Arguments for the Existence of God and the Refutations

Note: refuting these arguments in no way proves God's non-existence. In a future post I will explain how, even as an Atheist, I have a conception of something that might be called "God".

Arguments taken from http://conservapedia.com/Arguments_for_the_existence_of_God

Kalam cosmological argument

The aim of this argument is to show that the universe had a beginning in the finite past. The argument battles against the existence of an infinite, temporal regress of past events which implies a universe that has infinitely existed. This argument implies the existence of a First Cause.

The form of the argument is:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Note that the key phrase here is "begins to exist". The question is not "whatever exists".

The atheistic counter argument has traditionally been to point 2, taking the position that the universe has always existed. With the advent of the Big Bang theory pointing towards a starting point, this line of defense has become rather shaky. It should also be noted that the Kalam argument removes one of the knee jerk reactions to any discussion on creation involving God which is "Then who created God?" Since God has no beginning, the question becomes meaningless. The Bible makes clear that God exists outside of our construct of time in many locations, including 1 Corinthians 2:7, 2 Timothy 1:9, and Titus 1:2.

Refutation: the first two premises are unproven. Firstly, we cannot prove that anything that begins to exist has a cause for the simple reason that we have never observed something beginning to exist, strictly speaking. We only have experience of matter being rearranged in such a way that it excites a concept in our minds that it didn't before. It might be argued that concepts begin to exist, but once again it would seem that they are only rearrangements or such of already existing concepts.

But backtracking a bit...it does seem that we MIGHT have observed things beginning to exist, in the quantum realm. And these things DO NOT appear to have a cause, beyond the randomness inherent in quantum physics.

And then of course there are the points argued by Hume about the phenomenon of cause and effect, and what it means, whether it actually exists, etc.

The second premise is already discussed in the article.

And finally, it is argued that God did not "begin to exist". How do you know this? You can't base it off of Biblical authority as such authority is dependent on the existence of God, which is what we are attempting to prove.

Thomistic cosmological argument

1. What we observe in this universe is contingent (i.e. dependent, or conditional)
2. A sequence of causally related contingent things cannot be infinite
3. The sequence of causally dependent contingent things must be finite

Conclusion: There must be a first cause in the sequence of contingent causes

Why must the second premise be true? This is like arguing that the numbers cannot extend to infinity, therefore there must be some largest number.

Leibnizian cosmological argument

The argument comes from a German polymath, Gottfriend Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz wrote, "The first question which should rightly be asked is this: why is there something rather than nothing?"

The argument runs as follows:

1. Every existing thing has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe is an existing thing.
4. Therefore the explanation of the universe is God.

Some atheists object to premise 2 in that God does not have to be the explanation, but that the universe can be what is called a necessary being (one which exists of its own nature and have no external cause). This was a suggestion of David Hume who demanded, "Why may not the material universe be the necessarily existent being?" (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, part 9). The Kalam Cosmological Argument is helpful. If Hume (and other atheists) is right in saying that the universe is a necessary being/thing, then this implies that the universe is eternal. This is exactly what the Kalam argument seeks to disprove. Thus, the Kalam is a valuable supplement to the Leibnizian argument

One refutation is already mentioned in the article. Also: not only is it possible, as Hume said, for the universe to be a necessarily existent being, but also, if it isn't, why does God have to be its cause? (and why does the universe being a necessarily existent being imply that it is eternal?)

Is God an existing thing? Then what is its cause?

Teleological argument

(the "unmoved mover")

Probably the most popular argument for God's existence is the teleological argument. Derived from the Greek word telos, which refers to purpose or end, this argument hinges on the idea that the world gives evidence of being designed, and concludes that a divine designer must be posited to account for the orderly world we encounter. Although the teleological argument dates at least as far back as Plato, it is perhaps most memorable today from the work of William Paley (1743-1805), in his Natural Theology (1802). Recently, the teleological argument has gained renewed interest as a core element of the theory of Intelligent Design and the related efforts to reconcile science and faith.

Although there are variations, the basic argument goes something like this:

1. X is too complex to have occurred randomly or naturally.
2. Therefore, X must have been created by an intelligent being, Y.
3. God is that intelligent being.
4. Therefore, God exists.

