Why do we believe in God?

Dr. Satish Kumar Tiwari

God
 Do you believe in God?
1. If your answer is yes, you are a theist (no matter what
particular conception of God you believe in).
2. If your answer is no, you are an atheist.
3. If you answer, “I don’t know,” you are an agnostic
 What are the most prominent features of God?
1. Is God all-powerful (omnipotent)?
2. Is God all-knowing (omniscient)?
3. Did God create the universe?
4. Does God care about human beings?
5. Does God have emotions?
God
Why do you believe in God? Or why don’t you?
Yes
Who is your God?
Monotheism – One God(Islam etc.)
Polytheism- Many god(old Greeks etc)
Pantheism – Everything is God and God is everything.
(Baruch Spinoza)
Faith and Reason: Grounds for Believing
For many believers, belief in God and knowledge of
him was a matter of pure reason.
Reason did not in any way contradict faith but rather
supported it.
Saint Anselm developed a famous and ingenious
“proof” of God’s existence.
Saint Thomas Aquinas also developed a number of
ways of proving God’s existence.
The Cosmological Argument
 Saint Thomas Aquinas In the world of sense we find there is an order of
efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible)
in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would
be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not
possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in
order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the
intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate
cause be several, or one only. Now to take away the cause is to take away
the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes,
there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient
causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient
cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate
efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to
admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God. —
From Summa Theologica, 1266–1273
The Argument from Design
Saint Thomas Aquinas The fifth way is taken from the
governance of the world. We see that things which lack
intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this
is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the
same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain
that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly.
Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an
end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with
knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark
by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by
whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this
being we call God. —From Summa Theologica, 1266–1273
The Ontological Argument
The word ontological means “having to do with the
nature of existence.”
the argument, which has been developed in hundreds
of variations, is essentially this:
1. We cannot conceive of God except as an infinite and
most perfect being.
2. A being who had all perfections (justice,
omnipotence, omniscience, and so on) except for the
perfection of existence, would not be “most perfect.”
3. Therefore, the most perfect being necessarily exists.
The Ontological Argument
Many philosophers have questioned this logic, even if they
themselves devoutly believed in God’s existence.
The most famous of these was Immanuel Kant, who argued
that the flaw in the argument was its second premise—the
idea that existence was a “perfection or any other kind of
property.”
Existing, Kant argued, just isn’t like being just, being
omnipotent, and being all knowing.
 Although a being can exist without being just, it makes no
sense to say that a being is just if it doesn’t exist.
Indeed, it doesn’t make sense to say that it is a “being” at all.
Rational Faith
 Kant rejected all three arguments (the cosmological argument, the argument from
design, and the ontological argument).
 He show that belief in God is rationally necessary for anyone who would be a morally
good person.
 The result is a moral proof for God’s existence, the aim being not so much to prove God’s
existence as a matter of knowledge but rather as a necessary feature of our moral outlook
on the world.
 The argument is familiar: in order for virtue to be rewarded and vice to be punished,
there must be some all-powerful, all-wise judge who can—if not in this life, then in
another one—make justice prevail, reward the good, and punish the wicked.
 Kant called our belief in such a God faith. But by this he did not mean an irrational
feeling or a belief that we hold despite all evidence to the contrary.
 Faith in God was, for Kant, every bit as justified as knowledge, and not simply a matter of
feeling; a purely rational attitude that can be defended with reasons, with arguments, and
with proofs.
 Without belief in God, Kant argued, our sense of morality and justice would be without
foundation.
Pascal’s Wager
Pascal’s argument presents us with a kind of betting
situation, and the argument is therefore called Pascal’s
wager.
 It runs like this: Either we believe in God or we do not.
 If we believe in God and he exists, we will be rewarded
with infinite bliss.
If we believe in God but he does not exist, then the worst
that has happened is that we have given up a few sinful
pleasures that we might otherwise have enjoyed.
But even if God doesn’t exist, the edifying feeling of having
faith in him is rewarding in itself.
Pascal’s Wager
If we do not believe, however, and God does exist, we
may enjoy a few pleasurable sins, but we will be
punished with eternal damnation.
 If we do not believe and God does not exist, then
there is of course no problem.
 Now you don’t have to be much of a gambler to figure
out which alternative is the better bet; it is to believe.
Any rational person will therefore believe in God: why
risk eternal damnation in return for a few sinful
earthly pleasures?
Irrational Faith
 Not all arguments for believing in God are rational arguments.
 The most prominent example of a philosopher with this view of
religious belief is Kierkegaard.
 Kierkegaard faith is distinctively irrational and proofs of God’s
existence are utterly irrelevant.
 For Kierkegaard, faith in God is an intensely personal, passionate
concern, not prone to “proof” by any means.
 Faith is a kind of commitment; it is precisely the fact that one
cannot simply know that God exists.
 A very different sort of irrationalist approach to religious belief is
that ancient tradition called mysticism, which says that one can
come to believe in God by way of a special experience or vision that
cannot be described or communicated to anyone else.