3.3 God as First Cause

It's Thursday, philosophy journey day. Previous posts in my philosophical journey are at the bottom.
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1. One of the oldest and best known arguments for the existence of God has to do with the cause of the world. In the 300s BC, Aristotle (384-322BC) wrote about the "Prime Mover." [1] His argument was that everything that moves is pushed -- and of course the world is in motion. He did not believe this pushing could go back infinitely, so there must have been a first Mover that itself is unmoved. [2]

In the 1200s, Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) picked up this argument from motion and expanded it. God is not only the first Mover, but the first and last Cause, the only necessary Being. From our perspective today, some of his arguments make more sense than others. But the core argument stands.

Galileo effectively eliminated any simplistic version of the motion argument, discovering that a body in motion wants to stay in motion, and a body at rest wants to stay at rest. Bodies need pushed because of friction and gravity. Their natural disposition is to stay in motion forever.

2. The arguments from the need for a Cause and a Necessary Being continue to make sense. In fact, in a very real sense, they are more powerful arguments than ever.

William Lane Craig (b. 1949) has put the "efficient cause" argument like this. An efficient cause is that which brings about an effect. [3]

1. Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
2. The universe had a beginning.
3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.

This argument from cause is called the cosmological argument.

Modern physics has greatly helped us out here because it is currently the consensus among cosmologists that the universe had a beginning in time. Indeed, the current physics understanding of the beginning is so distinct that it fits very nicely with the argument above.

3. The biggest objection to the cosmological argument has always been the counterproposal that causes might go back in time infinitely. For example, David Hume (1711-76) famously made this countersuggestion in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779).

In twentieth century physics, this showdown played out in the debate over the "big bang" versus "steady state" theories of the universe's origins. The "steady state" theory was quite popular among those who wanted to see the universe as infinitely old. [4] Yet others recognized that Einstein's equations of general relativity might also point to the universe having a distinct beginning in time. [5] 

This theory was derisively called the "big bang" theory. Indeed, it is ironic that many Christians today associate the Big Bang theory with atheism. This is a huge misunderstanding -- indeed, one that demonstrates great ignorance. Some of the key early proponents of the so called "big bang theory" were Christians who saw how well it supported the cosmological argument. By the same token, some of its most vocal opponents despised it for that same reason.

The "Big Bang" theory won the day. It is now the consensus of modern cosmology that the universe's existence goes back to 13.7 years ago when the entire universe was, effectively, a point. [6] For a few decades, a counter suggestion known as the "oscillating Big Bang" was proposed -- it allowed the universe to be infinitely old by a recurring expansion and collapse of the universe. But for several decades now it has been acknowledged that there is not enough matter in the universe to suppose such an infnite cycle.

William Lane Craig has given a more philosophical counterargument to the "infinite regress" counterargument. He has argued that there is no true infinite in this universe. The idea of infinity is a valid mathematical concept, but it does not seem to exist in the observable universe. Quantum theory has eliminated any sense that matter or energy can be infinitely divided. And cosmological theory does not hold the universe to be infinite in scope. Thus, Craig argues, an infinite regression in time would break all known precedence in this universe.

4. So we have strong support currently from science that the universe had a beginning. Why then, did it begin? The supposition of an Intelligent Creator remains the easiest answer -- especially after we consider the fine tuning of the universe (the next article). However, other options have been suggested.

The strongest counterproposal, it seems to me, is the multiverse proposal. It basically proposes -- with no evidence, mind you, that our universe is only one of an infinite number of universes, each with its own laws and physics. You are here reading this because our universe works. [7] But, for these universes to arise mindlessly, the overwhelming majority of them must be chance failures. We are just the extraordinarily, fantastically lucky ones.

Stephen Hawking advanced a version of this proposal that I call the "Hail Mary" proposal. What if, just maybe, something is possible in the quantum universe that we don't know about, something that makes universes popping out of nowhere possible. You might call this an "atheist of the gaps" argument. [8]

5. To be sure, a First Cause is not yet the Christian God. Perhaps we could assert omnipotence. After the next article we might assert omni-intelligence. Nor am I arguing that this is a definitive argument -- our own fallibility must surely keep us a little shy of absolute proof. I have been a little rhetorically sharp to have fun.

I don't consider this argument definitive. (God may in his infinite knowledge and understanding.) But I do find it very persuasive.

[1] Metaphysics XII.6-10.

[2] I am probably skewing Aristotle and Aquinas a little. They were probably thinking more in terms of potentiality and actuality rather than time.

[3] This is his formulation of the Islamic version of this argument, called the Kalam cosmological argument. William Lane Craig, The Kalām Cosmological Argument (Macmillan, 1979).

Aristotle identified four different types of causes in his Physics (II.194b16–195a3): 1) the material cause, which is simply the material of something, 2) the efficient cause or the direct cause -- this is what we most think of as a cause, 3) the formal cause or essence of something, and 4) the final cause, which we think of more as the purpose of something. 

[4] Notably, the charismatic scientist Fred Hoyle argued for this position in the 1950s. The idea is that, as the universe expands, a tiny bit o matter is generated to fill the new space.

[5] Einstein himself was repulsed by this possibility and even added a constant to his equations to try to stop them from suggesting it.

[6] The decisive moment in this debate was when a cosmic microwave background (CMB) was discovered in 1965. This radiation, steadily decreasing, is thought to come from the early universe. If the universe were infinitely old, not only would it not exist, but the amount of time would have likely dissipated such a decreasing radiation to zero long ago.

[7] This is the so-called "anthropic principle." Whatever the unlikelihood of us being here, we are here. So we must just be the lucky ones. This proposal is circular and very unsatisfying philosophically.

[8] Here I'm mimicking the well-known warning called the "God of the gaps." God is used to explain some gap in our current knowledge. The problem is when science fills in those gaps. Does that mean our faith now goes away? My quip about the "atheist of the gaps" is that Hawking supposes that we will one day find a non-theist explanation for the universe's existence that he does not currently have. Of course, theoretically, we may.

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Introduction
1.1 What is philosophy?
1.2 Is philosophy Christian?
1.3 Unexamined assumptions
1.4 Socrates and the Unexamined Life

Logic
2.1 The Structure of Thinking 
2.2 When Thinking Goes Wrong
2.3 Three Tests for Truth
2.4 Knowing the Bible
2.5 Plato and Aristotle
2.6 The Story of Logic 

Philosophy of Religion
3.1 Faith and Reason
3.2 How can we know that God exists?
3.3 God as First Cause

New book -- GPTChat and I explore the existence of God

I had this idea a while back about a guy talking to an AI about God and the AI objectively going through arguments with him. So when ChatGPT hit this winter, it seemed like the perfect way to flesh out that novel idea. So for the last couple months, I've been going through the arguments for the existence of God with ChatGPT and writing a novel framework around it.

Here's the book: Chats about God. It has some art in it, so I had it printed in color, which made it a little more expensive. But here's to the experiment!  

God With Ten Words self-published

I did the deed. I took the short project and self-published it. Sent some copies to some of my kids so they know my musings on God at 55.

Paperback version

Kindle version

The description says, "It is common to speak of the attributes or characteristics of God. This book picks ten key characteristics of God and explores them both biblically and theologically. God is mystery, love, power, knowledge, presence, Immanuel, good, parent, justice, and savior."

I did, by the way, self-publish an earlier book on God and Creation: Wesleyan-Arminian Reflections when I was 48. It was the first of a three-volume series I wrote, although I haven't found the time to publish the material I have already written for volumes two and three. I should probably push those out.

Another Chap 4 Excerpt -- Fine Tuning Argument

Plugging a hole in chapter 4. Excerpts from a writing project so far, God with Ten Words

• Mystery
• Love
• Power (excerpt 1)
• Power (excerpt 2)
• Knowledge
• Presence

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However, regardless of evolution, the particulars of the universe are just right in a Goldilocks kind of way that simply boggles the mind. For example, if our universe had more mass, it would have crunched before any solar systems or planets could form, and we would not be here. If the universe had less mass, it would have ripped apart before any solar systems or planets could form. Frankly, the fact that we have matter at all is good fortune in itself. If the early universe had been completely symmetrical, all matter and antimatter would have annihilated itself into energy, and we would not be here.

