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The strong evidence principle is, admittedly, controversial. Some
theists might deny it. That is why I argued for it. I listed many ben-
efits of God revealing Himself more clearly to us. For example, be-
lievers would suffer less from doubt, and some potential criminals
would be deterred by fear of divine punishment. I also argued against
many commonly claimed costs of strong evidence for God, includ-
ing supposed losses of faith and freedom. My point there was that
the evidence for God could be much stronger than it is without un-
dermining freedom or faith. These arguments showed that strong
evidence for God would make our lives better overall, so an all-good,
all-powerful God would give us strong evidence for God, just as the
strong evidence principle claims.
Once premise (1) is established, all I need is premise (2). That
premise was supported by my arguments in Chapter 2, which re-
futed the best evidence for God that Craig could produce in Chap-
Atheism Undaunted 131
ter 1. As I write this chapter, I have not yet seen Craig s response
in Chapter 3 to my criticisms in Chapter 2 of his arguments in Chap-
ter 1; so I cannot yet respond to his response. But that, of course,
does not mean that Craig has succeeded in defending his arguments
against my criticisms. Indeed, even if Craig (or you) did find some-
thing wrong with the particular criticisms that I gave, that does not
show that Craig s arguments do not fail in other ways or that his ar-
guments provide strong evidence for a traditional God. If his argu-
ments provide any evidence at all, it isn t strong.
One major flaw, as I have said, is that Craig s conclusions are
badly bloated. Even if his arguments seem relevant to several (not
all!) traditional features of God, all of his arguments together still
cannot show that one single God has all of these features together.
The creator of the universe (even if there were one) need not be
the ground of moral value or the source of anyone s religious expe-
riences today, much less the force that raised Jesus from the dead
(even if this did happen). Craig cannot legitimately assume that all
of his conclusions about various features apply to a single unified
being. But he does assume this. This assumption is hidden when
Craig formulates his arguments in terms of God, since to refer to
God in all of his arguments is to assume that there is a single being
with all of these features. If Craig s conclusions instead referred to
a creator, a ground of moral value, an external source of religious
experience, and a Jesus-raiser, then it would be clear that these might
be separate beings and that Craig has no reason to assume that these
are all the same person (much less that the Christian Bible gives an
accurate picture of that person). That conclusion goes far beyond
anything that his arguments could establish even if they did work
(which they do not). Moreover, this gap in his argument leads di-
rectly to the problem of ignorance: If there were an all-good and all-
powerful God, He could, should, and would give us strong reason
to believe that He exists as a single unified being. The fact that we
have no strong evidence for a unified being with all of these fea-
tures, thus shows that there is no such being.
Some readers still might be impressed by Craig s arguments that
depend on recent scientific advances or historical scholarship. These
references might seem sophisticated, but they feed right into my ar-
gument from ignorance. To see why, think back 200 years to times
132 God?
before those scientific theories were formulated, when nobody yet
had heard of a Big Bang. People at those times could not use Craig s
scientific arguments; so, even if those arguments do work today,
those earlier people did not have any strong evidence for the exis-
tence of God. Thus, premise (2) was true for them. Premise (1) is
also true for them, since any all-good God would care as much about
them as about us, so He would reveal Himself to them. He would
have no reason to let so many people in the past remain ignorant of
Him for so long. Thus, premises that are only about those earlier
people would be enough to reach my conclusion that there is no all-
good and all-powerful God. Craig s appeals to recent science can-
not solve this problem of ignorance.
It is still possible that other arguments, different from the ones
that Craig gave, provide strong evidence that God exists. However,
this is merely a possibility. Until we actually see much better argu-
ments for the existence of God, there is reason to accept premise
(2). With premises (1) and (2) in place, atheism follows.
Of course, Craig rejects both premises, but that does not show
that those premises are flawed. In Chapter 5, at least, Craig has not
given us any good reason to doubt either premise. He does call prem-
ise (1) enormously presumptuous, and he asks, why should [God]
want to do such a thing? (109) I already answered that question
when I discussed the many benefits for humans of God revealing
himself more clearly. So Craig s rhetorical question has no force at
this point in our discussion.
Craig rejects my answer because, in the Christian view, it is a
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