I am James Hong and welcome to the Surpassing Value Podcast. The fuel and desire for this podcast was born out of a compulsion to flesh out what's been going on in the midst of an ocean of megaphones that may not actually withstand the test of scrutiny. As a signpost theologian, I will do my best to filter out the impurities and point people in the right direction.

For this episode, I wanted to explore some philosophical arguments for God. As one might imagine, this is a colossal topic, so what I'm going to be attempting to do, as really I attempt to do in just about every episode, is to really just give you the cookies. I'm going to give you the briefest of flyovers and then hand to you what I believe to be the most persuasive as it relates to philosophical arguments for God.

To begin with, I want to say Christian philosophers and/or philosophers who happen to be Christian have a divide as to what method is either the most persuasive or even mandated. That is an entirely separate issue and I don't want to get you bogged down by it, but it's worth bringing up now because it will be relevant in the later portion of this episode.

Understanding that this episode is devoted to the arguments themselves, let's go ahead and start off with some. I'm going to give you several arguments for God, but leave you with what I believe to be the most persuasive and attempt to justify my position on that. The first argument I want to present to you is the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God, Kalam is spelled K-A-L-A-M. The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God could be summarized in its rudimentary parts as the following. 1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause 2. The universe began to exist 3. Therefore the universe has a cause Let me say that again.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause 2. The universe began to exist 3. Therefore the universe has a cause According to the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God, that cause is what we call God. William Lane Craig, who is a Christian philosopher and apologist, he's the one that's popularized this particular argument and has added his own nuance to it and it goes on to make the case that the cause of the universe is a personal God as opposed to an impersonal one and the rationale behind that gets a little bit more technical so I won't be going into that.

I do find, however, that this argument in its rudimentary parts is pretty compelling since everything we know of has a cause and in fact it's hard to think of anything as not having one. If we did think of anything, imaginary or not, as not having a cause, then at that point you really are delving into the realm of the eternal, aren't we?

To give you an analogy, if I were to concede that the Big Bang Theory of the universe is how the universe as we know it came to be and that prior to that, the actual Big Bang, there were gaseous material floating in space and that just existed, what existed prior to the Big Bang?

If you say, "Well, all the material that is necessary for life today," my next question then becomes, "Well, where did what was necessary for all of life today come from? What existed before that? What existed before space to come into being?" Even given all the preconditions for an atheistic universe, the answer I've always gotten is some form of, "Well, it always existed." And do you know what that sounds like?

That is just an AKA for "eternal." And that sounds pretty religious, doesn't it? But what choice does the atheist have? Again, I'm not assaulting the atheist, I'm stating logical conclusions. And don't get me wrong, I've heard other answers to explain away the concept of eternality from a materialistic standpoint, AKA "always existed," but it's never amounted to what I would categorize as a good answer.

If you are honest and unbiased, the atheist is left with blind faith. And I call it blind faith because there's no actual evidence that the material necessary for the universe has always existed, always existed being an AKA for "eternal." But even then, the atheistic universe needs to be dressed with religious garb.

In other words, for the Big Bang Theory to work, it needs to borrow capital from atheistic worldview. If you want to go deeper into the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God, I would point you towards William Lane Craig over at Reasonable Faith. The next philosophical argument for God that I found compelling is an age-old one that I've found to really have stood the test of time.

We've all heard this argument in some way, shape, or form. The technical term for it is the teleological argument for God, the teleological argument for God, AKA the argument from design. If you've read some form of this argument, it was probably from William Paley, and it was called the Watchmaker Argument, the Watchmaker Argument.

It goes something like the following. If you found a watch outside an isolated cornfield or some other remote part of the world, you would naturally assume that someone made that watch despite you finding it in a remote area, as opposed to the watch just naturally, spontaneously, and randomly coming together to form a watch over millions of years.

You wouldn't entertain the possibility of disorder to order. You wouldn't entertain the possibility of random metal pieces working as levers and pulleys to come together to form a designed unit that has a specific purpose that also accords with the sun and the moon. You would think to yourself that someone made that watch, and that person has the requisite level of intelligence to do so, and some other person in possession of said watch must have somehow dropped it where you found it, or that person is the same person.

Either way, there is creative and intelligent design behind that watch. The argument then from this looks at the vastness and complexity of the universe, and reasons from the same. The vastness and complexity of the universe. Using the vastness of the universe to illustrate this point, did you know that previous estimates used to put the number of galaxies in our universe at 200 billion?

Current estimates now put the number of galaxies in our universe at around 2 trillion. To give you a size comparison, our galaxy, the galaxy that we are currently in, the Milky Way, is about 100,000 light years in diameter, and we are in a relatively small galaxy. A light year is the distance light travels in a year.

