The God Argument
Is there a god? That is the age old question! It seems everywhere I look these days; the belief in god is becoming more and more unpopular. The belief in god is now likened to the belief in fairy tales. The God Argument seeks to demonstrate that the belief in god is more than blind faith, but one based in logic and science. And that a creator god is in fact the best explanation for the origin of the universe. It is a very simple argument and spelled out so that anyone can understand it.
The God Argument is based on the philosophy that if you can disprove all possible answers to a question except one, then that one answer is true! An example of this would be if you are taking a multiple choice test with four choices, and you know that B, C, and D are wrong, then you know A is correct! You prove ‘A’ is correct by disproving the other three choices. You do not need to directly prove that A is correct, it is correct by default.And thus The God Argument starts with the following multiple choice question:
How did the universe come into existence?
2. The Universe is an illusion
3. The Big Bang Caused the Universe
So we have three possible answers (other than god) to our question, but is that really all there are? No, but any other option would have to claim the universe is either:
- Not Real
- Real and Eternal
- Real and With a Beginning
It is impossible to think of another option that doesn’t fall into one of these three buckets. There is for example the YoYo Theory that says the universe has expanded and contracted forever, but this is just another version of the Eternal Universe argument. Or perhaps the Multiverse Theory which says there are multiple universes, but this would still require a beginning. If you say it wouldn’t, then it is just another Eternal Universe argument. So while there are other variations of the three, they would all inherit the same problems with science and logic we will now demonstrate.
Let us note that we are not making claim to any specific god and we use the lowercase ‘g’ for god accept in the titles or headers.
Is The Universe Eternal?
The Kalam Argument (actually part of this larger argument) demonstrates using simple logic that the universe cannot be eternal. The argument is initially credited to Aristotle.
The Kalam argument says that if the universe is eternal, then the past must be eternal and without a beginning. But if the past was eternal, then we could have never arrived at the present. To get to the present from an eternal past, means we would have had to traverse (go through) an infinite amount of time (all of eternal history)! But that’s impossible, it’s like trying to count to infinity, you can count on forever but you will never arrive! A good analogy is trying to jump out of a bottomless pit, you won’t have much luck if there is no point in which you can jump from.
The world of time we live in and eternity are two very different things. Time cannot be eternal in the past as we could never traverse infinity or have an infinite succession of events. The universe could go on forever without end, but this is different from being eternal and unchanging.
Choice #1 is false.
Is The Universe Just an Illusion?
The argument that the universe is an illusion seeks to avoid the whole god and Big Bang issue by simply saying the universe really doesn’t exist. In fact as we are part of the universe, it means that we do not exist either, and thus we don’t need to worry about the origin of the universe because it’s not real. This is perhaps the weakest argument we will look at, but nevertheless we will logically debunk it.
Let’s start with the definition of the word illusion. According to answers.com, an illusion is “an erroneous perception of reality”. When we look at this definition, the key word is perception! Illusion is dependant upon perception and to have an illusion means you need a “real” observer perceiving it! Without an observer there is no illusion. If you are experiencing the universe, whether it is matter, quarks, or just an illusion of them, in any case, you are real. And if you are real then there is still something and thus we are back at the same problem of where did this “something” come from?
So we cannot negate the universe by simply saying it is an illusion. We can say it is like the movie the “Matrix” and the universe is not exactly how we perceive it to be. But there still has to be a “reality” behind the illusion or minimally something experiencing it.
Choice #2 is false.
Did the Big Bang Cause the Universe?
Scientists tell us they can trace the beginning of the universe back to the first microsecond. They trace time back to an initial explosion we have come to know as the “Big Bang” that caused the universe we now experience. According to this theory the universe started from “singularity” (an immensely dense state) and the universe then exploded out of this. This is the theory used to account for the origins of the universe by atheists and/or evolutionists, and is of course backed up by science. So does the Big Bang theory backed by science remove god from the equation?
Let’s go back to my first sentence and how science traces time back to the first microsecond of history. The problem is that they can’t account for what happened before, or when there was no universe or nothing! In other words the Big Bang theory doesn’t tell us anything about the initial “cause” of the universe or where it came from, just how it happened.
So regarding the problem of the origin of the universe, this doesn’t tell us anything. It doesn’t demonstrate how something initially came out of nothing. If the universe is finite as this option holds to, then there would have been absolutely nothing and then there would have been something which then exploded into the universe. So “something” had to come from “nothing” if we say god did not cause the Big Bang. But this goes against the laws of science. Science says that “energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form”. So if energy cannot be created but only change its form, then how could something initially come from nothing? The answer is it can’t happen unless you break the laws of science!
Let’s now do an experiment to try and prove something can come from nothing. First we need absolutely nothing and let’s put it in a box. I believe Wal-Mart sells boxes of nothing for next to nothing. Then let’s sit and wait for something to appear. Remember we cannot add anything to our experiment, such as a spark or some kind of fuel, we can only wait. If we wait long enough something will surely come from the nothing in our box. Some gold coins would be real nice! Does this sound like science to you? But this is what many scientists want you to believe regarding the universe, the same ones that make light out of the belief that god created the universe.
*To the scientist who stills believes this theory, you have to ask yourself how big of a bang would it take to draw the entire universe out of singularity?
Science may soon figure out a way to tap the earth’s magnetic field with some kind of “free energy” device. The device may give out more energy than is put in, but in this case it would simply be tapping into the earth’s magnetic field, and not creating energy. Think of a “free energy” battery (worth millions) that as it’s being used and drained of its energy, gets that energy instantly replaced from the earth’s magnetic field. This energy would not be coming from nothing, but simply somewhere else, and not be breaking the laws of science.
In conclusion, something cannot come from nothing, and this option is impossible unless we break the laws of science.
Choice #3 is false.
God Created the Universe
Now that we have shown that the first three options could not be true, god had to have created the universe. Proving god exists or doesn’t exist directly is impossible to do, but proving he exists through disproving all other options is not. And in response to the question of where the universe came from, a creator god makes the most sense when we properly use science and logic.
This is not the same thing as saying “a dragon in my garage created the universe since no other explanation is right”, as this dragon would be part of this universe and couldn’t have created it. Or saying the tooth fairy created the universe. If you say this dragon is eternal and outside of time and space, then this is the same concept of god. You’re just calling god a dragon.
*We define god as simply something eternal and unchanging.
Knowing that the universe cannot be eternal, a complete illusion, and that it could not have come from nothing (without breaking the laws of science and logic), god is the only explanation left standing.
One thing that is very interesting is there is one particular creation story that says the universe was created by song. Some of the latest scientific theories claim that the universe is nothing more than waves, simply a bunch of frequencies. How interesting is it that the Bible says that god “spoke” the world into existence!
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If You subsitute “I Don’t know” for “god” your argument sill holds. You omitted a major choice ion your selection of “all possible answers”. There are 5 possible choices, not four.
Its one thing to come to a conclusion about the Existence of God
its another to define who God is, and what God apparently wants
I believe that the confusion, frustration and differences are found more in the definitions that have been handed to us concerning God than the idea of God
Today, for the first time, I read the God argument. I have read lots of the other arguments, but I really like this one a lot. I especially like the disproving of the other arguments as a means to giving credibility to god. Thanks for your work.
I think you’ll find that most scientist do not claim the universe came from nothing. The big bang caused the energy and matter that already existed to expand into the universe. Does that mean it is an eternal universe? Not really, time began at the moment of the big bang. Not something from nothing, but a change in what was.
While you cannot count to infinity, you can always be somewhere in the count. That would be called the present.
Hi Bob,
In the case of my argument we do know. As I state the universe is either eternal and has always existed, is just an illusion, came into being on its own (Big Bang), or was created by God. Any other options you can think of will be variations of these.
The bottom line is most everyone would agree there was a beginning, so it started on it’s own from nothing or God did it.
Hi D,
If the universe existed prior to the Big Bang then the Big Bang was not the beginning of the universe. It was just an explosion like any we would see today in the universe. If the universe were eternal it would be changeless and there would be no explosions. If it is finite and the Big Bang was not the beginning, then the beginning was at some point prior. So we are still left with the same problem. You’re are just adding another layer. Similar to saying aliens created us and not God. But who then created the aliens. Adding another layer to things doesn’t solve the problem.
In the first part of this decade I realized that science (when view with an open mind) gave me all the evidence for God that I need! I do believe however I did not create the universe out of nothing but within and of himself. Human beings are like cells in a body inside of God. Now if some cells in my body decide to do their own thing I would probably need a doctor. That’s disease. And we cut it, poison it, irradiate it etc
to get rid of it. It also produces discomfort and pain. I believe that though God doesn’t get injured, he can feel pain. Selfishness, rebellion are like reverse polarity.
Man can’t make anything like my hand or any other part of me, man doesn’t create he can only work with the materials available.
Why is it a given that if the universe is eternal it is changeless? I would expect something eternal to go through a great many changes.
It is a mis-characterization to say that the Big Bang Theory says the Universe came from nothing, all the energy of the universe existed as a singularity which was transformed into the universe we live in during the Big Bang event.
You ask how big of a bang would it take to draw the entire universe out of singularity? Are you asking how much energy that would take? The answer is “all of it”.
You should also keep in mind that statements about what existed before the Big Bang are meaningless because space and time came into being in that event and therefore there is no such thing as “before the Big Bang”.
Hi D,
The reason is where there is change there is time. And where there is time there has to be a beginning. Something eternal must never change. The simple question of how many times has the earth spun or how many sunrises has there been reveals a finite world. We can’t say the sun has risen an infinite amount of times for example. The sun should rise again tomorrow and we can’t add 1 to infinity.
Hi Vincent,
True, I also see God as creating the universe from within himself and not necessarily from nothing.
Hi Ed,
If singularity was eternal then it would never change as it must be seperate from time. If you say it isn’t eternal then where did it come from? No matter how you look at it you have the same problem.
Interesting discussion. How about this:
It seems like we could spend an awful amount of time, with our finite abilities, trying to prove/disprove the existence of something (God) that, if He does exist, surely could not be understood by the human mind.
If God does not exist, why even have this discussion?
But if He does exist, then, logically, you owe it to yourself to engage Him. If you really do your best to seek him, not in logic, but in heart, and in truth, I’m confident you will find that He is real, and that He DEFIES logic. His word even promises that “…I (GOD) will confound those who consider themselves wise,” and, “… (God is) foolishness to those who do not BELIEVE…”
Believing in God is not a test of logic. We are not here demanding God to show Himself to be real. It is Instead, it is He who is asking us to show ourselves real. It requires a leap of faith. We make leaps of faith all the time, in just about every area of our lives. You made a leap of faith, when you got on your computer just now, that the internet connection was up. Why is it so hard to suspend our doubts and disbelief when it comes to God?
And if, after trying your level best to seek God with all sincerity, truly suspending your disbeliefs, you still don’t find Him, go back to your old life. Have you really lost anything? But if you find Him where you did not expect to find Him, and discover He does really exist…..WOW! You’ve gained everything.
I can come up with far more decisive and logical counter arguments to every claimed “argument” you use to disprove another.
Also, the short summaries used to pretend like you know fields of theory and understanding to which you know little about are vastly flawed in almost every ignorant sense of the topic.
God is only but a simple answer for a weak mind. It is designed to calm and lull a once immature culture into a civilization. It is but a fantasy based doctrine of morals put forth for ones with a lack of common sense. On one’s own, without religious brainwashing, through education and normal social interactions, can indeed answer questions of morality to which will accommodate religious standards.
Religion is an art, a relic of early human sociological evolution, and will ultimately live the rest of history as a popular mythology.
Hi T,
I agree, we should all seek God with all our hearts. But not everyone feels the same as you or I. God also put us here to tell others about him. Unfortunately we live in a world where kids are taught that God dosn’t exist. Paul said he reasoned with the Bereans day and night. God gives us reason to uncover truth, and the ulimate truth is about him. Logic does clearly reveal God, and it’s up to us believers to spread this truth to others. Think about the young kid who has bought the lie of evolution. God uses people to spread his message and confront the lies of this world.
“I can come up with far more decisive and logical counter arguments to every claimed “argument” you use to disprove another.”
