What are some of the best books arguing for the existence of a Christian God?

The term "Christian God" is literally triggering me

Are there any nonfiction books about a rejecting atheism and finding Christ?

Something like the Rage Against God, Peter Hitchens, but with more of a philosophical focus.

Descartes has an admirable approach to arguing for the existence of a higher being, given that he recognizes the problems that exist when you try, and though his arguments have been picked at by other philosophers they are short, fairly compelling, and easy to conceptualize. You could start there at least

Just face it: there is no God. Don't waste your time reading books about it. Atheism is the final destination. Get comfortable.

Holy... I want more

What about Pantheism?

Spinoza's Ethic

You don't get to decide how words are defined I'm afraid.

>Atheism is the final destination
Lmao, its just the first step

Spinoza did not argue for a Christian god

>golden rule

I don't mind being pissed on therefore I can piss on everyone else.

Talk is cheap

Seeing how the Christian God being the only God, you can't really successfully argue for anything but a Christian God.

Do suicidal people have the moral right to kill other people under the golden rule?

>says the 14 year old

>Do suicidal people have the moral right to kill other people under the golden rule?
Wtf, i hate jesus now

Yes, and then you have the moral right to despite and clean up after them.

*despise

No.

the consolation of philosophy maybe?

Ignatius can't be wrong

I recommend William James' "Will to Believe" essay, but I recommend reading it not as a flimsy pseudo-ontological proof like
>You can't prove God doesn't exist, therefore he does!
like so many people do, but more as a vindication of the feelings of desire and faith you have TOWARD God.

James himself was an extremely vague "spiritual" but still sincerely "believing" person. He wasn't a dogmatist. His spiritual awakening practically saved his life after 20 years of suicidal despair.

Don't go into it expecting to be convinced. Just go into it for an encounter with James' vindication of his own conviction that some form of Truth higher than what we know is worth aspiring toward, and that a tendency, or several tendencies, toward this is built into us.

In writing the essay James is refuting W.K. Clifford, who had recently polemically said that no one should believe anything on the basis of insufficient evidence. James is trying to prove that not only are most of our "beliefs" about the world not based on evidence or even on conscious deliberation, but that belief in situations where there can be no empirical proof (at least not to our current faculties) either way is perfectly valid if based on mystical feeling.

Something William Lane Craig something

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, who converted, is a good read

The King James Bible

Alvin Plantinga's warrant trilogy
--Warrant: The Current Debate
--Warrant and Proper Function
--Warranted Christian Belief

Also check out Richard Swinburne

Fesey Fez

Van Til, Herman Dooyeweerd, Scott Oliphint, just off the top of my head. Pretty straight forward presuppositionalist/Calvinist perspective that's worth considering

Might as well include Greg Bahnsen and John Frame.

Yeahhh Bahnsen drinks too much of that cringy theonomy koolaide desu, but Frame is fine

The Bible

It isn't something you believe via rhetoric, however.

You need a genuine encounter with the Living God.

That's why the Bible is the best book for it - it will teach you how to meet Him.

Everything else is just so much lip service - not necessarily devoid of all value, but spiritually dead, and incapable of producing genuine faith.

...

Came here to post this. My professor in philosophy of religion suggested we read it. I'm interested in picking it up to say the least.

Leibniz, especially his famous cosmological argument. If you accept the principle of sufficient reason, then you have a proof of God's existence

A history of the crusades can be pretty persuasive.

Bahnsen's work on explaining and popularizing Van Til is valuable.

I hate this shit, every time someone comes on here and wants a book recomendation regarding anything philosophical its always to re-affirm there own beliefs. Things like this are conclusions to be arrived at, not jumped to.

ITT people willing god into existence through wordplay

i mean seriously, are people really retarded enough to think everything has a cause? logic 101 fallacy of composition; just because everything within the universe has a cause does not mean the universe itself has a cause

basically every cosmological argument somehow conveniently skips over this

Well the universe appears to have a beginning and an end so what makes you think it doesn't have a cause? Or at least what reason do you have to disregard the scientific and philosophical evidence for the universe having a beginning and end?