Why does the universe operate on the basis of an inverse square law? Both the force of gravity and electricity increase or diminish in relationship to the inverse square of the distance between objects. If it were an inverse cube relationship or a one-to-one relationship, nothing would work in the universe. Atoms can exist because the gravitational force is weak, the electromagnetic force is strong, and the strong nuclear force is very strong but only works at a very small distance. Everything is just right or the atom wouldn't work... and we would not be here.

The universe expanded just right for some helium to form early on but for most of it to remain hydrogen so stars could form. The process by which helium can fuse together is just right for carbon to form in supernovas. If none of these aspects to the universe were not just right, we would not be here.

An atheist would not deny any of these things. They would perhaps invoke what is called the anthropic principle. Yes, it is highly unlikely. But, hey, we’re here having this conversation so we must just be lucky. The only plausible way to deal with the sheer improbability of such things by chance is to invoke the concept of a multiverse. Maybe there is some universe bubble machine that is constantly spitting out random universes. Maybe there are countless, nearly infinite dead universes out there that did not work. We are here because we just happen to be on the extremely, extremely lucky one that actually can work.

Or, we can believe that there was an Intelligence that designed the universe to be just right. And this Intelligence we call God. It is thus perfectly reasonable to believe both that God exists and that God is all-knowing.

Friday Science: Just Six Numbers (book review)

I have pretty much finished Hawking, but will post the rest of his book next Friday, dv.

1. I took my son to Clinton, Iowa Tuesday for him to meet in person some online friends of his that have played video games together for about six years. (Interesting development in this new world, where you go to meet some of your best friends for the first time after years of playing together. I have a nephew that first met a friend in person for the first time this spring... as best man in his wedding.) So while I was sitting in a hotel room, Starbucks, parking lots, etc, I finally read/skimmed Martin Rees' Just Six Numbers.

In the last few decades, a strong argument for the existence of God has emerged called the "fine tuning" argument. It falls under the category of an argument for design. There are a number of ratios and constants in the universe that are necessary for us to be here. An atheist at this point invokes the anthropic principle--we wouldn't be here to discuss them if there weren't. So if there are universes in the "multiverse" that do not have these precise ratios, there is no one there to talk about them. In other words, we are just the lucky ones.

By contrast, the theist says, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made." "Oh the depth of the riches of the knowledge and wisdom of God!"

Rees' book is about these constants. I am now working on my third Gabriel novel. This one is called Gabriel's Diary: The Creation. It is going to be truly spectacular and probably a bit controversial. I am hypothesizing what creation might look like from a Christian point of view that engages with contemporary science. I'm not saying it's right. But it will be a book for people who are convinced about the science but not so convinced about God. The first three chapters will embody the fine tuning argument and engage my feeble apprehension of modern cosmology.

2. Here is a summary of my take-aways from Rees' book. I have put them in the order that is most helpful for my writing. Fine tuning arguments are in bold.

Chapter 1: The Cosmos and the Microworld

• Rees goes with the anthropic principle and the multiverse model: "An infinity of other universes may well exist where the numbers are different. Most would be stillborn or sterile. We could only have emerged (and therefore we naturally now find ourselves) in a universe with the 'right' combination" (4).
• He uses an "ouraborus" to picture the scale of the universe. The breadth of size is 10⁶⁰. The smallest size imaginable is about 10^-33 cm. The universe is about 10²⁸ cm across. (These are my numbers, not his.)

Chapter 3: The Large Number N: Gravity in the Cosmos

• He calls the constant discussed in this chapter, N. I've never heard of it but he is referring to the ratio between the electromagnetic force and the force of gravity. It turns out that the electromagnetic force is about 10³⁶ times more powerful. 
• Gravity is always attractive, while electromagnetic forces can be either attractive or repulsive. So with large objects, gravity accumulates a large attractive force, while the electromagnetic forces more or less even out.
• There is an inverse square law that applies to these two forces. The force weakens as the square of the distance increases. More on the significance of this fine tuning in chapter 10.
• Gravity makes objects as big as the Moon and larger spherical.
• If the ratio were less, everything would be smaller--smaller stars, smaller planets, potentially smaller life. Galaxies would form quickly and would be miniaturized. They would be more densely packed.
• Stellar lifetimes would be much shorter, which according to Rees would not have given enough time for complex life to evolve. 
• A weaker gravity might have allowed more elaborate and longer-lived structures to develop, but a stronger gravity would not have allowed enough time for humanity to emerge.
• A little on Einstein - the speed of light is the speed limit of the universe. Near large masses time slows down relative to elsewhere.
• Millions of black holes in our galaxy, the remnants of large stars that have already burnt out. Slightly smaller stars become neutron stars. Our Sun will become a white dwarf when it burns out.
• Some explanations of black holes, event horizons, etc., atomic sized black holes.

Chapter 10: Three Dimensions (And More)

• The number he discusses in this chapter is 3, three-dimensions of space.
• In a three dimensional world, forces like gravity and the electromagnetic force obey an inverse-square law mentioned above.
• William Paley used the inverse square law as part of his argument from design. If it were an inverse cube law, there could be no orbiting of planets or electrons around a nucleus.
• There is an asymmetry of the arrow of time. "No such asymmetry is built into the basic laws governing the microworld" (153). The asymmetry is linked to the expansion of the universe. [Hawking calls this the cosmological arrow. Entropy is another basis for the arrow, which Hawking calls the thermodynamic arrow.]
• The expansion of the universe was fast enough to end nuclear reactions before they could convert more than 23% of the hydrogen into helium. This left fuel for suns.
• There was just the right asymmetry in the earliest phase to leave a slight excess of matter over antimatter. Otherwise, nothing but energy would be here.
• He also talks a little about Planck units. The smallest length is 10¹⁹ times smaller than a proton, 10^-35 the length of a meter. The smallest unit of Planck time is 10^-43 seconds. Space and time are arguably granular, not continuous. Take that, Zeno.
• He mentions superstrings. I believe this approach is increasingly discredited.

Chapter 9: Our Cosmic Habitat III: What Lies Beyond Our Horizon?

• Helium was formed at about the three minute threshold.
• grand-unified (all forces united) to quarks (strong from electroweak) to leptons (electro from weak)
• magnetic monopoles?

Chapter 8: Primordial Ripples: The Number Q

• Q is the ratio between the rest mass energy of matter and the force of gravity. It is 1 to 100,000. 
• It has to do with the "roughness" of space, the "ripple amplitude" of the gravitational waves of cosmic inflation.
• It has to do with the energy that would be needed to break apart galaxies.
• The slight asymmetry of the universe seems to relate in some way, enabling things to form structures.
• If Q were smaller, galaxies wouldn't form. If Q were larger, galaxies would crunch much sooner and the universe would be a rougher place.

Chapter 6: The Fine-Tuned Expansion: Dark Matter and Ω

• What Rees calls Ω is the ratio between the force of universe expansion and the force of gravity. This ratio determines whether the universe will expand forever, expand steadily, or eventually contract again. These correspond to whether the ratio is less than 1, exactly 1, or greater than one.
• Because of gravity, if there were five atoms for every cubic meter in the universe, it would contract one day. As it is, there only seems to be 0.2 atoms per cubic meter, at least as far as ordinary matter is concerned.
• All the indications are thus that this number is less than 1. But it is likely that there is "dark matter" out there, stuff we can't see. It is thought that about 26.8% of the universe is dark matter.
• Candidates for dark matter include brown dwarfs (suns less than 8% of our sun's mass), neutrinos, black holes, "axions," but more likely something we don't yet know about.
• At about one second after creation, Ω could not have differed from 1 by 1 in 10¹⁵. If the expansion force were greater, there would have been no time for stars and galaxies to develop. If the mass were greater, the universe would have collapsed too soon for life as we know it to develop.
• Another fine-tuned factor is the slight asymmetry between matter and antimatter. If there were perfect symmetry in the early universe, they both would have emerged in equal amounts and completely annihilated. But there must have been a slight asymmetry.
• There are different suggestions for the asymmetry. Rees suggests the K° decay, associated with the weak nuclear force, may be the reason. What if, for every billion quarks and antiquarks generated in the earliest universe, one extra quark were produced?

