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The Six Ways of Atheism
Recensie, Bijdragen, 17-06-10
"Berg believes the case for atheism has never been put in as forceful and logically cogent a way as it merits, least of all by the great philosophers. In this book he sets out to remedy that by strengthening some traditional atheistic arguments and by initiating some new logical arguments for atheism." This quotation is part of the back cover text of The Six Ways of Atheism. And because the author is his own publisher, he speaks about himself and his 'logical' endeavor. His arguments against God and against those who believe in a Supreme Being are not as new as Berg claims, they are more of less poorly conducted reworkings or extrapolations of the ideas of other atheistic thinkers in the (near) past.
 To give an example of Berg's manner of arguing, I will summarize one of his 'proofs against God', the 'Universal Uncertainty Argument': "Everything in the Universe must be fundamentally uncertain about his own relationship to the Universe as a whole because there is no way of attaining such certainty. Therefore even an entity with all God's qualities cannot have the final quality of certain knowledge concerning its own relationship to the Universe as a whole. Therefore God cannot exist because even any potential God cannot know for sure that it is God" (summary at p. 175) As a careful observer will agree Berg makes himself guilty of a petitio principii-fallacy (circular reasoning).
It is beyond the scope of this review to deconstruct Berg's twisted thoughts which he hides underneath a cloud of pseudo-logical phrases about the logical impossibility of God's existence, a topic which nevertheless more than deserves to be discussed by philosophers and theologians. One might question the decision to include The Six Ways in this review section, but it is very illustrative for a certain branch of atheistic thought, namely a kind of metaphysical reductionism.
Originally, materialistic reductionism began as a methodological instrument: valid opinions within the natural sciences could only be expressed about the empirical, tangible and measurable world. This reductionism developed itself in the mind of some more modern adapts into a criterion for any knowledge: only the empirical is knowable. The third step in this historical process turned this reductionism into a metaphysical one: if it is not empirical knowable, it does not exist at all.
It is this kind of Metaphysical Materialistic Reductionism Berg applies to his question about the existence of God. As long as one thinks about God in empirical terms, all efforts to reach some kind of agreement or at least some form of dialogue with 'believers' are futile. Most believers will hold that one of the (philosophical) aspects of a Supreme Being is its non-empiral status. Radical atheists like Berg are intellectually unable to see beyond there own (radically small) axioms.
Geoffrey Berg, The Six Ways of Atheism. New Logical Disproofs of the Existence of God, s.l., Geoffrey H.I. Berg (2009), ISBN 978-0-9543956-6-7, 13 x 20, 175 p., no fixed price.
Bron: Deze recensie is gepubliceerd in het wetenschappelijk tijdschrijft Bijdragen 70 (2009, nr. 3),
p. 482-483.
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