|
The question of God’s existence has been debated through the history
of man, with every philosopher from Socrates to Immanuel Kant weighing
in on the debate. So great has this topic become that numerous proofs
have been invented and utilized to prove or disprove God’s existence.
Yet no answer still has been reached, leaving me to wonder if any
answer at all is possible. So I will try in this paper to see if it is
possible to philosophically prove God’s existence.
Before I start the paper there are a few points that must be
established. First is a clear definition of Philosophy of Religion,
which is the area of philosophy that applies philosophical methods to
study a wide variety of religious issues including the existence of
God. The use of the philosophical method makes Philosophy of Religion
distinct from theology, which is the study of God and any type of
issues that relate to the divine. Now there are two types of theology,
Revealed and Natural Theology. Revealed Theology claims that our
knowledge of God comes through special revelations such as the Bible,
the Holy Spirit, and the Koran. Saint Thomas Aquinas indicates that
Revealed Theology provides what he calls “Saving Knowledge”, which is
knowledge that will result in our salvation. Now Natural Theology is
our knowledge of God that one ascertains through natural reasoning, or
reasoning that is unaided by special revelations. Saint Thomas noted
that this type of reasoning can provide knowledge of God’s nature, or
even prove his existence, but can never result in the person attaining
salvation for as he states, even demons know that God exists. A note
must be made before we press on; as one might notice Natural Theology
is akin to philosophy of religion in the sense that both use human
reasoning in their attempts to explain the divine. The main difference
between them of course is the range of the topics considered.
Ontological Argument
The Ontological Argument, which argues from a definition of God’s
being to his existence, is the first type of argument we are going to
examine. Since this argument was founded by Saint Anslem, we will be
examining his writings. Saint Anslem starts by defining God as an
all-perfect being, or rather as a being containing all conceivable
perfections. Now if in addition of possessing all conceivable
perfections this being did not possess existence, it would then be
considered less perfect from a being that does exist. Since by
definition God is all-perfect, and a being that does not exist is less
perfect than one that did, it must be deemed that God exists. As one
can see, Anslem explains God’s existence just by utilizing our concept
of God as an all-perfect being. Simply put, the definition of God
guarantees his existence just as the definition of a triangle
guarantees that all triangles have three sides. This argument is a hard
one to follow due to the fact that it utilizes Reductio Ad Abusdum
form. This is when you support your conclusion by showing that the
negation of the said conclusion will lead to a logical paradox.
Numerous Philosophers, Immanuel Kant being one, have refuted Saint
Anslems assertion. Kant’s main objection is that the argument rests on
the idea that existence is a quality or property. He asserts that the
word “exist” has a different meaning from property-words such as
“green”, or “pleased”. He then goes on to state that only
characteristics or qualities can clarify or describe a concept, and
since existence is neither it cannot be utilized in the argument. Kant
then points out that the concept of God existing cannot be derived from
the definition of him being all perfect, just as the concept of a
leprechaun or unicorn’s existence cannot be derived from it’s
definition.
Another problem with the Ontological Argument is the belief that
existence is a real predicate. A predicate is something that adds some
type of description to a subject. To say that something exists is to
merely state that there is something in our reality that correlates
with the description we have. It answers the question of “Is there
any”, but not the one “What is it”. It can also be pointed out that if
the Ontological Argument was valid then one could prove the existence
of a perfect singer, perfect scientist, or any other perfect beings.
This alone should make it clear that there is something drastically
wrong with this argument. Lastly this final note must be made, the
Ontological may prove God’s existence but the question of his nature is
never dealt with.
Teleological Argument
The next type of argument is called the Teleological Argument, or
the argument from design. This argument starts by saying that the
universe exhibits some type of purpose or order, and draws the
conclusion that a supreme, intelligent being, must be responsible for
this order. One of the most popular supporters of this argument goes
under the name of William Paley. Paley starts by examining a watch,
marveling on how all it’s pieces from the hand to its sprockets move in
Harmony. Each of these pieces has a specific purpose, the hand tells
the time, the sprockets move the gears, and so on. This watch, or as
Paley calls it “a well adjusted machine”, would not demonstrate it’s
purpose of telling time if one of it’s components were slightly
perturbed. This precision, in Paley’s eyes, show that there must be a
watchmaker who created the watch for the purpose of telling time. He
believes that it is just not possible for the watch to have been
created by chance. It indicates that it is irrelevant whether anyone
knows the maker of the watch, or actually witnessed its creation. He
defends this by pointing out how we know that an eyepiece exists even
though the vast majority of people do not know how, or who created it.
