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Undermining the case for evidential atheism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2011

PAUL K. MOSER
PAUL K. MOSER*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago, 1032 W. Sheridan Rd., Chicago, IL 60660
*
e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Evidential atheism, as espoused by various philosophical atheists, recommends belief that God does not exist on the basis of not just the evidence of which we are aware, but also our overall available evidence. This article identifies a widely neglected problem from potential surprise evidence that undermines an attempt to give a cogent justification of such evidential atheism. In addition, it contends that evidential agnosticism fares better than evidential atheism relative to this neglected problem, and that traditional monotheism has evidential resources, unavailable to evidential atheism, which promise to save it from the fate of evidential atheism.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 83 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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