Proofs For The Existence Of God

Answer : The modal cosmological argument or “argument from contingency” is the argument from the contingency of the world or universe to the existence of God. The argument from contingency draws on the distinction between things that exist necessarily and things that exist contingently. Something is “necessary” if it could not possibly have failed to exist. God, too, is often thought to be a necessary being, i.e. a being that logically could not have failed to exist. Something is “contingent” if it is not necessary, i.e. if it could have failed to exist. Most things seem to exist contingently. All of the human artifacts around us might not have existed; for each one of them, whoever made it might have decided not to do so. Their existence, therefore, is contingent. Critics of the argument from contingency have questioned whether the universe is contingent, but it remains at least plausible to think that it is so. The only adequate explanation of the existence of the contingent universe, the argument from contingency suggests, is that there exists a necessary being on which its existence it rests. For the existence of the contingent universe must rest on something, and if it rested on some contingent being then that contingent being too would require some explanation of its existence. The ultimate explanation of the existence of all things, therefore, must be the existence of some necessary being. This necessary being is readily identified by proponents of the cosmological argument as God.

The argument from contingency, then, can be summarised as follows:

The Argument from Contingency

(1) Everything that exists contingently has a reason for its existence.

(2) The universe exists contingently.

Therefore:

(3) The universe has a reason for its existence.

(4) If the universe has a reason for its existence then that reason is God.

Therefore:

(5) God exists.

This argument suggests that there is something whose existence is essential but fails to prove that this very entity is God. Secondly this argument in fact takes it for granted that God exists without giving any rational proof.

Answer : Causal argument takes the existence of God as first premise and thus proves the existence of God labeling it as first cause. One objection to the argument is that it leaves open the question of why the First Cause is unique in that it does not require a cause. Proponents argue that the First Cause is exempt from having a cause, while opponents argue that this is special pleading or otherwise untrue. The problem with arguing for the First Cause’s exemption is that it raises the question of why the First Cause is indeed exempt. Secondly, the premise of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori (inductive) reasoning, which is dependent on experience. David Hume highlighted this problem of induction and argued that causal relations were not true a priori (deductively). However as to whether inductive or deductive reasoning is more valuable still remains a matter of debate, with the general conclusion being that neither is prominent. Even though causality applies to the known world, it does not necessarily apply to the universe at large. In other words, it is unwise to draw conclusions from an extrapolation of causality beyond experience. Additionally, it is argued that Occam’s razor can be used against the argument, showing how the argument fails using both the efficient and conserving types of causality. An objection against the theist implication of the proposition is that even if one accepts the argument as a proof of a First Cause, it does not identify that First Cause with God. The argument does not go on to ascribe to the First Cause some of the basic attributes commonly associated with, for instance, a theistic God, such as immanence. Rather, it simply argues that a First Cause (e.g. the Big Bang, God, or an unarticulated First Cause) must exist. There exist theistic arguments that attempt to extract such attributes. Furthermore, if one chooses to accept God as the First Cause, God’s continued interaction with the Universe is not required. This is the foundation for beliefs such as deism that accept that a god created the Universe, but then ceased to have any further interaction with it.

Answer : The first (and therefore second) premise taken by the argument from design for the existence of God assumes that one can infer the existence of intelligent design merely by examining an object. The teleological argument assumes that because life is complex, it must have been designed. It is argued that this is non-sequitur logic. Life or objects are described as “orderly” or “ordered”, which implies that an intelligent designer has ordered them. However, in reality, there are examples of systems that are non-random or ordered simply because it is following natural physical processes, for example diamonds or snowflakes; however, it is also argued that the presence of this kind of natural physical process is also evidence for a designer, and these particular systems are repetitive in nature and less complex than a non-repetitive system like DNA. The design claim is often challenged as an argument from ignorance, since it is often unexplained or unsupported, or explained by unscientific conjecture. Supporters of design assume that natural objects and man-made objects have similar properties, therefore both must be designed. However, different objects can have similar properties for different reasons, such as stars and light bulbs. Proponents must therefore demonstrate that only design can cause orderly systems or the argument is invalid. It is often claimed that a designed organism would contradict evolutionary theory. As most professional biologists support the theory of biological evolution by means of natural selection, they reject the first premise, arguing that evolution is not only an alternative explanation for the complexity of life but a better explanation with more supporting evidence. The teleological argument could only indicate the existence of a powerful, but not necessarily all-powerful or all-knowing, intelligence. Another argument states that even if the argument from design proved the existence of a powerful intelligent designer, it would not prove that the designer is God. Whilst the Universe can at first seem to be purposeful and ordered, it has been asserted that upon closer inspection its true function becomes questionable. Richard Dawkins, a high-profile advocate of atheism, rejects the claim that the Universe serves any actual function, claiming that the Universe merely ‘mimics’ purpose. Evidences of design are those characteristics not found in nature, so it is impossible to produce evidence of design within the context of nature itself. Only if we first step beyond nature, and establish the existence of a supernatural designer, can we conclude that nature is the result of conscious planning.

Answer : The cosmological argument is an argument for the existence of a First Cause (or instead, an Uncaused cause) to the universe, and by extension is often used as an argument for the existence of an “unconditioned” or “supreme” being, usually then identified as God. It is traditionally known as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, the causal argument or the argument from existence. Whichever term is employed, there are three basic variants of the argument, each with subtle yet important distinctions: the arguments from causation and the argument from contingency. The basic premise of all of these is that something caused the Universe to exist, and this First Cause must be God. It has been used by various theologians and philosophers over the centuries, from the ancient Greek Plato and Aristotle to the medieval St. Thomas Aquinas and the 20th century Frederick Copestone. The cosmological argument could be stated as follows:

1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. Nothing finite and contingent can cause itself.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.

According to the argument, the existence of the Universe requires an explanation, and the creation of the Universe by a First Cause, generally assumed to be God, is that explanation.

In light of the Big Bang theory, a stylized version of argument has emerged (sometimes called the Kalam cosmological argument, the following form of which was set forth by William Lane Craig:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

There are several objections to this argument. One objection to the argument is that it leaves open the question of why the First Cause is unique in that it does not require a cause. Proponents argue that the First Cause is exempt from having a cause, while opponents argue that this is special pleading or otherwise untrue. The problem with arguing for the First Cause’s exemption is that it raises the question of why the First Cause is indeed exempt.

Secondly, the premise of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori (inductive) reasoning, which is dependent on experience.

