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The next stage of the God debate | Jack Symes

Big Think | October 19, 2026



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For decades, atheists have used one move to dismantle the case for God: swap in an evil one and show that the arguments work just as well. Philosopher Jack Symes was convinced by it, and was 50,000 words into a book defending atheism when he noticed that the exercise kept tipping toward goodness. He threw out the manuscript and started over.

0:00 Chapter 1: Defeating the Evil-God challenge
5:32 The atheist argument that seemed unbeatable
8:16 Why I scrapped 50,000 words defending atheism
26:17 From atheist to agnostic
28:32 Chapter 2: Multiverse pantheism: A unified answer to life’s biggest questions
37:53 The odds against us being here
49:05 What if God is the multiverse?
1:02:01 If God is perfect, what’s the point?

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/symes-god-atheism/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description

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About Jack Symes:

Dr. Jack Symes is a philosopher at Durham University, UK.

His books include Philosophers on Consciousness: Talking about the Mind (2022), Philosophers on God: Talking about Existence (2024), Defeating the Evil-God Challenge: In Defence of God’s Goodness (2024), and The Lost Philosopher: Travels Across Europe in Search of How to Live (forthcoming).

Jack regularly appears on mainstream platforms, such as BBC Television, BBC Radio, The Joe Rogan Experience, Jubilee Surrounded, Piers Morgan Uncensored, Glastonbury Festival, Big Think, The Jordan Peterson Podcast, The Spectator, GB News, and HowTheLightGetsIn. He is also the host of The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast, one of the UK’s most popular higher education podcasts.

Jack regularly delivers invited lectures at leading universities, such as Harvard University, Dartmouth College, and the University of Oxford. He also speaks at international policy events, such as the World Economic Forum.

In 2024, Jack was awarded the BBC New Generation Thinker Prize.

Written by Big Think

Comments

This post currently has 40 comments.

  1. @rggfishing5234

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    Pantheism is atheism without the humility of accepting the mystery of existence as mystery. What angst causes philosophers to jump from atheism to pantheism rather than being content to accept that things that science cannot yet or may never answer are yet mysteries? Oh, and I find it presumptuous and hubristic to think science can never understand consciousness. Neuroscience and computer science continue to study consciousness and they are indeed making strides. Whether or not consciousness will be fully or mostly understood we cannot now say. And that's okay with me. What came before the big bang or why there is a big bang we may never know. But the concept that all is God is not helping us know. Pantheism is merely putting a capital N on nature.

  2. @TheSaintelias

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    One of religions strengths is its ability to create a collective social myth. Would be nice if we could find a societal myth around building a collective moral not based on ancient nomads.

  3. @OculanVance

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    "Whether we look at Pantheism or classical philosophy, the core struggle has always been identity and meaning. But as machines relieve humanity from external necessity, our philosophical models won't just be academic debates—they will be the only framework left to define who we are."

  4. @kevinlittle4556

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    I’m skeptical. While the multiversal God concept is presented as an alternative explanation, there’s no way to know if this pantheistic god is actually real. Redefining God in this way and using it to explain evil in the universe doesn’t sit right with me. Philosophically, it might offer Jack Symes some intellectual comfort as a way to account for evil’s existence, but it doesn’t prove the reality of this pantheistic divine entity. This metaphysical framework simply offers a comforting explanation for evil, without any means to falsify the idea. There’s also a misconception that agnosticism and atheism are mutually exclusive. You can reject or have an absence of belief in the existence of specific god or gods defined by current religious beliefs while remaining agnostic about “existence or non-existence of a deity or deities”. Agnosticism is a view that the existence or non-existence of a god is currently unknown or inherently unknowable. Atheism relates to belief. It is the absence of belief in a god or gods. An atheist does not hold a conviction that a deity exists.

  5. @OlsoNounas

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    He starts off criticising religion for adding unnecessary things to explain reality, but then ends up claiming the entire universe is one conscious mind. Isn't that just replacing one mystery with another?

