Video Transcript: Arguing God's Existence – Dr Alvin Plantinga 


Unknown  

Alvin, there are many arguments that atheists use. I've talked to many of them, that seem to show that there is no such being that we call God. Let me give you some of them. See how you react? Start with the only minds we know are embodied within brains, there is no such thing as a disembodied mind.


Alvin Plantinga  

Well, we don't know that there's no such thing as a disembodied mind. All we know is that the minds were acquainted with are to be found in brains. That's not a very strong argument, it seems to me I mean, the only people we are acquainted with, the only rational creatures were acquainted with are on earth, should we think there aren't any anywhere else? I mean, this is not much of an argument


Unknown  

about the hiddenness of God, if God is so important to us, why shouldn't God make it more obvious that he exists, it's more his fault that we don't believe in Him than ours?


Alvin Plantinga  

Well, I mean, the fact is, the vast majority of the world's people do believe in God or something like God. So it's not the God is hidden in the sense that nobody knows about him or believes in him all kinds of people do, I suppose, as I say, the vast majority of the world's people. God isn't as plain to us as other people, let's say or as I don't know, trees and houses and material objects. But why think that he would have to be I mean, there's got to be more to this argument than just that that's not that's as it stands seems to be not much of an argument at all, he might have a good reason for being relatively hidden, hidden to the degree that he is, which as I'm suggesting, isn't all that great?


Unknown  

Well, if to an atheist, who may be as genuine, who really would like to believe, but doesn't see the evidence? The the argument is that if God really wanted me to believe he would make it obvious to me, there's a million different ways you could do that.


Alvin Plantinga  

No doubt there is. But also, our world is, in many ways, a fallen world, there are diseases there. There are cognitive deficiencies of various kind, various kinds, and I'm inclined to think not believing in God is one of those. I mean, the natural human condition would be, as Calvin says, Calvin speaks of a sense of divinity of senses, divinity status, would be to believe in God in a totally wholehearted, implicit fashion. But due to the same sorts of things to which diseases are due, do ultimately, says Calvin and I agree with them due to the entrance of sin into the world. Sometimes our cognitive faculties in particular those having to do with God, and other people don't function the way they should.


Unknown  

Let's go on to the problem of evil.


Alvin Plantinga  

Well, the problem of evil, of course, is, I mean, so much has been said about that. And there's so much to be said about it. It's very hard to say, you know, very much sensible and very brief compass. But I would say, the basic thing to think about here is the fact that, while it's true, we can't see what God's reasons for permitting evil, are, or at least we can't see, in many cases, what the reasons are, it's hard to see why that's an argument for it's being unlikely that God exists or that God has reasons or that there is a being like God who has reasons, because God's circumstances and God's God's own intrinsic being is so different from ours. He being omniscient and omnipotent, and so on that from the fact that he can't see why that we can't see why a certain thing happens, why He permits a certain thing to happen, not much follows, it certainly doesn't follow that he doesn't have a reason. It doesn't even follow in my opinion, that it's likely that he doesn't have a reason. It's just it's just not the case that if God actually did have a reason you and I would be the first to know, we might not know at all.


Unknown  

How about the alleged contradictions between God's different characteristics?


Alvin Plantinga  

Well, what are we thinking about here? Well,


Unknown  

how one can be omnipotent, omniscient, all good. All of these different characteristics seem to have either a contradiction among each other or some some unnatural relationship.


Alvin Plantinga  

Well, I guess I'm not. I don't think there are any contradictions there. At least I haven't ever heard of any. People sometimes have spoken of the paradox of omnipotence. Suppose God is omnipotent. Well, then there's supposed to be nothing he can't do. Well, can God create a stone so heavy that he can't lift it? If he can't do that or something? He can't do it. So he's not really omnipotent. But if he can do it, then once he did it, then he wouldn't be omnipotent because it'd be a stone he couldn't lift. It seems to me this has been very impressive argument. I mean, it's not possible that there be a stone that an omnipotent being can't lift. So God can't create a stone so heavy that he can't lift it. But that's not a problem because to be omnipotent is not to be able to do just any old thing, great married bachelors, let's say or create stones that an omnipotent being can't lift, it's to be able to do what's logically possible. Another similar argument, God can't be both omniscient and omnipotent. Because if he's omniscient, then he can't change his mind. And if he can't change his mind, he's not omnipotent. Again, I don't think this is much of an argument. I mean, maybe he can't change his mind. But it doesn't follow from that, that he's not omnipotent. Maybe it's not logically possible that his mind be changed. I mean, maybe it's not logically possible that he'd be wrong. And hence, it's not logically possible that he changed his mind in order to hold the true or right view.


