Rational Preference for God

John Vandivier

Many <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_apologetics#Varieties">apologetic arguments or empirical findings present evidence for the existence of God. I previously identified Pascal's Wager as an interesting sort of argument that advocates for belief in God without establishing the existence of God. I built on that argument to provide a more robust <a href="http://www.afterecon.com/philosophy-religion-and-apologetics/odd-argument-belief-god-vandivierian-wager/">Vandivierian Wager. In this article I present a separate argument which follows similar lines: If my argument is true then it follows that an individual should believe in God, although I don't bother to establish that God actually exists in this argument.

As an aside, if you are interested in arguments for the existence of God then refer <a href="http://www.afterecon.com/religion/#bible-is-valid">to this link.

I call the present argument "The Argument from Moral Consistency":

  1. If God does not exist then objective moral values do not exist
  2. From 1, it is internally consistent to claim \"People should believe that God exists.\"
  3. From 1, it is internally contradictory to claim \"People should not believe that God exists.\"
    1. That is, if God does not exist then 3 cannot be considered an objective moral truth.
  4. Therefore, belief in God is rationally preferred.
This argument is importantly different from The Moral Argument, which identifies the existence of God as evidenced by the existence of objective moral principles.