And whether you are a yes, no, or maybe person corresponds to being a theist, an atheist, or an agnostic. In centuries past, most religious disagreement was between various denominations, as famously recounted in Joseph Smith’s own account of encountering “an unusual excitement on the subject of religion” in his area. As he described it, it was “priest contending against priest, and convert against convert; so that all their good feelings one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions.” As we move deeper into the 21st century, a lot of religious disagreement seems to be broader, between believers (theists), critics (atheists), and those with no strong opinion who don’t really care that much about the issue and want to avoid arguments (agnostics). So let’s talk about God.
My guide here is Philosophy of Religion: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2018), by Tim Bayne, a professor of philosophy in Australia. In Chapter 3, “Arguments for the Existence of God,” the author reviews cosmological arguments (“attempts to argue for the existence of God from the mere existence of the cosmos”), design arguments, also known as teleological arguments (using the structure or apparent design of the cosmos, our planet, or life itself to argue for the existence of God), and various aspects of religious experience that people rely on to support belief in God. I’ll do a brief discussion of each and look for a quotation or two from recent LDS discourse on each topic.
Quick disclaimer: There are very few people who view these formalized philosophical “proofs” of the existence of God as definitive. That is, there are very few coldly rational persons who read a book or two on the subject, then declare, “I have been fairly noncommittal on the whole topic, but that proof presented on page 87-88 of Archbishop Johnson’s book convinced me. Now I’m a believer.” Mostly it is already convinced believers who look to these various arguments to bolster their existing belief. A somewhat more objective approach is to view these arguments as ways to structure the relevant issues and consider evidence and arguments. A rather subjective and introspective approach would be for a believer to approach these arguments and discussions with the attitude, “Okay, I believe in God. Why do I believe in God? What approach or evidence or experience strikes me as persuasive or convincing and maintains my ongoing belief?” With that in mind, let’s talk about it.
Cosmological Arguments
In ages past, God’s role as Creator (necessarily assuming His existence) was unquestioned. There was little evidence or basis for any other theory of how the world came to be. Even in the 17th century (the Age of Science) and the 18th century (the Age of Enlightenment), there were few full-fledged atheists. Those favoring natural operation of the cosmos were at most Deists, arguing that God created the Universe and set it running, then avoided any further intervention. Modernly, those trying to reconcile God and science are likely to accept there was a Big Bang some 14 or 15 billion years ago, then argue in favor of God as the moving cause of that event and then consider the extent to which God continues to be actively involved in the Universe, life here on Planet Earth, and so forth. It’s not really the simplified philosophical cosmological argument that presently moves readers (there are no uncaused events, so what caused the Big Bang? God) as much as the simplified scientific argument (there was a Big Bang that started everything, and I believe in God, so that was His moment of Creation). If you’re a believer in 2023, that simplified scientific argument is probably what you think if you think about it at all.
The LDS view is a bit surprising. First, Joseph Smith did not think of Creation as a point in time, t=0, but believed in eternal existence, no beginning and no end. For example, “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be” (D&C 93:29). My sense is that Joseph would have rejected the Big Bang Theory as just a scientific version of creation ex nihilo, which he rejected, instead viewing creation as the organization of pre-existing but unorganized matter, apparently eternally pre-existing unorganized matter. You’ve probably heard the term “matter unorganized” in an LDS account of the Creation. That’s Joseph speaking.
How about the current view of LDS leadership? Let’s look at President Nelson’s 2012 Conference talk (before he became President of the Church) “Thanks Be to God.” I like the talk (although I don’t affirm the details) and it is encouraging when LDS leaders expressly address this topic. First, he references what we might call the biological form of the cosmological argument. This approach was once fairly convincing but has lost most of its persuasive appeal since Darwin’s theory of evolution (and subsequent elaboration) showed how natural selection results in apparent design in living creatures. You know, God didn’t design giraffes with long necks, it was just that the ones with short necks couldn’t reach as many leaves in trees, consequently didn’t reproduce as many offspring as giraffes with longer necks did, and from generation to generation giraffe necks got longer and longer. Anyway, here’s what then-Elder Nelson said:
Each organ of your body is a wondrous gift from God. Each eye has an autofocusing lens. Nerves and muscles control two eyes to make a single three-dimensional image. The eyes are connected to the brain, which records the sights seen. Your heart is an incredible pump. … Think of the body’s defense system. To protect it from harm, it perceives pain. In response to infection, it generates antibodies. … Anyone who studies the workings of the human body has surely “seen God moving in his majesty and power.”
