Humanist perspective: Arguments for gods
Some of the most common arguments for the existence of a god are presented below, with a humanist perspective on each. Some of these arguments are very old, but they are still used today. Some have arisen as part of Christian theology and some are relevant to many religions’ concepts of a god or gods.
Humanists demand evidence before they will believe something. They believe that none of these arguments provides persuasive enough evidence that a god exists. For many people, their reaction to many of these arguments often depends on the belief position they start from. It is easy for many believers to look at the criticisms of these arguments and say, ‘Well you would disagree, because you don’t believe.’ But it is important to note that religious believers, and not just atheists, have refuted many of these arguments.
Many religious believers would probably say that their religious conviction is not the conclusion of an argument. Instead, they would say they simply have ‘faith’, or they experience a sense of a god directly in their lives, or see his or her presence illuminated in the world around them. However, there are still believers who will make use of these arguments and will fall back on them when pressed. And for some of those who do not feel any personal experience of a god or gods, these arguments may present the only way of persuading them otherwise. It is therefore worth assessing them.
Many of the arguments are, at their best, only arguments for deism (a god that does not intervene in human affairs) and say nothing about what such a god would be like or how we should live our lives. Some people in history who identified themselves as humanists also claimed to be deists. However, many modern humanists believe that if these people lived today, aware of our current scientific understanding of the universe, they would instead be atheists or agnostics. It involves a huge leap of faith to take any of these arguments as evidence for an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent god.
Humanists accept that they cannot prove that a god does not exist. Many, however, feel the existence of evil and suffering in the world makes the existence of an all-powerful, all-loving god highly improbable. They therefore choose to live their lives on the basis that there is no god. (See Humanist Perspective: The Problem of Evil.)
Some people argue that humanists and atheists have faith just like religious people do. They argue that no evidence or argument would convince a humanist or an atheist to believe in god; they would always try to argue the evidence away. On the contrary, humanists, by definition, are prepared to adapt or change their beliefs according to the evidence. A humanist would always look first for a natural rather than a supernatural explanation, but if the evidence were strong enough, then they would be willing to change their minds. This is one of the key differences between Humanism and religions. Humanists are not dogmatically committed to atheism, but they are committed to using evidence to inform their beliefs.
Humanist perspective: Arguments for gods
The teleological argument
‘Surely the regular, ordered movement of the planets, the complexity of the universe, and the way living things are perfectly suited to their environment is proof of an intelligent designer?’
This argument is usually called ‘the argument from design’. It comes originally from ancient Greece, but was taken over by Christian thinkers such as St Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). The clergyman William Paley (1743–1805) presented the argument as follows:
‘Imagine if we found a watch. We would reasonably assume that its complexity needed a designer. Therefore we should assume that the complexity of a human being, the Earth, or the whole cosmos also needs a designer.’
The philosopher David Hume presented a number of criticisms of such an argument. Firstly, while we may be familiar with watchmaking and so are able say with confidence that a watch was designed, we have no experience of world-making and so can say nothing about whether the world was designed. Secondly, just because two things are alike in one respect (both the watch and the universe are complex) does not mean they are necessarily alike in another respect (they have both been designed). Lions and cats are both very similar in many respects, but just because a lion can roar does not mean a cat can. Watches and universes are also very different in many respects. For one, a universe is made from natural materials, while a watch is made from artificial, man-made parts.
There are further problems with the argument. Firstly, pockets of the universe may appear ordered, but there is also a tendency towards chaos. It is just as easy to argue that the universe is violent, ugly, and chaotic as it is to say it is beautiful and ordered.
The teleological argument also assumes that order has to be designed, and can’t just occur naturally. A shaken jar of soil and water settles into a highly ordered pattern, with larger particles at the bottom, then finer particles, then liquid, and no designer is involved at all. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection provides a robust scientific explanation of why animals appear designed to fit their environments. Those living creatures which are better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. Over time, animals and plants therefore become better and better adapted to their environment. Giraffes don’t have long necks because they were designed that way. They have long necks because those with longer necks were more easily able to reach the leaves of tall trees and therefore better able to survive, reproduce, and pass on their genes and characteristics to their offspring.
There are also many things in the natural world that, if they were designed, do not appear to have been designed particularly well. Our eyes have a blind spot and our appendix is of no use to us (it is also potentially life-threatening). Barnacle geese build their nests on high mountain cliffs; the chicks have to jump from the cliffs soon after they are born and before they can fly in order to find food. Many do not survive. Surely an all-powerful designer could have come up with better designs.
More recently, the intelligent design movement has argued that some features of biological organisms are too complicated for evolution by natural selection to explain. They argue that it is therefore only fair that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution by natural selection in science education. However, the belief that just because we do not yet have a complete explanation for something it must be irreducibly complex is unscientific. And, indeed, many of the examples that intelligent design theorists highlight can in fact be explained by natural selection. Intelligent design theory has no place in the science classroom.
