Craig and Rasmussen on divine aseity and abstract objects

Some might be interested in the following discussion between William Lane Craig and Josh Rasmussen on divine aseity and abstract objects. I haven't watched it yet, and I doubt I'd entirely agree with either Craig or Rasmussen on the topics at hand, but I post it because it might be a thought-provoking discussion on subjects important in philosophical theology.

Thoughts without a thinker

The self in Buddhism

1. The soul aka self doesn't exist in Buddhism. Only the non-self exists - the anatman. To my knowledge, that's the case in all major schools of Buddhism, viz. Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism.

2. What is perceived to be the "self" in Buddhism consists of a collection of states or a bundle of perceptions. These are like psychological states or perceptions. We can simply call them "aggregates". These aggregates are known as khandhas.

3. There are five khandhas: form/body, sensations, perceptions, mentations/cogitations, and awareness. These aggregates or khandhas are the entirety of what constitutes the self, but the reality is there is no "self". Afaik, it's not even that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but that the whole is the sum of its parts.

4. Indeed, modern Buddhists often use the ship of Theseus to illustrate how the self doesn't really exist despite its aggregates or khandhas. We're atoms in motion, but these atoms in motion are constantly being replaced by other atoms in motion.

5. Suffering is caused by one being attached to or clinging onto (tanha) these aggregates. Suffering is extinguished (nirvana) when attachment (tanha) to these aggregates (khandhas) is relinquished.

Evaluation

My intellectual development

Having been a Christian blogger and apologist, this might be a good time to say something about my intellectual development and predilections:

• I never pursued an academic career because that requires a field of specialization, and my interests are too varied to sacrifice. Moreover, I think my wide-ranging interests enrich my apologetic resources. 

• Everything I care about ties into Christian theology. All my varied interests tie into Christian theology. That provides a unifying principle. I don't have a fallback position. I can't detach Christianity from what matters. I have no positions independent of Christianity. It's Christianity all the way down. All my positions in ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology are guided by or grounded in Christian theology. 

• I backed into apologetics to answer other people's questions rather than my own. However, there came a point in life where it was helpful having that in reserve.

• I think naturalism is a recipe for moral nihilism, existential nihilism, and epistemic nihilism. As such, naturalism is a backstop against apostasy because there is no alternative to Christian reality.  

• Because apologists influence each other, apologetics can get stuck in a rut. It becomes too stereotypical and repetitive. One thing I've tried to do is to explore neglected lines of evidence for the Christian faith, thereby broadening the evidential basis for Christianity. 

• I became a Calvinist for what at the time were inadequate reasons. However, I made the right call. My initial understanding of Calvinism was formed and informed by reading Warfield and Cunningham. Paul Helm has also been useful over the years. 

• Although freewill theism has produced a number of eminent thinkers, I just can't take it seriously as a solution to the problem of evil. And the God of freewill theism is a smaller God than the God of Calvinism. Not the greatest conceivable being. 

• As a young Christian I explored Catholicism, but I was always too Bible-centered to find Catholicism satisfactory. Aesthetically I identify with the high-church tradition but theologically I identify with the low-church tradition. 

• Correspondence with Greg Bahnsen, John Frame, Vern Poythress, and William Young served as sounding boards in the initial formulation of my theology. 

• I'm basically a classical theist, although I reject Thomistic simplicity 

• I prefer exegetical theology and philosophical theology to historical theology

• I prefer metaphysics to epistemology

• I prefer the principle of plenitude to the principle of parsimony 

• I prefer rationalism to empiricism. I like philosophical and scientific thought-experiments. However, the empiricist emphasis on sense knowledge is a salutary corrective to the rationalist derogation of sense knowledge. 

• I subscribe to the Medieval exemplarist tradition

• I find symmetries interesting, especially reflection symmetries, crystallography, tessellation, infinity mirrors, Pachelbel's canon, &c. The Trinity is the paradigm symmetry. Reality is ultimately complex rather than simple. 

• I'm an indirect realist. To that extent, I'm a scientific antirealist. Appearances all the way down. Layered appearances. In that regard, divine revelation is necessary to provide an intersubjectival check on sensory perception. 

• The philosophy of time is an interest of mine 

• John Ruskin and Christina Rossetti are side interests

• Historic thinkers I find stimulating include Anselm, Berkeley, Descartes, Leibniz, Newman, Philoponus, and Pascal.

