Further Thoughts on the Argument from Reason

In the past three months I've been doing a lot of work on a new writing project, and not the writing project I expected to be devoting time to this year (which means my planned update for my first book is being delayed, but I'm okay with that). The new project is focused on natural theology. In light of some of my recent posts I've been wanting to write a book about why I'm drawn to deism. One of the chapters is about the argument from reason.

I've written a few posts about that argument already and was planning to write a fourth. In fact, a long unfinished fourth post has been sitting in my drafts for two months now. But the reason I never finished it is that I discovered some points in my thinking about this argument that needed to be worked out in better detail. I'm still working it out, so my thoughts on this argument are still unfinished, but it might be helpful to write out some of what I've been thinking about.

Why I Don't Worship Jesus

I was recently invited by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig to look more closely at Jesus of Nazareth and consider his claim to be the absolute revelation of God and his resurrection (see his response to a question I submitted, which he shared on his website). I've written a whole book explaining why I don't believe that Jesus is God, which is called Politely Rejecting Jesus. I thought it might be good to summarize my thoughts on this topic.

Deism After All

As part of my recent effort to get a final answer on whether or not I can accurately describe myself as a deist, I sought out feedback from a couple of professional philosophers. One of them was Leland Harper, who currently teaches philosophy at Siena Heights University (although I understand that the school will be closing its doors soon). I reached out to him because I found a book of his called Multiverse Deism that was interesting, although I didn't find it to be very persuasive. Still, I was thrilled to find someone in the philosophical world who openly affirms deism. Professor Harper was gracious enough to answer some questions for me via email.

The Argument from Reason (Part 3)

I have said that there are four versions of the argument from reason that, taken together, push me toward theism. The first argument establishes the reality of selves, persons, conscious states, and thoughts, while the second argument establishes the reality of free will. These two conclusions point in the direction of a third claim about the reality of mental causes, but the reality of mental causes is also independently supported by another version of the argument from reason.

The Argument from Reason (Part 2)

The argument from reason begins with the fact that we are capable of making valid logical inferences, and then it aims to show that this fact is incompatible with some underlying assumption of atheism. There are four such arguments that, taken together, push me toward theism. The first, already discussed in a previous post, is an argument against a specific type of atheism called eliminative materialism. That version of the argument justifies a realist view of selves, persons, conscious states, and thoughts.

The second argument from reason is not aimed at atheism per se. Rather, it is aimed at an idea that is embraced by many theists and atheists alike: determinism. Thus, this second argument from reason is an argument for free will. It is an important part of my rejection of atheism because most atheist philosophers affirm determinism on the grounds that free will (or at least, the non-determinist version of free will) is very hard to make sense of on an atheistic view of reality, and I happen to think that they are right. So if determinism is false, that poses a significant challenge to atheism.

The Argument from Reason (Part 1)

In my opinion, the argument from reason is one of the most compelling arguments in natural theology. As with any argument in natural theology, what we call "the argument from reason" is actually a family of arguments. In fact, there are quite a lot of different arguments that count as arguments from reason. But there are four in particular that, taken together, push me toward theism. In this post I will discuss the first argument, which is probably the least complicated of the four, and which is also only aimed at one very specific type of atheism. But before I do that, I want to make some brief introductory comments about how this kind of argument is meant to work.