Arguments from Miracles

So far, we have concerned ourselves chiefly with deductive arguments. We shall now consider an inductive argument, the argument from miracles. Of course, reports of miracles are nothing new. History is replete with miraculous claims. The question is, can any be verified and, if so, what, if anything, do they prove? 

It is often claimed by atheists that, since the advent of the scientific method, miracle claims have dropped dramatically and only tend to occur in our 'modern age' in countries with less access to education. Of course, aside from being a version of chronological snobbery and cultural elitism, it blatantly commits the genetic fallacy. 

However, more importantly, it is a claim that is actually false. Scholar Craig Keener decided to look into the prevalence of miracle claims over time and found that, contrary to the aforementioned atheistic narrative, there have been hundreds of millions of eyewitness reports of 'miracles' in the 20th and 21st centuries. Moreover, many of these come from 'educated', highly developed/first world countries, also. 

Of course, with such numbers, it is hard to investigate every single one of them. Nevertheless, there are many reports of miracles that have evidence beyond eyewitness testimony and thus can be externally verified. For instance, Gary Habermas related an account of a woman whose diseased spleen, which was later surgically removed, grew back and completely healthy. 

Other examples related by Habermas include near-death out-of-body experiences. There was one account given by a woman who claimed she saw the top of the hospital building and said she saw an old shoe. A member staff checked it out on a whim and found the specific shoe exactly as described. Another woman claimed she saw her family members (who were at their home and not even in the hospital) and was able to accurately describe what they had been doing at the time. 

Now, one counter argument is that miracle claims and reports come to us from different religions and they all can't be true. This premise is certainly true enough. However, the atheist then leaps to the completely unwarranted conclusion that all such reports must therefore be false. I shouldn't have to explain how this is a complete and utter non-sequitur. 

If competing claims within a particular meant that all such claims are false, this would surely invalidate every avenue of human inquiry, every field, and every discipline known to man. It seems fairly obvious that God could exist, but every religion be false (or at the least, not completely correct). It is possible to construct a logically and internally consistent version of religious pluralism, after all. 

Obviously, not every religion can be fully correct, since they have competing claims, but we could feasibly grant that they all possess a modicum of truth or a valid way of seeking God. However, need we resort to religious pluralism to escape this charge? After all, many religions acknowledge the existence of evil beings who operate in opposition to God. 

Moreover, there are religions also that acknowledge that God performs miracles amongst all peoples, and not just amongst those who adhere to their religion. So, it is perfectly possible for there to be miracles from competing religions, but only one religion be completely true. 

Of course, for the most part, the kinds of miracles under discussion generally do not provide evidence for a particular religion. General miracles certainly show that there exists a realm beyond the physical world but is not enough to show any one religion (if any) is fully correct. 

In my studies, I have found that only one religion stands or falls on a single miracle claim, and that is Christianity. Christianity claims that God is triune; He is three persons in one being, the Unoriginate Father, the Eternally Begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit who eternally proceeds from the Father. 

They claim that Jesus was the incarnation of the Son and preached His own death and resurrection before being killed and then risen from the dead three days later in vindication of His claims. If this is so, then this would clearly establish Christianity as being the only religion that is fully correct in its teachings. 

So, whilst general miracles can definitely be taken as evidence of the supernatural, only Christ's Resurrection determines which religion is actually correct. No other religion makes specific historical claims like this that are capable of being externally verified. As such, having reviewed the various arguments in favour of the existence of God, and concluding that they show beyond a reasonable doubt that God almost certainly exists, we shall next move onto the central claims of Christianity.

The Argument from Consciousness

A lesser-known argument for the existence of God is that of the Argument from Consciousness. This argument is relatively simple and easy to understand. It starts from the phenomenon of consciousness and argues that it is an irreducible aspect of reality incongruent with naturalism. From there, it is a relatively short hop, skip, and a jump to conclude that God is a better explanation for consciousness than any naturalistic alternative. 

There are two, key sub-arguments in favour of the premise that consciousness is not reducible to physical states such as brain states: the Chinese Room argument, and the Knowledge argument. The first of these, the Chinese Room argument, was actually put forward by a naturalist, John Searle. 

Imagine a man who is locked in a room. He does not read or understand Chinese at all. Yet, he receives slips under the door written in Chinese. Now, imagine has a rulebook written in English that tells him how to respond based on which symbols he receives under the door. He can thereby use this rulebook to interact with a native Chinese speaker in such a way that they come to believe they are speaking with another Chinese speaker. 

Yet, the man in the room at no point actually understands Chinese. He is manipulating symbols he does not understand based on a set of rules that do not explain their meaning. Now, Searle used this to argue that consciousness cannot be simulated by a computer program, which is certainly a true conclusion that can be drawn from this thought experiment.

Yet, he nevertheless argued that consciousness nevertheless emerged from physical states and remained a naturalist. But does this make sense? Surely, if the world is only composed of physical matter and energy, then the emergence of genuinely sui generis phenomenon is impossible? 

