One of the things that I find most fascinating about studying the philosophy of religion is the sheer variety of arguments and the ingenuity of many of them. Most of the variety and ingenuity is on the side of the theists. This should not be surprising. It is much more difficult to prove a negative, as atheists need to do in order to show the rationality of their own position, therefore atheists typically prefer to focus on critiquing theistic arguments than on presenting arguments of their own.
Some atheists, probably those who don't know any better, would argue the the multiplicity of theistic arguments shows how weak they are. The logic here is that, if a position is rational, you only need a few good arguments for that position. This many be true, and this is certainly what the vast majority of theistic philosophers over the centuries have thought, as well. For example, Thomas Aquinas listed only five arguments (his famous 'Five Ways') in his Summa Theologiae. (Though, he did discuss other arguments in other works.) Mortimer Alder is even more parsimonious in his How to Think About God, focusing on developing only one argument throughout the book. Indeed, he criticises Aquinas for defending too many. However, some scholars multiplied arguments anyway, more as an intellectual exercise, than out of any perceived need to do so. But even that does not entirely explain the multiplicity of theistic arguments. So, then how can we understand why so many different arguments for God's existence have been devised over the centuries? The answer is not, I think, as some atheists believe, that theists have been desperately trying to prop up a faulty worldview, in the face of growing scepticism. After all, there was a great variety of theistic arguments for about two thousand years before guys like David Hume and Immanuel Kant started their influential critiques of the classical theistic arguments.
I think, rather, that the explanation is the shifts in philosophical thought that have occurred over the centuries. Whenever you have a new major shift in philosophical thought (a paradigm shift) theistic arguments get revised. During the early centuries of philosophy, you encounter some of the first theistic arguments. Many of them aren't that impressive as they are presented far too briefly. Nevertheless, some show real promise. Among these was Aristotle's cosmological argument in his Physics and Metaphysics. Here, among the ancient Greeks, we encounter the origins of natural theology.
Later thinkers, particularly neo-Platonists such as Plotinus and Prophyry, devised further arguments that were modified versions of Plato's. Neo-Platonism later influenced such Christian thinkers as Augustine of Hippo, who similarly adapted arguments from within the neo-Platonist tradition. Later thinkers, such as Islamic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes, Christian thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus and Jewish philosopher Maimonides, adopted a blend of Aristotelian philosophy influenced by neo-Platonism, and continued to revise and improve the classical arguments of Aristotle and Plotinus. This blending of Aristotelian and neo-Platonic elements came to be known as Scholasticism. The Scholastics were nicknamed 'the schoolmen' by later generations. During this period, new types of arguments were also devised or developed to go along with the cosmological argument, such as the argument from order and the argument from degrees of perfection. Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways in the Summa Theologiae (I., Q.2, Art.3) are a good example of the variety of arguments among scholastic thinkers.
Scholasticism dominated the intellectual landscape of Europe and the Middle East (though it was not called scholasticism in the Middle East) throughout the Medieval Period, but later gave way to the dueling factions of rationalism, idealism and empiricism in the early modern period. Following the Newtonian Revolution, many came to see Scholastic philosophy being as antiquated as Aristotelian science, which had been superceded by early modern science.
Virtually all of the 'movers and shakers' of the early modern period were theists and so, as metaphysical and epistemological outlooks changed, so did theistic arguments, and the arguments by Rene Descartes, Samuel Clarke, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, and George Berkeley now came to dominate the intellectual landscape of Europe, replacing the arguments of Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, John Duns Scotus, etc., which came to be regarded by many as defunct. As the intellectual landscape has changed in subsequent centuries, theistic arguments have again been adapted. All this actually shows the vitality of theistic philosophy that, in each major paradigm shift, there have been major thinkers devising persuasive arguments for God's existence.
Broadly speaking, arguments for God's existence are put into a variety of categories, under which are sometimes dozens of distinct arguments. The main categories are: cosmological arguments, ontological arguments, teleological arguments, transcendental arguments (including moral arguments and arguments from reason) and pragmatic arguments. The last are not intended to demonstrate the truth of theistic claims, but only the reasonableness of belief. Cosmological arguments have typically been regarded as the most fundamental arguments for God's existence, although some would argue that ontological arguments have that role.