Comments on the teleological argument

The first and second premises assume that one can infer the existence of intelligent design merely by examining an object. This is the same principle that archaeology uses to determine if, for example, a piece of stone is a stone tool.

The teleological argument assumes that because life is complex, it must have been designed. This is based on observations that complexity is not the outcome of random processes. Some object that life or objects are described as, “orderly” or “ordered”, and that this implies that an intelligent designer has ordered them. These objector claim that a system can be non-random or ordered simply because it is following impersonal physical processes, for example diamonds or snowflakes. However, such "ordered" systems do not have complexity, which life has.

The third premise is rejected by some even if the first and second premises are accepted, as the implied designer (Y) might be an unknown force or mere demiurge, not God as God is commonly understood. It is argued in defense that the outside force through which Y came into being might then be explained as a more powerful being resulting in either an omnipotent being or infinite regression.

Critics often argue that the teleological argument would apply to the designer, arguing any designer must be at least as complex and purposeful as the designed object. This, they say, would create the absurdity of an infinite series of designers. However, the counter-argument of an "undesigned designer," akin to Aristotle's uncaused causer, is common. Furthermore, it has been argued that God is not complex, that is, He is not composed of many interrelated parts, so the complexity argument does not apply.

The first premise assumes the wrongness of evolution, obviously. It is also impossible to prove one way or the other: if, for instance, it was shown that DNA was able to develop independently in an environment analogous to the natural one it first developed in, while that would SEEM to be evidence that complexity can be produced by natural processes, it could also be argued that some intelligent entity was guiding the process without our knowing of it.

This argument is, at its core, an analogy: the only basis on which it can be made sense of is in considering a human's ability to create complex things. To create something more complex, a human being has to be more intelligent: the "natural" things we see around us are more complex than anything we've created, therefore whatever created them must be that much more intelligent than us, or at least be intelligent. I do not see how the argument can be understood in anything other than this context and still be understood at all, without presupposing what the it seeks to prove.

Therefore, the question becomes whether this analogy works. The first flaw I see is in not defining "intelligence". For instance, in saying that such and such couldn't happen by natural processes, and therefore must have been produced by something intelligent, it is implied that intelligence is not a natural process. Since the argument only makes sense by considering the analogy of HUMAN intelligence, it pre-supposes that human intelligence does not arise from natural processes--a debatable assumption.

And would the intelligence of God even be analogous to that of human beings? Now, obviously, this argument alone would require that it is--by "analogous" I mean that even though the intelligence could be thought to be infinitely greater than that of a human, it is still of the same nature. However, other assumptions about God that people who make this argument also tend to want to make are inconsistent with it having intelligence analogous to that of humans, meaning that this argument does not prove the existence of the God they are attempting to prove the existence of. Human intelligence fundamentally consists of the ability to solve problems, the ability to conceive of what is not immediately apparent, and, if we allow for free will, the ability to adjust one's own actions. An omnipotent, omniscient, sovereign being would not need any of these abilities, and indeed some of them would be contradictory to its nature.

Finally, you can't get away from the objection that if God is the designer, it must be more complex than its designs, therefore by the argument's reasoning it must have its own designer, because, once again, the argument only makes sense through the analogy of human intelligence. Does we assume that human intelligence is more complex than the things it creates? Now we're comparing complexity in completely different realms of being: immaterial and material, and the question seems to be meaningless. Anyway, in order to argue that complexity is not a term that applies to God, we'd have to argue that its not a term that applies to human intelligence, or at least in some limited way it does not apply. (This is actually a reasonable point of view for Descartes, that human intelligence is not composed of many interrelated parts.)

HOWEVER, while it can be argued that complexity does not apply to human intelligence, it still applies to the means by which our intelligence creates things: our bodies, which the analogy assumes to be more complex than the things we create. Therefore there must be some aspect of God that is more complex than the things IT creates.

Anthropological argument

The anthropological (anthropos meaning "man") argument is made on the basis of the condition of humanity, of mankind's basic moral standards and the thread a search for a higher being. It is related to the cosmological and teleological arguments in that it if man has a yearning for God and a conscience when offending him, ostensibly these have their origin and cause in God and not in man. The argument was perhaps most famously posited by Blaise Pascal, who reasoned that it was better "bet" to believe in God than not to do so.

