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