The Ultimate Truth-Seeker Challenge

The Ultimate Truth-Seeker Challenge 02/02/10

Accepting Luke Muehlhauser's challenge. How might my position on the existence of God change after following a comprehensive reading list?

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Luke Muehlhauser of Common Sense Atheism has proposed the Ultimate Truth-Seeker Challenge. Essentially, it is a reading project wherein one reads a number of prolific books on both theism and atheism. It will be interesting to see whether or not upon reading the comprehensive material of both sides of the debate participants change their views. Luke offers a reading list to move through that will offer defenses of both positions. I’ve chosen to participate and will be moving through this reading list.

I have read a number of the books on the list but I will re-read them in their appropriate placement (though they will be striked-out on the list). I will be skipping the “beginner” level books, so they too will also be striked-out. This post will simply provide a record of what I’ve read during the challenge and what I still need to read.

I think the challenge is an important one, but at the same time I’m saddened that many people require a ‘challenge’ to do this sort of thing. It seems to me that if one is going to firmly take a position on some issue, they should engage with the material that represents any alternative positions. As should be no secret to anyone who reads much of my writing, I think that many theists and atheists alike suffer from being poorly read in the philosophy of religion (some even question the importance of such reading!). Our positions on the existence of God, whether theistic or atheists, must be rational positions. They must be reasoned, coherent and comprehensive. Theists who never engage properly in the philosophy of religion are prone to formulate concepts of God that are incoherent or contradictory, and atheists who do not engage seem largely unaware of the relevant issues at hand, holding a position that is sometimes more irrational than the concepts of God that theists hold.

Personally, this couldn’t come at a better time for me. I think this challenge will be very useful in my preparation for graduate school, simply because whatever the outcome, I will be heading into graduate school with (hopefully) a clear cut position that I want to defend and perhaps clear ideas on which problems I feel need resolving.

At any rate, I thank Luke for putting the reading list together and for provoking a challenge that will hopefully move many out of a realm of intellectual comfort and into intellectual inquiry. I am very excited to see the results of other participants, and of course, my own results at the end of the challenge. Throughout the challenge I will be using perhaps the best piece of advice that can be given to any inquiring individual, “follow the evidence where it leads.”

After I complete each book I may very well write something regarding how I feel it has impacted my position. I may not post these here, though, as I think they might make an interesting collection for a book of its own!

So, here is the list!

The Reading List

Stage 1:

1. Guy P. Harrison – 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (354 pages, beginner, skeptical)

2. Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli – Handbook of Christian Apologetics (406 pages, beginner, apologetic)


Stage 2:

3. John Loftus & others – The Christian Delusion (385 pages, intermediate, skeptical)

4. William Lane Craig – Reasonable Faith (416 pages, intermediate, apologetic)

5. C. Stephan Layman – Letters to Doubting Thomas (240 pages, intermediate, apologetic)

6. John Loftus – Why I Became an Atheist (428 pages, intermediate, skeptical)

Stage 3:

7. Greg Boyd & Paul Eddy – The Jesus Legend (480 pages, intermediate, apologetic)

8. Robert Price – Jesus is Dead (279 pages, intermediate, skeptical)

Stage 4:

9. Richard Carrier – Sense and Goodness Without God (444 pages, intermediate, skeptical)

10. J.P. Moreland & William Lane Craig – Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (653 pages, advanced, apologetic)

Stage 5:

11. Michael Martin – The Case Against Christianity (256 pages, advanced, skeptical)

12. J.P. Moreland – Scaling the Secular City (288 pages, advanced, apologetic)

13. Robin Le Poidevin – Arguing for Atheism (184, pages, advanced, skeptical)

14. James F. Sennett & others – In Defense of Natural Theology (336 pages, advanced, apologetic)

Stage 6:

15. Richard Swinburne – The Existence of God (376 pages, advanced, apologetic)

16. Gregory Dawes – Theism and Explanation (222 pages, advanced, skeptical)

Stage 7:

17. Nicholas Everitt – The Non-Existence of God (352 pages, advanced, skeptical)

18. J.L. Mackie - The Miracle of Theism (278 pages, advanced, skeptical)

19. Michael J. Murray & others – Reason for the Hope Within (429 pages, advanced, apologetic)

20. Michael Martin – Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (541 pages, advanced, skeptical)

21. Paul Copan & others – The Rationality of Theism (304 pages, advanced, apologetic)

22. Graham Oppy – Arguing About Gods (472 pages, advanced, skeptical)

23. William Lane Craig & others – The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (704 pages, advanced, apologetic)

24. Jordan Howard Sobel – Logic and Theism (676 pages, advanced, skeptical)

25. Alvin Plantinga – Warranted Christian Belief (528 pages, advanced, apologetic)

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  • noen

    I think it's interesting that a website that is supposedly about urban philosophy does little philosophy and no "urban" centered discussion at all. This list of recommended books is typical.

