Reasons For God’s Existence (How Do I Know That God Exists?)

            If you had been born into a Christian home, you would have been drilled/trained thoroughly with the notion that there is God. Hence you may not have given this topic adequate research.

            What if your [non-theist/non-Christian] friend(s) wants you to explain as to why you think God exists? What if they say that God’s existence is implausible when there is so much evil in our world? How would you rationally and reasonably defend your belief in God’s existence?

            To say that the Bible reveals God’s existence to a non-Christian is not a good answer because a non-Christian does not believe in the Bible, to begin with.

            How then do we explain the existence of God (with reasons outside the Bible)?

            J. Warner Wallace of Cold Case Christianity explains that there is evidence outside the Bible that is best explained by means of God’s existence, “There are a number of circumstantial lines of evidence pointing to the existence of God, and the diverse, collective nature of this evidence is most reasonably explained by the existence of a Creator.”¹

            So for instance, we know for a matter of fact that our universe began to exist. Hence it is reasonable to conclude that God created our universe because everything that exists should have a cause. Since our universe had a beginning, there should be a Beginner or a First Cause who created our universe. So God must have been the cause for the existence of our universe. This is otherwise termed as the Cosmological Argument for God’s Existence.

            J. Warner Wallace explains the Cosmological Argument as follows:²

(1) The Temporal Nature of the Cosmos (Cosmological)

(a) The Universe began to exist

(b) Anything that begins to exist must have a cause

(c) Therefore, the Universe must have a cause

(d) This cause must be eternal (uncaused), non-spatial, immaterial, atemporal, and personal (having the ability to willfully cause the beginning of the universe)

(e) The cause fits the description we typically assign to God

            Our universe is incredibly well designed. Consider the “Fine Tuning” of our universe (The Teleological Argument For God’s Existence). “The fine tuning refers to “just right” properties. Our universe has several properties that are set to precise values, and slight changes to those values would prevent life as we know it, claims an article on the Biologos website.³  

            Take the gravitational constant as an example, “The strength of gravity has to be exactly right for stars to form. But what do we mean by “exactly”? Well, it turns out that if we change gravity by even a tiny fraction of a percent—enough so that you would be, say, one billionth of a gram heavier or lighter—the universe becomes so different that there are no stars, galaxies, or planets. And with no planets, there would be no life. Change the value slightly, and the universe moves along a very different path. And remarkably, every one of these different paths leads to a universe without life in it. Our universe is friendly to life…”⁴

            Brett Kunkle of Stand To Reason explains why God is the best explanation for the fine tuning of our universe, “Scientists tell us there are more than 50 "just right" details in the universe that make life on planet earth possible. What are the chances of this happening? Really smart guys who calculate this stuff tell us there is a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a percent chance. In other words, there is no chance for chance. Instead, a finely tuned universe points to a Fine Tuner, God.”⁵

            Here’s J. Warner Wallace’s formulation of the Teleological Argument:⁶

(2) The Appearance of Design (Teleological)

(a) Human artifacts (like watches) are products of intelligent design

(b) Many aspects and elements of our universe resemble human artifacts

(c) Like effects typically have like causes

(d) Therefore, it is highly probable the appearance of design in the Universe is simply the reflection of an intelligent designer

(d) Given the complexity and expansive nature of the Universe, this designer must be incredibly intelligent and powerful (God)

            The Moral Argument For God’s Existence argues for the existence of God because of the presence of objective moral values. An article on the website of the Apologetics Press details the moral argument as follows:⁷

The moral argument for the existence of God has been stated in a variety of ways through the centuries. One way in which the basic argument has been worded is as follows (see Craig, n.d.; Craig and Tooley, 1994; Cowan, 2005, p. 166):

Premise 1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.

Premise 2: Objective moral values exist.

Conclusion: God exists.

            Some object to the moral argument by claiming that God cannot exist because of the rampant moral evil in this world. Ravi Zacharias demonstrates that this question is absurd/self-defeating, “When you say there’s too much evil in this world you assume there’s good. When you assume there’s good, you assume there’s such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But if you assume a moral law, you must posit a moral Law Giver, but that’s who you’re trying to disprove and not prove. Because if there’s no moral Law Giver, there’s no moral law. If there’s no moral law, there’s no good. If there’s no good, there’s no evil. What is your question?”⁸

            Atheists strive to explain God away as the causal factor for objective morality. Some atheists do so by claiming that there is no objective morality.