OP never specified he was or wanted to be a Christian. You seem to be jumping to that conclusion. He could just be interested in hearing what Christian theologians have to say.

You should also call him a fedora. You christcucks have so many funny little non-argument ad hominems that you throw around whenever you have no proper justifications for your unjustified beliefs.

The laws of the universe only apply inside of the universe. Just because everything IN the universe has an effect and a cause, doesn't mean the same laws are true for potential other universes or whatever might exist outside of the universe.

But lets assume for the sake of the argument there is a cause for the universe.
There is no reason to assume that cause is a god or even a conscious entity. Out of all the possible causes, why do you jump to the conclusion that it must be a god? And even more obscure: the particular God of the christian mythology who cares about human affairs, punishes evil humans and prepares an afterlife for people who do what he says. There is an infinite number of possible causes and you just pick that one particular very unlikely one that you personally would like to be true with no evidence for it whatsoever.

"The universe" is just the name that give to the collection of all space, time, matter, and energy. So any explanation for the universe cannot be bound by the universe, because if it were it would just be a part of the same universe. This means that any potential cause for the universe must be timeless and immaterial. We have to go by what we know of our universe, and we know that when something begins to exist it must have a cause. By postulating that other universes exist or that there could be other laws of physics you're merely enlarging the problem and creating the need for an even bigger explanation.

The argument of whether god exists or not has nothing to with Jesus Christ or whether Christian theology is correct. Any cause of the universe would be called god and whether or not it looks like the Christian conception is irrelevant to the question.

>This means that any potential cause for the universe must be timeless and immaterial.
Wrong. For instance the universe could have been caused by a previous universe, and that universe could in turn be eternal or caused by another unknown precursor.

It is impossible to know. And you are again applying the restrictions of the universe to a thing that is not bound by the laws of the universe. Time and material are functions of our universe. There are infinite possible causes and your infinite immaterial god is just one of the infinite explanations.

> We have to go by what we know of our universe
This is where you are going wrong. You can't just apply what we know about the universe to things that aren't part of the universe. We can't make any informed guess about things that aren't part of the universe. We don't know why the universe started to exist and we can't possibly know.

>By postulating that other universes exist or that there could be other laws of physics you're merely enlarging the problem and creating the need for an even bigger explanation.
That is what you are doing by postulating a fullblown timeless immaterial god. A god arising out of nothing is even harder to explain than a universe arising out of nothing. You have replaced a hard problem with an even harder problem.

>We have to go by what we know of our universe
Indefensible. This is what was meant by a fallacy of composition. There is no reason to believe that something which is true of part or even all of the parts of something applies to the whole.

>By postulating that other universes exist or that there could be other laws of physics you're merely enlarging the problem and creating the need for an even bigger explanation.
No, he's remaining open to the pursuit of a useful and evidence-backed explanation for things rather than speculating on whether or not his pet deity might fit this particular gap in human knowledge.

>Any cause of the universe would be called god and whether or not it looks like the Christian conception is irrelevant to the question.
Why would you call an impersonal process that doesn't possess any traits of a God except for initiating the creation of a universe a God?

>Christian God

Its ether a god or no god

Again, by postulating that this universe could have been caused by another universe and then that universe could have been eternal you're merely enlarging the problem and the explanation needed. What caused the universe that caused our universe to exist? Do you see what I mean? You're not answering anything this way. The existence of other universe or theoretical laws of physics (neither of which we have any evidence for BTW) does not answer the question of why something exists rather than nothing. If you want to claim that this universe was caused by another universe, then you must explain what caused that universe.

We can know with reason what any cause of our universe isn't, and I demonstrated this in my previous post but I'll reiterate my point. The creator or cause of time and material cannot be bound by time and material, because if it were, it would just be another part of the universe since the universe is defined as the total collection of all time and material. Thus, the cause of the universe must be timeless and immaterial.