Among cosmological arguments there are, again, several different sub-categories: neo-Platonic, Aristotelian-Thomistic, contingency, and kalam arguments. What distinguishes these arguments is the approach they take. What unifies them is that they all focus on the question of the foundations of material reality: Is material reality (the cosmos) self-existent, or not? If not, then the cosmos requires a cause of its existence. That cause cannot be material/physical, because then you would be explaining the ultimate foundation of material reality by appealing to matter, which is obviously circular. This cause must also be immensely powerful (perhaps omnipotent), in order to create something as powerful and immense as the cosmos. Also, this cause must be eternal and self-existent, otherwise it itself would require a cause of its own existence. Consequently, the First Cause must be an immensely powerful, immaterial, non-composite, eternal, self-existent Being, i.e. God. The main focus of cosmological arguments, then, is to show that the cosmos is not and/or cannot be self-existent.
Contingency arguments, which are among the most widely discussed of cosmological arguments, should also be sub-divided into classical Aristotelian-Scholastic and rationalist versions, as the concept of 'contingency' is defined differently by Scholastics such as Avicenna and Aquinas than it is by rationalists like Clarke and Leibniz.
One of the most straightforward versions of the cosmological argument is the kalam argument, which goes like this:
Step 1: Argument to the Existence of a First Cause of the Universe
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe (understood as all material reality) began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.
For a defense of premise 1, see here; and for premise 2, see here.
Step 2: Argument that this First Cause is God
4. Nothing can be the cause of its own existence.
5. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is not a part of the universe (i.e., immaterial).
6. An immaterial being would be simple, at least in the sense of not being composed of any physical parts.
7. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence that is immaterial and simple.
8. This First Cause cannot have a beginning, or else it also would require a cause of its existence.
9. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is eternal, simple and immaterial.
10. Furthermore, this First Cause must be self-existent, or else it would require a cause of its existence.
11. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is self-existent, eternal, immaterial and simple.
12. Any cause that can be the First Cause of the universe must be an immensely powerful being, for only something with immense power could produce something as immense and powerful as the universe.
13. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is immensely powerful, self-existent, eternal, immaterial and simple.
14. Furthermore, an eternal cause could only bring about a temporally finite effect through an act of volition (i.e., the power to choose).*
15. But volition requires intellect.
16. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is intelligent, immensely powerful, self-existent, eternal, immaterial, and simple.
17. Finally, the first cause of the universe must be eternal, not only in the sense of 'having no beginning or end', but also in the sense of being 'without time' or 'timeless', for if the first cause exists temporally, then it would be subject to the same criticisms raised against an infinitely old universe. (Also, 'time' as we understand it is intrinsically tied up with material things, as Einstein's general theory of relativity shows, therefore the origin of the universe would be the origin of space-time, so an immaterial cause of the universe must exist timelessly.)
18. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is intelligent, self-existent, timeless, eternal, immaterial, simple, and immensely powerful.
And this, as Aquinas puts it, 'everyone knows to be God'.
* The justification of premise 14 goes as follows: If an an immaterial thing, e.g. an impersonal, immaterial 'force', were to exist, unchanging for an eternity, and then it were suddenly to cause to universe to exist, we would justifiably ask 'Why now, rather than an infinite time ago?' The force (being impersonal) cannot choose to create, so it would have to be 'moved' by something else. But if it were 'moved' by something else, then some other eternal thing would be needed to explain its act of causation, and this thing would also require an explanation as to why it caused the impersonal force to cause the universe to come into being, and so on. Ultimately, this would lead to an infinite regress of exactly the same sort that the First Cause is supposed to avoid. However, an intellect existing for an eternity would have the potential power (by virtue of being an intellect) to choose to create; therefore, the explanation of 'why now?' would be that an intelligent being could choose to create then, rather than at another point.
Among ontological arguments there are also several sub-categories: the Anselmian argument (devised by Anselm of Canterbury), rationalists ontological arguments (e.g. that of Descartes) and more recent modal ontological arguments (such as that of Alvin Plantinga). The main thrust of ontological arguments is that, once you understand the essence of God as 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' or 'the greatest conceivable being', you will come to realise that God must exist, as a matter of logical necessity, i.e., that God's existence is self-evident. I won't say much about this type of argument, because I don't find it convincing. Like Thomas Aquinas, I would argue that we cannot know a priori what the essence or nature of God is, therefore it is impossible for us to know that God exists simply by contemplating the idea of God.
Among teleological arguments there is also some considerable variety. Teleological arguments can be divided into arguments from order, design arguments from physics and cosmology and biological design arguments. In some sense, these can be ordered according to fundamentality, with arguments from order dealing with some of the most fundamental questions in metaphysics (causation, laws of nature, etc.) and arguments from physics and biology dealing with less fundamental subjects (i.e., questions of the probability and complexity of objects that exist in the cosmos). The purpose of the teleological argument is to argue from the purposiveness (i.e., end-directedness) of nature, or parts of nature, to the existence of an Intellect that exists independently of nature. A basic, undeveloped version of a teleological argument was once advanced by Albert Einstein from the orderliness of the cosmos:
Similar 'arguments from order' were devised by Isaac Newton and Thomas Aquinas, among others (though Aquinas' argument is quite different, as it was made within the context of Aristotelian metaphysics).
