Dialogue

Education
2009

Does God Exist?

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Contents

Page 3 - Video Presentation Richard Dawkins The God Delusion

Page 4 - Defining the Questions
Page 6 - The Problem of the supernatural
Pages 9 and 10 - Arguments for the Existence of God
Pages 14 to 15 - Ontological Arguments
Page 16 - Kalam Argument
Page 19 -Teleological Arguments
Page 20 - Alvin Plantingas response to the Problem of Evil
Page 24 to 27 - Arguments against Belief in God
Pages 28 to 30 - God Exists ! This can be demonstrated.
Page 32 - God exists ! This cannot be demonstrated or refuted.
Page 34 - Video Presentation - Alastair McGrath response to Richard Dawkins
Page 35 - Community of Inquiry Does God Exist?
Page 36 - Video Presentation Song What is God was one of us?
Page 37 - Bibliography

YOUTUBE Video Professor Richard

Dawkins talking about his book The God
Delusion

Click on the
image to the left.
You will need to
be connected to
the internet to
view this
presentation.
Enlarge to full
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Does God Exist?

What are the arguments that have been offered for the
existence of God? Are they like other kinds of philosophical
arguments? Are they a priori arguments? a posteriori
arguments? Transcendental arguments? Inferences to the
best explanation? Are some arguments for the existence of
God better than others? If so, what are they and why? Can
we infer the existence of God from the idea of God alone
without any appeal to experience? Or would it be better to
try and infer the existence of god from the effects of god
supposedly evidenced in the world? What are the
arguments for the existence of god meant to establish,
anyway? Is the existence of god something that can be
demonstrably proven? Or are the arguments for the
existence of god only probabilistic arguments? Are they
meant to convince non-believers to join the club? Or are
they primarily intended to provide the believer with some
kind of rational basis for their own theological beliefs?
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Does God Exist?

The term "God in the Western Philosophical tradition typically

refers to a monotheistic concept of a supreme being that is unlike
any other being. Classical theism asserts that God possesses every
possible perfection, including such qualities as omniscience,
omnipotence, and perfect benevolence. Other philosophical
approaches take a logically simple definition of God such as "the
prime mover" or "the uncaused cause", or "the ultimate creator" or
"a being than which nothing greater can be conceived" from which
the classical properties may be deduced. By contrast Pantheists do
not believe in a personal god. For example, Spinoza and his
philosophical followers (such as Einstein) use the term 'God' in a
particular philosophical sense, to mean (roughly) the essential
substance/principles of nature.
The existence of God is discussed in similar terms outside the
Abrahamic traditions. In the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism,
reality is ultimately seen as a single, qualityless, changeless being
called nirguna Brahman. Advaitin philosophy introduces the
concept of saguna Brahman or Ishvara as a way of talking about
Brahman to people. Ishvara, in turn, is ascribed such qualities as
omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence.
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Does God Exist?

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy which studies the nature,
origin, and scope of knowledge. One cannot be said to "know"
something just because one believes it. Knowledge is, from an
epistemological standpoint, distinguished from belief by justification.
Knowledge in the sense of "understanding of a fact or truth" can be
divided in a posteriori knowledge, based on experience or deduction,
and a priori knowledge from introspection, axioms or self-evidence.
Knowledge can also be described as a psychological state, since in a
strict sense there can never be a posteriori knowledge proper (see
relativism). Much of the disagreement about "proofs" of God's
existence is due to different conceptions not only of the term "God" but
also the terms "proof", "truth" and "knowledge". Religious belief from
revelation or enlightenment (satori) falls in the second, a priori class of
"knowledge".
Different conclusions as to the existence of God often rest on different
criteria for deciding what methods are appropriate for deciding if
something is true or not; some examples include
whether logic counts as evidence concerning the quality of existence
whether subjective experience counts as evidence for objective reality
whether either logic or evidence can rule in or out the supernatural.
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Does God Exist?

The problem of the supernatural

One problem posed by the question of the existence of a god is that
traditional beliefs usually ascribe to God various supernatural
powers. Supernatural beings may be able to conceal and reveal
themselves for their own purposes, as for example in the tale of
Baucis and Philemon. In addition, according to concepts of God, God
is not part of the natural order, but the ultimate creator of nature
and of the scientific laws.
Religious apologists offer the supernatural nature of God as one
explanation of the inability of empirical methods to decide the
question of God's existence. In Karl Popper's philosophy of science,
the assertion of the existence of a supernatural God would be a
non-falsifiable hypothesis, not in the domain of scientific
investigation. The Non-overlapping Magisteria view proposed by
Stephen Jay Gould also holds that the existence (or otherwise) of
God is beyond the domain of science.
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Does God Exist?

