Haworth’s 10 Ways: (Roughly) 10 Arguments for the Existence of God
This following series of brief posts will purport to examine (roughly) 10 proofs for the existence of God. In imitation of Aquinas’ magisterial 5 Ways, I am advocating an ad hoc 10 Ways. Overall, I think Haworth’s 10 Ways contains seven fairly strong arguments and three that are arguably quite weak. Each Way (or proof) is simply a ‘snap-shot’ image of a much wider and labyrinthine argument, elaborated at one time or another over the course of last two millennia – whether that be the early ‘cosmological argument’ of Paul in Acts 17, the 5 Ways articulated by Aquinas in his Summa or the recent innovations of Alvin Plantinga, a living Christian philosopher. Haworth’s 10 Ways are therefore intended as mere tools, bite-size proofs that can be used in a kind of scatter-bomb way as one discusses the existence of God over a pint.
Arguably (this is not a question resolvable in the space of this short post), reason can never prove the existence of the living God outright. Many believe any given argument, no matter how effective, ultimately only presents a conceptual cipher or a mental idol. In other words, arguments of the kind to follow can conjur the so-called "god of the philosophers" but not the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a remarkable philosopher, mathematician and physicist who lived during the seventeenth century in France. In 1654, at the age of thirty-one, Pascal underwent an incredible conversion experience. He recorded it on a piece of parchment that was found sewn into his clothing after his death. It appears that he carried it with him at all times. It reads as follows:
Year of Grace 1654
Monday 23 November, feast of St. Clement, Pope and Martyr, and others in the Martyrology.
Eve of St. Chrysogonus, martyr and others.
From about half past ten at night to about half an hour after midnight,
FIRE
“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6), not of philosophers and scholars.
Certitude, heartfelt joy, peace.
God of Jesus Christ.
God of Jesus Christ.
“My God and Your God” (John 20:17).
“Your God shall be my God” (Ruth 1:16).
The world forgotten, everything except God.
He can only be found by the ways that have been taught in the Gospels.
Greatness of the human soul.
“O righteous Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You” (John 17:25).
Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy.
I have separated myself from him.
“They have forsaken me, the spring of living water” (Jeremiah 2:13).
“My God, will you leave me?” (cf. Matthew 27:46).
Let me not be cut off from him for ever!
“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I am separated from him; for I have shunned him, denied him, crucified him.
May I never be separated from him.
He can only be kept by the ways taught in the gospel.
Complete and sweet renunciation.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Everlasting joy in return for one’s day’s striving upon earth.
“I will not neglect your Word” (Psalm 119:16). Amen.
As an outstanding religious thinker, Pascal had painstakingly examined and developed the conceptual arguments for the existence of God. However, it was only with his conversion experience at the age of thirty-one, that his mind blazed with the burning conviction of being consumed by the fire of God’s immediate presence. He calls the all-consuming presence the "“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6), not of philosophers and scholars”. The God Pascal encountered was the One whom the concepts and argumentation of philosophy completely failed to grasp. In the presence of such a God, Pascal cries “Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy.”
Pascal had stood before God’s presence and the reality of God himself. In the aftermath, he would never again identify the living, Personal-Infinite God with philosophical concepts and clever argumentation. “The world forgotten, everything except God...He can only be found by the ways that have been taught in the Gospels.”
As Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) once remarked (when asked why he never debated God’s existence in public):
“…God is not to be discussed and debated. God is not a subject for debate, because He is Who He is and What He is. We are told that the unbeliever, of course, does not agree with that; and that is perfectly true; but that makes no difference. We believe it, and it is part of our very case to assert it. Holding the view that we do, believing what we do about God, we cannot in any circumstances allow Him to become a subject for discussion or of debate or investigation. I base my argument at this point on the word addressed by God Himself to Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3:1-6). Moses had suddenly seen this remarkable phenomenon of the burning bush, and was proposing to turn aside and examine this astonishing phenomenon. But, immediately, he is rebuked by the voice which came to him saying, ‘Draw no nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.’ That seems to me to be the governing principle in this whole matter. Our attitude is more important than anything we do in detail, and as we are reminded in the Epistle to the Hebrews, God is always to be approached ‘with reverence and with godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire’ (Heb. 12:28 and 29)…To me this is a very vital matter. To discuss the being of God in a casual manner, lounging in an armchair, smoking a pipe or a cigarette or a cigar, is to me something that we should never allow, because God, as I say, is not a philosophic X or a concept. We believe in the almighty, the glorious, the living God; and whatever may be true of others we must never put ourselves, or allow ourselves to be put, into a position in which we are debating about God as if he were but a philosophical proposition. To me this is an overriding consideration which is enough in and of itself...”
As Martyn Lloyd-Jones makes clear, God is no mere philosophical concept. He is the living God of Moses. As such, when we speak to others about this God, contending for his existence and supremacy, we ought to remain aware that we are not speaking about a neutral philosophical X. Although Martyn Lloyd-Jones is speaking here mainly to full-time preachers, his words apply as much to those of us seeking to share the gospel with our peers in day-to-day life. In a sense, as soon as we open our mouths to speak about God and share the gospel, we are preaching. We are speaking of truth and a “theology on fire”. The God we serve “is a consuming fire” who can not be reduced to neat philosophical propositions.
Nonetheless, (and perhaps in opposition to what Martyn Lloyd-Jones is arguing for above) philosophical proofs can be useful and helpful aids that can help demonstrate the reasonableness of belief in God. Haworth’s 10 Ways comprise a humble effort to enable us to do just that.
Signing Off -
The Scribbling Apprentice
No comments:
Post a Comment