On a very basic level, most people agree it would be presumptuous to approach a theist and say, "you don't really believe that god exists, you just fool yourself into thinking one does to deal with X, Y, and Z." [fear of death, a feeling of purpose, etc., make good X, Y, Z's.] Most people realize the fallacy here is in attempting to assert what a person really thinks, feels and believes from an external standpoint. However, this fallacy is committed by every person who claims that atheists "know" that god exists and are in denial of their knowledge. It's also committed by us infidels, when we look at theists and tell them they're afraid of death and that is the only reason the believe.
First, let us clarify and define the position of the agnostic or atheists: it is not necessary to "believe that some general God does not exist" in order to qualify as an atheist. It is only logically necessary to "not believe that a specific God does exist" to be an atheist with respect to that version of God. For beliefs which require blind faith, versus those things that we experience and have evidence for every day, it is not a negation of those beliefs to refuse to maintain or adopt them. For instance, I have no faith/belief that Santa Clause exists, however, I am willing to assert a negation in Santa Clause belief by further stating that Santa Clause does not exist, because the idea violates all of my experience and reasoning abilities [inductive reasoning], and there is no evidence that SC does exist, and we have satellite imagery of the North Pole and have yet to discover his workshop, so we can falsify certain claims regarding SC.
However, the same is not true for all god-beliefs. Most, if not all, god-beliefs are unfalsifiable in the scientific sense, and must be approached from logical argument alone. That is why all positions towards which I maintain skepticism, disbelief, or agnosticism do not mirror my position towards Santa. Insofar as god is concerned, it is impossible to honestly claim that one has privelage to all experiences, all dimensions, all reasoning abilities, and all the evidences that must be considered. But, is that necessary to come to non-faith by employing logical arguments against God's existence? No. Therefore, while claiming that all of them are invalid and negating all of them a priori is just as presumptuous as Vantillianism, arriving at a place of unbelief via considering such arguments as the Problem of Evil and the Silence/Hiddeness of God is not presumptuous. Rather, it is following the evidence [induction and reason] where it leads. Can theists claim the same in denying the existence of atheists by Romans 1?
Simply granting that it is possible for god to reveal or be revealed on a personal level, in a "spiritual" way, is no victory for the theist. The sorts of Christians who assert atheists do not exist are unlikely to fall in this category. This impotent, but often harmless, form of liberal theism is the least threatening in terms of politics, and is least likely to assert the nonexistence of atheists. At best, this simply means that people could be in possession of an experience which demonstrated some knowledge of god or god's existence to them. This sort of concession does not assist in supporting the grand theological claims that collective humanity is able to objectively know, or reason towards, or be held accountable for knowing god. Theists argue this very point from incredulty. They do not repay in kind with the concession above that admits it is impossible to get inside the mind of others and know what they know and what they don't. They claim, without privelage to all of the knowledge and experiences of others, that those people know god and that god has been revealed to them.
Most of the root of this incredulty at disbelief lies in the premise of a free will and a revealed god. If god has not been clearly revealed to a person who claims to disbelieve in god's existence, then that person is obviously not rejecting god, but instead rejecting the soundness and logic of arguments that god exists. It is much more palatable to a Calvinist than to an Arminian to consider that God may not want that person to know or believe.
And it is like sandpaper against the (free-will-doctrine) believer's mind to think that god would banish people, reject them, or just choose not to know them, as logically must follow if they genuinely have not ever known God. In this way, most theists adopt a stance that, at some point in the individual's life, god is revealed to every person--typically through nature (again, Rom 1), but they will reason ad hoc that a supernatural event could transpire before each person's death to supply knowledge of god. Of course, this is an unfalsifiable claim.
What bothers many theists is the idea that a person could truly be rejecting the "evidence" and arguments for god's existence, rather than god. If there is any reasonable position of atheism, then god-belief is weakened. Therefore, they must deny the existence of such a position.
