August 4, 2025 • 42 mins
Does God exist? Are there good proofs for God’s existence? Do these proofs work or do they have flaws? In this episode, we look at the most famous four proofs for the existence of a Deity and then show places where these arguments may go awry. Are you a theist or an atheist and why?
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0:00 Exploring Classical Arguments and Refutations for God's Existence
3:35 The Teleological Argument and Evidence for Intelligent Design
7:41 Debating the Teleological Argument and Its Refutations
14:16 Exploring the Moral Argument for God's Existence
21:19 Exploring the Cosmological Argument and Its Philosophical Challenges
28:30 Anselm's Ontological Argument for God's Necessary Existence
33:49 Exploring the Ontological Argument and Its Critiques
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Does God exist? Are there any proofs for God's
existence? Do those proofs actually work or
can they be refuted? Welcome to ideological.
I am your host, Zach Lee, the director of the Institute for
the Study of Philosophy, Politics and Culture.
And today we're going to be looking at a philosophical topic
within what is called philosophyof religion.
(00:29):
Now, let me be clear, this is not theology.
Theology is where you have like a book of revealed religion and
you try to harmonize and systematize that religion.
That's something that like a a priest would do or an imam would
do if it was like Islamic theology or a rabbi would do if
it was Jewish theology or whatever it might be.
(00:50):
Philosophy of religion is different than that.
Philosophy of religion is going to say, what can we know about
God, if anything, just from tools that are available to
everyone specifically reason, logic, argumentation, perhaps
evidence from the sciences, these kind of things, but not by
appealing to some sort of text of revealed religion.
(01:11):
So regardless of your worldview,and by the way, my podcast has a
very broad listenership. Is that what it's called?
I've got so many people from different walks of life.
There are atheists that that watch the show.
There are atheists that watch the show.
There are people on the left, people on the right.
I, I really actually enjoy that.I'm not going to give you my
views on any of this today. I'm just going to give you the
(01:33):
four classical, traditional, so-called proofs for the
existence of God. And then I'm also going to
mention some of their problems or refutations.
And to make it fair, I'm going to do an entire episode giving
the strongest case I I can for atheism.
And I've also got another one I'm working on regarding the
problem of evil. So these are all going to be
kind of in the philosophy of religion realm.
(01:56):
My background though, is, is in the intellectual history and
philosophy. So I'm going to, you'll have to
talk to a cleric or somebody if you want religious answers.
I'm just going to give you philosophical answers and we
should have a lot of fun. Let me wet my whistle.
By the way, today's episode is brought to you by, let's call it
atheist Cola. Atheist cola make your thirst
non existent. OK, let's talk about the four
(02:22):
traditional arguments for the existence of some type of
supreme being. You ready?
Buckle up. Here we go.
The first one is called the teleological argument.
That's a fancy word, teleological argument, or if you
want to get really fancy, I'm pretty sure that Kant called it
the physico theological argument, that that term
(02:42):
teleological comes from the Greek word telos.
Telos means an end or a goal or a purpose.
And this is a very popular argument.
This is probably the most commonargument you get for God's
existence. So if you ask somebody why do
you think God exists, they'll say, we'll look around, there
are trees and the earth spins and our bodies work and they'll
give all these things that seem to point to an intelligent
(03:04):
designer. That's really what the
teleological argument is. This is an argument that is
pretty popular in philosophical history.
There are different versions of this argument promoted by guys
such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Thomas
Aquinas, William Paley, Flu and others.
So there there's a, there's a lot of it's got a long pedigree,
(03:24):
if you want to say it that way. Here's the argument.
OK, because there seems to be fine tuning and design in
nature, you must then have a an intelligent designing mind.
You must have a being that is intelligent that can create all
(03:45):
the what seems to be designed. Like if there's no God and
there's just atoms bumping into things and everything's random
matter and chemicals, how do youget a hawk that can take flight?
How do you get the fact that like a, a mother can nurse her
baby and the baby doesn't get sick even if the mom is sick,
How do you get the fact that ourDNA, it's not like a code.
It is a code. It seems that there are these
(04:08):
intelligent things all over. And to say that that's just time
plus chance plus matter seems pretty hard to prove the fact
that you're understanding me right now.
I open this hole in my face called a mouth and I make these
articulate grunts and you're able to think what I think it
it. It seems really incredible that
that would just come about through chance.
(04:28):
That's that's the idea. Also with the the teleological
argument, you don't have purposewithout some type of mind.
Let me say it this way. We don't just say a female deer
breeds with a strong male deer, therefore having strong children
or something like that, and therefore she has strong
children. We say that the female deer
(04:49):
mates with the the male buck in order to have stronger genetics
for her children. We don't just say when it gets
cold birds fly S for the winter.We say when it gets cold, birds
fly South in order to avoid the winter 'cause they don't want to
be cold. We don't just typically give a
fact, even with evolution. We say that something evolved
(05:11):
with the purpose of spreading its genes, becoming more
resistant to being killed or eaten or seen.
We give a purpose to it. Even in evolution, we're trying
to turn into something. We're trying to stay alive and
replicate our our genes. And So what the proponent of the
teleological argument will say is that's all evidence forgot.
(05:32):
OK, William Paley has a very famous quote on this that I'm
going to read to you. Suppose I found a watch upon the
ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened
to be in that place. I should hardly think that for
anything I knew the watch might have always been there.
Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well As
for a stone that happened to be lying on the ground for this
(05:52):
reason and for no other? Namely, that if the different
parts had been differently shaped from what they are, if a
different size from what they are, or placed after any other
manner or in any order than thatin which they are placed, either
no motion at all would have beencarried on in the machine, or
none which would have answered the use that is now served by
(06:14):
it. People back then just wrote in
ways that are old, timey and hard to understand.
Here's what he's saying. Let me let me put it into a
modern context. If I'm walking along the beach
and I see a smartphone, would itnot be insane for me to think
that that smartphone just happenthrough chance?
Because we're not just talking about a chunk of metal.
We're talking about an actual working smartphone with like a
(06:36):
battery and cameras. And it can connect to the
Internet and it can you can takeselfies and it can call somebody
else on another cell phone. It has a shape and buttons and
all the e-mail. To say that that just happened
through random chance for someone like Paley is insane.
Now consider how much more complicated is something like a
tiger or a human. The human hand is more
(06:58):
complicated than a cell phone. Think about how your brain
works, thinks about, think aboutyour internal or like it seems
that if all that just came aboutthrough chance, if walking along
on the beach there was a workingsmartphone and I just said, you
know what, that's probably just time plus sand plus salt water.
You would think that that was crazy.
That essentially is the teleological argument.
Now let me pause for some self promotion.
(07:24):
Some have called this the greatest book ever written.
It makes things like Pride and Prejudice and Moby Richard seem
like trash. This is one of the books I've
written. Highly recommend courting
Athena. I have a chapter in here on
philosophy of religion. If you like this kind of stuff.
And I'm I'm pretty even handed. I give the the proofs, but I
(07:44):
also give the refutation. So Speaking of that, let's talk
about some refutations of the teleological argument.
OK, again, like I said to my atheist friends, I've got your
back too. To my theist friends, I've got
your back. I'm just going to give you all
the cases and let you guys argue.
I don't care what you believe, by the way, I I want you to hold
whatever you hold with good reason.
(08:06):
If you're a theist because your grandma told you about God,
that's a terrible reason to be atheist.
If you're an atheist because your mom died when you were
little and you're mad at a God you don't believe in, also a bad
reason to be an atheist. I want you to hold what you hold
because you've done the research.
You've read enough. You've you've weighed the
(08:27):
arguments, you've read the refutations.
You could be wrong. Again, I don't care what you do.
I'm a philosopher. I don't have to care.
Go, go talk to people that care.I'm not a motivational speaker.
I'm not a cleric. Like do what you want, but I
want you to do it intelligently,even if you're wrong.
I want you to be smart wrong. I don't want you to be dumb
wrong. And I'm afraid that there's a
(08:47):
lot of people that are dumb, right.
And I hate that. I want you to know why you
believe or disbelieve what you believe or disbelieve.
Problems with the teleological argument Number one, it only
proves some type of most powerful being.
It does not prove the God of anyrevealed religion.
(09:08):
OK, there could be God, just could be a force, he could be an
energy. He could be like a divine clock
maker that doesn't care about humanity and just kind of winds
up the universe and that's it. It doesn't prove any specific
God. It doesn't prove the God of
Islam or the Trinitarian God of Christianity or something like
that. Now the theists will respond and
say that's not the point of the argument.
(09:29):
The point of the argument is just to show that there is a
God. We can figure out which one it
is later. The point of the argument though
is to say that you can't be an an atheist.
The atheist though, will respondto this argument with several
other things. Let me give you a few things.
What about things in the universe that don't look
designed or look poorly designed, right.
(09:50):
So the theist is saying, well, look at all the design in the
world. And I'm like, cool, what about
cancer? What about tapeworms?
What about mosquitoes? What about viruses that evolve
into other viruses? Did did God like make good
viruses that didn't serve any purpose and then they became
bad? Like what about all the things
in the Tornadoes and earthquakesand starve it?
