Abstract:
Atheologlcal objections to the bellef that there Is such a person as God come In many varieties. Here we have, as a centerpiece, the evldentlallst objection to theistic bellf, according to which a theist who has no evidence has violated an Intellectual or cognitive duty of some sort. There Is an obllgatlon of something llke an obllgatlon to proportion one's bellefs to the strength of the evidence. The theist without evidence, we might say, Is an Intellectual gimp, whose cognitive faculties do not work properly.The theist, however , doesn't see himself as on the other foot; he may be Inclined to thlnd of the atheist as the person who Is suffering, In this way, from some Illusion, from some noetlc defect, from an unhappy, unfortunate, and unnatural condition with deplorable noetlc consequencesIsn't there something deeply problematic about the Idea of proper functioning? What Is It for my cognitive faculties to be working properly? What Is cognitive dysfunction? What Is It to function naturally? My cognitive faculties are functioning naturally, when they are functioning In the way God designed them to function, the theist may say.The theist, unllke the atheist, has an easy time explalnlng the notion of our cognitive equipment's functioning properly: our cognitive equipment functions properly when It functions In the way God designed It to function. Keyword1: Atheologlcal objection, evldentlallst objection, theist, atheist, proper functioning, cognitive dysfunctionAtheologlcal objections to the bellef that there Is such a person as God come In many varieties. There are, for example, the famlllar objections that theism
Machine summary:
Here we have, as a centerpiece, the evldentlallst objection to theistic bellf, according to which a theist who has no evidence has violated an Intellectual or cognitive duty of some sort.
The theist, however , doesn't see himself as on the other foot; he may be Inclined to thlnd of the atheist as the person who Is suffering, In this way, from some Illusion, from some noetlc defect, from an unhappy, unfortunate, and unnatural condition with deplorable noetlc consequencesIsn't there something deeply problematic about the Idea of proper functioning?
Another sort of objector claims, not that theism is incoherent or false or probably false (after all, there Is precious little by way of cogent argument for that conclusion) but that it is In some way unreasonable or irrational to believe in God, even if that belief should happen to be true.
According to the first, a theist who has no 48; Alhlkmah/ No,1/ Winter 2008 evidence has violated an Intellectual or cognitive duty of some sort.
6 Were it not for the existence of sin in the world, says Calvin, human beings would believe In God to the same degree and with the same natural spontaneity displayed In our belief in the existence of other persons, or an 521 Alhlkmah/ No. 1/ Winter 2008 external world, or the past.
But of course this will not be a promising line to take In the present context; for while perhaps the atheologlcal objector would prefer to see our cognitive faculties function In such a way as not to produce belief In God In us, the same cannot be said, naturally enough, for the theist.
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