Chapter 7: The Number Λ: Is Cosmic Expansion Slowing or Speeding

• As far as I can tell, Λ doesn't contribute much more than the discussion of omega in the previous chapter. 
• Einstein added Λ to his general relativity equations with the hope of a universe that wasn't expanding. He regretted that when Hubble showed it was. But there does seem to be an unknown force that is affecting comic expansion. This was apparently confirmed in 1998.
• It is relatively small, about 0.7. It is a force driving expansion.
• [It seems to relate to what scientists now are calling "dark energy."]

Chapter 5: Our Cosmic Habitat II: Beyond Our Galaxy

• Galaxies are the building blocks of the universe. Stars and their solar systems collect together to form galaxies. Galaxies often have huge black holes at their centers. Galaxies cluster (our cluster is the "Local Group").
• Galaxies crash into each other. The kind of galaxy known as elliptical galaxies may be the result of galaxies that have crashed into each other. [Hawking had a different thought here in the 80s.]
• There are bigger aggregates like the "Great Wall."
• At every point we look in space, everything is speeding away from us, often faster than the speed of light, which suggests that space itself is expanding, since nothing can move faster than the speed of light in its own reference frame.
• The expansion of space has been well established in the last fifty years. [When Hawking wrote, he hoped it might crunch again but we seem rather headed for a cosmic rip from accelerating expansion.]
• Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) discovered in 1965 points to a Big Bang. Together, the fact that the universe had a beginning coupled with the fact that it won't re-compress fits well with the notion of creation.
• CMB comes not from the creation itself but from some 380,000 years after the beginning (13.8 billion years ago) when the universe cooled down enough for electrons and protons to form neutral atoms, releasing a massive amount of energy in photons.

Chapter 4: Stars, the Periodic Table and ɛ

• A third number is ɛ, which I've never heard called that, but which is the percentage of mass released as energy when hydrogen is fused into helium. 0.007 or 0.7%
• This has to do with the strength of the strong nuclear force that binds protons and neutrons together in a nucleus. This force is the strongest of all the forces but it only works within the space of a nucleus. It is thus just strong enough to hold a nucleus together without interfering with the electromagnetic forces that are essential for the overall working of an atom or the weak nuclear force that comes into play with large atoms with atomic numbers over about 50.
• Helium is fused in two stages. First, a proton and a neutron fuse together to form deuterium (heavy hydrogen). Then two deuterium atoms fuse together into helium. 
• If the percentage converted to energy were any more, no hydrogen would have survived the big bang. It would have all become helium or heavier, leaving no fuel for stars. If it had been less, no helium would have formed and the universe would just consist of hydrogen.
• Carbon only forms from a helium and beryllium nucleus because the carbon nucleus has a resonance with a very specific energy that can fuse just before primitive beryllium decays. Without carbon, life as we know it would not exist.
• The Earth is thought to be about 4.5 billion years old. The universe about 13.8 billion.
• When a star's hydrogen has all been converted to helium, the core pulls inwards. Prior to that time, the energy from the fusion pushed back against the gravity of the mass.
• When it contracts, it heats up more and heavier nuclei are formed. Iron is the most tightly bound nucleus. When it gets to a critical size, it implodes to a neutron star and supernovas the overlying material. In this material are the trace elements of heavier elements.

Chapter 2: Our Cosmic Habitat I: Planets, Stars and Life

• Stars start as warm blobs ("protostars"). They contract over millions of years under their own gravity. 
• Any slight spin is amplified under a collapse, like a skater pulling in arms. The resulting disks are the precursors of planetary systems. (14)
• Small wobbles in the orbits of stars may indicate planets. Christiaan Huygens in 1698 suggested every star might have planets around them. These are now considered certain.
• A "barycenter" is the center of mass of an orbiting pair like the sun and Jupiter.
• The early history of a solar system is filled with crashes. (A huge crash 65 million years ago (crater underwater in Gulf of Mexico near Chicxulub is thought to have killed the dinosaurs.) This event paved the way for mammalian life to emerge as winners.
• The Moon is thought to have been formed from the earth by a collision with another protoplanet. Uranus' weird axis spin also explained by such collisions.
• For life to exist on a planet like Earth, gravity must pull strongly enough to prevent the atmosphere from evaporating into space but it can't really be any stronger than Jupiter (cf. 32).
• For water to exist on the surface, planets must be neither too hot or too cold.
• The orbit must be stable, not crossed by a Jupiter-like planet in an eccentric orbit.
• The oxygen of our environment is thought to come from primitive bacteria early in earth's history.
• Cf. p32. Gravity makes objects Moon sized and larger spherical.

Chapter 11: Coincidence, Providence - Or Multiverse

• Rees goes with the multiverse theory. It is a logical option for someone who doesn't believe in God as creator. It doesn't preclude God, although it might push creation back further. It seems more philosophical in some ways rather than scientific per se.
• He suggests that the values of these constants might be difference in other universes.

Gen Eds Series P2: Philosophy of Religion

This is the second week of philosophy in my series, "The Gen Eds in a Nutshell." Last week I overviewed the subject matter of philosophy and set out a course for twelve posts on the topic.

1. A philosophy class might not normally begin with the philosophy of religion. Questions about God, as it were, are logically a subcategory of questions about what is real (metaphysics). And before we can ask questions about anything, don't we have to establish what it means for something to be true (epistemology)?

I start with philosophy of religion not only because I teach in a Christian context but because some Christians believe there are certain assumptions or presuppositions that must be made before any discussion of truth can take place. These are "epistemological" questions that have to be addressed first if that particular way of Christian thinking is correct.

We are dealing here with the role of reason and revelation when it comes to truth. We might outline three basic positions:

• I believe in order to understand (credo ut intelligam, Anselm)
• I understand in order to believe (intelligo ut credam)
• I believe because it is absurd (credo quia absurdam, Tertullian)

At present, there are strong forces in Christian circles against a predominant role for "reason" and evidentiary thinking in theological or Christian philosophical thinking. This way of thinking is particularly typical in Reformed thinking ("Reformed epistemology"), which has often emphasized the given-ness of Christian belief. from this perspective, unless you assume the right presuppositions (which the elect will ultimately assume), you cannot hope to arrive at the right conclusions.

These forces have had significant influence in late twentieth century American Christian thinking, and they have been empowered by postmodernism in recent decades. Late twentieth century postmodernism seriously undermined any claim to objectivity on the part of thinkers, opening the door for a kind of fideism which isolates faith from any rational evaluation or evaluation on the basis of evidence.

Another force that fits this Zeitgeist or "spirit of the age" is post-liberalism. Post-liberalism is a post-modern movement toward faith emerging from "liberal" circles where traditional faith claims had largely been marginalized, especially in mainline churches and seminaries. Post-liberalism tends to see all of us as situated within "narratives" from which we cannot remove ourselves in order to get anything like an objective standpoint. From this perspective, we cannot really get outside of our narrative in order to evaluate our narrative, so we more or less can just assume it. [1]

2. By contrast, the Methodist tradition has more typically seen a significant role for reason in truth-seeking, born as it was at the height of the Enlightenment. Wesley's theological method has often been called a "quadrilateral" of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. [2] American frontier Christianity, both heavily Methodist and Baptist, was very comfortable with human reason, and the possibility that argument or persuasion might convince someone to believe. American fundamentalism, which is strongly Baptistic, has always claimed to correlate strongly with reason and evidence, as captured well in the title of Josh McDowell's well known book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict.

The Catholic tradition has also had a strong openness to rational argument, especially under the influence of Thomas Aquinas. "Faith seeking understanding" may be the dominant mode of truth-pursuit, but reason is not seen as the enemy of faith. "The heavens declare the glory of God" (Ps. 14:1) is taken to indicate that there is both natural revelation (truths that God has put into the universe to be discovered) and special revelation (truths we would not know unless God revealed them.

Next week's post on epistemology will set out an argument for a kind of critical realism. This perspective recognizes that no one is objective and that none of us can have a God's eye view of truth. But reason and evidence are paths to truth. Indeed, they are ultimately inescapable. The evidence may not demand a verdict, but Christian faith hopefully is not irrational. That which refuses to be subject to evaluation is prone to abuse.

3. "Faith versus evidence" is thus one key topic within the philosophy of religion. We might mention three others: 2) the meaning of life, 3) arguments for the existence of God, and 4) the problem of evil and suffering.