(10:13):
There's all these terrible things in the world.
You would have to say that if ifGod is a good creator, it shows
his intelligence that just looking at creation, he would
look pretty severely limited in his intelligence.
OK, now the theists will then respond and say no, no to Zach.
You don't understand. God made everything good and
then there was sin. And that's why things look bad
today. That's why things are corrupted.
(10:34):
And I say, whoa, you can't appeal to the Bible.
You can't like appeal to sin andGod and all these things
existing. We're trying to prove that.
That's the very thing we're trying to prove.
That's a circular argument. I can't say you can't say things
that in nature are designed. So God exists.
And I say there are things in nature that are not designed, so
he doesn't exist. And then you say, yes, Zach, but
(10:54):
God does exist and it's just sinthat did it.
Well, we don't know that sin didit until we know whether or not
God exists. Like that's the whole thing.
We're proving you're, you're starting with your conclusion,
which is the thing you're supposed to be proving from that
side. So that's something to keep in
mind. To my atheist friends, I have to
say, hey, if you say, hey, the world's messed up, blah, blah,
blah. I still have to say why is there
(11:15):
some sort of intelligence like whatever you want to say?
It's very hard to say Adam's bumping into other Adam's create
something like, you know, a white tiger that with hunting
prowess and claws and intelligent like it's that
that's that's that seems to be astretch.
Another argument against the teleological argument is that
we're only free to infer what wesee based on creation.
(11:42):
Let me say it another way. So this is David Hume and
Dialogues concerning natural religion here.
Here's his point. If you're trying to make the
case that God exists by looking at nature, you're only allowed
to create a type of God in your mind that would correlate with
the evidence. To say it another way, why would
you think that there's only one God?
Everything we see in nature that's created is plural.
Why would you think that God is infinite?
(12:03):
Everything that we see and experience is finite.
Why would you think that God is good?
We see good and bad things. Why would you think that God is
immaterial with everything we experience seems to be material.
So what someone like Hume is going to say is if we're using
this argument to prove the existence of God, it doesn't
prove anything like what we think of as God.
It would have to be some like messed up, partially physical,
(12:25):
plural limited thing because that's all we see.
We can't jump from saying finiteto infinite.
You can't just imply that you you can't infer that.
So that's a problem with the teleological argument.
The other, another refutation ofit is that everything only looks
designed. That doesn't mean it is
designed. What we do is we know when
(12:45):
things look designed like this delicious cola, agnostic cola,
we don't know what it tastes like.
We, we, we design things, and then we just kind of read that
on to God again. Hume says this the curious
adapting of means to ends throughout all nature resembles
exactly, though it much exceeds the productions of human
(13:07):
contrivance, of human designs, thought, wisdom, and
intelligence. Since therefore, the effects
resemble each other, we are led to infer by all the rules of
analogy that the causes also resemble, and that the author of
nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though
possessed of much larger faculties, proportion to the
grandeur of his work which he has executed.
By this argument, ah, posteriori, and by this argument
(13:30):
alone do we prove at once the existence of a deity and his
similarity to human mind and intelligence.
What Huma is saying is we see things that are designed because
we're humans and we're smart. We make things, and then we look
at a tree and we say, Ah, God must be like that.
So what he's, what he's simply saying is we can only say that
things look designed, not that they actually are.
(13:51):
When we say that something's designed, we're comparing it to
ourselves. What do you think of the
teleological argument? Good, bad.
Neither. Let's go to the next one, what's
called the moral argument, or ifyou want to get fancy, and I I
love getting fancy, The axiological argument because it
argues for moral axioms. This is this is the this
(14:12):
argument in a nutshell. The moral argument for God's
existence is this. It seems like throughout all
cultures that have ever existed,humans have some type of
internal moral state. OK, let me say it another way.
Some cultures will let you have multiple sexual partners and
others won't. But every culture that's ever
(14:34):
been has basically said you can't just sleep with whoever
you want to anytime you want to,no matter what.
Where does that sense of morality come from?
Some cultures will allow you to kill people for some things that
other cultures want, but I don'twon't.
But I don't think that there's ever been a culture that's ever
arisen that is just allowed you to murder whoever you want, any
time that you want. And So what some philosophers
(14:57):
and theologians will say is why is that the case?
Why is there a universal aversion to assaulting a child?
Why is there a universal aversion to murdering somebody
and sleeping with their spouse, that kind of stuff?
And the argument is, is that perhaps the reason that we seem
to have this conscience, we seemto have some certain objective
moral rules, is that there is anobjective standard, God, and he
(15:20):
has placed those moral rules into the heart of humanity.
After all, if we're just time plus chance plus matter, why
would we all agree that these certain things are bad?
Like, what? Wouldn't you need some objective
moral standard to know that those things are bad?
Oh, CS Lewis, Oh, Clive Staples.Lewis says this whenever you
find a man who says he does not believe in real right and wrong.
(15:43):
What he's meaning there, by the way, is somebody that just says
your truth is your truth. What's good for you is good for
you. What's bad for you is bad for
you. This is all subjective.
He says whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in
real right and wrong, you will find the same man going back on
this a moment later. He may break his promise to you,
but if you try breaking one to him, he will be complaining.
It's not fair. Before you can say Jack
(16:05):
Robinson. I guess that's just an old
Englishy phrase. A nation may say treaties do not
matter, but then next minute they spoil their case by saying
that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one.
But if treaties do not matter and there is no such thing as
right and wrong, like capital R,capital W right and wrong.
In other words, if there is no law of nature, what is the
difference between a fair treatyand an unfair one?
(16:28):
If you don't believe there is a moral standard in the heart of
humanity, and this is what Lewisis arguing, then if somebody, if
your spouse cheats on you or somebody assaults you, you have
to merely say, I don't like thator a bunch of humans don't like
that. You can't say it's objectively
wrong. But we don't want to just say I
don't like it. We want to say it's objectively
wrong. We don't want to just say the
(16:48):
Holocaust happened and we don't like that.
We want to say that was objectively evil.
Why is there this universal revulsion to things like the
Holocaust? And it's because there is a
moral standard inside humanity, and that can only be there if
God exists. That's the way the argument goes
(17:09):
anyway. So what do you think of the
argument? What do you think of the moral
argument for the existence of God?
This is also a common thing people will say if if you ask
them why they think God exists. Let me give you some problems.
Let's talk about some problems with the moral argument.
First of all, the first problem with the moral argument for the
existence of God is it might actually be backwards.
(17:31):
Let me say it this way. Is it the case that universal
ascent is due to there being an objective standard of morality?
Or do we think that there are universal standards of morality
because it has universal ascent?Like the argument could go the
other way. We could say there are no
morals. A bunch of people agree with
stuff though and that's why we think the morals are objective.
(17:52):
We don't know that though. OK, additionally, maybe the
reason that those moral things are there is not because God
exists, but because humans evolved and we've evolved these
certain standards of morality tokeep our species alive.
It is best for humans if we don't all murder each other.
So we have this discussed with murder.
It is good for humans to not have inbreeding.
(18:14):
It is good to not, you know, if somebody wants their their kids
to flourish and they want their lineage to continue, they don't
want you sleeping with their spouse, especially before
pregnancy tests. You need to know whose baby that
is. There's a reason why we're fine
killing other animals, but we have this uncomfortability when
it comes to killing humans. Maybe these different rules are
just a facet of evolution to keep us alive.
They don't show that God createdthem in us just because a bunch
(18:38):
of people do them. That's what the the the atheist
will argue is, you know, these rules are things that society
has kind of made-up for our survival.
And in that sense, they're, they're helpful societies that
stick together and don't murder each other, do better and pass
on their genes versus societies that all murder each other.
And so you don't need God for that.
(18:58):
In that sense, the morality comes about because of what's
practically advantageous for survival, not because it
couldn't have been otherwise. And then lastly, here's a here's
a good argument against the moral argument for God's
existence. Is it even true?
Right. Like, sure, I don't.
I'm not sure. There's been a whole lot of
societies that have just thoughtthat murder was OK, But you had
(19:19):
tribes in South America choppingoff people's heads or pulling
out their hearts every day to make sure that the sun came up
the next day. They seem to not really think
that that was bad. What about something like
homosexuality? Throughout culture, you have
some cultures that allow it and some that don't.
Like what do you do? For most issues where people
don't all agree, maybe we could agree on three different issues.
(19:41):
But what about all the other moral issues?
It doesn't seem like humans agree.
Why would that be the case? If God put morality in US,
shouldn't it all? Shouldn't?
Shouldn't all the rules be there?
Shouldn't we agree on more than we do?
Again, moral argument. We got two more.
Are you ready? Let's have a little break.
This break is brought to you by Non Religious Cola.
(20:08):
Flavor without design, Cosmological argument.
You ready? OK, so the first two arguments
are pretty common sense. They're easy to understand.
The next two are a bit trickier.The first one was just to recap
in case you fell asleep. Not because I'm boring, because
you're boring. God exists because of the design
(20:32):
and the purpose we see in nature.
That can only come about from a designing mind that that
dictates purpose and there's a universal, there seems to be
universal moral principles in all humanity and that must
therefore come from a universal moral standard, IE God.
