William Paley, English clergy & utilitarian philosopher, 1743-1805

‍"In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. ... There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. ... Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation."

―William Paley, Natural Theology, 1802

Thomas Paine, English philosopher, political theorist, & revolutionary, 1737-1809

"First,–Canst thou by searching find out God? Yes. Because, in the first place, I know I did not make myself, and yet I have existence; and by searching into the nature of other things, I find that no other thing could make itself; and yet millions of other things exist; therefore it is, that I know, by positive conclusion resulting from this search, that there is a power superior to all those things, and that power is God."

―Thomas Paine, Age of Reason, Citadel Press, New York, 1988 p72

Robert Jastrow, astronomer & planetary physicist, 1925-2008

“Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.“

― Robert Jastrow, "A Scientist Caught Between Two Faiths: Interview With Robert Jastrow," Christianity Today, August 6, 1982


“Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation, but they are driven by the nature of their profession to seek explanations for the origin of life that lie within the boundaries of natural law.“

― Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe, Touchstone Books, 1981, p19

Isaac Newton, English polymath & scientist, 1642-1726

“God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing.”

― Isaac Newton, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1687 


“How came the bodies of animals to be contrived with so much art, and for what ends were their several parts?

“Was the eye contrived without skill in Opticks, and the ear without knowledge of sounds?...and these things being rightly dispatch’d, does it not appear from phænomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent...?”

― Isaac Newton, Opticks, 1704 
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J.P. Moreland, American philosopher & theologian, 1948-

“As I mentioned earlier, there are a number of examples of design. Richard Taylor gives the following illustration: Suppose you were driving on a train and you saw a sign on the hillside that said, ‘Wales in ten miles.’ Suppose that you knew that the wind had blown that sign together. If the sign had been put together by a purely nonintelligent random process, says Taylor, there would be no reason to trust the information conveyed by the sign.

“Similarly, it seems to me that if our intellectual and sensory faculties were merely the result of the wind blowing, as it were, or a struggle for survival, there would be no reason to trust that they give us accurate information about the world.”

— J.P. Moreland, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p59-60

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Robert Boyle, Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, scientist, and inventor, 1627-1691

“The excellent contrivance of that great system of the world, and especially the curious fabric of the bodies of the animals and the uses of their sensories and other parts, have been made at the great motives that in all ages and nations induced philosophers to acknowledge a Deity as the author of these admirable structures.”
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— Robert Boyle (quoted by Paul Davies), The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p201

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Paul Davies, PhD, English physicist & professor, 1946-

“What of the cosmological argument? If we accept the world’s contingency, then one possible explanation is the existence of a transcendent God. We then have to confront the issue of whether God is necessary or contingent. If God is simply contingent, have we really gained anything by invoking him, for his own existence and qualities remain unexplained? It is possible that we have. It may be that the hypothesis of a God provides a simplifying and unifying description of reality that improves on the ‘package’ acceptance of a list of laws and initial conditions. The laws of physics may be able to take us only so far, and we could then seek a deeper level of explanation. The philosopher Richard Swinburne, for example, has argued that it is simpler to posit the existence of an infinite mind than to accept, as a brute fact, the existence of this contingent universe. In this case belief in God is largely a matter of taste, to be judged by its explanatory value rather than logical compulsion. Personally I feel more comfortable with a deeper level of explanation than the laws of physics. Whether the use of the term ‘God’ for that deeper level is appropriate is, of course, a matter of debate.”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p188-189

St. Thomas Aquinas, Italian friar, priest, philosopher, & theologian, 1225-1274

“The second way [the existence of God can be proved] is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.”
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— St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q2, A3, Second and Revised Edition, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican, 1920 
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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German philosopher & polymath, 1646-1716

“Up to this time we have spoken as simple physicists: now we must advance to metaphysics by making use of the great principle, little employed in general, which teaches that nothing happens without a sufficient reason; that is to say, that nothing happens without its being possible for him who should sufficiently understand things, to give a reason sufficient to determine why it is so and not otherwise. This principle laid down, the first question which should rightly be asked, would be, Why is there something rather than nothing? For nothing is simpler and easier than something. Further, suppose that things must exist, we must be able to give a reason why they must exist so and not otherwise.”

— Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, The Philosophical Works of Leibniz, “Principles of Nature and Grace,” Tuttle Morehouse & Taylor, 1890 (1714), p212-213
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Baruch de Spinoza, Dutch Enlightenment philosopher, 1632-1677

“[Definition] D1: In calling something ‘cause of itself’ I mean that its essence involves existence, i.e. that its nature can’t be conceived except as existing...

“[Definition] D3: By ‘substance’ I understand: what is in itself and is conceived through itself, i.e. that whose concept doesn’t have to be formed out of the concept of something else...

“[Axiom] A7: If a thing can be conceived as not existing then its essence doesn’t involve existence...

“[Proposition] 2: Two substances having different attributes have nothing in common with one another. 

“This is also evident from D3. For each substance must be in itself and be conceived through itself, which is to say that the concept of the one doesn’t involve the concept of the other.

“[Proposition] 6: One substance can’t be produced by another substance...

“[Proposition] 7: It pertains to the nature of a substance to exist.“A substance can’t be produced by anything else (by the corollary to 6), so it must be its own cause; and that, by D1, is to say that its essence necessarily involves existence, i.e. it pertains to its nature to exist...“[Proposition] 11: God, or a substance consisting of infinite attributes each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists.“If God didn’t exist, then (by A7) God’s essence would not involve existence; and (by [Proposition] 7) that is absurd. Therefore God necessarily exists.

“A second proof: For each thing there must be assigned a cause or reason for its existence (if it exists) and for its nonexistence (if it doesn’t)... This reason or cause must be either contained in, or lie outside of, the nature of the thing. For example, the very nature of a square circle indicates the reason why it doesn’t exist, namely because it involves a contradiction; and the very nature of a substance explains why it does exist, because that nature involves existence (see 7). But the reason why a coin exists, or why it doesn’t exist, does not follow from its nature but from the order of the whole of the physical world. For from this order it must follow either that the coin necessarily exists now or that it is impossible for it to exist now.

“These things are self-evident. From them it follows that a thing necessarily exists if there is no reason or cause that prevents it from existing. So if there is no reason or cause that prevents God from existing or takes God’s existence away, it certainly follows that God necessarily exists.

“But if there were such a reason or cause, it would have to be either in God’s very nature or outside it and in another substance of a different nature. It couldn’t be in a substance of the same nature as God’s, for the supposition that there is such a substance is, itself, the supposition that God exists. So it would have to be a substance of a nature different from God’s; but such a substance would have nothing in common with God (by [Proposition 2]) and so could neither give existence to God nor take it away. So a reason or cause that takes away God’s existence couldn’t lie outside the divine nature.

“It would, then, have to be in God’s nature itself. That would mean that God’s nature involved a contradiction, like the square circle. But it is absurd to affirm this of a thing that is absolutely infinite and supremely perfect. (That is because a contradiction must involve something of the form ‘P and not-P – a ‘square circle’ would be something that was ‘square and not square’ because ‘not square is contained in the meaning of a “circle”’ – and a thing that is infinite and perfect is one whose nature involves nothing negative, so nothing of the contradictory form.) So there is no cause or reason – either in God or outside God – that takes God’s existence away. Therefore God necessarily exists.”

— Benedict Spinoza, Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order, 1677 (translation Johnathan Bennett, 2004, 2017) p1-3, 5
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William Lane Craig, PhD, ThD, American philosopher & theologian, 1949-

“As formulated by al-Ghazali [of the kalam argument]... the argument has three simple steps: ‘Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause.’ Then you can do a conceptual analysis of what it means to be a cause of the universe, and a striking number of divine attributes can be identified.”

— William Lane Craig, PhD, ThD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p104
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“But in atheism, the universe just pops into being out of nothing, with absolutely no explanation at all. I think once people understand the concept of absolute nothingness, it’s simply obvious to them that if something has a beginning, that it could not have popped into being out of nothing but must have a cause that brings it into existence.

