Tag Archives: God

A Moral Argument for Christianity

22 Tuesday Sep 2026

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Philosophers often debate whether Moral Realism is true.  But either, there is a way we should live our life, or there is not.  One or the other must be true.   And by “a way we should live our life” I mean objectively moral realism is true.   And in particular the “should” is an “ultimate” end, not just something we “should” do to achieve some other ultimately worthless goal.   

So let’s consider the possibility that “there is not a way we should live our life” holds true.   If that is the case and, yet I still live my life with the false belief that there is a way I should live my life, what then?  I am living my life with a false belief, probably many false beliefs.  That would be true.  But we cannot say I “should” have lived my life a different way.  Why?  Because in this possible situation “there is not a way we should live our life.”  So no matter how I live my life, it will *never* be the way I “should” live my life.   For this reason I consider this possibility a dead end.  By the rule of the excluded middle I therefor suggest we should live our life entirely based on the possibility that “there is a way we should live our lives.” 

Now if there is a way we should live our lives, then there is a way should live our lives.    It seems to me that if we accept this then we should also accept that we should try to figure out how we should live our lives.    The problem with knowing how we should live is it goes beyond our five senses.  Our five senses tell us how things are they don’t tell us how things should be.  

For example, someone from PETA may say that killing billions of broiler chickens is wrong.  I may agree about all the empirical facts and even agree as to what we can deduce from those empirical facts such as the method of killing the chickens caused them pain etc.  Yet I might still believe it is moral for people to eat chicken.  There is no empirical way to resolve who has the moral question right.  So if we want to learn how things “should be” we need to appeal to some entity that has access to information beyond our five senses.  Of course, just looking to other normal people will not solve this problem.    They being normal humans have the same limitations we do.  To learn how we should act we need to access something beyond our natural senses. 

Unfortunately, we do not have direct access to information beyond our normal senses.  So we need to rely on some other source/entity for this information.  Now this other source/entity would not necessarily be God but it would have to have access to information beyond our senses.  Many ideologies tell us how to live, but fewer claim to have access to information beyond our natural senses.   We can immediately exclude the ideologies that are just created by other people with the same limitations we have.    So in order to learn the way we should live our lives we need to look specifically for something has access to information beyond our natural senses.  

So at this point we are looking for something that has two requirements.  1) It tells us how we should live our lives and 2) it has the best evidence of being from a source beyond our natural senses.   Now by the “best evidence” I mean it has better evidence that it is from a non-natural source then other moral ideologies.   We do not need evidence that meets some arbitrary percentage of making the religion true, such as we should only accept this if it is 80% or 50% or 40% likely to be true.  As long as it is more likely then the other options we should go with that option.  Even if it has only a 1% chance of filling these criteria as long as it has a better chance then the other options it is still the correct choice.    We are not in a situation where we have the luxury to pause life and demand more evidence – we have to make the best of what we have now.   And by now I mean right now not even waiting for tomorrow.    

So what is evidence that someone/thing has access to information beyond our natural senses?   Signs or miracles provide the most direct evidence.   Now many wonderous things have been claimed.  Some people may believe Nostradamus could predict the future which – if true – means he would at least meet the second qualification.  Unfortunately, he did not offer a way to live your life along with his alleged miraculous accomplishments.   The same is true of much of the alleged supernatural events that have been alleged over time.   But some supernatural claims are tied to ways we should live our life.    

Now as I argued we can get buried in trying to argue about every claimed miracle. And that would not be a good use of our time. But here I would just briefly suggest that we might consider the evidence of the two most prominent religions, Islam and Christianity.  Clearly the earliest evidence from the recordings of Jesus allege he performed many wonderous deeds Even Bart Ehrman never denies that using a straight forward application of historical criteria would mean miracles historically happened.

Unfortunately, Bart Ehrman has philosophical issues (basically he subscribes to Hume’s argument against miracles) with applying historical criteria to miracles so he never applies the historical criterion. But if someone is not convinced from the start that miracle claims should never be accepted, then we are not bound like he is In my case, rationality has lead me not only to be open to the idea of miracles, but to actually look for them. So I do not prejudge the possibility.