Proponents of intelligent design (I.D.) believe there is

empirical evidence for Irreducible complexity pointing to the
existence of an intelligent creator, though their claims are
challenged by most of the scientific community. Some
scientifically literate theists appear to have been impressed
by the observation that certain natural laws and universal
constants seem "fine-tuned to favour the development of
life (see Anthropic principle). However, reliance on
phenomena which have not yet been resolved by natural
explanations may be equated to the pejorative God of the
gaps.
Logical positivists, such as Rudolf Carnap and A. J. Ayer
viewed any talk of gods as literal nonsense. For the logical
positivists and adherents of similar schools of thought,
statements about religious or other transcendent
experiences could not have a truth value, and were deemed
to be without meaning.
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Does God Exist?

Arguments for the existence of God

The cosmological argument argues that there was a "first cause", or
"prime mover" who is identified as God. It starts with some claim about
the world, like its containing entities that are caused to exist by other
entities.
The teleological argument argues that the universe's order and
complexity are best explained by reference to a creator god. It starts
with a rather more complicated claim about the world, i.e. that it
exhibits order and design.
The ontological argument is based on arguments about a "being greater
than which can not be conceived". It starts simply with a concept of
God. Alvin Plantinga formulates this argument to show that if it is
logically possible for God (a necessary being) to exist, then God exists.
The mind-body problem argument suggests that the relation of
consciousness to materiality is best understood in terms of the
existence of God.

Does God Exist?

Arguments that some non-physical quality observed in the universe is of

fundamental importance and not an epiphenomenon, such as justice, beauty,
love or religious experience are arguments for theism as against materialism.
The anthropic argument suggests that basic facts, such as our existence, are
best explained by the existence of God.
The moral argument argues that the existence of objective morality depends on
the existence of God.
The transcendental argument suggests that logic, science, ethics, and other
things we take seriously do not make sense in the absence of God, and that
atheistic arguments must ultimately refute themselves if pressed with rigorous
consistency.
The will to believe doctrine was pragmatist philosopher William James' attempt
to prove God by showing that the adoption of theism as a hypothesis "works" in
a believer's life. This doctrine depended heavily on James' pragmatic theory of
truth where beliefs are proven by how they work when adopted rather than by
proofs before they are believed (a form of the hypothetico-deductive method).
Arguments based on claims of miracles wrought by God associated with specific
historical events or personages.
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Does God Exist?

Traditionally arguments about the
existence of God has been dealt with
by theologians and philosophers.

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Does God Exist?

Two fold distinction in Philosophy
a priori arguments- Argue for the
existence of God from reason.
a posteriori - Infers the existence of
God from effects referring to some
empirical evidence. (through the
senses)
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Does God Exist?

a priori arguments- Ontological
Argument
Anselm Late 11th Century
a posteriori arguments include the
Cosmological argument, Teleological
Argument and Design Argument.
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Does God Exist?

Ontological Argument a priori version of arguing for the
existence of God
Anselm 11th Century Monk- We can
derive the conclusion that God exists
by reflecting on the concept of God.
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Does God Exist?

St Anselms Ontological ArgumentPremise 1- I have a ideal concept of that
beyond which nothing greater can be
conceived.
Premise 2- That which exists in reality and not
just in the mind is greater than that which
exists only in my mind. If God exists only in
my mind God would not be that which only
exists in my mind.
Conclusion- Therefore God exists in reality.
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Does God Exist?

Kalam Argument- Averose
Premise 1-Whatever begins to exist
has a cause of its existence.
Premise 2 -The universe began to exist
therefore the universe has a cause of
its existence.

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Does God Exist?

Arguments to support Premise two
The universe began to exist therefore the universe has a cause of its
existence.
Empirical argument- You could quote physicists to support premise two
.the big bang theory supports this premise.
A priori argument
Premise 1- An actual infinite cannot exist.
Premise 2 - An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
Conclusion An infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.

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Does God Exist?

The 20th Century Philosopher, William Craig
distinguishes between;
A potential infinite
Abstract infinite Hiberts Hotel- has an infinite
number of rooms- Library contains an infinite
number of rooms.
Actual infinite- We cannot have an actual infinite.

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Does God Exist?

