Arguments for the existence of God: What is the point?
Peter Manning explores what is perhaps the most popular topic on philosophy of religion papers
The question ‘Does God exist?’ seems important for life, not just for religious studies. If the answer to the question is ‘yes’, there may be important consequences for how we live life. Perhaps not many questions generate the level of feeling and debate that these three words do. This article outlines the various arguments for the existence of God, before exploring what the arguments achieve and whether they have a purpose beyond their central issue.
Three classical arguments
The Design Argument
When we look at the world and consider its complexity, do we see something that has evolved by chance over time or do we see some kind of guiding hand at work? Has the world developed in the way it has because of some overall purpose?
St Thomas Aquinas
St Thomas Aquinas (1224–74) was an influential medieval theologian who argued that the way the natural world behaves, in an often ordered and predictable fashion, points towards design in the natural world. Without such order the world would be chaotic, yet that is not the case. We can see this for ourselves today in the success of science, which through its experimental method makes successful predictions and assumes the world acts according to consistent natural laws. If the world is behaving in ordered ways then how could this come about without a designer?
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GOD IS CONCEIVED AS UNCHANGING AND THEREFORE THE PERFECT CREATOR OF ALL THAT EXISTS.
William Paley
The idea that God is the designer who creates an ordered world was further developed in more modern times by William Paley (1743–1805). Paley argued that the design of the world was such that the only possible conclusion was to see the design as saturated with purposefulness. The most famous analogy to illustrate this states that if we were walking across a field and came across a watch, even if we had never come across a watch before, we could not help but draw the conclusion that it had been designed. Chance alone would not be able to create such a wonderful instrument.
But then, Paley argues, what might we say about the human eye? We humans have not created it, yet it exists. Instead of telling the time, it allows us to see. Both a watch and an eye have complexity and purpose. From this argument, a creating God is invoked as the originator of such purposefulness in creation.
The Cosmological Argument
Does the fact that the universe exists point towards the existence of God? Ancient Greeks such as Plato (c. 424–347 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE) argued that the universe must have been started by an uncaused cause. Such a beginning is needed if a start point to the universe is accepted rather than an unending chain of causes going back forever. If we accept a chain of causes then we have to accept existence as an unsolvable mystery and have no sure means to see the world as more than chaotic and arbitrary.
For Plato and Aristotle, accepting such a conclusion seemed unnecessary given the mind’s ability to think, enquire and understand the world in which we live. In different ways, both believed that beyond this physical, changing world something existed that was eternal and unchanging. A commitment to the notion of a beginning of the universe was made. Simultaneously, both thinkers conceived of the uncaused cause as perfect — and unchanging, for change implies a lack of perfection. If something is not perfect then it must be in a state of change and cannot therefore be the beginning of other things.
This idea of perfection was taken forward by Aquinas in his ‘Five Ways’. The first two of these state the idea of God as the ‘unmoved mover’ and ‘uncaused cause’ of the universe. God is conceived as unchanging and therefore the perfect creator of all that exists.
The Ontological Argument
Anselm (1033–1109) argued that if something exists it is superior to something that only exists as an idea. If our imagined God did not have existence then a greater being could be imagined that did have existence. From this the conclusion is that the very idea of God confirms the existence of God. While all other things, whether imagined or in existence, could have not existed or have been imagined, the greatest possible being we can imagine must have no possibility of not existing. For if the greatest imagined being did not have necessary existence then that which we have already imagined would be missing that quality and is therefore not yet the greatest being that can be imagined. But, argues Anselm, we can imagine a greatest possible being and therefore that being must exist.
At first the logic of the argument seems a little hard to understand because it involves a way of thinking we are perhaps less familiar with. However, implicit in the approach is a drive to reach a conception of God that maintains the perfection of God. The idea of perfection here though is applied by making the very concept of God the most perfect concept that can be conceived. Swept up into this perfect conception is the idea of ‘existence’ itself.
What do the arguments prove?
The Design Argument
Charles Darwin
At the height of the Design Argument’s persuasive hold over industrial England in the mid-1800s, a new idea emerged to challenge it. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was seen by many as providing an alternative explanation for the order and apparent purposefulness in the world.
For Darwin (1809–82), naturally occurring random variations within each generation of a species provide the basis for successful evolution. Random variations which confer a survival advantage mean that the variation will have a greater representation in each subsequent generation. Variations that fail to confer an advantage will die out. As a result, what may look like a complex product of design (e.g. the human eye) is in fact the product of chance as a species battles to survive in an indifferent world.
