What is your favorite apologetic for theism?
Share your favorite argument for the existence of God below.
Background: I'm an atheist (and have been for a decade) who's been interested in Christian Apologetics since I was a young Christian. As I entered adulthood, I found myself losing my faith, largely because I grew up in a fundamentalist, Young Earth Creationist household which taught that evolution and God are incompatible. While I no longer believe in this lack of compatibility, my belief in God never came back. I've tried to give it an honest effort, and there are many compelling reasons why I want Christianity to be true:
- Reunification with loved ones who've passed
- Absolute moral justice exists
- A plan for my life, and meaning in my suffering
- Access to unconditional love; to have a personal relationship with my creator
- Surviving my own death
For a variety of reasons seemingly outside my direct control, I still don't believe. It doesn't help that I've been introduced to strong arguments against the existence of God (e.g. the problem of evil and its subsets) which have rebuttals of varying quality from Christian philosophers. I don't think this lack of belief is my fault, or for lack of trying; I can't make myself believe anything. I try to be open to arguments, and this has led to an obsession with revisiting apologetics.
Now I think of apologetics as at least a fun mental exercise; combing through the arguments, atheist rebuttals, and responses to those rebuttals. That's probably strange, but it tickles the right parts of the brain to keep me engaged.
Kalam Cosmological Argument
My favorite argument is the Kalam Cosmological Argument, popularized by William Lane Craig. I don't like this one necessarily because it is the most convincing personally (the fine-tuning and moral arguments are stronger in my view,) but because its clean and satisfying to lay out.
Premise 1: If the universe began to exist, then it must have had a cause
Premise 2: The universe began to exist
Conclusion: The universe had a cause
We can also derive some properties of this cause; it's
Additionally, an atemporal, permanent cause cannot "change states" and suddenly produce a temporal, time limited effect. If minds exist, it would make sense that a mind would solve this problem, as it can make decisions outside of physical, spacial, temporal constraints.
Various philosophical arguments establish the finitude of the past by showing that infinite sets cannot be established via successive addition. Incredibly, in the modern day, we have good scientific reasons for believing the universe had a cause and that time itself had a beginning.
This argument doesn't prove that God exists. It does lend credence to the God hypothesis, and in conjunction with other arguments can lead to a cumulative case for God. It also is complemented best by arguments for mind/body dualism. Additionally, it forces the atheist to adopt any number of somewhat more difficult beliefs (things pop into existence uncaused, the universe is infinite, etc.)
The first premise is completely unfounded. Why must it have a cause? This is just an assertion from the author.
The second premise is also unfounded. Why do we know it “began” to exist? Why has it not always existed?
It's fine to reject either premise. The argument still "works" as an apologetic in this case.
If you reject P1, then you seem to be defending the position that universes can pop into existence uncaused, or at the very least ours has done so. This isn't necessarily fallacious and can reasonably be belived, but it does, as Dr. Craig puts it, "raise the intellectual price tag of atheism."
There are philosophical and scientific reasons to believe P2 is true. Modern cosmology affirms the finitude of the past; time began at the big bang. It's reasonable that one could be skeptical of modern cosmology. There are cosmologists who try to work out how the universe could be infinite in spite of scientific evidence, but this again may raise the price tag of atheism for those considering both world views. If interested, I can give some philosophical arguments for the finitude of the past as well.
Why is "the universe always existed" a greater burden on the atheist viewpoint than "God always existed" is on the theist one? I must admit I'm not exactly up-to-date on deep cosmology.
The short answer is that all of the evidence in modern cosmology affirms the finitude of the past. Additionally, there are strong philosophical reasons to believe in a finite past even if we discarded the evidence cosmology presents for us, like the impossibility of developing an actually existing infinite set through successive addition.
I think your claims are a bit strong. There are no physical or cosmological obstacles to an eternal, uncaused universe. The same is true for a universe with a beginning.
There are philosophical reasons to believe in a finite past, and there's a strong consensus in cosmology on the fact that the evidence points to a finite past.
Yeah I'm specifically pushing back on your claims about consensus within cosmology. In the context that matters here, I believe having a "finite past" corresponds to the scientific claim that there is a true physical singularity if you go far enough in the past. In classical general relativity this can be true, and of course the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker solution to Einstein's equations (i.e. the equation we think describes how our universe behaves on large scales) has such a singularity in the past. This has been understood since about the time the solution was first written down, and very early on there were discussions of the so called "primeval fireball" which we would know today as the Big Bang.
