Madam, - The tone of many of the letters responding to Prof William Reville's defence of religious belief is shrill, contemptuous and dismissive. If that is the attitude of non-religious to religious persons when the latter speak of why it seems reasonable to them to believe, what hope is there of civilised dialogue? Is a pluralist spirit required only of persons of faith?
Morgan Stack (August 28th) finds it "breathtaking in its audacity" to claim, as Prof Reville does, that if one judged Jesus to be sane, his teaching persuasive, and following it beneficial, one would be acting reasonably in accepting his testimony about God.
But would Mr Stack not accept that, if one judged Jesus insane and his teaching dangerous, it would be reasonable to reject his testimony about God? The logical principle is the same in the two cases. Further, they are mutually consistent: anybody, atheist or Christian, could accept both statements as true.
Prof Reville's critics confuse the claim to prove God's existence with the claim that it is reasonable to believe in God. They're not the same.
Proof requires a high standard, establishing that the balance of probabilities strongly supports God's existence, clearly outweighing arguments on the atheist side.
A claim that a belief is reasonable requires much less, and need not imply that the opposite belief must be false.
When a jury cannot agree on a verdict, each side has reasons for its position, and usually recognises that the other side is not unreasonable.
Likewise, one might think it reasonable to believe in God, and simultaneously recognise that atheists may also be acting reasonably in believing that there is no God, if one judges that there is some evidence on both sides.
One wonders how Ann James knows that, not merely is there no God, but there isn't even any evidence, however small, that there is a God. That's quite a claim. Unlike Prof Reville, she offers no argument in support: I suppose we are meant to take her claim on faith.
Morgan Stack makes the startling claim that the church "argued against the existence of a spherical earth, continues to argue against evolution, and refuses to recognise quantum physics". I would love to hear where in official church documents he found endorsement of a flat earth and refusal to "recognise" quantum physics.
Perhaps he's confusing some pope with Einstein, who rejected the dominant quantum physical theories of his day?
In the case of evolution, statements of Pius XII in 1950 and John Paul II in 1996 indicate that the church does not reject Darwinian evolution.
It is odd that people, especially non-believers, should want church endorsement of particular scientific theories before they feel secure in holding them. - Yours, etc,
Dr SÉAMUS MURPHY SJ, Lecturer in logic, Milltown Institute, Dublin 6.