Existence of God: Pascal's Wager

As it is relevant to my most recent post concerning the Existence of God, I had the idea of discussing the thinking of a French mathematician and philosopher from the 1600's who many will be familiar with.

Blaise Pascal is known of course for incredibly significant contributions to mathematics and sciences, but lesser known is that he was also a bit of a philosopher and apologist on the side. While he has written an entire book entitled Defense of the Christian Religion, right now I intend to only look at one stream of thought he had. I don't call it an argument per se, but I do think it relevant to the existence of God and to one's thinking about whether or not God actually exists - and if I should believe in Him or not.

You may or may not have heard of "Pascal's Wager". It's a quite simple "argument" (though again I use the term loosely), and is often put forth in a simplified manner like so:

One who believes in God has nothing to lose and everything to gain,

While he who disbelieves in God has everything to lose and nothing to gain.

Now that is greatly simplified, and deserves some explaining. Pascal would argue that all people, whether they think they do or not, place a wager on one truth - whether or not God exists. A wager, he would say, because of the life-changing implications (gains or losses) that depend on the outcome. If God exists, then we have everything to gain by believing in him and everything to lose by not; and yet if he does not exist, I have nothing to lose if I believe in him (it changes nothing), and there is simply no gain if he does not exist.  For I may lose everything if I have chosen to reject God, and I have both wasted my current life and made no investment for the life to come.

Do you see the point? It's almost like life is a game of probability (but since it is life, this is a most serious game… and everyone plays!). As I assess my options, I find that one could hold great eternal reward, and a small (though disappointing) result if I lose (being: nothing to look forward to after death). But then I see that the other has literally no positive benefit if I am right and yet could have a host of great losses if I bet wrongly… The choice I make then, assuming that both are equally likely, should be an obvious one if I'm no fool. Of course, I ought to bet that God exists! In fact, I think I would devote the entirety of my life to finding out the truth of who God is - it is the most important thing I can think of. It would not be simply enough to think that God exists - the implications are that I must find him also! 

For me, this kind of thinking is very supportive in rationalizing why one ought to believe in the existence of God, though it is not itself evidence for the existence of God. Nonetheless, I thought it a helpful thinking exercise and one worth giving you as you contemplate the very important question of God's existence and what that could mean for your life. Be sure to see my other posts arguing not just for the existence of God but for the truth of the God of Christianity! It is then when things get interesting.

Keep thinking

Corey

The Existence of God: The Cosmological Argument

"There's just no proof..."

In all my posts thus far, I've been making a case for "the hope that I have" - that is, I have been giving reasons for why I believe in Christianity and it's core truths.

Surprisingly, I haven' t yet given my reasons for believing one of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity (and all of the monotheistic religions): the existence of God.

Many in our fairly secular society believe that the belief in the existence of a deity is something that "one must take by faith". Which, in their mind, usually means that there is no real reason to believe that one exists... but if it is to your liking, then go ahead and believe.

If you are convinced that faith and reason are mutually exclusive and that "faith doesn't look at the evidence" or something along these lines, then check out my post on Faith & Reason/Science & Religion. I won't deal with that directly here, but you need to know that this is simply not the case (at least not in Biblical Christianity).

On the other hand, you may think that these areas are not completely separate and that you could probably be a pretty reasonable person and still believe in a religion or something to that effect. But when it comes to the existence of God, "Well," you say to yourself, "that's another story. There's simply no evidence at all."

I'd like to challenge you on that today.

An Argument for Belief

I used to think that since God is outside time and since he is really not a physical being, that he very well could be there but we could never really truly know for sure. So I would default into this kind of aforementioned "there's no proof, but believe if you want" way of thinking - or something like it. But when I entered University and was faced with the question of whether or not I should believe in the God of the Bible, I was forced out of this position. I felt myself unable to "just believe" anything - such thinking just seemed fantastical and foolish. I knew that I had had an undeniable experience when I was younger that convinced me of the truth of what Jesus had taught. But the questions came from all angles, both internally from my own skeptical mind and externally from the many who only years ago were assailing any and all religious belief in our quickly secularizing Western culture. "Where's the evidence? Can we outsiders really trust your subjective experience? If God is indeed real, why would he not make himself more obvious?" I had to face these if I was going to continue to be a thinking person at an academic institution and yet still hold genuinely to my belief in the God of the Bible.