David Hume highlighted this problem of induction and showed that causal relations were not true a priori (deductively). However as to whether inductive or deductive reasoning is more valuable still remains a matter of debate, with the general conclusion being that neither is prominent. Even though causality applies to the known world, it does not necessarily apply to the universe at large. In other words, it is unwise to draw conclusions from an extrapolation of causality beyond experience. The rules of causality only make sense in the context of time, which obviously did not exist before the creation of the universe, thus it could be considered nonsensical to speak of pre-universal “causes”, specifically a First Cause, when discussing the origins of the universe. An objection against the theist implication of the proposition is that even if one accepts the argument as a proof of a First Cause, it does not identify that First Cause with God. The argument does not go on to ascribe to the First Cause some of the basic attributes commonly associated with, for instance, a theistic God, such as immanence or Omni benevolence. Rather, it simply argues that a First Cause (e.g. the Big Bang, God, or an unarticulated First Cause) must exist. There exist theistic arguments that attempt to extract such attributes.

Furthermore, if one chooses to accept God as the First Cause, God’s continued interaction with the Universe is not required. This is the foundation for beliefs such as deism that accept that a god created the Universe, but then ceased to have any further interaction with it.

Answer : Teleological arguments are arguments from the order in the universe to the existence of God. They are also known as arguments from design (or, to be precise, arguments to design).

The name “the teleological argument” is derived from the Greek word telos, meaning “end” or “purpose”. When such arguments speak of the universe being ordered, they mean that it is ordered towards some end or purpose. The suggestion is that it is more plausible to suppose that the universe is so because it was created by an intelligent being in order to accomplish that purpose than it is to suppose that it is this way by chance.

The teleological argument was used by St Thomas Aquinas as one of his Five Ways of knowing that God exists, but the most cited statement of the argument is that of William Paley. Paley likened the universe to a watch, with many ordered parts working in harmony to further some purpose. Just as the complexity, order, and purpose of a watch implies intelligent design, he suggested, so too the complexity, order, and purpose of the universe implies intelligent design. The argument as he constructed it is thus an argument from analogy. Modern teleological arguments look somewhat different to that constructed by Paley. While Paley was particularly impressed by the appearance of design in biological systems, such as the eye, or animals, modern teleological arguments often find evidence of design in physics.

Modern teleological arguments tend to focus on the “fine-tuning” in the universe, the fact that it is exactly as it needs to be to support life. One advantage that this gives modern design arguments over Paley’s is that they are less vulnerable to attacks based on evolution theory. It is an objection to Paley’s argument that evolution can explain the appearance of biological design; evolutionary processes, though, do not apply to the laws of nature. Although teleological arguments are often referred to as arguments from design, those who oppose such arguments sometimes object to this. Antony Flew, in particular, has done this, repeatedly and pointedly calling the argument the argument to design. Though he is no longer the vehement critic of the argument that he once was, having recently been persuaded that it might have merit, he continues to be a critic of the common name, insisting that it is it the argument to, not from, design.

Answer : Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by scientists, philosophers, theologians, and others. In philosophical terminology, “existence-of-God” arguments concern schools of thought on the epistemology of the ontology of God. The debate concerning the existence of God raises many philosophical issues. A basic problem is that there is no universally accepted definition of God. Some definitions of God’s existence are so non-specific that it is certain that something exists that meets the definition; in stark contrast, there are suggestions that other definitions are self-contradictory. A wide variety of arguments exist which can be categorized as metaphysical, logical, empirical, or subjective.

The atheistic conclusion is that the arguments indicate there is insufficient reason to believe that any gods exist. Strong atheism (or positive atheism) is the position that a god or gods do not exist. The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods. Some strong atheists further assert that the existence of some or all gods is logically impossible, for example claiming that the combination of attributes which God may be asserted to have (for example: omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, transcendence) is logically contradictory, incomprehensible, or absurd, and therefore that the non-existence of such a god is a priori true. Paul Tillich also says that God is not within human reason and so does Wittgenstein. Kant also accepts that though there is no reason to prove the existence of god but still we have to accept it on moral grounds. Logic is applied to empirical things but since god is transcendental it is really futile to apply logic and reason to something that can’t be sensed. According to weak theism there are no good reasons and no credible grounds for believing that gods exist (“I do not believe that god(s) exist” as opposed to “I believe that god(s) do not exist”); or (b) neither believe that god(s) exist, nor believe that no god(s) exist. This is orthogonal to agnosticism which states that whether gods exist is either unknown or unknowable.

Answer : The statement refers to the cosmological argument for the existence of God. The cosmological argument is an argument for the existence of a First Cause (or instead, an Uncaused cause) to the universe, and by extension is often used as an argument for the existence of God. It is traditionally known as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, the causal argument or the argument from existence. Whichever term is employed, there are three basic variants of the argument, each with subtle yet important distinctions: the arguments from causation and the argument from contingency. The basic premise of all of these is that something caused the Universe to exist, and this First Cause must be God. It has been used by various theologians and philosophers over the centuries, from the ancient Greek Plato and Aristotle to the medieval St. Thomas Aquinas.

The cosmological argument could be stated as follows:

Every finite and contingent being has a cause.

Nothing finite and contingent can cause itself.

A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.

Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.

According to the argument, the existence of the Universe requires an explanation, and the creation of the Universe by a First Cause, generally assumed to be God, is that explanation. In light of the Big bang theory, a stylized version of argument has emerged (sometimes called the Kalam cosmological argument):

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

The Universe began to exist.

Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

Logical objection to the argument from contingency is that the argument makes a logical fallacy called Non-sequitur since it makes a false conclusion that “since it is possible for such things not to exist, there must be some time at which these things did not in fact exist”. It is a false conclusion because from the (merely logical) contingency of anything it does not logically follow that there must be some time at which - the merely logically (not empirically) contingent - things, like for example matter, in fact did not exist (in order to prove that matter did need to have a cause outside itself).

Answer : the statement refers to the ontological argument which was proposed by Anselm. Although he did not propose an ontological system, he was very much concerned with the nature of being. He distinguished necessary beings (those which must exist) from contingent beings (those which may exist but whose existence is not necessary). Anselm made a priori argument for God, based on the idea of necessary existence. He claimed that, if God is that than which no greater can be conceived, it is better to be necessary than contingent; therefore, God must be necessary. To sum up:

God is the entity than which nothing greater can be thought.

It is greater to be necessary than not.

God must therefore be necessary.

Hence, God exists necessarily.

God is something than which nothing greater can be thought.

It is greater to exist in reality and in the understanding than just in understanding.

Therefore, God exists in reality

Immanuel Kant put forward a key refutation of the ontological argument in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant first questions the intelligibility of the very concept of an absolutely necessary being, i.e. asking “whether I am still thinking anything in the concept of the unconditionally necessary, or perhaps rather nothing at all.” He considers a way of understanding the concept which enlists the help of examples of necessary propositions, e.g. “a triangle has three angles”. But he rejects this account for two related reasons: first, since absolutely necessary judgments will never yield absolute necessity for things and their existence (e.g., “a triangle has three angles” yields only the conditioned necessity that, if a triangle exists, then necessarily three angles exist), then even if we defined a concept of a thing X so that “X exists” were a necessary judgment, all that would follow is the conditioned necessity that, if X exists, then necessarily X exists; second, since contradictions arise only when we keep the subject and cancel the predicate (e.g., keeping God and canceling omnipotence), and since judgments of nonexistence cancel both the subject and the predicate, therefore no judgment of nonexistence can involve a contradiction.

