Arguments on God and the Answers that Disprove Them

Here we will look at common arguments for the existence of a god or gods. I will show how they are based on nothing more than question begging, hope and the desire for the god or gods to exist. If you are a believer in a god or gods and feel that I have missed an argument or was weak in my debunking of one, please drop me an e-mail HERE.

1. Pascal's Wager  2. First Cause (Cosmological)  3. Design (Teleological)  4. Ontological  5. Life Exists

6. Miracles  7. Experience of God  8. Morality  9. Desire for God 10. Faith

Blaise Pascal was an amazing mathematician from the 17th century. Born in Clermont-Ferrand in 1623, he was home-schooled by his father, the advocate at the court of Aids of Clermont, and of Antoinette Bégon, on subjects ranging from grammar, Latin, Spanish, to mathematics. Blaise Pascal demonstrated genius as young as 12 when he wrote a treatise on sounds. At the age of 16 he invented his famous arithmetics machine.

For all of Pascal's genius, he is most famous for his two masterpieces, Provinciales and Pensées. It is in Pensées where we find the notorious wager. The background on the wager is that Pascal wisely came to the conclusion that the existence of a god could not be known. This did not prevent Pascal from consdiering the question.

Pascal's Wager, stated simply, says:

The bottom line of the argument is that it is best to believe in a god just in case one exists. By believing, one escapes the punishment of non-belief if a god exists.

Is this reasonable thinking? Is this a reason to believe in a god?

Response

Pascal was brilliant. This can't be debated. Unfortunately, Pascal was raised as a Christian in a singularly Christian setting. While he did not adhere to the Orthodoxy of the day, he did not seem to understand the gods of other religions such as Hinduism and Islam. Had he understood the ways of these gods, he probably would not have made such narrow statements as the if/than statements in his wager. Simple belief in Allah (the Muslim god) does not automatically earn someone infinite gain. This only works within the Christian paradigm.

What if one of the gods that Pascal was unfamiliar with is the sovereign ruler of the universe? Pascal's Wager does not allow for a specific god, only a god in general. If the wrong god is believed in, the true god would more than likely be rather upset.

Further, the position of worshipping a non-existent god is costly. There are endless hours wasted in reverance, time spent in church and proselytizing, money given to church, etc.

Lastly, the desire to find truth is not based on "what if" type of questions. It is based on evidence. Pascal's Wager presents us with absolutely no evidence.

First Cause
(Kalam's Cosmological Argument)

The First Cause argument, also known as the Cosmological Argument, is one of the most common reasons given by theists for the belief in a god. It is not unnatural for one to belive that all things which are must have some sort of cause.

The history of the Cosmological Argument is a long one. The ancient Greek scholar Plato posited the existence of a prime mover. Since then, the argument had been adapted and molded by many thinkers and philosophers, coming through the philosophies of the Jews and Arabs as well as some modern minds like Hume, Kant and Descartes. The two most famous variations of the theme are Kalam's Cosmological Argument, which deals with the coming into being of things, and the argument of contingency, which deals with the reasons that things are as they are and not some other way. We will deal with Kalam's Cosmological Argument as that is the line of reasoning that most theists use to argue for the existence of a god.

Kalam's Cosmological Argument says:

More succinctly:

Are there no problems with these lines of reasoning? Are these, then, the proofs needed to believe in a god or gods?

My answers are simple. There are huge problems with the lines of reasoning and these are not proofs of the existence of a god or gods.

Response

In the first line of reasoning, we run into problems at step 3. Why is it that we must accept that there is a first cause? We are given no reason to accept this step other than it is a necessary stage to reach the conclusion. As a step in the argument should not be relied on as necessary but believed due to evidence, we must reject step 3. Without this step, the entire argument falls.

The second line of reasoning, while better, also fails the test. It is argued that the cause of the universe is a god. But does this god exist? Surely if it exists, it must also have a cause. If we are to follow this line of reasoning, there must be an infinite number of causes to an infinite number of effects. This is a dead end in thinking.

