Achwienichtig

Guidelines:

The topic of the debate: Does God exist?

The opponents of the debate, and what positions they will argue: punkforchrist (affirmative) and Deschain (negative).

The scope of the debate: Various arguments for and against God's existence; philosophy, science, etc.

The length of the debate, in number of rounds: Four.

Whether statements will be made concurrently or in turns, and if the latter, who goes first: First round is concurrent, with the remaining three in turns. Punkforchrist goes first.

The maximum length of each statement: 2,000-word opening statements; two rounds of 1,000-word rebuttals; and 500-word closing statements.

The time limit between statements: 7 days.

The extent to which quotes and references from outside sources will be allowed: Within reason.

The starting date of the debate: Feb. 17th.

Any additional rules or a debate format that debate participants must observe: "Be excellent to each other" (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure)

[HR][/HR]

I have opened a peanut gallery for this debate. Come join in.

punkforchrist

Does God exist? Perhaps there is no question more important to answer, whether you are a believer or a non-believer. I have taken the affirmative position in this exchange, and I'd like to begin by thanking the forum, our moderator, as well as my counterpart, Deschain, for graciously engaging in this debate with me.

I will be defending two major contentions: a) that there are good reasons to believe that God exists; and b) that there are no good reasons to believe that God does not exist. Since it would be inappropriate of me to address the second contention before Deschain has an opportunity to put forward his case, I'll begin my opening statement with several arguments that I believe constitute sound reasons to believe in God.

These arguments include the argument from motion, a contingency argument, the argument from order, the conceptualist argument and, finally, the argument from desire. These five arguments, when taken together, I maintain provide the theist with a powerful cumulative case for God's existence. Let's take a look at each argument one by one.

I. The Argument from Motion

The argument from motion is one of the most commonly misunderstood arguments for God's existence, but I maintain that objections to the argument are invariably based on a misunderstanding of both Newtonian physics and Aristotelian metaphysics.

1. Evident to the senses is motion. (Premise)

2. Everything in motion has its motion sustained by another. (Premise)

3. Either an Unmoved Mover exists, or else there is an infinite regress of sustaining movers. (Implied by 1 and 2)

4. There cannot be an infinite regress of sustaining movers. (Premise)

5. Therefore, an Unmoved Mover exists. (From 3 and 4)

What's advantageous about this argument is that it allows the universe's past to be either finite or infinite. After all, even an infinite past is composed of finite periods of time.

Premise (1) is obviously true. Things are in motion, e.g. they change. This leads us to premise (2). Imagine an acorn, which in actuality is merely an acorn, but is an oak tree in potentiality. Now, in order for the acorn to change into an oak tree, it must have sustaining causes of its motion, e.g. soil, water and sunlight. If at any point these sustaining movers are removed, then the acorn will cease to change into an oak tree.

Premise (3) is implied by premises (1) and (2), so the key premise is (4). Why can there not be an infinite regress of sustaining movers? The reason is simple. Even if the past were infinite, it is still composed of finite periods of time. At each finite period of time, the regress of sustaining movers begins anew. This means that from t1 to t2, the regress of sustaining movers starts from 0, 1, 2, 3, . . . and so on. It is impossible to form an actual infinite by successive addition whenever one begins counting. After all, it is always and indefinitely possible to count another number before arriving at infinity. Hence, the regress of sustaining causes of motion must be finite.

Given the truth of (3) and (4), it necessarily follows that an Unmoved Mover exists. Sometimes skeptics pose a rhetorical question: “what moved the Unmoved Mover?” This objection misconstrues the causal principle of premise (2). The premise does not state that everything is moved by another, but that everything in motion has its motion sustained by another. The Unmoved Mover is not in motion, and is therefore immutable. If it were moved by another, then it would not be first in the order of sustaining movers, which is contradictory. There are some other objections to the argument, but for the sake space, I will allow my opponent to raise them.

