July 16, 2008 | 12:23 pm

God is not dead, not by a longshot

In other magazine cover news, Christianity Today’s current issue plays on a famous Time cover and gives a red-letter statement: “God Is Not Dead Yet.“

“to paraphrase Mark Twain, the news of God’s demise was premature. For at the same time theologians were writing God’s obituary, a new generation of young philosophers was rediscovering his vitality.“

The article, by theologian William Lane Craig, amounts to a short history of Christian philosophy. It’s central point—that God is not dead—should be apparent to readers of this blog; The Almighty wrote the previous post. But, for the skeptical, Craig delves into the arena of apologetics, a method of rhetoric that presents defenses and, when possible, “proofs”—more like evidence than, say, the proof for Fermat’s last theorem—for God’s existence.

Craig focuses on five arguments:

The cosmological argument. Versions of this argument are defended by Alexander Pruss, Timothy O’Connor, Stephen Davis, Robert Koons, and Richard Swinburne, among others. A simple formulation of this argument is:

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God. ...

He in question

The kalam cosmological argument. This version of the argument has a rich Islamic heritage. Stuart Hackett, David Oderberg, Mark Nowacki, and I have defended the kalam argument. Its formulation is simple:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. ...

The teleological argument. The old design argument remains as robust today as ever, defended in various forms by Robin Collins, John Leslie, Paul Davies, William Dembski, Michael Denton, and others. Advocates of the Intelligent Design movement have continued the tradition of finding examples of design in biological systems. But the cutting edge of the discussion focuses on the recently discovered, remarkable fine-tuning of the cosmos for life. This finetuning is of two sorts. First, when the laws of nature are expressed as mathematical equations, they contain certain constants, such as the gravitational constant. The mathematical values of these constants are not determined by the laws of nature. Second, there are certain arbitrary quantities that are just part of the initial conditions of the universe—for example, the amount of entropy.

These constants and quantities fall into an extraordinarily narrow range of life-permitting values. Were these constants and quantities to be altered by less than a hair’s breadth, the life-permitting balance would be destroyed, and life would not exist.

Accordingly, we may argue:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design. ...

The moral argument. A number of ethicists, such as Robert Adams, William Alston, Mark Linville, Paul Copan, John Hare, Stephen Evans, and others have defended “divine command” theories of ethics, which support various moral arguments for God’s existence. One such argument:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists. ...

The ontological argument. Anselm’s famous argument has been reformulated and defended by Alvin Plantinga, Robert Maydole, Brian Leftow, and others. God, Anselm observes, is by definition the greatest being conceivable. If you could conceive of anything greater than God, then that would be God. Thus, God is the greatest conceivable being, a maximally great being. So what would such a being be like? He would be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, and he would exist in every logically possible world. But then we can argue:

1. It is possible that a maximally great being (God) exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
5. Therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world.
6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.
7. Therefore, God exists.

There has been quite a bit of discussion in the blogosphere about this article. For sane arguments against each of these apologetic staples, check out Jason Rosenhouse’s EvolutionBlog. (It’s part of the Science Blogs project, like those belonging to Jonah Lehrer and that very angry, communion-mocking atheist.)

I remember the cosmological, kalam and teleological arguments from some books I read in high school, primarily J.P. Moreland’s “Scaling the Secular City.“ I find these arguments, which ironically appeal to science, to be much more convincing than the moral and ontological arguments.

The moral case implies that God is compelled by the same moral values that we are; I’m sure many would disagree, but I find this hard to believe. God’s infinite wisdom is more beyond our simple understandings of right and wrong. And if it’s not, how do we explain the course of history? Saying man sins is not sufficient.

The problem with the ontological argument is that it doesn’t answer the question of where God came from.

The truth is: I do believe God exists. My life is built around it. My belief, though, lies not in proofs but in, as we Christians emphasize, faith. I have faith that God has spoken to me, that God has called me, that God created me. Apologetics is not a vain field of inquiry, but I don’t think it is necessary, or even necessarily beneficial, to believing there really was a Creator who made you and wants you to follow Him.

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg in 2 Comments — Leave your comment

Tags: apologetics, christianity, god, media

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