By Lloyd Strickland
Whether God exists or not is one of the most important philosophical questions there is. And the tradition of trying to establish God’s existence involving evidence is a long one, with a golden age during the 17th and 18th centuries – the early modern period.
Attempts to prove God’s existence continue today. But they are on nothing like the same scale as they were hundreds of years ago, with secularism now being as common among philosophers as it is among the general population. And this is not the only difference to have occurred since that golden age, which is the focus of my new book, Proofs of God in Early Modern Europe. Here are three other things that have changed over the centuries:
Aims
When contemporary thinkers try to prove God’s existence, their aim is usually to show that it is in fact reasonable to believe in God. For example, in New Proofs for the Existence of God, Robert J Spitzer advances a series of proofs that together constitute evidence “capable of grounding reasonable and responsible belief in a super-intelligent, transcendent, creative power”.
Such an aim would have struck early modern philosophers as odd, because back then the default view was that belief in God was perfectly reasonable. Indeed, in early modern times, religious belief was so widespread in Europe that the idea of someone sincerely denying God’s existence was often considered to be absurd – if not unthinkable.
So why did early modern philosophers feel the need to construct proofs for something that was already widely believed to be true? Often, they sought to prove God’s existence because of the central explanatory or theoretical role that God played in their philosophical thought.
René Descartes (1596-1650) famously claimed that proving the existence of a perfect God was the only way he could be certain of the reality of the external world. He held that what appeared to him to be true really was true, since it was beyond doubt that a perfect God would not engage in deception or give him senses that were unreliable.
For Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), establishing whether there is a God had important repercussions not just for what we can know about the world, but also about how we should live. He believed the greatest possible contentment we can experience in this life comes from our knowledge of the essence of things – which in turn comes from understanding God’s attributes. The more we understand things this way, the less troubled we will be by strong emotions and the less we will fear death. For the great thinkers of early modernity, then, establishing God’s existence was of paramount importance.
Confidence
Another big difference between early modern philosophers and those of today is their confidence in the proofs they put forward. Even the most self-assured of contemporary philosophers are likely to claim that their arguments only make God’s existence probable. For example, in The Existence of God, Richard Swinburne offers a variety of proofs that he takes together to show that God’s existence is more probable than not.
Such a claim would have appeared tame to early modern thinkers, who invariably saw their own proofs as capable of establishing God’s existence beyond all reasonable doubt – or even of demonstrating it. Indeed, some thinkers, like John Locke (1632-1704), took their proofs to be on a par with mathematical demonstrations, such that anyone who encountered the proofs could not fail to be convinced by them, so long as his or her rational faculties were intact.
Opponents
But perhaps the biggest difference between contemporary and early modern attempts to prove God’s existence lies in the source of the opposition to these proofs. Many of those who oppose efforts to prove God’s existence today are either atheists, who claim there is no God, or agnostics, who are neutral as to whether there is a God or not. Both atheists and agnostics have a vested interest in undermining proofs for the existence of God.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, however, atheists and agnostics were rare (some even say non-existent for much of that time), and those that were around tended not to be very vocal.
Yet this did not mean that proofs for God’s existence went unopposed. Early modern thinkers were trained in disputation and the practice of tackling objections to their own views. If there weren’t any real opponents to their views, then they were encouraged to invent them, and come up with objections that these imaginary opponents might make.
Some, like Voltaire (1694-1778), got so carried away with this that they spent much more time considering objections to their proofs than they did outlining the proofs themselves. The whole point of the exercise was that theists could then refute all possible objections – and put their view on a firmer footing.
While such a practice may make good academic sense, it did have one unforeseen consequence. The sophisticated objections that early modern theists raised against their own proofs and those of their contemporaries ended up being adopted by later atheist thinkers, who developed and strengthened these objections in an effort to put atheism on a firm rational footing.
So, by concocting objections to their own proofs, early modern philosophers inadvertently helped to fuel the subsequent rise of atheism – by making it a more intellectually respectable position.
Lloyd Strickland is Professor of Philosophy and Intellectual History at Manchester Metropolitan University.
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JimboXYZ says
Something to ponder for the rest of anyone’s days left of their lifetime. Science explains a big bang theory. How did the ingredients come to be for the big bang ? Evolution is out of the discussion simply because the ingredients still would be unexplained to have been created, randomly collided to become the systems that we know the world to be. Anything man made couldn’t possibly be an improvement over the raw materials that randomly collided beyond making human lives easier ? Imagine how advanced the supreme being would’ve had to have been to create DNA even. And the religious theory of a supreme deity came up with all those species that the closest thing mankind has ever created was from mixing ingredients of sperm & egg to create a life. At best mankind is creating from the raw materials provided by a supreme being. I’m hardly the most religious, but I have no problem acknowledging the unexplainable that even the most intelligent of us can’t explain how it was created.
Laurel says
And beyond the edge of, what appears to be endless, space: Whoville.
Bill C says
XYZ something to ponder: why is it that Christians, for example, fervently believe in a timeless God (had no beginning), yet fervently reject the idea of a timeless universe (had no beginning)?
