"5 Reasons: Why I Still Believe in God" - DAY 29

Day 29 – the argument defined

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe…the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.  –IMMANUEL KANT

The Argument from Design is just one rational defense of God's existence. In my opinion, it is the easiest to understand and the most difficult to rebut of such arguments and is the one I usually turn to first in a theological discussion. Other arguments are available, and the time has come for us to look at them. I think you will likewise find them to be rational and comprehensible. Together with the Argument from Design, they present a formidable challenge to any atheist.

To introduce the next argument, pretend that you and I ask a friend of yours to join us for a game of Monopoly. During the course of the game, I roll a "seven" with the dice, but instead of moving my game piece seven spaces forward, I move it ahead a full nine squares.  When you question me, I reply, "I know I rolled a 'seven,' but I needed to land on Boardwalk, so I moved there instead." Your immediate response would be, "That's not fair!" When we resume our board game, I continue to violate the rules repeatedly. Finally, having had your fill of such antics, you and your friend tell me that the game is over and you are going home. 

After you leave, I begin to think about my actions and recognize that I have behaved badly. I fear that I have jeopardized our friendship and, in sincere remorse, come to your house and beg forgiveness. As evidence of my sincerity, I offer to you and your friend a free dinner with me at a local restaurant.  Your response is that you will not forgive me, even if I offered you the Hope diamond.  Then you snatch the dinner coupons from my hand and tell me that you and your friend will enjoy dinner at my expense but that I am not welcome. After you slam the door shut, I yell to you through it, "That's not fair!"

My argument will be: (1) that every person has at times be driven to say, "That's not fair!”; (2) that making an accusation of unfairness implies that fairness must also exist; (3) that the atheist, when he screams, "That's unjust!," is admitting that somewhere justice exists; and (4) that justice (which includes morality, the sense that some things are right and some things are wrong) cannot exist unless God exists.¹

Daily Quotation

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (trans. by N. K. Smith; New York: St. Martin's, 1965), 166.

¹For a thorough, easy-to-read, and entertaining discussion of this argument, read Paul Chamberlain’s Can We Be Good Without God? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996).