JAMES ROBERT PIERCE
Knowledge/Athesim
04-29-91

	  Knowledge of God

	  Countless Christians have offered  me what they consider  to be a
	 cogent demonstration of the folly of atheism.  In particular, they
	 have argued that atheism  involves what they call  a fallcy from a
	 universal negative.  This so-called fallacy  entails the idea that
	 it is fallacious  to affirm the  truth of some  universal negative
	 proposition like  "there is  no  god."  Specifically, the  fallacy
	 occurs when one  affirms the truth   of a proposition  which would
	 appear to require that one be  omniscient and omnipresent in order
	 to know its truth value.

	  The above  reasoning stems   from articles  like those   found in
	 Christian Research Institute's  publications on how  to witness to
	 atheists.  I should advise theists that  as a reasoning person and
	 as an atheist, the above argument does not hold water.  Why?

	  The argument in  support of the  universal negative fallacy  goes
	 something like this: 1) there are  aspects of reality not known to
	 finite beings; 2) atheists are  finite beings; 3) therefore, there
	 are aspects  of reality  not known  to atheists.   4) In  order to
	 have  all  knowledge   one  would  need   to  be  omniscient   and
	 omnipresent;  5)   finite  beings    are  neither   omniscient  or
	 omnipresent; 6) therefore,  finite beings are  incapable of having
	 all knowledge.

	  I think the above  fairly represents arguments in  support of the
	 "universal  negative   fallacy."  However,    the  arguments   are
	 problematic.  For instance,  if there are  aspects of reality  not
	 known to us,  then we are  faced  with the  task of answering  the
	 skeptic who claims  there are no   aspects of reality  that can be
	 known.  Also, if  the Christian wants  to hold the  atheist to the
	 above arguments,  then  the  christian is   faced with  a  similar
	 problem; that is, if the proposition  "there is a god" is included
	 in the set of  all true propositions which  are to be part  of the
	 universe, then it follows that the proposition "there is a god" is
	 a contingent truth, i.e.  it is possible  that we do not know that
	 it is a true  proposition, since there are  aspects of reality not
	 known to us.  In fact, to know  the truth of the given proposition
	 a finite being would need to be omniscient and omnipresent.  Thus,
	 to hold the atheist to the aforementioned arguments would mean the
	 demise of theism, since it would not be possible to have knowledge
	 of a god.

	  However, I  think the  "universal negative  fallacy" invented  by
	 theists is just a false assertion.  The atheist is not required to
	 search the voids of  knowledge in order to  provide an affirmative
	 explanation as to why there is  no god.  The proposition "there is
	 no god" is  a conclusion drawn   from arguments which  support it.
	 The arguments  are derived  from the  pool of  knowledge that  all
	 finite beings   have.  It   is not   intelligible to   assert that
	 atheists cannot conclude  there is no   god since they  don't know
	 everything: this is like claiming  that one can't conclude squares
	 have four sides if they don't know geometry exhaustively.

	  By  using  the  aforementioned  arguments  against  atheism,  the
	 christian creates more problems  than solutions.  Furthermore, the
	 so-called "universal  negative fallacy"   is not  intelligible.  I
	 hope this  article can  save the  theist from  venturing into  the
	 problems I   have briefly   outlined.  Remember,   the affirmative
	 position of any  position must shoulder   the burden of  proof: if
	 anyone is to prove  the existence of god  it will be the  theist's
	 burden; not the atheist's.