He then makes reference to the Big Bang, what we might call the astronomical version of the cosmological argument, although it’s not clear to what extent he is affirming or rejecting it.
Yet some people erroneously think that these marvelous physical attributes happened by chance or resulted from a big bang somewhere. Ask yourself, “Could an explosion in a printing shop produce a dictionary?” The likelihood is most remote. But if so, it could never heal its own torn pages or reproduce its own newer editions!
I think this is more of a rejection of the theory of evolution by natural selection than a rejection of the Big Bang Theory, but it seems apparent that then-Elder Nelson (and I’m fairly sure he has not changed his view on the matter) is endorsing both versions of the cosmological argument: (1) that the Big Bang Theory is insufficient as an explanation for the cosmos and the natural laws that govern its operation; and (2) that Big Bang + Evolution by Natural Selection is grossly insufficient to explain the detailed workings of the human body and human physiology.
Conclusion
Guess what? I’m out of time. Maybe I’ll circle back next week for a discussion of design arguments and the following week for arguments from religious experience (the topic I find the most interesting because I think it gets used so often in LDS leader discourse). So I’m going to wind up this post with a few prompts for your comments on this particular topic.
- Do you accept the Big Bang Theory, that the Universe flashed into existence 14 or 15 billion years ago and just keep rolling? If not, what’s your alternative view?
- Did God cause the Big Bang or at least have a thumb on the scales of creation? Or do you see it as a totally natural process?
- A uniquely Mormon view, although not the only Mormon view, is that God does not transcend or precede the Universe but instead is firmly embedded in the Universe. This might lead a Mormon to theorize that Creation, the Big Bang, was a fully natural process and that later, somehow, God became God within this natural system and that God now governs or controls (to some degree?) this Universe or at least our corner of it. (This view, that God is to some extent subject to the natural laws of the Universe or that natural laws preceded God, horrifies Christian theologians.)
- In terms of ongoing Creation or the governing of the Universe, do you think like a Deist that God set the Universe a-running and doesn’t intervene anymore? Or that he just intervenes on very rare occasions? Or that he intervenes, perhaps in answer to sincere prayers, all the time? We might call this last group Keyists, people who believe God is so involved with the daily events here on Earth that He will help you find your lost car keys. Sorry if that last sentence sounds flippant. If you’re searching for a lost child or maybe for your child’s lost prescription medication that might save her life after a bee sting or such, it seems more balanced. Who among us wouldn’t offer a quick prayer for guidance in that circumstance?
Wheat & Tares 
i’m agnostic about God. i can’t make it work for me personally. Most Christians believe in a Creation. I’m with the Process Theologians, I believe in an ongoing Creation or creating. The earth is still evolving. Where God fits in? I haven’t a clue.
i don’t believe for a second that God answers prayers. Why would he respond to trivial problems and leave the major ones unanswered? Keys vs wars?
We are all agnostic, but only some of us realize it.
I’m more apt to believe that God evolved over 15 billion years than he just existed and then created us in 6000 years and here we are 6,000 years later.
To me, it’s the math. Given enough time, with enough “life,” even small changes become big. We just got a satellite back from space that had dust from a comet and one of the first things announced was the existence of chemicals from the basic building blocks of life. Proteins replicate, join, reform, and eventually become RNA and DNA chains and cells. Over time, the trillions and trillions of cells changed into other types of cells and eventually combined into multicelled organisms. Again, over billions of years to me, this is more reasonable than a spoken word and it comes into existence.