If you've been following my posts at all, you've seen a few arguments for the truth of the Christian faith. I've looked at why evil and suffering are not reasons to disbelieve in God (and why they actually support Christian truth), I've looked at the miraculous historical reasons for believing in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and I've even given what I think to be more than valid reasons for trusting what the Bible says about Jesus and what happened surrounding the rise of Christianity in the first century common era. Some of these arguments already give weight to the existence of the God of the Bible. But what about specific arguments for the existence of God?

To start, I think I will discuss my favourite and probably the most accessible argument for the existence of one personal God (though it's not necessarily an argument for the existence of  the Christian God). The argument actually comes from a Muslim many years ago, and is called the "Kalam Cosmological Argument". It is very simple, and is laid out in the following three premises:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe has a beginning.
3. Therefore, the Universe has a cause.

The idea behind the above progression is that if premises 1 and 2 are true, premise 3 naturally follows (hence the "therefore" at the beginning of premise 3). Now hundreds of years ago when the argument was made, we had no real idea about the Big Bang and the Universe's history. But in recent times, scientific data gives this argument great weight as astronomical and cosmological findings point to a finite beginning of the Universe. "But," you may ask, "why does this cause have to be God?" Good question, because it might not seem so obvious at first. But if we understand the Universe to be all time and spae (and therefore, the Big Bang was actually the beginning of both space and time), then whatever this cause is has to be spaceless and timeless. What things are spaceless and timeless? You would be hard pressed to imagine much of anything besides abstract objects (like numbers) and minds. I sincerely doubt an abstract object would have the power or the intentions of creating a Universe - so I think it's most reasonable that this cause of the Universe is a mind. And given that this mind actually had intention to create something like the Universe (and in doing so bringing about the existence of beings such as ourselves), I think it's pretty reasonable to assume this mind is also personal and not just a supernatural force with great power and ability. Thus, I think it is not only reasonable but actually more reasonable, given the data we have about the Universe, to believe in the existence of a personal God. [If you want a quick and very insightful video going a bit more in depth into the argument, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CulBuMCLg0]

Make sense? For the most part I think it's actually quite a simple argument even though it involves big topics such as cosmology and other philosophical themes. It also holds great weight despite it's simplicity, and (I hope) puts a huge dent in the prevalent position that "it is unreasonable to believe in the existence of God." I hope you agree!

If you've followed my posts you know this is a significant topic for me, and that I think issues like "does God exist?" are very important to one's life. I think this largely because I believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, and that believing in Him has indeed changed my life and can change yours.

As always, please message me if you have any of your own questions regarding God, faith, Jesus, spirituality and the like! Any and all questions are welcome.

I have a few more arguments I think helpful on this specific topic, so look out for those soon! Sorry the posts haven't been more regular!

Happy thinking. Until next time -

Corey

Common Objections: Good without God

As I take on common objections that people have towards Christianity, I've decided to start with one that nearly everyone either makes outright or presumes internally. That is, that "we can be good without God".

The famous and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins has on more than one occasion criticized religious leaders and spokespersons for claiming the monopoly on morality. In other words, these people lay claim that religion gives us morality, and thus those who are non-religious must be by definition immoral or somehow lesser people than those who are religious. Dawkins of course claims that this is not the case, and that those who are non-religious can lead perfectly moral lives without religion and especially without God. He would probably take it a step further too, claiming that an atheist or non-religious person is more moral and reasonable than religious people.

You may find this ironic, but I think Professor Dawkins is right to criticize here. It's quite the claim to say that you need to be religious to be "good" or moral. I think these religious folk (whoever they are, and I'm sure there are many) haven't really thought through what they are saying. At the same time it's just as arrogant and unreasonable for Dawkins to say in the same way that atheists or secular people are automatically better than the religious.