Kant concludes that there is a strong general case against the intelligibility of the concept of an absolutely necessary being. Second, Kant argues that if we include existence in the definition of something, then asserting that it exists is a tautology. If we say that existence is part of the definition of God, in other words an analytic judgment, then we are simply repeating ourselves in asserting that God exists. We are not making a synthetic judgment that would add new information about the real existence of God to the purely conceptual definition of God.

Answer : Arguments for the existence of God come in many different forms; some draw on history, some on science, some on personal experience, and some on philosophy. The primary focus is the philosophical arguments—the ontological argument, the first cause argument, the argument from design, and the moral argument. Each of these arguments, if successful, supports a certain conception of God: the ontological argument, for instance, is an argument for the existence of a perfect being; the first cause argument is an argument for the existence of an eternal Creator; the argument from design is an argument for the existence of Creator with a special interest in humanity; the moral argument is an argument for a moral authority. Each of the arguments, if successful, then, so supports a specific religion to the extent that its conception of God matches that supported by the argument.

The first purported proof of the existence of God is the ontological argument. The ontological argument seeks to prove the existence of God from the laws of logic alone. It dates back to St Anselm, an eleventh century philosopher-theologian and archbishop of Canterbury, but was also used by the French philosopher René Descartes. It argues that once we mentally grasp the concept of God we can see that God’s non-existence is impossible. This argument, if it is successful, demonstrates the existence of a perfect being that could not possibly fail to exist. The second purported proof of the existence of God is the first cause argument, also called “the cosmological argument”. The first cause argument seeks to prove the existence of God from the fact that the universe exists. The universe came into existence at a point in the distant past.

Nothing can come into existence, though, unless there is something to bring it into existence; nothing comes from nothing. There must therefore be some being outside of the universe that caused the universe to exist. This argument, if it is successful, demonstrates the existence of a Creator that transcends time that has neither beginning nor end. The third purported proof of the existence of God is the argument from design, also called “the teleological argument”. The argument from design seeks to prove the existence of God from the fact that the universe is ordered. The universe could have been different from the way that it is in many ways. It could have had different laws of physics; it could have had a different arrangement of planets and stars; it could have begun with a more powerful or a weaker big bang. The vast majority of these possible universes would not have allowed for the existence of life, so we are very fortunate indeed to have a universe that does. This argument, if it is successful, strongly suggests the existence of a Creator that takes an interest in humanity. The fourth purported proof of the existence of God is the moral argument. The moral argument seeks to prove the existence of God from the fact that there are moral laws.

Moral laws have the form of commands; they tell us what to do. Commands can’t exist without a commander though, so who is it that commands us to behave morally? Their authority transcends all human authority, and they must therefore have been commanded by a being whose authority transcends all human authority. The existence of moral laws, the argument concludes, thus demonstrates the existence of a being that is greater than any of us and that rules over all creation.

On the other hand there are arguments that aim at showing either that a particular subset of gods do not exist (by showing them as inherently meaningless, contradictory, or at odds with known scientific or historical facts) or that there is insufficient reason to believe in them. Empirical arguments depend on empirical data in order to prove their conclusions. The argument from inconsistent revelations contests the existence of the deity called God as described in scriptures — such as the Jewish Tanakh, the Christian Bible, or the Muslim Qur’an — by identifying apparent contradictions between different scriptures, within a single scripture, or between scripture and known facts. To be effective this argument requires the other side to hold that its scriptural record is inerrant, or to conflate the record itself with the God it describes.

The problem of evil contests the existence of a god who is both omnipotent and omni-benevolent by arguing that such a god should not permit the existence of evil or suffering. The theist responses are called theodicies. The argument from poor design contests the idea that God created life on the basis that life forms exist which seem to exhibit poor design. For example, many runners get a painful “stitch” in their side due to poor placement of the liver. The argument from nonbeliever contests the existence of an omnipotent God who wants humans to believe in him by arguing that such a god would do a better job of gathering believers. The argument from parsimony contends that since natural (non-supernatural) theories adequately explain the development of religion and belief in gods, the actual existence of such supernatural agents is superfluous and may be dismissed unless otherwise proven to be required to explain the phenomenon.

The analogy of Russell’s teapot argues that the burden of proof for the existence of God lies with the theist rather than the atheist/skeptic. Deductive arguments attempt to prove their conclusions by deductive reasoning from true premises. The omnipotence paradox suggests that the concept of an omnipotent entity is logically contradictory, from considering a question like: “Can God create a rock so big that he cannot lift it?” or “If God is all powerful, could God create a being more powerful than itself?”. Another argument suggests that there is a contradiction between God being omniscient and omnipotent, basically asking “how can an all-knowing being change its mind?”The argument from free will contests the existence of an omniscient god who has free will - or has allotted the same freedom to his creations - by arguing that the two properties are contradictory. According to the argument, if God already knows the future, then humanity is destined to corroborate with his knowledge of the future and not have true free will to deviate from it.

Therefore our free will contradicts an omniscient god. Another argument attacks the existence of an omniscient god who has free will directly in arguing that the will of God himself would be bound to follow whatever God foreknows him doing in eternity future. The Transcendental argument for the non-existence of God contests the existence of an intelligent creator by suggesting that such a being would make logic and morality contingent, which is incompatible with the presuppositionalist assertion that they are necessary, and contradicts the efficacy of science. A more general line of argument based on this argument seeks to generalize this argument to all necessary features of the universe and all god-concepts. Conclusions on the existence of God can be divided along numerous axes, producing a variety of orthogonal classifications. Theism and atheism relate to belief about the existence of gods, while agnosticism and agnosticism relates to belief about whether the existence of gods is (or can be) known. Agnosticism concerns belief regarding God’s conceptual coherence.

Answer : The ontological argument is an argument based not on observation of the world (like the cosmological and teleological arguments) but rather from reason alone. Specifically, the ontological argument reasons from the study of being (ontology). The first and most popular form goes back to St. Anselm in the 11th century A.D. He begins with stating that the concept of God is “a being than which no greater can be conceived.” Since existence is possible, and to exist is greater than to not exist, then God must exist (if God did not exist, then a greater being could be conceived, but that is self defeating—you can’t have something greater than that which no greater can be conceived!). Therefore, God must exist. But it is difficult to simply state that something must exist by definition. Without good philosophical support for why a thing must exist, simply defining something into existence is not good philosophy (like stating that unicorns are magical, single-horned horses that exist).

