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The Argument from Consciousness<br />
In this paper, I will focus on the argument in natural theology that consciousness pro-<br />
vides significant grounds for belief in classical theism. More precisely, that the undeniable fact<br />
of subjective experience beckons an extra-scientific, personal explanation.<br />
The argument has its origins in Locke (1959, IV, III, 28):<br />
It is evident that the bulk, figure, and motion of several bodies about us produce in us several<br />
sensations, as of colours, sounds, tastes, smells, pleasure, and pain, &c. These mechanical af-<br />
fections of bodies having no affinity at all with those ideas they produce in us, (there being no<br />
conceivable connexion between any impulse of any sort of body and any perception of a col-<br />
our or smell which we find in our minds,) we can have no distinct knowledge of such opera-<br />
tions beyond our experience; and can reason no otherwise about them, than as effects pro-<br />
duced by the appointment of an infinitely Wise Agent, which perfectly surpass our compre-<br />
hensions.<br />
Locke’s appeal to inconceivability and his invocation of a ‘god of the gaps’ principle<br />
make his argument weaker than we might like. Nonetheless, the themes he raises are similar<br />
to many of those in modern approaches to the issue.<br />
The best known contemporary argument from consciousness to theism is to be found in<br />
Swinburne (1979, 1986, 1996a) and it is on this which I will concentrate. Other significant<br />
treatments are given in Adams (1987) and Taliaferro (1994). A critique of the argument is<br />
found in Mackie (1982) while it is also discussed by Olding (1991).<br />
As well as considering literature within the philosophy of religion, I will also broaden<br />
this study into mainstream philosophy of mind by taking a modern theory of consciousness<br />
and seeing how well it fares against the gauntlet thrown down by Swinburne et al. While<br />
there are dozens of candidate naturalistic theories, I will focus on that of David Chalmers as<br />
outlined in The Conscious Mind (1996). The main reason for this choice is that Chalmers is<br />
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