However, it is not a consensus at all that this accurately describes the true state of affairs. The issue is that basically all quantum mechanical states evolve eternally into the past and the future. If we believe that quantum mechanics is a true underlying theory describing nature, i.e. we believe that gravity must ultimately also be described quantum mechanically, then there is actually no obstacle to the universe extending infinitely into the past. This gets to the root of the problem in some way: The initial Big Bang singularity does not necessarily point towards an initial moment in time, it only points to a breakdown of the classical theory. As in other cases where a classical theory breaks down (e.g. the ultraviolet catastrophe in classical electromagnetism), you cannot extrapolate the classical behavior beyond where the theory breaks down. The quantum theory can end up being very different. Happy to answer more questions about this but again, the consensus among cosmologists is not that the universe had a finite past at least in the sense that is applicable here.
I'll just add too that even if we agreed the universe had a "first moment in time", it is not clear that that implies it came into being ex nihilio, since that refers to a temporal process beginning with a state of nothingness and ending with a universe. But if time itself is coming into being then this doesn't make sense. At the end of the day, the most that can be said from a cosmological standpoint is this: There is no obstacle to constructing self-contained theories (not referencing causes outside of physical reality) with and without first moments of time.
Regarding the necessity of cause, in this context that sounds suspiciously close to determinism which is contradicted by, at least currently, quantum physics which seems to show that there is a random element to the universe. If we can’t even assign causality to spin states for particles, why should we do so with the universe at large?
I'm not clear how having a cause equates to determinism. Random things can have been caused by something -- if I flip a coin, I've caused it to be flipped but it's outcome isn't necessarily deterministic. I'll confess I'm not particularly familiar with quantum physics but at first blush these seem like orthogonal issues.
Coin flipping is largely deterministic though. Look to coin flipping robots for proof of that. That’s more of a “hidden variables” situation than true randomness, which at the micro level does seem to exist.
Fair but I was aiming to use a more down to earth example that makes sense to someone with no background in quantum mechanics. I don't think my point changes if we change my example to something with true randomness instead (if I fire a laser at something and it emits quarks with random spin? idk I am also a someone who doesn't know much about quantum mechanics). Feel free to correct me if there's something that fundamentally changes there.
The Kalam is separate from arguments from contingency or Aristotelian "unmoved movers." It isn't really relying on tracing back causal chains (though freely denying the principle of sufficient reason is a massive concession to the theist.)
It simply claims that the beginning of the universe has a cause. One can believe that the universe is uncaused and that universes are the types of things that can just pop into existence for no reason, but this "raises the intellectual price tag" of atheism.
To succeed, the apologetic doesn't need to fully prove God, but move the needle to either increase the credence of theism or reduce the credence of atheism. The goal is to force the atheist to tack on "universes can begin to exist for no reason" to the list of views they hold in order to maintain a consistent worldview.
I don't really see why this is a specifically burden on the atheist, rather than being an identical burden on the theist. One could equally say that the theist must now tack on "universes must begin to exist for a reason" to the list of views they hold in order to maintain a consistent worldview.
Put another way, that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Yes, the theist is committed to this position. This generally seems to be a more palatable position than the alternative, which is the purpose of the apologetic. It exists to demonstrate that the atheistic worldview entails universes (or at least our universe) popping into existence for no reason whatsoever.
I mean, I disagree. This doesn’t seem intrinsically more likely to me.
That's fine, especially since that's the view you're committed to. It's an uncomfortable enough conclusion that it makes many atheists squirm. And I think it does have some effect towards increasing the credence of theism to some folks (though the amount may vary of course.)
Not really. "Universes can begin to exist due to forces which are subsequently inconceivable from within the universe" is an easily tenable position.
I agree with the thrust of your argument, but it seems like we can deduce some very limited attributes about this cause. For one, the beginning of the universe was the beginning of spacetime, which means this cause must be timeless and spaceless.
If the cause of the universe is outside of time, then it can be thought of as a permanent cause. A permanent cause cannot have a temporal effect, else the entire lifespan of the universe would be infinitely past. However, a mind can make a free choice to act upon something. If minds exist, on this view the cause of the universe is a timeless, spaceless mind.
Such a cause would seem more likely under theism than atheism
No, it means the cause must be outside of our universe's spacetime. Saying it must be timeless and spaceless presumes that (a) there is only one spacetime (b) our knowledge of it is transferable to the conditions before its existence.
We have no idea what form time takes outside our universe. The idea of a permanent cause is your insertion, so it doesn't really impact my point.
How exactly would this play out pre-universe?
