Arguments for the Existence of God

Higher/Int 2 Philosophy – Metaphysics – Arguments for the Existence of God

Arguments for the Existence of God

Firstly why should this concern us?

·  Firstly, if God did exist, there would be certain important consequences

·  Secondly, the arguments are very persistent – so we have to deal with them

·  Thirdly, as well as being persistent, the arguments are very high profile and generate much interest on all sides.

So what are the sides?

There are three basic views people have on the question of the existence of God.

“I don’t believe that God exists.” – this is called Atheism

“I believe that God does exist.” – this is called Theism

“I am undecided on whether God exists or not.” – this called Agnosticism

Assignment 1 - Discussion & Report

What reason(s) could someone give for each of these views?

What could change the mind of someone with each of these views?

But perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves. How do we know that when two people are discussion God that they share the same idea?

Assignment 2 - Discuss & Report

Imagine the job of God is vacant. You are going to produce an advert inviting applications for the job. Create a newspaper advert for the post of God. Remember to include a job description and necessary qualifications.

Remember we are still not assuming that a qualified applicant actually exists!

The Philosophers’ God

We are not discussing the God of religious faith – not the God of the Jews, Christians, Muslims or any other religion.

We are concerned with the God of philosophical definition.

In other words, that being who has the qualities of, omniscience, omnipresent, omnipotent, who is eternal, perfectly good, and the necessary being who is creator and sustainer of the universe.

Cosmological Argument for the existence of God

How would you answer the question how did you get here today?

You could say “I walked”, or “I came up the stairs” or “On the school bus” or “By car” or even “From my mummy’s tummy”

What we are looking for is a sufficient answer to the question.

For some people, the sufficient answer to the question “Where did the universe come from?” is – “GOD”.

Or to put it another way

“The existence of the universe is evidence for the existence of God.”

Basically this is the cosmological argument.

The Cosmological Argument For The Existence of God

The great advantage of this argument is that it begins with a statement that nobody can seriously doubt. It begins with the simple FACT that there is a universe.

This is an example of an argument based on sense experience. Such arguments are called a posteriori.

Consider the following information:

• Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains about 400 billion stars.

• The largest galaxies in the universe contain about 1000 billion stars.

• There are about 100 billion galaxies in the universe.

• The furthest parts of the universe are about 15 billion light years away.

Have you ever wondered why all this exists? It’s perfectly possible that nothing should exist at all. But, the fact is, the universe does exist.

Discuss

‘Why does something exist rather than nothing?’

The cosmological argument is perhaps the simplest of all the traditional arguments for the existence of God. It tries to show that there is a God from the bare fact that the universe exists.

Some hugely significant thinkers in many different forms throughout the centuries have used the argument:

• Ancient Greek philosophers (e.g. Aristotle and Plato)

• Christian theologians (e.g. St. Thomas Aquinas, Father Frederick Copleston)

• Jewish theologians (e.g. Maimonides)

• Islamic theologians (e.g. the Kalam argument presented by, among others, al-Ghazali).

St Thomas Aquinas

Probably the most famous advocate of the cosmological argument was St Thomas Aquinas (1225–74AD). He presented five ways to prove that God existed in a book known as Summa Theologica. Three of these explanations were forms of the cosmological argument. We will briefly look at one of them.

The argument from the ‘Uncaused Cause’

• Everything we observe has a cause.

• Every cause has a cause.

• This cannot go back forever.

• Therefore there must be an uncaused cause that isn’t caused.

• The uncaused cause is ‘God’.

If we get back to you ... HOW DID YOU GET HERE?

Logic states that you did not come from nothing – only nothing can come from nothing

Nor did you create yourself.

Your parents caused you and their parents, and so on caused your parents. However, to fully explain your cause you will need to go back much further than your near relations.

Even if you could trace your family line back hundreds of years you would still have only partly explained where you came from.

To fully answer the question – How did you get here? – you would need to explain where all humans came from. To then explain the cause of the human race you would then need to find out when and how the earth came into existence; explain the origins of our solar system; understand the history of our galaxy, etc. Your attempt to fully answer the question, ‘How did you get here?’ will eventually lead you right back to the very beginning of the universe itself.

Is this all necessary?

Well that depends on the principle of sufficient reason. What do you consider to be a sufficient answer to the question – “how did you get here?”

Another example

Why did the match light? Is the answer “Because I struck it on the matchbox”, a sufficient reason?

If not then you might have to explain the chemical reaction which took place. If this was not considered sufficient, you could explain the physics of the event. If this was not enough, gain we could end up with the origins of the universe again and the creation of the physical laws!

There are two main problems with the principle of sufficient reason.

·  At what point does a reason become sufficient?

·  Is it really necessary to go to such extreme lengths?
Assigment 3

1  Why should we be concerned with the arguments for the existence of God?

2  What three basic positions do people take on this question?

3  With which God are we concerned?

4  What are the qualities of this God?

5  Why is it important to be clear about this definition for God?

6  The cosmological is an a posteriori argument. What does this mean?

7  What is the starting point for the cosmological?

8  What is the principle of sufficient reason? Use and example.

9  According to Aquinas, what was special about God?

10  Why did Aquinas believe that God was the only possible reason for the cosmos?

Cosmo Explained

·  Aquinas was pointing out that behind everything there must be a huge chain of causes that goes back and back in time.

