Does God Exist?

2006-05-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

Does God Exist?

By Oswald Sobrino

Revised 6/15/06.

Table of Contents:

1. What do we mean by God?

2. What are some common objections to God's existence?

3. What reasons favor God's existence?

4. Summary of Arguments for God's Existence

5. What do scientists say about God's existence?

Recommended Reading

Appendix: A Technical Philosophical Argument for Non-Believers

1. What do we mean by God? God is our Creator.

In a lot of discussions, people get nowhere because they start from very different ideas of what they are discussing. It is like going on a vacation when no one agrees on the destination. We want to avoid this problem when we discuss whether God exists. Let's describe exactly what we mean by God. Let's start with this description: God is the supreme being who created us and the rest of the world.

Here, we are assuming that there is one God. Why? A principle we will also use later tells us that when seeking an explanation, we should not unnecessarily multiply causes or explanations. It's a principle named after a famous Western philosopher from the fourteenth century A.D.: Ockham's Razor. For example, if we come across a wrecked car on the highway during peacetime, it would be silly to believe that the car was wrecked by both a bomb and a collision. Better to stick to the one cause: it was likely a collision on the highway. Ockham's Razor cuts off the unlikely explanation of a bomb. Better to stick to one God (see Lee Strobel, The Case for A Creator, p. 109), unless, of course, the data requires more.

The fact that God, if he exists, is our creator gives us an urgent reason to discuss him. If he created us, then he is likely to be very important for how we choose to live. Think of an engineer who invents a new tool or machine or piece of software. Certainly, the person buying the new invention will want an instruction book from the inventor who created the new idea. We would also want the manual from the right inventor, not from someone else! In the same way, it is important for us as human persons to learn if we have a Creator or not. If we have a Creator, we probably have a lot to learn from him.

So, we describe God as the supreme being who created us and the rest of the world. If you describe God as something created or imagined by us, then you should know from the beginning that our discussion is about something very different from that description. The God we are discussing invented us. We did not invent him.We will focus on God as the creator in our discussion because that it is what makes the existence of God most relevant to our lives. An eternal, perfectly free, all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good spirit who is not our creator would not hold the same interest for us as human beings. He would not be our inventor.

For more information on what we mean by the term "God," you can consult The New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6, under "God" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 2003 2d edition) (a much earlier edition of this authoritative encyclopedia is available for free on the internet at http://www.newadvent.org/). Or you can read philosopher Mortimer Adler's rigorous book How to Think A bout God (1980), especially chapters 6-11.

2. What Are Some Common Objections to God's Existence?

Let us take each type of objection in turn.

a. The No Real Evidence Objection: In today's world, the most common objection to the existence of God comes from the power of science and technology in our everyday lives. We tend to believe that only what is measurable in a laboratory or by some special meter is real. So if God is not measurable in some way that all can agree on, we like to say that we are simply talking about subjective opinions that we do not have to accept. Let's call this objection "The No Real Evidence Objection." This objection states that there is no real or measurable evidence for God. Thus, belief in God is just fantasy or speculation. The biggest problem with this objection is that it restricts evidence to what is measurable in a laboratory. In fact, many scientists emphasize that empirical science cannot either prove or disprove the existence of God. So we have to look at a different type of evidence and knowing than what is found in the laboratory. In everyday life, we use a much broader definition of evidence. A famous example from the history of philosophy argues that if we find a watch, we are justified in concluding that a watchmaker exists or existed at some point. The evidence here is circumstantial. From the circumstances of finding the watch, we infer an intelligent and skilled watchmaker. Lawyers, policemen, and judges make such inferences everyday from circumstantial evidence. So to limit the only acceptable evidence to directly observable evidence that can be measured in a scientific laboratory is not a good or common sense reason to give up on the existence of God.

