There’s No Single Proof for God’s Existence

The problem with trying to prove whether God exists is that God doesn’t exist, at least not in any way we can understand what it means to exist. God is the ground of all existence. Further, I’ve yet to come across an airtight argument for or against God. Every argument has flaws, holes and in the end, is aimed at something so far beyond our own understanding that they seem like guesses.

I do still think – perhaps naively – that each argument for God’s existence starts to add up. So, while no one argument offers anything airtight, taken in their entirety they direct me toward theism. They seem consistent with each other in all the right ways. Christianity makes sense of my life where atheism can only laugh at the absurdity of my situation.

There are a few arguments that seem more convincing to me than not. I wanted to share those with you here. I may, or I may not, elaborate on these in future posts. So, take these as brief, incomplete sketches.

Primary Mover

I’m lumping these together here: primary mover, contingency, cosmological argument and first cause. Why is there something rather than nothing, especially when everything around us seems to have a cause? Everything around us is contingent on something else. This is often misunderstood as if we’re saying that God is just one more contingent being. That is why atheists like to ask things like, “then who created God?” This is a category error so large I sometimes feel stumped in addressing it. It really cannot be taken seriously. Again, God does not just happen to exist, God is existence and existence is necessary to God’s very being. I’m talking about God who is simple and outside of contingent existence who calls everything into being. I think the logic of a source of being, a sustainer of existence, an infinite existence beyond contingency in a world of contingent beings is required. I also call that source of being God, but you might not. You might have a lot of baggage associated with the word, “God,” and feel uncomfortable with that word.

But what about a multiverse? OK, then what caused the multiverse? A multiverse is also contingent, if more complex. Why would a multiverse be less contingent than a single universe? Multiverse and simulation theories seem like pale technological mythologies trying to a replace a God that makes more sense than either one of them.

What if the state of nothingness is just unstable? Again, this is a category error. When I consider why there is something rather than nothing, nothingness is not a quantum vacuum state, I mean absolute nothingness.

Personal Experience

I’ve had several mystical experiences in my life that I believe can only be explained by God and the supernatural. My experiences have been unique to me and independent of other experiences friends have shared or I have read about; yet, these experiences are astoundingly similar. I believe the odds of all of us making up similar mystical experiences is too low to even consider it a possibility. Your openness to mysticism really depends on the openness of your world view. There is so much evidence for God all around you if you’re willing to see it.

Atheists who say that personal experience cannot be trusted or that we have simply fallen victim to wishful thinking have reached the pinnacle of cynical hubris. Literally billions and billions of people have reported personal experiences with God throughout history. Anyone who likens the God of all existence to an, “imaginary friend,” is simply too unserious to be addressed.

Consciousness

I believe the existence of consciousness calls materialism into question. Consciousness does not emerge from matter, though it could be the other way around. If you spend enough time in contemplative prayer you start to realize your consciousness is not local. I am not my brain. My brain is another part of my body I can control, like my arm. Am I my arm? Well, kind of. Kind of not. If I am controlling my brain like I do my arm, then who am I doing the controlling? What and where is my actual mind? I don’t have any clear answers to this but I’m convinced we are more than simple matter. Related to this are experiences of beauty and love — or any qualia — which I don’t think can be explained through basic chemical processes. If I’m wrong about this, then we truly live in a pointless and dreary world, and I’d still rather pretend otherwise.

Morality

Here’s another argument that atheists get wrong, probably because so many Christians get it wrong, too. I am not at all arguing that you must believe in God to be moral. I do, however, believe that no true moral absolute standard can arrive through biological evolution. If you believe that our morals are simply evolved mammalian survival outcomes, then you must also accept that there is no absolute right or wrong. We could have evolved our morals in any other way. Black widows sometimes eat their mates. This might provide simple nourishment or it might help promote genetic diversity. If we had evolved with that characteristic, would it be morally right in the absolute? Why do we still believe there is an absolute right or wrong unless we deep down believe there actually are moral principles. Yes, it is biologically compelling to adapt positive outcomes for the species. But none of our survival outcomes make things actually morally true in an absolute way. Without a God, moral absolutes do not exist and will certainly change over years of evolution. Even making a truth claim about morality — such as biology determines ethics — is admitting that you believe there is an actual right and wrong to support truth claims.

Laws of Nature

I’m greatly sympathetic to arguments that the laws of nature only seem finely tuned because humans evolved around them. I find a lot of Christian Intelligent Design arguments stunningly naïve. But the more I study physics and mathematics, the more I’m puzzled that the universe behaves consistently at all. The universe and our very being seem to be composed of and created through consistent information. I know saying that we’re part of a great mind is too woo-woo for many people, but it would explain a lot of experience.

Rational Thought

This argument comes from Alvin Plantinga. If our ability to conceptualize our world and make logical deductions is solely based on how we evolved, then we can’t really say any of these experiences are reliable. Our experience could simply be the result of a strange user interface that evolved and was successful in our survival. Like the moral argument, arguing that our thoughts are actually rational without a God is self-defeating. The best you can argue is that our thoughts seem rational and have assisted our survival. Our beliefs about the world have survival value – they help us survive. That doesn’t mean they are true. Without God, there is good reason to doubt that our thought results in anything beyond basic survival. If naturalism is true, then our thoughts cannot be shown to be rational, so to make the argument that naturalism is true could very well be based on utter irrationality. Naturalism becomes a self-defeating loop of nonsense. Hats off to the midcentury existential post-modernists who embraced absurdity in the face of these issues. The so-called New Atheists have a lot of catching up to do. I suggest starting here.

The Resurrection

My atheist friends think I’m a little nuts, because as we all know, dead bodies do not come back to life. To which I say, “exactly.” This isn’t the kind of claim you’d proudly invent. I’m certain first-century Jews also understood that dead bodies stay dead. There is a lot of evidence that has caused some of the most critical atheist scholars to concede that the early disciples and apostles clearly believed in the resurrection. Of course, believing in something doesn’t make it true. I don’t think any of these arguments would convince a nonbeliever, but for someone like me who combines it with personal experiences of a living Christ, an actual resurrection is the best explanation for early Christianity. Once I open myself up to that, things fall into place. Scripture and mystical experiences make sense. I can make sense of a lot of the paradoxes of life through Christianity.

A Pattern Emerges

I want to emphasize that you could argue ad nauseum about any of these and get nowhere. But once you start down a path, things start to make a little more sense in each step. But it requires a leaping off at some point, a leap which a lot of people are afraid to take.

It seems logical that the fact there is something rather than nothing in a world of otherwise contingent beings requires a source of existence. The laws of nature and our assumptions about rationality seem to back that up. That says nothing about if that source is God, let alone an all-loving Christian God. But it’s a start.

I can contemplate my own experiences, consciousness and morality to conclude that there is more to life than brute materialism. There is truth, beauty, love, happiness, connectedness and spirit in life that a collection of matter doesn’t explain. These things do not emerge from simple matter.

My own experiences and everything above suddenly make a lot of sense in light of Christ’s resurrection. It makes it all very personal and accessible.