Does God Exist?

Just because this e-book is short (approximately 60 pages) does not mean that it is simplistic or not weighty. This treatment by Craig packs a wallop. At the outset Craig lays out the outline or skeleton for his cogent articulation and reasoning for the existence of God thus: “A good argument must obey the rules of logic; express true premises; and have premises more plausible than their opposites.” Put simply, a good argument for the existence (or non-existence) of God must meet three conditions: (1) obey the rules of logic; (2) its premises must be true (correspond with reality); (3) have premises that are more plausible than their opposites.Craig begins with the Cosmological argument for the existence of God in by developing the following formulation: (1) Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause. (2) If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. (3) The universe exists. (4) Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God. He then gives philosophical and scientific evidence demonstrating that the existence of a God that is a necessary, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal Creator of the universes makes more logical sense than the plausibility of His non-existence given by atheistic philosophers and scientists.The second argument unfolded by Craig is called the Kalam Cosmological argument and is set out in this simple formulation: (1) Everything that begins to exists has a cause. (2) The universe began to exist. (3) Therefore, the universe has a cause. Craig delves into some complicated mathematical arguments in this section to show the amazing cogency of the Kalam argument. He also gives some compelling evidences from astronomy via studies by Arvin Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin. He also appeals to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and thus concludes: “On the basis of both philosophical and scientific evidence, we have good grounds for believing that the universe began to exist. Since whatever begins to exist has a cause, it follows that the universe has a cause.”The third argument developed by Craig is the Teleological or Fine-tuning formulation: (1) The fine-tuning of the universe is due to physical necessity, chance, or design. (2) It is not due to physical necessity or chance. (3) Therefore, it is due to design. Here Craig tackles Richard Dawkins central argument from his book “The God Delusion” head on and proceeds to tackle his seven objections one at a time. Craig carefully dismantles Dawkins objections and gives a very plausible defense of the argument of design as a reasonable explanation for God’s existence.The Moral argument is simply stated by Craig in the following manner: (1) If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. (2) Objective moral values and duties do exist. (3) Therefore, God exists. Craig concludes his ethical defense for God’s existence in this way: “The moral argument complements the cosmological and design arguments by telling us about the moral nature of the Creator of the universe. It gives us a personal, necessarily existent being who is not only perfectly good, but whose commands constitute our moral dues.”Craig’s last argument is based on the classic Ontological argument as espoused by St. Anselm in the 11th century and in the modern era by the great theistic philosopher Alvin Plantinga: (1) It is possible that a maximally great being (God) exists. (2) If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world. (3) It a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world. (4) If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world. (5) Therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world. (6) Therefore, a maximally great being exists. (7) Therefore, God exists.Taken together the five arguments developed by Craig make a compelling case for the existence of God – especially when compared with the counter arguments atheists give in their own apologetic of plausibility for God’s non-existence. I highly recommend this clear and intellectually sound defense of the cogency of God’s existence as the best plausible argument for our own existence which brings purpose and meaning to one’s life through the culmination of God revelation in sending His Son Jesus so that through Him we can be reconciled and restored in a right relationship with Him by His grace and for His glory.Craig concludes why the defense of God’s existence continues to such an important window to the Gospel in our day stating, “Christians who depreciate theistic arguments because ‘no one comes to faith through intellectual arguments’ are therefore tragically shortsighted. For the value of natural theology extends far beyond one’s immediate evangelistic contact. It is the broader task of Christian apologetics, including natural theology, to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the Gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women. It thereby gives people the intellectual permission to believe when their hearts are moved. As we progress further into the 21st century, I anticipate that natural theology will be an increasingly relevant and vital preparation for the reception of the Gospel by thinking people.”