A contemporary updating of the design argument stems from the fact that our universe appears to have been ‘fine-tuned’ for life. Even if we can explain many of the features of our universe, the initial conditions still need to be explained. Had certain physical conditions been slightly different, the universe could never have supported life. It is a kind of ‘Goldilocks universe’. It is just right. The probability of its existing by chance, they claim, is therefore so small that it must have been designed.
There are a number of problems with this argument. Firstly, some scientists question whether, in fact, there is only a narrow set of conditions that could have led to life. Others say ours may be only one of many possible universes in a multi-verse and therefore it is not at all unlikely that some of these universes would have the right conditions for life. Even if we agreed that the conditions of our universe were so improbable that they implied a designer had fashioned them, we would be left with the implication that the designer must be at least as complex, and therefore must also have a designer, and so on.
When we can’t find a naturalistic explanation (such as natural forces and laws) for something, it is tempting to look for an intentional explanation (an explanation based on the desires and goals of rational agents). However, we should always be careful before we do. Throughout human history, there have been many things that we were initially unable to explain through natural causes, but now can (disease, the weather, the apparent movement of the sun and moon). There is no reason to assume that we will not be able to explain the existence of the universe through natural causes either.
Finally, Hume also pointed out that, even if we accepted that the argument from design proved the existence of a creator, it would say nothing about what that creator was like. We would have no way of knowing or assuming, for example, that this creator was a single, omnipotent, benevolent god. It might be some other natural being, an advanced civilisation, or a computer programmer.
If the universe were ‘fine-tuned’, it seems clear that it was not fine-tuned with us as its purpose. The vast majority of the universe is hostile to human life. Even if we accepted that the universe was fine-tuned for human life, then the design process has been incredibly inefficient and cruel. In the time it took for human beings to arrive, it has been estimated that over 99% of all species have gone extinct. That leaves many questions about the nature of the designer.
‘It is a huge, and as it stands, unjustified leap from the conclusion that the universe is the product of an intelligence to the conclusion that this intelligence is, say, the all-powerful and limitless benevolent god of love worshipped by Christians, Muslims, or Jews.’
Stephen Law, philosopher
Humanist perspective: Arguments for gods
The ontological argument
‘If you are able to think of a perfect being, you must believe in his existence, because if he didn’t exist, he wouldn’t be perfect.’
This argument is usually called ‘the ontological proof’. Ontology is the philosophical study of being and existence. The argument claims we can know god exists just by thinking about the idea of god. We don’t need to look for any evidence.
This argument comes from St Anselm in the eleventh century. St Thomas Aquinas rejected the argument; however, René Descartes revived it in the sixteenth century. Anselm’s argument was that god is ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived’. God is the greatest thing we can think of. Things, he argued, can exist only in our imagination, or they can also exist in reality. If god only existed in our imagination, then he wouldn’t be the greatest thing we could imagine. An even greater being could be imagined: one that lived in our mind and in reality. Therefore, god must necessarily exist in reality. A perfect being must exist, otherwise it wouldn’t be perfect.
The problem with the argument was spotted immediately by Anselm’s contemporary, Gaunilo of Marmoutiers (a Benedictine monk). He said the argument meant all sorts of other perfect things must exist: a perfect island, a perfect human, a perfect bacon sandwich. Anselm responded that the argument only works for necessary beings, of which there is only one: god. The problem is that he is then assuming the thing that he is trying to prove. The argument says nothing more than this: if a perfect being exists, then it necessarily exists. This boils down to: if god exists, then he exists. It is a circular argument. It does not prove that such a being exists in the first place.
The philosopher Immanuel Kant also pointed out that existence is not a feature of something. It is just the case that existence is necessary for anything to have any features at all. We don’t add anything to the description of a sum of money (e.g. £100) by saying ‘and it exists’. It’s still the same amount of money. £100 is still £100. You don’t add anything to your description of god by saying ‘and he or she exists’. It makes no sense to say that a god who does not exist lacks an important feature. Existence is not a quality that something may or may not have, so it makes no sense to say that a god who possesses the quality of existing is ‘more perfect’ than one who lacks that quality.
Humanist perspective: Arguments for gods
The cosmological argument
‘Everything that happens has a cause. But something must have happened in the first place to start the chain of causation moving. This ‘first cause’ is what we call god.’
The cosmological argument says that the universe must have a cause. It is often called the ‘argument from first cause’ and was proposed by St Thomas Aquinas. If everything must have been caused by something, then how did everything begin? There must, according to Aquinas, be something that didn’t need a cause that could start everything off. For Aquinas, this ‘prime mover’ must be god.