The most current philosophical arguments for the existence of God?

I think the best philosophical argument for the existence of God is one C.S. Lewis popularized, the argument from reason. If mindless atoms control my thoughts, then I have no reason to trust them.

“If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true … and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.” (J.B.S. Haldane)

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The argument which is most convincing to me is probably a form of cosmological argument. Something along the lines of:

  1. Everything which exists contingently is caused to exist by something else.
  2. The universe exists contingently.
  3. If the universe is caused to exist by something else, then God exists.
  4. Therefore, God exists.

Of course, the three premises are not mere assertions or assumptions, but are given further supporting reasons. Premise 1 is supported by arguments for a causal principle or the principle of sufficient reason, which I find to be quite strong. Premise 2 is supported by appeal to the apparent contingency of things within the universe, the apparent lack of anything which could underwrite the necessity of the universe’s existence, etc. Premise 3 is supported by arguments that the ultimate cause of the universe must have the properties like God.

Alexander Pruss’ paper on the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument (it appears in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology) is an example of this kind of argument defended in more detail.

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If some immaterial thingie (a soul?) controls your thoughts, do you have any more reason to trust them? What can possibly give you warrant to trust your thoughts?

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Even taking the naturalistic conception of cognition, “mindless atoms” ‘control’ your thoughts only to the same extent that they also ‘control’ all the computers in the world – including the one you used to write your post. (I would personally say that the interaction of these mindless atoms are your thoughts, rather than that they ‘control’ them). Are you saying you likewise have no reason to trust any computer?

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I wouldn’t trust the thoughts of anyone who can come up with or believe such an argument. It’s so obviously fallacious,

Obviously you have to start with the assumption that your thoughts can be trusted (basically - you still need to guard against error). And if you don’t you certainly can’t assume your way out of the problem.

Once you admit that assumption you can try and work out where thoughts come from. Avoiding obvious fallacies of composition which require the basis of thought to be purely mental.

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We have in fact little reason to assume that our beliefs are true, which is why we need to test them against objective reality as much as possible.

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If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him

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Apart from that being a fallacy - the properties of the parts are not necessarily the properties of the whole - it neglects that the arrangements of those mindless atoms have been honed by billions of years of evolution in a world where valid decision-making and accurate assessment of reality tend to enhance survivability.

In contrast, if your brain was the creation of a tyrannical deity who demands his subjects worship him or he’ll torture them for all eternity, you definitely would have no reason to trust your thoughts.

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Thank you. I agree that is the best argument for God’s existence, and it seems intuitively true to me. But as I’ve learned from studying evolution, human intuition is often wrong. So can you explain why you think that human reason cannot be an emergent property? AFAIK C. S. Lewis never justified this premise of his argument.

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I missed the argument for the existence of God, in your post.

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Dan, I confess I’m puzzled by your reply, can you elaborate a bit?

In the ninth century, the Buddhist sage Lin Chi told a monk, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” He meant that those who think they’ve found all the answers in any religion need to start questioning. - SOURCE

Also this:

On @lee_merrill’s behalf, let me try to better formulate the ‘argument from reason.’ Lewis originally formulated the argument as follows:

(1) No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of non-rational causes. (Premise)
(2) If naturalism is true, then all beliefs can be fully explained in terms of non-rational causes. (Premise)
(3) Therefore, if naturalism is true, then no belief is rationally inferred. (From 1-2)
(4) We have good reason to accept naturalism only if it can be rationally inferred from good evidence. (Premise)
(5) Therefore, there is not, and cannot be, good reason to accept naturalism.

Premises (2) and (4) are very likely correct, but as far as I know, Lewis never justified his premise (1). This is the weak point that is often attacked by his critics, since this premise is based solely on intuition and there doesn’t seem to be a good reason why ‘reason’ cannot be an emergent property.

