God’s existence: Who bears the burden of proof?

However many times I don my wig and gown, ready to conduct a trial, one thing still surprises me. It’s the amount that I find myself arguing with the opposing barrister in front of an increasingly exasperated judge about who has the burden of proving their case. To be fair, most of the time it’s pretty obvious. This is because the key principle in the English courts is that if you assert something, it is up to you to prove it. After all, it’s famously difficult to prove a negative – to prove that you didn’t tamper with the electricity meter, that your house isn’t haunted, that you weren’t flirting with the woman next door.

Likewise those who debate the question of God’s existence can find that they hardly get started before they become stuck on the question of who bears the burden of proof. If you apply the approach of the courts, it may appear to be quite straight forward: If a believer asserts that there is a god, the burden must be on him to prove it. The philosopher Bertrand Russell famously illustrated this by saying that if he believed that a flying teapot orbited the earth, he could hardly expect that the burden should be on others to disprove it.

Click for larger version. Image:burdenofproof.co.uk

So how do believers justify their claim that it is the atheists who must assume the burden of proof by establishing that there is no god? The answer is by adopting another principle which is often applied in English courts.

Sometimes the courts will reverse the burden of proof where the evidence in favour of a proposition is so suggestive, that whoever denies it is required to prove their case. For instance, imagine that a little old granny mortgages her house so that she can borrow a huge sum of money to fund her adult grandson’s illegal drug-dealing business. In any court proceedings, the lady wouldn’t have to prove that her grandson exerted undue influence on her. Rather the circumstances are so suggestive that the court would require him to prove that he did not force her hand.

Many Christians apply the same kind of argument to try to reverse the burden of proof. In particular they believe that the world is such a wondrous place that it is inconceivable that a god has not created it. Just look around you, they say. How can you say that there isn’t a god who created all of this beauty?

The problem with this argument is that whether the world and the universe are so impressive as to postulate a creator is an instinctive reaction issue. What I mean by this is that as soon as someone makes this point, you will instinctively agree or disagree. And no amount of argument will change your mind. An atheist will find the argument to be faintly ridiculous. Yet most dedicated believers think that the solar system is so impressive that it is obvious that God must have created it; and that an atheist who says otherwise is being disingenuous, arguing against what she knows deep down to be true.

Why do believers think this? It is partly because the bible tells them that it’s true. According to Psalm 19 v. 1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies declare His handiwork.” In a similar vein, Psalm 14 v. 1 rather provocatively proclaims, “The fool hath said in his heart ‘There is no God’”. When their holy book – the Word of God, no less – tells believers these things, it’s hardly a surprise that they embrace them and consider that God’s existence falls into the category of the blindingly obvious. A believer would be doubting God’s Word if he accepted that the creator’s existence doesn’t necessarily become self-evident no matter how long someone stares up at the moon.

But believers cannot justify trying to transfer the burden of proof in this way. Some people will look up at the skies and conclude that only a god of some sort could have created them. Even Thomas Paine thought that. But if it wasn’t for these bold biblical proclamations, the experience of most believers would surely tell them that it is perfectly clear that not everyone is persuaded of God’s existence so easily. In fact, if the bible hadn’t made the claim in the first place, the idea would surely beggar belief even to most believers. So, can one or two lines in the bible justify the reversal of the burden of proof?

If we are trying to prove whether there is a god, it is not just god’s existence which is on trial; it is also the bible. And so, an exhortation in that very bible cannot be validly advanced to influence where the burden of proof should lie.

And so the position must remain: If you say that there is a god, prove it.

When the cosmologist Carl Sagan was asked whether he was an atheist he replied, “An atheist has to know a lot more than I know.” Bearing in mind that Isaac Asimov described Sagan as one of only two people he had ever met whose intellect surpassed his own, the bar appears to be raised quite high in order for anyone to assume the mantle of atheism. Yet that probably misses the point. Most atheists don’t believe that they know so much that they can say for sure that there isn’t a single fact which can demonstrate God’s existence. They certainly don’t need to think that. All that an atheist needs to say is that so far, believers have not discharged the burden of proof which is upon them to show that the celestial being in whom they believe does in fact exist.

Besides, spare a thought for the Charismatic Christian phenomenon of speaking in tongues. The New Testament explains that it is the Holy Spirit – the oft-forgotten member of the Holy Trinity – who gifts the ability to praise God by speaking in the tongues of angels. He supposedly grants this spiritual gift because earthly languages are too limited in their vocabulary to adequately express God’s wondrous majesty. I find it difficult to imagine a Charismatic Christian, palms turned heavenward and eyes tight shut, praising God in the tongues of angels – and crucially not having a clue whether God exists but feeling that the burden of proof should be on atheists.

The final question is whether believers have discharged the burden of proving that there is a god. But that’s a question for a different day.

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