The Beginning for the Rational Basis for God
The Rational Basis for God
Can the belief in a God be proven rationally i.e. without the use of scripture but based on pure logic i.e. natural theology and if yes what can be shown about God through this method? Starting with the Kalam Cosmological Argument, it begins with the following premises, which is whatever begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore, the universe has a cause. For this to work for an argument for a God, the God has to be eternal meaning that God does not follow the first premise as that applies to things that began to exist which cannot be the case if something is eternal. If the Big Bang Theory is ignored as an explanation for the second premise, going off of philosophy, an eternal universe that can lead to an absurdity as there is no actual infinity in reality. For example, if one was asked what the sum is of every natural numbers, the answer is it is infinite, then if one was asked what the sum of all even numbers is, the answer is also infinite. Then how is it the case that the set of every natural number which is twice the set of all even numbers sum to the same amount? The answer is that there are infinites greater than other infinites, however this cannot be shown ontologically. This discussion of multiple infinites, if there is infinite X and infinite Y they have to be mutually exclusive meaning that they are not the same thing otherwise there would be one infinite not multiple so if there is an infinite X and infinite Y that means that there is power beyond the control of each of them meaning that the control of the infinite X is not within the control of the infinite Y nor vice versa meaning that neither are all powerful if it was not the case then they would be the same infinite.
A similar argument is the contingency argument which states that all contingent beings are dependent on something beyond themselves and a contingent thing is something that could have failed to exist or exist in another way. If one takes a set of all those contingent things, then the set is contingent upon something beyond the set because if X is contingent on Y and Y is contingent on X that would lead to an impossibility. So, the set of contingent things needs to be contingent on something outside itself and that has to be independent i.e. not contingent upon anything else and if that is not the case then that would lead to an infinite regress. This means that if Y is contingent on X and X in contingent on W and etc. there would be nothing that exists therefore there has be a necessary being that is contingent on nothing for Y to exist. Therefore, the set of the contingent things are contingent on something that is necessary with necessary meaning that it cannot not exist. There is no ontological example that proves otherwise as everything in the natural world is dependent and contingent upon something else.
If everything that exists was put into a box, can that totality of things be dependent on something external to it? If it depends on something external to itself that means it depends on nothing because if it was dependent on something external to it that means it is not everything which means that there is something within the set of everything that exists that forms a foundational necessary layer to support the rest of existence meaning reality could have not possibly existed unless there is a necessary being.
All of this is known as stage one of the contingency argument or Kalam Cosmological argument, stage two is proving that this necessary being is God which means is trying to derive possible attributes to this necessary being. It is rational to assume that this necessary being has a will that is independent. If it is an independent being and there is nothing external acting upon it leading to an effect, but effects come from it, all contingent things come from this necessary thing, the necessary thing is giving rise to everything in contingent existence. If contingent things are arising as a result of this necessary being, then it must be self-determined. The necessary existence is choosing to bring things into existence, and it has to be coming from itself not from anything external to it because then the being is not necessary therefore the necessary being has a free will. The cause of the necessary being is eternal but the contingent realities that exist are finite. If the necessary being has everything necessary to produce a contingent reality or an effect but the effect is temporal meaning it had a beginning, but the cause is eternal the only explanation to that is choice. Contingent things have a number of possibilities, they could exist or not exist, or they could exist in a different way that they currently exist therefore there has to be a choice to determine why they exist in one way but not another way. We know that the universe is temporal meaning it has a beginning and the previous argumentation shows that there is a necessary being, therefore the necessary being had a will to create the universe. Humans have a will i.e. a causal capacity, does the nature of the foundation of reality i.e. the necessary being have the same casual capacity as a human? Is there going to be an arbitrary limitation on its casual capacity because if the human has it and the necessary being does then the fact that there is an arbitrary limitation that means it is bound by certain limitations. Therefore, the necessary being must have an unlimited nature because the most non arbitrary nature of the fundamental aspect of reality is going to be something that is unlimited. Therefore, it is unlike the contingent world i.e. unanthropomorphic since there is nothing ontological that is unlimited as previously expressed.