Paley next declares that it would not invalidate his conclusion if
the watch sometimes went astray or was seldom right. The purpose of the
machine would still be evident, and that it is not relevant for the
machine to be perfect to prove that it has a creator. He concludes the
watch analogy with the assumption, that no intelligent person would
assume that the pieces of the watch were just a random combination of
nature. The next concept Paley addresses is the idea of the watch being
able to reproduce itself. Just because it can do this does not
eliminate the fact that there must be a designer to establish the first
in the line. We know that the watch has a designer because it
demonstrates an end, a sort of purpose. Therefore there must be some
artificer who understood its mechanism and designed its use. Paley in
his final analysis compares the complexities of the human body to the
watch to demonstrate that they both have a creator.
The first disagreement against the Teleological Argument comes to us
from David Hume, who actually lived 100 years before William Paley.
Hume looked at the idea that the universe is completely like the human
designed objects being utilized in this type of argument. He concluded
that although they both may share some similar features the two are
ultimately different. Second, Hume indicates that we need to compare
this universe to another to see if it was created. The last argument
denotes that an effect must be proportionate to its cause, and since
the universe is imperfect with evil and suffering, then its creator
also must be imperfect.
We will now examine Clarence Darrow objection to the Teleological
Argument. He starts by claiming that what the hypothetical man would
observe and conclude by finding the watch depends on the man. Men who
would believe that the watch shows a design or purpose would reach this
conclusion because they are familiar with tools and their use to man.
While one must wonder if a bushman or even a wolf happened onto the
watch would they derive the same conclusion? The obvious answer would
be no, because they are not able to draw an interference between the
object and its meaning. This unfamiliarly of the object would lead to
confusion and can cause the bushman or wolf to assume the watch has a
different purpose.
Before I present the rebuttal for the argument, I must first bring
you up to date with the argument. Paley’s interpretation of the
Teleological Argument withstood all criticisms until Charles Darwin
published “The Origin of Species”. Darwin showed that ordered exhibited
in nature is the result of an evolutionary process. This theory now
refuted the claim that only a divine intelligence is a sufficient
explanation for order found in nature. This discovery caused defenders
of the Teleological argument to reform their argument focusing now on
probability. They claim that the evolutionary explanation of man’s
existence rests mainly upon chance. They point to the tremendous odds
against the complexity of life evolving by chance. An example of life
on this planet evolving to its present form by chance is like the
possibility of a tornado picking up all the scattered pieces of a 747
and putting it together. With this in mind they claim that if your
choice was between chance and an intelligent designer, and the odds are
against chance and in favor for a maker, whom would you pick?
Richard Dawkin claims that the critics of evolution have
misunderstood the concept. Life, he states, did not evolve by chance
but rather through a nonrandom process he calls cumulative selection.
The critics of evolution are viewing it as a single step process that
sorts and filters items only once. Cumulative repeatedly does this
sorting, thus passing some of the first results to the second, and so
on. He goes on to explain that an automated process that produces order
can be found. He points to the ocean, were the pebbles on the beach are
ordered, arranged, and sorted. This arrangement has been done by the
blind forces of physics, which, as Dawkin puts it, has no mind of its
own. The waves simply throw the pebbles around, and they become sorted
by there own weight. He goes on to critique the concept of guided
evolution. This is the idea that God had some sort of supervisory role
over the course evolution has taken. While we cannot disprove this
idea, it’s reasoning implies that God must have taken care to
masquerade his interventions so that they would always match we what
would expect from evolution. One must keep this in mind, to assume
guided evolution is to assume the existence of the main thing we want
to explain, namely organized complexity. It simply postulates an
already existing being of prodigious intelligence and complexity.
Cosmological Argument
The next argument is probably the most debated of all the ones we
will be examining. The Cosmological argument reasons from the existence
of the universe to the existence of God as its cause, creator, or
explanation. While there are numerous variations on the argument, Saint
Thomas Aquinas is the most used. While his whole argument consisted of
5 proofs, only two of these are really relevant today.
The first one is the causal or efficient cause. He starts by saying
we find that things around us come into being as the result of activity
of other things. These causes are in fact the result of yet other
activities. Yet this causal series cannot go back to infinity, hence
there must be a first member. This first member is not caused by any
preceding member, and hence labeled God.
What frequently gets pointed out about the causal premise is that
even if it were valid it would not establish the existence of God. It
does not show that the first cause is all-powerful or good. Defenders
of the cosmological point out that the argument is not meant to prove
God’s existence, and that supplementary arguments are needed to
ascertain the first causes qualities. The causal argument is only meant
to be an important step in proving God’s existence.