As others have noted, we use different ways of knowing and of reaching practical certainty in daily life. For example, we say that Mozart or Beethoven was a musical genius after we listen to one of their musical works. The evidence is in our listening. Or we might say that murder is evil because of our conscience and feel certain about this judgment. Being sure or certain is not something that comes from the laboratory only.

b. The "God Is Not Needed" Objection: Another powerful objection is that we can explain the world and our own existence without needing to talk about God at all. For example, we can explain the emergence of life through the theory of evolution. So God then seems something extra without which we can explain the world and ourselves. It's really using Ockham's Razor against the existence of God. Let's call this position "The God Is Not Needed Objection." This objection is stronger than the first one. If we really do not need to infer God to explain the reality we encounter, then there is no reason to believe that such a God exists. Yet, the problem here is with what we consider reality to be. If people really have experiences of a divine power that cannot be explained otherwise, it is possible that God does exist. If science cannot explain how such an intricate and beautifully designed universe resulted from sheer chance, then we cannot rule out the existence of an intelligent Creator. You can probably think of other realities that are not fully or likely explainable by a world without God.

For example, we see a world in which so many things die or simply disappear in constant change. Our world is full of things that just don't last, including ourselves. They and we come and go. Without God, we have a difficult time explaining what keeps such an unstable world in existence. We also see a world full of cause and effect. It rains and crops grow. Men and women come together, and there is new human life. Science is the study of all these many different causes and effects. Many scientist today believe that our universe began with a big explosion or "Big Bang." Without God, there is no cause for that effect.

We also see through science a world full of all the exact pieces and conditions needed to give rise to human life for the first time: the right atmosphere, the right weather, the right chemicals and elements, all coming together in the exactly needed proportion. Without God, we would have to believe that all of these very specific and exact conditions for human life just came about by chance. An excellent book that discusses in detail these and other unignorable realities of nature was mentioned earlier: The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel (Zondervan, 2004) (www.zondervan.com).

c. The Reality of Evil Objection: W hat many think is the most powerful objection to the existence of God is the evil we see and experience in the world. We see many absurd things in the world: the innocent suffer, while the evil prosper; the intelligent die young, the foolish live long; and many other things that don't make sense to us. What kind of supreme being would create such an absurd world? We can call this "The Reality of Evil Objection."

How can we have an intelligent Creator with so much evil in the world? We can even look at the evil committed by so-called religious people who claim to believe in God! The existentialist philosophers and writers of the twentieth century wrote about the absurdity and meaninglessness of many aspects of human experience. Many of them found it impossible to believe in the existence of a Creator in the face of so much evil, suffering, and absurdity.

This objection has always been a powerful one, but it ignores the reality of man's freedom. We all know that we are free to do or not to do many things. As one internet writer pointed out (http://www.existence-of-god.com/), our mundane, daily choices show us that we are free. For example, you are now reading this pamphlet, but you know that you could also choose freely to stop and do something else. Our freedom is an undeniable part of everyday life. Without this freedom, we would be robots, not recognizable human beings. We would be like a piece of software whose every move and reaction has been programmed by a computer engineer. But our inventor gave us freedom. He did not choose to program us totally. So we have the great power and dignity of freedom to choose. But this freedom has a dark side. Humans can choose to harm others or themselves and thus create suffering.

A more difficult objection for believers to respond to involves the suffering that takes place because of natural disasters and illnesses for which no human is presently responsible. Christianity offers an explanation for even this type of suffering in the world. Christians believe that at the beginning of human history, humans rejected the Creator. This rejection led to a world of disharmony, sickness, and natural disasters. They freely chose to ignore the generous and freedom-loving inventor's instructions. (You can find more information about the problem of evil and suffering at http://www.catholic.com/ and at http://www.existence-of-god.com/.)

d. The Emotional Projection Objection: Another common powerful objection is that belief in God is an emotional projection of our human desires ("The Emotional Projection Objection"). We want to believe that we can seek help from a supreme being. We want to believe that a supreme being will give us some type of life after death. We want to believe that evil will be punished and good rewarded. We want to believe that when no other human being loves us, at least the supreme being loves us and protects us. So this argument says that we invent God to make us feel emotionally satisfied and happy. Because most people believe in a God that fulfills their hopes and calms their fears, there is strong reason to be suspicious about such a God really existing. This objection views belief in God as being like the fairy tales that children love to believe and repeat. One famous atheist, British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell put it this way: "Religion is based... mainly on fear... fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death" (see http://www.wonderfulatheistsofcfl.org/Quotes.htm).

