Pope Francis just landed yesterday in America, and today he's being welcomed at the White House. Much of the country has turned its attention to his visit.

Whatever you might think of the Pope Francis, it’s hard to deny the fact that people are listening to him; if not his words, certainly his example.

I heard someone say, when Pope Francis embraced that man covered with tumors, the world changed! Beautiful.

Among those being moved by Pope Francis are atheists. I recently spent time hunting down comments from atheists posted on secular news sites. Here are fifteen, though if I kept looking I’m confident I could have found 1,000:

1. I’m an athiest and do not believe, but I love this new Pope, Pope’s are put on a pedestal and seem untouchable, this Pope, from the get go, has been a people person. You can almost feel the love radiating from him. So from one human to another, he shows such compassion and humility. Love him. – Sarah, England, UK.

2. I’m an atheist, but i believe he is a great example of how religious folks ought to be – Cort R

3. As an atheist (not speaking for all of them), I’m a huge fan of this pope. I think people need to find their own reason to be good to others. For some, it is god (whichever flavor he/she/it may be). Others find that they want to be good for other reasons. I’m just glad that the big C found a leader willing to try his best to not just preach to his crowd, but try to show them how.

4. On the other hand, some people use god as their excuse to be a d*ck. So I’m not sure if this is an example of the pope acting like a good god, but rather he is a good person and his faith only amplifies the goodness of his own character. – Wesley_Song

5. Left the church many years ago. Don’t believe in god mainly due to the Catholics and southern baptists is was raised around. This pope embodies the teachings of the church I actually liked. He’s pro something. He takes careof the less fortunate. Wonder what our nation wld be like if all the Catholics and baptists followed his lead and voted for people who cared about the poor?? Go ahead pope. Show the way – Cellstrom.

6. I don’t even believe in God. But, this guy, as a human being, just rocks. – Ironhand43

7. He’s setting a new standard for future popes to follow. I’m an agnostic, but this guy has truly awed me with his actions. So unlike other popes in my lifetime (even JP2, who seemed okay to me). – Rob_Cypher

8. I was raised Catholic but am now an atheist, but I’m growing to respect this man more and more. He’s actually following Christ’s teachings… imagine that! – Alex D

[In response to Alex D was this comment,] Me too! I am returning to the church because of this fine priest! – tau4444

9. A good person is good regardless of religion. I do believe this pope has actually publicly recognized this fact and for that (as an atheist) I applaud him. He seems a very good man. My respect for him grows by the day. – Marc T

10. As an atheist, let me say that I wish more people in general, religious or otherwise, followed this man’s example. The world would be a better place for it. – Thank4Watching

11. As an atheist, I’m impressed, I feel jaded about a lot of religions these days . . . [but] it looks like this pope is making an effort to do some good in the world rather then take advantage of it. – Theoricus

12. I’m an Atheist, and even I have respect for this guy. If he can get Christians to actually act like christians, maybe I won’t have such an issue with “organized” religion. – John S

13. As an atheist, I’m officially changing my opinion of him from ‘admired’ to ‘loved’. This is precisely the “walking the walk” the world needs, especially from its religious population. – Michael Kirby

14. As an atheist this pope does many great things, I still disagree with the church as a whole but as a person this pope gets it. He is a great role model as a person not a living deity. – Vendictavis

15. I don’t believe in gods and myths, but this man is truly a man of his word and someone everyone could look upon as a role model. I just wish that more holier than thou types could be like this man, if so the world would be a better place.Walks what he talks. – Joe Bigg

What do you think about Pope Francis?

 
 
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After a night of teenage exuberance, my friends and I would usually end up lying out on a country road, gazing up at the starlit Australian sky, discussing the meaning of it all. We considered ourselves nonreligious, and yet there was something (isn’t there?) about the enormity of the sky that humbled us, stirred us, inspired us to ask deep questions about, well, everything. We called these GLUE conversations—GLUE being an acronym for God, life, the universe, and everything.

One of the questions that always came up was, “Why did this all happen?” This brought us, without knowing it, dangerously close to the contingency argument for the existence of God.

The Case for God

In my new book, 20 Answers: Atheism, I present three arguments for the existence of God. One is the moral argument, which shows that if God does not exist then objective moral facts such as “It is wrong to torture babies for fun” cannot exist. But since objective moral facts do exist—i. e., some things are wrong independent of human opinion—then an objective moral lawgiver (i.e., God) must exist.

The other two are cosmological arguments, or arguments that use the physical universe as evidence for the existence of a being that transcends space, time, matter, and energy. One of them is a first-cause argument called the Kalaam argument. It shows that if the universe began to exist, it must have a cause, since something can’t come from nothing. This is the kind of argument many people arrive at when they ponder the question, “Where did everything come from?”

