Strict Naturalism and Folk Psychology. Naturalism is not a sharply defined position because there is no consensus on what nature includes. Chapter one explains “strict naturalism,” which rejects the common sense view of an agent’s beliefs and desires as outmoded “folk psychology.” Strict naturalists recognize only the blind, material causes of physical science, concluding there is “no ultimate and irreducible teleological explanation of any event…no libertarian freedom of the will…no enduring self or soul of any kind” (p. 13). Teleological (goal-directed) causation is rejected because it violates “the causal closure of the physical world” (28), according to which every physical event has a sufficient physical cause.

Chapter two critiques the causal closure principle, appealing to the renowned neuroscientist Wilder Penfield. Although Penfield had to assume causal closure during his experiments, where bodily movements were produced by stimulating neurons with electrodes, he did not conclude that these movements could not also (on other occasions) be produced by the subject’s mind. Indeed, Penfield himself was a soul-body dualist, partly because “his patients reported being conscious of the distinction between being agents and doing things, and being patients and having things done to them” (35–36). Goetz and Taliaferro also argue that it is “thoroughly reasonable to believe that there can be gaps (causal openness) in the physical world…ultimately explained teleologically.” (38) Here the authors might have helped make their case by explaining why gap arguments need not be arguments from ignorance, as is often assumed.

Goetz and Taliaferro also show the failure of strict naturalism to account for our subjective mental life and even science itself, which is “unintelligible unless persons exist and have observations and thoughts” (50). In an appendix, they develop one version of the argument from reason, showing that naturalists cannot give a credible account of human reasoning, which seems irreducibly teleological. I was a little disappointed that they did not interact with the sophisticated developments of this argument by Alvin Plantinga and Victor Reppert.

Chapter three defends the soul. Souls appear distinct from physical entities because consciousness is not composed of physical parts. Naturalists claim that souls are too mysterious to explain anything, but Goetz and Taliaferro rightly argue that one can have good grounds for believing that souls causally interact with bodies without knowing how they do so (64), arguing persuasively that “dualism…has more going for it than its critics admit” (70).

Broad Naturalism and Theism. Chapter four addresses “broad naturalism,” which claims our mental and moral lives are not illusions, but can be accounted for in materialist terms (71). Thus John Searle thinks that consciousness “emerges” from the brain just as liquidity emerges from H2O molecules. Goetz and Taliaferro object that “the physical properties…noted by Searle are structurally complex…while properties…of consciousness are not” (73). The overriding problem for naturalism is its implausible reduction of the normative (e.g., moral values) to the purely descriptive. Thus it makes ethical norms contingent on evolutionary history, so that fratricide might have been right (89–90)! By contrast, theists hold that moral values always existed in the mind of God.

Chapter five considers those who claim that God-talk is unintelligible because we can only meaningfully talk about physically embodied agents. Goetz and Taliaferro argue cogently that our thoughts are not limited to spatial objects (101). They also show that given the case for irreducible teleological agency in the human instance, there is no reason to reject divine agency as unintelligible (108–11). They mention “fascinating advances in contemporary neuroscience” (110) as evidence of mental causation, although I wish more had been said to rebut materialists’ use of neuroscience to undermine libertarian free will.

This book makes a strong, concise defense of theism and dualism and responds effectively to the best naturalist critics.

—Angus Menuge

Angus Menuge is Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University Wisconsin, and author of Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004) and of recent articles critiquing a materialist philosophy of mind.

Since 9/11, many in the “New Atheism” movement have done their best to undermine theism of any kind. While it would have been easy to have rolled over and played dead, a number of Christian thinkers have supplied explanations of why faith in God is a reasonable conclusion. Timothy Keller’s 2008 The Reason for God, which was named World magazine’s Book of the Year, is a welcome addition to the arena.

The first half of the book (“The Leap of Faith”) begins with the premise that “you must doubt your doubts” because investigation will show you that “your doubts are not as solid as they first appeared.” To do this, Keller—a New York Presbyterian pastor—attacks the popular postmodern notion that there are many paths to God.

Critiquing the infamous elephant illustration where a group of blind men touches different parts of an elephant, each receiving a different revelation of the animal, Keller astutely points out, “How could you know that each blind man only sees part of the elephant unless you claim to be able to see the whole elephant? How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?” (p. 9).

Often utilizing quotes from C. S. Lewis and Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga, Keller skillfully delves into issues such as evil and suffering, injustice committed by the church, and hell, all the while maintaining a very readable style. Of course, whole books have been written on these topics, but few do it better than Keller as he explains why these issues are not sufficient to negate the existence of an omnipotent, omnipresent God.