If the world only consists of physical matter and energy, then this entails that phenomenon such as consciousness must be reducible to physical states. That this is evidently not the case is therefore a very strong argument against the truth of naturalism. 

The second sub-argument is the Knowledge argument, which asks us to imagine a colour-blind person locked in a black and white room. They are provided with all physical information about colour but never experience what it is like to actually see colour. Now, imagine their colour-blindness is somehow 'cured' and they are released from their black and white prison into the real world.

If physicalism were true, then they should already know everything there is to know about colour. Yet, upon seeing colour for the first time, it abundantly clear that they learn something new. This kind of knowledge is called qualia and consists of first-person knowledge that is irreducible to third-person facts. 

What both of these arguments show is that consciousness is inherently a non-physical phenomenon. In other words, naturalism is false. But if consciousness is non-natural, how does it come to be? How is it that consciousness accompanies sufficiently advanced brain states? Well, in the absence of a naturalistic explanation, the only logical option remaining is theism. 

The Axiological Argument and the Argument from Reason

This argument for the existence of God, also known as the moral argument, is based on the objectivity of moral values and duties. It is argued that if God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist. Since objective moral values and duties do exist, then it is argued we can conclude that God therefore exists. 

It's fairly simple and straightforward, especially compared to more sophisticated arguments, but is often misunderstood. For instance, one counter claim levelled against it is the argument that the premise that objective moral values and duties would not exist if God does not exist is false because there are atheists who are nevertheless moral people.

However, such an objection is misguided because the argument is not that belief in God is necessary for there to be moral people but that His existence is necessary for there to be objective moral values and duties. The argument concerns moral ontology, but the counter argument is discussing issues pertaining to moral epistemology. Thus, it is a complete red herring argument. 

According to the axiological argument, God's existence for there to be objective moral facts, i.e. moral statements that can be true or false independent of our beliefs and mental states. The claim: 'ice cream is tasty' can be true or false but is a subjective truth since it depends upon whether or not I enjoy ice cream. Whereas the claim 'the moon exists' is true or false on the basis of whether or not there is object that we call the moon. 

If God does not exist, then there would be no such thing as moral or immoral people. There would only be people behaving according to either their own personal tastes or perhaps on the basis of societal norms, but not according to an objective moral reality that exists independently of their beliefs and attitudes. 

Whereas if God exists, then there exists an objective moral standard and thus an ontological basis for moral facts, regardless of whether anyone believes them or not. The entire planet could be populated with atheists, but for them to be moral atheists, there needs to be an objective moral standard, i.e. God. 

It is a longstanding understanding that one cannot derive normative, prescriptive statements such as moral facts from facts about the natural world. This is known as the is/ought distinction or the naturalistic fallacy. It is fallacious to argue that something is moral or immoral on the basis of whether that action is 'natural' or not.

So, what options then, are there, for the atheist seeking to deny the conclusion of this argument? Now, one could argue that moral statements refer to subjective tastes, like societal attitudes and personal values, rather than overriding objective moral values and duties. However, it is important to note that, in such a scenario, there would be no moral facts. There would only be sociological and psychological truths about societal and personal tastes. 

If moral statements are subjective, then they are not objective, which would therefore be a denial of the premise that objective moral standards and duties exist. But is this a satisfactory option? For one thing, people who do argue this rarely if ever seem to actually live according to such a view. Of course, this is merely a tu quoque. 

Nevertheless, the fact that such an ethos is unlivable in practice could be taken as an argument against the view that moral statements are subjective. For instance, some modern ideologues are so committed to their view that 'all cultures are equal' that they are willing to tolerate murderers and rapists from other countries in their midst rather than be seen as being 'intolerant'. 

However, if everyone lived that way, then it would result in chaos. Of course, one suggestion, often made by adherents of Darwinian evolutionary theory, is that moral beliefs are useful fictions meant to increase the collective chances of survival of a given population by encouraging behaviours more conducive to survival. 

The reply to this argument, which is an argument in its own right, is that if our moral beliefs were selected for survival with no regards for their truth value, then we cannot trust our moral beliefs. However, the necessary corollary of that is that this would therefore apply to all of our beliefs. 

This has been dubbed the Argument from Reason, and it simply the observation that if our cognitive faculties are not aimed at producing true beliefs, then this undercuts every belief we could ever hold, including belief in naturalism itself. Thus, naturalistic atheism is logically incoherent because its own defeater. 

More specifically, in order for our beliefs to be warranted, they can't merely be only justified true beliefs, but, rather, they need to be beliefs produced by well-designed, properly functioning cognitive faculties aimed at producing true beliefs operating in the cognitive environment for which they were designed. So, aside from supporting moral objectivism, it is also an independent argument for the existence of God. 

In addition to this reply, we can also state that if our moral beliefs are subjective with no objective components whatsoever, then this leads to either moral nihilism or moral non-cognitivism. Moral nihilism is the position that all moral statements are false, whereas moral non-cognitivism is the position that they are neither true nor false. 