Now, what are some of the qualities of the Unmoved Mover? First of all, besides being immutable, it must also be indestructible and eternal, for there is no time at which something immutable can cease existing, which would constitute a change. Further, the Unmoved Mover must be one. Since the Unmoved Mover does not exemplify any potentiality to change, it follows that it is pure actuality. If there were more than one pure actuality, then there would be distinctions between them. Yet, to be distinct from actuality is to be non-actuality, which is the same as saying the latter does not exist. Other things exist by participating in the actuality of the Unmoved Mover, but are distinct insofar as they exhibit potentiality. Next, the Unmoved Mover must be very powerful in order to be the source of motion of all other things. Finally, the Unmoved Mover must be immaterial. This is because physical bodies are susceptible to change, which is impossible for the Unmoved Mover.

In sum, we have an argument for an immutable, indestructible, eternal, unique, purely actual, very powerful and immaterial Unmoved Mover. This, as the Angelic Doctor states, “everyone understands to be God.”

II. The Modal Third Way

1. Something cannot come from nothing. (Premise)

2. Something presently exists. (Premise)

3. Hence, there was never a past time at which nothing existed. (From 1 and 2)

4. Either everything that exists is contingent, or else there exists at least one necessary
entity N. (Premise)

5. Possibly, there was a past time at which nothing contingent existed. (Premise)

6. Therefore, at least one N exists. (Implied by 3, 4 and 5)

Reductio ad absurdum:

7. No N exists. (Assumption)

8. If no N exists, then there was possibly a past time at which nothing existed. (From 5 and 7)

9. (8) contradicts (3).

10. Therefore, (7) is false and at least one N exists. (Implied by 9)

This modal version of the Third Way uses some rather benign modal logic, and does not even appeal to the relatively uncontroversial S5 axiom. The key premise is (1). That something cannot come from nothing should be fairly obvious, but here's just one argument. If literally nothing existed, then not even the potentiality would exist for anything to come into being. Hence, it would be impossible for anything to exist. Given that something exists, along with the remaining premises of the MTW, it follows that a necessary entity exists.

III. The Argument from Order

This is actually an argument that theists and atheists alike can agree on. It's largely an attempt to find some common ground. The argument is quite simple:

1. Whatever exhibits regularity is not the result of chance alone. (Premise)

2. The laws of nature exhibit regularity. (Premise)

3. Therefore, the laws of nature are not the result of chance alone. (From 1 and 2)

In support of premise (1), imagine winning the lottery once. You would probably think this was a matter of chance. Now suppose you win the lottery a thousand times in a row. At some point you would surely come to the conclusion that the lottery had been rigged so that the same person would win each time. In other words, whenever something happens over and over again, it is not the result of chance alone.

Premise (2) requires that there are laws of nature. This is hardly a controversial claim for any scientific realist. The laws of gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak atomic forces are repeatedly verified and can be expressed through the use of mathematical equations. Notice that even chaos is intelligible, and since intelligibility presupposes order, it follows that order is more fundamental to reality than chaos. For example, it's not as if allegedly chaotic events violate the laws of logic. Moreover, the reality of chaos would not at all undermine the reality of order, which is all the argument requires.

This is really an argument my counterpart and I should agree on. I would only add that if he chooses to say that the laws of nature are due to necessity, and not design, then he would be better served by adopting pantheism. Surely, the order exhibited throughout the universe is awe-inspiring, and medical studies have shown there are many benefits of engaging in prayer and meditation. [1] On an autobiographical note, even if I were to hypothetically abandon classical theism (highly unlikely), I would adopt pantheism instead of atheism. I just see pantheism as offering a much richer worldview than any atheistic alternative.

IV. The Conceptualist Argument

Most of us already grant that concrete objects exist, such as chairs, animals, mountains, and so forth. But, what about abstract objects: numbers, sets, propositions, laws of logic and mathematics? I want to argue two things about abstract objects: a) that they have necessary existence; and b) that they exist as mental concepts.

