Five Arguments for God's Existence | Gracepoint Church - San Francisco

In December of 2019, Dr. Craig gave two lectures at a conference at Gracepoint Church in San Francisco, CA. Here he speaks on "5 Arguments for God's Existence."

DR. CRAIG: Thank you very much for that warm welcome. We go back a long way with Gracepoint Ministries, and so when Sung Lee invited me to come to this conference and speak to you, I considered that a great privilege. Jan, who joins with me in sending greetings to you, and I are honestly in awe of Gracepoint Ministries. I have never seen a group of people so committed, so dedicated, to sacrificial work for the Lord; so zealous, so fervent in their evangelism as you folks. So I consider this to be an extremely strategic opportunity to address this conference today. I'm grateful for the opportunity to do so. This morning, Sung has asked me to speak on arguments for God's existence.

I think in our increasingly secular society it's vitally important for Christians to be able to defend their belief in God. As a professional philosopher, I think that there are many good arguments for the existence of God, where by a “good argument” I mean an argument that makes its conclusion more probable than not. A good argument needn't make its conclusion certain or even highly probable. It's simply enough to make it more probable than not. Today I want to share with you five such arguments.

In order to make these arguments easy to understand, I'm going to be sharing some animated videos with you that we've developed at Reasonable Faith and which are available free of charge for download on our website, ReasonableFaith.org. My goal is that when you walk out of here today you will have in hand five arguments for God's existence that you can share with unbelievers. So, are you ready?

Number one: God makes sense of why anything at all exists. This is the fundamental question of philosophy: Why is there something rather than nothing? Why does anything at all exist? The great German philosopher G. W. Leibniz came to the conclusion that the answer is to be found, not in the universe of contingent things, but in God. God exists necessarily and is the explanation why anything else exists. Our first video explains Leibniz’s reasoning.

VIDEO: We live in an amazing universe. Have you ever wondered why it exists? Why does anything at all exist? Gottfried Leibniz wrote, "The first question which should rightly be asked is: Why is there something rather than nothing?" He came to the conclusion that the explanation is found in God. But is this reasonable? Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. The universe exists. From these it follows logically that the explanation of the universe's existence is God. The logic of this argument is airtight. If the three premises are true, the conclusion is unavoidable. But are they more plausibly true than false? The third premise is undeniable for anyone seeking truth. But what about the first premise? Why not say, "The universe is just there, and that's all"? No explanation needed! End of discussion! Imagine you and a friend are hiking in the woods and come across a shiny sphere lying on the ground. You would naturally wonder how it came to be there. And you'd think it odd if your friend said, "There's no reason or explanation for it. Stop wondering. It just IS!" And if the ball were larger it would still require an explanation. In fact, if the ball were the size of the universe, the change in its size wouldn't remove the need for an explanation. Indeed, curiosity about the existence of the universe seems scientific - and intuitive! Someone might say: "If everything that exists needs an explanation, what about God? Doesn't he need an explanation? And if God doesn't need an explanation, then why does the universe need an explanation? To address this, Leibniz makes a key distinction between things that exist NECESSARILY and things that exist CONTINGENTLY. Things that exist NECESSARILY exist by necessity of their own nature. It's impossible for them NOT to exist. Many mathematicians think that abstract objects like numbers and sets exist like this. They're not caused to exist by something else; they just exist by necessity of their own nature. Things that exist CONTINGENTLY are caused to exist by something else. Most of the things we're familiar with exist contingently. They don't HAVE to exist. They only exist because something else caused them to exist. If your parents had never met, you wouldn't exist! There's no reason to think the world around us HAD to exist. If the universe had developed differently, there might have been no stars or planets. It's logically possible that the whole universe might not have existed. It doesn't exist necessarily, it exists contingently. If the universe might NOT have existed, why DOES it exist? The only adequate explanation for the existence of a contingent universe is that its existence rests on a non-contingent being - something that cannot not exist, because of the necessity of its own nature. It would exist no matter what! So "Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence"..."either in the necessity of its own nature, or in an external cause." But what about our second premise? Is it reasonable to call the explanation of the universe...God? Well, what is the universe? It's all of space-time reality, including all matter and energy. It follows that if the universe has a cause of its existence, that cause cannot be part of the universe - it must be non-physical and immaterial - beyond space and time. The list of entities that could possibly fit this description is fairly short - and abstract objects cannot cause anything. Leibniz' Contingency Argument shows that the explanation for the existence of the universe can be found only in the existence of God. Or, if you prefer not to use the term "God," you may simply call him: "The Extremely Powerful, Uncaused, Necessarily Existing, Non-Contingent, Non-Physical, Immaterial, Eternal Being Who Created the Entire Universe...And Everything In It."

