1. Chapter 12: Is There a God?

2. Introduction Can the existence of God be proven?
Philosophy of religion – philosophical study of a wide variety of religious issues
Theology – “study of God”
Revealed theology – claims human knowledge of God comes through special revelations such as the Bible or Qur’an
Natural theology – knowledge of God is possible based on “natural” reason, unaided by special revelation
Theism – religious notion of ultimate reality based on God

3. Arguments for God’s Existence
Cosmological arguments – argues from the existence of the universe to the existence of God as its cause, creator, or explanation
Aristotle argued from the existence of motion to the Unmoved Mover as the explanation of motion
Aristotle’s principles:
Something cannot be the cause of itself
Something cannot come from nothing
There cannot be an infinite series of cause and effects
Kalam – “speech” in Arabic; denotes the statement of points in theological doctrine; Islamic thought about God’s existence in relation to the created universe

4. The Five Ways St. Thomas Aquinas
5 Arguments for the existence of God:
Argument from motion
There must be a First Efficient Cause
Argument of possibility and necessity- What caused something to exist from nothing, other than something that did not have to be created?
There must be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection
Some intelligent being exists which gives natural things a purpose or design

5. The Kalam Argument from Islam William Craig
Modern version of the kalam argument
Concludes that the existence of the universe has a cause
Syllogism for the need for a first cause:
Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence
The universe began to exist
Therefore the universe has a cause for its existence

6. Problems with the Cosmological Argument Gunapala Dharmasiri
The Buddha did not think that one needed the idea of a creator God to explain the existence of the world
The causes of what exists can be found within the world itself

7. Creationism vs. Evolution
Teleological argument – argument from design; the universe exhibits order which is due to a supreme, divine intelligence
William Paley (1743 – 1805) saw the universe as a vast, harmonious, interconnected order designed for a purpose
David Hume criticizes the teleological argument
Universe is not sufficiently like the productions of human design to support the argument
We would have to be able to compare our universe to another in order to decide if it was designed or simply grew on its own
An effect must be proportionate to its cause: Because the universe is imperfect, its cause must be imperfect
Charles Darwin published On the Origin of the Species in 1859
The order nature exhibits is the result of evolutionary processes

8. The Blind Watchmaker Richard Dawkins
Argues for neo-Darwinian views of evolution
Argues that evolution uses the process of cumulative selection, as opposed to single-step selection, which explains how we now have an ordered, intelligent universe
Single-step selection – filters all items once and for all
Cumulative selection – filters repeatedly, passing on some of the results of the first selection onto the next and so forth

9. Why Do Babies Suffer?
Problem of evil – why does evil exist; how can one harmonize the existence of evil with the existence of a perfectly good, all-powerful, and all-knowing God?
According to Aquinas, because God is infinitely good and all-powerful, he can bring good out of evil

10. God and the Problem of Evil B. C. Johnson
Takes the concrete situation of a six-month-old baby painfully burning to death to demonstrate that traditional attempts to explain why God allows evil seem inadequate
Are we making excuses for God and allowing him to get away with behavior we would not tolerate from other humans?

11. The Gender of God

12. Beyond God the Father Mary Daly
Believes that human symbols and concepts of God have reinforced sexism