Best Argument For or Against God's Existence

[Archaeopteryx]

Is it even that? I didn't think the argument established any properties for this creator at all. Could be totally inanimate processes. Could be blind luck. The argument itself doesn't distinguish one way or the other.

At only three lines long, the basic argument leaves open the question of what the cause actually is. Because one is able to accept the conclusion of the basic argument without making any theological commitments, apologists typically include a fourth line in which they claim that the cause is a supernatural being, specifically a personal creator god. In debates, this fourth line is often omitted, and it simply implied that if the conclusion is accepted then one must also accept the existence of a personal creator god. This is a non sequitur.

 

[lumberjohn]

There is absolutely nothing in the argument requiring that the creator be personal, especially with all the baggage the Christian apologist brings to this term. In fact, if one recognizes that linear time did not exist "before" the Big Bang (whatever that could mean), the creator could not have been personal since decision-making is a process that requires temporality. The other problem with this argument is that it always requires the use of terms defined in specialized ways that do not correspond with any recognized meaning or recognizable analogies. What could it possibly mean, for example, to exist "atemporally"?

 

[lumberjohn]

The fallacy here, by the way, is failure to elucidate. No valid argument can be based on terms that are undefined and undefinable.

 

[lumberjohn]

For those keeping track, the KCA as commonly used by Christian apologists relies upon the following fallacies:

Everything that began to exist has a cause.
False equivalence and Composition: Assuming that because everything within the universe has a cause, the universe itself must also have a cause is to fallaciously assume the qualities of the parts must apply to the whole. The fact that scientists in relevant fields are divided on this issue tells us it cannot be assumed and cannot serve as the premise for any argument.

The universe began to exist.
Equivocation and failure to elucidate: We have no experience with anything “beginning to exist” in this context and no analogies to draw on. When people commonly refer to things beginning to exist, they are referring to changes in composition – changes in the way that matter and energy combine. In fact, one of the descriptive laws of the universe is that neither matter nor energy can be destroyed. Nor can they be spontaneously created. When physicists say our universe "began" at the Big Bang, they are referring to the current expansion of our observable universe. They are talking about the concept of our universe as we understand it – not about the substance of the universe, which may very well be eternal for all we know.

The universe requires a personal creator
Failure to elucidate: A personal god as any of us would understand the term would require temporality, which cannot be assumed pre-Big Bang. An a-temporal personal cause would be equivalent to a non-personal cause. Occam’s Razor would lead us to the non-personal cause since it requires far less assumptional overhead. Accordingly, Christian apologists must be talking about something else entirely when they speak of a personal creator, but they never clearly define what that means. Accordingly, they cannot use it to ground their argument.

That personal creator must be the Christian God
Craziness: This is a leap of monumental proportions that puts the cart before the horse. The Christian apologist must first prove that the Christian God exists, along with all his incompatible qualities, before nominating him as a candidate for personal creator of the universe. To use the KCA as a proof for this specific god gets the whole thing backwards. You must first establish the need for a personal god, and then bring in all the gods you’ve independently established to exist for an interview.

 

[Joshua260]

Premise 1 says Everything. Is the christian god exempt from everything?

I already answered this. The Christian God did not "begin to exist". He is the "I am".

 

[Joshua260]

Question to Vilenkin:
Some people claim your work proves the existence of God, or at least of a divine moment of creation. What do you think?

I don't think you will ever find where Craig said this. He merely quotes him as below:
"...cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning."

Also: From Sean Carroll's Blog
"Craig quotes (misleadingly) a recent paper by Audrey Mithani and Alex Vilenkin, which concludes by saying “Did the universe have a beginning? At this point, it seems that the answer to this question is probably yes.”

That is in fact Craig's position. Specifically to p2, he has said, as I did in an earlier post in this thread, that premise two is more plausible than not.

 

[nonbeliever314]

I already answered this. The Christian God did not "begin to exist". He is the "I am".

...And that's where the whole thing fails. Nice try with the "I am" though. That type of thing won't stick scientifically.

 

[The Cadet]

I already answered this. The Christian God did not "begin to exist". He is the "I am".

Except that this could just as easily apply to the universe, and as Sean Carroll (and Martymer81) pointed out at length, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem does not destroy this possibility the way Craig thinks it does. Even Vilenkin, who seems considerably more open to the possibility of his theorem proving the universe had a beginning, had the following to say:

Mr. Stenger asked Mr. Vilenkin the following question,

Does your theorem prove that the universe must have had a beginning?

Vilenkin replied,

No. But it proves that the expansion of the universe must have had a beginning. You can evade the theorem by postulating that the universe was contracting prior to some time.