Now, moral nihilism simply seems obviously incoherent. For if one moral statement is false, then its negation must be true. This is simply a matter of logic. Moral non-cognitivism is a trickier customer, however. It's not obviously false like moral nihilism is. Of course, it isn't obviously true, either. 

It certainly seems like that moral statements can be true or false. Various analyses made by non-cognitivists claim that moral statements do not express propositions, but rather attitudes. However, it seems to me as if they are misguided. For instance, sure, when I say: "X is wrong" there may or may not be an associated mental attitude accompanying it, such as disapproval or some such.

However, it is far from clear that this is the whole picture. Rather, it can be argued that certain actions elicit such mental attitudes because our moral intuitions are valid and our beliefs true such that, when those beliefs are violated, we react strongly. Non-cognitivists may complain that there exists some disparity regarding moral beliefs in that different people and societies hold conflicting views.

Whilst this is, of course, the case, note that conflicting views are prevalent in other areas too, yet we do not doubt that those statements are incapable of having a truth value. People in the past and even a minority of people today still believe that the world is flat. Some people even claim that 2+2 can equal 5. Yet we do not doubt that statements about the world or mathematical statements can be true or false. 

Additionally, we can actually take what is normally construed as an argument against the existence of God and construct an argument in defence of the premise that objective moral values and duties exist. The argument from evil alleges that the existence of evil is incompatible with the existence of God, who is morally perfect and so on and so forth,

The problem with this argument, however, is that is is logically incoherent. For if moral values and duties exist, then God exists. If God does not exist, then moral values and duties do not exist. Thus, if it can be confirmed that objective moral evil exists, then the existence of God logically and inescapably follows. 

It also hasn't escaped notice that there is nothing about the existence of moral evil that is obviously logically incompatible with the existence of God either. Ironically enough, atheist Stephen Law unintentionally provided a very good rebuttal to the argument from evil for noting that we cannot argue that a good God exists on the basis of moral goodness.

Now, whilst he intended this to be an argument against the existence of God, he has obviously misconstrued the axiological argument. We do not argue that God exists (and is good) because of the existence of moral goodness. We argue that He exists on the basis of objective moral facts. But what this does is show that, by corollary, that we cannot argue that God does not exist because of moral evil. 

The contention that God exists and as actually evil is logically incoherent, since a maximally great being cannot be evil. The logical problem from evil has long been regarded as being refuted. Whereas the general theodicy that a good God can have good reasons for permitting evil is generally more than enough to show that even the so-called existential problem of evil is similarly a non-starter.

Now, one challenge to the view that God is the ontological source of moral facts is that of moral Platonism. Platonism is the view that abstract objects really exist, just in some kind of abstract realm. When applied to moral ontology, then, Platonism would entail that moral facts are ontologically grounded in abstract objects. 

However, does this contention even make any sense? Sure, if the abstract object 'Good' existed, then we could say that goodness is objective, but then wouldn't there also be an abstract object called 'Evil'? At the least, wouldn't things we normally associate with evil, such as 'Injustice', 'Cruelty', and so on exist as well? 

If so, then what reason would we have for aligning our personal values with the good rather than the evil? Whereas, if God exists, then we have a very real reason for preferring good over evil. Because evil would not exist independently of goodness but would rather be a privation of goodness, much in the same way that darkness is the absence of light and cold is the absence of heat. 

One other challenge to the argument is the Euthyphro dilemma. Is something good because God says it is good, or does God say it is good because it is good. If the first option, then this seemingly makes morality arbitrary, but if the second then this presents a standard of goodness apart from God. 

It is hard to see how this presents a serious problem, however. For this dilemma was meant as a refutation of polytheistic morality. It does nothing to challenge the ontological source of morality being grounded in a maximally great being. Since God is maximally good and morally perfect by His very nature, we can trust His commands as being good because He is good, thus presenting a third option to the dilemma not available to the polytheist. 

Thus, having run the gamut of challenges to the argument, the axiological argument comes out on top as providing yet another argument that shows that God almost certainly exists. The argument from reason provides a nice supplement to this argument and also stands as an argument in favour of the existence of God in its own right. 

The Teleological Argument

So far, we've covered two major arguments in favour of the existence of God. Today we shall be looking at the Teleological Argument, otherwise known as 'the argument from design'. This argument takes into account various features of the universe that appear to be designed and argues that the best explanation for the appearance of design is actual design. 

Now, many labour under the delusion that evolutionary theory has long since refuted the teleological argument, but is this really the case? For starters, evolutionary theory only seeks to explain how the significant amount of biodiversity we observe emerged from a single, universal common ancestor. It relies on there already being randomly varying replicators. 

However, evolutionary theory does nothing to explain how such living organisms themselves arose, nor does it seek to explain features of the universe that strongly imply design. So, at best, evolutionary theory removes the need for appealing to design only for certain biological systems. However, need we even concede this much?

It should be worth pointing out that evolutionary theory, despite being a very successful theory, is nevertheless incomplete at present. The reason for this is because there is currently no explanation for how biological systems are able to somehow anticipate or match environmental pressures in a way that leads to novel, heritable traits. 

