Chapter 3, Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 1, Change must be caused by a being that doesn’t change for nothing
changes itself. God doesn’t change at all for he is perfect.
Reason Says
There should have been nothing for nothing comes out of nothing. It is easier
for nothing to exist than something to exist. So why does this being exist?
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 2, Nothing causes itself so all things must depend on something that is
uncaused, an uncaused cause of all things
Reason replies:
But why is there a God when there might have been no God? Why couldn’t there
have simply being nothing. It is easier for there to be simply nothing than for
anything to exist. Something caused God then after all. If nothing causes itself
then there cannot be such a thing as an uncaused cause. It is extreme dishonesty
of the authors to use this argument which has been laughed at for at least four
centuries.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 3, For things to come into being and go out of being there must be a
cause of this that is just there and doesn’t come into being or go out of being
Reason replies:
Nothing goes out of being. It merely changes. Bodies die and become compost.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 4, There are different degrees of goodness in the world so there must
be a being that is perfect goodness to make all this goodness
Reason replies:
There are different degrees of evil in the world so there must be a God like
being with perfect evil. If there are two Gods that contradicts your Christian
faith.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 5, An intelligent mind like God must have designed all things for there
is no design without a designer
Reason replies:
A designer could have been made or evolved by chance after matter came into
being. We could be talking about something akin to artificial intelligence
not a god or God. It is obvious that all things are not designed so the
design argument suggests they are designed in the way children design messy
play. This is not an argument but a refusal to admit that there is
counter-evidence to design. Also, we might have design flaws in our
perception of design so the argument does not establish an intelligent God.
If design applies to some things not all then our perception may not be well
designed at all so signs of God such as intelligent design or miracles are not
clear to us and so are not really signs. It may be a mixture of design and
random. God presumably has designed all things so that we will be honest
and lovers of truth and fair and compassionate. Nature does not encourage
that so if design exists then it does not lead to a truly good God.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 6, The universe had a beginning so it had a cause. The cause can only
be God.
Reason replies:
This is perhaps taking advantage of the big bang theory and perverting it to say
that the universe came out of nothing and had a beginning. What if God made a
spiritual force, a force that cannot be detected by science for it has laws and
a nature different from anything in the universe? Maybe it became the universe
at the big bang. The big bang does not help the idea that the universe came from
nothing and does not help the notion that the universe was created by God.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 7, All things depend on other things to exist. There must be something
that doesn’t depend on anything else to exist that makes all other things exist.
Reason replies:
Argument 1, 2, 3, 6 are only different versions of this one. You can’t change
something without causing motion, creating a cause and so on. If God depends on
nothing to exist but himself then why not hold that some substance that depends
on nothing but itself turned itself into the universe? Why not hold that the
ultimate energy that makes up the universe is the uncaused cause?
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 8, The universe is not one thing but countless things working together
and only a God could set that up
Reason replies:
This is another version of argument 5 that God is the designer. There is a lot
of chaos in the universe and the universe is not several things working
together. Some things work together in it. The argument is as silly as saying
that there is one human race working together.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 9, Miracles show that God exist but they must take place in some
religious context to show this
Miracles are not a proof for God but a sign or clue.
Reason replies:
Is a clue enough when people follow a faith that demands that you be willing to
die for it and tell people they are at risk of going to eternal hell for it?
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 10, We experience the universe as intelligible so it must have been
made by an intelligent being
Reason replies:
The universe is full of mysteries we cannot understand. The universe is
intelligible or it wouldn’t exist but nobody has a good enough mind to vindicate
this intelligibility.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 11, Our limited minds can discover eternal truths but our minds are not
eternal so there must be an eternal mind God that helps us to discover such
truths
Reason replies:
Does the fact that our minds can discover abstract truths, that is truths that
are only concepts, prove that our minds are only concepts?
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 12, We have the idea of a God with unlimited perfection. We are
imperfect beings and so couldn’t get that idea unless God put it in us so there
must be a God
Reason replies:
We know that numbers get better in the sense that they get bigger every time you
go up a number. Does that imply that there must be a number with unlimited
perfection?
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 13, Anselm’s ontological argument and variations is put in but only for
completeness the book says, and not because it is valuable
Reason replies:
Anselm thought that if you think of God as that that which a greater cannot be
thought you will see that God must exist for then he wouldn’t be that than which
a greater cannot be thought if he didn’t exist.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 14, We believe in moral obligation, that is the idea that we can use
our free will to carry out our duties. We couldn’t believe in that unless it
were true and only if God made us can it be true. Robots cannot have moral
obligations and that is what we are if God didn’t make us.
Reason replies:
This argument should be the main one but it never is. Notice how the arguments always start with arguing from creation! You cannot use a God to prop up the idea of morality. That makes morality contradict itself. "God you are perfect goodness and I use you so I can believe in goodness."
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 15, There must be a God for we all have a conscience however dimmed it
may be and he must have put it in us.
Reason replies:
But that assumes some of us have properly developed consciences. What if the ones we called dull are the right ones? You have a circular argument here, "God is a God of morality and so planted a guide in us. We feel that x is wrong and that shows God exists and is a moral God." That rubbish in fact shows no respect for conscience at all and wants to capture it for a religious ideology.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 16, We only have desires that can be fulfilled and we desire God so
there must be a God.
