T H E C A S E F O R G O DThis message originated in a discussion about how atheists do not have to prove that God doesn’t exist. Atheists have nothing to do but say, there is no evidence, thus there is no God. I see now that I might have been wrong since they can not know for sure there is absolutely no evidence unless they search the entire universe. Floyd has asked me to make good on my promise to be able prove the existence of God through theories and arguments and applying these theories to explain historical events as well as current day occurrences and miracles.
The most known arguments for the existence of God have come from St. Thomas Aquinas. He formulated five ways by which God's existence can be demonstrated through reason and logic.
THE UNMOVED MOVER
The first is called the Unmoved Mover Argument. All motion is the result of a body being acted upon by an external force. This force must have come from another body in motion. The cyclical nature of this model is evident. To avoid an infinite regression, we must introduce a “first mover,” which is God.
THE FIRST CAUSE
The second argument is the First Cause Argument. For example, a building is brought into being by a carpenter and architects, who are both caused by their parents. Again, this cycle can not go on infinitely, so there must be a first cause, which is God. Another way to say it is that every action has a reaction and every action was at once a reaction from a previous action. The first action or the first cause is what we call God.
In opposition to St. Aquinas, Hume provides us with arguments against God's existence. He argued that the idea of a Necessarily Existing Being is absurd. Hume stated, “Whatever we can conceive as existent, we can also conceive as nonexistent.” He also asked why the ultimate source of the universe could not be the entire universe itself, eternal and uncaused, without a God? Hume questioned how we could be sure that a team did not create the world; or that this is not one of many attempts at creations, the first few having been botched. He also said that our world might be a poor first attempt “of an infant deity who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance.”
THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
St. Aquinas third argument is called the Cosmological Argument. The universe is filled with material things which due to their being material are not existent all the time. Galaxies are born, burn hot, and then die out. Therefore, there must have been a time when nothing existed. If there was nothing at that point in time, how could there be anything at all now. After all, things are just not created out of a vacuum. Thus, there must be an eternal element which existed before the material universe; this we identify as God.
The Big Bang theory has added validity to the idea that there was a time when nothing existed. The idea of all these arguments is that if at one point in time nothing existed, what caused the universe to begin when it did. Why not earlier? Why not later? One problem now exists, the existence of twin particles of matter and anti-matter that are formed in a VACUME! As soon as they are formed they annihilate each other so as not to violate the Law of Conservation of Matter. So it does seem that a creator God is not necessary for a first cause.
But let us use a bit of logic. “According to a rule in science and philosophy called “Occam's Razor,” the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable, and an explanation for unknown phenomena should first be attempted in terms of what is already known (dieoff.org).” We now know that matter is created at random in a vacuum so that if in fact there has been a point in the past when nothing existed, an all-powerful pre-existent being is not necessary. But which is the simplest theory. That a quantum pair of matter and anti-matter were created out of a vacuum and for some unknown reason did not annihilate them selves, thus creating the universe or that it was God who acted as the first cause in setting the universe in to motion. In fact why couldn’t it be God who miraculously prevented the particle of matter and the particle of anti-matter form being destroyed? In this instance the simplest answer is God.
THE OBJECTIVITY OF VALUE
Objects in the universe have differing degrees of value in perfectness. These values mean nothing without an absolute perfect value to compare them with. For instance since there is such a thing as right and wrong there must be an absolute right. This is called a Tao; a universal cannon of right and wrong based on the ideal of universal truth. “It is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are (Lewis, The Abolition of Man).”
“The Chinese speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is reality beyond all predicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time. It is also the Way which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic and supercosmic progression, conforming all activities to the great exemplar (Ibid.).”
Many people do not believe that there is such a thing as a Tao. The implications of this are staggering. If there are not any definite values then I can make up my own based on how I feel. This is Hobbiesian, the belief that we as humans are incapable of rational thought and therefore go about doing whatever we want whenever we want. This type of world would be very chaotic; Hobbies describes it as a “war of all against all.” In order for order to be established, a leader would need to take charge and through power command his will on his subjects. On the other hand if a Tao is valid, then as humans, we should be able to decide what is right and wrong and then through reason decide to do right when we feel like doing wrong. If this is true then we have the capacity to rule our selves. Remember the Tao because it will be important latter on.
To sum up this argument, if there are differing values of perfectness then there must be an absolute perfect cannon which we are using to compare. This we call the Tao or God.
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN
The Argument from Design says that things in the world move toward goals.
