210 ARGUMENTS: MONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONS7 There can be no further explanation of God’s creating the world.
But:
8 It is not possible to explain the existence of God.
Hence, from 3, 7, and 8:
9 There is nothing relevant that is left unexplained.
Hence the objection fails. One is not left with something explicable that is
unexplained.
Conclusion
The combination of the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments
considered above is one of the stronger versions of one sort at least of
natural theology – the effort to present arguments that are plainly valid,
have premises that are discernibly necessarily true or contingently true
propositions, and infer to the existence of God. Even it, however, does not
yield a proof that extends our knowledge.
Questions for reflection
1 What sort of proof extends our knowledge?
2 Explain the distinction between a necessarily true proposition and a
contingently true proposition.
3 Is there a successful purely conceptual proof that God exists?
4 Does the existence of apparent design provide reason to think that
God exists?
5 Discuss the inference from Something that might not have existed
does exist and it is possible that its existence be explained to There is
something that exists whose existence cannot be explained. If this
inference is justified, how close does its conclusion get to
monotheism?
6 Suppose there is no proof that God exists. Does anything else of
philosophical interest follow?