Does God exist?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Does God exist?". Your opponent's style: An atheist

The topic of this debate is "Does God exist?". There are three ways to answer this question. Answering yes would make you a theist, answering I don't know or I'm not sure would make you agnostic, and answering no would make you an atheist. In this debate, my burden is to prove that God exists. My opponent's burden, as they say they are an atheist, is to show that God doesn't exist. We can define God as a spaceless, immaterial, supernatural, and uncaused being who created the Universe. I will defend two main contentions in this opening. The first one is that there are no good arguments for atheism. Instead of attacking strawman on this point, I will wait for my opponent's arguments to explain why God doesn't exist. I will instead move to my second contention, which is that there is evidence for God's existence. I will show this first through the contingency argument. First, everything that exists has an explanation for it's existence. For example, a wooden chair might exist because a carpenter chose to make it. A city might exist because multiple people chose to set up establishments there. The explanation for something could be an external cause as in those examples, or have an explanation out of the necessity of it's own nature. Second, because everything as an explanation for it's existence, that the universe must have an explanation or cause for it's existence. This cause must be spaceless, because it brought space into existence, it must be immaterial because material objects cannot exist without space, it must be supernatural, because natural means it is of the universe and this cause must be outside the universe, it must be powerful because it is powerful enough to create and sustain the entire cosmos, and it must be uncaused. Therefore, this explanation is God.

You're smuggling in your conclusion before the argument even starts. You define "God" as precisely what you need to conclude, then act surprised when the contingency argument delivers it. That's circular reasoning dressed up as logic. Here's the real problem: you claim everything needs an explanation, then exempt God from that rule. Why? "Uncaused being" doesn't solve the problem, it just relocates it. If God can exist without a cause, why can't the universe? You've given no principled reason for the asymmetry. Why does "necessary existence" apply to your God but not to physical reality itself?

Ok, so that was a very unpleasant response. You have used a lot of rhetoric to make my arguments sound dumb, but there isn't a lot behind what you are saying. First off, based on that response, you would have to agree with my first contention, which is that there are no good arguments for atheism, because you never provided any. You can't prove God doesn't exist by refuting the contingency argument, you have to make a positive case to explain how God doesn't exist, and you haven't done that. This would at best leave us with agnosticism, not atheism. Now on to you critiques of my argument. First off, it's not circular reasoning to propose a thesis, and then present an argument that proves that thesis. That's a criticism you are putting out to sound confident and assertive, but that doesn't make it valid or correct. First off, yes God does have an explanation for his existence, and that explanation is by the necessity of his own nature. Notice how I didn't say that everything requires an external explanation, I said it requires an explanation that is either by the necessity of it's own existence or external. Additionally, the objection that the universe can exist by the necessity of it's own existence falls when you see that there are things that most things around us don't have to exist and could have failed to exist. What makes the universe different? Couldn't the universe have failed to exist? You've said the universe is necessary by it's own existence, but haven't really explained how that would work.

You're right that I should sharpen my case. But you've just admitted the core problem: you're asserting God is necessary by nature without proving it. "Necessity of its own nature" is a label, not an explanation. Why should we accept that God has this property when the universe doesn't? You've pointed out contingency in chairs and cities, but those are composed objects. The universe as a fundamental whole might be different. You need an argument for why God's necessity is metaphysically prior to the universe's. "Couldn't it have failed?" assumes the universe is composite. What if it's fundamental?

I would like to again note, that the atheist still has yet to even attempt to satisfy their end of the burden of proof. You can poke all the holes you want in my argument, that wouldn't prove God doesn't exist. You need to offer a positive case and you have yet to do that. First off necessity of its own nature is in fact an explanation, not a label. You make that accusation, but fail to explain it. Also, we already defined God to have that property. You haven't explained at all how the universe could have that property. If you don't explain anything at length, I can't refute much at length.

Fair point. You're right that I haven't made the positive atheist case yet. But here's what matters: you've defined God into existence by stipulation, not argument. You say God is necessary by nature, then declare that solves it. But you haven't explained why a necessary being must be conscious, personal, or the God of any religion. A necessary mathematical structure or physical law fits your definition perfectly. Until you show why necessity requires personhood and intention, you've proven an impersonal ground of being, not God. That's a massive gap you're glossing over.