DR. CRAIG: Here, once again, are the premises of Leibniz’s argument.

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the explanation of the existence of the universe is God.

Now, according to premise (1), there are two kinds of things: things which exist by a necessity of their own nature, and things which are produced by some external cause. Let me explain this a bit more.

Things which exist by a necessity of their own nature exist necessarily. It's impossible for them not to exist. Philosophers call such things metaphysically necessary beings. Examples? Well, many mathematicians think that numbers, sets, and other mathematical entities exist in this way. By contrast, things that are caused to exist by something else don't exist by a necessity of their own nature. They exist because something else has produced them. If their causes were removed, they would not exist. Examples? Familiar physical objects such as people, planets, and galaxies belong to this category.

So when Leibniz says that everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, that explanation may be found either in the necessity of its own nature or else in some external cause.

So what is the explanation of the universe, whereby “the universe” I mean all of physical reality. It can only be found in an external cause which transcends the universe. Since it's not part of the universe of contingent things, this cause must exist by a necessity of its own nature. So if the universe has an explanation of its existence, there must be a metaphysically necessary, immaterial being beyond space and time. There are only two candidates that could possibly fit that description, either an abstract object (like a number) or else an unembodied mind or consciousness. But abstract objects can't cause anything. That's part of what it means to be abstract. The number 7, for example, can't cause any effects. So if the cause of the universe cannot be an abstract object, it follows logically that the cause of the universe must be a transcendent mind, which is precisely what God is.

I hope that you grasp the power of Leibniz’s argument. If successful, it proves the existence of a metaphysically necessary, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal cause of the universe. This is truly mind-blowing.

What objection might be raised to this argument? Well, typically atheists will say that the universe has no explanation for its existence. The fact that the universe exists is inexplicable, just a brute fact. Premise (1) may be true of everything in the universe but it is not true of the universe itself. But this response commits what has been aptly called the taxicab fallacy. For as the nineteenth-century atheist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out, premise (1) cannot be dismissed like a hack once you've arrived at your desired destination. You can't say that everything has an explanation of its existence and then suddenly exempt the universe. It would be arbitrary for the atheist to claim that the universe is the exception to the rule. Think again of the story of finding a ball in the woods. No one would take seriously the suggestion that the ball exists there with literally no explanation. Now, suppose you increase the size of the ball so that it's the size of a car. That wouldn't do anything to satisfy or remove the need for an explanation. Suppose it were the size of a house. Same problem. Suppose it were the size of a continent or a planet. Same problem. Suppose it were the size of the entire universe. Same problem. Merely increasing the size of the object does nothing to affect the need of an explanation.

So some atheists have tried to justify making the universe an exception to premise (1). They say that it's impossible for the universe to have an explanation of its existence. For the explanation of the universe would have to be some prior state of affairs in which the universe did not yet exist. But that would be nothingness, and nothingness cannot be the explanation of anything. So the universe must exist just inexplicably. This line of reasoning is obviously fallacious for it just assumes that the universe is all there is so that if there were no universe there would be nothing. In other words, the objection assumes that atheism is true. The atheist is thus begging the question, arguing in a circle. Leibniz would agree that the explanation of the universe must be a prior state of affairs in which the universe did not exist, but that state of affairs is God and his will, not nothingness. So it seems to me that premise (1) is indeed more plausibly true than false which is all we need to generate a good argument.

Number two: God makes sense of the origin of the universe. Have you ever asked yourself where the universe came from? Typically, atheists have said that the universe is just eternal and that's all. But is that plausible? The next video explains how the scientific evidence for the origin of the universe points beyond the universe to its personal creator.