Teleological Arguments - Design Argument
William Paley- 18th Century
Premise 1 - A watch has order complexity ,
simplicity mutual co-operation of parts, works
towards an end and has a designer.
Premise 2 the world has order complexity ,
simplicity mutual co-operation of parts, works
towards an end and has a designer.
Conclusion -Therefore God is a designer.
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Does God Exist?

Problems The Philosopher, David Hume pointed
out the problem of disorder. Earth
quakes, Tsunamis tornados, cancer
etc.

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Does God Exist?

Alvin Plantinga response to the Problem
of Evil Plantinga's argument has two basic stages. In this first stage he
argues that the a-theologian has failed to demonstrate that God
and evil are logically incompatible. In the second stage he
argues positively that the existence of God and the existence of
evil are logically consistent. He does so by constructing a model
that includes both the existence of God and the existence of
evil. Among other things, his model of the freewill defence
includes the possibility of "trans-world depravity." His
conception of trans-world depravity amounts to the claim that
there is at least one possible world in which an individual has
morally significant freedom and does at least one morally wrong
action.
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Does God Exist?

Richard Swinburne argues for the
existence of GodPremise 1- If there was a God it is likely
that a world created by him would be
ordered, beautiful, uniform, complex
etc.
Premise 2 the world is well ordered,
beautiful, uniform, complex etc.
Conclusion therefore there is a God.
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Does God Exist?

Other Important Arguments
Pascal's Wager
Pascal's Wager (or Pascal's Gambit) is a
suggestion posed by the French philosopher
Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of
God cannot be determined through reason, a
person should "wager" as though God exists,
because so living has potentially everything to
gain, and certainly nothing to lose.
Wikipedia 23/09/08
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Does God Exist?

Arguments against belief in God
Each of the following arguments aims
at showing either that a particular
subset of gods do not exist (by
showing them as inherently
meaningless, contradictory, or at odds
with known scientific or historical
facts) or that there is insufficient
reason to believe in them.
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Does God Exist?

Arguments against belief in God
Deductive arguments

Deductive arguments attempt to prove their conclusions by deductive reasoning from true
premises.

The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit states that because "God" is omnipotent and omniscient he
is also infinitely complex. This makes his spontaneous appearance or existence far more
unlikely than the universe simply coming into existence, which has a finite complexity. It also
states that design fails to account for complexity, which natural selection can explain.

The belief that God created the universe and God just exists makes too many unproven
assumptions, therefore using Occam's Razor one can "shave" off the unnecessary
assumptions, leaving the universe just exists. The theistic response to this statement is that
Occam's Razor applies only in philosophy not logic, and has no bearing on whether God or
Gods exist.

The omnipotence paradox suggests that the concept of an omnipotent entity is logically
contradictory, from considering a question like: "Can God create a rock so big that he cannot
lift it?" or "If God is all powerful, could God create a being more powerful than itself?".

Another argument suggests that there is a contradiction between God being omniscient and
omnipotent, basically asking "how can an all-knowing being change its mind?" See the article
on omniscience for details.

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Does God Exist?

Arguments against belief in God

The argument from free will contests the existence of an omniscient god who has free will - or has
allotted the same freedom to his creations - by arguing that the two properties are contradictory.
According to the argument, if God already knows the future, then humanity is destined to corroborate
with his knowledge of the future and not have true free will to deviate from it. Therefore our free will
contradicts an omniscient god. Another argument attacks the existence of an omniscient god who has
free will directly in arguing that the will of God himself would be bound to follow whatever God foreknows
himself doing in eternity future.
The Transcendental argument for the non-existence of God contests the existence of an intelligent
creator by suggesting that such a being would make logic and morality contingent, which is incompatible
with the pre-suppositionalist assertion that they are necessary, and contradicts the efficacy of science. A
more general line of argument based on this argument seeks to generalize this argument to all
necessary features of the universe and all god-concepts.
The counter-argument against the Cosmological argument ("chicken or the egg") takes its assumption
that things cannot exist without creators and applies it to God, setting up an infinite regress This attacks
the premise that the universe is the second cause (after God, who is claimed to be the first cause).
Theological non-cognitivism, as used in literature, usually seeks to disprove the god-concept by showing
that it is unverifiable by scientific tests.
It is alleged that there is a logical impossibility in theism: God is defined as an extra-temporal being, but
also as an active creator. The argument suggests that the very act of creation is inconceivable and
absurd beyond the constraints of time and space, and the fact that it cannot be proven if God is in either.

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Does God Exist?

Arguments against belief in God

Empirical arguments

Empirical arguments depend on empirical data in order to prove their conclusions.

