Arguments for the existence of God
“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”
Definition
The traditional arguments for the existence of God — cosmological, teleological, ontological, and moral — offer rational grounds pointing toward God from the natural world and human reason, corroborating what Scripture already declares rather than serving as the ground on which saving knowledge of God itself rests.1
Biblical Basis
Paul states that creation itself already makes God’s existence and power evident to everyone: “his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). David makes the same point about the heavens themselves: “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1).
Historical Development
The cosmological argument reasons from the world’s existence to its cause: an infinite regress of causes is inconceivable, so there must be a self-existent, eternal first cause of everything that exists.1 The teleological argument reasons from the order and apparent purpose observable in the world to a designing mind behind it. The moral argument reasons from the reality of human moral obligation to a moral lawgiver behind it. The ontological argument, first formulated by Anselm of Canterbury, reasons from the very concept of God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” to the conclusion that such a being must actually exist, since a merely conceived being would not be the greatest conceivable.2
These arguments are properly called arguments, not, as they are often loosely described, “proofs”: each takes creation only so far. The cosmological argument, even granted its full force, yields “a self-existent, hence infinite, eternal, and absolute Cause of the world,” but by itself tells us nothing further about that cause’s nature or character.1 Modern philosophical criticism, associated especially with Kant and with Darwin’s account of apparent design in nature, has pressed hard on the ontological and teleological forms in particular.1 Reformed theology has accordingly treated these arguments as corroborating what God has already made plain in creation (Rom. 1:20), not as the foundation without which saving knowledge of God would be unavailable — that foundation is God’s own revelation of himself.