I think they're discussing two arguments here: I don't see how Pascals wager is an anthropological argument as defined. Anyway, the anthropological argument really doesn't deserve comment.

I discussed Pascal's Wager in my previous post, although for interest of accuracy, I'd replace "infinite", every time I use it in that discussion, with "indefinite".

Ontological argument

The ontological argument attempts to prove God's existence through abstract reasoning alone. The argument is entirely a priori, i.e. it involves no empirical evidence at all. Rather, the argument begins with an explication of the concept of God, and seeks to demonstrate that God exists on the basis of that concept alone.

“

"The argument is ingenious. It has the appearance of a linguistic trick, but it is a difficult task to say precisely what, if anything, is wrong with it. All forms of the argument make some association between three concepts: the concepts of God, of perfection, and of existence. Very roughly, they state that perfection is a part of the concept of God, and that perfection entails existence, and so that the concept of God entails God's existence." [3]

”

The ontological argument was first formulated by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), one of the great medieval philosopher-theologians, in his Proslogium, Chapter 2. Anselm’s ontological argument rests on the identification of God as “that than which no greater can be conceived”. Once it is understood that God is that of which no greater can be conceived, Anselm suggests, it becomes evident that God must exist.

A problem with this argument is that it merely defines God into existence. It is unclear if the concept of being able to conceive of a perfect being has any connection to actual existence. Without being able to make this connection, the merit of the argument can become questionable.

Descartes' ontological argument

We have the idea of an infinitely perfect Being. Since we are finite, and everything around us is finite, the idea of an infinitely perfect Being could not have originated with us or with the nature around us. Therefore the idea of an infinitely perfect Being must have come from such a being - God.

Besides the discussion in the article, there are a few points I'd like to make.
That perfection entails existence is an assumption, and a Western one at that. "Nirvana", for instance, is non-existence.
As to Descartes' argument, I doubt, almost to the extent of being certain its not true, that we have an idea of an infinitely perfect Being, just as we have no idea of higher dimensions or the vastness of the universe. We can reason regarding them, but we cannot really conceive of them. And the fact that we can reason about them does not prove their existence, as is the case with higher dimensions.

Free will argument

• There can be no free will in a totally naturalistic system
• Free will exists
• Therefore God exists

Oxygen and hydrogen don't 'choose' to combine, they do so due to natural laws. In a naturalistic system every component that makes us up obeys similar natural laws. The concept of freewill or choice would therefore not exist.

Objections

Some challenge this argument on the basis that premises one and two have not been proven. They argue:

• In challenging premise 1, those ascribing to compatibilism believe that our experience of free will is still compatible with naturalistic causes even if the mechanism that causes this to be is not yet known and no viable explanation can be postulated apart from acting as if it is so.^[5] Since this can not be disproven, it is possible that free will exists in a naturalistic system.
• In challenging premise 2, those ascribing to determinism simply believe that free will does not exist and no one has free will. Therefore there is no importance to the concept of God.

Beyond the objections mentioned in the article, there's also the fact that, if God is omniscient as commonly supposed, free will can't exist.

Consciousness

• Nature consists of a finite number of elements.
• We (our physical bodies) consist of those elements.
• The elements themselves which we consist of, and nature itself, have no consciousness.
• Despite our elements themselves having no consciousness, we do.
• Consciousness can not happen by chance, therefore there must be a being who supply that to us.
• Infinite regress of beings is illogical, therefore a single, uncaused causer must be the causer of consciousness.
• This uncaused causer of the conscience is God

Objections

• This argument fails to address gestalt consciousness.
• Evolutionists typically argue that consciousness may happen by chance, and that for this reason, the argument is invalid.
• Infinite regress is allowable both in modern mathematics and physics.
• The last point (that the uncaused causer is God) is unsupported unless it is taken as a statement of definition. If this is the case, the prior arguments are unnecessary.

Besides the objections mentioned in the article, there's also the contention that conciousness cannot be an emergent property. To show why this contention is not necessarily true, consider this, probably rather silly sounding, analogous argument:

• Nature consists of a finite number of elements.
• A fire consists of those elements.
• The elements themselves which a fire consist of have no heat [heat is a nonsensical concept at the particle level].
• Despite our elements themselves having no heat, fires do.
• [Therefore something must give the fire heat.]