Christian Cyclopedia

The natural, or gen. argument for God's existence rests on the fact that man knows that there is a God* even without the special revelation in the Bible, because God Himself inscribed this knowledge in his heart at creation (Ro 2:14–15). Hence the existence of God need not be proved to anyone of morally sound mind. The theological argument is this, that the Bible, without explanation, confronts man with the fact of God's being and sovereignty, which is at once acknowledged. Other arguments for God's existence are reasonably deduced from His self-manifestation in the universe, human hist., and conscience (Ro 1.19–20; Acts 14:17; 17:24–28): the cosmological argument reasons from the effect to the cause that this orderly world cannot be the effect of chance, but must have for its Creator an intelligent and omnipotent God; the teleological argument demonstrates God's existence from the t evidences of design, purpose, and adaptation in the world; the moral argument is based on man's moral nature and the moral order traceable throughout the world; the aesthetic argument is founded on beauty and comeliness in the universe, which must have as its Maker a loving God; the ontological argument reasons that the concept of a perfect and absolute divine Being must be founded on fact since it cannot exist in a vacuum. Atheism* denies the validity of all arguments for God's existence; unbiased reason must admit that they supply cumulative proof. See also Anselm of Canterbury; Apologetics, II A; Philosophy of Religion. JTM

The Existence of God, ed. J. H. Hick (New York, 1964).