So the Milky Way is 100,000 light years in diameter, we are in a relatively small galaxy, and there are about 2 trillion galaxies in our universe. Regarding complexity, let's just take a look at our solar system. In order for life to exist, the earth needs to rotate at a certain angle, must rotate at a certain speed, must be such and such a distance from the sun, the sun needs to radiate a certain amount of heat, or else we'll all die from heat, or we'll all just freeze to death, the moon and the other planets also need to be at such a distance to the earth, there are also certain physical constraints in our universe that needs to maintain their exactness, there's 23 of them, you couple this with the complex cellular machinery that is inherent in all living organisms, not just human beings, in all living organisms, and you begin to see a level of design completely outside human comprehension.

A watch might be complicated, but it certainly doesn't even come close to the level of complexity and power associated with the universe and all that is in it. If we look at a watch and say to ourselves, based on the design inherent in a watch, of course there was an intelligent being behind the creation of that watch, then why wouldn't the same thought process apply to the material universe?

Moreover you see this line of thinking echoed in the scriptures. Listen to Job 38, chapter 38, verses 4 through 12, Job 38, 4 through 12, it says this, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" This is God talking to Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me if you have understanding. Who set its measurements, since you know? Or who stretched the measuring line over it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone? When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who enclosed the sea with doors when it went out from the womb bursting forth?

When I made a cloud its garment and thick darkness its swaddling bands, and I placed boundaries on it and set up bolts and doors, and I said, 'As far as this point ye shall come, but no farther, and here your proud waves shall stop. Have you ever in your life commanded the morning and made the dawn know its place?'" That is God talking to Job in Job chapter 38, verses 4 through 12.

Consider also Romans chapter 1, 18 to 21, Romans chapter 1, 18 to 21, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them. For God made it evident to them.

For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened." From these passages, one can make a colorable argument that the teleological argument for God doesn't have its roots in human philosophy, but is also rooted in the scriptures themselves.

I want to move on to the last argument I'll be addressing, and this is the argument that I find the most persuasive. Although I find it the most persuasive, I also find it the most difficult to grasp, the most difficult to articulate, the most difficult to convey, and yet the most, in accordance with the scriptures, I find it to be the most powerful philosophically.

This argument is called the transcendental argument for God. The transcendental argument for God, it's known in other circles as presuppositionalism. One of the several reasons why I find this argument so persuasive, and I want to highlight is that it portrays and magnifies the absolute myth of ideological neutrality. The absolute myth of ideological neutrality.

I can't unpack that here because of time, and maybe I'll circle back around to it one day and do an episode solely devoted to that topic, but let me say it again. It portrays and magnifies the myth of ideological neutrality. We readily assume that when engaging in truth claims, when investigating truth claims, the fair way to go about investigating and dialoguing about such claims is that we take an unbiased approach and that unbiased approach must necessarily entail ideological neutrality.

Don't get me wrong. We should take an unbiased approach, but my point is that unbiased approach, that desire to take that approach, we think necessarily entails ideological neutrality. Once you dig deep enough into this topic, you begin to realize that ideological neutrality is impossible, not because I want it to be, but because it just is.

Hopefully after examining this argument, you'll have a better grasp of why. So let's do that right now. Going back to the transcendental argument for God, a form of it was arguably espoused first by Immanuel Kant, but the true substance of the argument was first formulated by Cornelius Van Til.

So some people will tell you that Immanuel Kant was the first one. I disagree. I'm not going to get into that. The first to formulate this in its substance, in my opinion, is Cornelius Van Til. It was then sharpened, popularized, and then elaborated by Dr. Greg Bonson. I will spend the rest of this episode trying my best to unpack this argument, while not getting bogged down with the details, but you're really going to have to put your thinking caps on.

The payoff, in my opinion, is worth it. The transcendental argument for God states the following. We can prove the existence of God from the impossibility of the contrary. We can prove the existence of God from the impossibility of the contrary. We can prove the existence of God from the impossibility of the contrary.

The transcendental proof for God's existence is that without Him, it is impossible to prove anything. The transcendental proof for God's existence is that without Him, it is impossible to prove anything. The problem is, if we're going to speak about the proof of the existence of God because of the impossibility of the contrary, that calls into question the very nature of the evidence that is going to be proposed to show such impossibility.

To illustrate this, I'm going to be speaking from three key areas, addressing three key areas, and those three key areas are the uniformity of science, the universal laws of logic, objective morality. The uniformity of science, the universal laws of logic, objective morality. Here's an example of what I mean by that.

