Argument from inconsistent revelations

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The Argument From Inconsistent Revelations is based upon the many number of interpretations of Holy texts and Scripture. If Scripture was revealed to man by God, and God is infallible, then all revelations would be the same, inerrant text.

But contradictions and vagaries, still remain in the Bible, and other holy texts of other religions. As a result, there are many different groups of people, with many different interpretations.

So, therefore, God cannot exist in the capacity that Christians say he is, because his own writings betray his capacity for error, or betray his non-existence. Either God is fallible, or humans wrote the Bible and God was not involved. Needless to say, Christians don't like either of those possibilities.

Argument from Existence of Atheists

Closely related is the argument from existence of atheists:

  1. God is omniscient.
  2. God is omnipotent.
  3. God wants everyone to believe in him.
  4. Since God is omniscient, he knows exactly what demonstration would convince any given person that he exists.
  5. Since God is omnipotent, he is capable of performing this demonstration.
  6. Since God wants everyone to believe in him, he wants to perform this demonstration.
  7. However, atheists manifestly exist.
  8. Therefore, the god described by the first three conditions does not exist.

Of course, an apologist could reply to this by saying that atheists do know that God exists but are just denying him out of stubbornness. Indeed, this response has been used many times by different apologists. However, though some non-believers do disbelieve just out of stubbornness, most have good reasons for their disbelief and thus this response isn't useful to the apologist.

See Also

Ousider Test