The meaning of life of course relates heavily to other topics in philosophy like the philosophy of a person and ethics. Nevertheless, religion usually makes claims on ultimate meaning. Albert Camus once suggested that the only serious philosophical question was, "Why not suicide?" [3] In other words, what do you have to live for? For him, this was a question without a particular answer. A person simply needed to have one or end it all.

Soren Kierkegaard started this "existentialist" line of thinking in the 1800s. For him, we take a "leap of faith" to embrace some meaning in our lives. For him, God was the appropriate destination toward which to jump. But of course he had no basis to preclude jumping into something else.

Christians believe that God should be the ultimate focus of our existence. As the Westminster Confession says, "The chief goal of humanity is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." Augustine prayed to God, "You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you." God is thus should be the focus of our lives, the one for whom we exist. He is the meaning of life.

4. Many arguments have been made for the existence of God. It is not clear that they actually prove God's existence, although they may suggest that faith in God's existence is reasonable. Alvin Plantinga, coming from a Reformed perspective, has suggested that belief in God is a "warranted Christian belief." That is to say, it is such a fundamental human belief that no argument is necessary.

Blaise Pascal suggested that belief in God is a good wager to make. If you are wrong, you have lost nothing. If you are right, you have won everything. However, Pascal did not believe God had made his existence obvious. Rather, God had left his existence sufficiently ambiguous that believing in him required faith more than proof.

Nevertheless, the three classical arguments for the existence of God are the 1) cosmological argument, 2) the teleological argument, and 3) the ontological argument. The cosmological argument suggests that the existence of the universe needs to have a cause, since we observe no effect in this world without a cause. [4] The current consensus that the universe was created in a big bang and that it began 13.8 billion years ago plays into this argument. What caused it to begin? [5]

The teleological argument is sometimes called the argument from design. It suggests that the complexity of the universe is unfathomable without positing some sort of intelligent Designer. While this idea is often applied to the question of evolution by chance, the argument extends much further. Life on the earth is predicated on a razor thin set of circumstances, sometimes called the "anthropic principle."

If the earth were a little closer or further away from the sun, life would not exist as it does. In current theory, if there had not been a two in a billion imbalance between matter and antimatter in the early universe, no stars or galaxies would be here. In current theory, if the sun had not burned and exploded multiple times, there would be no heavy elements to form the world. Even smaller molecules like carbon and oxygen were not the immediate by-products of helium fusion in the early universe, in the current understanding.

All that is to say, an unfathomable number of chance events would have had to happen in just the right sequence for life to be here by chance. It is much simpler to suppose that an unfathomable Mind was involved.

A third argument usually mentioned is the ontological argument. In its principal forms, it is unconvincing. As Anselm in the 1000s and Descartes in the 1500s formulated it, it largely argued that God must exist in reality because he exists in our minds. If I can conceive of God, he must exist.

But perhaps there is a more profound version of the argument, perhaps something akin to Thomas Aquinas' argument for God as a necessary Being. If every thing that exists were contingent, then there would be no basis for anything to exist. Surely, Aquinas argued, there must at least be one Thing that exists necessarily, which cannot not exist. This, he suggested, we call God.

Ultimately, the strongest reason to believe in God is a personal one. In Wesleyan theology, God reaches out to everyone in the world at some point of their life so that no one can be without excuse (prevenient grace). In Calvinist theology, God reaches out to those who are chosen. In either case, faith in God is initiated and empowered by God himself.

If these beliefs are true, we should expect them to correspond to our experience. We should experience a "tug" from God that leads us toward faith in his existence and goodness. It is not a matter of rational proof, although it is more than likely that God draws some people to him through argument. Ultimately, however, our faith comes from an encounter with God and so, for any specific individual, the definitive argument for God's existence is a matter of personal experience.

5. The problem of suffering and evil is one of the strongest objections to the idea of God, especially against a God who cares for his creation. It is often noted that the other arguments for the existence of God do not in any way point toward a God who is good, even if they suggest a creator. [6]

The issue has been expressed in this way: "If God is God he is not good. If God is good he is not God." [7] The idea here is that if God had the power to stop evil and suffering, he would have if he were good. On the other hand, if God is good, then he must not have the power to stop evil and suffering.

Two primary arguments have been advanced to explain the conundrum. The one is called the "Irenaean theodicy," where a theodicy is an explanation for how God can be just and yet evil persist. Irenaeus' suggestion was that God uses suffering to help us grow morally. The struggle against suffering and evil helps us become better people. In the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, who was no friend to Christianity, "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger."

Perhaps better known is the "Augustinian" or "free will theodicy." The idea here is that God does not force us to choose the good because a world in which we freely (or somewhat freely) choose him and the good is a better world than one in which we are forced to do the good. But if God gives humanity the freedom to choose, some will make the wrong choice and will bring evil into the world.

Of course in Augustine's thinking, it was Adam, the first human, who made the wrong free choice. Now, according to Augustine, the world is fallen. Sin is woven into the fabric of the universe. The evil and suffering in the world is not only the result of the evil perpetuated by fallen angels but is the direct consequence of Adam's sin.

From Paul's perspective, perhaps we might say more precisely that our world is currently under the power of Sin. Christians believe that God has used his power to address this situation. He sent Jesus to fix the problem and to identify with human suffering. The power of Sin is broken, even if it has not finally disappeared. But God has definitively addressed the problem of evil and suffering. The solution just has not finally worked its way out into history.

6. These are thus the primary topics relating to the philosophy of religion: the role of reason and evidence in faith, the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the problem of evil and suffering.

Next week: Philosophy 3: How do I know what I think I know?

Classical Reading

• Plato's Euthyphro
• Augustine's Confessions, City of God
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
• Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, Concluding Unscientific Postscript

[1] It is thus another kind of fideism that tries to isolate itself from the possibility of critique.

[2] Unsurprisingly, post-liberal forces in the Methodist tradition have pushed back on this description in recent decades.

[3] The Myth of Sisyphus.

[4] Thus the law of conservation of mass and energy. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, although we have come to learn that it can be converted to energy.

[5] One theory currently in play is the idea that our universe is just one "bubble" as it were in a multiverse. Even if this theory were to gain traction, it might only extend the question back into such a multiverse. What caused the multiverse?

[6] A "moral argument" is sometimes made to suggest a moral God. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis suggested that the fact that human beings have a morality (not the specific content of that morality) suggested a moral God. Given the general moral state of the world, however, it seems difficult to argue for a moral God on the basis of human morality.

[7] From Archibald MacLeish's play, J.B.

F3. God has revealed himself in nature.

This is the third post in the first section in my series, theology in bullet points. (Here are three of the later sections that I've already done).
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God has revealed himself in nature. [1]

1. That is to say, certain aspects of the creation suggest truths about God. As Psalm 19:1 puts it, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." The magnificence of the creation suggests the magnificence of the God who rules over it.

In later articles, we will discuss various options concerning God's relationship to the creation. There, we will suggest that historic Christianity 1) considers the creation to be something distinct in existence from God. In opposition to pantheism, which holds that the creation is God, and in opposition to panentheism, which sees the creation as part of God, orthodox Christianity sees the creation as something distinct from God that God created out of nothing. At one point, the creation did not exist. Then God spoke and it did.

A 2) second consideration is the degree to which God has created the universe to run on its own. That is to say, does God determine everything that happens by his continuous action in the universe on the quantum level? Some Christian traditions would say yes; other traditions leave room for the possibility that God has created the world to run on its own by certain "natural laws." I am writing these explorations of Christian theology, the study of all things relating to God, from a perspective that can allow for belief in natural laws. [2]

The idea of natural law is more or less intrinsic to science, where it refers to the predictable nature of the way the universe works, at least on the macro-scale. [3] We can distinguish between nature and miracle by using the word "natural" to refer to events that seem to follow the normal operations of the universe and "miracle" to refer to God's interruptions of the normal operations of the universe in order to do something. [4]

Natural revelation thus refers to aspects of the universe, in its normal patterns of operations, that point to truths about God. To believe in natural revelation is thus to believe that the normal operations of the world point to truths about God.