Unfortunately both sides of this argument face utter futility. There's no point to their discussion, and there will never be an end to it, because they both don't know what they're arguing about. The issue lies much deeper than either side here cares to consider.

The issue is one of definition. What do these sides mean by "moral", "good" and so on? Of course you need to know what you mean by these terms if you are to understand what you are arguing about, don't you? Both sides seem to make certain presumptions about what is meant without clearly defining it.

If you've paid attention to previous posts of mine, you'll notice we are treading on familiar ground. What is good? What defines morality? We all seem to have a sense of what is right, though we may differ on the details or the manifestations (like the above parties). So what really, is good? What does it mean to live a moral life?

The fact of the matter is, objective morality does not exist if God does not exist. There is no such thing as an objective moral system if there is not a transcendent source of it. If there is no God, then morality has no basis on which to be objective. Is it decided by people? Then it is by definition subjective and therefore subject to change. Is it decided by evolution? Then who's to say what will be advantageous to the next generation?

It is important to note that I'm not saying you can't be "a good guy" or "a moral person" by society's standards or by cultural understandings. Often we use that kind of terminology in a relative sense, comparing ourselves to others and judging where we fit overall. What I'm talking about is at the heart of what truly defines what is good and what is evil.

What about those religious people I talked about? Were they right, if what I say is true? Not even close! These people seem to think that it is simply a matter of "what" I do that defines a moral life. But morality and goodness are more than just what we do.

Jesus Christ is known for teaching a certain truth about morality. He is known for saying "a good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit". The idea behind this is that the tree itself must be changed before the fruit can be. Perhaps it's no surprise then that Jesus was against the religious people of his time, who thought that by good deeds they could score brownie points with God and enter heaven with a few gold stars on their record. This is completely antithetical to the Bible, and this is why both of the above views on goodness are wrong.

There is no good without God, because God is the definition and standard of goodness. Being super religious and going to church all the time or praying five times a day will also not make us good. We ourselves must be changed before we can be good. If you link the above two truths, it only then makes sense that God is the one who has to do the changing.

I could go on in this, but this isn't an in depth Christian theology lesson. Back to our objection to Christianity: I can be good without God.

Says what? Your own definition of morality? I'm afraid that's no good, pardon the pun. You must first have an objective basis for morality before you can say anyone qualifies as moral. And there is no basis apart from God.

And this is where I talk about my own religion, cuz I believe it and think this is important for all to know:  no one reaches the standard that the Bible sets. No one. Not the most religious person you know. Not the nicest, most loving person you've ever been loved by. And in Christianity, the only way anyone ever gets into heaven is when they believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord, God and Saviour and are changed by him into good trees. They'll never be perfect in this life, but Jesus is changing and transforming them so that they’ll be ready when it comes time to enter heaven forgiven of their bad fruit by what he did on the Cross. No other religion teaches this because no other religions sees the fact that we are sinful and cannot fix ourselves.

I'm hoping that was insightful and compelling - but like most of the things I've blogged about and will blog about, I realize there's perhaps a lot more to discuss and many questions arising even as you read. Or perhaps you have other objections to Christianity and the existence of God or something else.  If so, tweet me @rexCo27 and I can blog a response in the near future!

[Check out this video by an Oxford Professor on this issue if you have a few minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blw7crYC_Is]

Until then, keep thinking!

Corey

The Hope That I Have: Evil and the Cross of Jesus Christ

After discussing evil and suffering for a few posts, I think I've done a half decent job at dealing with the overarching themes and discussions pertaining to evil and the existence of God. At the same time, I do feel that there is a lot more to these problems and concerns when it comes to evil. Sure, maybe you're at the point now where you can see evil and God co-existing logically and you understand that your emotions, if anything, don't give you enough reason to deny God's existence (and maybe even motivate you to the hope that God does exist)… But there is still a hunger and a thirst there for something more, I bet.

But is there a satisfying answer to why evil exists and how it can be overcome or dealt with?