Is the universe a pocket watch? Can the happenings in the universe be compared to the workings of a pocket watch? It has been posited that there can be such a comparison. This is known as Paley's Teleological Argument.

William Paley was a Brittish theologian-philosopher during the 18th century. During his life, he was both a professor of philosophy at Cambridge and a minister in the Anglican Church. Up until the 20th century, it was a requirement to read his Evidences of Christianity, and his Moral Philosophy in order to earn one's Bachelor of Arts degree. To this day, his most famous contribution to the study of god is his argument known as Paley's Teleological Argument.

Paley's Teleological Argument, stated simply, says:

Broken down into stages of argument it reads:

Paley's Teleological Argument, put into a broader form, goes like this:

Is this a reasonable method for coming to the conclusion that there is a god? Do we see order in the world? Do we see suffucient similarities between the watch, the eye and the universe to make the analogy that they must all have a creator?

Response

David Hume, a philosopher and contemporary of Paley's, argued that the subjects of comparison in Paley's Teleological Argument were so dissimilar that it was like comparing apples and oranges. He felt that the dissimilarity was so great that the entire argument should be thrown out.

Why did Hume feel so strongly about this line of reasoning? Hume felt that our knowledge of the universe was so limited that to compare it to something that we had perfect knowledge was ridiculous. He felt that to make the comparison we should have an equal understanding of both. I agree with Hume on this.

Further, like the Cosmological Argument and the first cause, we see no reason for the designer to be stopped at god. Certainly a god must be more marvellous and wonderful in design than the eye, the pocket watch, the earth and the universe put together. By Paley's Teleological Argument, we would have to assume that this god had to have had a designer. If we are to assume that this god did not need a designer than we have no reason to believe that the universe, the earth or the human eye did either.

Anselm was a philosopher, theologian and church leader from Europe in the 11th century. While serving as the abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Bec in Normandy he wrote two piece that gained him the reputation of learning and piety. In 1077 Anselm wrote Monologium (Soliloquy) in which he claimed that the god that he believed in was the highest being possible and investigated this god's attributes. In 1078 he wrote Proslogium (Discourse), in which he presented his famous argument for the existence of god which is now known as Anselm's Ontological Argument.

Anselm's Ontological Argument, stated in argument form, reads:

I have heard that this is a strong argument for god. I simply do not see it. Was Anselm sound in his reasoning? If one premise in an argument fails, the conclusion is also likely to fail. Do any of Anselm's premises fail? This argument, unlike the others, does not rely on anything tangible but only that which can be arrived at through the use of reasoning. Is this a sound way to prove the existence of a god? What does greatness have to do with existence? Why is it that nothing greater can be conceived than this god?

Response

Anselm seems to take the a priori (assumed) position that the greatest thing that can be conceived is god. Is this the case? Is it not possible to double this? Can we not conceive of two gods? Can we not understand the nature of god and improve on the features? I believe that I can. Apparently Anselm did not believe that he could.

Further, this argument can be used to prove the existence of anything. A contemporary of Anselm's named Gaunilo brought forth an idea that showed the folly of Anselm's argument. Gaunilo conceived of the greatest island that can possibly be conceived and named it 'Lost Island'. This island had all of the needs that one could possibly conceive and provide everything ever deisred and so on to the point that it was the greatest island that could be conceived. Plugging this 'Lost Island' into Anselm's Ontological Argument, we would have to conclude that this island exists. Does it? No, of course not. This island no more exists than the greatest unicorn, greatest dragon or greatest UFO exists.

Lastly, when looking for evidence of the existence of something that could only exist outside of you, it is probably wise to look beyond you for the evidence.

The argument from life is really a simple one. In it's most basic form it states:

Like the arguments for Design and First Cause, this argument runs into problems immediately.