Transcendental arguments argue that logic, morals, and science implicitly presuppose the existence of God. That is to say, in order for reality and morality to be rationally intelligible, it must be grounded in a Rational Being, whose very nature (being essentially rational, good, etc.) is the source of all goodness and rationality. If reality is not ultimately grounded in a Rational Being, then reality is ultimately irrational. Thus, for those who claim to be rational, God is the only viable option. Transcendental arguments can be divided broadly into two groups: pre-Kantian and post-Kantian (that is, before Kant and after Kant). It is important to realise that these two types are very different. Transcendental arguments before Kant were based in the Platonic and Aristotelian idea that 'the transcendentals' (as they came to be known in the Medieval period) are inter-changeable with absolute being. (The transcendentals include such values as truth, beauty, goodness and justice.) That is to say, absolute being is also truth, truth is goodness, goodness is beauty and justice. The fourth of Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways is a type of Aristotelian transcendental argument. It goes like this:
Some atheists, probably those who don't know any better, would argue the the multiplicity of theistic arguments shows how weak they are. The logic here is that, if a position is rational, you only need a few good arguments for that position. This many be true, and this is certainly what the vast majority of theistic philosophers over the centuries have thought, as well. For example, Thomas Aquinas listed only five arguments (his famous 'Five Ways') in his Summa Theologiae. (Though, he did discuss other arguments in other works.) Mortimer Alder is even more parsimonious in his How to Think About God, focusing on developing only one argument throughout the book. Indeed, he criticises Aquinas for defending too many. However, some scholars multiplied arguments anyway, more as an intellectual exercise, than out of any perceived need to do so. But even that does not entirely explain the multiplicity of theistic arguments. So, then how can we understand why so many different arguments for God's existence have been devised over the centuries? The answer is not, I think, as some atheists believe, that theists have been desperately trying to prop up a faulty worldview, in the face of growing scepticism. After all, there was a great variety of theistic arguments for about two thousand years before guys like David Hume and Immanuel Kant started their influential critiques of the classical theistic arguments.
I think, rather, that the explanation is the shifts in philosophical thought that have occurred over the centuries. Whenever you have a new major shift in philosophical thought (a paradigm shift) theistic arguments get revised. During the early centuries of philosophy, you encounter some of the first theistic arguments. Many of them aren't that impressive as they are presented far too briefly. Nevertheless, some show real promise. Among these was Aristotle's cosmological argument in his Physics and Metaphysics. Here, among the ancient Greeks, we encounter the origins of natural theology.
Later thinkers, particularly neo-Platonists such as Plotinus and Prophyry, devised further arguments that were modified versions of Plato's. Neo-Platonism later influenced such Christian thinkers as Augustine of Hippo, who similarly adapted arguments from within the neo-Platonist tradition. Later thinkers, such as Islamic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes, Christian thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus and Jewish philosopher Maimonides, adopted a blend of Aristotelian philosophy influenced by neo-Platonism, and continued to revise and improve the classical arguments of Aristotle and Plotinus. This blending of Aristotelian and neo-Platonic elements came to be known as Scholasticism. The Scholastics were nicknamed 'the schoolmen' by later generations. During this period, new types of arguments were also devised or developed to go along with the cosmological argument, such as the argument from order and the argument from degrees of perfection. Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways in the Summa Theologiae (I., Q.2, Art.3) are a good example of the variety of arguments among scholastic thinkers.
Scholasticism dominated the intellectual landscape of Europe and the Middle East (though it was not called scholasticism in the Middle East) throughout the Medieval Period, but later gave way to the dueling factions of rationalism, idealism and empiricism in the early modern period. Following the Newtonian Revolution, many came to see Scholastic philosophy being as antiquated as Aristotelian science, which had been superceded by early modern science.
Virtually all of the 'movers and shakers' of the early modern period were theists and so, as metaphysical and epistemological outlooks changed, so did theistic arguments, and the arguments by Rene Descartes, Samuel Clarke, Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, and George Berkeley now came to dominate the intellectual landscape of Europe, replacing the arguments of Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, John Duns Scotus, etc., which came to be regarded by many as defunct. As the intellectual landscape has changed in subsequent centuries, theistic arguments have again been adapted. All this actually shows the vitality of theistic philosophy that, in each major paradigm shift, there have been major thinkers devising persuasive arguments for God's existence.