I don't know how anyone that insists on using explanations that we have zero evidence for, like the existence of other universes, the eternal universe, or hypothetical laws of physics that we can't even describe could claim that their position is "evidence-backed."

>Again, by postulating that this universe could have been caused by another universe and then that universe could have been eternal you're merely enlarging the problem
No you are suggesting an even more unlikely explanation.
We know universes exist. We don't know gods exist.
Universes can start of simple and expand to limited complexity. A god starts off, coming out of nowhere, with infinite complexity.
You are suggesting we go with one of the most complex possible explanations. And you ignore all of the other way simpler explanations because it confirms your beliefs. And all of this is pointless in the first place because we can't confirm any of the possible explanations.

>You're not answering anything this way.
Yes, that's the point. Neither are you, you are just postulating things. I am throwing other possible similarly unfounded explanations at you so you see how unfounded your explanation is.

A god COULD be the cause, but so could be an infinite amount of other things. You are postulating that this god would be eternal? Once you open that can of worms, then we have consider all other possible eternal explanations like a meta eternal universe or an eternal cycle of universes or an eternal mindless process that kickstarts universes for no good reason now and then.

>neither of which we have any evidence for BTW
Again that's the point. We have no evidence for anything outside of the universe because we can only investigate things IN the universe. There is no evidence for a god, just as there is no evidence for any of the other infinite number of explanations.

>The creator or cause of time and material cannot be bound by time and material, because if it were, it would just be another part of the universe since the universe is defined as the total collection of all time and material.
Why is that 'creator' the only possible thing not bound by time and material? That's your hang-up. You assume it's a conscious being with intend for no good reason, while it could be literally anything.

There's no need to argue for it

How To Abandon Reason and Start Deluding Yourself Into Believing Things That Aren't There Without Being Called Mentally Ill, by John Cristcuck

Then what is your metaphysical outlook?

First off I need to correct some of your misconceptions. We don't know that other universes exist, we have exactly zero evidence for the existence of other universe. The second is that the timeless cause of the universe (or god) doesn't "start off." Because it's timeless or eternal it doesn't begin to exist so the explanation for its existence would be within itself.

The argument is very simple. Everything that begins to exist must have an explanation for its existence, and we see from scientific and philosophical evidence that the universe began to exist, so the universe must have a cause. The simplest explanation or cause for the existence of the universe is a timeless and immaterial "being" that explains its own existence. By postulating that our universe was caused other universes, or that our universe part of infinite number of universes you're only increasing the number of explanations needed. Now instead of explaining the existence of one universe you need an infinite number of explanations for the infinite number of universes. You have made the problem and explanation infinitely more complex and you still haven't even begun to try and explain the causes of the universes, why they exist rather than not. How you can then go on to call this the "simpler explanation" is beyond me.

I could be wrong but it seems to me that you're just hoping for a better explanation to come along so you don't have to believe in god.

>Why is that 'creator' the only possible thing not bound by time and material? That's your hang-up. You assume it's a conscious being with intend for no good reason, while it could be literally anything.

As I said earlier, I would call any explanation for our universe god. The argument has nothing to do with whether the cause of our universe is intelligent or personal, and I'm not interested in having that debate because if you don't believe in god it's pointless and it's completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not god exists.

Here I've drawn a picture for you in mspaint

Saying "unknown, we don't know" is not an explanation to anything.

Also how would the "meta universe" explain its own existence?

I see the thread has devolved into arguments between posters instead of more suggestions one way or another.

Read Sam Harris instead.

I don't know how anyone that insists on using explanations that we have zero evidence for, like the existence of other universes, the eternal universe, or hypothetical laws of physics that we can't even describe could claim that their position is "evidence-backed."
My position doesn't posit anything except that we may learn more in the future. Not having a conclusive answer is the right thing to do when there isn't conclusive evidence.

How would god explain its own existence? It just is.

It's a stand-in for unknown easier explanations than a meta universe. Considering we are talking about things that aren't bound by our natural laws, it could be an infinite amount of explanations.