However, I think it is possible to strengthen the argument from reason so that it does not depend on intuition. Consider the following:

(6) A necessary first cause exists. [1]
(7) Mental properties are either reducible to physical properties, or they are not.
(8) If mental properties are not reducible to physical properties, then the first cause possesses mental properties. [2]
(9) At least some mental properties are not reducible to physical properties.
(10) Therefore, the first cause possesses mental properties. (From 8-9)

For premise (9), human reason itself depends on the fact that at least some mental properties are not reducible to physical properties. If our mental states were fully caused by physical states, then each of our mental states would merely supervene upon our brain’s physical states, like so: [3]

On this view, our beliefs are not caused by our reasons for holding those beliefs, even though it seems that way to us; rather, our beliefs are caused by physical states that correspond to those reasons. However, this is incompatible with human reason, which requires that our beliefs are caused (directly) by our reasons for holding those beliefs, like this: [4]

Therefore, if we assume that our beliefs can be caused by our reasons for holding that belief – which we must in order to make any rational argument – then mental properties cannot be reducible to physical properties (implying property dualism). This, in turn, means that the first cause must possess mental properties, and is a personal being (a god or God).

This formulation of the argument from reason is, IMO, more robust than Lewis’ original formulation. It relies far less on intuition and arrives directly at theism.

This argument does not imply that substance dualism is true, merely property dualism. As such, there is no “immaterial thingie” controlling your thoughts; instead, it means that your (material) brain has mental properties in addition to its physical properties. And you can trust your thoughts more if this is true, because your beliefs are directly caused by the reasons for holding that belief.

The input/output of a computer only has meaning when a rational being (like a human) interprets it. The computer itself has no concept of the outside world, and it cannot interpret its conclusions, nor can it hold a belief. It is not analogous to human reason.

Correct – that’s the point of the argument from reason. Everyone has to assume that their process of reasoning can be trusted in order to draw any rational conclusions. It’s true that this is an unfounded assumption, but it’s still a necessary assumption, like the axioms of Euclidean geometry.

It is true that our beliefs must be tested against objective reality. But in testing our beliefs against objective reality, we are implicitly assuming that our process of reasoning – by which we draw conclusions from objective reality – is a valid way of determining truth. If our beliefs are not actually caused by our reasons for holding that belief, then none of our beliefs can ever be epistemically justified, regardless of whether we test them against objective reality or not.

Anyway, that’s my formulation of the argument from reason, but I’m not sure if it holds up under further scrutiny. I’d appreciate it if someone here, preferably someone trained in philosophy (@vjtorley?) could examine my argument to see if it seems to be valid.


[1] See Pruss (1998) for an explanation of why, even if an infinite causal regress exists, there must still be an external ‘first cause’ of the universe. See my response to @structureoftruth below to see why I believe this ‘first cause’ is a necessary rather than contingent being.

[2] If mental properties are not reducible to physical properties, then the first cause cannot be merely physical, because otherwise mental properties could not exist.

[3] Fig. 2 from Rickabaugh and Buras (2017).

[4] Fig. 1 from Rickabaugh and Buras (2017).

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Thank you for sharing. I’ve read Pruss’ chapter in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology before, and IIRC it’s formulated something like this (although his may use the strong PSR rather than the weak version):

(1) Every contingent state of affairs possibly has an explanation. (Premise)
(2) The state of affairs which includes all contingent things is a contingent state of affairs. (Premise)
(3) Therefore, the state of affairs which includes all contingent things possibly has an explanation. (From 1-2)
(4) Therefore, a necessary being possibly exists. (From 3)
(5) Therefore, a necessary being exists. (From 4, S5)
(6) This necessary being is God. (unsupported premise)

I find this argument convincing, but only to the extent that a necessary first cause exists. WLC argues that because the first cause is timeless, its original creative action cannot have been deterministic, and so it must have libertarian free will. However, this merely shows that the first cause must act indeterministically, not that it possesses LFW. A necessarily existent quantum field would fulfill this requirement just as well as a personal God.

Can you explain why you believe that the first cause must be God, and not some impersonal field or natural law?

I don’t see a good reason to grant that distinction. Both explanations can be true without any conflict. Indeed I would say that a physicalist explanation of the mind entails that there is no meaningful distinction. Both explanations of how our beliefs are caused are valid and true and do not conflict.

