Letters to Doubting Thomas This page intentionally left blank Letters to Doubting Thomas A Case for the Existence of God C. STEPHEN LAYMAN Seattle Pacific University New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2007 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2007 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 http://www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Layman, Charles S., 1950- Letters to Doubting Thomas : a case for the existence of God / by C. Stephen Layman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-19-530814-3 (cloth) ISBN-10: 0-19-530814-X (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-19-530815-0 (pbk.) ISBN-10: 0-19-530815-8 (pbk.) 1. God—Proof. 2. Theism. 3. Naturalism—Religious aspects. I. Title. BL200.L39 2006 212M—dc22 2006040083 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents PREFACE vii Introduction 1 1. Theism and Naturalism 10 2. Religious Experience and Interpretation 38 3. Is Religious Experience Reliable? 57 4. A Cosmological Argument 79 5. A Design Argument 110 6. An Argument from Free Will 138 7. Theism and Evil 174 8. Naturalism and Evil 206 9. A Moral Argument 229 NOTES 251 INDEX 273 v This page intentionally left blank Preface Some people never doubt the existence of God. And they may find a discussion about the existence of God puzzling or useless (or both). We may call them true believers. For some other people, the belief that God exists is a relic of the past and completely irrational—a stubborn superstition nurtured by ignorance and fear. We may call them true disbelievers. This book is likely to be of little interest to either true believers or true disbelievers. I hope it will be of interest to that very large group of people, believers, agnostics, and atheists, for whom the existence of God is a vital issue worthy of our best thinking. In the course of my adult life, I have held widely different opin- ions about the evidence for God's existence. Early in my undergrad- uate years, before I studied philosophy, I was impressed with sev- eral arguments for the existence of God. A few years later, during my graduate studies, I thought that all of the arguments for God's exis- tence failed badly. I was for some years tortured by doubts, shifting opinions so rapidly that I fell into deep confusion. In short, I am among those who have found it extremely difficult to sort through the various lines of reasoning about God's existence and to come to any sort of considered view. In the past fifty years, philosophers of religion have done an enor- mous amount of work on the question of God's existence and na- ture, with the result that the philosophical "landscape" has changed dramatically. Many very fine contributions have appeared, and they have been tried in the fire of vigorous debate. My goal in this book is vii viii PREFACE to set forth a case for the existence of God that incorporates some of the best of the new developments—as many of them as I know how to mold into a coherent, sustained argument. In part, then, this work attempts to synthesize a number of argu- ments developed by others. I make no apology for relying on the ex- cellent work of others in building a cumulative case for theism. But I think those who know the literature will see many points at which I have approached the issues in a new way or introduced significant refinements. Philosophy is never easy, but I have tried to write a book that can be read by those without philosophical training. Perhaps I can best indicate the level of difficulty in this way: I believe any university student or college-educated person can read and understand this book if he or she is willing to proceed at a moderate pace, ponder the key concepts, and occasionally reread closely reasoned paragraphs. I have developed my arguments in the form of a correspondence be- cause I think this approach is engaging and breaks the material down into manageable bits. It is often claimed that arguments are of little value where reli- gion is concerned. I believe this claim to be false. Of course, people seldom change their minds immediately upon hearing an argument about an important religious issue. But the same can be said for ar- guments about controversial issues in general, for example, in poli- tics or morality. The analogy with politics is worth exploring a bit further. Obvi- ously, people are influenced by many things besides arguments in regard to their political beliefs, e.g., upbringing, social status, and temperament. But over the course of their lives, many people change or develop their political beliefs significantly, at least in part because they hear arguments on radio or TV, read them in editorials, or en- counter them in discussions with friends. I think argument plays a similar role where religion is concerned, or at least it does when peo- ple are exposed to it with some regularity. In my line of work as a philosophy teacher, I frequently hear peo- ple confess to being at a loss as to how to approach the question of God's existence. And often, when people first encounter an argu- ment for God's existence, it raises more questions than it answers. My goal in this book is to provide at least one way of approaching the issue of God's existence—a way to organize what can seem a chaos of claims and concepts. If I have provided a helpful frame- work for thinking about the existence of God, one that brings some clarity to matters that often cause confusion, then I'll have achieved my purpose. Preface ix Acknowledgments In the final chapters of this book I have made use of previously pub- lished material. In Chapters 7 and 8, on the problem of evil, I have bor- rowed both argumentative strategies and occasional brief passages from "Moral Evil: the comparative response," International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, v. 53, n. 1 (February 2003), 1-23, and from "Natural Evil: the comparative response," International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, v. 54, n. 1 (August 2003), 1-31. In Chapter 9 ("A Moral Argument"), I have borrowed the main argument and several paragraphs from "God and the Moral Order," faith and Philosophy, v. 19, n. 3 (July 2002), 304-16.1 thank all of the publishers and editors in question for permission to use this material. I owe a great debt to the philosophers who have commented on and critiqued the various chapters of this book. Andrew Jeffery pro- vided me with extensive written comments on every chapter of the first draft. Phillip Goggans, Kenneth Einar Himma, and Patrick Mc- Donald not only read most of the chapters, but also met with me to discuss them. Terence Cuneo read drafts of many of the chapters and sent me thoughtful responses via email. Whatever the value of the book, it is much better for having undergone the careful scrutiny of these friends and colleagues. I also wish to thank the students in my philosophy of religion class, spring of 2004, for reading the manuscript in its entirety and for making many helpful suggestions about ways to improve it. I am grateful to Seattle Pacific University for a sabbatical in the fall of 2003 that enabled me to complete an initial draft of this book. Special thanks are due to the editors at Oxford University Press, Robert Miller, Sarah Calabi, and Emily Voigt, for their support and ad- vice throughout the project. I also wish to thank the reviewers who provided me with both encouragement and helpful suggestions for improving the manuscript: Michael Beaty, Baylor University; James W. Eiswert, Northwest Missouri State University; Noel Hendrickson, James Madison University; Ian Markham, Hartford Seminary; Wesley Morriston, University of Colorado-Boulder; Thomas Senor, Univer- sity of Arkansas; and William Sweet, Saint Francis Xavier University. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge a special debt to the teachers through whom I came to love the philosophy of religion: Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Marilyn Adams, and Robert Adams. I hope that this work honors these remarkable teachers and philosophers. I owe them a lot. It remains for me to dedicate this book to my siblings, John, Daun, and Rick, who gave me my first lessons in the art of argument.