• Recent thinkers I find stimulating include Robert Adams, Dembski, Geach, Gödel, David Lewis, Le Poindevin, Thomas Nagel, Plantinga, Pruss, Poincaré, Josh Rasmussen, Sheldrake, van Fraassen, van Inwagen, Van Til. 

• I often correspond with Greg Welty, Paul Manata, James Anderson, Tim and Lydia McGrew

• When I was younger I used to think ethicists were philosophers who lack the acumen to do metaphysics, or aging philosophers who lost their intellectual edge. However, I developed a greater appreciation for ethics as I came to view it in a broader existential light: what makes life meaningful. 

• Favorite theistic proofs:

Argument from miracles

Argument from numbers

Argument from counterfactuals

Argument from truth (Aquinas)

Argument from logic

Argument from reason (Rasmussen)

Argument from contingency (Leibniz)

Evolutionary argument against naturalism

Pascal's Wager

A Critical Appraisal of a Non-Realist Philosophy of Religion: An Asian Perspective

By a Chinese Baptist philosophy prof:

http://kwankaiman.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-critical-appraisal-of-non-realist.html

http://rel.hkbu.edu.hk/info_kmkwan.html

Further thoughts on Tuggy's challenge

"Further Thoughts on Tuggy’s Challenge" by Prof. James Anderson.

"A Brief Response to Tuggy’s Challenge"

James Anderson responds to Dale Tuggy's latest challenge.

McCall on Theological Determinism & Compatibilism 1

"McCall on Theological Determinism & Compatibilism part 1"

Learning analytic philosophy

"Learning Analytic Philosophy" by Prof. James Anderson.

The blind safecracker

The theory of evolution (i.e. macroevolution, universal common descent) is often thought to pose a specific challenge to inerrancy of Scripture. Some professing Christians think that problem can be solved by simply denying inerrancy or reinterpreting Gen 1-2. 

However, this is not just an issue of how evolution relates to the Bible, but how evolution relates to religion in general. Religion is concerned with man's place in the world. To invoke the fact/value distinction, religion is concerned with man's ultimate significance in the great scheme of things. 

Theistic evolution grants the basic evolutionary narrative. It accepts the way Darwinians typically interpret the fossil record (and other putative lines of evidence for evolution). But this creates two major problems for religion:

i) To judge by the fossil record (as Darwinians read it), evolution did not intend the human race. In Gould's metaphor, if you rewound the tape of evolution, the outcome would be different each time, both in general and in particular. 

Not everyone agrees with this. Conway Morris thinks human evolution was inevitable. But even if we agree with him, that doesn't mean evolution intended the human race. If you randomly dial the lock on a high school locker, eventually you will hit upon the right combination. By process of elimination, it's inevitable that that combination will turn up. 

But you didn't intend that combination, because you didn't know ahead of time which combination would unlock it. That's not something you could aim for. Evolution is the blind safecracker. 

ii) Another problem is that evolution implies physicalism. It attributes man's superior intellect to encephalization. Bigger brains. But in that event, brain death extinguishes the person. 

There are, of course, important ways to challenge these conclusions. However, they don't come from within evolution. Rather, they challenge evolution itself. 

Karma and free will

From the IEP:

Another difficulty for the karma/rebirth solution has to do with free will. An initial advantage of this solution to the problem of evil is that real moral agency is preserved. In fact, moral agency is central to the karma/rebirth solution: our moral decisions self-determine our future experiences, making us responsible for our own destiny. Upon further reflection, the view seems to run contrary to free moral agency. Consider the example of a man contemplating the rape and murder of a woman. Suppose he has done so before, and has thus far not been caught. He is considering redirecting his life by turning himself in to the authorities and receiving the consequences of his actions. But just as he is pondering this option, a woman strolls by and his mad passions for rape and murder begin to burn within him. He now has the choice to continue down the path of destruction or put a stop to it. If he decides to attack the woman and does so, then on the karmic account the woman was not completely innocent after all; she is paying the price for her former evil actions. In that case, the rapist is not truly free to act as he does, for he is simply following mechanistically the effects of karmic justice. He is merely the instrumental means for meting out the justice requisite for this woman’s previous moral failings. If, however, the woman does not deserve such moral recompense, then karmic justice will ensure that she does not receive it. In that case, the rapist will be unable to engage in the attack.

