Lesson 1 Does God Exist?

Christianity is meaningless if God does not exist. The logical first step toward understanding God is to know that He exists. Surprisingly the Bible never tries to prove the existence of God. Genesis begins abruptly with the statement: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” God is assumed to exist ipso facto. According to the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, “Both the OT and NT begin with or assume the reality of God, not as some speculative premise, but as universally manifest in nature, man’s reason and conscience, and divine revelation.”1 The reason for the Bible’s bold assumption is based on another assumption that the existence of God is intuitively obvious to many. Before we decide whether something exists or not, we have to first decide what that something is. The definition of God has always been elusive. In classical philosophy, God is taken to be a maximally perfect being. This concept has two senses: (1) A being than whom no being is more perfect, and (2) a being who possesses perfection to the highest degree. Aquinas takes God to be an Unmoved Mover—a being who is uncaused and eternally self-existent. The problem with these definitions is that ordinary words such as “perfection, greater than, unmoved” lack the precision required to uniquely pick out the God whom we know in the Bible. It is not surprising that, when Moses asked God for His name, God told him, “I am who I am” (Ge 3:14). Perhaps God is telling Moses that He is beyond description. Beside the technical difficulties of definition, there are also cultural lines drawn around the concept of God. For instance, the Hindu god is an impersonal force while the Judeo-Christian God is a living person. Nevertheless, as long as we allow a little bit of ambiguity, God can be taken to be a maximally perfect personal being. Once we have acquired a vague notion of the meaning of the word “God,” we then need to fix the meaning of “existence.” Things exist in various modes with different qualities. An apple exists in spacetime. Space and time must exist prior to the apple so that the apple has something in which it exists. On the other hand, the color red does not exist in spacetime. It is called an “abstract universal” and exists only in the mind of God. In this case, God must exist prior to the color red to hold the thought of the color red. The existence in spacetime is one mode of existence and the existence in the mind of God is another. Existence also has associating qualities. For example, Simpson exists only as a carton but not as a human being. The existence as an animation is one quality and that as a human is another. But God’s existence cannot be qualified by modality or quality. For one, nothing exists prior to God, and two, God cannot exist as anything other than Himself. The tension generated by modality is relieved by the belief that God exists eternally. There is sufficient ambiguity in the concept of eternity that the difficulty of self-existent is mitigated. The suggestion that God’s existence has no external qualifier is 1

Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 96.

reinforced by God’s self-identification “I am who I am.” We summarize the main ideas in the box below. God is a maximally perfect being who eternally exists. The cryptic statement highlighted above is the starting point that the theists want to defend. There are four classical arguments for the existence of God: (1) the ontological argument, (2) the cosmological argument, (3) the teleological argument, and (4) the moral argument. William Wainwright, professor of philosophy at University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, summarizes the first three arguments as follow, An ontological argument endeavors to show that given our concept of God, it follows that God actually exists. An argument that is cosmological reasons that God exists in order to account for the fact a world exists. And a teleological argument reasons that God exists in order to account for the fact that a world which exhibits order and design exists.2 The moral argument attributes a universal sense of morality to the existence of a universal moral Creator. The moral argument is the weakest of the four because of the observation that there is a general lack of uniformity among moral standards despite a ubiquitous moral feeling among the nations. Anselm, Descartes and Leibnitz are the proponents of the ontological argument. The argument is this: If God does not exist but one can conceive a God who does, then the God who is conceived to exist is greater than the God who does not because existence is greater than non-existence. But it is not possible since God is the greatest possible being. Therefore God exists necessarily.3 Opponents of the ontological argument often appeal to the vagueness of ordinary language to say that the argument is a sophism. No matter how hard the theists work to tighten up the logic, ordinary language will always be inadequate to describe the abstract “I am who I am” who is beyond description. One can always try to forge the argument in a higher level of abstraction until the argument has outgrown our ability to understand it. Anyhow the ontological argument is a laudable attempt in the right direction. The workhorse of the cosmological argument is the claim that nothing can traverse an infinite regress which is an infinite chain of causes and effects. First of all, there cannot be a circle of causations. Otherwise, everything is caused by itself by the way of circular causality. Secondly, a chain of causations cannot be infinite because the present cannot be realized in that case. Since the present is realized, the chain of causations must terminate. In other words, there must be a first cause. Aquinas called it the Unmoved Mover whom he knew to be God.4 Opponents of this view (e.g. David Hume) argue that the realization of the present and an infinite regress are not logically contradictory.5 2