Medieval philosophers such as Al-Ghazali and St. Bonaventure created and refined the argument, but it fell out of favor until William Lane Craig published a defense of it in 1979. Since then, Dr. Craig’s numerous books, articles, and debates have made the argument well known again, even in atheist circles. One reason it is popular is that it can be simply stated:

Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

Premise 2: The universe began to exist.

Conclusion: Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Some atheists, especially those who frequent atheist websites, might say they’ve heard this “tired, old argument” and refer you to one of the ubiquitous online videos that they claim has “demolished it.” But, to borrow a phrase from Mark Twain, the reports of this argument’s death are greatly exaggerated. Trent Horn’s recent book, Answering Atheism, has two appendices refuting the most common objections to this argument.

Instead of defending this argument, I’d like to present the third argument. This argument is less familiar than the Kalaam argument but just as powerful. It is called the contingency argument for the existence of God.

The “Middle Child” Argument

One reason atheists attack the Kalaam argument is because it’s well known and easy to formulate. However, because the contingency argument is less well known and more complex, it ends up being treated like the middle child, the one everyone forgets about but who is just as special as the others.

In some respects, many theists find the contingency argument even more persuasive than the Kalaam argument. In order to show why, I’ll present a formal version of the argument and then defend each of its premises. The contingency argument can be formulated in different ways, but here is a common one:

1. Whatever exists that does not have to exist requires an explanation.
2. The physical universe does not have to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe requires an explanation.
4. The explanation for the universe is, by definition, God.
5. Therefore, God exists.

How do we know that this is a good argument for the existence of God? Well, first off, we should be reminded that a good argument is one whose premises are more likely to be true than false and does not have a logical error (i.e., a fallacy) in its reasoning. Hardly any arguments have premises that people accept with total confidence. Even basic premises like “The external world is real” can always be doubted (at least if you’ve seen The Matrix).

Since there is no fallacy in the argument, if we can at least show that the premises of this argument are more likely to be true than false, then we will have succeeded in showing that faith in God is reasonable and that to deny that God exists flies in the face of the evidence.

A Reason for Existing

What does the first premise of this argument—“Whatever exists that does not have to exist requires an explanation for its existence”—mean?

Think of the scientist who discovers a star or bacterium that has never been catalogued. He asks the question, “Why does this thing exist?” And, “Why does object X behave in manner Y instead of manner Z?” This is what drives science as well as every other branch of study. It’s the great question: “Why?”

For example, when astronomers discovered red stars, they tried to explain their existence. To say that there isn’t an explanation—not that we don’t know it but that there actually isn’t one—strikes at the foundation of rational thought. It rejects the premise that underlies the quest for knowledge.

We know that nearly all things need a reason to exist. However, it’s possible that some things exist because they must exist; they can’t be anything other than what they are. This brings us to the difference between what is contingent and what is necessary.

Something is contingent if it can be different or can fail to exist. My trip to Six Flags yesterday, what time you went to bed last night, the formation of the moon, and the existence of the physical universe are all contingent things. They don’t have to be. They could have been otherwise.

But the mathematical truth 2 + 2 = 4, or the existence of God, are necessary truths. There cannot be a world where 2 + 2 equals anything except 4.

The contingency argument merely claims that since the universe does not have to exist, there must be a reason for why it exists. This reason must be found in something that must exist, or a necessary being—“And this,” to quote St. Thomas Aquinas, “is what everyone means by ‘God.’”

Is the Universe Necessary?

Notice that the contingency argument avoids a common objection leveled at the Kalaam argument. It will do no good to say that the universe is eternal and so has no explanation for why it exists—the argument works whether or not one thinks the universe simply always was.

In his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas held that it was impossible to prove, by reason alone, that the universe began to exist in the finite past. So he decided to meet his critics on their own terms and provide five proofs for God that worked even if the universe turned out to be eternal. His third proof was a version of the contingency argument. (Aquinas believed through divine revelation that the universe could not be eternal, but he allowed the possibility in order to strengthen his arguments).

Even if the universe were eternal, we would still want to know why there is an eternal universe instead of nothing at all. We’ve already seen that science is grounded in the idea that whatever exists has a reason outside of itself to explain its existence. We should, at least initially, try to find an explanation for the universe just as we would try to find an explanation for anything else.

Philosopher Richard Taylor offers a thought experiment. Imagine you found a small, translucent orb floating in the woods. You would want to know why it exists. If your friend hiking through the woods with you said, “There’s no reason the orb exists. It exists without explanation; forget about it,” you’d think he was joking or that he just wanted to keep moving. The one thing you probably wouldn’t do is respond, “Ah! Interesting. Let’s move on, then.”