This would undermine the claim of accountability to god for acknowledgment of god's existence. First, it must be strongly emphasized to theists that standard Arminian theology defines free will to be a choice to obey or disobey god or some aspect of god's will and/or law. It is not necessary that god stay "hidden" in order to preserve free will. Obviously, the story of Adam & Eve supports this. They had no doubt that god existed, nor exactly what god wanted, but the entire origin of sin/disobedience/free will is told in the allegory. Thus, if god's existence were unquestionable, unequivocable, and undeniable, it does not follow that free will has been compromised in any way. Further, it more logically follows that free will would then exist--as people would truly know what they were accepting and rejecting. However, let us consider (as I think most will concede) that god has not been revealed in such a way as to remove reasonable doubt of god's existence.
If this is true, the basis of free will in theology becomes quite murky. I can say with 100% honesty that I have never rejected god, to any degree. If it is this choice [free will] to accept or reject god or god's will for my life, I have nothing to fear. However, the Calvinist will assert to me that God Himself has hardened my heart so that I will not believe.
The presuppositional position [ala Van Til] employs the precondition argument extensively with respect to logic, morality, uniformity of nature, intelligibility of the universe, etc. It takes the form, "If X, then God..." in order to "prove" that every person knows that god exists. If you want to see more of this sort of theology, see here, here, here, and here. This Transcendental Argument for God (TAG) has been countered with its logical counterpart by Michael Martin: the Transcendental Argument for the Nonexistence of God (TANG). In general, the first premise of the TAG, that God is a necessary precondition for X, where X = logic, morality, etc., is rarely and poorly supported by argument. It is quite difficult to do so and use veridical statements.
Reppert's conclusion is the antithesis of the TAG-based, Rom 1-inspired line of reasoning:
Even if all atheists are suppressing the truth, it is still a mistake to say that they really believe that God exists.Let's grant that I have some general indications or feelings that there is more than matter and energy in our universe [I don't]. Let's grant that I, as an atheist, have some feelings that a God may exist [I feel many things, but not God]. It is actually possible to "really believe" something and "suppress the truth" at the same time, when what you believe and what is true are not equivalent. This argument's flaw, in applying it to the subject at hand, is that we could somehow actually know one thing, and believe another. Is that really possible? Either you suppress truth or you know it.
In an analogous fashion, say I'm your stock market broker and you saw on the news that a crash happened, which hit your sector of investment particularly hard, but the news story didn't give details for any specific companies. When you call me, you may have the general impression that you were wiped out, but you certainly don't know it. If you choose not to call me, are you "suppressing the truth" since you are still ignorant of what the truth is? Now, let's imagine that you call me and I just mumble some stuff into the phone and sound really sad, but you can't make out any words. Now, you certainly believe you were wiped out. But do you know it? It is entirely possible that your holdings (esp if undiversified) went completely unscathed. If you had all your eggs in one basket, general market trends cannot tell you how your one-basket fared. Until the stock broker tells you the exact value of your shares, you don't know a damn thing. If you avoided calling the broker, then you'd be suppressing what you fear may be true.
Once your stock broker tells you that your shares were unaffected, is it possible that you can still believe that you were wiped out? If you're a rational creature, no. And, like the news that God exists, and that a heaven may be gained by following steps 1-2-3, one would think that you not only have no motive to continue believing a somewhat less cheery thing [no heaven, no afterlife, etc], but that you have a great motive to acknowledge what you know, not "suppress" it somehow, and live in reality. See, that's what these theists accuse atheists of -- not living in reality, not being rational creatures.
Until you define the sort of epistemic requirement you have for knowledge, it is impossible to conflate belief, feelings, and "suppressing the truth", for they are certainly equivocated in the above scenario. Atheists do not believe. If atheists know God exist and somehow do not believe (suppression), they are somewhat indistinguishable from madmen. On the other hand, once I saw my dad putting together my first bike late Christmas Eve night, Santa Claus belief fell completely apart. I thought I knew that SC existed, after all, look at the evidence of the presents! Look at the authority of my parents, their trustworthiness, who asserted that SC exists! But what I knew was wrong, and trying to believe it again would be analogous to me trying to believe in God now, or the shareholder trying to believe that his stock broker and the Wall Street Journal are wrong -- denying reality.
Atheists exist, they live in reality, and there's not a damn thing correct in the presumption that we are liars and madmen, whether or not theists are prepared to admit that.
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, God, Atheism
