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Luis Verduzco

Professor Briones

English 1302 222

04/03/2022

God’s Existence

Intro

All throughout history there has been one question that comes up time and time again, Is

God real? Articles have been written about the existence of a higher power and some are

displayed in this essay following logic, philosophy, and counter arguments. The existence of God

is something that can be proven and has been proven with these articles. This essay will show

that God is in fact real and exists using the previously mentioned topics.

Logic

Some articles focus on the aspect of proving that God is real through the use of facts and

logic about the world as well as through defining what it means to believe in God or not. In Five

Proofs of the Existence of God by Stephen L. Brock, the author talks about how the world has a

very careful and organized order. Brock makes it known that the fact that this order exists in the

world means that God exists (Brock 3). He says that if God weren’t real, then the world wouldn’t

have order and it would be thrown into chaos (Brock 3). He also talks about how this order is so

fine and meticulous that it had to have been created and that this just couldn’t happen on its own

(Brock 4). However, as defined by James H. Nichols Jr in Atheism, an atheist would not think

this way. Nichols states that “The atheist believes that his existence ends with his death in the

world, outside of which there is nothing […] his soul is mortal” (Nichols 2). An atheist thinks
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that the world is just a floating rock in space and that people got lucky in being formed through

evolution and natural selection, believing that there is nothing beyond life but a void and that the

order we observe throughout the world is just a completely random thing that happens (Nichols

2). Atheists believing that the universe formed through itself and theists believing that the

universe was created through God is what sets them apart from one and other. However, through

philosophy the claims of the nonexistence of God can be debunked and argued otherwise.

Philosophy

In philosophical terms, in Atheism by James H. Nichols Jr, it is mentioned how atheists

believe that after they die that they will go nowhere and become “nothing” (Nichols 2). The

author then goes on to explain that God is in fact nothing of this world, not man nor anything of

sorts and therefore he is nothing (Nichols 2). With this being said the author makes the bold

claim that this makes “the difference between the theist and the atheist […] seem to disappear”,

since the atheist will become nothing, and the theist will be one with God who is nothing

(Nichols 2). This would make the atheistic claims that God isn’t real to be questioned. An

Impossible Proof of God by Robert E. Pezet, talks about how the author cannot really come up

with a full proof argument for the existence of God, this is because it gives others the ability to

choose for themselves and therefore gives them free will which is what God wants (Pezet 1).

Pezet states “It is taken for granted that the argument cannot be sound, since it would prove too

much” (Pezet 1). Because of this the author claims that the existence of God will always be like a

“puzzle”, since in order to believe, you will have to have some type of skepticism because that is

what faith is, trust (Pezet 1). This is in contrast to what Skeptical Theism Unscathed: Why

Skeptical Objections to Skeptical Theism Fail by Perry Hendricks talks about. The author of this
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article believes that the mere existence of the concept of skeptical theism is an “unacceptable

amount of skepticism” (Hendricks 2). What he means by this is that people don’t actually believe

and that therefore God isn’t real (Hendricks 2). Skeptical theism being someone who believes

that there is some type of force or being that made the universe and that they will be there when

we die but they don’t fully believe in anything past that (Hendricks 3). This is why the author

makes it known that skeptical theism means that God isn’t real since there are people who have

their doubts. However, this only reinforces the fact that it is called faith so nobody should be

100% certain of what they believe in. INSERT ARTICLE HERE

Disproving Arguments

There are a lot of articles that counter argue the idea that God isn’t real. One article is

countering a paper from an atheist who claims that God isn’t real and that those who believe are

just there to cause violence. In Does Christianity Cause Violence?, Glenn B. Siniscalchi

describes that the paper lists all of the terrible things that have happened over the years involving

some type of religion. Countering the argument, Siniscalchi goes on to list all of the good things

that have come from Christianity all because of the existence of God. He then goes on to talk

about the misconceptions about all of the terrible events that have happened over the years by

stating that we are only humans, and as humans we will make mistakes and that “violence that is

committed under the banner of Christianity is actually a distortion of Christian faith” (Siniscalchi

1). He then goes on to list an overwhelming amount of good things that have come from

Christianity and people that believe that God exists like how the church helps the poor and takes

in refugees (Siniscalchi 1). In Rethinking Anselm's Arguments: A Vindication of His Proof of

the Existence of God, Daniel Waldow revisits an argument that has been standing for over 900
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years where people have interpreted as saying that God isn’t real. However, the author claims

that people have been looking at it all wrong and that the argument is actually saying that God is

real (Waldow 1). He states that the author of the argument was saying common things that

atheists would say but later goes on to clarify that “God is greater than cannot be thought,”

meaning that he thinks God is real (Waldow 2). Waldow then goes on to explain why people

missed this crucial but simple clarification in the argument by saying that it was “inaccurately

represented” by the translators of the 900-year-old argument (Waldow 2).

Conclusion

The articles on the existence of God have a variety of subtopics. Though there weren’t

many on non-believers, there were some peer reviewed articles that countered other papers that

don’t believe. Articles like these were among the most informative and are grouped by ones that

follow logic, philosophy, and ones that counter arguments. It is important to understand different

points of view in order to recognize other cultures and peoples and to not lose sight of the fact

that we are all just humans living on a rock that is floating in space, or living on a well-conceived

masterpiece created by a higher power.

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Works Cited

Brock, Stephen L. “Five Proofs of the Existence of God.” Review of Metaphysics, vol. 72, no. 2,

2018.

Hendricks, Perry. “Skeptical Theism Unscathed: Why Skeptical Objections to Skeptical Theism

Fail.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 101, no. 1, 2020.

Nichols Jr, James H. “Atheism.” Review of Metaphysics, vol. 73, no. 1, 2019.

Pezet, Robert E. “An Impossible Proof of God.” International Journal for Philosophy of

Religion, vol. 83, no. 1, 2018, pp. 57–83., doi:10.1007/s11153-016-9591-0.

Siniscalchi, Glenn B. “Does Christianity Cause Violence?: The New Atheism and Negative

Apologetics.” Heythrop Journal, vol. 61, no. 4, 2020.

Waldow, Daniel. “Rethinking Anselm's Arguments: A Vindication of His Proof of the Existence

of God.” Heythrop Journal, vol. 62, no. 4, 2021.