Strong atheism

Strong atheism is the position that there is no God or other gods, and that there is persuasive reason and/or evidence to support this conclusion.

Arguments for strong atheism can be divided into the following categories:

• Semantic apologetics: Asserting that the concepts underlying theism (e.g. "God") are meaningless, such that theism is meaningless, and therefore untrue.
• Incoherency apologetics: Asserting that the attributes of God are logically incoherent and/or self-contradictory, such that a God with those characteristics is a logical impossibility, and therefore untrue.
• Materialist apologists: Assering that because materialism is inherent to the human experience and theism contradicts materialism, it is untrue.

Semantic apologetics

Semantic apologetics for atheism centers around criticism of the words used to describe God.

For example, a strong atheist might criticize the assertion "God transcends space and time" by asking what exactly the believer means by saying that. If the believer is unable to explain what he means, the strong atheist would conclude "You don't know what you are talking about; therefore your statement carries no meaning; therefore you are not justified in believing it."

As strong Atheist George Smith wrote:

"To say that an ‘unie’ possesses wisdom in proportion to its nature—while stipulating that such wisdom is different in kind from man’s wisdom and that the nature of an ‘unie’ is unknowable—contributes nothing to our understanding of ‘unie’ or to the meaning of the attributes when applied to an ‘unie.’ ... To say that God is ‘good’ or ‘wise’ is to say nothing more then some unknowable being possesses some unknown qualities in an unknowable way." George Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1979), Chapter 3.

A theist might respond to this line of reasoning by challenging as non sequitor the argument that "because you cannot comprehensively explain what you mean, then you are unjustified in believing it." Children commonly repeat what they are told by their parents without fully understanding what the sentences mean. That does not make them unjustified in believing that what their parents say is true. And it certainly does not make the sentences themselves false. When a theist holds a position he does not fully understand, he does so based on his faith that the statement is true, based on the credibility of his source. In other words, if God in all His glory sat down with the believer and said, "I transcend space and time without explaining it," the believer could reasonably accept the conclusion based on the credibility of God, even without understanding it. Further, the fact that the believer did not fully understand what the phrase meant would certainly not stand as proof that the statement itself was false. Thus, while this argument stands as a warning against casually using language without assigning definite meaning to our words, it certainly does not prove that the God about whom these words are spoken does not exist.

Incoherency apologetics

Incoherency apologetics for strong atheism centers around alleged contradictions in the attributes of God.

The most common brand of incoherency apologetics is the problem of evil. The argument states that if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, then there should be no evil in the world, because God knows of the evil, could stop it, and would want to. Therefore either God does not have one or more of the alleged attributes, or does not exist at all. Either way, the God does not exist as believed.

There are two theistic responses to this argument: theodicy and open theism. Theodicy is the effort to reconcile the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence with the existence of evil in the world. Open theism is the belief that while God exists, he is not omnipotent, omniscient, or omnibenevolent.

Materialist apologetics

Materialist apologetics centers around allegations that materialism is necessary to reason, that theism necessarily contradicts materialism, and that because theism contradicts something that is necessary for reason, reason must reject theism.

For example, strong Atheist Michael Martin wrote:

"Consider science. It presupposes the uniformity of nature: that natural laws govern the world and that there are no violations of such laws. However, Christianity presupposes that there are miracles in which natural laws are violated. Since to make sense of science one must assume that there are no miracles, one must further assume that Christianity is false. To put this in a different way: Miracles by definition are violations of laws of nature that can only be explained by God's intervention. Yet science assumes that insofar as an event as an explanation at all, it has a scientific explanation--one that does not presuppose God [2]. Thus, doing, science assumes that the Christian world view is false." Michael Martin, The Transcendental Argument for the Nonexistence of God, New Zealand Rationalist & Humanist, Autumn 1996.

A theist might respond by challenging Mr. Martin's definitions of "the world" (or more properly, "the universe,") "science," and "miracle."

First, since the word "universe" means "everything," then the universe must be defined to include both God and God's creation, include to include the "everything" included in the term. To say that God is outside "the universe" is to say, by definition, that he is outside "everything that exists," and therefore does not exist.

Second, since miracles are events caused by God and God is necessarily part of the "universe," then miracles should not be seen as violations of the laws of nature, but rather interactions with them by their creator.

Finally, since science is the human effort to study the universe, it must be defined broadly enough to account for all events that occur within the universe, even those commonly described as "miracles." If miracles occur, then science should study them. If they do not occur, then they are no different than any other false assertion about reality. But it is illogical to hold that science precludes the possibility of miracles, when what we define as miracles may be fully consistent with the laws of nature as understood by their Creator.

The theist might conclude that since Mr. Martin's argument rests on such inadequate definitions of the universe, science, and miracles, they do not even begin to challenge a robust theism.