INTRODUCTION
The question of whether or not God exists has been debated vigorously for millennia. It’s easy to see why so many people remain intensely interested in this issue. According to traditional believers, human existence finds its ultimate fulfillment only in relation to God. Moreover, in the minds of many, eternal life hangs in the balance.
The effects of belief or disbelief in God can also be dramatic in this world. Beliefs about God often influence positions on important and controversial issues, such as sexual behavior, abortion, medical research using stem cells, and, of course, prayer in public schools and government support for religious schools and charities. Many decisions in daily life—not just on Sunday—also depend on belief or disbelief in God. Social action has often been motivated by belief in God. Friendships, communities, and political alliances frequently form or break down because of common or conflicting beliefs about God. We all need to decide where we stand on the issue of God’s existence.
Despite the antiquity of this question, new aspects of this debate have arisen recently, partly because of developments in science and philosophy. Big Bang cosmology is the best-known example, but each year brings new results of research into the origins of life and of our universe.
Five Reasons God Exists Given By Christians
In summary, these are five good reasons to think that God exists: three would be explained.
1. God makes sense of the origin of the universe.
2. God makes sense of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
3. God makes sense of objective moral values in the world.
4. God makes sense of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
5. God can be immediately known and experienced.
1. God Makes Sense of the Origin of the Universe: Have you ever asked yourself where the universe came from? Why everything exists instead of just nothing? Typically, atheists have said that the universe is just eternal, and that’s all. But surely this is unreasonable. Just think about it a minute. If the universe never had a beginning, that means that the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. . . . The role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea.” Therefore, since past events are not just ideas, but are real, the number of past events must be finite. Therefore, the series of past events can’t go back forever; rather the universe must have begun to exist.
The astrophysical evidence indicates that the universe began to exist in a great explosion called the “Big Bang” around 15 billion years ago. Physical space and time were created in that event, as well as all the matter and energy in the universe. Therefore, the Big Bang theory requires the creation of the universe from nothing. This is because, as one goes back in time, one reaches a point at which, the universe was “shrunk down to nothing at all.”Thus, what the Big Bang model requires is that the universe began to exist and was created out of nothing.
Now this tends to be very awkward for the atheist because, from the big bang theory, an atheist must believe that, the universe came from nothing and by nothing.” But surely that doesn’t make sense! Out of nothing, nothing comes.
“Suppose you suddenly hear a loud bang . . . and you ask me, ‘What made that bang?’ and I reply, ‘Nothing, it just happened.’ You would not accept that. In fact you would find my reply quite unintelligible.”But what’s true of the little bang must be true of the Big Bang as well! So why does the universe exist instead of just nothing? Where did it come from? There must have been a cause that brought the universe into being. “The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural.” We can summarize our argument thus far as follows:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
2. God Makes Sense of the Fine-Tuning
of the Universe for Intelligent Life
During the last 30 years or so, scientists have discovered that the existence of intelligent life like ours depends upon a complex and delicate balance of initial conditions given in the Big Bang itself. Scientists once believed that whatever the initial conditions of the universe were, eventually intelligent life might evolve.
Students or laymen who believe , “It could have happened by chance!” simply have no conception of the fantastic precision of the fine- tuning requisite for life. They would never embrace such a hypothesis in any other area of their lives—for example, in order to explain how, overnight, there came to be a car in their driveway.
We shouldn’t be surprised that we do not observe conditions of the universe incompatible with our existence. If the conditions of the universe were incompatible with our existence, we couldn’t be here to observe them. So it’s not surprising that we don’t observe such conditions.
We can summarize this second argument as follows:
1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either law, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to law or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.
What objections might be raised to the alternative of design?
Detractors of design sometimes object that the Designer Himself remains unexplained. It is said that an intelligent Mind also exhibits complex order, so that if the universe needs an explanation, so does its Designer. If the Designer does not need an explanation, why think that the universe does?
This popular objection is based on a misconception of the nature of explanation. It is widely recognized that in order for an explanation to be the best, one needn’t have an explanation of the explanation (indeed, such a requirement would generate an infinite regress, so that everything becomes inexplicable). If the best explanation of a disease is a previously unknown virus, doctors need not be able to explain the virus in order to know it caused the disease.
