TRFG - Reason 1 - The clues of God

14 Jun 2020

We have reached the halfway mark in Tim Keller’s The Reason for God. At this point, the format will shift a little bit. Instead of responding to common doubts, we will look at reasons for belief in God and Christianity in particular.

How to think about the clues

Now we come to some actual reasons for believing in God. This requires that we define how we can reason about God’s existence. There are at least two ways to think about this:

Strong Rationalism Some argue that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis and that we need to rationally prove it. By “prove” they mean provide an argument so strong that no person whose logical faculties are working properly would have any reason for disbelieving it. The problem that philosophers have with this is that strong rationalism is nearly impossible to defend. How can you empirically prove that no one should believe something without empirical proof? This view requires nearly complete objectivity, which is (nearly universally agreed to be) impossible, especially when dealing with such weighty matters as the existence of God.
Critical Rationality We need not go all the way to relativism if we reject strong rationalism. An alternative is called critical rationality. Here we assume that there are arguments that most or nearly all people will recognize as convincing, even if no argument is convincing to everyone. It assumes that while some beliefs are more reasonable than others, all can be rationally avoided in the end.

For this post, we will assume critical rationality. So these “clues” should be taken as such, clues for the existence of God rather than definitive proof one way or the other. The skeptic may be able to explain away each point individually. Some may appeal more to your senses, while others less so. (Admittedly, I do not find all of the below arguments particularly satisfying.) But taken together the sum weight of the argument is very compelling.

I also want to point out that believers should also admit that none of these clues are airtight in and of themselves. This will help instill humility as we discuss these topics with unbelievers.

Clue 1 - We exist

Why is there something rather than nothing? Almost everyone now believes that the universe had a beginning. Scientist Francis Collins states this clue clearly

We have this very solid conclusion that the universe had an origin, the Big Bang. Fifteen billion years ago, the universe began with an unimaginably bright flash of energy from an infinitesimally small point. That implies that before that, there was nothing. I can’t imagine how nature, in this case the universe, could have created itself. And the very fact that the universe had a beginning implies that someone was able to begin it. And it seems to me that had to be outside of nature.

While this doesn’t get us all the way to definitive proof for a personal God as described in the Bible, this is definitely a clue that there is something more than just the natural world.

Clue 2 - The fine-tuning of nature

For life to exist, all the physical constants in the universe must fall within a terribly narrow range. Francis Collins notes 15 such constants. As a single example, the strength of gravity relative to the electromagnetic force seems finely tuned for life. Had gravity been substantially weaker, stars and galaxies would not have formed. Had it been only slightly weaker stars like our sun would have been significantly colder¹. If on the other hand, gravity had been slightly stronger, stars would have been much shorter lived.

Admittedly, this does not prove that God exists. It’s possible that all those constants exist in our universe (which is one of trillions) and thus we adapted to them and exist within them. As the physicist Richard Feynman illustrated, “You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight… I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!” His point was that just because the chance of any one realization of all the possible constants is extremely unlikely, doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. We observe this universe so there’s no point in discussing how unlikely it is.

Still, the precision observed in our universe suggests and ultimately leads many to believe in the existence of God.

Clue 3 - The regularity of nature

The scientific method is built on the regularity of nature. We expect water to boil tomorrow under the exact same conditions that it does today. This regularity allows us to learn from experience using inductive reasoning. If everything is merely due to random chance, why do the repetitive patterns that we see in nature exist? Scientists must admit that they take the regularity of nature on faith. However, we would expect all of these things if an intelligent God of order created the universe.

Clue 4 - Beauty

People will often express deep emotions when viewing a work of art. One art critic described a piece as giving him a sense of “obscure but inescapable meaning.”

However, if there is no God and we are the product of random chance, then there is no actual purpose for which we were made. Further, what we call “beauty” is nothing more than a bio-chemical response inherited from our ancestors because it helped them survive.

While a skeptic can say that there is no meaning to life, in the presence of great beauty there is an inescapable feeling that life does have a purpose. St. Augustine referred to this inescapable sense as a longing or desire. He reasoned that unfulfillable desires are clues to the reality of God. When we see something beautiful we have a deep longing that ultimately cannot be met by anything in this world. But just as the longing for food exists because food exists, the longing for a deeper fulfillment exists because something greater exists, namely God.

Questions

Question 1 Do you think that it is possible to prove (or disprove) the existence of God beyond any doubt?

Question 2 In this post, we looked at four clues for the existence of God. Do any of these seem particularly compelling? Do any seem less convincing to you? Explain your answers.

Question 3 Alvin Plantinga has compiled a list of Two Dozon (or so) Theistic Arguments which can be found in this appendix. This is a hard read. I would like you to try to skim the arguments (which begin on page 210) and write down if any seem particularly compelling to you (or if there’s one that makes absolutely no sense).

Question 4 Daniel counters that all of these “clues” only appeal to us because we evolved. “If we have religious feelings it is only because those traits once helped certain people survive their environment in greater numbers and therefore passed that genetic code onto us…. We can’t completely trust our own senses because they evolved merely for survival not true belief.” How would you answer Daniel?