Dr. William Lane Craig, professor at Talbot School of Theology, wrote Does God Exist? I am reviewing his book because the struggle between creationists and evolutionists is more a philosophical argument than a scientific one. Creationists and evolutionists have studied the same scientific material and because of their conflicting worldviews they come to radically different conclusions. Many who believe in evolution deny that their presuppositions about the origin of the universe and life override all evidence that implies supernatural intervention.Materialism-- a false viewA few hundred years ago science and philosophy were on equal footing, but it seems that adherents of naturalistic materialism unjustifiably separated them. Webster’s defines materialism as “a theory that physical matter is the only or fundamental reality and that all being, processes, and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter.”Ever since the rise of the Intelligent Design movement, beginning with scientists such as Michael Denton (Evolution: a Theory in Crisis) and Charles Thaxton (The Mystery of Life’s Origin), the battle between these two worldviews has become more intense. Both books are available on Amazon.In the Cosmos series, Carl Sagan opined:The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.How did he know? No atheist or agnostic can answer many of the basic questions concerning the origin of the universe. Atheists generally deny there is a supernatural realm and reject the possibility that the universe and life were masterfully designed by our all-knowing, all-powerful, creator God.Thermodynamic Law Prohibits the Eternal Existence of the UniversePart of William Lane Craig’s arguments are supported by physical laws. The Second Law of Thermodynamics plays strongly in the issue of whether or not the universe is eternal. The law is described by two expressions: 1) Heat transfer occurs spontaneously from higher- to-lower-temperature bodies but never spontaneously in the reverse direction, 2) In any system it is impossible to completely convert transferred heat to work in which the system returns to its initial state. There is always energy lost in real processes. Ultimately, entropy always increases in irreversible (real) processes. [College Physics by OpenStax College of Rice University, pp. 523-524, 2013. OpenStax publishes free textbooks.]This seems fairly innocuous, but the problem is that all spontaneous processes proceeding in an isolated system, such as the universe, always lead to an increase in entropy. Entropy is a measure of the randomness or disorder of a system. “The amount of energy [in the universe] available for work is running out. Entropy is increasing to a maximum.” [Sarfati, J, “If God created the universe, then who created God?”Journal of Creation 12(1):20–22, April 1998]If the universe were eternal, the availability of energy to do work would decrease as entropy increased until all the energy in the universe would dissipate and the universe would reach a state of maximum entropy referred to as the “heat death” of the universe. This is also referred to as thermodynamic equilibrium. What this means is that the entire universe will become cold and motionless. Stars will cease shining and black holes will dissipate.Dr. Craig refers to the theorem of Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin. They stated that any universe that, on average, has been expanding throughout its history had an absolute beginning.In their paper “Did the Universe Have a Beginning?” Alexander Vilenkin and Audrey Mithani discuss three possible scenarios which seem to allow the possibility that the universe could have existed forever.1. A universe of eternal inflation2. A universe of cyclic evolution3. An emergent universeVilenkin and Mithani say that the first two of these scenarios cannot describe a universe without a beginning. The third, the emergent universe, can collapse and cannot have an eternal past.Physicists of all stripes think the universe began to exist at some time in the past. Atheists say that a hypothetical subatomic-sized particle (known as a singularity), which had always existed, exploded as the big bang and created the universe as it is now, but no initial singularity could survive forever to produce the big bang.Vilenkin and Mithani ask, “Did the universe have a beginning?”They say that the answer to this question is probably yes. They carefully address the three scenarios that superficially offer a way to avoid having a beginning to the universe, but find that none of them can have an eternal past.They also examine a simple emergent universe model, and conclude that it cannot escape collapse. They say that even considering more general emergent universe models, there do not seem to be any matter sources that admit solutions that are immune to collapse. [arXiv:1204.4658v1[hep-th] 20 Apr 2012 and arXiv:1110.4096v4 [hep-th] 16 Dec 2011 freely available online.] Finally, they admit,"Even if the universe is initially perfectly fine-tuned, it will be destabilized by quantum fluctuations and will either start inflating or collapse to a singularity. Such a universe cannot survive for an infinite time."Most secular physicists do not feel comfortable with the conclusion the physics and math lead to. Any scenario must stray from the known laws of physics to produce an eternal universe. They must propose some as yet unknown physical property to allow an eternal universe because they disallow the alternative: “…a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused, unimaginably powerful being—much like God!”Why the Universe Cannot Be EternalIn Does God Exist? Dr. Craig asks many probing questions about the origin of the universe and explains why the universe cannot be eternal, especially from a thermodynamic point of view.Craig breaks down the atheistic misunderstanding that the universe is eternal into explanations we can easily grasp. Here’s three of his five arguments briefly:1. The Cosmological Argument2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument3. The Moral ArgumentThe Cosmological Argument1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.3. The universe exists.4. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God.Craig explains where atheists go wrong when they try to refute the Cosmological Argument. First, they affirm that premise 3 is sound. In order to refute the argument they must deny premise 1 or 2, but this is where they run into trouble.Premise 1 requires that a thing exist by necessity or be caused by something. It would be absurd to say that God must have an explanation for existing, because that would require a being greater than God, which is impossible. There can be no greater being than an infinite, omnipotent God. God’s existence is necessary. It is impossible for God to have a cause. This premise is more plausibly true than false.While the universe’s existence would be necessary if it had no cause, no known law of physics would allow it to exist eternally, which makes this idea more plausibly false than true.Premise 2 is also more plausibly true than false. Dr. Craig says the typical atheist responds by saying A) if atheism is true, there is no explanation for the existence of the universe, and, B) if the universe has an explanation, then atheism is not true. One cannot affirm A and deny B. That would be a logical fallacy. He explains why it's a fallacy.The three premises of the cosmological argument prove that “God is the explanation of the existence of the universe. Moreover, the argument implies that God is a necessary, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal Creator of the universe.” Of course, an atheist would hope that a law of physics will be discovered that permits the universe to be eternal.The Kalam Cosmological Argument1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.2. The universe began to exist.3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.Craig expertly explains the Kalam Cosmological Argument and how to defend it logically and scientifically. He has a 3-minute video on a popular website that succinctly explains the argument and he defends it more completely in Does God Exist.In the video, "The Kalam Cosmological Argument," at a popular website, Dr. Craig cites well known scientists such as Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin to establish the idea that the universe has a beginning.If you search the internet, you’ll find many atheists who attempt to refute Craig’s argument by referring to additional remarks by the three scientists above. What they do not do is refute Craig’s remarks concerning the thermodynamic equilibrium of the universe, also known as the “heat death” of the universe. Craig states,"If, given enough time, the universe will inevitably stagnate in a state of heat death, then why, if it has existed forever, is it not now in a state of heat death? If in a finite amount of time, the universe will reach equilibrium, then, given infinite past time, it should by now already be in a state of equilibrium."The Moral Argument1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.3. Therefore, God exists.Atheists might object to this argument many ways, but they cannot live practically without some kind of moral compass. Torturing an infant is clearly immoral to most people, but there are those who would allow that. We recently attended a lecture by a forensic dentist where he showed several photos of babies viciously bitten and murdered by an adult.Craig includes two other arguments along with fully developed explanations: 1) The Teleological Argument, and 2) The Ontological Argument.