Like Design specifically, the argument from Life depends on a source that must also be alive. For, isn't it posited that a god would also be alive? If so, then based on the argument, this god must have been created. If the thing that created us was also created, we would be worshipping an inferior being were we to worship our creator.

Response

In actuality, this does not disprove the existence of a god or gods. What this counter-argument does do is show that the being that is worshipped as our creator by millions is indeed dependent on a creator by the same argument used to prove its existence. If it must have a creator than it is definitely not an omnipotent and eternal being.

This argument states that miracles do occur and therefore must have a supernatural cause. This supernatural cause, it is suggested, is a god.

Giving a definition of a miracle on the fly, I would describe it as a violation of the laws of nature. This is a fairly common definition, though some exceptions do exist. A rational approcah to the laws of nature would insist that the laws of nature, by definition, cannot be violated.

Further, this argument presupposes the existence of a god. For a miracle to occur in the first place, a god must exist. Since we are trying to determine whether or not a god exists, this is nothing more than begging the question.

Response

The belief in the existence or the non-existence of miracles falls outside of the goal of this project. Since we are trying to determine whether or not a god exists, presuming the workings of a god would be counter-productive and putting the proverbial cart in front of the horse.

The line of reasoning that is known as the experience of god, or religious experience, is an entirely subjective one. It basically states that since people have claimed to experience a god or divine experience, that is must follow that a god or gods exist.

What is important for the sake of objective proof is not to confuse the feeling or impression of having experienced a god with actually doing so. The difference between the two is known as mysticism.

Is this a rational way to obtain facts about the world or is this a way to determine how specific individuals have perceived it? It is my opinion that this is the latter.

The last thing to consider in the argument from religious experience is the fact that many people from many different religions and faiths have claimed to have had divine experiences and they are as divergent and contradictory as the people reporting them. Muslims almost always experience Allah. Hindus almost always experience Vishnu or Krishna. Christians almost always experience Jesus. It is unlikely that a god that is supposedly perfect would reveal itself differently to different people.

Response

Due to the overwhelming desire of many religious people to experience the object of their worship, a subjective experience should not be relied upon as objective evidence for the existence of a god.

Lastly, the different experiences of people in different faiths would seem to indicate that it is precisely this desire which is producing the experiences.

The argument based on morality is quite a simple one. Expressed in a simple form, it reads:

The largest problem that I see with this argument is that it presupposes only one way for morals to have come about. It ignores sociological evolution and automatically posits that a god must have done all of the work.

Is this a rational thing to conclude? Is it impossible to consider other means for humans having morals? I would answer that it is irrational to discount all other likely explanations in favor of a supernatural one.

If a god instilled morals in humans, wouldn't all morals be the same in all humans? Since they do not, we must conclude that morals have come to us through different means.

Response

This is one of the weakest arguments to the existence of a god or gods. Due to the fact that we have writings from every time period, we can lay out the morals of every generation and examine how they have changed through the ages. We are told that god is supposed to be eternal and unchanging, and should be able to conclude that morality from a god would also be eternal and unchanging. Since we can see that morality isn't eternal and unchanging, the obvious conclusion is that it is not the result of a god and, therefore, cannot be used to determine a god's existence.

The Desire for God Argument, sometimes called the Wish Argument, is not so much of an argument for the existence of a god or gods, but the expression of the want of such.

Briefly stated, it says:

As the desire for a god or the dependence on a god for good behavior does not prove the existence of the god. Like the argument from Miracles, this presumes the existence of a god before the evidence is presented.

Response

Since this is little more than a restating of the Argument from Morality and the presumption of that which we are seeking to prove, there is little reason for us to go back over the response to those arguments here. We can conclude that this is not an argument for the existence of a god, but the grasping at straws.

This is a perfect example of circular reasoning employed by many Christians. This argument goes something along the lines of:

Response

This argument cannot be argued with as there is nothing to it. This is nothing more than circular reasoning with nothing to support it other than itself.