“Well, we certainly have empirical evidence for the truth of this premise. This is a principle that is constantly confirmed and never falsified. We never see things coming into being uncaused out of nothing. Nobody worries that while he’s away at work, say, a horse might pop into being, uncaused, out of nothing, in his living room, and be there defiling the carpet. We don’t worry about those kinds of things, because they never happen.

“So this is a principle that is constantly verified by science. At least, Lee, you have to admit that we have better reason to think it’s true than it’s false. If you’re presented with the principle and its denial, which way does the evidence point? Obviously, the premise is more plausible than its denial.”

— William Lane Craig, PhD, ThD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p105
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Craig: “When I first began to defend the kalam argument, I anticipated that its first premise–that whatever begins to exist has a cause–would be accepted by virtually everyone. I thought the second premise–that the universe began to exist–would be much more controversial. But the scientific evidence has accumulated to the extent that atheists are finding it difficult to deny that the universe had a beginning. So they’ve been forced to attack the first premise instead...

“It seems metaphysically necessary that anything which begins to exist has to have a cause that brings it into being. Things don’t just pop into existence, uncaused, out of nothing. Yet the atheist Quentin Smith concluded our book on the topic by claiming that ‘the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing.’ That sounds like a good conclusion to the Gettysburg Address of Atheism! It simply amazes me that anyone can think this is the most rational view.

“Generally, people who take this position don’t try to prove the premise is false, because they can’t do that. Instead, they fold their arms and play the skeptic by saying ‘You can’t prove that’s true.’ They dial their degree of skepticism so high that nothing could possibly convince them.”

Strobel: “On the other hand, they have every right to play the skeptic. After all, the burden of proof should be on you to present affirmative evidence to establish this first premise.”

Craig: “Yes, but you shouldn’t demand unreasonable standards of proof."

— William Lane Craig, PhD, ThD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p104
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“Even the famous skeptic David Hume didn’t deny the first premise [that everything has a cause]. Hume wrote in 1754, ‘I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.’ It wasn’t until the discovery of scientific confirmation for the beginning of the universe in the twentieth century that people began to say, well, maybe the universe just came from nothing.

“Nobody has defended such an absurd position historically, which, again, makes me inclined to think this is just a corner they’re being backed into by the evidence for the beginning of the universe.”

— William Lane Craig, PhD, ThD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p107

Robert Jastrow, NASA astronomer & planetary physicist, 1925-2008

“Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the Biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and Biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”

― Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe, Simon & Schuster, 1981
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“Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proved that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks: What cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter or energy into the universe? And science cannot answer these questions, because, according to the astronomers, in the first moments of its existence the Universe was compressed to an extraordinary degree, and consumed by the heat of a fire beyond human imagination. The shock of that instant must have destroyed every particle of evidence that could have yielded a clue to the cause of the great explosion.”

― Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe, Simon & Schuster, 1981
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“There is a strange ring of feeling and emotion in these reactions [of scientists to evidence that the universe had a sudden beginning]. They come from the heart whereas you would expect the judgments to come from the brain. Why? I think part of the answer is that scientists cannot bear the thought of a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained, even with unlimited time and money. There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event; every effect must have its cause, there is no First Cause. …This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized.”

― Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe, Simon & Schuster, 1981

Stephen C. Meyer, PhD, American philosopher, 1958-

“I would start with the new cosmology–the Big Bang theory and its accompanying theoretical underpinning in general relativity. These two theories now point to a definite beginning of the universe. The fact that most scientists now believe that energy, matter, space, and time had a beginning is profoundly antimaterialistic.

“You can invoke neither time nor space nor matter nor energy nor the laws of nature to explain the origin of the universe. General relativity points to the need for a cause that transcends those domains. And theism affirms the existence of such an entity–namely, God.

“In short, naturalism is on hard times in cosmology; the deeper you get into it, the harder it is to get rid of the God hypothesis. Taken together, the Big Bang and general relativity provide a scientific description of what Christians call creatio ex nihilo–creation out of nothing. As Nobel Prize-winner Arno Penzias said about the Big Bang, ‘The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted had I nothing to go on but the first give books of Moses, the Psalms and the Bible as a whole.’”

