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Friday, May 28, 2021

Existence of God

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God can be categorized as metaphysical, logical, empirical, subjective or scientific. In philosophical terms, the question of the existence of God involves the disciplines of epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge) and ontology (study of the nature of being, existence, or reality) and the theory of value (since some definitions of God include "perfection").

The Western tradition of philosophical discussion of the existence of God began with Plato and Aristotle, who made arguments that would now be categorized as cosmological. Other arguments for the existence of God have been proposed by St. Anselm, who formulated the first ontological argument; Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Thomas Aquinas, who presented their own versions of the cosmological argument (the kalam argument and the first way, respectively); René Descartes, who said that the existence of a benevolent God is logically necessary for the evidence of the senses to be meaningful. John Calvin argued for a sensus divinitatis, which gives each human a knowledge of God's existence. Atheists view arguments for the existence of God as insufficient, mistaken or outweighed by arguments against it, whereas some religions, such as Jainism, reject the possibility of a creator deity. Philosophers who have provided arguments against the existence of God include Friedrich Nietzsche and Bertrand Russell.

History

A common misconception is that theism is ancient while atheism is modern, but mankind has been making arguments for and against the existence of deities—including, with the rise of monotheism, God—since the dawn of human history. Bronze Age texts such as the Vedas present various arguments against the deities, such as the problem of evil and the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit, as well as arguments for the deities, such as argument from morality and Pascal's wager. From the ancient Greeks to the medieval Japanese people to the Native Americans, the arguments for and against deities are as old as the idea of a deity itself. Some atheists and theists see the antiquity of their beliefs as a worthy tradition to carry on, while others believe arguing about the existence of a God is a never-ending cycle that produces little fulfillment.

Positions

Europeans polled who "believe in a god", according to Eurobarometer in 2005

North Americans polled about religious identity 2010-2012

Positions on the existence of God can be divided along numerous axes, producing a variety of orthogonal classifications. Theism and atheism are positions of belief (or lack of it), while gnosticism and agnosticism are positions of knowledge (or the lack of it). Ignosticism concerns belief about God's conceptual coherence. Apatheism concerns belief about the practical importance of whether God exists.

For the purposes of discussion, Richard Dawkins described seven "milestones" on his spectrum of theistic probability:

Strong theist. 100% probability that God exists. In the words of C.G. Jung: "I do not believe, I know."
De facto theist. Very high probability but short of 100%. "I don't know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there."
Leaning towards theism. Higher than 50% but not very high. "I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God."
Completely impartial. Exactly 50%. "God's existence and nonexistence are exactly equiprobable."
Leaning towards atheism. Lower than 50% but not very low. "I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical."
De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."
Strong atheist. "I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung knows there is one."

Theism

The Catholic Church, following the teachings of Paul the Apostle, Thomas Aquinas, and the First Vatican Council, affirms that God's existence "can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason".

Traditional religious definition of God

In modern Western societies, the concepts of God typically entail a monotheistic, supreme, ultimate, and personal being, as found in the Christian, Islamic and Jewish traditions. In monotheistic religions outside the Abrahamic traditions, the existence of God is discussed in similar terms. In these traditions, God is also identified as the author (either directly or by inspiration) of certain texts, or that certain texts describe specific historical events caused by the God in question or communications from God (whether in direct speech or via dreams or omens). Some traditions also believe that God is the entity which is currently answering prayers for intervention or information or opinions.

Ibn Rushd, a 12th-century Islamic scholar

Many Islamic scholars have used philosophical and rational arguments to prove the existence of God. For example, Ibn Rushd, a 12th-century Islamic scholar, philosopher, and physician, states there are only two arguments worthy of adherence, both of which are found in what he calls the "Precious Book" (The Qur'an). Rushd cites “providence” and “invention” in using the Qur'an's parables to claim the existence of God. Rushd argues that the Earth's weather patterns are conditioned to support human life; thus, if the planet is so finely-tuned to maintain life, then it suggests a fine tuner - God. The Sun and the Moon are not just random objects floating in the Milky Way, rather they serve us day and night, and the way nature works and how life is formed, humankind benefits from it. Rushd essentially comes to a conclusion that there has to be a higher being who has made everything perfectly to serve the needs of human beings.

Moses ben Maimon, widely known as Maimonides, was a Jewish scholar who tried to logically prove the existence of God. Maimonides offered proofs for the existence of God, but he did not begin with defining God first, like many others do. Rather, he used the description of the earth and the universe to prove the existence of God. He talked about the Heavenly bodies and how they are committed to eternal motion. Maimonides argued that because every physical object is finite, it can only contain a finite amount of power. If everything in the universe, which includes all the planets and the stars, is finite, then there has to be an infinite power to push forth the motion of everything in the universe. Narrowing down to an infinite being, the only thing that can explain the motion is an infinite being (meaning God) which is neither a body nor a force in the body. Maimonides believed that this argument gives us a ground to believe that God is, not an idea of what God is. He believed that God cannot be understood or be compared.

Non-personal definitions of God

In pantheism, God and the universe are considered to be the same thing. In this view, the natural sciences are essentially studying the nature of God. This definition of God creates the philosophical problem that a universe with God and one without God are the same, other than the words used to describe it.

Deism and panentheism assert that there is a God distinct from, or which extends beyond (either in time or in space or in some other way) the universe. These positions deny that God intervenes in the operation of the universe, including communicating with humans personally. The notion that God never intervenes or communicates with the universe, or may have evolved into the universe (as in pandeism), makes it difficult, if not by definition impossible, to distinguish between a universe with God and one without.

The Ethics of Baruch Spinoza gave two demonstrations of the existence of God. The God of Spinoza is uncaused by any external force and has no free will, it is not personal and not anthropomorphic.

Debate about how theism should be argued

In Christian faith, theologians and philosophers make a distinction between: (a) preambles of faith and (b) articles of faith. The preambles include alleged truths contained in revelation which are nevertheless demonstrable by reason, e.g., the immortality of the soul, the existence of God. The articles of faith, on the other hand, contain truths that cannot be proven or reached by reason alone and presuppose the truths of the preambles, e.g., the Holy Trinity, is not demonstrable and presupposes the existence of God.

The argument that the existence of God can be known to all, even prior to exposure to any divine revelation, predates Christianity. Paul the Apostle made this argument when he said that pagans were without excuse because "since the creation of the world God's invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made". In this, Paul alludes to the proofs for a creator, later enunciated by Thomas Aquinas and others, but that had also been explored by the Greek philosophers.

Another apologetical school of thought, including Dutch and American Reformed thinkers (such as Abraham Kuyper, Benjamin Warfield, Herman Dooyeweerd), emerged in the late 1920s. This school was instituted by Cornelius Van Til, and came to be popularly called presuppositional apologetics (though Van Til himself felt "transcendental" would be a more accurate title). The main distinction between this approach and the more classical evidentialist approach is that the presuppositionalist denies any common ground between the believer and the non-believer, except that which the non-believer denies, namely, the assumption of the truth of the theistic worldview. In other words, presuppositionalists do not believe that the existence of God can be proven by appeal to raw, uninterpreted, or "brute" facts, which have the same (theoretical) meaning to people with fundamentally different worldviews, because they deny that such a condition is even possible. They claim that the only possible proof for the existence of God is that the very same belief is the necessary condition to the intelligibility of all other human experience and action. They attempt to prove the existence of God by means of appeal to the transcendental necessity of the belief—indirectly (by appeal to the unavowed presuppositions of the non-believer's worldview) rather than directly (by appeal to some form of common factuality). In practice this school utilizes what have come to be known as transcendental arguments. In these arguments they claim to demonstrate that all human experience and action (even the condition of unbelief, itself) is a proof for the existence of God, because God's existence is the necessary condition of their intelligibility.

Alvin Plantinga presents an argument for the existence of God using modal logic. Others have said that the logical and philosophical arguments for and against the existence of God miss the point. The word God has a meaning in human culture and history that does not correspond to the beings whose existence is supported by such arguments, assuming they are valid. The real question is not whether a "most perfect being" or an "uncaused first cause" exist. The real question is whether Jehovah, Zeus, Ra, Krishna, or any gods of any religion exist, and if so, which gods? On the other hand, many theists equate all monotheistic or henotheistic "most perfect Beings", no matter what name is assigned to them/him, as the one monotheistic God (one example would be understanding the Muslim Allah, Christian YHWH, and Chinese Shangdi as different names for the same Being). Most of these arguments do not resolve the issue of which of these figures is more likely to exist. These arguments fail to make the distinction between immanent gods and a Transcendent God.

Some Christians note that the Christian faith teaches "salvation is by faith", and that faith is reliance upon the faithfulness of God. The most extreme example of this position is called fideism, which holds that faith is simply the will to believe, and argues that if God's existence were rationally demonstrable, faith in its existence would become superfluous. Søren Kierkegaard argued that objective knowledge, such as 1+1=2, is unimportant to existence. If God could rationally be proven, his existence would be unimportant to humans. It is because God cannot rationally be proven that his existence is important to us. In The Justification of Knowledge, the Calvinist theologian Robert L. Reymond argues that believers should not attempt to prove the existence of God. Since he believes all such proofs are fundamentally unsound, believers should not place their confidence in them, much less resort to them in discussions with non-believers; rather, they should accept the content of revelation by faith. Reymond's position is similar to that of his mentor Gordon Clark, which holds that all worldviews are based on certain unprovable first premises (or, axioms), and therefore are ultimately unprovable. The Christian theist therefore must simply choose to start with Christianity rather than anything else, by a "leap of faith". This position is also sometimes called presuppositional apologetics, but should not be confused with the Van Tillian variety.

Atheism

The atheistic conclusion is that the arguments and evidence both indicate there is insufficient reason to believe that any gods exist, and that personal subjective religious experiences say something about the human experience rather than the nature of reality itself; therefore, one has no reason to believe that a god exists.

Positive atheism

Positive atheism (also called "strong atheism" and "hard atheism") is a form of atheism that asserts that no deities exist. The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods.

Negative atheism

Negative atheism (also called "weak atheism" and "soft atheism") is any type of atheism other than positive, wherein a person does not believe in the existence of any deities, but does not explicitly assert there to be none.

Agnosticism

Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable. Agnosticism does not define one's belief or disbelief in gods; agnostics may still identify themselves as theists or atheists.

Strong agnosticism

Strong agnosticism is the belief that it is impossible for humans to know whether or not any deities exist.

Weak agnosticism

Weak agnosticism is the belief that the existence or nonexistence of deities is unknown but not necessarily unknowable.

