A PROOF OF GOD/ J. Colannino

ABSTRACT
God exists. He is worthy of our love, worship, praise, and adoration. This follows from a single undeniable premise.

DEFINITION OF GOD
D1, God – God is an infinite Being such that there is no greater, possessing all possible perfections,[1] at least.[2] By perfections, I mean noble attributes like wisdom, truth, love, mercy, justice, knowledge, and so forth, in the highest possible degree. That is, with respect to knowledge God is omniscient. With respect to power, God is omnipotent. With respect to existence, He is omnipresent, being self-sufficient and transcending time and space. Collectively, these perfections may be referred to as “good” while “evil” refers to their lack. Such a Being is worthy of praise, adoration, and worship.[3]


PROPOSITIONS
P1. I exist. Denying my existence is self-contradictory; it requires a “self” to do the denying.[4]Therefore, I exist. This is self-evident and undeniable.[5]

P2. Now exists. I can only act now. I cannot act in the past, the moment is gone and my opportunity to act is lost. I cannot act in the future. The moment has not yet arrived. But I am acting. I am affirming my existence. Therefore, now exists.

P3. Time began. If time had no beginning then no amount of time would be sufficient to arrive at now, even if the universe were infinitely old.[6] But now exists. Therefore, time began.[7]

P4. Time has a cause. That which has a beginning has a cause. Time exists. Time began. Therefore, time has a cause.[8]

P5. Time cannot be self-caused. Time could not have been self-caused, for then it would have had to precede itself – to have existed before it became existent, a logical impossibility. Therefore, time cannot be self-caused.

P6. The cause of time must transcend time. One cannot logically speak of anything “preceding” time, for precession and succession denote order in time – without time, they have no meaning. Nothing could have happened “before” time to cause time to spring into existence – without time, “before” has no meaning. Without time, one can only speak of a cause transcending time – a cause that eternally exists. Therefore, the cause of time must transcend time.

P7. There is an Uncaused Cause that transcends time. A cause that transcends time must eternally exist.[9] A cause must precede its effect, but a cause transcending time can have no antecedent. Therefore, the cause of time is uncaused and eternally existent. Therefore, there is an Uncaused Cause that transcends time.

P8. The Uncaused Cause possesses all possible perfections. Love, truth, wisdom, etc. – these are perfections. They exist now. Love springs from love, truth from truth, wisdom from wisdom, etc. But no cause in time can precede itself. Therefore, perfections are not temporal but exist as attributes of the Uncaused Cause.

CONCLUSION

By D1 a Being that possesses all possible perfections is God. Q.E.D., God exists and is worthy of our love, praise, and adoration.

OBJECTIONS AND REBUTTALS
O1 — Such noble attributes are ambiguous. What one man considers noble another may consider repugnant. Therefore D1 is ambiguous and the proof is void.
R1.1 – A fair evaluation will show that there is no confusion about what constitutes a noble attribute. Consider the antonyms of D1: foolishness, falsehood, hate, vindictiveness, caprice, ignorance and so forth. Can anyone seriously suggest that these are noble attributes?
R1.2 – If so, I am justified to abandon them to their folly. But for the sake of the belligerent among whom I once belonged, consider only three: omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Those are unarguably unambiguous. They are also sufficient to distinguish God from all pretenders and to validate all the arguments presented herewith.

O2 — Such perfections are self-contradictory. For example, one cannot be both merciful and just. If a crime deserves punishment then mercy will excuse the crime at the expense of justice. If one punishes the crime as justice demands, then where is mercy? Therefore, D1 defines nothing and the proof is void.
R2.1 – There is nothing contradictory in mercy and justice nor among any noble attributes. Can a judge justly release a condemned murderer to society for the sake of mercy? No, he cannot. Notwithstanding, is it a merciful act to release an unrepentant murderer into general society? Is it merciful to the victims, to society at large, to his potential future victims? No, indeed, the judge is being both just and quite merciful to these.
R2.2 – Moreover, the analogy considers only a human judge. God is able to bestow justice and mercy in ways that finite creatures cannot. For example, the thief on the cross is an example of both mercy and justice.[11] The murderous thief died a condemned man, guilty of his crime; he satisfied the law with his death. Yet God admitted this repentant man to his kingdom in an act of mercy. If the thief’s punishment was excessive, an infinite God can rectify even this.
Therefore, such perfections are not contradictory.

O3 — Perhaps not everything that has a beginning has a cause. What if some things (or one thing) began without a cause? Then time could be one of those things. This refutes P4. Just because we have no examples of things beginning without a cause does not mean that it is impossible. Why can’t something happen without a reason?
R3 – On what basis does one believe in something without example? How does something that never existed come to exist without a cause for its existence? It cannot cause itself, for it does not yet exist; and it cannot be caused to exist, for it has no cause. Then there is no logical option but that it does not exist. Q.E.D., something cannot come into existence nor begin without a cause.