>I don't know how anyone that insists on using explanations that we have zero evidence for, like the existence of other universes, the eternal universe, or hypothetical laws of physics that we can't even describe could claim that their position is "evidence-backed."
>My position doesn't posit anything except that we may learn more in the future. Not having a conclusive answer is the right thing to do when there isn't conclusive evidence.

All people who claim the universe was started by a god, or The God, are insisting on one of those zero-evidence-explanations.

Is presuppositionalism taken seriously anywhere outside of that school? It seems like a big joke.

That's the point. I meant to greentext that first sentence.

I have explained earlier that gods eternal nature is the explanation for his existence. Something that doesn't begin to exist doesn't need an external explanation for its existence. An explanation that doesn't explain itself doesn't succeed in explaining the existence of anything. This is why I said that you seem to be hoping that a better explanation will come along so you don't have to believe in god. Your "meta universe" is ultimately just an obfuscation because you simply don't want to accept the most reasonable explanation.

That's perfectly fine. You don't have to seek the answers to anything in life. I only have a problem when you take your own unwillingness to accept the most likely likely explanation as evidence for the non existence of god. Just because you personally find the evidence and philosophical arguments inconclusive doesn't mean that a proper conclusion can't be had.

>I have explained earlier that gods eternal nature is the explanation for his existence.
Yeah, same goes for that eternal meta universe. See? That works with everything, not just god.

>Your "meta universe" is ultimately just an obfuscation because you simply don't want to accept the most reasonable explanation.
I don't believe in a meta universe, it is just an example of one easier explanation so I can point out to you that assuming a god for no reason is just wishful thinking. I already mentioned other easier explanations, I just didn't bother drawing them.

My entire point is that we don't know what started the universe and you just insert your god into that gap of knowledge.

What is the difference between your eternal meta universe and the god that I have proposed?

It's simpler. We have evidence for neither explanation.

You said we should believe that a god did it because that's the easiest explanation, I pointed out that god isn't the easiest explanation even if we go with that retarded criteria.

In what way is it simpler?

>arguing
God is believed in, not argued for.
Apollonians are barely quasihominum, of course they are unable to believe in anything of their own making.

If you want, you can argue that a being that is omnipotent exists whether or not it 'exists'.
youtube.com/watch?v=Lz78dn2Zegw

Everything is simpler than an omnipotent omniscient intelligent being bound by no laws whatsoever. We understand universes and physical laws to some degree, we don't understand gods.

>That's perfectly fine. You don't have to seek the answers to anything in life
Bitchiest reply I've ever received. Accepting that I don't have the answers now does not mean that I'm not open to finding some in the future.

>I only have a problem when you take your own unwillingness to accept the most likely likely explanation
I fail to see how "God done did it" is more likely to be true than anything else.

>as evidence for the non existence of god
I think you've got this backwards. You seem to think that our lack of concrete knowledge about the origin of the universe constitutes evidence of God. That is a positive claim, which I find unconvincing and unsupported, and that's all I've really said. I have not made a negative claim about the possibility of God's existence.

>Just because you personally find the evidence and philosophical arguments inconclusive doesn't mean that a proper conclusion can't be had.
This sentence isn't very clear but it sounds like you're saying, "I may not be able to explain it but I'm entitled to my opinion," which is trailer-trash tier thinking.

That's not what I'm arguing for. I'll reiterate in a more simplified way. The universe is defined as the collection of all material and time, so the cause of material and time can't be bound by material and time so it must be timeless and immaterial. Any explanation for the universe that is timeless and immaterial would be called god.

You seem to be arguing for the same thing I am without realizing it, you just want to call it the "meta-universe" instead of god.

>I'll just call this thing that's totally unrecognizable as a God, God
ATHEISTS BTFO DEUS VULT

We are arguing for the same thing if you define god as anything outside of the universe. And anything doesn't imply intent, consciousness, knowledge, foresight or any other characteristic commonly associated with 'a god' or 'the God'.

Is that what you are saying? Because that would be a really bad misleading definition for 'god' and it would give no kind of religion any additional credibility, which I assume is your intention.