Agnostic theism

Agnostic theism is the philosophical view that encompasses both theism and agnosticism. An agnostic theist believes in the existence of a god or God, but regards the basis of this proposition as unknown or inherently unknowable. Agnostic theists may also insist on ignorance regarding the properties of the gods they believe in.

Agnostic atheism

Agnostic atheism is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity and agnostic because they claim that the existence of a deity is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact.

The theologian Robert Flint explains:

If a man have failed to find any good reason for believing that there is a God, it is perfectly natural and rational that he should not believe that there is a God; and if so, he is an atheist, although he assume no superhuman knowledge, but merely the ordinary human power of judging of evidence. If he go farther, and, after an investigation into the nature and reach of human knowledge, ending in the conclusion that the existence of God is incapable of proof, cease to believe in it on the ground that he cannot know it to be true, he is an agnostic and also an atheist, an agnostic-atheist—an atheist because an agnostic."

Apatheism

An apatheist is someone who is not interested in accepting or denying any claims that gods exist or do not exist. An apatheist lives as if there are no gods and explains natural phenomena without reference to any deities. The existence of gods is not rejected, but may be designated unnecessary or useless; gods neither provide purpose to life, nor influence everyday life, according to this view.

Ignosticism

The ignostic (or igtheist) usually concludes that the question of God's existence or nonexistence is usually not worth discussing because concepts like "God" are usually not sufficiently or clearly defined. Ignosticism or igtheism is the theological position that every other theological position (including agnosticism and atheism) assumes too much about the concept of God and many other theological concepts. It can be defined as encompassing two related views about the existence of God. The view that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of God can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless. In this case, the concept of God is not considered meaningless; the term "God" is considered meaningless. The second view is synonymous with theological noncognitivism, and skips the step of first asking "What is meant by 'God'?" before proclaiming the original question "Does God exist?" as meaningless.

Some philosophers have seen ignosticism as a variation of agnosticism or atheism, while others have considered it to be distinct. An ignostic maintains that he cannot even say whether he is a theist or an atheist until a sufficient definition of theism is put forth.

The term "ignosticism" was coined in the 1960s by Sherwin Wine, a rabbi and a founding figure of Humanistic Judaism. The term "igtheism" was coined by the secular humanist Paul Kurtz in his 1992 book The New Skepticism.

Fundamental issues

The problem of the supernatural

One problem posed by the question of the existence of God is that traditional beliefs usually ascribe to God various supernatural powers. Supernatural beings may be able to conceal and reveal themselves for their own purposes, as for example in the tale of Baucis and Philemon. In addition, according to concepts of God, God is not part of the natural order, but the ultimate creator of nature and of the scientific laws. Thus in Aristotelian philosophy, God is viewed as part of the explanatory structure needed to support scientific conclusions and any powers God possesses are—strictly speaking—of the natural order that is derived from God's place as originator of nature.

In Karl Popper's philosophy of science, belief in a supernatural God is outside the natural domain of scientific investigation because all scientific hypotheses must be falsifiable in the natural world. The non-overlapping magisteria view proposed by Stephen Jay Gould also holds that the existence (or otherwise) of God is irrelevant to and beyond the domain of science.

Scientists follow the scientific method, within which theories must be verifiable by physical experiment. The majority of prominent conceptions of God explicitly or effectively posit a being whose existence is not testable either by proof or disproof. Therefore, the question of God's existence may lie outside the purview of modern science by definition. The Catholic Church maintains that knowledge of the existence of God is the "natural light of human reason". Fideists maintain that belief in God's existence may not be amenable to demonstration or refutation, but rests on faith alone.

Logical positivists such as Rudolf Carnap and A. J. Ayer viewed any talk of gods as literal nonsense. For the logical positivists and adherents of similar schools of thought, statements about religious or other transcendent experiences can not have a truth value, and are deemed to be without meaning, because such statements do not have any clear verification criteria. As the Christian biologist Scott C. Todd put it "Even if all the data pointed to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic." This argument limits the domain of science to the empirically observable and limits the domain of God to the unprovable.

Nature of relevant proofs and arguments

John Polkinghorne suggests that the nearest analogy to the existence of God in physics is the ideas of quantum mechanics which are seemingly paradoxical but make sense of a great deal of disparate data.

Alvin Plantinga compares the question of the existence of God to the question of the existence of other minds, claiming both are notoriously impossible to "prove" against a determined skeptic.

One approach, suggested by writers such as Stephen D. Unwin, is to treat (particular versions of) theism and naturalism as though they were two hypotheses in the Bayesian sense, to list certain data (or alleged data), about the world, and to suggest that the likelihoods of these data are significantly higher under one hypothesis than the other. Most of the arguments for, or against, the existence of God can be seen as pointing to particular aspects of the universe in this way. In almost all cases it is not seriously suggested by proponents of the arguments that they are irrefutable, merely that they make one worldview seem significantly more likely than the other. However, since an assessment of the weight of evidence depends on the prior probability that is assigned to each worldview, arguments that a theist finds convincing may seem thin to an atheist and vice versa.

Philosophers, such as Wittgenstein, take a view that is considered anti-realist and oppose philosophical arguments related to God's existence. For instance, Charles Taylor contends that the real is whatever will not go away. If we cannot reduce talk about God to anything else, or replace it, or prove it false, then perhaps God is as real as anything else.

In George Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge of 1710, he argued that a "naked thought" cannot exist, and that a perception is a thought; therefore only minds can be proven to exist, since all else is merely an idea conveyed by a perception. From this Berkeley argued that the universe is based upon observation and is non-objective. However, he noted that the universe includes "ideas" not perceptible to humankind, and that there must, therefore, exist an omniscient superobserver, which perceives such things. Berkeley considered this proof of the existence of the Christian god.

C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity and elsewhere, raised the argument from desire. He posed that all natural desires have a natural object. One thirsts, and there exists water to quench this thirst; One hungers, and there exists food to satisfy this hunger. He then argued that the human desire for perfect justice, perfect peace, perfect happiness, and other intangibles strongly implies the existence of such things, though they seem unobtainable on earth. He further posed that the unquenchable desires of this life strongly imply that we are intended for a different life, necessarily governed by a God who can provide the desired intangibles.

Outside of Western thought

Existence in absolute truth is central to Vedanta epistemology. Traditional sense perception based approaches were put into question as possibly misleading due to preconceived or superimposed ideas. But though all object-cognition can be doubted, the existence of the doubter remains a fact even in nastika traditions of mayavada schools following Adi Shankara. The five eternal principles to be discussed under ontology, beginning with God or Isvara, the Ultimate Reality cannot be established by the means of logic alone, and often require superior proof. In Vaisnavism Vishnu, or his intimate ontological form of Krishna, is equated to the personal absolute God of the Western traditions. Aspects of Krishna as svayam bhagavan in original Absolute Truth, sat chit ananda, are understood originating from three essential attributes of Krishna's form, i.e., "eternal existence" or sat, related to the brahman aspect; "knowledge" or chit, to the paramatman; and "bliss" or ananda in Sanskrit, to bhagavan.

Arguments for the existence of God

Empirical arguments

Argument from beauty

One form of the argument from beauty is that the elegance of the laws of physics, which have been empirically discovered, or the elegant laws of mathematics, which are abstract but which have empirically proven to be useful, is evidence of a creator deity who has arranged these things to be beautiful and not ugly.

Argument from consciousness

The argument from consciousness claims that human consciousness cannot be explained by the physical mechanisms of the human body and brain, therefore, asserting that there must be non-physical aspects to human consciousness. This is held as indirect evidence of God, given that notions about souls and the afterlife in Christianity and Islam would be consistent with such a claim.

The notion of the soul was created before modern understanding of neural networks and the physiology of the brain. Decades of experimentation lead cognitive science to consider thought and emotion as physical processes although the experience of consciousness still remains poorly understood. The hard problem of consciousness remains as to whether different people subjectively experience the world in the same way — for example, that the color blue looks the same inside the minds of different people, though this is a philosophical problem with both physical and non-physical explanations.

Argument from design

The teleological argument, or the argument from design, asserts that certain features of the universe and of living things must be the product of an intelligent cause. Its proponents are mainly Christians.

Rational warrant

Philosopher Stephen Toulmin is notable for his work in the history of ideas that features the (rational) warrant: a statement that connects the premises to a conclusion.

Joseph Hinman applied Toulmin's approach in his argument for the existence of God, particularly in his book The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief. Instead of attempting to prove the existence of God, Hinman argues you can "demonstrate the rationally-warranted nature of belief".

Hinman uses a wide range of studies, including ones by Robert Wuthnow, Andrew Greeley, Mathes and Kathleen Nobel to establish that mystical experiences are life-transformative in a way that is significant, positive and lasting. He draws on additional work to add several additional major points to his argument. First, the people who have these experiences not only do not exhibit traditional signs of mental illness but, often, are in better mental and physical health than the general population due to the experience. Second, the experiences work. In other words, they provide a framework for navigating life that is useful and effective. All of the evidence of the positive effects of the experience upon people's lives he, adapting a term from Derrida, terms "the trace of God": the footprints left behind that point to the impact.

Finally, he discusses how both religious experience and belief in God is, and has always been, normative among humans: people do not need to prove the existence of God. If there is no need to prove, Hinman argues, and the Trace of God (for instance, the impact of mystical experiences on them), belief in God is rationally warranted.

Inductive arguments

Some have put forward arguments for the existence of God based on inductive reasoning. For example, one class of philosophers asserts that the proofs for the existence of God present a fairly large probability though not absolute certainty. A number of obscure points, they say, always remain; an act of faith is required to dismiss these difficulties. This view is maintained, among others, by the Scottish statesman Arthur Balfour in his book The Foundations of Belief (1895). The opinions set forth in this work were adopted in France by Ferdinand Brunetière, the editor of the Revue des deux Mondes. Many orthodox Protestants express themselves in the same manner, as, for instance, Dr. E. Dennert, President of the Kepler Society, in his work Ist Gott tot?

Logical arguments

Aquinas' Five Ways

In article 3, question 2, first part of his Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas developed his five arguments for God's existence. These arguments are grounded in an Aristotelian ontology and make use of the infinite regression argument. Aquinas did not intend to fully prove the existence of God as he is orthodoxly conceived (with all of his traditional attributes), but proposed his Five Ways as a first stage, which he built upon later in his work. Aquinas' Five Ways argued from the unmoved mover, first cause, necessary being, argument from degree, and the argument from final cause.