The problem that arises has to do with locating the moral freedom in this system. If the rapist is deterministically carrying out justice on his victim, then it seems that he is not truly a free moral agent after all. He is simply a cog in the karmic justice machine. It is disconcerting to affirm a moral system in which we understand raped and murdered victims to be themselves morally culpable for such acts of brutality against them. On the other hand, suppose the rapist really is free to attack the woman. If she was not deserving of such an act, this would be a serious violation of the law of karma whereby suffering occurs only because of one’s previous evil actions. If in attempting to justify such actions, the defender of the karmic system replied that the woman would in a future life receive a reward for such a morally gratuitous act, this does not appear to be consistent with karma, for this would run counter to the central principle of karma in which evil and suffering are the effects of one's previous deeds.

(Source)

Athens and Jerusalem

What are the uses and misuses of philosophy in Christian theology?

I. Definition

1) To begin with, we need to define philosophy. 

i) Defining philosophy is, itself, a philosophical question, and different philosophers give different answers concerning the scope of philosophy, depending on their view of what exists. For instance, logical positivists try to exclude metaphysics from philosophy. Physicalists like Quine and Alex Rosenberg favor a scientistic definition of philosophy. 

ii) The question itself impinges on the relationship between philosophy and theology. As Christians, we are open to a more expansive definition of philosophy, because our worldview is less restrictive than physicalism. 

iii) We can define philosophy in methodological terms. Among other things, philosophy concerns logic and the rules of argument. What constitutes a valid or invalid argument? What constitutes a sound or unsound argument? 

iv) We can define philosophy according to the content of philosophy, viz. metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, hermeneutics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science.

v) We can define philosophy in terms of the sources of philosophy. On one definition, philosophy relies on unaided reason. Nonrevelatory sources of information, viz., intuition, personal experience, testimonial evidence. 

vi) Then there's philosophical theology. This could take two different forms:

a) Begin with a revealed truth, then explicate or supplement that through nonrevealtory sources. 

b) Develop the theological implications of nonrevealed sources, viz. a priori theistic proofs. 

II. Misuses

i) One misuse of philosophy in theology is to build a theological system on abstract possibilities. On something that's merely conceivable and consistent, even though there's no positive reason to believe it's true. Possibilities greatly outnumber truths. Many things are possible which will never be true. Putting your faith in some appealing, but imaginary theological construct, is foolish.

ii) Another misuse of philosophy in theology is to invoke intuition to discount revelatory truths. 

III. Uses

i) Knowing how to construct sound arguments or detect unsound arguments is important in both exegetical and systematic theology.

ii) Inferring the logical implications of a revealed truth, or the logical relationship between one revealed truth and another, is important in systematic theology.

iii) Hermeneutics is important in exegetical theology. For instance, what is the locus of meaning? Authorial intent? The audience? Which audience? The historical audience? Implied audience?

Is the meaning of a Psalms self-contained, or does the Psalter as a whole contribute to the meaning of each individual Psalm? 

Or the need to distinguish between sense and reference. 

iv) God-talk

Is God-talk literal or figurative? Is God-talk univocal, analogical, or equivocal? 

In principle, two readers could interpret the Bible the same way, but one reader has a noncognitive theory of God-talk. He doesn't think Biblical statements about God convey genuine information about God's nature or activity in the world. 

v) Philosophy can explore the rational grounds for believing revealed truths.

vi) Philosophy can explicate or fill in revealed truths by using analogies, viz. what does it mean for God to be timeless or spaceless? Abstract objects can supply analogies. 

vii) Philosophy can be deployed to give positive reasons for believing in theology, viz., theistic proofs. 

viii) Philosophy can be of aid in formulating doctrines. Using precise terminology. Avoiding inaccurate or heretical formulations. 

ix) Philosophy can be deployed to rebut objections to theology. There are many examples:

a) If an atheist objects to the possibility of a timeless or spaceless Creator making the physical world, he is making assumptions about the nature of causality. And there are different philosophical theories of causality. Likewise, how a timeless, spaceless God can know the physical world. 

b) If an atheist objects to the possibility of the intermediate state, philosophical arguments for substance dualism can support the possibility of postmortem survival. 

c) If an atheist objects to miracles, because they "violate" the laws of nature, that raises questions about the ontological status of physical laws. 

d) If an atheist deploys the argument from evil, that raises metaethical questions about secular ethics. Likewise, it raises questions about whether there's a best possible world. That involves thought-experiments. 

e) If an atheist assures us that science has disproven the Bible, that figures in the philosophy of science. Theories of time. Theories of perception. Methodological naturalism. The uniformity of nature. The problem of induction. 

