Hope you're having a good day,
I am at present an agnostic who is seeking Christ, yet I am lacking reason to, and I was hoping this might help me in my search. Firstly, the reason I say I lack reason and do not mention faith in this message is that I have received no personal experiences that would allow me to believe in faith (if you believe I am missing something here, feel free to challenge me on this). Anyway, back to reasons to believe. I am going to try to be as charitable as possible and not point out any perceived contradictions I have with any Christian teachings, as I would not want to attack your faith. I will try to purely be trying to establish God through reason (if I find this not to be possible, as I have no personal experiences of God, this would warrant my lack of belief). To be rather boring, I am going to talk about 4 of the most popular arguments for God that I am aware of, these being the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the moral argument and the fine-tuning argument.
1. Cosmological Argument:
Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
Premise 2: The universe began to exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe has a cause (which is the Christian God).
This is the classic cosmological argument, but to me it fails due to the fact that neither premise can be established.
Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
To me this does not hold up, as no one has any evidence of anything having begun existing (in the sense of something out of nothing; even if it can be proved, it must have happened at some point due to the impossibility of infinities), and so the first premise cannot be established.
Premise 2: The universe began to exist.
This too cannot be established as the big bang. While it is the start of the expansion of the universe, the singularity that "exploded" was there before the big bang, and we have no idea of anything that happened before the big bang, so this premise cannot be justified.
Due to my inability to establish either premise, I cannot accept this argument.
2. Teleological Argument
Premise 1: Where design exists, a designer is needed.
Premise 2: The universe exhibits complex design.
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe must have had a designer.
This is the classic teleological argument, but to me it too fails due to the fact premise 2 can't be established.
Premise 1: Where design exists, a designer is needed.
Premise 2: The universe exhibits complex design.
This argument fails, as to me we can't establish that the universe exhibits complex design (design meaning "purpose or planning that exists behind an action, fact, or object"). And as such, we can't draw the conclusion. The reason I don't reject premise 1 is that, by definition, design entails a designer (at least by my definition above).
3. Moral Argument
Premise 1: If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
Premise 2: Objective moral values exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.
Short answer here: objective moral values don't exist without God, so you can't just say they exist to establish him, and you can't prove objective moral values without God, making the argument cyclical without some other proof that objective moral values exist.
5. Fine-Tuning Argument
Premise 1: If the universe's physical constants and conditions are fine-tuned for life, then it is highly unlikely this occurred by chance.
Premise 2: The universe's physical constants and conditions are fine-tuned for life.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is highly unlikely the universe's life-permitting conditions occurred by chance.
For me this fails due to the fact that premise 1 cannot be justified, basically just for the reason that there is no possible way (that I have heard) you can establish that "it is highly unlikely this occurred by chance", as that implies that they could have been different, which we could not possibly know.
Anyway, thank you so much if you've tolerated all this. I hope that I can learn something from people's responses to this.
Thanks,
Luca
I am at present an agnostic who is seeking Christ, yet I am lacking reason to, and I was hoping this might help me in my search. Firstly, the reason I say I lack reason and do not mention faith in this message is that I have received no personal experiences that would allow me to believe in faith (if you believe I am missing something here, feel free to challenge me on this). Anyway, back to reasons to believe. I am going to try to be as charitable as possible and not point out any perceived contradictions I have with any Christian teachings, as I would not want to attack your faith. I will try to purely be trying to establish God through reason (if I find this not to be possible, as I have no personal experiences of God, this would warrant my lack of belief). To be rather boring, I am going to talk about 4 of the most popular arguments for God that I am aware of, these being the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the moral argument and the fine-tuning argument.
1. Cosmological Argument:
Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
Premise 2: The universe began to exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe has a cause (which is the Christian God).
This is the classic cosmological argument, but to me it fails due to the fact that neither premise can be established.
Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
To me this does not hold up, as no one has any evidence of anything having begun existing (in the sense of something out of nothing; even if it can be proved, it must have happened at some point due to the impossibility of infinities), and so the first premise cannot be established.
Premise 2: The universe began to exist.
This too cannot be established as the big bang. While it is the start of the expansion of the universe, the singularity that "exploded" was there before the big bang, and we have no idea of anything that happened before the big bang, so this premise cannot be justified.
Due to my inability to establish either premise, I cannot accept this argument.
2. Teleological Argument
Premise 1: Where design exists, a designer is needed.
Premise 2: The universe exhibits complex design.
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe must have had a designer.
This is the classic teleological argument, but to me it too fails due to the fact premise 2 can't be established.
Premise 1: Where design exists, a designer is needed.
Premise 2: The universe exhibits complex design.
This argument fails, as to me we can't establish that the universe exhibits complex design (design meaning "purpose or planning that exists behind an action, fact, or object"). And as such, we can't draw the conclusion. The reason I don't reject premise 1 is that, by definition, design entails a designer (at least by my definition above).
3. Moral Argument
Premise 1: If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
Premise 2: Objective moral values exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.
Short answer here: objective moral values don't exist without God, so you can't just say they exist to establish him, and you can't prove objective moral values without God, making the argument cyclical without some other proof that objective moral values exist.
5. Fine-Tuning Argument
Premise 1: If the universe's physical constants and conditions are fine-tuned for life, then it is highly unlikely this occurred by chance.
Premise 2: The universe's physical constants and conditions are fine-tuned for life.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is highly unlikely the universe's life-permitting conditions occurred by chance.
For me this fails due to the fact that premise 1 cannot be justified, basically just for the reason that there is no possible way (that I have heard) you can establish that "it is highly unlikely this occurred by chance", as that implies that they could have been different, which we could not possibly know.
Anyway, thank you so much if you've tolerated all this. I hope that I can learn something from people's responses to this.
Thanks,
Luca
