Does God Exist? Christianity 101 Martin Ester January 24, 2013 1
Does God Exist? Why is the existence of God important? The answer to many ultimate questions depends on that question, e.g. Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? C. S. Lewis God is not the sort of thing one can be moderately interested in. 2
Does God Exist? Possible answers: Yes: Theism Don t know / cannot know: Agnosticism No: Atheism (Keller 2008), chapters 8 and 9 3
What do we Mean by God? A supernatural being Omnipotent Omniscient (Omnibenevolent) 4
Arguments For the Existence of God The Cosmological Argument The Fine-Tuning Argument The Moral Argument A lot more arguments have been discussed in the course of the centuries, see e.g. (Wikipedia 2013). These are arguments, no proofs. 5
The Cosmological Argument (Craig 1979) Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause. Modus ponens (A B) and A implies B 6
The Cosmological Argument Whatever begins to exist has a cause. Is the basis of the natural and social sciences. Why did the bone break? What caused the financial crisis? 7
The Cosmological Argument The universe began to exist. Big Bang theory (Wollack2010) is the prevailing cosmologicalmodelthat explains the early development of the Universe. The Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state (singularity) which has expanded rapidly since then. The Big Bang occurred approximately 14 billion years ago. 8
The Cosmological Argument What can we say about this cause? Must be uncaused. Must be changeless, timeless, immaterial. God 9
The Fine-Tuning Argument The laws of physics have fifteen constants that need to be tuned very accurately to the actually observed values to allow life in our universe. (Collins 2006) The rate of expansion of the universe depends on its total mass and energy as well as the gravitational constant. The gravitational constant G is a parameter involved in the calculation of gravitationalforce between two bodies. 10
The Fine-Tuning Argument If the rate of expansion had been smaller by 1 6 10, then the universe would have collapsed again. 1 10 17 If that rate had been greater by then stars and planets could not have formed. 11
The Fine-Tuning Argument The strong nuclear force is the force between two or more nucleons, which is responsible for binding of protons and neutrons into atomic nuclei. If the strong nuclear force had been slightly weaker, then only hydrogen could have formed. If that force were slightly stronger, all hydrogen would have been converted to helium, and the fusion furnaces of stars would not exist. 12
The Fine-Tuning Argument The observed combination of the fifteen physical constants is extremely unlikely to happen by chance. The multiverse hypothesis claims that there is a very large number of universes with different values of the physical constants. This hypothesis makes the existence of one universe supporting life much more likely. 13
The Fine-Tuning Argument But the multiverse hypothesis postulates a very complex model. Scientists prefer simple models over complex models, that tend to overfitto the observed data and not generalize well to unobserved data. Occam s Razor 14
The Fine-Tuning Argument The assumption of a Creator God can explain the observed physical constants necessary for life within a single universe. Stephen Hawking (Hawking 1988) It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us. 15
The Moral Argument Many people say No one should impose their moral views on others. Moral relativism: moral views are relative to cultures and individuals. But most people believe in the existence of human rights, absolute moral standards, e.g. that nobody should be killed. 16
The Moral Argument Moral is an orientation toward understandings about what is right and wrong, just and unjust, that are not established by our own desires or preferences but are believed to exist apart from them. (Smith 2003) Why do moral standards exist? - Created by humans/society - Result of evolution - God-given 17
The Moral Argument Created by humans/society Honoring individual dignity means that in the long run everybody is better off. What if the majority decides not to give human rights to the minority? Nazis and Jews The Nazis had the majority, but today we nevertheless know that the Nazis were wrong. 18
The Moral Argument Result of evolution (Rutherford 2007) Altruism: selfless giving of oneself to others with no expectation of receiving anything in return. Altruistic individuals may suffer loss, injury or death. Such behavior does not provide a selective advantage. 19
The Moral Argument A community with altruistic individuals can still have a selective advantage. But genes are inherited by individuals, and selection operates at the level of individuals, not populations. 20
The Moral Argument God-given If there is a cause of the Universe, a creator who fine-tuned it, then it is plausible that he has given all humans the same moral standards. C.S. Lewis (Lewis 1952) If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves. 21
Conclusion There is no proof for the existence (or nonexistence) of God. There are good arguments for the existence of God. The existence of God provides a unifying, compelling explanation of the cause of the universe, the fine tuning of its physical constants, and the existence of absolute moral laws. 22
References Francis Collins: The Language of God, Free Press, 2006. William Lane Craig: The KalamCosmological Argument, Library of philosophy and religion, Macmillan, 1979. Stephen Hawking: A Brief History of Time, Bantam Books, 1988. Tim Keller: The Reason for God, Penguin Books, 2008, chapters 8 and 9. CS Lewis: Mere Christianity, Barbour and Company, 1952. Matthew Rutherford: The Evolution of Morality, University of Glasgow, 2007. Christian Smith: Moral Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture, Oxford University Press, 2003, page 8. Wikipedia: Existence of God, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/existence_of_god, retrieved on January 19, 2013. Edward J. Wollack: Cosmology: The Study of the Universe,Universe 101: Big Bang Theory, NASA, 2010. 23