He might also argue that science tacitly relies on theological underpinnings. 

f) If an atheist objects to the possibility of a resurrection, that involves theories of personal identity. 

g) If an atheist alleges that Christian doctrines like the Trinity, Incarnation, divine omniscience, or divine omnipotence, are incoherent, Christians philosophers may be able to show the coherence of these doctrines.

h) But suppose Christian philosophers can't demonstrate their coherence. Yet Christian philosophers might point out that there are many intractable paradoxes in math, science, and philosophy, so the mere fact that some Christian doctrines seem to be incoherent is not an undercutter or defeater so long as we have some independent reason to believe them.

i) An atheist might alleged that Scripture is self-contradictory. A Christian philosopher might respond by critiquing crude notions of what constitutes a contradiction. 

j) An atheist might object that Christians believe in things they can't prove. A Christian philosopher might respond between distinguishing between proof and knowledge. 

Musings on the multiverse

The multiverse is becoming popular in some Christian circles. From a Reformed perspective, how should we evaluate the multiverse?

i) Robin Collins draws a useful distinction between two basic types of multiverses:

Second, we need to get clear on what we mean by the multiverse hypothesis. There are essentially two versions of the multiverse (or many-universe) hypothesis, what could be called the physical or universe-generator versions and what could be called metaphysical versions. In the universe- generator versions, some particular real physical process - such as an inflation field - is postulated that generates the many universes, whereas in the metaphysical versions the universes are thought to exist on their own without being generated by any physical process.

http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Fine-tuning/stanford%20multiverse%20talk.htm

ii) One variant of the first version (“the physical or universe-generator versions”) is what we might call the quantum multiverse. From what I’ve read, this version is based on Everett’s many-worlds solution to the measurement conundrum in quantum mechanics. We could spend time debating the pros and cons of the quantum multiverse. However, I’m more interested in the metaphysical multiverse.

iii) In Christian discussion, the metaphysical version is a theistic adaptation of David Lewis’s modal realism. (There are also theistic adaptations of the quantum version.)

On this (theistic) version, at least some possible worlds are concrete objects rather than abstract objects. God instantiates a world ensemble of parallel worlds which (selectively) exemplify abstract possible worlds. 

God doesn’t instantiate every logically possible world, but only those which are sufficiently good to make the cut.

iv) Is there any theological reason to think this might be true? One reason is divine freedom. Must God choose only one possible world to instantiate?

Except for theists who subscribe to universal possibilism (e.g. Descartes, Leftow), most orthodox Christians say divine omnipotence is restricted to what’s logically possible. God cannot perform logical contradictions.

This isn’t a real limitation on God. Since a logical contradiction is a pseudotask, there’s nothing there for God to “really” do. In that sense, God wouldn’t be “frustrated” by his “inability” to do what’s logically impossible or logically incompossible.

v) However, to say that God must choose which possible world to create seems to impose an arbitrary restriction on divine power. For, on the face of it, it doesn’t appear to be logically impossible for God to create alternate timelines as long as these are kept separate in self-contained parallel worlds.

vi) One might object that the metaphysical multiverse is pure speculation. However, the axiomatic assumption that only one possible world is realizable is no less speculative. Moreover, the latter speculation seems to infringe on divine freedom in a way that’s theologically dubious.

It’s one thing to say that God was forced to choose between mutually exclusive options if those are, indeed, logically incompossible.

If, however, it’s logically or metaphysically possible for God to distributively instantiate alternate histories in discrete parallel worlds, then God didn’t have to accept the tradeoff. In that case, God isn’t confronted with the dilemma of which world to make–to the exclusion of all other options. Although there remain tradeoffs within possible worlds, that doesn’t entail tradeoffs between possible worlds.

vii) Admittedly, that’s not a positive reason to think God has created a multiverse. Rather, that opposes the notion that he could not or would not do so.

viii) Is there any positive reason to think God might have made a multiverse? Here I’d offer two suggestions, which are merely suggestive:

a) Since many alternate histories seem to be equally good (more or less) in different, incommensurable ways, it seems arbitrary for God to confine himself to only one option. That’s a lost opportunity to exemplify so many other goods not captured by just one timeline. Why let all that go to waste? These would be additional ways for God to manifest his surpassing goodness and greatness.

b) It also strikes me as a bit incongruous that humans would be more creative than God. After all, we write stories and make movies which give full play to our imagination. Our capacity to explore and imaginatively experience the road not taken.

