The Miracle of Theism

A careful, even-handed survey of the main arguments for and against the existence of God, published in 1982, shortly after Mackie's death. Its title comes from Hume, who remarked with irony that anyone moved by faith to believe in Christianity is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person. Mackie begins with Hume on miracles and testimony, then examines in turn Descartes's idea of God, ontological arguments from Anselm to Plantinga's modal version, Berkeley's God, cosmological arguments including Leibniz's and the kalam argument, moral arguments, the argument from consciousness and the argument from design. He gives careful attention to Swinburne's probabilistic case for theism. He restates the problem of evil, judging the free will defence inadequate, weighs religious experience against natural histories of religion, and considers attempts to believe without reason, from Pascal's wager and William James to Kierkegaard. He concludes that the balance of probabilities comes out strongly against the existence of God.

It remains a standard philosophical case for atheism, fair to the other side, and a clear map of all the classical arguments in a single volume.