FOR AND AGAINST GOD’S EXISTENCE

A Cyrilsophy

Introduction: Avoiding the extreme 

Detaining in our mind, how we would be counter-productive in the long run (not very helpful in the short run either) to advocate the extreme approaches of either blind faith (fideism) or “pure reason” (exaggerated rationalism) in matters religious. Thence, we came to the conclusion that something of middle way between the two would be most appropriate and we have described that as the path of “reasonable risk”. In other words, in establishing God’s existence (as in any ascertaining the authenticity of any interpersonal relationship) we can expect to do no better than indicate sufficient grounds for taking a reasonable risk that what we believe in is real and true and not just a figment of our imagination and pure wishful thinking. There is some evidence, yes; but it is not absolutely conclusive “beyond-any-shadow-of doubt” such a way of proceeding then, by that same token, to be consistent will have to reject also very possibility of falling in love or having a friend: only “reasonable risk” can justify those interpersonal commitments! All commitments presuppose faith and all faith is based on reasonable risk. 

1. Belief “that” and Belief “in”

That last remark necessitates my bringing in the famous distinction between belief in and belief that which, as we shall see, helps throw a lot of light on the relationship between faith and reason. Though in common, everyday speech we use the two phrases as if they had the same connotations yet, philosophically speaking, perhaps it would be helpful to distinguish carefully between their implications. Take the statement, “I believe that the Taj Mahal between exists.” The fact that I say, “I believe…” in this case, and not “I know…” in this case, and not “I know…” of its existence indirectly, through reports of trustworthy people who’ ve been their or from photographs or videos and films. In fact that is precisely the connotation of, “I believe that…” A belief that is a matter of accepting that such and such is the case or that someone exists (e.g. “I believe that Elisabeth II is the queen of England) but a belief in… expresses much more (eg. I say to a friend, “i believe in you!”): trust, personal commitment, love-all of which are missing in a strict “belief that”. Strictly speaking, if we reflect on it a bit, we can only speak of belief in with regard to people whom we love. When people ask us questions like, “Do you believe in God/ the devil/ ghosts?” What they actually mean is, “Do believe that God/ the devil/ ghosts exist?”

2. Proofs and belief that 

Now, a rational proof for God’s existence (whatever be its validity) like a rational proof for anything’s existence- can only give us “belief that”, never belief in. That is to say, rational proofs can, at best, convince us that such and such is the case or that something or someone exists. It can never lead us to trust in, or love someone. A valid proof for God’s existence might elicit from someone a remark like, OK. So this God you talk so much about exists. Fine, so does the Taj Mahal. Both don’t move me to action or have any impact on my life. It’s not enough to “believe that” God exists. Authentic religion begins where belief that leaves off: authentic religion is founded on trust in God, love of God…. Belief in….. and rational proofs cannot give us that.

This is not to say that rational proofs have no use or value at in religion and faith. They help deepen ones convictions and, in their absence, ones faith would be easily shaken (if not lost) in moments of adversity or doubt. Besides rational proofs (base on reasonable risk) would show to another that my faith in God has some basis and it not a kind of infantile blind belief, like a child’s faith in fairies or Santa claus. 

3. Hermeneutics 

Hermeneutics is a fairly new word for something that we’ve all been doing, though not very consciously. Hermeneutics traces its etymology to the Greek god Hermes. Who was supposed to have taught humans how to speak. Significantly enough, he was also the god of lies and deceit. This implies an ancient insight into the fact that language can be equally used to falsely conceal, or truthfully reveal, our thoughts and dispositions. Hence arises the need to interpret and for practical purposes, we, might define hermeneutics, at his stage, as the science and art of hermeneutics. We do hermeneutics several times a day: when we read a letter, scan the newspapers or engage in conversation or study someone’s body language. It is not only done by theologians when they busy themselves with scripture study and interpretation, or with students of literature when they try to figure out that poet or dramatist was trying to say through his/her creative work.

What I want to stress at this point is that much of our so-called rational proofs (whether they concern God’s existence, life after death… whether x is in love with me or not) are not so much rational proofs but interpretations of what we observe. thus, for instance, the atheist and the theist both live in the same world and are confronted with the same factual data. Their difference of conviction arises from how they interpret the same facts. Both, for instance, see and note the horrifying fact of injustice, evil and the suffering of the innocent (side by side with the prospering of the corrupt). The atheist interprets this fact as a proof that God doesn’t exist: “ I can’t believe in a God who would allow innocent children to suffer!” Declared French existentialist, Albert Camus (1913-1961). The theist re-interprets the same fact in another way, say, in the light of the cross, if he/she is a Christian: suffering is our sharing in God’s struggle to liberate the world, as contemporary liberation thinker Gustavo Guttierez would say. 

