Arguments for the Existence of God 1

I will certainly not be able to succeed fully at cranking out a chapter on the Existence of God and another on the Problem of Evil by Monday night. I will try to create some "stubs" for later. This is their story...
__________
5.1 Do we need to argue?
From almost any perspective, people have reasons for believing in the existence of God. Sigmund Freud (late 1800's) thought it was because people wanted a father figure to keep them safe from the world. <1> Ludwig Feuerbach (1800's) thought God was a projection of all the best virtues of humanity taken as a whole. <2> Friedrich Nietzsche (late 1800's) thought God was an idea the weak used to gain power over those stronger than them. <3> Augustine (400's), on the other hand, suggested that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. <4>

However, as we learned in chapter 3, even if the skeptics turned out to be right about the reasons people believe in God, that would not disprove the existence of God. The genetic fallacy confuses the reasons why someone believes something and the question of whether that something is true or not. The bulk of this chapter is about the question of God's existence, not the question of why people believe in God's existence.

Some people unthinkingly assume that there needs to be some benefit for them to believe in God's existence--"What's in it for me?" Some people stop believing in God in a huff as if to announce, "I'm just not going to believe in God, so there." It is almost as if they are saying, "I'll show You; I don't believe in You any more."

But of course, the strongest reason to believe in God would be, well, because He actually exists. If God exists as something other than an idea in our heads, as an actual Being that thinks and acts regardless of us, then it makes little sense to look for the advantage of believing. If God exists, God exists, whether it is convenient for me or not. And if God exists, then the person who "shows God" by disbelieving is a fool.

However, many people disbelieve (atheists) or doubt (agnostics) sincerely. It is simply not true that atheists and agnostics are more wicked than those who believe in God. Indeed, we would no doubt find that some of them live far more "moral" lives than many people who profess to believe in God.

[textbox: atheist, agnostic]

In the rest of the chapter, we will be looking at some of the classic arguments for the existence of God. But should we really argue rationally for God's existence? Is it really a matter of blind faith rather than argument? Can we actually prove God's existence by reason or will we find that rational argument comes up short? Does rehearsing the classical arguments contribute more to doubt than to faith.

Certainly some voices would say so. For example, we have already encountered James K. A. Smith's suggestion that Christians should be un-apologetic about their beliefs. <5> In good postmodern fashion, he does not think a person could give adequate reasons for believing in God rationally. For him, either God gives you the belief or God does not.

On the other end of the spectrum, Catholic and American fundamentalist traditions often put a high premium on the likelihood of reason leading you to believe in God. C. S. Lewis (1900's) was an Anglican, a tradition that stands just one step removed from Roman Catholicism and that in recent years has come very close to complete reconciliation. <6> It is no surprise that he was one of the principal apologists of the twentieth century.

Other traditions, like revivalists and charismatics, have put a greater premium on religious experience as a basis for belief in God. As one hymn concludes, "You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart." Apologists generally see this kind of basis for belief on very thin ground, for people from other religious traditions might very well say the same thing.<7>

You will have to decide for yourself which of these traditions best represents your position. As for this book, we proceed through the classic arguments for the existence of God on the following basis. First, we suspect that most people do not come to believe in God because of rational argument. Certainly some do--C. S. Lewis and Josh McDowell are two good examples, both of whom reluctantly came to belief in God because of argument. But they are the exception rather than the rule. Most people simply believe in God for other reasons.

On the other hand, we want to steer a "middle way" between those who think you can prove God's existence beyond reasonable doubt and those who think belief in God is an act of irrational, blind faith. Certainly we think at least some of the classic arguments for the existence of God at least make sense from a rational standpoint. We do not believe you have to be able to prove God's existence to believe that God exists. But at the same time we believe it is not irrational to believe.