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WillowOne's Positions

Religious Apologetics

Overview

Apologetics is the practice of defending a religion by argument. The notes in this folder set out the standard arguments in their usual form, followed by my response to each.

Most of the arguments are not specific to any one religion. The cosmological, design, moral, ontological and experiential arguments conclude, at most, that some god exists, and they are used by Christian, Muslim and Jewish apologists alike; the Kalam is named for the Islamic theological tradition that produced it. I state them in the forms Christian apologists use, because those are the forms I have most often met, and I group the arguments for a particular religion separately below.

I have tried to state each argument in its strongest form (Steelmanning) before responding. If any believer reading these thinks I have missed the strongest version, I would like to hear it.

General observations

  1. None of the arguments is sufficient on its own, and the apologist usually concedes this. The modern apologetic strategy is "cumulative": each argument is said to raise the probability a little. But a collection of arguments that each fail does not sum to an argument that succeeds. Ten leaky buckets hold no more water than one. See the Cumulative Case Argument and the Gish gallop.
  2. Most of the arguments, even if sound, would not establish any particular religion. The cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments at best conclude that something caused or designed the universe. They say nothing about whether it is the God of Abraham, whether it rose from the dead, whether it dictated a book in Arabic, or whether it cares who you sleep with. The gap between "a first cause" and "Jesus", or "Muhammad", is bridged by assertion. This is why the honest terminus of the generic arguments is Deism.
  3. The arguments are rarely the reason anyone believes. Few Christians came to faith by way of the Kalam, and few Muslims by way of the inimitability of the Qur'an. The arguments are post-hoc justifications for a belief acquired by upbringing or experience, which is why their refutation so seldom changes anyone's mind. See Knowledge on why surprise is required to change a model, and the Argument from Religious Transformation for the argument that is honest about this.
  4. The arguments share a family of errors: Equivocation on key terms ("cause", "nothing", "greater", "objective", "preserved", "law", "information"), special pleading that exempts God from the rule just used to establish him, the Appeal to Ignorance ("you can't explain X, therefore God"), and Circular Reasoning where the scripture is used to certify itself.
  5. Each religion's apologists refute the others for me. The Christian dismisses the miracles of Islam, the Muslim the resurrection, and both the Book of Mormon, on exactly the grounds I apply to all three. The arguments for a specific religion are therefore rejected by the great majority of believers in the world, who are not atheists.

Arguments for a god

Cosmological and metaphysical

A priori

From the nature of the world

From mind, morality and human experience

From experience, testimony and belief itself

Pragmatic

Against the arguments against (the defences a theist must mount, rather than arguments they advance)

Arguments for Christianity

Arguments for Islam

Arguments for other religions

  • Mormonism, on the Book of Mormon and the "burning in the bosom"
  • Scientology, on a religion whose apologetics consist of a price list

Also see