Broadly speaking, arguments for God's existence are put into a variety of categories, under which are sometimes dozens of distinct arguments. The main categories are: cosmological arguments, ontological arguments, teleological arguments, transcendental arguments (including moral arguments and arguments from reason) and pragmatic arguments. The last are not intended to demonstrate the truth of theistic claims, but only the reasonableness of belief. Cosmological arguments have typically been regarded as the most fundamental arguments for God's existence, although some would argue that ontological arguments have that role.
Among cosmological arguments there are, again, several different sub-categories: neo-Platonic, Aristotelian-Thomistic, contingency, and kalam arguments. What distinguishes these arguments is the approach they take. What unifies them is that they all focus on the question of the foundations of material reality: Is material reality (the cosmos) self-existent, or not? If not, then the cosmos requires a cause of its existence. That cause cannot be material/physical, because then you would be explaining the ultimate foundation of material reality by appealing to matter, which is obviously circular. This cause must also be immensely powerful (perhaps omnipotent), in order to create something as powerful and immense as the cosmos. Also, this cause must be eternal and self-existent, otherwise it itself would require a cause of its own existence. Consequently, the First Cause must be an immensely powerful, immaterial, non-composite, eternal, self-existent Being, i.e. God. The main focus of cosmological arguments, then, is to show that the cosmos is not and/or cannot be self-existent.
Contingency arguments, which are among the most widely discussed of cosmological arguments, should also be sub-divided into classical Aristotelian-Scholastic and rationalist versions, as the concept of 'contingency' is defined differently by Scholastics such as Avicenna and Aquinas than it is by rationalists like Clarke and Leibniz.
One of the most straightforward versions of the cosmological argument is the kalam argument, which goes like this:
Step 1: Argument to the Existence of a First Cause of the Universe
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe (understood as all material reality) began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.
For a defense of premise 1, see here; and for premise 2, see here.
Step 2: Argument that this First Cause is God
4. Nothing can be the cause of its own existence.
5. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is not a part of the universe (i.e., immaterial).
6. An immaterial being would be simple, at least in the sense of not being composed of any physical parts.
7. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence that is immaterial and simple.
8. This First Cause cannot have a beginning, or else it also would require a cause of its existence.
9. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is eternal, simple and immaterial.
10. Furthermore, this First Cause must be self-existent, or else it would require a cause of its existence.
11. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is self-existent, eternal, immaterial and simple.
12. Any cause that can be the First Cause of the universe must be an immensely powerful being, for only something with immense power could produce something as immense and powerful as the universe.
13. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is immensely powerful, self-existent, eternal, immaterial and simple.
14. Furthermore, an eternal cause could only bring about a temporally finite effect through an act of volition (i.e., the power to choose).*
15. But volition requires intellect.
16. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is intelligent, immensely powerful, self-existent, eternal, immaterial, and simple.
17. Finally, the first cause of the universe must be eternal, not only in the sense of 'having no beginning or end', but also in the sense of being 'without time' or 'timeless', for if the first cause exists temporally, then it would be subject to the same criticisms raised against an infinitely old universe. (Also, 'time' as we understand it is intrinsically tied up with material things, as Einstein's general theory of relativity shows, therefore the origin of the universe would be the origin of space-time, so an immaterial cause of the universe must exist timelessly.)
18. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence that is intelligent, self-existent, timeless, eternal, immaterial, simple, and immensely powerful.
And this, as Aquinas puts it, 'everyone knows to be God'.
* The justification of premise 14 goes as follows: If an an immaterial thing, e.g. an impersonal, immaterial 'force', were to exist, unchanging for an eternity, and then it were suddenly to cause to universe to exist, we would justifiably ask 'Why now, rather than an infinite time ago?' The force (being impersonal) cannot choose to create, so it would have to be 'moved' by something else. But if it were 'moved' by something else, then some other eternal thing would be needed to explain its act of causation, and this thing would also require an explanation as to why it caused the impersonal force to cause the universe to come into being, and so on. Ultimately, this would lead to an infinite regress of exactly the same sort that the First Cause is supposed to avoid. However, an intellect existing for an eternity would have the potential power (by virtue of being an intellect) to choose to create; therefore, the explanation of 'why now?' would be that an intelligent being could choose to create then, rather than at another point.
Among ontological arguments there are also several sub-categories: the Anselmian argument (devised by Anselm of Canterbury), rationalists ontological arguments (e.g. that of Descartes) and more recent modal ontological arguments (such as that of Alvin Plantinga). The main thrust of ontological arguments is that, once you understand the essence of God as 'that than which nothing greater can be thought' or 'the greatest conceivable being', you will come to realise that God must exist, as a matter of logical necessity, i.e., that God's existence is self-evident. I won't say much about this type of argument, because I don't find it convincing. Like Thomas Aquinas, I would argue that we cannot know a priori what the essence or nature of God is, therefore it is impossible for us to know that God exists simply by contemplating the idea of God.
