Does theism have the burden of proof?

Question

I have heard that agnosticism seems to be the only position with respect to god that doesn’t have a burden of proof. What I find troubling about this is most people do not as a practical matter think they have no knowledge on whether 10,000 mermaids are surrounding them right now. They simply don’t believe it.

Why isn’t this the case for god? A further problem is in this. Let us suppose that there are many nonexistent entities. Presumably, there are an infinite number of them.

Isn’t it more rational to simply assume that an entity without evidence doesn’t exist rather than give them a small chance of existing. For starters, it is impossible to distinguish between an entity with no evidence and a nonexistent one. Secondly, this wouldn’t necessarily make you dogmatic. You can simply assume X doesn’t exist but change your mind if evidence came forth for X.

Should one do this for god if one finds no evidence?

Answer 1

First of all "the burden of proof" is a matter of "sportsmanship" not logic. Where the idea is that the person making a claim, demanding change or accusing someone of something is the one that has to defend their assertion. A similar principle can be found in a court of law with "in dubio pro reo" (when in doubt, in favour of the accused).

However that doesn't mean that it is better to remain stagnant, that the accused is not guilty or that the claim is false. It's just a matter of politeness and sportsmanship that acknowledges the fact that it's much easier to simply spout claims and allegations than it is to defend oneself against them and to debunk them. So for the sake of fairness in that regard the burden of proof is with the one making a claim. A similar logic applies to the believe in non-existent entities, it's easy to make them up it's virtually impossible to confirm/debunk them, so the burden of proof is placed on the side that is claiming their existence.

The other problem is that theism and atheism can only be formulated as universal truths. So either a god does exist or it doesn't, while the agnostic claim that "we can't know", can be formulated as a weaker "we can't know (yet)". And unlike the other two which have to rule out all the possible and impossible options how a god could or couldn't exist, the agnostic would just need to point to the status quo and cite both the theists and atheists arguments and their lack of conclusive evidence as evidence/reason for their own claim. So not only do they have a weaker burden of proof for a weaker argument, they're also somewhat able to comply with that.

Answer 2

It seems like the other answers so far, and the question itself, do not clarify what is meant by "God". The definition really matters.

If God is treated as an entity just like any other conceivable entity, like a tree, or a teapot around the sun, or 10,000 mermaids surrounding them, then sure, we can justify an approach that refuses to believe in its existence until we have evidence to support otherwise. We can use our experiences in life to shape some educated guesses about what kind of entities are extremely improbable to exist.

But God isn't just another entity among entities. Notably, the concept of "God" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. If we define God as a gigantic bearded old man living in the clouds, there are a lot of reasons why we might think of such an entity as unlikely to exist as the 10,000 mermaids in the question. A belief like that goes against our normal understanding of the way the universe works, and it's difficult to reconcile the two. But this is not the only understanding of "God" that exists.

What if we use the definition, like many believers do, that God is the original cause of all existence? In a universe where our experiences suggest that every effect comes about by a cause, it seems logical to wonder about some original uncaused cause from which all other causes and effects came about. If God is defined this way - and all other properties of God are deduced, rather than inserted into the definition - then it becomes a lot easier to understand why someone might place belief in God as the default position, and put the burden of proof on the atheist. Isn't it a simpler assumption to believe that a chain of cause-and-effect is finite, rather than going endlessly backward? If every other effect has a cause, why would the existence of the universe itself be the exception?

The point being made here is not that God must exist, or that this is the correct way to define God. The point is that not all entities are equal when it comes to assuming existence or non-existence by default. How the entity is defined matters.

Answer 3

A few, ex mea sententia, salient points:

1. A positive claim precedes a negative claim. The statement God exists comes before its negation that God does not exist. The onus probandi falls on the shoulders of theism.

2. Imagine a universe of 10¹⁰⁰ (googol) balls. You claim at least one ball is red (theism, one thing is god) . You wouldn't have made that claim if you hadn't seen a red ball. Now come to someone who wants to say none of the balls are red (atheism, nothing is god). They would have to check each one of those googol balls, one by one, in order to demonstrate that none of the balls are red. Which is easier? I think this problem regarding proofs goes by the name you can't prove a negative which is hyperbole for it's more difficult to prove a negative. Theism has the burden of proof.

