Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
PART 1. PRELIMINARIES
Chapter 1: Why Not Agnosticism?
- Proving Non-Existence
The Burden of Proof
Fallibilism
The Common Sense View
Is Atheism Itself a Metaphysical Belief?
Summary
Chapter 2: Which God Are You Denying?
- Kidneys and Hearts
What Is God?
Magenta and Pink
Tolerable Misdescriptions
Life Force
The Argument from Experience
Our Natural Being
The Point
Chapter 3: Religion without God?
- Religious Atheism
Spirit
The Backdoor God
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Metaphor and Sacred Texts
- Inconsistencies
Improbabilities
Ignored Dictums
Partial Literalism
Metaphorical Reading
Ricœur and Company
PART II. “PROOFS”
Chapter 5: Ontologic Illogic
- A Priori and A Posteriori Arguments
The Ontological Argument
Null Sets and Hypotheticals
Barretteless and Imaginary Dolls
Necessary Existence
Summary
Chapter 6: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
- The Cosmological Argument
Inconsistency
Infinity
The Kala‾m Argument
Necessary Beings
Best Explanation
Conclusion
Chapter 7: Design or Evolution?
- The Design Argument
The Appeal
The Evolutionary Account
Chance and Fruit Flies
Intelligent Design?
Chapter 8: Fine Tuning and Analogy
- The Design Argument (Again)
Fine Tuning and Biogenesis
Analogical Argument Structure
Watches and Astrolabes
Summary
Chapter 9: The Moral Argument
- Aquinas’s Version
Kant’s Version
Summary
PART III: ATTRIBUTES
Chapter 10: The Problem of Suffering
- Inscrutability
Free Will
Eschatological Recompense
Moral Fortitude
Summary
Chapter 11: Omnipotence
- The Paradox of the Stone
No Impossible Powers
Two Impossible Acts Are Easier Than One
Mortal Comprehension
Chapter 12: Omniscience and Free Will
- The Basic Problem
Weakening Knowledge
Out of Time
Different Necessities
Other Worlds
Summary
Chapter 13: Time and Immutability
- Problems with Immutability
Anthropomorphizing
Time Revisited
Summary
Chapter 14: Is God Love?
PART IV. FAITH
Chapter 15: Faith and Reason
- God Is Special
Secular Faiths
Conclusion
Chapter 16: Fideism
- Kierkegaardian Fideism
Wittgensteinian Fideism
Chapter 17: Ultimate Concern
- Ontological, Not Cosmological
Three Ambiguities
The Problem
Chapter 18: Po-Mo Theo
- A Monkey in a Box?
Summary
Chapter 19: Pascal’s Wager
- Two Problems
Defending Pascal
Chapter 20: Non-Falsifiability
- Flew’s Garden
Not Logical Positivism
Falsification and Verification
Objections
Replies
Summary
PART V. IMPLICATIONS
Chapter 21: Mysticism
- Common Components
Content
Method
Self-Confirming
Judging by the Effects
Conclusion
Chapter 22: God and Morality
- Moral Principles
The Euthyphro Argument
Innate Morality?
Sin and Moral Intuition
Strategic Interaction
Conclusion
Chapter 23: The Meaning of Life
- The Problem of Nihilism
Reductio Ad Absurdum
The Argument from Consistency
The Non Sequitur
Death
Rephrasing the Question
Chapter 24: Death
- Platonic Arguments
Ghosts in the Machine
Brain Damage
Near-Death Experiences
The Identity Argument
Summary
Chapter 25: Error Theory
- Religion’s Success
Psychological and Sociological Accounts
The Evolution of Belief
Conclusion?
Notes
Bibliography
Author Index