God Exists

Argument 1: This argument makes no sense, because, as I stated with the Kalam Cosmological Argument, a God must exist for the universe to exist. ReasonstoBelieve.org states that, "The bottom line is that the universe is at least ten billion orders of magnitude (a factor of 1010,000,000,000 times) too small or too young to permit life to be assembled by natural processes. Researchers, who are both non-theists and theists and who are in a variety of disciplines, have arrived at this calculation. Invoking other universes cannot solve the problem. All such models require that the additional universes remain totally out of contact with one another; that is, their space-time manifolds cannot overlap. Thus the only explanation for how living organisms received their highly complex and ordered configurations is that an intelligent, transcendent Creator personally infused this information." As for a different cause than God, abstract objects can"t cause anything. So the only viable candidate for a nonphysical cause seems to be a personal cause. Among the pool of explanatory options considered (the universe existing by the necessity of its own nature, physical things causing the universe, abstract objects causing the universe, and a transcendent personal cause of the universe) a transcendent personal cause is by far the best explanation; indeed it is the only viable explanation among the entire pool. Thus we"re left with a transcendent personal cause of the universe if the universe has an explanation of its existence. The simultaneous causation is just unsubstantiated theoretical hypothesis, and should not be a valid argument until further use. The universe must have a transcendent, personal cause to its existence, and this must be God. Argument 2: The argument from evil fails because of one simple explanation, which ReasonableFaith.org elucidates in an article: "We are not in a good position to assess the probability of whether God has morally sufficient reasons for the evils that occur. As finite persons, we are limited in time, space, intelligence, and insight. But the transcendent and sovereign God sees the end from the beginning and providentially orders history so that His purposes are ultimately achieved through human free decisions. In order to achieve His ends, God may have to put up with certain evils along the way. Evils which appear pointless to us within our limited framework may be seen to have been justly permitted within God"s wider framework. To borrow an illustration from a developing field of science, Chaos Theory, scientists have discovered that certain macroscopic systems, for example, weather systems or insect populations, are extraordinarily sensitive to the tiniest perturbations. A butterfly fluttering on a branch in West Africa may set in motion forces which would eventually issue in a hurricane over the Atlantic Ocean. Yet it is impossible in principle for anyone observing that butterfly palpitating on a branch to predict such an outcome. The brutal murder of an innocent man or a child"s dying of leukemia could produce a sort of ripple effect through history such that God"s morally sufficient reason for permitting it might not emerge until centuries later and perhaps in another land. When you think of God"s providence over the whole of history, I think you can see how hopeless it is for limited observers to speculate on the probability that God could have a morally sufficient reason for permitting a certain evil. We"re just not in a good position to assess such probabilities." Further, the Christian faith (at least) entails doctrines that increase the probability of the co-existence of God and evil. In so doing, these doctrines decrease any improbability of God"s existence thought to issue from the existence of evil. You cannot make judgment such as this because you can't claim what you claim with any certainty because of the nature of God. God must exist. http://www.reasons.org... http://www.reasonablefaith.org...