GSA asked:

Atheism? Is it provable?

Surely this involves 'proving' that some 'thing' does not exist — not possible? If, for instance, I say
that the problem of evil is an undeniable basis for atheism, might someone not point out that it is my
conception of God, and not God 'itself', which has been shown to be fallacious?

Or if I state that God does not exist because no-one has seen him? Surely this is an extremely poor
argument.

Is there any way of 'proving' some 'thing' does not exist?

============

That is a good question because it raises the question of who has the burden of proof, the theist or
the atheist? It would seem reasonable that since it is the theist who is making the claim, it should be
up to him to provide reasons for accepting his claim. The atheist does not, it seems to me, have to
prove anything. There is an old saying: "Great claims require great proof." The more unlikely the
claim, given what else we know, the greater the burden of proof is upon the person who makes the
claim. This would seem to me to place an extraordinary burden of proof on someone who claimed
there was a supernatural being who had the properties God is supposed to have.

I agree with you that many things are believed to exist although no one has ever seen them.
Electrons, Quarks, and many other "unobservables" that scientists claim exist. But these are believed
to exist, because other phenomena have been observed which scientists believe (on good grounds)
would not have been observed unless these unobservables existed.

The same sort of argument has been offered for God, namely, that God explains the existence of the
world which would not exist unless God existed; but that argument is a lot weaker than the scientific
arguments I just mentioned for various reasons I don't have space to go into here.

You also asked whether there is there any way of proving something does not exist. A lot will depend
on your standard of proof, of course. And what you are trying to prove doesn't exist. But specifically
about God: there are atheological arguments. The most famous of these is, perhaps, the argument
from the existence of evil. Isn't the existence of evil (e.g. hurricanes or mosquitoes) strong evidence
against the existence of an all-good and all-powerful being. If he is all-good and all-powerful why is
there evil?

Kenneth Stern

First we need to ask whether atheism needs to be proven. In his nice little essay "The Presumption of
Atheism" the distinguished philosopher Anthony Flew makes the point that the atheist is not
necessarily the person who positively denies the existence of God, but someone who simply is not a
theist. According to Flew the position of atheism is on par with the principle of innocent until proven
guilty, if this is so then the burden of proof is on the theist to provide good reasons for believing.

The problem for the theist is that it is not clear what would count as a good reason. Certainly none of
the reasons so far provided (e.g. the traditional arguments for the existence of God) would persuade
anyone. But perhaps this only points to the inappropriateness of reasons for belief, in which case the
believers need to give an account of what is appropriate for belief.

Perhaps the atheist's position could be strengthened by a positive argument: It may be that very idea
of God is incoherent, just as the idea of a square circle is incoherent. We know from the concepts of a
square and a circle that there could never be a square-circle, it is logically impossible. We can prove
on the basis of logical necessity that some states of affairs could never be the case.

If arguing for the existence of God is like trying to square the circle then we can say that it is just as
hopeless. Nothing like the idea of God could exist it is a logically incoherent idea. If something is God
then it has to be Omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good, worthy of worship and the rest, anything less
would not be God, but just some powerful alien entity the likes of which we see on Star trekeach
week. I would say that the idea of God is fundamentally and intrinsically incoherent, how can a being
be wholly good and omnipotent, omniscient and yet allow evil? Many attempts have been made to
solve this riddle none are successful. I am not sure however that this permits the stronger claim that
God as a logical necessity could not exist.

Lets get back now to the theist's case. I said earlier that what counts against the believer is that it is
unclear what would count as a reason for believing in God, the situation is made more problematic
because many (although not all) theists themselves would agree that the traditional arguments for
God's existence fail to work. Nevertheless they would argue that God can be known by revelation or
through the works faith which do not need any rational defence.

However, the theists don't get off so easily, because it is not obviously the case that revelation counts
in favour of God's existence. As Hobbes points out "To say that He (God) has spoken to him (the
believer) in a dream is no more than to say that he has dreamed that God has spoken to him"
(Hobbes Leviathan). This would also apply to visions, voices in the head and other kinds of
revelation, how do we tell the difference between God talking to us in a vision and having a vision of
God talking to us? Clearly the latter does not count as a good reason for believing in God.

One last point: If God did exist and he clearly revealed himself to us what would we make of it? Not I
think what the theists would want us to. It would be better if we rebelled again against Him rather than
submit to his will. The point is that even if God does exist he can make no significant difference to our
lives, but he would have a lot of explaining to do!

Brian Tee
Dept of Philosophy
University of Sheffield