Abstract

The thesis examines the natural theological enterprise of combining the separate evidence for theism into one cumulative case. I find that the cumulative approach represents the best available strategy for the natural theologian, but that the explanatory/interpretive form of cumulative argument cannot accomplish what some defenders of the argument have assumed. ;I begin with a short history of the cumulative approach, in which the emphasis is on giving the reader an idea of the great diversity among those cumulative arguments that have already been given. ;In Chapter 2, I discuss what I take to be some of the central logical aspects of the cumulative approach, such as the division of labor between the arguments in establishing distinct theistic claims. ;In Chapter 3, I consider two broad cumulative methods: the formalist approach, which involves applying a formal calculus of confirmation to the theistic evidence; and the informalist approach, according to which a formal apparatus is inadequate to capture the evidential force of various evidence. I find that particular reasons given to justify abandoning inverse-probability as a natural theological form of argument are uncompelling. ;In Chapter 4, I consider the prospects of using inverse-probability arguments to show that, on the total evidence, theism has higher epistemic probability than a naturalistic alternative, which I refer to as N. Given the difficulty in making assignments of prior probability based on the sole criterion of simplicity, and given the possibility of making the debate between the two views turn primarily on priors, the prospects for showing that N is untenable are dim. ;In the fifth Chapter I consider what I take to be a more fundamental problem with using natural theology in an offensive, as opposed to a merely defensive fashion. God's hiddenness is a fact typically explained by theists in ways that undermine natural theology used offensively. ;In the final chapter, I consider some issues connected with the philosophical defense of atheism, and the implications of my findings in Chapter 5 for how such a defense may be executed