― Stephen C. Meyer, PhD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p81

Paul Davies, PhD, English physicist & professor, 1946-
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“The concept of a causal God... can then be illustrated by making God... the first member of this series of causes... By contrast, if God is outside time, then he cannot belong to this causal chain at all. Instead, he is above the chain, sustaining it at every link... and this picture could apply equally well whether the chain of causes has a first member or not. With this picture in mind, we may say that God is not so much a cause of the universe as an EXPLANATION.”

— Paul Davies, PhD, God and the New Physics, Simon & Schuster, 1983 p45


“The importance of the distinction between creator and creature in this system is that the created world depends absolutely for its existence on the creator. If the physical world itself were divine, or somehow emanated directly from the creator, then it would share the creator’s necessary existence. But because it was created from nothing, and because the creative act was a free choice of the creator, the universe does not have to exist. Thus Augustine writes: ‘You created something, and that something out of nothing. You made heaven and earth, not out of yourself, for then they would have been equal to your Only-Begotten, and through this equal also to you.’...

“Even today there remain doctrinal differences within the main branches of the Church, and still greater differences among the various world religions, concerning the meaning of creation. These range from the ideas of Christian and Islamic fundamentalists, based on a literal interpretation of the traditional texts, to those of radical Christian thinkers who prefer a totally abstract view of creation. But all agree that in one sense or another the physical universe on its own is incomplete. It cannot explain itself. Its existence ultimately demands something outside of itself, and can be understood only from its dependence on some form of divine influence.”

— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p44-45


“If one accepts the idea that space, time, and matter had their origin in a singularity that represents an absolute boundary to the physical universe in the past, a number of puzzles follow. There is still the problem of what caused the big bang. However, this question must now be seen in a new light, for it is not possible to attribute the big bang to anything that happened before it, as is usually the case in discussions of causation. Does this mean the big bang was an event without a cause? If the laws of physics break down at the singularity, there can be no explanation in terms of those laws. Therefore, if one insists on a reason for the big bang, then this reason must lie beyond physics.”
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— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p57


“There was a lot of resistance to the idea of a big-bang singularity among physicists and cosmologists when it was first mooted. One reason for this concerns the above-mentioned fact that matter, space, and time are linked in the general theory of relativity. This linkage carries important implications for the nature of the expanding universe. Naïvely, one might suppose that the galaxies are rushing apart through space. A more accurate picture, however, is to envisage space itself as swelling or stretching. That is, the galaxies move apart because the space between them expands... Conversely, in the past, space was shrunken. If we consider the moment of infinite compression, space was infinitely shrunk. But if space is infinitely shrunk, it must literally disappear, like a balloon that shrivels to nothing. And the all-important linkage of space, time, and matter further implies that time must disappear too. There can be no time without space. Thus the material singularity is also a space-time singularity. Because all our laws of physics are formulated in terms of space and time, these laws cannot apply beyond the point at which space and time cease to exist. Hence the laws of physics must break down at the singularity.
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“The picture that we then obtain for the origin of the universe is a remarkable one. At some finite instant in the past the universe of space, time, and matter is bounded by a space-time singularity. The coming-into-being of the universe is therefore represented not only by the abrupt appearance of matter, but of space and time as well.The significance of this result cannot be overstressed. People often ask: Where did the big bang occur? The bang did not occur at a point in space at all. Space itself came into existence with the big bang. There is similar difficulty over the question: What happened before the big bang? The answer is, there was no ‘before.’ Time itself began at the big bang. As we have seen, Saint Augustine long ago proclaimed that the world was made with time and not in time, and that is precisely the modern scientific position.”
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— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p49-50


