The Encyclopedia of World Religions

178 S God, the existence of

the entire series of generations would never have begun in the first place. That is certainly true when applied to human life, or better, to life on earth. According to the cos mological argument, the same principle applies to the whole universe. For the universe to exist there must at some point have been a first, uncaused cause, in other words, God. How Can a Watch Exist without a Watchmaker? A third argument, the teleological argument, points out that nature is not a chaos. It has its own rules, orders, patterns, and designs. But, this argument goes, order and design exist only as the result of planning and intelligence. Could a watch exist if there were no watchmaker? Indeed, the more com plex an order is, the greater the intelligence that is required to create it. It requires more mental effort to make a digital-display watch that also keeps track of the date, times laps, and sounds alarms at selected times than it does to make a sundial. But if order requires intelligence and complex order requires higher intelligence, what about the order and design of the entire universe? Everyone admits that they are larger and more complex than any order and design produced by human beings. The teleological argument says that such magnifi cent order shows that the highest intelligence was at work. In other words, the order of nature proves the existence of God. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, some people developed a version of this argument called “Intel ligent Design.” They argued that evolutionary theory could not explain the origins of complex organic structures like the eye. Therefore, they rea soned, modern biology itself pointed to the exis tence of God. God Must Exist for People to Be Moral The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724– 1804) tried a different approach to proving that God existed. He did not start by reflecting on the nature of the universe at large. Instead, he said that God had to exist if people were to be moral. The argument is subtle, but many people have fol lowed his lead.

the four most important are known in technical terms as the ontological, the cosmological, the teleological, and the moral arguments. The names may seem obscure, but the ideas are often more familiar. If God Is God, God Must Exist A medieval philosopher named A NSELM ( c. 1033– 1109) proposed the ontological argument. He argued that only a person who does not really understand what the word God means can ask whether God exists. According to Anselm, the word God means “the greatest being that we can conceive of.” If we conceived of something greater than God, that something would in fact be God. Our original idea of what was God would have been a mistake. But, Anselm asked, what is greater, a God that we only imagine, or a God who actually exists? His answer was, clearly, a God who actually exists. As a result, it would be wrong to say that God only exists in people’s imaginations. We can eas ily conceive of a being who is greater than that God, namely, a God who actually exists. Therefore, Anselm said, God must exist. It All Had to Start Somewhere Anselm’s argument appeals to some people. But many people, even those who believe in God, sus pect that it involves a verbal trick. A second argument for the existence of God is the cosmological argument. In effect, this argu ment insists, “it all had to start somewhere.” This argument reminds us that things in the world are caused and have limits. But, the argument goes, for something to be caused and have limits, there must be something uncaused and unlimited, in other words, God. In technical terms, this argument depends on the idea that an “infinite regress” is impossi ble. Consider yourself as a person. Your parents caused you to come into existence. Your grandpar ents caused them to come into existence. The line extends far back. But can it extend back—regress— forever? On one line of thinking, such an infinite regress is impossible. Without a first set of parents,