How Stupid Do You Have to Be to Believe in God: A Matter of Argumentation - Alexander Fink

‘You believe in God? Even in the God of the Bible? Are you stupid?’ If you are in frequent contact with atheists at your workplace or in your neighbourhood, these questions might sound familiar to you. Many people claim that either you are a rational person or you can have blind faith in God. In this Master Class, we want to debunk this myth. We will argue why plausibility is worldview-dependent. We will have a look at how shortcut arguments usually get the whole thing wrong. And we will examine arguments for a personal God and for the Christian God especially. After this Master Class, you should be equipped to respond in an inviting manner to the above questions.

This is part two in a five part Master Class series on 'How Stupid Do You Have to Be to Believe in God?'

When we compare worldviews in regard to their respective evidence, we are tempted to take logical shortcuts in order to prove our position. A theist, e.g., might argue that we have no idea which physical processes led to the origin of the universe, hence there must be a creator. Of course, the atheist will simply reply, we don’t know yet, but science will find out, and there is no need for God. Both arguments are logical shortcuts and simply reinforce the presuppositions that we held before, but they do not help to advance the case. So how can we build a sound case for the Christian God?

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Alexander Fink is Director of the Institute for Faith and Science (Institut für Glaube und Wissenschaft) in Marburg, Germany (www.iguw.de). He studied physics at Bayreuth and St. Andrews (UK) universities and received his PhD at the Institute for Biophysics at the University of Regensburg. After working as an industrial product manager, he became the director of the SMD graduates' ministry (Akademiker-SMD, the German branch of IFES) until 2014. Since 2008, he has been a member of the ELF Steering Committee and has co-led the Scientists Network. He is the editor of the "Begründet-glauben-Podcast" (www.begruendet-glauben.org) and has produced three documentary movies, "Fascinating Universe", "More than My Brain", and “Is there meaning in suffering?” which were officially recommended for use in secular public schools. Together with his wife, Alexander enjoys raising his two children, preaching and leading a house group in his local church, and being a youth soccer trainer in his local sports club.

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