As a starting point for this topic, we all need to remember two things. One, God is a mysterious being; if we completely understood him he would be human or sub-human — his incomprehensibility is largely what makes him God. Second, any belief in anything not wholly tangible takes some step of faith, whether vast or meager. If one wishes not to believe in a God (or anything for that matter) they will find some way to explain away the evidence; therefore, for this evidence to have any value, it must be confronted with an open mind and a willingness to believe it.
With that out of the way we can delve into some of the evidence here. In an effort to keep this short, I’ll barely be able to go beyond superficiality and have to step over a few arguments, as well. I encourage everybody to leave comments and questions. Feel free to e-mail any of the youth leaders or talk to anyone in person about the information discussed here.
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“Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul if there had been no agreement as to the rules of football.” — C. S. Lewis
As argued by C. S. Lewis, evidence for a creator is found in our understood moral code. Although variances exist, there is a basic moral code that is almost universal among the human race. And although we learned it from our parents, who learned it from their parents, etc., there had to have been some first humans who somehow had a moral code, a code that must have been inspired by some one/thing. Furthermore, this code goes deeper than just learned, considering it appears prior to an understanding of it. We see it in guilty kids before they have yet grasped this code by method of inheritance from their parents: it has been ingrained in them, such that they are immediately able to experience a right and wrong (even though they may often disregard it).
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Throughout history innumerable people have found their purpose and meaning in their faith. If one wishes to rebuke the existence of a deity, he would have to stand up against billions, trillions of testaments of faith, of lives given for their faith, and lives changed by a pursuant God. Furthermore, as science progresses and counters many beliefs that were understood to be true as many understand God to be true, it has not yet countered an intelligent designer. Though it has been able to provide alternate arguments, they, too, take an amount of faith as they aren’t rock solid, and they are unable to actually deny the presence of a larger being. The more complex science finds humanity to be, the more it sways itself to recognizing intelligent design.
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The Cosmological Argument points out that the laws of cause and effect and chance are insufficient excuses for the existence of things. This is hard to grasp because of how common so many things are, however they still all came from somewhere. If you were walking in the woods and saw a watch there, you would understand that it was placed there by someone, someone greater and more intelligent: it didn’t just happen, or just become by accident. On the other hand, the rock that it was sitting on was there, right? No. The rock did not ‘just happen’ either. Rocks aren’t made by trees. Though rocks are unattractively common, they came from somewhere or something; before they were so mundane they had to be created, had to become mundane. Therefore, the existence of everything came from the existence of something else: the watch from a watchmaker, the rock from a rock-maker (God), and the person who picked them up from a person-maker (again, God). To argue that there is no God is to argue that not only did rocks come from nothing, but you and I and everything else that lives and breathes comes from nothing (look beyond the primates).
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Consider next where you live. Bigger than your house, city, state, etc., but Earth itself. It is quite uncanny the perfection of Earth. Across the planet, temperature varies from about -30 to +120 degrees Fahrenheit. These temperatures are due to our correlation with the sun, our perfect correlation with the sun. If we were any closer to the sun we would burn, any farther and we would freeze. Also, this perfect distance is maintained while we rotate on our axis and orbit the sun: this rotation and orbit allowing the whole Earth to be sufficiently cooled and heated each day. The moon’s relationship with the Earth is just as good. The moon is the cause for the tides we experience at the beach, they’re caused by gravity. This gravity is what keeps our oceans from succumbing to stagnation and prevents them from flooding the continents.
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A female former atheist argues God’s existence via the Pursuant Argument. She points out that God is a pursuant God. He seeks his people with a passion. She pointed out that she, as did many atheists, spent much of her energy on disproving God. They do this because of God’s pursuance, that he is always actively trying to reach them and they then get defensive and prove him false.
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Lastly, Jesus himself provides a divine revelation. If you look at the major world religions you’ll find that Buddha, Muhammad, Confucius, and Moses all claimed to be great prophets and teachers. Christ did the same. He, however, took it further and was the only prophet to claim to be God: equal with God, one with God, and possessing the powers of only God. He portrayed this physically and spiritually. As we’ll look at later, he provided proof for his contemporaries of his divinity.