The unmoved mover argument asserts that, from our experience of motion in the universe (motion being the transition from potentiality to actuality) we can see that there must have been an initial mover. Aquinas argued that whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another thing, so there must be an unmoved mover.
Aquinas' argument from first cause started with the premise that it is impossible for a being to cause itself (because it would have to exist before it caused itself) and that it is impossible for there to be an infinite chain of causes, which would result in infinite regress. Therefore, there must be a first cause, itself uncaused.
The argument from necessary being asserts that all beings are contingent, meaning that it is possible for them not to exist. Aquinas argued that if everything can possibly not exist, there must have been a time when nothing existed; as things exist now, there must exist a being with necessary existence, regarded as God.
Aquinas argued from degree, considering the occurrence of degrees of goodness. He believed that things which are called good, must be called good in relation to a standard of good—a maximum. There must be a maximum goodness that which causes all goodness.
The argument from final cause asserts the view that non-intelligent objects are ordered towards a purpose. Aquinas argued that these objects cannot be ordered unless they are done so by an intelligent being, which means that there must be an intelligent being to move objects to their ends: God.

Cosmological argument

One type of cosmological, or "first cause" argument, typically called the Kalam cosmological argument, asserts that since everything that begins to exist has a cause, and the universe began to exist, the universe must have had a cause which was itself not caused. This ultimate first cause is identified with God. Christian apologist William Lane Craig gives a version of this argument in the following form:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The Universe began to exist.
Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

Ontological argument

The ontological argument has been formulated by philosophers including St. Anselm and René Descartes. The argument proposes that God's existence is self-evident. The logic, depending on the formulation, reads roughly as follows:

Whatever is contained in a clear and distinct idea of a thing must be predicated of that thing; but a clear and distinct idea of an absolutely perfect Being contains the idea of actual existence; therefore since we have the idea of an absolutely perfect Being such a Being must really exist.

Thomas Aquinas criticized the argument for proposing a definition of God which, if God is transcendent, should be impossible for humans. Immanuel Kant criticized the proof from a logical standpoint: he stated that the term "God" really signifies two different terms: both idea of God, and God. Kant concluded that the proof is equivocation, based on the ambiguity of the word God. Kant also challenged the argument's assumption that existence is a predicate (of perfection) because it does not add anything to the essence of a being. If existence is not a predicate, then it is not necessarily true that the greatest possible being exists. A common rebuttal to Kant's critique is that, although "existence" does add something to both the concept and the reality of God, the concept would be vastly different if its referent is an unreal Being. Another response to Kant is attributed to Alvin Plantinga, who says that even if one were to grant that existence is not a real predicate, necessary existence, which is the correct formulation of an understanding of God, is a real predicate.

Subjective arguments

Arguments from historical events or personages

The sincere seeker's argument, espoused by Muslim Sufis of the Tasawwuf tradition, posits that every individual who follows a formulaic path towards guidance, arrives at the same destination of conviction in the existence of God and specifically in the monotheistic tenets and laws of Islam. This could only be true if the formula and supplication were being answered by the same Divine entity being addressed, as claimed in Islamic revelations. This was formally organized by Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali in such notable works as "Deliverance from Error" and "The Alchemy of Happiness," in Arabic "Kimiya-yi sa'adat". The path includes following the golden rule of no harm to others and treating others with compassion, silence or minimal speech, seclusion, daily fasting or minimalist diet of water and basic nourishment, honest wages, and daily supplication towards "the Creator of the Universe" for guidance.
Christianity and Judaism assert that God intervened in key specific moments in history, especially at the Exodus and the giving of the Ten Commandments in front of all the tribes of Israel, positing an argument from empirical evidence stemming from sheer number of witnesses, thus demonstrating his existence.
Christological arguments assert that certain events of the Christian New Testament are historically accurate, and prove God's existence, namely:
- The Resurrection of Jesus
- The claims of Jesus, as a morally upstanding person, to be the son of God (an argument from authority)
- The belief of Jesus, as a wise person, that God exists (an argument from authority)
Islam asserts that the revelation of its holy book, the Qur'an, and its unique literary attributes, vindicate its divine authorship, and thus the existence of God.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormonism, similarly asserts that the miraculous appearance of God, Jesus Christ, and angels to Joseph Smith and others and subsequent finding and translation of the Book of Mormon establishes the existence of God. The whole Latter Day Saint movement makes the same claim for example Community of Christ, Church of Christ (Temple Lot), Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite), Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite), Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite), etc.
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite), similarly asserts that the finding and translation of the Plates of Laban, also known as the Brass Plates, into the Book of the Law of the Lord and Voree plates by James Strang, One Mighty and Strong, establishes the existence of God.
- Various sects that have broken from the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) (such as Church of Christ "With the Elijah Message" and Church of Christ (Assured Way)) claim that the message brought by John the Baptist, One Mighty and Strong, to Otto Fetting and W. A. Draves in The Word of the Lord Brought to Mankind by an Angel establishes the existence of God.

Arguments from testimony

Arguments from testimony rely on the testimony or experience of witnesses, possibly embodying the propositions of a specific revealed religion. Swinburne argues that it is a principle of rationality that one should accept testimony unless there are strong reasons for not doing so.

The witness argument gives credibility to personal witnesses, contemporary and throughout the ages. A variation of this is the argument from miracles (also referred to as "the priest stories") which relies on testimony of supernatural events to establish the existence of God.
The majority argument argues that the theism of people throughout most of recorded history and in many different places provides prima facie demonstration of God's existence.

Arguments grounded in personal experiences

The sincere seeker's argument, espoused by Muslim Sufis of the Tasawwuf tradition, posits that every individual who follows a formulaic path towards guidance, arrives at the same destination of conviction in the existence of God and specifically in the monotheistic tenets and laws of Islam. This apparent natural law for guidance and belief could only be consistent if the formula and supplication were being answered by the same Divine entity being addressed, as claimed in Islamic revelations. This was formally organized by Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali in such notable works as "Deliverance from Error" and "The Alchemy of Happiness," in Arabic "Kimiya-yi sa'ādat". The path includes following the golden rule of no harm to others and treating others with compassion, silence or minimal speech, seclusion, daily fasting or minimalist diet of water and basic nourishment, honest wages, and daily supplication towards "the Creator of the Universe" for guidance.
The Argument from a proper basis argues that belief in God is "properly basic"; that it is similar to statements like "I see a chair" or "I feel pain". Such beliefs are non-falsifiable and, thus, neither provable nor disprovable; they concern perceptual beliefs or indisputable mental states.
In Germany, the School of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi taught that human reason is able to perceive the suprasensible. Jacobi distinguished three faculties: sense, reason, and understanding. Just as sense has immediate perception of the material so has reason immediate perception of the immaterial, while the understanding brings these perceptions to a person's consciousness and unites them to one another. God's existence, then, cannot be proven (Jacobi, like Immanuel Kant, rejected the absolute value of the principle of causality), it must be felt by the mind.
The same theory was advocated in Germany by Friedrich Schleiermacher, who assumed an inner religious sense by means of which people feel religious truths. According to Schleiermacher, religion consists solely in this inner perception, and dogmatic doctrines are inessential.
Brahma Kumaris religion was established in 1936, when God was said to enter the body of diamond merchant Lekhraj Kripalani (1876–1969) in Hyderabad, Sindh and started to speak through him.

Hindu arguments

The school of Vedanta argues that one of the proofs of the existence of God is the law of karma. In a commentary to Brahma Sutras (III, 2, 38, and 41), Adi Sankara argues that the original karmic actions themselves cannot bring about the proper results at some future time; neither can super sensuous, non-intelligent qualities like adrsta by themselves mediate the appropriate, justly deserved pleasure and pain. The fruits, according to him must be administered through the action of a conscious agent, namely, a supreme being (Ishvara). The Nyaya school make similar arguments.

Other arguments

The evolutionary argument against naturalism, which argues that naturalistic evolution is incapable of providing humans with the cognitive apparatus necessary for their knowledge to have positive epistemic status.
An argument from belief in God being properly basic as presented by Alvin Plantinga.
Argument from Personal Identity.
Argument from the "divine attributes of scientific law".

Arguments against the existence of God

The arguments below aim to show that a god or set of gods does not exist—by showing a creator is unnecessary or contradictory, at odds with known scientific or historical facts, or that there is insufficient proof that a god does exist.

Empirical arguments

The following empirical arguments rely on observations or experimentation to yield their conclusions.

Arguments from inadequate revelations

The argument from inconsistent revelations contests the existence of the deity called God as described in scriptures—such as the Hindu Vedas, the Jewish Tanakh, the Christian Bible, the Muslim Qur'an, the Book of Mormon or the Baha'i Aqdas—by identifying apparent contradictions between different scriptures, within a single scripture, or between scripture and known facts.

Relatedly, the argument from parsimony (using Occam's razor) contends that since natural (non-supernatural) theories adequately explain the development of religion and belief in gods, the actual existence of such supernatural agents is superfluous and may be dismissed unless otherwise proven to be required to explain the phenomenon.

The argument from "historical induction" concludes that since most theistic religions throughout history (e.g. ancient Egyptian religion, ancient Greek religion) and their gods ultimately come to be regarded as untrue or incorrect, all theistic religions, including contemporary ones, are therefore most likely untrue/incorrect by induction. H. L. Mencken wrote a short piece about the topic entitled "Memorial Service" in 1922. It is implied as part of Stephen F. Roberts' popular quotation:

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

The argument from nonbelief contests the existence of an omnipotent god who wants humans to believe in it by arguing that such a god would do a better job of gathering believers.

Arguments from the poor design of the universe

The problem of evil contests the existence of a god who is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent by arguing that such a god should not permit the existence of evil or suffering. The theist responses are called theodicies. Similarly, the argument from poor design contends that an all-powerful, benevolent creator god would not have created lifeforms, including humans, which seem to exhibit poor design.

Richard Carrier has argued that the universe itself seems to be very ill-designed for life, because the vast majority of the space in the universe is utterly hostile to it. This is arguably unexpected on the hypothesis that the universe was designed by a god, especially a personal god. Carrier contends that such a god could have easily created a geocentric universe ex nihilo in the recent past, in which most of the volume of the universe is inhabitable by humans and other lifeforms— precisely the kind of universe that most humans believed in until the rise of modern science. While a personal god might have created the kind of universe we observe, Carrier contends that this is not the kind of universe we would most likely expect to see if such a god existed. He finally argues that, unlike theism, our observations about the nature of the universe are strongly expected on the hypothesis of atheism, since the universe would have to be vast, very old, and almost completely devoid of life if life were to have arisen by sheer chance.

