Evidence for the existence of God - pt 1

David Farmer · Joined: 17 Aug 2005 Posts: 4

Evidence for the Existence of God - pt 1
Hebrews 3:4-3:4

Apologetics Series- Evidence for God’s Existence I

“When the evidence that there is a God is being pursued along the highest way of reason, the laws of logic and of deduction are as essential as the truth which is involved.” – Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology I, pg 141

I. Arguments for God’s Existence
a. Two fold classification:
i. Argumentum a posteriori
ii. Argumentum a priori
b. A Posteriori argument
i. Is inductive… it argues from ‘particulars back to principle,’ from ‘consequence back to antecedent,’ and from ‘effect back to cause.’
ii. There are three primary ‘a posteriori’ arguments for God’s existence.
1. The Cosmological Argument.
2. The Teleological Argument.
3. The Argument from Moral Law.
iii. An ‘a posteriori’ argument has a Biblical basis.
iv. "For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God." (Hebrews 3:4, NET Bible). As the house proves the fact of the builder, so the universe proves the fact of God.
c. A Priori argument
i. Is deductive… it argues from ‘principles to particulars,’ from ‘cause to effect.’
ii. An ‘a priori’ argument is an assumed principle.
iii. Many evolutionists (naturalists) will rule out the possibility of miracles (supernatural events) ‘ a priori’, which means they are ruled out before one even looks at the evidence.
iv. Some things must be assumed before anything can be known. So when it comes to presuppositions it all depends on which ones you start with. There are means of determining which assumptions one should start with. This leads one to the study of what is called Epistemology- “how we come to know what we know.” What is called “First Principles” in philosophy is the foundation of knowledge. Without “First Principles” nothing could be known. “First Principles” are undeniable. To deny them would be to violate one of the “First Principles.” For example, the principle of noncontradiction cannot be denied without using it in the very denial. The statement: “Opposites cannot be true” assumes that the opposite of that statement cannot be true.
v. How ‘a priori’ reasoning works. An astronomer employs ‘a priori’ reasoning when from the laws, which govern the movement of the solar system; he determines the time of the return of a comet, or of an eclipse.
vi. The primary ‘a priori’ argument is:
1. The Ontological Argument.

d. An overview of four arguments for God’s existence.

i. The Cosmological Argument.
There is a universe rather than none at all, which must have been caused by something beyond itself. The law of causality (FIRST PRINCIPLES) says that every finite thing is caused by something other than itself.
There are two basic forms of this argument. The first says that the cosmos or universe needed a cause at its beginning, the second form argues that it needs a cause to continue existing.
A Cause at the Beginning. The argument that the universe had a beginning caused by something beyond the universe can be stated this way:
1. The universe had a beginning.
2. Anything that had a beginning must have been caused by something else.
3. Therefore the universe was caused by something else (a Creator).
Scientific evidence. Both scientific and philosophical evidence can be used to support this argument. According to the second law of thermodynamics, in a closed, isolated system, such as the universe is, the amount of usable energy is decreasing. The universe is running down, hence cannot be eternal. Otherwise, it would have run out of usable energy long ago. Things left to themselves, without outside intelligent intervention, tend toward disorder. Since the universe has not reached a state of total disorder, this process has not been going on forever.
Another set of evidence comes from the widely accepted big bang cosmology. According to this view, the universe exploded into being some 15–20 billion years ago. Evidence offered for this includes the (1) “red shift” or Doppler effect noticed in the light from stars as they move away; (2) the radiation echo from space, which has the same wavelength that would be given off by a gigantic cosmic explosion; (3) discovery of a mass of energy such as was expected from an explosion.
Agnostic Robert Jastrow, founder-director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, said, “A sound explanation may exist for the explosive birth of our Universe; but if it does, science cannot find out what the explanation is. The scientist’s pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation.” But if the universe was created, then it is reasonable to conclude there was a Creator. For everything that has a beginning needs a Beginner.
Philosophical evidence. Kalam Cosmological Argument. Time cannot go back into the past forever, for it is impossible to pass through an actual infinite number of moments. A theoretically infinite number of dimensionless points exists between my thumb and first finger, but I cannot get an infinite number of sheets of paper between them no matter how thin they are. Each moment that passes uses up real time that we can never again experience. Moving your finger across an infinite number of books in a library would never get to the last book. You can never finish an infinite series of real things.
If this is so, then time must have had a beginning. If the world never had a beginning, then we could not have reached now. But we have reached now, so time must have begun at a particular point and proceeded to today. Therefore the world is a finite event after all and needs a cause for its beginning. The argument can be summarized:

