Atheists often say “there is no evidence for God’s existence.” I find this an extremely odd thing to say if not altogether dishonest. Is it really the case that there is no evidence supporting the existence of God? Hardly. Someone might more reasonably say “I don’t find the evidence for God very convincing.” That is a completely different discussion and one I’m willing to have but to say that there is no evidence at all is just naive.
The fact is that there is evidence for God. That evidence comes in the form of arguments from the origins of the universe (the cosmological argument) and evidence in from of the appearance of design in the universe and in biological life (the teleological argument) and evidence for God in the existence of objective moral values (the moral argument). One could multiply other lines of evidence for God’s existence such as the argument from desire, the argument from human experience, the argument from reason, the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection or even the transcendental argument. There are lots of things that people have pointed to as evidence of God’s existence and many people have found them very persuasive including people like Anthony Flew who was once one of the most prominent atheists of our day.
So why is it that so many atheists insist on saying things like “there is no evidence for God’s existence”? I think it comes down to the fact that they have not seen or experienced him personally and, for them, that is tantamount to there being no evidence. But this is just not a reasonable position to hold. To say that “I haven’t seen him, heard him or touched him so therefore there is no evidence that he exists” is honestly just foolish.
Imagine a person says “I have never met anyone named Brian Hearn, therefore there is no evidence anyone by that name exists.” First of all this is just an obvious non sequitur, but we will just blow by that for now. In response to this you pull up the White Pages on your phone and show that there is a person by that name. But they say “Nope, not good enough.” So you proceed to go with this person to the address listed in the White Pages and you meet Brian Hearn’s mother. Brian is away overseas but she assures you he really does exist. Still not good enough. She shows you mail addressed to Brian, a high school yearbook with Brian’s picture in it and even Brian’s birth certificate. Enough evidence? Nope, your friend still does not believe…in fact he insists he has seen no evidence whatsoever.
No evidence! He has seen where he lived, met someone who knows him personally, seen mail addressed to him, seen a yearbook picture and his birth certificate. No evidence? “Well, I haven’t seen him, heard him or touched him, so there is no evidence” says your friend. At this point, what are you to do but throw up your hands and say “You are just completely unreasonable!”
But this is exactly what many atheists do. Note that I said “many”. I dare not place all atheists in the camp of foolishness with those who say “there is no evidence for God whatsoever.” But honestly, my experience is that many of the atheists I meet on the internet (and I rarely meet them anywhere else) are this type of unreasonable person who insist that “there is no evidence”. But this is just as foolish as the person saying there is no evidence for Brian Hearn in the story above.
No rational or reasonable person will conclude that “there is no evidence for God” unless they are truly just ignorant of it. They may be convinced that the evidence is insufficient to warrant belief in God. They may think the evidence can be reinterpreted to lead to another conclusion. But the claim that there is no evidence at all is something only a fool would say or someone who is just flat dishonest or so self important that they won’t call it evidence unless they find it personally persuasive. The height of arrogance is to dismiss outright any evidence in support of a proposition that you don’t want to believe. The fact is that there is evidence for God’s existence. Lots of it. Anyone who says otherwise looks foolish and arrogant.