VIDEO: Does God exist, or is the material universe all that is or ever was or ever will be? One approach to answering this question is the cosmological argument. It goes like this. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist.Therefore, the universe has a cause. Is the first premise true? Let's consider. Believing that something can pop into existence without a cause is more of a stretch than believing in magic. At least with magic you've got a hat and a magician. And if something can come into being from nothing, then why don't we see this happening all the time? No; everyday experience and scientific evidence confirm our first premise. If something begins to exist, it must have a cause. But what about our second premise? Did the universe begin, or has it always existed? Atheists have typically said that the universe has been here forever. The universe is just there, and that's all. First, let's consider the second law of thermodynamics. It tells us the universe is slowly running out of usable energy, and that's the point. If the universe had been here forever it would have run out of usable energy by now. The second law points us to a universe that has a definite beginning. This is further confirmed by a series of remarkable scientific discoveries. In 1915 Albert Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. This allowed us for the first time to talk meaningfully about the past history of the universe. Next Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lemaitre, each working with Einstein's equations, predicted that the universe is expanding. Then in 1929, Edwin Hubble measured the red shift and light from distant galaxies. This empirical evidence confirmed not only that the universe is expanding, but that it sprang into being from a single point in the finite past. It was a monumental discovery almost beyond comprehension. However, not everyone is fond of a finite universe, so it wasn't long before alternative models popped into existence. But one by one, these models failed to stand the test of time. More recently three leading cosmologists, Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, proved that any universe which has on average been expanding throughout its history cannot be eternal in the past, but must have an absolute beginning. This even applies to the multiverse, if there is such a thing. This means that scientists can no longer hide behind a past eternal universe. There is no escape. They have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning. Any adequate model must have a beginning just like the standard model. It's quite plausible then that both premises of the argument are true. This means that the conclusion is also true; The universe has a cause. And since the universe can't cause itself, its cause must be beyond the space-time universe. It must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused, and unimaginably powerful, much like... God. The cosmological argument shows that in fact it is quite reasonable to believe that God does exist.

DR. CRAIG: Here, once more, are the three simple steps of this argument.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.

The video presents scientific evidence for the universe's beginning, but there are also philosophical arguments to think that the universe began to exist. Just think about it for a minute. If the universe never had a beginning, that means that the number of events in the past history of the universe is infinite. But how could an infinite number of past events elapse one after another in order for today to arrive? That would be like trying to count down all of the negative numbers ending at zero. That seems like an absurd task since before you could count any number you would already have to have counted an infinite number of prior numbers. And if you could count down from infinity then why did you finish only today? Why not yesterday, or the day before? At any point in the past you've already had an infinite amount of time in which to finish your countdown, and therefore you should already be done. These sorts of absurdities suggest that an actually infinite past is impossible.

Moreover, in one of the most startling developments of modern science we now have pretty strong evidence that the universe is not eternal in the past but had an absolute beginning about 14 billion years ago in a cataclysmic event known as the Big Bang. As explained in the video, in 2003 Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able to show that any universe which is on average in a state of cosmic expansion throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a beginning. And that goes for multiverse scenarios, too. In 2012, Vilenkin showed that models which do not meet this one condition still fail for other reasons to avert the beginning of the universe. Vilenkin concluded, “None of these scenarios can actually be past eternal. . . . All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”^[1] In the fall of 2015 Vilenkin strengthened that conclusion. He wrote:

We have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV [Borde-Guth-Vilenkin] theorem gives reason to believe that such models simply cannot be constructed.^[2]

The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem proves that classical space-time under a single very general condition cannot be extended to past infinity but must reach a boundary at some time in the finite past. Now, either there was something on the other side of that boundary or not. If not, then that boundary just is the beginning of the universe. If there was something on the other side then it will be a region described by the yet-to-be discovered theory of quantum gravity. In that case, Vilenkin says, it will be the beginning of the universe. Either way the universe began to exist. Since something cannot come into being from nothing, the absolute beginning of the universe implies the existence of a beginningless, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, changeless, immaterial, enormously powerful, personal creator of the universe.