Summing up

Before we pass on to reviewing the more well-known arguments for and against God’s existence, let us sum up the main points I have tried to make so far. First, I would say that there is not cogent, decisive and conclusive evidence in favour of either theism or atheism; there is sufficient data, however, in favour of either theism or atheism; there is sufficient data however, to make a reasonably good case either way! secondly, hermeneutics, rather than rational proofs is the ultimate deciding factor. And, thirdly, rational proofs are useful up to a point. They help to confirm my already established conviction that God exists (based, as I have tried to show, on my standing of God’s existence). They further enable me to show to an agnostic that my faith in God is, at least, reasonable-unlike a child’s naive belief in the tooth fairy, say. But any proof- however valid- has its belief in. And in the last analysis, it is “belief in” that ultimately matters in religion. With all these provisos, we now take up the (rational) grounds for and against belief in God. After that we will have something to say about leading a person from belief that to belief in.

4.  Arguments for God’s Existence 

4.1 The Ontological Argument

This deft bit of reasoning was first proposed by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), later canonised by the Catholic Church. Her presented it in his famous Proslogion (Chp 2-4). It was taken up by Descartes and Leibniz (Seventeenth Century Rationalists), with a few modifications. It was Kant (1724-1804) who nick named it the “ontological” argument, because it started from a certain way of conceiving the notion of being. Like the pious bishop that he was, Anselm began his proof with a quotation from the Bible, the book of psalms, to be precise: The fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God.” (14:1). He then proceeds to show why the psalmist is justified in calling the Atheist a fool. His reasoning is that an atheist is a fool because he contradicts himself when he denied God’s existence: he contradicts himself because the very fact that he is able to form the concept of God obliges him to grant God’s existence. In other words, the very concept of God implies God’s existence.

The Atheist, when he denies God’s existence, surely knows what is meant by the word, “God”- if he doesn’t even know what it means, how could he assert that no reality corresponding to it existed? So, he grants the concept of God, at least. Now what does this concept meant? Surely “a being than which nothing greater can be taught”. Once Atheist agree with this definition (which is just about what every dictionary gives as the meaning of the word viz., “supreme being”, infinite being etc), then, according to Anselm, he is “had”! For such a being would have to exist: if it did not, then it wouldn’t be the being than which nothing greater can exist, for anything that exists- even a speck of dust- would be greater than God, for inasmuch as it existed it would be superior to God, who did not exist! Putting it in a slightly different fashion, once could say that, by God, is meant a being who has all perfections. But this would mean that God must have existence, as existence is also a perfection, one could say that, by God, is meant a being who has all perfections. But this would mean that God must have existence, as existence is also a perfection. thus, once you grant the concept of God, you are obliged to grant his existence.  

However, one of the first to leap into the fray was Gaunilon, a monk of Marmoutiers in France and Anselm’s contemporary, who felt that the English that was giving the Atheist a raw deal. In his on Behalf of the fool, he argued that were we to accept the Proslogion proof, all manner of absurdities would follow for, in the same way, the mere fact that one could form  the concept of most perfect Island (or, to use a more modern example, that of a stair way to the stars), we would have to grant their existence; but Anselm retorted and rightly! That Gaunilon had missed the point, only the concept of most perfect being (i.e, one that is perfect from the aspect of being that is, all round perfect) implies its existence. The most perfect island concept is mot perfect from the aspect of island only, not being. So the absurdities do not follow. And as we have said, Anselm was right. It was left to Immanuel Kant to point out the real flaw in Anselm’s argument. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) would repeat and develop the same objection the light of his personal views. It boils down to the fact that Anselm has erroneously treated existence as if it were part of “what a being is” (its essence). Now the concept tells us precisely what something is therefore, it contains only its “whatness”. But existence is not something like that. It doesn’t add to what a thing is: rather it tells us that a thing is. Hence, the concept of anything (even of the most perfect being) does not-cannot-pre-contain its existence! 

