THE EXISTENCE OF GOD PART 1: COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT | KAIROS GLOBAL | OCTOBER 2022

Author: Aby Jacob

Intro: ‘Does God exist?’ Aby Jacob answers this through two cosmological arguments and scientific arguments from Christian philosophers.

In this age of modern scientific advancement, the younger generation, critical thinkers, and truth seekers raise challenging questions about God, life, and the world. Many abandon their faith in God because they do not find sufficient answers to their honest intellectual enquiries. Some are afraid to ask in spite of having questions deep within their hearts. I can understand this pain, and in writing these apologetics articles I hope to help such people clear their honest doubts, to lead you to the truth, to strengthen your faith in Jesus Christ, and to help you become a powerful witness to the truth. 1 Peter 3:15 says, Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. There is nothing wrong with asking honest questions to understand the truth with greater clarity. It is important to note that truth exists, we can know the truth, truth matters, and truth has eternal significance. My previous article addressed the question, ‘Does absolute truth exist?’ I have argued that absolute, objective, universal truth exists. In this article, I aim to direct your mind to think about another great question, ‘Does God exist?’

Many people think there is no way one can know the existence of God apart from blind faith, special revelation (Scripture), and spiritual experience. I want to show you that there are many undeniable rational arguments for the existence of a monotheistic God from natural theology without appealing to any specially revealed theology or spiritual experience. Natural theology is different from revealed theology. God has revealed himself to humanity in two ways: general revelation (nature, history, and conscience) and special revelation (Scripture). It is possible to know God’s existence through general revelation that is accessible to all people (Romans 1:18-20, Psalm 19:1). General revelation is necessary for natural theology. Natural theology uses logic to develop rational arguments for the existence of a monotheistic God. However, it is important to have special revelation (Scripture) to know God’s personality, character, nature, and purpose of creation.

The proponents of natural theology use scientific or philosophical arguments. Christian philosophers such as Richard Swinburne, JP Moreland, William Lane Craig, Douglas Groothuis, Norman Geisler, and many others have been rigorously defending theistic arguments in recent decades. The prominent arguments for the existence of God come from cosmology, teleology (design & fine-tuning), and morality. In this article, I aim to address arguments for the existence of God from cosmology. There are varieties of cosmological arguments. Here I will address two arguments: the Leibnizian and the Kalam cosmological arguments. I will focus more on the latter.

Before I begin the Kalam cosmological argument, I would like you to ponder this great question, ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’¹ – a question that German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz first posed concerning the existence of the universe. In other words, ‘why is there a universe instead of nothing at all?’ The universe does not necessarily have to exist. It could have been ‘nothing’, and if it were so, then we would not even be here to ask for any explanations because nothing means absolutely no thing. But we know that the universe exists. According to Leibniz’s famous ‘Principle of Sufficient Reason’, there must be a ‘Necessary Sufficient Reason’ for the existence of the universe in the first place because ‘nothing happens without a sufficient reason.’² Since the universe needs explanation, Leibniz attributed to God as the Necessary Sufficient Reason for the existence of the universe. God is a metaphysically necessary being.³ The goal of the Leibnizian argument was not to examine whether the universe had a finite beginning or to explain the first cause. But it was just looking for a Necessary Sufficient Reason for the universe. I do not have space to expand the Leibnizian cosmological argument in detail, but I recommend the comprehensive works of philosophers Douglas Groothuis and William Lane Craig.⁴ With the Leibnizian argument in mind, I want to direct you to one of the best arguments for the existence of God, known as the Kalam cosmological argument, which also adds strength to the Leibnizian argument.

