Customer Reviews

God, Reason and Theistic Proofs (Reason & Religion)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I first came across the work of Stephen T Davis a couple of years ago reading his `Logic and the Nature of God' (published 1983). Whilst the target readership is clearly different (the first being professional academic and this the interested theology/philosophy student) the improvement in readability is immense. I would recommend this book to anyone undertaking an introductory Philosophy of Religion/Philosophical Theology course. The book would probably be difficult work for someone with no theology or philosophy background although certainly not impossible. One of the big advantages of this book is that the chapters can be read as stand alone introductions to the various theistic indicators (more commonly referred to as proofs).

The book begins after a brief outline of what is a theistic proof with the a priori ontological argument. In addition there are chapters on the Cosmological, Design, Pascalian wager and argument(s) from religious experience as well as some other more (historically) minor arguments. In my mind this is where Davis is most useful. Interspersed between these chapters the important topics of `Theistic Proofs and Religious Realism' and `Theistic Proofs and Foundationalism' are covered. Whilst as a reference work this is fine the arbitrary location of these chapters can make the book jump around somewhat for someone reading from cover to cover. For instance the chapter on foundationalism is placed after that on the Cosmological argument. However, the Cosmological argument is as much helped by a strong foundationalist epistemology as any other. I have no doubt that Davis would agree with this, however, the layout of the book does not make this clear. It would surely have made more sense to deal with these two topics prior to all the a posteroiri arguments. It is with this in mind that "God, Reason and Theistic Proofs" has been given three stars. However, as a first point of call (especially as preparatory reading) for Philosophy of Religion classes or research into the individual generic theistic indicators this book would receive five stars as it is an excellent resource in this area of natural theology.

Davis offers a largely sympathetic overview of arguments for the existence of god and common objections to them. The book is good as far as it goes, but Davis has an unfortunate tendency to lean heavily on personal intuition when the issues become the most difficult, and hence the most interesting. This is disappointing, because Davis is obviously intelligent enough to have done much more. Had he sought more carefully to identify the reasons underlying his intuitions, the book would surely have been a five-star effort. I enjoyed the book, and do not at all regret having spent time reading it, but I hoped for much more.

I'm an atheist and I'm very interested in philosophy and religion. I purchased this book so that I would have a better idea how theists use arguments to bolster their faith. This book is satisfactory, although it could be much better. Stephen Davis, the author, sometimes writes unnecessarily complicated sentences which only serves to confuse the reader. For the most part, however, he is rather clear. He gives a rather in depth look into the most popular proofs for the existence of God and examines the objections to them. This book was an interesting read, but a basic philosophical background will probably be necessary in order for a person to fully understand the arguments which Davis examines. The only other complaint I have about the book is Davis's major (and unjustified) leaps of logic. He sometimes examines a theistic proof and then concludes that it proves the existence of God, but he fails to consider the most basic objections to these very proofs. It almost seems as if he is ignoring these objections. Otherwise, it was a fairly enjoyable read.

God, Reason and Theistic Proofs is a discussion on the various philosophical arguments given in favour of religious belief. This includes both direct arguments that theists offer as proofs of the existence of God- eg: Various versions of the cosmological argument- but also includes more general arguments in favour of religious belief, such as Pascal's Wager.

Stand alone chapters can be read on various arguments, and interspersed between these chapters are discussions on more foundational issues in the philosophy of religion such as foundationalism vs reformed epistemology and religious realism vs non realism.

Many years after I first read this book, I still think it is the best treatment of the subject I have seen. The author is a professor of philosophy, he is very fair-minded (he is a theist, from memory, but he does not allow that to sway his philosophical judgment), he presents the arguments in a very structured and thorough but also clear way (if it hadn't been clear, I as very much a layman, would not have understood it!) and it is easy to agree with his cautious conclusions. I have not read another book, by believer or non-believer, that I thought had all these qualities. I recommend it.

He covers a number of the classic arguments - ontological (which gets a fairer treatment than I would have given it!), cosmological, design, religious experience, moral, etc, plus he addresses interesting core issues such as religious realism, foundationalism (plus coherentism & pragmatism as alternatives) and the principle of sufficient reason, all in ways and at places where they are relevant to the main discussion and relatively easy to understand.

His conclusion? He thinks the "proofs" can show at least that theism is rational, and possibly more rational than alternatives, but he doesn't think any proof actually proves the existence of God. That is probably what we might expect, leaving the questions open for each of us to decide for ourselves.

This is a very good introduction to the issue (though not perfect in my opinion). It not only deals with many proofs but has also some metadiscussions about the idea of theistic proofs and their alternatives.