The proof doesn’t really hold water. At most it is a help to a better understanding of God. Such is the view of the Swiss protestant theologian Kar Barth (1886-1968)

4.2 The Cosmological Arguments

There are more than two attempts to prove God’s existence, starting with some observed aspect of the world (Greek, kosmos). Their most forceful presentation is the versi of Thomas Aquinas (1224-1275) an Italian monk who was also canonised late. They are to be found among his celebrated “five ways to prove God’s existence” in his epochal Summa Theologiae (Summary of Theology) 1,2,3. He did not invent any of these ways: they had already been used by Aristotle, Plato and others before him. One of more of these arguments, indeed, are to be found in just about every nation and culture, since classical times. Aquinas’ merit was in the way he marshalled them into form. They all take, as their major premiss (to use the terminology of Aristotelian logic, which they fall back upon) some form of the famous “principle of causality”. The minor premiss is some observed fact in the world. Then after rejecting “infinite regress” they arrive at the existence of God who is discovered under the name most appropriately following from the thrust of the argument. The important difference between Aquinas’ approach as contrasted with Anselm’s is that the former starts with some concrete observed data, taken from the actual world, and not a concept, as in Anselm’s method!

Here we will consider only the first, second and third ways:

Form-1 Whatever moves or changes is moved by another. This is the major premiss of the argument (Note: In Latin, movetur can refer to change in general, not just local change or movement: hence we use both words in translation). Now, it is certain that in this world, at least something do change. But there can’t be an endless regress of changing things and changers. Hence there must be some first unchanged changer, which is also translated as unmoved mover. And this is  but another name for God.

Form- 2 whatever happens in the world requires a cause. This is the major premiss, an alternative form of the “principle  of causality” as was expressed above. Now it is certain that some things do happen in this world and their cannot be an infinite regress of causes which, in turn, were caused by other causes. Hence there must be a first uncaused cause, ti start the whole process. And this is but another name for God.

Form-3 Contingent beings presuppose a necessary being. This is a third variation of the principle of causality. As regards the terminology: a “contingent” being is a being which exists but doesn’t doesn’t have to exist; a necessary being is one which exists and cannot not-exists. The minor as is to be expected asserts that “it is certain that there are contingent beings in this world” and cities “generation and corruption as indications of this (viz. the fact of things coming into being and, after some time, perishing). Hence, there must be some first necessary being to get the process going.

However the objection to its argument was not well taken by certain philosophers among which David Hume was one. In the first place, all these “proofs” assume the validity of the famous principle of causality- something which everybody in Aquinas time was quite ready to grant… but, David Hume (177-1776), the Scottish empiricist, who vaunted his universal scepticism, quite satisfyingly showed that it cannot simply be taken for granted. Thus the major premiss or foundation of the whole argument collapses. Furthermore, the ruling out of infinite regress is not so straightway justifiable as even Aquinas noted for it boils down to saying that if we refuse to reject it, then the world would be a mere unintelligible brute fact- but this is precisely what the sceptic holds.  

4.4 The Teleological Argument

This is the argument found in most poplar text books, as it is quite easy to understand and appears to base itself on scientific discovery. Plato uses it in his Timaeus and Aquinas presents it as his fifth way. The scientist-philosopher Kant, though he had his reservations about it, felt constrained to hail it as the oldest, the clearest and the most accordant with the common reason of mankind. 

Order requires a wise order. This major is, once again, a restatement of the principle of causality. It is based on the presupposition  that mere chance can’t explain order and regularity. The minor points out to the fact that there is a natural order in the world- the various laws of nature that science is ever discovering, both at the microscopic and the macroscopic level. Hence the conclusion: there must be an ultimate wider orderer and that is what we mean by God. 

However, the objection to above argument is, apart from the fact that his argument also hands from the shaky nail of the principle of causality, there are other difficulties. As Hume, himself observed, it is inevitable that the universe appear to be the result of intelligent design. But the fact of accommodation and adaptation, on which evolution is based, can afford us another explanation for order. As John Hick, the Anglican Priest and thinker remarks:

“To refer back to the ozone layer, the reason animal life on earth is so marvellously sheltered by this filtering arrangement is not that God created the animals first and then put the ozone layer was there first, and only those forms of life capable of existing in the layer have developed on earth”

4.4 The Moral Argument

Among its more well-known exponents may be ranked Immanuel Kant as also the English Anglican clergyman who later became a Catholic, a Cardinal and whose cause is currently being discussed for canonisation, John Henry Newman (1801-1890). The tone of his argument is more representative of various versions of it had we come across in contemporary religious apologates. Here is a relevant extract from his monumental Grammar of Assent:

If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed, are frightened, at the transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies that there is one to whom we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear… if the cause of these emotions do not belong to this visible world, the object to which (the conscientious person’s) perception is directed must be supernatural and Divine. 

