The reasons for atheism

Author: Miguel Pérez de Laborda
Date of publication: Pamplona, 18 March 2014

Professor Miguel Pérez de Laborda is Full Professor of Metaphysics at School of Philosophy of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.

summaryAtheism bases its denial of God on various types of arguments. Normally they are a posteriori arguments, in which the aim is to prove that the existence of God is incompatible with some known phenomenon (evil or human freedom, for example). At other times, the strategy is indirect: it seeks to "unmask" the origin of the idea of God, that is, to discover why man "created God". But these "reasons" often mask less rational "motives": a claim to freedom that is thought to be achieved by declaring God non-existent and thus freeing oneself from his "dominion".