Arguments FOR God’s Existence

Question 1

Features of religious upbringing

Answer 1

• Some Christians baptise their children at a young age
• The child is usually taught to pray and they go to church.
• Families usually celebrate Christmas and Easter (and the meaning of those festivals and stories around them)
• Some Christian parents arrange for their children to attend a ‘Sunday School’ where there is encouragement to be a good Christian and lead a Christian life.

Question 2

How would religious upbringing support a person’s belief in God?

Answer 2

• Being born into a Christian family might support someone’s belief in God because they are surrounded by others who are convinced of God’s existence.
• If the religion has been handed down through generations it may seem perfectly natural to members of that family to believe in God.
• Learning about God at home, school and in the church could lead some people to decide that God must exist.

Question 3

Religious experiences: Numunous

Answer 3

For some this is the ‘wow’ factor and they see something that takes their breath away and gives feelings of awe and wonder. This is called numinous and could be felt by looking up at a starry sky or a wonderful sunset and convinced that God is behind it all.

Question 4

Religious experiences: Prayer

Answer 4

Prayer is an important and personal way for some people to communicate with God. If a prayer is answered then it can strengthen a person’s faith in God.

Question 5

Religious experiences:Miracle

Answer 5

Miracles can also convince people that God exists e.g. surviving a plane crash, Jairus’ daughter

Question 6

Religious experiences: Conversion

Answer 6

Conversion happens after an event where people believe they have experienced God and want to commit their life to God e.g. St Paul on the road to Damascus

Question 7

Design argument

Answer 7

Several hundred years ago WILLIAM PALEY put forward the design argument. He said that if somebody happened to find a watch and had never ever seen one before, they would be astounded. The fact that finding something so tiny with lots of mechanisms inside means it had been made by someone very clever (a designer) and it could NOT have been made by accident. Paley said that the same argument could be said about the universe which is even more complicated than a watch! The universe must have been designed by an extremely clever being, not by accident. The only possible designer of the universe must be God – therefore God exists. Examples of disign are evolution and DNA.

Question 8

Causation argument

Answer 8

Things do not happen by themselves; for example, if we drop an egg it may smash (the cause would be us dropping it – the effect would be the smashing of the egg) the causation argument says that the existence of the universe proves that God exists. If the universe has a beginning then something must have caused it, it did not happen by accident so something caused it and brought it into existence – this is God, and so this proves that God exists.