But how do Christian miracle claims hold up against other claims of miracles?  I don’t want to digress to much ( I offered an overview here ) but I will offer a comparison with the second most popular religion – Islam. According to Islam the Quran was the word of God recited by Muhamad through the Angel Gabriel. This is claimed to be a miracle but obviously this is different then for example Jesus saying he will die and rise on the third day and then actually doing that. I mean there is nothing in the Quran that would suggest it was from God.  Indeed there is much in it that makes it clear that it was from a human.  It makes many mistakes about what Christians and Jews believe as well as what is in the scriptures of these religions. Other parts are just mundane and obviously self serving – like the Quran saying Muhammad’s guests should leave right after dinner because he doesn’t really want them hanging around to talk.   Now of course if in fact it is a recitation from God then it is a miracle But that is like what I believe to be the Catholic miracle of the Eucharist.   I believe it is the body and blood of Jesus but it takes on all the properties of bread and wine.  I believe this is a miracle, but I would not use this particular miracle as a “sign” that Christianity is true.  It is only once people choose to give authority to Jesus and our scripture that this miracle becomes important. The Quran appears as a book just like any other book, just as the bread and wine appears as any other bread and wine There is scant reason to think the Quran couldn’t be from a human author.  I don’t want to digress here but suffice it to say I find the claims of prophecies, and “advanced scientific knowledge” in the Quran bad, and if anything leaning against it being from God.

Moreover, in the Quran itself Muhammad makes it clear that he will not do any miraculous signs.   Instead the Quran offers excuses why Muhammad does not offer any signs.  These are repeated such as you wouldn’t believe me even if I did a miraculous sign, and the Quran is enough of a miracle.  For example:

Surah Al-Isra (17:59)

“And nothing has prevented Us from sending signs except that the former peoples denied them…”

Well Christians and Jews did not all deny them.  But regardless, here the point is he is not offering any signs.  See also, e.g., Surah Al-An’am (6:109) and  Surah Yunus (10:20).   So I genuinely wonder why Muslims believe the Quran or Muhammad had anything to do with God. 

The miracles do not only need to be from Muhammad or Jesus themselves.  There have been numerous Christian miracles recorded in scripture and throughout history.  I imagine even though Muhammad made it clear he did not perform any miracles some Muslims believe in Islamic miracles have occurred.  I haven’t done a close study of the Islamic claims but from what I have researched it is not even close to being better documented then the numerous Christian claims to overcome the lack of a sign from Muhammad himself.    You can feel free to investigate for yourself. 

As for other religions claiming to be from God, I would compare the miracle evidence of them individually against the miracle evidence supporting Christianity in much the same way as I did with Islam.   But Christianity is one of the most attested as being authenticated by miracles.  And remember the question is not whether you believe all of the miracles – just one will do.  If Jesus offered even one miracle as proof he was from God that should be enough.  And as Bart Ehrman indicates the same scriptures that he considers historical evidence in some respects records a huge number of miracles.  “On the one hand the miracles of Jesus are virtually ubiquitous in our gospel traditions.  Nearly everywhere you turn Jesus is healing the sick, casting out the demons, raising the dead, multiplying the loaves, walking on the water and so on.” 

Christianity has the best evidence (signs/miracles) that it comes from God.   It also informs us how we should live our lives.  From what was said we should assume there is a way we should live our lives and Christianity provides the best evidence for how we should live our lives.

Now I realize that there is much argument about a few of the steps I took.   For example whether we can know what moral realism demands of us even if we are limited to our natural senses.  I have provided arguments for this in earlier blogs so I would direct you there. But I would also just note that among Philosophers surveyed there is a huge correlation between accepting moral realism and theism and rejecting moral realism and theism.

https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/correlations?category=Philosophical%20questions&variable=Meta-ethics%3A%20moral%20realism

So those who try to claim they can believe in real morality even if they leave theism behind, seem unaware of the problems. They may not see the issue, but the views of those whose profession investigates these issues demonstrates that theism is better suited to moral realism.