3. God Can Be Immediately Known and Experienced: This isn’t really an argument for God’s existence; rather it’s the claim that we can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments simply by immediately experiencing Him.
Imagine that you were locked in a room with four colorblind people, all of whom claimed that there is no difference between red and green. Suppose you tried to convince them by showing them red and green objects and asking, “Can’t you see the difference?” Of course, they would see no difference at all and would dismiss your claim to see different colors as delusory. In terms of showing who’s right, there would be a complete stand-off. But would their denial of the difference between red and green or your inability to show them that you are right do anything logically either to render your belief false or to invalidate your experience? Obviously not!
In the same way, the person who has actually come to know God as a living reality in his life can know with assurance that his experience is no delusion, regardless of what the atheist or Taoist tells him.
Through experiencing God, we can know in a properly basic way that God exists. If you’re sincerely seeking God, God will make His existence evident to you. The Bible promises, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4.8). We mustn’t so concentrate on the proofs for God that we fail to hear the inner voice of God speaking to our own heart. For those who listen, God becomes an immediate real- ity in their lives.
I’ve tried to show that God exists by appeal to the common facts of science, ethics, his- tory, and philosophy.
Five Reasons Not to Believe In God Given By Atheists.
1. Morality
2. Miracles
3. Experiences
4. Origins
5. Tuning Out
1. Morality: Christians say that there could not be objective values without God. Then they conclude that God exists.
It is important to get this argument out of the way right at the start, because it leads many religious believers to think that all atheists are immoral and dangerous. This is false. Many atheists are nice (including me, I hope). A Christian admits this, but then they say, “On the atheistic view, there’s nothing really wrong with you raping someone.” Such misleading and inaccurate allegations inhibit mutual understanding.
In fact, many atheists are happy to embrace objective moral values. I agree with them. Rape is morally wrong. So is discrimination against gays and lesbians. Even if somebody or some group thinks that these acts are not morally wrong, they still are morally wrong, so their immorality is objective by the Christian’s own definition. The Christian and I might not always agree about what is objectively morally wrong, but we do agree that some acts are objectively morally wrong.
This admission implies nothing about God, unless objective values depend on God. Why should we believe that they do? Because the Christian say so? But their claims are denied by many philosophers, atheists as well as theists. Although biology and culture lead some people to believe otherwise, so rape is objectively morally wrong, although biology and culture lead some people to believe otherwise.
The Christian next asks, “If God did not forbid rape, what makes rape immoral objectively?” What makes rape wrong is some cost to the rapist or to society. But atheists can give a better answer: What makes rape immoral is that rape harms the victim in terrible ways. The victim feels pain, loses freedom, is subordinated, and so on. These harms are not justified by any benefits to anyone. In the absence of any people, Justice itself exists,” so atheists can agree with Christians that they “don’t know what this means.” Atheists can also agree that “A duty is something that is owed. . . . But something can be owed only to some person or persons.” The duty not to rape is owed to the victim. Rape just is morally wrong.”
Theists might give deeper accounts of morality, but atheists can adopt or adapt the same accounts—with only one exception. The only theory of morality that atheists cannot accept is one that refers to God, such as when theists claim that what makes rape immoral is that God commands us not to rape.
2. Miracles: Christians other arguments do not refer to morality. The next one refers to the resurrection of Jesus. If that resurrection occurred, it would be a miracle.
Some atheists try to prove the impossibility of miracles. One attempt defines a miracle as a violation of a law of nature and defines a law of nature as a generalization without any exception. Then, if Jesus walked on water, this act would be an exception to generalizations about buoyancy that we took to be laws of nature, so those generalizations would not really be laws of nature, and Jesus’ walk on water would not really be a miracle. This is a cheap verbal trick. If anyone walks on water without any natural explanation, that is a miracle in my book. Such miracles are logically possible. I agree with Christians about this.