When I'm talking about the beginning of the universe, I am talking about the beginning of spacetime. Invoking other "spacetime" as a potential origin only pushes back the actual origin of what I call the universe, which by my definition includes all spacetime.
Cosmologists overwhelmingly believe that the Big Bang is the origin of spacetime, energy, and matter. So generally, if I talk about the Big Bang, the beginning of the universe, or the beginning of spacetime, I'm talking about the same event.
There's very little we can know about the conditions before its existence, but we can deduce certain facts about it's cause:
This immaterial cause must be permanent, as it existed before the beginning of time. However, there are strong philosophical reasons to believe a permanent cause shouldn't have a temporal effect; all of the universe should've already experienced heat death an infinite amount of time ago if the cause of the universe is eternal. There are a sort of immaterial agents that can choose for things to happen; minds. This is why this premise of the argument is complimented well with an argument for mind/body dualism. Perhaps not quite as strong as the other points, but there's good reason to believe this immaterial, permanent cause was a mind that made a free choice to begin the universe; any alternatives seem to run into problems.
Quantum mechanics is a deterministic theory in that if you know the fundamental object of the theory (i.e. the wave function) at one time, then you know it exactly at all times. This is because the wave function undergoes unitary evolution obeying the Schrödinger equation.
Outcomes of experiments are not deterministic, but they are not the fundamental object. If you could write down a ‘wavefunction of the universe’ it would evolve deterministically.
You will need to cite sources on that one, because that is absolutely not what I have as an understanding. You seem to be espousing a “hidden variable” theory.
No, not at all. This is standard quantum mechanics and I believe my statements were even interpretation independent (as they should be, I suppose). The first postulate of quantum mechanics is that states are described by wavefunctions, and one of the others (can't recall the number and besides, I'm not sure the numbering is standardized) is that states evolve according to the Schrodinger equation. Here I would cite any quantum textbook — I have in mind in particular Shankar — but you can also find similar statements online.
If you know the wave function at one time, you know it at all times. That is to say, if you know the quantum state at one time, you know it at all times. This is entirely deterministic. How this gels with what you are referring to, i.e. wavefunction collapse, is not entirely clear and contributes to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics.
Anyway, my whole point is that you need to be careful when applying quantum arguments to the universe as a whole. In interpretations involving a "wave function collapse", it is necessary to treat something, usually the observer, in a non-quantum way. That is, in a Stern-Gerlach type experiments (I bring this up because you mentioned measuring spins), the measuring apparatus is treated as a classical device. If the system is the entire universe, you can no longer do this — you only have the wavefunction, which evolves unitarily and deterministically. Attempts to do this are related to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. If you want to model the system and environment in quantum terms you can do so and it leads you to quantum decoherence which is hugely important in quantum information science today.
PS I included links above not to info bomb or "overwhelm with complexity" but rather just to provide further reading for people who may be interested.
I think it makes sense.
Assume we take an event like the big bang theory to be the beginning of the universe, I still find it hard to swallow that we take some singularity as a satisfactory "start" of the universe.
Like there were good sitcoms before that, what makes this one so special?
(But seriously, so the whole universe was in a hot dense state and nearly forty billion years ago expansion started. But why was it like that and why did the expansion start?)
This is resolved somewhat by discarding the idea that our particular universe is a) special, b) the only one.
Partially maybe. But it still leaves the question of why universes start.
I think the Big Crunch can be a (partial) explanation if true. The universe started because the previous one collapsed in on itself, which started the big bang. And then I suppose time could be a loop (flat circle?).
While I think the Kalam is better then most theistic arguments, I still find it to be flawed in many places and generally unconvincing.
Premise 1 states that "If the universe began to exist, then it must have had a cause." This premise is limited to the universe specifically, as in the Christian tradition God is timeless, therefore not requiring a cause.
If you are committed to the view that the universe began uncaused, and universes are the sorts of things to just pop into existence for no reason, then the apologetic has accomplished what it was intended to do, as this is a rather eccentric view that can be derived from an atheist worldview.
I think we can know some things about this cause, as mentioned above:
These properties are also shared by God in most Christian traditions.
Yes that is the text of the premise, no that doesn't change my original point. Arguing for an uncaused creator has the identical conclusions as arguing for an uncaused universe. The conclusions come from their uncausedness.
My point is that anyone who believes something is uncaused believes that; I believe the universe alone is uncaused, while the religious believe a creator is.
No, the only necessary property of the cause of this universe is that it was before this universe. Also, no those are foundationally opposed to the concept of the Christian god. Jesus must be material and bounded by time.