What objection might be raised against this argument? Sometimes skeptics will respond by denying premise (1). They claim that in physics subatomic particles (so-called virtual particles) can come into being from nothing. Or, on certain theories of the origin of the universe, the universe is sometimes described in popular magazines as getting something from nothing. Unfortunately, those who say such things seem to have an outrageously naive grasp of the English language. The word “nothing” is a term of universal negation. It means “not anything.” So, for example, if I say, “I had nothing for breakfast this morning,” I mean I did not have anything for breakfast this morning. If you read an account of World War II in which it says that “nothing stopped the German advance from sweeping across Belgium,” it means that the German advance was not stopped by anything. If a theologian tells you that God created the universe “out of nothing,” he means that God's creation of the universe was not out of anything. The word “nothing,” to repeat, is simply a term of universal negation meaning “not anything.” There's a whole range of similar words in English of universal negation. “Nobody” means “not anybody.” “None” means “not one.” “Nowhere” means “not anywhere.” “Never” means “not ever.”

Note that because the word “nothing” is grammatically a pronoun, we can use it as the subject or direct object of a sentence. By taking such words, not as terms of universal negation, but as words referring to something, we can generate all kinds of funny statements. For example, if you say, “I saw nobody in the hall,” the wiseacre replies, “Yeah, he's been hanging around there a lot lately.” If you say, “I had nothing for breakfast today,” he says, “Really? How did it taste?” These sorts of puns are as old as literature itself. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus introduces himself to the Cyclops as “No man” or “Nobody.” One night, Odysseus puts out the Cyclops’ eye. His fellow Cyclopses hear him screaming and they yelled to him, “What's the matter with you, making so much noise that we can't sleep?” The Cyclops answers, “Nobody is killing me! Nobody is killing me!” They reply, “If nobody is attacking you, then there's nothing we can do about it!”

The use of these terms like “nothing,” “nobody,” and “no one” as substantive words referring to something is a joke. How astonishing then to find that some physicists whose mother tongue is English have used these terms precisely as substantive terms of reference. Lawrence Krauss, for example, has told us with a straight face,

* There are a variety of forms of nothing, [and] they all have physical definitions.

* The laws of quantum mechanics tell us that nothing is unstable.

* 70% of the dominant stuff in the universe is nothing.

* There's nothing there, but it has energy.

* Nothing weighs something.

* Nothing is almost everything.^[3]

All of these claims take the word “nothing” to be a substantive term of reference referring to something. For example, the quantum vacuum or quantum fields. These are physical realities, and therefore clearly something. To call these realities nothing is at best misleading and guaranteed to confuse laypeople, and at worst a deliberate misrepresentation of science.

In his review of Krauss' book, A Universe from Nothing, David Albert, who is an eminent philosopher of quantum physics, explains,

Krauss seems to be thinking that these vacuum states amount to . . . there not being any physical stuff at all. . . .

But that’s just not right. . . . vacuum states . . . are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. . . .

Krauss is dead wrong and his religious and philosophical critics are absolutely right.^[4]

As already explained, these quantum physical states cannot be projected to past infinity but represent the beginning of the physical universe.

Number three: God makes sense of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life. In recent decades, scientists have been stunned by the discovery that the existence of intelligent life like ours depends upon a complex and delicate balance of initial conditions given in the Big Bang itself. Scientists once believed that whatever the initial conditions of the universe might have been, eventually intelligent life might evolve somewhere. But we now know that our existence is, in fact, balanced on a razor’s edge. The existence of intelligent life anywhere in the cosmos depends upon a conspiracy of initial conditions which must be fine-tuned to a degree that is literally incomprehensible and incalculable. The following video explains how this remarkable fine-tuning points to an intelligent designer of the universe.