Now we're going to get into two arguments that are a bit more
philosophical, which is my jam. So let's chat about these.
The next one we're going to lookat is called the cosmological
(20:54):
argument. Why is it called that, Zach?
The Greek word cosmos is the is the Greek word for world or
universe, meaning everything that you know that was created
or everything that is. Major proponents of this
argument include Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, Moses,
Maimonides, Anselm, Aquinas, Dunscotus, Descartes, Spinoza,
(21:14):
Leibniz, Locke, and others. So it has a, again, a, a, a long
pedigree. Essentially, this is the
argument whether you're talking about time or you're talking
about causation. You cannot have an infinite
regress of time or causation or you would have never gotten to
today. Let me back up, make this
(21:35):
easier. Every effect has a 'cause we see
a bunch of effects. You're seeing me on this screen
is an effect of something. My computer being on is an
effect of something. What is the cause of that?
What is the cause of my screen being on on my computer?
Well, it's that it's plugged in.What is the cause of that?
Well, that I plugged it in with my hand.
What is the cause that it gets power 'cause, you know,
(21:56):
electricity from the power company.
How does the electricity companyget power?
Who knows magic, I don't know, alchemy, probably nuclear bombs
that blow up in these silos and we capture the energy.
I don't really know. Not really an electric guy, but
the whole the purpose is that every effect has a cause.
OK, the cause of me is my parents, the cause of them is
their parents, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
(22:18):
However, how could you have an infinite regressive causes?
You would have never gotten to today.
To, to say it another way, if things have always existed and
they go back to a, you know, like infinitely backwards, how
could you have gotten to today? You'd have to traverse an
infinite amount of time, which you can't do.
(22:39):
Or you'd have to traverse an infinite amount of cause and
effect sequences to get to today, which you cannot do.
Therefore, there had to be a starting point.
There had to be an unmoved mover.
There had to be an uncaused cause to start everything, to
start the universe. What started the universe?
(23:00):
It can't be eternal. It can't 'cause itself.
That makes no sense. So you have to have this unmoved
mover, this thing that starts everything else, and that 'cause
we call God. OK.
It's a pretty strong argument philosophically.
Some people respond and say, wait a second, wouldn't God then
need A cause? No, because God is defined as a
being that is immaterial, that is outside space and time, and
that it's infinite. You only run into this problem
(23:20):
with things that are material because when they're material,
there's duration, there's sequence, there's time.
You don't run into that with a being that is is immaterial.
So you can't refute this argument by just saying, well,
God would need A cause. Nope.
You could have something that isnot like the rest of the
universe, that is outside space and time is not acted upon, and
he could be the one who acts andstarts everything else.
(23:42):
That's the cosmological argument, to say it in the
prolix way of Thomas Aquinas. Because effects always depend on
some cause, and A cause must exist if it's effect exists.
It is therefore impossible that in the same manner and in the
same way, anything should be both the one which effects a
change and the one that is changed.
(24:04):
We do not find that anything is the efficient cause of itself,
nor is this possible, for the thing would then be prior to
itself, which is impossible. What he's saying is no effect
can be its own cause. And so you have to have this
uncaused 'cause you, you, you have to have this, this, you
know, unmoved mover, this uncaused thing that causes
(24:25):
everything else and that we callGod.
That is the cosmological argument for God's existence.
Problems with it. First, it may exhibit a category
mistake. It may be what's called a hasty
generalization in logical fallacies.
If I say each member of the basketball team is good,
(24:48):
therefore the team is good, that's not true.
You can have a bunch of hot shots on a team and don't play
well together. And even though each individual
basketball player is good, that doesn't necessarily mean that
the team is good. So what some will say is, OK,
just because causes and effects happen within the system, on
what grounds do you say the system as a whole must have a
(25:13):
cause? Let me say it another way.
Just because we see down here onEarth, things bump around and
dominoes knock over the dominoesand we see this cause and
effect, you actually can't see cause and effect.
We'll talk about that when we get to Hume.
But you see this cause and effect.
That doesn't allow you to therefore infer that the entire
system itself as like a big bubble of universe itself has a
(25:34):
'cause you don't know that. That's probably the strongest
refutation of this argument. Another option is that it's
opposite is impossible. There's only two options that
either things are eternal, everything has always existed,
or they were brought into being at some point.
Those are your only two options.Whereas the person that holds
the cosmological argument says, yeah, you can't just have things
(25:56):
that existed for eternity, we would have never gotten to
today. The person who rejects this
argument might say no, actually,your view is impossible that
that something came from nothing.
There's a famous Latin phrase ofthis.
It's ex nihilo, nihil. Fit Out of nothing comes
nothing, right from nothing comes nothing.
And So what the what the atheistwill say is something like this.
(26:19):
Wait a second. There's no such thing as things
coming from nothing. Nothing's not a thing.
It's absence of thing. It's literally in the word no
sing OK, so it can't come from nothing.
And also then if it comes from God is he'd have to it'd have to
come from his nature. It'd have to be like part of
him. And so then everything would be
God and you'd be a pantheist. And so it's the other option.
There's only two options and theoption of God bringing things
(26:42):
into existence out of nothing isa logical contradiction.
So that can't be true. So QED the universe has to be
eternal. Aristotle, by the way, thought
that the universe was eternal. Even though he was somewhat
theistic, he's he still thought you had to have, you know, an
eternal universe going backwards.
So there you go. What about quantum mechanics?
When you get things like particle decay, it does seem
(27:04):
like things might randomly happen without cause and effect.
That's a problem for the cosmological argument.
And then time and causation don't necessarily have to go
backwards forever if they don't exist before The Big Bang.
To say it another way, you, you could have a universe that
doesn't have time and causation and stuff yet until after The
(27:26):
Big Bang before that, that that just means that there's
something that's not God, but it's still outside, outside of
space and time. Anyway, just some things to
think about. I don't know which one of these
arguments you like and which ones you don't.
Let's get into the most heady 1,the most intellectual one, the
one that most students have trouble with.
So pay attention. The ontological argument for
God's existence. Greek word ontos, which means
(27:51):
being. That's why it's called the
ontological argument. That's actually Kant's name for
it throughout most of Western history is actually called the
Argumentum Anselmi, Anselm's argument in Latin.
I think it was Kant that popularized the the name the
ontological argument. I'm going to read a short
passage from Anselm and then I'mgoing to explain it because he
(28:12):
also can be a bit verbose. St.
Anselm of Canterbury says this. If that then which a greater
cannot be thought can be thoughtof as not existing, this very
thing than which a greater cannot be thought is not that
than which a greater cannot be thought.
But this is contradictory. But how did he?
(28:32):
He's talking about the fool who says in his heart there is no
God who denies God's existence, managed to say in his heart what
he could not think? Or how is it that he was unable
to think what he said in his heart?
Yeah, OK, Let me make this as easy for you as possible.
It's not an easy argument. It's a difficult argument to
understand. But let me let me let me do my
best. When we think of God, when we
(28:55):
define God, we don't define him as the greatest being.
We define him as a being so great that we cannot think of a
better 1A being greater than which none can be thought to use
Anselm's argument. So what Anselm is saying is
this. If when I think of God, I think
of a being greater than which none can be thought, I cannot
think greater than this being. That means this being would have
(29:19):
all good attributes. He calls those perfections all
good attributes to the highest degree.
If I'm thinking of the greatest possible being, a being greater
than which none can be thought, that would mean that this being
has goodness to the highest degree, because if he didn't,
then I could think of a better one.
It would mean that this being has justice to the highest
degree, because if he didn't, I could think of a better one.
It would mean that this being had strength to the highest
(29:40):
degree, because if he didn't, then I wouldn't be thinking of
the best thing. I'd be thinking of something
less than that. Then that also means that this
being must have existence to thehighest degree, which means he
must exist. I can't say I'm thinking of the
greatest possible thing, but he might, might not exist because
then I'm not thinking of the greatest possible thing.
(30:01):
If I'm thinking of the greatest possible thing, I'm thinking of
a being that would exist in reality, not just in my mind.
close your eyes for a second. I'm taking off my shirt.
I'm kidding. close your eyes fora second.
I'm going to give you something.I'm going to give you a horse.
Ready. close your eyes there. Think of a horse.
I did it. I gave you a horse.
You say, Well, wait a second, Zach, that horse isn't very
(30:22):
great. Like I wanted, I wanted, I
wanted a real horse. That's Anselm's point.
Something is greater if it exists in reality, not just in
your mind. And so if you're thinking of the
greatest possible being and thenyou think of him not as
existing, there's a problem there.
Now, let me be clear what he's saying and not saying because so
many people misunderstand this. Listen, he's not saying if you
(30:45):
can think of a really great thing that exists.
Guanillo was a monk that wrote against him that didn't
understand his argument. It's not as I just think of the
greatest possible island with the most hula girls, the most
palm trees, the the the brightest sunshine.
Therefore it must exist. This argument only works for
God. It only works for a being
greater than which none can be thought.
You can always think of a betterisland with more hula girls.
(31:05):
That's not the point. He's not saying if you can think
of something that's great, it must exist.
That's where everybody misunderstands Anselm.