Why think abstract objects, such as the laws of logic exist, and are not merely useful fictions? Here is just one reason: they are indispensable for reason. It is impossible to reason apart from the laws of logic, and a denial of the law of non-contradiction, for instance, actually presupposes the law of non-contradiction. One might as well say that there are absolutely no absolutes, a demonstrably self-defeating proposition. Yet, something non-existent cannot possess the attribute of indispensability, or any attribute for that matter. Only existing things can possess instantiated attributes. Given that “X cannot be ~X at the same time and in the same sense” is a necessary proposition, it follows that it has necessary existence.

Now, why think abstract objects are mental concepts, as opposed to mind-independent realities. Well, in order to have knowledge of a mind-independent reality, there must be a causal relationship between the subject who knows and the mind-independent object known. For example, your eyes act as a causal bridge in the knowledge of your mind and the computer screen in front of you. The problem is that abstract objects do not stand in causal relations. The laws of logic cannot mow my lawn or do my taxes; they are causally effete. What this means is that if abstract objects are mind-independent realities, then it would be impossible for us to have knowledge of them. Since we do have knowledge of them, it follows that they must exist as mental concepts.

Here is where it gets really interesting. Abstract objects cannot be the concepts of just any mind. For, there are possible worlds in which contingent minds, such as you and I, do not exist. However, these abstract objects still exist in these possible worlds as mental concepts. This means that abstract objects are the mental concepts of a necessary mind, e.g. God.

V. The Argument from Desire

The argument from desire is actually an argument for heaven. It may be summarized as follows:

1. Every innate desire corresponds to something that can satisfy it. (Premise)

2. Perfect happiness is an innate desire. (Premise)

3. Therefore, something can satisfy the innate desire of perfect happiness. (From 1 and 2)

Notice that (1) is not talking about just any desire whatsoever. Children may want to fly like Superman, but there is no Superman. This, however, is an example of a socially conditioned desire. What makes a desire innate is that we as humans have it simply by virtue of being human. It is found universally among cultures. If there is hunger, there is food. If there is curiosity, there is knowledge. If there is sexual desire, there is sex. These are innate desires and we know they can be satisfied.

Premise (2) only states what all of us already know. All of us want to be perfectly happy. We don't want to endure sadness and pain. The problem is that nothing in this world is capable of satisfying our innate desire for perfect happiness. What this suggests, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, is that we must have been made for another world. It is only in heaven that our innate desire for perfect happiness can be satisfied, and that means eternal life with God, who is the Supreme Good.

[1] http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Benefi...ife&id=2278910