VIDEO: From galaxies and stars down to atoms and subatomic particles, the very structure of our universe is determined by these numbers. These are the fundamental constants and quantities of the universe. Scientists have come to the shocking realization that each of these numbers has been carefully dialed to an astonishingly precise value, a value that falls within an exceedingly narrow life-permitting range. If any one of these numbers were altered by even a hairsbreadth, no physical, interactive life of any kind could exist anywhere. There'd be no stars, no life, no planets, no chemistry. Consider gravity, for example. The force of gravity is determined by the gravitational constant. If this constant varied by just 1 in 10 to the 60th parts, none of us would exist.To understand how exceedingly narrow this life-permitting range is, imagine a dial divided into 10 to the 60th increments. To get a handle on how many tiny points on the dial this is, compare it to the number of cells in your body, or the number of seconds that have ticked by since time began. If the gravitational constant had been out of tune by just one of these infinitesimally small increments, the universe would either have expanded and thinned out so rapidly that no stars could form and life couldn't exist, or it would have collapsed back on itself with the same result: no stars, no planets, and no life. Or consider the expansion rate of the universe. This is driven by the cosmological constant. A change in its value by a mere one part in 10 to the 120th parts would cause the universe to expand too rapidly or too slowly. In either case the universe would again be life-prohibiting. Or, another example of fine-tuning: if the mass and energy of the early universe were not evenly distributed to an incomprehensible precision of one part in 10 to the 10 to the 123rd, the universe would be hostile to life of any kind. The fact is, our universe permits physical, interactive life only because these and many other numbers have been independently and exquisitely balanced on a razor's edge. Wherever physicists look, they see examples of fine-tuning. The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life. If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he's hiding his head in the sand. These special features are surprising and unlikely. What is the best explanation for this astounding phenomenon? There are three live options. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. Which of these options is the most plausible? According to this alternative [physical necessity], the universe must be life-permitting. The precise values of these constants and quantities could not be otherwise. But is this plausible? Is a life-prohibiting universe impossible? Far from it. It's not only possible; it's far more likely than a life-permitting universe. The constants and quantities are not determined by the laws of nature. There's no reason or evidence to suggest that fine-tuning is necessary. How about chance? Did we just get really, really, really, really lucky? No; the probabilities involved are so ridiculously remote as to put the fine-tuning well beyond the reach of chance, so in an effort to keep this option alive, some have gone beyond empirical science and opted for a more speculative approach known as the multiverse. They imagine a universe generator that cranks out such a vast number of universes that, odds are, life-permitting universes will eventually pop out. However, there's no scientific evidence for the existence of this multiverse. It cannot be detected, observed, measured, or proved, and the universe generator itself would require an enormous amount of fine-tuning. Furthermore, small patches of order are far more probable than big ones, so the most probable observable universe would be a small one, inhabited by a single, simple observer. But what we actually observe is the very thing that we should least expect: a vast, spectacularly complex, highly-ordered universe inhabited by billions of other observers. So even if the multiverse existed, which is a moot point, it wouldn't do anything to explain the fine-tuning. Given the implausibility of physical necessity or chance, the best explanation for why the universe is fine-tuned for life may very well be it was designed that way. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect monkeyed with physics and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question. There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all... it seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the universe. The impression of design is overwhelming. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.

DR. CRAIG: The examples of fine-tuning in the video are all up-to-date, accurate, and well established. It's important to keep in mind that the term “fine-tuned” does not mean “designed.” The expression is a neutral term which just means that the range of life-permitting values for the fundamental constants and quantities is extremely narrow. If the value of even one of these constants or quantities were to be altered by less than a hairsbreadth, the delicate balance required for the existence of life would be upset and the universe would be life-prohibiting instead of life-permitting. Fine-tuning in this neutral sense is well-established.

The question we face then is this: What is the best explanation of the cosmic fine-tuning? There are three live options in the contemporary literature on fine-tuning: physical necessity, chance, or design. So our argument may be formulated as follows.

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.

As the video explains, the only serious alternative to design is the multiverse chance hypothesis. Now, there are multiple problems with this hypothesis, but let me highlight just one of the most important. If our universe were just a random member of a multiverse then we ought to be observing a much different universe than we do. Roger Penrose of Oxford University has pressed this objection forcefully. He points out that the odds of our universe’s initial low entropy conditions existing by chance alone are on the order of 1 chance out of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 123. By contrast, the odds of our solar system suddenly forming by the random collision of particles is around 1 chance out of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 60. This number, says Penrose, is “utter chicken feed” in comparison to 10 to the 10 to the 123.^[5] What that means is that it is far more likely that we should be observing an orderly patch no larger than our solar system since a universe like that is unfathomably more probable than a finely tuned universe like ours. In fact, the most probable observable universe is one which consists of a single brain which pops into existence by a random fluctuation with illusory perceptions of the external world. So if you accept the multiverse explanation, you're obligated to believe that you are all that exists and that this auditorium, your own body, your friends, the Earth, everything you perceive in the world are just illusions of your brain. No sane person believes such a thing. On atheism, therefore, it is highly improbable that there exists a randomly ordered multiverse.

