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Argument
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Theistic Perspective
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Atheistic Perspective
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Mosaic God
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God exists and is all-knowing, all-good and all-powerful.
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Mosaic God does not exist.
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Evil
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Evil exists, but serves a purpose in soul-making and can be transcended by good.
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Evil exists
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Belief in God
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Belief in God is logical and coherent; it is irrational not to believe in God
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Belief in God is irrational due to "problematic conceptions"
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Problematic Perceptions
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The concept of God is as understandable as knowledge, love or life which could also be viewed as problematic.
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The believer must show that we know what we are talking about when we speak of God.
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Observability of God
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God is observable through personal experience.
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God is not observable either directly or indirectly and therefore the existence of God cannot be proven.
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Design in or of the Universe
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The universe contains order and is a product of design.
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The universe is a product of chance. Even given design in/of the universe, design evidences lack of omnipotence.
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Evolution
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Evolution with God, Intelligent Design or Creationism
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Evolution without God
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Soul-Making
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Creational evolving: “Bios” and “Zoe”; mankind is created in stages and delayed gratification builds values.
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No amount of good justifies suffering and while some levels of suffering are required for the growth of fundamental virtues, there remains the question of suffering from which no apparent good is achieved.
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Moral Argument
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Moral law is not contrived by humans. Absolute moral law requires absolute lawgiver; God. God writes His Law on our hearts.
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Moral law is not absolute, but dependent on place, culture and society in which one finds oneself.
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Conscience
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Existence of conscience demonstrates God.
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Conscience could be psychological.
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Cosmological Arguments
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Motion requires Prime Mover; existence of created things requires first uncreated cause (God); There must exist a being which is necessary to cause contingent beings. Gradations in quality require a standard for perfection (God). Order in the universe requires design by an intelligent designer (God)
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All the argument shows is that we have intuitive difficulties imagining infinity, which is, after all, to be expected of such an advanced concept. It would be going far beyond what we know to conclude that the universe itself has a cause or is contingent.
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Kalam Argument
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Actual infinities cannot exist; therefore the universe cannot be infinite and must have been created in time by God. Actual infinites cannot be created by successive addition, and actual infinites cannot be traversed. (Extensive infinity)
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Infinity is not linear, but circular and self-contained and therefore can be traversed. (Intensive infinity)
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First Cause Argument
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A first cause is necessary and that first cause is God.
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Cause can be efficient or conserving and neither requires God. Conserving causes do require a first cause, but each existing thing may be its own conserving first cause.
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Other Theories
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Any sense of morality at all, assumes the existence of God, free will and an afterlife (Kant).
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God is a projection of the father figure and demonstrates psychological immaturity. (Freud)
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Free Will
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It is better to have free will and the resulting evil than to be without freedom.
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Since God is all-knowing, free will is an illusion.
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All or Nothing
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Without freedom, humans would be like robots.
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There might be something in between like limited free will.
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Is Evil Necessary?
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Free will necessitates a choice between good and evil and the choice of evil is a consequence of free will.
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God could have created humans with free will, but only allowed those who would choose good to be born and grow up.
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Culpability
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Humans are responsible for the evil they do.
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God and humans are both responsible for the evil humans do. Therefore, God is guilty of evil and not all-good.
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