It is still a big step to the claim that we have adequate evidence to believe in any miracle. When people declare that a miracle occurred, we need to look at the evidence for and against their claims. The evidence against the miracle includes all of the evidence for the generalization that the miracle violates. Our common generalizations about buoyancy are supported by copious observations, plentiful testimony, numerous experiments, abundant explanations, and ample theories. To outweigh so much evidence, one would need a very strong reason to believe in any miracle.
I doubt that this burden is carried for any alleged miracle, but here I will focus on Christians claim about the resurrection of Jesus. What is Christians evidence for this miracle? First, “Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers.The supposed witnesses were surely prompted often in the intervening years. They were likely subjected to tremendous social pressures. Their emotions undoubtedly ran high. They probably had neither the training nor the opportunity nor the inclination to do a careful, impartial investigation.
In addition, Jesus was supposed to have raised Lazarus from the dead, so it would have been natural to ask, “If Jesus could raise Lazarus, why couldn’t God raise Jesus?” Finally, even if the story of resurrection was new, “new” does not imply “true.” So it is hardly clear that the tomb was empty.
Suppose it was empty. There are still (at least!) two possibilities:
(1) Jesus’ body disappeared and rose into heaven, or (2) someone took the body without being caught. Which is more likely? The an- swer is obvious, because lots of items are taken without the thief be- ing caught. In this case, the women were supposed to have found the door open and a person inside. (Mark 16:4–5) If so, many peo- ple had motive and opportunity to move the body. On the other hand, we have tons of evidence that bodies do not disappear and rise into heaven
Christians claim that Jesus’ resurrection is “plausible,” “in accord with accepted beliefs,”Just imagine that I return from a hard day at the office to find that my favorite ice cream, which I had saved for tonight, is gone from my refrigerator. My wife and kids all deny that they took it. They are honest. Still, I wouldn’t se- riously consider the possibility that my ice cream ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of Ben and Jerry. Analogously, no- body would think that about Jesus’ body if they did not already believe in God. Any reasonable person who looks at the evidence without prejudice would conclude that either the tomb was not empty or someone took the body, even if we don’t know which.Christians burden of proof cannot be carried by such feeble testimony.
3. Tuning Out: The Christian’s next argument also concerns the beginning of our universe, but from a different angle. The issue now is fine-tuning. Intelligent life depends on “a complex and delicate balance of initial conditions. Christians claim that God explains this fine-tuning, because God is supposed to have designed these conditions to serve His purpose. Without a designer, the occurrence of just the right conditions for intelligent life looks like an unlikely cosmic coincidence. This is supposed to show that God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning and of intelligent life, so God exists.
This point can be made more technically by distinguishing likelihood from conditional probability. The likelihood of fine-tuning and intelligent life, given that a traditional God exists, seems high. Nonetheless, the probability of such a God, given that intelligent life exists, still might be low. To see which figure is relevant, consider another analogy: The likelihood of hearing noises in your attic, given that there are ghosts in your attic, is high. In contrast, the probability of ghosts given noises in your attic, is low. This low probability shows why noises give you no good reason to believe in ghosts, even if you have no other explanation for the noises. The point is not that ghosts are inherently improbable, but only that there are too many other possibilities to justify jumping to the conclusion that ghosts caused the noise, without assuming that there are ghosts in the area. You also should not believe that the noises were caused by bats until you have additional independent reason to assume that there are bats in the area (and that the noise was caused by bats as opposed to squirrels, birds, wind, and so on). Analogously, intelligent life is no evidence for God, even if we have no other explanation for intelligent life, unless we assume that God was there to design the universe. But that assumption would beg the question.
Some atheists disagree. They admit that belief in God would be justified if we had no other explanation for fine-tuning. Christians argument still fails, however, because several competing explanations are available: (1) the Christian God, (2) one Big Bang and only chance.
However, none of these persistent puzzles proves God. That would be a bad argument from ignorance. We just don’t know enough in this area to supply stable support for belief in God.
It is hard for us to admit our own ignorance. We evolved with a strong urge to seek explanations for what otherwise seems random. Nonetheless, we should not jump to supernatural explanations as a quick fix for ignorance. Such appeals to God cause more trouble in the long term, because they cut short inquiry.
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