God’s Existence in Cosmic Relief
Is there any need to explain why there is a universe at all? Would God be an explanation? This is the question the rest of this essay will engage with. 1) This essay will reason on the moral need for an explanation of universe’s existence vis-à-vis human teleology. 2) Based on the affirmative of point one this essay will further attempt to reason from the universe’s apparent contingency concerning God’s existence as the best inference to an explanation, regarding the universe’s existence in general, and human existence embedded in the universe in particular. 3) For purposes of thoroughness T. J. Mawson’s chapter on the cosmological argument[1] will be engaged with as how we might conclude on the universe having an explanation for its existence (or not). As we engage with Mawson, it will become clear that the author of this essay affirms some relative value in thinking God’s existence from the cosmological argument. But in the end, it will be concluded that such metaphysical abstractions cannot finally lead a person to a knowledge of God in ways that satisfy the need for human purpose and value as that is evinced (or not) within the vastness of the universe. Once these matters have been duly weighed, this paper will summarize the various ideas posited and engaged with. As a parting note, the author of this paper will suggest a way forward towards thinking about what type of God might fit best with a universe that has at least one known planet (Earth) where human beings who are personal persons exist.
The universe is there. As such, an adequate explanation for its existence is required; at least, insofar that the people inhabiting it would like to live an ‘examined life.’ Being rather than not being ought to inculcate within someone’s inner being a desire to know why they have being and extension into the universe rather than not. I would argue that this is so because as self-reflecting entities, that is, as sentient beings extending into space and time, to know our whence, indeed, to know the universe’s whence, presents it with a potential context for understanding human self-determination and purpose in a universe wherein to the naked eye it might appear to be simply here for no reason at all. But human beings live with a sense of inherent purpose; humans move and breathe with sets of values—culturally ladened as they might be—which presents each and everyone of us with a ‘common sense’ of a shared being in the universe that preceded us, along with all of humanity from all time, that pressures the genuinely self-reflective agent towards a desire of knowing: “where did it all come from?” Once that desire is cultivated, even among just a percentage of people through the millennia, it is proper and even required for us to pursue the “whence” question of the universe that we inhabit. And as a first instance of that pursuit towards understanding the whence of the universe, I would argue that the most organic question to probe is to understand whether the universe has always been, or did it have a beginning.
Since the universe is a finite entity, observable simply from the fact that human life, and other life forms, have beginnings and endings, it is proper to conclude, by extrapolation, that the universe itself, ever expanding as it is, likewise had a beginning. If this is the case, then to reason about the universe’s beginning from its contingency has a certain explanatory power to it all by itself; even if that only leads to a capacity for the reasoner to infer from the negation of contingency that there is something prior to the contingent, definitionally, that in itself is non-contingent. And to reason thusly, I would suggest, ought to lead the reasoner to an openness about their being what is classically understood as a God as the non-contingent begetter of the contingent.
The previous line of reasoning leads us to what philosophers have identified as a ‘cosmological argument’ or ‘argument from contingency’ regarding the existence of a Creator God. I believe, on its own, the cosmological argument, or argument from contingency, is a powerfully intuitive argument for the reasonability of a God’s existence. Beyond that, as already alluded to, as the literature and empirical data presents[2], the universe itself, in its expansive nature, is a contingent entity which, according to the “Principle of Sufficient Reason,” as described by Mawson[3], requires a conclusion concerning its original instantiation. I think that rejecting the principle of sufficient reason is done so from a prior commitment to not want to believe that it is reasonable to believe in a God’s existence; of course, the obverse is also the case. That is, to want to believe that it is reasonable to believe in a God’s existence is done so from a prior commitment that already knows there to be or wants there to be a God who exists. In this sense, in my view, it becomes a matter of what “a priori” has the greater “intuitive” or even “revelational” explanatory power for it. That is, does an atheist’s desire, like Bertrand Russell’s, for there to only be the physical universe in a closed system determinately governed by random chance, space and time[4] fit better with this “pre” approach to something like affirming the cosmological argument? Or does the Christian theist’s desire, like mine, for there to be an “enchanted” universe, fulgent with a living and triune God’s glory to be on display, as revealed particularly in the face of Jesus Christ, fit better with a “pre” approach to something like affirming the cosmological argument of some type?
