Reddit mentions of The Coherence of Theism (Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy)

Some stuff that's important in contemporary analytic phil religion:

The Miracle of Theism by J.L. Mackie

God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga

God and Other Minds by Alvin Plantinga

The Coherence of Theism by Richard Swinburne

The Existence of God by Richard Swinburne

Can God Be Free? by William Rowe

Perceiving God by William Alston

>Here's the thing, though...argument is not sufficient. The God of theists is not a concept or abstraction, he is a concrete reality [that requires physical evidence]

Thanks for another interesting reply.

Your objections seem to relate to the coherence of theism. I would like to recommend The Coherence of Theism by Richard Swinburne. I am not going to give you five screenfuls of argument. I will just note that the objection that science cannot locate the cause of phenomena in unobservable entities or processes goes back to Hume and Kant who both wrote before science had had the success it enjoys today in doing just that.

I also think you may be looking at things with a false physicalistic dichotomy: Either things are made of particles or they don’t exist; that is, I think you are equating incorporeal with nonexistent. But this is precisely what theism refutes. It claims that there can be things which are incorporeal and yet which exist: There are physical substances p and immaterial substances q and substances q are not nothing. Indeed, it claims that these substances are the matrix and substrate of physical reality.

It almost seems to me that you expect to find God somewhere in the universe which, as Peter van Inwagen notes, is a little like trying to find Rembrandt in The Night Watch.

That is why Swinburne’s book, The Coherence of Theism, is a helpful starting place. It discusses all the a priori objections to theism (such as the ones you are making) and so clears the air for the second volume in his trilogy: The Existence of God.

>Only if you abandon the concept of an omnibenevolent God. I cannot see any way to reconcile the violence and suffering inherent into evolutionary processes with the designs of a benevolent being.

I still think the higher order goods solution to the problem of evil is a coherent response to both moral and natural evil. And I think that to appeal to the problem of evil you must adopt a counterexperiential pessimism about life. Yes there is suffering—but life is mostly wonderful for most people. And what suffering there is the higher order goods solution accounts for.

>And my view demonstrates the exact opposite. In fact, of all modern religions, Christianity is the one I'm most convinced is false, as it's the one I know the most about. Christians believe God is good...in fact, the Christian God is the ultimate Form of Good. And yet I would consider a deity that behaved in the way believed by Christian theology to be an objectively evil being. Any father who would sacrifice his own child just to abate his own wrath at a third party cannot, under any moral system I accept, be considered good or even neutral...this is a downright Evil act.

Here it seems to me that you take no real account of how Swinburne spells out the Christian doctrine of atonement since what you say above does not engage with his argument. I can only suggest you take another look. Remember: In Swinburne's argument God lives and suffers in Christ to show solidarity with us in the suffering he allows. The brutal execution is to ensure that he shares in the worst of human suffering and it is the perfect life he lived that is the atonement we offer him. There is also the very substantial evidence for the post mortem appearances of Jesus which makes it, on historical and evidential grounds, the most probably true of all religions.

In any case, if you really have looked at all the arguments and feel that you have satisfied your intellectual obligations and yet remain unconvinced, one final area to explore might be direct religious experience. For example, I notice that you say,

>I understand that people have these experiences, but when it comes down to it, I have not. If I were to accept that your experiences were sufficient evidence for your beliefs, then I would have to also accept that my lack of experience was sufficient evidence for mine, and I don't find either compelling.

However, Swinburne shows that lack of religious experience is not evidence for the nonexistence of God or any reason to think God does not exist,

>If it seems to me that there is present a table in the room, or statue in the garden, then probably there is. But if it seems to me that there is no table in the room, then that is only reason for supposing that there is not, if there are good grounds for supposing that I have looked everywhere in the room and (having eyes in working order, being able to recognize a table when I see one, etc.) would have seen one if there was one there. An atheist’s claim to have had an experience of its seeming to him that there is no God could be evidence that there was no God only if similar restrictions were satisfied.

And he goes on to argue that the only way to do so is to provide a proof of atheism.

You seem to acknowledge this when you say you don't find either compelling. But I think his argument from religious experience provides rational grounds for giving such experiences, especially if they are forceful, evidential worth.

If I were in your position I would undertake a spiritual experiment. In his comparative study of mystical experience, The Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley makes a very interesting claim about God and testability. He says that it is possible for a mind to prove to itself that God exists with scientific exactitude. How?

Huxley suggests that God can be directly known only through mystical experiences insusceptible to rational scrutiny and ordinary sensory perception. A starting point for the ordinary seeker of truth is therefore a provisional faith in the authority of other mystics who, in every culture throughout human history, have proclaimed that God exists. In doing this, Huxley adds that the seeker is not being irrational or unscientific. We put our faith in the regularity of nature and in the authority of qualified experts whose claims we accept without personally verifying them and also in our own working hypotheses, “sufficient to induce us to test our provisional beliefs by means of appropriate action.”

If one is not oneself a sage or saint, the best thing one can do, in the field of metaphysics, is to study the works of those who were. In practical terms, Huxley would have us undertake a study of mystical experience. As we do this, points of commonality emerge. One essential shared criterion is the mortification of the self and a deep meditative focus upon God as the grounding of all being.

How is this scientific? Because it is testable, repeatable, and falsifiable. How testable? Here are the steps to take—try it for yourself. How repeatable? Many have repeated these actions and arrived at the same results. How falsifiable? You can try this experiment yourself and, if it doesn't work, you have falsified it. However, people who have taken these steps have always arrived at the same result. In short: Your honor, I have evidence proving that God exists. I cannot demonstrate this evidence but you can view this evidence yourself if you do x, y, and z.

I have heard of a few now-deeply religious people who began by praying experimentally, “God, I’m seeking you. If you’re there, please reveal yourself to me.”

This turned out to be their, "fatal mistake."

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I'm not sure why you're interested in theology per se when your question is epistemic, generally in the domain of philosophy of religion. Given the nature of your question, though, it seems you're looking for something that deals with preliminaries. In this case, I'd recommend Swinburne's The Coherence of Theism.

>This book investigates what it means, and whether it is coherent, to say that there is a God. The author concludes that, despite philosophical objections, the claims which religious believers make about God are generally coherent; and that although some important claims are coherent only if the words by which they are expressed are being used in stretched or analogical senses, this is in fact the way in which theologians have usually claimed they are being used.

If you're interested in the broader impact theology has had on the world, I'd recommend something like Hannam's The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. But that only deals with science.