Here's what he's saying. He's saying think of a being
greater than which none can, none can be thought.
And you're like, OK, got it. Highest possible being cool.
Step 2. Do you think of it as not
existing? If you do, you have contradicted
yourself. His argument shows that you've
(31:26):
made a logical mistake. On the one hand, you said you
were thinking of a being greaterthan which none can be thought.
But then you thought of it as not existing, which means you're
not thinking of a being greater than which none can be thought.
You've contradicted yourself, and some will make you look
stupid, not the other way around.
OK, I'm going to say it one moretime because it's kind of
tricky, and then I'm going to read you some quotes and stuff.
Step one, think of a being that is so great that you cannot
(31:48):
possibly think of a greater being.
By the way, that's what we mean by God in philosophy.
When people say God, they're meaning the greatest possible
being. Now note, before we get to Step
2, that's step one. Think of the greatest possible
being a being greater than whichnone can be thought.
If this being, this is just a note, stay there in step one.
Just listen to this note. If this being is the greatest,
then it means that this being would have every desirable
(32:09):
quality to the highest degree. This being would have love to
the highest degree, justice to the highest degree, strengths to
the highest degree, intelligenceto the highest degree, etcetera.
Step 2 Ask yourself this question with this being be
better if it existed in reality or just in my mind.
Well like the horse example I just gave you, a real horse is
better than a thought horse. OK, something is better if it
(32:29):
exists in reality, not just in your mind.
Conclusion. Therefore this most perfect
being God must exist in reality and not just in your mind.
OK, so episode was brought to you by Theism Cola, a cola
greater than which none can be thought.
(32:50):
Makes sense. All he's trying to say is this.
We have the ability to think of the highest possible being we
can think of, but if we're thinking of that being, we're
thinking of that being as existing.
We're thinking of an existing being.
If it's just remains in our thought, we're not thinking of
the highest possible being. Here's what he's trying to say.
(33:12):
He's trying to say God is a necessary being.
God must exist. He exists by definition.
He exists as the starting point.You a contingent being thinks
these great thoughts about this high being.
How did you get those thoughts on you?
They come from that being. Here's how Descartes says it
right. There's there's different
versions of the ontological argument and Descartes has his
own version. Modern thinkers like Alvin
(33:32):
Planiga has his own version of the ontological argument.
His is based on modal logic and thinking.
He's basically going to say thatif there's a possible world in
which a necessary being must exist, then that being exists in
every possible world, including the real one.
We're not going to get in a planto go there right now.
Listen to this quote by Descartes.
I think this will help you if you are struggling to understand
(33:53):
this. Descartes says this, but
granted, I can no more think of God as not existing than I can
think of a mountain without a valley.
Nevertheless, it surely does notfollow from the fact that I
think of a mountain with a valley, that a mountain actually
exists. Likewise, from the fact that I
think of God is existing, it does not seem to follow that God
exists. From the fact that I am unable
(34:14):
to think of a mount without a valley, it does not follow that
a mountain or valley exist anywhere.
Listen to this, but only that whether they exist or not, a
mountain and a valley are inseparable from one another.
But from the fact that I cannot think of God except as existing,
it follows that existence is inseparable from God, and that
for this reason he really exists.
(34:34):
Not that my thought brings this about.
That's where a lot of people misunderstand the ontological
argument, by the way. Not that my thought brings us
about or imposes any necessity on anything, but rather the
necessity of the thing itself, namely of the existence of God,
forces me to think this. For I am not free to think of
God without existence, that is, a supremely perfect being
without a supreme perfection, asI am to imagine a horse with or
(34:56):
without wings. Here's what Descartes is trying
to say. He's not saying if you have this
great thought, this thought mustexist.
Anybody that says that that's the ontological argument doesn't
understand the argument. What Descartes trying to say is
I cannot think of a mountain without a valley.
Doesn't mean the mountain of thevalley exists.
It just means they always go together.
I cannot think of a triangle without three sides.
(35:18):
To think of that means that I, I, I, if I'm thinking of a
triangle, I have to think of it as having three sides.
In the same way, I can't think of a being with all the
perfections without the perfection of existence.
It's not that our thoughts make God exist.
Rather, for someone like Descartes, the very reason we
have these thoughts of an infinite being is because God
(35:39):
already exists. It would only be possible for us
to even think about that if thisbeing already exists.
This is called the trademark argument for the existence of
God with Descartes. Let me let me explain it really,
really quickly, then we'll move on.
Descartes will say we have in our minds the idea of this
infinite thing. We have the idea of Infinity in
our minds. We haven't experienced anything
(36:01):
infinite. We have this idea of this
greatest possible unchanging being.
We haven't experienced anything that we didn't just get that
through our senses in the world.Rather, the reason I have that
thought is because God exists. That's the only way I could have
that thought. I would actually need something
infinite to give me that thought.
That is the ontological argument.
I want to read one more thing that makes this simpler here.
(36:23):
Here's another way to say the ontological.
I'm spending more time on this one, by the way, because I think
it's the most philosophically robust, although it's probably
the least persuasive. You're not going to convince
someone of God's existence with this argument, which is weird
though, because the argument seems to be, it has true
premises, it seems to have a valid structure, and it seems
like a sound argument. So it's, it's very hard to
refute this argument, whether you think it's persuasive or
(36:45):
not. Let me say it another way.
You can't just have nothingness.Nothingness is not a thing.
close your eyes and think of nothing.
You can't do it. You're like, uh huh, Zach, I'm
thinking of nothing. I'm thinking of just black, vast
space. And I say cool.
You're thinking of blackness andvastness in space.
You can't think of nothing. No thing.
It's absence of thing. It's not a there's not like a
(37:06):
clump of stuff called nothing. You can't think of nothing.
That means that because nothing is impossible, there must be
something. There must be a necessarily
existent thing. And that's what we call God.
I'm going to give a a quote herefrom a guy named Jonathan
Edwards, who's a famous theologian, even though we're
doing philosophy here only because he has an article called
(37:27):
on Being where he says this. And he he kind of makes a point
that would relate to the ontological argument that I
think is helpful. Here's what he says.
That there should absolutely be nothing at all is utterly
impossible. The mind can never let it
stretch its conceptions ever so much bring itself to conceive of
a state of perfect nothing. Indeed, we can mean nothing else
(37:47):
by nothing but a state of absolute contradiction.
And if a man thinks that he can think well enough how there
should be nothing all engaged, that what he means by nothing is
as much something as anything that ever he thought in his
life. So that we see it is necessary.
Some being, IE God, should eternally be what he's trying to
(38:08):
say is because nothing is impossible, there must be
something rather than nothing, there must be this necessary
something, and that necessary something is God.
So you can say that there can either be nothing or something.
Those are the only two options. Logically, there's not 1/3
option, and nothing's impossible.
Therefore there must be something.
We call that necessary something, God.
OK, how do we refute the ontological argument?
(38:30):
We refute the ontological argument by or or try to.
It's very hard to refute that. The most famous objection to it
comes from Immanuel Kant. And what Immanuel Kant's going
to say is that the the argument fails because being cannot be
predicated. What does that mean?
Here's what he means. Predicating is just saying
(38:51):
something about something. You know, my name is Zach.
This is Jewish, Islamic, cola. Whatever, whatever you say
something about something. What Kant's trying to say is
that being existence cannot be predicated, can't be said about
something. It's already assumed.
Let me let me give you an example of what what I mean.
close your eyes again. Now I'm taking my pants off.
(39:12):
Just kidding. close your eyes again.
Think of a red ball in your living room.
Now think of the ball is gettingbigger.
The thought of the ball changed.Now think of the ball is turning
blue. Blue balls, if you will.
That's that. Your thought of the ball
changed. Now think of the ball as having
stripes. Every time I gave you a new
predicate, it changed your view of the ball.
(39:35):
OK, now clear your mind. We'll start again. close your
eyes and think of a red ball in your living room.
Ready. Now think of the ball as having
B. Now think of the ball as
existing. Notice that nothing changed in
your mind. The existence was already
assumed when you thought of a ball, so to say it's even
simpler. What Kant is trying to say is
this existence is not an attribute like the other things
(40:00):
we mentioned. We can say God is has love to
the highest degree. We can say he has strength to
the highest degree. We can say he has wisdom to the
highest degree. We can't say he has existence to
the highest degree. As soon as we say he, we're
assuming that existence. So for Kant, this argument
becomes kind of a a logical fallacy, a type of circular
argument. And so here's the question.
(40:21):
Does Kant's refutation work? When I say there is a Unicorn
and there's not a Unicorn, is that merely A verbal distinction
or does it have ontological status?
Is existence a real predicate? Who?
OK, thoughts for and against these proofs for the existence
of God? What do you think?
(40:42):
Which ones do you find more persuasive?
Which ones do you find less persuasive?
Which ones do you like? Which ones do you not like?
Comment, you know, send it to your friends, get some thoughts.
Let's get some dialogue going here.
Here's the here's the thought I want to leave you with on this
episode, though, again, regardless of your worldview, if
God exists, he might not exist. But if he exists, does he want
(41:05):
you to come to him through logical proofs like this or does
he want to you to come to him through a different way?