These problems notwithstanding, several prominent philosophers today continue to work on this more unusual form of theological argument. Kant has criticized this argument vehemently. Kant’s criticism aims at both premises of the main argument. To the major premise, he objects that there is an unjustified passage from the logical to the ontological level: “But the unconditioned necessity of judgments is not the same as an absolute necessity of things. The absolute necessity of the judgments is only a conditioned necessity of the thing or of the predicate in the judgment”. In other words, to conceive that S is P doesn’t imply the necessary existence of S. Such proposition requires not the absolute necessity of something but a conditioned necessity: something should be given as existing before predicates could be stated of it.

No predicate can, by itself, assert the existence of the subject. Ignorance of this simple truth turns the ontological argument into an illusion. Strawson puts it in a contemporary vocabulary: “To form a concept, however rich, is one thing; to declare it instantiated is another. Logical or analytical necessity relates solely to the connection of concepts with one another”. In fact, such argument departs from a necessity of the predicate in this proposition (existence is a necessary predicate of the concept of god) to infer the necessity of the very existence of the subject of the judgment.

Answer : God is dead” is not meant literally, as in “God is now physically dead”; rather, it is Nietzsche’s way of saying that the idea of “God” (religion and other such spirituality) is no longer capable of acting as a source of any moral code or teleology. Nietzsche recognizes the crisis which the death of God represents for existing moral considerations, because “When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident. By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one’s hands.” This is why in “The Madman”, a work which primarily addresses atheists, the problem is to retain any system of values in the absence of a divine order. The death of God is a way of saying that humans are no longer able to believe in any such cosmic order since they themselves no longer recognize it.

The death of God will lead, Nietzsche says, not only to the rejection of a belief of cosmic or physical order but also to a rejection of absolute values themselves — to the rejection of belief in an objective and universal moral law, binding upon all individuals. In this manner, the loss of an absolute basis for morality leads to nihilism. This nihilism is what Nietzsche worked to find a solution for by re-evaluating the foundations of human values. This meant, to Nietzsche, looking for foundations that went deeper than Christian values. He would find a basis in the “will to power” that he described as “the essence of reality”. Nietzsche believed that the majority of people did not recognize (or refused to acknowledge) this death out of the deepest-seated fear or angst. Therefore, when the death did begin to become widely acknowledged, people would despair and nihilism would become rampant.

This is partly why Nietzsche saw Christianity as nihilistic. He saw himself as a historical figure like Zarathustra, Socrates or Jesus, giving a new philosophical orientation to future generations to overcome the impending nihilism. Nietzsche believed there could be positive possibilities for humans without God. Relinquishing the belief in God opens the way for human creative abilities to fully develop. The Christian God, he wrote, would no longer stand in the way, so human beings might stop turning their eyes toward a supernatural realm and begin to acknowledge the value of this world.

Answer : The cosmological argument begins with a fact about experience, namely, that something exists. We might sketch out the argument as follows.

• A contingent being (a being that if it exists can’t-exist) exists.
• This contingent being has a cause of or explanation for its existence.
• The cause of or explanation for its existence is something other than the contingent being itself.
• What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
• Contingent beings alone cannot provide an adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.
• Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
• Therefore, a necessary being (a being that if it exists can’t not-exist) exists.

The first objection to the argument is that it leaves open the question of why the First Cause is unique in that it does not require a cause. Proponents argue that the First Cause is exempt from having a cause, while opponents argue that this is special pleading or otherwise untrue. The problem with arguing for the First Cause’s exemption is that it raises the question of why the First Cause is indeed exempt. Proponents who follow William Lane Craig’s statement of the argument counter that the atheists’ objection is a straw-man argument, pointing out that the first premise does not state that everything needs a cause, only that an entity needs a cause if and only if it has a beginning; thus, since the First Cause (often God) doesn’t have a beginning, it doesn’t need a cause. Secondly, the premise of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori (inductive) reasoning, which is dependent on experience. David Hume highlighted this problem of induction and showed that causal relations were not true a priori (deductively).

Even though causality applies to the known world, it does not necessarily apply to the Universe at large. In other words, it is unwise to draw conclusions from an extrapolation of causality beyond experience. Furthermore, the rules of causality only make sense in the context of time, which obviously did not exist before the creation of the universe, thus it is nonsensical to speak of “causes”, specifically a First Cause, when discussing the origins of the universe. Therefore speaking of God or anything else as a first cause makes no sense as there is no time so subsequently, in the context of the origin of the universe, nothing can be ‘caused’. Additionally, it is argued that Occam’s razor can be used against the argument, showing how the argument fails using both the efficient and conserving types of causality. However, the claim that the Cosmological Argument fails in using conserving types of causality is debatable; Occam says that it fails for these types of causality only if the universe had no beginning.

A logical objection to the argument from contingency is that the argument makes a logical fallacy called Non-sequitur since it makes a false conclusion that “since it is possible for such things not to exist, there must be some time at which these things did not in fact exist”. It is a false conclusion because from the (merely logical) contingency of anything it does not logically follow that there must be some time at which - the merely logically (not empirically) contingent - things, like for example matter, in fact did not exist (in order to prove that matter did need to have a cause outside itself). Another objection is that even if one accepts the argument as a proof of a First Cause, it does not identify that First Cause with God. The argument does not ascribe to the First Cause some of the basic attributes commonly associated with, for instance, a theistic God, such as immanence or omni-benevolence. Rather, it simply argues that a First Cause (e.g. the Big Bang) must exist. Despite this, there exist theistic arguments that attempt to extract such attributes. Furthermore, if one chooses to accept God as the First Cause, God’s continued interaction with the Universe is not required. This is the foundation for beliefs such as deism that accept that a God created the Universe, but then ceased to have any further interaction with it.

It is argued that a challenge to the cosmological argument is the nature of time. The Big Bang theory states that it is the point in which all dimensions came into existence, the start of both space and time. Then, the question “What was there before the Universe?” makes no sense; the concept of “before” becomes meaningless when considering a situation without time, and thus the concepts of cause and effect so necessary to the cosmological argument no longer apply. This has been put forward by J. Richard Gott III, James E. Gunn, David N. Schramm, and Beatrice M. Tinsley, who said that asking what occurred before the Big Bang is like asking what is north of the North Pole. However, some cosmologists and physicists do attempt to investigate what could have occurred before the Big Bang, using such scenarios as the collision of branes to give a cause for the Big Bang.

Answer : An ontological argument for the existence of God attempts the method of a priori proof, which uses intuition and reason alone. Ontological arguments were first proposed by the medieval philosophers, Avicenna (in The Book of Healing) and Anselm of Canterbury (in his Proslogion). Important variations were developed by later philosophers like René Descartes, Gottfried Leibniz, Norman Malcolm, Charles Hartshorne, and Alvin Plantinga. A modal-logic version of the argument was devised by the mathematician Kurt Gödel. The ontological argument has been a controversial topic in philosophy. Many philosophers, including Gaunilo of Marmoutiers, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Gottlob Frege, have openly criticized it. The argument examines the concept of God and argues that if we can conceive of God he must exist. The argument is often criticized as committing a bare assertion fallacy, as it offers no supportive premise other than qualities inherent to the unproven statement. This is also called a circular argument, because the premise relies on the conclusion, which in turn relies on the premise.