Answer 4

It is unreasonable to expect people to accept that you have arrived at a conclusion as the result of a rational process without giving them the opportunity to evaluate that process. The expectation that your claim should be accepted as reasonable is what incurs a burden of proof, and upholding that burden means demonstrating to a competent person that your rational process does not contain any fundamental errors that would prevent your conclusion from being given the benefit of the doubt.

When considering a claim for which you have no evidence (whatever that means) it would be a fundamental error to assume that assigning a probability of zero is equivalent to not assigning probability. Since it is "more rational" by definition not to assign probabilities arbitrarily, the answer to the question within your question is no.

Insofar as theism (or agnosticism) is presented as being worthy of belief (or unbelief), the person presenting it as such incurs a burden of proof.

Answer 5

It depends on the statement being made.

As Haxor correctly notes, "burden of proof" is not a concept of pure logic but is more something that is used for fairness and convention. (Nb: Burden of proof has very specific definitions in law and the contours are both complex and vary by jurisdiction.) Under standard conventions, the party making a claim generally has the burden of proving it.

A theist as the term is usually defined must be asserting that there is a god of some kind. When the theist advances this claim, as the advancing party they have the burden of proving it.

Atheism has a slightly more nebulous definition. It is usually defined as someone who does not believe in a god. If the atheist states this as "There is no evidence for the existence of a god, therefore I do not believe in it" then the burden of proof remains firmly with the theists to bring forth evidence or argument.

However, there are some atheists who wish to go beyond this. They wish to advance the affirmative statement there is no god. At that point, they accept the burden of proof by making a claim.

Some might argue that it is impossible to prove a negative. But this is obviously not true. There are lots of areas where you can affirmatively prove a negative and other areas where you can advance strong evidence to show the nonexistence of something. It is trivially easy to prove that there is no even prime greater than or equal to 3 in the set of natural numbers.

One can advance genuine arguments for why there are no six legged species of mammals. Those arguments stop short of formal proof, but biologists can and do produce arguments that show that such a species should not exist on earth. While short of logical proof (which is rarely possible outside of mathematics and certain types of philosophy), it meets any reasonable conception of crossing the burden of proof to show that we will never find a mammalian species with six limbs no matter how thoroughly we search the Earth. (Rare individuals with congenital abnormalities notwithstanding).

Answer 6

Isn’t it more rational to simply assume that an entity without evidence doesn’t exist rather than give them a small chance of existing.

It is still possible that such entity does exist. Likelihood is potentially incredibly small, but it is never zero. Now, it seems that you are rounding the probability down to exactly zero, saying it is a rational thing to do.

If it was just about your own personal belief, you can do this, but if you are going to discuss the subject or even debate, this is not acceptable.

However, if your position is that you don't know, what else can you say about it? You just don't know. There is no claim to prove, so there is no burden of proof either. (Unless you are accused of lying about your position on the subject, but that is an entirely different matter, and not related to the subject at hand at all.)

Answer 7

The theist unquestionably has the burden of proof. When we have tried looking for evidence of god, we failed to find it. You cannot just ignore the history of how we proposed godly explanations for things we didn’t understand and found naturalistic causes instead.

Hypotheses for immaterial gods weren’t conceived of from scratch. Many were conceived of ad hoc, knowingly or unknowingly, because we never interacted with a physical kind of god or seen evidence of it. God isn’t hidden because He is testing us or because He is an entity that we conveniently “can’t understand.” God is conceived to be hidden or vague enough to not understand because we never found evidence of Him.

The philosopher who states that the agnostic is the only one without the burden of proof because god can’t be disproved must then be a perennial skeptic. But of course, these “philosophers” usually limit their skepticism to god while going on about their day believing in things like “planes fly” or “cars run because of engines” even though those claims can’t be proven “without doubt” any more than the claim “god doesn’t exist.”

Answer 8

I have heard that agnosticism seems to be the only position with respect to god that doesn’t have a burden of proof. What I find troubling about this is most people do not as a practical matter think they have no knowledge on whether 10,000 mermaids are surrounding them right now. They simply don’t believe it.

