Summary Of Mccloskey's On Being An Atheist

In his work, On Being an Atheist, McCloskey attempted to show that atheism to hold more sense and facts compared to Christian beliefs. The large part of his work focused on arguing against the three major proofs that exist among most individuals in the universe today. Through his argument against theistic proofs that include cosmological argument, the argument from design and the teleological argument, McCloskey stated that it is irrational for any human being to live by faith. He goes on to deduce that the three agreements cannot prove or cannot be the basis to show that God exists. Proof helps in establishing a fact or the truth of a statement but according to McCloskey there is no proof that God exists, and thus, it should not play a vital …show more content…
According to McCloskey, this argument widely focuses on describing and justifying the universe as is known by all individuals today. According to the argument regarding the presence of God, there must exist a creator be it a being or a thing that made the world as we know it today. However, according to McCloskey there, the mere presence of the universe and everything in it is not reason enough to affirm that God exists. Despite the existence of a positive and strong correlation between the things that will come to be extant, things that live and exist and things that used to be extant, McCloskey does not believe that that something else like power, being or force plays any important part in their existence. On the contrary, Evans and Manis’ discussion, there are necessary beings and contingent beings that are responsible for setting forth in motion the ring of causality. Thus, the necessary beings must exist for the contingent beings to exist. As a result, God must exist for the world to exist concluding that he is the creator and the all-powerful, all-perfect and uncaused …show more content…
Although McCloskey does not define what is evil, he gives all kind of notion to explain what is evil. The theist explanation dies not prove why there is evil in the universe but rather offer possible justifications to account for all evil in the creation. From the arguments, it is easy to point out that the arguments they admit the presence of perfect God, but they cannot negate the possibility of all-perfect God allowing evil into the universe. The presences of evil help to magnify the good as well provide set standards to measure good. Thus, the presence of evil in the universe is the free will of human being.
The argument of free will gives a justification as to why there is so much evil in the world today. Considering that God gave humanity the right to choose the right and wrong, all the evil can be attributed to this freedom. If free will were not true, the laws, rewards, and punishments would eventually lose their purpose and meaning. Right and wrong create the necessity for an individual to understand the difference between them. Without the free will, people with good intentions would not have the freedom to choose what is best for them. Free will gives human being ultimate glory of making life