2. The three classic arguments for the existence of God fall into this category. The first two relate mostly to the so called law of cause and effect. "For every effect, there is an adequate cause." So if the universe began at a particular point, we seemingly need to account for the cause of its beginning. The current majority position of cosmology (the study of the universe) is that the universe did indeed begin at a particular point in time. Therefore, it is appropriate to ask why it began when it did.

The Christian answer is to suggest that God is the cause, and that God created the universe out of nothing. [5] This is the cosmological argument for God's existence, the argument from cause and effect. We might formulate this argument in this way:

1. Everything event we observe in the macro-universe has a cause.
2. It is reasonable to suggest that the entire universe began in an event at a point in time.
3. Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that there was a cause behind that event. [6]

You will notice that I have only suggested the reasonableness of belief in God as Creator. A deductive presentation might start with faith and go in the opposite direction:

1. Christians affirm that God created the universe out of nothing.
2. In order to cause something, there must be as much potential power in the causes as the effects.
3. Therefore, God is "all-powerful" in relation to the creation. He had as much power as he created.

The teleological argument or the argument from design is similarly based on an aspect of cause and effect. In this argument, the complexity of the world suggests that the universe had a designer. For example, William Paley (1743-1805) suggested that, if you find a watch, you immediately wonder whose it is. You do not suspect that nature has accidentally caused the watch to exist. You assume there was a designer.

In the same way, the argument goes, the beauty and complexity of the universe suggests an intelligent Designer. In more recent times, the theory of evolution and chaos theory might be thought to work against the argument from design. The theory of evolution is the theory that holds that the complex forms of life we observe to day evolved from simpler forms of life over the course of millions of years. Chaos theory suggests that instances of complexity will result randomly over time as a result of the sheer number of events taking place (it is the "truth is stranger than fiction" principle).

In the end, these theories merely push the question back further. So evolution takes place by a set of rules, and chaos theory also follows the laws of cause and effect. As Richard Swinburne has suggested, the question of design can be pushed back to the very existence of laws of nature themselves. [7]

A third classic argument is problematic in its earlier forms, but may hold some force if modified. The ontological argument as presented by Anselm (1033-1109) largely amounted to saying that, because we can conceive of God, he must exist. It went something like the following:

1. God exists in my mind as the greatest possible Being.
2. But to be the greatest possible Being, he must exist in the world of senses as well as my mind.
3. Therefore, God must also exist in the world of senses.

This argument does not make sense. It mixes apples and oranges (my thoughts and the world outside my thoughts) on the basis of assumptions Anselm made about the world. These are assumptions with which most of us no longer agree (namely, Platonic assumptions).

However, Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) made an argument that we might also modify to create a form of revised ontological argument.

1. The existence of everything we observe is contingent. Nothing we observe has to exist.
2. But if the existence of everything is contingent, then the universe in theory, might not exist.
3. This is contrary to what we know, namely, that the universe does exist.
4. Therefore, there must be at least one Entity that exists necessarily.

Christians call this Necessary Being God, the "ground of all being."

3. These arguments, based more or less on the natural realm, probably do not prove the existence of God. However, they seem to be reasonable arguments. They suggest that the existence of a "First Cause" or "First Mover" who was an "Intelligent Designer" and a "Necessary Being" who grounds all being is reasonable.

Next week: F4. God reveals himself in events apart from nature.

[1] In a later article, we will note that God is not literally male. He does not have sexual organs. If it were natural English to say, "God has revealed Godself in history" or "personself," it would be more literal.

[2] I am writing from a Wesleyan-Arminian perspective. This is a perspective that historically derives from the thinking of Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609) and John Wesley (1703-91). However, it is not limited to their thinking. See F5. There is a spectrum of Christian thinking and practice.

[3] The atomic and subatomic level, as it turns out, is much less predictable, at least in terms of our current understanding.

[4] These definitions can work for those who believe God determines everything that happens as well. They will simply believe that the distinction here is between the normal predictable way God acts, which look like natural laws, and those instances where he does not act in that way.

[5] We discuss the question of where God came from in a later article.

[6] In Christian circles, William Lane Craig is known for a certain version of the medieval Kalaam argument. It goes something like the following (I am paraphrasing): 1) Infinites do not exist in the real world, only theoretically in math; 2) an infinite past would be an infinite in the real world; 3) therefore, the universe must have had a beginning. It seems difficult to me, however, to demonstrate either 1 or 2, despite my agreement that 3 is true.

It is currently fashionable in cosmological circles to speak of multiple universes and the creation of our universe as a sort of bubble that arose within the multi-verse. Such schemes do not disprove the cosmological argument. For example, they could take it further back than we could possibly imagine at this point. There are also alternative creation schemes that, while historically "heterodox" or outside the mainstream, could be engaged in the never-ending search for the all truth that is God's truth.

[7] Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University, 2004)

G3. God has the power to do anything.

I continue my Sunday theology posts. You can see a map to the whole concept here. I'm figuring out the order and precise content of this series as I go.
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God has the power to do anything he wants. He is "all-powerful." In theology, we say he is "omnipotent."

The idea that God is all-powerful flows directly from the idea that he created the universe out of nothing or "ex nihilo," as the Latin goes. When we say God created the universe out of nothing, we are saying something different from what ancient creation stories typically said. In those creation stories, creation is the organization of matter that already exists in a chaotic state. When Christians say that God created the universe out of nothing, we are saying he not only ordered the creation but that he created the matter of the creation itself. [1]

The creation is thus distinct from God. The creation is not part of God, let alone all of God. [2] As a previous article said, God does not need the creation, although the creation needs God. The creation is not self-sufficient, although God is.

With the discovery of relativity in the twentieth century, we are now in a better position than ever to recognize that God not only created the matter of the universe but the very space in which that matter exists. That is to say, God not only created the universe, but he created the emptiness in which the universe exists. He created space and time. This realization may help clarify aspects of God's relationship to the creation that no Christians before the 1900s would have fully understood.

If God created the world out of nothing, then it follows logically that he must have enough power to create the universe. You cannot lift a rock if you do not have enough strength to lift the rock. In the same way, God must have enough power to create a universe out of nothing, meaning that he must have all power in relation to the creation.

So God has the power to do anything in the creation that the creation can do and more. Miracles are when God does more than the creation can do. God created the universe to follow certain natural laws. On its own, the universe follows these rules. But as God, God sometimes interrupts the normal cause-effect chain of reality and breaks the rules. This is what a true miracle is, when God does something in the creation that is outside the normal cause and effect chain of events.

Indeed, one argument for the existence of a Creator is the "cosmological argument," which suggests that the existence of God makes sense in the light of cause and effect. Although we should not consider the determinations of science final or necessary for theology, science currently suggests that the universe had a beginning. But if the universe had a beginning, it makes sense to ask why it began or what caused it. The notion that God was the "first mover" or the initial cause of the universe certainly makes sense, even if it is not an absolute proof. [3]

The common response, "Then where did God come from?" misunderstands the argument as presented above. The idea that it makes sense for the universe to have a cause is a comment on the universe, not on its cause. Indeed, this argument directly suggests that God's essence is "outside" or "beyond" the universe. Things inside this universe seem to need causes. We have no point of reference to say whether things outside this universe do.

An even more foolish question is whether God can create a rock so big that he cannot lift it, as if the notion of all power is incoherent in itself. The word "can" in this question is used in two different ways and we might reword it to ask, "Is it possible for God to create a rock so big that he cannot lift it?" The answer is no, because God can can lift any rock. In fact, God would not be omnipotent if there were a rock he couldn't lift. It is a trick question which more or less asks whether it is possible for God not to be omnipotent. The answer is "no."

Basically, to say God is all powerful does not mean that everything is possible for God to do. Is it possible for God to fail? No. God could only fail if he chose to fail, and in that case he would have succeeded.

God has the power to do anything, because he created the universe out of nothing. So God has absolute power over every aspect of the world. He can make the universe do anything the universe can do, and he can even make the universe do things it can't do.

Next week. G4. God can do whatever he wants.

[1] It is not clear that the Bible itself yet understood creation out of nothing. Genesis 1:1-2 can be read grammatically and contextually as the ordering of chaotic waters and creation out of materials that were already there. Similarly, it is not agreed whether Hebrews 11:3 pictures creation out of nothing. Nevertheless, it is agreed that by the end of the second century AD, the Gnostic controversy had solidified Christian belief in creation out of nothing, and it has been part of common Christian belief ever since.

