I realize you have briefly done so already, but would you please elaborate on the 'Kalam Cosmological Argument' even more? As a newbie to the philosophical community I am very interested in this subject, and as a 'non-traditional' student I apologize for my lack of academic linguistics. I appreciate any further clarification.

They are no longer called proofs. — Frederick KOH

That's because they are not proofs. A proof is sufficient evidence, or sufficient argument, for the truth of a proposition. But the "proofs" you refer to are not sufficient arguments. They are just arguments, hence called arguments.

What makes an argument sufficient for the truth of a proposition is that the argument is valid and sound. Valid means that the truth of the premises entails the truth of the conclusion, and sound means that the argument is valid and all of its premises are true.

Many arguments for the existence of God are valid. But none of them are sound. You don't get to prove anything with an argument that is valid but contains a premise which is false, nonsensical or unknown whether it is true or false.

When it comes to christianity, you can pretty much prove that you cannot prove the religion to be true, because faith is among the three christian virtues. And faith is, by definition, believing in something that is not (yet) proven. You do not have faith in something that you already know to be true. The day christianity is proven to be true, even among christians alone, is the day that faith will no longer be one of the christian virtues.

And one wonders how we must have faith in such an important issue while demanding proof of what is comparatively trivial.

I don't see a great semantic difference between "proof" and "argument" here. In the Middle Ages, they were called "demonstrations." All these words amount to the same thing: an Aristotelian syllogism.

And faith is, by definition, believing in something that is not (yet) proven. You do not have faith in something that you already know to be true. — Samuel Lacrampe

Not so. What you are suggesting appears to be a radical form of fideism. Historic Christianity, by contrast, has always maintained that certain propositions can and should be logically proved. It's not necessary for belief in them that they be proved, of course, but doing so doesn't endanger faith as such. They are sometimes known as the "preambles of the faith." An argument for God's existence would be considered one of them. The dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary, on the other hand, is not something that can be proved and so must be taken on faith (if you're a Catholic).

They usually explain why X is necessary and identify X as God.

The cosmological argument and every other argument that followed in it's foot steps starts with the premise that 'God exist' and then throws a lot of nonsense/red herrings in front of it to confuse people into agreeing in order so that they don't have to look dumb when having to deal with non-trivial problems they have no real idea about. Using word play and/or sleight of hand tactics tactics is not all that different than the red herrings used when trying to confuse people when creating a Chewbacca defense.

Chewbacca defense
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwdba9C2G14
The Chewbacca Defense 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clKi92j6eLE

Don't get me wrong: I think that proving any religious proposition is not only acceptable but also beneficial for the religion. We just need to take one look at Thomas Aquinas, who spent pretty much his whole life coming up with logical arguments for christianity. My point is that once a specific topic is proven with certainty, then faith becomes redundant. Example: it is non-sensical to say "I have faith that the earth rotates around the sun", because it has been proven to be true already.

Arguments for the existence of God are logical, but do not give certainty (none that I have heard anyways). This is why faith is still necessary along with these arguments. They help build what I have heard called 'methodical faith', which is better than mere 'blind faith'.

Haha. This is where the arguments for the religion come in. They don't give certainty, but help to think about it, and build 'methodical faith', in contrast to 'blind faith'.

I agree with @Thorongil's main point -- that there isn't some kind of ranking of importance between these various words, and they can be used interchangeably here.

Or do all you mean is to say that proofs of God are weaker than arguments which use observations and take the form of experiments?

One thing I think proofs of God are useful for is exploring argument, *especially* of the sort that doesn't rely as much upon observation. It's something that people care about so they pay attention -- and you teach them basic argument along the way. I don't think an argument needs to rely upon observation and experimentation to be worth consideration.

I don't think anyone is usually convinced by these arguments in either direction. But that's not necessarily the point.

You guys can correct me if I am wrong, but I think as a general rule, an argument is an opinion backed up by reason; and then an argument becomes a proof when it gives certainty, or close to certainty. Proofs can be scientific proofs, logical proofs or mathematical proofs. Maybe there are others too? If not a proof, then the argument gives either probability or mere plausibility.

None of the 'proofs of God' were originally intended as arguments to convert unbelievers. And none of their proponents, who were generally theologians, believed that people could be converted solely by reason or philosophical argument. In their view, faith was paramount - you first had to have faith and believe in the Word, and then the proofs, and other such philosophical devices, could serve as salutory exercises for the faithful.

The way these arguments have been trashed by the likes of the so-called 'New atheists' - by presenting them as kind of pseudo-scientific hypotheses, which have subsequently been debunked by 'real science' - only serves to illustrate their incomprehension of the meaning and intent behind them.

This post is not an attempt to convert. All such arguments might indeed be the delusions of a fevered imagination. But at least understand the original intent.

God is, in essence, a hypothesis aimed at explaining the universe, its origins and workings.

If you walk into a room that is clean, neat and organized we automatically think of an organizer - the agency of order. The God hypothesis is exactly the same: the order in our universe (natural laws) justifies the likelihood of a law-giver.

