Thinking to Believe

It’s been common in the last couple of decades for atheists to attempt to redefine atheism as a “lack of belief in God” as opposed to “a belief that God does not exist.” I’ve examined the errors of this endeavor before (here, here, and here).

From time-to-time, you’ll also see atheists getting even more creative with their labels. One that has interested me is the label “agnostic atheist.” This so-called position takes the redefinition of atheism as its starting point, and then adds to it the uncertainty that is implied by “agnostic.” An agnostic atheist, then, is someone who lacks a belief in God but does not know for sure whether God exists or not.*

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Here is my most concise summary of the contingency argument for God’s existence: Things that don’t have to exist, but do, can only be explained by something that does have to exist.

Here is a version that is more fleshed out:

Things that did not have to exist, but do exist (contingent beings), require an explanation for why they exist, and that explanation must be found in some external cause. If everything that exists had an external cause, however, then there would have to be an infinite number of beings and an infinite regress of causes, and ultimately there would be no explanation for why anything that exists, exists. To explain why things that did not have to exist do exist, there must be at least one being that must exist and cannot not exist. This necessary being has being in Himself, and gives being to all other contingent beings.

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I’ve been discussing the evidence for God’s existence on the podcast for something like seven months. I’ve gone in-depth on a number of important arguments for God’s existence. I just finished up the teleological argument and planned to shift my focus to addressing objections to theism or starting a new series on the resurrection. However, there are still a number of important arguments I want to share, so I’ve decided to continue on with the evidence for God’s existence with a good number of additional arguments including Aquinas’ Five Ways, the ontological argument, the argument from consciousness, the origin of life, free will, human value, etc. I will explore these arguments at a higher level.

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Here is a very concise version of the Kalam Cosmological Argument:

Things that begin to exist require an external cause. The universe began to exist, so it requires an external cause. As the cause of all physical reality, the first cause cannot itself be part of physical reality, but must be immaterial, non-spatial, eternal, powerful, and personal, which is a basic description of the theistic God.

Here is another way of presenting the gist of the argument without the technical-sounding language:

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