The argument from inconsistent revelations contests the existence of the deity called God as described
in scriptures -- such as the Jewish Tanakh, the Christian Bible, or the Muslim Qur'an -- by identifying
apparent contradictions between different scriptures, within a single scripture, or between scripture and
known facts. To be effective this argument requires the other side to hold that its scriptural record is
inerrant, or to conflate the record itself with the God it describes.
The problem of evil contests the existence of a god who is both omnipotent and omni-benevolent by
arguing that such a god should not permit the existence of evil or suffering. The theist responses are
called theodicies.
The argument from poor design contests the idea that God created life on the basis that lifeforms exist
which seem to exhibit poor design. For example, many runners get a painful "stitch" in their side due to
poor placement of the liver.
The argument from non-belief contests the existence of an omnipotent God who wants humans to
believe in him by arguing that such a god would do a better job of gathering believers.
The argument from parsimony contends that since natural (non-supernatural) theories adequately
explain the development of religion and belief in gods, the actual existence of such supernatural agents
is superfluous and may be dismissed unless otherwise proven to be required to explain the phenomenon.
The analogy of Russell's teapot argues that the burden of proof for the existence of God lies with the
theist rather than the atheist/skeptic.

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God exists and this can be demonstrated

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, following the Thomist
tradition and the dogmatic definition of the First Vatican
Council, affirms that it is a doctrine of the Catholic Church that
God's existence has been rationally demonstrated. For the
proofs of God's existence by Saint Thomas Aquinas see
Quinquae viae. Many other Christian denominations share the
view that God's existence can be demonstrated without
recourse to claims of revelation.
On beliefs of Christian faith, theologians and philosophers
make a distinction between:
doctrines arising from special revelation that arise essentially
from faith in divinely inspired revelations, including the life of
Christ, but cannot be proved or even anticipated by reason
alone, such as the doctrines of the Trinity or the Incarnation,
and
doctrines arising from general revelation, that is from reason
alone drawing conclusions based on relatively obvious
observations of the world and self.
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Does God Exist?

The argument that the existence of God can be
known to all, even prior to exposure to any divine
revelation, predates Christianity. St. Paul made
this argument when he insisted that pagans were
without excuse because "since the creation of the
world [God's] invisible nature, namely, his eternal
power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the
things that have been made". In this Paul alludes
to the proofs for a creator, later enunciated by St.
Thomas and others, but that had also been
explored by the Greek philosophers.
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Does God Exist?

Another apologetical school of thought, a sort of synthesis of various existing Dutch and
American Reformed thinkers (such as, Abraham Kuyper, Benjamin Warfield, Herman
Dooyeweerd), emerged in the late 1920s. This school was instituted by Cornelius Van Til,
and came to be popularly called Presuppositional apologetics (though Van Til himself felt
"transcendental" would be a more accurate title). The main distinction between this
approach and the more classical evidentialist approach mentioned above is that the
presuppositionalist denies any common ground between the believer and the nonbeliever, except that which the non-believer denies, namely, the assumption of the truth
of the theistic worldview. In other words, presuppositionalists don't believe that the
existence of God can be proven by appeal to raw, uninterpreted (or, "brute") facts, which
have the same (theoretical) meaning to people with fundamentally different worldviews,
because they deny that such a condition is even possible. They claim that the only
possible proof for the existence of God is that the very same belief is the necessary
condition to the intelligibility of all other human experience and action. In other words,
they attempt to prove the existence of God by means of appeal to the alleged
transcendental necessity of the belief -- indirectly (by appeal to the allegedly unavowed
presuppositions of the non-believer's worldview) rather than directly (by appeal to some
form of common factuality). In practice this school utilizes what have come to be known as
transcendental arguments. In these arguments they claim to demonstrate that all human
experience and action (even the condition of unbelief, itself) is a proof for the existence of
God, because God's existence is the necessary condition of their intelligibility.

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Does God Exist?

Arguments against belief in God
Inductive arguments

Inductive arguments argue their conclusions through inductive reasoning.

The atheist-existentialist argument for the non-existence of a perfect sentient being

states that if existence precedes essence, it follows from the meaning of the term
sentient that a sentient being cannot be complete or perfect. It is touched upon by JeanPaul Sartre in Being and Nothingness. Sartre's phrasing is that God would be a pour-soi [a
being-for-itself; a consciousness] who is also an en-soi [a being-in-itself; a thing]: which is
a contradiction in terms. The argument is echoed thus in Salman Rushdie's novel Grimus:
"That which is complete is also dead."