So, I might agree with Mawson that the cosmological argument left to itself isn’t a good argument for proving God’s existence.[5] But, when it is placed in a broader noetic web, it can come to have a serviceability to it that fits better with the affirmation that a living God exists rather than a No-God not existing. In other words, it is the prior and broader belief-frames that will end up determining whether or not someone seeing the cosmological argument has any value. And so, as Mawson rightly argues, it is required that we look elsewhere, and interrogate other things, to arrive at a conclusion that a God does or doesn’t exist.[6] And these other things, like “religious experience”, while related to the questions of contingency in deep ways, often, have a different criterion built into them; such as “encounter” “experience” “revelation” so on and so forth, that attempting to argue from mere physical or even metaphysical premises cannot inherently offer in and of themselves. That is to say, what is required is a personal touch, so to speak; that is, because we are persons and not just random quantum happenstances miraculously “happening” in the ether of a purely brute type of contingent universal and cosmic order. Notice, appeal to the black boxes of quantum happenstances, in the end, is just to appeal to something like a god, but a god who remains hidden, in the dark, and to whom we can ultimately remain unaccountable.
I see these matters as moral issues, which a cosmological argument, while compelling in highly intuitive ways, in and of itself, cannot ultimately address, per se. The cosmological argument cannot apprehend the moral issue, because, at best, all it can do is leave the universe open in regard to its need for a God to explain its existence. It cannot describe, per se, whether or not this God is personally present, or impersonally distant (like the God of the Deists). As a result, other means are required for determining whether or not the non-contingent being known as God is indeed personal and active in the universe’s world, or if God is simply a generic placeholder to fill in the gap in people’s minds with reference to the origination of the universe in toto.
Conclusion
This essay has considered the following things: 1) It is reasonable for sentient human beings to reflect on the universe’s existence. It was argued that this is the case because human beings, as finite beings in a finite universe, inherently desire to know their purpose whilst inhabiting the universe; which entails morality. 2) It was further argued that since life in general is finite, and thus contingent, by extrapolation, the universe in general is also a contingent entity that the ‘examined life’ seeks to understand regarding its origination. 3) Engaging with philosopher, T. J. Mawson, based on the “principle of sufficient reason,” as he explained, since the universe, as a contingent entity is, it requires an explanation.[7] Even so, it was reasoned that ultimately the cosmological argument only has relative value in regard to proving God’s existence.
In conclusion, this essay concludes that the universe does require an explanation for its existence, and that its best explanation is positing something greater than itself as its cause: this “greater than” is classically understood to be God. Even so, it has also become apparent that a simple appeal to something like a cosmological argument does not suffice towards providing human beings with enough knowledge of who or what this God might be regarding the deepest questions of the human heart. So, while an argument from contingency might serve well for pointing out the coherence of a Creator God, it remains unhelpful in presenting someone with a personal God who can make sense of the various moral quandaries human beings are presented with throughout their lifespans. For this, what is required, this essay suggests, is an engagement with revelation claims about God such as is found among the Christians.
References
Mawson, T. J. Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
NASA Hubblesite. “One of Hubble’s Key Projects Nails Down Nearly a Century of Uncertainty.” Accessed 03-28-2025.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Russellian Monism.” Accessed 03-28-2025.
[1] T. J. Mawson, Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 153–62.
[2] NASA Hubblesite, “One of Hubble’s Key Projects Nails Down Nearly a Century of Uncertainty,” accessed 03-28-2025.
[3] Mawson, Belief in God, 154–55.
[4] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Russellian Monism,” accessed 03-28-2025.
[5] Mawson, Belief I God, 161–62.
[6] Ibid., 163–78.
[7] Mawson ultimately believes that the principle of sufficient reason can function as a double-edged sword which, in the end, can be applied to both the theist’s side as well as the physicalist side of the atheists. See Mawson, Belief in God, 161–2.