Atheism is self-defeating

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I was thinking about the short argument I gave here and was wondering if it could be turned into a positive argument for theism. I came up with this:

  1. If God doesn’t exist, then our cognitive faculties arose from non-purposive processes.
  2. No purposive system can arise from non-purposive processes.
  3. Therefore, if God doesn’t exist, then our cognitive faculties are non-purposive.
  4. Rationality is purposive.
  5. Therefore, if God doesn’t exist we aren’t rational.
  6. Therefore, atheism is self-defeating.

It seems promising. Although, I suspect I should read JP Moreland, Alvin Plantinga and Victor Reppert to get a better idea of the contemporary debate around this stuff. I think (4) is pretty solid (see the previous post for why), and I’m uncertain any atheist will disagree with (1), lest they open themselves up to Aquinas’ fifth way. So, presumably, (2) is the key premise. But this certainly does seem plausible.

2 responses

  1. Zee Avatar
    Zee

    Applying De Morgan’s law to this argument to make the connections seem more sane to me. (tbh I think the argument is in the wrong order and 1 and 2 need to be switched)

    1. If our cognitive faculties are purposive, then God exists.
    2. There exists a non purposive system that arose from a purposive process.
    3. If our cognitive faculties arose from purposive processes, then God exists.
    4. If atheism isn’t self defeating, then rationality isn’t purposive, or we are only rational if God exists.

    I already combined 4, 5 and 6 from your list, but I could go further and combine 1 and 3:

    1. If our cognitive faculties are purposive, or arose from purposive processes, then God exists.
    2. There exists a non purposive system that arose from a purposive process.
    3. If Atheism isn’t self defeating, then rationality isn’t purposive, or we are only rational if God exists.

    That would mean that if any of these are false, then by contra-position, the original argument is false.

    #2: This is a contradiction because purpose is necessary for design. So by contra-position 2 of the original argument is not possible.

    #1: Because 2 is demonstrated to not be possible, that would mean that we don’t have a sufficient demonstration that 3 is true which cascades into number 5 left unsupported.

    #3a: If we assume that Atheism isn’t Self defeating, and rationality isn’t purposive, then we have a contradiction, meaning 6 and 4 from the original argument cannot both be true.

    #3b: If we assume that Atheism isn’t Self defeating, and we are only rational if God exists, that would mean that any person who could demonstrate rational thought would defeat this argument.

    #3c: Because argument 3, 5 are both unsupported, that means that the notion that Atheism is self defeating is unsupported.

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  2. Zee Avatar
    Zee

    #3b is not a good argument, Ill rewrite:

    #3b: If we assume that Atheism isn’t Self defeating, and we are only rational if God exists. This is a contradiction, because if Atheism isn’t self defeating, that would also mean that Atheism is Rational. Which would mean that we don’t need God to exist for us be rational. Therefore number 5 and 6 cannot both be true.

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