Classic Arguments for the Existence of God

Over time, certain tried and true arguments have been used to “prove” the existence of God. These can be seen primarily as arguments for monotheism, but they can be adapted somewhat to certain other theistic views as well.

The Ontological Argument. Credit: Anselm of Canterbury, circa 1033-1109 CE. “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” (Psalm 14:1). To even deny God’s existence, a person must grasp the concept of a supreme deity. A supreme deity is the greatest possible being; nothing greater can be conceived. Logical points:

Premise 1: God is the greatest possible being.

Premise 2: At the very least, God exists in the minds of people.

Premise 3: A being who exists only in the mind is not as great as one who exists both in the mind and in reality.

Premise 4: If God exists only in the mind, he is not the greatest possible being.

Initial Conclusion: Therefore, since he can be conceived in the mind, God must exist in both the mind and in reality.

Possible Refutation: To conceive of God only tells us what he would be like if he existed, not whether he exists.

Overall Conclusion: Though not a completely convincing proof, the Ontological Argument may show that belief in God is at least reasonable.

The Cosmological Argument infers the existence of God from the existence of the Cosmos (either as a whole or from specific objects). It has also been called the First Cause Argument. Credit: Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle; In the medieval era Thomas Aquinas 1225-74 CE used this argument in his Summa Theologica. In brief, the Cosmological Argument argues that the Cosmos appears to be contingent. That is, it exists, but could have just as easily not existed. Since it requires something outside itself to bring it into existence, it appears to have been caused by something that is self-existent.

Premise 1: Certain contingent beings and objects exist (the Cosmos).

Premise 2: If any contingent things exist, then a self-existent thing (First Cause) must exist.

Initial Conclusion: Therefore a self-existent thing (or Being) must exist. (If we call this thing “God”, then the argument is successful.)

Possible Refutation 1: Perhaps the Cosmos itself is eternal. Reply: If that is true, it is still contingent and would require a First Cause.

Possible Refutation 2: Perhaps the Cosmos is not contingent. The French existentialist author Albert Camus believed the Cosmos to be absurd. That is, it exists as a necessary cause but with no apparent explanation as to how or why. Reply: If this is true, then, by definition, the Cosmos is itself the First Cause, which does not appear to fit the discoveries of science.

Possible Refutation 3: Perhaps the Cosmos is infinitely contingent. Reply: An infinite series of contingent things is an incomplete series.

Overall Conclusion: This argument seems compelling to many. It does not necessarily require a Monotheistic God as First Cause, but could also allow for Deism and even Pantheism.

The Teleological Argument. This point of view is related to the Cosmological Argument, but focuses on the Cosmos as an orderly system. It is also called the Argument from Design. Credit: Various Greek philosophers; Aquinas.

Premise 1: The Cosmos contains many instances of design. For example, the order of heavenly bodies, chemistry, physics and the biological world.

Premise 2: Evidence of design implies a Designer.

Initial Conclusion: The Cosmos is the result of a Designer.

Possible Refutation: Order and progress may happen by pure chance. This is essentially the reasoning behind the theory of Materialistic Evolution (given the existence of raw matter, huge lengths of time and random chance, order and benefit can be produced). Reply: Even Evolution requires some sort of constructive force driving the process.

Overall Conclusion: The Teleological and Cosmological arguments are probably are complementary. Their defects are each cancelled out by the other. The Cosmological Argument argues for a First Cause, the Teleological for that cause being personal, intelligent and beneficial.

The Moral Argument has also been called the Argument from Conscience. Credit: Plato talked about “the form of the good”. Immanuel Kant said that the idea of moral order makes the postulation of God necessary. C.S. Lewis discusses the Moral Argument at length in his book, Mere Christianity. This argument is not popular among most contemporary philosophers, but is often used by average people.

Premise 1: Basic concepts such as love and justice are universally understood in world cultures.  In other words, the concept of a set of universally binding moral values seems to exist and be accepted in every culture.

Premise 2: Without a God, there cannot be absolute (universally binding) moral values. Teodor Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamozov, “..if there is no God, then everything is permitted..”

Premise 3: Since Absolute Values can only come from a source outside the human race, there mkust be a source for these things either hard-wired into the Cosmos or outside it altogether.

Initial Conclusion: Therefore, as the source of a universal morality, God exists.

Possible Refutation 1: Could not universal morality originate from some cause besides God? Perhaps moral obligations are grounded in self interest or natural instinct. Reply: People seem to conceive of moral absolutes even when they do not appear to involve self-interest or natural instinct. For instance, the case of a soldier falling on a hand grenade to save his comrades.