Logical arguments

The following arguments deduce, mostly through self-contradiction, the non-existence of a God as "the Creator".

Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their book The Grand Design that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. Both authors claim that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings. Christian scholars, like Leonhard Euler and Bernard d'Espagnat, disagree with that kind of skeptical argument.
No scientific evidence of God's existence has been found. Therefore, the scientific consensus is that whether God exists is unknown.
A counter-argument against God as the Creator takes the assumption of the Cosmological argument ("the chicken or the egg"), that things cannot exist without creators, and applies it to God, setting up an infinite regress.
Dawkins' Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit analogizes the above. Some theists argue that evolution and abiogenesis are akin to a hurricane assembling a Boeing 747 — that the universe (or life) is too complex, cannot be made by non-living matter alone and would have to be designed by someone, who theists call God. Dawkin's counter-argument is that such a God would himself be complex — the "Ultimate" Boeing 747 — and therefore require a designer.
Theological noncognitivism is the argument that religious language – specifically, words such as "God" – are not cognitively meaningful and that irreducible definitions of God are circular.
The analogy of Russell's teapot argues that the burden of proof for the existence of God lies with the theist rather than the atheist; it can be considered an extension of Occam's Razor.

Arguments from incompatible divine properties

Some arguments focus on the existence of specific conceptions of God as being omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect.

The omnipotence paradox suggests that the concept of an omnipotent entity is logically contradictory by considering questions such as "Can God create a rock so big that He cannot move it?" or "If God is all powerful, could God create a being more powerful than Himself?"
Similarly, the omniscience paradox argues that God cannot be omniscient because he would not know how to create something unknown to himself.
Another argument points to the contradiction of omniscience and omnipotence arguing that God is bound to follow whatever God foreknows himself doing.
Argument from free will contends that omniscience and the free will of humanity are incompatible and that any conception of God that incorporates both properties is therefore inherently contradictory: if God is omniscient, then God already knows humanity's future, contradicting the claim of free will.
The anthropic argument states that if God is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect, he would have created other morally perfect beings instead of imperfect ones, such as humans.
The problem of hell is the idea that eternal damnation contradicts God's omnibenevolence and omnipresence.
The Transcendental Argument for the Non-existence of God contests the existence of an intelligent Creator God by demonstrating that such a being would make logic and morality contingent, which is incompatible with the presuppositionalist assertion that they are necessary, and contradicts the efficacy of science.
The "no reason" argument tries to show that an omnipotent and omniscient being would not have any reason to act in any way, specifically by creating the universe, because it would have no needs, wants, or desires since these very concepts are subjectively human. Since the universe exists, there is a contradiction, and therefore, an omnipotent god cannot exist. This argument is expounded upon by Scott Adams in the book God's Debris, which puts forward a form of Pandeism as its fundamental theological model. A similar argument is put forward in Ludwig von Mises's "Human Action". He referred to it as the "praxeological argument" and claimed that a perfect being would have long ago satisfied all its wants and desires and would no longer be able to take action in the present without proving that it had been unable to achieve its wants faster—showing it imperfect.
The atheist-existential argument for the non-existence of a perfect sentient being states that if existence precedes essence, it follows from the meaning of the term sentient that a sentient being cannot be complete or perfect. It is touched upon by Jean-Paul Sartre in Being and Nothingness. Sartre's phrasing is that God would be a pour-soi [a being-for-itself; a consciousness] who is also an en-soi [a being-in-itself; a thing]: which is a contradiction in terms. The argument is echoed thus in Salman Rushdie's novel Grimus: "That which is complete is also dead."

Subjective arguments

Similar to the subjective arguments for the existence of God, subjective arguments against the supernatural mainly rely on the testimony or experience of witnesses, or the propositions of a revealed religion in general.

The witness argument gives credibility to personal witnesses, contemporary and from the past, who disbelieve or strongly doubt the existence of God.
The conflicted religions argument notes that many religions give differing accounts as to what God is and what God wants; since all the contradictory accounts cannot be correct, many if not all religions must be incorrect.
The disappointment argument claims that if, when asked for, there is no visible help from God, there is no reason to believe that there is a God.

Hindu arguments

Atheistic Hindu doctrines cite various arguments for rejecting a creator God or Ishvara. The Sāṁkhyapravacana Sūtra of the Samkhya school states that there is no philosophical place for a creator God in this system. It is also argued in this text that the existence of Ishvara (God) cannot be proved and hence cannot be admitted to exist. Classical Samkhya argues against the existence of God on metaphysical grounds. For instance, it argues that an unchanging God cannot be the source of an ever-changing world. It says God is a necessary metaphysical assumption demanded by circumstances. The Sutras of Samkhya endeavor to prove that the idea of God is inconceivable and self-contradictory, and some commentaries speak plainly on this subject. The Sankhya- tattva-kaumudi, commenting on Karika 57, argues that a perfect God can have no need to create a world, and if God's motive is kindness, Samkhya questions whether it is reasonable to call into existence beings who while non-existent had no suffering. Samkhya postulates that a benevolent deity ought to create only happy creatures, not an imperfect world like the real world.

Charvaka, originally known as Lokāyata, a heterodox Hindu philosophy states that there is "no God, no samsara (rebirth), no karma, no duty, no fruits of merit, no sin." Proponents of the school of Mimamsa, which is based on rituals and orthopraxy, decided that the evidence allegedly proving the existence of God is insufficient. They argue that there is no need to postulate a maker for the world, just as there is no need for an author to compose the Vedas or a god to validate the rituals. Mimamsa argues that the gods named in the Vedas have no existence apart from the mantras that speak their names. In that regard, the power of the mantras is what is seen as the power of gods.

Psychological aspects

Several authors have offered psychological or sociological explanations for belief in the existence of God.

Psychologists observe that the majority of humans often ask existential questions such as "why we are here" and whether life has purpose. Some psychologists have posited that religious beliefs may recruit cognitive mechanisms in order to satisfy these questions. William James emphasized the inner religious struggle between melancholy and happiness, and pointed to trance as a cognitive mechanism. Sigmund Freud stressed fear and pain, the need for a powerful parental figure, the obsessional nature of ritual, and the hypnotic state a community can induce as contributing factors to the psychology of religion.

Pascal Boyer's Religion Explained (2002), based in part on his anthropological field work, treats belief in God as the result of the brain's tendency towards agency detection. Boyer suggests that, because of evolutionary pressures, humans err on the side of attributing agency where there isn't any. In Boyer's view, belief in supernatural entities spreads and becomes culturally fixed because of their memorability. The concept of "minimally counterintuitive" beings that differ from the ordinary in a small number of ways (such as being invisible, able to fly, or having access to strategic and otherwise secret information) leave a lasting impression that spreads through word-of-mouth.

Scott Atran's In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (2002) makes a similar argument and adds examination of the socially coordinating aspects of shared belief. In Minds and Gods: The Cognitive Foundations of Religion, Todd Tremlin follows Boyer in arguing that universal human cognitive process naturally produces the concept of the supernatural. Tremlin contends that an agency detection device (ADD) and a theory of mind module (ToMM) lead humans to suspect an agent behind every event. Natural events for which there is no obvious agent may be attributed to God (c.f. Act of God).

History

Positions

Europeans polled who "believe in a god", according to Eurobarometer in 2005

North Americans polled about religious identity 2010-2012

For the purposes of discussion, Richard Dawkins described seven "milestones" on his spectrum of theistic probability:

Strong theist. 100% probability that God exists. In the words of C.G. Jung: "I do not believe, I know."
De facto theist. Very high probability but short of 100%. "I don't know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there."
Leaning towards theism. Higher than 50% but not very high. "I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God."
Completely impartial. Exactly 50%. "God's existence and nonexistence are exactly equiprobable."
Leaning towards atheism. Lower than 50% but not very low. "I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical."
De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."
Strong atheist. "I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung knows there is one."

Theism

Traditional religious definition of God

In classical theism, God is characterized as the metaphysically ultimate being (the first, timeless, absolutely simple and sovereign being, who is devoid of any anthropomorphic qualities), in distinction to other conceptions such as theistic personalism, open theism, and process theism. Classical theists do not believe that God can be completely defined. They believe it would contradict the transcendent nature of God for mere humans to define him. Robert Barron explains by analogy that it seems impossible for a two-dimensional object to conceive of three-dimensional humans.In modern Western societies, the concepts of God typically entail a monotheistic, supreme, ultimate, and personal being, as found in the Christian, Islamic and Jewish traditions. In monotheistic religions outside the Abrahamic traditions, the existence of God is discussed in similar terms. In these traditions, God is also identified as the author (either directly or by inspiration) of certain texts, or that certain texts describe specific historical events caused by the God in question or communications from God (whether in direct speech or via dreams or omens). Some traditions also believe that God is the entity which is currently answering prayers for intervention or information or opinions.

Ibn Rushd, a 12th-century Islamic scholar

Non-personal definitions of God

The Ethics of Baruch Spinoza gave two demonstrations of the existence of God. The God of Spinoza is uncaused by any external force and has no free will, it is not personal and not anthropomorphic.

Debate about how theism should be argued

Atheism

Positive atheism

Positive atheism (also called "strong atheism" and "hard atheism") is a form of atheism that asserts that no deities exist. The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods.

Negative atheism

Agnosticism

Strong agnosticism

Strong agnosticism is the belief that it is impossible for humans to know whether or not any deities exist.

Weak agnosticism

Weak agnosticism is the belief that the existence or nonexistence of deities is unknown but not necessarily unknowable.

Agnostic theism

Agnostic atheism

The theologian Robert Flint explains:

If a man have failed to find any good reason for believing that there is a God, it is perfectly natural and rational that he should not believe that there is a God; and if so, he is an atheist, although he assume no superhuman knowledge, but merely the ordinary human power of judging of evidence. If he go farther, and, after an investigation into the nature and reach of human knowledge, ending in the conclusion that the existence of God is incapable of proof, cease to believe in it on the ground that he cannot know it to be true, he is an agnostic and also an atheist, an agnostic-atheist—an atheist because an agnostic."

Apatheism

Ignosticism

Fundamental issues

The problem of the supernatural

Nature of relevant proofs and arguments

Alvin Plantinga compares the question of the existence of God to the question of the existence of other minds, claiming both are notoriously impossible to "prove" against a determined skeptic.

Outside of Western thought

Arguments for the existence of God

Empirical arguments

Argument from beauty

Argument from consciousness

Argument from design

Rational warrant

Philosopher Stephen Toulmin is notable for his work in the history of ideas that features the (rational) warrant: a statement that connects the premises to a conclusion.

