Roadmap

03 Arguments for God

The positive-case toolkit: five argument families from the philosophical tradition (cosmological, teleological, moral, ontological, transcendental) plus the historical-evidential case for the resurrection, deployed as a cumulative case for Christian theism.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module the student should be able to:

• Deploy at least one strong argument from each of the five major families (cosmological, teleological, moral, ontological, transcendental)
• Articulate the Kalam Cosmological Argument in four sentences without notes
• Walk through the Minimal Facts Argument for the resurrection
• Explain the cumulative-case framework, why the apologist runs several arguments together rather than relying on one knockout proof
• State and respond to the most common objection to each of the five argument families
• Distinguish proof (deductive certainty) from evidence (probabilistic warrant) and locate the cumulative case correctly
• Recognize where each argument's force runs out, what it shows, and what work remains to get from "a god" to the God of Scripture

Lessons

• Lesson 3.1, The Cosmological Family, Kalam, Leibnizian contingency, Aquinas's first three Ways; defenders (Craig, Pruss, Feser); standard objections (B-theory, quantum vacuum, multiverse, "who caused God?") and responses
• Lesson 3.2, The Teleological Family, fine-tuning, triple-alpha resonance, biological design, information-theoretic ID, irreducible complexity; multiverse and anthropic-principle objections
• Lesson 3.3, The Moral Argument, Kant, Lewis, Craig; the two-premise form; engagement with sophisticated atheist moral realism (Wielenberg, Shafer-Landau, Enoch); the Euthyphro third-horn response
• Lesson 3.4, The Ontological Argument, Anselm's Proslogion, the Cartesian form, Plantinga's modal S5 reformulation; Gaunilo's lost-island objection; Kant's "existence is not a predicate" critique
• Lesson 3.5, The Transcendental Argument, Van Til, Bahnsen, Frame; the preconditions of intelligibility; Turek's "stealing from God" framing
• Lesson 3.6, The Resurrection, Historical Evidential, Habermas-Licona minimal-facts; the four/five facts virtually all scholars grant; the pre-Pauline creed dating; naturalistic counter-theories and their failures

Key passages

• Romans 1.18-21, natural revelation; what is known of God from what has been made
• Psalms 19.1, "The heavens declare the glory of God", the biblical warrant for natural theology
• Acts 17:22-31, Paul's Areopagus deployment of natural theology + resurrection
• 1 Corinthians 15.3-8, the AD 35-38 pre-Pauline creed; the load-bearing historical text for the early resurrection proclamation (memorize the dating argument)
• Hebrews 11.1, biblical pistis as trust grounded in evidence, not credulity

Next module

When you can deliver the Kalam cleanly in under 90 seconds, walk the minimal-facts case in under five minutes, and build a 5-7-minute cumulative-case opening that runs cosmological → teleological → moral → resurrection without your eyes leaving the listener, you are ready.

→ Continue to 04 Defeating Objections.

See also

• Course, the master course page
• 02 Faith and Worldview, the prior module
• Theist Arguments, the master hub for the constructive case
• Arguments, the master index of structured premise-conclusion arguments
• Cumulative Case for Christian Theism, the integrative frame the module builds toward
• Resurrection of Jesus, the master hub
• Minimal Facts Argument, the historical-evidential flagship
• Apologetic Method Comparison, where natural theology sits among the schools
• Ris3n Arguments, convergence-shaped synthetic arguments for advanced students