Answering the Many Gods Problem

10 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by in apologetics, atheism, Athesism Christianity, Catholic, christianity, philosophy, rationality, religion, Uncategorized

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One of the common questions Christians run into is this:  Even if you think God does exist how could we possibly know the Christian God is the correct one?  This might come up when addressing Pascals wager but it comes up in other contexts as well.   They will sometimes then go about naming every type of god or spirit that they can find on the internet. (Let’s call these hitherto unknown gods “the gods of the internet”).  This appears to be an invitation to start wasting much more time than this argument should take.   It also seems like an attempt to overwhelm us.   Don’t waste time or be overwhelmed.  This question can actually be a great invitation to explore how quite a bit of evidence supports the Christian God.

If we get to the point that for whatever reason we accept we should believe there is a God, but we need accept which god it is, then we should consider “good reasons” to believe one way or another.  As I indicated before, “good reasons” to believe something generally fall into one of three categories.  1) It is theoretically rational to believe (ie. There is evidence that the belief is true.); 2) It is pragmatically rational to believe (that is, weighing the consequences of being wrong or right on this issue favors belief); and 3) It is logically consistent to believe.  With this criteria we can start comparing the gods/religions and see which one wins.

What we should not do is try to talk about some imagined “burden of proof” and then try to think if the evidence for this or that god “meets the burden” or does not.  This is not a rational way to choose between multiple different exclusive alternatives.    This is because when we are choosing between multiple exclusive choices we do not necessarily choose the one that is more likely than not true.  It is rational to choose the one that is simply best supported by good reasons even if it is not more likely than not true.  In other words if at the end of the day we say the Islamic God has a 15% chance of being true the Jewish (non-christian) God has 30% of being true the Christian God has a 31% chance of being true and several other gods add up to the remaining 24% we can still say we should choose the Christian God.  Of course pragmatic and logical considerations can come into play but to the extent those are equal then it would be rational to choose the Christian God even though we only give the Christian God a 31% chance and not over a 50% chance of being correct.

Getting back to proper reasoning one thing rational people should do in determining whether to believe in one God versus a different God would be to compare the evidence for each.   Of course I think pragmatic rationality can play a role in this as well, but lets set that aside for now and focus on theoretic rationality.   What sort of thing would even be “evidence” for a particular God?

Well lots of things could be evidence for God for different people.  If the atheist refuses to believe anything could be evidence for God then ok you are probably dealing with a mind so closed no amount of rational discussion will help.  If that is the case maybe you could use pragmatic reasons.    But let’s say they are at least willing to agree some things could be evidence, what would evidence of God be?

Miracles are the thing asked for as proof of God most often.  I know it is what I would want.  Asking for “signs” (the bible’s term for miracles) seems to have been around since at least Judaism itself.  The Gospel of John couldn’t be more clear that he is relating the signs in his Gospel for this very purpose.  He flat out says:

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of [his] disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may [come to] believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name. “

John 20:30-31

So the God that offers the best evidence of miracles would seem to me to be the main consideration if not the dispositive one.  What sort of evidence do we have of miracles supporting Zeus or the God of Islam or the Christian God or the other “gods of the internet”?

People may have had a miracle in their own life (or the life of someone they know well and trust) which can serve as evidence.  And considering the application of such an event would seem to be very rational thing to do.  But what if you don’t think you, or anyone close to you, has had a miracle happen or even if it did, you don’t know that it points to one God as opposed to another?  Then I think we should look at history and how such miracles are evidence for a particular religion.

As far as the miracles actually being proof of one God or another.  It should be clear the miracles done by Jesus himself would support the Christian God.  As it would be clear that miracles done by Mohamed would support the Islamic God.  But even if we grant that lightening striking a particular ship at sea is a miracle, why should we think it is proof of Thor?  So we would need to consider that when looking at the evidence.

Now then we have different historical miracle claims that are assigned to different religions.  How do we analyze the competing historical claims?  I suggest we use the same analysis historians generally use.  Bart Ehrman gives several criteria that historians consider when evaluating whether something in history occurred.  Using this criteria seems like a good way to evaluate different miracle claims.