Inductive arguments

Logical arguments

Aquinas' Five Ways

The unmoved mover argument asserts that, from our experience of motion in the universe (motion being the transition from potentiality to actuality) we can see that there must have been an initial mover. Aquinas argued that whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another thing, so there must be an unmoved mover.
Aquinas' argument from first cause started with the premise that it is impossible for a being to cause itself (because it would have to exist before it caused itself) and that it is impossible for there to be an infinite chain of causes, which would result in infinite regress. Therefore, there must be a first cause, itself uncaused.
The argument from necessary being asserts that all beings are contingent, meaning that it is possible for them not to exist. Aquinas argued that if everything can possibly not exist, there must have been a time when nothing existed; as things exist now, there must exist a being with necessary existence, regarded as God.
Aquinas argued from degree, considering the occurrence of degrees of goodness. He believed that things which are called good, must be called good in relation to a standard of good—a maximum. There must be a maximum goodness that which causes all goodness.
The argument from final cause asserts the view that non-intelligent objects are ordered towards a purpose. Aquinas argued that these objects cannot be ordered unless they are done so by an intelligent being, which means that there must be an intelligent being to move objects to their ends: God.

Cosmological argument

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The Universe began to exist.
Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

Ontological argument

Whatever is contained in a clear and distinct idea of a thing must be predicated of that thing; but a clear and distinct idea of an absolutely perfect Being contains the idea of actual existence; therefore since we have the idea of an absolutely perfect Being such a Being must really exist.

Subjective arguments

Arguments from historical events or personages

The sincere seeker's argument, espoused by Muslim Sufis of the Tasawwuf tradition, posits that every individual who follows a formulaic path towards guidance, arrives at the same destination of conviction in the existence of God and specifically in the monotheistic tenets and laws of Islam. This could only be true if the formula and supplication were being answered by the same Divine entity being addressed, as claimed in Islamic revelations. This was formally organized by Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali in such notable works as "Deliverance from Error" and "The Alchemy of Happiness," in Arabic "Kimiya-yi sa'adat". The path includes following the golden rule of no harm to others and treating others with compassion, silence or minimal speech, seclusion, daily fasting or minimalist diet of water and basic nourishment, honest wages, and daily supplication towards "the Creator of the Universe" for guidance.
Christianity and Judaism assert that God intervened in key specific moments in history, especially at the Exodus and the giving of the Ten Commandments in front of all the tribes of Israel, positing an argument from empirical evidence stemming from sheer number of witnesses, thus demonstrating his existence.
Christological arguments assert that certain events of the Christian New Testament are historically accurate, and prove God's existence, namely:
- The Resurrection of Jesus (an argument from miracles)
- The claims of Jesus, as a morally upstanding person, to be the son of God (an argument from authority)
- The belief of Jesus, as a wise person, that God exists (an argument from authority)
Islam asserts that the revelation of its holy book, the Qur'an, and its unique literary attributes, vindicate its divine authorship, and thus the existence of God.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormonism, similarly asserts that the miraculous appearance of God, Jesus Christ, and angels to Joseph Smith and others and subsequent finding and translation of the Book of Mormon establishes the existence of God. The whole Latter Day Saint movement makes the same claim for example Community of Christ, Church of Christ (Temple Lot), Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite), Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite), Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite), etc.
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite), similarly asserts that the finding and translation of the Plates of Laban, also known as the Brass Plates, into the Book of the Law of the Lord and Voree plates by James Strang, One Mighty and Strong, establishes the existence of God.
- Various sects that have broken from the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) (such as Church of Christ "With the Elijah Message" and Church of Christ (Assured Way)) claim that the message brought by John the Baptist, One Mighty and Strong, to Otto Fetting and W. A. Draves in The Word of the Lord Brought to Mankind by an Angel establishes the existence of God.

Arguments from testimony

The witness argument gives credibility to personal witnesses, contemporary and throughout the ages. A variation of this is the argument from miracles (also referred to as "the priest stories") which relies on testimony of supernatural events to establish the existence of God.
The majority argument argues that the theism of people throughout most of recorded history and in many different places provides prima facie demonstration of God's existence.

Arguments grounded in personal experiences

The sincere seeker's argument, espoused by Muslim Sufis of the Tasawwuf tradition, posits that every individual who follows a formulaic path towards guidance, arrives at the same destination of conviction in the existence of God and specifically in the monotheistic tenets and laws of Islam. This apparent natural law for guidance and belief could only be consistent if the formula and supplication were being answered by the same Divine entity being addressed, as claimed in Islamic revelations. This was formally organized by Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali in such notable works as "Deliverance from Error" and "The Alchemy of Happiness," in Arabic "Kimiya-yi sa'ādat". The path includes following the golden rule of no harm to others and treating others with compassion, silence or minimal speech, seclusion, daily fasting or minimalist diet of water and basic nourishment, honest wages, and daily supplication towards "the Creator of the Universe" for guidance.
The Argument from a proper basis argues that belief in God is "properly basic"; that it is similar to statements like "I see a chair" or "I feel pain". Such beliefs are non-falsifiable and, thus, neither provable nor disprovable; they concern perceptual beliefs or indisputable mental states.
In Germany, the School of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi taught that human reason is able to perceive the suprasensible. Jacobi distinguished three faculties: sense, reason, and understanding. Just as sense has immediate perception of the material so has reason immediate perception of the immaterial, while the understanding brings these perceptions to a person's consciousness and unites them to one another. God's existence, then, cannot be proven (Jacobi, like Immanuel Kant, rejected the absolute value of the principle of causality), it must be felt by the mind.
The same theory was advocated in Germany by Friedrich Schleiermacher, who assumed an inner religious sense by means of which people feel religious truths. According to Schleiermacher, religion consists solely in this inner perception, and dogmatic doctrines are inessential.
Brahma Kumaris religion was established in 1936, when God was said to enter the body of diamond merchant Lekhraj Kripalani (1876–1969) in Hyderabad, Sindh and started to speak through him.

Hindu arguments

Other arguments

The evolutionary argument against naturalism, which argues that naturalistic evolution is incapable of providing humans with the cognitive apparatus necessary for their knowledge to have positive epistemic status.
An argument from belief in God being properly basic as presented by Alvin Plantinga.
Argument from Personal Identity.
Argument from the "divine attributes of scientific law".

Arguments against the existence of God

Empirical arguments

The following empirical arguments rely on observations or experimentation to yield their conclusions.

Arguments from inadequate revelations

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

The argument from nonbelief contests the existence of an omnipotent god who wants humans to believe in it by arguing that such a god would do a better job of gathering believers.

Arguments from the poor design of the universe

Logical arguments

The following arguments deduce, mostly through self-contradiction, the non-existence of a God as "the Creator".

Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their book The Grand Design that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. Both authors claim that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings. Christian scholars, like Leonhard Euler and Bernard d'Espagnat, disagree with that kind of skeptical argument.
No scientific evidence of God's existence has been found. Therefore, the scientific consensus is that whether God exists is unknown.
A counter-argument against God as the Creator takes the assumption of the Cosmological argument ("the chicken or the egg"), that things cannot exist without creators, and applies it to God, setting up an infinite regress.
Dawkins' Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit analogizes the above. Some theists argue that evolution and abiogenesis are akin to a hurricane assembling a Boeing 747 — that the universe (or life) is too complex, cannot be made by non-living matter alone and would have to be designed by someone, who theists call God. Dawkin's counter-argument is that such a God would himself be complex — the "Ultimate" Boeing 747 — and therefore require a designer.
Theological noncognitivism is the argument that religious language – specifically, words such as "God" – are not cognitively meaningful and that irreducible definitions of God are circular.
The analogy of Russell's teapot argues that the burden of proof for the existence of God lies with the theist rather than the atheist; it can be considered an extension of Occam's Razor.

Arguments from incompatible divine properties

Some arguments focus on the existence of specific conceptions of God as being omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect.

The omnipotence paradox suggests that the concept of an omnipotent entity is logically contradictory by considering questions such as "Can God create a rock so big that He cannot move it?" or "If God is all powerful, could God create a being more powerful than Himself?"
Similarly, the omniscience paradox argues that God cannot be omniscient because he would not know how to create something unknown to himself.
Another argument points to the contradiction of omniscience and omnipotence arguing that God is bound to follow whatever God foreknows himself doing.
Argument from free will contends that omniscience and the free will of humanity are incompatible and that any conception of God that incorporates both properties is therefore inherently contradictory: if God is omniscient, then God already knows humanity's future, contradicting the claim of free will.
The anthropic argument states that if God is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect, he would have created other morally perfect beings instead of imperfect ones, such as humans.
The problem of hell is the idea that eternal damnation contradicts God's omnibenevolence and omnipresence.
The Transcendental Argument for the Non-existence of God contests the existence of an intelligent Creator God by demonstrating that such a being would make logic and morality contingent, which is incompatible with the presuppositionalist assertion that they are necessary, and contradicts the efficacy of science.
The "no reason" argument tries to show that an omnipotent and omniscient being would not have any reason to act in any way, specifically by creating the universe, because it would have no needs, wants, or desires since these very concepts are subjectively human. Since the universe exists, there is a contradiction, and therefore, an omnipotent god cannot exist. This argument is expounded upon by Scott Adams in the book God's Debris, which puts forward a form of Pandeism as its fundamental theological model. A similar argument is put forward in Ludwig von Mises's "Human Action". He referred to it as the "praxeological argument" and claimed that a perfect being would have long ago satisfied all its wants and desires and would no longer be able to take action in the present without proving that it had been unable to achieve its wants faster—showing it imperfect.
The atheist-existential argument for the non-existence of a perfect sentient being states that if existence precedes essence, it follows from the meaning of the term sentient that a sentient being cannot be complete or perfect. It is touched upon by Jean-Paul Sartre in Being and Nothingness. Sartre's phrasing is that God would be a pour-soi [a being-for-itself; a consciousness] who is also an en-soi [a being-in-itself; a thing]: which is a contradiction in terms. The argument is echoed thus in Salman Rushdie's novel Grimus: "That which is complete is also dead."

Subjective arguments

The witness argument gives credibility to personal witnesses, contemporary and from the past, who disbelieve or strongly doubt the existence of God.
The conflicted religions argument notes that many religions give differing accounts as to what God is and what God wants; since all the contradictory accounts cannot be correct, many if not all religions must be incorrect.
The disappointment argument claims that if, when asked for, there is no visible help from God, there is no reason to believe that there is a God.

