What are the arguments for and against the existence of God?

Answer 1

Arguments for and against the existence of God can be placed under separate headings, with valid counter-arguments in each case. This answer is not intended to be entirely exhaustive for either case.

Arguments for the existence of God

The most common argument of the existence of God is that The Bible tells us so. In turn, the Bible is true because it is the word of God. This is called a circular argument because each assumption relies on the truth of the other.

Some say that the beauty and complexity of nature is proof of the existence of God, the creator of the world, although this would equally be proof of the existence of any other creator god: for example Ahura Mazda, Brahma, Nun or Ptah. Scientists are not impressed by this argument, because they see evolutionary reasons for the beauty and complexity of nature.

Some say that God is real because they see miracles in the Bible, and miracles are still performed to this very day. The early Christians acknowledged the miracles of the pagan gods, in return for pagan recognition of their miracles. But even many biblical scholars today recognise that the biblical miracles did not really happen. And when modern miracles are placed under close scrutiny, they always seem to cease to be so miraculous.

Arguments against the existence of God

It is difficult to disprove the existence of God because it is almost always impossible to prove a negative. Although all the arguments for the existence of God can be refuted, this merely means that there is no proof for his existence.

If the primary proof for the existence of God is in the Bible, then perhaps the proof of his non-existence is also there. When we examine the Bible carefully, we find that monotheistic beliefs only arose during the reign of King Josiah in the seventh century BCE. If there is only one God, the people of Israel and Judah were worshipping other, false gods prior to this time.

Certainly Yahweh (or 'Jehovah') had long been worshipped before the seventh century, but only, it seems, in the southern kingdom of Judah. Biblical scholars have examined the earliest books of the Bible and established that one author, associated with Judah, used the name Yahweh for an anthropomorphic God with human characteristics, who made promises and covenants with his chosen people. An author of other early material in the Bible, who was associated with the northern kingdom of Israel, used the name Elohim for a more transcendent God who required obedience and was feared by his people. In later times, Yahweh and Elohim were acknowledged as exactly the same God, but this may not have been the case in the early centuries of the first millennium BCE. It is improbable to the point of proving the contrary, that Jews would eventually worship the one true God, when their ancestors had always worshipped many gods, and that even the God of today seems to have evolved in the minds of the Hebrew people from two different Gods.

Answer 2

The main arguments for the existence of God are, in various forms: the ontological argument, the cosmological argument and the teleological argument. His existence has also been argued from the Bible and on rational grounds. So many arguments, and so many variations of those arguments, exist because each argument fails under close examination. If any one argument can be put forward that really proves the existence of God, then it will become the one argument for the existence of God, and all the failed arguments will be studied as historical only.