Is the Problem of God’s Existence Solvable?
David Efird writes:
Taking my cue from the proliferation of such mysterian positions and also from the spectacular failure of the natural theological and atheological arguments to convince the other side, I wonder if we should be mysterians about the problem of rationally resolving whether God exists. One who is a mysterian about this problem maintains that there could (epistemic sense of 'could') not be a rationally compelling argument, one that should convince everyone concerned, for theism or for atheism.
This is an interesting idea and perhaps true — but isn’t this just as true about any random nonsense idea? I can come up with something nonsensical for which there is no conclusive argument that it is false but also no conclusive argument that it is true. Should we be mysterians about this as well? I don’t thinks so. To be a “mysterian” about it would be to grant it a certain level of credibility that it obviously doesn’t deserve.
Is the existence of an ill-defined and self-contradictory God really far different? Even if we were to accept that this isn’t completely nonsensical as my above suggestion, surely it need to be more coherent and well-defined than it currently is to justify being a “mysterian” about it. So long as it is as contradictory as we see today, doesn’t it make more sense to simply dismiss it and move on to better things?
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The two other options not mentioned which go along with the “nonsensical” statement listed are synthetic and analytic. You have bunched all religion into a neat bundle in the third category of “nonsense.” The problem is that classical Christianity does not fit in that category. Classical Christianity is a historical religion based on the truth of events actually having happened. There IS something which, if proven, would prove Christianity wrong. This makes it analytic rather than nonsense. The problem is that trying to crawl into a general theism separate from the revealed forces people to hear a lot of crap before they get to anything with a real truth claim.
No, I bunched all claims for there is no conclusive argument that it is false but also no conclusive argument hat it is true together into the category of “nonsense.” If you don’t think that Christianity qualifies, then why not present an argument?
No, Christianity is based upon the alleged truth of events which Christians claim happened.
Yes, sure. But, consider Pascal’s wager. If it’s wiser to believe there is a God, then surely accepting the position of “mysterian” isn’t too far fetched, no?
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