Without meaning to offend anyone, I really have to ask why a philosophical magazine would publish absurd slop such as the "A Critique of Pure Atheism" by Andrew Likoudis, or at least, publish it without response or reply.
1. There is no argument; there is only assertion. Likoudis may not be responsible for the subtitle that references popular atheist arguments, but there is nothing here that an atheist would recognize as their own.
2. There is no explanation of what the apparent target "pure atheism" is, or who takes this view.
3. "Extreme skepticism" (which is attributed to the Enlightenment though any position taken by them was already taken by ancient and classical philosophers) is not specified and is probably incoherent: skepticism is nothing more than the practice of seeking reasons or evidence for one's beliefs so there is no meaningfully "extreme" version of it.
4. Likoudis asserts the transcendence of God ("wholly other") in order to disqualify and escape empirical scrutiny, but nevertheless goes on to happily make claims about that God without explaining how one overcomes the transcendent wholly otherness of that God.
5. Having dis-ed the applicability of empirical evidence, Likoudis later suggests that "historical evidence" can help answer the question of God's existence, as in the resurrection of Jesus. Never mind that historical evidence could only confirm that there were stories of Jesus's resurrection, what is historical evidence if not "empirical"?
6. As "purely rational" proof of God's existence, Likoudis offers up a shortlist consisting of the "moral, cosmological, or ontological arguments". The cosmological argument(s) invariably start with noting some empirical fact about the cosmos. Moral arguments desperately avoid facts about morality and construct fantasy systems of morality no human being has ever practiced. Only ontological arguments come close the being purely rational.
7. The closest thing to an argument is the attempt to shift the burden of proof to the atheist: Likoudis references "scientism", which can be defined as the exclusive reliance on science for knowledge. But no one has ever provided a credible alternative to science and neither does Likoudis, so throwing around the accusation of scientism only serves to illicitly place the burden of proof on the atheist.
8. Likoudis articulates the fallacious view that agnosticism is somehow a more acceptable position than atheism, but this is wrong: there are two issues here, one of belief and one of knowledge, and given that knowledge is a subset of belief, they are not mutually exclusive. Hence, someone, such as myself, can be an agnostic atheist, as in "I have neither knowledge nor belief in a God". Whether or not one admits the possibility of a God is a third unrelated issue: it depends on conceiving of God without internal contradiction in the claims made of that God.
9. Likoudis insists on rational proof of God's existence (though in this article only alludes to there being such arguments "somewhere") but does not explain how reason alone can demonstrate the existence of anything. No reason given on its own can tell me what is in the next room, if I haven't already experienced what is there.
10. Likoudis finally describes favorably a process of taking assertions for granted without asking for proof or evidence, attributing it to Newman as the "illative sense", and notes that we use this process regularly and successfully. This may be so, but it is also the means by which con-men so easily suck in the unsuspecting. Further, it is possible to discover when we go wrong in relying on this process, something for which religious belief never allows.
There is nothing here at all that religious hacks have not asserted ad nauseum. I don't know if the religious can do any better than this, but if Philosophy Now can't, that truly is a shame.
"Pure Atheism"
Re: "Pure Atheism"
We try to cover all viewpoints. We put this out there so people could respond to it, and I am glad to say that the Letters page of our new issue (Issue 166, which is now being printed) contains a number of good responses.