Book Review: C. Stephen Evans. "Philosophy of Religion: Thinking About Faith."

In this short book, C. Stephen Evans has done an admirable job of making the incredibly complex world of the philosophy of religion attainable to new students in this field. As such, this work would make a very helpful textbook at the introductory college level. Throughout this work, Evans does a remarkable job of defining the seemingly unending array of technical verbiage, while giving helpful illustrations to explain their usage to the reader.

"Philosophy of religion," as a technical term, is the particular branch of philosophy which, as its name suggests, grapples with religious truth claims and beliefs through the grid of reason and logic. Among the topics covered in this book are:

• the classical "proofs" for the existence of God, 
• the validity of religious experience, 
• the nature and possibility of miracles, 
• particular objections to theism (such as evil and the apparent contradictions of science), 
• and the unsettling difficulties related to religious pluralism.

Each one of these topic could easily fill an entire volume.
In this reviewer's opinion, the most helpful aspect of this work is the way that Evans fairly and evenhandedly deals with skeptics' attacks on theism. While Evans eventually does show the rationality of theism (and particularly Christianity) in each chapter, I don't think anyone could accuse Evans of attempting to deal with the skeptic's challenges unfairly or impatiently. Where he sees weaknesses in the theistic position, he does not attempt to hide them. Where he sees strengths, he likewise argues back with equal force. 

No chapter of this book should be seen as an outright apologetic defense of theism in general or Christianity in particular. It is not a book on apologetics. On the other hand, Evans does his best to show over and over again that belief in God is rational, logical, and coherent in the face of a number of threats and claims to the contrary.

In his chapter on the classical proofs for God's existence, for instance, Evans does not pretend to claim that any one 'proof' would compel all rational thinkers. On the contrary, he does assert that the preponderance of the evidence points in a cumulative way towards the existence of God. Likewise, in his concluding chapter on religious pluralism, he admits that Christians in particular have appeared to be arrogant in their claims of religious exclusivity, and yet he concludes this book by acknowledging the inherent humility of Christianity, even as it regards our evangelistic mission.

In conclusion, I think three groups of readers will find this book helpful.

1) First, the student who is interesting in determining for himself whether theism in general and Christianity in particular holds any water logically and rationally; 2) secondly, the non-theist who has many skeptical reasons to deny the validity of religious faith, but who nonetheless is open to reviewing his presuppositions; and 3) finally, the pastor who is interested in presenting some of the logical basis and rationale for Christianity to his congregation in an accessible manner.

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. Please consider following on Twitter @matt_everhard.

The Moral Argument for the Existence of God

At Faith Church, we have recently been considering some philosophical arguments for the existence of God. (Listen to our sermon series here).

One such argument for the existence of God is called the Moral Argument. It is an argument for the existence of God based on the undeniable existence of Good and Evil in this world. 

Consider Exodus 3:7,  "Then the Lord said, 'I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings'" (Exodus 3:7, ESV). Historically, we know from Scripture that the Egyptians treated the Israelites wickedly. They held them as slaves. They beat them viciously, even slaughtering their children. Slavery and genocide were both inflicted upon God's people Israel (cf. Exodus 1:13-16).

Slavery

Slavery is an interesting and timely example today because even the most secular, left-leaning, veggie-burger eating liberal must acknowledge slavery to be a monstrous Evil. Ethics professors at secular, state-funded universities will get on their soapbox  to declare slavery to be Evil. And I agree! I doubt that many ethics professors today would label slavery today as “morally relative.” It is interesting, isn't it, which actions relativists choose to label as "relative."

But the more important question here is this: “Where did human beings (even atheists) even get the idea that some actions are Evil and others are Good?”

Good and Evil 

The Moral Argument for God works on the premise that everyone (universally!) acknowledges the existence of morals—right and wrong. You say, ‘What about criminals and the people that fill our overcrowded jails and prisons?’  Well, one may be the most notorious, cold-blooded mobster in 1940’s Chicago, but if you shoot up his hideout, he calls it Evil. The Moral Argument doesn’t assume people are good, but it states that everyone certainly knows when they’ve been wronged!

Here are the premises on which the Moral Argument rests...

a. All men know intuitively that there is a distinction between Good and Evil, especially when evil is done unto them. 

b. The fact that there is a distinction between Good and Evil requires the existence of a universal Moral Law to differentiate between them. 

c. The existence of a universal Moral Law differentiating between Good and Evil requires there to be a universal Moral Law-Giver.  

Conclusion: This Moral Law Giver must be God.

As an interesting historical anecdote, it was the Moral Argument that convinced CS Lewis—one of the world’s all-time greatest thinkers—to lay down his atheism and to worship at the feet of Jesus. He found it to be irresistibly compelling, and writes about it eloquently in his Mere Christianity.

Notice that we don’t have to agree on which acts are inherently Good and which are Evil to make the case. Some societies in the Middle East argue that a woman must cover her entire body. In other societies in the south pacific islands women wear virtually no clothing at all. Here in America, we can argue all day about birth control for instance. Divergences in moral theory do not undercut the moral argument; the fact remains that everyone believes some actions are good and others wrong. If someone doesn’t agree with that, just kick them in the shins and they soon will!

The main point is this: If you say there is really such thing as “right” and “wrong” you must acknowledge the existence of One who created and defined such categories in the first place!

Alvin Plantinga, recognized to be one of the most astute philosophers alive today, sums the argument well, 

“Could there really be any such thing as horrifying wickedness [if there were no God and we just evolved]? I don’t see how. There can be such a thing only if there is a way rational creatures are supposed to live, obliged to live…a [secular] way of looking at the world has no place for genuine moral obligation of any sort…and thus no way to say there is such a thing as genuine and appalling wickedness. Accordingly if you think there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness (and not just an illusion of some sort), then you have a powerful argument [for the reality of God].”[i] 

--Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. 

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[i] Quoted in Timothy Keller. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. P. 26-27.