None of this is a response to what I said. One of the foundational facts of physics is that matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed, strongly implying an infinite universe. Also arguments from authority are weak.
Have you read the church fathers? The earliest theologians like Justin Martyr were in conversation with the Roman empire. Personally I haven't engaged with apologetics since university but I thought I would mention them.
Is this a book called "The Church Fathers" or are you asking if I've more generally read Aquinas and Augustine?
Basically everything found in this set plus a bunch more that's not translated.
https://www.ccel.org/fathers
Read free here
I've read a couple of modern guides to Aquinas and Augustine, but this seems like a great all-in-one resource, thanks
I'm going to preface my comment by saying that I'm an atheist and I don't think that will ever change (again). And I'm not going to give the actual arguments just yet, though I will provide their source.
Raised catholic, became an edgy atheist teen, and later converted to Lutheran as an adult which was an arduous process. Obviously, I again lost faith, but we'll focus on the converting to Christianity of my own accord part.
What convinced me to become Christian was hours upon hours of discussion with an incredibly intelligent pastor who's studies focused largely on philosophy. I had never felt God's presence, and I could not rationalize His existence. At that point in my life I had already read the Bible cover to cover many times. I'd participated in and even led bible study groups. Still none of it made any sense to me. So I put the heavy burden of rationalizing all of this onto this already burdened man. He did his best, and did a wonderful job. But it wasn't enough. Then he gave me three books (really three in one) by a man he had studied under.
Francis Schaeffer's Trilogy (The God Who Is There, Escape From Reason, and He Is There and He Is Not Silent) was what did it. I was all-in after that. It wasn't my goal, and because of that, it took years to dissect those arguments and refute them.
That said, even though I no longer agree, I still find his work to be the most compelling Christian apologetics around. And just because I eventually came to disagree, does not mean I'm right or that his arguments are less valid.
I'm too far removed from the work to feel confident in accurately relaying the main points right now. But I'd suggest getting your hands on a copy if you can. I just picked up the book and will return shortly to edit/reply with some highlights.
edit: I'd like to add that I included all this personal mumbo jumbo because it seems like OP and I share a lot of common ground in that regard.
I'll have to look into that trilogy, thank you!
I don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for, but here is something from the view of science towards the unknown and almost theistic. There's so much in the world of physics that's perfectly balanced to an unsettling degree that makes me wonder "what are we missing here?"
Berlinski, Meyer, and Gelernter discuss a few great examples but there are so many more unanswered questions and awe inspiring things we know about the physical world around us that is borderline theology. And as much as we all like to believe that science is nothing but fact, we need to all recognize that Science is built on observations and faith with an almost religious dogmatic adherence. For instance, anyone who would have posited that the origin of the universe is not from a single point in time and space but has always been would have been ridiculed out of the astrophysics community before the JWST discoveries of galaxies existing hundreds of millions of years before they could have possibly existed. Now we're scrambling now to reconcile new information by either forcing the data to fit the model or rewrite it altogether.
But I think that's the beauty of science, there's room for people to find new answers and put faith into something, even things that even seem like magic. Let me leave you with this conversation between Michael Levin and Lex Fridman (specifically on multicellular gap junction communication) and don't approach it with a scientific or theistic perspective, just a view of an amazing revelation on our existence here on earth. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Since no one has mentioned it, my favorite "argument" is Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton. (The writer is beloved by Scott Alexander, in case people vaguely recognize him.) It is not an attempt at strict logical deduction, as the writer argues against the use of strict logic. It is somewhat like phenomenology, but is much more chatty and aimed towards the general public and not intellectuals.
This infamous quote by Ronald Reagan:
So basically the argument from design?
Quotes like these don't prove anything scientifically but they certainly provide some philosophical food for thought.
Also research a bit about the Six Indian Philosophical schools of thought viz. Samkhya, Yoga, Vedanta, Nyaya, Jainism and Buddhism. It's along the lines of Greek philosophical schools. They won't actually tell you whether God exists or not but it's a great philosophical study and exercise for someone who wants to find out whether God exists or not!
There are six traditional Hindu schools of philosophy (as in orthodox, Vedic traditions) but many more Indian schools. The six traditional schools, Nyaya, Vaishesika, Samkhya, Yoga, Purva Mimamsa, and Vedanta. Buddhism and Jainism are non-traditional (for Hindus) schools along with Charvakas and Ajivikas. But they also subdivide into a lot of their own individual schools. We don’t know much about Charvakas and Ajivikas, largely because it seems like everyone hated them. The Ajivikas sound like that anarchist guy at the book club who makes everything about anarchism. Even if you agree on points, he’s annoying enough that you’re gonna want to throw him out.