To recap what has been previously stated, a contingent being is something that does not have to exist or could exist in another way. A contingent being needs an explanation on why it exists in a particular way against another way and why it exists or does not exist. For example, if you have a red triangle, it is necessary for the triangle to have three sides in order to be a triangle but the fact that it is red opposed to be any other color is contingent. There needs to be an explanation on why it is red, and that explanation is outside the existence of a triangle. A necessary being has an explanation contained itself and has aseity meaning it has self-sufficiency meaning that nothing is acting upon it. A contingent being dependent upon another contingent being cannot go on forever in an infinite regress of casual explanations so therefore there has to be a necessary being or a starting point that is independent that does not need an explanation outside of itself. If it is agreed that contingent things require a necessary being based on the argumentations above, then it is also accepted that contingent beings have a beginning in time meaning that they have not existed eternally. The cause i.e. the necessary being is eternal and the contingent being is the temporal effect, if the eternal cause did not choose to create then the eternal cause would always create which would mean that the effect would always be eternal. The fact that contingent beings are not eternal but the necessary being is indicates a will to make the choice to create. Contingent beings could have multiple different attributes as well. Therefore, the fact that there is one attribute over another means that the necessary being has a will and because it has a will it must be conscious. Moreover, if the necessary being is imperfect for example, this is contradictory for the definition of necessary as necessary entails the fact that it could not be another way meaning that it is perfect while contingent things are the opposite so the fact that it could be another way means that it is imperfect.
A necessary being which is unlimited, saying that it has an arbitrary limit that it does not necessarily have to have, meaning that if there is something that has a limit but the reason that it has a limitation is not something that is explained by its own existence i.e. but some other recourse to another existence because the necessary being is unlimited it cannot have arbitrary limits because if it did it would not be independent nor simple in the fact that it cannot be known through logic as because it requires an explanation which would require an explanation which would require an explanation etc. and is dependent upon an explanation external to it.
Going back to the Kalam Cosmological Argument, trying to demonstrate that the universe had a beginning, in order to stop the infinite regress, whatever the cause is, it is going to go back, and it is going to be an eternal cause. If the cause of the universe is eternal, then how does one explain a temporal effect from an eternal cause? For example, water, if water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius under normal conditions, if those conditions are met, why would the effect be temporal, and the cause be eternal? If was purely just mechanistic in the way we understand from science then we would expect that the effect would also be eternal alongside the cause and if that is not the experience we have and our scientific models explain that the universe having a beginning and it is produced from an eternal cause, there is no way to escape the problem of getting a temporal effect from an eternal cause without positing a will to the cause of that temporal effect. The best explanation of getting a temporal cause from any temporal effect from an eternal cause is to say that the cause has a will and if it does have a will then this is starting to look much like the description of God than a mechanistic explanation. Basically, the necessary being causes contingent beings to exist, the causal relationship can either be something that is forced upon the necessary being like a mechanical force or by will. The problem with being by force is that then the contingent being would have to always existed because everything sufficient for the necessary being to bring the effect into always exists. Therefore, if the effect comes in at a point in time then it means that the necessary being chose to create. The cause did not have to cause because if it did the effect would be eternal and since contingent things are not eternal then this is not the case. The next step is determining what religion best explains this necessary being which is an entirely different discussion.
Another popular argument for God’s existence is known as the Fine-Tuning Argument and it can be expressed with the follow quote from a Nobel Laureate in physics,
“Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real. This is a very special universe: it's remarkable that it came out just this way. If the laws of physics weren't just the way they are, we couldn't be here at all. The sun couldn't be there, the laws of gravity and nuclear laws and magnetic theory, quantum mechanics, and so on have to be just the way they are for us to be here.” – Charles Townes
Is it more than just a matter of pure chance that it happened to be this way?