As Bertrand Russell pointed out, we fear many things; and God is a way for people to relieve their fears and lack of control over many things in their lives. It is easy to see that we tend to believe what makes us feel better and happier. We do it all of the time in many areas of our lives. We think our spouse is a better person than he or she really may be in order to feel satisfied with our families. We may inflate the goodness of others, such as teachers or political leaders, in order to justify our loyalties and believe that they will help us out of our problems. This objection raises the question of the role of our personal wishes in creating religious belief. That is why any persuasive case for belief in God or in a particular religion must point to evidence that no one has invented.

e. The Political Power Objection: In addition, many have throughout history gained power over others by using belief in God. Kings, emperors, and priests have been able to amass power and wealth from millions because they invoked the backing of God. In addition, we have the unfortunate history of supposedly religious nations, including but not limited to Christian nations, using religion as part of their plans to control or colonize other nations. From this point of view, the existence of God is merely a trick played by the powerful on the uneducated and powerless. This objection is the "Political Power Objection." This objection is the cynical view that those who have power or want power use belief in God to manipulate and control other people. But it is just as possible that God really exists, but that these power-hungry people are simply manipulating that belief. For example, a man may use a woman's belief in love to exploit a woman. Many men have done it and do it today. Yet, no one doubts that love is real and does exist. Abuse of a belief does not logically require denial of the truth of that belief. The evil can abuse belief in the good. But the evil cannot abolish the good that really exists.

3. What Reasons Favor God's Existence?

One famous Jewish theologian, Abraham J. Heschel, said that there are no "proofs" for God—only witnesses. We cannot "prove" God by using a laboratory proof as in the empirical sciences or by using a mathematical proof as we do in geometry. But there are other ways to know that God exists so that we can indeed know his existence with practical certainty. Central to Judeo-Christian belief in the existence of God is the historical record that God has acted in history to reveal himself to human beings. The record of God's self-revelation is the Bible. Another pamphlet in this series will discuss what makes the Bible such a unique and authoritative record of God's acts in history. In this pamphlet on the existence of God, we first focus on the philosophical question as to whether God exists. But we cannot do so without mentioning that the most powerful argument for the existence of God is God himself choosing to reveal himself to humanity. The reasons that follow for God's existence in this particular pamphlet are philosophical reasons that are true even if you don't believe in the Bible. Yet we must always keep in mind that God's acts recorded in the Bible are what assure us as very limited and confused human beings that God does indeed exist.

What logical arguments outside of the Bible favor the existence of God? We cannot give a complete list. But we can point out reasons that are especially convincing to modern women and men who are intelligent, skeptical, and are used to the ways of careful argument based on solid evidence. Here are some of those reasons.

A. The Fulfillment of the Universal Human Passion for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful

A great philosopher of the past, Thomas Aquinas (13th century A.D. Europe), noted that we have a passionate and insatiable desire as humans for the true, the good, and the beautiful. Another great Christian philosopher, Augustine of Hippo (4th century A.D. North Africa), wrote that our hearts are restless until they find rest in God.This argument is a realistic argument that takes seriously our passionate human nature: we are hungry for more truth, for more of what is good, for more of what is beautiful. It is a passion shared by all humans, whether atheists or believers, whether young or old, whether Asian or Western. Would this great and universal desire for perfect satisfaction exist if it could not be fulfilled? Would this desire exist for no purpose? The great Christian writer C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia and many other literary and religious works, based his own argument for God on the fact that our desire for good is so strong that we experience in our conscience a powerful obligation to do good and avoid evil that can be explained only by the existence of a God who wills the good and embodies the perfect good (see his Mere Christianity, Book I).

