Chapter 9
•The Question of God’s Existence
Philosophy wrestles with questions
about God…
• Is there a god(s)?
• What qualities would He (She) possess?
– Could God make a rock so heavy ... He couldn’t lift
it?
Approaches /
Types of Believers or Non-believers
• Evidentialism: requires objective evidence
– Theism: God exists
– Atheism: God does not exist
– Agnosticism: evidence inconclusive; cannot know
Approaches /
Types of Believers or Non-believers
• Non-evidentialism: don’t need evidence to
believe in God
– Fideism: belief in God requires faith alone
– Prudentialism: more useful to believe than not
believe
– Subjectivism: subjective evidence is sufficient to
believe
Which label fits you?
• Evidentialism: requires objective evidence
– Theism: God exists
– Atheism: God does not exist
– Agnosticism: evidence inconclusive; cannot know
• Non-evidentialism: don’t need evidence to
believe in God
– Fideism: belief in God requires faith alone
– Prudentialism: more useful to believe than not
believe
– Subjectivism: subjective evidence is sufficient to
believe
Which label fits you?
• Evidentialism: requires objective evidence
– Theism: God exists
– Atheism: God does not exist
– Agnosticism: evidence inconclusive; cannot know
• Non-evidentialism: don’t need evidence to
believe in God
– Fideism: belief in God requires faith alone
– Prudentialism: more useful to believe than not
believe
– Subjectivism: subjective evidence is sufficient to
believe
Trying to overcome skepticism
• Hume: we can’t know the future is like the past
• However, we all act as if it is. We just need some
certainty (e.g., 99%).
• We’re unlikely to prove (100%) God exists /
doesn’t exist. But we can still be convinced one
way or the other, and live accordingly.
– 100% proof is probably impossible
– Decide your required certainty level
– Believe the side that reaches that certainty level
Arguments for God’s existence
• Teleological: intelligent designer
• Ontological:
• Cosmological
Arguments against God’s existence
• The problem of evil / suffering
Teleological argument: God exists
• Look at the extreme complexity of the eye,
heart, plant cells, embryo development, etc.
• Which is more likely?
– These amazing things were created by accident
– They were planned by an intelligent designer
• Paley’s (1802) “Watchmaker Argument”
Teleological counterargument
• Natural selection: Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
(1859)
– Chance, but not random chance
– Chance genetic mutations survive only with associated
fitness
• The theoretical virtues of natural selection seem
stronger (explains many observations, does not require
additional beliefs)
• But natural selection cannot explain everything
– If life started here, why hasn’t it started elsewhere, too?
– Why did Earth contain all the necessary ingredients for life
to begin with?
Ontological argument: God exists
• Similar to Decarte’s argument that God is good: Decarte imagined
the concept of perfection; therefore perfection exists, etc.
• Anselm’s argument: Think of GOD, the greatest conceivable being
– If you thought of a God that is very great but DOES NOT EXIST, then
you did not think of the greatest God, because existence is greater
than nonexistence.
– If you somehow thought of a God that is “greater” than actual God,
you are STILL NOT thinking of the GREATEST being, because existing is
better than non-existing.
– Therefore you could still imagine a God that is greater than the above,
one that exists.
– And if you can imagine this, then either He exists, or you didn’t
imagine the greatest God! (But you said you did.) So, when your
imagination settles upon a being that is great and exists, then have
you been able to imagine the greatest possible being.
Ontological Counterargument
• Imagine the perfect island…
– So, it must exist? What does that mean?
• The ontological argument can’t prove God’s
existence.
Cosmological argument: God exists
• Thomas Aquinas and al-Ghazali offered the
first mover argument
• Ex nihilo, nihil fit (nothing comes from
nothing). The causal chain of events had to
start from a first cause, which is God.
Cosmological hurdles
– It is possible that there was no first cause (that the
causal chain “started” infinitely long ago), but that
assumption brings problems to address:
• Why do we perceive flow of time, if it has always
existed (Where is time flowing from?)
• Even if this is not a problem, we still have the questions
of where time came from, and what past events explain
current events? Perhaps God?
Cosmological Counterargument
• Quantum physics: particles and their
movement behavior can be random
(uncaused, undetermined)
• This spells trouble for the cosmological
argument that all things have causes.
• Perhaps the first mover was a quantum
fluctuation (chance; not God).
– Copenhagen interpretation: complete chance
– Broglie-Bohm interpretation: rules not found yet
The logical problem of suffering:
God doesn’t exist
• A deductive argument
• Hume said: If God is willing but unable to
prevent evil, He is impotent. If God is able but
unwilling to prevent evil, he is malevolent
• If God was all-powerful, all-knowing, and allgood, suffering would not exist.
Logical problem of suffering
counterargument
• Aurelius Augustine’s (4th Century) Greater Good
Defense:
• God permits suffering so that:
– We have free will to be evil (cause suffering)
– We can display virtues (help others’ suffering)
• Freedom to hurt others without actual suffering
is logically impossible
– God also can’t make round squares, or rocks too
heavy to lift. The problem is one of logic / definition,
not one of power.
The evidential problem of suffering
• Inductive argument
• Claim 1: If God exists, He would not allow
gratuitous suffering (more than necessary,
useful, or justifiable)
• Claim 2: There probably is gratuitous suffering
in the world
• Claim 3 (conclusion): Therefore God probably
does not exist
Evidentialist problem of suffering
counterargument
• The suffering we observe is not gratuitous. All
suffering will eventually be justified for good
purpose.
Share your views
•
•
•
•
What do you believe?
Which arguments do you agree with?
Which arguments do you disagree with?
Any other arguments?
Recommended reading
• 177-182
• Read more on anything that’s not clear