The group discussion on this topic a week ago was helpful to me. Here are a few additional thoughts.
The moral argument.
People have an innate sense of right and wrong. Where does that come from?
Related to this is that people have a very strong sense of justice. Even atheists who deny an absolute sense of morality cry out about injustices, to them or to others, and demand that justice be done.
Where does this sense of justice come from?
Humans also have a strong desire for forgiveness and redemption. Sometimes this is only on the subconscious level, but it can be a strong force in many lives, featuring in many secular movies.
The argument from religious experience.
God exists because I have experienced him.
An alternative version is that many people have (or claim to have) experienced God in some way. What is the basis for those experiences? Could it be that God actually does exist?
A weakness and oversight of the 5 traditional arguments is that they do not consider and argument, that I actually consider to be the strongest argument for the exsitence of God.
This is the argument from history and the New Testament. It can be argued to contain reliable eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus. But, did he really rise from the dead? Consider how the lives of his disciples were transformed: from confused cowards to bold and courageous preachers who were willing to die for their belief that he did rise. A lie, conspiracy, or delusion is unlikely to produce such passion and perseverance.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
5 types of argument for the existence of God II
Labels:
apologetics,
Easter,
ethics,
forgiveness,
history,
Jesus,
justice,
philosophy,
redemption
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