ACTS 3057 Lectures 3-6: Does God Exist

Questions to Ponder

Philosophical Evidence for the Existence of God

Cosmological Argument

Argument for the Origin of Life

    Teleological Argument

    The Moral Argument

    Argument from Meaning in Life

    Arguments for the Existence of God

    Argument from Destiny

    Argument from Desire

    Argument from Reason

    Pascal's Wager


    		 God exists God does not exist
    I believe in God Infinite Gain + Finite Loss Finite Loss
    I do not believe in God Finite Gain + Infinite Loss Finite Gain

    Naturalism

    Discussion Post 3

    Does God exist? This question is the root and foundation of understanding all of life's existential questions - where did I come from, why am I here, where am I going?

    We start this week by simply laying the foundation - the Universe has a Cause. The Syllogistic Format is easy to understand and frankly, very logical, I await the discussions about the atheist's usage of it for the "Problem of Pain and Suffering." Everything that exists has a cause. The Universe exists. Thus, the universe has a cause. We discussed the ONLY four potentials for the Cause of the Universe - the Universe came from nothing; the Universe came from itself; the Universe is eternal (i.e. refuting the first Premise); the Universe is Created.

    I had read about the First Cause Argument (i.e. Cosmological Argument) before in Timeless Truths and seen it elsewhere. But this is the first time that many parts of it really made sense. For example - we read in Timeless Truths that the First Cause must be "Immaterial (He transcends space)." But I had never put together that the REASON He must transcend space is because space (along with matter and time) are what compose the Universe. So since the First Cause brought about the Universe to exist, the First Cause must be outside of those things that compose it. This goes for many of the First Cause Characteristics we discussed (e.g. Supernatural, Omnipresent, Changeless, etc.)

    I also learned from the Philosophical perspective of why the Universe is not eternal... it comes down to a math problem (and I love math)... infinity has no beginning or end. So there could not have been an infinite number of moments before this very moment. Thus, there must have been a finite number of moments. Therefore, the universe is not eternal. 

    When considering the Timelessness of God, though it can't be fully comprehended - I've previously used the analogy of a Video Tape (or more appropriately today, a YouTube video). That video has a beginning, a middle and an end. At any given moment, you're watching the present. You can rewind to the past or fast-forward to the future. But none of those actions affect YOUR reality or YOUR timeline. In that way, you are OUTSIDE the "time" that exists in that video. It's not a perfect analogy, but of course we can barely come close to the reality of the One Who is Timeless.

    Discussion Post 4

    Continuing our discussion on the existence of God, we discussed three arguments this week - The Argument for the Origin of Life, the Teleological Argument (Argument from Design) and the Moral Argument.

    In the Argument for the Origin of Life, we basically concluded that life must come from a Life-Giver and this was supported by the claims of several atheist philosophers, scientists, etc. After studying the Origin of Life for decades, they all seem to conclude that life cannot arise from non-life. So we add "Life-Giver" to the characteristics of the Creator that we discussed in the previous week.

    In the Argument from Design, we briefly looked at several Universal Constants that seem to be fine-tuned to support life on earth. This is an argument we would hear a lot when we were kids "if the earth was just 10 feet closer to the Sun, we would all burn! See how great God is??" I remember questioning that statement because I knew that the earth moved in an elliptical pattern (sometimes closer to the sun than others) and because we regularly fly on airplanes 30,000 feet in the air and somehow don't get burned. But now, as an adult, seeing this argument it makes me almost want to investigate each of the 12 constants George mentioned (and find the rest of the 30/40 that Dr Hugh Ross writes about. The conclusion here was that for all this fine-tuning, there must be a Fine-Tuner... an Intelligent Designer.

    Finally, in the Moral Argument we first agreed that absolute moral values do, indeed, exist. How could one judge between two people (e.g. Hitler and Mother Theresa)? Then, we started to discuss the four explanations for the existence of absolute moral values. Morality comes from society, from reason, from evolution, or from God. We got so far as to determine that morality cannot come from society since there are variations of morality across cultures. And so those moral variations represent differences in the perception of a situation.

    Discussion Post 5

    This week's lesson started by concluding the Moral argument from God.

    George argued against evolutionary morality - it's a category mistake. Firstly, evolution is a physical process, but morality is not physical or physically measurable. Secondly, evolution is descriptive - describing physical changes. But morality is prescriptive - prescribing values and laws.

    And thus, if morality is not evolutionary and (as discussed last week) not brought about from society or from the individual, then where does it come from? From Someone who transcends it, perfects it, and is greater than us - Who Christians call God.

    The atheist may measure goodness as it relates to human welfare. But the problem with this is that the atheist's definition has no bearing on me, nor should it supersede my morals.

    This reminds me of the departure of my grandmother a few years ago. For me, a man of faith, I recognized it as something from God: something good. At her funeral, in my eulogy I said something like "this is one of the saddest days of our life, and yet it is the happiest day of hers." If I assessed this day using the definition of an atheist, I could not conclude that it was a good day. But from the perspective of God, heaven rejoiced.

    And why be good at all? Why not live in pleasures and lusts of life? If at the end we are buried and that's it, then the atheist has no reason to be good.

    Discussion Post 6

    This week we finished discussing the Arguments for the Existence of God.

    We started with the Argument from Destiny. Where am I going? What lies beyond the grave. The Atheistic view is very grim and likely feeds into their arguments that we discussed last week about meaning and purpose in life. I like the logical argument that George gave us about the Element of Hope especially in that it relates directly to the Christian foundation - hope in the Resurrection. One thing we didn't really discuss is the idea of a "legacy" - many people in the secular life are very concerned with the legacy they will leave in the world and how they will be remembered or how they will affect the world. An atheist may call this the "Hope" for life beyond the grave. I'm not really sure how to answer that.

    We then discussed the Common Consent Argument. Naturally, as Christians, we tend to think in the opposite way... like St Athanasius "Contra Mundum" who was AGAINST the world. However, George said something very important here... that we have an inclination to worship. It is so interesting to me when my friends at work who claim to be Atheists will naturally say something like "Jesus!"  or "Oh my God!" Sometimes when something isn't going your way, you might say "please God no!" or "please please please..." I think that all of these stem from our natural inclination to worship. We may say them without meaning or "in vain" - even as Christians. But maybe it's because we come from a long line of people who consent to the idea (i.e. the Truth) that God exists.

     

    Revision #9
    Created 9 June 2022 22:37:17 by Morcous Wahba
    Updated 25 August 2022 03:21:22 by Morcous Wahba