I don’t offer these suggestions as proofs. I just think they make the prospect of a theistic multiverse more plausible.

ix) At the same time, there are restrictions on that conjecture. I doubt God would create parallel worlds where those who go to hell in our world go to heaven in a parallel world, or vice versa. Same thing for election and reprobation.

That seems to be cheating hell. Likewise, if everything and its opposite happens in one world or another, that levels everything out–which seems to make everything rather pointless. By the same token, if choices and consequences lack finality, then they aren’t really consequences. Inconsequential consequences are meaningless.

Admittedly, this objection maybe blunted to some degree by the fact that my counterpart in a parallel world isn’t strictly me. So I can’t press this objection too far.

x) In addition, I don’t think God would instantiate every possible world. Some possible worlds have no redeeming value.

That’s fine as long as a possible world remains abstract. Abstract creatures aren’t conscious. They lack actual memories or fears. They can’t actually suffer. They can’t experience actual loss.

I doubt God would create a world where people merely suffer for the sake of suffering. Where there are no compensatory goods. No beneficiaries.

xi) There are many professing Christians who think science has invalidated a literal reading of Gen 1-3, or Gen 1-11. And some go beyond that. They mock the literal reading of Gen 1-11 as inherently absurd. For them, writings like Genesis represent the intellectual infancy of the human race. Due to modern science, we’re the intellectual equivalent of college grads compared to the preschoolers who wrote the Pentateuch.

But many professing Christians who take this view of Bible history are also sympathetic to the multiverse. Yet if the multiverse is true, then they can’t rule out a parallel world in which Gen 1-11 is literally true. Even if they don’t think it’s true in our world, they can’t object to that scenario on a priori grounds.

xii) Finally, we need to resist getting too invested in the multiverse. This is recreational theology. Our primary duty is to understand God’s revelation, then frame our lives in accordance with his revelation.

Recreational theology, like other intellectual or physical recreations, is okay up to a point, but this mustn’t take the place of revealed theology. For instance, I’m appalled at how much time some philosophers invest in formulating minutely detailed models of Molinism. They put their best work into refining Molinism. Yet that’s just a man-made philosophical construct, like intricate versions of idealism (e.g. McTaggart, Sprigge).

The Templeton Effect

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Templeton-Effect/134018/

God Without Parts

James Anderson reviews God Without Parts by James Dolezal.

BTW, here's a video interview with Dolezal on his book:

Christianity, Philosophy, and the integrated mind

http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2012/05/christianity_philosophy_and_th.html

Anderson reviews Analytic Theology

http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000385/article.pdf

Seen and unseen

Paul Helm writes on the problem of evil for a popular audience.

Undesigned coincidences

Tim McGrew writes the following:

Folks,

Some of you have expressed an interest in hearing my Easter Sunday radio interview on undesigned coincidences as evidence for the reliability of the Gospels. That interview is now online. Go to

http://evidence4faith.com/

and click on "Podcasts" -- it should start playing automatically, and this week it's at the top of the queue. Later it will be pushed down in the list (the most recent episode is always at the top), but it should be there long-term.

Enjoy!

Tim

BTW, the MP3 is available for download here.

HT: Steve.

"Why I Believe in God"

From John Mark Reynolds:

In one comment thread on this blog, someone asked why I believe. Here is a short answer.

It is an odd thing to be called on to defend something you think you know. It is disturbing at first, because it makes you simultaneously wonder about your own mental clarity and that of your questioner. Why would he ask such a question? Isn’t the truth of the matter obvious?

Unfortunately, there are few things we believe that some other person, seemingly rational, cannot doubt. After a bit of reflection, the doubts of others about my beliefs are less disturbing, because it is a chance to exercise wonder. Not surprisingly it is wonderful to wonder and a chance to wonder why I think God exists has proven an excellent opportunity for healthy Socratic doubt leading to a sense of His presence.

I am thankful for the process.

God exists, but what God? I mean the God that is all-powerful, all knowing, the God who is the Creator of the cosmos. By definition if such a God exists, there is only one God, because only one being could logically be omnipotent.

Some of my atheist friends assert that since I don’t believe in many gods, I am just an atheist who has refused to go all the way. After all, having given up on the worship of Zeus why do I cling to the worship of the God of the Bible?

