Objecting to God

Colin Howson's Objecting to God presents a systematic philosophical critique of theistic belief through the lens of Bayesian probability theory and evidential reasoning. The monograph engages primarily with two major argumentative traditions in philosophy of religion: the problem of evil and cumulative case arguments for theism. Howson's central thesis contends that when religious claims are subjected to rigorous probabilistic analysis, they fail to meet reasonable standards of credibility.

The work's distinctive contribution lies in its methodological approach. Rather than offering yet another iteration of classical atheological arguments, Howson applies formal tools from confirmation theory and inductive logic to assess religious hypotheses. He argues that theistic explanations consistently violate basic principles of probabilistic reasoning, particularly when compared to naturalistic alternatives. This analytical framework allows him to address not only specific theological claims but also the meta-level question of how religious beliefs ought to be evaluated epistemically.

Regarding the problem of evil, Howson moves beyond traditional formulations to examine how theodicies fare under Bayesian scrutiny. He maintains that standard responses to evil—free will defenses, soul-making theodicies, and appeals to divine inscrutability—become increasingly improbable when their auxiliary assumptions are made explicit and assigned appropriate prior probabilities. His treatment is notable for its precision in distinguishing between logical and evidential versions of the problem, arguing that even if theism remains logically possible, it becomes vanishingly improbable given the actual distribution of suffering.

The monograph also engages with cumulative case arguments, particularly those advanced by Richard Swinburne and other contemporary natural theologians. Howson systematically deconstructs these arguments by demonstrating how they rely on questionable probability assignments and fail to account for the problem of competing religious hypotheses. He shows that when properly formalized, arguments from fine-tuning, religious experience, and miracles suffer from fundamental statistical fallacies.

Howson's work represents a significant contribution to analytic philosophy of religion by providing a unified probabilistic framework for evaluating diverse theistic arguments. His approach offers atheistic philosophers new tools for critique while challenging theistic thinkers to meet more rigorous epistemic standards. The monograph effectively demonstrates how modern developments in formal epistemology can shed new light on perennial debates about God's existence.