Finally, on another level, who are you with or without a God? If it takes a God to make you good, then you need to explore the possibility of there not being a God. If you are the same person with or without a God then can we really know if there is a God and should we even worry about it? If there is, great, we’ll be surprised and I hope pleased after our death but if there isn’t, we’ve still lived a good life, and “we” will live on in our posterity.
I’m more apt to believe that God evolved over 15 billion years than he just existed and then created us in 6000 years and here we are 6,000 years later.
To me, it’s the math. Given enough time, with enough “life,” even small changes become big. We just got a satellite back from space that had dust from a comet and one of the first things announced was the existence of chemicals from the basic building blocks of life. Proteins replicate, join, reform, and eventually become RNA and DNA chains and cells. Over time, the trillions and trillions of cells changed into other types of cells and eventually combined into multicelled organisms. Again, over billions of years to me, this is more reasonable than a spoken word and it comes into existence.
Finally, on another level, who are you with or without a God? If it takes a God to make you good, then you need to explore the possibility of there not being a God. If you are the same person with or without a God then can we really know if there is a God and should we even worry about it? If there is, great, we’ll be surprised and I hope pleased after our death but if there isn’t, we’ve still lived a good life, and “we” will live on in our posterity.
What is the true nature of the God that most Mormons believe exists? It could be the B.H. Roberts/John Widstoe version that is rooted in naturism and optimism about human potential and is ultimately a God that is eternally progressing. Contrast that with the Joseph Fielding Smith/Bruce McConkie God that is immutable, omniscient, and omnipresent.
Widstoe summed his position well: “God must now be engaged in progressive development, and infinite as God is, he must have been less powerful in the past than he is today. Nothing in the universe is static or quiescent.”
Such a God would have to work within the boundaries of natural laws and scientific principles. In this context, events such as the Big Bang and evolution occur as a natural result of environmental conditions. It lends credibility to the idea of Deism.
I can’t comprehend a God that intervenes only selectively and is biased towards members of a small nondescript religion that espouses overtly selfish and discriminatory behaviors.
Although the Big Bank is firmly rooted it has a lot of problems. Also, the theory that gravity is the controlling influence in the cosmos has problems that require the introduction of dark matter that has never been proven to even exist. The Electric Universe model avoids these problems and interestingly is more in line with descriptions in the Book of Abraham where it says, “the Sun, and to borrow its light from Kolob through the medium of Kae-e-vanrash, which is the grand Key, or, in other words, the governing power, which governs fifteen other fixed planets or stars,” Facs. #2, Fig. 5 We are still in our infancy in our understanding of the universe and therefor our understanding of God.
I have become more pantheistic in the past couple of years. Although I like the intimacy that echoes in the term “Father”, I find it highly problematic in reconciling just how brutal God appears in scripture. I simply cannot worship a schizophrenic God who on one page loves without condition and two pages later is not only condoning violence but commanding it. Which, for me, speaks to how manmade scripture is and how God is predominantly created in our own image, to serve our own ends.
We have a core idea that the light of Christ is in all things, this is a very pantheistic idea, that sees God as the animating power that is in all of us. God, in terms of linguistics, translates in the original Aramaic as “Alaha”, and Hebrew “Eloha (im)”, the latter in the LDS context using the plural form of Elohim. Both words translate as “unity”, with the “im” being the plural form seen in our LDS context, meaning, many things functioning as one. It’s focus however is, like Pauls metaphor for the body of Christ, on diversity of parts, each bringing their unique strengths to the collective union. God, for me, is also a good way to describe the structure of reality. God, as structure, makes “God giveth and taketh away” make perfect sense. Reality is both beautiful and punishing, with a randomness that defies creating any kind of system that would tip the outcome into one’s favor.
I’m a bit a fence sitter, I guess. I live as though he exists, assuming that orienting ourselves to a shared value is critical. Similar to Paschals infamous wager, I suppose adopting Godliness is a good idea if it turns out he/she is a real person. I also live as though he does not exist. The existence of God and the war of religion frustrates me beyond words. Why does anyone assume that God loves their team the most? and because of that favoritism justifies enmity, hatred, dehumanizing and violent behavior to achieve the desired end. God has been the scapegoat for a myriad of historical atrocities that contradicts any rational belief that he is perfectly just being. Again however, if God does exist, I think the biblical episodes of God commanding genocide is purely manmade, where people wanting what they want, devise what would otherwise be a morally reprehensible scheme and blame God for it.
