God) would not automatically be expected if God did exist. The absence of these things does not show there is no God. In Part III we will see that there are in fact features of the universe—like its coming into being from nothing, and the existence of objective moral truth—that we would expect if God existed, and their presence serves to confirm that God does exist.
An atheist might object that proving Santa Claus does not exist is not the same as proving a universal negative like “God does not exist,” since we can check the North Pole to see if Santa is there but we can’t search an entire universe in order to prove there is no God in it. But we do know that there are no “square circles” or “shapeless colors”
anywhere in the universe, since those things are impossible and could not exist at all. So it is possible to prove a “universal negative,” and arguments that try to describe God as a kind of logical contradiction that could not possibly exist will be examined in chapter five.
The Celestial Teapot
At this point, an atheist may respond, “So are you saying that along with God you believe that there are unicorns, dragons, and celestial teapots? Just because something can’t be disproved doesn’t mean it exists.” The “celestial teapot” is an example from Bertrand Russell, and is a good example to help understand this objection. Russell once said:
I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.64
An atheist may use this analogy to argue that even though he can’t disprove the existence of the celestial teapot, that doesn’t mean he has to take the teapot seriously. He could claim that no one believes in the teapot because there’s no good reason to think such an object exists. This is enough evidence to justify being an “a-teapotist,” or a person who says celestial teapots don’t exist and isn’t just agnostic about the question—
as I am not agnostic about the existence of Santa Claus.
Russell’s teapot seems compelling until we replace it with a less absurd example. Let’s instead consider the question, “Is there an invisible alien probe orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars that provides information about us to potential invaders?” Unlike the celestial teapot, the idea of a secret alien probe is not utterly implausible, even though there is no evidence for it. Though they might be skeptical, most people would not say with total confidence that such a thing couldn’t exist. This shows that we reject Russell’s
teapot not because there is no evidence for it (because otherwise we would have the same dismissive attitude toward the invisible alien probe), but because of its sheer implausibility: Russell’s example violates what we know about teapots and their tendency to stay on Earth.65
At this point, the theist should be careful to not make an argument like this one:
“Atheism is doomed to failure because no one can possibly prove that God does not exist. Therefore, theism stands undefeated and is the most rational position to hold.” This is called the argument from ignorance. It’s like someone saying, “No one has proven there is no Loch Ness monster by draining Loch Ness and searching every inch of it.
Therefore there is a Loch Ness monster.” But atheists can also be guilty of using the argument from ignorance in order to justify their beliefs. Compare the following two statements:
1. Since you can’t prove God exists, that means atheism is true.
2. Since you can’t disprove atheism, that means atheism is true.
These two statements appear identical, since proving God exists would disprove atheism. But as formulated in statement two, this line of reasoning commits the argument from ignorance. Failing to prove God exists does not entail that God does not exist. At best, the atheist could only say the following, “Since you can’t prove God exists, that means there is no objective reason to say God exists.” As atheist philosopher Kai Nielsen remarks, “Even if all the proofs for God’s existence fail, it may be still be the case that God exists.”66
Do we live in a Godless world?
Theist: So you call yourself an atheist?
Atheist: That’s right.
T: Okay, what does it mean for you to be an atheist?
A: I just don’t think God exists.
T: Okay, how do you know God does not exist?
A: Well, there’s no evidence that God exists.
T: I would disagree with that, but let’s say you’re right. How would that show there isn’t a God? Would you say that even if there is no credible evidence for aliens, it’s still possible that aliens exist somewhere in the universe? Is it at least possible God exists?
A: Sure, it’s possible, but the answer is probably no.
T: Isn’t your view really agnosticism, or the view that we can’t know if God exists?
A: Well, I don’t think the terms matter. I just think if God existed then it would be obvious, and since it’s not obvious, it’s a safe bet to say God doesn’t exist.
T: What do you think the universe would look like if God existed?
A: For starters, it would be a lot smaller. I mean, it’s just a bunch of useless space where bacteria evolved for billions of years until we accidentally showed up. Even
A: For starters, it would be a lot smaller. I mean, it’s just a bunch of useless space where bacteria evolved for billions of years until we accidentally showed up. Even