The main disagreement about the causal argument centers on the
infinite series paradox. Aquinas states that to imply an infinite
series is not only illogical, it also implies that nothing exists. Yet
we know that things do exist, hence the infinite series is wrong. Let
me explain a little better, Aquinas reasoned that whenever we take away
the cause the effect is sequentially removed. By maintaining that the
series is infinite we are denying that the series has a first cause.
Like on the alphabet, if you are denying the existence of the first
cause, which is A, we are also denying the existence of Z. Since
without A, Z cannot exist. Critics respond to Aquinas reasoning by
stating that he did not sufficiently distinguish between
- A does not exist, and
- A is not uncaused
When you are stating that a series is infinite you are implying statement one, not two.
The critics go on to say that they are not at all refuting the
existence of A, but merely stripping it of its privileged status of
first cause. Since they are stripping A of its first causeness, but
allowing it to exist, they are in no way committing themselves to the
absurdity that nothing exists.
John Locke tries to counter this by saying that anyone who denies
the conclusion of an eternal being, is committed to the absurdity that
things came into existence from nothing. Philosophers answer this
question by pointing out that an infinite series of causes always allow
for something to exist. They then indicate that Locke failed to
distinguish between
- There was a time at which nothing existed, and
- There is nothing, which did not have a beginning
The existence of an eternal source is committed to the second cause
not the first. Another way of saying it is that they are committed to
the idea that no matter how far back one goes in a causal series one
will never find a thing without a beginning.
Critics of the causal argument criticize it on other points as well.
The argument does not show that all various causal series in the
universe ultimately merge, thus they never really rule out the notion
of a plurality of first causes. Nor do they establish the present
existence of the first cause. We know that an effect may exist long
after its cause has been destroyed. From here defenders of the argument
insist that some of the criticism rest on a misunderstanding of the
argument itself.
They go on to distinguish between two types of causes “In Fieri” and
“In Esse”. In Fieri is the cause that brought or helped bring an effect
into existence; In Esse is the cause that sustains the effect. Now here
we see some type of consensus, the defenders say that it is logical to
have an infinite series of in fieri causes but not of in esse. This
reorganization of causes eliminates one of the previously mentioned
objections, proving the present and not merely the past experience of a
first cause. For if Y is the in esse of an effect, then it must exist
as long as Z exists. So to maintain that all natural and phenomenal
objects require a cause in fieri is not implausible.
John Stuart Mills and other philosophers state that to claim that
all natural objects require a cause in esse is illogical. Forces such
as gravity, or particles, show no causes in esse. While most will grant
particles did not cause themselves, it is not evident that these
particles cannot be uncaused. Professor Philips admits that there is
nothing self-evident about the proposition that everything must have a
cause in esse. From this comment I am reminded about a snide remark
Schopenhauer made about how the cosmological arguments treats the law
of causation “like a hired cab which we dismiss when we reach our
destination”(1). Back to the subject at hand, opponents of the argument
state that after it’s restructuring, the argument still does not
address the difficulties in which I have already pointed out.
Farther Coplestone goes to defend the argument with the idea that if
there were an infinite series of causes, this would still not do away
with the need for a first cause. “Every object has a phenomenal cause,
if you insist on the infinity of the series. But the series of
phenomenal causes is an insufficient explanation of the series.
Therefore, the series has not a phenomenal cause, but a transcendent
cause….An infinite series of contingent being will be, to my way of
thinking as unable to cause as one contingent being”(2) Bertrand
Russell retorts that the demand to find the first cause of a series
rests on the false assumption that the series is something over and
above the members of which it is composed. This is an easy thing to do,
taken that the word “series” is a noun and can easily be taken as an
individual object. Yet it is absurd to ask for the cause of the series
as a whole, and then proceed to ask the causes of the individual
members. It is here in the causal argument do you see a blurring of the
next type of Cosmological argument.
Defenders insist that when they ask for an explanation of a series,
they are really saying that a series is not explained if it consists of
nothing but contingent members. “What we call the world is in
intrinsically unintelligible apart from the existence of God. The
infinity of the series of events, if such an infinity could be proved,
would not be in the slightest degree relevant to the situation. If you
add up chocolates, you get chocolates after al, and not a sheep. If you
add up chocolates to infinity, you presumably get an infinite number of
chocolates. So, if you add up contingent beings to infinity, you still
get contingent beings, not a necessary being”(3) This last quote by
Father Copleston is nothing more than the summary for the contingent
argument, the other main form of the cosmological proof. It follows
that all around us we perceive contingent beings, by contingent we mean
beings that might not have existed. The universe could be conceived
without these contingent objects. We can properly explain contingent
beings around us only by tracing them back to some necessary being.