The Anthropic Principle
In response to the challenge of evolutionary theory, Richard Swinburne, a modern philosopher of religion, argued that the world is so complex and consistent in following its natural laws that it is more probable it came about through design rather than chance. This perspective suggests the processes of evolution are themselves seen as part of the design of a creator god. The universe is seen as primed to evolve and create life. This is called the Anthropic Principle.
While not expressed in the same way, perhaps the seeds of such a perspective can be seen in the writings of early Church theologians Augustine (354–430 CE) and Basil of Caesarea (c. 330–79 CE), who, in an age before evolutionary theory had been developed, discussed the idea of God giving the world the ability to develop different animal species over time.
The shift from ‘proving’ to ‘probability’
In considering the debate surrounding the Design Argument, we can see an important shift from the language of an argument ‘proving’ God exists to the claim that the argument shows God’s existence to be more ‘probable’. We can see this in Swinburne’s argument above, and also when analysing the debates over the Cosmological and Ontological Arguments.
For the Cosmological Argument, the debate revolves around whether we need a beginning of the universe and what believing in a beginning, or not, does to our understanding of the world. For the Ontological Argument the heart of the debate focuses on whether the argument conjures ‘existence’ into the world of ideas to which, it is argued, it does not belong. The debates reveal that there is no conclusion that everyone can agree on — one scholar’s ‘probable’ is another’s ‘improbable’. But why is this the case?
CHARLES DARWIN’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION WAS SEEN BY MANY AS PROVIDING AN ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION FOR THE ORDER AND APPARENT PURPOSEFULNESS IN THE WORLD.
Rational proof and science
In attempting to prove something, are we trying to show that it is certain and beyond any possible doubt? If so, we are using criteria of judgement that even science does not measure up to. Science cannot operate without assumptions.
One of these is that the universe works according to consistent physical laws, which, given the same experimental conditions today and next week, will produce the same results. Another is that scientific knowledge produced in the UK will apply in the same way in Australia — scientific laws are universal.
However much our experience of the world supports such assumptions, we have no way of being sure that the world will not behave differently in the future for reasons we cannot even guess at. We do not have total knowledge or experience of the universe. Science needs us to assume various things about the nature of reality which are probable but not certain so that we can perform scientific experiments.
Scientific knowledge built on these founding assumptions cannot become more probable than the assumptions used to create that knowledge.
PERHAPS MORE ATTENTION SHOULD BE PAID TO THE FACT THAT, LIKE MOST SCIENTIFIC THEORIES, ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD CAN STILL PRODUCE INTELLIGENT AND HEATED DEBATE EVEN WITHIN THIS NEW SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT.
Yet, in evaluating arguments for the existence of God, when we reject classical arguments for failing to give us certainty we often apply more stringent criteria of judgement than are applied to science. Perhaps in our desire for certainty our Greek heritage casts a long shadow over us. If certainty does imply ‘beyond doubt’ then certainty provides us with an idea which is static, for it has nothing else to prove or question. That which is certain is perfect and, as we have seen, perfection for the ancient Greeks is unchanging.
Top-down and bottom-up
The idea of perfection has been rejected in scientific enquiry because science seeks to understand the world through our human experience of it. Knowledge is built from the ground up. In contrast, arguments for the existence of God, from the time of Plato and Aristotle through to the medieval theologians Aquinas and Anselm, have started from the conception of a perfect being or realm and attempted to show how our less than perfect world can shed light on the existence of that which is eternal and unchanging. Instead of working from the ground up this is a top-down approach.
When the debate about the classical arguments for the existence of God shifts from the language of ‘proved’ to ‘probability’ in modern times, we see evidence of the scientific method and its bottom-up approach to knowledge being used. For many thinkers today, science has become the controlling force on our thinking because of its success in producing usable knowledge through the application of technology. If we can get humans on the moon then we must understand something about the way the world works.
Perhaps more attention should be paid to the fact that, like most scientific theories, arguments for the existence of God can still produce intelligent and heated debate even within this new scientific context. The worldviews of Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas may not be as intelligible today but their concern to articulate a rational understanding of the universe that makes sense of who and what we are continues. Probing the ultimate nature of reality by reframing the classical arguments for the existence of God within a scientific, bottom-up approach has to be part of that quest, no matter how the assumptions and their probabilities mark out the boundaries of the debate and what therefore seems possibly true.
