A response I had regarding one friend’s voiced confidence. Not especially brilliant but I hadn’t posted anything for some time.

// Obviously, I would disagree that I have insufficient justification for my confidence in the existence of God. It’s challenged and justified as true everyday. Don’t know how that can be more sufficient. //

I just want to offer a thought on this as to why I don’t think your justification is adequate and why I see countless ways it could be more sufficient.

You and I disagree on a God’s existence in reality. What if we were to disagree on the existence of coffee in my mug? There are countless ways in which we could work out the veracity or falsity, based on inferences and deductions, of the proposition “there is coffee in my mug”. And so despite our disagreement, given our access, we can formulate a verification procedure to work out the truth or falsity of the proposition with each other. We do this literally every day in response to disputes over things as simple as “Bert went to the store”.

That is the justification I would like for God. I would like something we can step through which doesn’t overstep our inferences, rely on fallacies, or make unwarranted assumptions (aka assumptions beyond the tools of rationality and reason). But I don’t see that and I’ve raised many many points where this could be worked out.

When I ask you about the ark and the issues related to the lack of evidential support in favor and much in the way of evidence against, that’s a challenge to the veracity of the text which you want to assert is inerrant, and it is not justified as true. I have many, many, many challenges for which Christians lack justification warranting the confidence they assert and that is just one. In response to these issues, I’m asked to overlook them or I am told that I am steeped in sin and not able to come to the truth until I believe it.

This would be akin to me not being able to explain evidence to the contrary of the proposition “there is coffee in my mug”. That if we turned it and no coffee came out, I could understand why no coffee came out if I believe that there is coffee in it or that I just need to assume it. On an assumption, which by definition fails to bring causal correlation to bear, I could have wine in my mug. I could have milk in my mug. I could have koala bears in my mug. I could have nothing in my mug. On an assumption, literally anything can be the case. I would have no more reason to not think it than think it.

Now, perhaps you would want to defer to bigger, less accessible notions, like the cosmological argument. What would the analogy in coffee be? Were you to ask me where I got my coffee, I could give an exhaustive account. I could walk you to the shop and justify by means of the cashie, the security footage, my receipt and the credit card company that I purchased a cup. I can show you the machine it was brewed by and the person who brewed it. I can demonstrate how it functions. I can explain the chemistry and, with access to a lab, we could pursue the process. We could track down the orchard that grew the beans. We could explore the DNA within coffee and connect it to the given plants. We could trace back how the beans genetically were derived from other plants in the area or determine generally from where they were transplanted. We could continue to go back further and further. But as we went back, I would have less and less certainty as my access to relevant facts would be more and more hindered by the distance of time. So my direct justification for the coffee cup could terminate with one of the earlier pieces, but were you to inquire further, I would have less and less means and have a looser grip warranted on what was the case.

My inference would break down and my lines of investigation would stall out. With my inability to say what is the case being impugned, am I able to better say what is not the case? NO! For as far as my inferences break down, it cuts both ways. I am no more able to say what is the case and equally I am no more able to say what is not.

I would challenge that your justification is sufficient. Were it sufficient, apologists wouldn’t have to assumed the certain revelation of God, would not need to appeal to evidence with complex arguments, and would not require apologists attempting to formulate airtight ontological formulations. It would require no more work than demonstrating that there is coffee in my mug.