Hindu arguments

Psychological aspects

Several authors have offered psychological or sociological explanations for belief in the existence of God.

Watchmaker analogy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy

Watchmaker analogy

The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument which states, by way of an analogy, that a design implies a designer, especially intelligent design an intelligent designer, i.e. a creator deity. The analogy has played a prominent role in natural theology and the "argument from design," where it was used to support arguments for the existence of God and for the intelligent design of the universe, in both Christianity and Deism.

Sir Isaac Newton, among other leaders in the scientific revolution, including René Descartes, upheld "that the physical laws he had uncovered revealed the mechanical perfection of the workings of the universe to be akin to a watch, wherein the watchmaker is God."

The 1859 publication of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection put forward an explanation for complexity and adaptation, which reflects scientific consensus on the origins of biological diversity. This provides a counter-argument to the watchmaker analogy: for example, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins referred to the analogy in his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker giving his explanation of evolution. Others, however, consider the watchmaker analogy to be compatible with evolutionary creation, opining that the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. In the 19th century, deists, who championed the watchmaker analogy, held that Darwin's theory fit with "the principle of uniformitarianism—the idea that all processes in the world occur now as they have in the past" and that deistic evolution "provided an explanatory framework for understanding species variation in a mechanical universe."

In the United States, starting in the 1960s, creationists revived versions of the argument to dispute the concepts of evolution and natural selection, and there was renewed interest in the watchmaker argument. The most famous statement of this teleological argument using the watchmaker analogy was given by William Paley in his 1802 book Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity.

History

Scientific revolution

The scientific revolution "nurtured a growing awareness" that "there were universal laws of nature at work that ordered the movement of the world and its parts." Amos Yong writes that in "astronomy, the Copernican revolution regarding the heliocentrism of the solar system, Johannes Kepler's (1571–1630) three laws of planetary motion, and Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) law of universal gravitation—laws of gravitation and of motion, and notions of absolute space and time—all combined to establish the regularities of heavenly and earthly bodies". Simultaneously, the development of machine technology and the emergence of the mechanical philosophy encouraged mechanical imagery unlikely to have come to the fore in previous ages. With such a backdrop, "deists suggested the watchmaker analogy: just as watches are set in motion by watchmakers, after which they operate according to their pre-established mechanisms, so also was the world begun by the God as creator, after which it and all its parts have operated according to their pre-established natural laws. With these laws perfectly in place, events have unfolded according to the prescribed plan." For Sir Isaac Newton, "the regular motion of the planets made it reasonable to believe in the continued existence of God". Newton also upheld the idea that "like a watchmaker, God was forced to intervene in the universe and tinker with the mechanism from time to time to ensure that it continued operating in good working order". Similar to Newton, René Descartes (1596–1650) speculated on "the cosmos as a great time machine operating according to fixed laws, a watch created and wound up by the great watchmaker".

William Paley

Watches and timepieces have been used as examples of complicated technology in philosophical discussions. For example, Cicero, Voltaire and René Descartes all used timepieces in arguments regarding purpose. The watchmaker analogy, as described here, was used by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle in 1686, but was most famously formulated by Paley.

Paley used the watchmaker analogy in his book Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity collected from the Appearances of Nature, published in 1802. In it, Paley wrote that if a pocket watch is found on a heath, it is most reasonable to assume that someone dropped it and that it was made by at least one watchmaker, not by natural forces:

William Paley

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were 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: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. 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 I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. ... There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. ... Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.
— William Paley, Natural Theology (1802)

Paley went on to argue that the complex structures of living things and the remarkable adaptations of plants and animals required an intelligent designer. He believed the natural world was the creation of God and showed the nature of the creator. According to Paley, God had carefully designed "even the most humble and insignificant organisms" and all of their minute features (such as the wings and antennae of earwigs). He believed, therefore, that God must care even more for humanity.

Paley recognised that there is great suffering in nature and nature appears to be indifferent to pain. His way of reconciling that with his belief in a benevolent God was to assume that life had more pleasure than pain.

As a side note, a charge of wholesale plagiarism from this book was brought against Paley in The Athenaeum for 1848, but the famous illustration of the watch was not peculiar to Nieuwentyt and had been used by many others before either Paley or Nieuwentyt. But the charge of plagiarism was based on more similarities. For example, Niewentyt wrote "in the middle of a Sandy down, or in a desart {sic} and solitary Place, where few People are used to pass, any one should find a Watch ..."

Joseph Butler

William Paley taught the works of Joseph Butler and appears to have built on Butler's 1736 design arguments of inferring a designer from evidence of design. Butler noted: "As the manifold Appearances of Design and of final Causes, in the Constitution of the World, prove it to be the Work of an intelligent Mind ... The appearances of Design and of final Causes in the constitution of nature as really prove this acting agent to be an intelligent Designer... ten thousand Instances of Design, cannot but prove a Designer."

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau also mentioned the watchmaker theory. He wrote the following in his 1762 book, Emile:

I am like a man who sees the works of a watch for the first time; he is never weary of admiring the mechanism, though he does not know the use of the instrument and has never seen its face. I do not know what this is for, says he, but I see that each part of it is fitted to the rest, I admire the workman in the details of his work, and I am quite certain that all these wheels only work together in this fashion for some common end which I cannot perceive. Let us compare the special ends, the means, the ordered relations of every kind, then let us listen to the inner voice of feeling; what healthy mind can reject its evidence? Unless the eyes are blinded by prejudices, can they fail to see that the visible order of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence? What sophisms must be brought together before we fail to understand the harmony of existence and the wonderful co-operation of every part for the maintenance of the rest?

Criticism

David Hume

Before Paley published his book, David Hume (1711–1776) had already put forward a number of philosophical criticisms of the watch analogy, and to some extent anticipated the concept of natural selection. His criticisms can be separated into three major distinctions:

His first objection is that we have no experience of world-making. Hume highlighted the fact that everything we claim to know the cause of, we have derived the inductions from previous experiences of similar objects being created or seen the object itself being created ourselves. For example, with a watch, we know it has to be created by a watch-maker because we can observe it being made and compare it to the making of other similar watches or objects to deduce they have alike causes in their creation. However, he argues that we have no experience of the universe's creation or any other universe's creations to compare our own universe to and never will; therefore, it would be illogical to infer that our universe has been created by an intelligent designer in the same way that a watch has.

The second criticism that Hume offers is about the form of the argument as an analogy in itself. An analogical argument claims that because object X (a watch) is like object Y (the universe) in one respect, both are therefore probably alike in another, hidden, respect (their cause, having to be created by an intelligent designer). He points out that for an argument from analogy to be successful, the two things that are being compared have to have an adequate number of similarities that are relevant to the respect that are analogised. For example, a kitten and a lion may be very similar in many respects, but just because a lion makes a "roar", it would not be correct to infer a kitten also "roars": the similarities between the two objects being not enough and the degree of relevance to what sound they make being not relevant enough. Hume then argues that the universe and a watch also do not have enough relevant or close similarities to infer that they were both created the same way. For example, the universe is made of organic natural material, but the watch is made of artificial mechanic materials. He claims that in the same respect, the universe could be argued to be more analogous to something more organic such as a vegetable (which we can observe for ourselves does not need a 'designer' or a 'watchmaker' to be created). Although he admits the analogy of a universe to a vegetable to seem ridiculous, he says that it is just as ridiculous to analogize the universe with a watch.

The third criticism that Hume offers is that even if the argument did give evidence for a designer; it still gives no evidence for the traditional 'omnipotent', 'benevolent' (all-powerful and all-loving) God of traditional Christian theism. One of the main assumptions of Paley's argument is that 'like effects have like causes'; or that machines (like the watch) and the universe have similar features of design and so both also have the same cause of their existence: they must both have an intelligent designer. However, Hume points out that what Paley does not comprehend is to what extent 'like causes' extend: how similar the creation of a universe is to the creation of a watch. Instead, Paley moves straight to the conclusion that this designer of the universe is the 'God' he believes in of traditional Christianity. Hume, however takes the idea of 'like causes' and points out some potential absurdities in how far the 'likeness' of these causes could extend to if the argument were taken further as to explain this. One example that he uses is how a machine or a watch is usually designed by a whole team of people rather than just one person. Surely, if we are analogizing the two in this way, it would point to there being a group of gods who created the universe, not just a single being. Another example he uses is that complex machines are usually the result of many years of trial and error with every new machine being an improved version of the last. Also by analogy of the two, would that not hint that the universe could also have been just one of many of God's 'trials' and that there are much better universes out there? However, if that were taken to be true, surely the 'creator' of it all would not be 'all loving' and 'all powerful' if they had to carry out the process of 'trial and error' when creating the universe?

Hume also points out there is still a possibility that the universe could have been created by random chance but still show evidence of design as the universe is eternal and would have an infinite amount of time to be able to form a universe so complex and ordered as our own. He called that the 'Epicurean hypothesis'. It argued that when the universe was first created, the universe was random and chaotic, but if the universe is eternal, over an unlimited period of time, natural forces could have naturally 'evolved' by random particles coming together over time into the incredibly ordered system we can observe today without the need of an intelligent designer as an explanation.

The last objection that he makes draws on the widely discussed problem of evil. He argues that all the daily unnecessary suffering that goes on everywhere within the world is yet another factor that pulls away from the idea that God is an 'omnipotent' 'benevolent' being.

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin in 1880

Charles Darwin's theory provided another explanation.

When Darwin completed his studies of theology at Christ's College, Cambridge in 1831, he read Paley's Natural Theology and believed that the work gave rational proof of the existence of God. That was because living beings showed complexity and were exquisitely fitted to their places in a happy world.

Subsequently, on the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin found that nature was not so beneficent, and the distribution of species did not support ideas of divine creation. In 1838, shortly after his return, Darwin conceived his theory that natural selection, rather than divine design, was the best explanation for gradual change in populations over many generations. He published the theory in On the Origin of Species in 1859, and in later editions, he noted responses that he had received:

It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. It has recently been objected that this is an unsafe method of arguing; but it is a method used in judging of the common events of life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers ... I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, "as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion." A celebrated author and divine has written to me that "he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws."
— Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1859)

Darwin reviewed the implications of this finding in his autobiography:

Although I did not think much about the existence of a personal God until a considerably later period of my life, I will here give the vague conclusions to which I have been driven. The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
— Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. With the original omissions restored.