There, you seem to be using "agnosticism" in the sense of having no belief either for or against the existence of God (or of gods, if you prefer). That is the definition I would use, too. This position does not require proof and is not open to disproof because it does not assert any proposition. In that sense, it has no burden of proof. The same is not true of any theistic belief. I would say it is not true of atheism, either, but some who claim to be atheist take positions that I would characterize as agnostic, myself.

Why isn’t this the case for god?

I don't believe I am surrounded by 10,000 mermaids because I think that if I were, I would perceive them. The same is not necessarily true of God. A person can rationally refuse to take a position on the existence of God based in part on a belief that they would not perceive God whether He exists or not. This is in line the ideas of gods that many people hold.

A further problem is in this. Let us suppose that there are many nonexistent entities. Presumably, there are an infinite number of them.

I guess by "there are" you mean something along the lines of "we can imagine".

Isn’t it more rational to simply assume that an entity without evidence doesn’t exist rather than give them a small chance of existing.

This has nothing in particular to do with agnosticism. Assuming is not the same has holding a belief, and assuming something does not exist is not inconsistent with allowing a small chance that it actually does exist.

For starters, it is impossible to distinguish between an entity with no evidence and a nonexistent one.

Well yes, I would take that to follow fairly directly from the definition of "evidence". But what does that have to do with belief? You seem to be working from an unspoken premise along the lines of "we should disbelieve that for which we have no evidence", but that is not sound.

Consider: I have no evidence of extraterrestrial life. Is it then rational for me to affirmatively believe that there is no life in the universe other than that which originated from the Earth? No. Extraterrestrial life might or might not exist, and I submit that the most rational belief to hold on the question is no belief either way.

Now, if we were to instead tweak our rule to "we should not believe that for which we have no evidence" then what problem does that present for agnosticism? The agnostic does not believe in God. Neither do they disbelieve, but that's irrelevant to the rule.

In practice, of course, people do not necessarily accept even the revised rule, and I think you would have trouble justifying it other than as an axiom (i.e. something you believe without evidence).

Secondly, this wouldn’t necessarily make you dogmatic. You can simply assume X doesn’t exist but change your mind if evidence came forth for X.

I have no idea how dogmatism comes into the picture, but again, assumption is not the same as belief. In practice, I think most agnostics do live day to day as if God does not exist, which is something like your "assume [God] doesn't exist". I think many would be prepared to consider evidence of God if it were presented to them. And those who would reject such evidence without consideration would be better characterized as atheist. So again, where's the problem with agnosticism?

Answer 9

I shall herewith make the case that the burden of proof falls, in fact, on the atheist.

Let me begin by noting that the way we, as humans, assess the burden-of-proof question in the first place is not only by engaging our intellect. Rather, intuition - or, an inherent claim to certainty/knowledge - is another aspect that we actively use to come to conclusions.

Now, since the overwhelming majority of humanity - throughout space and time, and independently of each other - based on using both intellect and intuition, have always been and still are in agreement with regard to the existence of at least one Almighty God, and since you are a member of that same group, the burden of proof falls on you to prove otherwise.

If the same was the case with regard to the 10000 mermaids example that you cited, then likewise the burden of proof would fall on you.

Answer 10

All claims about the world are "positive", so there is no intrinsic "advantage" or greater likelihood for any of them, prior to the provision of justification. This is true of God claims, or any other kind of claims.

Justifying a claim is to attempt to satisfy a "burden of proof". However, no empirical question, and "what is the nature of our world" IS an empirical question, can be "proven", only supported to a greater or lesser degree. Therefore a "proof" is never possible, only some degree of support.

Relative to the existence of any entity, there are four basic types of claims one can make relative to it: Entity A exists, entity A does not exist, we do not yet know enough to render a judgement on existence/non-existence, or there is some feature of entity A that renders the evaluation of its existence/nonexistence impossible.

Therefore, like for all other clams about our world, God claims for: existence, nonexistence, current ignorance, or perpetual ignorance -- ALL such claims have an equal "burden of proof".