The question of God’s existence has been debated through the history of man,
with every philosopher from Socrates to Immanuel Kant weighing in on the
debate. So great has this topic become that numerous proofs have been invented
and utilized to prove or disprove God’s existence. Yet no answer still has been
reached, leaving me to wonder if any answer at all is possible. So I will try
in this paper to see if it is possible to philosophically prove God’s
existence.
Before I start the paper there are a few points that must be established. First
is a clear definition of Philosophy of Religion, which is the area of
philosophy that applies philosophical methods to study a wide variety of
religious issues including the existence of God. The use of the philosophical
method makes Philosophy of Religion distinct from theology, which is the study
of God and any type of issues that relate to the divine. Now there are two
types of theology, Revealed and Natural Theology. Revealed Theology claims that
our knowledge of God comes through special revelations such as the Bible, the
Holy Spirit, and the Koran. Saint Thomas Aquinas indicates that Revealed
Theology provides what he calls “Saving Knowledge”, which is knowledge that
will result in our salvation. Now Natural Theology is our knowledge of God that
one ascertains through natural reasoning, or reasoning that is unaided by
special revelations. Saint Thomas noted that this type of reasoning can provide
knowledge of God’s nature, or even prove his existence, but can never result in
the person attaining salvation for as he states, even demons know that God
exists. A note must be made before we press on; as one might notice Natural
Theology is akin to philosophy of religion in the sense that both use human
reasoning in their attempts to explain the divine. The main difference between
them of course is the range of the topics considered.
Ontological Argument
The Ontological Argument, which argues from a definition of God’s being to his
existence, is the first type of argument we are going to examine. Since this
argument was founded by Saint Anslem, we will be examining his writings. Saint
Anslem starts by defining God as an all-perfect being, or rather as a being
containing all conceivable perfections. Now if in addition of possessing all
conceivable perfections this being did not possess existence, it would then be
considered less perfect from a being that does exist. Since by definition God
is all-perfect, and a being that does not exist is less perfect than one that
did, it must be deemed that God exists. As one can see, Anslem explains God’s
existence just by utilizing our concept of God as an all-perfect being. Simply
put, the definition of God guarantees his existence just as the definition of a
triangle guarantees that all triangles have three sides. This argument is a
hard one to follow due to the fact that it utilizes Reductio Ad Abusdum form.
This is when you support your conclusion by showing that the negation of the
said conclusion will lead to a logical paradox.
Numerous Philosophers, Immanuel Kant being one, have refuted Saint Anslems
assertion. Kant’s main objection is that the argument rests on the idea that
existence is a quality or property. He asserts that the word “exist” has a
different meaning from property-words such as “green”, or “pleased”. He then
goes on to state that only characteristics or qualities can clarify or describe
a concept, and since existence is neither it cannot be utilized in the
argument. Kant then points out that the concept of God existing cannot be
derived from the definition of him being all perfect, just as the concept of a
leprechaun or unicorn’s existence cannot be derived from it’s definition.
Another problem with the Ontological Argument is the belief that existence is a
real predicate. A predicate is something that adds some type of description to
a subject. To say that something exists is to merely state that there is
something in our reality that correlates with the description we have. It
answers the question of “Is there any”, but not the one “What is it”. It can
also be pointed out that if the Ontological Argument was valid then one could
prove the existence of a perfect singer, perfect scientist, or any other
perfect beings. This alone should make it clear that there is something
drastically wrong with this argument. Lastly this final note must be made, the
Ontological may prove God’s existence but the question of his nature is never
dealt with.
Teleological Argument
The next type of argument is called the Teleological Argument, or the argument
from design. This argument starts by saying that the universe exhibits some
type of purpose or order, and draws the conclusion that a supreme, intelligent
being, must be responsible for this order. One of the most popular supporters of
this argument goes under the name of William Paley. Paley starts by examining a
watch, marveling on how all it’s pieces from the hand to its sprockets move in
Harmony. Each of these pieces has a specific purpose, the hand tells the time,
the sprockets move the gears, and so on. This watch, or as Paley calls it “a
well adjusted machine”, would not demonstrate it’s purpose of telling time if
one of it’s components were slightly perturbed. This precision, in Paley’s
eyes, show that there must be a watchmaker who created the watch for the
purpose of telling time. He believes that it is just not possible for the watch
to have been created by chance. It indicates that it is irrelevant whether
anyone knows the maker of the watch, or actually witnessed its creation. He
defends this by pointing out how we know that an eyepiece exists even though
the vast majority of people do not know how, or who created it.