What purpose do the arguments serve?
Atheism and theism are rational
Aquinas rejected the statement ‘God exists’ as being obviously true, and felt that it needed to be shown to be true through rational argument. But we have seen we can be less clear today than perhaps Aquinas was about rationality’s ability to show us God exists. Different worldviews start with different assumptions. Richard Dawkins and Richard Swinburne do not share the same starting assumptions about the kind of world we live in, yet both are rational in putting forward their ways of seeing things. When the atheist and theist disagree it says less about the specific point of disagreement and more about the kind of assumptions held by each side in the debate over God’s existence.
Assumptions shape our way of thinking and investigating. Therefore they need to be opened up to question too. That reasonable arguments can be put forward by all sides in the debate illustrates that both atheism and theism can be rational. God either exists or God does not exist — our beliefs about that will not change reality. But through recognising that knowledge is not perfect or certain, what we need is a greater humility in the way we assert the beliefs and arguments we feel are important to us and our communities.
Psychological props
The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–76) claimed that belief in God was a weak-minded consolation to sustain the ignorant in their worries over life and the future. In such a context the classical arguments for the existence of God are little more than a psychological prop used by believers to sustain belief in God. However, this overlooks the opposite point that arguments for the existence of God are sometimes used by atheists, who attack the arguments to justify their non-belief in God.
Discussion over the different ‘proofs’ for the existence of God can be rationally played out both ways, to support atheism or theism — perhaps depending on what we have already committed ourselves to believe. In moments of suffering, for instance when a child or parent dies, rational argument over the existence of God is far from our minds and conversations. Instead we respond to suffering in the way our lives have already taught us to respond, given our life experiences and the commitments we have already made. The value of the arguments as psychological props is therefore limited and more abstract.
The arguments as worship
Anselm put forward his Ontological Argument in an attitude of prayer. The so-called ‘proof’ was not about proving that God exists, it was about showing that reason could be applied as an act of worship to God.
That Anselm applied reason to his relationship with God gives us insight into how theists might relate to the arguments for the existence of God today. For theists, rather than a life and death dance for the survival of their belief in God, this may involve their own act of worship, marvelling at God and creation, and exploring how reasoned argument can point towards God even in an imperfect world. When the arguments are used in this way they start with God — in essence they display top-down thinking.
What is reasonable believing anyway?
In the past, before the emergence of scientific method as we have it today, top-down thinking had a powerful appeal. Without an agreed method to investigate the physical world we had little option but to apply reason to the world of ideas. In any event, ancient thinkers were, for the most part, less interested in the physical world, as it was thought to be less worthy of study, lacking the key qualities of being eternal, unchanging and perfect. If you want to secure a foundation for knowledge, you do not want to place it on the shifting sands of this world, but in that which is perfect. This explains why thinkers started from a top-down perspective and why the arguments for the existence of God had such enduring appeal as a point of philosophical debate.
In today’s scientific age, however, bottom-up thinking makes so much more sense to us. This shift has also changed what is accepted as reasonable argument. But the problem today is that, when considering the arguments for the existence of God, writers and commentators are consistently muddling up their expectations of the debate by not discerning the frame of reference of different writers as being top-down or bottom-up.
The frame of reference implies different assumptions about what the arguments are achieving or can hope to tell us. What is reasonable believing for theists and atheists in light of a critique of the arguments for the existence of God is not clear cut. Perhaps this should not surprise us, as we live in a fascinating and complex world.
ASSUMPTIONS SHAPE OUR WAY OF THINKING AND INVESTIGATING. THEREFORE THEY NEED TO BE OPENED UP TO QUESTION TOO.
The risk of transcendental pretence
The American philosopher Robert Solomon (1942–2007) argued that we need to pursue the best understanding of the world we can while attempting to avoid as much transcendental pretence as we can. In one sense this means not accepting belief in some kind of eternal realm or God without good reason and evidence to do so, but in another sense it means not being too quick to dismiss ideas about ultimate reality. In either case, we might find we are living with false ideas, and therefore in a state of pretence, to that which actually exists in reality.
In short, the idea of transcendental pretence applied to arguments for the existence of God requires us to look at them with deep reflection and humility — whatever we conclude, our ideas might need revising in the future. Without certainty, without perfection in our knowing, the debate remains open. Yet, in order to live, we need some conclusions to guide our way forward to the next set of intellectual problems or life choices. Such is the mystery and joy of life that is the hallmark of the human condition.