Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Does God exist?
Position‹3 of 3: No, God does not exist
Argument‹6 of 6: There is no evidence for God

There is no solid scientific evidence for the existence of God

The argument

According to the classical widespread definition of explicit knowledge originating in Plato, a belief must be accompanied by a good inference supportive of its truth in order to qualify as knowledge. Arguments from lack of evidence/proof of God combine this notion with the idea that knowledge is the only form of belief one should seek. This is simply an epistemological commitment to forming true beliefs. Since the existence of God (and religious beliefs in general) is predicated upon the practice of blind faith, it follows that belief in God is not a form of knowledge and should be rejected on the same grounds; regardless of whether the atheist can provide positive evidence of absence of gods. This is what philosophers and attorneys know as "the burden of proof": whoever asserts the claim is bound to demonstrate it, should he like others to believe alike.

Context

An argument from lack of evidence is any display of mistrust towards faith-based beliefs. Bertrand Russell's China Teapot and Christopher Hitchen's Razor are popular allegories and aphorisms trying to explain why belief in God's existence in the absence of proof is unreasonable.

Premises

[P1]On the classical Platonic account, a belief counts as knowledge only if backed by good inference supporting its truth, and one should seek only true, knowledge-grade beliefs. [P2] Since belief in God rests on blind faith rather than evidence, it fails to qualify as knowledge, and the burden of proof lies on whoever asserts God's existence, not on the atheist to prove absence. [C] Because there is no evidence for God and the claimant bears the burden of proof, God does not exist.

Counter-arguments

Theologian Alvin Plantinga building upon presuppositionalist apologetics contends that belief in God is "properly basic", that is, an axiom or premise necessary to make sense of the world and acquire further knowledge.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise sets a standard the conclusion cannot meet: on the account given, a belief lacking supporting inference fails to qualify as knowledge, which licenses withholding assent rather than asserting the negative — that is the sibling position in this debate, not this one. [Rejecting P2] The characterisation of religious belief as resting on blind faith also passes over the natural theology tradition, which offers arguments — cosmological, teleological, moral — that may be judged unsuccessful but are inferences rather than an absence of them; and the burden of proof allocates who must argue first, so appealing to it establishes a procedural point about the debate rather than a fact about what exists.

Proponents cited

Christopher Hitchens
“What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”
Bertrand Russell
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.”
Carl Sagan
“Now what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true.”