Paley next declares that it would not invalidate his conclusion if the watch
sometimes went astray or was seldom right. The purpose of the machine would
still be evident, and that it is not relevant for the machine to be perfect to
prove that it has a creator. He concludes the watch analogy with the
assumption, that no intelligent person would assume that the pieces of the
watch were just a random combination of nature. The next concept Paley
addresses is the idea of the watch being able to reproduce itself. Just because
it can do this does not eliminate the fact that there must be a designer to
establish the first in the line. We know that the watch has a designer because
it demonstrates an end, a sort of purpose. Therefore there must be some
artificer who understood its mechanism and designed its use. Paley in his final
analysis compares the complexities of the human body to the watch to
demonstrate that they both have a creator.
The first disagreement against the Teleological Argument comes to us from David
Hume, who actually lived 100 years before William Paley. Hume looked at the
idea that the universe is completely like the human designed objects being
utilized in this type of argument. He concluded that although they both may
share some similar features the two are ultimately different. Second, Hume
indicates that we need to compare this universe to another to see if it was
created. The last argument denotes that an effect must be proportionate to its
cause, and since the universe is imperfect with evil and suffering, then its
creator also must be imperfect.
We will now examine Clarence Darrow objection to the Teleological Argument. He
starts by claiming that what the hypothetical man would observe and conclude by
finding the watch depends on the man. Men who would believe that the watch
shows a design or purpose would reach this conclusion because they are familiar
with tools and their use to man. While one must wonder if a bushman or even a
wolf happened onto the watch would they derive the same conclusion? The obvious
answer would be no, because they are not able to draw an interference between
the object and its meaning. This unfamiliarly of the object would lead to
confusion and can cause the bushman or wolf to assume the watch has a different
purpose.
Before I present the rebuttal for the argument, I must first bring you up to
date with the argument. Paley’s interpretation of the Teleological Argument
withstood all criticisms until Charles Darwin published “The Origin of
Species”. Darwin showed that ordered exhibited in nature is the result of an
evolutionary process. This theory now refuted the claim that only a divine
intelligence is a sufficient explanation for order found in nature. This
discovery caused defenders of the Teleological argument to reform their
argument focusing now on probability. They claim that the evolutionary
explanation of man’s existence rests mainly upon chance. They point to the
tremendous odds against the complexity of life evolving by chance. An example
of life on this planet evolving to its present form by chance is like the
possibility of a tornado picking up all the scattered pieces of a 747 and
putting it together. With this in mind they claim that if your choice was
between chance and an intelligent designer, and the odds are against chance and
in favor for a maker, whom would you pick?
Richard Dawkin claims that the critics of evolution have misunderstood the
concept. Life, he states, did not evolve by chance but rather through a
nonrandom process he calls cumulative selection. The critics of evolution are
viewing it as a single step process that sorts and filters items only once.
Cumulative repeatedly does this sorting, thus passing some of the first results
to the second, and so on. He goes on to explain that an automated process that
produces order can be found. He points to the ocean, were the pebbles on the
beach are ordered, arranged, and sorted. This arrangement has been done by the
blind forces of physics, which, as Dawkin puts it, has no mind of its own. The
waves simply throw the pebbles around, and they become sorted by there own
weight. He goes on to critique the concept of guided evolution. This is the
idea that God had some sort of supervisory role over the course evolution has
taken. While we cannot disprove this idea, it’s reasoning implies that God must
have taken care to masquerade his interventions so that they would always match
we what would expect from evolution. One must keep this in mind, to assume
guided evolution is to assume the existence of the main thing we want to
explain, namely organized complexity. It simply postulates an already existing
being of prodigious intelligence and complexity.
Cosmological Argument
The next argument is probably the most debated of all the ones we will be
examining. The Cosmological argument reasons from the existence of the universe
to the existence of God as its cause, creator, or explanation. While there are
numerous variations on the argument, Saint Thomas Aquinas is the most used.
While his whole argument consisted of 5 proofs, only two of these are really
relevant today.
The first one is the causal or efficient cause. He starts by saying we find
that things around us come into being as the result of activity of other
things. These causes are in fact the result of yet other activities. Yet this
causal series cannot go back to infinity, hence there must be a first member.
This first member is not caused by any preceding member, and hence labeled God.
What frequently gets pointed out about the causal premise is that even if it
were valid it would not establish the existence of God. It does not show that
the first cause is all-powerful or good. Defenders of the cosmological point
out that the argument is not meant to prove God’s existence, and that
supplementary arguments are needed to ascertain the first causes qualities. The
causal argument is only meant to be an important step in proving God’s
existence.