“Many people have an image of God as a sort of pyrotechnic engineer, lighting the blue touch-paper to ignite the big bang, and then sitting back to watch the show. Unfortunately, this simple picture, while highly compelling to some, makes little sense. As we have seen, a supernatural creation cannot be a causative act in time, for the coming-into-being of time is part of what we are trying to explain. If God is invoked as an explanation for the physical universe, then this explanation cannot be in terms of familiar cause and effect.
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“This recurring problem of time was recently addressed by the British physicist Russell Stannard, who draws the analogy between God and the author of a book. A completed book exists in its entirety, although we humans read it in a time sequence from the beginning to the end. ‘Just as an author does not write the first chapter, and then leave the others to write themselves, so God’s creativity is not to seem as uniquely confined to, or even especially invested in, the event of the Big Bang. Rather, his creativity has to be seen as permeating equally all space and all time: his role as Creator and Sustainer merge.”
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— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p58


“...Put simply, if the universe really has an explanation and it can’t explain itself, then it must be explained by something outside itself – e.g., God. But what, then, explains God? This age-old ‘who made God’ conundrum is in danger of pitching us into an infinite regress. The only escape, it would seem, is to assume that God can somehow ‘explain himself,’ which is to say that God is a necessary being in the technical sense that I explained at the beginning of this chapter. More precisely, if God is to supply the sufficient reason for the universe, then it follows that he himself must be a necessary being, for, if God were contingent, then the chain of explanation would still not have terminated, and we would want to know what were the factors beyond God on which his existence and nature depended. But can we make sense of the notion of a necessary being, a being that contains entirely within itself the reason for its own existence? Many philosophers have argued that the idea is incoherent or meaningless. Certainly human beings are not able to comprehend the nature of such a being. But that in itself does not mean that the notion of a necessary being is self-contradictory.”

— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p177

Wernher von Braun, German-American aerospace engineer, 1912-1977
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“My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?”

— Wernher von Braun (From a letter to the California State board of Education (14 September, 1972)

Robert Jastrow, NASA astronomer & planetary physicist, 1925-2008
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“At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

― Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, W. W. Norton & Company, 1978 p116

Isaac Newton, English polymath & scientist, 1642-1726
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“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being...

“This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler.”

― Isaac Newton, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1687

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Brian Garvey, Irish professor of philosophy
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“...The [Russell’s Teapot] argument seems to rest on the assumption that the existence of God is a question for science – or at least sufficiently similar in the relevant respects that the methods of scientific enquiry are appropriate to it. However, I want to finish up the main body of this paper by arguing against that notion. The issue I have been emphasising is that of explanation. Science is in the business of explaining things, and indeed the vast majority of philosophers of science these days are of the view that good science is not simply what we can deduce from what is observed, but what provides the best (however we cash that out) explanation for what is observed... If we end up with a theory in which there are many different universes, with different laws in each one, we would presumably need a still more fundamental set of laws, distinct from the ones that are local to each universe, which explain how there come to be these different universes, and how they come to have the different local laws they have. Failing such an explanation in terms of ‘superuniversal’ laws, we would simply have to say that the different universes and their local laws were simply ‘brute facts’. That is to say, facts we cannot explain and – crucially – facts which cannot be given a scientific explanation. For scientific explanations, no matter how deep, reach a terminus at the most fundamental laws we can discover – and scientific inquiry reaches its ideal (not yet reached) terminus at the most universal laws there are. This means that the question ‘why that set of fundamental laws?’ is beyond the scope of science...
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“...But science will always have to appeal to yet more fundamental laws if it is to explain at all, so it can never explain whatever the actually most fundamental laws are.
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“It is of course, logically possible, that there is no reason for those laws – that is, that they are a brute fact. But we could not know this even if it were true, and in any event the claim that it is a brute fact is still a positive alternative claim to the claim that God or some other thing is the explanation for it. It would be analogous to a situation in which there were gravitational perturbations, radar-like detections etc. that suggested the existence of something [like a teapot] between Earth and Mars causing them, but in fact they were not caused (or explained) by anything. If this were the case, the perturbations and so forth would be brute facts, but for this to be the case, such brute facts to be would have to be possible, even if we didn’t know how they were possible. Thus the person who was an a-tea-ist despite the perturbations etc. would be doing something more than just denying an existence that the teaist affirmed. The a-tea-ist would in addition be committed to something that the tea-ist was not committed to – namely, that all these perturbations and so forth are not caused by a teapot – either they are caused by something else, or not caused at all. Similarly, the atheist is not just denying an existence that the theist affirms – the atheist is in addition committed to the view that the universe is not the way it is because of God. It is either the way it is because of something other than God, or there is no reason it is the way it is.”
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– Brian Garvey, “Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence, and the Atheist’s Teapot,” Ars Disputandi, 10:1, 2010 p9-22 (p19-21)

