William Davis's Argument from Objective, Nonutilitarian Value to Theism

Here is an excerpt from Davis's chapter in Reason for the Hope Within.

While many human activities are pursued because
of their usefulness (utility), and some are valuable only in the eyes of a few
people (nonobjective), there are kinds of human activity which possess
objective, nonutilitarian value.  Two
obvious examples of this are self-sacrificial love and artistic beauty (which
may be useful, but don’t need to be).  If
everything (including humanity) is the result of random, impersonal forces
which encouraged only survival, then it seems highly unlikely that the process
would yield organisms (humans) which recognized values like these which aren't survival conducive.  But values like
these are what we would expect if humans (and the human environment) were
created by a personal, loving God.  God’s
existence is a much better explanation for the existence of nonutilitarian value
than any explanation without God.

Source: William C. Davis, “Theistic Arguments” Reason for the Hope Within (ed. Michael J. Murray, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), p. 39.



Davis's Argument Formulated



Here is my attempt to provide the logical structure of Davis's argument.



(1) There are kinds of human activity (e.g., self-sacrificial love and artistic beauty) which possess objective, nonutilitarian value.

(2) If theism were true, we would expect human activities which possess objective, nonutilitarian value.

(3) If metaphysical naturalism were true, we would not expect objective, nonutilitarian value.

(4) Therefore, theism is probably true. [abductive inference from (1)-(3)]




Is this an inductively correct argument? Please feel free to discuss in the combox.