Arguments for the Existence of God
Every argument for God starts from something nobody disputes and tries to walk from there to God. Learn to find the agreed starting point and the step, and you can evaluate an argument you have never met.
Use it, the way the marks are given
Free interactive practice at using the material, which is what the marks are for.
Start revising freeWhat you'll cover
They all have the same shape
There are several famous arguments for the existence of God, and they are usually learned one at a time with a counter-argument stapled to each. Learned that way, an exam question about an argument you have not revised leaves you with nothing. ⭐ They share a shape. EVERY ONE OF THEM STARTS FROM SOMETHING NOBODY DISPUTES AND TRIES TO WALK FROM THERE TO GOD. Nobody argues about whether the universe exists. Nobody argues about whether it contains order and regularity. Nobody argues about whether people report powerful experiences. Those starting points are common ground. ⚠️ So the disagreement is never really about the starting point. It is about whether the STEP from it to God is licensed. Which gives you one question to ask of any argument, including one you have never met: what is agreed, and what is the step?
Two classic arguments
Two of the best known arguments, set out so that the agreed part and the step are visible separately. Notice how short the agreed part is in each. Both are held sincerely, and both have been argued about for centuries.
Order the parts of an argument
Put the parts of an argument for the existence of God in the order they come.
- An observation about the world that almost nobody disputes
- A claim about what best explains that observation
- The step from that explanation to something beyond the world
- The identification of that something with God
- The reply of somebody who accepts the observation but refuses the step
Where a counter-argument should aim
A student wants to argue against the design argument. Which approach is strongest?
- Accept that the universe contains order, and argue that order can be explained without a designer
- Deny that the universe contains any order or regularity at all
- State that God does not exist, so the argument must be wrong somewhere
- Say that people only believe it because they were brought up to
Words for arguing carefully
Five terms that let you evaluate an argument rather than simply disagree with it.
Find the sentence that attacks the step
A student writes against the cosmological argument. Select the ONE sentence that attacks the inference rather than the starting point or the person.
- The cosmological argument says everything has a cause and so there must be a first cause.
- People who believe this have usually been taught it since childhood.
- Even if there was a first cause, calling that cause God adds a great deal that the argument has not established, since a first cause need not be personal, good or still in existence.
- It is obvious that there is no God, so the argument fails.
- Nothing in the universe actually has a cause anyway.
Which objections actually engage
Three of these five are objections that genuinely engage with an argument for the existence of God. Choose the three.
- Order in living things can be explained by a long process of natural change rather than by design
- If everything needs a cause, what caused the first cause, and if something can be uncaused why not the universe
- Even granting a designer or a first cause, identifying it with the God of a particular religion is a further move
- Religion does not appeal to me personally
- Most scientists are not religious, so the arguments must be wrong
Two questions and you can evaluate anything
You may be given an argument you have never revised. You are not stuck. ⭐ What is agreed, and what is the step? Then ask whether anything else could explain the agreed part equally well, and whether the conclusion says more than the step can carry. ⚠️ And give both sides. This paper rewards an answer that states the objection AND the reply, and never rewards deciding the matter by asserting it.
Match the move to what it does
- Offering natural change as an explanation of order in living things
- Asking what caused the first cause
- Granting a first cause but refusing to call it God
- Pointing out that believers were usually raised in the faith
- Answering that the first cause is held to be of a different kind from caused things
- Accepts the observation and competes with the explanation
- Presses on whether the step can be taken without taking it twice
- Accepts almost the whole argument and challenges only the final identification
- Says something about believers while leaving every premise and step untouched
- Defends the step by denying that the same rule applies to the thing being argued for
Footprints on an empty beach
Leave God aside. You walk onto a beach at dawn and there is a line of footprints in the wet sand, evenly spaced, heading towards the rocks. You say, without thinking about it: somebody walked here. ⭐ Now watch what you actually did, because it is the whole of this module in one sentence. You noticed something you and anybody else would agree about: marks in sand, evenly spaced, in a line. Then you made a move. You judged that a person walking explains those marks far better than wind, water or coincidence could. And that move is not silly. It is how everybody reasons about almost everything. ⚠️ But notice how much can still be disputed WITHOUT anybody denying the marks are there. Perhaps the tide leaves regular patterns near those rocks and you have not seen it happen. Perhaps somebody walked, but not this morning, and not towards the rocks. ⭐⭐ Nobody in that disagreement is denying the sand. The whole argument is about how far you may travel from it, and how much you may claim when you arrive. Keep that beach in mind and you will never again attack the wrong part of an argument.
Complete the argument facts
A starting point an argument takes as agreed is called a _____, and what the argument claims follows from it is the _____. The step between them is the _____, and that is where almost every disagreement about these arguments actually lives. The _____ argument begins from the order and regularity in the universe, while the _____ argument begins from the existence of things and their causes. Somebody who holds that it cannot be known whether God exists is an _____.
Build the evaluation
Complete an evaluation of the design argument.
Arguments quick-fire
Five quick decisions. Three lives.
Handle an argument you did not revise
An exam question presents an argument for the existence of God that you have never seen before. Work through it.
- What do you do first?
- You want to evaluate it. Where should your objection aim?
- You have made your objection. What must the answer still contain?
Evaluate an argument for God
Choose either the design argument or the cosmological argument. Explain it, and evaluate how convincing it is.
- Set out what the argument treats as agreed, and the step it takes from there
- Explain why the starting point is not usually what people disagree about
- Give the strongest objection to the step, attributed to those who make it
- Give the reply that those who accept the argument would make
- Reach a judgement and support it, remembering that either conclusion can earn full marks if the reasoning is good