Topics Religion

Question Why don't philosophers clearly define their terms in relation to the "theist/atheist" debate. Surely before we begin a philosophical discussion we should clearly define our terms; but when it comes to the existence of "God"; both theists and atheists just assume that everyone knows what "God" refers to. Once we have established- when the debate takes place in a Christian context- that "God" refers to the mythological creator deity "Yahweh" of the Bible; is it logical for us to even debate his existence? I mean, we don't debate the existence of the creator deities of African mythology (who have similar properties to the Biblical deity). Could this be a large-scale unexamined cultural bias?

Accepted:
September 15, 2010

Comments

It certainly isn't the case that both theists and atheists just assume that everyone knows what "God" refers to. Reflective theists worry about what "God" refers to. And indeed, at least for some atheists, their problems start exactly here too: they listen to what their local friendly theists are saying about the God they supposedly believe in and they find they just can't make enough sense of it. For such an atheist, it isn't that they well know what kind of thing this God would be if he existed but don't think that there's anything that fits the role. Rather, rightly or wrongly, they think that the stories about the alleged being -- at least those told by believers who try to go beyond crude anthropomorphic myth -- fail to describe a coherent role that anything could fit.

Round our neck of the woods these atheists of course mostly hear Judeo-Christian stories to be ultimately baffled by; it is the local believers who, as it were, set the agenda for the local unbelievers. It isn't so much a matter of cultural bias, these atheists will say, as having to deal with what they have to deal with. No doubt our local atheists' sceptically inclined cousins in the African bush may mostly hear other stories to be baffled by, and will have to deal with them.

Actually, many of the better philosophers take time to define the concept of God they have in mind. For example, in Richard Swinburne's The Existence of God you can find a 12 sentence, page long account of the God he has in mind (I believe it appears on page 7).

While I understand that some people think the intrinsic probability of 'Yahweh' existing is rather low, it is a belief that is at least nominally subscribed to by about 2 billion people including some very intelligent thinkers (such as Oxford/Yale/Princeton/Cornell professors). So, I'd suggest that any belief with that kind of status is at least worth arguing about. If there are Oxford professors arguing for the existence of one of the African deities, I think it'd be fun to look at their arguments.