If I were to tell you that my car is outside and you don't believe me, then in response to that, what could I say? What could I do to prove it to you? What do you think will resolve our question, our dilemma? You just go outside to verify whether or not my car is parked on your grass, right?

It's observational. A car is a material object observable by the naked eye, so if you have a genuine question about whether or not my statement is true that, "Hey, my car is parked on your grass," all you do is get up and go and look at your grass and see whether or not my car is there.

However, if we're going to prove the existence of gravity, we don't prove gravity the same way we prove whether or not my car is parked on your grass. What if the question were the following? Is murdering all people, no matter what, when they turn 8 years old, objectively wrong?

What if that were the question as opposed to gravity or my car being parked on your grass? Is murdering all people, no matter what, when they turn 8 years old, objectively wrong? We don't address every single question in the same way we address whether or not my car is parked on your grass.

How about this question? Is the Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh a beautiful painting? Are the acoustics in the Hagia Sophia mesmerizing? Again, you wouldn't go about answering these questions in the same way you would go about answering whether or not my car is parked on your grass. The reason you don't is because different questions naturally call for a different set of criteria to answer those questions.

You don't say the Starry Night is a beautiful painting merely because you see it. You don't say the acoustics in the Hagia Sophia are great merely because you hear it. If any of you listening are familiar with philosophy, we are now beginning to delve into the realm of epistemology and metaphysics.

If you don't know what those words mean, don't worry about it. That's okay. I'm going to try to break down what I'm saying into very small pieces. They're fancy words, but don't be fearful of fancy words. If we are then going to engage in a debate about the existence of God, the factual criteria that is going to be employed to have such a discussion is crucial and yes, even foundational to our discussion.

Undoubtedly, we're going to agree that the use of logic and reason is going to be paramount to having such a discussion and engaging in such an inquiry. Here's the thing though, why does the atheist or other non-Christian theist get to presuppose the universal laws of logic? Why do they get to presuppose that?

Now that might seem like a silly question to the vast majority of laymen out there. However, this is a righteously investigated question by those in the philosophy community, especially those who focus on the nature of logic. The reason being is this, if in the eyes of the materialist, the only thing that is real is what you see with your eyes and everything that exists went from a state of disorder to order, then why are laws of logic universal?

How do you know what they are? How do you know they don't change and stay constant? For the Christian, the reasoning is simple. Our God is a God of order and the universal laws of logic reflect who he is. This is his world. He created it. The universal laws of logic reflect him.

Again, this goes to my earlier point that the existence of God is proven by the impossibility of the contrary. For the atheist and the other non-Judeo-Christian theist, how do you prove the universal laws of logic? You need another vehicle to resolve this dialectical inquiry. You are forced to presuppose that the laws of logic exist and are universal and/or that the laws of logic prove that the laws of logic should be used.

But you see, that's a real dilemma here because you've now engaged in circular reasoning without providing any justification for such. It's not that the circular reasoning in itself is inherently wrongful because you need a mechanism to delineate that, but my point is you haven't provided any justification for such circular reasoning to be accepted for the Christian.

In the Judeo-Christian worldview, the universal laws of logic exist because it reflects who God is. If you were to dig deeper into the atheistic philosophy community or even the non-Christian theistic philosophy community, they acknowledge they have real problems here. To give you further proof of this, if you wikipedia "law of non-contradiction" and you scroll near the bottom of the page under "alleged impossibility of its proof or denial," you'll see that the first sentence reads, "As is true of all axioms of logic, the law of non-contradiction is alleged to be neither verifiable nor falsifiable on the grounds that any proof or disproof must use the law itself prior to reaching the conclusion.

In other words, in order to verify or falsify the laws of logic, one must resort to logic as a weapon, an act which would essentially be self-defeating." I understand that wikipedia is not an authoritative source, but I'm trying to show you that what I'm stating isn't some controversy I just made up.

But it's a real pickle for those who have thought deeply about the universal laws of logic. If you were to click on the source supporting that portion of the wikipedia article on the law of non-contradiction, it takes you to a paper written by a philosopher named S. Mark Cohen entitled "Aristotle on the Principle of Non-Contradiction." My point being again that if philosophers see that all axioms of logic are neither verifiable nor falsifiable because in order to prove them, you have to use them, then they must be presupposed.

The presuppositional argument isn't some weird Christian invention, it's a confessed observation by those who are not ashamed to omit what is right in front of them. To those who are not ashamed to just follow the evidence and see where it takes them. And it is completely consistent with the triune God of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

To quote a couple verses here to elucidate this thought, let me read to you firstly Isaiah 118. "Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool." Reason together.

