Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the first in a series of ClickPhilosophy debates,
where profound questions in philosophy will be answered with discourse between philosophers
throughout history!
The question that this debate will deal with is: Does God Exist?
This question has been pondered ever since the emergence of religion, and is notorious
even in the modern world, where it helps create epic wars in YouTube comment sections.
This may be because it is difficult to reconcile faith used by many religions to assert the
existence of God with reason and logic.
However, some philosophers throughout history have attempted to prove the existence of God
through reason,
and tonight, we will consult Saint Thomas
Aquinas about his cosmological argument and
pit it against the ideas of Carl Sagan.
Using a highly capable time machine invented by ClickPhilosophy, we have brought them back to our debate table.
But before we begin, let’s agree on the
definition of God that will be used throughout the debate.
The definition of God is as follows: a being that is all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient), and all-good (omnibenevolent).
To begin the debate, Saint Aquinas, who is For the existence of God, will now present
The definition of God is as follows: a being
that is all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing
‘The cosmological argument, which I presented in my book Summa Theologica,
To begin the debate, Saint Aquinas, who is
For the existence of God, will now present
his cosmological argument.
‘The cosmological argument, which I presented
in my book Summa Theologica,
everything that we see in the universe right now, for example, the ball dropping when I release it, me walking,
going on in the universe.
Each of those causes have a cause of their own, and so on. However, there cannot be a
everything that we see in the universe, the
ball dropping when I release it, me walking,
Something must have begun the chain of events that produce the effects that we we see today.
That something, which we call, ‘The First
Cause,’ did not need to have been caused,
chain of causes that extends forever into
infinity.
Something must have begun the chain of events
that produce the effects we see today.
That something, which we call ‘The First
Cause’, didn’t need to have been caused,
and would have been extremely powerful.
The First Cause, by definition, is likely
to have been God.
So, in a nutshell, something really powerful, who is God, must have existed in order to
have set off the chain of motion that produced the phenomena we see today.’
Doctor Sagan?
‘Well, firstly, I think the cosmological
argument is extremely interesting because
it is something that we cosmologists and physicists are investigating,
except that the focus as well as research
is based upon the scientific method.
Scientists generally agree that The Big Bang- which itself is a misnomer of some sort- was
the moment when the universe was created (well, the earliest moment of the universe).
However, there are certain objections I have to make in response to your argument.
Firstly, if we were to agree that something
very powerful must have set off the chain
of motion for the universe,
then there is an undeniable possibility that something other than God could have caused it.
After all, to have caused the chain of motion in the universe, one needs only to be very powerful,
not all-good or all-knowing, the latter two
which are essential to the definition of God.
If we were to accept the suggestion that God has created the universe, then we would have
to answer another question-
Where did God come from? If this is an unanswerable question, then why not skip a step and suggest
that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question?
If we say that God has always existed, why not skip a step and say that the universe
has always existed without need for being
created?
How do we know that there could not have been an infinite chain of causes and effects,
and the universe had no beginning at all,
and that the Big Bang was yet another
rapid inflation following massive deflation
of a previous universe? These are not easy questions.
Occam’s Razor, a method of deciding between two (or more) explanations,
suggests that the explanation with fewer number of assumptions is more likely to be correct.
There is no particular need for the existence of a deity to explain the cause of the universe
if we cannot explain the cause of the deity-
it would be adding more assumptions, and raises more questions than it answers compared to the alternative.
But all in all, regardless of whichever conclusion we might get to, there is no reason to fight over this question.
I’m looking at you, internet!
It is important to cultivate understanding
of different religions and perspectives, and
better yet,
to realise that as a small, insignificant
species tucked away in some distant corner
of the galaxy, we only have each other to
hold on to,
and most importantly, we should prevent ourselves from engaging in self harm or self destruction
over such matters.
‘And...the time is up! Which side wins?
You decide! Comment your thoughts below, but
please keep it to this specific debate.
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