This is where I'd like to get a lot more specific. I'd like to contend that the Christian God, particularly through the person and work of Jesus Christ, is the most satisfying answer to evil and suffering, bar none.

The Only God to Suffer

First and foremost, let me talk about Jesus. The Christian view of Jesus of Nazareth was that he was God incarnate (See the first chapter of the Gospel of John). That is, he was very much God and yet he was God manifesting himself in the everyday body of a man of middle-east descent. He wasn't a superman with special powers or abilities, but was a man, plain and simple. He slept, ate, drank like a man. He got hungry and thirsty and tired. And he also experienced pain, betrayal, sadness, and so on. I could go on. But I will make a point of looking at how Jesus, in his human flesh, also suffered.

As he was being tried for crucifixion, Jesus was betrayed by all who loved him and whom he also loved. They scattered and left him, not saying a word to defend him. His top disciple even denied having ever been his friend and follower - three times, publicly. Imagine being betrayed like that by your best friend, and tell me Jesus can't sympathize even with social sufferings that are so common even here in the West. Feeling alone? No one was ever more alone than Jesus, even though he was as innocent and moral as they come and deserved none of it.

When it came to actually being criminalized, Jesus suffered immeasurably. Before he was even crucified, this innocent man (not to mention God incarnate) unjustly suffered flogging and scourging. Think being whipped, but with a 5-string sharp leather whip with iron balls that would penetrate the skin and cause many a contusion and laceration as deep as the muscles. Oh, and you're naked while they do this to you. They would do this to near collapse or even death. Feel free to look it up for yourself, but be warned, I've toned down the description considerably.

Crucifixion itself is a most brutal form of execution. Victim's arms would be nailed and tied to the horizontal beam of the cross and hung from them. Death would not be quick - imagine a slow suffocation as you hang from outstretched arms, either cold because you are naked, or hot because of the roasting middle-eastern sun over you. If suffocation didn't get you, it might be because you've already died from blood loss or organ failure thanks to the scourging you just received.

Evil Dealt With

Evils though there might be in this world, Christians worship a God who can sympathize with it all. He became a man and suffered and died unjustly. He wasn't willing to put his creation, which he loves, through anything he wasn't willing to go through himself.

Another very important truth about the work of Jesus Christ. When Jesus suffered and died on the cross, it was more than simply a physical event. Anyone familiar with Christian theology knows that it was a very spiritually and theologically significant event as well.

On that cross, the Bible tells us that death and evil were conquered. The victory of all things good and righteous was sealed. And there will be a day in the future when that victory comes to consummation, when evil is destroyed and dealt with and good will reign forever. As the New Testament's final book puts it:

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Rev. 21:4).

In Christianity, God is not complacent about evil. He comes down and faces it man to man. Then he deals with it decisively.

So when it comes to evil and the sufferings of the world we live in, Christianity gives us hope. And our hope, ironic as it might seem given the problem of evil itself, is God himself. Thus, he is the very reason we can endure evil and sufferings in this life, knowing he sympathizes with us and that his truth comforts us and gives us hope that what we endure will not be for naught.

A final note. If you do not know Jesus Christ as your Lord and your God, you do not share this hope. You do not have God, the hope himself. The evil and suffering you endure in this life will be but a shadow of what you face when you die and are completely separated from God. That is what "hell" in the Christian tradition is - separation! And so I plead with you - deeply consider that the answer to evil and sin and all that is wrong with this life lies in the person of Jesus Christ. Please, talk to me, read the Bible, talk to someone you know who loves Jesus. My whole reason for writing these blog posts is that people would meet Him, so you would do me great service even if we could just chat about this. At least give this great thought! If indeed what I speak is true, it has great consequences and is worth checking out.

Thanks for reading! This is for now my last post on evil, but there are many more questions that people are always asking, and so there will always be more blog posts. Until then,

Keep thinking.

Corey

The Hope That I Have: Evil - Emotionally

As I think I showed quite well in my last post on evil and suffering, we perhaps don't have good enough reason to think that there is a logical problem with the simultaneous existence of God, evil and suffering. Nonetheless, I think that if we’re all totally honest, there’s more here than straight logic.

