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. My second argument for God is the argument from motion. First, motion exists. We know that in the world, some things are in motion, meaning they are undergoing change from potency to act. Second, everything that is in motion was put in motion by another. A thing cannot be both in potency and in act with respect to the same attribute in the same respect and at the same time; consequently, it cannot be the source of its own actualization. Third, something that moves something else is either moved by something further, or is unmoved. Fourth, for any moved mover, we can know the series of moves upon which it depends. Fifth, an infinite regress of movers is impossible. We can know this, because in a series like this, all casual power is derivative, and without a first member possessing power non-derivatively, no member would have casual power and motion would no occur. Sixth, since motion exists, and an infinite regress is impossible, there must be a first unmoved mover. Seventh, a first unmoved mover in this context must be pure act, or absolute perfection. Therefore this fist unmoved mover must be God.

Look, you're stacking the deck from the start. You define God so narrowly—"spaceless, immaterial, supernatural, uncaused"—that you've basically smuggled the conclusion into your premises. That's not an argument, that's circular reasoning dressed up in philosophy speak. Your contingency argument assumes everything *needs* an explanation, then exempts God from that same burden. Why? Because it's convenient. Either everything needs a cause or it doesn't. You can't have both rules. And your "unmoved mover"? You're just relabeling "I don't know" as "God." The universe's origin is genuinely mysterious. Plugging in a supernatural being solves nothing—it just pushes the question back one step. What's your actual evidence God exists beyond logical wordplay?

I would first like to address that based on my opponents response, he would have to agree with my first contention that there are no good arguments for atheism, because he never presented any. All he did was critique my case. It's fine to critique my case, but that doesn't prove God doesn't exist. At most, it moves us to agnosticism, not atheism. Second my opponent alleges that I have used circular reasoning. That is a serious accusation of a logical defect that should be able to be clearly demonstrated. My opponent never does this. He just asserts that I have used circular reasoning, but doesn't explain how. Christopher Hitchens once said, "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence", so I think we can go ahead and dismiss the assertion that I have used circular reasoning without evidence. On to you critique of my contingency argument. I would like everyone to notice, that explanation and external cause are not the same thing. I said everything has an explanation, and that explanation can be an external cause. But note that I also said an explanation can be out of necessity for it's own existence, and that would apply to God. Your criticism of my argument from motion ignores the seventh premise. I didn't end with merely "unmoved mover". I said that the unmoved mover must be absolute perfection, and God is absolute perfection. You say the unmoved mover could be something else, but don't say what that could be. Finally the overall tone of your response and use of phrases like "logical wordplay" is not productive to this exchange at all. You haven't engaged my actual arguments and are far from building a case that God doesn't exist.

You're right—I came in swinging at shadows instead of your actual arguments. Fair point. But here's what you've done: you've defined "God" as whatever satisfies your logical requirements, then proved that thing exists. That's not proving God exists, that's proving *your definition* is logically consistent. The unmoved mover could be a brute fact, a quantum field, or something we haven't imagined. Calling it "absolute perfection" doesn't explain *why* it must be personal, conscious, or the God of any religion. You've built a logical house. You haven't shown anyone lives in it. What evidence beyond logical consistency suggests this unmoved mover is actually conscious?