Notice that merely increasing the size of the orb does nothing to do away with the need for an explanation. If the orb were, say, the size of car, you would still ask why it exists. If it were the size of a house, you’d have the same question. In fact, even if the orb were the size of a planet or even the size of the universe, you’d still want to know why it exists. If we ask why such an orb, even as large as the physical universe, exists, then shouldn’t we ask why the physical universe itself exists?

Some atheists may bite the bullet and simply say the universe must exist; i.e., it is necessary and explains itself. As the twentieth-century English atheist Bertrand Russell put it, “The universe is just there, and that’s all.”

But is this really a viable option? At one time the universe didn’t contain stars and galaxies. Why do those objects exist now, when they clearly don’t have to? I can imagine the universe not existing, but I can’t meaningfully imagine a universe where 2 + 2 doesn’t equal 4. This shows that the former is contingent and requires an explanation, while the latter is necessary and does not require an explanation.

Is God the Explanation?

Perhaps the universe has an explanation for why it exists, but could that explanation be simply another universe? The problem with this reasoning is that the argument starts all over again. Is that physical universe contingent or is it necessary? Because it is physical, this other universe could have existed in a multitude of different ways, which shows it would be contingent and require an explanation of its own. At some point the chain of explanations must terminate in something that cannot be different, so a random universe or force can’t explain why anything exists.

Whatever this explanation is, it must be greater than the physical universe. It must be something beyond space and time, beyond matter and energy, but with the power to create each of these things and to establish the laws they obey. It must be something that explains its own existence and cannot fail to exist.

Once again, that sounds a lot like God: what philosophers call a “necessary” being. God could not be different than what he is, which is what premise 3 states. Now, while some truths like 2 + 2 = 4 may be necessary, the only being that can be necessary must be a being whose essence (or what it is) is identical to its existence (or that it is). But only one being could simply be being itself and ground the existence of all other contingent realities. This is at the most basic level what God is.

Two Common Objections

So how might an atheist respond to this argument? He might make one of the following objections:

The Fallacy of Composition

Because everything in the universe needs a reason for its existence, it doesn’t follow that the whole universe needs a similar explanation. After all, just because theoretically every cell of an elephant could be lifted by hand, it doesn’t follow the whole elephant can be lifted in this way. Likewise, what applies to the parts of the universe may not apply to the whole universe.

But sometimes what applies to parts does apply to the whole. For example, if every piece of my Lego spaceship is red, then my whole Lego spaceship will be red. Likewise, if every part of the universe is contingent, then the whole universe must be contingent as well.

So the problem with this objection is that the fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy. It can't be formally proven but only recognized after the fact, such as when you acknowledge that an elephant can’t be lifted with one hand even though all of its cells can be.

If the atheist wants to convince a believer of atheism, the burden of proof is on him to show that the contingency argument makes a mistaken part-to-whole reasoning. He can’t merely point out that there is some part-to-whole reasoning being used and call that a fallacy; because sometimes, as we saw in the case of the Lego spaceship, such reasoning is not mistaken. Similarly, it would become a “fallacy of composition” to say that because every part of the universe exists, it follows that the whole universe exists—which is obviously true.

To summarize, unless an atheist can provide an objective reason to think the universe is necessary and not contingent, then he can't rely on the fallacy of composition to prove that the universe is not like all of its parts—in other words, a contingent entity that can fail to exist.

The Parts Explain the Whole

Some atheists say that if we just explain every part of the universe then that will explain why the whole universe exists. Trent Horn refutes this objection in the book Answering Atheism:

"Explaining why each part of the universe exists, even in a “circle of explanation,” does not explain why an entire universe exists at all. That would be like trying to explain why a baseball game is being played simply by explaining what each player in the game does (i.e., the batter is hitting a ball thrown by the pitcher, who takes a cue from the shortstop, who watches the man on second . . .). That strategy may explain each part of the baseball game, but it doesn’t explain why there is a baseball game happening."

The Most Basic Question

In the end, atheists should not brush off the question of why the universe exists instead of nothing at all with a simple, “Science will figure it out.” That’s because science, the universe, and everything we know fall under the umbrella of “that which does not have to be yet is, and therefore must have an explanation for why it is.” Only a being for which existence is not a luxury but the core of what it is can be capable of explaining life’s greatest mystery. And there is only one being who can fit that lofty description: God.
 
 

 
 
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The theory of evolution proposes an explanation for how life in general and mankind in particular arose. It holds that that there was a long period in which natural processes gave rise to life and to the different life forms on earth.