This will depend on your worldview, but like what if God
is like, hey, I'm not just goingto reveal myself to the smartest
people that can do all the logical proofs and and quote
things in Greek and do all that.Maybe God wants to draw people
(41:25):
through faith or through experience or through a a
narrative or something like that.
Conversely, if you're more atheistic, what what arguments
do you find to be the least helpful?
What counter arguments are the strongest?
What are what are some things about these arguments that that
go awry or that assume their conclusion before they start
(41:46):
where they're just, it's kind oflike when someone's like, well,
I believe the Bible because the Bible says it's God's word and
you're like, that's a circular argument.
But then there are others that would say, well, I don't believe
in God. So I don't believe the Bible
because it claims to be God's word and it's not from God.
So that you're always going to be coming back to a circular
argument. What's your view?
Thanks for tuning in ideological.
We will see you next time.
Does God exist? Are there any proofs for God's
existence? Do those proofs actually work or
can they be refuted? Welcome to ideological.
I am your host, Zach Lee, the director of the Institute for
the Study of Philosophy, Politics and Culture.
And today we're going to be looking at a philosophical topic
within what is called philosophyof religion.
(00:29):
Now, let me be clear, this is not theology.
Theology is where you have like a book of revealed religion and
you try to harmonize and systematize that religion.
That's something that like a a priest would do or an imam would
do if it was like Islamic theology or a rabbi would do if
it was Jewish theology or whatever it might be.
(00:50):
Philosophy of religion is different than that.
Philosophy of religion is going to say, what can we know about
God, if anything, just from tools that are available to
everyone specifically reason, logic, argumentation, perhaps
evidence from the sciences, these kind of things, but not by
appealing to some sort of text of revealed religion.
(01:11):
So regardless of your worldview,and by the way, my podcast has a
very broad listenership. Is that what it's called?
I've got so many people from different walks of life.
There are atheists that that watch the show.
There are atheists that watch the show.
There are people on the left, people on the right.
I, I really actually enjoy that.I'm not going to give you my
views on any of this today. I'm just going to give you the
(01:33):
four classical, traditional, so-called proofs for the
existence of God. And then I'm also going to
mention some of their problems or refutations.
And to make it fair, I'm going to do an entire episode giving
the strongest case I I can for atheism.
And I've also got another one I'm working on regarding the
problem of evil. So these are all going to be
kind of in the philosophy of religion realm.
(01:56):
My background though, is, is in the intellectual history and
philosophy. So I'm going to, you'll have to
talk to a cleric or somebody if you want religious answers.
I'm just going to give you philosophical answers and we
should have a lot of fun. Let me wet my whistle.
By the way, today's episode is brought to you by, let's call it
atheist Cola. Atheist cola make your thirst
non existent. OK, let's talk about the four
(02:22):
traditional arguments for the existence of some type of
supreme being. You ready?
Buckle up. Here we go.
The first one is called the teleological argument.
That's a fancy word, teleological argument, or if you
want to get really fancy, I'm pretty sure that Kant called it
the physico theological argument, that that term
(02:42):
teleological comes from the Greek word telos.
Telos means an end or a goal or a purpose.
And this is a very popular argument.
This is probably the most commonargument you get for God's
existence. So if you ask somebody why do
you think God exists, they'll say, we'll look around, there
are trees and the earth spins and our bodies work and they'll
give all these things that seem to point to an intelligent
(03:04):
designer. That's really what the
teleological argument is. This is an argument that is
pretty popular in philosophical history.
There are different versions of this argument promoted by guys
such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Thomas
Aquinas, William Paley, Flu and others.
So there there's a, there's a lot of it's got a long pedigree,
(03:24):
if you want to say it that way. Here's the argument.
OK, because there seems to be fine tuning and design in
nature, you must then have a an intelligent designing mind.
You must have a being that is intelligent that can create all
(03:45):
the what seems to be designed. Like if there's no God and
there's just atoms bumping into things and everything's random
matter and chemicals, how do youget a hawk that can take flight?
How do you get the fact that like a, a mother can nurse her
baby and the baby doesn't get sick even if the mom is sick,
How do you get the fact that ourDNA, it's not like a code.
It is a code. It seems that there are these
(04:08):
intelligent things all over. And to say that that's just time
plus chance plus matter seems pretty hard to prove the fact
that you're understanding me right now.
I open this hole in my face called a mouth and I make these
articulate grunts and you're able to think what I think it
it. It seems really incredible that
that would just come about through chance.
(04:28):
That's that's the idea. Also with the the teleological
argument, you don't have purposewithout some type of mind.
Let me say it this way. We don't just say a female deer
breeds with a strong male deer, therefore having strong children
or something like that, and therefore she has strong
children. We say that the female deer
(04:49):
mates with the the male buck in order to have stronger genetics
for her children. We don't just say when it gets
cold birds fly S for the winter.We say when it gets cold, birds
fly South in order to avoid the winter 'cause they don't want to
be cold. We don't just typically give a
fact, even with evolution. We say that something evolved
(05:11):
with the purpose of spreading its genes, becoming more
resistant to being killed or eaten or seen.
We give a purpose to it. Even in evolution, we're trying
to turn into something. We're trying to stay alive and
replicate our our genes. And So what the proponent of the
teleological argument will say is that's all evidence forgot.
(05:32):
OK, William Paley has a very famous quote on this that I'm
going to read to you. Suppose I found a watch upon the
ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened
to be in that place. I should hardly think that for
anything I knew the watch might have always been there.
Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well As
for a stone that happened to be lying on the ground for this
(05:52):
reason and for no other? Namely, that if the different
parts had been differently shaped from what they are, if a
different size from what they are, or placed after any other
manner or in any order than thatin which they are placed, either
no motion at all would have beencarried on in the machine, or
none which would have answered the use that is now served by
(06:14):
it. People back then just wrote in
ways that are old, timey and hard to understand.
Here's what he's saying. Let me let me put it into a
modern context. If I'm walking along the beach
and I see a smartphone, would itnot be insane for me to think
that that smartphone just happenthrough chance?
Because we're not just talking about a chunk of metal.
We're talking about an actual working smartphone with like a
(06:36):
battery and cameras. And it can connect to the
Internet and it can you can takeselfies and it can call somebody
else on another cell phone. It has a shape and buttons and
all the e-mail. To say that that just happened
through random chance for someone like Paley is insane.
Now consider how much more complicated is something like a
tiger or a human. The human hand is more
(06:58):
complicated than a cell phone. Think about how your brain
works, thinks about, think aboutyour internal or like it seems
that if all that just came aboutthrough chance, if walking along
on the beach there was a workingsmartphone and I just said, you
know what, that's probably just time plus sand plus salt water.
You would think that that was crazy.
That essentially is the teleological argument.
Now let me pause for some self promotion.
(07:24):
Some have called this the greatest book ever written.
It makes things like Pride and Prejudice and Moby Richard seem
like trash. This is one of the books I've
written. Highly recommend courting
Athena. I have a chapter in here on
philosophy of religion. If you like this kind of stuff.
And I'm I'm pretty even handed. I give the the proofs, but I
(07:44):
also give the refutation. So Speaking of that, let's talk
about some refutations of the teleological argument.
OK, again, like I said to my atheist friends, I've got your
back too. To my theist friends, I've got
your back. I'm just going to give you all
the cases and let you guys argue.
I don't care what you believe, by the way, I I want you to hold
whatever you hold with good reason.
(08:06):
If you're a theist because your grandma told you about God,
that's a terrible reason to be atheist.
If you're an atheist because your mom died when you were
little and you're mad at a God you don't believe in, also a bad
reason to be an atheist. I want you to hold what you hold
because you've done the research.
You've read enough. You've you've weighed the
(08:27):
arguments, you've read the refutations.
You could be wrong. Again, I don't care what you do.
I'm a philosopher. I don't have to care.
Go, go talk to people that care.I'm not a motivational speaker.
I'm not a cleric. Like do what you want, but I
want you to do it intelligently,even if you're wrong.
I want you to be smart wrong. I don't want you to be dumb
wrong. And I'm afraid that there's a
(08:47):
lot of people that are dumb, right.
And I hate that. I want you to know why you
believe or disbelieve what you believe or disbelieve.
Problems with the teleological argument Number one, it only
proves some type of most powerful being.
It does not prove the God of anyrevealed religion.
(09:08):
OK, there could be God, just could be a force, he could be an
energy. He could be like a divine clock
maker that doesn't care about humanity and just kind of winds
up the universe and that's it. It doesn't prove any specific
God. It doesn't prove the God of
Islam or the Trinitarian God of Christianity or something like
that. Now the theists will respond and
say that's not the point of the argument.
(09:29):
The point of the argument is just to show that there is a
God. We can figure out which one it
is later. The point of the argument though
is to say that you can't be an an atheist.
The atheist though, will respondto this argument with several
other things. Let me give you a few things.
What about things in the universe that don't look
designed or look poorly designed, right.
(09:50):
So the theist is saying, well, look at all the design in the
world. And I'm like, cool, what about
cancer? What about tapeworms?
What about mosquitoes? What about viruses that evolve
into other viruses? Did did God like make good
viruses that didn't serve any purpose and then they became
bad? Like what about all the things
in the Tornadoes and earthquakesand starve it?
