chapter 2 Reasons to Believe: Theoretical and Non-Standard Arguments for God's Existence

Theoretical Arguments for God’s Existence

Thinking about God involves speculation, values, and hopes/fears, making it fertile philosophical territory.

  • Arguments for belief in God:
    • Theoretical: Appeal to reason.
    • Practical: Invoke God to make sense of practices like morality.

Overview of Theoretical Arguments

  • Teleological Argument: Focuses on the appearance of purpose or design in the world.
  • Cosmological Argument: Focuses on explaining why there is something rather than nothing.
  • Ontological Argument: Focuses on the concept of God.

Empirical vs Conceptual Reasoning

  • Teleological and Cosmological arguments use empirical reasoning, treating God as a hypothesis.
    • Like inferring rain from a puddle, these arguments infer God from world features.
  • Ontological argument uses conceptual analysis, similar to mathematical reasoning.
    • Like deducing a triangle's angles sum to 180°, it deduces God's existence from his concept.

Belief Without Arguments

Belief in God can be a cornerstone for thinking, not just a conclusion.

The Teleological Argument

Based on the appearance of purpose or design in the world; if there is design, there must be a designer.

  • Ancient and cross-cultural: Found in Hindu thought and the Psalms.
    • Example from Psalms 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork”.

William Paley's Formulation

  • William Paley (1743-1805) in Natural Theology offers instances of apparent design, focusing on biological organisms.
  • Analogy to artifacts: Organisms are like human-created artifacts with complex arrangements serving useful functions.
    • Slight alterations would negate the function.
    • Example: An eye, like a watch, serves a function via complex parts ordered towards a higher function.

Inference to a Designing Mind

Rather than blind causal forces, the arrangement of parts suggests a designing mind.

  • Analogy: As humans are to a watch, God is to the eye.
  • God as a powerful and simple hypothesis to explain nature's design.

Criticisms of the Teleological Argument

David Hume's Critique
  • David Hume (1711-1776) in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion questions the design analogy.
    • Artifacts are made from pre-existing materials, but God creates from nothing.
    • Artifacts have evident purposes, but God's purpose in creating is unclear.
    • Artifacts are observed being manufactured, but not organisms or the world.
Collaboration and Designer Qualities
  • Artifacts result from collaboration.
  • Designer qualities are not necessarily reflected in the artifact.
    • One need not be a giant to build a skyscraper, or beautiful to make a beautiful painting.
    • Design does not necessitate one being, or an exalted being; polytheism is equally consistent.
Darwin's Theory of Evolution
  • Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) theory of evolution by natural selection explains the complex arrangement of parts without a designing mind.
  • Appearance of design is misleading; the artifact-organism analogy fails.
  • God is an obsolete hypothesis for explaining these phenomena.
Intelligent Design Response
  • Proponents of “Intelligent Design” argue that some biological phenomena cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution.
  • Barbara Forest argues that “Intelligent Design” lacks a serious methodology, invoking miraculous intervention in an unprincipled way (Forrest 2011).
Fine-Tuning Argument
  • Laws of nature seem fine-tuned for life.
  • Conceivable alternative laws would not allow for embodied moral agents or complex matter.
  • God, wishing for embodied moral agents, would predict such a universe.
  • Without God, there is no particular reason to predict finely-tuned laws.
  • The universe's fine-tuning is more consistent with the theistic hypothesis.
Richard Swinburne's Argument
  • Richard Swinburne contends that the universe being governed by laws at all demands a design-based explanation.

Ongoing Debate:

  • Whether these arguments identify phenomena needing special explanation.
  • Whether explanations are vulnerable to non-theistic alternatives.

The Cosmological Argument

Suggests God as the only adequate hypothesis in explaining why there is something rather than nothing.

Historical Context

  • Goes back to Plato (428-348 BCE).
  • Influential formulations by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716).

Samuel Clarke's Formulation

Argues that God is the reason for the universe’s existence by showing the bankruptcy of the alternatives.

  • Something must have existed from eternity to avoid something arising from nothing, which is absurd.
  • This eternal something must be independent of the universe.

Contingency and Necessary Existence

  • Everything in the universe is contingent, requiring an external reason for existing.
    • Example: A sapling tree's existence depends on its parent tree, soil, sun, and air.
  • Even an infinitely old universe of contingent beings requires an explanation for why this succession exists rather than nothing.
    • Analogy: “Pass the parcel” game; even with infinite players, the origin of the parcel must be explained.

Necessary Being

  • The being outside the universe must have a necessary existence, containing the reason for its existence within itself.
  • The search for reasons for existing must terminate in a necessary being, God.
  • The notion of necessary existence is difficult to conceive, but it is the only adequate hypothesis.

Hume's Criticisms

  • Hume questions why the universe itself may not be the necessary being.
  • Clarke commits the fallacy of composition.

Fallacy of Composition

  • A flock may be composed of sheep destined for slaughter, but this does not prove that the flock itself is destined for slaughter.
  • The universe's existence may be necessary despite the contingency of everything in it.
  • This is supported by the physical principle that matter can neither be created nor destroyed.

Necessary Being and Conceivability

Hume questions whether there can even be such a thing as a necessary being.

  • Necessary claims (e.g., “2+2=4”) have contraries that cannot be conceived without contradiction.
  • Any being’s nonexistence can be conceived without contradiction.
  • We can coherently conceive of God’s nonexistence.

Principle of Sufficient Reason

  • Clarke's argument invokes the “principle of sufficient reason,” that every state of affairs has a reason.
  • We insist that the universe must have a reason for its existence, rather than being an unaccountable