The "no reason" argument tries to show that an omnipotent and omniscient being would
not have any reason to act in any way, specifically by creating the universe, because it
would have no needs, wants, or desires since these very concepts are subjectively
human. As the universe exists, there is a contradiction, and therefore, an omnipotent god
cannot exist. This argument is espoused by Scott Adams in the book God's Debris.

The "historical induction" argument concludes that since most theistic religions
throughout history (e.g. ancient Egyptian religion, ancient Greek religion) ultimately
come to be regarded as untrue or incorrect, all theistic religions, including contemporary
ones, are therefore untrue/incorrect by induction.

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Does God Exist?

God exists, but this cannot be demonstrated or refuted
Others have suggested that the several logical and philosophical
arguments for and against the existence of God miss the point. The
word God has a meaning in human culture and history that does
not correspond to the beings whose existence is supported by such
arguments, assuming they are valid. The real question is not
whether a "most perfect being" or an "uncaused first cause" exist;
the real question is whether Yahweh or Vishnu or Zeus, or some
other deity of attested human religion, exists, and if so, which
deity. Most of these arguments do not resolve the issue of which of
these figures is more likely to exist. Blaise Pascal suggested this
objection in his Penses when he wrote "The God of Abraham, God
of Isaac, and God of Jacob not the god of the philosophers!".
Philosophical debate has also included Pascal's Wager, the idea of
belief without evidence, based on possible rewards in the afterlife.

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Does God Exist?

Some Christians note that the Christian faith teaches "salvation is by faith", and that faith is
reliance upon the faithfulness of God, which has little to do with the believer's ability to
comprehend that in which he trusts.
The most extreme example of this position is called fideism, which holds that faith is simply
the will to believe, and argues that if God's existence were rationally demonstrable, faith in
its existence would become superfluous. Soren Kierkegaard argued that objective
knowledge, such as 1+1=2, is unimportant to existence. If God could rationally be proven,
his existence would be unimportant to humans. It is because God cannot rationally be
proven that his existence is important to us. In The Justification of Knowledge, the Calvinist
theologian Robert L. Reymond argues that believers should not attempt to prove the
existence of God. Since he believes all such proofs are fundamentally unsound, believers
should not place their confidence in them, much less resort to them in discussions with nonbelievers; rather, they should accept the content of revelation by faith. Reymond's position
is similar to that of his mentor, Gordon Clark, which holds that all worldviews are based on
certain unprovable first premises (or, axioms), and therefore are ultimately unprovable. The
Christian theist therefore must simply choose to start with Christianity rather than anything
else, by a "leap of faith." This position is also sometimes called presuppositional
apologetics, but should not be confused with the Van Tillian variety discussed above.
An intermediate position is that of Alvin Plantinga who holds that a specific form of modal
logic and an appeal to world-indexed properties render belief in the existence of God
rational and justified, even though the existence of God cannot be proven in a
mathematical sense. Plantinga equates knowledge of God's existence with kinds of
knowledge that are rational but do not proceed through proof, such as sensory knowledge.

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YOUTUBE Video Professor Alistair McGrath

talking about his book The Dawkins
Delusion
Click on the
image to the left.
You will need to
be connected to
the internet to
view this
presentation.
Enlarge to full
screen

34

Community of Inquiry
Discussion
CLICK ON THIS

LINK FOR THE

STIMULUS
MATERIAL FOR A
DISCUSSION ON
THE ONTOLOGICAL
ARGUMENT FOR
THE EXISTENCE OF
GOD. (You might
like to print this
material out and
distribute it to the
class.)
35

In the song One of us? by Alanas

Morisette, God is not found through
reason but through contact with the
poor and under privileged.
Click on the
photo for
video
Footage
(You need to
be
connected to
the internet)

36

Bibliography

Polkinghorne, John. Science and Christian Belief. (Stuttgart, 1908)

Swinburne, Richard (1997). Is there a God?. Oxford University
Press. ISBN 0198235453.
(A. Stckl, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, (Stckl, loc. cit.,
199 sqq.)
Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought,
Pascal Boyer, Basic Books (2001) Introduction To Materialist
Apologetics
Baake, David. "Cosmological Arguments Against the Existence of
God". Retrieved on 2007-01-12.
For the proofs of God's existence by Saint Thomas Aquinas see
Quinquae viae.
Plantinga, Alvin (1974). The Nature of Necessity. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Richard Dawkins is the most famous contemporary example, in a
line stretching back through Russell and Marx to the 18th Century
Wikipedia- The Existence of Godhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God
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