The differences among the argument’s principal versions arise mainly from using different concepts of God as the starting point. Anselm, for example, starts with the notion of God as a being than which no greater can be conceived, while Descartes starts with the notion of God as being maximally perfect, or having all perfections. Anselm distinguished necessary beings (those which must exist) from contingent being (those which may exist but whose existence is not necessary). Anselm another a priori argument for God, this time based on the idea of necessary existence. He claimed that, if God is that than which no greater can be conceived, it is better to be necessary than contingent; therefore, God must be necessary. To sum up:

• God is the entity than which nothing greater can be thought.
• It is greater to be necessary than not.
• God must therefore be necessary.
• Hence, God exists necessarily.
• God is something than which nothing greater can be thought.
• It is greater to exist in reality and in the understanding than just in understanding.
• Therefore, God exists in reality

The ontological argument received much criticism and was rejected by St Thomas Aquinas, Kant and others. Avicenna’s argument is based on essence precedes existence. In his view existence is secondary to essence, because a human can think about something and it need not exist. Everything that exists only comes into existence because it’s brought from potential to actual existence by something else, except God, who is the only Necessary Existent. Averroes rejected Avicenna’s ontological distinction between existence and essence. He argued that in an eternal universe anything that could exist would and indeed must exist, and existence of a thing is not just a property added to it. David Hume did not believe an ontological argument was possible.

In David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, the character Cleanthes argues that no being could ever be proven to exist through an a priori demonstration: There is an evident absurdity in pretending to demonstrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by any arguments a priori. Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being; therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose existence is demonstrable.

Answer : Teleological argument, or argument from design, is an argument for the existence of God or a creator based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design, or direction or some combination of these in nature. The word “teleological” is derived from the Greek word telos, meaning “end” or “purpose”. Teleology is the supposition that there is purpose or directive principle in the works and processes of nature. Although there are variations, the basic argument can be stated as follows: X is too complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful or beautiful to have occurred randomly or accidentally. Therefore, X must have been created by a sentient, intelligent, wise, or purposeful being. God is a sentient, intelligent, wise or purposeful being. Therefore, God exists.

The first argument is a type of fallacy known as a loaded question, since it assumes that randomness cannot lead to complexity. Other forms of the argument assert that a certain category of complexity necessitates a designer, such as the following: All things that are designed were preconceived, intended, purposed or contrived. Preconception, intention, purpose, and contrivance necessitate an intellect, mind or will. All things that are irreducibly complex display intention and preconception. The universe contains non-man made things that are irreducibly complex. Those things display intention and preconception. Those things necessitate an intellect, mind or will.

In this case the fallacy relies in affirming the consequent. In the first argument, the variable X can be any number of things. In typical discourse on the subject it usually stands for the universe, the evolutionary process, humankind, a given animal species, or a particular organ like the eye or a capability like language in humans. X may also stand for the fundamental constants of the universe, like physical constants and physical laws. Sometimes this argument is also based on the anthropic principle that these constants seem tuned specifically to allow intelligent life as we know it to evolve. While most of the classic forms of this argument are linked to monotheism, some versions of the argument may substitute for God a lesser demiurge, multiple gods and/or goddesses, or perhaps extraterrestrials as cause for natural phenomena, although reapplication of the argument might still imply an ultimate cause. One can also leave the question of the attributes of a hypothesized “designer” completely open, yielding the following simple formulation:

• Complexity implies a designer.
• The universe is highly complex.
• Therefore, the universe has a designer.

The first (and therefore second) premise assumes that one can infer the existence of intelligent design merely by examining an object. The teleological argument assumes that because life is complex, it must have been designed. It is argued that this is non-sequitur logic. Life or objects are described as “orderly” or “ordered”, which implies that an intelligent designer has ordered them. However, in reality, there are examples of systems that are non-random or ordered simply because it is following natural physical processes, for example diamonds or snowflakes. The design claim is often attacked as an argument from ignorance, since it is often unexplained or unsupported, or explained by unscientific conjecture. Supporters of intelligent design assume that natural objects and man-made objects have similar properties, therefore both must be designed. However, different objects can have similar properties for different reasons, such as stars and light bulbs.

Proponents must therefore demonstrate that only intelligent design can cause orderly systems or the argument is invalid. A designed organism would, on the face of it, be in contradiction to evolutionary theory. As most professional biologists support the theory of biological evolution by means of natural selection, they reject the first premise, arguing that evolution is not only an alternative explanation for the complexity of life but a better explanation with more supporting evidence. Living organisms obey the same physical laws as inanimate objects. A range of chemical reactions could take place, forming other chemicals with complex properties and ways of interacting. Over very long periods of time self-replicating structures could arise and later form DNA. Thus biologists commonly view the design argument as an unimpressive argument for the existence of a god.

Advocates of design have responded to this objection by pointing out that information theory demonstrates that DNA is a “code,” and is therefore not analogous structurally to a snowflake or crystal as the written pages of a book would not be. They also claim that no natural process has ever created a code, and that explanations put forward of the origins of DNA or gradual change are often couched in vague terms such as, for example simply “arising” or “forming” without offering any explanation as to how the thing arose or formed, and that this is unscientific. This argument, however, takes liberties with the definition of “code” and as such, is often considered to be an example of the logical error of equivocation. It may also be the error of reification; i.e., of treating a linguistic metaphor or analogy such as “code” as a real object or state.

And it is a fallacy of petitio principii (begging the question), since it assumes the very thing that it concludes: that DNA is not a consequence of a natural process (if it is, then of course it is false that “no natural process has ever created a code”). And it is an argument from ignorance, as it concludes from the lack of a natural explanation for the origin of DNA that there is none, misplacing the burden of proof, which rests with the party who makes the claim (of supernatural origin, in this case). Voltaire said that, at best, the teleological argument could only indicate the existence of a powerful, but not necessarily all-powerful or all-knowing, intelligence.

Another argument states that even if the argument from design proved the existence of a powerful intelligent designer, it would not prove that the designer is God. It has also been pointed out that the argument relies on a cultural context of monotheism when it claims to prove the existence of a single, supreme creator being. In the context of a polytheistic culture, however, the argument could just as easily be used to argue for the existence of gods (in the plural) a group of intelligent supernatural designers. In David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, the character Philo argued, amidst other counterarguments to the teleological argument, that there “could have been a committee of deities.”

Answer : Philosophers have tried to provide rational proofs of God’s existence that go beyond dogmatic assertion or appeal to ancient scripture. The major proofs, with their corresponding objections, are as follows:

1. Ontological : It is possible to imagine a perfect being. Such a being could not be perfect unless its essence included existence. Therefore a perfect being must exist.

