The April edition of International Journal for Philosophy of Religion is now available online and there's an article by William Rowe called "Friendly Atheism, Skeptical Theism, and the Problem of Evil". I'm currently on the road and having trouble accessing the article. I've not read the paper, but he gave it at his farewell conference at Purdue in April 2005.
"Friendly atheism" is the view that though the evidence supports atheism, some theists are within their epistemic rights to accept theism. I suppose I'm a friendly theist that way, which means I need to have a response to Schellenberg's Hiddenness argument (which I do). As far as I know the term was first coined in "The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Athiesm," American Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 16, No. 4, 1979 and reprinted in Rowe and Wainwright's Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings (1998).
As I say, I'm a friendly theist--I think that there are atheists whose atheism is on balance epistemically responsible and epistemically justified. But what about this:
Romans 1:20 (New King James Version)
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
Below the fold, I want to lob out three general strategies for reconciling friendly theism with this verse and the traditional take on general revelation in general.
So here are the three gambits.
1. There are no atheists.
It could be that "in their heart" no one is an atheism. This is obviously a no-go dialectically. You can't tell a putative atheist she isn't "really" one. I still think, though, that this line could be interestingly pursued, perhaps using the notion of de re belief. Is it enough to make the verse come out true that everyone is de re aware of God or has beliefs which entail His existence?
2. There was a time at which theism was sufficiently clear to the now-atheist.
The idea here is that no one is born an atheist. Supposedly Russell became an atheist at 10 or something after reading Mill, but even then according to the story he was a theist before that and it is plausible that when people become atheists because of "philosophy crap" (Lycan's phrase I think) then the individual has been distracted from the right data.
3. The verse is about the nature of the evidence itself and does not apply to individuals in adverse circumstances.
This is related to #2 but doesn't entail it. The idea is that if someone grew up on a theistic or "neutral" culture and had normal experiences of nature then they would be a theist, but if they grow up in a secular culture--like present-day England--then all bets are off. I think that would be enough for the verse to come out true.
Some of the above is related to things Plantinga says in _Warranted Christian Belief_, but I don't think any are identical to any of his explicit proposals (I'm on the road and don't have my WCB to hand). They are not, of course, wholly exclusive of one another.
Technorati Tags: philosophy of religion, atheism, athiesm, theist, theism, william rowe, schellenberg, atheists, wainwright, skeptical, purdue, farewell, suppose
Technorati Tags: philosophy of religion, atheism, athiesm, theist, theism, william rowe, schellenberg, atheists, wainwright, skeptical, purdue, farewell, suppose
I think gambit #1 is the most viable.
In respect to #2, I myself didn't become an atheist due to any exposure to philosophy. My interest in philosophy stemmed from the fact that it was the place where issues like the existence of God and the rationality of religious belief were being addressed. In addition, I've known people who have claimed to have been atheists their whole lives, at least so far as they were aware. I see no reason to doubt their claims on this matter, and I think arguing against it would be a non-starter.
In regard to #3, there seem to be atheists in every culture. Maybe a bunch of statistics could be bandied about in order to make a case for this one, but I wouldn't expect much that was convincing to anyone to come out of it.
I don't think I could make a good case for #1 myself, but a potential problem I see for it is that its truth seems to imply a more significant role for natural theology over revelation in evangelism. Antony Flew's "conversion" seems to have involved something along these lines, and it certainly hasn't softened his attitude toward the Christian God (should it be 'god' if I'm using it descriptively?).
Also, if you would like, I can e-mail you a copy of Rowe's essay. It's in .pdf format, however, so if you can't read it because you don't have access to Adobe Reader right now, that won't help.