(10:13):
There's all these terrible things in the world.
You would have to say that if ifGod is a good creator, it shows
his intelligence that just looking at creation, he would
look pretty severely limited in his intelligence.
OK, now the theists will then respond and say no, no to Zach.
You don't understand. God made everything good and
then there was sin. And that's why things look bad
today. That's why things are corrupted.
(10:34):
And I say, whoa, you can't appeal to the Bible.
You can't like appeal to sin andGod and all these things
existing. We're trying to prove that.
That's the very thing we're trying to prove.
That's a circular argument. I can't say you can't say things
that in nature are designed. So God exists.
And I say there are things in nature that are not designed, so
he doesn't exist. And then you say, yes, Zach, but
(10:54):
God does exist and it's just sinthat did it.
Well, we don't know that sin didit until we know whether or not
God exists. Like that's the whole thing.
We're proving you're, you're starting with your conclusion,
which is the thing you're supposed to be proving from that
side. So that's something to keep in
mind. To my atheist friends, I have to
say, hey, if you say, hey, the world's messed up, blah, blah,
blah. I still have to say why is there
(11:15):
some sort of intelligence like whatever you want to say?
It's very hard to say Adam's bumping into other Adam's create
something like, you know, a white tiger that with hunting
prowess and claws and intelligent like it's that
that's that's that seems to be astretch.
Another argument against the teleological argument is that
we're only free to infer what wesee based on creation.
(11:42):
Let me say it another way. So this is David Hume and
Dialogues concerning natural religion here.
Here's his point. If you're trying to make the
case that God exists by looking at nature, you're only allowed
to create a type of God in your mind that would correlate with
the evidence. To say it another way, why would
you think that there's only one God?
Everything we see in nature that's created is plural.
Why would you think that God is infinite?
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Everything that we see and experience is finite.
Why would you think that God is good?
We see good and bad things. Why would you think that God is
immaterial with everything we experience seems to be material.
So what someone like Hume is going to say is if we're using
this argument to prove the existence of God, it doesn't
prove anything like what we think of as God.
It would have to be some like messed up, partially physical,
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plural limited thing because that's all we see.
We can't jump from saying finiteto infinite.
You can't just imply that you you can't infer that.
So that's a problem with the teleological argument.
The other, another refutation ofit is that everything only looks
designed. That doesn't mean it is
designed. What we do is we know when
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things look designed like this delicious cola, agnostic cola,
we don't know what it tastes like.
We, we, we design things, and then we just kind of read that
on to God again. Hume says this the curious
adapting of means to ends throughout all nature resembles
exactly, though it much exceeds the productions of human
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contrivance, of human designs, thought, wisdom, and
intelligence. Since therefore, the effects
resemble each other, we are led to infer by all the rules of
analogy that the causes also resemble, and that the author of
nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though
possessed of much larger faculties, proportion to the
grandeur of his work which he has executed.
By this argument, ah, posteriori, and by this argument
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alone do we prove at once the existence of a deity and his
similarity to human mind and intelligence.
What Huma is saying is we see things that are designed because
we're humans and we're smart. We make things, and then we look
at a tree and we say, Ah, God must be like that.
So what he's, what he's simply saying is we can only say that
things look designed, not that they actually are.
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When we say that something's designed, we're comparing it to
ourselves. What do you think of the
teleological argument? Good, bad.
Neither. Let's go to the next one, what's
called the moral argument, or ifyou want to get fancy, and I I
love getting fancy, The axiological argument because it
argues for moral axioms. This is this is the this
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argument in a nutshell. The moral argument for God's
existence is this. It seems like throughout all
cultures that have ever existed,humans have some type of
internal moral state. OK, let me say it another way.
Some cultures will let you have multiple sexual partners and
others won't. But every culture that's ever
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been has basically said you can't just sleep with whoever
you want to anytime you want to,no matter what.
Where does that sense of morality come from?
Some cultures will allow you to kill people for some things that
other cultures want, but I don'twon't.
But I don't think that there's ever been a culture that's ever
arisen that is just allowed you to murder whoever you want, any
time that you want. And So what some philosophers
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and theologians will say is why is that the case?
Why is there a universal aversion to assaulting a child?
Why is there a universal aversion to murdering somebody
and sleeping with their spouse, that kind of stuff?
And the argument is, is that perhaps the reason that we seem
to have this conscience, we seemto have some certain objective
moral rules, is that there is anobjective standard, God, and he
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has placed those moral rules into the heart of humanity.
After all, if we're just time plus chance plus matter, why
would we all agree that these certain things are bad?
Like, what? Wouldn't you need some objective
moral standard to know that those things are bad?
Oh, CS Lewis, Oh, Clive Staples.Lewis says this whenever you
find a man who says he does not believe in real right and wrong.
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What he's meaning there, by the way, is somebody that just says
your truth is your truth. What's good for you is good for
you. What's bad for you is bad for
you. This is all subjective.
He says whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in
real right and wrong, you will find the same man going back on
this a moment later. He may break his promise to you,
but if you try breaking one to him, he will be complaining.
It's not fair. Before you can say Jack
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Robinson. I guess that's just an old
Englishy phrase. A nation may say treaties do not
matter, but then next minute they spoil their case by saying
that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one.
But if treaties do not matter and there is no such thing as
right and wrong, like capital R,capital W right and wrong.
In other words, if there is no law of nature, what is the
difference between a fair treatyand an unfair one?
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If you don't believe there is a moral standard in the heart of
humanity, and this is what Lewisis arguing, then if somebody, if
your spouse cheats on you or somebody assaults you, you have
to merely say, I don't like thator a bunch of humans don't like
that. You can't say it's objectively
wrong. But we don't want to just say I
don't like it. We want to say it's objectively
wrong. We don't want to just say the
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Holocaust happened and we don't like that.
We want to say that was objectively evil.
Why is there this universal revulsion to things like the
Holocaust? And it's because there is a
moral standard inside humanity, and that can only be there if
God exists. That's the way the argument goes
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anyway. So what do you think of the
argument? What do you think of the moral
argument for the existence of God?
This is also a common thing people will say if if you ask
them why they think God exists. Let me give you some problems.
Let's talk about some problems with the moral argument.
First of all, the first problem with the moral argument for the
existence of God is it might actually be backwards.
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Let me say it this way. Is it the case that universal
ascent is due to there being an objective standard of morality?
Or do we think that there are universal standards of morality
because it has universal ascent?Like the argument could go the
other way. We could say there are no
morals. A bunch of people agree with
stuff though and that's why we think the morals are objective.
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We don't know that though. OK, additionally, maybe the
reason that those moral things are there is not because God
exists, but because humans evolved and we've evolved these
certain standards of morality tokeep our species alive.
It is best for humans if we don't all murder each other.
So we have this discussed with murder.
It is good for humans to not have inbreeding.
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It is good to not, you know, if somebody wants their their kids
to flourish and they want their lineage to continue, they don't
want you sleeping with their spouse, especially before
pregnancy tests. You need to know whose baby that
is. There's a reason why we're fine
killing other animals, but we have this uncomfortability when
it comes to killing humans. Maybe these different rules are
just a facet of evolution to keep us alive.
They don't show that God createdthem in us just because a bunch
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of people do them. That's what the the the atheist
will argue is, you know, these rules are things that society
has kind of made-up for our survival.
And in that sense, they're, they're helpful societies that
stick together and don't murder each other, do better and pass
on their genes versus societies that all murder each other.
And so you don't need God for that.
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In that sense, the morality comes about because of what's
practically advantageous for survival, not because it
couldn't have been otherwise. And then lastly, here's a here's
a good argument against the moral argument for God's
existence. Is it even true?
Right. Like, sure, I don't.
I'm not sure. There's been a whole lot of
societies that have just thoughtthat murder was OK, But you had
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tribes in South America choppingoff people's heads or pulling
out their hearts every day to make sure that the sun came up
the next day. They seem to not really think
that that was bad. What about something like
homosexuality? Throughout culture, you have
some cultures that allow it and some that don't.
Like what do you do? For most issues where people
don't all agree, maybe we could agree on three different issues.
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But what about all the other moral issues?
It doesn't seem like humans agree.
Why would that be the case? If God put morality in US,
shouldn't it all? Shouldn't?
Shouldn't all the rules be there?
Shouldn't we agree on more than we do?
Again, moral argument. We got two more.
Are you ready? Let's have a little break.
This break is brought to you by Non Religious Cola.
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Flavor without design, Cosmological argument.
You ready? OK, so the first two arguments
are pretty common sense. They're easy to understand.
The next two are a bit trickier.The first one was just to recap
in case you fell asleep. Not because I'm boring, because
you're boring. God exists because of the design
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and the purpose we see in nature.
That can only come about from a designing mind that that
dictates purpose and there's a universal, there seems to be
universal moral principles in all humanity and that must
therefore come from a universal moral standard, IE God.
Now we're going to get into two arguments that are a bit more
philosophical, which is my jam. So let's chat about these.
The next one we're going to lookat is called the cosmological
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argument. Why is it called that, Zach?
