The Case against theism: why the evidence disproves god’s existence

Abstract

The title and subtitle of Raphael Lataster’s book is provocative, indeed. The phrase ‘the case against theism’ suggests that the book presents a defence of some of the arguments against theism. Furthermore, philosophers and logicians tend to reserve the terms ‘prove/proof’ and ‘disprove’ for formal logical proofs. To all appearances, then, the title of the book suggests that, in the book, Lataster defends one or more formal logical proofs that God does not exist. Unfortunately, the book’s title is greatly misleading. Contra the book title, the book focuses almost exclusively on the apologetic case defended by William Lane Craig. Lataster explains: ‘This project is concerned with the case for theism, particularly the case for Christian theism presented by William Lane Craig; it is not necessarily a general critique of religion, or of Christianity, or of theism’ (6). Consequently, those who wish to study the arguments for and against theism should be aware that Lataster’s book is not a ‘case against theism’ but, essentially, a case against Craig’s apologetic arguments and evangelism techniques. Let me now briefly mention some of the weaknesses of the book. First, the book deals almost exclusively with Craig’s popular level work (written for the general audience) and not his academic work (written for scholars) and this, in turn, brings into question the relevance of Lataster’s book for scholars. Second, Lataster makes several elementary mistakes and this, in turn, brings into question the quality of his research. Let me mention just one example. Craig’s Ontological Argument begins with the following premise: