"I believe that there is most definitely an intelligent force behind creation. If we walked into the forest and came upon a towering fortress we would immediately know that someone had built the structure. We would certainly not consider it an accidental happening." Pathfinder
Evidence for God — Cosmological
I. Evidence of God through reason
"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD ..." (Isaiah 1:18)
"For the word of the LORD is right; and all his works are done in truth." (Psalm 33:4)
A. From Motion
1. Motion presupposes an original mover. ["Aristotle proposes that the universe is perpetually in a state of change and motion; therefore, it requires an infinite mover that does not require to be moved itself. This is a curious phenomenon, because in the observable world all effects have a cause. Aristotle recognizes that this ‘unmoved mover’ is therefore a higher being or force outside of humankind. ...
‘It is by such reasoning that Aristotle came to the conclusion that the prime mover is pure actuality - a being totally devoid of matter or potentiality. In addition, this immaterial being is a perfect being, a being lacking no perfection that remains for it to attain. This perfect being, which is the prime mover of the universe, Aristotle called God (Adler 187).’" Riley Insko at:http://youth.biola.edu/academics/courses/torrey/downloads/demos/termpapers/insko.pdf]
2. Whatever is changed or moved must be affected by an outside Unaffected source.
B. From Causation
1. Every beginning had a beginner.
"Biblical time has a beginning and a direction so that every event had real causes and real consequences." First Things, June/July 2009. p.12
a. The Second Law of Thermodynamics asserts that everything is running down.
b. For a system to have any useful energy at all it implies having been wound up or energized by an active agent or beginner.
c. And this also implies the more useful energy the system has the younger it is.
2. Nature is comprised of many cause-effect relationships.
3. Re-tracing the causes of effects leads to a Primal cause. ["Now we see how astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world... The chain of events leading to man commence suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy." God and the Astronomers, Robert Jastrow]
4. Therefore the Space, Time, Matter continuum had a beginning.
5. The Causal agent was outside of and preceded Space, Time, Matter and must be extremely powerful to create a universe out of nothing (spaceless, timeless, matterless entities).
6. The Causal agent, being outside of that which was created, is therefore spaceless, timeless and matterless — hence spiritual — a being eternal and self-existent.
7. Those are attributes of a theistic God.
C. From Contingency
1. In nature things are created and destroyed by various processes.
2. If all that exists could, by possibility, not exist, then at some point in the past nothing could exist.
3. If nothing exists then something is impossible, because something can not proceed from nothing.
4. There must be some Absolute being for all other things to exist.
D. From Degree
1. The imperfect is compared to some standard of perfection.
2. This standard must finally inhere in an Absolute being.
E. From Limitation of our five senses to capture all of reality - Immanuel Kant in "Critique of Pure Reason."
1. There is no reason to assume we know all that exists.
2. What we know is only through the refracted filter of our experience.
3. Our experience is not the same thing as the reality of something.
4. We cannot claim knowledge of all reality.
5. There remains a great deal man cannot know.
F. From End of Infinite Impossibility
1. If an infinite number of moments occurred before today, then today would never come, because it is impossible to traverse an infinite number of moments.
2. But today has come.
3. Hence, there was a finite number of moments before today.
4. Therefore the universe has a beginning.
G. From Fulfilled prophecy.
Discusses probabilities for numerous prophecies fulfilled in one person www.messianic-prophecy.net/Messianic-Prophecy.htm
1. Prophecy tells in advance what is to come in the future.
2. Accurate, distinct prophecy is incredibly difficult to predict due to the astronomical odds of it coming to pass as detailed.
a. The more detailed the prophecy the higher the odds to have it fulfilled.
b. The longer away from an event the more variables are involved in decreasing the likeihood of the event.
3. Therefore it takes a supremely intelligent or almighty being to know in advance what we cannot know.
See:VIII. Fulfilled prophecies
H. From ontological (or metaphysical), epistemological, moral and other arguments.
1. Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments presents ontological (or metaphysical) arguments, epistemological arguments, moral arguments and other arguments supporting theistic belief.
"Although science is usually treated as an autonomous enterprise, this is a fallacy because science itself rests upon non-scientific, metaphysical presuppositions:(1) the world is orderly, (2) the world is causal, and (3) the scientist is a rational being who can discover truth through observation. These assumptions are metaphysical in nature and therefore cannot be established by science itself. Rather, they must be accepted a priori, or else proved from some non-scientific system, before any science can take place. Thus science is dependent upon religion, not the other way around. The Christian religion provides such a system, because the necessary presuppositions for science can be proved from the foundational Christian beliefs. Without this metaphysical/religious framework, however, there is no rational basis for science." Personal Philosophy, Stan Birchfield
2. All thinking, reasoning and knowledge, is presuppositional in nature. We presuppose a lot of things which must be explained adequately and are explained from a theistic worldview. Some of the common, universal presuppositions are:
"A transcendent reference point, i.e. God (infinite, eternal, and unchangeable being who created and sustains the world-both the visible and invisible aspects-according to an orderly plan) ... Our existence ... Ability to communicate (via language [by a set of symbols-words, i.e. a transcendent dictionary]) ... Universal moral code or laws which includes: personal dignity and freedom, responsibility to others, guilt and shame, stewardship of nature ... Unity between all things (the existence of universal and particulars, the question of the one-and-many [in knowledge:cohesion between pieces of information-from datum to concepts, in science:sorting unrelated phenomena verses related, in categorization:union of many diverse things into a universal grouping, in politics:balance of individuals and collective, et cetera]) ... Laws of logic used in human reasoning ... Rational mind (thinking and reasoning process) ... Understandable universe that can be quantified (basis for any knowledge) ... Orderly logical universe ... Uniformity ( the laws of nature are consistent and do not arbitrarily change with time or location even though conditions will change and modify processes) which includes:reliability of our memory, reliability of our senses (to gather information), the possibility of our finite minds to comprehend universal and absolute concepts with certainty, objectivity of truth, the relationship of the mind to other objects in the world, the relationship of the mind to other minds, reliable function of our physical bodies (sensory input and data recording, communication, locomotion of the body, manipulation and exploration), logical physical laws (consistent natural laws of light, gravity, chemical actions, physical phenomena, et cetera) ... Induction (future behaves as in the past) ... Causality (dependency of processes or phenomena to prior or initiating event(s)) ... Processes to validate information ... Mathematical axioms and processes ... Beauty (in nature, art, music and function) ... Joy and happiness ... Purpose for pain ... Awe and wonder ... Creativity ... Music and singing ... Humor and laughter ... Purpose for life ... et cetera. BK
I. From Questions.
1. Why is there something at all?
2. Why do we have minds?
3. Why does nature have regularity?
4. Why does the universe or any part of it welcome life?
5. Why is there so much beauty around us?
6. Why does man create music?
7. Why can non-literal mathematics explain literal things?
8. Why does man anticipate tomorrow?
9. Why does love affect us?
10. Why do we experience grief, pain or loss?