            Atheists believe that man is an animal and they deny objective moral values:⁹

“Allegedly, man not only descended from fish and four-footed beasts, we are beasts. Charles Darwin declared in chapter two of his book The Descent of Man: “My object in this chapter is solely to show that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties” (1871, 1:34).”

Atheists find themselves in a conundrum: (1) They must admit to objective morality or, (2) They must contend that everything is relative—that no action on Earth could ever be objectively good or evil. Rather, everything is subjective and situational.

…Relatively few atheists seem to have had the courage (or audacity) to say forthrightly that atheism implies that objective good and evil do not exist. However, a few have. Some of the leading atheists and agnostics in the world, in fact, understand that if there is no God, then there can be no ultimate, binding standard of morality for humanity. Charles Darwin understood perfectly the moral implications of atheism, which is one reason he gave for being “content to remain an Agnostic” (1958, p. 94). In his autobiography, he wrote: “A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones” (1958, p. 94, emp. added). If a person has the urge to suffocate innocent children, like a snake may suffocate its victims (including people), then, if there is no God, there is no objective moral law against suffocating children. If a person impulsively drowns a kind elderly person, similar to a crocodile drowning its prey, then, if atheism is true, this action could neither be regarded as objectively good or evil.

…The moral argument for God’s existence exposes atheism as the self-contradictory, atrocious philosophy that it is. Atheists must either reject the truthfulness of the moral argument’s first premise (“If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist”) and illogically accept the indefensible idea that objective morality somehow arose from rocks and reptiles, or (2) they must reject the argument’s second premise (“Objective moral values exist”), and accept the insane, utterly repulsive idea that genocide, rape, murder, theft, child abuse, etc. can never once be condemned as objectively “wrong.” According to atheism, individuals who commit such actions are merely doing what their DNA led them to do. They are simply following through with their raw impulses and instincts, which allegedly evolved from our animal ancestors. What’s more, if atheism is true, individuals could never logically be punished for such immoral actions, since “no inherent moral or ethical laws exist” (Provine, 1988, p. 10).

            Since atheism is inundated in a dilemma, it cannot negate God based on moral values. However, the Moral Argument reveals the presence of a transcendent God.  

            Is this all we got?

            No, these are the basic arguments for the existence of God. But there are more. Kalam Cosmological Argument is a case in point. Dr. William Lane Craig christened the argument Kalam Cosmological Argument, wherein Kalam is the Arabic word for ‘medieval theology.’

            The formulation of this argument is as follows:¹⁰

1. If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a cause of its beginning.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its beginning.

Dr. Craig offers three reasons to support premise (1):

1. Something cannot come from nothing.

2. If something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn’t come into being from nothing.

3. Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise 1

Premise 2 is also true because:

        1. The number of past events must be finite.

      2. Since the past involves a series of events that has been formed by adding one event after another. It cannot be actually infinite. Hence, the universe cannot be eternal. It must have had a beginning.

    3. The standard Big Bang model states that the universe had an absolute beginning.

    4. The Second Law of Thermodynamics implies that the universe had a beginning. This law states that unless energy is being fed into a system that system will become increasingly disorderly. Since our universe is constantly expanding it will soon become disorderly (into a state of heat death). If our universe did not have a beginning, then by now, we should be in the state of heat death of sorts. Since we are not in a disorderly state now, we can confidently assert that our universe had a beginning.

So there are good reasons to believe that our universe had a beginning. Dr. Craig then analyses the First Cause, “What properties must this cause of the universe possess? This cause must be itself uncaused because we’ve seen that an infinite series of causes is impossible. It is therefore the Uncaused First Cause. It must transcend space and time, since it created space and time. Therefore, it must be immaterial and non-physical. It must be unimaginably powerful, since it created all matter and energy. Finally…this Uncaused First Cause must also be a personal being. It’s the only way to explain how an eternal cause can produce an effect with a beginning like the universe.”

