Monday, April 14, 2008 9:29 PM CDT
Debate fails to settle question of God's existence
By AMBER WILLIAMS, Staff Writer
awilliams@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — Facing a question from an audience member on why he believes everyone should start out in life thinking like an atheist, Richard Foley offered an analogy.
A professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri, Foley told the audience to imagine they were told of the existence of space aliens on the campus of Eastern Illinois University.
Everyone in attendance would start at the assumption the aliens did not exist until it was proven otherwise, Foley said.
Thinking about God should be the same way, Foley said.
Too much evidence exists to show there is no God, he said.
“Agnosticism is not a starting point — it would have to be an achievement,” Foley said. “I haven’t been moved that far.”
Foley was in the panel discussion Monday titled “Does God Exist,” with Grant Sterling of the Eastern Illinois University philosophy department.
Foley presented an argument in opposition to the existence of God, while Sterling presented the philosophical argument in favor of the existence of God.
Each professor of philosophy kept the presentation of his argument to under 20 minutes to allow time for audience questions. The audience more than filled the allotted time slot with questions for the philosophy professors.
Hundreds of people attended the forum, filling all of the seats in Lumpkin Auditorium, as well as the aisles.
In the interest of time, both of the professors limited their presentations on the matter to the cosmological argument of whether God exists.
That is, whether it is God who created the universe as we conceive it, they said.
Sterling argued that for any contingent being, such as ourselves, to exist, there must be a reason why that being exists. The explanation for the existence of these beings must be more than just other beings.
Such as, the reason why a person exists is more than just because of their parents, because their parents were created by their parents before them and their parents before them and so on.
Thus, all beings must be explained in terms of a “logically necessary being,” Sterling said.
This logically necessary being started creation and thus is similar to the Western conception of God, he said.
It does not prove any particular characteristics of God, but it proves that a God, as a necessary being, exists, Sterling said.
Foley countered Sterling’s argument by saying his cosmological argument is that something first caused or created the universe as it began.
However, that cause was not God; it did not exist by any necessity, he said.
This first cause of the universe was not the cause of everything in the universe, as some would argue God has done. The question of where everything in the universe has come from is something that is constantly being answered in science, Foley said.
Questioned by an audience member as to what it would take to convince him God exists, Foley had difficulty coming up with an answer.
He said he is skeptical of miracles and doesn’t know what explanation of a necessary being would convince him.
Foley said his belief in being an atheist is strong.
“So much testifies to it for me,” Foley said.
Contact Amber Williams at awilliams@jg-tc.com or 238-6858.
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The Question wrote on Apr 15, 2008 9:59 AM:
— Mark Twain "