With the failure of the multiverse hypothesis, the alternative of chance collapses. Since neither physical necessity nor chance provides a good explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe, it follows that the best explanation is design, unless the design hypothesis can be shown to be even more implausible than physical necessity or chance. That's what Richard Dawkins thinks. He says we're not justified in inferring design as the best explanation because then a new problem arises; namely, who designed the designer. Dawkins’ objection, however, has no weight for at least two reasons. First, in order to recognize an explanation as the best, you don't need to have an explanation of the explanation. This is an elementary point in the philosophy of science. If archaeologists digging in the earth were to discover things looking like arrowheads and pottery shards, they would be justified in inferring that these artifacts are not the chance result of the processes of sedimentation and metamorphosis but rather are products of some unknown group of people, even though they had no explanation of who these people were or where they came from. Similarly, if astronauts were to come upon a pile of machinery on the backside of the moon, they would be justified in inferring that it was the product of intelligent agents even if they had no idea whatsoever who these agents were or how they got there. In order to recognize an explanation as the best, you don't need to be able to explain the explanation. In fact, if you think about it, such a requirement would lead to an infinite regress of explanations so that nothing could ever be explained and science would be destroyed. For before any explanation would be acceptable, you'd need an explanation of the explanation. But then you'd need an explanation of the explanation of the explanation. And then an explanation of the explanation of the explanation of the explanation, and so on. Nothing could ever be explained.

Second, Dawkins thinks that in the case of a divine designer of the universe, the designer is just as complex as the thing to be explained so that no explanatory advance is made. But that is plainly false. As a pure mind or consciousness without a body, God is a remarkably simple entity. A mind or soul is not a physical object composed of parts. In contrast to the contingent and variegated universe with all of its inexplicable constants and quantities, a divine mind is startlingly simple. Dawkins protests, a God capable of continuously monitoring and controlling the individual status of every particle in the universe cannot be simple. This is just confused. Certainly, a mind may have complex ideas. It may be thinking, for example, of the infinitesimal calculus. But a mind itself is a remarkably simple non-physical entity. Dawkins has evidently confused a mind’s ideas (which may indeed be complex) with the mind itself, which, as a non-physical entity not composed of parts, is an incredibly simple entity. Therefore, postulating a divine mind behind the universe most definitely does represent an advance in simplicity for whatever that might be worth.

The design hypothesis thus remains the most plausible explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe.

Number four: God makes sense of objective moral values and duties in the world. The following video makes this argument very clear.

VIDEO: Can you be good without God? Let's find out. [An atheist saves a cat stuck in a tree.] Absolutely astounding! There you have it; undeniable proof that you can be good without believing in God. But wait; the question isn't can you be good without believing in God. The question is, can you be good without God? See, here's the problem. If there is no God, what basis remains for objective good or bad, right or wrong? If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist, and here's why. Without some objective reference point, we have no way of saying that something is really up or down. God's nature provides an objective reference point for moral values. It's the standard against which all actions and decisions are measured. But if there's no God, there's no objective reference point. All we are left with is one person's viewpoint, which is no more valid than anyone else's viewpoint. This kind of morality is subjective, not objective. It's like a preference for strawberry ice cream; the preference is in the subject, not the object, so it doesn't apply to other people. In the same way, subjective morality applies only to the subject. It's not valid or binding for anyone else. So in a world without God, there can be no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. God has expressed his moral nature to us as commands. These provide the basis for moral duties. For example, God's essential attribute of love is expressed in his command to love your neighbor as yourself. This command provides a foundation upon which we can affirm the objective goodness of generosity, self-sacrifice, and equality, and we can condemn as objectively evil greed, abuse, and discrimination. This raises a problem. Is something good just because God wills it, or does God will something because it is good? The answer is: neither one. Rather, God wills something because he is good. God is the standard of moral values, just as a live musical performance is the standard for a high-fidelity recording. The more a recording sounds like the original, the better it is. Likewise, the more closely a moral action conforms to God's nature, the better it is. But if atheism is true there is no ultimate standard, so there can be no moral obligations or duties. Who or what lays such duties upon us? No one. Remember, for the atheist, humans are just accidents of nature, highly evolved animals. But animals have no moral obligations to one another. When a cat kills a mouse, it hasn't done anything morally wrong; the cat's just being a cat. If God doesn't exist, we should view human behavior in the same way. No action should be considered morally right or wrong. But the problem is good and bad, right and wrong, do exist. Just as our sense experience convinces us that the physical world is objectively real, our moral experience convinces us that moral values are objectively real. Every time you say, “Hey! That's not fair! That's wrong! That's an injustice!” you affirm your belief in the existence of objective morals. We're well aware that child-abuse, racial discrimination, and terrorism are wrong, for everybody, always. Is this just a personal preference or opinion? No. The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says two plus two equals five. What all this amounts to then is a moral argument for the existence of God. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. But objective moral values and duties do exist. Therefore, God exists. Atheism fails to provide a foundation for the moral reality every one of us experiences every day. In fact, the existence of objective morality points us directly to the existence of God.