The Gnostics believed that matter was evil. An early Christian named Marcion (ca. 150) even believed that the creator God of the Old Testament was an evil being. In response to Gnosticism, Christians asserted strongly not only that the God of the Old Testament was the same God as in the New Testament but that he had created the universe out of nothing, not from pre-existing materials. Non-Christian Jews seem to have solidified their belief in creation out of nothing at the same time for the same reasons.

[2] The view that the world is God is called "pantheism." The view that the world is part of God is sometimes called "panentheism" today. As early as the 100s and 200s, Christians generally rejected the idea that the world was an emanation from God.

[3] Another argument for the existence of God is the so called "ontological argument." In its classical form, it probably doesn't make sense. Anselm in the 1000s suggested in effect that, since we can conceive of the greatest possible being, he must actually exist (in a work called Proslogion). Although the way he formulated this argument probably doesn't work, some in modern times have attempted to rehabilitate it in a different form, chiefly Alvin Plantinga, The Ontological Argument from St. Anselm to Contemporary Philosophers (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965). However, it is not clear that they succeeded.

Practical Theology 2: Why Believe in God?

The second in my new Sunday series on what the practical implications of theology are.

Introduction
1. Is Theology Practical?

2. Why Believe in God?
Why should someone believe in God? To word it that way could give the mistaken impression that we really have a choice about whether God really exists or not.  In reality, either God really exists outside ourselves or he doesn't.  What we want to believe about his existence is irrelevant.

So the best answer to the question is "because he exists."  People should believe in God because he is real and he exists.

Unfortunately, God's existence is not as obvious to the people of the world as it used to be.  He does not come down to earth to do interviews on the news. He does not do miracles on demand. Most people find belief in God reasonable, but few people are convinced merely by some logical argument.

So it makes sense to say that someone created the universe. The idea that the universe just happens to be here continues to baffle the mind. What caused it to explode into existence when it did?

And there is an order to the universe. Quarks and electrons behave in certain predictable ways. Even evolution and chaos theory follow certain rules.  Are those rules just coincidence?  Our lives seem to have meaning. The world seems so beautiful.  Is the universe really just accidental and coincidence, and my sense of them merely the interactions of chemicals in my brain?

None of these things prove God's existence. The path of the intellectual zealot who feels compelled to prove things is just as likely to hurt faith as to help it. Faith in God is reasonable, but God is more about faith than about proof.

Why believe in God? Because he's calling to you. Some Christians of course only believe that God calls a few privileged ones, the "elect," the "predestined." That is not the spirit of the New Testament. The spirit of the New Testament is 1 Timothy 2:4--God wants all people to be saved.

A more coherent theology believes that God gives light to everyone who comes into the world.  At some point, he tugs on the heart of every person.  Why believe in God? Because he is tugging at our hearts.  When he tugs on your heart, believe.


Future posts...
God the Creator
3. God as Other
4. God as Timeless
5. God the All Powerful
6. God the All Knowing
7. God the Spirit
8. Three in One
9. God as Love
10. God as Just

Why do you believe?

I'm in the middle of a second edit of the philosophy book I've written.  I've been doing a chapter a day.  Today I am reading through the chapter on the existence of God.  I thought I'd ask you, whoever you are, Why do you believe in God?  What books or resources have been meaningful to you in this regard?

Sunday Oden 4: Whether God Exists

For previous posts in this series, see here.

After two chapters about God's attributes, Oden now shifts to the question of whether God exists. This order of proceding is important to him, even though he seems quite convinced that these arguments are persuasive. He does not believe God's existence can be proved beyond doubt (83).

I want to make it very clear that it is not necessary for all these arguments to work for us to believe in God. Indeed, some would argue that the proper approach is blind faith rather than "evidence that demands a verdict."

In the end, he presents five kinds of argument that have been made:

1. Arguments from order and design (teleological arguments)

The argument from order is that the order of the universe is such that it begs for us to conclude an intelligence created it with purpose, that there is an Orderer of some kind behind it. The argument from design is similar, but slightly different. It argues that the complexity of the universe argues for an intelligent designer, much as a watch would.

Many will find this argument convincing. Evolution was often thought to have dethroned it, but even the theory of evolution involves patterns of order. Why does nature behave one way and not another? I wonder if in a quantum age, the argument from design collapses into the cosmological argument.

2. Arguments from humanity

The first of these is the argument of mind--how can we have minds by chance? How could nature produce something greater than itself? Not sure this argument makes sense to me. A couple of other arguments here that have been used in the past don't make a lot of sense to me. For example, God may very well have implanted in the human mind an awareness of Him, but it would be circular to argue that this fact alone argues that He exists.

More convincing is the argument that the existence of the divine is the general consensus of human culture. It is striking that humans seem universally to have some sense of the existence of gods. There must be some very strong reality driving this indeed!

3. Arguments from change, causality, contingency, and degrees of being

These are the standard cosmological arguments and although they do not prove the existence of the Christian God, I find them very impactful arguments. What caused the universe to explode into existence? Could it be possible that everything in the universe only existed contingently? If so, then it would be possible that nothing would exist. But if nothing could exist, there could not thereafter be anything. So it does seem like there must be some Thing or things that exist necessarily.

I'm not sure how helpful the arguments from motion and degrees of being are. In our world, I think the argument from motion collapses into the argument from cause. The degrees of being argument is that there must be a highest degree of being if we can conceive of lower ones. Not sure this makes any sense today.

Here again is where I respect the fathers but know way more about the world than they did. That makes this chapter seem really off to me at points.

4. Arguments from conscience, beauty, pragmatic results and congruity

I do not find these particular arguments very compelling myself. For example, the moral argument goes something like this: "The existence of absolute moral obligation establishes the existence of God as the cause of the moral order" (94). The problem is that the existence of absolute moral obligation is not at all obvious in the world, even though I believe in it.

Similarly, Kant's arguments for freedom, immortality, and God were based on certain things that seemed obvious to him about the world. Cultural anthropology far from vindicates his sense that everybody experiences such things the way he did. The arguments from conscience and beauty again seem far removed from the universal sense of those in this messed up world. The pragmatic argument is a reason why it might be advantageous to believe but it is not really an argument for the truth of such belief.

5. argument from the idea of perfect being

We end with the ontological argument. Oden clearly thinks he has hit pay dirt here, and there was a time when I tried to meditate on it to grasp its profundity. In the end, I find myself unable to say whether it has any truth to it or not. On one level it is logically incoherent. But there may be a subtle truth to it that I have not fully grasped.

The argument basically is that we could not conceive of God unless God actually existed, that the very idea of God implies within it the existence of God. The logical problem with the argument is that it mixes apples and oranges. The conception of God is a matter of our thoughts. The existence of God is a matter of the reality outside our mind. The argument as classically presented by Anselm and Descartes crosses this boundary between conception and world.

Certainly the greatest possible Being can exist in my conception. But if that fact in itself implies God exists in the real world, I have not yet been able to discern why.

So I find this chapter disappointing. Oden seems to treat all the classic arguments as if they are still fully convincing. Most of them to me, however, seem based on a pre-Cartesian view of the world. Nevertheless, God will continue to exist just fine with or without any of them. :-)

Plantinga and the Ontological Argument

I've finally finished a chapter on arguments for the existence of God that I started over a year ago. Ouch. I started to end the chapter by revisiting a version of the ontological argument by Alvin Plantinga. I remember hearing in seminary that it had made some atheists nervous... and I remembered having great difficulty wrapping my head around it.

When I first encountered Anselm's version of the argument, I remember thinking, "Man, I just don't understand it." But I've since concluded it doesn't make sense. Just because we believe in God doesn't mean that every argument for the existence of God makes sense. I used always to assume that I was stupid when I couldn't wrap my head around such things. That of course is still sometimes the case.

But I've also come to realize that sometimes the reason a philosopher or theologian or Bible scholar doesn't make sense to me is because, well, they just don't make sense :-) (P.S. Feel free to invoke this principle when reading my thoughts :-)

Just to remind you of Anselm's argument, it goes something like this:

1. I can conceive of the Greatest Possible Being--the Greatest Possible Being exists in my mind.
2. A Being that exists outside my mind would be greater than one that exists in my mind.
3. Therefore, the Greatest Possible Being must exist outside my mind as well as inside my mind.