JimboXYZ says
Well, with either a religious or a scientific theory, even God would’ve had to have had parents or that was cataclysmic event of ingredients that randomly occurred ? With 8 billion & growing, the space ship Earth is heading towards this.
https://johnpitre.com/cdn/shop/products/OverpopulationPitre24x1833pcMasterCenterSig2021.jpg?v=1641066995
Rick G says
Interesting perspective on an ongoing philosophical discussion.
DaleL says
There are far more Atheists and Agnostics than surveys reveal. This is because of the persistent discrimination against anyone who has the audacity to state the obvious. According to a CNN story, only 4% of Americans openly admit to being Atheists. However, an anonymous Gallup poll found the number of non-believers (Atheists) be 17%. “…an analysis by psychologists Will Gervais and Maxine B. Najle suggests the true count is closer to 26%.” as reported in the CNN story.
New Proofs for the Existence of God author Robert J Spitzer is a Jesuit priest, which is not mentioned by professor Strickland. The Catholic Church, as with all religions, has a vested interest in not just “proving” there is a god, but also their particular version of god.
I suggest reading “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins or “The God Virus:” by Darrel W. Ray.
Justbob says
All the many centuries have spoken…a forever exercise in futility. Time to give it up.
JW says
This is a Fascinating topic. It requires critical thinking, i.e. using rational judgment.
First, to get an understanding of God, it is worth to read The Evolution of God, from the primordial faith to where we are now, written by Robert Wright (2009). The evolution continues!
A second book, Faith vs. Fact, Why science and religion are incompatible, by Jerry Coyne (2015), addresses the more current day situation where we have learned a lot from science in the past 500 years, whereas the monotheistic religions developed well before any science existed. This has resulted in higher levels of non-theists in Northern Europe (50-80%) as opposed to America (18% but rising). And yet there is no evidence that northern Europe is socially dysfunctional. In fact one could make a good case that in many ways those nations function better than the highly religious United States (Trump?).
Finally, Strickland refers to Spinoza and I just finished a new book about him by Ian Buruma (2024). Worth reading and then some THINKING!
This reminds me about the ongoing hollowing out of our educational system here in Florida (and the US in general). That worries me: we need more education, not less to stay competitive with the rest of the world and help to achieve more PEACE and less WAR.
Laurel says
Okay! That explains it. I’m of Northern European decent!
I mean, it doesn’t look too clever to wave your hands in the air while someone spouts “tounges.”
Pogo says
@Lloyd Strickland
Congratulations on your occupation; nice work, if you can get it.
I know that I know nothing…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing
Michael J Cocchiola says
I stand with astrophysicist, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson…
As depicted by true believers, god is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good. Yet, humankind, past and present, has suffered the most horrific tragedies… illness, disease, starvation, genocide and extinction – not to mention never-ending wars where more innocents die than warriors. Think of childhood cancer. If this god is all-powerful and all-good, surely such an entity could not allow this horror to occur. Therefore, such a god cannot be all-powerful or all-good. Is this not a dilemma for believers and theologists?
On the other hand, there is no supernatural being called god. The late astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, postulated that all of the physical elements necessary to energize the “Big Bang” that created our universe, and perhaps other universes, were present without supernatural invention or intervention.
Go science!
Laurel says
“Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man … living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.”
– George Carlin
Foresee says
There are more Buddhists in China than there are Christians in the US. Buddhism is polytheistic, as well as Hinduism Confucianism, Shintoism, and many others. Monotheism placed god into an abstract Heaven, disconnected from earth. In polytheism the gods are earthly and knowable. The proof of god’s existence is a dissonant western concern arising from the Bible, and the analysis here ignores other religious beliefs around the world and presumes belief in “the one true god”.
Just a thought says
Every religion NEEDs the invisible man in the sky so much so their life blood depends on it. Without believers there is no money and without money there is no religion. No churches, no PAID leaders. Nothing. No where is this more evident than the catholic religion. No longer are they building simple churches. No longer do the priest give a vow of poverty. Today’s catholic churches are monstrosities of modern engineering costing millions of dollars. Does anyone think they could build these churches without the the belief of an invisible man in the sky? Someone who loves everyone but, with a snap of the finger, can send someone to the fires and damnation of hell?
protonbeamexposure says
“religion” survived for at least thousands of years in early societies and people groups where no money or wealth existed, an no “paid clergy” existed – quite to the the contrary giving or sacrificing of critical food or animal supplies or other “offerings” were made to directly to god (or a god) with no one profiting or using the resources. Your ignorant comment is dismissible by a 5th grader. You are conflating poor practice, which every single belief system has with what a belief system or religion says. In terms of “invisible man in the sky” thats a nice quip that again has survived since the dawn of recorded human history and isn’t so easily dismissable. In fact I have found after decades of research and observation people most often dismiss “the invisible man in the sky” for one reason alone – accountability. People wish to be the arbiters of their own actions and the deciders of their own judgments. And we see how spectacularly secular humanism has failed. As far as catholic architecture (I am not catholic) those monstorcoties have not only been incredible economic engines for thousands of years through tourism and the like – Architecture is art, art is “sacred” and creativity and creation in any from is transcendent and moves people in profound ways – all of which rejects that we are simply “atoms in motion” and points toward the man in the sky you so desperately try to deny.
Laurel says
Proton: Tourism? Really? Good reason for belief.