He believed that it doesn’t make any sense to say that this chain came from nothing. Nothing comes from nothing.

Neither does it make any sense to say that a caused thing can cause itself. (It would have to been caused to then cause itself!)

Also to have a causal chain going back forever makes no sense either because that would mean there was no first cause. If there was no actual beginning there would be nothing now! To be here now,the whole thing must have started at some point. Aquinas believed that there must have been something that started off the chain of cause and effect. He felt that the only possible answer was God, the uncaused cause. Only God fitted the bill. God was a necessary being, not a contingent being. Only God was self-caused.

Aquinas was looking for a sufficient reason for the existence of the universe. Of course he believes that only God could ever be a sufficient reason. So, according to Aquinas, only God is the necessary and sufficient reason for the existence of the universe.

Summary – The cosmological argument

Philosophers’ God - omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, all good, eternal, creator, sustainer and necessary being

A posterior - based of the observed fact that there is a universe.

The most famous advocate of the cosmological argument was a theologian called St Thomas Aquinas (1225–74AD).

Aquinas believed that behind everything there is a huge chain of causes that can be traced back to the beginning of the universe.

He said that it doesn’t make sense to say that this chain never ends so he concluded that there must be an uncaused cause at the start.

The only possible uncaused cause is God.

Assignment 4

1. Why is Aquinas’ argument called the cosmological argument for the existence of God?

2. List some of the people that have presented a form of the cosmological argument.

3. Write a very short paragraph about St Thomas Aquinas. Make sure that you mention the following points:

(a) When was he alive?

(b) What religion was he?

(c) In how many different ways did he try to prove that God existed?

(d) In what book did he present these arguments for God’s existence?

4. What is the problem with answering the question - What caused you? Make sure you try to give a full explanation.

5. Why did Aquinas call God the uncaused cause?

6. Try to explain in your own words Aquinas’s argument from the ‘uncaused cause’.

Cosmo – So Far

In Premise 3, Aquinas actual argument is that..

.

Aquinas argues that to deny a first cause is to remove a cause from the chain of causes and effects. If that cause were removed, then everything that follows it ought not to be here. But the world is here, just look out the window. Therefore there cannot be an infinite regress of causes.

Five hundred years later the German philosopher Immanuel Kant argues that an infinite chain of causes is something that, by definition, could never be completed.

Now if the causes that lead up to the existence of us and the world really stretched off into an infinite past, then there would have to be an infinity of causes occurring before the world could come to be. But if there were an infinity of causes stretching off into the past, they could never be completed. In which case, the present state of things could never come to be. But, the present state of things has come to be. Therefore, there cannot be an infinite chain of causes.

The Relationship between Premises 1 and 4

Many people have criticised Aquinas’ because they argue, Premises 1 and 4 contradict each other.

Premise 1 - everything has a cause.

Premise 4 - there must be a first (uncaused) cause.

They argue that, if Premise 4 is correct, and there must be a cause without a cause, then it is wrong to also claim that everything has a cause. And on the other hand, if Premise 1 is correct and everything has a cause, then it is wrong to also claim that there must be a cause without a cause.

However other argue that this is only an apparent contradiction.

Aquinas is using an argument form called reductio ad absurdum.

The first three lines identify a problem which means we must reject one of those premises and accept an alternative in its place.

In this argument, the problem that arises on the basis of assuming, from Premises 1 and 2, that there is an infinite chain of causes, is that there cannot be an infinite chain of causes (for the reasons we mentioned above).

What this means is that we must reject one of the premises (in this case Premise 1), and accept an alternative (Premise 4) that there is at least one thing that is not caused - God.

The Conclusion at Line 5

Although we have said that the cosmological argument in general, and Aquinas’ version in particular, treats God as the first cause, it is worth saying a little more about this. Although Aquinas simply suggests that ‘the uncaused cause’ is a good definition of God, we might want some other reasons for thinking that God has to be the cause of the universe. What kind of arguments can we give? One argument comes from David Hume, a Scottish philosopher:

“Whatever exists must have a cause or reason for its existence, it being absolutely impossible for nay thing to produce itself or be the cause of its own existence. In mounting up, therefore, from effects to causes, we must either go on in tracing an infinite succession, without any ultimate cause at all, or must at last have recourse to some ultimate cause, that is necessarily existent: Now, that the first supposition is absurd, may be thus proved.

In the infinite chain or succession of causes and effects, each single effect is determined to exist by the power and efficacy of that cause which immediately preceded; but the eternal chain or succession, taken together, is not determined or caused by anything: And yet it is evident that it requires a cause or reason, as much as any particular object which begins to exist in time. The question is still reasonable why this particular succession, or no succession at all. If there be no necessarily existent being, any supposition which can be formed is equally possible; nor is there any more absurdity in nothing’s having existed from eternity, than there is in that succession of cause which constitute the universe. What was it, then, which determined something to exist rather than nothing, and bestowed being on a particular possibility, exclusive of the rest? External causes, there are supposed to be none. Chance is a word without meaning. Was it nothing? But that can produce anything. We must, therefore, have recourse to a necessarily existent Being, who carries the reason of his existence in himself; and who cannot be supposed not to exist, without an express contradiction. There is, consequently, such a Being – that is, there is a Deity.”