This argument doesn't work on more than one level for me. The most significant reason it doesn't work is because it confuses ideas with things, like mixing apples and oranges. For this reason, premises 1 and 2 don't connect. They are like ships passing in the night.

I decided to leave Plantinga mostly out of the chapter because I think his argument is tautologous. His first premise is, in my opinion, exactly what we are trying to prove in the first place.

His argument goes as follows:[1]

1. There is a possible world in which maximal greatness is instantiated.

2. Necessarily, a being is maximally great only if it has maximal excellence in every world (and thus has omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection in every world).

3. If premise 1 is true, then it would be impossible for that being not to exist in that possible world.

4. But if it were impossible for that being not to exist in that possible world, it would be impossible for that being to exist in any world.

5. Therefore, that being must exist in all possible worlds.

I have several problems with this argument.

For one, I don't like thinking of God as the greatest possible being because the hidden premise is that we are talking about this universe, inevitably the argument limits God to the limits of to this universe, the greatest possible in this universe, since our conception here is unavoidably limited to our frame of reference. Such a scenario says nothing about the parameters outside this universe and the cosmological argument in any case places God outside of this universe. The entire line of thought is thus ill conceived as a premise for further argument.

It does seem true that if God exists, then God must exist in all possible worlds, understood from our point of reference. We cannot conceive or argue about possibilities beyond our point of reference. Arguments of possible worlds are thus only drawing pads for talking about our world and worlds that might be like ours. This immediately undermines the entire argument as well.

My hunch is that, if we pushed the ontological argument in the right direction, and maybe a nuclear physicist could help out here, we would find that the ontological argument and the argument from necessity turn out to be the same thing as the cosmological argument.

[1] God, Freedom, and Evil (New York: Harper & Row, 1974). My apologies to Plantinga for leaving out some of the subtleties of his actual argument, but since I consider his argument tautologous, it doesn't really matter.

Final Installment: Arguments for God's Existence 4

5.4 Arguments from Existence
We want finally to consider two final arguments for the existence of God that are sometimes made.

The first is often associated with the cosmological argument and it was Aquinas' third argument for the existence of God. It is sometimes called the argument from necessity or contingency. In Aquinas' version, we notice that everything we can observe within the creation is of a "contingent" sort. That is to say, it does not have to exist.

My parents might never have married, and I might never have been born. Mars does not have to exist, nor does the Earth. As far as we can tell, nothing in all of the creation has to exist, apparently even the creation itself. Admittedly, we are in no position scientifically to say whether something in the universe might have to exist, but it certainly does not seem so.

For Aquinas, we have a problem if everything that exists is only "contingent," unnecessary. For if nothing has a necessary existence, then in theory, nothing might exist. But if it is possible that nothing in the creation might exist, then how could anything thereafter exist? If at some moment contingency called in all its bets and nothing existed, then nothing could come back from nothing.

So, reasoned Aquinas, something must exist necessarily. "And this," said Aquinas, "we call God."

It is hard to evaluate this argument from the standpoint of reason. We really know so little scientifically on this level. It might very well imply that something must exist necessarily. However, what that necessary thing might be we cannot say from this argument alone.

A final argument for the existence of God is the ontological argument, apparently first put forward by Anselm (1000's). We might summarize it as follows:

1. We can imagine what the greatest possible Being would be like--the greatest possible Being exists in our thoughts.

2. One characteristic of such a greatest possible Being--which exists in our thought--is that it actually exist in the world as well as in our thoughts.

3. Therefore, the greatest possible Being must exist in the world as well.

Immanuel Kant, who of course believed in God, rejected Anselm's argument as incoherent. Basically, Kant argued that Anselm's argument mixed two different kinds of claims--one of which was about the world and the other of which was about ideas. Mixing the two together was like mixing apples and oranges or playing two different games on two different fields. The premises do not connect to one another.

The bottom line is that Anselm--as Descartes later when he advanced a similar argument--tended toward the idealist end of the spectrum, where reality is closely related to ideas. For Descartes, for example, if you could conceive of something clearly and distinctly, then it was in all likelihood true.

In more recent times, Alvin Plantinga has advanced new versions of the ontological argument. One of his chief claims is that belief in God is "properly basic." Belief in God is so fundamental to life that we cannot even imagine a universe without a God. Even those who think they do not believe in God must presuppose God's existence in all their thinking. The existence of God is a part of making our way through life in the same way that believing other people and objects actually exist is or that other people have minds like I do.

Monday Thoughts: Arguments for God's Existence 3

I'll have to seriously abbreviate the other arguments for the existence of God because time flieth.

5.3 Arguments from Design
A second set of arguments for the existence of God has to do with the order of creation. If one finds a watch, William Paley (1700's) suggested, you assume that there must have been a watchmaker. You do not think for one moment that the watch has just happened to come about by chance. So it is with the order of nature. Paley suggested that even the eyeball is complex enough to suggest it must have had a designer.

Much has happened since the 1700's when Paley famously made this argument, an argument that had of course been made before in various ways by various people. Even in the 1700's, David Hume questioned how good an analogy the watchmaker example was. Then of course Charles Darwin argued that complexity was simply a matter of chance evolution. Today we have chaos theory, which suggests that although it is unlikely that any specific order would come together by chance, the likelihood that some kind of order will occur by chance is virtually certain over time. "You couldn't do that again if you tried," but by accident every once and a while, "truth is stranger than fiction."

Advocates of the "teleological argument," the argument from design, have not stood still either. Intelligent design theory has opposed the idea that the order of the world could have arisen strictly by chance. It argues on the contrary that there is "irreducible complexity" in the world that cannot be explained strictly on the basis of chance or evolution.

Similarly, the English philosopher Richard Swinbourne (1900's), while accepting evolution, has argued that even evolution proceeds according to certain laws. He argues that there are "laws of nature" that embody a design to the universe. Why do things consistently fall down instead of up? Why is it that "for every action there is an equal and opposition reaction"? He would say that the fact that the universe operates according to laws leads to the question of a Designer who created those laws and put them in play.

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis advanced a moral argument for the existence of God. While different cultures have quite significantly different senses of what is right and wrong (as we will see in a later chapter), almost all cultures have such a sense. The content of morality may differ widely, but the fact of morality is a constant. Lewis suggested that such a moral structure to the universe implied a moral Creator.

Certainly Christianity believes that the complexity of the world is a result of an intelligent Designer and that. Similarly, Christians have traditionally believed that humanity was created in the image of God and thus that part of that imagine is a "moral" element. These beliefs seem very reasonable.

However, it is not at all clear that reason alone demands these beliefs. These are reasonable beliefs, but we ultimately affirm them by faith. It is not clear that science or logic compells us to draw these conclusions. Evolutionary psychologists would argue, for example, that what we are calling a moral nature is simply an evolutionary coping mechanism that has evolved over time. And Pojman would note that the telelogical argument does not necessarily point to a good designer.

But before we leave the subject of God's design, we should probably mention experiences of God and miracles. More than any argument, the most convincing ones individually are our experiences of God and our observation of what seems otherwise inexplicable. To be sure, individuals from other religions have experiences that they explain from within their religious frameworks. One must therefore be careful to base your faith in God purely on the basis of your personal experience.

Nevertheless, Christians regularly have experiences that substantiates for them the existence of the Christian God. Further, the Bible argues not only that "signs and wonders" were a part of Jesus' "ministry." It indicates that they accompanied the mission of the first generation of Christians. Many believers throughout the last 2000 years--and many today, particularly in third world Christianity--have witnessed events they could not explain as normal occurrences.

It would be difficult to argue, even if someone believed a good deal of the gospel record was legendary, that Jesus did not perform miracles. A skeptic might argue that the gospel accounts were embellished or that some of them were not historical. But clearly the ancients categorized Jesus in part as a miracle worker, a category into which they placed other ancient figures like Apollonius of Tyana, Honi the circle drawer, or Hanina ben Dosa. Regardless of how skeptical one is, the burden of proof is squarely on anyone who would deny that Jesus did things that observers categorized as miracles.