Atheists strongly object at this point that life could all be just one big tragedy: in life, we don't get everything. Life is not fair. The atheist argues that the mere desires for more of the true, the good, and the beautiful does not mean that these desires will or must actually be completely fulfilled. The atheist argues that it is more reasonable to suppose that we can and do reach contentment with a certain amount of fulfillment and that to seek perfect fulfillment is unrealistic and immature. The theist responds that the human passion for the perfectly true, good, and beautiful points to the purpose of our existence. We see clear evidence of purpose in our own bodies and in the rest of the natural world. We see how our natural desire for food and survival is fulfilled by nature. The evidence of purpose that we see in nature tells us something about the fulfillment of our desires for the true, the good, and the beautiful. The evidence of nature tells us that in the world strong desires are geared to fulfillment.

We see how our own bodies and those of animals are amazing, complex organisms that keep us alive and allow us to reproduce. We see how the weather, the natural environment, and the very galaxy around us work together for the purpose of making human life possible. We now know that the plan or purpose for our biological development is already contained in the information found in our DNA. We see evidence of purpose within ourselves and in our world. For an atheist to say that complete fulfillment of our desires for the true, good, and beautiful is impossible contradicts the evidence of purposeful design in a world which was made for life. By rejecting God, the atheist imposes an alien lack of meaning on a world that otherwise appears very purposeful.

In contrast, the belief in God is consistent with the evidence of purpose in nature. As Pope Benedict XVI has said, the choice to believe in God is a choice for rationality (see Vatican Information Service, April 7, 2006, No. 69, at www.vis.pen.net/). It is a choice that says that our felt need to do good and avoid wrong, our need to know the truth, our need to experience beauty all make sense because God will fulfill them all. Before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger gave a good summary of our situation: "[T]he great projects of the living creation are not the products of chance and error.... [They] point to a creating Reason and show us a creative intelligence, and they do so more luminously and radiantly today than ever before" (quoted in Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, pp. 215-16).

Unfortunately, many societies, cultures, and even families suppress this powerful desire for the ultimate truth, good, and beauty. In some places, you have to hide your need for fulfillment in God so that you can be successful in society.

B. The Problem of Evil & Its Meaning

Many atheists say that God cannot exist because of all the evil and suffering in the world. If God is by nature good and all-powerful, then God would not allow evil and suffering to exist. Since we do experience evil and suffering, then there is no God.

As we said above, many consider this argument based on the problem of evil the most powerful argument against the existence of God. But, we can instead view this argument as one of the most powerful reasons favoring the existence of God. For many, the great tragedy of evil and suffering is not so much the pain that evil and suffering bring but the fact that so much evil and suffering seems utterly meaningless and absurd. What bothers many is "unjustified evil" (see discussion of "Problem of Evil" at www.existence-of-God.com). Many of us willingly endure pain and sacrifice for a worthy cause or for a loved one. What devastates so many is pain for no apparent purpose. The famous atheistic existentialists of the twentieth century focused on this meaninglessness as part of their rejection of God's existence.

Yet, to say that God does not exist because of evil and suffering is not the only reasonable conclusion we can draw from the undeniable facts of evil and suffering in the world. Evil and suffering cry out for purpose and meaning. In ourselves, we can find in many cases no such purpose or meaning, especially for the suffering of the innocent and the weak at the hands of the evil and the strong. We cannot find reasons for the suffering of all, both the innocent and the not so innocent, in the face of natural disasters such as tsunamis or earthquakes. Yet, one of the most powerful reasons favoring the existence of God is that there is no better solution for unjustified suffering that satisfies our passion for justice. Without God, the existentialists are right that life is indeed an absurd tragedy.