The objection is, among these, the most significant is the suggestion that there may be alternative explanations for “the voice of conscience” , namely human needs, self-interest and society. One cannot rule these out a priori: that would be begging the question. On the other hand, it could be pointed out that, as many of us have observed, the “inner voice” very often goes against their very alternatives, so can’t be so simplistically identified with them. Sociologists and psychologists of an agnostic or atheistic stance would bot be convinced by this rejoinder and the discussion would then move onto intricate aspects of depth psychology and the unconscious. 

4.5 The Religious experiences Argument

The most forceful presentation of this approach is that of Bergson or James, to whom I have alluded above. A more recent case is that of Andre Frossard, a former agnostic who, in his God Exist: I have Met Him tells how this France journalist, working for Figaro, experienced a sudden conversion to Catholicism, the decisive moment in this being a strange, irresistible urge that he felt to enter a quiet chapel as he was passing by. There is also the story of the erstwhile persecutor of Christians, Saul, who, after his Damascus experience became an ardent Christian apostle and missionary! 

However one cannot discount the power of such experiences for those who have had them; the problem is trying to convince one who has not had such an experience. David Hume, in his essay on Miracles: An inquiry concerning Human Understanding, notes that one could either deny outright the veracity of such reports or attempt alternative explanations, such as telepathy, hallucinations and the like.  Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) the English thinker and agnostic remarked, tongue in check, that a man who says that God spoke to him in a dream is but a man who has dreamt! Bergson and James, we have seen, assert that the great chorus of witnesses cannot be so easily written off. A good many of them, as was mentioned, can be shown to be people of great moral worth (hence whose veracity can’t be very reasonably questioned) and the general thrust of their very active lives would render charges of hallucination and so on very unlikely. Still the dissenter might end up saying that until a similar experience happened to him/her, he/s would withhold any religious belief or commitment!

4.6 The greater probability Argument

This is the approach favour by many contemporary philosophers of religion. The approach is to take off from a combination of factors, a wider ranger of data than the exclusively teleological or moral and conclude that a theistic or religious worldview is the most reasonable explanation of all these facts. Such a view was espoused by FR Tennant in his two volume opus, Philosophical Theology. Since then many others have emulated and improved upon his method.

A very wide range of relevant data is collected and serves as the starting point for this approach- the teleological character of biological evolution as also the whole wealth of human religious, moral, aesthetic and cognitive experience. An effort is made to show how each of these, independently seems to be pointing towards a supernatural source. Even if one were to say that each separate “pointer” is not a conclusive enough, surely the accumulated evidence of each pointing individually towards the same point would suggest that belief in God would be the most probable worldview wherein to find satisfactory explanation of the listed phenomena. All this is very true but it cannot be denied that the religious conviction that one has sought to vindicate by this approach is based on “greater probability” but by that same token one would have to admit that an atheistic stance is also a viable “reasonable risk” or at leat in the dissenter’s view, perhaps as probable and explanation! 

5. Argument Against God’s Existence

5.1 The Sociological Objection

Emile Durkheim who in his, The Elementary Forms of Religious Experience (1912) typifies, and is the best argued example of the views of his school of nascent sociology. 

Durkheim held that all religion is nothing more than a disguised form of social controls, “the gods were the people considered symbolically” and all this was supposed to be borne out by totemism, which he saw as the most basic steps, updated, here and there, some of his insights but generally kept the basic thrust of his argument.

Once again, we review the main points made above. First it is difficult to explain how the universal reach of a religiously formed conscience could transcend the boundaries of a closed tribal group and attain anything like the universal love of the more open religious community. Nor is it possible to explain how the moral creativity of the prophetic mind developed: how could they have found, once again, within the confines of closed tribal society the insight to make such far-reaching claims on our ethical life? Nor can we account for the socially detaching power of their conscience for prophetic figures have often gone against the norms of this, if we want to explain God as the same society in disguise? 

The sociological theory doesn’t conclusively prove that there is no God!