Keller begins the second part of the book (“The Reasons for Faith”) by pointing out how many clear signs are given to help a person have faith in God, including the cosmological, moral, and aesthetic arguments to show that belief in God is not without substance.

At the same time, he clearly states that more than fideistic belief is required, since God’s existence cannot be proven, even though God’s nonexistence cannot be empirically explained, either. As Keller writes, “Science cannot prove the continued regularity of nature, (but) it can only take it on faith” (132).

His most insightful chapter is Chapter 10 (“The Problem of Sin”), as he explains how Adam’s sin broke “shalom,” the Hebrew word translated “peace” in English. He points out how this really means “absolute wholeness—full, harmonious, joyful, flourishing life.” While everybody must discover meaning in life, Keller adeptly points out that everything except a true relationship with God will fail every time.

In his last chapter, “The Dance of God,” Keller explains that humans “were made to join in the dance. If we will center our lives on him, serving him not out of self-interest, but just for the sake of who he is, for the sake of his beauty and glory, we will enter the dance and share in the joy and love he lives in.”

Simple and yet so profound.

—Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson teaches high school and college classes in El Cajon, California. He is coauthor of Mormonism 101 (Baker, 2000) with Bill McKeever.

First, even if the theist could not muster good arguments for God’s existence, atheism still would not be shown to be true.³ The outspoken atheist Kai Nielsen recognizes this: “To show that an argument is invalid or unsound is not to show that the conclusion of the argument is false…. All the proofs of God’s existence may fail, but it still may be the case that God exists.”⁴

Second, the “presumption of atheism” demonstrates a rigging of the rules of philosophical debate in order to play into the hands of the atheist, who himself makes a truth claim. Alvin Plantinga correctly argues that the atheist does not treat the statements “God exists” and “God does not exist” in the same manner.⁵ The atheist assumes that if one has no evidence for God’s existence, then one is obligated to believe that God does not exist — whether or not one has evidence against God’s existence. What the atheist fails to see is that atheism is just as much a claim to know something (“God does not exist”) as theism (“God exists”). Therefore, the atheist’s denial of God’s existence needs just as much substantiation as does the theist’s claim; the atheist must give plausible reasons for rejecting God’s existence.

Third, in the absence of evidence for God’s existence, agnosticism, not atheism, is the logical presumption. Even if arguments for God’s existence do not persuade, atheism should not be presumed because atheism is not neutral; pure agnosticism is. Atheism is justified only if there is sufficient evidence against God’s existence.

Fourth, to place belief in Santa Claus or mermaids and belief in God on the same level is mistaken. The issue is not that we have no good evidence for these mythical entities; rather, we have strong evidence that they do not exist. Absence of evidence is not at all the same as evidence of absence, which some atheists fail to see.

Moreover, the theist can muster credible reasons for belief in God. For example, one can argue that the contingency of the universe — in light of Big Bang cosmology, the expanding universe, and the second law of thermodynamics (which implies that the universe has been “wound up” and will eventually die a heat death) — demonstrates that the cosmos has not always been here. It could not have popped into existence uncaused, out of absolutely nothing, because we know that whatever begins to exist has a cause. A powerful First Cause like the God of theism plausibly answers the question of the universe’s origin. Also, the fine-tunedness of the universe — with complexly balanced conditions that seem tailored for life — points to the existence of an intelligent Designer.

The existence of objective morality provides further evidence for belief in God. If widow-burning or genocide is really wrong and not just cultural, then it is difficult to account for this universally binding morality, with its sense of “oughtness,” on strictly naturalistic terms. (Most people can be convinced that the difference between Adolf Hitler and Mother Teresa is not simply cultural.) These and other reasons demonstrate that the believer is being quite rational — not presumptuous — in embracing belief in God.Paul Copan is a Ph. D. candidate in philosophy at Marquette University and editor of the forthcoming Who Was Jesus? A Jewish-Christian Discussion (Word, 1997).

NOTES

¹Antony Flew, The Presumption of Atheism (London: Pemberton, 1976), 14. ²Michael Scriven, Primary Philosophy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 103. ³It is important to remember that we are trying to give arguments or good reasons for God’s existence — not “proofs,” which imply a mathematical certainty. All too often the atheist’s criteria of acceptability are unreasonably high. One who is genuinely seeking plausible reasons to believe in God can certainly find them. ⁴Kai Nielsen, Reason and Practice (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 143-44. ⁵Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” in Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, eds., Faith and Rationality (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 27.