I am an atheist, but I have recently been delving into theistic arguments of all kinds. In this article, I will attempt to present the three arguments for the existence of a God that I found most compelling, in the most charitable manner that I can. Although these arguments might not have changed the fact that I am an atheist, they have certainly made me more open to the possibility of a God.
1. The Kalam Cosmological Argument
The Kalam Cosmological argument makes the case that because all things that begin to exist have a cause, the universe therefore has a cause. Pretty uncontroversial, right? But wait, here’s where God comes in.
Because the universe has a cause, any natural “causer” for the universe must also have a cause. So even if an atheist believed that something natural caused the universe to exist, he would still be burdened with the task of explanation how that thing came to existence. Following this line of logic, this leaves you with two options. The first option is that our universe was caused by something natural, which was caused by something natural, which was caused by something natural, and so on, for infinity. The second option is that somewhere along this chain of causation, a supernatural, uncaused creator started the process of causation.
As the famous Christian apologist William Lane Craig says, “Transcending the entire universe there exists a cause which brought the universe into being ex nihilo (out of nothing) ... our whole universe was caused to exist by something beyond it and greater than it. For it is no secret that one of the most important conceptions of what theists mean by 'God' is Creator of heaven and earth.”
2. The Moral Argument
The moral argument is basically an appeal to one’s intuitive morality. You and I both “know” that, for example, the murder of children is deeply wrong. Theist that put forward the moral argument assert that without a God, there is no way of establishing an objective morality in a philosophically sound manner. I tend to agree with theists here in that the logical conclusion of an atheistic worldview does seem to be moral subjectivism.
I watched Sam Harris (an atheist) and William Lane Craig (a Christian) debate this topic on YouTube, and I have to say that I agree with Craig on this point. Harris, and many other atheists, have attempted to establish an objective morality by grounding their ethical theories on certain assumptions such as “if we assume extreme suffering is bad.” But as Craig points out, such assumptions are circular as they assume “badness” without objectively establishing it.
The atheist who wishes to contend that their sense of morality is based on objective truths, rather than subjective feelings programmed into them by evolution and their environment, must either accept the existence of an all-powerful god or justify the objectivity of their morality in a philosophically-sound manner. I am a moral subjectivist, and believe our intuitive feelings about morality is the result of evolution and environment, so I do not carry such a burden.
3. The Fine-Tuning argument.
The Fine-Tuning argument points out the fact that the scientific consensus is that a universe being life-permitting is highly, highly improbable.
To explain, one must first understand what physical constants are. Physical constants are physical measures that are considered fixed in a given universe, but not necessarily the same in all universes. For example, one physical constant in our universe is the speed of light in a vacuum. In our universe, the speed of light is approximately 3.00×10^8 meters per second.
Which physical constants are life-permitting, you ask? Martin Rees formulates the fine tuning of our universe using the following six dimensionless physical constants (from Wikipedia):
- N, the ratio of the strength of electromagnetism to the strength of gravity for a pair of protons, is approximately 1036. According to Rees, if it were significantly smaller, only a small and short-lived universe could exist.
- Epsilon (ε), a measure of the nuclear efficiency of fusion from hydrogen to helium, is 0.007: when four nucleons fuse into helium, 0.007 (0.7%) of their mass is converted to energy. The value of ε is in part determined by the strength of the strong nuclear force.[13] If ε were 0.006, only hydrogen could exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. According to Rees, if it were above 0.008, no hydrogen would exist, as all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the big bang. Other physicists disagree, calculating that substantial hydrogen remains as long as the strong force coupling constant increases by less than about 50%
- Omega (Ω), commonly known as the density parameter, is the relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the Universe. It is the ratio of the mass density of the Universe to the "critical density" and is approximately 1. If gravity were too strong compared with dark energy and the initial metric expansion, the universe would have collapsed before life could have evolved. On the other side, if gravity were too weak, no stars would have formed.
- Lambda (λ), commonly known as the cosmological constant, describes the ratio of the density of dark energy to the critical energy density of the universe, given certain reasonable assumptions such as positing that dark energy density is a constant. In terms of Planck units, and as a natural dimensionless value, the cosmological constant, λ, is on the order of 10−122. This is so small that it has no significant effect on cosmic structures that are smaller than a billion light-years across. If the cosmological constant were not extremely small, stars and other astronomical structures would not be able to form.
- Q, the ratio of the gravitational energy required to pull a large galaxy apart to the energy equivalent of its mass, is around 10−5. If it is too small, no stars can form. If it is too large, no stars can survive because the universe is too violent, according to Rees.
- D, the number of spatial dimensions in spacetime, is 3. Rees claims that life could not exist if there were 2 or 4 dimensions of spacetime nor if any other than 1 time dimension existed in spacetime.
The co-existence of all of these precise constants allow life to exist. Some will quickly retort that life might be able to exist in all kinds of universes, but I don’t think it’s intellectually honest to actually say that life, particularly complex life, could exist without matter, suns, and a decently-old universe. Such constants are what allow these things to exist.