Unknown  

But that technically would make him less omnipotent than if he could.


Alvin Plantinga  

well only in the sense that if he could, then he could do something that's logically impossible. But Omnipotence doesn't cover that to say He's omnipotent, is not to say that he can do what's logically impossible, but only what's logically possible.


Unknown  

Other views that atheists would take, we'd look at the physical universe and say, what does it look like? It's violent. It seems pointless, certainly, physically, it's wasteful, all these comets and asteroids floating around. And there's a lack of efficiency that there's a it's just a cauldron of chance.


Alvin Plantinga  

A lot here depends on what kind of being you think God is? Or would be. It might be that you think God would have to be like a classical artist, very efficient. everything in its place and the like? Well, maybe, but why I think that I think God would have to be like that. Maybe he's, I mean, efficiency is something for creatures who are limited. If you're limited, you have to be efficient. So you can accomplish as much as possible with your limited properties and capabilities and resources. But if you're not limited in this way, if you're omnipotent, what's so great about efficiency? Maybe God is more like, like, extremely creative, romantic artists, he delights in having things of as many different kinds of possible. I mean, the main point here is that all of these arguments of that sort all presume that the arguer knows what God would like, or what what God would want to be the case what God would think what God is aiming at, in these in these conditions. And, as with I was saying earlier on with respect to evil, there's no reason to think that we know those things. I don't see that the fact that there's this sort of wild, prodigious variation of things across the universe. I can't see why that suggests for a moment that there isn't any such person who's God,


Unknown  

it just seems like all that's inefficiencies are not only inefficient, but they're pointless.


Alvin Plantinga  

Well, I mean, we can't see the point maybe. But again, that's exactly as with respect to God's reasons for permitting evil, from the fact that we can't see what the point of that would be. It doesn't follow for a minute that an omniscient being an omnipotent being, wouldn't have a point in permitting it.


Unknown  

Other arguments then bring anthropology or psychology into it, wish fulfillment or just the development of group coherence that explains the need for God.


Alvin Plantinga  

Righ, now, wish fulfillment I think that's, that's more serious in a way, I don't think it's a powerful argument against the existence of God, but it's got more depth to it than some of the other arguments you've just been mentioned. So for example, Freud thought that belief in God was a matter of wish fulfillment, we find ourselves in this in this world where, as he says, nature demands from us suffering and pain and anxiety, and in the end, she demands our death. And if we looked at a situation full in the face, we would fall into despair and into depression, apathy, we probably wouldn't be able to function at all. So we subconsciously, everything in Freud that's important goes on subconsciously, invent this heavenly Father, who we say is in the heavens and is really, really operating things are really causing things to happen the way they do, and he really does love us. So that's where belief in God comes from. Well, this is this is interesting. If in fact there is such a person as God, then belief in God will, in fact, have warrant that is, it will in fact come from a source with positive epistemic status, because he would create us in such a way that we would be able to know about him, he would want us to know about him, he will create, according to theism, He has created us in His image, part of that involves knowing, and the most important thing to know about would be God himself. It could be that God uses wish fulfillment, as his means of getting us to know about him. So it could be Freud's right, this comes from this belief comes from wish fulfillment, but that it need not be anything against it did not follow from that, that it's not reality directed, so to speak. If you insist that it isn't reality directed, then you've got to have some independent argument against God's existence. If God does exist, our belief in God will undoubtedly, or at least very probably be reality directed. So if you say it isn't, then you've got to first give us an argument for the proposition that there isn't any such person. It's not an independent argument at all.


Unknown  

So at the end of the day, if you sum all of these arguments against the existence of God together, do you ever have any doubts?


Alvin Plantinga  

I, I don't think any of these arguments except for evil. I mean, I think that's a real concern for believers in God. I don't think any of these other arguments have, I would say, I say they have no force at all, I think they did. At least they don't have any force to move me at all. With respect to evil, that's another matter that can be deeply disturbing to believers in God such as myself. It can, it can lead one to be suspicious of God to wonder why he does all these things and, and to distrust him and to be angry with him and be inclined to shake your fist in God's face, except you know, that it's just a totally hopeless and stupid gesture. But it can, it can it can give you it can give you real problems. I don't think though, that, at least as far as I'm concerned, inclines me to wonder whether there is such a person as God. It's more than it could make me suspicious, distrustful, not willing to commit myself to him and the lack of that.



Last modified: Wednesday, December 8, 2021, 1:52 PM