This in no way conflicts with the idea of God. As the omnipotent Creator, he is free to create either quickly or slowly and either directly or through intermediate processes that he sets up.

He can even do a mixture of these things, such as creating the universe in an instant (as apparently happened at the Big Bang) and then having it experience a long, slow process of development giving rise to stars and planets and eventually life forms including human beings.

He can even intervene periodically in these processes going on in the universe, such as when he creates a soul for each human being or when he performs a miracle.

From its perspective, science can learn certain things about the laws governing the universe and the processes occurring in it. But that does nothing to eliminate the idea of God, for the question remains: Why is there a universe with these laws and these processes in the first place?

Consider an analogy: Suppose that after a thorough and lengthy scientific investigation of the Mona Lisa, I concluded that it was the result of innumerable collisions of paint and canvas which gradually went from indecipherable shapes and colors to a beautiful and intriguing picture of a woman.

My analysis of the painting may be correct. That is, in fact, what the Mona Lisa is and how it developed. But it by no means disproves nor makes unnecessary Leonardo Da Vinci as the painter behind the painting.

Furthermore, if we were the product of a purely random processes then we have good reason to doubt our mental faculties when it comes to knowing the truth. Why? Because our mental faculties would be the result of a random evolutionary process which is aimed, not at producing true beliefs, but at mere survival. But if that were the case then why should we trust the idea that we are the product of purely random factors? The mental processes leading to this conclusion would not be aimed at producing true beliefs.

Charles Darwin seems to have understood this when he wrote:

“With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”

This worry disappears if God was guiding whatever process led to us and if he shaped the development of the human mind so that it was aimed at knowing him, and thus knowing the truth.

"But," you might be thinking, "surely evolution contradicts the creation account in Genesis."

No, it doesn't.

The Bible contains many different styles of writing. History, poetry, prophecy, parables, and a variety of other literary genres are found in its pages. This is not surprising since it is not so much a book as it is a library – a collection of 73 books written at different times by different people.

As such it is important that we distinguish between types of literature within the Bible and what they are trying to tell us. It would be a mistake, for example, to take a work as rich as the Bible in symbolism and literary figures as if it were always relating history in the manner that we in our culture are accustomed to.

Much less should we expect it to offer a scientific account of things. If one is hoping to find a scientific account of creation then he will not find it in these texts, for the Bible was never intended to be a scientific textbook on cosmology.

Saint Augustine put it this way: “We do not read in the Gospel that the Lord said, ‘I am sending you the Holy Spirit, that he may teach you about the course of the sun and the moon’. He wished to make people Christians not astronomers.”

The Catholic Church is open to the ideas of an old universe and that God used evolution as part of his plan. According to Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers” (CCC 283).

When it comes to relating these findings to the Bible, the Catechism explains: “God himself created the visible world in all its richness, diversity and order. Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’ concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day” (CCC 337).

Explaining further, it says:

“Among all the Scriptural texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place. From a literary standpoint these texts may have had diverse sources. The inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the truths of creation–its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation. Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the ‘beginning’: creation, fall, and promise of salvation.” (CCC 289)

In other words, the early chapters of Genesis, “relate in simple and figurative language, adapted to the understanding of mankind at a lower stage of development, fundamental truths underlying the divine scheme of salvation.” (Pontifical Biblical Commission, January 16, 1948).

Or, as Pope John Paul II put it:

“The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its makeup, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise but in order to state the correct relationship of humanity with God and the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God” (Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 3, 1981).

As Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) explained:

“The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God...does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the ‘project’ of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary–rather than mutually exclusive—realities.”

The recognition that the creation accounts must be understood with some nuance is not new, nor is it a forced retreat in the face of modern science. Various Christian writers form the early centuries of Church history, as much as 1,500 years or more before Darwin, saw the six days of creation as something other than literal, twenty-four hour periods.

For example, in the A.D. 200s, Origen of Alexandria noted that in the six days of creation day and night are made on the first day but the sun is not created until the fourth. The ancients knew as well as we do that the presence or absence of the sun is what makes it day or night, and so he took this as an indicators that the text was using a literary device and not presenting a literal chronology. He wrote:

“Now who is there, pray, possessed of understanding, that will regard the statement as appropriate, that the first day, and the second, and the third, in which also both evening and morning are mentioned, existed without sun, and moon, and stars—the first day even without a sky? . . . I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.” (De Principiis, 4:16)

What Origen was onto was a structure embedded in the six days of creation whereby in the first three days God prepares several regions to be populated by separating the day from the night, the sky from the sea, and finally the seas from each other so that the dry land appears. Then, on the second three days, he populates these, filling the day and night with the sun, the moon, and the stars, filling the sky and sea with birds and fish, and filling the dry land with animals and man.