Reason replies:
Dire. If we are so keen on God why are most people not very religious? Why are
most bookshops full of novels and stuff with few religious and devotional books?
We only want a God to fill the materialistic gaps in our lives and the rest of
the time we live as if he were not important.
Some people say there is a God because they feel there is one. Is there a Santa
Claus because you feel there is one? These people are silly though they describe
their feeling as sensing God’s presence or as becoming aware of him.
Feeling you want to believe in God can lead to you feeling there is one.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 17, Beauty and ascetic experience proves there must be a God. We are
told that we either see this one or we don’t.
Reason replies:
What they really mean is we must feel there is a God. Feelings are no good.
It is argued that beauty shows that God must exist. But
beauty is subjective. It is caused by the way nature makes us enjoy and nature
need not have been established by God. An alien covered in warts and eyes with
forty-foot long tentacles would think that a similar monstrosity is beautiful
and that flowers and human beings are hideous. It has been said that our
enjoyment of beauty has no value in the Darwinian scenario of survival of the
fittest and since it is not needed a God must have made us to enjoy it (page 93,
The Puzzle of God). But if you see no beauty then how are you going to fight for
survival? Beauty is anything that attracts us not just nice pictures and
scenery.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 18, So many people experience the love and power of God that they can't
be wrong that there is a God.
Reason replies:
Why do you think people worship idols? Don’t they feel the presence of their god
in the idol? Most human beings have been idolaters and sun and moon worshippers.
They preferred these gods to the God of the Christians.
Other people believe that God exists because they have seen visions or have
heard him speaking to them. But they invariably believe in deceiving demons and
in absurd doctrines so they are hardly worth listening to. Demons might pretend
to be God and tell you some wonderful spiritual truth to push you towards doing
something that will maximise evil but which looks innocent to you and everybody
else and which could be innocent in itself. When God lets the demons deceive at
all why should we take any message as being his message? It is blind faith to
take it and blind faith is malign. The revelations of God are altar calls that
call upon one to sin. Trustworthy aren’t they? Their excuse is that God only
permits the deception of those who want to be deceived. But then it isn’t real
deception is it?
Those who talk about experience of God say they "see" him
around them and in their lives every day. But this idea implicitly accuses
non-believers and the non-religious of closing their hearts against God. It is
not loving to insinuate that over a being that might not exist.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 19, Most people have worshipped God and it is unlikely that they were
and are wrong to think God exists. The argument from universal belief
goes, “Most people have been believers in God which makes it likely that God
inspired this belief and that he exists.”
Reason replies:
Most people have been pagans and practiced superstition. Most believers today
believe they can control God by refraining from walking under ladders or
whatever. What they believe in is not God but a caricature.
Most people have believed and believe that sin is the most fun and in an evil
two-faced God. The God of Islam has predestined millions to sin. The Roman
Catholic God preserved Mary from sin without infringing her free will which he
would not do for anybody else so he is really doing much the same thing. The
Bible says that man and woman are totally depraved and hate God and his will by
nature. It denies the validity of the argument.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Argument 20, I should believe in God in case I am doing him an injustice by not
honouring him and it is better for me if I believe in case I am wrong.
Reason replies:
What if Buddha was right that honouring God would be dangerous? And a truly good
God will care only about what you do, not what you believe as long as it
encourages you to do good. And you can honour God without believing in him.
Pascal’s wager says that if you believe in God and obey
you will go to Heaven and that if these do not exist you will at least have a
lived a good life. It says that believing in God is the best bet. But it
presupposes that God would put you in Hell forever for not believing in him.
That is a serious error for sincerity cannot ever be justly punished. In this
world, the sincere man who believes that fire will not burn should not get
burned even though his sincerity will not stop him getting burned. The wager is
really saying that it is better to be a believer and practice the disguised
hatred of religion than to be a decent Atheist! Pascal would have said that
faith and love go together but faith or love is not possible if you only believe
to save your own skin and not to please God. That is just saying you would hurt
him if you had the guts. The crafty Handbook of Christian Apologetics says that
Pascal can be salvaged by changing the argument to, “If there is a God I owe him
my devotion so I should believe in God and revere him even if I don’t know if
there is one and just in case”. First of all, you can love this God without
believing in him. This vicious argument is saying that you cannot please the God
you don’t believe in with sincerity. Second, you cannot believe without evidence
and trying to believe such that would not be ethical. If you could believe in
him it would not be just in case so the argument contradicts itself. The
assumption that you are only moral if you believe and obey God is intolerant and
scandalous.
And besides, you cannot believe in every religion and God that makes vindictive
threats to be on the safe side! Pascal was a dishonest man.
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says
Jesus promised that all who seek God will find him
Reason replies:
This is trying to accuse the person who doesn’t see that God exists of not
really wanting to see it. The Handbook has rehashed old arguments for God that
have been conclusively refuted centuries ago and which are scoffed at by most
philosophers and theologians today. There is no possibility of deciding other
than that the authors of the handbook are telling lies.
Finally
What use is evidence for God when God is a
self-contradictory concept? To look for evidence for what is incoherent is
madness for evidence presupposes coherence and rationality.
These proofs have nothing to do with proving God but just prove human credulity.
Religion and its leaders are taking advantage of the people. They have an
audience that is gullible when it comes to belief in God.
