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Preliminary Considerations
In contrast to the motivation that stimulated the three foregoing
types of criticism, the express intention of the naturalistic approach
to argumentative theism is that of destroying altogether
the validity of the idea that any Supreme Being exists precisely
in the sense we have suggested. Although many such critics are
brilliant exponents of religion qua religion, they deny that God
has any ontological existence except as an idea in the mind of
the religious devotee. The method of the destructive attack
consists in considering the argument in piecemeal fashion, picking
away one implicate after another until every frame of reference
for theism is eliminated, just as an ex eventually fells a
tree by cutting out one chip at a time. Carl F. H. Henry, referring
particularly to the teleological argument, aptly characterizes
this approach when he comments: "Everywhere the edge of
the argument was blunted by the naturalists, who overexercised
Occam's razor by whittling away every point of reference for
design and purpose other than evolutionary process." (Footnote
1: The Protestant Dilemma, p. 34.)
Our formulation up to this point has already anticipated and
answered the vast bulk of these objections en masse: where detailed
consideration has already been granted to a particular objection,
only a brief summary criticism will appear. In the
sequel, an attempt has been made to summarize all the major
objections that have been brought against the structure of theistic
argumentation: but only such objections as apply to a correctly
constructed argument will be considered. I certainly
think it no part of my task to defend every formulation of argumentative
theism that has ever been propounded [[279]] from
a philosopher's desk. Not all the spokesmen cited are philosophical
naturalists in the strict sense, but all attempt to undermine
the rational case for theism as built upon the foundations