SOURCE: "Peirce's 'Third Argument' for the Reality of God and Its Relation to Scientific Inquiry," in The Journal of Religion, Vol. 75, No. 2, April, 1995, pp. 200-218.

In the following excerpt, Behrens evaluates the validity of Peirce's arguments for the existence of a supreme being.

What I will call a "scientific argument" for the existence of God is an appeal to the logic and methodology of science in order to show that theism (the claim that there is a God) is epistemically warranted. Most commonly but not exclusively, such an argument may seek to establish theism by demonstrating its conformity to scientific standards for what constitutes a reliable or confidence-worthy hypothesis. Although scientific arguments for the existence of God are currently enjoying a renaissance in the philosophy of religion, it was not long ago that science and theism were more often than not regarded as being antagonistic, and philosophers...