Evolution isn't simply change over time; it is heritable changes over time. The pressures of survival entails that new traits that arise that provide an edge are 'selected' but don't explain how novel features themselves arise. It used to be believed that random mutations alone could explain the origin of novel traits, but this is no longer the case. 

Biologists have had to coin the term 'teleonomy' to refer to traits that seemingly anticipate either other traits or come about in response to environmental pressures. Aside from this, it is also worth pointing out that the belief that evolutionary processes are necessarily blind and unguided is an unjustified metaphysical belief, not derived from any evidence. 

Now, one could argue that we shouldn't assume intelligent design in the absence of any evidence because it is simpler. However, whilst true, this only entails that the default position is agnosticism regarding the existence of intelligent design, and not its explicit denial. Moreover, given that there exists features of the physical world that strongly exhibit the appearance of design, why not appeal to actual design?

Note, furthermore, that we have gone beyond the scientific evidence into the realm of metaphysics in considering this question. Now, before we move onto considering answers to that question, it is worth noting once again that evolutionary theory does not explain how living organisms first arose. There is currently no widely accepted theoretical framework that even comes close to a partial explanation for this. 

Whilst the idea that life was intentionally, intelligently designed is derided as 'pseudo-science', it is nevertheless a fact that DNA represents highly complex, highly specified information. However, the best evidence of design actually comes to us from the field of cosmology. It has long been noted that not only do we just so happen to have just the right laws of physics to permit life, but that the constants of nature, and the initial conditions of the early universe are incredibly finely tuned. 

Constants are numerical values that describe the relative strength of various physical forces, such as the gravitational constant, G, which describes the strength of gravity. However, it has been discovered that the life-permitting range of multiple constants are such that even the slightest deviation from their current value would mean life would not have arisen. 

Too weak, and the universe would have expanded too rapidly and cooled off way too early, too strong and it would have resulted in the universe collapsing in on itself in a kind of big crunch. The strong force needs to be strong enough to bind atoms without being so strong that all matter clumps together and without being so weak that atoms cannot form. 

Moreover, the initial conditions of the early universe are similarly finely tuned. Perhaps the most breath-taking example is the low entropy condition of the early universe. Roger Penrose (who is an atheist) calculated that the probability of the low entropy condition of the early universe having arisen by chance would have been 1 in 10 ^ 10 ^ 120. 

To put things into perspective, that is larger than the difference in size between a single proton and the entire observable universe. So, the evidence for design is simply overwhelming. What we have to determine is whether or not the universe is actually designed or not. Aside from actual design, the other two alternatives are necessity and chance. 

Now, with features of design in biology and chemistry, one could ostensibly argue that these features of the universe are nevertheless explainable by means of appealing to the laws of nature. Stephen Hawking once remarked that the universe could "create itself from nothing" because of gravity. 

Now, aside from the fact that he was clearly equivocating between nothing and the initial state of the universe as described in the Hartle-Hawking No Boundary model, he is also assuming that gravity has causative powers, which is far from clear at all. The laws of nature are descriptive, not prescriptive. They themselves cause nothing.

Of course, if the laws, constants, and initial conditions of the universe themselves are all finely tuned also, then we can't just fall back on this as a potential explanation for these features anyway, since that would be to argue in a circle. As such, when seeking a purely scientific explanation without appealing to a personal explanation, critics argue that our universe's fine-tuning is explicable in terms of some kind of multiverse hypothesis. 

The problems with appealing to a multiverse in order to explain just our universe cannot be overstated enough. For starters, the idea of there being a multiverse is highly speculative. Not only does it seem to be incredibly ad hoc, but you've also greatly multiplied the explanandum in violation of Occam's Razor. 

Moreover, it seems as if there could never be any kind of verifiable evidence for the existence of such a world ensemble, which means that, at best, the multiverse is scientifically inscrutable. In other words, our reasons for preferring it have to be based on reasons other than scientific reasons. Of course, with that said, the existence of a multiverse is at least implied by some pretty interesting mathematical models of the universe.

My only issue with these mathematical models is that they posit more than 3 spatial dimensions. The most popular of these, M-Theory, for instance, has 11 dimensions. This just seems to be utter nonsense. The second big issue is that, assuming we are sticking strictly to the realm of science, is that these models don't actually solve the problem of fine-tuning. They merely push things back a step.

M-Theory, for instance, entails a particular 'setup' of the multiverse that allows for not just variance of the values of each universe's laws, etc., but also for a sufficient number of them to overcome the vastly low improbabilities of our universe's having arisen by chance. In other words, the multiverse itself would also be highly finely tuned. 

Of course, if we abandon pure science and branch off to speculative metaphysics, one could argue that every logically possible world exists as part of a world ensemble. The problem here is that there is a crippling dilemma that renders appealing to such an unbounded, speculative model moot. Either it abnegates the need for explanation of our universe's fine tuning, or it does not.

