The Teleological Argument for the Existence of God

One of the most convincing arguments I have ever heard about the reality of the existence of God, came when I heard a Christian scientist rattle off a heap of mathematical probablities regarding the 'fine-tuning' of the universe. The question was put, 'Based on these statistices, how could we possibly have life on earth without the intelligent involvement of a Deity?'

Well, let me explain the teleological argument for the existence of God.

Firstly, when we look around at the complexity of our human existence, we are caused or confounded at times, to ask how it all came about. Some scientists would claim the veracity of Charles Darwin's theory on evolution. Though in recent years, the idea that cells evolved into the life forms we have today has become increasingly debated. William Lane Craig writes, 'The explanatory adequacy of the neo-Darwinian mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection with respect to observed biological complexity has been sharply challenged, as advances in microbiology have served to disclose the breathtaking complexity of the micro-machinery of a single cell, not to speak of higher level organisms (Reasonable Faith, p. 157).

While many scientists work hard at attempting to explain natural selection, some theists work hard at providing evidence and rational arguments for the involvement of a God in the created order. One of those arguments is called the teleological argument for the existence of God. It relates to a concept called 'fine-tuning'. The thesis is simply that the world in which we live is so complex, that it is irrational to consider that the world was formed without the presense of God.

Physicist Freeman Dyson says, 'The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense knew I was coming.' Or as Antony Flew writes, 'the laws of nature seem to have been crafted so as to move the universe toward the emergence and sustenance of life' (There is a God, p. 114).

Professor Owen Gingerich says a similar thing, 'To me, belief in a final cause, a Creator-God, gives a coherent understanding of why the universe seems so congenially designed for the existence of intelligent, self-reflective life' (God's Universe, p. 12). He goes on, 'It would take only small changes in numerous physical constants to render the universe uninhabitable'.

Lets look then briefly at why leading physicists and cosmoslogists would argue for the 'fine tuning' of the universe. The speed of light (2.99792458 x 10^8 metres/second), a constant that remains at that speed within the universe, if slightly different to that speed would not have permitted life on earth. If the mass of a carbon atom (or any atom for that matter) was slightly different, then a non life permitting earth would have occurred. Our universe is finely tuned. Finely tuned by the omnipotence of a creator.

Now one of the counter-arguments to the teleological argument for the existence of God is the concept of multiverses. What is a multiverse? A multiverse is the scientific way of explaining away the need to embrace the idea of intelligent creator. A multiverse is an unknown number of universes that exist; existing somehow outside of each other. The scientific rationale is that there are millions of other universes that exist, and we merely live in one where the right balance of biological and physical processes have occurred in order to sustain life. A non-theist needs to travel down this path of attempting to explain the idea of multiverses, otherwise, they are left with a load of evidence that suggests the probability of life being sustained on earth within this one universe, by random chance, is impossible.

If we dig deeper into the fine-tuning argument, we come across a plethora of fundamental physical and biological laws that are intrigingly complex and seemingly 'well designed'. Glance your eyes upon quantum physics, or biological processes, or even the sustaining of the animal kingdom, and you are caused to question 'how' could this have possibly originated by chance.

To narrow down the fine-tuning argument, let me outline how William Lane Craig puts it:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design. (Reasonable Faith, p. 161).

The first point is relatively not controversial, but point number two is where the debate arises. I will not delve any deeper here, though, I am absolutely convinced there is enough rational, scientific evidence to strongly suggest that this universe was not the accidental outcome of the emergence of bacteria, but was created by a God who fine-tuned the universe's existence into being. That's the teleological argument for the existence of God.

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See the following texts:

• Craig, William Lane. (2008). Reasonable Faith. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway.
• Flew, Antony. (2007). There is a God; How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.
• Gingerich, Owen. (2006). God's Universe. Cambridge, Massachusetts. London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 

Five Views on Apologetics - An Overview - Stanley N. Gundry (Editor)

This is a book about Christian apologetic methodology. The book does not aim to present apologetic material per se, but to have various authors present their differing view on how they approach apologetics. Firstly, what is apologetics? Apologetics comes from the word apologia which means defence; that is, apologetics is defined as presenting a 'defence' of the Christian faith. Some of the debate within apologetics may involve the following:

• Arguments for the existence of God
• The role of the Holy Spirit in apologetics
• The role of Scripture in apologetics
• The place that experience has when producing convincing apologetic arguments
• Postmodernism and the debate about absolute truths, relativism and the like.

The Five Views on Apologetics was published in 2000, and the following five authors presented their views: William Lane Craig, Gary R. Habermas, John M. Frame, Kelly James Clark and Paul D. Feinberg.