DR. CRAIG: Here, once more, are the premises of this argument:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

What makes this little argument so powerful is that people generally believe both premises. In our pluralistic age, students are scared to death of imposing their values on somebody else. They, therefore, give at least lip service to relativism. So premise (1) seems true to them. But at the same time, certain values have been deeply instilled in them. For example, tolerance, open-mindedness, and love. In particular, they think that it's objectively wrong to impose your values on someone else. So they're deeply committed to premise (2) as well. They've just never connected the dots.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind in sharing the moral argument is not to confuse moral ontology with moral epistemology. What do I mean by that? Moral ontology has to do with the objective reality of moral values and duties. Moral epistemology has to do with how we come to know moral values and duties. The argument has nothing to say about moral epistemology. It is wholly about moral ontology – the grounding of objective moral values and duties in reality. But people inevitably confuse the two. For example, some people will think that you're claiming that in order to recognize objective moral values and duties you have to believe in God. Others will say that our moral beliefs can be explained as the result of sociobiological conditioning. Both of these objections are irrelevant to the argument. You're not saying that in order to recognize objective moral values and duties you have to believe in God. Rather, you're saying that God has to exist in order for there to be objective moral values and duties. As for the origin of our moral beliefs, you're not denying the influence of sociobiological conditioning on our moral beliefs. The sociobiological account at best shows how our perception of moral values and duties has evolved, but if moral values are gradually discovered rather than invented then our gradual and fallible apprehension of the moral realm no more undermines the objective reality of that realm than our gradual, fallible perception of the physical world undermines the objective reality of the physical realm. The argument makes no claim about how we come to know objective moral values and duties. So these epistemological objections are irrelevant.

From the two premises, it follows logically that God exists. The moral argument complements the cosmological and design arguments by telling us about the moral nature of the creator and designer of the universe. It gives us a personal, necessarily existent being who is not only perfectly good but whose very nature is the standard of goodness and whose commands constitute our moral duties.

Finally, number five: The very possibility of God's existence implies that God exists. Our next video explains this surprising claim.