When I was a freshman at BYU I had such a truly, unspeakably traumatic experience with my roommates (who were kicked out of BYU for their part in the trauma)and my bishop (who was soon removed because he had been exercising extreme unrighteous dominion over many ward members and was soon exed) that completely turned me off God and religion. Thank goodness this was in the days before Ecclesiastical Endorsements were required because I would’ve been kicked out for having lost my testimony. For three years I went through the motions and said the right words but believed absolutely nothing. I only stayed at BYU because I had found a group of amazing friends with whom I had so much in common and many of whom were also questioning the church, the reality of God, etc.
When I was finishing my student teaching one of my 5th grade students asked me if I believed in God and why or why not. This child wasn’t trying to “talk church” with me. I’d heard him tell some friends at recess that his dad didn’t believe in God and didn’t go to church which put this boy and the rest of his family in an very uncomfortable position with regard to the church. He was an extremely deep thinker for someone of his young age. Because I felt that I owed him an honest answer I asked him if I could have a few days in order to put together my thoughts.
As it had been three years since I had given God and Jesus any thought more than just mouthing their names at church I began to think about my life before the religious trauma had occurred and what, if anything, I’d actually believed about them throughout my life. Having an ultra TBM mother who had constantly drilled the church and its teachings into my sibs and me (my dad was gone most of the time on business or with church callings) who’d made sure that we did all of “the right things” including rarely missing church and church associated meetings and programs had made me think that I must believe in them although I’d never given it much thought. In asking my group of friends as well as some trusted older individuals about whether or not they believed in God and if they did how did they know for themselves that he and Jesus were real. Many of them were not sure if, how or what they honestly they believed.
Traveling back to Provo from a Presidents’ Day weekend in a blizzard our car went off the icy road and hit a dead tree. Because I was in the passenger seat and wasn’t wearing a seatbelt I was thrown partially through the windshield before the dead tree split in two and pinned me under it. As I was asleep when the accident happened my roommates and the EMTs had to fill in the details afterwards. When the EMTs got to the accident scene they had to use the Jaws of Life to get me out of the totaled car. I was pronounced dead at the scene and taken by ambulance to a tiny hospital in the middle of nowhere.
The night before the accident I had knelt down for the first time in three years and prayed. I rather tentatively told God and Jesus that I didn’t know if they were real or not but that I really an answer for myself and also wanted to answer my student’s question honestly. Please understand that I expected to NOT receive an answer but at least I could then honestly say that there was no God or Jesus after having given the matter a good deal of deep thought. However, after I went through the windshield and died I certainly did received the answer to my question. The experience is too sacred to discuss in a public forum, but when I resurrected on the table in the ER as a doctor was signing my death certificate I KNEW that God and Jesus (and Heavenly Mother) were real and that they loved me with a type and level of love that I couldn’t have even imagined existed.
For a couple of months I was on cloud nine even as I experiencing the worst possible pain. Because I had to take opiates for the agony I was living through I began to wonder if I had just imagined or dreamed about the sacred experience. Then as I was being set apart by a brand new councilor in the bishopric this man suddenly stopped talking for a bit and then suddenly said, “Do not deny what you experienced. It happened just as you remember it happening and was not a figment of your mind. Never forget that. Always remember what you saw, heard and felt at that time and remember to share the love you felt then with others.” He paused again and then finished the setting apart blessing.
Afterwards both he and my bishop tried to understand what had just occurred and asked for my insight. When I finished telling my story the councilor told us that he’d abruptly stopped the prayer because he suddenly had the strongest feeling that the Lord had needed him to give me an important message. The words he spoke to me had just come out of his mouth without any forethought on him part as to what he was actually saying or what it meant. It was the confirmation that I’d desperately needed to verify I hadn’t imagined my sacred experience.