God is calling one to reason because we have the capacity to reason. We have the capacity to reason because every human being that has ever lived was made in the image of God. Listen to Romans 2 14-15, "For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them." Here Paul is telling us that there is something inherent within the makeup of mankind that bears witness using the dialogue of accusation and permission.

Intrinsic in this interplay is reason, which is consistent with Isaiah 118. Furthermore, in 1 Corinthians 14-33 Paul writes, "For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace." God is not haphazard, without composure, and just all over the place. Paul goes on to state in verse 40, "But all things must be done properly and in an orderly way." Paul is stating this because it reflects how God desires worship to be done, and people benefit more when things are done in an orderly way, in particular when worship is done in an orderly manner, again reflecting on God's nature.

You see the inherent quality of objective reason in God's prescriptions and directives. This is not just something I'm making up pie in the sky by and by. You can't say that the material universe is all there is, and then turn around and say, "Well, there's this abstract entity that's universal, and we can't see it, but it also exists." That's the very opposite of the material universe you just espoused.

Some will then say, "Well, the laws of logic are agreed upon conventionally, but the problem is we all know that the laws of logic are objectively real, they're universal, they're not conventional, because then they would change and they wouldn't be constant. They don't exist because they're popular." Others will say that they are merely thoughts that all men share.

The problem with that is that the laws of logic are rooted in reality. They're not some illusion that we all see. We can't even agree whether or not the dress is blue or gold. So we see and we use the universal laws of logic, not only in everyday life, but to make cars, to make trains, to make planes, and those cars get us to point A to B.

Those trains take us along the coast, and those planes fly us all around the world. What you have to understand is that the Bible claims that God is not only the God of those who believe, but rather, he created everything that we see, and it reflects, reality does, it reflects who he is.

God made this world, this is his reality, and when we go against his reality, it has a way of snapping back at us. That is true not only for the Christian, but for everyone, and for anyone who has ever lived. Let me illustrate this point because I know it's hard to grasp.

An example of this would be gravity. Try not believing in gravity. It's not something you can see, but try not believing in gravity. Try jumping off of a story. You won't get very far. Again, science is uniform, and it behaves with a high degree of certainty, and the Christian understands this because this reflects who God is.

Science is able to progress for these reasons. The great philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn, K-U-H-N, understood this, and to the extent that it matters, I don't think he was a Christian. Christians have no problem presupposing this, and contrary to popular perception, it is not anti-intellectual to presuppose such notions because the existence of all things, including this conversation, is proven by the impossibility of the contrary, namely, a universe that exists without the Christian God.

Revelation is greater than reason precisely because reason is born out of revelation. Understanding worldview claims, then, when examined at their roots, have their conflicts resolved by perceiving the impossibility of the contrary. My point is maybe still hard to grasp, and so I'm going to try to bring it together with this last example because I think what we're talking about here, we don't really grapple with it as much, but then when we do grapple with this next example, it is something we deal with routinely, and that is objective morality.

We might not routinely deal with, in an abstract level, the universal laws of logic and the uniformity of science, but we routinely deal with the objectivity of morality. There are things, there are some things, that are always wrong, even when an entire culture, even when the entire world says differently.

Is that not true? Don't we agree that morality is objective? There are certain crimes, certain conduct, if I were to articulate, even if the whole world agreed it's not wrong, because morality is objective, we would agree that it's wrong. If everyone in the entire world got together and made a statement declaring that all eight-year-olds, regardless of any other factor, should be put to death, again, not based on anything they did or said, but merely because they are eight-years-old, even if the entire world said that's okay, we would say that it is still wrong.

We would agree that morality is not based on convention. If you disagree, that's fine, but you're saying, whether you like it or not, that morality is based on convention, then by logical implication, Nazi Germany was fine, Pol Pot was fine, Kim Il-sung was fine, Mussolini was fine, Stalin and Lenin were good dudes, but nobody would say that.

Nobody would say that. Does nobody say that because morality is based on convention, or is there something we see to one degree or another that speaks to us in our conscience and tells us that morality is not subjective and based on convention? It is objective, it is fixed, it is constant.

We might disagree on the perception of it, but wouldn't it be correct to say that morality is objective and we should be doing our best to ascertain what it is, rather than meting it out for ourselves? For the Christian, to define morality as objective is simple. Morality is a reflection of the Judeo-Christian God.

Morality is a reflection of who God is. That's why it is objective, fixed, and constant. It is immaterial. We can't see it, but it is still objective. It is still there. And all the convention in the world, the entire world, all of mankind agreeing that it is something else wouldn't change it.

