The idea that the universe has an infinite past...

The idea that the universe has an infinite past, stretching back in time into infinity, is both philosophically and scientifically problematic. All indications are that there is a point in time at which the universe began to exist. This beginning was either caused or uncaused. The cosmological argument takes the suggestion that the beginning of the universe was uncaused to be impossible. The idea of an uncaused event is absurd; nothing comes from nothing.

The universe was therefore caused by something outside it. The cosmological argument thus confirms one element of Christianity, the doctrine of Creation. The Teleological Argument The teleological argument is the argument from the order in the world to the existence of a being that created it with a specific purpose in mind. The universe is a highly complex system.

The scale of the universe alone is astounding, and the natural laws that govern it perplex scientists still after generations of study. It is also, however, a highly ordered system; it serves a purpose. The world provides exactly the right conditions for the development and sustenance of life, and life is a valuable thing.

That this is so is remarkable; there are numerous ways in which the universe might have been different, and the vast majority of possible universes would not have supported life. To say that the universe is so ordered by chance is therefore unsatisfactory as an explanation of the appearance of design around us. It is far more plausible, and far more probable, that the universe is the way it is because it was created by God with life in mind.

The Moral Argument The moral argument is the argument from the existence of morality to the existence of God. The existence of God, it suggests, is a necessary condition for the existence of morality. Morality consists of a set of commands, and there cannot be commands unless there is a commander; who, then, commanded morality? The answer to this question is to be found by considering the authority of morality.

Commands are only as authoritative as the one that commands them, but moral authority transcends all human institutions. Morality was therefore commanded by someone whose authority transcends all human institutions. This can only be God. The Argument from Religious Experience The argument from religious experience is the argument that personal religious experiences can prove God’s existence to those that have them.