VIDEO: In the year 1078, a monk named Anselm of Canterbury astonished the world by arguing that if it is even possible that God exists then it follows logically that God does exist. Anselm's argument came to be called the ontological argument, and it has sharply divided philosophers ever since. The 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer called it a charming joke, but many prominent twentieth century philosophers such as Charles Hartshorne, Norman Malcolm, and Alvin Plantinga think that it's sound. Here it is. God can be defined as a maximally great being. If something were greater than God, then that being would be God. And in order to be maximally great, a maximally great being would have to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally perfect in every possible world. Possible worlds are simply ways the world could have been. To say that something exists in a possible world is just to say that if the world were that way, then the thing would have existed. For example, even though unicorns don't exist in the actual world, it seems at least possible that they could have, so we can say that unicorns exist in some possible world. On the other hand, a married bachelor does not exist in any possible world because the idea of a married bachelor is logically incoherent. It could not possibly exist. So if it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then we can say that he exists in some possible world. But wait; a maximally great being would not really be maximally great if it existed in only some possible worlds. To be maximally great it has to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally perfect in every possible world. So think about it; if a maximally great being exists in any possible world, then it exists in every possible world, and if it exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world. That is, a maximally great being actually exists. Thus the atheist has to maintain not simply that God does not exist, but that it is impossible that God exists. Here's a summary of the ontological argument. Steps 2 through 6 are straightforward and largely uncontroversial, but what about point number 1? Clearly if it can be shown that the idea of a God is logically incoherent, then the argument fails, but is the idea of a maximally great being absurd, like a married bachelor or a square circle or the smell of blue? This doesn't seem to be the case. The notion of the all-powerful, all-knowing, morally perfect being that exists in every possible world seems to be a perfectly coherent idea. But couldn't we parody this argument and make it work for anything? Why not say it's logically possible that a maximally great pizza exists, therefore a maximally great pizza does exist? However the idea of a maximally great pizza is not like the idea of a maximally great being. In the first place, there aren't intrinsic maximal values that make pizzas great. There could always be one more pepperoni to increase its greatness. It's not even obvious what properties make a pizza great: thin crust or thick crust, extra cheese, anchovies? It's relative to the taste of the consumer. In the second place, a maximally great pizza would have to exist in every logical possible world, but that would mean that it couldn't be eaten, so it wouldn't really be a pizza because a pizza is something you can eat. The idea of a maximally great pizza turns out not to be a coherent idea. The idea of God, on the other hand, is an intuitively coherent idea. Therefore, his existence is a possibility. And the ontological argument shows that if God possibly exists, then God actually exists.

DR. CRAIG: Now, the premises of this argument went by pretty fast so here they are again.

1. It is possible that a maximally great being (aka God) exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
5. If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists.
6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.
7. Therefore, God exists.

As the video explains, steps (2) to (7) of this argument are uncontroversial. The whole argument hangs on premise (1): Is it possible that God exists?

I like to simply leave this question open for the unbeliever to answer. You don't need to prove to him that it's possible that God exists. Just let him think about it. The mere conclusion that if it's possible that God exists then God does exist is enough to give the non-theist serious food-for-thought.

These five arguments present a powerful, cumulative case for the existence of God. Together they yield a metaphysically necessary, uncaused, transcendent, immaterial, personal creator and designer of the universe who is the paradigm and source of absolute moral goodness.

I'd like to close this morning with some practical suggestions for using these arguments in everyday conversations with an unbeliever. Non-believers aren't used to running into Christians who can actually give reasons for the hope that is in them. So if the unbeliever says to you, “There's no evidence that God exists,” you should look at him with wide eyes and an open mouth and say, “Is that what you think? I can think of at least five good reasons that God exists!” And at that point he's got to say, “Yeah? Like what?” And, boom, you're off and running. God makes sense of why anything at all exists. God makes sense of the origin of the universe. God makes sense of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life. God makes sense of objective moral values and duties in the world. And the very possibility of God's existence implies that God exists.

I have found that just being able to list the arguments is often enough to satisfy the unbeliever. Just being able to list the arguments puts you way beyond most Christians that the unbeliever has ever met.

Now, if the unbeliever does ask you to explain further, then share with him the premises of the arguments. As we've seen, these arguments can be very simply formulated and are easy to memorize. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to physical necessity, chance, or design. It's not due to physical necessity or chance. Therefore, it's due to design. And so forth. These arguments are easy to memorize and to share with a non-believer. Having the premises memorized will help you to keep the conversation with an unbeliever on track. If the unbeliever begins to stray off track then just say politely, “Well, if you think my conclusions are false then you must think that at least one of my premises is false. So what I want to know is this. Which premise do you think is false, and why?” By focusing on the premises, you will keep the conversation on track. Now, if the unbeliever wants to go deeper, then go with him. These arguments are all explained further in my book, On Guard. It will show you how to explain each argument and to answer the typical objections. Of course, our hope is that you'll go to our website, ReasonableFaith.org, with your mobile device and watch the video with your unbelieving friend and start a conversation with him.

The arguments presented here this morning constitute a powerful, cumulative case for the existence of God. I hope that as you share the Gospel with people, these arguments may be useful in reaching out to atheists and agnostics in order to open their minds to belief in God.