In Defence of Theism—A Reply to Kai Nielsen

Extract

So much has been written in recent years about the philosophy of religion that one might have expected some definite pattern to be emerging from the discussion. In particular, one might have hoped that theists and non-theists would cease to adduce supposedly knock-down arguments against their opposite numbers. But there are still Thomists, commoner in the English-speaking countries than on the Continent of Europe, who seem to think that some purely logical process can settle the matter, and there are still positivists, again more especially in the English-speaking countries, who seem to think that God can be disproved. Professor Kai Nielsen's article does not make that claim in so many words, but he does conclude that the orthodox Christian's use of ‘God’ is the result of a mere confusion of mind and that for the philosopher the question of God should not arise at all or arises only to be dismissed. I hope I have not overstated Nielsen's conclusion (that would be a poor return for his kindness in allowing me a pre-view of his article); his treatment of the vast topic of the ‘human condition’ seems to me so extraordinary that I cannot help wondering whether I have misinterpreted it, most of all as it appears that he is not merely controverting Mr I. M. Crombie but also undertaking to dispose of theism altogether. He seems to think that ‘Flew's challenge’ is the decisive move in this debate, and that Crombie's two attempts to meet it are the only attempts which have to be considered. If this is really the case (as I shall have to suppose in what follows) I find it quite perplexing.