1. An infinite number of moments cannot be traversed.
2. If an infinite number of moments had to elapse before today, then today would never have come.
3. But today has come.
4. Therefore, an infinite number of moments have not elapsed before today (i.e., the universe had a beginning).
5. But whatever has a beginning is caused by something else.
6. Hence, there must be a Cause (Creator) of the universe.

ii. The Teleological Argument.
There are many forms of the teleological argument, the most famous of which derives from William Paley’s watchmaker analogy. Since every watch has a watchmaker, and since the universe is exceedingly more complex in its operation than a watch, it follows that there must be a Maker of the universe. In brief, the teleological argument reasons from design to an intelligent Designer.
1. All designs imply a designer.
2. There is great design in the universe.
3. Therefore, there must be a Great Designer of the universe.
Watchmaker Analogy:
“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and was asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever . . .” But “suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had given before, that for anything I knew the watch might have always been there.” He asks, “why is it not as admissible in the second case as in the first? For this reason, and for no other, namely, that when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive—what we could not discover in the stone—that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose . . .” William Paley

Any time we have seen a complex design, we know by previous experience that it came from the mind of a designer. Watches imply watchmakers; buildings imply architects; paintings imply artists; and coded messages imply an intelligent sender.
Also, the greater the design, the greater the designer. Beavers make log dams, but they have never constructed anything like the Golden Gate Bridge. A thousand monkeys sitting at typewriters for millions of years would never produce Hamlet by accident. Shakespeare did it on the first try. The more complex the design, the greater the intelligence required to produce it.
Agnostic astronomer, Carl Sagan, unwittingly provided an even greater example. He notes that the genetic information in the human brain expressed in bits is probably comparable to the total number of connections among neurons—about 100 trillion, 1014 bits. If written out in English, say, that information would fill some 20 million volumes, as many as are stored in the world’s largest libraries. The equivalent of 20 million books is inside the heads of every one of us. “The brain is a very big place in a very small space,” Sagan said. He went on to note that “the neurochemistry of the brain is astonishingly busy, the circuitry of a machine more wonderful than any devised by humans.” But if this is so, then why does the human brain not need an intelligent Creator, as does even the simplest computer?

iii. The Ontological Argument.
The ontological argument in its simplest form argues from the idea of God to the existence of God. It moves from the conception of a Necessary Being to the existence of such a Being. The first philosopher known to have developed the ontological argument was Anselm (1033–1109).
“It is… saying that what must be actually is.” Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, I, pg 205
Some have made great use of assuming God, ’a priori.’ It is called Presuppositional Apologetics. In Presuppositional Apologetics the rational for assuming God is in the assumption of one’s worldview. Everyone has a Worldview!

“A system must be rationally consistent (Logical Consistency). In addition, it must comprehensively take into account all facts (Empirical Adequacy). It must also be existentially relevant (Experiential Relevance) in that it meets life’s basic needs. Only Christianity, they believe, offers such a consistent system.”

iv. The Argument from Moral Law.
The Argument from Moral Law. The roots of the moral argument for God are found in Romans 2:12–15, in which humankind is said to stand unexcused since there is “a law written on their hearts.” This argument has been stated in various ways. The most popular form emanates from C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. The heart of the argument follows this basic structure:
1. Moral laws imply a Moral Law Giver.
2. There is an objective moral law.
3. Therefore, there is a Moral Law Giver.
The first premise is self-evident. Moral laws are different from natural laws. Moral laws don’t describe what is, they prescribe what ought to be. They can’t be known by observing what people do. They are what all persons should do, whether or not they actually do.
The weight of the argument rests on the second premise—there is an objective moral law. That is, there is a moral law that is not just prescribed by us but also for us. Humans do prescribe proper behavior for other humans. The question is whether there is evidence that a universal, objective prescription binds all humans. The evidence for such a law is strong. It is implied in our judgments that “The world is getting better (or worse).” How could we know unless there were some standard beyond the world by which we could measure it. Such statements as “Hitler was wrong” have no force if this is merely an opinion or Hitler’s moral judgments are right or wrong depending on the cultural norms. If he was objectively wrong, then there must be a moral law beyond all of us by which we are all bound. But if there is such a universal, objective moral law, then there must be a universal Moral Law Giver (God).