Sources · Does God exist?
This house believes God exists.
Fact bank v1 · 12 cards
This is a philosophy motion, so the judge never rules either side's view true or false. These cards say what philosophers generally accept, and cover facts such as who argued what.
- GOD-01
“Most philosophers don't believe in God.”
What philosophers generally accept
Confirmed for leading universities: in the 2009 PhilPapers survey of 931 philosophy professors at 99 leading departments, 72.8% accepted or leaned towards atheism, the view that there is no God.
Only 14.6% leaned towards theism, the belief that God exists, and 12.6% gave other answers. Most of the departments were in the US (62) and the UK (18), and they lean towards one style of philosophy, called analytic philosophy. A vote of experts does not settle whether God exists. Philosophers who specialise in religion answered very differently (see GOD-02).
“Accept or lean toward: atheism 678 / 931 (72.8%)”
PhilPapers·The PhilPapers Surveys: preliminary survey results (2009 survey, target faculty)Independent research institute · 1 Nov 2009 ↗ - GOD-02
“Philosophers who study religion most closely mostly believe in God.”
What philosophers generally accept
Confirmed: in the 2009 PhilPapers survey, 72.3% of the 47 professors who listed philosophy of religion as an area they specialise in accepted or leaned towards theism, the belief that God exists.
Only 19.1% of them leaned towards atheism, and 8.5% gave other answers. This is a small group of 47 people. The survey cannot say why they answered this way: people who already believe in God may be more likely to choose to study religion, or studying the arguments may change minds. Among all 931 professors surveyed, most leaned towards atheism (see GOD-01).
“Accept or lean toward: theism 34 / 47 (72.3%)”
PhilPapers·The PhilPapers Surveys: preliminary survey results (2009 survey, target faculty specialising in philosophy of religion)Independent research institute · 1 Nov 2009 ↗Further sources for this card
- GOD-03
“The Big Bang proves the universe had a beginning.”
What philosophers generally accept
Not proven. Einstein's theory of gravity, applied to the whole universe, points to a beginning roughly 13.8 billion years ago. But scientists expect that theory to break down at the very start, where tiny quantum effects matter, and some newer models have a "bounce" from an earlier phase instead of a true beginning.
Theorems proved in the 1960s show that, in a broad class of models based on Einstein's theory, the universe is finite to the past. Ideas that avoid a true beginning include a universe that cycles through bangs and crunches, and one that sat almost still for endless time before it started to expand. None of these is proven either. Because ideas in cosmology keep changing, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says arguments that rest on them face "unending point-counterpoint", an endless back-and-forth.
“Crucial assumptions of the singularity theorems may not hold once quantum effects are taken into account.”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy·Philosophy of Cosmology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Peer-reviewed research · 26 Sept 2017 ↗Further sources for this card
- GOD-04
“The first cause argument says everything has a cause, so it falls apart when you ask what caused God.”
What philosophers generally accept
The best-known versions do not say that everything has a cause. The kalam version says everything that begins to exist has a cause, and believers say God is eternal, with no beginning. Another version says things that might not have existed need an explanation, and that this leads to a being that could not fail to exist.
So "what caused God?" misses what these arguments actually claim. Critics attack them in other ways. Some doubt that everything that begins must have a cause, pointing to quantum physics, where cause and effect seem looser for tiny particles. The philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that the idea of a being that must exist has its own problems. The kalam version comes from medieval Muslim thinkers such as al-Ghazali (1058 to 1111), and William Lane Craig revived it in recent times.
“Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy·Cosmological Argument (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Peer-reviewed research · 1 Jul 2026 ↗ - GOD-05
“Aquinas's first cause argument only works if the universe had a beginning.”
What philosophers generally accept
Aquinas did not think anyone could prove the universe had a beginning. He argued that no proof is possible either way, and said God could have made a world that always existed.
Aquinas, who lived about 1225 to 1274, did believe the world began, but as a matter of faith, not proof. His argument is about what keeps things existing right now, not about what started them long ago. He argued for a cause that keeps everything in being, not a first cause in time. So a universe with no beginning would not, by itself, defeat his argument. The kalam version is different, because it does need the universe to have a beginning (see GOD-03).
“Aquinas took up the question in detail in his treatise On the Eternity of the World, concluding that no demonstrative argument is possible either way.”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy·Thomas Aquinas (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Peer-reviewed research · 7 Dec 2022 ↗Further sources for this card
- GOD-06
“The universe is fine-tuned for life: if the laws of physics were even slightly different, life could not exist.”
What philosophers generally accept
Mostly right. Many physicists think life depends on some basic features of physics falling in narrow ranges. For example, if the force that holds the centres of atoms together were more than about 50% stronger, almost all hydrogen would have been burned up in the very early universe.
Not everyone agrees on how narrow the ranges are. Physicist Fred Adams argues that quite a wide range of values would still allow life, and that the universe could even have been friendlier to life. Fine-tuning also does not settle why things are this way. Suggested answers include a designer, many other universes (a multiverse), plain luck, or a deeper theory of physics still to come. Robin Collins, a leading defender of the design version, says fine-tuning does not prove the universe was designed, only that it gives one reason to prefer that idea.
