Evidence for God

Creationists and religious apologists will often present inductive arguments and refer to them as evidence. An atheist might say "Where's the evidence for God?" and the apologist response is usually some philosophy from Thomas Aquinas such as the cosmological argument.  And it can be very difficult to explain to an apologist that such an argument is not evidence.

Perhaps if the apologist was charged with a crime and his defence lawyer was Plato who only offered a philosophical argument as evidence, the apologist would get the idea. Anyway, let's try and pin down what we mean by evidence...

If two people are going to debate an idea which requires evidence then the word "evidence" should be defined. Both could agree on a loose definition, but then both sides could use loose and vague arguments. So a rigorous definition agreed by both sides should help to produce a rigorous and fair debate. At the same time we don't want to be so rigorous that the definition applies only to a specialism such as law or science. So I'm going to use the concise OED for my definitions.

Evidence: The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid

Fact: A thing that is known or proved to be true

Information: Facts provided or learned about something or someone

Verification: The process of establishing the truth, accuracy or validity of something. 

Now let's examine the differences between inductive and deductive reasoning, for which I think it's reasonable to use the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy

An inductive logic is a system of evidential support that extends deductive logic to less-than-certain inferences.

For valid deductive arguments the premises logically entail the conclusion, where the entailment means that the truth of the premises provides a guarantee of the truth of the conclusion.

Similarly, in a good inductive argument the premises should provide some degree of support for the conclusion, where such support means that the truth of the premises indicates with some degree of strength that the conclusion is true.

And here is some more detail

The conclusion of a deductive argument is supposed to be certain, but the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument is supposed to be probable, based upon the evidence given.  An inductive argument can never give certainty.

The conclusion of an inductive argument has content that goes beyond the content of its premises.

A correct inductive argument may have true premises and a false conclusion. Induction is not necessarily truth preserving.

New premises may completely undermine a strong inductive argument. Induction is not erosion-proof.

Inductive arguments come in different degrees of strength. In some inductions, the premises support the conclusions more strongly than in others.


The big difference between a religious apologist approach to explaining reality and my approach is that I use inductive reasoning AND deductive reasoning - it's a circular process - from theory to observations and from observation to theory.

And let's also be clear that a theory is the best current explanation for a phenomenon. It's a tested hypothesis.

So to summarise: a religious apologist will present an inductive argument which can at best provide a probable answer but no certainty. And when I say "at best" that means the inductive argument must be flawless. 

The problem with the standard inductive arguments for God is that they are flawed, and therefore they don't even provide a probable answer.

Quackery

A religious apologist argues that an inductive argument is evidence and multiple inductive arguments provide stronger evidence than one inductive argument. Which makes me wonder if he would accept multiple inductive arguments for the existence of the universe, so I ask him...

I realise you consider inductive arguments qualify as evidence but I don't. That's why your world view is different to mine. Your worldview means you would consider an inductive argument for the natural appearance of our universe to be evidence. I wouldn't. And your assertion that multiple inductive arguments carry more weight than one is something we will never agree on. To repeat the previous example, you would believe that 5 inductive arguments for the natural existence of universes "gives you insights that are probably true" to use your words, but I don't. To me, and also according to the rules of logic, inductive arguments raise possibilities.

His answer is extraordinary...

"To paraphrase a saying, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, flies like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, plus (add your own observations regarding ducks) then there's a pretty good chance that it is a duck. Neither observation is irrefutable proof but when considered together they point us in the direction of greater and greater probability. Cumulative evidence works in the same way, as does cumulative evidence for God's existence. I'm sorry that you cannot understand that basic concept."

The apologist has failed to notice that he hasn't provided a single inductive argument for the hypothesis that something looks like a duck. He is relying on facts - things that are observed to be true. Evidence that can be seen, heard and tested. In other words precisely the things that I consider to be evidence. If the apologist could provide this kind of factual evidence for God rather than ducks, then he'd have a serious argument.

Perhaps without realising, the apologist has illustrated that when it comes to real life examples even he doesn't rely on inductive arguments.