Does God Exist?
Seven Extrabiblical Arguments for the Existence of God
Introduction
Scriptures presuppose God’s existence — no philosophical argument is presented in the Bible to prove that God exists. However, Scriptures do explain that creation itself exclaims the existence of God. King David begins one of his Psalms by stating:
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”
Apostle Paul reiterates this idea in his letter to the Romans, writing:
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
A curious reader may then ask — how exactly does creation testify of God? What extrabiblical proofs are there that God exists?
Many extrabiblical philosophical arguments have been put forth for the existence of God. The seven most common arguments are: (1) Pascal’s Wager, (2) Absurdity Argument, (3) Ontological Argument, (4) Cosmological Argument, (5) Teleological Argument, (6) Cosmic Fine-Tuning, and (7) Moral Argument.
1. Pascal’s Wager
Pascal’s Wager is an argument for the existence of God posed by Blaise Pascal, the founder of probability theory. Pascal does not necessarily argue for the existence of God; rather, he argues that if the odds that God exists are even, a reasonable man will choose to believe in God.
If one wagers that God exists and He does, then one receives eternal bliss; if he wagers that God exists and He does not, then nothing is lost. If one wagers that God does not exist and He does, then one receives eternal punishment; if he wagers that God does not exist and He does not, then nothing is lost.
Thus, there is a net benefit in believing in God and a net negative in not believing in God. Pascal’s Wager can be visualized as follows:
2. Absurdity without God
The Absurdity Argument posits that if there is no God, then man and the universe are doomed because there is no ultimate meaning without God and immortality. If each individual passes away from existence when they die, then no ultimate meaning can be given to their life.
In fact, it does not really even matter if he existed in the first place. In this view, mankind is a doomed race in a dying universe, and it makes no ultimate difference whether humans ever did exist. The contributions of all individuals, in this view, are meaningless too. Man ends in nothing; therefore, he is nothing.
Under the absurd view that God does not exist, there can be no ultimate values either. If life ends at the grave, then what difference does it make if one lived as a Stalin or a saint? Everyone’s destiny is ultimately unrelated to their behavior, so one may as well live as they please.
If there is no God, then there can be no ultimate purpose. If death is all there is, then life has no ultimate end. It is literally all for nothing. There is no goal, purpose, or direction for the universe and everything that inhabits it. Man has no purpose either. You are a cosmic miscarriage of nature, thrust into a purposeless universe to live a purposeless life.
There is something deeply unsettling, unhuman even, about embracing such a position. Yet this is the only conclusion that atheistic materialism can have about meaning, value, and purpose. Not even the most hardened atheist, however, truly agrees with these conclusions — although their words may embrace this absurd nihilism, their actions do not.
Atheist medical scientists continue to search for cures to cancer, despite it not mattering whether young children die prematurely from tumors. Atheist psychologists continue to counsel depressed and hurting people, despite it not mattering whether their clients kill themselves. Atheist lawyers and judges continue to fight for justice, despite there being no fundamental ground for a morality beyond living how one pleases.
There are two possibilities: (1) God is not real, and Atheists are deceiving themselves into living as though their lives have meaning, purpose, and value (which they do not), or (2) God is real, and Atheists are deeply mistaken, yet they still have a meaning, purpose, and value that they can realize should they accept the God who created them. It is absurd to consciously choose to live under option one.
3. Ontological Argument
The Ontological Argument is as such: If God is conceivable, then he must actually exist. Anslem argued as follows:
- God is the greatest conceivable thing.
- This is true by definition, because if one was able to conceive of something greater than God, then that would become God.
- Nothing greater than God can be conceived.
- It is greater to exist in reality than only in the mind.
- Since a God is the greatest conceivable Being, He must exist not only in the mind, but also in reality.
- Therefore, God exists.
4. Cosmological Argument
The Cosmological Argument argues that if something exists, it must have been caused by something else. Since the cosmos exist, there must be a First Cause that brought it into existence.
Al-Ghazali put together a form of this argument called the Kalam Argument. It goes as follows:
- Everything that has a beginning has a cause for that beginning,
- The universe had a beginning, therefore
- The universe has a cause for its beginning.
If everything that exists has some sort of cause (a position affirmed by both the Bible and secular science), and the universe exists (affirmed by both), then it must follow that the universe has a cause. In other words, the universe, by virtue of existing, must have been brought into existence by something great than and beyond it.
This cause is God.
A common objection to this is: “Who created God then?” Koukl explains why this question makes no sense to ask of a believer:
“The question presumes that God was created, but no one believes that, certainly no Christians, so this is not a question any theist has to answer. An eternal, self-existent Being has no beginning, so he needs no creator.”
5. Teleological Argument
The Teleological Argument is an argument from design. It infers an intelligent designer of the universe, just as one can infer an intelligent designer for any product in which there is discernable evidence of purposeful adaptation of means for some end. Koukl explains this position when he writes,
“There is nothing irrational or unreasonable about the idea of a personal God creating the universe. A big bang needs a big Banger, it seems to me. A complex set of instructions (as in DNA) needs an author. A blueprint requires an engineer. A moral law needs a moral lawgiver. Each of these makes perfect sense. These are not blind leaps of faith but rather reasonable steps of intelligent reflection.”
6. Cosmic Fine-Tuning
Similar to the Teleological argument is the Cosmic Fine-Tuning argument. The Cosmic Fine-Tuning Argument refers to the very specific conditions of fundamental constants (such as electromagnetic interaction, gravitation, the weak force, the strong force, and the ratio between the mass of a proton and the mass of an electron) that are in place in the universe without which life would not be possible. Any small deviation from the actual values of these constants and quantities in question would render the universe life-prohibiting.
According to Roger Penrose, the odds of the universe’s low entropy condition (a condition necessary for life) being obtained by chance is one in 10^10(123), an impossibly small number. Scriptures, on the other hand, state that there is a “Cosmic Designer who fine-tuned the initial conditions of the universe for intelligent life.”
The question then is, what is the more plausible an explanation for these very specific fine-tuned conditions: an essentially zero-chance random coincidence (for context, astrophysicists estimate that the total number of protons in the entire universe is only about 1.57×10^79. A person is significantly more likely to succeed in randomly choosing a pre-determined proton amidst a sea of every proton in the observable universe than are the chances that the universe would randomly have every condition set perfectly to where it is) or an intentional planned design by a Cosmological Architect?
7. Moral Argument
The Moral Argument implies that an ultimate Being who embodies all things good must exist if there are things that are good. Objective moral good is a reflection of an ultimate objective moral Good. The argument is:
- If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist either.
- Objective moral values and duties do exist, therefore
- God does exist.
Although many may argue for the subjectivity of morality, there are still objective values and morals all cultures and people agree upon: love, generosity, sacrifice, etc. Likewise, there are certain things all cultures agree are bad: murder, stealing, rape, etc. The source of these good things is God. “Bad” things are behaviors that go against the good of God.
Conclusion
Many extrabiblical philosophical arguments have been put forth for the existence of God. The seven most common arguments are: (1) Pascal’s Wager, (2) Absurdity Argument, (3) Ontological Argument, (4) Cosmological Argument, (5) Teleological Argument, (6) Cosmic Fine-Tuning, and (7) Moral Argument.
Indeed, all of creation testifies of God’s existence. Probability, absurdity, God’s greatness, First Cause, design, cosmic fine-tuning, and morality are all things that any human can reason through and understand — these are all evidences pointing toward the existence of God. Once one accepts that God exists, Scriptures reveal what that God is like.
God wants to be known. He reveals Himself through His own Word. Discovery beyond general knowledge of God occurs through study of God’s special revelation — the Bible.