O4 – Wisdom, love, truth, etc. do not exist now, at least not in their perfect form. Therefore, P8 is false and God is not shown to be perfect.
R4 – How does one know that perfect wisdom, love, truth, and the like do not exist? One can claim that these perfections do not exist only by referring to a perfect standard of wisdom, love, and truth and contrasting the imperfect with its perfect referent. Evidently they exist, at the very least, in the mind of the one denying their existence. Therefore, the denial is self-defeating.[12] Wisdom, love, and truth, etc. do exist now.

O5 – Wisdom, love, truth, etc. are eternal in and of themselves. Therefore, P8 is false. God need not exist in order for wisdom, love and truth to exist.
R5 – Wisdom, love, and truth etc. are the domain of sentient creatures and cannot even be imagined to exist apart from them. Therefore, they do not exist in and of themselves. Indeed, if they have existed eternally, they can only have existed as attributes of an eternal sentient Being.

O6 – Wisdom, love, truth, etc. exist only in the human mind[13] and do not predate it. Therefore, P8 is false. Wisdom, love, truth, etc. are not attributes of the Eternal God.
R6.1 – If wisdom and the like exist only in the human mind, then wisdom began when the human mind began. If the human mind began in time then it was created by God who is the Uncaused Cause, or else it began as some process in time. But all temporal processes have been shown to begin with the Uncaused Cause. Therefore, the Uncaused Cause is the cause of the human mind; He is possessor of wisdom, love, truth, etc.
R6.2 – Now, the Uncaused Cause either created such perfections, or they exist as His eternal attributes. If they were created, then they had a beginning in time. But this is not possible. For an Uncaused Cause who did not possess wisdom could not create it, for the act of creating wisdom is a wise act. The act of creating love is a loving act, and so forth. So then, all perfections must be eternal attributes of the Uncaused Cause. Therefore, the Uncaused Cause possesses all possible perfections.

O7 – Good can come from evil. Wisdom, love, and truth can spring from foolishness, hate, and falsehood. Therefore, P8 is false. From the foolishness of others I may learn to avoid their mistakes and so gain wisdom. From my mistreatment as a child I may resolve to treat my child differently and so become loving. Observing the falsehood of others and its consequences, I may resolve to tell the truth, and so become truthful.
R7.1 – An answer to the problem of evil. Far from disproving the existence of God, the objection is consistent with the notion that evil can be used by a good and loving God who is so wise and so loving so as to bring about good no matter how malevolent the actor or how pernicious his evil. Indeed, this is one solution to the so-called problem of evil[14] (the notion that evil cannot be allowed by a good God).
R7.2 – The superiority of good over evil. The objection proves that wisdom, love, and truth (i.e., good) are greater than foolishness, hate, and falsehood (i.e., evil), for the good overcomes the evil and outlasts it.
R7.3 – The self-conflicting nature of the objection. If the reader honestly believes that ignoble attributes beget noble ones, on what basis does he oppose the former? Let that decide the issue.
R7.4 – The objection is a non sequitur. A careful analysis of the objection will show that wisdom, love, and truth do not come from the person exhibiting these imperfect behaviors. On the contrary, it is the wise, loving, and true person who exhibits goodness despite his exposure to the contrary.

O8 – An evil person can repent and become good. So, someone who was formerly evil has now become good. Evil has morphed into goodness. This refutes P8 which claims good derives from good (and ultimately from God) who possesses all possible perfections (goodness).
R8 – The repentance of an evil man does not refute P8. Evil men can repent. But there are two tacit assumptions in O8. The first is that the evil man’s repentance is strictly internal with no aid from a righteous God. The second is that an evil man has only evil within him and no good within him. However, genuine repentance is not an act of evil. The repentant man may receive aid from a merciful God leading to repentance. Others have claimed that he has enough good to recognize his evil and repent.[15] In either case, good has overcome evil, evil has not begotten good.

O9 – Evil exists now, therefore God is evil. P8 states that wisdom, love, and truth, etc. exist eternally and are therefore attributes of God. But the converse analogy is that evil exists now and it has always existed. Therefore, evil is an eternal attribute of God. God is evil. Predicated on this objection is the next.
O10 – God cannot be both good and evil, therefore, God’s existence is a logical impossibility. P8 proves God is good and O9 asserts that God is evil. If both are true then we have a logical impossibility. God cannot be both good and evil, for what is good is not evil, and what is evil cannot be good. Therefore, God is a logically impossible being. He cannot exist.
R9.1 – Perhaps evil has not always existed. The unproven assumption in O9 is that evil has always existed. But this is far from proven. Indeed the contrary has been affirmed from mankind’s earliest historical records, legends, and myths.[16] Man’s history contains the affirmation that there was a time when evil was not. Therefore, it is presumptive to suggest that evil has always existed. Indeed, it can be disproved (R9.2).
R9.2 – Good, an attribute of God, is necessarily eternal; not so with evil. Evil does exist now. But evil is the absence of good just as dark is the absence of light. Logically, one can arrive at darkness or dimness by obscuring all or some of the light, respectively. However, darkness – the absence of light - cannot beget any amount of light whatsoever. One can arrive at evil in a good universe by obscuring some good. One cannot arrive at good from evil – the absence of good. Only a greater good can thwart evil and cause good to come about (R7.1-R7.4). Evil subsumes some good to obscure while good does not require evil to exist. P8 shows that good is eternal. But the obscuring of good is a process in time. Therefore, good is eternal but evil had a beginning.[17] Therefore, evil has not always existed.
R10 – God’s existence requires no logical impossibilities. D1 affirms that God is good. O9 presumes that God must be evil, but R9.1 and R9.2 have rebutted that presumption. Therefore, there is no unresolvable dilemma regarding the logic of God’s existence.