            So to conclude, four arguments for the existence of God have been discussed here. They are the Cosmological, Teleological, Moral, and Kalam Cosmological arguments. These arguments provide more than sufficient, adequate and reasonable reasons to believe in God’s existence.

Endnotes:

¹https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/cumulative-evidence-and-the-case-for-gods-existence-free-bible-insert/

²Ibid.

³https://biologos.org/common-questions/what-do-fine-tuning-and-the-multiverse-say-about-god/

⁴Ibid.

⁵https://www.str.org/articles/does-god-exist#.XlZzJCEzZhE

⁶https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/cumulative-evidence-and-the-case-for-gods-existence-free-bible-insert/

⁷http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=4101

⁸ https://apologetics315.com/2013/01/ravi-zacharias-on-the-problem-of-evil/

⁹http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=4101

¹⁰https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/the-kalam-cosmological-argument/

Websites last accessed on 27^th February 2020.

Has Multiverse Killed God? (A Christian Response To Multiverse)

            Multiverse posits the presence of infinite number of multiple universes with different physical laws from ours. Multiverse may have been a consequence of inflation that operated early in our universe or from quantum mechanical processes. But the undeniable fact remains that our universe is delicately fine-tuned.

Fine Tuning Of Our Universe

            In order to understand multiverse, we should understand the remarkably precise fine-tuning of our universe.

            In his book “The Brief History of Time,” scientist Stephen Hawking alludes to the fine-tuning of our universe, “"The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life ... For example, if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium or else they would not have exploded.”

            Our universe cannot sustain life without the finely tuned laws and constants of physics and chemistry. For instance, the force of gravity is determined by the “Gravitational Constant” (G=6.673 x 10^-11 m³ kg^-1 s^-2). If this constant varied by just one in 10⁶⁰ parts, life on earth would cease to exist.

            Similar fine-tuned precisions are observed in the fundamental constants and quantities of our universe. Scientists agree that a tiny alteration to any of these numbers would render life, stars, and planets to not exist.

            Christians and other theists believe that God architected the fine-tuning of our universe. This is the Fine-Tuning Argument - a modern variation of the “Teleological Argument.” 

Bring On The Multiverse

            But the naturalist or an atheist, who does not believe in God, counters the fine-tuning argument by arguing, “Our universe is just one of untold trillions of universes. Ours is just one of the lucky ones with the right parameters for life. True, we can't see or otherwise detect these other universes, but they must be out there because that solves the fine-tuning problem.”¹

            Does the multiverse render God as non-existent, for if an infinite number of universes came into existence by chance, and if the fine-tuned universe of ours is one such, then God, by all means, is knocked out of the equation, isn’t it?

Digging Not Too Deep Into Multiverse

            Max Erik Tegmark, Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has organized all multiverse models into four different levels. The higher numbered levels are more speculative than the lower numbered levels. The multiple universes, he reckons, “might have different initial conditions (Level I); different physical constants and particles (Level II); or different physical laws (Level IV).”² (The level III multiverse corresponds to the many-worlds hypothesis formulated by Hugh Everett in 1957.)

            Alexander Vilenkin, the J. Bernstein Professor of Evolutionary Science, is the most active proponent of the level II multiverse. The level II multiverse is invoked by some cosmologists to explain away the fine-tuning of our universe.

Multiverse Does Not Kill God Rather It Demands God

            Multiverse does not exist. Even if it exists, God should be a part of the equation.

            First, many scientists (Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, Alexander Vilenkin, Stephen Weinberg, Martin Rees, Leonard Susskind, Roger Penrose, John Polkinghorne) agree that our universe is remarkably fine-tuned. So it is wise to NOT deny the fact that our universe is fine-tuned.