For many centuries, philosophers wondered whether the universe had a beginning. Naturalists denied a beginning. They held that the material universe is eternal and self-existent. Therefore, a creator explanation was unnecessary. On the contrary, without any scientific evidence, theologians always believed that the universe had a finite beginning because that is what the Bible teaches (Genesis 1:1; John 1:1, etc.). While both these views are in place, modern science made an unexpected discovery that the universe had an absolute beginning. Astronomer Robert Jastrow wrote,

This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and Earth… For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.⁵

If the universe began to exist, it lends support to creation ex nihilo (out of nothing). The Kalam cosmological argument became an item of intense philosophical debate.⁶ This is how the argument looks like:

1. Everything that begins to exist must have a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe must have a cause (separate from itself).

Premise (1) is rooted in the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come from nothing.⁷ ‘Out of nothing, nothing comes’ is a noncontroversial concept⁸ unless someone takes a blind leap of faith that nothingness has causal properties, which is nonsense. If something does not exist, it does not exist; it has no causal properties. 

The premise (2), ‘the universe began to exist’ has both philosophical and empirical evidence to support it. In his book, Reasonable Faith, Craig put forth two philosophical arguments⁹ to support this premise, along with empirical evidence. (A) The impossibility of an actual infinite number of things. (B) The impossibility of forming an actual infinite collection of things by adding one member after another. Craig argues these extensively in his book. The philosophical reasons alone are sufficient to support premise (2), but it has several converging lines of scientific evidence that additionally support the finite beginning of the universe. They are: The Big Bang cosmology, the expansion of the universe, the second law of thermodynamics, Einstein's theory of general relativity, cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation discovery, space-time theorems of general relativity, Hawking-Penrose singularity theorem, BVG theorem, etc. For detailed scientific knowledge, I recommend the books by astrophysicist Hugh Ross, Why the Universe Is the Way It Is;¹⁰ and The Creator and the Cosmos.¹¹ Physicist Alexander Vilenkin writes, ‘With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.’¹²

If premises (1) and (2) in the Kalam cosmological argument are true, premise (3) will necessarily follow. The universe must have a cause separate from itself. Since the physical universe (time, space, matter, energy) is what we are trying to explain, and it began to exist, it cannot explain itself. Therefore, the cause of the origin of the universe must transcend the physical universe. When there is no material cause (because there is no matter or space), the only kind of cause available must be a rational agent. The cause must be an uncaused, beginning-less, timeless, space-less, changeless, immaterial, enormously powerful, intelligent, and personal being. Groothuis puts it, ‘If natural law indicates a beginning of the universe and will not take us beyond the beginning of the universe, then that beginning should be explained on other, non-natural grounds.’¹³  The cause must therefore be supernatural. A ‘supernatural cause’ (God) explanation is the best fit. This also fits well with the biblical claim that God created the universe out of nothing a finite time ago. There are many other arguments for the existence of God in natural theology, which I hope to address in the future. Stay tuned! 

References

 G.W.F. von Leibniz, ‘Principles of Nature and Grace’ in Leibniz Selections, ed. Philip P. Wiener (New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1951), 527.

² Leibniz, ‘Principles of Nature and Grace’, 527.

³ William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed. (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2008), 99.

⁴ Chapter 3, Craig, Reasonable Faith, 93; Chapter 11, Douglas Groothuis, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith, (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022), 201.

⁵ Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (New York: Norton, 1978), 116. 

⁶ Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, 207.

⁷ Craig, Reasonable Faith, 111.

⁸ Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, 207.

⁹ Craig, Reasonable Faith, 116.

¹⁰ Hugh Ross, Why the Universe Is the Way It Is (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008).

¹¹ Hugh Ross, The Creator and The Cosmos: How the Latest Scientific Discoveries Reveal God, fourth ed, (CA: RTB Press, 2018). Ross also founded an organization called Reasons to Believe, with a community of scientists and scholars that deals with Science and Faith topics if you would like to explore more. https://reasons.org/

¹² Alexander Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One (New York: Hill & Wang, 2006), 176.

¹³ Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, 218.

Aby Jacob was born and raised in Kerala, India. He is currently pursuing an MA in Philosophy and a Certificate in Scientific Apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary (USA). He dedicates his life to defending the Christian faith and answering people’s honest questions about God, life, and the world.