Possible Refutation 2: Right and wrong are not universally binding, but are products of human culture. Reply: The variance in human morality is exaggerated. There seems to be a basic trans-cultural understanding of morality with only the details and circumstances in question. Also, just because cultural variance in morality exists, it does not logically follow that no absolute morality exists. It is entirely possible that some cultures may be mistaken in their understanding of moral details. For example, Adolph Hitler’s extermination of the Jews was largely condemned by the world and the Nazis held responsible for atrocities regardless of their own logic supporting their actions.

Overall Conclusion: The existence of concept of universal moral obligations makes more sense in a Cosmos designed by a moral being than it does in a Cosmos where moral beings are a product of impersonal and amoral forces. Together with the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments, the Moral Argument adds the dimension of holiness to a personal Creator.

Summary: These arguments depend on the individual accepting or rejecting each of the premises as true. All of the premises seem to be true to some, but not absolutely proven to everyone. The best that can be said is that, taken together, these avenues of logic make a very plausible case for the existence of God to many rational people.  M. Bogart

Pluralism and the Gospel

During the second half of the Twentieth Century, society and culture in North America and Europe made a dramatic ideological shift in the direction from which it considered religion and religious expression. This shift involved a movement away from a Christian consensus to make room for a spectrum of religious practices and viewpoints. This change in perspective developed out of a growing religious tolerance, which began with the skeptical and often anti-religious Eighteenth Century Enlightenment. The trend resulted in a culture-wide suspicion of religious devotion and a desire to make equalize the religious playing field so that all religions could compete for followers without society showing favoritism. This concept would come to be known as religious pluralism.

As time went on, the commitment to pluralism raised a very practical question: How can society allow for a wide variety of competing religions without becoming fragmented or degenerating into religious warfare? Western Culture answered that question by using a combination of the following approaches:

Secularization of Society. This is the idea that religion should remain a private and individualistic affair within a non-religious culture. Secularism is the position that public life must be as free as possible from dominance (or even significant input) by religious ideologies or groups. In a secular society, people may practice religion as long as it does not significantly impact others or the culture as a whole. A secular culture, therefore, will be driven by humanistic ideals as defined by whatever group happens to gain power.

Celebration of Diversity. All religions are seen as more or less equal in essence and value, differing only in points of theology and philosophy. The thinking goes that since the main value of religion lies, not in providing eternal truth, but in keeping citizens moral and cooperative, religion can be used by the reigning culture to achieve its greater purposes of progress and order. The diverse elements within the various religious traditions are celebrated much as ethnic cultural differences are celebrated within the larger culture.

Enculturalization of Religion. Traditional religious beliefs and practices are modified or discarded in an effort to conform to and harmonize with the overall values of society. Whereas religion has often taken a prophetic role in critiquing culture, enculturated religion tends to affirm and offer spiritual explanations for the values of society. Much of the “modernizing” movement in religion during the past century has taken this position.

Using a combination of these approaches, Western culture has been able to replace the influence of traditional Christianity in society and accommodate religious pluralism. The challenge for the traditional element of the Christian Church is to remain distinctively Christian and biblical, while engaging culture in meaningful dialog and relevant ministry.

Given this position, two obvious errors present themselves.

The first is to remain so committed to tradition (sometimes under the guise of biblical truth) that any possibility of meaningful interaction with society is forfeited. Some would argue that the Amish have taken this road. The second possible error is to attempt to stay relevant to the evolving culture and slowly (and perhaps with the intention of gaining a hearing within the culture) to sacrifice vital truths and compromise on key issues. One could cite numerous examples of this fallacy.

Perhaps this is the key issue of the Christian Church of our age (or any age): To remain faithful to Jesus Christ and his gospel of grace, while at the same time being relevantly prophetic. May God grant us wisdom to see the opportunities he sends our way and the courage to face our times!

Michael Bogart

A Synopsis of Religious Modernism

Modernism is the term often used for the Twentieth-Century movement, which sought a break with the traditional ideas, norms and styles of Western Civilization, and adopted innovative ways for understanding the world and human living. The term “modernism” had its specific connotations for art, music and the general world-view of the times, but in the area of religion, modernism has attempted to examine and re-define traditional belief-systems in light of contemporary values and trends. Modernism’s view of traditional religion (including the traditional understanding of Christianity) is that it is incompatible with the modern age for the following reasons:

The Vastness of the Cosmos. Argument: If a personal God exists, why would that God be concerned about a single, rather insignificant planet, such as earth? Religion, therefore, is only the human aspiration for meaning and infinity in the desperate hope that we are more than organisms on a speck in the hugeness of the universe.

Many who raise this objection probably take an atheistic or agnostic religious position, though some might opt for Deism or Pantheism.

Science has Discredited Religion. Argument: Scientific methodology offers explanations for natural phenomena which primitive people explained religiously. For example, thunder was seen by early humans as a deity beating lightning bolts his hammer, but science shows that it is caused by complex electrical processes in the atmosphere. Early man saw the harvest cycle as being related to the sexual relations of the gods. Now we know about rainfall, soil chemistry, and modern agricultural methods.

