Excerpts from R. Newberger’s "36 Arguments for the Existence of God"

[Joe Carillo]

In a new novel that provocatively blends fiction and nonfiction, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein essays her thoughts about what is perhaps the longest running argument in human history: Is there a God that’s omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent? Through the character Cass Seltzer, a psychologist who has become a celebrity by writing a book that explains “how irrelevant the belief in God can be to religious experience,” Goldstein boldly takes on the ambitious God-existence theme by crossing over into the realm of fiction.

The third-culture web magazine Edge, in a recent edition, presents an excerpt from the first chapter of Goldstein’s book along with its nonfiction appendix where she presents the 36 arguments for the existence of God, then points out one by one what she contends are the flaws in those arguments. 

Read the review in Edge of the 36 Arguments for the Existence of God now!

[kanajlo]

There is one excellent argument for the non-existence of a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent God. It is known as theodicy. People suffer in this world for no apparent reason. Such living things as parasites exist to increase that suffering. If God made all life, then he finds the malarial parasite as important as the human being. Bart Ehrman just wrote a book, God's Problem. It is indeed a problem if we are to assume the existence of a loving God.