Existence of God

1/24/22
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: THE

EXISTENCE OF GOD
Mostafa Kamal Mokhtar (PhD)
Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, UKM Bangi
mostafakamalmokhtar@gmail.com 1
The study of God
God
Religion/ Philosophy/
Theology Metaphysic
Natural Theology/
Reveled theology Philosophy of
religion
Human speculative
God’s knowledge/
knowledge/
Revelation/
Knowing God/
saving or Salvation
Argument on God
1/24/22 mostafakamalmokhtar@gmail.com 2
The Idea of God
God
Personal Being Non-personal

(Theism) being
Panentheism
Monotheism Pantheism
(Advaita
(Islam) (Buddhism)
Vedanta)
Polytheism
(Hinduism)
Henotheism
Trinity
(Christianity)
The relation between God & Universe
God & Universe
Dualism
Monism
(creator &
(emanation)
creation)
Deism
Omnipresent Pantheism
(transcendent)
The idea of God
◦ Theism: God is an infinite, unitary, self-existent, all-powerful,
all-knowing, perfectly good and personal being who created
the universe out of nothing and directs it according to
teleological laws
◦ Monotheism (Abrahamic religion) believes that there is just one God.
◦ Polytheism (Hindus), believes in many different deities while
maintaining that all are manifestations of one God
◦ Henotheism
◦ Deism: God started the universe and established natural laws
(the law of physics). The universe is now runs its own without
God’s interference or help.
The idea of God
◦ Pantheism (Buddhism) assert that God is himself (or
itself) the natural universe or "God is the world and the
world is God”. God means a non-personal being that is
unitary, self-existence, infinite cause of all existences.
◦ Panentheism (Advaita Vedanta) can be summed up as "The
world is God, but God is more than the world”
◦ Henotheism (Greek εἷς θεός heis theos "one god") is a
term coined by Max Müller, to mean devotion to a
single god while accepting the existence or possible
existence of other deities.
Trinity
◦ Trinity [Lat.,=threefoldness], fundamental doctrine in Christianity, by which
God is considered as existing in three persons. While the doctrine is not
explicitly taught in the New Testament, early Christian communities testified
to a perception that Jesus was God in the flesh; the idea of the Trinity has been
inferred from the Gospel of St. John.
◦ The developed doctrine of the Trinity purports that God exists in three coequal
and coeternal elements—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit.
Argument for/against God’s Existence
God’s Existence
Atheism Theism Agnosticism
A Posteriori/
Inconsistency A Priori/ Uncertainty/
Sense
of revelation reason Not proven
experience
Ontological/ Cosmological/
Human free will
God’s Definition First Cause
self-
Mover-moved
contradictory
Necessary-
know vs. power
contingency
Teleological/
power vs. evil
Design
The existence of God
◦ Theism - the arguments indicate there are sufficient
reasons to believe in the existence of God or gods.
◦ Atheism - the arguments indicate there are not
sufficient reasons to believe in a God or gods either
because they don't exist or other reasons such as the
words don't refer to anything, or the concept makes no
sense or it is unknowable .
◦ Agnosticism - the existence of God or any deity is
irrelevant, uncertain or unknown.
Terms
◦ Cosmology: the philosophical study and explanation
for the universe
◦ Contingency: something that occurs or exists only as a
result of something else or that depends on something
else
◦ Ontology: the nature of being
◦ Teleology: the study of ultimate causes in nature or
final purpose of thing
Theism (A Posteriori): Cosmological or First-Cause
argument (moved-mover)
◦ St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): analogy of a train:
moved and mover (based on an empirical proof)
◦ The first-cause argument begins with:
◦ The fact that there is change in the world, and a change
is always the effect of some cause or causes.
◦ Each cause is itself the effect of a further cause or set of
causes; this chain moves in a series that either never ends
or is completed by a first cause, which must be of a
radically different nature in that it is not itself caused.
Theism (A Posteriori): Cosmological argument
(Contingency-Necessary)
◦ In nature there are things whose existence is contingent, that is, possible
for it to be and not to be.
◦ Since it is possible for such things not to exist, there must be some time
at which such things did not in fact exist. Thus, on probabilistic
grounds, there must have been a time when nothing existed. If that is
so, there would exist nothing that could bring anything into
existence, but in reality there is an existence
◦ Thus contingent beings are insufficient to account for the existence of
contingent beings, meaning there must exist a Necessary Being for
which it is impossible not to exist, and from which the existence of all
contingent beings is derived.
Theism (A Posteriori): Teleological or Design
Argument
◦ The Teleological argument, which argues that the universe's order
and complexity shows signs of purpose (telos), and that it must have
been designed by an intelligent designer with properties that only a
God could have.
◦ World is too (complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful,
and/or beautiful) to have occurred randomly or accidentally.
◦ Therefore, world must have been created by a (sentient, intelligent,