The main disagreement about the causal argument centers on the infinite series
paradox. Aquinas states that to imply an infinite series is not only illogical,
it also implies that nothing exists. Yet we know that things do exist, hence
the infinite series is wrong. Let me explain a little better, Aquinas reasoned
that whenever we take away the cause the effect is sequentially removed. By
maintaining that the series is infinite we are denying that the series has a first
cause. Like on the alphabet, if you are denying the existence of the first
cause, which is A, we are also denying the existence of Z. Since without A, Z
cannot exist. Critics respond to Aquinas reasoning by stating that he did not
sufficiently distinguish between
1) A does not exist, and
2) A is not uncaused
When you are stating that a series is infinite you are implying statement one,
not two.
The critics go on to say that they are not at all refuting the existence of A,
but merely stripping it of its privileged status of first cause. Since they are
stripping A of its first causeness, but allowing it to exist, they are in no
way committing themselves to the absurdity that nothing exists.
John Locke tries to counter this by saying that anyone who denies the
conclusion of an eternal being, is committed to the absurdity that things came
into existence from nothing. Philosophers answer this question by pointing out
that an infinite series of causes always allow for something to exist. They
then indicate that Locke failed to distinguish between
1.) There was a time at which nothing existed, and
2.) There is nothing, which did not have a beginning
The existence of an eternal source is committed to the second cause not the
first. Another way of saying it is that they are committed to the idea that no
matter how far back one goes in a causal series one will never find a thing
without a beginning.
Critics of the causal argument criticize it on other points as well. The
argument does not show that all various causal series in the universe
ultimately merge, thus they never really rule out the notion of a plurality of
first causes. Nor do they establish the present existence of the first cause.
We know that an effect may exist long after its cause has been destroyed. From
here defenders of the argument insist that some of the criticism rest on a
misunderstanding of the argument itself.
They go on to distinguish between two types of causes “In Fieri” and “In Esse”.
In Fieri is the cause that brought or helped bring an effect into existence; In
Esse is the cause that sustains the effect. Now here we see some type of
consensus, the defenders say that it is logical to have an infinite series of
in fieri causes but not of in esse. This reorganization of causes eliminates
one of the previously mentioned objections, proving the present and not merely
the past experience of a first cause. For if Y is the in esse of an effect,
then it must exist as long as Z exists. So to maintain that all natural and
phenomenal objects require a cause in fieri is not implausible.
John Stuart Mills and other philosophers state that to claim that all natural
objects require a cause in esse is illogical. Forces such as gravity, or
particles, show no causes in esse. While most will grant particles did not
cause themselves, it is not evident that these particles cannot be uncaused.
Professor Philips admits that there is nothing self-evident about the
proposition that everything must have a cause in esse. From this comment I am
reminded about a snide remark Schopenhauer made about how the cosmological
arguments treats the law of causation “like a hired cab which we dismiss when
we reach our destination”(1). Back to the subject at hand, opponents of the
argument state that after it’s restructuring, the argument still does not
address the difficulties in which I have already pointed out.
Farther Coplestone goes to defend the argument with the idea that if there were
an infinite series of causes, this would still not do away with the need for a
first cause. “Every object has a phenomenal cause, if you insist on the
infinity of the series. But the series of phenomenal causes is an insufficient
explanation of the series. Therefore, the series has not a phenomenal cause,
but a transcendent cause….An infinite series of contingent being will be, to my
way of thinking as unable to cause as one contingent being”(2) Bertrand Russell
retorts that the demand to find the first cause of a series rests on the false
assumption that the series is something over and above the members of which it
is composed. This is an easy thing to do, taken that the word “series” is a
noun and can easily be taken as an individual object. Yet it is absurd to ask
for the cause of the series as a whole, and then proceed to ask the causes of
the individual members. It is here in the causal argument do you see a blurring
of the next type of Cosmological argument.
Defenders insist that when they ask for an explanation of a series, they are
really saying that a series is not explained if it consists of nothing but
contingent members. “What we call the world is in intrinsically unintelligible
apart from the existence of God. The infinity of the series of events, if such
an infinity could be proved, would not be in the slightest degree relevant to
the situation. If you add up chocolates, you get chocolates after al, and not a
sheep. If you add up chocolates to infinity, you presumably get an infinite
number of chocolates. So, if you add up contingent beings to infinity, you
still get contingent beings, not a necessary being”(3) This last quote by
Father Copleston is nothing more than the summary for the contingent argument,
the other main form of the cosmological proof. It follows that all around us we
perceive contingent beings, by contingent we mean beings that might not have
existed. The universe could be conceived without these contingent objects. We
can properly explain contingent beings around us only by tracing them back to
some necessary being. Therefore the existence of a contingent being implies the
existence of a necessary cause. To Kant this form of the argument commits the
same error as the Ontological, regarding existence as an attribute or
characteristic. Yet philosophers like Farther Coplesten refute Kantian
criticism and assert that existence is a characteristic.