Everybody has inherent value because everybody is made in the image of God and nothing we could do could change that. So even if the whole world says murdering 8 year olds is good, it is not good because morality isn't based upon convention, popular opinion, or other subjective changing whims.

It is based on God who never changes and who has absolute authority. And we live in his world, this is his reality, and when you violate this objective morality, it inevitably has a way of snapping back at you. It might not happen as swiftly as gravity, but it will inevitably happen.

Try sleeping with a married man's wife and see what happens. Try committing to a life of stealing and see what happens. Try lying to everyone anytime you want to get out of a sticky situation and see what happens. You will feel the effects of it at some point and maybe even right away.

You cannot see morality, but it is still objective. It is a reflection of who God is. Just like the laws of logic. You don't see it, but you know that they are universal. And when you apply the universal laws of logic, it corresponds to reality. Science is uniform. Science is uniform because God created the universe, this is his reality, and he fashioned it as such.

I want to do a quick segue here regarding the so-called problem of evil because it's got to be addressed, it's an issue that many people have with respect to the existence of God. I'm going to say this, when you say there is evil in the world, and what you're saying is that there is also good.

When you say there is evil, you are saying there is also good. Because you need some sort of basis to differentiate between good and evil. Therefore, when you say there is evil, you are saying there is a moral law. Because there is some type of moral law to differentiate between good and evil.

If there is a moral law, then there is a moral law giver. But once you say there is evil, you just proved the very thing you are trying to disprove. Evil is not resolved by discounting God. The existence and problem of evil only proves the existence of God, and any logical answer with respect to the problem of evil may only be resolved with the existence of God and not by his absence.

So if this is indeed the case, the point to be made here is that the transcendental argument for God proves the existence of God by the impossibility of the contrary. Without God, we don't have uniformity of nature, uniformity of science, the universal laws of logic, or objective morality. Outside of the Judeo-Christian God, we cannot account for this conversation.

I want to keep illustrating this. If the Big Bang Theory is true, and the universe somehow existed in complete chaos, then what would follow is that we go from disorder to order, not uniformity. Laws of logic wouldn't be universal. They'd be conventional. They'd always be changing. The atheistic universe cannot account for a universe where the immaterial laws of logic apply everywhere in the same way on the same plane of thought.

It certainly doesn't account for objective morality. You don't see a council of monkeys ordering civilization against cannibalism. Some monkeys just eat other monkeys, and for further development of that, just see episode 3. The transcendental argument for God rightly hits you in all the right places, and that is the very foundation of all that we know and see.

To merely assume objectivity in immaterial space, when you claim to only believe in the material, is disingenuous, arbitrary, and unfounded. The atheist must admit that he is being religious, and he's taking quite on faith the immaterial universe that he is so vehemently trying to deny, or else just admit that the laws of logic are not universal, they might not exist, they might be just convention, there are thought patterns within our head, that morality is not objective, so might makes right, and you cannot logically decry some of the greatest injustices that have occurred throughout history.

David Hume's skepticism of science wherein he states that there is no rational basis for expecting the future to be like the past, in which case science is based simply on convention, or if you will, habits of thought. Admit that David Hume was right. Admit that Thomas Kuhn was right.

And these men were not Christians, David Hume, Thomas Kuhn, they were not, as far as I know, they were not Christians, but were honest philosophers who saw the implications of a purely materialistic universe. But for the person who takes the Bible as the word of God, there is open to that person an extraordinary amount of evidence that even certifies that person's belief, that bolsters it.

That person reads in the scriptures that God is kind to all, even to those that do not believe, that he sends the sun and the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, that he gives common grace to all, that he created the world with a certain objective reality that we see.

Individuals learn about societies that try and repel against this moral reality, and they see what happens when they do. That he fashioned the universe in a way that is consistent with who he is, as God himself claims to be a God of order. Moreover, we see that God at times either suspended or intervened in his own creation the natural laws that we see to demonstrate his power and his kindness.

Jesus of Nazareth showed a sampling of this suspension to demonstrate his own claims to deity, and we go through this reality experiencing the profitability that comes with obeying him, whether it's through the realm of science, logic, or morality. To drive the point home again, it is only the Judeo-Christian God that has shown himself to be this way, and that is why the transcendental argument for God only works for the triune God of the scriptures.

It is not merely a theistic argument. The triune God of the scriptures is a different God from every other religious text. The existence of God is proven by the impossibility of the contrary. First Corinthians chapter 1, 18-20 states it like this, "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God, for it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.' And the understanding of those who have understanding I will confound." Where is the wise person?

Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world? Thanks for making it to the end. I'll continue to try to make the journey worth it. To Him be honor, glory, and eternal dominion. Amen. (upbeat music)