“according to many physicists, the fact that the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy·Fine-Tuning (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Peer-reviewed research · 26 Feb 2026 ↗Further sources for this card
- GOD-07
“Some parts of living things, like the bacterial flagellum, are too complex to have evolved step by step, so they must have been designed.”
What philosophers generally accept
Most biologists reject this. The flagellum is a tiny part that some bacteria use to move. Michael Behe argued in 1996 that it could not have evolved bit by bit, but the overwhelming view in modern biology is that such challenges can be met.
Biologist Kenneth Miller argued there is strong evidence for how the flagellum and its parts evolved. A 2006 article in Nature Reviews Microbiology set out the case for seeing flagella as evolved, not designed, and argued that a model of how they evolved needs no great leaps in thinking. Scientists are still studying the exact steps. Even so, showing that a part of life evolved answers one argument for a designer; it does not by itself settle whether God exists.
“The overwhelming consensus in modern biology is that the challenges to Darwinian evolutionary theory brought forward by Behe, Dembski and others can be met.”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy·Fine-Tuning (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), section 1.3: Fine-Tuning in BiologyPeer-reviewed research · 26 Feb 2026 ↗ - GOD-08
“Evil and suffering prove that an all-powerful, all-loving God cannot exist.”
What philosophers generally accept
It is widely agreed that evil alone does not strictly prove this. In the 1970s Alvin Plantinga argued that God might allow evil so that people can have real free will. Even J. L. Mackie, the atheist philosopher best known for the "proof" version, admitted Plantinga had shown that God and evil can exist together.
That does not end the debate. Discussion has moved to a different version: that the amount and kinds of suffering, such as innocent children dying in agony or animals suffering before any humans existed, count as strong evidence against God, even if not a strict proof. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says these real-life examples give the most challenging versions of the argument. Answering them takes much more than showing that God and evil could exist together.
“The prospects for a successful abstract version of the argument from evil would seem, therefore, rather problematic.”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy·The Problem of Evil (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Peer-reviewed research · 3 Mar 2015 ↗Further sources for this card
- GOD-09
“David Hume proved that miracles are impossible.”
What philosophers generally accept
That is not quite what Hume argued. In 1748 he argued that we should not believe reports of miracles, because it is always more likely that the witnesses were mistaken or lying than that the laws of nature were broken. Whether miracles can happen is a separate question.
Hume's rule was to believe a miracle report only if the report being false would be even more amazing than the miracle. Philosophers still argue about whether he was right. Some critics, such as John Earman, say that enough independent, reliable witnesses could in principle make a miracle believable. Hume himself said that if the sun went dark for eight days and reports came from all over the world, we should believe it, and then look for a natural cause.
“Hume is unambiguously arguing that we should disbelieve testimony to an event’s occurrence, when that event really would be miraculous.”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy·Miracles (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Peer-reviewed research · 7 May 2024 ↗Further sources for this card
- GOD-10
“Pascal's Wager proves that God exists.”
What philosophers generally accept
Pascal did not try to prove that God exists. His wager argues that believing in God is the best bet: if God exists, believers win endless happiness, and if not, they lose only a little.
Pascal, writing in the 1600s, even said "we do not know if He is". So the wager gives a reason to believe based on self-interest, not evidence that God is real. The objection usually seen as the most important is the "many gods" objection: the same bet could be made for many different gods, so the wager alone cannot tell you which one to believe in.
“He aims to show that we ought to believe in God, rather than that God exists.”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy·Pascal's Wager (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Peer-reviewed research · 11 Sept 2022 ↗Further sources for this card
- GOD-11
“Scientific studies show that praying for sick people helps them get better.”
What philosophers generally accept
The best evidence finds no clear effect. A 2009 Cochrane review of 10 trials with 7,646 patients found no clear effect of other people's prayers on death or recovery. A few studies suggested a benefit, but most did not.
The largest single trial, the STEP study, followed more than 1,800 heart surgery patients in 6 US hospitals. Complications happened in 52% of patients who were prayed for and 51% of those who were not. Patients told for certain that they were being prayed for did a little worse: 59% had complications, compared with 52%. These trials test prayers said by others for patients. The review's authors say whether this proves or disproves God is a philosophical question outside their review.
“the evidence does not support a recommendation either in favour or against the use of intercessory prayer”
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (abstract via PubMed, US National Library of Medicine)·Intercessory prayer for the alleviation of ill health (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2009)Government / parliament · 15 Apr 2009 ↗ - GOD-12
“Near-death experiences prove that the soul lives on after the body dies.”
What philosophers generally accept
This has not been shown. In the AWARE study of 2,060 cardiac arrests (when the heart stops), 140 survivors were interviewed, and 101 of them in more depth. Of the survivors interviewed, 9% had near-death experiences and 2% remembered seeing or hearing real events during their resuscitation.
More, 46%, had memories of some kind, such as fear, bright light or family. For one patient, being aware could be checked against real events, at a time when the brain was not expected to be working. The researchers say this fits other studies suggesting awareness may sometimes be present when doctors cannot detect it. That is about the mind while the body is being revived, not proof of life after death.
“9% had NDEs, while 2% described awareness with explicit recall of 'seeing' and 'hearing' actual events related to their resuscitation”
Resuscitation (abstract via PubMed, US National Library of Medicine)·AWARE-AWAreness during REsuscitation-a prospective study (Resuscitation, 2014)Government / parliament · 7 Oct 2014 ↗
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