God Does Exist

Qualifications for Debate: For this debate I am presenting the proposition "God Does Exist" as one suggesting that it is rational to believe that a Supreme Being (understood as God) exists. I will not be furthering the thesis that this being can be known ipso facto by some epistemological precondition(s) (such as God's existence being self-evident, known by immediate sense-experience, or etc.), but rather that given the reasons/evidences available to us, we are reasonable to suppose that such a being exists.An opponent of this debate is more than welcome to take the position that belief in God is (a) erroneous, (b) false, (c) irrational, or whatever else have you. While I wish for this debate to maintain a particular conversation, I still want the opponent to know that he is free by virtue of his philosophical capacities to argue which ever hard or soft thesis he would like. He is by no means bounded by very extensive and/or superficial qualifications on this subject. With these things considered, I wish to move to the definition of God I will be referring to throughout this debate. (1.0) Definition of God I understand God as classical theism, or, as Thomistic Theism [1] traditionally conceives of Him. Particularly, that God's attributes include (but are not limited to) (1) pure actuality, (2) immutability, (3) impassibility, (4) timelessness, (5) simplicity, (6) necessity, (7) omniscience, (8) omnipotence. To provide a brief explanation of (1), I mean to suggest that "God must possess no potentiality; God must be pure actuality. While God can act, He cannot be acted upon. God must therefore be an exception to the doctrine that everything is composed of form and matter. Because potentiality cannot belong to God, God can possess no matter; He must be pure form" [2]. As Norman Geisler further explains: God. . . is an infinite kind of being. All creatures are finite kinds of beings. God is Pure Actuality (Act); all creatures are composed of actuality (act) and potentiality (potency). Hence, finite things differ from God in that they have a limiting potentiality; God does not. Finite things can differ from each other in terms of whether their potentiality is completely actualized (as in angels) or whatever is progressively actualized (as in humankind). [3] Moreover, immutability refers to God's inability to change while impassibility refers to the impossibility of God's being acted upon; for instance, God cannot be "moved" in an emotional sense: "God cannot be hurt, grieved, saddened and so on" [4]. By timelessness I mean in the Augustinian/Thomistic sense that God exists outside of time; without temporal location or duration. All of time exists in one eternal "present," there is no future or past for God. Also, immutability necessarily implies eternity, since anything that is temporal has successive states one after another. However, God does not have changing successive states, so he is therefore timeless [5]. Moreover, by simplicity I mean to say that God has no parts; i.e., he is not complex and comprised of multiple parts. As Norman Geisler explains: "An absolutely simple being cannot be more than one since to be more than one there must be parts. A simple being has no parts. An absolutely simple being is not divisible." [6]By necessity I do not mean in the logically necessary sense. Rather, I mean that God exists by the necessity of his own nature; he cannot come into existence or go out of existence. Moreover, it is not an accident that God has the attributes that he does, they are all apart of the divine nature [7]. Lastly, for the sake of trying to leave space open for my first affirmative case, I will not be defining omniscience or omnipotence in any extensive matter since I believe they are easily understood as simply God being all-knowing and all-powerful. If my opponent has a problem with either of these attributes I would be more than happy to address them in later rounds. (2.0) A Few Further Qualifications I am coming into this subject with a few assumptions in mind. For one, reason can be an aid in this conversation but it is by no means coercive. Faith and reason are related, but reason cannot coerce faith - if it were, then that would refrain faith from being a free act of the will. The point here is to show that faith and reason are not diametrically opposed: "Faith differs from science in that its object is unseen. Faith also differs from doubt, suspicion, and opinion in that there is evidence to support it" [8]. Furthermore, we should not forget that reason requires we see "our subjective, psychological, human processes of reasoning as participation in and reflection of an objective rational order. . . " [9]. The significance of this point is to show that we have an existential commitment to truth and not merely a calculable or quantifiable relationship to philosophical or scientific conclusions. We are human subjects with a psychological make up that peers deep into the questions of existence, it would be a mistake to lose sight of our humanity even when discussing matters such as this. (3.0) Arguments for God's ExistenceI believe that the case for God's existence gains a more and more powerful impetus when we take all the arguments and establish a cumulative proof. As C. Stephen Evans has written, "[T]he case for religious faith will not be based on a single argument functioning as a proof, but upon the total evidence available from every region of human experience" [10]. With this considered, I would like to present several arguments for God's existence.(3.1) The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument Whatever exists has an explanation of its existence. In other words, nothing exists without a reason accounting for that things existence. However, there are two kinds of existence that we have to be clear about: (1) necessary existence and (2) contingentexistence. If something necessarily exists, then the explanation of its existence is within itself, not outside of itself.Philosophers have argued that numbers, properties, and even the laws of logic are all necessarily existent – in the sense that none of these came into existence by someother thing, but rather that they exist by the necessity of their own nature. However, if something is contingently existent, then the reason for its existence is external to it – you and me are contingent, and so is the computer that you are using. The shortcut understanding is this: contingent things have the possibility of existing or not existing,necessary things either must or must not exist. With that understood, the argument is as follows: Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. The universe exists. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence. Therefore, the explanation of the existence of the universe is God. Given our terms above, let us restate (1): “Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.” Why doesn’t God have an explanation of his existence, if he exists? or, who created God? God is a necessarily existent being; he requires no external cause to bring about His existence. God just is – and he cannot not be.(3.3) The Argument from Design We notice that certain things according to our experience have been designed – or, displays a mark of intelligibility. For instance, the house requires a builder, the watch requires a watchmaker, and so on. However, what about the universe? We notice that houses and even watches have properties such as “the adjustment of parts into a whole” and “curious adapting of means to ends.” It is the case that the universe has these properties as well. If the universe does have these properties, then we can say that it is probable that the universe was produced by design. We can put the argument like this: The universe displays design within the created order. Either this intelligible order is the product of chance or of intelligent design. Not chance. Therefore, the universe is the product of intelligent design. Design only comes from a mind, a designer. Therefore, the universe is the product of an intelligent designer. (3.4) Swinburne and Personal/Scientific ExplanationsPhilosopher Richard Swinburne suggests that we view the theistic arguments as explanations of phenomena. Two kinds of explanations are as follows: (1) scientific and (2) personal. The former type of explanation pertains to the causes and effects surrounding initial conditions and the laws of nature. To use his words, scientific explanations (or inanimate explanations) are "initial conditions plus law of nature causing event" [11]. A personal explanation by contrast is where the phenomena is explained by a rational agent's intentional action. According to Swinburne, [W]hen the theist argues from phenomena such as the existence of the world or some feature of the world to the existence of God, he is arguing. . . to an explanation of the phenomena in terms of the intentional action of a person [that is, God]. . . A theistic explanation is a personal explanation. It explains phenomena in terms of the action of a person. [12]. ____________________Notes: [1] Ronald Nash, The Concept of God: An Explanation of Contemporary Difficulties with the Attributes of God (Zondervan: 1983) see ch. 3. [2] Ibid., p. 20. [3] Norman Geisler, Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal (Wipf and Stock Publishers: 2003), p. 96. [4] Ibid., p. 21. [5] See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a. 9, 1. [6] Geisler (2003), p. 106. [7] See Ronald Nash (1983), p. 22. [8] Geisler (2003), p. 62. [9] Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Handbook of Catholic Apologetics (Ignatius Press: 2009), p. 17. [10] Quoted from Ronald Nash, Life's Ultimate Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy (Zondervan: 1999), p. 291. [11] Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford University Press: 2009), p. 22. [12] Quoted from Nash (1999), p. 295.