Note, the God I'm referring to is nothing more than a creator. Only some time later did God acquired the 3 omnipowers and it all went downhill from that point.

No excuses for you free-thinking heathens now:

"Automating Godel’s Ontological Proof of God’s Existence ¨
with Higher-order Automated Theorem Provers"
http://page.mi.fu-berlin.de/cbenzmueller/papers/C40.pdf

Proofs can be scientific proofs, — Samuel Lacrampe

In the sense of things like paternity tests.

Scientific theories themselves are never proven. The greatest honours go to scientists who overthrow the most established theories.

If you walk into a room that is clean, neat and organized we automatically think of an organizer - the agency of order. — TheMadFool

That reminds me of a saying by a very well-known scientist, who whilst not conventionally religioius, believed that:

The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God.

(Anyone know the provenance of the quote?)

You guys can correct me if I am wrong, but I think as a general rule, an argument is an opinion backed up by reason; and then an argument becomes a proof when it gives certainty, or close to certainty. — Samuel Lacrampe

Peirce made a distinction between an Argument as "any process of thought reasonably tending to produce a definite belief" and an Argumentation as "an Argument proceeding upon definitely formulated premisses." A proof would presumably be an instance of the latter when all of the premisses are believed to be true.

God is, in essence, a hypothesis aimed at explaining the universe, its origins and workings. — TheMadFool

That is essentially Peirce's view, as laid out in his 1908 article, "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God."

No excuses for you free-thinking heathens now:

"Automating Godel’s Ontological Proof of God’s Existence ¨
with Higher-order Automated Theorem Provers"
http://page.mi.fu-berlin.de/cbenzmueller/papers/C40.pdf — Frederick KOH

My goodness, something actually interesting! (and challenging!)

"Modal collapse" is intriguing.

"Modal collapse" is intriguing. — tom

Indeed, and it is related to the modal fallacy that came up a few days ago in the ongoing thread about the free will defense.

Per the IEP article on "Foreknowledge and Free Will," "Ultimately the alleged incompatibility of foreknowledge and free will is shown to rest on a subtle logical error. When the error, a modal fallacy, is recognized and remedied, the problem evaporates." — aletheist

Basically, the mistake is thinking that the actuality of P, a contingent proposition, entails the impossibility of not-P, and hence the necessity of P. However, this is not the case, unless we embrace strict determinism - which seems to be a requirement of the axioms underlying Gödel's ontological proof.

We just need to take one look at Thomas Aquinas, who spent pretty much his whole life coming up with logical arguments for christianity. — Samuel Lacrampe

This was effectively my point. Aquinas was the one who basically created the formal distinction between preambles and articles of faith that I mentioned.

Arguments for the existence of God are logical, but do not give certainty — Samuel Lacrampe

Well, inasmuch as they are deductive arguments for the existence of God, then they must be certain. You needn't be convinced of them, of course.

inasmuch as they are deductive arguments for the existence of God, then they must be certain. — Thorongil

Deductive arguments yield to conclusions which are only as certain as their premises. I don't know of any deductive arguments for the existence of God which have certain premises. Do you know of any? As a christian, I would like to hear them.

The expression "Proof of God" refers to some literary productions, the most famous of them being the arguments for the Prime Mover (Aristotle's "Metaphysics") and Aquinas' Five Ways (Summa Theologica). Whether one calls these items proofs, arguments, demonstrations, or something else is a secondary point.

Taking Aquinas' versions as the most well-developed example, let me meditate a bit on the "proofs of God":

1. They are not "proofs of the divine" -- they attempt to prove One God, not the existence of gods.
2. This means that they are an elaboration, a development of a prior experience, one which is not conveyed by the proof itself.
3. In other words, the goal of the proof is to effect a change in the interpretation of an experience. The proof does not and cannot work if the experience itself is not acknowledged, and much less if it is absent.

Another way to say this: proofs of God, if taken as instruments to "demonstrate to an unbeliever the existence of God", are clearly circular, since they start from premises which take for granted the numinous experience, which is precisely what is absent from the unbeliever (either because he never experienced it, or because he does not acknowledge it, or because his interpretation of it is so much at odds with the language of the proof that the work of translation remains undone).

The best possible result (and it is a clearly possible result) in a dialogue between a proponent of a Proof and an unbeliever is the demonstration that the rejection of the numinous experience leads to incongruence, in the intellectual level, and to very problematic consequences in the pragmatic level. In effect, the rejection of the core premises of the Proofs (such as, the idea that we can derive conclusions about distant causes from present effects; the idea that observation is reliable; the idea that infinite regress in its many forms is irrational) leads to problematic philosophical stances.

That is a good job for a Proof of X. But it is not the same as proving the existence of God. At best, it proves (by reductio, in a convoluted way) the existence of the numinous.

It also can be said that the most competent proponents of Proofs (incluing A & A) clearly knew about all of this.

"Modal collapse" is intriguing. — tom

There seem to be some humans following the same line of 'modal collapse'. Here's a paper by a guy called Kraay arguing that theists should embrace modal collapse.