Thinking to Believe

The final argument for God’s existence in my podcast series, Does God Exist?, is a version of the existential argument. I argue that our deepest existential longings can only be explained by and satisfied by a theistic God: the desire for meaning and purpose in life, objective morality, immortality, free will, and love. People must either (1) believe there is a God who can satisfy our deepest longings or (2) believe there is no God and that our deepest longings are misguided and can never be satisfied.

The final episode just got published today. Check it out at https://thinkingtobelieve.buzzsprout.com, or wherever you get podcasts.

My episode on Aquinas’ Third Way is now live. This is his argument from contingency. Aquinas argues that the existence of contingent beings can only be explained by the existence of a necessary being whose essence is identical to His existence.

Listen wherever you get podcasts, or at https://thinkingtobelieve.buzzsprout.com.

I published my episode on Aquinas’ Second Way for God’s existence on Friday. Aquinas argues that a causal series can only be explained by a first, uncaused cause who is the source of all causation (which we call “God”).

I also covered a related argument (the existential proof) that Aquinas offers in a different work. The existential proof argues that things whose essence is distinct from their existence can only be explained by a being whose essence and existence are identical; i.e. a being who just is existence itself.

Give the episode a listen (https://thinkingtobelieve.buzzsprout.com) and feel free to comment on the arguments presented on this blog post.

As I continue to examine additional arguments for God’s existence, I have finally come to Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways. The first episode on the First Way went live today.

The First Way is Aquinas’ argument from motion. Aquinas argued that only God can explain why things change. Change can only be explained by a First, Unmoved Mover; i.e. a Being who is the ultimate source of all change, but is itself not changed by anything.

Check out this episode (and the ones to follow) wherever you get your podcasts, or from https://thinkingtobelieve.buzzsprout.com

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 summary of the argument from personal experience:

I have experienced God. I have no reason to doubt that my experience was veridical. And given the religious, social, and temporal context of this experience, it is most reasonably interpreted as an experience of the divine. Since I could not experience God if God does not exist, God must exist.

I just published my last podcast episode in my mini-series on the moral argument for God’s existence (you can listen to the series at https://thinkingtobelieve.buzzsprout.com, or wherever you get podcasts). That means I have updated the original post to include my paper on the topic. Give it a read. I have different papers of varying lengths for those who don’t have a lot of time to read.

And in case you missed it, I also posted my papers for the Kalam and contingency arguments a while back too.

Next week I’ll begin a new mini-series on the fine-tuning argument. Stay tuned!

The second argument I offer for God’s existence on the Thinking to Believe podcast is the Argument from the Impossibility of Nothingness. This is a lesser-known argument for God’s existence, but I think it is quite powerful.

Here’s the essence of the argument: If there was ever a time when nothing existed, there would still be nothing now because nothing has no potential to become something. And yet something exists, so there could never be a time in the past when nothing existed. Something must have always existed. The universe is not that something since physical reality came into existence at the Big Bang, so the eternal something must transcend physical reality. The eternal something must be immaterial, spaceless, and eternal, which is a basic description of God.

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As you know, I am working through a podcast series on the evidence for God’s existence. The first argument I examined is the argument from personal experience.

The essence of the argument is that if one has had a personal experience of God, they are justified in concluding that God exists unless they have good reasons to doubt the veracity of their experience. Believing in God based on personal experience is entirely rational, even if your personal experience is not sufficient to convince others that God is real.

You can listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts (search for “Thinking to Believe” or “Jason Dulle”), or at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1958918/13496572.

I am also including the argument in written form. You can download the PDF here.

Argument from personal experience (updated 12/31/24)