Even the most logical of us surely battle our emotions from time to time. For all intents and purposes your reason tells you one thing, but your emotions say something else completely. And so it often is for evil and suffering. Even if we can see logically no incompatibility between the existence of God with the existence of terrible moral evils or seemingly pointless but awful suffering, we still feel like all these wrongs mean there can't be a right. We'll even go as far as to say that life is meaningless, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" as Shakespeare wrote. We go this far, perhaps, because we hope that our emotional pain (whether our own or lived vicariously) will be numbed or eased. Behind this might be a hope that if we can convince ourselves that it's all just part of life, part of our "meaningless" existence, then we can just move on and not have to worry about it. We want peace - and when life's evils seem to keep us from this peace, we try to convince ourselves that there is no evil at all. Just existence.

If we take a step back however, we can see where we go wrong. We are telling ourselves these things. We are the ones trying to redefine what we understand as evil, and for our own convenience no less. The evils and endless sufferings of life impact us emotionally - and we respond based on our emotions. Thus, our emotions govern our actions and control what we believe or how we live.

I think we would all agree that our emotions are important. Clearly, they can be very helpful as we make big decisions, as we relate to others, and as we undergo self-discovery. Our emotions can tell us much. But they can also mislead and interfere. We have all had times where our emotions have gotten the better of us, made us say or do something we ended up regretting or even changed so suddenly that we wished we had never listened to them in the first place. Indeed, as helpful as emotions can be, they are not the be-all, end-all, and must be cautiously watched, and constructively questioned and criticized.

When it comes to our worldview, (that is, how we see and understand the world) we must be incredibly careful that our emotions do not govern us. Why? Because how you see and understand the world will determine how you live and how you relate to those around you, and will in a very real way lead you (and others) either to success or to destruction. And even more importantly, if how you live and thus what you believe have consequences not only in this life but any life that may follow this one, then your worldview (led by your emotions, if you let them) will have great and lasting (even, possibly, eternal) consequences.

Our emotions can only tell us so much. Ultimately, they cannot be what we base our worldview on - and so when it comes to the existence of God, indeed perhaps the most important question of anyone's life, we cannot let our contempt for evil and suffering guide us to say, simply, "there is no God"… That, I think, is foolishness.  

And so our emotions, though helpful, must not be the end decision maker in our lives.

Though I think the above case is sound, I know still the depth and power of emotions and don't pretend to make light of them nor their ability to guide and determine our minds. I think a future post should deal with the superiority of the Christian God in these matters, as I think that there is still a lot to deal with when it comes to evil and suffering, and I also think that the God of the Bible answers and satisfies these problems better than any (largely through the person of Jesus Christ, God in a human body, who himself suffers and endures evil unlike anyone else).  

For now though, I would plead with you that you do not let your emotions decide such an important question as the existence of a loving God. Please, keep thinking. And my hope is that instead of a resentfulness towards the thought of a "so-called" loving God who allows evil, you would see such a being as the good comforter in the midst of a world filled with evil, and that you would see pain and suffering as the "megaphone" (as CS Lewis puts it) to a sleeping and broken world that He uses to awaken and heal it.

Keep thinking.

Corey

The Hope That I Have: Evil - Logically

There is an age-old argument against the existence of God, and it is one to this day still dealt with in the hearts and minds of many. It is known as "theodicy" or the Problem of Evil (often suffering is included here also), and it goes something like this:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Many attribute this particular statement to the Greek philosopher Epicurus, though there is debate as to who actually has said it. Nevertheless, this kind of argument has been around for some time and even in our culture is manifested in the cries of people everywhere, religious and non-religious. Some use it as a means to justify denial of anything and everything to do with religion. For others, dealing with many a challenge and difficult circumstance, simply walk away from any idea of a so-called "loving God". I think the best way to deal with the problem of evil and suffering is to look at it in two different ways: logically and emotionally. In this first post, we will deal with evil logically.

