Victor Reppert

In this paper I argue that the existence of human reason gives us good reason to suppose that God exists. If the world were as the materialist supposes it is, then we would not be able to reason to the conclusion that this is so. This contention is often challenged by the claim that mental and physical explanations can be given for the same event. But a close examination of the question of explanatory compatibility reveals that the sort of explanation that would have to be given for the event of, say, inferring that atheism is true, is incompatible with the event being explicable as a purely physical product of a purely physical universe.