Evil and suffering make God necessary so that the human experience of suffering becomes meaningful and bearable. The existence of a powerful and good God means that eventually good will triumph over evil. Such a God brings good out of evil as part of his design and purpose for our lives. When human beings believe that good will eventually triumph, history has shown that many rise to the heroic. The risk and suffering undergone by someone trying to save another has meaning if this good act is part of the eventual triumph of good over evil, of love over selfishness. For example, a doctor who cares for patients during a dangerous epidemic is risking his own life. He may suffer and even die while caring for patients with contagious diseases. What is the meaning of such selfless risk and suffering? The meaning lies in the doctor's believing, whether consciously or unconsciouly, that good is more powerful than evil and that this particular risk and suffering are meaningful as part of bringing about the eventual triumph of good. Despair does not paralyze heroic persons because they intuitively sense that doing good makes sense, that doing good is not a wasteful, irrational act.

The traditional name for God's bringing good out of evil and suffering is "providence." A classic and moving book on the relation of suffering and purpose is Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning (Pocket, 1997), based on the author's experience in a concentration camp. In his book, Frankl notes how those prisoners who had a purpose in life were more likely to survive the concentration camp, whether that purpose was to finish some work or to provide for a loved one. They were more likely to survive because their survival and their endurance of suffering had a purpose. There are still brutal labor camps in the world today that remind us of the need for belief in God's providence.

C. The Argument from Intelligent Design

What really underlies the above two arguments—the argument for the purposeful fulfillment of the passionate desire for the good, the true, and the beautiful, and the argument for meaning in evil and suffering—is the recognition that the world is unambiguously intelligent in design. The undeniable fact of such design calls for the existence of God as the intelligent designer. Where do we see the intelligent design that underlies our previous arguments for purpose and meaning in life? Intelligent design in nature is like the inner structure of a building on which everything else rests. The outside of the building reflects the inner structure. In the same way, the arguments discussed above for human fulfillment and for meaning in suffering reflect the intelligent structure of nature.

As noted before, we see intelligent design in ourselves. Our conception at the beginning of life is a marvelous wonder as the human being unfolds in natural development from the intricate design recorded in our DNA. Science is currently pursuing extensive exploration of human DNA in the hope of eradicating disease. Science confirms that our development follows a map full of intricate purpose. We are not the products of haphazard accident.

From ourselves, we then turn our attention to the rest of nature and see the same genetic planning at work in other living creatures. In addition, we see how animals adapt to widely different environments. In fact, the theory of natural selection and adaptation by humans and other animals testifies to design: plant and animal life adapt to the environment for the purpose of survival and flourishing.

Then we can turn to our physical environment— from our diverse, varied surroundings on earth to the galaxies. We see how the seasons change in orderly fashion to facilitate our survival on earth. We see how the earth, the moon, and the other planets move with regularity, not hi chaotic disorder. There is an intricate matching between our needs for survival and the physical environment on earth and beyond. Everything fits together. There is rationality in the world. There is intelligent design.

In addition, what is probably most amazing is that we can understand, investigate, and even measure the order and design in nature. As Albert Einstein said, "What is most incomprehensible about nature is that it is comprehensible" [as quoted in Josef Pieper: An Anthology (Ignatius Press, 1989), p. 94]. At this point, the atheist says that it is all a matter of random accident. The theist says that it is much more reasonable, in view of the undeniable evidence of design, to say that an intelligent designer created such meaningful intricacies suited to human flourishing, discovery, and understanding. The strong evidence for intelligent design is why many scientists question the exaggerated claims of some evolutionists (not all) that our complex world has come about only by chance and accident (see Strobel's book, cited before, for further discussion of this questioning by many scientists today).

4. Summary of Arguments for God's Existence

The intuition that underlies all the above arguments is that the existence of God is necessary to explain reality. Reality is incomplete and missing something essential without God. Our desire for the true, the good, and the beautiful is left unfulfilled without God. Much of the suffering we experience is meaningless without God. The rational design we see in ourselves and in the rest of nature is strangely unexplained without God's existence. The continuing existence of the world as a whole cannot be explained without God. Reality is incomplete. God's existence completes reality and makes it whole. That intuition is at the root of these arguments.