I have said multiple times and that any explanation outside of our universe would be called god. If you remember, this conversation started because you disputed the notion that the universe had a cause, and that is what the conversation has been about. The debate over whether or not that cause (god) is intelligent and personal is a completely different topic and it can't even be touched if you're unwilling to accept the existence of A god.

Find me one popular dictionary that uses your definition for 'a god'. Why do you call it 'a god'?

I accepted your effect-cause assumption for the sake of the argument, as I said. And that is still in effect while I am talking to you right now.

Sorry to interrupt the conversation that's being had, but what reason do we have to assume that the universe had a beginning? Even if we accept the Big Bang Theory as true, that does not preclude the existence of the universe before it. If we are looking for the simplest explanation of things, why would it be simpler to suppose that the universe did not exist at some point and was brought into being by some force outside of it? Would it not be simpler to suppose that the universe itself is timeless?

Captcha made me select squares in the shape of a cross, wonder if that's a sign?

You can literally call it whatever you want. I just think it's useful to call it god because this very simplified conception of god is the ultimate foundation of pretty much every major religion. It is what most religions build off of.

There is no reason. Christcucks are simple-minded so they try to find a personal explanation for everything so they don't get a headache.

Pretty sure most major religions are founded on the notion of a god that interferes in human affairs in one way or another.

That's wrong though. Deistic religions are build upon the idea that there is a powerful being (not a mindless thing or process), commonly refereed to as 'a god' that created the universe.

A subsection of deistic religions are the theistic religions (like the Abrahamic ones), which assume that powerful being is a personal god, commonly referred to as The God and that being interacts with its creation. All of these religions assume that this unknown Cause MUST be a conscious being. Not CAN or MAYBE, it is MUST.

The existence of an unknown cause does not give these religions any credibility. So calling it a god is misleading.

>Pretty sure most major religions are founded on the notion of a god that interferes in human affairs in one way or another.

Well no, we would have to believe a god existed before we can this postulate that it's intelligent and personal.

>That's wrong though. Deistic religions are build upon the idea that there is a powerful being (not a mindless thing or process), commonly refereed to as 'a god' that created the universe.

That's the god that I'm arguing for. A powerful "being" that is timeless and immaterial that caused our universe to come into existence.

Yeah and like I said there is no reason to assume that it is a being.

You think that people decided there must be a man in the sky for no reason and THEN attributed things to him? Dan Dennett presents a very compelling case that belief in the supernatural arises from an overgrown sense of pattern recognition in humans, where people start to feel that something must be consciously influencing the world around them.

I'm not sure how that relates to what we're talking about.

I would agree that god is not "a being." That would be another way of saying that god is a creature. The god that I'm arguing for would have be "being itself," or in other words, existence itself, because if it doesn't exist then it couldn't cause anything.

>man in the sky
Fuck off back to lebbit

You said that you think people posited an impersonal God first. I don't think that makes sense.

We were talking about the absolute most primitive initial forms of religion. Chill out

Well let's call it 'a whatever' then.

Deistic religions work on the assumption that it is 'a being' though. That's why the existence of 'a whatever' can't give them any credibility. Just like the existence of winged flying creatures does not prove the existence of fairies. All this means is that 'a being' COULD exist and that isn't enough to function as the foundation of a religion.

Would you accept that this timeless and immaterial "whatever" is the most likely cause for the existence of the universe? The reason I say this timeless and immaterial "whatever" is the foundation of most major religions is because if you accept this, then you can start asking the question of why this timeless and immaterial "whatever" caused the universe to come into existence. The answer to this is where some religions will start to become distinct.

>Would you accept that this timeless and immaterial "whatever" is the most likely cause for the existence of the universe?

For the sake of the argument I agreed with that, yeah. This follows from the effect-cause thing we talked about earlier.

>then you can start asking the question of why this timeless and immaterial "whatever" caused the universe to come into existence.
Nope, here is the problem: 'Why' questions assume intent and only 'a being' has intent.

What a moron. Go back to your state school "classes" and learn to think and express yourself clearly.