Being both a thinker and one who's emotions can definitely get the best of him (surprising as that may seem to those who know me), I have wrestled much with the ideas of evil, suffering and the existence of God. I'm sure the worst of life has yet to hit me too however, and so I know I will wrestle all the more in the future with the deep, heart piercing questions that plague each one of us. I also know that I have not delved into the depth of the debate in modern philosophy regarding this question, and so as per usual the discussion below will likely only be surface level. Nonetheless, I hope to give the big picture and make the case that evil is still no reason to deny God's existence; to the contrary it is all the more reason to believe in it!

First, we must start with the big picture. We must define evil - what is it? Evil is first and foremost a moral problem - wickedness, or acting immorally.

You might be surprised at how simply I will deal with evil right now. The reason for this, I think, is that the problem isn't a problem at all, at least from a logical perspective. The truth is, if you believe in evil, that is, a transgressing of some moral standard, well, then you of course presume that moral standard. In other words, you believe that there is also a such thing as good. But what defines this good? Therein lies the second presumption of the "problem" of evil - it presumes a source of moral law. And this source must be transcendent! It cannot come from us; otherwise it would be defined by us and therefore subjective and subject to change. But when we speak of the problem of evil, we assume that indeed, something is objectively evil, that is, it is bad whether or not someone says it is (or isn't). For an extreme example, if Hitler had claimed to us all that the killing and torture of millions of people was not evil we would not have agreed with him, though at least then we may have given him the insanity plea (maybe). He could have argued that it was all for science and for the greater good of humanity that we kill off these people and perform these experiments. But no, I think we would all agree that regardless of the potential benefits he may have argued for, we would have denied him any claim to "good". We would have condemned such ideas because we believe that such things are evil, objectively, whether or not someone argues otherwise. Isn't it interesting? We make an audacious claim in calling things evil - effectively, we imply the very existence of God when we do so.

So sure, maybe our claims against evil imply God's very existence… But still, why does he allow it? Again, perhaps simpler than we might think. It would be unhelpful (and incredibly difficult, if not impossible) to come up with an answer to every single evil committed, but perhaps a general look at things would suffice. From a logic standpoint, it is perhaps enough to simply say that God may have morally sufficient reasons for allowing evil. If we could have even one good reason for allowing evil that is morally sufficient for God to do so, then there is no logical reason to believe that God ought not to allow evil. Make sense?

One example that comes up often is the idea of free will. If God wanted to create a world of free creatures that had choices, in particular a choice to love or not to love (thereby enabling true, self-giving love to someone, namely God in this case) then he had to allow for the possibility of un-love. It is in this choice that evil is made a possibility, and indeed, in the Christian view, it is the choice that brought evil into the world when Adam and Eve chose to follow their own, subjective "moral law" (see the book of Genesis, chapter 3). So, God has given humanity some degree of freedom, and within that freedom is a choice of evil.

I think that is one half-decent argument among many. One could also posit quite effectively that through allowing evil God is somehow seeking a greater good, thereby having more than sufficient reasons.

These definitely aren't always the "comforting" answers that many, perhaps even you, have sought. But this is the logic aspect of the question, and I think that from a logical perspective we don't have reason to disbelieve in God because of evil… But rather we have reason to believe in his existence if indeed there is evil in this world.

The emotional problem of evil is perhaps one I can dive into at a later time. It is one I myself haven't gone into as much, though I've often pondered it even as I've dealt with more personal encounters with evil and suffering. I may even like to dive into the question of suffering - different than moral evil, it is more the ideas of terrible things happening for seemingly pointless reasons, things like tsunamis and storms taking countless lives. Until then, keep questioning!

I'd also like to make a plug quickly! This week at McMaster University, the Veritas Forum is happening Tuesday through Friday, as the campus will be engaged on questions regarding Death, Dying, and Suffering. See this link if you're interested in seeing a panel discuss various views of the issue, hear about suffering from a medical perspective, engage in a social justice fair and see how you can help, or even hear a Christian view of the relevance of God in suffering. On Friday there will also be various events in the evening for those interested in continuing with the discussion!

Come check it out, and bring your friends, whatever perspective you come from!