What arguments are there for God’s existence?

1. Aquinas’ Five Ways

• The unmoved mover argument: Asserts that from our experience of motion in the universe (motion being the transition from potentiality to actuality) we can see that there must have been an original mover. Aquinas argues that anything in motion must be set in motion by some other thing, so there must be an unmoved mover.
• First Cause: The premise that it is impossible for a being to cause itself (because it would have to exist before it causes itself) and that it is impossible for there to be an infinite chain of causes, which would lead to an infinite regress. Therefore, there must be a first cause that is itself uncaused.
• Necessary being: All beings are contingent, that is, it is possible that they do not exist. Aquinas argued that if everything could possibly not exist, there must have been a time when nothing existed; since things exist now, there must be a being with necessary existence who is regarded as God.
• Argument from degree: Considering the occurrence of degrees of good. Things which are called good must be called good in relation to a standard of goodness — a maximum. There must be a maximum of goodness which causes all goodness.
• The teleological argument: Things without intelligence are ordered to a purpose. Aquinas argued that unintelligent objects cannot be ordered unless this is done by an intelligent being, which means that there must be an intelligent being to move objects toward their purpose: God

2. Beauty

One form of the beauty argument is that the elegance of the laws of physics that have been empirically discovered, or the elegant laws of mathematics that are abstract but have been empirically shown to be useful, is evidence of a creator deity who has arranged these things so that they are beautiful and not ugly

3. Consciousness

Human consciousness cannot be explained by the physical mechanisms of the human body and brain, so it is claimed that there must be non-physical aspects of human consciousness. This is seen as indirect evidence for God since the ideas about souls and the afterlife in Christianity and Islam would be consistent with such a claim.

The concept of the soul predates modern understanding of neural networks and the physiology of the brain. Decades of experimentation led cognitive science to view thought and emotion as physical processes, although the experience of consciousness remains poorly understood.

4. Rational warrant

Joseph Hinman used applied Toulmin’s (Philosopher Stephen Toulmin) approach in his argument for the existence of God, particularly in his book The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief. Rather than attempting to prove the existence of God, Hinman argues that one can “demonstrate the rationally grounded nature of faith.”

Hinman uses a wide range of studies, including those of Robert Wuthnow, Andrew Greeley, Mathes, and Kathleen Nobel, to establish that mystical experiences are life-changing in ways that are significant, positive, and lasting. He draws on additional work to add a few more important points to his argument. First, people who have these experiences not only do not show traditional signs of mental illness, but are often in better mental and physical shape than the general population as a result of the experience. Second, the experiences work. In other words, they provide a framework for navigating life that is useful and effective. All evidence of the positive impact of experience on people’s lives he refers to, borrowing a term from Derrida, as “the trace of God”: the footprints left behind that indicate impact.

Finally, he discusses how both religious experience and belief in God is and always has been normative among men: Men need not prove the existence of God. If it is not necessary to prove, Hinman argues, and the trace of God (for example, the effect of mystical experiences on them), belief in God is rationally justified.

5. Cosmological argument

One type of cosmological or “first cause” argument, typically called the cosmological kalam argument, asserts that since everything that begins to exist has a cause, and the universe began to exist, the universe must have had a cause that was not itself caused. This ultimate first cause is identified with God. The Christian apologist William Lane Craig gives a version of this argument in the following form:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause

6. Ontological argument

The ontological argument was formulated by philosophers such as St. Anselm and René Descartes. The argument asserts that the existence of God is self-evident. The logic, depending on how it is formulated, goes something like this:

“Whatever is contained in a clear and distinct idea of a thing must be predicated of that thing; but a clear and distinct idea of an absolutely perfect Being contains the idea of actual existence; since, therefore, we have the idea of an absolutely perfect Being such a Being must really exist.”

Of course, there are other arguments, but I wanted to stick with the main categories that deal with the question.

As it can be clearly seen that there are many arguments in favor of the existence of God. Now the main question at the end is, “Is one willing to accept them and believe them?”