Objection: You cannot define or imagine a thing into existence.

2. Causal : Everything must have a cause. It is impossible to continue backwards to infinity with causes, therefore there must have been a first cause which was not conditioned by any other cause. That cause must be God.

Objections: If you allow one thing to exist without cause, you contradict your own premise. And if you do, there is no reason why the universe should not be the one thing that exists or originates without cause.

3. Design : Animals, plants and planets show clear signs of being designed for specific ends, therefore there must have been a designer.

Objection: The principles of self-organization and evolution provide complete explanations for apparent design.

4. Modern Design Argument: This is the strongest card in the theist hand. The laws of the universe seem to have been framed in such a way that stars and planets will form and life can emerge. Many constants of nature appear to be very finely tuned for this, and the odds against this happening by chance are astronomical.

Objections: The odds against all possible universes are equally astronomical, yet one of them must be the actual universe. Moreover, if there are very many universes, then some of these will contain the possibility of life. Even if valid, the anthropic cosmological principle guarantees only that stars and planets and life will emerge - not intelligent life. In its weak form, the anthropic cosmological principle merely states that if we are here to observe the universe, it follows that the universe must have properties that permit intelligent life to emerge.

5. Experiential : A very large number of people claim to have personal religious experiences of God.

Objections: We cannot assume that everything imagined in mental experiences (which include dreams, hallucinations etc) actually exists. Such experiences cannot be repeated, tested or publicly verified. Mystical and other personal experiences can be explained by other causes.

6.. Pragmatic: Human societies require ethics to survive. Ethics are more effectively enforced if people fear God and Hell and hope for Heaven (cf. the origin of ethical systems).

Objections: The usefulness of a belief does not prove its truth. In any case, many societies have thrived without these beliefs, while crime has thrived in theistic societies believing in heaven and hell.

General objection against all the rational proofs for God:

Each of the above arguments is independent of the others and cannot logically be used to reinforce the others. The cause argument - even if it were valid - would prove only a first cause. It would tell us nothing about the nature of that cause, nor whether the cause was mental or physical. It would not prove that the first cause was the personal, judging, forgiving God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. It would not prove the existence of a designer or of a perfect being. Equally, the design argument would prove only a designer; the ontological argument would prove only the existence of a perfect being, and so on. None of these arguments individually can prove that the cause, designer or perfect being were one and the same - they could be three different beings.

Arguments against the existence of God : The major philosophical criticisms of God as viewed by Judaism, Christianity and Islam are as follows:

1. Evil: Because evil exists, God cannot be all-powerful, all-knowing and loving and good at the same time.
2. Pain: Because God allows pain, disease and natural disasters to exist, he cannot be all-powerful and also loving and good in the human sense of these words.
3. Injustice: Destinies are not allocated on the basis of merit or equality. They are allocated either arbitrarily, or on the principle of “to him who has, shall be given, and from him who has not shall be taken even that which he has.” It follows that God cannot be all-powerful and all-knowing and also just in the human sense of the word.
4. Multiplicity: Since the Gods of various religions differ widely in their characteristics, only one of these religions, or none, can be right about God.
5. Simplicity: Since God is invisible, and the universe is no different than if he did not exist, it is simpler to assume he does not exist. None of these criticisms apply to the God of pantheism, which is identical with the universe and nature.

Answer : Ontological arguments are arguments, for the conclusion that God exists, from premises which are supposed to derive from some source other than observation of the world — e.g., from reason alone. In other words, ontological arguments are arguments from nothing but analytic, a priori and necessary premises to the conclusion that God exists. The first, and best-known, ontological argument was proposed by St. Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century A.D. In his Proslogian St. Anselm claims to derive the existence of God from the concept of a being than which no greater can be conceived. St. Anselm reasoned that, if such a being fails to exist, then a greater being namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists, can be conceived. But this would be absurd: nothing can be greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived. So a being than which no greater can be conceived, i.e., God exists. In the seventeenth century, René Descartes defended a family of similar arguments. Descartes argues that there is no less contradiction in conceiving a supremely perfect being who lacks existence than there is in conceiving a triangle whose interior angles do not sum to 180 degrees. Hence, he supposes, since we do conceive a supremely perfect being, we do have the idea of a supremely perfect being we must conclude that a supremely perfect being exists.

Critiques of ontological arguments begin with Gaunilo, a contemporary of St. Anselm. Perhaps the best known criticisms of ontological arguments are due to Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason. Most famously, Kant claims that ontological arguments are vitiated by their reliance upon the implicit assumption that “existence” is a predicate. However, as Bertrand Russell observed, it is much easier to be persuaded that ontological arguments are no good than it is to say exactly what is wrong with them. This helps to explain why ontological arguments have fascinated philosophers for almost a thousand years. In various ways, the account provided to this point is rough, and susceptible of improvement.

Objections to ontological arguments take many forms. Some objections are intended to apply only to particular ontological arguments, or particular forms of ontological arguments; other objections are intended to apply to all ontological arguments. It is a controversial question whether there are any successful general objections to ontological arguments. One general criticism of ontological arguments which have appeared hitherto is this: none of them is persuasive, i.e., none of them provides those who do not already accept the conclusion that God exists and who are reasonable, reflective, well-informed, etc. with an all-things-considered reason to accept that conclusion. Any reading of any ontological argument which has been produced so far which is sufficiently clearly stated to admit of evaluation yields a result which is invalid, or possesses a set of premises which it is clear in advance that no reasonable, reflective, well-informed, etc. non-theists will accept, or has a benign conclusion which has no religious significance, or else falls prey to more than one of the above failings.

These are arguments in which ontologically committing vocabulary is introduced solely via a definition. An obvious problem is that claims involving that vocabulary cannot then be detached from the scope of that definition. (The inference from ‘By definition, God is an existent being’ to ‘God exists’ is patently invalid; while the inference to ‘By definition, God exists’ is valid, but uninteresting. In the example given earlier, the premises license the claim that, as a matter of definition, God possesses the perfection of existence. But, as just noted, there is no valid inference from this claim to the further claim that God exists.) Conceptual are arguments in which ontologically committing vocabulary is introduced solely within the scope of hyper-intentional operators (e.g. ‘believes that’, ‘conceives of’, etc.). Often, these operators have two readings, one of which can cancel ontological commitment, and the other of which cannot.

On the reading which can give cancellation, the inference to a conclusion in which the ontological commitment is not cancelled will be invalid. On the reading which cannot cancel ontological commitment (as in that reading of ‘John thinks about God’ which can only be true if there is a God to think about), the premises are question-begging: they incur ontological commitments which non-theists reject. In our sample argument, the claim that I conceive of an existent being than which no greater being can be conceived, admits of the two kinds of readings just distinguished. On the one hand, on the reading which gives cancellation, the inference to the conclusion that there is a being than which no greater can be conceived is plainly invalid.