Yet it is Bertrand Russell’s critique of the argument that does it the most
damage. He believes that the contingency argument rest on a misconception of
what an explanation is and does, and what makes a phenomenon intelligible. If
it is granted that in order to explain a phenomenon or to make it intelligible
we need not bring in a necessary being, the contingency argument breaks down.
Like the series, every contingent agent can be explained by reference to other
contingent agents. Russell then attacks the premise that states there are
explanations for phenomena. One must question not only can humans obtain this
explanation, but if it even exists? To use the word “explanation” lends the
premise a plausibility that it does not really possess.
Appeal to Biblical Faith
Emil Fackenheim whose views are dervived from certain ideas of the Jewish
philosopher Martin Buber is the best-known advocate for this proof. Buber came
up with the concept of eclipse of God in response to the suffering of the
Jewish people during the Nazi regime. The concern of the time was that if there
was an all-powerful God then he could of surely stopped the extermination at
Auschwitz. The fact that these camps did exist, and six million Jews mostly
women and children were murdered, causes one to question his existence. Buber
goes on to say that the phenomena like Auschwitz do not show that God does not
exist, but rather there are periods when God is in eclipse. Buber is convinced
the eclipse of God will not last forever, and if we endure the silence he will
return to us shortly. Fackenheim first contention is that biblical faith
differs from the attitude of science. The believer’s position is impregnable
while the scientist is forever hypothetical. If a scientist’s hypothesis is
disconfirmed then he will either modify it or abandon it. The biblical believer
will do nothing of that sort, for once the nature of biblical faith is
understood than it is easy to see why the evil that unquestionably exist in the
world does not disprove it. Tragedy does not destroy Biblical faith but merely
tests it. In his mind biblical faith is irrefutable and scientific evidence
cannot affect it. If the bible contains a statement that is proven false, well
one must keep in mind that God can both reveal and conceal himself. Fackenheims
second contention concerns the place assigned to religious experiences by the
biblical believer. Basically human beings have meetings with God, and these
meetings are what all religions are based upon.
The problem with first contention, biblical faith is empirically verifiable and
nothing can refute it, involves confusion between psychological considerations
and the real logical issues at stake. The question at stake is whether, in
light of the evil in the world, the claims of the believer can be shown as
false, or highly improbable. Fackenheim is mislead by the ambiguity of certain
statements that he uses, such as “destroy” and “test”. The horrors of the world
may not in fact destroy a given person religious faith in the sense it causes
him to abandon it, but this in no way shows that they do not destroy it in the
sense of disproving his faith. We know bigots are so attached to beliefs that
they will not give them up regardless of the facts in front of them. What is
remarkable is the fact that a philosopher advocates this type of reasoning as
an intellectual policy of great virtue.
On Bubars doctrine of the eclipse of God, one retorts that God’s
self-concealing is inconsistent with his perfect goodness or indeed any kind of
goodness. Imagine a child in trouble who calls out for his dad, this dad does
not only know about it but can come to his aid. Instead he decides to conceal
himself, would we not consider this person a monster? It is difficult to see what
other responses could be justified toward a deity behaving in this concealing
fashion. This deity is not one who falls short of complete goodness but rather
a monster, which as Russell puts it, makes Nero look like an angel.
Both Bubar and Fackenheim claim that there argument is not one that argues from
a religious experience; hence they are immune to the fallacies of that
argument. Yet critics counter that they are presenting an argument from a
religious experience, one that is incompletely stated. One might remark that
many people, who claim to have had glimpses of God, as Fackenheim puts it, are
in both of these philosophers mind delusional. Charles Guiteau who assassinated
President Garfield acted upon what he thought was instructions from God. As John
Baillie puts it, there must be some criteria to distinguish fake encounters
from real. We simply cannot take Bubar’s word that certain glances are
illusionary while others are not.
In conclusion I am left pretty much in the same place as I have started. It is
impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God philosophically. For every
philosopher who publishes his or her opinions on the subject, three more are
there to tear it down. In the end I think it is best that man does not figure
out the answer to this lifelong question. Some things are better left
unanswered.