Deschain

The Divine Personality: God: “The [Random House] dictionary definition does not ascribe to God either the property of loving people or the property of wanting something back from them (and thus caring about their beliefs). […] I would assess the strength of [my arguments] as applied to God in general (with no further qualification) to be zero.” (Drange 1998: 256) In the above quote, Ted Drange concludes that atheistic arguments, such as those from evil and nonbelief, have no force against general conceptions of God, such as Deism, which posit no particular personality, dispositions, attitudes, or general morality to the notion of the divine. Drange may suppose there to be other cogent arguments against the existence of God so conceived, though he says elsewhere that he suspects the concept is meaningless. It seems, however, that since the story of our cosmological history remains incomplete, we are left in a state of agnosticism with respect to God so understood. To give due credit to the full case for atheism in philosophy, there do in fact exist some arguments that may be used toward the non-existence of the general Creator notion of God, such as arguments concerning an apparent incoherency between divine creation and time, and the famous argument from the philosophy of mind regarding the apparent problem of non-physical entities being capable of interacting with the physical. It seems safe to say, however, that these arguments do not enjoy a decisive status, as so as far as the general conception of God goes, there seems to be no reason to be making any existential claims in one direction or another. At least, at this time. Is this the end of our search? There are other gods widely believed in throughout the world population. Toward these gods we ought to adopt a stance of atheism, as the many arguments for atheism certainly apply to them, and give us good reasons to suppose that these gods do not exist. The Argument Form: “If someone hypothesizes that there is an agent with a certain nature and a certain set of intentions, then we can form some idea of what the agent is likely to do – in what respect things will be different just in virtue of the hypothesized agent’s having that nature, those beliefs, and that intention.” (Everitt 2004: 213) Thus Everitt gives us the argument form: (1) If there is an agent with nature N, beliefs B, and intention I, then she will produce change C in the world. (2) The world does not display C. Therefore, (3) There is evidence against the hypothesis that there is an agent with N and I and B. The Historical Success of the Natural Sciences: Prior to the initial development of the natural sciences in Ancient Greece, a proliferation of religious and particularly divine explanations were used to account for a great diversity of natural phenomena. Since the establishment and institution of the scientific method, however, we have observed an interesting trend over the course of the last three thousand years,. The trend is straightforwardly the success of natural or physicalistic explanations to account for the great diversity of phenomena in the natural world, and the increasing absence or overall decreasing need for theistic explanations to account for the said phenomena. This is true in areas of physics, biology, history, as well as in psychology and cultural anthropology where religious experiences and modes of thought once lacked natural explanations. Special creation gave way to evolution. God speaking light particles into existence, diversifying human language, changing the seasons, responding to prayers, has steadily given way to modern scientific perspective that has no need of the divine in all of these areas where the divine had previously been thought vital to our explanatory endeavours. This is not just to say that this trend will continue, but that the trend has already sufficiently established that there is no God who is specially and locally concerned with us, as there simply was no special divine creation, there has been no divine interference recorded in the history of the world so far as the evidence lends, and the emergence of natural law has taken the place of direct, divine action or control by the divine. Notice the change in apologetic emphasis over the past two millennia. Where once William Paley could argue that the eye must have been specially created, now the believer is forced to retreat to higher order levels of explanation. Now, it is not particulars instantiated in the world but the general laws that give rise to them that need explaining. And now the laws themselves have been increasingly understood, derived from yet more fundamental laws, traceable back to Planck time when the laws of physics as we know them break down. Our understanding of the logistics of the universe, at this point, has progressed this far, and as such we are left with notions of God that cannot be directly involved in local affairs, showing both no sign of involvement and having no need of that hypothesis to fully understand our situation. The Argument from Scale: the general disappearance of theistic hypothesizes from scientific pursuits has consequences in another sense. We must wonder, going back to Everitt’s general argument form, what a God with a special vested interest in human relationships would do. What kind of a world is this God most likely to create? Recently, scientists discovered a quasar cluster that is 400 billion light years across in size measurement. From a cosmic perspective the world in which humans inhabit must appear trivial and insubstantial indeed! How can this be if God-human relationships are the fundamental point to the universe’s existence? Humans have existed for less than 1% of the universe’s total time since the initial Big Bang, inhabit only one solar system of one galaxy of many countless others. Human beings appear to be an incidental byproduct of a fundamentally blind process of mutation and evolutionary adaptation. None of these facts make sense in a world where there exists a God who is supremely loving of human beings particularly, and wishes, fundamentally, to establish a relationship with us. More likely we would expect the world as it was envisioned in the eras where religious explanations were more proliferate: geocentric universe models, human beings with res cogitans and animals as mere automata (a distinction no longer tenably made), and so on. The Argument from Nonbelief: That the world population is comprised of so many of us nonbelievers is telling in itself. A God who desired to have a loving relationship with all of us would have an incentive to make himself more plainly known. So many nonbelievers search over the course of their entire lives to discover the divine without success. An all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving God would have the capacity, know-how, and incentive to bring about belief in his existence, especially if we consider what we believe to be decisive in a fundamental issue of life: our salvation. That our salvation is understood to be at stake makes it all the more unlikely that there is an unknown purpose that might explain away the existence of non-belief in the world, as salvation is taken to be the fundamental reason for man’s life, the means by which he finds meaning, and the means by which he achieves the purposes for which the universe is created. There is, it seems, no higher good or goal than this, and therefore it is prima facie dubious that some unknown higher order good accounts for it.

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punkforchrist

Thanks again to Deschain for his thoughtful opening statement. It appears that he has several objections to God's existence, each of which we will examine below to see if they pass philosophical muster.