Vilenkin added,

This sounds as if there is nothing wrong with having contraction prior to expansion. But the problem is that a contracting universe is highly unstable. Small perturbations would cause it to develop all sorts of messy singularities, so it would never make it to the expanding phase. That is why Aguirre & Gratton and Carroll & Chen had to assume that the arrow of time changes at t = 0. This makes the moment t = 0 rather special. I would say no less special than a true beginning of the universe. [3]

In a follow up email to me Mr. Vilenkin made his position clearer,

If someone asks me whether or not the theorem I proved with Borde and Guth implies that the universe had a beginning, I would say that the short answer is "yes". If you are willing to get into subtleties, then the answer is "No, but..." So, there are ways to get around having a beginning, but then you are forced to have something nearly as special as a beginning.

And, I hate to pull rank (just kidding, this is probably my favorite thing to do), but astrophysics and cosmology are really, really hard subjects that require the kind of expertise that one does not get from a casual observer standpoint. Sean Carroll is a trained and practicing astrophysicist. Lawrence Krauss is a trained and practicing astrophysicist. Craig... well, isn't. I don't even think he has any formal training in the scientific method whatsoever, let alone the complexities and weirdness of the cosmos. And it shows. The rate of cosmologists who believe in god is even lower than the rate of biologists who believe in god. Craig appealing to cosmology to try to find God is sort of like appealing to geology to find a worldwide flood - it just doesn't work.

 

[Joshua260]

Again, none of this is known for sure.

But I believe it can be shown that the KCA is more plausibly true than not, and that is the position of Craig. So far, the best objection I've heard on this thread is "We don't know". Not only has no one succeeded in showing that Vilenkin currently believes in an eternal universe (he used to, but not now), but no one has even addressed the rest of the support for p2:
1. The philosophical arguments against infinite regress.
2. The 2nd law of thermodynamics suggests that if time was infinite, then the universe surely would have fully expended all of it's usable energy by now.
3. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity suggests a beginning of the universe. He originally tried to create a "fudge factor" to avoid that conclusion but later had to retract it and called it the biggest blunder of his life.
4. The discovery of the red-shift suggest the expansion of the universe and implies a beginning.
5. The discovery of the background radiation also matched the level of what was predicted by earlier theories.

And also, as I said once before, this universe might now be the only one.

Yes, and I replied that the BGV theorem suggests that even multi-verses had a beginning.

So again, I believe there is good evidence and argument to show that p2 is more plausibly true than not.

All I'm trying to say is that humanity has a lot to learn still, we've come a long way, but we have a much longer way to go. And there are a lot of things we have ideas for, but for me personally and any other scientific thinker and/or scientist, like Sean Carroll said in the quote in the reply above, we are willing to admit that we don't really know.

I'm a "scientific thinker" also. I took several physics courses (up to and including General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics) and read numerous books on the subject. But I don't think that proves anything anyway. There are also numerous scientists who believe that the universe had a definite beginning, most notably Stephen Hawking. He developed a theory that avoided a singularity by inserting what he called "imaginary time". He explained that doing this allowed him to perform certain complicated calculations. But he admits that Imaginary time is just that...imaginary. It's just a mathematical contrivance.

"Only if we could picture the universe in terms of imaginary time would there be no singularities...When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities." Hawking in Brief History of Time page 138-139.

It really boggles me that your won't even at least meet me half way with that one.

I even said, that there is a possibility there could be a god, but you won't even say there is a possibility that there could not be. That's the difference between you and me, I'm open to everything, some things I find highly unlikely, some things I don't, but you think one thing is very likely and shut out any other possibility.

The reason I cannot agree that there is a possibility that God does not exist is because I have the witness of the Holy Spirit. I know that means nothing to you. That's a different subject though, and I'd rather stay on the KCA in this thread.

 

[Joshua260]

...And that's where the whole thing fails. Nice try with the "I am" though. That type of thing won't stick scientifically.

Never-the-less, the Christian god did not begin to exist. I said this at least twice. Sprechen sie English?

 

[Joshua260]

Lawrence Krauss is a trained and practicing astrophysicist.

Glad you mentioned that. I forgot to include in my response to nonbeliever that even Kraus admitted in a public debate with Craig that yes, the universe probably had a beginning. I bet you didn't expect that, did you?

 

[The Cadet]

The reason I cannot agree that there is a possibility that God does not exist is because I have the witness of the Holy Spirit. I know that means nothing to you. That's a different subject though, and I'd rather stay on the KCA in this thread.

So what's the point of debating it, then? You clearly have no interest, regardless of what the evidence says, of changing your mind. I wonder if you extrapolate that as far as WLC does, to the point where you could be shown Jesus rotting in the tomb and his ostensibly dead body being moved by disciples and buried in an unmarked grave elsewhere via a time machine and still have faith that he rose from the dead. And then I'm reminded that WLC thinks that a personal revelation at one point should supercede his own repeatable observable experience, and I get really sad.

 

[Davian]

...
2. The 2nd law of thermodynamics suggests that if time was infinite, then the universe surely would have fully expended all of it's usable energy by now.
...

...
3. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity suggests a beginning of the universe. He originally tried to create a "fudge factor" to avoid that conclusion but later had to retract it and called it the biggest blunder of his life.
...

...
4. The discovery of the red-shift suggest the expansion of the universe and implies a beginning.
...

