God exists. You can't escape it. (TAG debate)

IntroductionI initially aimed at presenting an affirmative case of my own, but given the nature of Pro’s post, I will have to settle for largely addressing TAG as he presents it, and will begin with some general criticisms.Some general criticismsFirstly, Pro commits the fallacy of false dichotomy (1). We see this in the basis of his entire post by (wrongly) assuming that proving atheism false is somehow indicative of the truth of Christianity. Even if it were the case that atheism falters, there’s always various other forms of monotheism, polytheism and deism. It’s just not the case that proving atheism false in any way validates Christianity beyond any other worldview, nor is it the case that TAG specifically applies to the Christian God, much less that of Protestantism. Secondly, we see numerous occasions of arguments from ignorance (2), as well as simple question-begging. Nowhere does he give an account of these 4 problems, except for criticising the atheist account, and as I will show, assumes the very things in question. Lastly, Pro resorts to straw-manning:“ . . . because of his commitment to atheism, he is forced to reject the idea that non physical or abstract entities exist, let alone that they affect and govern the universe”Now, not only did I explicitly state in my last post that I wasn’t a naturalist, but it seems he associates me with the most extreme interpretations of materialism. Even on my profile page it states that I am an atheist with no firm commitment to either naturalism or materialism, and one of the reasons for this is because I agree with Pro that even defining what the natural or material are is problematic, so much of his commentary sets alight straw-men. In the 4 areas Pro specifies, these 3 fallacies are frequently present, and thus present a general refutation of Pro’s case.Atheism?Before moving on to specifics, I’ll just address Pro’s point about atheism. Firstly, he doesn’t respond to the definition of atheism I gave except to just assert that atheism is a worldview, which I expressly denied and justified this by presenting a standard definition of atheism. My point about highlighting the various perspectives to which atheism is embedded was to show that these are the worldviews, and the lack of or denial of God is at most a proposition, and for me at least, a very tentative one. As this has not been addressed I would insist that my definition should be used, but again, even if it wasn’t, it simply does not follow that atheism implies extreme materialism, so the straw-manning point would still apply.MoralityNow, Pro here assumes 3 things:a) that Christianity alone can account for moralityb) that moral values existc) that there is a position atheists typically have on morality.I reject all 3 of these, but again, it doesn’t really matter because Pro begs the question by assuming all of these to be true. But to take them in order:a) The problem here is that even many Christians reject this. As prominent Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne explains:“ Some moral truths are clearly moral truths, whether or not there is a God: it is surely wrong to torture children whether or not there is a God.” (3)Like Swinburne, I’ve personally never seen a reason that theism alone (much less Christianity) can account for moral values, but in order to carry this point, Pro would have to show insurmountable difficulties with ALL secular ethical models, as well as showing how Christianity alone accounts for morality. There’s also issues like the Euthyphro dilemma (4) and other problems, but given the lack of a case from Pro, these are very minor concerns by comparison. b) Even if Pro was somehow successful in showing secular morality to fail, he can’t just assume moral values exist! While I agree that they do, it is only because I adhere to one of these branches of ethics. Ironically, if he established a), then Pro would have to convince me that moral values exist at all. c) Contrary to Pro’s assertion, atheism does not logically entail moral subjectivism or nihilism. I myself affirm that objective moral values exist, and atheists can do so without any logical contradiction whatsoever. It simply makes no sense to talk of atheists as a monolithic group with respect to morality.EpistemologyFoundationalismPro’s first point here is to claim that foundational beliefs (FB) are “unavoidable”. This is simply not true. Both Coherentism and Infinitism allow for the possibility of continuous justification, and both are pretty plausible views to hold. His second criticism is to draw parallels between RE and CF. While this is true, a crucial feature of CF is that only beliefs which are rock-solid are foundational. Conceptual truths or incorrigible experiences are not really open to doubt even in principle, while the existence of God is a topic which is highly controversial, and in no way garners the support like FB do. Third, CF is designed to provide merely epistemic justification, not omniscience, as Pro seems to think.Reformed epistemologyAs for RE, the biggest problem with this is that it denies evidentialism. If, for instance, we were to find the body of Jesus, surely Christianity would be falsified? But it seems given RE, proper basicality trumps any and all evidence to the contrary. Also, the biggest headache for RE is the Great Pumpkin Objection. Essentially, through the process of RE (and denying evidentialism), one can believe anything, or construct belief in such a way that it fits any and all situations, which renders postulating God meaningless. Thirdly, it seems to me that RE only aggravates the problem of non-belief, which is perhaps the strongest argument for atheism.LAHere, I presented a distinction between conceptual LA and existent LA, as well as assuming Pro would se an argument similar to that of Slick. It seems Pro rejected my tentative formal framework for a TAG like argument from LA. The problem is that he simply fails to replace this framework with anything of his own. He simply states that LA exist and that given the supposed difficulties in accounting for them in an atheistic worldview, Christianity must be true (see false dichotomy, argument from ignorance and straw-manning here all at once). Pro accepts the distinction, but insists he is talking about LA as the nature of existence. Well, then let me say this. Firstly, foundationalism already accommodates LA in this way, and given he doesn’t aim to use an argument similar to Slick’s, it doesn’t even seem relevant to keep discussing it. Secondly, LA do not “exist” like an apple does, but are the nature of all things that do exist. Given this, not only is the argument essentially dead, but also we can easily how this would apply to God. Could God both exist and not exist? Of course not. But then surely, if this is the case, God is subject to the Law of Non-contradiction, and thus cannot account for it, even in principle. Lastly, two of the criticisms Pro gave here (1 & 3) assume strict materialism, which I agree is unpersuasive. The only relevant point he makes is to ask how we know that LA are absolute. He is right, of course. As conceptually flawed as it may seem, and as much observation that we have, the law of identity may somehow be false (okay, so I’m being ultra-generous here), but even conceding this, it would be a far bigger problem for Pro, as he is using LA to prove that God exists!Uniformity of natureAgain, Pro just makes no argument here, and simply points at the problem of induction as some sort of rational basis for Christianity. There’s simply no justification given at all.ConclusionPro must show (and not just assert) that he can first justify his case and then address all of the problems I have identified with TAG.Sources(1) http://mind.ucsd.edu...(2) http://en.wikipedia.org...(3) R. Swinburne (2010), Is there a God?, OUP, P14.(4) http://www.moralphilosophy.info...