Element U Week 2: The Existence of God (EU 201)

Three Main Arguments 1. The Moral Argument 2. The Cosmological Argument 3. The Teleological Argument (“Fine Tuning”) • Argument is not a fight or quarrel • True philosopher doesn’t use arguments for the sake of arguing but for the sake of truth • We use arguments all the time in our lives • Why Philosophy? “To be ignorant and simple now--not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground--would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason because bad philosophy needs to be answered.” - CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory (pg 50) A Christian should be able to give a logos (reason) for belief in the theos (God) of the Bible and this is where philosophy is helpful (1 Peter 3:15). The goal of an argument is not to prove absolute certainty which leads to skepticism but to try and show what is most probable/plausible and makes the most sense when looking at all options.