by Robert W. McDonald

Created on: January 18, 2010

Why do authors who set themselves to explaining, or proving, the existence of God invariably begin by making a logical error which is so patently obvious that it would immediately earn an failing grade in junior college-level Philosophy 101? In this essay I will demonstrate how “a priori” arguments, those which presume the existence of God before attempting to establish that fact, will always fail.

I begin by noting that most authors appear to be unfamiliar with the fundamental principals of both inductive and deductive logic. In current context, these authors will begin from the proposition that “Since the universe exists, God must have created it.” The “… must have created it …” portion makes the existence of God an “a priori” assumption in that the universe obviously exists (since we are in that universe) but the existence of God as a necessary precondition for the universe's existence has not been established. In more familiar terms, the “a priori” argument is logically the same as declaring the theory (God exists) to be true and then attempting to make the evidence fit the theory.

As I have argued in other essays, if the existence of God is a necessary precondition for the existence of the universe then there must be at least one observable physical phenomenon that cannot be explained except as being the result of God’s direct, intentional, intervention. I assert that since there has never been a report of an observed phenomenon that cannot be explained by the interactions of the four fundamental forces of nature, and/or by quantum theory, that there is no requirement from necessity that God must exist. Since there is no necessity for the existence of God, the “a priori” argument is thus disproven.

The “a priori” assumption that God exists also fails when approached by abstract logic; which is to say that if God exists, and does in fact possess all the attributes traditionally credited to that deity, then that existence should be either self-evident or logically irrefutable. As I will now demonstrate, neither of these conditions can be demonstrated.

The contention that the existence of God is self-evident is immediately disproven by the simple observation that, since there are reasonable grounds onto which such existence can be called into question, then self-evidence must be rejected since it would be folly to argue against the existence of something

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