The idea that nature was governed by laws was already common, and in 1833, William Whewell as a proponent of the natural theology that Paley had inspired had written that "with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this—we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws." Darwin, who spoke of the "fixed laws" concurred with Whewell, writing in his second edition of On The Origin of Species:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
— Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1860)

By the time that Darwin published his theory, theologians of liberal Christianity were already supporting such ideas, and by the late 19th century, their modernist approach was predominant in theology. In science, evolution theory incorporating Darwin's natural selection became completely accepted.

Richard Dawkins

In The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins argues that the watch analogy conflates the complexity that arises from living organisms that are able to reproduce themselves (and may become more complex over time) with the complexity of inanimate objects, unable to pass on any reproductive changes (such as the multitude of parts manufactured in a watch). The comparison breaks down because of this important distinction.

In a BBC Horizon episode, also entitled The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins described Paley's argument as being "as mistaken as it is elegant". In both contexts, he saw Paley as having made an incorrect proposal as to a certain problem's solution, but Dawkins did not disrespect him. In his essay The Big Bang, Steven Pinker discusses Dawkins's coverage of Paley's argument, adding: "Biologists today do not disagree with Paley's laying out of the problem. They disagree only with his solution."

In his book The God Delusion, Dawkins argues that life was the result of complex biological processes. He makes the argument that the comparison to the lucky construction of a watch is fallacious because proponents of evolution do not consider evolution "lucky". Rather than luck, the evolution of human life is the result of billions of years of natural selection. He concludes that evolution is a fair contestant to replace God in the role of watchmaker.

In addition, he argues that the watchmaker's creation of the watch implies that the watchmaker must be more complex than the watch. Design is top-down, someone or something more complex designs something less complex. To follow the line upwards demands that the watch was designed by a (necessarily more complex) watchmaker, the watchmaker must have been created by a more complex being than himself. So the question becomes who designed the designer? Dawkins argues that (a) this line continues ad infinitum, and (b) it does not explain anything.

Evolution, on the other hand, takes a bottom-up approach; it explains how more complexity can arise gradually by building on or combining lesser complexity.

In response to such claims, Nathan Schneider writes, "Paley died decades before The Origin of Species was published, and ever since his views have been so repeatedly set in opposition to Darwin's that Richard Dawkins titled one of his books on evolution The Blind Watchmaker. A closer look at Paley's own thinking reveals, however, a God who works through the laws of nature, not beyond them like the modern ID theorists' designer. Paley had no objection to species changing over time. It's only in today's highly polarized culture-war climate that we don't bother to notice that one of the forefathers of intelligent design theory might have been perfectly comfortable with evolution."

Richerson and Boyd

Biologist Peter Richerson and anthropologist Robert Boyd offer an oblique criticism by arguing that watches were not "hopeful monsters created by single inventors," but were created by watchmakers building up their skills in a cumulative fashion over time, each contributing to a watch-making tradition from which any individual watchmaker draws their designs.

Contemporary usage

In the early 20th century, the modernist theology of higher criticism was contested in the United States by Biblical literalists, who campaigned successfully against the teaching of evolution and began calling themselves creationists in the 1920s. When teaching of evolution was reintroduced into public schools in the 1960s, they adopted what they called creation science that had a central concept of design in similar terms to Paley's argument. That idea was then relabeled intelligent design, which presents the same analogy as an argument against evolution by natural selection without explicitly stating that the "intelligent designer" was God. The argument from the complexity of biological organisms was now presented as the irreducible complexity argument, the most notable proponent of which was Michael Behe, and, leveraging off the verbiage of information theory, the specified complexity argument, the most notable proponent of which was William Dembski.

The watchmaker analogy was referenced in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial. Throughout the trial, Paley was mentioned several times. The defense's expert witness John Haught noted that both Intelligent Design and the watchmaker analogy are "reformulations" of the same theological argument. On day 21 of the trial, Mr. Harvey walked Dr. Minnich through a modernized version of Paley's argument, substituting a cell phone for the watch. In his ruling, the judge stated that the use of the argument from design by intelligent design proponents "is merely a restatement of the Reverend William Paley's argument applied at the cell level," adding "Minnich, Behe, and Paley reach the same conclusion, that complex organisms must have been designed using the same reasoning, except that Professors Behe and Minnich refuse to identify the designer, whereas Paley inferred from the presence of design that it was God." The judge ruled that such an inductive argument is not accepted as science because it is unfalsifiable.

Infinite regress

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_regress

An infinite regress is an infinite series of entities governed by a recursive principle that determines how each entity in the series depends on or is produced by its predecessor. In the epistemic regress, for example, a belief is justified because it is based on another belief that is justified. But this other belief is itself in need of one more justified belief for itself to be justified and so on. An infinite regress argument is an argument against a theory based on the fact that this theory leads to an infinite regress. For such an argument to be successful, it has to demonstrate not just that the theory in question entails an infinite regress but also that this regress is vicious. There are different ways how a regress can be vicious. The most serious form of viciousness involves a contradiction in the form of metaphysical impossibility. Other forms occur when the infinite regress is responsible for the theory in question being implausible or for its failure to solve the problem it was formulated to solve. Traditionally, it was often assumed without much argument that each infinite regress is vicious but this assumption has been put into question in contemporary philosophy. While some philosophers have explicitly defended theories with infinite regresses, the more common strategy has been to reformulate the theory in question in a way that avoids the regress. One such strategy is foundationalism, which posits that there is a first element in the series from which all the other elements arise but which is not itself explained this way. Another way is coherentism, which is based on a holistic explanation that usually sees the entities in question not as a linear series but as an interconnected network. Infinite regress arguments have been made in various areas of philosophy. Famous examples include the cosmological argument, Bradley's regress and regress arguments in epistemology.

Definition

An infinite regress is an infinite series of entities governed by a recursive principle that determines how each entity in the series depends on or is produced by its predecessor. This principle can often be expressed in the following form: X is F because X stands in R to Y and Y is F. X and Y stand for objects, R stands for a relation and F stands for a property in the widest sense. In the epistemic regress, for example, a belief is justified because it is based on another belief that is justified. But this other belief is itself in need of one more justified belief for itself to be justified and so on. Or in the cosmological argument, an event occurred because it was caused by another event that occurred before it, which was itself caused by a previous event, and so on. This principle by itself is not sufficient: it does not lead to a regress if there is no X that is F. This is why an additional triggering condition has to be fulfilled: there has to be an X that is F for the regress to get started. So the regress starts with the fact that X is F. According to the recursive principle, this is only possible if there is a distinct Y that is also F. But in order to account for the fact that Y is F, we need to posit a Z that is F and so on. Once the regress has started, there is no way of stopping it since a new entity has to be introduced at each step in order to make the previous step possible.

An infinite regress argument is an argument against a theory based on the fact that this theory leads to an infinite regress. For such an argument to be successful, it has to demonstrate not just that the theory in question entails an infinite regress but also that this regress is vicious. The mere existence of an infinite regress by itself is not a proof for anything. So in addition to connecting the theory to a recursive principle paired with a triggering condition, the argument has to show in which way the resulting regress is vicious. For example, one form of evidentialism in epistemology holds that a belief is only justified if it is based on another belief that is justified. An opponent of this theory could use an infinite regress argument by demonstrating (1) that this theory leads to an infinite regress (e.g. by pointing out the recursive principle and the triggering condition) and (2) that this infinite regress is vicious (e.g. by showing that it is implausible given the limitations of the human mind). In this example, the argument has a negative form since it only denies that another theory is true. But it can also be used in a positive form to support a theory by showing that its alternative involves a vicious regress. This is how the cosmological argument for the existence of God works: it claims that positing God's existence is necessary in order to avoid an infinite regress of causes.

Viciousness

For an infinite regress argument to be successful, it has to show that the involved regress is vicious. A non-vicious regress is called virtuous or benign. Traditionally, it was often assumed without much argument that each infinite regress is vicious but this assumption has been put into question in contemporary philosophy. In most cases, it is not self-evident whether an infinite regress is vicious or not. The truth regress constitutes an example of an infinite regress that is not vicious: if the proposition "P" is true, then the proposition that "It is true that P" is also true and so on. Infinite regresses pose a problem mostly if the regress concerns concrete objects. Abstract objects, on the other hand, are often considered to be unproblematic in this respect. For example, the truth-regress leads to an infinite number of true propositions or the Peano axioms entail the existence of infinitely many natural numbers. But these regresses are usually not held against the theories that entail them.

There are different ways how a regress can be vicious. The most serious type of viciousness involves a contradiction in the form of metaphysical impossibility. Other types occur when the infinite regress is responsible for the theory in question being implausible or for its failure to solve the problem it was formulated to solve. The vice of an infinite regress can be local if it causes problems only for certain theories when combined with other assumptions, or global otherwise. For example, an otherwise virtuous regress is locally vicious for a theory that posits a finite domain. In some cases, an infinite regress is not itself the source of the problem but merely indicates a different underlying problem.

Impossibility

Infinite regresses that involve metaphysical impossibility are the most serious cases of viciousness. The easiest way to arrive at this result is by accepting the assumption that actual infinities are impossible, thereby directly leading to a contradiction. This anti-infinitists position is opposed to infinity in general, not just specifically to infinite regresses. But it is open to defenders of the theory in question to deny this outright prohibition on actual infinities. For example, it has been argued that only certain types of infinities are problematic in this way, like infinite intensive magnitudes (e.g. infinite energy densities). But other types of infinities, like infinite cardinality (e.g. infinitely many causes) or infinite extensive magnitude (e.g. the duration of the universe's history) are unproblematic from the point of view of metaphysical impossibility. While there may be some instances of viciousness due to metaphysical impossibility, most vicious regresses are problematic because of other reasons.

Implausibility

A more common form of viciousness arises from the implausibility of the infinite regress in question. This category often applies to theories about human actions, states or capacities. This argument is weaker than the argument from impossibility since it allows that the regress in question is possible. It only denies that it is actual. For example, it seems implausible due to the limitations of the human mind that there are justified beliefs if this entails that the agent needs to have an infinite amount of them. But this is not metaphysically impossible, e.g. if it is assumed that the infinite number of beliefs are only non-occurrent or dispositional while the limitation only applies to the number of beliefs one is actually thinking about at one moment. Another reason for the implausibility of theories involving an infinite regress is due to the principle known as Ockham's razor, which posits that we should avoid ontological extravagance by not multiplying entities without necessity. Considerations of parsimony are complicated by the distinction between quantitative and qualitative parsimony: concerning how many entities are posited in contrast to how many kinds of entities are posited. For example, the cosmological argument for the existence of God promises to increase quantitative parsimony by positing that there is one first cause instead of allowing an infinite chain of events. But it does so by decreasing qualitative parsimony: it posits God as a new type of entity.

