Saturday, February 7, 2009

Transcendental Arguments For God's Existence Part 2

This is one of my favorite Transcendental arguments that I put a year of my life into studying and analyzing. This argument has been endorsed by Greg Bahnsen and Alvin Plantinga. It argues from our beliefs about the uniformity of nature to God's existence. Let’s take look at the argument from the uniformity of nature, or the "argument from induction".

P1: If God does not exist then we have no basis for inductive reasoning
P2: We have a basis for inductive reasoning
C: Therefore, God exists

What is inductive reasoning?

Induction is a form of reasoning that makes generalizations based on individual instances. This includes past to future instances as well. I know that, in all probability, when I drop the pen I am holding it will fall to the ground, because it has done so in every case in he past.

Why does inductive reasoning require God’s existence?

The problem with inductive reasoning is that on naturalism or atheism there is reason to doubt this basic belief that the future will probably be like the past. The reason why one should doubt this is because there is no supernatural being that controls and sustains reality in a consistent fashion. The atheist might respond that in the past chairs have never turned into flying sharks, but this assumes that the past will be like the future. And the question you have to ask is how you know that the past will be like the future? They might say that they don’t know for certain, but that it has been that way in the past and so probably it will be like that in the future. The problem with this response is that, once again, it assumes that the past is going to be like the future: The very thing you are asking the naturalist or atheist to justify. So on the atheistic worldview, at any given moment, it is equally likely that things could be similar to what they were in the past or that there could be millions of random chaotic possibilities. Both are equally likely. So if this is true on atheism, then 5 minutes from now it is equally likely that the ground you are standing on could retain its similar properties or it could turn into jello (both are equally likely if inductive reasoning is thrown out the window).

How does a belief in God support inductive reasoning?

However, on theism we believe in the God of the universe that is guiding, causing, and controlling reality consistently. So when we are asked how we know that the past will be like the future we can say that nature will be uniformed because we believe in a divine being that controls it consistently. It is a part of God’s nature to make reality consistent and orderly. On naturalism and atheism all you have is the universe by itself which is not guided by anything whatsoever so as not to ensure that the future will be like the past.

What about miracles?

Miracles are not a violation of God’s consistency, for they are merely a unique event that takes place when God is revealing himself. Since these events are rare to the time of the Old and New Testament they do not affect our probabilistic reasoning.


Thus, from this Transcendental argument we can see that if one wants to be reasonable in holding to their basic belief about the inductive process (uniformity of nature) then they ought to infer God's existence from this basic belief rather than a belief in naturalism.

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