5.2 The psychological Objection

Freud had sought to show that the whole idea of god and religion is nothing but a kind of mental defence against threats, real or imagined. He dismissed religious beliefs as illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest and most insistent wishes of mankind. We have also outlined the objections developed by two of his more recent disciples, Makarius and Girard. Freudians agree that “religion is the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity,” as their founding father put it. In Totem and Taboo he brought in the idea of the oedipus Complex to explain the emotional intensity, the sense of guilt and the believers’ sense of moral obligation to obey the alleged behest of the deity: it was all the result of the “primal horde’s crime of having slain (and probably eaten) their father, after having seen him as a rival for their mother’s love. What masquerades as “religion” is nothing more than the sense of guilt and consequent obligation felt to their slain father.

These focus on the simplistic and generalised conclusions that Freud came to, drawing a bit too uncritically from the questionable assertions of early evolutionists, like Darwin and Robertson-Smith. Even contemporary Freudian recognise that his Oedipus complex theory was too hastily extrapolated by him to other cultural contexts. Finally, there has been a lot of rash over-generalisation by Freud from the behaviour of his neurotic and psychotic patients.

Religion is a curious mixture or positive and negative elements of healthy and unhealthy factors. Though wish-fulfilment, escapism and other regrettable ingredients are admittedly found there, we cannot dismiss all religion as “only that and nothing more”! As Bergson has pointed out, there are many psychologically sound believers. Still, religiously inclined people can make good use of Freud’s insights and findings to purify their understanding of God and religion. So, the final verdict, after having reacted to the psychological attempts to disprove God’s existence can only be “not proven”!

5.3 The Scientific Objection

This objection, for quite some time, had been gathering momentum with the tremendous advance and development of science in recent times. It was inevitable that his should have some impact on religion. However, with the advent of postmodernism and the realisation that scientific truths are not the smugly absolute, certain and universal as was once believed, the whole force of this argument has been blunted.

Religion, so the argument goes, is nothing but a cloak for human ignorance. Thus primitives, who had no knowledge of medicine or the physical sciences, felt constrained to postulate gods and spirits to explain many phenomena the science can account for. With the coming of the Renaissance in the fifteenth century and the information explosion in many spheres, especially astronomy, zoology, chemistry and physics it seemed that many issues which churchmen had long thought was their exclusive sphere of control suddenly were explained (if not explained away) by people qualified in other disciplines! There were clashes between scientists and Judaeo-Christian leaders (Heliocentrism evolution) but it was invariably science that was proven right. All this has led many to wonder whether religion is but a “harmless private phantasy” devoid of any real truth in any meaningful sense of the term. The argument seems to be compounded with the development of artificial intelligence (apparently dethroning the unique claim of humans to some kind of spiritual supremacy over the rest of creation) not to mention cloning.

It is true that religion has had to back down in many science versus religion controversies and has learnt to recognise that the Bible (and other revealed scriptures), if they do contain God’s revelation, have clothed it in the imperfect stages of scientific development that they have reached at the time. Of course, there are some “blind fundamentalist” who persist in asserting that everything in the scripture is literally true and must be belief so. The are embarrassment to forward- looking believers and often indulge in fanatic, if not downright, terrorist antics which bring discredit on religion in general and their religion in particular. However, if one is convinced that belief in God is tied to the cultural presupposition of a non-scientific age, then once these have been shown to be invalid, ones believe in God would collapse. But what if-as the latest developments in theology and scriptural study seem to bear out- what if God created an evolutionary world in which humans were allotted sufficient autonomy to relate freely to the divine, gradually and by pen-sticking research, slowly begin to make sense of their world and the cosmos- and in the light of this latter development,  begin to grow in their understanding of God’s word? Scientific progress would be seen as part of the responsibility granted human and, against which background they must learn to grow into all-round mature adults, which includes the religious sphere.

Whether one sees scientific progress as a thread or contradiction to religious faith depends on how ones views both science and religion as well as how ones views their interrelationship. Thus scientific progress presents no real contradiction to religious faith.

5.3 The Fact of Evil and Wickedness

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to belief in God, since time immemorial has been the horrendous fact of the suffering of the innocent no fault of their own. How can there be and all-good and all-powerful God as all the theistic religions, at least claim their is- when the world is in such a mess? Apart from the fact of man-mad ills (rape, murder and so on, the result of human free choice), which we could call, “wickedness”, there are also other awful events that bring a swathe of suffering and devastation in their wake- earthquakes, tidal waves, cyclones and epidemics- for which assuredly no human agency can be brought to book: we could reserve the name evil for such.