Dr. Ehrman says these are the typical criteria historians use in evaluating historical claims:

1)            Multiple sources

2)            Preferably Independent sources

3)            Non biased sources

4)            Contextual credibility

5)            Close in time to the events

6)            No contradictions/internally consistent

They seem to be rational criteria.  So I would suggest that people when considering what God is most likely “the true God” take these criteria into account in evaluating the various historical miracle claims.

So, for example, let’s take the “close in time to events.”  Sometimes people argue that those who wrote the new testament did not themselves see Jesus.  They at best could have seen elderly eye witnesses who saw the event.  Ok Ill grant that for argument’s sake.  But now let’s compare that to Zeus.  Who saw Zeus perform a miracle and how long was it between the person who saw Zeus and the person writing about the event?   As we start to go through the list of criteria we may wish the Christian God was better supported but when we compare it to gods like Thor or the various gods of the internet well we see that the Christian God really does do quite well.   Jesus performed many miracles proving his religion, and the records of these miracles were fairly close in time to the events they record.

If for example we have records that say someone on a clear day said “Let Thor’s power Strike this ship!” and then the ship was struck by lightening, ok, I would agree that would indeed be some evidence of Thor.  But how do such accounts hold up under historical criteria?   Who claims to have seen it and  when was it recorded in relation to the event, are there multiple independent sources? etc etc.   Encourage your atheist interlocutor to rationally compare these various gods of the internet against Christ’s multiple miracles using this criteria.  Let them decide for themselves whether the Christian God is the most rational God to believe in.   Let them see for themselves that there is good reason to believe in the Christian God.

I think that any rational person who actually takes the question of what God is the true God, seriously and pursues the matter in a rational way will almost certainly end up with only a few Gods if not one. Whether a rational person will be left with 4 or 2 or 1 well I am not arguing that right now but clearly there will not be this bewildering number of gods.

So just by considering the theoretical rationality we are likely to narrow down the number of Gods dramatically.  We should of course also consider practical rationality.  This might or might not further sort out some Gods.  And then you have the more narrow questions of deciding between the few remaining Gods and in the case of Christianity you have to sort out all the different denominations.  And of course you should do this in a rational way as well.   But we can leave that for another blog.

Love Versus Envy

02 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in atheism, Athesism Christianity, Catholic, christianity, Morality, philosophy, Uncategorized

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Love is the basis of Christianity and so it is only fitting that a Christian should consider what it is and what it is not.  In this blog I will compare love and what I think is the opposite of love – envy.  In the next blog I will talk about how love has important differences with empathy.

As Christians we know that craving anything before God is sin.  Wealth is one of those things that can lead to sin.   It, however, is not always intrinsically wrong to have property.  Christ wants us to give to the poor.  If giving them items caused them to be in sin, he would not ask us to do that.  Moreover, the fact that we are commanded not to steal suggests that owning property is part of God’s plan and can be healthy.

If I tell you that country A has a wider wealth gap then country B many people would say that, in itself, is reason to think country B is better.    I’m not one of them.  If people in A are all wealthier then all of those in Country B I would rather live in A, even if I was at the low end of that gap.   I would rather have more in absolute terms in country A even if relative to others in my own country I had less.

I know lots of people who have much more money than I do and I am glad they are in a situation where they can have that.  Envy has actually been one sin that has not usually been a problem for me.  But I do notice that my view is not shared by all.  Some people do think inequality of wealth is itself a problem.   Some people would rather have less themselves in absolute terms if it meant those around them had less as well.   This seems to be a lose/lose option based on envy.

Envy is specially targeted in the tenth commandment.   Envy is also a sin that is especially useful in fueling political and social movements.  Envy of the Jews has lead to antisemitism.  Socialism in particular uses envy to fuel it’s movements.  See for example the Kulaks, and the Ukrainian Holodomor.  Most politicians today do not talk about “the 1%” because they want to express how happy they are for the advantages they have.