Then go ahead…
“Also, the short summaries used to pretend like you know fields of theory and understanding to which you know little about are vastly flawed in almost every ignorant sense of the topic.”
Do you know my mind? Why not just tell me where and why?
“God is only but a simple answer for a weak mind. It is designed to calm and lull a once immature culture into a civilization. It is but a fantasy based doctrine of morals put forth for ones with a lack of common sense. On one’s own, without religious brainwashing, through education and normal social interactions, can indeed answer questions of morality to which will accommodate religious standards.”
I can’t argue your opinions…
“Religion is an art, a relic of early human sociological evolution, and will ultimately live the rest of history as a popular mythology.”
If you say so.
One question - where did God come from?
I believe that the “God Argument” is employing the logical Fallacy “False Dichotomy” which is to arbitrarily reduce a set of many possibilities to only a few. Assuming for the sake of argument that the “God Argument” has unequivocally proven that possibilities 1, 2, and 3 are false then this still does not prove possibility 4 because of the fact that there may exist a possibility 5, 6, etc that has not yet been discovered or the author of the argument simply does not know about. I don’t believe that we can say that because science does not currently know where the universe came from that god must have done it.
As anyone who knows GOD knows, if you seek GOD, HE will reveal himself to you.
HE does this through his creation, or through an event or experience in your life or whatever means HE choses that he knows will “seal the deal” for that unique individual. For any skeptics out there, if only you would stop trying to DISPROVE HIS existance, and simply turn around and SEEK HIM, HE would reveal himself to you. That is how HE works….HE is a gentleman so to speak and will NEVER force Himself on anyone. That is the Nature of FREE WILL. Beware however that you must SEEK HIM in earnest, HE knows your motives and the desires of your heart. (because HE designed and created it, HE knows how it works !) One might just as well say that they don’t believe in the law of Gravity, as to say they don’t believe in GOD. Then they try to navigate life (without God) as if they were jumping off a cliff denying the existance of Gravity.
My Hope and Prayer is that all who read this will indeed SEEK HIM, and you will indeed be blessed by KNOWING HIM.
Hey everybody,
I wish that I was here to agree with your arguments, but I find all them lacking. Including those disproving god. All people perceive of god in their very own unique way. In order to prove the existence of “God” you first need to define him. The very creation of god in ones own mind leads to different definitions. To define the almighty in any way in which people can describe him does injustice to even the idea of god.
I have studied many religions and find that we are all seeking the same thing. Even those of us who don’t believe in a singular god search for meaning. We need to recognize the differences in our discussions of god and attempt to find a common understanding. By separating ourselves and ideas from those around us we cause disharmony. If their were a god, in the commonly acknowledged sense of the word, I’m sure he would recognize the need for harmony here in life.
I personally believe that we will find a true harmony in recognition of the infinite and present. All things are possible and we have a long way to go towards understanding. Just open your mind to your fellow men. There you will find peace, not praying to the space around us. - Lloyd
in the passage where you describe the universe as having an infinite past, therefore making it impossible to arrive at the point in time, in which we live, you forgot to mention one key fact: There is an infinite past AS WELL as an infinite future. I can not see how you arrived at the conclusion that there would be an infinite past and ignore the fact that there would also be an infinite future.
Another error I found was your separation between the yoyo theory and the big bang. It is not true that scientists can not explain where the universe came from before the singularity of the big bang. A main theory is that the universe yoyo’s down to singularity before exploding outward (otherwise known as the “big bang”) again.
Despite all of this, the question remains, Why does there have to be a beginning as well as a creator? Also, How can any human being have any idea what god is like, if the idea is too ‘awesome’ to possibly be conceived or perceived by a human being (which was created subsequently in a gods image).
If saying aliens created humans is adding another layer to the argument, why isn’t saying god created humans adding another layer? If there has to be a defined beginning, the earth was created by god, therefore, who created god?
There are too many holes in the logic behind the idea of a centralized belief system requiring its followers to ‘not question’ the real issues behind the faith. Applying logical thinking to an idea that was created hundreds of years ago would seem and indeed is, illogical. The creators of those ideas did not and could not have the foresight to imagine the leaps in technology as well as the enormous gain in knowledge we have had since that time. Indeed there are questions that science has not answered yet, but the number of those questions shrinks every day, whereas the gaps that religion holds are not explained, and cannot be.