The first three days are historically referred to as the days of distinction because God separates and thus distinguishes one region from another. The second three days are referred to as the days of adornment, in which God populates or adorns the regions he has distinguished.

This literary structure was obvious to people before the development of modern science, and the fact that the sun is not created until day was recognized by some as a sign that the text is presenting the work of God, as the Catechism says, “symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work’” (CCC 337).

Origen was not the only one to recognize the literary nature of the six days. Similarly, St. Augustine, writing in the A.D. 400s, noted: “What kind of days these were is extremely difficult or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!” (The City of God, 11:6).

The ancients thus recognized, long before modern science, that the Bible did not require us to think that the world was made in six twenty-four hour days.
 
 

 
 
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Sometimes, after reflection and study, people feel that they can’t decide between atheism and belief in God. Where they are at that moment, the evidence seems too evenly weighted or too difficult to evaluate.

What then?

If these are the two belief systems that you feel torn between then there are two basic choices: You could choose to go ahead and believe in God or you could refrain from doing so.

If it seems impossible to decide between these options based on the evidence then one can legitimately consider the advantages of choosing one course of action over the other.

Four Possible Scenarios

 
What would the results be of your choice, depending on whether God really exists? There are four possible scenarios:

A. You choose to live as if God exists and you are correct: God does exist.
B. You choose to live as if God does not exist, and you are incorrect: God does exist.
C. You choose to live as if God exists, and you are incorrect: God does not exist.
D. You choose to live as if God does not exist, and you are correct: God does not exist.

If A is the case then you stand to receive the infinite good of everlasting life!

If B is the case then you risk missing out on this infinite good.

If C is the case then what awaits you after this life is not heaven but non-existence. During life you would have had a bit of inconvenience due to living as a believer and having to deny yourself certain things, but that is not as much of a problem as it might seem, since studies show believers tend to live longer, healthier, and happier lives.

If D is the case then you would have a bit more freedom to indulge your lower passions in this life, but that is not as much a gain as it might seem, since you would also miss out on the benefits that religion brings to people’s lives, including a sense of purpose and meaning that there is no rational basis for if we are just walking bags of chemicals.

Comparing these four options, A would result in you achieving infinite gain, B would result in you missing this gain, and C and D would both involve small, finite gains or losses determined by the limitations involved in living as a believer and the benefits gained in this life by doing so.

That being the case, if you feel torn between atheism and belief in God, and if you feel that you can’t decide based on objective evidence, then your rational choice would be to go with belief in God. You stand to achieve an infinite good (if you are right) but only a finite loss at most (if you are wrong). By contrast, if you choose not to believe in God then you risk an infinite loss (if you are wrong) at at most a finite good (if you are right).

Rational self-interest, which is certainly part of human nature whether you believe God built it into us or not, clearly points toward believing in God.

Not an Argument for God’s Existence

 
Bear in mind that this is not an argument for Gods existence but rather an argument for belief in God’s existence. It doesn’t argue directly that he exists but that, in certain circmstances, it is rational for us to choose to believe in him.

It also is not an argument designed for every possible situation. It is designed for those who feel torn between atheism and belief in the kind of God that Christianity proposes, but who aren’t at a point where they feel that they can settle the question by objective evidence. If you are in that situation, then this argument can help you.

Some might have a concern that they would be doing something morally wrong if they were to choose belief in God without objective proof, but this argument can be turned on its head.

If atheism were true then there would be no objective moral values, and thus by definition your choosing to believe in God would not be morally wrong. You would be completely innocent in believing. There couldn’t be anything wrong with believing if there were no such thing as right and wrong to begin with.

Make Your Move

 
There are many times in life when we must make decisions about what we will believe without having conclusive proof. Such proof is a luxury that we often do not have.

If you waited, for example, to have conclusive proof that a prospective spouse will always be faithful to you and never betray you then you will never get married. In fact, in trying to obtain conclusive proof, you would likely crush the relationship between you before you were even engaged.

At some point, you must decide that you have “enough” to make the commitment and choose to embark on a life together, even without total proof. Given the fears and anxiety that often accompany the act of getting married, many people find themselves in a situation where, at least at the moment, they don’t know how to evaluate the evidence anymore and they must take a leap of faith to marry.

Something very similar applies to the decision to believe in God. Like marriage, it is a momentous, life-changing choice, and that can interfere with our ability to rationally evaluate evidence. When that happens, deciding based on self-interest is rational.

God understands that. In fact in the gospels Jesus appeals to our rational self-interest, asking, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).
 
 
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