July 1, 2004, Vol.4, No.13.
Two new articles every two weeks.
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us.
THIS ISSUE: "A
Classic Argument for
the Existence of God" (see
below)
and "More Reasons Why
I Believe in God"
Series: Evidence for Faith
A Classic Argument
for the Existence of God
guest article by Wayne S. Walker
When God told Moses to do down to Egypt to tell Pharaoh to
let the Israelites go, Moses asked Him what he should say if
they wanted to know the Lord's name. In Exodus 3:14, we read,
"And God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.' And He said, 'Thus
you shall say to the children of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to
you.'" Adam Clarke commented on this verse, "It is
difficult to put a meaning on the words; they seem intended to
point out the eternity and self-existence of God." This
raises a question. If there really were no such person as God,
could man, in and of himself, without some revelation outside
himself, ever come up with the idea of God, and if so, how?
The "ontological" argument is designed to answer
this question. It is credited to Anselm, an eleventh-century
theologian who was born around 1033 at Aosta, Italy. He served
as an advisor to William of Normandy, with whom he came to England
in 1066. Anselm was made the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093
and continued in that office until his death in 1109. He defined
God as "a being that which nothing greater can be thought."
His reasoning was that since existence must be part of any such
perfect being, then this being actually exists.
This reasoning is somewhat obtuse and for many people it is
not very convincing. Philosophers have been critical of the ontological
argument ever since it was first suggested. Skeptics, of course,
rejected it out of hand, and even defenders have admitted that
it sounds too much like magic. However, according to an article
entitled "Modernizing the Case for God" in the April
7, 1980, issue of Time magazine, several twentieth-century
theologians and philosophers have claimed that the argument is
defensible. These include Norman Malcolm, a former professor
at Cornell University; Alvin Plantinga of Michigan's Calvin College;
Charles Hartshorne, now retired from the University of Texas;
and James F. Ross of the University of Pennsylvania.
According to the article, the modern defenders of the ontological
argument say,
"that it is possible for everything, including God's
existence, to be explained, but that God's nonexistence does
not admit an explanation. Even atheistic philosophers grant that
by the latest rules of logic, the updaters of Anselm are right;
if it is even possible that a highest conceivable being exists,
then he must exist in actuality. The trouble is, the atheists
do not accept that he is even possible."
However, the significance of the ontological argument is the
way it makes us think about God. If there is any characteristic
greater than that which can be attributed to a thing, that thing
cannot be God. Therefore, one may not speak of God as being existent
only in one's mind or the evolutionary product of man's thought.
Such a being could never fit the definition of God.
When one denies the existence of God, he is saying that all
we see and know came from nothing. He implies that the wondrous
and perfect design of the universe is just an accident. He avers
that man, with all his noble characteristics, is just another
animal, the product of millions of years of evolution guided
by blind chance. And he says that man's knowledge of God is the
product of his own mind. These are the alternatives to faith
in God and the Bible. People can make these claims, but they
cannot prove them. And while we cannot prove the existence of
God either, we can show from the evidence of the existence of
the universe, its order and design, the unique nature of man,
and even the very concept of God itself, that it is more reasonable
to believe that such a God does indeed exist than to disbelieve.
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