From my point of view, your article proves nothing. I would run something like this by a few different sources (perhaps a logic or philosophy professor) before posting it.
HI, I think you scared B away!
the big bang theory does not say “something came from nothing”. It says that an initial explosion was made by particles that were already there. Scientist do not know where the material came from. Before you try to disprove something you should at least have some idea of what your talking about.
“If [the universe] is finite and the Big Bang was not the beginning, then the beginning was at some point prior. So we are still left with the same problem. You’re are just adding another layer. Similar to saying aliens created us and not God. But who then created the aliens. Adding another layer to things doesn’t solve the problem.”
Am I missing something, or wouldn’t god himself be “just another layer”? Is he the top layer? And how can we know this?
Also, using the logic of your first argument to talk about god would disprove the existence of an eternal god. The logic of your third argument would likewise rule out the possibility that god was created (or came from) from nothing. Perhaps god is just an illusion…oh wait…argument two… Thus, the logic you used to show that there has to be a god has simultaneously shown that a god (as he is usually understood to be) cannot exist.
QUOTE You should also keep in mind that statements about what existed before the Big Bang are meaningless because space and time came into being in that event and therefore there is no such thing as “before the Big Bang”.
END QUOTE
Not necessarily true, what happened in the nothing, before time and space, when there was nothing, what happened if there was nothing to make a big bang???? Just a thought!
“Why does there have to be a beginning?”
If we think back in our own lives we can trace it back to a beginning also. It’s not that there has to be, it is just the way it is. Time has a beginning, we cannot have an infinite length of time in any direction, it will always be measurable and finite.
“Who created God?”
Something eternal is not created. Either the universe it eternal or something eternal with a will created it. We know the universe is not eternal as it exists within time and space and has a beginning.
“There is an infinite past AS WELL as an infinite future. ”
There is not an infinite past or future in regards to time as time is measurable and always finite. We could live on forever, but let’s add one day and one and one day, etc. You will always have a finite number of days you’ve lived.
Eternity is completely seperate from the universe of time we live in. Everything in eternity simply is, there is no succession of anything as in linear time. Everything that will ever happen has already happened in eternity. We live within linear time and God interacts with us within linear time, but God in his highest self is completely outside of time.
“HI, I think you scared B away!”
Comon, B, what you got for me? You aint so bad!!!
LOL
You still didn’t answer the questions. Your description of “It’s not that there has to be, it is just the way it is.” is neither convincing nor is it founded in anything. Just because you haven’t experienced it, does not make it a non-truth.
There has been no evidence that the Universe is not eternal. You are ignoring the fact that Time (as well as religion, but i don’t expect you to admit this) are man made things.
“Something eternal is not created. Either the universe it eternal or something eternal with a will created it. We know the universe is not eternal as it exists within time and space and has a beginning.”
How can you claim to understand anything about “god”? Is your research from a book that has been re-written several times over the course of its existence, which was started by men? Also, the universe has a central point that it is expanding out from, not that it has a beginning. We also know that it is expanding to an undefined point. The part that scientists don’t know is for how far and for how long, therefore making it eternal so far as we know.
In a logical argument the burden of proof cannot fall upon a negative assertion. Rather the burden of proof falls upon the positive, this being a core tenant of science.
In the “God created the universe” argument you choose too small a sample of theories to disprove and represented them incompletely as their are an infinite number of possibilities. To disprove the existence of god you would have to prove existence of god not disprove a limited number of assertions.
Science is completely capable and does both prove and admit that its conclusions (when I say’ “it” and “science in this paragraph I am referring to the scientific community as a whole”) are wrong and in doing so find the correct answer, until such evidence reveals itself and demands the process be repeated (otherwise known as the scientific method).
It is true that the creation of life is unknown to human beings (both scientific and religions explanations alike). But religious explanations have failed to develop any logical explanation (the fact that christianity holds that we are descended from the same two parents, does not account for the fact that our species would have severe health issues along with stunted mental growth. This can be viewed when a breed of dog has been inbred for too long. The dog looses eyesight at a younger age, develops joint problems and dies sooner).