Since then I have had many sacred spiritual experiences both large and small and my testimony of the reality of our Heavenly Parents and Jesus existence and their unconditional love for us has grown immensely. This deep knowledge makes my complete loss of trust in the church leaders, the loss of belief in church “doctrine” and teachings, acknowledging shameful church history plus the authoritarian and unloving way that the church now functions, what it currently teaches and what it expects from members all the more difficult, painful and incredibly sad.
This is just my own story. The one size fits all mentality the church uses should NEVER be used to guilt or intimidate members into feeling like their testimony (or lack thereof) is less/weaker or stronger/better than someone else’s. It’s a very personal thing.
I believe in God because of experiences I’ve had. Poor Wayfaring Stranger, thank you so much for sharing your story. My experiences led me to the same conclusion you make – I am firmly committed to believing in what I experienced, and there is no one size fits all mentality about spiritual experiences and we shouldn’t use our stories to persuade/convince/pressure others.
Because I believe God is a personal experience, I’m agnostic on the bigger questions about how/if God was involved with the Big Bang. It doesn’t matter to me. I accept the scientific explanations while also thinking, “if God was involved, that’s fine too.”
Honestly, if God did design everything in great detail, then I’ve got a lot of feedback about how reproduction just really sucks for women. I’ve been drafting a post about this in my mind. The only Gen Conf I heard was about 15 minutes, when Alan T. Phillips said there was a designer, and I’ve been mentally arguing with him ever since. I would rather believe that God set things going, and the specifics are just the way things happened.
After a lifetime of fear-inspired obedience, I’ve now gotten to the point where I’m the same person whether or not I believe in God. I try to be fair and kind because I want to be fair and kind, not because I’m afraid of punishment or want a reward.
I liked toddsmithson’s comments a lot. I’ve also been thinking over a version of pantheism. If there are a lot of gods and they aren’t in perfect agreement, that would explain a lot about the world. The Greek god Zeus was super powerful, but also a selfish jerk who didn’t pay much attention to the consequences of his actions on mere mortals. I mean, if you’re going to look at the world the way it is, and work backwards into conclusions about the nature of God(s), a bunch of people (like the Greek gods) who are too powerful, and who fight and disagree and get jealous, would explain a lot. The monotheistic idea that One True God has total control and everything is a manifestation of his love requires a whole lot of mental gymnastics.
I think the Big Bang Theory is just that: a theory. That said, it is a theory supported by lots of evidence. Not being an astrophysicist, I am taking experts’ words for it. But experts say that the universe is expanding and continues to expand, and that that is evidence of a large explosion that happened to create the universe we live in.
That said, the question is what is behind the Big Bang? What came before it? Did something just come from nothing? I don’t know. Honestly I don’t expend too much mental energy thinking about the universe and the history of time and space. It is fascinating, but it comes to a point that it is highly speculative. There are things that are probably impossible to know.
On the flip side, I think the same of God. Is there evidence for God? I all depends on how you define God, and there are many, many definitions of God even within a particular religious tradition itself and even within Mormonism. For instance, there is debate within Mormonism as to whether God has unconditional love or not. There used to be debate as to whether Adam was God. For me, I see God as simply synonymous with nature. There is no supernatural, only the natural, and it is upon us to try to discover what nature is and how it functions.
Janey, I’m with you with regard to not caring so much about the nuts and bolts of the how’s and whys of creation and prefer instead to find awe and wonder in the world and marvel about the things that we DO know about the earth such as plate tectonics and various kinds of weathering to create mountains, prairies, plateaus, rivers etc along with celebrating whatever it is that creates trees, bushes, flowers and more. I was blessed to have a dad who taught me to love and reverence nature. My husband is a birder and has taught me to enjoy looking for and knowing about the birds that live in our neighborhood and up on the side of the mountains above us where we have some bald eagles AND some hawks that love to soar above our home. At times like these I feel like breaking out in song to sing “All Creatures of our God and King”.