Therefore, science and technology have replaced the need for supernatural explanations. Assuming that the Cosmos is essentially a product of natural generation, nature is therefore a vast machine. Human beings are a part of that machinery, having been produced by it.

Religion can be explained psychologically. Modernism tended to explain the human religious impulse in light of naturalistic causes. Some possible modernistic explanations for the universal human religious impulse included:

Religion as a social glue. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) saw religion as a tool, which enabled society to function harmoniously. In his view, religion provides stability through a definite moral code, which becomes formalized into law. Religion also validates authority structures, which can discourage anti-social behavior.

Religion as a tool of oppression. Karl Marx (1818-1883) called religion “the opiate of the people.” He saw it as keeping people relatively content in their place (or at least afraid to rock the boat), keeping them pacified with promises of a better life hereafter and the threats of judgment. In this view, the upper classes use religion to maintain their control and manipulate the masses.

Religion as neurosis. In The Future of an Illusion, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) argued that religion could be explained psychologically. Freud believed that religious belief is an expression of certain deep psychological needs, such as the fear resulting from not being able to control nature. Religion assures people that someone is in control and might be persuaded to protect and guide through the uncertainties of existence. Freud saw belief in God as providing some social and psychological benefits, but felt that its downside was to keep people in an infantile state. Mature, well-adjusted people should have no need for God or religion.

Religion as a remedy for social frustration. In society, biological urges must be limited in order to achieve stability. But the repression of natural drives causes mental and emotional distress, so religion serves the function of lending authority social norms which impose morality, promising rewards to the compliant and punishments for the non-compliant.

Conclusion and Application: The adoption of a modernistic viewpoint in Western Civilization during the early Twentieth Century had the effect of forcing a choice upon most religious groups to either hold fast to traditional ways of understanding faith or adapting religion to the new point of view. In Christianity, Modernism brought about splits in almost all groups of Protestants and serious strains in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Issues such as the nature and role of the Bible, the authority of the Church and its traditions, the role of science in determining truth and the relationship of believers with culture were major battlegrounds in the conflict.

In the Twenty-first Century, Modernism is increasingly being supplanted by Postmodern views of reality and culture. Though its views of truth are at significant odds with developing Postmodern concepts, Modernism played a decisive role in the departure from centuries of tradition which had engendered and nourished the West. With the ascendancy of the Postmodern focus on relativity and individuality, the Modernist confidence in science, technology, education and mass society seem to be on the decline. The challenge for the church is to shift the focus of its apologetics and theology from countering modernism’s critique of Christianity and its alternative worldview to understanding and interacting with the new and largely unexplored challenge of Postmodern thought and culture.

Michael Bogart

A Brief Sketch of the Biblical Inspiration Controversy

The philosophical movements of the Enlightenment (roughly the 1700s) were a fundamental questioning of the certainties of the Middle Ages and a reaction to the clashes over truth during the Protestant Reformation. Traditional views in religion and culture came under severe inquiry and even open attack.  For example, Rene Descartes questioned everything, except his own existence, then built the philosophy of Rationalism from one presupposition. “I think, therefore I am.”

Enlightenment thinkers reasoned that unless something made rational sense (rationalism) or can be tested and proved to the senses (empiricism), it should not be accepted. The Cosmos was seen as merely “the product of cause and effect in a closed system.” Enlightenment thinking obviously had a dramatic impact on religion, excluding the supernatural as a factor in real human experience. Religious dogma and doctrine were often questioned and discarded, not only by those of marginal religious commitment, but by some in both Christianity and Judaism.

In the early 1800s the philosophy of George Hegel took the next logical step. Hegel asked some basic questions: If the supernatural is not a factor in the routine workings of the Cosmos, how did things arrive in their present state? Are things moving in the direction of progress? If so, what mechanism causes things to progress?

Hegel’s answer was his dialectic process, which stated that the Cosmos is a closed system of cause and effect, driven by the conflict of thesis with antithesis (opposite forces, ideas, etc.). The interaction of these forces produces a blending of the two, which Hegel called synthesis. This process was thought of as a manifestation of Absolute Mind, which was thought to be the source of reality (similar to Brahman of Hinduism). Hegel’s basic philosophy quickly became the dominant theory in Western intellectual and academic circles. Variations of the Hegelian Dialectic were adapted to other disciplines, such as:

• Politics, in which Karl Marx preached the Communist theory of history and social change (1848).
• Biology, in which Charles Darwin posed the theory of Evolution as the explanation of life in its diversity (1858).
• The study of the Bible as a document in the Higher Critical Movement (beginning in the late 1700s).