The supposed eternality of god breaks your own law that everything has to have a beginning. If god can do it, why can’t the universe? Perhaps god also lives in his own time and space and therefore must be finite himself. Oh yeah, huh. The bible says he’s eternal. Well I say he isn’t. That’s just as much evidence as is presented in the bible.
Ok, let me address most of the questions above here…
As to how do I know I have all the options, it is simple, every option must either state the universe is either:
- Not Real
- Real and Eternal
- Real and With a Beginning
This covers every possibility and anything you can think of is just a variation of one of these buckets.
As to saying the Big Bang did not come from nothing but singularity, I say then where did singularity come from? You have the same issue, if singularity was eternal then it would remain just that eternally, unless it had a will to act.
As to why can’t the universe be eternal, the answer is that something within time and space cannot be eternal. You can never have an infinite succession of events. For example how many times has the earth spun? Or days have there been? The answer is finite and points to a beginning. For the universe to be eternal it would have to exist without change, but we know it changes.
God can be eternal as he is unchanging and outside of space and time.
As to time being man made, no matter how you slice it we have change in our universe. Where there is change there is a beginning. So we don’t even have to use the word time. The earth could not of spun an infinite number of times.
When we look at the world today it is obvious that something went wrong somewhere. Just about every culture in the world has some creation story where everything was originally good, and then evil entered in. As a result of this evil/sin, humankind was punished. We now have the promise of restoration, or a new heaven and earth where everything is made perfect.
No we cannot know everything there is to know about God, but we can know some truth about him. God gave us the ability to think and reason to uncover truth from error and right from wrong. He gave us the spiritual capacity to know him intimately even though we cannot see or touch him. He promises that if we seek him with all our hearts we will find him. And I can vouch for that.
Thanks for all your comments! I hope I’ve been able to answer the above posts to your satisfaction, I’m sure some will say no:)
I don’t really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It’s like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what’s stopping it, and what’s behind what’s stopping it? So, what’s the end, you know, is my question to you.
Hi Josh,
I can’t quite grasp your question. When I was a kid I said the universe has no end to one of my friends. And she said it had to end somewhere. I said well what is there some big sign at the end saying to turn back as you’ve reached the end of the universe? These are concepts we just can’t grasp in our feeble minds.
Close your eyes an what do you see? Black space right? Where does it end even in our minds? It’s as if it goes on forever! There are some things too far beyond our comprehension.
All we can work with is what we do know and understand. Hopefully one way we will all get the answers to our deepest questions.
God: Hi Stephen nice to meet you.
Stephen Hawking: God, that can’t be you, I have shown through science that there is no God.
God: Does not my presence prove you wrong?
Stephen Hawking: No, this can’t be right, I must be imagining this.
God: You mean like imagninary time?
Stephen Hawking: So you’ve read my book?
God: Well I sort of skimmed through it once.
Stephen Hawking: What did you think?
God: Well to start your title is a bit misleading. You call your book “A Brief History of Time”, but then you go on to say that time is just imaginary. I found that a little misleading. And then when you left me out, well let’s just say we almost had another Big Bang. And believe me you would have been imagining it for a long time after.
Stephen Hawking: Hmm, you have a point. I hope you’re still not offended.
God: It’s ok, I am no longer so angry at you as I am with this new Richard guy. He really gets under my spirit. How would you feel if someone dedicated their whole existence just to tell everyone that you didn’t exist?
Stephen Hawking: I see your point.
God: I’ve tried everything from parting seas, fire on Mount Sinai, I even rose from the dead, but people still think I’m not real. Everyone seems to believe in you, do you have any advice for me?
Stephen Hawking: The secret is no one will believe in you these days until you write a book. All you have to do is write a book, then they will believe.
God: No Stephen, I tried that already, but it didn’t work.
Stephen Hawking: Oh yeah.
God: What did you think of my book Stephen?
Stephen Hawking: Well, I sort of, well I umm, I sort of haven’t read it.
God: But I read yours!
Narrator: At this point there was a very large explosion, we can only pray for Stephen at this point. God was too angry to comment and quickly left the scene.