In remarks to young people, Pope Benedict XVI put it this way: "There are two possibilities . .. God exists or He does not exist, hi other words, we recognize the precedence of creative intellect... or we uphold the precedence of the irrational. In the end, we cannot speak of 'proving' one project or the other, but the great option of Christianity is the option for rationality, for the precedence of reason." The Pope also pointed out that "there is an intelligence that precedes mathematics and natural laws, the intelligence of God; in other words, an 'intelligent plan' which created both nature with its laws and the human mind" ("The Pope Meets with Young People in St. Peter's Square," Vatican City, April 7, 2006, Vatican Information Service, No. 69, at http://www.vis.pcn.net/). (For more detail on these arguments and for a detailed listing of many other arguments for the existence of God, the reader should go to Professor Peter Kreeft's Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), ch. 3, pp. 48-88. Kreeft discusses twenty arguments for the existence of God!)

5. What do Scientists Say About God's Existence?

Albert Einstein, probably the greatest physicist to have lived thus far, believed in the existence of God. Although not associated with the practice of any particular religious creed, Einstein believed in the existence of God:

Einstein contended that "everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble."

In fact, Einstein repeatedly criticized atheists and wondered how "in view of such a harmony [in the cosmos] there are yet people who say that there is no God." Even in the harmony of music Einstein felt something divine.

Max Jammer, "Einstein on Religion, Judaism and Zionism," reprinted in Andrew Robinson, Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity (N.Y.: Harry N. Abrams Publishers, 2005), p. 186).

Einstein associated belief in God with the great scientists of history:

Einstein called his religious conviction a "cosmic religious feeling" and claimed that it is "the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research," as exemplified by Kepler and Newton. Therefore science and religion are connected so intimately that "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

Ibid.,

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was the father of modern astronomy who discovered the elliptical orbit of the planets (Encyclopedia Americana under "Kepler"). Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was, of course, the father of modern physics who gave us the "law of universal gravitation" (Encyclopedia Americana under "Newton").

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was another great scientist-mathematician and a contemporary of Newton. Pascal pioneered the calculator and also made contributions in geometry. He did pioneering work relating to barometric pressure, the vacuum, and the hydraulic press. He was also a pioneer in the study of mathematical probability (see Encyclopedia Americana under "Pascal"). Pascal is also famous for his fervent Catholic faith. He wrote passionately on the existence of God. As British philosopher Ben Rogers has written, "the theme of man's greatness and lowliness was central to Pascal's apologetic plan" (Ben Rogers, Pascal [N.Y.: Routledge, 1999], p. 19). As Rogers points out, Pascal addressed himself to the agnostic (Rogers, p. 11).

Here is how Rogers describes Pascal's argument for God:

First, Pascal seeks to show how no one relying on human means alone is able to understand or account for man's bewildering mixture of low qualities and great potential.... Secondly, Pascal argues that, despite his evident capacity for happiness, man is naturally wretched and nothing the philosophers have been able to suggest is capable of alleviating his wretchedness.

Rogers, p. 11.

Thus, Pascal focused both on man's "greatness and his wretchedness" (Rogers, p. 14). For Pascal, man was a paradox full of "astonishing contradictions" of high and low, of great virtue and of great evil (Rogers, pp. 16-18). Yet, man has a great "longing for self-knowledge, justice and happiness" which yearns for an answer (Rogers, p. 13). That yearning is the basis of Pascal's famous saying that "[t]he heart has its reasons, which reason knows nothing of (Pensees, Book IV, no. 277, at http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/pascal/pensees-contents.html).

Thus, Pascal's argument to the agnostic for the existence of God matches most closely one of the reasons we have already discussed above: the argument from the universal human passion for the true, the good, the beautiful. In addition, Pascal's approach is similar to our earlier argument that the existence of God gives meaning to the reality of evil and suffering. Pascal went further than our earlier argument by noting that Christianity best explained both man's greatness and his wretchedness by emphasizing that man in rebelling against God fell from the greatness with which God created man (Rogers, pp. 11-12). From God, we get our universal passion for the true, the good, the beautiful. Because we have separated ourselves from God, we reap evil and suffering. Pascal emphasizes that no merely human philosophy can do better than Christianity in explaining the good and the bad that are mixed together in the history of humanity.