If it does, then it also does the same for every scenario featuring incredibly low probabilities. There would be no need to explain any low probability event, since all you can do is appeal to the multiverse. If I drew a Royal Flush 100 times in a row, then I could just say it was because this scenario is one of many logical possibilities that exists in the multiverse. 

If it does not abnegate the need for explanation, then it is explanatorily vacuous and thus appealing to such an unrestricted multiverse solves nothing. So, the only choices left are either necessity or design. But why think our universe has the properties that it does because of necessity? It certainly seems as if the universe could have been a multitude of different ways. 

Now, some still object to this argument in three possible ways. The first is to argue that it is unsurprising that the universe is finely tuned for life, otherwise we would not be here to observe it. The second is to parody the argument by claiming that potholes must be finely tuned to contain puddles. The third is to attack the idea of probability being applied to a one-off event such as the beginning of our universe. 

Now, the first argument confuses the true claim 'it is unsurprising to observe that the universe is finely tuned, given that I am alive to observe it and would not be here to observe it were it not' with the false claim: 'it is unsurprising that the universe is finely tuned'. 

Secondly, it does nothing to resolve which of the three options explains the fine-tuning. The fine-tuning is due to either necessity, chance, or design. Simply claiming that it is an unsurprising observation does not obviate the need for explanation. So, clearly, this response will not do. 

The second argument attempts to parody the argument to create a reductio ad absurdum. However, the example given, that of a sentient puddle observing that the pothole it is in seems 'finely tuned' for it, is not like the example of the fine-tuning of the universe. The probability of rain filling an open pothole in the road is particularly high.

So, this second response will not do either. The third argument, I think, manages to be the most reasonable. It claims that it is meaningless to speak of the probability of the values of the constants of nature, etc., taking their values by chance because there is only one observable universe. We would need to observe multiple universes to observe the actual probability.

Whilst more understandable, this argument is nevertheless similarly misguided because it confuses two different types of probability. It confuses statistical probability with epistemic probability. We are not talking of statistical probability when discussing the fine-tuning of the universe, so this objection similarly falters. 

Given that two of the three options have been ruled out, and given that only these three options are available, it follows logically and inescapably that the explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe is therefore due to design. 

Now, Richard Dawkins famously complained: 'who made God?' He also argues that positing a super intelligence to explain improbable events increases the overall level of complexity and so is not a good explanation for that reason. 

For the first complaint, this is irrelevant. Whilst it is technically logically possible for the universe to have been created by something other than God, for all intents and purposes, it is simpler to posit God rather than posit some unknown entity that may or may not have begun to exist. However, if God made the universe, then this explanation melts away when one considers that God did not begin to exist. 

The second complaint makes more sense but is similarly misguided. For God, being spaceless and immaterial, is therefore not composed of any parts. As such, He is absolutely simple and thus does not add a great deal of complexity at all. Whereas the idea that there is potentially infinite world ensemble does raise the overall level of complexity, and massively so. 

Whilst there is a tendency to mistakenly believe that science either explains everything or will one day do so, the reality is that scientific explanations and personal explanations are only incompatible if naturalism is true. Thus, to argue that we need not appeal to intelligence to explain design because of successful scientific theories is to beg the question in favour of naturalism. 

Starting from a position of agnosticism, the proponent of science as the best means of knowing might argue that we should not needlessly suppose that such a super intelligence exists. However, if the evidence is such that the only remaining explanation is such an intelligence, we are clearly rationally justified in accepting the existence of such a being. 

The Cosmological Argument

Whilst there is no one single version of the Cosmological Argument, the general approach that remains consistent throughout them is that they are based on some aspect of the universe that is taken to imply the existence of a necessary, uncaused being responsible for the creation of the universe. There are three chief versions: the Leibnizian, the Thomist, and the Kalam. 

The Leibnizian argument stems from the work of 17th century philosopher and mathematician, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. This argument starts from the simple fact that the universe exists and then argues that the existence of the universe is explainable via an external cause. The reason for this, argues Leibniz, is because everything that exists has a reason or explanation for its existence. 

Since the universe exists, it must have an explanation for its existence. Of course, it does not follow immediately that this explanation must be God, or even in an external cause. Now, some atheists have challenged the principle of sufficient reason by claiming that there are things that are brute facts about the world or universe. According to them, there are contingent states of affairs that have no explanation. 

However, it seems obvious that this can't be so, otherwise the entire enterprise of the physical, hard sciences is invalidated. For science is predicated on there being explanations for physical, observable phenomenon. If things could exist without any explanation at all, then we would have no way of knowing what things explainable and what things are not. 

In addition to this, we can grant that there are things who explanation is currently unknown due to our own epistemic limitations. In fact, we can additionally grant that there are things we cannot know (again due to epistemic or some other kind of limitations). However, this is no way commits us to or even entails that things can exist with no explanation at all. 

Some have instead chosen to challenge the principle of sufficient reason by claiming that things can exist unexplained that are necessary, such as numbers, or logical truths. First, it is far from clear that things such as numbers actually exist. The debate regarding abstract objects is not settled by any means, after all. However, it should seem apparent that, granting that such things actually exist in their own right, that this does not invalidate the principle of sufficient reason.