William Lane Craig (pictured) argues strongly that the kalam argument for the existence of God is a convincing apologetic. The premise for the kalam cosmological argument is that 'whatever begins to exist has a cause' (: 50).

One of the interesting angles that William Craig takes, is his prominence on the work of the Holy Spirit in the apologetic journey. He says, it is important to insist on the self-authenticating nature of the Spirit's witness. 'The claim that the Spirit's witness is self-authenticating entails that belief grounded in the witness of the Holy Spirit is an intrinsic defeater of the defeaters brought against it; that is to say, it is a belief enjoying such a high degree of warrant that it simply overwhelms any putative defeater' (: 34). Naturally, more questions arise from this discussion, including the question about people who adhere to belief systems outside of Christianity, who claim to have an encounter with a divine presence. Robert Oakes (: 29) defines a self-authenticating religious experience as a 'veridical experience of God which is sufficient to guarantee that the person having that veridical experience could never in principle have any justification for questioning its validity'.
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Another highlight from William Lane Craig's 'Classical Apologetics' methodology is his view that apologetics falls into one of two categories; that of showing Christianity to be true, and that of knowing Christianity to be true. Many Christians may know in their deepest heart of hearts that they know Christianity to be true but may in turn struggle to show Christianity to be true. Nonetheless, their faith in Christ is still rational, despite their inability to articulate convincing arguments/evidence for the belief that they hold.

Gary Habermas highlights the apologetic methodology called 'Evidential Apologetics'. He says that what defines this a part from the other four views in the book, is its focus on using historical evidences for the Christian faith (: 94). You could take the death and resurrection of Jesus, for instance, and look at the probability of its historical occurence or rather look at the evidence to see whether it was more probable that Jesus did in fact rise from the grave on the third day, or not. For example, some of the historical evidence used would be the witnesses who saw Christ following his resurrection (including the Jewish leaders of the time - who offered no polemic against the premise that Jesus rose from the grave). The methodology is about presenting historical evidence for the Christian faith.

The third apologetic methodology is from Paul D. Feinberg, and he argues for the 'Cumulative Case' methodology. This is really saying, that while apologists like Craig might argue firstly for the proof that God exists, the cumulative case takes any argument, evidence, experience it can muster to present the Christian faith as more probable than its alternatives. He believes that while apologetics could be labelled as either, the establishment of the truth or rationality of belief or thirdly the persuasion of the unbeliever, it should be for the persuasion of the unbeliever.

Fourthly, the apologetic methodology discussed is 'Presuppositional Apologetics', from John M. Frame. This takes a completely different approach. Frame will position himself with the assumption that God exists, and that the Bible is God's Word for humanity. Then after making that assumption, humanity can engage with the God who created them and the Scripture that we have, and find the truth of the Christian faith. He says, the process is God's rationality -> human faith -> human reasoning. The other four authors are very critical of John Frame's seemingly circular argument. He is an example of Frame's circular argument (: 356).

• Premise 1: Whatever the Bible says is true.
• Premise 2: The Bible says it is the Word of God.
• Conclusion: Therefore, the Bible is the Word of God.

Lastly, in the Five Views on Apologetics is Kelly Clark's 'Reformed Epistemology' methodology. He thesis is that while evidence can be persuasive it is not imperative to have evidence to rationally believe that God exists. I hope not to misinterpret his apologetic methods, because of lack of understanding, so I will quote him: 'I am inclined to think that the theistic arguments do provide some noncoercive evidence of God's existence. By noncoercive I mean that the theistic arguments aren't of such power and illumination that they should be expected to persuade all rational creatures. Rational people could rationally reject the theistic proofs. Rational people-and this is a fact with which we must live-rationally disagree. Nonetheless, I believe that someone could rationally believe in God on the basis of theistic arguments, but no one needs to do so' (: 273).

The Five Views on Apologetics at times feels like it delves into semantics a little, but such is the realms of philosophy and intellectual debate. The format though is so engaging, with one author presenting their apologetic methodology, and then one by one the other four authors provide a short reply. Then the next apologist offers their methodology, and one by one the authors reply. Then, the end sees the authors each provide some closing remarks and intellectual debate on the content and responses of the other authors. The Five Views on Apologetics is a great book for understanding the realm of Christian Apologetics, and its enough to wet the appetite for engaging in apologetics in the future.  

Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath - The Delusions!