The Greek word cosmos is the is the Greek word for world or
universe, meaning everything that you know that was created
or everything that is. Major proponents of this
argument include Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, Moses,
Maimonides, Anselm, Aquinas, Dunscotus, Descartes, Spinoza,
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Leibniz, Locke, and others. So it has a, again, a, a, a long
pedigree. Essentially, this is the
argument whether you're talking about time or you're talking
about causation. You cannot have an infinite
regress of time or causation or you would have never gotten to
today. Let me back up, make this
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easier. Every effect has a 'cause we see
a bunch of effects. You're seeing me on this screen
is an effect of something. My computer being on is an
effect of something. What is the cause of that?
What is the cause of my screen being on on my computer?
Well, it's that it's plugged in.What is the cause of that?
Well, that I plugged it in with my hand.
What is the cause that it gets power 'cause, you know,
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electricity from the power company.
How does the electricity companyget power?
Who knows magic, I don't know, alchemy, probably nuclear bombs
that blow up in these silos and we capture the energy.
I don't really know. Not really an electric guy, but
the whole the purpose is that every effect has a cause.
OK, the cause of me is my parents, the cause of them is
their parents, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
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However, how could you have an infinite regressive causes?
You would have never gotten to today.
To, to say it another way, if things have always existed and
they go back to a, you know, like infinitely backwards, how
could you have gotten to today? You'd have to traverse an
infinite amount of time, which you can't do.
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Or you'd have to traverse an infinite amount of cause and
effect sequences to get to today, which you cannot do.
Therefore, there had to be a starting point.
There had to be an unmoved mover.
There had to be an uncaused cause to start everything, to
start the universe. What started the universe?
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It can't be eternal. It can't 'cause itself.
That makes no sense. So you have to have this unmoved
mover, this thing that starts everything else, and that 'cause
we call God. OK.
It's a pretty strong argument philosophically.
Some people respond and say, wait a second, wouldn't God then
need A cause? No, because God is defined as a
being that is immaterial, that is outside space and time, and
that it's infinite. You only run into this problem
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with things that are material because when they're material,
there's duration, there's sequence, there's time.
You don't run into that with a being that is is immaterial.
So you can't refute this argument by just saying, well,
God would need A cause. Nope.
You could have something that isnot like the rest of the
universe, that is outside space and time is not acted upon, and
he could be the one who acts andstarts everything else.
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That's the cosmological argument, to say it in the
prolix way of Thomas Aquinas. Because effects always depend on
some cause, and A cause must exist if it's effect exists.
It is therefore impossible that in the same manner and in the
same way, anything should be both the one which effects a
change and the one that is changed.
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We do not find that anything is the efficient cause of itself,
nor is this possible, for the thing would then be prior to
itself, which is impossible. What he's saying is no effect
can be its own cause. And so you have to have this
uncaused 'cause you, you, you have to have this, this, you
know, unmoved mover, this uncaused thing that causes
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everything else and that we callGod.
That is the cosmological argument for God's existence.
Problems with it. First, it may exhibit a category
mistake. It may be what's called a hasty
generalization in logical fallacies.
If I say each member of the basketball team is good,
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therefore the team is good, that's not true.
You can have a bunch of hot shots on a team and don't play
well together. And even though each individual
basketball player is good, that doesn't necessarily mean that
the team is good. So what some will say is, OK,
just because causes and effects happen within the system, on
what grounds do you say the system as a whole must have a
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cause? Let me say it another way.
Just because we see down here onEarth, things bump around and
dominoes knock over the dominoesand we see this cause and
effect, you actually can't see cause and effect.
We'll talk about that when we get to Hume.
But you see this cause and effect.
That doesn't allow you to therefore infer that the entire
system itself as like a big bubble of universe itself has a
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'cause you don't know that. That's probably the strongest
refutation of this argument. Another option is that it's
opposite is impossible. There's only two options that
either things are eternal, everything has always existed,
or they were brought into being at some point.
Those are your only two options.Whereas the person that holds
the cosmological argument says, yeah, you can't just have things
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that existed for eternity, we would have never gotten to
today. The person who rejects this
argument might say no, actually,your view is impossible that
that something came from nothing.
There's a famous Latin phrase ofthis.
It's ex nihilo, nihil. Fit Out of nothing comes
nothing, right from nothing comes nothing.
And So what the what the atheistwill say is something like this.
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Wait a second. There's no such thing as things
coming from nothing. Nothing's not a thing.
It's absence of thing. It's literally in the word no
sing OK, so it can't come from nothing.
And also then if it comes from God is he'd have to it'd have to
come from his nature. It'd have to be like part of
him. And so then everything would be
God and you'd be a pantheist. And so it's the other option.
There's only two options and theoption of God bringing things
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into existence out of nothing isa logical contradiction.
So that can't be true. So QED the universe has to be
eternal. Aristotle, by the way, thought
that the universe was eternal. Even though he was somewhat
theistic, he's he still thought you had to have, you know, an
eternal universe going backwards.
So there you go. What about quantum mechanics?
When you get things like particle decay, it does seem
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like things might randomly happen without cause and effect.
That's a problem for the cosmological argument.
And then time and causation don't necessarily have to go
backwards forever if they don't exist before The Big Bang.
To say it another way, you, you could have a universe that
doesn't have time and causation and stuff yet until after The
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Big Bang before that, that that just means that there's
something that's not God, but it's still outside, outside of
space and time. Anyway, just some things to
think about. I don't know which one of these
arguments you like and which ones you don't.
Let's get into the most heady 1,the most intellectual one, the
one that most students have trouble with.
So pay attention. The ontological argument for
God's existence. Greek word ontos, which means
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being. That's why it's called the
ontological argument. That's actually Kant's name for
it throughout most of Western history is actually called the
Argumentum Anselmi, Anselm's argument in Latin.
I think it was Kant that popularized the the name the
ontological argument. I'm going to read a short
passage from Anselm and then I'mgoing to explain it because he
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also can be a bit verbose. St.
Anselm of Canterbury says this. If that then which a greater
cannot be thought can be thoughtof as not existing, this very
thing than which a greater cannot be thought is not that
than which a greater cannot be thought.
But this is contradictory. But how did he?
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He's talking about the fool who says in his heart there is no
God who denies God's existence, managed to say in his heart what
he could not think? Or how is it that he was unable
to think what he said in his heart?
Yeah, OK, Let me make this as easy for you as possible.
It's not an easy argument. It's a difficult argument to
understand. But let me let me let me do my
best. When we think of God, when we
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define God, we don't define him as the greatest being.
We define him as a being so great that we cannot think of a
better 1A being greater than which none can be thought to use
Anselm's argument. So what Anselm is saying is
this. If when I think of God, I think
of a being greater than which none can be thought, I cannot
think greater than this being. That means this being would have
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all good attributes. He calls those perfections all
good attributes to the highest degree.
If I'm thinking of the greatest possible being, a being greater
than which none can be thought, that would mean that this being
has goodness to the highest degree, because if he didn't,
then I could think of a better one.
It would mean that this being has justice to the highest
degree, because if he didn't, I could think of a better one.
It would mean that this being had strength to the highest
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degree, because if he didn't, then I wouldn't be thinking of
the best thing. I'd be thinking of something
less than that. Then that also means that this
being must have existence to thehighest degree, which means he
must exist. I can't say I'm thinking of the
greatest possible thing, but he might, might not exist because
then I'm not thinking of the greatest possible thing.
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If I'm thinking of the greatest possible thing, I'm thinking of
a being that would exist in reality, not just in my mind.
close your eyes for a second. I'm taking off my shirt.
I'm kidding. close your eyes fora second.
I'm going to give you something.I'm going to give you a horse.
Ready. close your eyes there. Think of a horse.
I did it. I gave you a horse.
You say, Well, wait a second, Zach, that horse isn't very
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great. Like I wanted, I wanted, I
wanted a real horse. That's Anselm's point.
Something is greater if it exists in reality, not just in
your mind. And so if you're thinking of the
greatest possible being and thenyou think of him not as
existing, there's a problem there.
Now, let me be clear what he's saying and not saying because so
many people misunderstand this. Listen, he's not saying if you
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can think of a really great thing that exists.
Guanillo was a monk that wrote against him that didn't
understand his argument. It's not as I just think of the
greatest possible island with the most hula girls, the most
palm trees, the the the brightest sunshine.
Therefore it must exist. This argument only works for
God. It only works for a being
greater than which none can be thought.
You can always think of a betterisland with more hula girls.
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That's not the point. He's not saying if you can think
of something that's great, it must exist.
That's where everybody misunderstands Anselm.
Here's what he's saying. He's saying think of a being
greater than which none can, none can be thought.
And you're like, OK, got it. Highest possible being cool.
Step 2. Do you think of it as not
existing? If you do, you have contradicted
yourself. His argument shows that you've
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made a logical mistake. On the one hand, you said you
were thinking of a being greaterthan which none can be thought.
But then you thought of it as not existing, which means you're
not thinking of a being greater than which none can be thought.
You've contradicted yourself, and some will make you look
stupid, not the other way around.
OK, I'm going to say it one moretime because it's kind of
tricky, and then I'm going to read you some quotes and stuff.