Rather, instead what necessary things entail is that something can exist whose explanation is not rooted in an external cause. Now, whilst this might seem promising at first for the atheist who might want to argue that the universe has an explanation not rooted in an external cause, it quickly becomes apparent that this avenue is not open to them. 

The reason for this is because the universe is contingent and not metaphysically necessary. The reason things such as numbers and logical truths can potentially exist without an external cause is because their explanation is rooted in the necessity of their own nature. Therefore, it follows that, as a contingently existing thing, the universe has an explanation of its existence rooted in an external cause. 

The second version of the Cosmological Argument comes to us from 12th century scholastic philosopher and theologian, Thomas Aquinas. Now, Thomas Aquinas relied heavily on Aristotelian metaphysics and believed a number of things that are contested, but a version of his arguments can be made that are not based on such concerns. 

Now, one thing to take note of is that Aristotle believed that the universe was past eternal, and whilst Thomas Aquinas believed in the finitude of the past as a matter of faith, he believed that it could not be shown via argument and must be accepted on the basis of revelation alone. Yet both men made arguments that entailed that the universe had a first cause. 

The reason for this is because objects are incapable of change on their own; they need something external to themselves to impart change upon them. Imagine a train consisting of an actually infinite number of train cars. That train will not move if none of the infinite train cars are a train engine. An actually infinite set of concrete objects cannot move if none of its members are capable of initiating change or motion. 

The third version of the Cosmological Argument comes to us from the 12th century Persian philosopher, Al-Ghazali. This argument is rooted in the fact that, in reality, the universe really isn't past eternal at all and must have had a beginning a finite amount of time ago. It is rooted in the simple premise that everything that begins to exist has a cause. 

For the longest time, many philosophers and then scientists assumed that the universe was past eternal. However, aside from the philosophical work done by philosophers such as Al-Ghazali, et al., there now exists scientific confirmation of the premise that the universe began to exist. As such, this argument has enjoyed something of a renaissance during the 20th and 21st centuries. 

The two chief arguments that are purely metaphysical against the past being eternal are: the impossibility of an actual infinity existing, and the impossibility of reaching actual infinity via successive addition or counting. The two chief arguments based on modern scientific evidence are: the expansion of the universe, and the thermodynamic properties of the universe. 

First, it should be prudent to differentiate between something that is actually infinite and something that is only potentially infinite. A potential infinity is a growing, albeit finite collection that tends towards infinity as a limit but never gets there. Whereas an actual infinity is a collection whose number is greater than any natural number. 

It is not hard to imagine the series of events in time being potentially infinite. Starting from a point, we can keep counting and counting to infinity but never ever reach an infinitieth number. The problem comes when we are asked to imagine the past as having no beginning either. Imagine coming across a man who is just finishing a countdown.

Starting at -5, he reaches 0 and, upon noticing you, informs you he has just finished counting all of the negative numbers. However, how can this be? If it is impossible to reach an infinitieth number, then it is impossible to start from negative infinity and count your way down to zero. Moreover, since the events in time stand in causal relations, how is it that he is finishing his countdown now and not at some other time? 

Cantorian set theory is of no avail as that only concerns the existence of infinite sets as abstract, mathematical objects which do not stand in causal relations. So, even if we grant for the sake of argument that an actual infinity can exist in the abstract realm, it becomes apparent that this cannot be the case in the concrete world. 

As far as the second philosophical argument is concerned, since we cannot reach an infinitieth number, then any series formed by successive addition cannot reach actual infinity either. However, some point to Zeno's paradoxes to show that, actually, we routinely traverse the infinite all the time. For instance, before we can cross a certain distance, we must cross 1/2 of it, and, before that, 1/4, and so on ad infinitum. 

However, it should be noted that, in this example, we are presented with another case of a potential infinity. We can keep dividing a finite line as long as we like, but we will never reach an infinitieth division. Whereas the series of events in time is a concrete collection of definite and discreet parts that are equal in length. 

The only objection to such philosophical arguments that makes any sense is the claim that, if the past must be finite, then surely this means God is past finite as well, right? This is understandable, but this makes the mistake of assuming that everything that exists is temporal. Whilst we can envision an absolute beginning to time, it is possible that there existed timeless states of affairs in the absence of time. 

As such, we can envision God being timeless sans creation and entering into time at the point of creation. Could the universe or some part of it have existed timelessly? However, this does not seem to be possible. 

This is where the scientific arguments come into play. First, we know from observational data that the universe is expanding. However, any geodesic that has an average positive expansion must have a beginning. This was initially shown by Hawking and Penrose in their singularity theorems, although these were based on general relativity and so some critics argued that quantum gravity models could subvert the absolute beginning implied by such theorems. 

However, that window was firmly shut in 2003 when Alan Guth, Arvind Borde, and Alexander Vilenkin devised a theorem that applied to quantum gravity and even higher dimensional models as well. This has led a sort of retreat into highly speculative cosmological models that feature negative or zero average expansion that nevertheless possess features that require there to be a beginning of the universe in the finite past anyway. 