I. Some Preliminary Comments

Deschain begins by citing Theodore Drange concerning the nature of the debate between theists and atheists. He correctly notes that the arguments from suffering and non-belief have little, if any, force against theism proper. Rather, these arguments are typically employed to justify non-belief in an omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect being. Since we're concerned only with the truth-value of theism proper, we can skip these arguments, unless Deschain feels they're appropriate in some measure.

II. Time, Eternity and Immaterial Minds

My counterpart mentions in passing several arguments, of which he concedes there is no definitive status. First, he states that there is an argument against the coherency of divine creation with time, but he doesn't spell out exactly what the argument is. Instead of trying to guess, I'll allow Deschain to advance this argument in his next statement if he decides it's prudent to do so.

Next, Deschain raises an argument from the philosophy of mind that purports to show that immaterial entities cannot (or are unlikely to) interact with physical entities. However, I think the difficulty with this objection is that it conflates why something is the case with how it is the case. As epistemologists recognize, though, one needn't know how something is true in order to know that it is true. For example, many of us are not aware of how the sky the appears blue. Yet, that would in no way undermine our belief that the sky really does appear blue. By analogy, even if we are unable to explain how immaterial entities causally interact with physical entities, we are still justified in believing they do.

III. The Central Argument

Deschain's central argument in this debate so far has been a version of the argument from divine hiddenness:

1. If there is an agent with nature N, beliefs B, and intention I, then she will produce change C in the world. (Premise)

2. The world does not display C. (Premise)

3. Therefore, there is evidence against the hypothesis that there is an agent with N and I and B. (From 1 and 2)

Now, suppose the theist grants (1) for the sake of argument and agrees that if God exists, then God's existence will produce some change in the world. At this point, we simply have to ask: why think (2) is true. Of course, Deschain hasn't had the opportunity to respond to my opening statement yet, but each of the arguments I present attempts to show exactly that (2) is demonstrably false. In fact, the very first argument I defend is the argument from motion (change). In order to defend (2), Deschain will first have to refute the arguments I offer in support of theism.

Natural Sciences

My opponent argues that the success of the natural sciences, such as physics and biology, undermine theism insofar as the greater success the sciences have the less need we have of theistic explanations. He points to the proliferation of belief in various deities prior to establishment of the scientific method.

However, far from demonstrating any conflict between faith and science, the uniformity of nature actually presupposes a theistic worldview. You will recall that I argued in my opening statement that the very fact that there are laws of nature entails that they are the result of someone's or something's providence, e.g. God's providence. As Robert Koons concludes, “Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics.” [1]

Deschain also suggests that there has been a shift in apologetic method. He alludes to the argumentation of William Paley and suggests that the theist must now appeal to higher order levels of explanation. This, however, is mistaken. With respect to the teleological argument, the apologetic method in of Aristotle was the same as Thomas Aquinas, and the same method can be found in contemporary philosophers such as Edward Feser.

Now, it is true that higher order levels of explanation have been offered in recent decades, but I think the reason why is because we are now aware of a plethora of new scientific data. A hundred years ago, we had only some idea of the universe's fine-tuning for the emergence of life. Only fairly recently has the evidence that the universe has fine-tuning exploded, which means that the fine-tuning argument for God's existence would have gained significant attention not long ago.

V. The Argument from Scale

Deschain suggests that the enormity of the universe suggests that the relationship between God and humanity is not central to creation. There are at least two problems with this claim. First, God may have interests other than humanity in his creation. A painter may wish to create a work for the sake of its own enjoyment, and not for the sake of the art community. Secondly, even assuming that theism requires humanity to be central to creation, it could be argued that the enormity of the universe demonstrates to human beings the greatness of God. If we are in awe of such a vast universe, how much more would we be in awe of its divine Creator!

VI. The Argument from Divine Hiddenness

Finally, Deschain appeals to non-belief as evidence against God's existence. He suggests that if God exists, then his existence would be apparent to all. Since it is not apparent to all, it follows that God is unlikely to exists. I would only respond that the argument's second premise is question-begging. I have argued that God's existence is apparent to all, even if the atheist unintentionally suppresses that knowledge.

[1] http://www.robkoons.net/media/69b0dd...b3ffffd524.pdf

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