It is also beyond reasonable doubt that the apostles of Jesus performed miracles as a part of their mission as well. Paul reminds the Corinthians, who are hostile to him, that he performed miracles when he was there (e.g., 2 Cor. 12:12). The author of Hebrews similarly reminds his audience of the signs and wonders that accompanied those who brought the message of salvation (Heb. 2:4).

But of course the most important "miracle" of all, and the one most specifically related to the Christian God, is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. No reputable historian would even suggest that Jesus was not a real person or that he did not really die by crucifixion at the hands of the Romans. We would not be able to account for the comments in Tacitus and Josephus, let alone for the writings of the New Testament themselves, if this event did not happen.

It also seems difficult to account for the relevant facts if the followers of Jesus did not at least believe in the strongest of terms that Jesus had risen from the dead. Other individuals claimed to be messiah and died at the hands of the Romans. We have no religions in relation to them. No Jew would have expected the true messiah to die, let alone at the hands of the Romans. It is hard to imagine anything but a vastly demoralized group of Jesus followers after the crucifixion.

The account of the tomb, with its unique historical particulars, seems likely. For example, it is interesting that when Matthew records rumors about "what really happened," the empty tomb is assumed. Those who disbelieve claim that the disciples stole the body. This counter-argument assumes, however, that there was a tomb without a body.

If it seems likely from a purely secular perspective that there was an empty tomb, it also seems almost certain that a wide variety of individuals believed that they had seen Jesus alive after his death. Paul records the traditional list in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8: first Peter, then the other disciples, then over 500 people at once, then James, then the other apostles, lastly Paul. Paul knew these people, and his churches apparently knew about them as well.

By his own admission, Paul met with Peter and James in Jerusalem three years after he believed on Christ (Gal. 1:18-19). Paul mentions people like Peter, James, and Barnabas to the Corinthians, many of whom opposed him, as if they know who these people are (1 Cor. 9:5-6). This fact makes it very difficult to suggest that Paul was just making up the resurrection. The only reasonable conclusion is that these individuals did in fact claim, as Paul, to have seen Jesus alive after his death (cf. 1 Cor. 9:1).

We have no reason to doubt the traditions that point to martyrs deaths for most of these individuals. Peter and Paul in Rome, James in Jerusalem, according to tradition all but John died for their beliefs. We do not have to prove all of theses to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the key individuals who professed to have seen Jesus were so convinced that they surrendered their lives for that belief.

This discussion ultimately comes down to faith. If resurrections are possible, then the resurrection of Jesus is certainly an example. The evidence is there if one believes in the possibility. Of course if one does not believe in resurrections and miracles, then you can certainly come up with some other explanation. But to those with faith, it is more than reasonable to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead.

one more installment tonight, hopefully...

5.4 Arguments from Existence
argument from necessity
ontological argument

Arguments for the Existence of God 2

5.2 Cosmological Arguments
One of the oldest and best known arguments for the existence of God is the so called "cosmological argument," particularly the cause-effect version of it. It argues in effect that "something cannot come from nothing." So the world must have come from somewhere. It must have had a Creator, a supreme cause.

Most people have also heard the classic response: then where did God come from? Various people have made cosmological arguments in one form or another over the centuries. Some of them work better than others.

We favor the following version of the cosmological argument:

1. The universe had a beginning--we apparently can trace the chain of causes and effects in the physical world back to a point in time.

2. We lack any scientific explanation for that beginning. We have no explanation for what "caused" and began creation.

3. It is reasonable to suggest that something "beyond" this universe caused that beginning.

Now as Christian philosophers like Louis Pojman have suggested, the cosmological argument scarcely leaves us with the Christian God. At best it suggests an all-powerful Creator, and the form of the argument we have made above does not even imply that much. But assuming the argument makes sense, it implies that belief in a Creator is perfectly reasonable. Meanwhile, the atheist at present has no alternative explanation for why the universe suddenly decided to begin.<8> He or she must instead have faith that science will one day discover such an explanation or that such an explanation exists even though we have no access to it.

The universe had a beginning.
We most associate the cosmological argument with Thomas Aquinas, who in his Summa Theologica advanced five proofs for God's existence. The first three are versions of the cosmological argument. We will consider the first two now and the third in the next section.

[quote]

Here we see 1) an argument from motion and 2) an argument from cause. Aquinas' argument from motion is basically a Christianized version of an argument made some 1500 years earlier by Aristotle. In the world we observe one thing moving another. Aristotle could not imagine that this process of one thing moving another could go back forever, so he suggested a "First Mover" that was not moved by the world but gave the world its first "push" to get started.

[historical spread on Aristotle, including the fact that he learned of Aristotle through Muslim philosophers like Averroes and Avicenna]

This form of the argument has not generally convinced many people in recent times. For example, Galileo Galilei (1500's) set out the "law of inertia" several hundred years after Aquinas. According to this rule, a body in motion tends to stay in motion, while a body at rest tends to stay at rest. <9> No doubt to Aristotle and Aquinas, it appeared that something had to keep pushing in order for something else to move.

But in theory, the motion of the world could go back infinitely. <10> If an astronaut throws a ball into space, it will continue at the same speed forever unless it runs into some other force. David Hume (1700's) made a similar objection to Aquinas' arguments. <11> How do we know that the motion does not go back infinitely?

On the other hand, the argument we advanced above is a form of the argument from cause. When expressed as a proof, as Aquinas expressed it, it argues that for every effect there must be a cause. William Lane Craig has especially advocated this argument by drawing from the kalam argument of certain Muslim philosophers. <12> If something has a beginning, it must have a cause.

In our view, it is foolish to make this statement with such certainty, since we scarcely know how causation works with universes as a whole. <13> However, if the universe had a beginning, it certainly is rational to suggest from what we do observe of the world that it had a cause. This suggestion is more reasonable to us now than the suggestion that it did not have a cause.

We must also dismiss the simplistic response, "Then where did God come from?" The form of the cosmological argument we are making applies to things we observe within this universe. In this universe, effects consistently have causes. When we make this statement, we imply nothing about whether Creators must have causes. By the rules we have laid down, any Creator stands "beyond" or "outside" the creation in essence. To observe rules within the creation thus says nothing about the rules of the Creator.

While it is foolish to base one's belief in God on the current state of scientific thinking, it does no harm to mention that science currently favors a beginning for the universe. We mention just two reasons. The first has to do with the "mass" of the universe, the amount of stuff in it. Every bit of matter as we know it has a certain gravitational pull. <14> In theory, if the universe had a certain amount of matter in it, then the universe might one day stop expanding and collapse on itself. If that were the case, someone might suppose that the history of the universe is simply an endless cycle of expansion and collapse leading to another expansion (the so called oscillating Big Bang theory).

However, astrophysicists do not currently think that the universe has enough mass for this to happen. As such, they believe the evidence currently points to a single beginning to the universe. Christians do not have to agree with all the particulars of current astrophysics to enjoy the secular conclusion that the universe had a beginning. Science has refuted David Hume for us, at least for the moment.

A second argument has to do with the fact that the universe is constantly in the process of cooling down. Newton's second law of thermodynamics observes that the workings of the world inevitably turn various forms of energy into heat. The long and short of it is that things tend to disorder from order over time. There is no such thing as a machine that can go on forever without putting more energy into it. The work you do now eventually dissipates as friction and heat, never to be recovered.

Eventually, at least if things continue as they are, the universe will cool down to absolute zero. The energy in the universe will convert to heat and all the heat will spread out evenly throughout the universe until everything is cold, cold, cold. By the same token, the universe could not be infinitely old or else the heat would have already dissipated. This fact points to a beginning and, thus, David Hume is foiled once again.

Of course we should never base our faith on the "God of the gaps," the God who we bring into some gap in our understanding. History since the scientific revolution has witnessed Christian after Christian staking their faith on some unexplained aspect of science. And history has witnessed those gaps get filled in time and time again.

The cosmological argument does not prove the existence of God. What it does is suggest that, at least with regard to the matter of causation, it makes more sense to believe in a Creator than it does not to.

<8> Beware of God of the gaps arguments... Kenneth Miller.

<9> Later known as Newton's first law of motion.

<10> However, we will argue in a moment that Newton's second law of thermodynamics implies a beginning to the universe for different reasons.

<11> ref.

<12> ref.

<13> compare Paul Edwards...

<14> Newton's "law of universal gravitation."

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.