Of these Nyaya-Vaisheshika would probably be of most interest to Western atheists and logically inclined folks and they stress logical inquiry as the primary source of knowledge.
I could invite you to eat dinner cooked by me and ask what kind of cruel god would permit that meal to exist.
The point here is, fine cuisine evolved from countless shitty but slowly improving meals over millennia, as recipes mixed and mingled with only the most tasty or convenient surviving.
Because evolution and cooking work the same?
Yes, kind of. In the sense of the original Dawkins-esque meme idea before memes became image macros.
Well, but there isn't necessarily a "cook" to memes, is there? Just because a process seems guided towards a goal - a memorable idea, a reproducing gene, a beautiful universe - doesn't mean there is anyone doing the guiding.
Well yeah, that was explicitly the point Dawkins was making. I think we are both on the same page here.
If by "the same page" you mean that Reagan's quote is a cool-sounding bit of bad reasoning, then yeah. A good meal usually needs a cook, while a good universe doesn't, and there's plenty of other examples of interesting things coming together due to "natural" or emergent guidance.
Drives me nuts when people say "it's impossible to prove both gods existence and non-existence." Its technically true, but mostly meaningless. If someone makes outrageous claims about something and can't provide any evidence at all, then it makes sense to assume that thing doesn't exist. Especially when that thing is a system of rules and philosophies that you're being asked to live your life by.
Not to mention, nobody would ever say "well, there's no way to know for sure" if they were asked if, say, leprechauns or mermaids were real. It's technically true, but almost everybody would be completely comfortable asserting that leprechauns and mermaids don't exist. But even though the same thing applies to god, people will carve out a special exception.
I don't this this is a good criticism, because there exist folk and neopagan belief systems which include both of these creatures at more and less metaphorical levels.
Metaphorical is a different thing though. I have no problem with god being invoked in a metaphorical sense. But really you could pick anything and it still applies. Santa Claus, Spider-man, or even make up your own entity.
Right, what I mean is that while some people believe in those things metaphorically, some believe in them literally.
You're missing the point. Everyone has some unfalsifiable being(s) which they have no issues stating does not exist. For some people it might be mermaids, for some people it might be Zeus, for some people it could even be Scooby Doo. The form it takes is irrelevant. The point is, saying "we can't know for sure" rings hollow because it's always a special carve out only for the thing they believe in, and nothing else.
Ah, gotcha, that makes sense!
Congrats, you have discovered the teapot of agnosticism.
Spiritual belief is a personal choice. I've met zero Christians who were swayed to faith by logic. That's not surprising considering individual faith has nothing to do with science. We believe what we choose to believe.
What's lately interesting to me, reading about Stephen Hawking is that he very early on determined that the Universe appears to be designed. He worked his entire life to develop a theory of the Universe that ruled out a Final Cause . (On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory. Author: Thomas Hertog, a cosmologist who was for many years a close collaborator of Stephen Hawking.)
I've tried my best to "choose" to believe in Christianity, and still haven't. I don't think that you choose your beliefs at all.
I don't think anyone has read any argument for God and converted solely because of them. But I think arguments can at least increase the credence of theism, decrease the credence of atheism, and establish a rational basis for one to have "intellectual permission" to believe in God. I imagine personal religious experiences are the real driver of conversion; experiences that one might distrust if they believe that theism is an irrational worldview.
I find the idea of faith being a "choice" to be interesting. I don't think you can really choose to believe in something. You either do or you don't. that whole part of your brain just isn't really under your control.
I disagree. I was an atheist for a long time and have since chosen a theistic belief system that makes emotional sense for me.
Somewhat off topic but I think both theism and atheism are kinda two wings of life that must be held in balance just as capitalism and socialism in an economy, too much extreme focus one side can cause undesirable effects and anomalies.
Too much theism can take you towards dogmatism, ritualism, blind faiths and beliefs, etc. History has also shown us the kind of devastation faith induced indoctrination can cause. Too much atheism, on the other hand, will take you away from empathy and spirituality, and towards toxic self-interest, materialism and crony capitalism. Some of that, we are starting to see in the present times.
None of these effects or anomalies are desirable in a society. It's best to leave this puzzle unsolved instead of trying to be too deterministic about one way or the other.
I'm finding it difficult to see how atheism is the cause of these supposed problems? Especially crony capitalism.