Among teleological arguments there is also some considerable variety. Teleological arguments can be divided into arguments from order, design arguments from physics and cosmology and biological design arguments. In some sense, these can be ordered according to fundamentality, with arguments from order dealing with some of the most fundamental questions in metaphysics (causation, laws of nature, etc.) and arguments from physics and biology dealing with less fundamental subjects (i.e., questions of the probability and complexity of objects that exist in the cosmos). The purpose of the teleological argument is to argue from the purposiveness (i.e., end-directedness) of nature, or parts of nature, to the existence of an Intellect that exists independently of nature. A basic, undeveloped version of a teleological argument was once advanced by Albert Einstein from the orderliness of the cosmos:
“I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can
call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled
with books in many languages.
The child knows someone must have
written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly
suspects a mysterious order in
the arrangement of the books but doesn’t
know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human
being toward God. We see the
universe marvelously arranged and
obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations”
(quoted in, Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion,
p. 48).
Similar 'arguments from order' were devised by Isaac Newton and Thomas Aquinas, among others (though Aquinas' argument is quite different, as it was made within the context of Aristotelian metaphysics).
Transcendental arguments argue that logic, morals, and science implicitly presuppose the existence of God. That is to say, in order for reality and morality to be rationally intelligible, it must be grounded in a Rational Being, whose very nature (being essentially rational, good, etc.) is the source of all goodness and rationality. If reality is not ultimately grounded in a Rational Being, then reality is ultimately irrational. Thus, for those who claim to be rational, God is the only viable option. Transcendental arguments can be divided broadly into two groups: pre-Kantian and post-Kantian (that is, before Kant and after Kant). It is important to realise that these two types are very different. Transcendental arguments before Kant were based in the Platonic and Aristotelian idea that 'the transcendentals' (as they came to be known in the Medieval period) are inter-changeable with absolute being. (The transcendentals include such values as truth, beauty, goodness and justice.) That is to say, absolute being is also truth, truth is goodness, goodness is beauty and justice. The fourth of Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways is a type of Aristotelian transcendental argument. It goes like this:
"Among
beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble, and the like. But 'more'
and 'less' are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their
different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according
as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which
is truest, something best, something noblest, and, consequently, something
which is uttermost being…Therefore there must also be something which is to all
beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this
we call God." (Summa Theologiae I. Q2, Art. 3).
In more recent times, versions of the moral argument and the argument from reason could also be classified as transcendental arguments, e.g. William Lane Craig's basic version of the moral argument:
1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral value and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.
Some atheists would seek to reject the first premise (e.g., Sam Harris) and others would seek to reject the second (e.g., Friedrich Nietzsche, J. L. Mackie), so this argument requires a more complex defense than this simple presentation would suggest. However, I would contend that both premises are highly defensible.
Pragmatic arguments are perhaps among the fewest, and most recent types of arguments for religious belief. They do not attempt to show that God exists, and may even agree that it is impossible to do so. However, they would argue that, in the absence of strong reason to disbelieve in God, it is better to believe than not to believe. Blaise Pascal's famous 'wager' is a good example of a pragmatic argument.
Some versions of the moral argument could also be classified as pragmatic arguments. They would go something like this: It may be that we cannot know that God exists and that moral truths exist, but we can know that moral truths cannot exist without God. Clearly, human society cannot exist without some kind of objective moral values, and objective moral values do not exist without God. So it is better to believe in God, so that we can believe in morals and have a better society, whether or not we can know about the existence of God and moral truths. Such an argument is clearly inferior to more objective arguments, but its strength is in its epistemological/metaphysical minimalism. You don't have to know anything about God or the metaphysics of morality to see the reasonableness of theistic belief.
Pragmatic arguments have arisen because some have lost faith in the power of the human intellect to reason to the existence of God: in the absence of knowledge, be pragmatic. Scepticism of metaphysics in the wake of the Humean and Kantian critiques and scepticism of philosophy in general in the wake of logical positivism made arguing for the existence of God difficult throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - at least for those who wished to keep up with then-current intellectual trends. Pragmatic arguments seemed a possible, if inferior, alternative. The collapse of logical positivism and the refutation of many of the arguments of Hume and Kant in recent decades has lead to a revival of theistic arguments. So pragmatic arguments are not really needed.
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