Proofs For and Arguments Against the Big Guy being a Somewhat

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Proofs For God's Existence

While theology may take God's existence as absolutely necessary on

the basis of authority, faith, or revelation, many philosophers --

and some theologians -- have thought it possible to demonstrate by

reason that there must be a God.

 

St. Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, formulated the

famous " five ways " by which God's existence can be demonstrated

philosophically:

 

1. The " unmoved mover " argument. We know that there is a motion in

the world; whatever is in motion is moved by another thing; this

other thing also must be moved by something; to avoid an infinite

regression, we must posit a " first mover, " which is God.

 

2. The " nothing is caused by itself " argument. For example, a table

is brought into being by a carpenter, who is caused by his parents.

Again, we cannot go on to infinity, so there must be a first cause,

which is God.

 

3. The cosmological argument. All physical things, even mountains,

boulders, and rivers, come into being and go out of existence, no

matter how low they last. Therefore, since time is infinite, there

must be some time at which none of these things existed. But if there

were nothing at that point in time, how could there be anything at

all now, since nothing cannot cause anything? Thus, there must always

have been at least one necessary thing that is eternal, which is God.

 

4. Objects in the world have differing degrees of qualities such as

goodness. But speaking of more or less goodness makes sense only by

comparison with what is the maximum goodness, which is God.

 

5. The teleological argument (argument from design). Things in the

world move toward goals, just as the arrow does not move toward its

goal except by the archer's directing it. Thus, there must be an

intelligent designer who directs all things to their goals, and this

is God.

 

Two other historically important " proofs " are the ontological

argument and the moral argument. The former, made famous by St.

Anselm in the eleventh century and defended in another form by

Descartes, holds that it would be logically contradictory to deny

God's existence. St. Anselm began by defining God as " that [being]

than which nothing greater can be conceived. " If God existed only in

the mind, He then would not be the greatest conceivable being, for we

could imagine another being that is greater because it would exist

both in the mind and in reality, and that being would then be God.

Therefore, to imagine God as existing only in the mind but not in

reality leads to a logical contradiction; this proves the existence

of God both in the mind and in reality.

 

Immanuel Kant rejected not only the ontological argument but the

teleological and cosmological argument as well, based on his theory

that reason is too limited to know anything beyond human experience.

However, he did argue that religion could be established as

presupposed by the workings of morality in the human mind ( " practical

reason " ). God's existence is a necessary presupposition of there

being any moral judgments that are objective, that go beyond mere

relativistic moral preferences; such judgments require standards

external to any human mind -- that is, they presume God's mind.

 

Arguments Against God's Existence

Arguments against God's existence have been given by philosophers,

atheists, and agnostics. Some of these arguments find God's existence

incompatible with observed facts; some are arguments that God does

not exist because the concept of God is incoherent or confused.

Others are criticisms of the proofs offered for God's existence.

 

One of the most influential and powerful " proofs " that there is no

God proceeds from " The Problem from Evil. " This argument claims that

the following three statements cannot all be true: (a) evil exists;

(b) God is omnipotent; and © God is all-loving. The argument is as

follows:

 

If God can prevent evil, but doesn't, then He isn't all-loving.

If God intends to prevent evil, but cannot, then He isn't omnipotent.

If God both intends to prevent evil and is capable of doing so, then

how can evil exist?

Another argument claims that the existence of an all-knowing God is

incompatible with the fact of free will -- that humans do make

choices. If God is omniscient, He must know beforehand exactly what a

person will do in a given situation. In that case, a person is not in

fact free to do the alternative to what God knows he or she will do,

and free will must be an illusion. To take this one step further, if

one chooses to commit a sin, how can it then be said that one sinned

freely?

 

Hume provided powerful critiques of the main arguments for God's

existence. Against the cosmological argument (Aquinas's third

argument), he argued that the idea of a necessarily existing being is

absurd. Hume stated, " Whatever we can conceive as existent, we can

also conceive as nonexistent. " He also asked why the ultimate source

of the universe could not be the entire universe itself, eternal and

uncaused, without a God?

 

Hume also criticized the argument from design (Aquinas's fifth

argument). In particular, he emphasized that there is no legitimate

way we can infer the properties of God as the creator of the world

from the qualities of His creation. For instance, Hume questioned how

we can be sure that the world was not created by a team; or that this

is not one of many attempts at creations, the first few having been

botched; or, on the other hand, that our world is not a poor first

attempt " of an infant deity who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of

his lame performance. ..bob