A couple of books I have been reading parts of recently are both the popular atheist Richard Dawkins' book, 'The God Delusion' and theologian Alister McGrath's book, 'The Dawkins Delusion', which is really a rebuttal to the atheistic, anti-religious rants of Dawkins.
Dawkins goes off track often from the title and purpose of his book. The book seeks to show/prove to people that the belief in a God is a delusion - an intellectual absurdity that has no scientific evidential proof. What frustrates me about this book, is not so much the intent on presenting intellectual arguments regarding the nonexistence of God, but rather the tactics/strategies that Dawkins uses to present his material. I'm left with the feeling that Dawkins is deep-down more concerned with selling books than presenting logical, rational atheistic arguments. He often relays stories of religious people who have either abused people, or made damning comments to others, or about others, etc. Now, if the book is really about showing people that there is no such thing as a 'God' who is supernatural, the stories are seemingly irrelevant. I mean, is the purpose of the book merely to denegrade religion? Or is it actually about having an intellectual discussion about theism and antitheism? If it is the latter, then why all the stories about the abuse of religion? If we are presenting balanced arguments, then why not present some stories about groups that are atheists that have murdered and abused others? The proving or disproving a deities existence is mutually exclusive to the way people have or have not represented that religion's belief. The truth of a religion is not necessarily based on how people have represented it. Of course, in a simplistic world, if Christianity believes that God is a God of love, and people should love their neighbour as they love themselves, then every believer of that religion would express this in their life. Though, we don't live in this simplistic world, so to use dramatic, emotionally laden rhetoric of people hurting others in the name of 'religion' neithers disproves or proves the existence of God, and so falls short of what seems to be the purpose of Richard Dawkins, 'The God Delusion'.
Alister McGrath's book, 'The Dawkins Delusion' seeks to present his arguments in a more concise manner, and remove himself from unnecessary emotional language, that takes away from his primary objective of discussing and critically working through Dawkin's writings.

There's so much more to write. But, all the best as you critically engage with the search for truth.

For a Book Review on Dawkin's, The God Delusion, 'A contagious boil on the face of Religion' click here.

To continue the discussion on facebook, go to: www.facebook.com/peter.brookshaw

Evidence that God exists

Have you heard athiests, agnostics, curious thinkers challenge a Christian with, 'Give me evidence that God exists'? Have had the challenge recently from Twitter user @hughring wanting evidence for the claims of Christianity. Interestingly, if we want to enter into an evidentialism kind of debate, lets look at both sides of the equation. @hughring is a professed atheist and so believes that there is no 'God who created the heavens and the earth'. He wants me to provide evidence of the existence of God so that I can clearly justify my belief system and prove to him that my beliefs are not insane, illogical and outrageous. So will Hugh provide me with the same evidence of his belief in the non-existence of God? Will Hugh outline to me in a logical, scientific and intellectual way, evidence that show his holding of an atheist viewpoint is right? Why should I have to provide evidence of the existence of God, while someone can say that Christianity is fictional and be free from making any valid reasoning to why they hold to that assumption?

I know what people are thinking. So, will you give us some evidence on the existence of God anyway? Some of the atheists are saying, 'C'mon - prove to me that God really exists and that your whole faith and religion isn't just a pile of controlling, authoritarian legalism.' The fact is, whether or not I have the ability to clearly and soundly argue the existence of God does not change the truth about whether or not God exists. It will merely provide some with ammunition for rebuttal and provide others with some ideas about what they already believe.

Ahh, the existence of God. Theologian and famous Christian minister John Wesley broke up Christianity into four sources saying that within Christianity the following four tenets were imperative, and they were:
1. Reason
2. Tradition
3. Experience
4. Scripture
He argued, amongst others, that a wholistic Christian worldview was made up all of these four sections. Reason is one subsection that atheist's pounce on and demand from the Christians. Reason (http://www.dictionary.com/) 'is a statement presented in justification or explanation of a belief or action'. This is most important for atheists as empirical evidence is what is valued the most; scientific arguments/evidence for any belief/idea. The 'reason' the Christian uses to share with others, to justify and explain their belief is 'faith'. This of course is not enough for the atheist to justify such a large claim, that God exists. Maybe you're right. Maybe its a cop-out. Though many know that through faith in the Lord Jesus (that is genuine trust/belief) in Jesus is all the reasoning they need. Now, to have to provide scientific, intellectual, step by step analysis of the existence of God to prove God's existence is a presumptious, arrogant stance that scientists take. They shrug off faith like its a mosquito with malaria, and spit and shout loudly that scientific, empirical evidence is what is needed. I stammer and whinge and say, 'No! Faith's enough, in and of itself.'