Therefore the existence of a contingent being implies the existence of
a necessary cause. To Kant this form of the argument commits the same
error as the Ontological, regarding existence as an attribute or
characteristic. Yet philosophers like Farther Coplesten refute Kantian
criticism and assert that existence is a characteristic.
Yet it is Bertrand Russell’s critique of the argument that does it
the most damage. He believes that the contingency argument rest on a
misconception of what an explanation is and does, and what makes a
phenomenon intelligible. If it is granted that in order to explain a
phenomenon or to make it intelligible we need not bring in a necessary
being, the contingency argument breaks down. Like the series, every
contingent agent can be explained by reference to other contingent
agents. Russell then attacks the premise that states there are
explanations for phenomena. One must question not only can humans
obtain this explanation, but if it even exists? To use the word
“explanation” lends the premise a plausibility that it does not really
possess.
Appeal to Biblical Faith
Emil Fackenheim whose views are dervived from certain ideas of the
Jewish philosopher Martin Buber is the best-known advocate for this
proof. Buber came up with the concept of eclipse of God in response to
the suffering of the Jewish people during the Nazi regime. The concern
of the time was that if there was an all-powerful God then he could of
surely stopped the extermination at Auschwitz. The fact that these
camps did exist, and six million Jews mostly women and children were
murdered, causes one to question his existence. Buber goes on to say
that the phenomena like Auschwitz do not show that God does not exist,
but rather there are periods when God is in eclipse. Buber is convinced
the eclipse of God will not last forever, and if we endure the silence
he will return to us shortly. Fackenheim first contention is that
biblical faith differs from the attitude of science. The believer’s
position is impregnable while the scientist is forever hypothetical. If
a scientist’s hypothesis is disconfirmed then he will either modify it
or abandon it. The biblical believer will do nothing of that sort, for
once the nature of biblical faith is understood than it is easy to see
why the evil that unquestionably exist in the world does not disprove
it. Tragedy does not destroy Biblical faith but merely tests it. In his
mind biblical faith is irrefutable and scientific evidence cannot
affect it. If the bible contains a statement that is proven false, well
one must keep in mind that God can both reveal and conceal himself.
Fackenheims second contention concerns the place assigned to religious
experiences by the biblical believer. Basically human beings have
meetings with God, and these meetings are what all religions are based
upon.
The problem with first contention, biblical faith is empirically
verifiable and nothing can refute it, involves confusion between
psychological considerations and the real logical issues at stake. The
question at stake is whether, in light of the evil in the world, the
claims of the believer can be shown as false, or highly improbable.
Fackenheim is mislead by the ambiguity of certain statements that he
uses, such as “destroy” and “test”. The horrors of the world may not in
fact destroy a given person religious faith in the sense it causes him
to abandon it, but this in no way shows that they do not destroy it in
the sense of disproving his faith. We know bigots are so attached to
beliefs that they will not give them up regardless of the facts in
front of them. What is remarkable is the fact that a philosopher
advocates this type of reasoning as an intellectual policy of great
virtue.
On Bubars doctrine of the eclipse of God, one retorts that God’s
self-concealing is inconsistent with his perfect goodness or indeed any
kind of goodness. Imagine a child in trouble who calls out for his dad,
this dad does not only know about it but can come to his aid. Instead
he decides to conceal himself, would we not consider this person a
monster? It is difficult to see what other responses could be justified
toward a deity behaving in this concealing fashion. This deity is not
one who falls short of complete goodness but rather a monster, which as
Russell puts it, makes Nero look like an angel.
Both Bubar and Fackenheim claim that there argument is not one that
argues from a religious experience; hence they are immune to the
fallacies of that argument. Yet critics counter that they are
presenting an argument from a religious experience, one that is
incompletely stated. One might remark that many people, who claim to
have had glimpses of God, as Fackenheim puts it, are in both of these
philosophers mind delusional. Charles Guiteau who assassinated
President Garfield acted upon what he thought was instructions from
God. As John Baillie puts it, there must be some criteria to
distinguish fake encounters from real. We simply cannot take Bubar’s
word that certain glances are illusionary while others are not.
In conclusion I am left pretty much in the same place as I have
started. It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God
philosophically. For every philosopher who publishes his or her
opinions on the subject, three more are there to tear it down. In the
end I think it is best that man does not figure out the answer to this
lifelong question. Some things are better left unanswered.
|
|
|
(0 vote)