Does God Exist?: The Debate between Theists and Atheists

This volume presents a structured philosophical debate between theistic and atheistic positions on God's existence, featuring contributions from prominent philosophers including J.P. Moreland, Kai Nielsen, William Lane Craig, Antony Flew, Dallas Willard, and Keith Parsons. The work employs a formal debate format, with each side presenting initial arguments followed by responses and counter-responses, allowing readers to trace the development of competing lines of reasoning.

The theistic contributors advance several interconnected arguments for God's existence. Moreland opens with a cosmological argument from contingency, contending that the universe requires a necessary being as its ultimate explanation. Craig supplements this with his signature kalam cosmological argument, emphasizing the impossibility of an actual infinite past and arguing for a personal creator. Willard approaches the question through epistemological considerations, arguing that theistic belief provides the best explanation for human knowledge and moral experience. The theists collectively maintain that naturalistic worldviews fail to adequately account for consciousness, objective moral values, and the fine-tuning of universal constants.

The atheistic philosophers mount vigorous challenges to these arguments. Nielsen critiques the coherence of classical theistic concepts, questioning whether terms like "necessary being" and "divine simplicity" possess meaningful content. Flew examines the logical structure of theistic arguments, identifying what he considers to be hidden assumptions and non sequiturs. Parsons focuses particularly on the problem of evil, arguing that the existence and distribution of suffering remains incompatible with traditional theistic commitments. The atheists generally advocate for methodological naturalism, maintaining that scientific explanation renders theistic hypotheses superfluous.

The debate's significance extends beyond its specific arguments to illuminate fundamental methodological disagreements. The contributors disagree not merely about conclusions but about the appropriate standards of evidence, the role of intuition in philosophical argument, and the relationship between scientific and metaphysical explanation. The theists tend to emphasize the explanatory limits of naturalism and the need for ultimate metaphysical foundations, while the atheists stress empirical adequacy and parsimony.

This work serves as a valuable introduction to contemporary philosophical theology, demonstrating how classical arguments continue to generate sophisticated discussion. By presenting direct exchanges between opposing positions rather than isolated treatises, the volume reveals how each side's arguments have evolved in response to criticism, making it particularly useful for understanding the current state of the God debate in analytic philosophy.