William L. Rowe and William J. Wainwright, Philosophy of Religion (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), 98. 3 Anselm, Proslogium (Christian Classics Ethereal Library @ http://www.ccel.org), chapters 2-4. 4 Aquinas, Summa Theologica (Christian Classics Ethereal Library, @ http://www.ccel/org), part 1, question 2, article 3 and part 1, question 46, article 2. 5 David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religions, Part IX, The Philosophical Works of David Hume, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Adam Black and William Tait, 1876).

The teleological argument is commonly known as the design argument. The logic of this argument is that (1) something exists, and (2) there must be sufficient reason for its existence. It points to the apparent intelligence in the workings of nature to infer the existence of an intelligent Creator. Proponents of this view usually rely on probabilistic arguments to show that the chance of intelligent design by the way of random processes is exceedingly small. Therefore there must be an all-powerful intelligent being who put everything together. This argument is conceptually simple and has certain psychological appeal. David Hume explains the order of the universe by attributing the intricate arrangements to the innate organizing principles in matter.6 More recently, atheists also apply the anthropic principle to weaken the case for design. Atheists now understand that the law of probability is against evolution. They shift the burden of proof by reiterating that the universe exists because we are here to observe it. There are many possible universes which are probabilistically unfavorable and do not exist. But this universe happens to exist and we happen to be here to observe it. The anthropic principle tells us that we are not justified to question the unlikelihood of our existence or to speculate the existence of an intelligent Creator.7 Beside the classical arguments such as the ontological, cosmological, teleological and moral arguments, there is the Pascal wager argument from the modern period. The wager argument proceeds as follow: (1) If there is no God, one loses nothing by believing in Him. (2) If there is a God, one loses everything by not believing in Him. The wager argument is not so much an existence proof per se than a call for a human response. Many Christian philosophers do not favor this argument. For one, a wager is hardly the proper attitude for faith in God, and two, the same argument can be applied to the Hindu god and the Devil. If we were to carry this argument to its logical conclusion, we must also believe Buddha, Vishnu and Satan. It is to say that we must use the wager argument with caution. One learns quickly that there is no simple argument for the existence of God. Every argument has its strengths and weaknesses. I believe that the weight of the evidence leans on the side of the theists. But the ultimate decision cannot rest on evidence alone, but on faith. According to George Eldon Ladd as quoted by Josh McDowell, “faith is not a leap in the dark, an irrational credulity, a believing against evidences and against reason. It means believing in the light of historical facts, consistent with evidences, on the basis of witnesses.”8 I claim that faith is a necessary ingredient of knowledge. The loss of faith is the ground for agnosticism and skepticism. The Hebraic notion of knowledge is experiential while the Greek notion of knowledge is analytical. In practice, most people use both the heart and the mind to make a judgment. One will do well by letting reason assist one’s intuition to acknowledge the reality of God through the manifold witness of His creation. The ultimate decision will be one measured by faith. 6

Ibid. John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford: Oxford, 1986), 8392 8 Bill Wilson, The Best of Josh McDowell: A Ready Defense (San Bernandino, CA: Here’s Life, 1990), 219. 7

Suggested reading: J. P. Moreland and Kai Nielsen, Does God Exist? The Great Debate (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1990). J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987). Advanced reading: William L. Rowe and William J. Wainwright, Philosophy of Religion (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), 98-169.