  6. @USocialialty

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    1:00:43 it's funny. That we'd judge God not to be God if HIS idea of perfect didn't align with our own. And there's some distinct relationship with God and judgement. How we judge is how we are judged. How we feel about ourselves. I think God could be necessarily "evil" and still be "Perfect."

  7. @wobbem007

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    Before this universe was another, this universe from which multiverses also spring from, will also eventually die. Thus god also dies ( unless multiverses all don't die at the same time ) Which I doubt: All matter is conscious (not self conscious), when there is flow, direction, repetition, transition there is the start of intelligence and the start of self consciousness . The universe is conscious, intelligent and self conscious and may be call god .

  8. @srgriffith

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    The universe is exactly what we should expect if there was no god and not at all what we should expect if the god of Abraham actually existed. The bible completely fails to predict the universe we live in. Most experts agree that none of the biblical characters actually existed.

  9. @s.d4001

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    New atheists > philbros. The theist’s reasons for believing god is good is just based off of more baseless assumptions that’s why new atheists didn’t take their arguments seriously. They’re unfalsifiable nonsense. NEXT

  10. @paul67779

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    Argument from movement for God’s existence.. this is only applicable to the Judeo-Christian God..

    P1. Change is a real feature of the world.
    P2. But change is just the reduction of Act-Potency.
    C1 Change exist and is the reduction of Act-Potency.
    P3. If a potential is actualized then it is actualized by something already actual becuse according to TPOPC nothing can give what it doesn't have so change can't occur without an actualizer that's already actual.
    P4. If that actualizer itself depends on a concurrent actualizer then it forms a chain of concurrent actualizers.
    P5. The chain here we are talking about is a Per Se/ Hierarchical chain such a series cannot regress to infinity because each member in the chain is dependent and possesses 0% independent power so stacking an infinite amount of dependent things with 0% independent power still =0.
    C2. Therefore a Per se/ hierarchical chain must Terminate in a FIRST ACTUALIZER.
    C3 a FIRST ACTUALIZER EXIST.

  11. @georgparma5110

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    I’m not particularly convinced by the conclusion that some of philosophy’s biggest problems can be considered “solved,” or even “best answered,” simply by committing to a particular worldview. These questions have puzzled and fascinated the human mind for millennia, and while I wouldn’t necessarily argue that they’re unsolvable (although that’s certainly a reasonable possibility), I think there’s considerable value in their complexity and in the ongoing process of trying to understand them.

    Ultimately, I hope that “consciousness is fundamental” isn’t treated as the end of the story. Even if this perspective offers a compelling way of approaching the problem of consciousness, I don’t think adopting it should be mistaken for having fully explained the problem of consciousness.

  12. @Nekoma_is_flexible

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    There's an evil energy-parasite system that isn't omnipotent, but has the ability to pretend to be "God" or "demons" (by showing hallucinations to select humans) and demand religious sacrifices, wars, suffering, cruelty in the name of "God" with false promises of reward.

  13. @SAMathlete

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    Is self-knowledge a great making property?

    If so then surely it is greater to have it plentifully than sparsely. By that I mean that every conscious aspect of God's being should be aware of its divine identity.

    My fingernail isn't conscious and doesn't even know that it is part of a human body. But for the sake of argument, suppose that it was conscious and had the misconception that it was part of an elephant instead. Wouldn't that be counted against me as a flaw?

    Since it definitely is the case that I don't believe I'm God, we have at least one part of this God/World thing that doubts it is a being of maximal perfection. So God isn't maximally perfect.

  14. @jamesbuchanan3439

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    I don't see that God needs to be perfect. If something is perfect, they/it wouldn't need to be doing anything, such as creating (or being) an evolving universe; perfect has no further requirements, of action or anything else…

  15. @Rob-k5k9u

    October 19, 2026 at 5:31 am

    There really is no god debate among scientists. The so-called debate is among apologists and anti-apologist trying to pretend that their unfounded beliefs are somehow true, or are incensed because they found what they were told lies. The concepts 'good" and 'evil" are human constructions that, can't be defined and are often based on intuition or what religious writers but into the mouths of gods. As there is no actual evidence of any god, no debate is needed.

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