    You don't do philosophy, you do apologetics.

    You are not philosophers, you are priests. Schismatic priests, but priests none-the-less.

    My prediction then, is that say… two hundred years from now all the churches will be filled with atheist priests still discussing among themselves all these "very deep issues" and recapitulating all the old hoary arguments. They'll even perform the old rites out of respect for long vanished opponents and their sermons, although openly atheistic, will still touch on the same concerns of mankind's relationship with the world.

    If you never actually leave the inner sanctum how can you call yourself a non-believer?

  • noen

    I think it's interesting that a website that is supposedly about urban philosophy does little philosophy and no "urban" centered discussion at all. This list of recommended books is typical.

    You don't do philosophy, you do apologetics.

    You are not philosophers, you are priests. Schismatic priests, but priests none-the-less.

    My prediction then, is that say… two hundred years from now all the churches will be filled with atheist priests still discussing among themselves all these "very deep issues" and recapitulating all the old hoary arguments. They'll even perform the old rites out of respect for long vanished opponents and their sermons, although openly atheistic, will still touch on the same concerns of mankind's relationship with the world.

    If you never actually leave the inner sanctum how can you call yourself a non-believer?

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/MitchLeBlanc MitchLeBlanc

    I think you might find the 'type' of philosophy for which you're looking somewhere on websites such as the Prosblogion, etc. There is a very specific purpose to the 'urban' in 'UrbanPhilosophy' of which you seem to be largely unaware (you need just to read the "About" page).

    Of course, given the nature of the website in which you are more than welcome to contribute (and encouraged to do so) continually posting negative comments while contributing nothing just seems rather non-constructive.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/MitchLeBlanc MitchLeBlanc

    I think you might find the 'type' of philosophy for which you're looking somewhere on websites such as the Prosblogion, etc. There is a very specific purpose to the 'urban' in 'UrbanPhilosophy' of which you seem to be largely unaware (you need just to read the "About" page).

    Of course, given the nature of the website in which you are more than welcome to contribute (and encouraged to do so) continually posting negative comments while contributing nothing just seems rather non-constructive.

  • noen

    Ahh, ok sorry. Yeah, I know it's not being constructive. You can submit your own articles? Hmmmmm… I'll consider that. Also, Prosblogion is exactly what I am NOT looking for though it still amazes me that again you equate apologetics with philosophy. Really?

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/MitchLeBlanc MitchLeBlanc

      The philosophy of religion is NOT apologetics.

      • http://www.choosinghats.com/ C.L. Bolt

        Additionally, Modus Tollens is Valid.

        Just thought I would throw that out there. It sort of took me by surprise too.

        • noen

          I messed up the example the first time. A Modus Tollens is not necessarily true, as the major premise (If P is true then Q is true) says nothing about falsehood. If, however, P and Q are bivalent (both can be either true or false) and P can only be true if Q is true, then the Modus Tollens stands.

          While it is true that the philosophy of religion is not apologetics what does one say of those atheists who spend all their time doing "philosophy of religion" or "apologetics for atheists"? Most of the atheists I've seen on the intertubes know next to nothing about real philosophy or even about science. But they know the Bible better than a street corner evangelist and have their own well developed set of canned arguments against their rival clergy.

          The problem arises however when one tries to discover what atheism is as opposed to what it is not. When atheism is defined as a mere lack of belief then atheism as such ceases to exist. It is no long a "thing" but rather an absence. It is not a presence but a ghostly non-presence instead. This allows the atheist to then be free of any consistency or logical coherence. All the atheist need do is to treat moral categories as absolutes when talking about the problem of evil and then treat them as constructs when challenged to provide a ground for morality without god. Or the atheist will take logic as descriptive of only the physical universe when confronted with transcendental arguments and then turn around and take them as absolute when you apply laws of logic to god.

