One curious objection I have seen and heard to arguments for the existence of God is that these arguments apply to deism, not Christianity. For example, Michael, an atheist blogger, writes, “Note that these are effectively arguments for deism, not Christianity!” about the Moral Argument (here).
The objection seems to be that an argument for the existence of God (such as the cosmological argument) that could be utilized for deism doesn’t help the epistemic justification for belief in the Christian God. This objection is misguided for a number of reasons.
First, Michael objects in this way in his discussion of the Moral Argument. But deism is the belief in “a creator who has established the universe and its processes but does not respond to human prayer or need” (Honderich, 195 cited below). Clearly, then, this god of deism cannot be the God towards which the Moral Argument points. The moral argument places God as the objective standard of morality for the universe. It is hard to see how a god which doesn’t care about or respond to human need could be the objective standard of morality.
Second, the classic arguments for the existence of God do not necessarily each establish the entirety of the Christian worldview, but may instead serve as a cumulative case to demonstrate God’s existence and attributes. The Moral Argument argues for omnibenevolence; the teleological argument demonstrates omniscience and omnipotence (along with omnibenevolence, to a lesser extent); the cosmological argument illustrates omnipotence, transcendence, and necessary existence; the transcendental argument shows God’s transcendence and necessity; the ontological argument argues for a greatest possible being with essentially all the attributes of the Christian God; the argument from consciousness demonstrates God as mind; the argument from reason demonstrates the rationality of God; and the list could continue. Furthermore, almost all of these arguments show that God is personal, and therefore, by definition, not deistic but theistic.
Not only that, but how is it an objection to these arguments to say that they don’t each individually demonstrate the Christian God is the one true God? Arguments for the existence of a god, as long as they don’t contradict the God of Christianity, can be taken as evidence for the existence of the God, namely, the Christian God.
Take an example of a case in court. A man is accused of committing murder. The victim was found hung in his room. The prosecuting attorney argues that the accused had the means–he recently bought some rope. He then argues the accused had motive–the victim had recently gotten a promotion for which the accused was vying. He also shows that the accused has rope marks on his hand and scratch marks on his face, which show the struggle which occurred as the accused allegedly hung the victim. He argues, finally, the accused had opportunity–he was in the room at the time the victim died and he was also the only other person in the room.
Now imagine how ridiculous it would be if the defense attorney stood up and complained that these arguments don’t really apply to the case at hand, because none of them demonstrates the accused committed the murder! They just show, individually, that he had means, motive, and opportunity; not to mention the strong evidence for the accused being involved in a struggle with some rope and another person. But to demonstrate the guilt of the accused, the defense continues, the prosecution must come up with an argument that demonstrates all of these things at once! Otherwise, they just demonstrate the other things individually!
Obviously, the defense attorney has something wrong here. But then the atheistic objector also has something wrong. The Christian philosopher of religion has argued that God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, transcendent, necessary, etc.; the atheist responded by saying “those arguments individually only demonstrate a deistic God!” [Discounting, for the moment, that a deistic God wouldn’t share some of these attributes.] But that isn’t how the arguments work. Any argument which demonstrates that a God exists, as long as that God is not contradictory to the Christian God, can serve as evidence for the existence of the Christian God. Sure, they may be consistent with deism [and many of the arguments aren’t, as shown above], but they are also part of the total case for the Christian theistic worldview.
Source:
Ted Honderich, ed., The Oxford Guide to Philosophy (New York, NY: Oxford, 2005).
This post originally appeared here on my site, “J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason.” It has been slightly edited for content.
Actually that still doesn’t get you to theism, because where Deism lacks, Pandeism (pantheistic Deism) fully accounts, synergizing the coherently reconcilable elements of Pantheism and Deism to conclude that our Creator in fact became the Creation itself so as to fully experience the existence of our Universe, which ultimately happens to include ourselves — imagine that, a Creator making so great a sacrifice as to become our entire Universe and experience the whole of all of our lives, and of the life of every thing which lives!! And Pandeism fully accounts for all things as manifestations of the underlying power of our Creator sustaining our Universe, requiring no assumptions of deity-made scriptures, or of deity-made demons or devils or evil spirits running around, and since Pandeism fully accounts without making any assumptions beyond a deity existing and having the power to create pandeistically, so long as any deity is conceived as having the power to do so, then Pandeism must be affirmatively disproved before any additional assumptions required for theistic explanation may be made!!
Thanks for your comment.
You wrote, “Pandeism must be affirmatively disproved before any additional assumptions required for theistic explanation may be made!!”
Actually no. Pandeism is a rival theory which equally does not fit arguments like the moral and ontological arguments. The pandeist would have to establish that these arguments are false before establishing pandeism as a legitimate threat to theism.