There are 4 basic arguments used to prove God's existence. They are called the cosmological, teleological, axiological, and ontological arguments. These are pretty big words so let's say it in English...LOL!
The 4 arguments are called Creation (Cosmo); Design(Telos); Moral Law (Axios) and Being (Ontos)
Creation: Since there is a universe, it must have been caused by something beyond itself. It is based on law of causality, which ways that every limited thing is caused by something other than itself. The Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:19-20, that all men know about God "for God has made it evident to them. For since the Creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made".
Plato is the first thinker known to have developed an argument based on causation. Aristotle followed. Muslim philosophers al-farabi and Avicenna also used this type of reasoning, as did the Jewish thinker, Moses Maimonides. In Christian thought, Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Descartes, Leibniz, and others to the present day have found it valuable, making it the most widely noted argument for God's existence.
1. The universe had a beginning
2. Anything that has a beginning must have been caused by something else.
3. Therefore, the universe was casued by something else, and this cause was God.
Something is keeping us in existence right now so we don't just disappear. Someting has not only caused the world to come into being...Genesis 1:1, but is also continuing and conserving its existence in the present...Colossians 1:17. The world needs both an originating cause and a conserving cause. In a sense, this question is the most basic question that can be asked, "Why is there somthing rather than nothing?" It can be put this way:
1. Finite, changing things exist. For example, me. I would have to exist to deny that I exist; so either way, I must really exist.
2. Every finite changing thing must be caused by something else. If it is limited and it changes, then it cannot be somthing that exists independently. If it existed independently, or necessarily, then it would have always existed without any kind of change.
3. There cannot be an infinite regress of these causes. In other words, you can't go on explaining how this finite thing causes this finite thing, which causes this other finite thing, and on and on, because that really just puts off the explanation indefinitely. It doesn't explain anything. Besides, if we are talking about why finite things are existing right now, then no matter how many finite causes you line up, eventually you will have one that would be both causing its own existence and be an effect of that cause at the same movement. That is nonsense. So no infinite regress can explain why I am existing right now.
4. Therefore, there must be a first uncaused cause of every finite, changing thing that exists.
This argument shows why there must be a present, conserving cause of the world, but it doesn't tell us very much about what kind of God exists. How do we know that this is really the God of the Bible?
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