To illustrate we can describe the operation of computer programs in terms of the algorithms and inputs. That description is not invalidated by the physical description of the hardware and its operation. Both explanations are valid - and discounting the inputs and internal state of the program because of the phsyical description would be absurd.

So to me this argument seems like it is really begging the question. If a physicalist view of the mind is assumed to be incorrect at the start then the conclusion is hardly a surprise,

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Are you saying that the physical states that correspond to reasons are the same as those reasons? I don’t see how that can be true. Is the brain state that corresponds to, for example, the fossil evidence for human evolution, the same as the fossil evidence for human evolution? How could my belief in human evolution be justified if it is caused by that brain state and not the actual evidence? Maybe I’m making a false distinction, but it doesn’t seem to be that way to me.

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Here, (2) refers to:

I have never understood what it is supposed mean to say “naturalism is true”. From my perspective, naturalism is not a specific claim or a set of claims – it is more of an attitude.

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No. Computers also directly control airplanes, automobiles, nuclear reactors, etc – without the need for human “interpretation”. They are analogous to the naturalistic interpretation of human thought in that it involves nothing more than the interaction of “mindless” atoms, yet their results are generally deemed reliable – sufficiently reliable that every day millions of people place their lives in these computers hands.

The point is not whether computers form beliefs (an issue that is not relevant to the Argument from Reason), but whether relying on the interaction of “mindless” atoms renders a process unreliable – and nobody seems to have provided evidence on this latter point – those arguing for the Argument from Reason simply assume that it does.

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I know you’re seeking clarification from @Paul_King and so perhaps I should stay out, but this is a subject I’ve talked about before and I think I do understand, and agree with, what he means, so let me have a go.

I have said that in principle (though not in practice), it would be possible to explain the War of the Spanish Sucession entirely in the domain of physics. Physics governs all of the factors at work, including the firing of every neuron in the Duke of Marlborough’s brain as he worked out the plans for, say, the Battle of Blenheim. If one had access to the data, an explanation of the war in terms of physics would be exhaustive of all of the causes, expressed in the terms of physics, of the war and its outcome.

But it is also possible to explain the War of the Spanish Succession in more humanly-accessible terms: the motives of the parties, the working-out of uncertainties and contingencies, the shifting alliances and interests of all concerned.

That the former explanation could, in principle, exist does not negate anything about the validity of the latter explanation. They simply occupy distinct explanatory domains, but describe the same facts.

To the extent you have a reason to believe something, that reason must in some way be embedded in the physical states of your brain and in the process of your brain proceeding through those states as cognition occurs. So to say you did something because the molecules were thus-and-so does not in any way negate the statement that you did it because you felt it was the best thing to do under the circumstances. Same causes, different explanatory domains.

I think that’s what @Paul_King means. Perhaps not; but it is certainly what I took him to mean.

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I don’t see a reason to believe premise 2, but then I’m not sure how a non-rational cause differs from a rational cause. Nor do I see why, if we fail to accept naturalism, we then must accept whatever is the proposed alternative.

There seems no reason to accept this premise either.

That would seem to reject the notion of emergent properties. I can’t see a reason to accept that premise. It seems along the lines of “if a result has X, then the cause must have X”, and there are many values of X for which that is certainly not true. So why is it necessarily true for X = “has mental properties”?

This seems to me a distinction without a difference. Why are physical states that correspond to reasons not equivalent to reasons? Whatever is in your brain must be encoded or instantiated in some way; you seem to be proposing some direct access to the platonic ideal of an idea.

Not sure that your two-part conclusion follows. Is a thing with mental properties necessarily a personal being?

Not the important part of my objection. It appears that we are back to the difference between the encoding of ideas and the ideas themselves, which I don’t see as significant. Further, what would this “mental property” thing be? It seems merely an unnecessary framework built on top of the physical brain. It makes more sense if my reasons and my beliefs too are physical processes happening in my brain. So not thrilled here.

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