            Second, multiverse is NOT a proven theory. Many secular scientists doubt and deny the existence of multiverse. Prominent cosmologist George Ellis (who is arguably the cosmologist who knows more about cosmology than any other single living person and who does not subscribe to Intelligent Design) believes that it is impossible for us to observe any regions of universe, especially if level II multiverse does exist. In other words, George Ellis highlights that multiverse is empirically untestable, “The trouble is that no possible astronomical observations can ever see those other universes. The arguments are indirect at best.”³ 

            George Ellis also explains that string theory cannot predict the multiverse, “But string theory is not a tried-and-tested theory; it is not even a complete theory. If we had proof that string theory is correct, its theoretical predictions could be a legitimate, experimentally based argument for a multiverse. We do not have such proof.”⁴

            Third, George Ellis states that multiverse cannot explain the deep issues related to our existence, “Scientists proposed the multiverse as a way of resolving deep issues about the nature of existence, but the proposal leaves the ultimate issues unresolved. All the same issues that arise in relation to the universe arise again in relation to the multiverse. If the multiverse exists, did it come into existence through necessity, chance or purpose? That is a metaphysical question that no physical theory can answer for either the universe or the multiverse.”⁵

            Fourth, do not believe that multiverse exists. As William Lane Craig explains, our universe, if it were a part of multiverse, should exhibit highly improbable events, “I think that if we were just one random member of a world ensemble of worlds or universes, that we would be observing a very different kind of universe than we in fact do… It should include all sorts of improbable and absurd events that don’t happen, because in an infinite ensemble of worlds, if you can get events so improbable as the fine-tuning of the cosmological constant, the low entropy state, and so forth, then you should also get highly improbable events like a perpetual motion machine and rabbits wearing pink bow ties and so forth, because those are less improbable than the finely tuned constants and quantities…but if we are just a randomly ordered member of this ensemble, such that the probability is that somewhere these constants would be finely tuned, then things that are even less improbable ought also to be appearing conjointly. And yet, we see a rationally ordered universe, and that cries out for some sort of explanation. In addition to that, a much smaller inflationary patch would be sufficient for our existence rather than the large universe we see. And it is overwhelmingly more probable that if we were just a random member of a world ensemble, we should be observing a much smaller inflationary patch than what we do in fact observe. And I think this is really the Achilles’ heel in this multiverse hypothesis—that if we were just a member of a multiverse, randomly ordered, then it is overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly more probable we ought to be seeing a very different kind of universe than the rationally ordered world that we do in fact see.”⁶

            Finally, even if multiverse does exist, God would have created it, “God would still be the one who established the laws of quantum mechanics, who created the quantum vacuum and the space and time, the arena in which all these reactions take place. So, as I say, once you have a transcendent source of all space and time, matter and energy, then he’s free to create any sort of physical reality he wants.”⁷

            William Lane Craig argues that the fine-tuning of our universe is neither due to physical necessity nor chance, hence fine-tuning is due to design. Therefore, the belief that God created the multiverse gains credibility, “…the best hope for the multiverse hypothesis is theism: God could have created a World Ensemble brimming with deliberately finely tuned worlds…In conclusion the multiverse hypothesis does nothing to eliminate the need for a creator and designer of the universe. Whether or not a multiverse exists, one needs a transcendent, personal creator and designer of the cosmos.”⁸

            The multiverse does not exist. But if it exists, then God could have created it. God alone offers a plausible explanation as to how the multiverse came into being. Hence, God is necessary for belief in the multiverse.

Beware

            Beware of the comics, TV shows and movies that smuggle devious notions into our minds. Multiverse has been invading and capturing our minds through comics, TV shows and movies. Recently, Dr. Strange, the movie based on Marvel comics, introduces the idea of multiverse into the minds of multitudes of unsuspecting masses.

            Do not believe all that you read in the books and watch on TV or theatre. Literature, dance and drama have a ridiculously high potential to sneakily import deceptive thoughts into our minds, but without adhering to the laws of logic, says Dr. Ravi Zacharias.⁹ Let us be cognizant of this fact and respond meaningfully.

Endnotes:

¹http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/12/dr_strange_intr103335.html

²http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/PDF/multiverse_sciam.pdf

³http://www.public.asu.edu/~atpcs/atpcs/Misc/DoesTheMultiverseReallyExist.pdf

⁴Ibid.

⁵Ibid.

⁶http://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/did-god-create-multiple-universes-robert-lawrence-kuhn

⁷ Ibid.

⁸http://www.reasonablefaith.org/has-the-multiverse-replaced-god

⁹http://rzim.org/just-thinking/living-an-apologetic-life/