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Jerome I. Gellman, Israeli professor of philosophy, 1940-
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“...In addition, one often hears that the most impressive advancement in our scientific understanding of the world has rendered intelligible entire areas of our experience which were hitherto opaque to natural explanation and which thus used to call forth an explanation in terms of God’s activity in the world and history. So the ‘hypothesis’ of God is no longer needed to adequately explain what previously was otherwise without explanation.

“This line of thinking, however, does not supply us with any evidence against God’s existence. Even if correct, at most it shows that what might have been taken once as evidence for God’s existence is no longer to be taken as such. But the fact is hardly evidence against God’s existence.”

— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p156

Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, American physician-geneticist, NIH Director, 1950-
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“Arno Penzias, the Nobel Prize–winning scientist who co-discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation that provided strong support for the Big Bang in the first place, states, ‘The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five Books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.’

― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God, Free Press, 2006 p76

Paul Davies, PhD, English physicist & professor, 1946-
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“...it is possible to imagine a supermind existing since the creation... This would not be a God who created everything by supernatural means, but a directing, controlling, universal mind pervading the cosmos and operating the laws of nature to achieve some specific purpose... the universe IS a mind: a self-observing as well as self-organizing, system. Our own minds could then be viewed as localized ‘islands’ of consciousness in a sea of mind, an idea that it reminiscent of the Oriental conception of mysticism, where God is then regarded as the unifying consciousness of all things into which the human mind will be absorbed, losing its individual identity, when it achieves an appropriate level of spiritual advancement.”

— Paul Davies, PhD, God and the New Physics, Simon & Schuster, 1983 p210

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William Mander, Professor of History of Modern Philosophy
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“The term ‘pantheism’ is a modern one, possibly first appearing in the writing of the Irish freethinker John Toland (1705) and constructed from the Greek roots pan (all) and theos (God). But if not the name, the ideas themselves are very ancient, and any survey of the history of philosophy will uncover numerous pantheist or pantheistically inclined thinkers; although it should also be noted that in many cases all that history has preserved for us are second-hand reportings of attributed doctrines, any reconstruction of which is too conjectural to provide much by way of philosophical illumination.

“At its most general, pantheism may be understood positively as the view that God is identical with the cosmos, the view that there exists nothing which is outside of God, or else negatively as the rejection of any view that considers God as distinct from the universe...

“Following the first type of argument, pantheistic belief arises when the things of this world excite a particular sort of religious reaction in us. We feel, perhaps, a deep reverence for and sense of identity with the world in which we find ourselves. Epistemically it seems to us that God is not distant but can be encountered directly in what we experience around us. We see God in everything...

“In the second kind of argument, reasoning starts from a relatively abstract concept whose application is taken as assured, but further reflection leads to the conclusion that its scope must be extended to include the whole of reality. Most typically, the concept in question is that of ‘God’, or ‘perfect being’, in which case pantheism appears as the logical terminus or completion of theism...

“(1) Traditional theism asserts the omnipresence of God and, while it strongly wishes to maintain that this is not equivalent to pantheism, the difference between saying that God is present everywhere in everything and saying that God is everything is far from easy to explain. If omnipresence means, not simply that God is cognisant of or active in all places, but literally that he exists everywhere, then it is hard to see how any finite being can be said to have existence external to God. Indeed, for Isaac Newton and Samuel Clarke divine omnipresence was one and the same thing as space, which they understood as ‘the sensorium of God.’ (Oakes 2006)

“(2) The traditional theistic position that God’s creation of the universe is continuous can easily be developed in pantheistic directions. The view that the world could not exist—even for a second—without God, makes it wholly dependent on God and, hence, not really an autonomous entity. (Oakes 1983)...