wise, and/or purposeful) being.
◦ God is that (sentient, intelligent, wise, and/or purposeful) being.
◦ Therefore, God exists.
◦ William Paley (1743-1805); argument by analogy between a watch-
watchmaker and world-world creator.
Theism (A Priori): Ontological Argument
◦ The Ontological argument, based on arguments about the
definition of GOD: “a being or an existence which nothing
greater than can be conceived”
◦ God should be defined as a substance which no greater
entity can be conceived.
◦ The concept of God exists in human understanding (great).
But, the concept of God existing in reality exists in human
understanding (greater; more perfect).
◦ If an entity exists in reality and in human understanding is
greater than it would have been existed only in human
understanding, therefore God must have been existing in
reality (not only in understanding)
◦ St. Anselm (1033-1109) & Rene Descarte (1596-1950), a
priori argument (non-empirical argument)
Atheism: Inconsistency of revelation (human
not divine)
◦ The argument from inconsistent revelations
contests the existence of the Middle Eastern,
Biblical deity called God as described in holy
scriptures, such as the Jewish Torah, the Christian
Bible (Injil), or the Muslim Qur'an, by identifying
contradictions between different scriptures,
contradictions within a single scripture, or
contradictions between scripture and known facts
(Science)
Atheism: human free will
◦ The argument from free will contest the
existence of an omniscient (all-knowing) god
who has free will by arguing that the two
properties are contradictory. If god has already
planned the future, then humanity is destined to
follow that plan and we do not have true free
will to deviate from it. Therefore our free will
contradicts an omniscient god.
Atheism: self-contradictory attribution
(knowing-doing) of God
◦ One simple argument that the existence of a god is self-
contradictory goes as follows: If God is defined as omniscient
(all-knowing) and omnipotent (all-power), then God has
absolute knowledge of all events that will occur in the future,
including all of his future actions, due to his omniscience.
◦ However, his omnipotence implies he has the power to act in a
different manner than he predicted, thus implying that God's
predictions about the future are fallible. This implies that God is
not really omniscient, at least when it comes to knowledge
about future events. So a God defined as omniscient and
omnipotent cannot exist.
Atheism: the problem of evil
◦ The problem of evil can be used to prove that no gods exist by
the method of reductio ad absurdum (proof by contradiction).
This method does not prove the non-existence of all gods, rather
it is an argument that if such a god exists then he is not both
omnipotent and benevolent (good God)
◦ Already Epicure pointed out the contradiction, stating that if an
omnipotent God existed, the evil in the world should be
impossible. As there is evil in the world, the god must either not
be omnipotent or he must not be omni-benevolent. If he is not
omnipotent, he is not God; if he is not omni-benevolent, he is
not God the All merciful, but only an evil creature.
Argument for uncertainty of the existence of
God (Agnostics)
◦ Possible reasons for holding this view are a belief that the existence of any
deity has not yet been sufficiently proven, that the existence of a deity cannot
be proven, or, quite simply, that claims about the existence or non-existence of
any deity make no sense. Agnostics may claim that it isn't possible to have
absolute or certain knowledge of supernatural beings or, alternatively, that
while certainty may be possible, they personally have no such knowledge.
◦ Agnostics may or may not still believe in gods based on Fideilistic convictions
(fideism)
Belief = rational (reason) or knowledge?
God?
◦ In Islam, can we know/cognize what is God (its being)?
(42:11)
(6:103) 21
1/24/22 mostafakamalmokhtar@gmail.com
The Problem of the arguments about the
existence of God
◦ Should knowledge only be defined as a justified true belief ? a
knowledge of belief that or intellectual knowledge – the logic of
speculation (scientific); primarily propositional statement!
◦ Could knowledge be just a belief without proof? a knowledge of
belief in or experiential knowledge – the logic of relationship (a
faith: spiritual boundary); a great trust, confidence,
acceptance; an event of disclosure!
Reason vs. Faith
◦ Faith: Do you believe in ME? Faith is a personal
commitment (soul; a feeling)
◦ Reason: Do you believe that I exist? Rational Belief
is a clever employment of reason (intellect).
Reference
◦ Warburton, Nigel. 1992. Philosophy: The Basic. London: Routledge (p. 11-36)
◦ Pojman, Louis P. Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary
Readings. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company
◦ Kessler, Gary E. Voices of Wisdom: A Multicultural Philosophy Reader.
California: Wadsworth Publishing Company (p. 301-345).
◦ Stewart, David & Blocker, H Gene. 1996. Fundamentals of Philosophy. 4th
Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

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1/24/22

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: THE

Personal Being Non-personal

God & Universe

Atheism Theism Agnosticism

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