For instance, the collision of particles at the moment of the Big Bang has determined the way the entire universe has turned out. If even one particle collision had happened differently, the universe would have turned out very different. And furthermore, the results of these primal collisions should be calculable given we use Newtonian Physics and a really big calculator. At the moment of the Big Bang there were nearly an infinite number of possible futures that could have taken place depending on which particle collisions took place. So we can see that one event can have many repercussions. The probability that we live in the particular future that happens to contain life is stylistically staggering. First quantum had to form and then atoms and then more and more complex forms of matter. Then through the process of star formation and death heavier elements were formed allowing life to exist.
The life scenario should be impossible considering the infinite number of possible futures that could have taken place at the moment of the Big Bang.
Thus there are only two conclusions we can make. The first is that the universe tends toward the goal of creating life. This implies a plan or design. A design obviously implies a designer and possibly a mind. Thus, there might be an intelligent designer who directs all things to their goals, and this we call God.
LEWIS’ THEORY OF THE LOADED COIN
The second possibility is that the coin is loaded. This solution will solve both impossible problems of the creation out of nothingness and the impossibility of life being derived from particle collisions 15 billion years ago.
If you believe that the natural outcome of events is due to the application of the law of averages then “the foundations of Nature are in the random and lawless. But the numbers of units we are dealing with are so enormous that the behavior of these crowds can be calculated with practical accuracy. What we call ‘impossible events’ are events so overwhelmingly improbable that we do not need to take them into account (Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study).”
“The assurance it gives us is of the same general kind as our assurance that a coin tossed a thousand times will not give the same result, say nine hundred times: and that the longer you toss it, the more nearly the number of Heads and Tails will come to being equal. But this is so only provided the coin is an honest coin. But if it is a loaded coin, our expectation may be disappointed. But the people who believe in miracles are maintaining precisely that the coin is loaded (Ibid.).” The impossibility of the matter and anti-matter particles not annihilating each other in order to create the universe is solved if we believe that someone has changed the law of averages. And if someone could change the law of averages he could direct the apparently random particle collisions toward the goal of creating life. Lewis goes on to say, “And the question whether miracles occur is just the question whether Nature is ever doctored.” That person who is able to doctor the universe is what we call God.
RIGHT AND WRONG AS A CLUE TO THE MEANING OF THE UNIVERSE
Every one has heard two people argue. They say things like, “How’d you like it if anyone did the same to you?” and “That’s my seat, I was there first,” or “Come on you promised.” The remarks the man makes are not really saying that the other man’s behavior does not seem please him. The man is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior, which he believes the other man to know about. The other man never tries to disregard the first man’s standard, he tries to come up with a reason why his behavior did not actually violate the standard or why at the moment he was exempt from the standard. It looks in fact that both parties have in mind a standard or Law. Many people call these morals, but the word moral is used today to describe a particular person’s views on what is right and wrong. But using the example of two people quarreling we can see that this standard, Law, morals, or whatever you want to call it is not objective. It is something that every human is aware of. Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is wrong, and if there was no absolute agreement about what is right and wrong, then there would be no reason for quarrelling.
This absolute is what I have discussed earlier as the Tao.
Furthermore, for reasons we do not understand, even though we are aware of the Tao we disobey it daily. Chances are that this year, this week, this very day you have done something that is wrong. You will even admit to it, but as soon as you do you will come up with a string of excuses of your own about why you did it. The fact that we instinctually come up with excuses at the very mention of one of our shortcomings proves all the more that every man is fundamentally aware of an absolute right and wrong.
“These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature [the Tao]; they break it (Lewis, Mere Christianity).”
Now what is right and wrong? No one human impulse or desire is wrong in and of its self, just as no note on a piano can be wrong. But like notes on a piano, human impulses can be played in the wrong way or at the wrong time. When our own impulses violate someone else’s right to carry out their impulses then we have wronged them. That is why in Law we see that every man’s rights must be limited so much so that no one else’s rights are limited any more.
It is sheet music that tells a musician which notes to play and when, and in the same way it is the Tao that tells us what impulses to allow and which to deny. The sheet music is not a note, and in the same way the Tao in definitely not an emotion or an impulse. So now the question is what is the Tao, where do morals come from. The Tao or the Law of Right and Wrong must be above and beyond the mere facts of human behavior.
“We want to know whether the universe simply happens to be what it is for no reason or whether there is a power behind it that makes it what it is… … If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe—no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. 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… …In the only case where you can expect to get an answer, the answer turns out to be Yes; and in the other cases, where you do not get an answer, you see why you do not. (Ibid.).”
So in the end of this lengthy argument we find that there is something akin to a Mind that has apparently created us and wants us to get along together. We know this only because we find within our selves something completely different from everything else we find with in our self. Something like sheet music is to notes. This Tao is like a letter addressed to each of us, but who is the writer? It would appear to be the designer, the architect revealing himself within us. And this is what we call God.
-Ryan-