Perhaps the most direct and poignant expression of this objection is found in the words of the third century Roam thinkers, Iactantius, who phrased it thus:

God either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able and unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able or He is both willing and able. If he is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore is not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source, then, are evils? Or why does He not remove them?

Nearer to our time, David Hume, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Reason, took up the objection in grater detail. More to his merits is the part of his treatise where he (in my opinion, quite successfully) show that the principle of causality, upon which most proof for God’s existence depend, needs to be demonstrated and is not a self-evidence truth.

The mystery of evil and wickedness ranks as no mean difficulty in the path to belief in God and theistic religion are very much aware of this, believing, as they do, in an infinity and loving and absolutely powerful God. Various attempts have been made by them to come to grips with the issues.

5.3.1 Dualistic responses

This solution consist in seeing two rival ultimate powers in conflict, in effect, a “good God” and “a bad God”: All evil is the work of the evil god ( and his henchmen); all god is initiated by the good god and his angels and human followers. however, this solution but appears to solve on problem by creating another. It is evident that neither of the tow protagonist is the ultimate being, each is somehow limited by the other’s presence and activity. Hence, neither of them can explain how the came to be; in ancient times, the Manichees (condemned as heresy by early Christianity) taught such a view. In our own days, the parsee religion, still alive in India today, whose prophet Zarathustra is said to have lived in the second millennium B.C. would seem to be a remnant of the faith, but in a much more advanced and developed stage.   

5.3.2 Contemporary Christian Science

This view holds that evil is but an illusion of the human mind. I cannot but react strongly against this kind of answer and quality it has a kind of feelingless response one can expect from people who have never known real prolonged pain and misery. Granted, some of our pain are psychological and there are psycho-somatic illnesses which can be cured by mental power. But his is the kind o response one can expect from first world academics who have never had to know, from inside, the agonise of one wasting away from concern or AIDS, or experience racial or ethnic discrimination. Besides, it is not clear how this group can arrogate to itself the name christian as the New Testament does not make any effort to underplay the harsh and ugly face of evil and presents Jesus as the victim of unjust cruelty, a veritable suffering servant of God.

5.3.3 The Augustinian and Irenean Approaches

Augustine (354-430) and Irenaeus (140-202) were both early christian leaders who played an influential role in the formation of Christian thought. Both were canonised not long after their death and both busied themselves with trying to respond to the objection on against God’s existence from the point of view of the evil in the world. Augustine’s view, which is better known, was elaborated against a static world-view (the notion that God created a non-evolutionary world of finished products) and Irenaeus’ vision, which is less known, is far more “modern” because he is more dynamic, evolutionary understanding of the world and worked out his theodicy (defence of God) from that perspective (which I shall discuss more in detail when I can spare a time). Suffice would it be to point out that his objection is based on some questionable presuppositions. first, it assumes that the human person, as the rest of the reality that surrounds us, if viewed as having come froth from the hand of God as finished products. Secondly, the world is expected to be a place of maximum pleasure and minimum pain (a kind of kennel for God’s pet, the human person) but if the world and the human person are viewed  as Irenaeus does, as a place of person making, fraught with hardship, inconvenience and danger, the only environment in which person can grow into full maturity, then much of the objection crumbles. besides, a whole lot of absurd and undesirable conclusions would follow from the questionable presuppositions I have outlined above above, there would be no real need for work as no harmful consequences would follow. No science and technology would be possible as the laws of nature wouldn’t always work in uniform way (they would be suspended every time they would work to human detriment) and there Ould be little or no scope for sacrifice, courage and higher morality, as everything would be made to work out wall by Devine agency.

General Conclusion

From above it should be clear that we can neither definitively prove or disprove God’s existence. In effect just as accepting God’s existence (religious conviction) is basically a “faith decision”, based on reasonable risk, atheism, too, is a matter of faith for it would equally be based on a reasonable risk.

“Homo sapiens the only creature endowed with reason, is also the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable”.

— Henri Bergson

“ The only hope I can see for the future depends on a wiser and braver use of the reason, not a panic flight from it”

— F.L Lucas

“The man who listens to reason is lost: Reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong enough to master her”

“Men can be attracted but not forced to the faith. You may drive people to baptism, you won’t move them one step further to religion”

—Alcuin

“if the work of God would be comprehended by reason, it would no longer be wonderful, and faith would have no merit if reason provided proof”

—Pope Gregory the Great

“Faith and prayers are no substitute for knowledge and courage”

— Josheph Lewis