However, the one fact that no model has been able to controvert is the fact that the universe has not yet reached heat death. Because of entropy, the universe is slowly tending towards thermodynamic equilibrium, or 'heat death'. However, if the universe is past eternal, surely this would have already happened by now? 

Some therefore have retreated to some particularly bizarre objections to the Kalam cosmological argument. Some have argued that nothing, in fact, begins to exist. Whether because they are mereological nihilists who believe that only simple objects exist, or because they hold to a tenseless theory of time, they deny a premise that virtually nobody in their right mind would ever question.

Mereological nihilism denies that there are composite objects and instead maintains that only simple objects like particles exist. In such a view, only these exist and what we falsely believe are composite objects are simply arrangements of matter arranged in certain ways. 

Aside from begging the question in favour of naturalism, it maintains that what we refer to as our self does not exist. I'll be blunt; any view that entails one's own non-existence is not worthy of serious refutation. Moreover, it is worth pointing out that the standard Big Bang model does not describe the expansion of matter into already existing space but describes the expansion of space itself. 

Some have claimed that there are alleged counterexamples to the principle of causation, such as virtual particle-antiparticle pairs, or radioactive decays, but this is the result of equivocation. In the case of virtual particles, these are particle-antiparticle pairs that emerge from the quantum vacuum before quickly annihilating each other and turning back into energy. 

Virtual particles are therefore at every level an example of something coming from something. Whereas radioactive decays are an example of something being caused but in a manner that is currently impossible to predict. If things could just pop into being uncaused, then why does not everything and anything just appear? Why is it only particles and universes?

The better avenue of argument is to try and rely on the tenseless theory of time. On such a view, temporal becoming is not an objective feature of reality. Instead, past, present, and future all exist at the same time tenselessly in a four-dimensional spacetime block. On such a view, the universe just exists tenselessly. 

However, such a view is not particularly defensible. Now, critics allege that such a view is entailed by the special theory of relativity, but this is a half-truth at best. In reality, the four-dimensional view of spacetime is one particular metaphysical interpretation of special relativity, albeit one that enjoys a lot of support among scientists. 

Yet, the differing metaphysical interpretations of special relativity are equal from a purely evidential point of view. There are two other views to consider. Now, the first, which was Einstein's own original view, was that space is 3D but that there was no privileged reference frame. However, this led to a number of strange features that led to Einstein ultimately rejecting this view and accepting the 4D view.

The second view, however, that of Lorentz, was that there is a privileged reference frame, which resolved the problems that plagued Einstein's own view. Aside from this fact, Einstein later came to accept this Lorentzian view on the basis of his general theory of relativity. 

The main argument against a tenseless view and in support of the view that time really is tensed (and temporal becoming is thus an objective feature of reality) is that any illusion of temporal becoming requires there to be temporal becoming. Temporal becoming is simply an irreducible and indispensable feature of reality.

The logical conclusion of these three versions of the cosmological argument is that there exists an explanation of the universe that is an uncaused first cause that is timeless (at least, sans the universe), spaceless, immaterial, and enormously powerful. However, such a cause must also be personal. 

The reason for this is because the only things we know of that are immaterial and spaceless are either abstract objects or minds. However, since abstract objects do not stand in causal relations, this leaves the only possibility as that of a disembodied mind. 

On the Existence of God and the Ontological Argument

Having spent roughly 25 years or so of my life contemplating the question of God's existence, I've surveyed the depth and breadth of arguments both for and against the existence of a being we refer to as 'God'. In some cases, not much effort is made to distinguish between 'gods' and God. In at least classical theistic traditions, God refers to a being that is maximally great; possessing every great making property to the maximal degree possible. In other words, the greatest conceivable being; that than which it is not possible for something to be greater than. 

This is important because, when people speak of 'gods' they often lump in beings that, whilst perhaps powerful and possessed of some kind of 'supernatural' quality, are nevertheless finite beings. Aside from many if not all being created beings and thus contingent, many suffer from a complete lack of anything resembling divine characteristics. The 'gods' of polytheism are all too finite. God, on the other hand, is metaphysically necessary, omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect, and the ontological source of being for everything else that exists. 

As such, when we speak of the existence of God, we can immediately and easily dispense with the various deities of paganism. Now, in many ways, the existence of God can said to be known immediately and a priori. Indeed, belief in God can be deemed simply as being properly basic. We do not form such a belief on the basis of underlying arguments, evidence, or reason, but form the belief as naturally as we do the belief in our own existence. 

Of course, whilst this means we can be rational in our belief, it isn't really enough to show that God exists. The first argument for God's existence is based on modal logic and dubbed the Ontological Argument. The argument is fairly simple: if the concept of a maximally great being is coherent, it is therefore possible and thereby instantiated in some possible world. 