My friends are mistaken, however. I don’t reject Zeus, because he does not exist, but because he is evil. The Zeus revealed to me in Homer is not worthy of worship, because he uses his power for evil. Now my friends who are atheists might immediately reply that the God of the Old Testament also commands or does things that appear evil to us, but this is different. The God of the Old Testament is presented as good and some of His reported actions are difficult to square with that goodness. At the worst a believer need only doubt the report, but the gods of the Greeks are presented as intentionally acting for our harm.

There is no giving Zeus the benefit of the doubt, because he and his worshipers do not ask for it!

Of course, in any case Christians do not deny that Zeus might exist as a spirit, though he clearly does not (at present) physically dwell on the top of Mount Olympus! We do not claim to know every supernatural being that exists and for all I know the supernatural world is very complex place indeed. I have it on good authority that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in Richard Dawkins and my philosophy.

So why do I know God exists?

Given the limits of a short essay, I will only be able to point in the direction of my favorite reasons, but there are many books that provide deeper justification and further explication of these reasons. On a popular level favorite books that were helpful to me include J.P. Moreland's Scaling the Secular City and A.E. Taylor's Does God Exist? Readers looking for something more difficult would do well to check out the work of Richard Swinburne of Oxford University.

Of course, I don’t believe in God at first because I sat and thought about Him. I believe in God, because I encountered Him. I prayed and had an experience of Him from a very early age. He has answered my prayers and forced me to change my behavior. This every day direct mental experience of His existence is fundamentally why I know God is real.

If I did not have it, I would have little motivation to wonder about Him, but I sought Him and I found Him . . . or better He found me! Of course, despite my apparent sanity (from my own biased point of view!), I might be mad or deceived. God might be an illusion in my head, despite the sense that there is a different mental texture to what His voice is saying.

Once challenged in his beliefs by reasonable questions, only a fool or a saint would be sure that he was not deluding himself. I know I am no saint and I hope not to be a fool, so I had to ask if my experiences were real and if I had correctly interpreted them.

It is important, therefore, that I have every day indirect experience of His existence. The community of believers around me matters. I am not alone in thinking God is real or speaks to people. This does not prove that God exist, but the billions of people over long periods of time who have believed in God does suggest that at the very least I am not the victim of some private delusion!

So I speak to God and He speaks to me and millions of living and otherwise rational human beings share this experience. It is what I would anticipate if God is out there. Why do some people fail to share that experience?

I don’t know, but absence of evidence in a few does not suggest the problem is in those who believe.

Third, there are philosophical arguments that suggest the existence of God is either necessary or reasonable. For example, the existence and nature of the cosmos suggests the existence of a rational God. The universe appears to have order and design and I am not persuaded that merely naturalistic processes can account for this order and design. Whatever the process God used to create, and only the arrogant believe they have this all worked out, the fundamental nature of that creation suggests a plan.

Fourth, morality persuades me that God exists. The long trajectory of human history demonstrates a common morality behind the blind spots of any particular culture. There is a common way that most people in most places and most times have followed. This law suggests a lawgiver.

Fifth, the existence of gratuitous beauty convinces me God exists. When I traveled above the clouds for the first time with my oldest son, he told me that it was beautiful and neither of us was surprised. Wherever we looked, we saw beauty and this was not a beauty that could have been hardwired into us by any natural process. Wherever we look as humans even to the furthest reaches of the cosmos beauty is there waiting for us.

Sixth, the world of Ideas points in the direction of the existence of the Mind of God. As a Platonist, I am convinced that numbers and ideas are real. There is a metaphysical world that cannot be reduced to the material. This does not prove God exists, but makes His existence more plausible to me.

Finally, love suggests to me that God is real. As Plato points out in his masterful dialogue Symposium love is surely of something. Humanity possesses a love for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful that demands a proper object. Only God is great enough to be a sufficient end for all the longing in the human heart. It might be that the universe is perverse and has given us this great longing without any means of fulfilling it, but there is no good reason to take this withering view. The sensible, indeed the hopeful response, is to assume that like hunger or thirst this longing too can find satisfaction in reality.

My friends who don’t believe in God might claim that I believe in God, partly, because I want to do so. This is true. The existence of a good God is such an awesome, exciting, and hopeful idea that I am rooting for it. There is nothing irrational with giving good news the benefit of the doubt, if you don’t sacrifice your mind to do so.

You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.

Do-It-Yourself Deity

"What is God?"