An Agnostic Defends God How Science and Philosophy Support Agnosticism

This book contains a unique perspective: that of a scientifically and philosophically educated agnostic who thinks there is impressive—if maddeningly hidden—evidence for the existence of God. Science and philosophy may have revealed the poverty of the familiar sources of evidence, but they generate their own partial defense of theism.

Bryan Frances, a philosopher with a graduate degree in physics, judges the standard evidence for God’s existence to be awful. And yet, like many others with similar scientific and philosophical backgrounds, he argues that the usual reasons for atheism, such as the existence of suffering and success of science, are weak.

In this book you will learn why so many people with scientific and philosophical credentials are agnostics (rather than atheists) despite judging all the usual evidence for theism to be fatally flawed.

1. Introduction: A Peculiar Defense of God. 

Part One: The Rationality and Irrationality of Religious Belief.

2. Rational Belief in God. 

3. Irrational Belief in God.

Part Two: The Failure of Arguments for God.

4. The Design of Life and the Laws of Nature. 

5. The Origin of the Universe. 

6. The Problem of Suffering. 

7. Intractable Religious Disagreement. 

8. Why Advanced Science and Philosophy Support Humility. 

Part Four: The Case for Agnosticism    

9. The Experience Argument for God

10: Two Troubles with Agnosticism

Bryan Frances is Associate Professor of Philosophy at United Arab Emirates University, UAE.