Failure to explain

Another form of viciousness applies not to the infinite regress by itself but to it in relation to the explanatory goals of a theory. Theories are often formulated with the goal of solving a specific problem, e.g. of answering the question why a certain type of entity exists. One way how such an attempt can fail is if the answer to the question already assumes in disguised form what it was supposed to explain. This is akin to the informal fallacy of begging the question. From the perspective of a mythological world view, for example, one way to explain why the earth seems to be at rest instead of falling down is to hold that it rests on the back of a giant turtle. In order to explain why the turtle itself is not in free fall, another even bigger turtle is posited and so on, resulting in a world that is turtles all the way down. Despite its shortcomings in clashing with modern physics and due to its ontological extravagance, this theory seems to be metaphysically possible assuming that space is infinite. One way to assess the viciousness of this regress is to distinguish between local and global explanations. A local explanation is only interested in explaining why one thing has a certain property through reference to another thing without trying to explain this other thing as well. A global explanation, on the other hand, tries to explain why there are any things with this property at all. So as a local explanation, the regress in the turtle theory is benign: it succeeds in explaining why the earth is not falling. But as a global explanation, it fails because it has to assume rather than explain at each step that there is another thing that is not falling. It does not explain why nothing at all is falling.

It has been argued that infinite regresses can be benign under certain circumstances despite aiming at global explanation. This line of thought rests on the idea of the transmission involved in the vicious cases: it is explained that X is F because Y is F where this F was somehow transmitted from Y to X. The problem is that to transfer something, you have to possess it first, so the possession is presumed rather than explained. For example, assume that in trying to explain why your neighbor has the property of being the owner of a bag of sugar, it is revealed that this bag was first in someone else's possession before it was transferred to your neighbor and that the same is true for this and every other previous owner. This explanation is unsatisfying since ownership is presupposed at every step. In non-transmissive explanations, on the other hand, Y is still the reason for X being F and Y is also F but this is just seen as a contingent fact. This line of thought has been used to argue that the epistemic regress is not vicious. From a Bayesian point of view, for example, justification or evidence can be defined in terms of one belief raising the probability of another belief. The former belief may also be justified but this is not relevant for explaining why the latter belief is justified.

Responses

Philosophers have responded to infinite regress arguments in various ways. The criticized theory can be defended, for example, by denying that an infinite regress is involved. Infinitists, on the other hand, embrace the regress but deny that it is vicious. Another response is to modify the theory in order to avoid the regress. This can be achieved in the form of foundationalism or of coherentism.

Foundationalism

Traditionally, the most common response is foundationalism. It posits that there is a first element in the series from which all the other elements arise but which is not itself explained this way. So from any given position, the series can be traced back to elements on the most fundamental level, which the recursive principle fails to explain. This way there is no infinite regress. This position is well-known from its applications in the field of epistemology. Foundationalist theories of epistemic justification state that besides inferentially justified beliefs, which depend for their justification on other beliefs, there are also non-inferentially justified beliefs. The non-inferentially justified beliefs constitute the foundation on which the superstructure consisting of all the inferentially justified beliefs rests. Acquaintance theories explain the justification of non-inferential beliefs through acquaintance with the objects of the belief. On such a view, an agent is inferentially justified to believe that it will rain tomorrow based on the belief that the weather forecast told so. She is non-inferentially justified in believing that she is in pain because she is directly acquainted with the pain. So a different type of explanation (acquaintance) is used for the foundational elements.

Another example comes from the field of metaphysics concerning the problem of ontological hierarchy. One position in this debate claims that some entities exist on a more fundamental level than other entities and that the latter entities depend on or are grounded in the former entities. Metaphysical foundationalism is the thesis that these dependence relations do not form an infinite regress: that there is a most fundamental level that grounds the existence of the entities from all other levels. This is sometimes expressed by stating that the grounding-relation responsible for this hierarchy is well-founded.

Coherentism

Coherentism, mostly found in the field of epistemology, is another way to avoid infinite regresses. It is based on a holistic explanation that usually sees the entities in question not as a linear series but as an interconnected network. For example, coherentist theories of epistemic justification hold that beliefs are justified because of the way they hang together: they cohere well with each other. This view can be expressed by stating that justification is primarily a property of the system of beliefs as a whole. The justification of a single belief is derivative in the sense that it depends on the fact that this belief belongs to a coherent whole. Laurence BonJour is a well-known contemporary defender of this position.

Examples

Aristotle

Aristotle argued that knowing does not necessitate an infinite regress because some knowledge does not depend on demonstration:

Some hold that owing to the necessity of knowing the primary premises, there is no scientific knowledge. Others think there is, but that all truths are demonstrable. Neither doctrine is either true or a necessary deduction from the premises. The first school, assuming that there is no way of knowing other than by demonstration, maintain that an infinite regress is involved, on the ground that if behind the prior stands no primary, we could not know the posterior through the prior (wherein they are right, for one cannot traverse an infinite series): if on the other hand – they say – the series terminates and there are primary premises, yet these are unknowable because incapable of demonstration, which according to them is the only form of knowledge. And since thus one cannot know the primary premises, knowledge of the conclusions which follow from them is not pure scientific knowledge nor properly knowing at all, but rests on the mere supposition that the premises are true. The other party agrees with them as regards knowing, holding that it is only possible by demonstration, but they see no difficulty in holding that all truths are demonstrated, on the ground that demonstration may be circular and reciprocal. Our own doctrine is that not all knowledge is demonstrative: on the contrary, knowledge of the immediate premises is independent of demonstration. (The necessity of this is obvious; for since we must know the prior premises from which the demonstration is drawn, and since the regress must end in immediate truths, those truths must be indemonstrable.) Such, then, is our doctrine, and in addition, we maintain that besides scientific knowledge there is its original source which enables us to recognize the definitions.
— Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I.3 72b1–15

Philosophy of mind

Gilbert Ryle argues in the philosophy of mind that mind-body dualism is implausible because it produces an infinite regress of "inner observers" when trying to explain how mental states are able to influence physical states.

Libertarian free will

Some forms of libertarianism assert that human actions do not have causes and are chosen consciously – i.e. are not random. This assertion raises the question: what are these conscious decisions based on? Since they can't be based on nothing (as the possibility of decisions being random is excluded), this question can be asked for each subsequent answer or answers to it, thus forming an infinite regress.

Problem of the creator of God

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_the_creator_of_God

The problem of the creator of God is the controversy regarding the hypothetical cause responsible for the existence of God, knowing God exists. It contests the proposition that the universe cannot exist without a creator by asserting that the creator of the universe must have the same restrictions. This, in turn, may lead to a problem of infinite regress wherein each newly presumed creator of a creator is itself presumed to have its own creator. A common challenge to theistic propositions of a creator deity as a necessary first-cause explanation for the universe is the question: "Who created God?"

Some faith traditions have such an element as part of their doctrine. Jainism posits that the universe is eternal and has always existed. Isma'ilism rejects the idea of God as the first cause, due to the doctrine of God's incomparability and source of any existence including abstract objects.

Perspectives

Osho writes:

No, don't ask that. That's what all the religions say – don't ask who created God. But this is strange – why not? If the question is valid about existence, why does it become invalid when it is applied to God? And once you ask who created God, you are falling into a regress absurdum.

John Humphreys writes:

... if someone were able to provide the explanation, we would be forced to embark upon what philosophers call an infinite regress. Having established who created God, we would then have to answer the question of who created God's creator.

In The God Book, deist Michael Arnheim writes:

The atheist objection is that if God created the universe, who created God? Judging by the number of times that (Richard) Dawkins repeats this same point in The God Delusion, one must assume that he sees this as a killer argument against the existence of God.

Alan Lurie writes:

In response to one of my blogs about God's purpose in the creation of the universe, one person wrote, "All you've done is divert the question. If God created the Universe, who created God? That is a dilemma that religious folks desperately try to avoid." The question, "Who created God?", has been pondered by theologians for millennia, and the answer is both surprisingly obvious and philosophically subtle ... ... whatever one thinks about the beginnings of the Universe, there is "something" at the very origin that was not created. This is an inescapable given, a cosmic truth.

Responses

Defenders of religion have countered that the question is improper:

We ask, "If all things have a creator, then who created God?" Actually, only created things have a creator, so it's improper to lump God with his creation. God has revealed himself to us in the Bible as having always existed.

Atheists counter that there is no reason to assume the universe was created. The question becomes irrelevant if the universe is presumed to have circular time instead of linear time, undergoing an infinite series of big bangs and big crunches on its own.

Some Christians, especially those espousing the Leibnizian principle of sufficient reason, claim that God would be a necessary being and necessary beings, by definition, cannot be caused externally by something else. The question of "What created X?" would only apply to contingent things, not to a necessary being like God.

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Friday, May 28, 2021

Existence of God

History

Positions

Theism

Traditional religious definition of God

Non-personal definitions of God

Debate about how theism should be argued

Atheism

Positive atheism

Negative atheism

Agnosticism

Strong agnosticism

Weak agnosticism

Agnostic theism

Agnostic atheism

Apatheism

Ignosticism

Fundamental issues

The problem of the supernatural

Nature of relevant proofs and arguments

Outside of Western thought

Arguments for the existence of God

Empirical arguments

Argument from beauty

Argument from consciousness

Argument from design

Rational warrant

Inductive arguments

Logical arguments

Aquinas' Five Ways

Cosmological argument

Ontological argument

Subjective arguments

Arguments from historical events or personages

Arguments from testimony

Arguments grounded in personal experiences

Hindu arguments

Other arguments

Arguments against the existence of God

Empirical arguments

Arguments from inadequate revelations

Arguments from the poor design of the universe

Logical arguments

Arguments from incompatible divine properties

Subjective arguments

Hindu arguments

Psychological aspects

History

Positions

Theism

Traditional religious definition of God

Non-personal definitions of God

Debate about how theism should be argued

Atheism

Positive atheism

Negative atheism

Agnosticism

Strong agnosticism

Weak agnosticism

Agnostic theism

Agnostic atheism

Apatheism

Ignosticism

Fundamental issues

The problem of the supernatural

Nature of relevant proofs and arguments

Outside of Western thought

Arguments for the existence of God

Empirical arguments

Argument from beauty

Argument from consciousness

Argument from design

Rational warrant

Inductive arguments

Logical arguments

Aquinas' Five Ways

Cosmological argument

Ontological argument