The only satisfactory reply to the fine-tuning argument that I’ve heard from atheists and cosmologists is the idea of an infinite multiverse. The infinite multiverse theory basically says that although a life-permitting universe is improbable, it is inevitable due to the existence of an infinite, or sufficiently large, number of universes.
Those are the three arguments for god that I found most compelling. Perhaps some of you find other arguments more compelling, in which case I would love to hear them in the comment section!
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Thank you for a very interesting and well written philosophy article. I took notice that you are an atheist. I too am an atheist at heart, and an agnostic at mind. Although I won't be able to contribute with different theistic arguments, I'd like to make a general statement about the discussions surrounding the existence of God and also to comment on each of the three arguments you have presented.
God is an ill-defined concept, and the vast majority of the discussions surrounding the existence of God are either plagued by semantic inconsistencies between the two sides or just plain meaningless. In the first case, people which engage in the debate start from different definitions of god and either keep comparing apples to oranges or end up discussing the definition itself. In the latter case, people assume god to be ineffable or transcendental in nature, in which case the discussion is meaningless because the existence of something which is totally untenable and disconnected from the physical world is not only untestable, but also effectively equivalent to it not existing at all for all practical purposes.
Regarding the cosmological argument, it is undoubtedly one of the strongest arguments in favor of some ultimate first cause for everything, which could be called "god", in order to solve a problem of infinite regression. I, however, like to follow a little epistemic principle called Ockham's razor (or the law of parsimony), which essentially tells us that the best explanation is the one which, with the fewest and simplest assumptions, can explain the widest range of phenomena. In this particular case, it appears to me that the simplest assumption is that there is no first cause, but simply that existence is equally and infinitely extended into the past and into the future. Causality drives change within existence, but not the origin of existence itself.
Regarding the moral argument, I don't consider it to be a strong argument for the simple fact that I don't believe in moral objectivism. From everything that we know about the universe, the only parts of it which have any sense of morality are conscious (within a varying degree) living beings. The universe is fundamentally amoral, with the morality that we are used to being a convenient social construct for the successful organization of growing groups of people. There is no need for god as the source of morality because there is no objective morality in the universe.
Finally, my views on the fine-tuning argument are related with my views on the cosmological one. Within an everlasting existence, multiple iterations of universes are perfectly feasible. Of course, only those whose parameters are "finely-tuned" will have an appreciable duration and will give rise to the conditions for life and consciousness to evolve. It is perfectly possible that other iterations have completely different values for those natural constants; it's that most of them give rise to universes within which no form of life is able to evolve in order to analyze those universes from the inside like we do with ours.
I'd like to end my comment by noting that my cosmological view is neither original nor scientifically proved. But it offers a much simpler frame to interpret both the infinite causal regression and the apparent fine-tuning of our universe's natural constants than to assume any ill-defined deity concept which is either incomprehensible or irrelevant from our standing.
Sorry I'm coming to this post so late after it was published...
Concerning your thoughts about the moral argument: This means that there is no inherent transcending "value" in anything? The life of a 3 year old child is ultimately no more valuable than fecal matter. If my daughter is raped and killed, I can find solace and comfort in knowing that my feelings are social constructs. I should just fuhgedaboudit.
I admit, I am referring to emotionally charged situations because I am programmed to. It just seems to me that if I believed this way that you describe, no objective morality, that since there is no value in anything, I would live for my own personal gratification only. Squeeze all the pleasure I can out of life and go out with a bang. Nothing we do matters except for a short period of insignificant time on this planet. That means rape, steal, kill, lie, cheat, if it makes me happy in any given moment. Nike: Just do it. Know the consequences and risks to future pleasure potential, but just do whatever you want. Sure, people will be hurt in the process, but none of that matters in time. All that matters is me and my pleasure.
Is this consistent with your position?
I have a problem with the fune-tuning argument, we can only discuss this as an observer after the fact, so we argue how it happened it could be pure chance, most likely it happened by pure chance.
Sorry I'm reading this so late after it was posted. You said "...most likely it happened by pure chance". What are you saying "it" was that happened? If you are referring to the big bang or anything like that, even if it happened by pure chance, what caused it to happen by pure chance? How did "it" happen by pure chance? What elements contributed to "it"? where did those elements come from? etc...
Curious.
I love this post. I felt like it was very well written, accurate, fair, and unsensational. There are several things that it caused me to think about.
You said-
Have you seen an example where an atheist has been able to "justify the objectivity of their morality in a philosophically-sound manner"? I would love to read or hear an example that you have come across.
Also, I wonder if subjective-moralists are able to separate their emotions from suffering better than other people in existence. They can rationalize that all suffering is only based on false assumptions of intrinsic value, ownership, rights, expectations, etc... If we were all subjective-moralists, we could cause and receive pain without emotional baggage knowing that all of the feelings we are being affected by are based on unimportant social, environmental, and evolutionary constructs(the use of the word "unimportant" is used in an objective way).
I like to restrain this.
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