Naturalism versus Theism: Which One Best Explains the Evidence?*
Phenomena We Observe | Theistic Context | Naturalistic Context |
(Self-)Consciousness exists. | God is supremely self-aware/ | The universe was produced by mindless, non-conscious processes. |
Personal beings exist. | God is a personal Being. | The universe was produced by impersonal processes. |
We believe we make free personal decisions/choices. | God is spirit and a free Being, who can freely choose to act (e.g., to create or not). | We have emerged by material, deterministic processes and forces beyond our control. |
We trust our senses and rational faculties as generally reliable in producing true beliefs. | A God of truth and rationality exists. | Because of our impulse to survive and reproduce, our beliefs would only help us survive, but a number of these could be false. |
Human beings have intrinsic value/dignity and rights. | God is the supremely valuable Being. | Human beings were produced by valueless processes. |
Objective moral values exist. | God’s character is the source of goodness/moral values. | The universe was produced by nonmoral processes. |
First life emerged. | God is a living, active Being. | Life somehow emerged from nonliving matter. |
Beauty exists (e.g., not only in landscapes but in “elegant” or “beautiful scientific theories). | God is beautiful (Ps. 27:4) and capable of creating beautiful things according to his pleasure. | Beauty in the natural world is superabundant and in many cases superfluous (often not linked to survival). |
The universe is finely tuned for human life (known as the “Goldilocks effect)—the universe is “just right” for life). | God is a wise, intelligent Designer. | All the cosmic constants just happened to be right; given enough time and/or many possible worlds, a finely tuned world eventually emerged. |
* Taken from Paul Copan, “A Moral Argument”
