Arguing For God's Existence

Proving God’s Existence

Throughout the modern period of philosophy and theology (beginning around the 18th century until now) various thinkers have suggested that there is something problematic about giving arguments for God’s existence. They have given a variety of different reasons: faith requires the absence of proof, faith requires not relying on a proof, even if there are some, no argument for God’s existence is a good one, no argument gets us to God, no argument gets us to the God of the Bible (this is the worry that the God of the philosophers is different from the God of the Bible), arguments for God’s existence assume that our intellects have not been affected by the fall, God’s existence is obvious and a proof assumes that it is not, God’s existence is known by all because it is implanted in us so proofs are superfluous at best, denials of God’s existence are a sin problem, not a philosophy problem, etc. Rather than focus on the above reasons for not giving arguments for God’s existence, I want to give a bunch of reasons for why (a) it is perfectly fine to do so, and (b) doing so can really help our faith and relationship to God. Some of these reasons will address the above reasons for not giving arguments for God’s existence, but that is not their primary aim.

Reasons for Giving Arguments for God’s Existence
If you do not think that unicorns exist, you are not likely to try to find one. As your belief that unicorns do not exist increases in strength, your likelihood to try to find one decreases. We should not think of God as like a unicorn, but the principle is similar. Some people find the idea of God so repugnant or improbable, they spend no time considering God’s existence. Being able to provide reasons for thinking that God does exist can provide such people with a motive to seek Him.

Doubts about God’s existence can occur in believers in his existence. Having good reasons for thinking God exists can silence such doubts. And such doubts can be quite harmful for one’s relationship with God. Suppose Frank’s wife goes missing. After some period of time it will be natural for Frank to doubt that his wife is alive. Such doubts will lead Frank to doubt whether he is even still married. As his doubts increase about his wife being alive, his doubts will increase about the reality of his marriage. What does Frank need to continue remaining faithful to his wife? Evidence that she is still alive (and that she did not simply run away from him to another man, etc). The same is often true of us in our relationship with God. 

I do not know the exact number of arguments for God’s existence, but my educated guess is that there are at least 50 or so that have been worked out fairly well. Some are weaker than others in that they conclude with something like “probably, God exists.” Some are weaker than others in that they conclude with something like “So, the universe has a designer” rather than with “So, God exists.” But what they all suggest is that everything in our experience points to God’s existence. If God really does exist, then we should probably expect the universe as whole, and all of the parts of the universe to point towards God in various ways. After all, if God exists and he is the creator of all things other than himself, then all things other than himself reflect him in some way. But how so? How does a lemon reflect God? How about a lime? A tiger, a tree, a cloud, an ant, a mountain, etc? The more and more we reflect on arguments for God’s existence, the more and more we can begin to see how all of reality reveals him. (This works both ways: we can start with God’s existence and move to the things he has made, and we can start with the things and move towards Him.)



Question: what other reasons can you think of for giving arguments for God’s existence

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