1) Many people claim that if there were better evidence, they would sincerely believe in God.
2) Some people have done a seemingly exemplary job of weighing the arguments for and against the existence of God, and wound up agnostic (i.e. Paul Draper).
3) When an issue is controversial in the sense that there exists epistemic peer disagreement, the proper rational response is to become agnostic.
RESPONSE:
1) The first and second claim presupposes that people have infallible, or even reliable access to the reasons that they believe things through introspection. However, recent work in cognitive psychology is revealing that despite what it feels like (i.e. sincerity), we don't have reliable introspective access as to the reasons we believe lots of things, including higher-order beliefs (See Timothy Wilson's: Strangers to Ourselves).
2) While introspection is again relevant here, this second claim also presupposes that if there were sufficient evidence for the existence of God, that human beings wouldn't culpably miss it somehow. However, recent work in cognitive psychology has revealed that exactly the opposite is true. Not only can a person culpably miss the direction of the evidence, but such a person can and will even construct arguments against the existence of that thing even if they claim to be agnostic (i.e. Paul Draper). Human beings engage if motivated skepticism, motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, research bias, and much much more.
3) The third claim presupposes a view in the epistemology of disagreement called the Equal Weight View which I think is false. The Equal Weight View is self-referentially incoherent. For there are those who disagree with the Equal Weight View in which case a proponent of the Equal Weight couldn't rationally hold there view anymore since .5x.5=.25 Moreover, the Equal Weight view presupposes that the mere belief held by an epistemic peer can constitute higher-order evidence in addition to evidence qua evidence. But, this confuses psychological confidence with evidential justification. Surely, when we meet others who hold our beliefs that can boost our psychological confidence, but it does nothing to make an argument stronger in and of itself.
Thus, the argument from divine hiddenness not only presupposes that agnosticism is true, (that the evidence is exactly balanced), but it tries to defend its central premise with three shoddy points. Thus, this argument would only work if one could show on independent grounds that god's existence is unlikely or .5 likely. But then, the divine hiddenness argument is a dependent argument, and no longer an independent argument. Thus, all by itself, it shouldn't concern us.
2) Some people have done a seemingly exemplary job of weighing the arguments for and against the existence of God, and wound up agnostic (i.e. Paul Draper).
3) When an issue is controversial in the sense that there exists epistemic peer disagreement, the proper rational response is to become agnostic.
RESPONSE:
1) The first and second claim presupposes that people have infallible, or even reliable access to the reasons that they believe things through introspection. However, recent work in cognitive psychology is revealing that despite what it feels like (i.e. sincerity), we don't have reliable introspective access as to the reasons we believe lots of things, including higher-order beliefs (See Timothy Wilson's: Strangers to Ourselves).
2) While introspection is again relevant here, this second claim also presupposes that if there were sufficient evidence for the existence of God, that human beings wouldn't culpably miss it somehow. However, recent work in cognitive psychology has revealed that exactly the opposite is true. Not only can a person culpably miss the direction of the evidence, but such a person can and will even construct arguments against the existence of that thing even if they claim to be agnostic (i.e. Paul Draper). Human beings engage if motivated skepticism, motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, research bias, and much much more.
3) The third claim presupposes a view in the epistemology of disagreement called the Equal Weight View which I think is false. The Equal Weight View is self-referentially incoherent. For there are those who disagree with the Equal Weight View in which case a proponent of the Equal Weight couldn't rationally hold there view anymore since .5x.5=.25 Moreover, the Equal Weight view presupposes that the mere belief held by an epistemic peer can constitute higher-order evidence in addition to evidence qua evidence. But, this confuses psychological confidence with evidential justification. Surely, when we meet others who hold our beliefs that can boost our psychological confidence, but it does nothing to make an argument stronger in and of itself.
Thus, the argument from divine hiddenness not only presupposes that agnosticism is true, (that the evidence is exactly balanced), but it tries to defend its central premise with three shoddy points. Thus, this argument would only work if one could show on independent grounds that god's existence is unlikely or .5 likely. But then, the divine hiddenness argument is a dependent argument, and no longer an independent argument. Thus, all by itself, it shouldn't concern us.
RSS Feed