Many atheists say, “Of course, I’m open-minded, show me the evidence or proof that God exists, and I’ll believe.” But when presented with proofs for the existence of God, those same atheists claim that Christians believe only in a “God of the gaps.” So, are they really open-minded? Trent explains why the answer is most likely no.
Transcript:
Many atheists I talk to say, “Of course, I’m open minded, show me the evidence or proof that God exists and I’ll believe.”
But when they are presented with proofs for the existence of God those same atheists will say, “That’s just fallacious God of the gaps reasoning. Your evidence for God comes from ignorance. You say, ‘I don’t know what caused the Big Bang, therefore God did it.’ I’d rather wait for science to provide the correct explanation and not rush to put God in a gap of my knowledge.”
But if you say that any possible evidence for God isn’t good enough, then you aren’t really open-minded. You assumed beforehand that no evidence is good enough so you’ve already made up your mind beforehand.
If you’re an atheist take a minute and try to honestly answer this question: What specific evidence would convince you that God exists? Don’t say what type of evidence would convince you; come up with a specific example. A common one I hear is that if after praying an amputated limb grew back, then that person would believe in God. But isn’t that a God of the gaps argument? Aren’t you saying, “I don’t know what caused this limb to grow back, therefore God did it?”
The arguments for the existence of God don’t take the form of “I don’t know, therefore God.” Instead, they take the form of, “There are good reasons to believe effect X can never be explained naturally, therefore it must have a supernatural explanation, or God.”
If you agree that limbs can’t come into existence from nothing and therefore any such regrown limbs require a divine cause, then if the universe came into existence from nothing, wouldn’t that require a divine cause? If not, why not?
If you’re truly open-minded, then check out the reasons for God that the best philosophers past and present have put forward. Even if they don’t convince you, at least after critically examining them you’ll be able to say why they don’t convince you. That’s better than just assuming they don’t succeed and not bothering to do some critical thinking on one of the most important questions of all time.
For Catholic Answers, I’m Trent Horn, and thanks for watching.