To make things, atoms must bond, requiring a conscious agent {argument from atomic combinations} {atomic combinations, argument}.
Physical-universe existence proves that God exists {cosmological argument}. There must be a first existence, which is God. However, universe has vacuum energy and virtual particles, as well as quantum-mechanical laws.
Proofs {cosmological proof} can be about causes or movements. Effects must have causes, so causal chain must go back to a beginning cause {First Cause, religion}, which is God. Things move, and movements must have previous movements, back to a beginning movement by a prime mover, unmoved by anything else.
problems
God cannot be First Cause, because beginning cause presupposes universe exists, ready for first cause. God is not even about cause and effect, because causes must be physical or mathematical. If God is physical, physical laws limit God.
Universe power comes from its fundamental nature, that small volumes must have great energy, with no need for outside power sources. All things must always move, because motions are relative to observers, not absolute. All particles have intrinsic movements.
Arguments {design, argument} {argument from design} {argument from experience} can be about designing. Universe has unity, is in harmony, and has power and motion. It must have a designer, just as bodies and machines have designers and creators. God creates and designs universe.
problems
The presence of evil, pain, social injustice, and natural disasters point to low harmony and poor design, as well as question whether God is good. Universe harmony is only appearance. At smallest level, universe has quanta and fragments. At greatest level, universe is relative. God does not need to design, because complex things can arise from simpler things by evolution.
Arguments {argument from eternal truths} {eternal truths argument} can be about truth. Statements are true or false. Statements must exist in minds. Statements about essences, but not existences, can be always true or always false and so must exist in eternal mind. The world has facts {contingent truth, God}, which must come from eternal truths by the principle of sufficient reason. Existences show that there must be eternal mind.
problems
Essences are not necessarily real. Statements can exist in non-eternal minds. Truth can depend on time and location.
Proofs {experiential proof} {argument from religious experience} can be about experiences. Religious revelations and experiences are widespread and involve similar phenomena, so something or someone must inspire them. They can depend on God's existence and action. However, religious experiences are mental processes that depend on brain chemicals and activities, similar to other mental states. People do not yet know how mind works.
Proofs {mental proof} can be about mind and ideas. People know that other people have minds, by analogy with themselves. People can then use analogy to think of an all-knowing mind. Mind has meaningful ideas and has a highest idea, the idea of God, which mystics and religious experience can reveal, in which there seems to be unity of everything and generalized meaning. However, people can always think of something that is one better than the one before it, so people cannot truly think of a highest thing.
Proofs {mind proof} can be about mind. People have reason, mind, and imagination, whose cause is an all-intelligent being (C. S. Lewis). People are conscious and are part of God's consciousness or can experience God's consciousness, mind, or spirit. Universe has evolved higher intelligence forms, continuing even now, and God allows this by continual creation. However, no one yet knows how mind works. Evolution can build mind. Consciousness requires brains.
Proofs {moral proof} can be about morals. People have consciences and know moral laws. People can fail to follow moral laws or conscience and then feel this failure. This feeling is not about conditioning or self-interest, so God must have put moral laws and conscience in people (Kant). However, people develop feelings and ideas socially and can develop guilty feelings even about moral acts.
God must exist because things exist {ontological argument}. There must be a first existence, which is God. However, universe has vacuum energy and virtual particles, as well as quantum-mechanical laws.
Proofs {ontological proof} {argument ex consensu gentium} can be about perfection. God is perfection, the most perfect, most bountiful, and most knowledgeable. People have a mental concept of highest or perfect being, God, with all possible attributes. Only actual existence of such being can give people this idea, so it must actually exist (Anselm). Perhaps, belief in God is part of man's nature. Universe perfection allows people to know imperfection.
However, people can always think of something that is one better than the one before it, so people cannot truly think of a highest thing.
Proofs {perfection proof of God} can be about perfection or goodness. Because things are more or less good, true, and so on, there must be something that is the highest truth, goodness, and so on. However, there does not have to be only one.
Proofs {purpose proof of God} can be about purpose. Because all things act toward goals, even if without mind, so there must be a highest goal or purpose. However, there does not have to be only one.
Proofs {teleological proof} {argument from design with teleology} {argument from analogy} {teleological argument, religion} can be about purpose. Universe is infinitely complex, has order, and has purpose. There must be an intentional mind or intelligent designer to make the universe. God sets the purpose or is the purpose. However, natural selection designs organisms without purposes. Teleology depends on finding purposes, and universe has no clear purposes.
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Date Modified: 2022.0225