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As I have had many conversations about God, one that always amazes me is the argument that "Belief in God seems silly. What good reason is there to believe in a being in the sky that rules over everything?" I recognize there is more to address in this statement, but I want to focus on the notion that it is "silly" to believe in a being, otherwise known as God.
When someone says it is silly, they are often claiming that belief in God is unreasonable, illogical, and senseless. However, I argue that belief in God is the most reasonable, logical, and sensible endeavor. It is also the most important. To support this, I will share several arguments: 1. the Cosmological Argument; 2. the Teleological Argument; 3. the Moral Argument; 4. Existential and Psychological Arguments; 5. Religious Experience; 6. Historical Arguments; 7. Philosophical Necessity; and 8. the Argument from Consciousness. After presenting these, I will also address counterpoints, which I believe will not hold much weight once the arguments are considered.
Books have been written on each of these arguments, so I will be brief and discuss only a few at a time. In this post, I will cover the first one, the Cosmological Argument.
The Cosmological Argument is a classical argument for the existence of God, reasoning from the existence of the universe to the existence of a first cause or necessary being, often identified as God. It has roots in ancient philosophy. Plato and Aristotle first presented the idea that the universe had to have a first cause. Plato described it as a self-moved mover, while Aristotle called it the "Unmoved Mover." St. Thomas Aquinas later presented three variations of the cosmological argument: the argument from motion, the argument from causation, and the argument from contingency. More recently, philosopher William Lane Craig revived and popularized the Kalam Cosmological Argument.
The cosmological argument begins with an observation about the universe and infers the existence of a transcendent cause for its existence.
The Argument from Contingency:
- Premise 1: Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
- Premise 2: The universe exists and is a contingent being.
- Premise 3: Therefore, the universe has an explanation for its existence.
- Premise 4: The explanation of the universe's existence must be a necessary being, which is God.
- Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.
Simply put, anything that exists has an explanation. Scientific inquiry suggests that nothing exists in and of itself, and the universe had a beginning. Every beginning has a first cause, which must be God—a transcendent being independent of creation.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument:
- Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
- Premise 2: The universe began to exist.
- Conclusion: Therefore, the universe has a cause, which is argued to be God.
William Lane Craig’s presentation of the Kalam Cosmological Argument is highly regarded and suggests that not only is an intelligent being the cause, but that the God of the Bible is that cause.
The Argument from the Impossibility of an Infinite Regress:
- Premise 1: An infinite regress of causes is impossible.
- Premise 2: Therefore, there must be a first cause that is not itself caused by anything else.
- Conclusion: This first cause is identified as God.
Imagine a line of life-sized dominoes going on infinitely. Without a first domino, the chain reaction never starts. Similarly, the universe must have had a beginning initiated by an external cause, which is God.
Key Concepts:
- Contingent Being: Something that exists but depends on something else to exist.
- Necessary Being: A being whose existence is self-explanatory, existing by necessity, independent of anything else. This is God.
- Infinite Regress: An endless chain of cause and effect, considered impossible because a first cause is needed to set anything in motion.
Criticisms of the Cosmological Argument:
The cosmological argument has faced criticism, including challenges to the concept of a necessary being, the possibility of an infinite regress, and whether the universe requires an external cause. Some critics question whether the first cause must be God. Despite these challenges, the cosmological argument remains a prominent philosophical argument for the existence of God.
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