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OB J E C T I NG TO GOD

The growth of science, and a correspondingly scientiﬁc way of look-

ing at evidence, have for the last three centuries slowly been gaining

ground over religious explanations of the cosmos and mankind’s place

in it. However, not only is secularism now under renewed attack from

religious fundamentalism, but also it has been widely claimed that

the scientiﬁc evidence itself points strongly to a universe deliberately

ﬁne-tuned for life to evolve in it. In addition, certain aspects of human

life, like consciousness and the ability to recognise the existence of

universal moral standards, seem completely resistant to evolutionary

explanation. In this book Colin Howson analyses in detail the evi-

dence which is claimed to support belief in God’s existence, and argues

that the claim is not well founded. Moreover, there is very compelling

evidence that an all-powerful, all-knowing God not only does not

exist but cannot exist, a conclusion both surprising and provocative.

colin howson

is Professor of Philosophy at the University of

Toronto, and Emeritus Professor, London School of Economics and

Political Science. He is the author of

Hume’s Problem: Induction and

the Justiﬁcation of Belief

(2000),

Logic with Trees

(1997) and, with

Peter Urbach,

Scientiﬁc Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach

(3rd edition,

2006).

OBJECTING TO GOD

COLIN HOW SON

University of Toronto