The human situation is like finding a broken watch that tells time but is off by several hours. We see its beauty and design, its potential to work beautifully and perfectly. At the same time, we see that something broke, something went wrong. We see harmony, but we also see fragmentation and disintegration. Man is like that and encompasses both exquisite harmonies and marring fragmentation and brokenness. If God exists, we have the explanation: man was made for greatness but can find it only with the aid of God. Future pamphlets in this series will show us God's plan to put us back together as God intended for our good.

Recommended Reading

Peter Kreeft, Handbook of Christian Apologetics (InterVarsity Press, 1994).

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, especially Book I entitled "Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe."

Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator. (Zondervan, 2004) (contains a good discussion of evolution). Strobel recommends this book by Catholic priest Thomas Dubay: The Evidential Power of Beauty (Ignatius, 1999).

Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (Pocket, 1997).

Mortimer J. Adler, How to Think About God (1980). Ben Rogers, Pascal (Routledge, 1999).

Andrew Robinson, Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity (Harry N. Abrams Publishers, 2005).

Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). The New Catholic Encyclopedia (Catholic Univ. of America, 2003).

Appendix: A Technical Philosophical Argument for Non-Believers

For those who want more academic rigor in argumentation, we can turn to philosopher Mortimer Adler, who, with a background as an intelligent pagan or non-believer, set forth what he called a cosmological argument for the existence of God. It is called a cosmological argument because it is based on the need to explain the existence of the world as a whole (in Greek, the kosmos). Here is his technical argument based on four premises with my comments in brackets:

1. The existence of an effect requiring the concurrent existence and action of an efficient cause implies the existence and action of that cause. [This is simply the principle of causality in which an effect requires a cause; an efficient cause is a cause that actually produces or brings into being an effect.]

2. The cosmos as a whole exists. [Remember the cosmos is the entire world.]

3. The existence of the cosmos as a whole is radically contingent, which is to say that, while not needing an efficient cause of its coming to be, since it is everlasting, it nevertheless does need an efficient cause of its continuing existence, to preserve it in being and prevent it from being replaced by nothingness. [Why? This is a crucial step in the argument that requires some explanation. The cosmos is radically contingent because it is a "merely possible cosmos" out of "a plurality of possible universes" that could have been otherwise (Adler, p. 144). "Whatever can be otherwise than it is can also simply not be at all" (p. 144). A "merely possible cosmos" needs a sustaining cause of its existence or else it would be reduced to nothingness (p. 144). Notice that Adler assumes that the world was not created; he assumes that the world has always existed. Adler wants to engage non-believers by not assuming a moment of creation as part of his argument, although today most scientists hold that the world did begin with a specific singular event called the "Big Bang" (see Strobel, Chapter 5 , pp. 1 07- 1 08)]

4. If the cosmos needs an efficient cause of its continuing existence to prevent its annihilation, [t]hen that cause must be a supernatural being, supernatural in its action, and one the existence of which is uncaused; in other words, the Supreme Being, or God. [What Adler is saying is that a merely natural cause cannot prevent the disappearance of the world as a whole. So the only other alternative is a supernatural cause that is itself uncaused. Such an uncaused supernatural cause is what we call God.]

From Mortimer J. Adler, How to Think About God (1980), pp. 136-37.

Adler concludes that God exists beyond a reasonable doubt because the world or cosmos does need God "as the preservative cause of the continuing actual existence of a possible cosmos" (Adler, p. 145). By a "possible cosmos," Adler means a world that is radically contingent, that is, a world that could cease to exist (see Adler, p. 144). At each step of his argument, Adler defines with precision all the words that he uses and explains why he sets up the argument in the way he does. You must go to his book to read about the details. Here, we merely point you to a sophisticated argument for the existence of God formulated by a modern-day philosopher who, when he wrote the book, considered himself a non-believer or pagan.

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Does God Exist?