Like you, I plan to have a long chat with God about genetics, chronic health challenges and the “joys of becoming and being a woman” with all of its pain and unpleasantness. Surely there has to be a better way to design the female body!
I’ve really enjoyed the post and the comments. I am a doubting believer. But that belief is little more than a choice I make most days. Certainty just doesn’t work very well for me. I respect others’ faith and experiences. I also respect the atheism of many of my friends. But that kind of certainty just isn’t a feature of my personal makeup. I think it can be good and beautiful and true in others’.
What matters to me is how my beliefs or doubts influence the ways I treat myself and other people. Both belief and doubt have served me, but my uncertainty has served me best of all.
I take a walk and look up at where the mountains meet the sky and I feel the presence of God. I cannot define to you exactly what I mean by that, but to me it’s very real. It isn’t separate from nature. Nature is part of it and natural laws govern all (I avoid magical thinking). When I pray I feel heard. I mostly give thanks for all that is good in my world. When I ask it is mostly to share my feelings and never to control the world around me. I will pray for the Spirit to touch the hearts my family or friends with some specific need at that time. But I always add, according to their agency and according to God’s will (by which I mean in accordance with natural law, or reality).
Accepting uncertainty keeps my balance. However I feel a higher power that looks over the world and plans for it all in a broad way.
As for things taught at church… I am very committed to following Jesus Christ. I think what I believe or think is “true” is irrelevant. I think each person would be wise to consider their own behaviors towards marginalized people instead of focusing on personal purity.
The LDS FAITH and SCIENCE are slowly but surely drawing closer together, but I do not seek answers to scientific questions from theologians, just as I don’t seek answers to matters of religious faith from scientists. Read some of the comments made by some of our early prophets and apostles relating to science, and you quickly can see why.
I guess I would call myself an agnostic. I’m willing to make space for the presence of something but I have no clue what that something is. I know people who have had encounters with those who have passed on and have received council from then. That council usually is to love. I’ve never heard of an NDE or other encounter where the person was told to get baptized, go to the temple, pay your tithing, etc. It always seems simply to be good to others. In the end it comes down to how you act toward others more than religious theology which is what bothers me so much about LDS teachings. I can’t reconcile the superiority complex of LDS doctrine with the encounters I’m aware of through the veil. In terms of creation arguments, I see more evidence against the idea of a creator in the entirety of the universe. When you consider the whole thing I don’t understand how you could come to the conclusion that it’s all about us here on tiny little earth in some obscure part of the milky way galaxy. The sand on the seashore analogy seems generous.
Fun fact: there is way more evidence for the Big Bang than there is for the existence of Nephites.
I’m unpersuaded by any of the arguments for God’s existence (at least if we’re talking about a supreme sentient being who designed the universe and in whose image we are made). I guess that makes me an atheist, but “atheist” still carries a heavy stigma in our society so I don’t publicly own it very often.
People often misunderstand: atheism is not a belief system. It is simply rejection of specific truth claims regarding God. In fact, all of us are atheists when it comes to every religion except our own. An “atheist” just disbelieves in one more god than you do.
It is hard for me to reconcile experiences like A Poor Wayfaring Stranger describes, and Janey alludes to, with my own.
I was devout, believing.
Then, I had a quite opposite experience. I couldn’t really believe in God anymore, though I tried and I wanted to. I didn’t need a miracle. Just putting the pieces together. They were spelled out. All the information was there. Looked at by lots of credentialed, respected, professionals. Finding after finding pointed to same solution.
Maybe god nudged the wrong person? If there is a god, inconsistency is a characteristic.
In your intriguing blog post, you delve into the intersection of science, philosophy, and religious belief, particularly within the context of the cosmological argument. You acknowledge the challenges posed by scientific theories like the Big Bang and the theory of evolution and explore how they interact with traditional religious perspectives. I appreciate your thought-provoking discussion, and it prompts me to consider my own views on these complex matters, especially regarding the role of God in the creation and ongoing governance of the universe. Your post encourages me to reflect on the relationship between science and spirituality in shaping our understanding of the cosmos and the divine.