Tradition highlights to the Christian the importance of the past and can help inform theology into the future, including the proof of the existence of God. 'Tradition' here is being defined as, 'a living and active process of passing on the Christian faith, rather than as a static source of revelation, indepedent of Scripture' (McGrath, 2001: 185).Quoting from Alister McGrath:
   ' "tradition" implies not merely something that is handed down, but an active process of reflection by which theological or spiritual insights are valued, assessed, and transmitted from one generation to another' (: 186). Some atheists would call this 'organized religion' and throw the baby out with the bath water. The tradition side of understanding Christianity and the existence of God is about looking and appreciating the validity of particular ideas/theology that has come from the past. We think of statements such as the Apostle's Creed and the Athanasian Creed forged within the think tanks of followers of Jesus in days gone by. But, does any of this provide evidence for the existence of God? When encapsulated wholistically with Scripture, experience and reason, tradition highlights to us, one of two options - millions of Christians and theologians got it all wrong and handed down pathetic excuses for religiosity, or there is merit and validity to the tradition of the past. It's admittedly not a strong argument, but is a justification nonetheless.

The same is said of 'Experience'. Millions of people testify their lungs out about the existence of God, through a faith response to the message of Christ. The atheist is quick to label experiential stories of supernatural experiences as either mental illness, illusions, hypnosis, lack of sleep, paranoia... the list goes on... If we labelled each and every Christian with these, quite often over the top, bogus justifications for someone's lack of true experience, then we have emerged into the 21st century on the back of millions of liars and millions of sick people who have for some reason shared with humanity a belief that is irrational and nonexistent. The millions of believers with these 'valid for them' experiences of faith have also been some of the most influential people in science, politics, religion, entertainment, the world has ever seen. I understand that a million people saying something is right, still does not necessarily make something right, though we cannot brush off the experience of many people with broad offensive comments about the validity of someones experience. Each experience should be weighed on its own merits, and possibly weighed up to the rigours of cohesiveness with biblical writings and scientific analysis.

The evidence that God exists, for a Christian is found in the continuing revelation of the power and significance that is found in the biblical writings. While atheists are fast to jump onto specific bible verses about the vengeance of God or the specific commands to a specific people at a specific time, the Christian has time and time again witnessed the outworking of Scripture in their lives. Whether it be the quiet reassurance that 'I will always be with you', or the supernatural sense of the peace of the Holy Spirit when we read, 'Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ' or the challenge we feel when we read, 'Go into all the world and make disciples'. The Scriptures and validity of them, and significance of them could obviously be unpacked with much more detail and eloquence than provided here, but suffice to say, the evidence for the existence of God comes partly though the faithfulness of the Christian Scriptures known today as the Bible.      

I'm happy for informative, constructive comments below (no matter what system of belief or non-belief you adhere to), so we can keep the discussion going. I finish with something lighthearted from Albert Einstein...
'Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former'.


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The cosmological argument for the existence of God

Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) wrote these words about the existence of God. Philosophers of religion call it the cosmological argument for the existence of God. You may want to read it a few times to grasp some of its content.

"The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and most obvious proof is the argument from change. It is clearly the case that some things in this world are in the process of changing. Now everything that is in the process of being changed is changed by something else, since nothing is changed unless it is potentially that towards which it being changed, whereas that which changes is actual. To change something is nothing else than to bring it from potentiality to actuality, and a thing can be brought from potentiality to actuality only by something which is actual.

Thus a fire, which is actually hot, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, thus changing and altering it. Now it is impossible for the same things to be both actual and potential in the same respect, although it may be so in different respects. What is actually hot cannot at the same time be potentially hot, although it is potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that, in the same manner and in the same way, anything should be both the one which effects change and the one that is changed, so that it should change itself.

Whatever is changed must therefore be changed by something else. If, then, whatever is changing it is itself changed, this also must be changed by something else, and this in turn by something else again. But this cannot go on forever, since there would then be no first cause to this process of change, and consequently no other agent of change, because secondary things which change cannot change unless they are changed by a first cause, in the same way as a stick cannot move unless it is moved by the hand. We are therefore bound to arrive at a first cause of change which is not changed by anything, and everyone understands that this is God. " (cited in McGrath, 2001: 247-248)

Ok, breathe!

William Paley (1743-1805) argued about the existence of God, using what is referred to as the teleological argument for the existence of God. He writes about the biological nature of the human heart, saying, "It is evident that it must require the interposition of valves-that the success indeed of its action must depend upon these; for when any one of its cavities contracts, the necessary tendency of the force will be to drive the enclosed blood not only into the mouth of the artery where it ought to go, but also back again into the mouth of the vein from which it flowed" (cited in McGrath, 2001: 252).

Using these kind of biological examples, Paley argues strongly about the existence of a God. This kind of natural theology definitely flies in the face of the evolution argument.

God exists. He created you. He loves you. He wants you to trust in Jesus as your Saviour.