William Craig’s Does God Exist takes you through a beginner’s tour of the traditional, rational arguments for God (or at least, versions of them). His chapters handle the Cosmological argument, the Teleological argument, the Moral argument, and the Ontological argument.Oddly, the last argument gets short shrift. The Ontological argument holds the greatest promise, as it does not rely on observation; it is strictly deductive, while the Theological argument, for instance, flies in the face of the theory of evolution.But don't fear. William Craig has a number of other books and videos on YouTube explaining rational arguments for G-d’s existence. So, if you read this book, and feel unsatisfied at its brevity, there is far more out there to explore.

This is an extremely accessible survey of the case for the existence of God written by one of the major players in the contemporary public, academic and philosophical discussion of this crucially important topic. As with his companion mini-book on the resurrection, William Lane Craig writes with his usual concern to set out the arguments clearly and point by point so that those who disagree can enter into debate with him and indicate at which stage they consider his argument fails. It repeats much of what he says in his other works, particularly (as I recall) word for word at times his On Guard, but given its own scope and intentions this brief book (like that on the resurrection) is an excellent inexpensive source and should certainly be one of the first books to read for anyone really wanting to think through reflectively, critically and objectively their own position on the existence of God. Perhaps I should add that William Lane Craig is an extremely distinguished scholar who has debated publicly with other scholars who disagree with him on this and other issues and he always writes and debates with humility and respect for the intelligence of those who hold different positions. It is not enough to reply (à la Dawkins?) with misrepresentation, polemic and mockery as has one reviewer. If one does not accept the existence of God then it is necessary to show with the same clarity and mastery of the sources and arguments where Craig is wrong, or at the very least suspend judgement or agree to differ with respect. Either way, as with his other works, Craig should be thanked for setting out his case so clearly.

The trouble i had with this book was following the arguments. I found it intellectually challenging and so may have to read it again a bit slower. As a Christian I agree with what he says but am not always sure how he got there.

Short, punchy and very readable for the armchair scientists. A great starting point for exploring the many valid philosophical and cosmological arguments for theism.

Fantástica explicación de cada uno de los argumentos, que por si solos vale el libro. Un razonamiento impecable. Altamente recomendable.

Clear and concise.

To those who fear that intellectual honesty renders atheism inevitable this book will be an encouragement. And to those who think the answer to the question is a foregone conclusion this book presents a serious philosophical challenge.

I have just read this load of tosh. Craig passes himself off as a philosopher. I have a proper UK MA in philosophy and I find his reasoning almost impossible to follow and totally suspect. For example, his cosmological argument is completely ridiculous. It goes like this: Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. (eh???) The Universe exists. Therefore, the explanation of the universe's existence is God (you got me boy, that is really good Sunday school stuff). Another statement he makes amongst many: It goes similar to this! All historians accept that Jesus existed. Not true, and just how does he know that? The best way find out about this crack-pot is to read an article on him by Richard Dawkins at theguardian.com 20th October 2011. Here is one of mine. You can use it William if you want too: The Bible was written by God. God would not tell a lie because he is perfect and knows everything. In the Bible, it says that Jesus was His son. Therefore Jesus must be the son of God, and must have lived because the Bible says so!