This paper will defend a Bayesian form of argument from consciousness, which claims that central features of human consciousness provide rational support for theism when evaluated within a probabilistic framework. It focuses on rational deliberation, intentional agency, and libertarian free will as essential elements of human conscious life, arguing that these phenomena pose significant explanatory challenges for a purely naturalistic view of reality. Drawing on Bayesian reasoning, particularly the approach developed by Richard Swinburne, the paper first addresses the legitimacy of treating features of human conscious life as evidence, and then maintains that such features confer confirmatory support on theism insofar as they are more probable given theism than given naturalism. The paper further addresses the brute fact objection to the argument from consciousness advanced by Stale Gundersen, which holds that consciousness may be a brute feature of reality requiring no further explanation. I examine Gundersen’s arguments for this brute fact objection, and find them wanting. I then defend a Presumption of Intelligibility, and discuss the proper criteria for deciding which facts are brute facts, and which are not. Within this framework, I further argue that the brute fact objection is rationally inferior to the argument from consciousness.
Vincent C. O. Chan (Thu,) studied this question.