“(3) Alternatively it might be argued that God’s omniscience is indistinguishable from reality itself. For if there obtains a complete mapping between God’s knowledge and the world that God knows, what basis can be found for distinguishing between them, there being not even the possibility of a mismatch? Moreover, were we to separate the two, since knowledge tracks reality – we know something because it is the case and not vice versa – then God would become problematically dependent upon the world. (Mander 2000)

“(4) Arguments of this general type may also proceed from starting points more philosophical than theological. For example, Spinoza, the most famous of all modern pantheists starts from the necessary existence of something he calls ‘substance.’ By this he means that which exists wholly in its own right, that whose existence does not depend upon anything else...”

— William Mander, “Pantheism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Jan 21, 2020

St. Anselm of Canterbury, Italian monk & Catholic Saint, 1033-1109CE
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“...And indeed, we believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Or is there no such nature, since the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God? But, at any rate, this very fool, when he hears of this being of which I speak—a being than which nothing greater can be conceived—understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding; although he does not understand it to exist.

“For, it is one thing for an object to be in the understanding, and another to understand that the object exists. When a painter first conceives of what he will afterwards perform, he has it in his understanding, but he does not yet understand it to be, because he has not yet performed it. But after he has made the painting, he both has it in his understanding, and he understands that it exists, because he has made it.

“Hence, even the fool is convinced that something exists in the understanding, at least, than which nothing greater can be conceived. For, when he hears of this, he understands it. And whatever is understood, exists in the understanding. And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.

“Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.”

— St. Anselm of Canterbury (translated by Sidney Norton Deane), “Chapter II: That God Truly Exists,” Proslogion, 1077CE

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St. Thomas Aquinas, Italian friar, priest, philosopher, & theologian, 1225-1274
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“The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.”

— St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q2, A3, Second and Revised Edition, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican, 1920 

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Baruch de Spinoza, Dutch Enlightenment philosopher, 1632-1677
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“[Definition] D6: By ‘God’ I understand: a thing that is absolutely infinite, i.e. a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and infinite essence. I say ‘absolutely infinite’ in contrast to ‘infinite in its own kind.’ If something is infinite only in its own kind, there can be attributes that it doesn’t have; but if something is absolutely infinite its essence or nature contains every positive way in which a thing can exist – which means that it has all possible attributes...

“[Axiom] A1: Whatever exists is either in itself or in something else... 

“[Axiom] A7: If a thing can be conceived as not existing then its essence doesn’t involve existence...

“A third proof: To be unable to exist is to lack power, and conversely to be able to exist is to have power (this is self-evident). Now, suppose that God doesn’t exist but some finite things do exist necessarily. In that case, these finite things are more powerful than an absolutely infinite thing (because they can exist and the absolutely infinite thing can’t). But this is self-evidently absurd. So either nothing exists or an absolutely infinite thing also exists. But we exist, either in ourselves as substances that necessarily exist or as qualities of something else that necessarily exists (see [Axioms] A1 and 7). Therefore an absolutely infinite thing – that is (by [Definition] D6) God – necessarily exists.”

— Baruch de Spinoza, Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order, 1677 (translation Johnathan Bennett, 2004, 2017) p1-2, 5
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Paul Davies, PhD, English physicist & professor, 1946-
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“The history of theology is not, however, without attempts to prove that God’s nonexistence is logically impossible. This argument, known as the ‘ontological argument,’ goes back to Saint Anselm, and runs something like this. God is defined to be the greatest conceivable thing. Now, a really existing thing is obviously greater than the mere idea of that thing. (A real person – for example, the famous Fabian of Scotland Yard – is greater than a fictional character, such as Sherlock Holmes.) Therefore, a really existing god is greater than an imaginary god. But as God is the greatest conceivable thing, it follows that he must exist.”
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— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p185


