Having outlined five arguments for theism (the last five blogs), there remains at least two arguments for atheism that need to be addressed; the absence of evidence (this blog) and the problem of evil (next blog). In a debate with William Lane Craig, Victor Stenger makes the argument that if God exists, then we should have evidence for God where we do not have such evidence, and absence of this evidence is evidence of God’s absence. A seemingly strong argument on the surface, but one that is exposed as fairly weak when examined.
First of all, the type of evidence that Stenger (and all naturalists) seeks is scientific evidence. Rather than seeking enough evidence to believe (like the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection), naturalists demand the hard scientific evidence required to know that God exists. However, if God were to bow to their command and allow scientists to put God in a test tube, this would essentially nullify the biblical doctrine of salvation by faith (Romans 3:21-26). If God exists and has chosen to save his people by their faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection, then scientifically proving it would mean that we would no longer have faith, but knowledge. If the bible really is God’s revelation of himself, and the bible describes a salvation by faith, then a scientific proof of God’s existence would nullify the means by which he has chosen to save people from their sin.
Secondly, the demand for scientific evidence carries the assumption that the only evidence that counts is scientific evidence. While science has greatly increased our knowledge of the universe and continues to do so, it’s not as if no one knew anything before science took off. Science provides a brilliant way to gain knowledge, but it’s not the only way and it doesn’t have the monopoly on reason. The move from methodological naturalism (assuming that a miracle won’t happen in a scientific experiment) to philosophical naturalism (assuming that miracles have never happened and can never happen in the future) is an over-reach of science; instead of realising that science limits itself to what can be scientifically tested, it’s declaring that the only knowledge we can have is within the realm of scientific investigation. This excludes the possibility that God could have miraculously revealed himself to us, before it considers the evidence for the case that he did reveal himself to us in history. It’s an assumption that the supernatural doesn’t exist because it doesn’t naturally occur.
Thirdly, the proposition on which this argument depends – an absence of evidence is evidence of absence – is demonstrably false: it cannot be applied to things outside of our scope of observation. No one uses the fact that we have an absence of evidence for aliens, as evidence that we are alone in the universe. This is the inherent problem with scientific induction: you never have all the evidence, and so to say that something doesn’t exist because we haven’t scientifically observed it yet assumes that it cannot exist beyond our scientific observation. This was famously observed by David Hume who argued that if you’ve only ever seen white swans, you cannot conclude that all swans are white, but only that all the swans that you’ve seen are white, because there may be black swans that you haven’t seen yet. If you’ve only ever seen the natural, then you cannot conclude that there is no supernatural simply because you haven’t seen any. The argument that an absence of evidence is evidence of absence, assumes the very thing that it’s trying to prove: that if we can’t see it then it doesn’t exist.
Fourthly, it assumes that atheism wins by default, that is, if we reject the arguments for theism, then atheism is the logical (if not the only) choice. But atheism is not the default position, agnosticism is. If believing in God were a hair colour, then agnosticism would be bald, not atheism; for agnosticism holds zero claims about God, but atheism holds the claim that “there’s probably no god”. Moreover, it’s quite hypocritical for someone who thinks that atheism should win by default to suggest that an absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Theists believe that God exists based on the historical evidence that God has revealed himself to us, but atheists believe that “there’s probably no god” based on a perceived lack of evidence. There is simply no reason to move from an impartial agnosticism towards a stronger (or more militant) atheism, especially if you’re seeking to follow the evidence.
The absence of evidence “argument” is an argument from silence. It’s like the argument that because we don’t have archaeological evidence of the exodus then it didn’t really happen. Despite the fact that archaeological is fragmentary at best, this argument demands archaeological evidence for a nomadic group of people who never stayed in one place for a long period of time, to have survived for over three thousand years in the brutal conditions of a middle eastern desert. If God exists, then the only way you could ever know is if he revealed himself to us. And if he is the one revealing himself to us, then we cannot demand that he reveal himself to us in a scientifically provable way. In the end, this argument is not an argument against the God of the bible, but against a god who would fit in a test tube.