NOTES
[1]A God of all possible perfections was presumed by Anselm of Canterbury, 1033-1109, in his so-called ontological argument.

[2]I say “at least” because God, being infinite, cannot be described in any finite way. This includes a finite number of text characters as in this paper, or in the Bible even as inspired by God in the original languages penned by the prophets and apostles were we to have the autographa. There are some things we do not know about God now (1 Cor 2.9) and there are some things we will never know about Him (Rev 19.12). Thus, the definition is necessarily incomplete, but nonetheless sufficient. It distinguishes God from all other possible beings.

[3]What I do not mean is that God can be “supremely ignorant” or an “incontrovertible liar” or any other such oxymoron; for ignorance and duplicity are not noble attributes. The structure of human language is such that it is always possible to couple a depravity with a superlative; this is an artifact of language and a propensity of man, not an attribute of God.

[4]Restatement of Rene Descartes’ now famous maxim “Cogito ergo sum — I think, therefore, I am.”

[5]Some radical skeptics deny the certainty or knowability of anything, especially God. Despite their protests, no other possible and logical conclusion may be drawn about one’s self-existence except that it is so. Notwithstanding, even the radical skeptic is forced to admit that there is virtually nothing of which one may be more certain than his self-existence, even if he is not completely certain of it. Therefore, the radical skeptic is a hypocrite, basing all other beliefs on less certain knowledge yet refusing to believe in his own existence except on the condition of absolute certainty. He is wrong on both counts and his behavior is inexcusable. For the radical skeptic faces the self-destructing dilemma that he is absolutely certain that he cannot be absolutely certain.

[6]For this proof as well as a brief summary of scientific evidence for this position see Geisler, N.L., “Systematic Theology, Vol 1, pp 27, 28, ISBN 0-7642-2551-0, Bethany House, Bloomington MN, 2002.

[7]This is not equivalent to saying “there was a time when time was not.” That is a self-contradictory and inextricably temporal argument; “was,” “time,” and “when” all convey temporal ideas that have no meaning except in a temporal universe. In contrast, “Time began,” refers to the creation of time, defining its first moment.

[8]The development that proceeds is basically a variant of the cosmological argument developed by Bonaventure (c. 1217-1274) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).

[9]That which transcends time is necessarily existent eternally. For whatever is not eternally existing has either a beginning or an end. And whatever has a beginning or an end is not transcendent of time. Likewise, whatever transcends time has neither beginning nor end. Therefore, that which transcends time is necessarily existent eternally.

[10]This is essentially the argument of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). See Summa Theologica, 1a 4.1,3.

[11]Lk 23.39-43.

[12]This is standard apologetic fare. For example, see Geisler, Kreeft, or Sproul as cited herewith.

[13]This objection derives from Kant, who more generally espoused the inability of knowing of anything as it objectively exists. Kant, I., “A Critique of Pure Reason,” translated by Meiklejohn, J.M., ISBN 1-4043-0127-5, IndyPublish.com, McLean, VA.
ISBN 1-4043-0126-5.

[14]Kreeft, P. and Tacelli, R.K., “Handbook of Christian Apologetics,” p 128 f, ISBN 0-8308-1774-3, Intervarsity Press, Downer’s Grove, Illinois, 1994.

[15]The former position is held by Calvinists while the latter is held by Arminians. Both are schools of Christian theism. For a fair comparison and contrast of the two positions see Steele, D.N. and Thomas, C.C., “The Five Points of Calvinism Defined, Defended, Documented,” pp 16-19, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1963. However, the work is a Calvinistic apologetic.

[16]See for example Gn 1.31, also Ez 28.15, 16. Nor is the assertion confined to the Bible or Judeo-Christian heritage. Various pagan myths and legends, assert the same, e.g., the myth of Pandora’s Box. The concept of a sinless past is a very ancient one.

[17]Additional proofs are possible after establishing the divinity of Judeo-Christian scripture. See for example Sproul, R. C. et al, “Classical Apologetics,” esp. Section II, ISBN 0-310-44951-0, Zondervan Corp., Grand Rapids, MI, 1984, together with Ez 28:15 for example.