[Andrew66]

Hello everyone,

I have been reading books, websites (both Atheist and Theist) and looking at the subject now for over a year with regards to a potential God's existence.

Having just read Richard Dawkins book "The God Delusion" I have come up with what seems to me the most reasonable attempt at an argument which while not prooving a God's existence, makes the possibility of God (in my view at least) quite reasonable.

Argument for God's Existence:
(A rebuke to Dawkins Ultimate 747 Gambit).

God = An intelligent. conscious, personal and purposeful creator / designer of our world which we find ourselves in. Further, God is interactive with our existant World, and offers us a moral guide and path to salvation through Jesus Christ.

1) From nothing, nothing comes.

Support - Most philosophers and scientists seem to accept this principle (atheist and theist alike).. from utter non-existence there is no potential or capacity from which anything of any sort could arise.

2) The Universe (the term "Universe" will include our observable Universe plus any potential Multiverse) comprises a series of consectutive contigent states or varying configurations of matter and energy.

Support - This is true to general observation - and is in obedience to the first law of thermodynamics (that existing matter and energy is neither created or destroyed, but merely changes form).

3) An eternal, infinite series of contingent states of matter / energyis generally, according to most philosophers and scientists (atheist and theist alike) considered unlikely.

Support - an infinite series of contigent states (or infinte re-gress) leads to both philosophical and scientific problems such as a) Given an infinite regress, any point in time, like our present, could never be arrived at as an infinite - and therefore impassible- amount of time must elapse to get there - but this is absurd because we are clearly here; and b) Present scientific theorms in cosmology seem to support an absolute beginning state of matter and energy.

4) Given (3), many philosphers and scientists (atheist and theist alike) agree that there must have been some uncreated, eternal "necessary" agent which serves as the basis or explanation of our world of contigent states or configurations of matter/energy.

Support, posit (4) solves the problems of an infinite regress of contigent staes and provides a potential hypothesis for the origin of contigent states.

5) Richard Dawkins in his book "God Delusion" suggests that such neccesary agent as posited in (5) must be "simple" in configuration - as it is highly unlikely that an initial uncreated (and non-designed) entity could or should be complex. To quote Dawkins (pg 52 God Delusion), "Any creative intelligence of sufficient complexity to design anything comes into existence only as the end produt of an extended product of evolution. Creative intelligence being evolved, necessarily arrive late in the universe and therefore cannot be responsible for designing it".

*Note: This argument above (5) has been labelled by Dawkins as the "747 gambit", as many theists state the liklihood of origin of life on earth is as likely as if the wind blew the sand on a dessert stretch and the sand molecules by random luck formed into a Boeing 747 jet, and Dawkins simply points out that alleged God as an explanation of life is the ultimate Boeing 747 - God being incredibly complex and hence requiring its own explanation.

6) However, we can say that if an eternal, necessary, uncreated agent exists and comprises the explanation for all following contigent states of matter/energy - such necessary agent by its own inherent nature was, along with having the power and the aptitude to do so, irregardless of (5), at least sufficiently complex to initiate the process of evolving contigent states which lead to extremely high levels of complexity (eg. intelligent conscious life - human life).

7) From (6) we can say that, even though from (5) we gather it to be unlikely, the uncreated necessary agent must of had a significant and infact very high degree of complexity in its own nature.

Support: The initial uncreated necessary agent had a programming which once initiated lead to a process which gave rise to incredibly complex end products (aka concious life). By our experience, it is more reasonable than unreasonable to label such programming which is inherent to such neccessary agent as complex, as extremely complex end products result.

8) Because a product of such necessary agent is conscious life - whereby existence therefore begins to "matter" (as conscious life can experience joy and happiness -things that most would agree actually have value and therefore matter), this suggests and supports the existence of an altruistic motive or purpose assigned to the sufficiently complex necessary agent. Altruistic motive or purpose suggests and supports personal intelligence.

Support: If there were no conscious entities which arose as products eminating from the necessary agent, nothing would really matter or have any value as we understand it. There would be no point or potential purpose for anything. However, this is not the case...

9) Posit (8) supports a hypothesis that such necessary agent is a personal - altruistic creator.

1 - 9 supports existence of a Diest God.

10) Given posits (1 - 9) it is not unreasonable to believe that such a personal, altruistic creator would have at some point of time during the era of human conscousness revealled itself or communicated with human kind to some degree (such as in messages regarding the agent's intentions and plans for human kind).

11) The best of all historical records which support such communication, as judged by impact factor and quality of historical records, and supported by the recounting of miracles - appear to arise from the Christian faith as outlined in the Biblical scriptures.

Support: One could debate of course the validity of any number of religions, Muslim being a major competitor to Christianity. From my readings there appears to be best support for Christianity - and I would refer any who are interested to the book "Reasonable Faith" by William Craig which discusses in good detail the validity of the historicity of the Christian account. Regardless of one's persnal choice in selection of religion, the point is it is not unreasonalbe to believe that one of the religions out there is essentially truthful (and that the the others are fabricated). This is why people study the religions which are availalbe to make their own personal choice.

12) The Christian Faith (as well as the Muslim faith - and most others) teaches an interactive God, and a means to salvation.

10 - 12 supports existence of a Theist God.

Discussion:

I don't expect this line of reasoning to sway any of you Atheists out there, but I thought I would take the time to break it down and show how the mind and the reasoning of a Theist may work. If there is a serious misgiving or objection to the validity of any of posits 1 through 12, I would like to hear from you as to what such objections may be??!

However I would ask that such objections be directed at one posit at a time (one posit per entry- from my experinece it is too difficult and convoluted to entertain a full gambit of objects at once). More than one object at a time also makes the reading a bit too difficult for third party followers. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Thanks everyone and have a great day.

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!