Higher Criticism.  The Higher Critics were led by German scholars such as K.H. Graf and Julius Wellhausen, who studied the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy) using a theory called the Documentary Hypothesis, which was based on Hegel’s basic theory of progress and development. The premise of the Documentary Hypothesis was that the Pentateuch couldn’t possibly have been written in the form in which we now know it. The documents must have “evolved” over time into their present form, through a process similar to Hegel’s Dialectic, from primitive religious ideas and practices, ancient oral stories and legends and early written fragments of questionable historical value.

These diverse sources were then woven together over time by various editors, who blended and changed them into distinct religious documentary traditions (Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist and Priestly) within Israelite tribal groups. Finally, these four documents were further edited and combined into the current form of the Pentateuch. The Documentary Hypothesis opened the door to other Critical approaches to studying and understanding the biblical documents of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

The basic flaw of the whole Critical approach is in making certain arbitrary assumptions:

1. History and religion should be understood as fundamentally naturalistic. True to its Enlightenment roots, the Critical view explains reality in purely naturalistic terms, dismissing the possibility of the supernatural. Miraculous accounts in the Bible are seen as embellishments made to gain credibility and power by certain groups and individuals, or merely legends perpetuated by simple tribal people.

2. Critical methodology is assumed to always be superior to other approaches. Wellhausen and other early critics took almost no notice of archaeological discoveries in their day, which sometimes disproved their assertions. Since then, the basic gist of Higher Criticism has never been revised despite a wealth of new information and findings, many of which have tended to support the accuracy of the biblical accounts.

3. The ancient Israelite peoples were ignorant nomads. For instance, the early Critics asserted that writing was extremely rare in ancient times and unknown to ancient Israelites. Yet ancient writing and documents are routinely uncovered by archaeologists. Egypt, Sumer, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia and Meso-America all had writing early in their histories. However it was expedient for the Critics to take the position that ancient Hebrews had little or no access to writing so that they could argue that, if figures like Moses and the other greats of the Scriptures existed at all, they couldn’t possibly have written a document of the stature of the Bible.

4. The Patriarchs are essentially legendary figures. Critics see Abraham, Jacob, Moses and the others as folk heroes, developed by people who needed to see their founding fathers as larger-than-life. Critics believe that the biblical stories of the Patriarchs actually tell us nothing about the Patriarchs themselves (including whether they actually existed). All that can be learned from the biblical accounts is what the times may have been like when the stories were first told, and what the composers of those stories thought life may have been like in earlier times.

Traditionalist Reactions to Higher Criticism. Traditionalists were initially caught unprepared by the critical onslaught of the late 1800s. At first, those loyal to the inspiration of scripture simply responded with vehement opposition to Critical views and denouncements of these new theories. This initial emotional reaction was followed in the mid and late Twentieth Century by more thoughtful scholarship, factual defense of the Bible and interaction with the views of critically-oriented academia.

Jewish Reaction. The more conservative groups within Judaism either defended the divine origins of scripture or took the approach that the origins of Scripture were irrelevant because the traditions have become a time-tested glue holding Jews together. The more liberal elements of Judaism have been influenced to large degree by Critical thought. Hence, they are freer to redefine traditional observance of the Law and accomodate the society around them.

Roman Catholic / Eastern Orthodox Reactions. The Vatican and the various Eastern Orthodox bodies have maintained their longstanding positions on the divine inspiration of scripture, though there is much internal debate on unofficial levels. The issue has not been quite as major among Roman Catholics or Orthodox as for Protestants, because both of these groups have other sources of divine authority besides the Bible. For example, both groups also accept the decisions of various ecumenical church councils on a par with the teachings of the Bible. Roman Catholics further accept the pronouncements of popes as binding.

Protestants. Protestant Christianity has been deeply divided on the issues raised by Higher Criticism.

Fundamentalist groups have flatly denied the arguments of the Critics, refusing to become involved in academic debate and becoming increasingly isolated culturally.

Evangelicals have been more willing to dialog with the larger culture. They have attempted to defend scriptural inspiration and reliability based on the disciplines of textual criticism and manuscript study. Since the mid Twentieth Century, Evangelicals have entered the debate over the reliability of scripture with growing confidence. However, the ascendancy of postmodern thought in the years just prior to the dawn of the Twenty-first Century has changed the focus of the debate away from the factually-based defense which Evangelicals have labored so hard to assemble.

Modernists have attempted to accommodate Christian faith and doctrine to the viewpoints of academia and of the larger society. In doing so, they have become culturally mainstream, but have tended to lose some of their Christian distinctiveness. This trend is attested to by their dramatic losses in church membership, as people have either ceased to think of themselves as particularly Christian, or have migrated to churches which emphasize distinctive Christian teachings.

The increasing influence of Postmodernism is moving all of the parties in this  controversy toward a larger debate over the nature of reality itself.  It will be interesting to see how each of them.