This month I’m working on the fourth chapter of my thesis. This chapter deals with the issue of how new arguments for God are to be evaluated. For this chapter I have developed a 16-point checklist that can be used to evaluate an argument for God. Since this checklist might be useful to others (and can perhaps be improved in various ways), it is posted here below. I’m aware, of course, that on some matters (e.g. plausibility) opinions will differ more strongly than on others (e.g. form).
Checklist
- Form: Does the argument have an appropriate deductive, inductive or abductive form?
- Non-circularity: Is the argument non-circular, at least explicitly?
- Modesty: How modest are the premises of the argument?
- Plausibility: How plausible are the premises of the argument?
- Acceptability: Can the premises be accepted consistently by a non-theist? Can they be incorporated easily into a nontheistic belief system?
- Controversiality: How controversial are the argument’s premises? To what extent are they (already) disputed or rejected as false?
- Agreeability: How likely are people to agree with the premises if confronted with them?
- Belief: To what extent are the premises (already) believed by experts, non-theists and humanity generally?
- Scrutiny: To what extent has the argument faced and withstood critical scrutiny?
- Argumentative support: Are there arguments available in support of the premises? How good are these arguments?
- Objections: Are there objections available against the argument? How good are these objections?
- Relative goodness: Is the argument better than (many) other arguments for God?
- Persuasive power: Has the argument convinced people of its conclusion?
- Soundness: If the argument has an appropriate form, are all the premises true?
- Significance: Is the argument an argument for God in the primary sense (concludes that God exists) or in the secondary sense (supports the thesis that God exists)?
- Additional features: Does the argument have additional good-making features?
Mark J.A. Shaw 