The Non-Existence of God
Nicholas Everitt (Routledge: Dec 22, 2003), 352 pages.Is it possible to prove or disprove God’s existence? Arguments for the existence of God have taken many different forms over the centuries: the ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments; arguments which invoke miracles, religious experience and morality; and prudential arguments such as Pascal’s Wager. On the other hand are the arguments against theistic belief: the traditional problem of evil; the logical tensions between divine attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience and eternity; and arguments from the scale of the universe. In The Non-Existence of God, Nicholas Everitt reconsiders all of these arguments and examines the role that reason and knowledge play in the debate over God’s existence. He draws on recent scientific disputes over neo-Darwinism, the implication of “big bang” cosmology, and the temporal and spatial size of the universe; and discusses some of the most recent work on the subject, such as Plantinga’s “anti-naturalism” argument in favor of theism. Everitt’s controversial conclusion is that there is a sense in which God’s existence is disprovable, and that even in other senses a belief in God would be irrational.
Table of Contents
-
- Preface
- 1 Reasoning about God 1
- 2 Reformed Epistemology 17
- 3 Ontological Arguments 31
- 4 Cosmological Arguments 59
- 5 Teleological Arguments 85
- 6 Arguments to and from Mircles 112
- 7 God and Morality 128
- 8 Religious Experience 150
- 9 Naturalism, Evolution and Rationality 178
- 10 Prudential Arguments 191
- 11 Arguments from Scale 213
- 12 Problems about Evil 227
- 13 Omnipotence 255
- 14 Eternity and Omnipresence 269
- 15 Omniscience 286
- 16 Conclusion 301
- Notes 307
- Bibliography 313
- Index 321