Step one, think of a being that is so great that you cannot
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possibly think of a greater being.
By the way, that's what we mean by God in philosophy.
When people say God, they're meaning the greatest possible
being. Now note, before we get to Step
2, that's step one. Think of the greatest possible
being a being greater than whichnone can be thought.
If this being, this is just a note, stay there in step one.
Just listen to this note. If this being is the greatest,
then it means that this being would have every desirable
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quality to the highest degree. This being would have love to
the highest degree, justice to the highest degree, strengths to
the highest degree, intelligenceto the highest degree, etcetera.
Step 2 Ask yourself this question with this being be
better if it existed in reality or just in my mind.
Well like the horse example I just gave you, a real horse is
better than a thought horse. OK, something is better if it
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exists in reality, not just in your mind.
Conclusion. Therefore this most perfect
being God must exist in reality and not just in your mind.
OK, so episode was brought to you by Theism Cola, a cola
greater than which none can be thought.
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Makes sense. All he's trying to say is this.
We have the ability to think of the highest possible being we
can think of, but if we're thinking of that being, we're
thinking of that being as existing.
We're thinking of an existing being.
If it's just remains in our thought, we're not thinking of
the highest possible being. Here's what he's trying to say.
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He's trying to say God is a necessary being.
God must exist. He exists by definition.
He exists as the starting point.You a contingent being thinks
these great thoughts about this high being.
How did you get those thoughts on you?
They come from that being. Here's how Descartes says it
right. There's there's different
versions of the ontological argument and Descartes has his
own version. Modern thinkers like Alvin
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Planiga has his own version of the ontological argument.
His is based on modal logic and thinking.
He's basically going to say thatif there's a possible world in
which a necessary being must exist, then that being exists in
every possible world, including the real one.
We're not going to get in a planto go there right now.
Listen to this quote by Descartes.
I think this will help you if you are struggling to understand
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this. Descartes says this, but
granted, I can no more think of God as not existing than I can
think of a mountain without a valley.
Nevertheless, it surely does notfollow from the fact that I
think of a mountain with a valley, that a mountain actually
exists. Likewise, from the fact that I
think of God is existing, it does not seem to follow that God
exists. From the fact that I am unable
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to think of a mount without a valley, it does not follow that
a mountain or valley exist anywhere.
Listen to this, but only that whether they exist or not, a
mountain and a valley are inseparable from one another.
But from the fact that I cannot think of God except as existing,
it follows that existence is inseparable from God, and that
for this reason he really exists.
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Not that my thought brings this about.
That's where a lot of people misunderstand the ontological
argument, by the way. Not that my thought brings us
about or imposes any necessity on anything, but rather the
necessity of the thing itself, namely of the existence of God,
forces me to think this. For I am not free to think of
God without existence, that is, a supremely perfect being
without a supreme perfection, asI am to imagine a horse with or
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without wings. Here's what Descartes is trying
to say. He's not saying if you have this
great thought, this thought mustexist.
Anybody that says that that's the ontological argument doesn't
understand the argument. What Descartes trying to say is
I cannot think of a mountain without a valley.
Doesn't mean the mountain of thevalley exists.
It just means they always go together.
I cannot think of a triangle without three sides.
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To think of that means that I, I, I, if I'm thinking of a
triangle, I have to think of it as having three sides.
In the same way, I can't think of a being with all the
perfections without the perfection of existence.
It's not that our thoughts make God exist.
Rather, for someone like Descartes, the very reason we
have these thoughts of an infinite being is because God
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already exists. It would only be possible for us
to even think about that if thisbeing already exists.
This is called the trademark argument for the existence of
God with Descartes. Let me let me explain it really,
really quickly, then we'll move on.
Descartes will say we have in our minds the idea of this
infinite thing. We have the idea of Infinity in
our minds. We haven't experienced anything
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infinite. We have this idea of this
greatest possible unchanging being.
We haven't experienced anything that we didn't just get that
through our senses in the world.Rather, the reason I have that
thought is because God exists. That's the only way I could have
that thought. I would actually need something
infinite to give me that thought.
That is the ontological argument.
I want to read one more thing that makes this simpler here.
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Here's another way to say the ontological.
I'm spending more time on this one, by the way, because I think
it's the most philosophically robust, although it's probably
the least persuasive. You're not going to convince
someone of God's existence with this argument, which is weird
though, because the argument seems to be, it has true
premises, it seems to have a valid structure, and it seems
like a sound argument. So it's, it's very hard to
refute this argument, whether you think it's persuasive or
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not. Let me say it another way.
You can't just have nothingness.Nothingness is not a thing.
close your eyes and think of nothing.
You can't do it. You're like, uh huh, Zach, I'm
thinking of nothing. I'm thinking of just black, vast
space. And I say cool.
You're thinking of blackness andvastness in space.
You can't think of nothing. No thing.
It's absence of thing. It's not a there's not like a
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clump of stuff called nothing. You can't think of nothing.
That means that because nothing is impossible, there must be
something. There must be a necessarily
existent thing. And that's what we call God.
I'm going to give a a quote herefrom a guy named Jonathan
Edwards, who's a famous theologian, even though we're
doing philosophy here only because he has an article called
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on Being where he says this. And he he kind of makes a point
that would relate to the ontological argument that I
think is helpful. Here's what he says.
That there should absolutely be nothing at all is utterly
impossible. The mind can never let it
stretch its conceptions ever so much bring itself to conceive of
a state of perfect nothing. Indeed, we can mean nothing else
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by nothing but a state of absolute contradiction.
And if a man thinks that he can think well enough how there
should be nothing all engaged, that what he means by nothing is
as much something as anything that ever he thought in his
life. So that we see it is necessary.
Some being, IE God, should eternally be what he's trying to
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say is because nothing is impossible, there must be
something rather than nothing, there must be this necessary
something, and that necessary something is God.
So you can say that there can either be nothing or something.
Those are the only two options. Logically, there's not 1/3
option, and nothing's impossible.
Therefore there must be something.
We call that necessary something, God.
OK, how do we refute the ontological argument?
(38:30):
We refute the ontological argument by or or try to.
It's very hard to refute that. The most famous objection to it
comes from Immanuel Kant. And what Immanuel Kant's going
to say is that the the argument fails because being cannot be
predicated. What does that mean?
Here's what he means. Predicating is just saying
(38:51):
something about something. You know, my name is Zach.
This is Jewish, Islamic, cola. Whatever, whatever you say
something about something. What Kant's trying to say is
that being existence cannot be predicated, can't be said about
something. It's already assumed.
Let me let me give you an example of what what I mean.
close your eyes again. Now I'm taking my pants off.
(39:12):
Just kidding. close your eyes again.
Think of a red ball in your living room.
Now think of the ball is gettingbigger.
The thought of the ball changed.Now think of the ball is turning
blue. Blue balls, if you will.
That's that. Your thought of the ball
changed. Now think of the ball as having
stripes. Every time I gave you a new
predicate, it changed your view of the ball.
(39:35):
OK, now clear your mind. We'll start again. close your
eyes and think of a red ball in your living room.
Ready. Now think of the ball as having
B. Now think of the ball as
existing. Notice that nothing changed in
your mind. The existence was already
assumed when you thought of a ball, so to say it's even
simpler. What Kant is trying to say is
this existence is not an attribute like the other things
(40:00):
we mentioned. We can say God is has love to
the highest degree. We can say he has strength to
the highest degree. We can say he has wisdom to the
highest degree. We can't say he has existence to
the highest degree. As soon as we say he, we're
assuming that existence. So for Kant, this argument
becomes kind of a a logical fallacy, a type of circular
argument. And so here's the question.
(40:21):
Does Kant's refutation work? When I say there is a Unicorn
and there's not a Unicorn, is that merely A verbal distinction
or does it have ontological status?
Is existence a real predicate? Who?
OK, thoughts for and against these proofs for the existence
of God? What do you think?
(40:42):
Which ones do you find more persuasive?
Which ones do you find less persuasive?
Which ones do you like? Which ones do you not like?
Comment, you know, send it to your friends, get some thoughts.
Let's get some dialogue going here.
Here's the here's the thought I want to leave you with on this
episode, though, again, regardless of your worldview, if
God exists, he might not exist. But if he exists, does he want
(41:05):
you to come to him through logical proofs like this or does
he want to you to come to him through a different way?
This will depend on your worldview, but like what if God
is like, hey, I'm not just goingto reveal myself to the smartest
people that can do all the logical proofs and and quote
things in Greek and do all that.Maybe God wants to draw people
(41:25):
through faith or through experience or through a a
narrative or something like that.
Conversely, if you're more atheistic, what what arguments
do you find to be the least helpful?
What counter arguments are the strongest?
What are what are some things about these arguments that that
go awry or that assume their conclusion before they start
(41:46):
where they're just, it's kind oflike when someone's like, well,
I believe the Bible because the Bible says it's God's word and
you're like, that's a circular argument.
But then there are others that would say, well, I don't believe
in God. So I don't believe the Bible
because it claims to be God's word and it's not from God.
So that you're always going to be coming back to a circular
argument. What's your view?
Thanks for tuning in ideological.
We will see you next time.
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