There is a distinction of theism versus deism. Theism is the belief that the necessary being that has been shown to be God is caring towards creation and actively participates in the creation’s lives such as sending special revelation for example. Deism, on the other hand, is the opposite of that, that there is no special revelation sent from God. There are different models of deism, for example, one model states that the necessary being is nonintelligent or not conscious, another model is that there in an intelligent creator, but that creator left the universe alone after making it by either not caring, is unable to communicate by nature, or did not need to communicate. There seems to be some forms of inconsistency in these views, for the first model, it appears unlikely that the necessary being is unintelligent when the universe is complex. For God to be non-conscious or some naturalistic mechanistic being that creates is problematic as discussed in the second stage of the contingency argument and the Kalam Cosmological Argument. If the universe did not exist alongside the necessary being meaning that it has a beginning, that means that the necessary being, God, chose to create it, therefore has consciousness. Then the difficult question for the deist is that why did God choose to create? For the second model it is inconsistent that God would leave humans alone but yet uphold them and the universe by maintaining the laws of physics which begs the questions for deists that if God sustains the universe then why “walk away” from it? For the model that believes that God did not need to communicate with humans by ways of special revelation often states that what is found in special revelation such as the ideas of being “good” can be discovered logically therefore it is unnecessary for it to be revealed. However, the problem with that is any line of reason one takes will have an aspect of non-necessity. The fact that special revelation is possible and rationally accessible, miracles and other aspects of religion that are not necessarily rationalizable are rationalizable indirectly through revelation. Hypothetically if there was no rational necessity in the existence of angels, it becomes rational if one rationalizes their belief in a particular revelation meaning that there is solid rational ground in believing that it is of the God that deists believe in then if that God is good all these attributes are realized rationally then by logic whatever that God reveals is rational unless proven otherwise. One of the reasons that a person might become a deist is the objection of laws placed forth by certain religions. However, contingent beings have properties that could be another way therefore it was a choice by the necessary being to will for a certain property instead of another. Keeping that in mind, this would include natural human tendencies on wanting to be moral does not come from humans then but from the necessary being therefore to ground morality it makes logical sense to come from the necessary being i.e. special revelation. Moral universalism can be argued to be rationally derived from human thought but not moral particularism.
Many religions put forth the concept of miracles, but the question is do miracles go against nature and logic making them irrational therefore an impossibility? What is a miracle, a miracle is a break in an observed regularity that has a non-naturalistic explanation. The way anyone looks at a claim to a miraculous account depends on prior metaphysical commitments and world views determines the assessment of the evidence. The question about miracles is a fundamental question because it puts into question the fundamental nature of reality. If the claim is that the laws of the universe are XYZ so therefore if anything contradicts that then it is illogical, the laws of the universe are based on induction meaning that if something keeps doing this therefore it is going to keep doing that, however, there is nothing necessary about that therefore it is not a necessary contradiction. It is similar to the black swan fallacy which is the assertion that because one has not experienced or discovered something, that thing does not exist. For example, if one claims that every swan, they had seen is black therefore all swans are white, that is a fallacy as there is a possibility of other swans, but they have not observed them yet. If one the accepts all the previous argumentations about the existence of a necessary being and the argumentations that it is a God, then that God is the one that orchestrated the laws of the universe and therefore those laws are contingent i.e. those laws exist in a different way. If a miracle does happen, how does one be able to differentiate between it being miraculous based off the earlier definition or that it is natural but unable to be explained yet? This question presupposes a necessary being as that allows one to understand that there are regularities within the universe that are imposed upon the universe. For an atheist, they have the problem that they cannot claim that there is something that grounds regularity within the universe and that literally anything possible could potentially happen. If the regularities within the universe, the foundations of reality, are contingent and popped into existence for no explanation and therefore the foundation of reality allows for things to come into existence without any explanation then there is no explanation for anything. If someone is rationally justified in their belief in an omnipotent being, then miraculous events seem less far-fetched. Miracles are a byproduct of the belief in the religion rather than the thing that makes the religion true. If one grants that a miracle was performed but if the theology backing that miracle is contradictory and illogical because the miracle has to be assessed within the overall theology that is being presented, then the miracle could be claimed to be a onetime irregularity.
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