On the other hand, on the reading in which there is no cancellation, it is clear that this claim is one which no reasonable, etc. non-theist will accept: if you doubt that there is a being than which no greater can be conceived, then, of course, you doubt whether you can have thoughts about such a being. Modal are arguments with premises which concern modal claims about God, i.e., claims about the possibility or necessity of God’s attributes and existence. Suppose that we agree to think about possibility and necessity in terms of possible worlds: a claim is possibly true just in case it is true in at least one possible world; a claim is necessarily true just in case it is true in every possible world; and a claim is contingent just in case it is true in some possible worlds and false in others. Some theists hold that God is a necessarily existent being, i.e., that God exists in every possible world. Non-theists do not accept the claim that God exists in the actual world. Plainly enough, non-theists and disagree about the layout of logical space, i.e., the space of possible worlds.

Of course, all of the above discussion is directed merely to the claim that ontological arguments are not dialectically efficacious i.e., they give reasonable non-theists no reason to change their views. It might be wondered whether there is some other use which ontological arguments have e.g., as Plantinga claims, in establishing the reasonableness of theism. This seems unlikely. After all, at best these arguments show that certain sets of sentences (beliefs, etc.) are incompatible one cannot reject the conclusions of these arguments while accepting their premises. But the arguments themselves say nothing about the reasonableness of accepting the premises. So the arguments themselves say nothing about the (unconditional) reasonableness of accepting the conclusions of these arguments.

Answer : This argument was once used by theologians and philosophers, but has fallen out of favor among those who know what they are talking about. The reason, as it shall be seen, is that this is not simply a flawed argument but can also be a logical fallacy. Aside from its historical importance, it has nevertheless remained popular among amateur and popular religious apologists. It certainly has a nice sound, and John Stuart Mill observed that it probably has had more influence on more people than other, more logically sound arguments. The basic version argues that belief in some sort of god is innate or instinctive and has existed consciously in nearly the whole of humanity throughout history.

The best way to explain this, or so the argument goes, is to assume that some sort of god really does exist after all. Belief in a god wouldn’t be so popular or pervasive if some god didn’t exist, therefore some god must exist. The first objection is one which has been brought up in other places, like the Ontological Argument: there is no good, factual basis to assume that belief in a god is indeed innate and instinctive. It cannot be innate in the sense that it is present in our minds at birth, since some people manage never to believe in any gods. And it cannot be innate in the sense that it is a belief that we are predisposed to acquire, because there is no reason to think that all children will automatically acquire it without specific instruction or indoctrination.

The second objection is to the idea that there is any necessary logical connection between the widespread existence of a belief and in the existence of the object of that belief. Just because trillions of people believe a thing doesn’t make it true — this is the logical fallacy mentioned earlier. Truth is not decided by majority vote. Besides, it is possible to explain the persistence of theism without the existence of a god - for example, by arguing that it has had survival value for the human species. The Argument from Common Consent also appears in a slightly different version, with the premise that there exists not an innate belief in some sort of god, but instead an innate yearning for a god. Since there cannot be an innate desire for something without there also being an object for that desire, then the object of this desire — God — must exist. An analogous example often provided is an infant’s innate desire for food. Once again, much the same objections can be offered — there is not, for example, any clear evidence that there exists in humans an innate yearning for a god who is not actually created by instruction and/or indoctrination later in life.

The idea that there is an innate yearning for a god certainly does not explain the existence of millions of atheists who exhibit no such yearning. The idea that we all “really” have such a yearning but simply deny it won’t work. Moreover, even if such an innate yearning existed, that does not automatically mean that a real object of that yearning must exist. Once again, this yearning might have evolutionary survival value regardless of the truth of the matter. Or perhaps there is instead a yearning for security or justice which can indeed exist, but we transfer this yearning to an all-encompassing god which does not exist. The claim that a yearning logically necessitates an object for that yearning is invalid — it is an assumption, and an unsupported one at that. Thus we see that the Argument from Common Consent fails to make the existence of a god more likely or the belief in a god more reasonable.

Answer : The cosmological argument is less a particular argument than an argument type. It uses a general pattern of argumentation (logos) that makes an inference from certain alleged facts about the world (cosmos) to the existence of a unique being, generally identified with or referred to as God. Among these initial facts are that the world came into being, that the world is contingent in that it could have been other than it is, or that certain beings or events in the world are causally dependent or contingent. From these facts philosophers infer either deductively or inductively that a first cause, a necessary being, an unmoved mover, or a personal being (God) exists.

There are three types of cosmological arguments. The first, advocated by Aquinas, is based on the impossibility of an essentially ordered infinite regress. The second holds that an infinite temporal regress is impossible because an actual infinite is impossible. The third, espoused by Leibniz and Clarke, is overtly founded on the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Another way of distinguishing between versions of the argument is in terms of the relevance of time. In Aquinas’s version, consideration of the essential ordering of the causes or reasons proceeds independent of temporal concerns. The relationship between cause and effect is treated as real but not temporal, so that the first cause is not a first cause in time but a sustaining cause. The temporal ordering of the causal sequence is central. The distinction between these types of argument is important because the objections raised against one version may not be relevant to the other versions. The cosmological argument begins with a fact about experience, namely, that something exists. We might sketch out the argument as follows.

• A contingent being (a being that if it exists can’t-exist) exists.
• This contingent being has a cause of or explanation for its existence.
• The cause of or explanation for its existence is something other than the contingent being itself.
• What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
• Contingent beings alone cannot provide an adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.
• Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
• Therefore, a necessary being (a being that if it exists can’t not-exist) exists.

Critics have objected to most of the premises in the argument. We will consider the most important objections and responses. Interpreting the contingent being in premise 1 as the universe, Bertrand Russell denies that the universe needs an explanation; it just is. Russell, following Hume, contends that since we derive the concept of cause from our observation of particular things, we cannot ask about the cause of something like the universe that we cannot experience. The universe is “just there, and that’s all”. But we don’t need to experience every possible referent of the class of contingent things to be able to conclude that a contingent thing needs a cause. “Similarly, one does not need to experience a contingent cosmos to know it is caused. But why should we think that the cosmos is contingent? Defenders of the argument contend that if the components of the universe are contingent, the universe itself is contingent.

Russell replies that the move from the contingency of the components of the universe to the contingency of the universe commits the Fallacy of Composition, which mistakenly concludes that since the parts have a certain property, the whole likewise has that property. Hence, whereas we can ask for the cause of particular things, we cannot ask for the cause of the universe or the set of all contingent beings.

