Some atheists seem to think that a sufficient reason for atheism is the fact (as they say) that we no longer need God to explain natural phenomena—lightning and thunder for example. We now have science.

Another quote →

Source, in full

As a justification of atheism, this is pretty lame. We no longer need the moon to explain or account for lunacy; it hardly follows that belief in the nonexistence of the moon (a-moonism?) is justified. A-moonism on this ground would be sensible only if the sole ground for belief in the existence of the moon was its explanatory power with respect to lunacy. (And even so, the justified attitude would be agnosticism with respect to the moon, not a-moonism.) The same thing goes with belief in God: Atheism on this sort of basis would be justified only if the explanatory power of theism were the only reason for belief in God. And even then, agnosticism would be the justified attitude, not atheism.

Notes from Wikiquote

Quoted in Amy K. Hall, Plantinga Interview: Is Atheism Irrational?, Stand to Reason, 2 December 2014.

More quotes by Alvin Plantinga

All Alvin Plantinga quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alvin Plantinga (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.