...
5. The discovery of the background radiation also matched the level of what was predicted by earlier theories.
...

...
Yes, and I replied that the BGV theorem suggests that even multi-verses had a beginning.
...

...
I'm a "scientific thinker" also.
...

...
Stephen Hawking
...

Post # 756, when you get a chance.

 

[The Cadet]

Glad you mentioned that. I forgot to include in my response to nonbeliever that even Kraus admitted in a public debate with Craig that yes, the universe probably had a beginning. I bet you didn't expect that, did you?

I'm well aware of Krauss's "universe from nothing". Haven't read it, mind, but I got the cliffs notes. But here's the thing - Krauss basically contests the other premise of Kalam, as far as I can tell. This is not exactly a great sign. But the fact that there is still much uncertainty within this field should give pause for thought when building a syllogistic argument based on premises that are still very much unresolved within the field to support an entity which is completely untestable and unfalsifiable by science.

 

[AllanV]

At 26 years after an experience of God the Bible was read amongst other so called spiritual writings.
The experience showed the immediacy of God and exactly where God is. There was enough power in the revelation to get my attention and not to discount it.

Psa 104:2 Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:

The eternal God's covering is light, the electromagnetic spectrum. God's garment is the binding energy in the atom, magnetism, electricity and the life in the cell. Every measurement taken is God's garment.
The eternal God makes everything seen appear at every instant through out the whole universe.

Act 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
Act 17:29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

This God places every thing seen actually very little distance apart and has implications for an advanced technology that gets away from combustion devices.

 

[The Cadet]

At 26 years after an experience of God the Bible was read amongst other so called spiritual writings.
The experience showed the immediacy of God and exactly where God is. There was enough power in the revelation to get my attention and not to discount it.

And a Muslim will say the same thing about the Qur'an and Allah. I'd say neither of you have any basis. What methodology can an outsider use to determine who is right?

Psa 104:2 Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:

The eternal God's covering is light, the electromagnetic spectrum. God's garment is the binding energy in the atom, magnetism, electricity and the life in the cell. Every measurement taken is God's garment.
The eternal God makes everything seen appear at every instant through out the whole universe.

Well that is a very liberal interpretation of that psalm. Even assuming that it meant light as in emissions in the electromagnetic spectrum, emissions in the electromagnetic spectrum are not the same thing as the strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, electromagnetic force, or gravitational force. The light produced by nuclear fusion is not the same thing as the binding energy in atoms. Also, you totally ignore the second part of that psalm, the "stretching out of the heavens like a curtain". What does that even mean? It would seem to imply the cosmos as some sort of tapestry stretched across the night sky, or a firmament (not exactly an uncommon belief in the bible).

 

[Winepress777]

Hello all,

In your opinion, what's the very best argument for the existence of God? Conversely, what's the top argument against the existence of God? Interested to hear your responses and subsequent reasoning. Thanks!

(Joh 6:44) No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

I've been able to prove that, because a true atheist is unable, totally and completely unable, to confess Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That is the proof that He wasn't been drawn by God. If there was no God, any of them would be able to say it for it would then mean nothing. It works on any of them. Try it

 

[Achilles6129]

How do you know this?
You have yet to establish an "intelligent designer" as a reasonable possibility. I am comfortable with "I don't know".

I know that God's time must run differently because you can't have an infinite series of past events (as time runs in our universe) - it's an impossibility. If you had an infinite series of past events in the way we understand time, you could never have gotten to your present event. Thus, time must run differently for God.

Now, if you want to claim there's no God, it wouldn't matter. You'd still have the same issue. Whatever inanimate, unintelligent "thing" that you believe somehow made the universe would have to have time run differently for it.

My idea is that whereas time runs in a straight line in our universe, time for God runs in a circular fashion. Hence God would have no beginning and no end yet also be able to perform actions in his own time, like create a universe, for example.

What would you give as an example of something not designed?

Do you mean something "not designed" by human beings? Technically, when we come to theology, everything is designed.

 

[The Cadet]

(Joh 6:44) No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

I've been able to prove that, because a true atheist is unable, totally and completely unable, to confess Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That is the proof that He wasn't been drawn by God. If there was no God, any of them would be able to say it for it would then mean nothing. It works on any of them. Try it

What, you mean sincerely? How could I possibly sincerely confess to something I do not believe? I mean, if you just want me to say that Jesus Christ is my lord and savior, I'll do that for you all day. I'll shout it from the rooftops. I won't believe any of it, of course, and it won't be sincere, but you don't need some divine providence for that. I bet you couldn't sincerely confess to a belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster either. It's simple logic that if you don't believe in something, you cannot sincerely claim to hold belief in that thing, regardless of if it's a god or a speck of dust floating around Uranus.

 

[Achilles6129]

What is the intelligent creator God made out of? If you can't give me a reasonable answer to that, that's my reason why God is more unreasonable.

God is immaterial. He's not a part of the physical universe. He's made out of spirit.