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Now, comment, question, argue; prove me wrong even!
6 comments:
I'll comment more in-depth when I have the time, but I did want to say I was very impressed with beginning such a post with a quote from the 'ole SK. Ironically, Kierkegaard thought the arguments for God's existence were ultimately unhelpful.
Yeah, that's partly why I started with it — the irony it posed, and the fact that regardless of said "arguments" they're still likely suggestions, and could be put down. I considered Don Miller's quote about how some people believe and can prove it, and other people don't, and they can prove that, too. I then thought about "He was not a man of intellect. He saw no reason to go beyond faith" (or however it goes) from F&T but I didn't think it was appropriate for this post or audience. So I took something from him somewhat supportive, yet who he is still provides irony itself. Ya dig?
I definitely dig. I thought the quote was a good choice and I liked the irony.
Question about the teleological argument: I am confused by why this is a good argument against atheists. It seems based completely on presuppositions. If I think God exists, then I will say the chances of a universe like this are astronomical...and conclude that there is a God. If I do not think that God exists, then I will say the chances of a universe like this are astronomical...and be amazed that the randomness of the universe turned out in our favor.
Maybe the confusion is this: Why does a complex universe necessitate a designer?
Any suggestions on how to overcome this?
Well I would say first of all take your most prized theologian's ideas on these arguments. Also, what was previously mentioned that faith is necessary no matter what and and anyone can probably provide a converse argument to anything.
As for the actual question, take a synthesis between all the arguments. If they're separate (as they are) they're somewhat incomplete. Look at the point about how to deny God is to deny the faith of millions, billions before you — it also says how some scientific findings have contributed to intelligent design arguments. Also, the cosmological argument suggests that anything out of the ordinary has to have come from somewhere. Aren't humans (and everything else) out of the ordinary in essence, and intelligent, thus they had to have something intelligent behind them. Scientist Louis Pasteur proved in his lifetime that life can not come from non-life: human life could not have developed from water. As the perfection of the Earth could have, essentially, just "happened" it's less likely, I find, for the above reasons: we must have come from previous life, some scientific findings benefit creationists, and our intelligence suggests we probably came from previous intelligence.
Lastly, you say "against" atheists pertaining to the argument and also the basis of presuppositions. Presuppositions are inevitable unless these are presented to someone about Hippo's age. Furthermore, why must these be against atheists? They may simply be arguments; for those unsure, or simply looking to deepen their faith (I think this may be the best reason).
You've laid a finger on my point. It is good for deepening faith but not necessarily a good argument against atheists because of the importance and inevitability of presuppositions. You and I are arguing the same thing I think.
But there are a few flaws to some of your other logic:
1. "out of the ordinary" cannot be defined universally. What you a theist says is out of the ordinary the atheist says is evolution, there is no criterion for establishing such a thing.
2. Pasteur "proved" that life cannot come from non-life? In the same way that some of Newton's laws were "proven" only later to be "unproven" by Einstein? If it truly was "proven" then there would be no rational and informed atheists. But it seems that there are. As you yourself said, "faith is necessary no matter what."
I just had a paragraph typed out to combat your first argument and just when I was about to get to my point, I forgot it. As I'm unable to remember it, I'm going to assume it wasn't that good. (Plus I think I was being pretty indirect based on how long a single point was.)
As for your second point I didn't really get it, I think your quotations and hypothetical statements confused me. But what you said about "no rational and informed atheists" if the non-life deal was true: the most in-depth evolutionist argument I've heard was based on everything beginning with water and within the water there existing bacteria: the life from which our life would evolve. That, however, is an insufficient argument nonetheless because we'd have to go beyond the bacteria. (The person who informed me said the water just "always was" — the water sounds a lot like God, who also "always was." I didn't question it any farther.)
It seems we're back at our primary point: it all takes faith. And Kierkegaard thought it was pointless anyway. I still find, however, that through faith and an open mind, they still provide some more backbone — as much backbone as a 17-year-old on a blog can provide to this argument.
"My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don't really do that anymore. Sooner or later you just figure out there are some guys who don't believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and some other guys who can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it's about who is smarter, and honestly, I don't care." — Donald Miller
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