“Finally, mention should be made of Frank Tipler’s application of the ontological argument to the universes itself (as opposed to God). Tipler attempts to circumvent the objection that ‘existence’ is not a property of something by defining existence in an unusual way. In chapter 5 we say how Tipler defends the notion that computer-simulated worlds are every bit as real for the simulated beings as our world is to us. But he points out that a computer program is, in essence, nothing but a mapping of one set of symbols or numbers into another set. One might consider that all possible mappings – hence all possible computer programs – exist in some abstract Platonic sense. Among these programs will be many (probably in infinity) that represent simulated universes. The question is, which among the many possible computer simulations correspond to ‘physically existing’ universes? To use Hawking’s terms, which ones have fire breathed into them? Tipler proposes that those simulations ‘which are sufficiently complex to contain observers – thinking, feeling beings – as subsimulations’ are the ones that exist physically, at least as far as the simulated beings are concerned. Furthermore, these simulations necessarily exist as a consequence of the logical requirements of the mathematical operations involved in the mappings. Therefore, concludes Tipler, our universe (and a great many others) must exist as a consequence of logical necessity.”
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— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p187-188


“So what are we to conclude? If the reader is bewildered after this little tour of philosophy, so is the author. It seems to me that the ontological argument is an attempt to define God into existence from nothing, and, as such, in a strictly logical sense it cannot succeed. You can’t get out of a purely deductive argument more than you put into the premises. At best the argument can demonstrate that, if a necessary being is possible, then he must exist. God could only fail to exist if the concept of a necessary being is incoherent. I can accept that. But the argument fails to demonstrate the strictly formal impossibility of God’s nonexistence. On the other hand, if the ontological argument is augmented with an extra assumption or assumptions, then it could be successful. Now, what if these extra assumptions (which would necessarily be synthetic) were limited to presuppositions necessary for the existence of rational thought? We could then conclude that the activity of rational inquiry would indeed be able to establish God’s existence by reason alone. This suggestion is mere speculation, but Keith Ward for one is prepared to keep an open mind about it: ‘It is not absurd to think that by analysis of the notions of “perfection,” “being,” “necessity” and “existence,” one might find that a presupposition of their objective applicability to the world is the existence of an object of a certain type.’”
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— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p188

Peter John Kreeft, American professor of philosophy, 1937-
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“There are objections against each of the arguments for the existence of God, no matter how many there are. (However, even if all these objections were valid, that would leave us only in agnosticism, not atheism. To find a fallacy in an argument is not to prove the opposite conclusion.)”

— Peter Kreeft, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p26

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Jerome I. Gellman, Israeli professor of philosophy, 1940-
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“It follows from what is said up until Chapter 7 that if there is no evidence against the existence of God, then it is strongly rational, on our argument, to believe that God is experienced and thus exists. And while we cannot claim to establish here that there is no evidence against God’s existence, enough is said to weaken the impression that our argument from experience of God faces a vast array of types of counterevidence...

“So we conclude that as far as we take the question, which we trust is quite far, there is no evidence that God does not exist, and so our argument stands unchallenged by counterevidence to God’s existence from the ‘object end’ of those experiences. But neither is our argument adequately challenged from the ‘experience end.’

“Hence, we conclude that as far as we have considered the question, on the basis of the apparent experience of God it is strongly rational to believe that God is experienced and thus that God exists.”

— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p11


“We conclude that without further argument it is difficult to see how our scientific understanding of the world could yield evidence that God does not exist, as opposed to affording atheistic outlooks as a result of the impact of science upon their understanding of the world. But they may merely be guilty of making God guilty by association. And even where their belief is impeccably (weakly) rational, that does not yet show that there is anything in scientific theories which counts as evidence against God’s existence. It only shows that a person could fail to believe in God and be (weakly) rational.”

— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p156

Richard Dawkins, PhD, British evolutionary biologist, 1941-
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“Personal qualities, pleasant or unpleasant, form no part of the deist god of Voltaire and Thomas Paine. Compared with the Old Testament’s psychotic delinquent, the deist God of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment is an altogether grander being: worthy of his cosmic creation loftily unconcerned with human affairs, sublimely aloof from our private thoughts and hopes, caring nothing for our messy sins or mumbled contritions. The deist God is a physicist to end all physics, the alpha and omega of mathematicians, the apotheosis of designers; a hyper-engineer who set up the laws and constants of the universe, fine-tuned them with exquisite precision and foreknowledge, detonated what we would now call the hot big bang, retired and was never heard from again.”

— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p59