Dear Posterity,
According to statistics, a great many of you have asked this question. A great many of you have come to your own conclusions as well…but how did you go about it? Did you reluctantly make a conclusion after minimal research, if any at all? Or chalk it up to “just having faith” while hanging your brain up at the door? Or did you dig in and wrestle with some weighty arguments? If the latter, hats off. If the former, now’s your opportunity. Let’s take a look at seven classical arguments for the existence of God so you can make up your own mind on the matter.
I’ll keep it short due to the list of resources listed below for further, in depth analysis:
1. The Cosmological Argument (focuses on existence itself):
The universe is an extraordinary effect that necessitates an adequate cause, the first and ultimate cause being an intelligent Creator:
a. Every effect has a cause; there cannot be infinite regress.
b. Every effect depends on a cause for its existence.
c. The universe or nature cannot originate itself, therefore there must be a First Cause, and that cause must be God.
2. The Teleological Argument (focuses on astonishing complexity of the universe):
The apparent purpose, order and design in the universe necessitates an intelligent Creator. The astoundingly intricate order, both micro and macroscopically, implies a Designer.
3. The Moral Argument (focuses on why we have a sense of right & wrong):
Humans have moral feelings; they’re satisfied when justice is met or they feel guilt with unresolved. Human conscience, the sense of right and wrong, testifies of a moral Creator. Without the existence of an ultimate ethical Being, our assumptions of morality, ethics, and justice could only be relative. However darkened and calloused, every person has some sense of right and wrong. Something within us cries out for justice, and this apparent innate sense of morality powerfully indicates that a moral God made humans in His image.
What Immanuel Kant called “the moral imperative” actually points to an ethical Absolute. While Kant sought to debunk other arguments for God, the moral argument commanded his respect the most.
4. The Anthropological Argument (focuses on personhood):
“The human being is an intelligent, volitional, and emotional being with innate capacities for relationship, language, creativity, ruling, and a sense of eternity. Neuroscientists explain some things about how the brain functions but almost nothing of why the human brain has self-consciousness,” writes Dr. J. Scott Horrell, senior professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. Just as water does not flow up hill, these extraordinary personal characteristics reflect a superior personal Creator.
5. The Ontological Argument (focuses on why we have the capacity to imagine a God):
Anselm’s Proslogion (12th century) set forth the fascinating a priori argument that because human beings have a concept of some higher Being who is the greatest of all conceivable beings (perfect, holy, loving and just), therefore that Being must exist…otherwise we wouldn’t have conceived of Him in the first place. All knowledge begins with a prior concept. “[S]ince God is the greatest Being who can be thought of, He cannot be conceived as not existing; for if He could [be thought of as not existing], then it would be possible to conceive a being greater than God who does exist; therefore, God must exist.” (Charles Ryrie, Survey of Bible Doctrine)
6. The Argument from Universal Religious Experience (focuses on mankind's collective experience):
The vast majority of humanity has been and is still today religious, claiming experience with the supernatural. A. E. Taylor, Richard Swinburne, and others have long argued that the collective religious experience of humankind can no more be ignored than any other experience common to man for evidence for the divine.
*At least 55% of the world’s population today claims belief in a personal God (theism)!*
7. Pascal's Wager (focuses on risk and chance):
French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-62) argued in his classic Pensées that—given the options of belief, that is: (1) in the Christian God with a consequent life of obedience (and reward of Heaven) versus (2) disbelief in God with a life of fleshly pleasure (but possibility of Hell)—the reasonable choice would be obedient belief in God.
Pascal writes:
Either God is or he is not. But to which view shall we be inclined? Reason cannot decide this question. Infinite chaos separates us. At the far end of this infinite distance a coin is being spun which will come down heads or tails. How will you wager? Reason cannot make you choose either, reason cannot prove either wrong.…but you must wager. There is no choice, you are already committed. Which will you choose then? Let us see: since a choice must be made, let us see which offers you the least interest [return]. You have two things to lose: the true and the good; and two things to take: your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to avoid: error and wretchedness. Since you must necessarily choose, your reason is no more affronted by choosing one rather than the other. That is one point cleared up. But your happiness? Let us weigh us the gain and the loss involved in calling heads that God exists. Let us assess the two cases: if you win you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then; wager that he does exist.…here there is an infinity of infinitely happy life to be won, one chance of winning against a finite number of chances of losing [now supposing more than two options], and what you are staking is finite. That leaves no choice; wherever there is infinity, and where there are not infinite chances of losing against that of winning, there is no room for hesitation, you must give everything. And thus, since you are obliged to play, you must be renouncing reason if you hoard your life rather than risk it for an infinite gain…
(Pensées, ed. and trans. A. J. Krailsheimer, 1966)
In other words, it is finally unreasonable not to choose God and the Christian faith because the consequences are everlasting. Evangelists from D. L. Moody to Billy Graham have persuaded similarly. Whereas Pascal probably conceded too much regarding the unreasonability of God’s existence, we may wisely argue for God from “the balance of probability.” (Swinburne, The Existence of God). Truly…
With every esteem and respect,
Calamity Greenleaf
Additional Resources:
Cosmological Argument:
Plato, Laws X; Aristotle’s Prime-Mover, Metaphysics VIII; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Q2. Ans.3; Swinburne, The Existence of God, 1st ed., 116-32; Norman Geisler, Philosophy of Religion (Zondervan, 1981) 190-298; Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, Creation Out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration (Baker, 2004).
See *Ps. 102:25-27; Acts 17:24-28; Heb. 3:4; *11:3.
Teleological Argument:
Stephen C. Meyer, Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design (HarperOne, 2013) and Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (reprint HarperOne, 2010); Spitzer, New Proofs for the Existence of God (Eerdmans, 2010); William A. Dembski and Michael Ruse, Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2008); Dembski, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006); Anthony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, There Is a God (HarperOne, 2008); John Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science (Yale Univ. Press, 1998); Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (Free Press, 1996).
See *Ps. 19:1-6; *Acts 14:15-18; *17:24-28.
Anthropological Argument:
Marc Cortez, Theological Anthropology (T & T Clark, 2010); Nonna Verna Harrison, God’s Many-Splendored Image (Baker, 2010); Rob Moll, What Your Body Knows about God (InterVarsity Press, 2014); Kenneth Boa, Augustine to Freud: What Theologians and Psychologists Tell Us About Human Nature (and Why It Matters) (B & H, 2004); Ian G. Barbour, Human Nature and God: Theology and the Sciences (Fortress, 2002); Alistair Mc- Fadyen, The Call to Personhood (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990).
See Gen. 1:26-27; *Ps. 8:3-8; Acts 17:29.
Moral Argument:
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason; Armand M. Nicholl, Jr., The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life (Free Press, 2002) and Nonna Verna Harrison, God’s Many-Splendored Image: Theological Anthropology for Christian Formation (Baker, 2010).
See Rom. 1:32-2:16; esp. 2:14-15.
Ontological Argument:
Anselm’s Proslogion; Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Clarendon, 1982); Alvin Plantinga, The Ontological Argument, from St Anselm to Contemporary Philosophers (Anchor Books, 1965); or more accessibly J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (InterVarsity Press, 2003).
Argument for Universal Religious Experience:
Wilhelm Schmidt, The Origin of the Idea of God; Winfred Corduan, Neighboring Faiths: A Christian Introduction to World Religions (2d ed., InterVarsity Press, 2012).