Certainly I am not saying that all advantaged people “earned” their advantages.  That is obviously not true.  Some people are born smart or wealthy and this was obviously not “earned.”   However, being born smart or wealthy is not itself an immoral action either.   Don’t we wish we were born smart and wealthy – and good looks would have been nice too while we are at it.   Is it not due to our love that we want our children to have advantages such as good friends, wisdom, family, and yes, at least, some material possessions?

 

Christ commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[c] This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d] All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’

Matthew 22:36-40.

 

The Catechism quotes Saint Thomas Aquina’s short but effective definition of love:

To love is to will the good of another.

Now let’s look at Merriam Webster’s definition of Envy:

painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage

 

I think this helps us understand the direct opposition between the envious heart and what Jesus commands.  Instead of rejoicing that others have the advantages we also want, instead we react negatively toward others receiving the goods we want.

Again I am not saying we need to claim every advantage was earned.  And indeed we should agree that some advantages are not only unearned but are unjust.  If someone cheats someone else out of their property justice dictates they should not keep it.   But we need to make sure we are not rationalizing and fueling our resentment of others having more when they did nothing immoral to get what they have.  That would be envy, the opposite of love.

We can be envious even when someone did earn their advantage.  And as for the unearned, if some people were born lucky, like we wish we were born, do we rejoice for them, or are we resentful?  If we are resentful, obviously, we are not loving them as we love ourselves.

It seems to me that envy has as much claim to be the antithesis of love as hatred does.  I may hate many things about someone as they are now but still hope good for them.  Just as I can hate many things about myself and still hope good for myself.  But envy directly fights against willing the goods for others that we will for ourselves.

Explanations and their Logical Baggage

06 Monday Jan 2014

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Before Darwin nonbelievers had more difficulty explaining how we came to be here. Darwin’s theory of natural selection filled out an explanation. By and large this has been viewed as helpful to the atheist’s position. But when you start attaching explanations you start making affirmative claims. And once you start making claims you open yourself up to the possibility of logical inconsistency.

For example, Christians explain certain qualities God has: Omnipotent, Omniscient, Creator of everything, Good through and through etc. Doing this opened them up to the argument concerning the problem of evil. I think there are valid ways around the problem of evil but there can be no question that this problem was created because Christians offered explanations of what God is. Having the problem of evil to contend with is logical baggage from the claims that God has these attributes. If Christians just continued to shrug when asked if God was all knowing, all powerful, etc then they wouldn’t have this problem.

So now the atheist no longer just shrugs when the theists ask how we came exist. They have an explanation of how humans could come about from other life without God. On the surface it seems good for them. But when we start to understand what that process is we start to see that problems can arise.

I think Descartes was anticipating problems long before Darwin. He noticed that to the extent one were to say we are the product of something less than a perfect being then we would have more reason to suspect the reliability of our beliefs:

“Some, indeed, might perhaps be found who would be disposed rather to deny the existence of a Being so powerful [God] than to believe that there is nothing certain. But let us for the present refrain from opposing this opinion, and grant that all which is here said of a Deity is fabulous: nevertheless, in whatever way it be supposed that I reach the state in which I exist, whether by fate, or chance, or by an endless series of antecedents and consequents, or by any other means, it is clear that the probability of my being so imperfect as to be the constant victim of deception, will be increased exactly in proportion as the power possessed by the cause, to which they assign my origin, is lessened.”

It is clear this concern was not baggage from natural selection since Descartes wrote this over 200 years before Origin of the Species was published. But it clearly anticipates logical problems that any unbeliever will face. What baggage natural selection actually creates with respect to the reliability of our beliefs will be the topic of several of these blogs.

End Note: I should clarify that by “natural selection” I mean “natural selection and naturalism” – ie, no God. However, there is no reason to think that Christians can’t understand that they have evolved from a system along the lines of natural selection any more than we need to deny that we came about from the interaction of sperm and egg. Some people would want to claim it is incompatible with Christianity due to randomness natural selection presupposes. But really there are all sorts of things that are random to us but not to God and Christians always understood God might be acting in the world in ways we don’t know. This would including which sperm reaches which egg. So, natural selection really raises nothing new.