The key premise is that if a being that exists in every possible world is possible, it exists in some possible world. However, it becomes immediately apparent that it follows logically and inescapably that this being must therefore exist. The reason for this is because the set of all logically possible worlds includes the actual world in which we live. 

If the concept of God is coherent, and therefore logically possible, God exists in some possible world. But if God, who exists in every possible world if He exists at all, exists in some possible world, then that means He must exist in every logically possible world. Given that the set of all logically possible worlds contains the actual world, it follows logically and inescapably that God exists. 

There are three responses to this argument made by atheists. The first is to attack the coherency of the concept of God. The second is to try and utilise a parody version of the argument in an attempted reductio ad absurdum counterargument. The third is to accuse those of putting forward this argument of begging the question. 

There are various arguments against the existence of God alleging to show that various divine attributes are either themselves impossible, or at the least cannot be instantiated in the being of God in conjunction with other properties simultaneously. Whilst there are various arguments along these lines, this general approach has been dubbed the argument from divine incompatibilities. 

Some versions of this approach are weaker than others. For instance, some atheists argue that God is an incoherent concept because there is no such thing as a being worthy of worship. However, it doesn't take a dyed-in-the-wool religious fundamentalist to recognise that this begs the question.

If God is defined as a being worthy of worship, and your argument for why we should believe He does not exist includes the premise that 'beings worthy of worship do not exist', then, aside from not being a convincing argument at all, you beg the question since your only reason for accepting that premise is because you already believe the conclusion. 

Some argue that God cannot be perfectly just and perfectly merciful at the same time. Whilst this particular argument does not beg the question, it is nevertheless not a very convincing argument because it assumes definitions of justice and mercy that aren't immediately obvious. Moreover, there exist definitions of both that are mutually compatible. 

So, you would need to go through the laborious task of making a case that your definitions of mercy and justice are at least more plausible than other versions before making such an argument and hope that there are no defeaters. So, we shall focus on stronger versions of this argument. Probably the best version of this argument is the claim that omnipotence is an incoherent concept. 

It is claimed that, if God has the ability to do anything, then He can do things that are logically impossible, such as making square circles, or nonsensical things like making purple smells. The response to this is to simply point out that logical impossibilities aren't 'things'. As such, the ability to do anything hardly applied to non-things. 

The classic example given by atheists is God being tasked with creating a rock too big for Him to lift. Now, God, being immaterial, isn't reliant on physical strength, so a better reconstruction might be to ask instead: could God create something more powerful than Himself? Now, the atheist alleges that this is a paradox that shows that omnipotence is incoherent, but the reality is that all the atheist has done is conjoined random words that have no overall meaning when taken together.

Take the example of a square circle. A shape cannot be fully square and fully circle at the same time because a square is defined as being a shape with 4 equal sides and 4 equal right-angles, and a circle is a one-sided shape whose center is equidistant from every point of that one side. Oh, but someone could argue that you could have a square with smooth corners.

However, note how, in this case, you would no longer have a shape that is fully square or fully circle. It would be neither, but it could not be both. By saying a squircle is a square circle, you are relying on an alternative definition of both square and circle. It's an 'if by whiskey' style argument that obfuscates by playing with words.

In the same way, the atheist that alleges that God must be able to create something more powerful than Himself in order to be omnipotent is likewise playing around with words in order to obfuscate. If God is the most powerful being possible, then the theist can confidently answer that the answer to the question is no, because a being more powerful than God is an incoherent concept. 

In other words, the question 'can God make something more powerful than Himself' is just a nonsense question, akin to asking someone if the statement true or false is true or false. So, really, this approach is just a non-starter. You might as well think that asking 'can God absquatulate enamel from the singularity' is a meaningful question. 

The second approach is, I think, more promising. Parody versions that seek to show that the argument would entail absurd results generally has more truck, in my experience. For instance, some might argue that someone could construct similar arguments about a maximally excellent lion, or a maximally great island. 

These versions of such an approach are, in my opinion, very weak, since neither a maximally excellent lion nor a maximally great island are coherent concepts. The reason for this is because both lions and islands have features that are incompatible with maximal excellence. A lion cannot exist in every logically possible world, and neither can an island. 

Another version of this approach would be to argue that maximal excellence or greatness would entail absurd properties, such as maximal smelliness. However, the obvious rejoinder to such arguments is to simply point out that these are not, in fact, great-making properties. Some have therefore chosen to argue, in the same vein as Immanuel Kant, that existence is not a property that can be added to the essence of something.

However, the obvious response to such a challenge is that we are not treating mere existence as a predicate. Rather, we are treating a specific mode of existence as a property; that of metaphysically necessary existence. This neatly sidesteps this objection entirely without committing us to a particular ontology. 

The third approach alleges that theists who put forward the ontological argument are somehow begging the question; that we only believe that the existence of God is possible because we already believe that God exists. However, there are two things that can be said in reply to this. First, one can easily construct arguments for the possibility of a metaphysically necessary being. Second, however, is that, in the absence of any obvious logical contradictions and defeaters, we are rationally justified in believing that God is a coherent concept.