          Thus we can see that the only purpose anti-theistic arguments are put to is to counter theistic explanations. It's nothing more than rhetoric in service of an internecine conflict. The goal is to win, not to discover. That is a fundamentally unintellectual stance. It is neither scholarship nor philosophical debate. It's priestly bickering. A modern version of arguing over the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

          Since atheism doesn't propose anything and is defined as a lack then whenever an atheist does say something about God, he isn't speaking as an atheist. Atheism is an empty construct so when an atheist does make a positive claim he is no longer speaking as an atheist because atheism has nothing to say about anything at all.

          If you wish to be in this world then let your yea be yea and your nay, nay.

          • Nocterro

            "Since atheism doesn't propose anything and is defined as a lack then whenever an atheist does say something about God, he isn't speaking as an atheist. Atheism is an empty construct so when an atheist does make a positive claim he is no longer speaking as an atheist because atheism has nothing to say about anything at all."

            I believe there is probably no God.

            What do you call me?

          • noen

            The very fact that you start off with "I believe…." places you in the minority of today's "New Atheists". They would never make that mistake because it indicates you have a positive belief system that you justify with reasons (good or bad). The kind of atheists I'm talking about take a negative position of "I have have no beliefs" from which they then take pot shots at honest debate.

            In my opinion if one removes oneself from the filed of rational discourse by declaring oneself to be outside of all categories, as if it were possible to exist in this world without a world view, then one does not deserve to be treated as a serious participant in the intellectual marketplace.

  • noen

    Ahh, ok sorry. Yeah, I know it's not being constructive. You can submit your own articles? Hmmmmm… I'll consider that. Also, Prosblogion is exactly what I am NOT looking for though it still amazes me that again you equate apologetics with philosophy. Really?

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/MitchLeBlanc MitchLeBlanc

      The philosophy of religion is NOT apologetics.

      • http://www.choosinghats.com C.L. Bolt

        Additionally, Modus Tollens is Valid.

        Just thought I would throw that out there. It sort of took me by surprise too.

        • noen

          I messed up the example the first time. A Modus Tollens is not necessarily true, as the major premise (If P is true then Q is true) says nothing about falsehood. If, however, P and Q are bivalent (both can be either true or false) and P can only be true if Q is true, then the Modus Tollens stands.

          While it is true that the philosophy of religion is not apologetics what does one say of those atheists who spend all their time doing "philosophy of religion" or "apologetics for atheists"? Most of the atheists I've seen on the intertubes know next to nothing about real philosophy or even about science. But they know the Bible better than a street corner evangelist and have their own well developed set of canned arguments against their rival clergy.

          The problem arises however when one tries to discover what atheism is as opposed to what it is not. When atheism is defined as a mere lack of belief then atheism as such ceases to exist. It is no long a "thing" but rather an absence. It is not a presence but a ghostly non-presence instead. This allows the atheist to then be free of any consistency or logical coherence. All the atheist need do is to treat moral categories as absolutes when talking about the problem of evil and then treat them as constructs when challenged to provide a ground for morality without god. Or the atheist will take logic as descriptive of only the physical universe when confronted with transcendental arguments and then turn around and take them as absolute when you apply laws of logic to god.

          Thus we can see that the only purpose anti-theistic arguments are put to is to counter theistic explanations. It's nothing more than rhetoric in service of an internecine conflict. The goal is to win, not to discover. That is a fundamentally unintellectual stance. It is neither scholarship nor philosophical debate. It's priestly bickering. A modern version of arguing over the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

          Since atheism doesn't propose anything and is defined as a lack then whenever an atheist does say something about God, he isn't speaking as an atheist. Atheism is an empty construct so when an atheist does make a positive claim he is no longer speaking as an atheist because atheism has nothing to say about anything at all.

          If you wish to be in this world then let your yea be yea and your nay, nay.

          • Nocterro

            "Since atheism doesn't propose anything and is defined as a lack then whenever an atheist does say something about God, he isn't speaking as an atheist. Atheism is an empty construct so when an atheist does make a positive claim he is no longer speaking as an atheist because atheism has nothing to say about anything at all."

            I believe there is probably no God.

            What do you call me?

          • noen

            The very fact that you start off with "I believe…." places you in the minority of today's "New Atheists". They would never make that mistake because it indicates you have a positive belief system that you justify with reasons (good or bad). The kind of atheists I'm talking about take a negative position of "I have have no beliefs" from which they then take pot shots at honest debate.

            In my opinion if one removes oneself from the filed of rational discourse by declaring oneself to be outside of all categories, as if it were possible to exist in this world without a world view, then one does not deserve to be treated as a serious participant in the intellectual marketplace.

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