Some reply that this argument for the contingency of the universe still is fallacious, for even if every contingent being were to fail to exist in some possible world, it may be the case that there is no possible world that lacks a contingent being. That is, though no being would exist in every possible world, every world would possess at least one contingent being. Whether this argument for the contingency of the universe is similar to that advanced by Aquinas in the Third Way depends on how one interprets Aquinas’s argument. Aquinas holds that “if everything can’t be, then at one time there was nothing in existence.” Plantinga, among others, points out that this may commit a quantifier mistake, for the reason noted above.

However, Haldane defends the cogency of Aquinas’s reasoning on the grounds that Aquinas’s argument is fallacious only on a temporal reading, but Aquinas’s argument employs an a temporal ordering of contingent beings. That is, Aquinas does not hold that over time there would be nothing, but that in the per se ordering of causes, if every contingent thing in that order did not exist, there would be nothing. Whereas Russell argued that the universe just is, David Hume held that when the parts are explained the whole is explained. But the ‘whole’ wants a cause. Uniting of these parts into a whole is performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind, and has no influence on the nature of things.

Sometimes it is true that the whole is sufficiently explained in explaining its parts, but not always. An explanation of the parts may provide a partial but incomplete explanation; what remains unexplained is why these parts exist rather than others, why they exist rather than not, or why the parts are arranged as they are. However, although this shows that Hume’s principle that the whole is explained in explaining the parts is sometimes false, it does not show it is false in the case under consideration, namely, when the universe is treated as a set rather than as an aggregate. But suppose Hume is correct that the explanation of the parts explains the whole. In terms of what are the parts themselves explained? Each is explained either in terms of themselves or in terms of something else. The former would make them necessary, not contingent, beings. If they are explained in terms of something else, the entire collection still remains unaccounted for. Critics of the argument contend that the Causal Principle or, where applicable, the Principle of Sufficient Reason, that underlies versions of the argument is suspect. Immanuel Kant objected to the conclusion of the cosmological argument that a necessary being exists.

Kant held that the cosmological argument, in concluding to the existence of a necessary being, argues for the existence of a being whose nonexistence is absolutely inconceivable. But the only being that meets this condition is the most real or maximally excellent being, the very concept of which lies at the heart of the ontological argument. Accordingly, the cosmological argument presupposes the cogency of the ontological argument. But since the ontological argument is defective, the cosmological argument that depends on it likewise must be defective.

Answer : Some of the contemporary philosophers who have challenged the traditional religions and belief in God include Paul Satre, Marx, Singmund Freud, Madman and Nietzsche. The Nietzsche’s saying that ‘God is dead’ that the belief in the God has become unworthy of belief first of all started casting shadow on the belief in God in contemporary world. Nietzsche is of opinion that let us be on our guard against saying that there are laws in nature. There are only necessities there is no one who commands, no one who obeys, no one who transgresses. When you know that there is no design, you also know that there is no chance, it is only there is a world of design that the world ‘chance’ has a meaning. Let us be on our guard against saying that death is contrary to life. The living being is only a species of death being, and a very rare species. These are no eternally enduring substances.

Madmen on the other has also emphasized that it there is any God, he is in the form of tomb and movements. He means to say that there is no sense in arguing about God as there is no such thing like God. Everything has its own course and everything meets its fate. There is no one to rescuer. Hence there is no sense in talking about God and His existence. One famous contemporary philosopher Marx has declared religion the opium of the masses. His criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism. The basis of criticism is that man makes religion. Religion does not make man. In other words, religion is the self consciousness and self-feeling of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world, Man is the world of man, the state, and society.

This state, this society produces religion, a reserved world – consciousness because they are a reserved world. Religion is the general theory of that world. Its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion, its universal ground for consolidation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence because the human essence has no true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore the fight against the other world of which religion is the spiritual aroma. Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creatures, the heart of a heartless world just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The tack of history, therefore, once the world beyond the truth has disappeared, is to establish the truth of the world. The immediate task of philosophy, which is at the service of the history, once the saintly form of human self-alienation has been unmasked, is to unmask self alienation in its unholy Forms.

One more contemporary philosopher named Sigmund Freud has termed religion as an illusion, wish fulfillment and father complex. An enquiry that goes uninterruptedly like a monologue is not altogether without its dangers. One is not too easily tempted to push aside thoughts that world interrupt it, and in exchange one is left with a feeling of uncertainty which one will drawn in the end by over-decisiveness. Religious ideas have sprung from the same need as all other achievements of culture; from the necessity for defending itself against the crushing supremacy of nature. And there was a second motive; the eager desire to correct the so painfully felt imperfections of culture. Moreover, there is something particularly apposite in saying that culture gives the individual these ideas for he finds that at hand they are preserved to him ready-made; he world not be in a position to find them by him. It is the heritage of many generations which he enters into and which he takes over as he does the multiplication table, geometry, etc.

According to Freud one more important point is that the humanization of nature from the desire to put an end to human perplexity and helplessness in the face of nature’s dreaded forces can not be ruled out. Besides it, God is the exalted father and the longing for the father is the root of the need for religion. The psycho – analytical motivation of the forming of religion turns out to be the infertile contribution to its manifest motivation. The libido follows the paths of narcissistic needs and attaches itself to the objects that ensure their satisfaction. So the mother, who satisfied hunger, becomes the first love-object. In this function the mother is soon replaced by the stronger father, and this situation persists from now on over the whole of childhood.

But the relation to the father is affected by a peculiar ambivalence. He was himself a danger, perhaps just because of that earlier relation to the mother; so he is feared no less than he is longed for and admired. The indications of this ambivalence are deeply imprinted in all religions, as is brought out in Totem and Taboo. Moreover Freud is of opinion that religion is also an illusion. People think that messiah will come and found a golden age is when less probable. According to one’s personal attitude one will classify this belief as an illusion or analogous to a delusion. Religious doctrines are all illusions. They do not admit of proof and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them. So all of them are so improbable, so incapable with everything we have laboriously discovered about the reality of the world they we may compare them to delusions.

George Sautanya believed that all spiritual and mental qualities as mere epiphenomena, by products of matter, which perish with the demise of the physical body. Consequently, God the soul and its immortality are precluded from any possible existence, are all so called spiritual realties. Religions, nevertheless, does lave value not literal in the serge of its being objectively real, but in the systolic or poetic sense. Paul Sartre declares even if God exists, there is at least one being that existed before God is the human being and for the existence of human being God is not required anywhere. Now the question is that can God’s existence be disapproved?

There are various explanations and arguments to prove that disprove the existence of God. But likewise these are arguments in abundance that supports the existence of God. Precisely speaking Divine existence can only be conserved in a religiously satisfactory manner if we also conceive it, is something inescapable and necessary whether for thought or reality. From this it follows that our modern denial of a necessity or rational evidence for such an existence amounts to a demonstration that these cannot be a God. Basically God is a matter of faith. A believer in God would not bow down to the idea of ‘No God’ whereas for an atheist the concept of God is meaningless.