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How to Think about God 5

How to Think about God 5

Last updated on: July 22, 2026 at 2:47 pm by Roger E. Olson

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How to Think about God 5 2026-07-22T14:47:22-05:00 Roger E. Olson

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Here I take up for discussion Part Four, chapters 12 and 13 of How to Think about God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan by philosopher Mortimer Adler. If you have read the chapters, feel free to comment. If not, feel free to ask a question. In about a week I will discuss chapter 14 A Truly Cosmological Argument.

Chapter 12 is entitled The Best Traditional Argument. Here, in these few pages, Adler lays out the traditional cosmological argument (also known as the argument from contingency). Many people who hear “cosmological argument” will think “argument from First Cause” or “argument from causation.” Adler has already dismissed any need for a First Cause of the universe.

Here, in this chapter, he lays out the true cosmological argument which is from contingency to necessity. In a nutshell, the argument says that the universe is contingent, not necessary, and contingent things, things that have no necessary being, require explanation, a cause. “The existence of an effect that requires the operation of a co-existent cause implies the co-existence of that cause.” (116)

Then he says that another premise of the traditional cosmological argument is that such an effect requires a cause of its continuing existence at every moment of its endurance in existence. (117) He then shoots that down in chapter 13 by appealing to the law of inertia. “It is the natural tendency of everything that exists to persevere in existence—by inertia, which is to say, without the action of an efficient cause that acts to cause its continuing existence.” (125)

According to Adler, then, the traditional cosmological argument, at least as he understands and states it, fails. It does not prove the existence of a Supreme Being.

Next, he is going to offer his own argument for the necessary existence of a Supreme Being/God. That begins in chapter 14.

I will not attempt to critique Adler’s argument against the traditional cosmological argument. All I will say is that I am not sure it required the premise he says is faulty. I am not familiar enough with the principle of inertia. I will just say that I have never heard or read that premise stated in a presentation of the cosmological argument.

I have a sneaking suspicion that what Adler is going to lay out is what I have heard (or read) before as the cosmological argument. Yes, I read this book years ago, but I don’t remember every detail. I remember thinking, at its end, that Adler had presented a very powerful argument AS A PHILOSOPHER, not a believer.

And now I will tell you why I chose this book.

It irritates me that our country, the United States of America, powerfully rejects any teaching of belief in God’s existence in public education. I will state here unequivocally, and offer Adler as proof, that belief in God is not necessarily religious belief. It can be and often has been and often is irreligious. That is, purely philosophical. One can believe in God without worshiping God. One can teach belief in God as rational without promoting religion.

Yes, I know, there are still some place in the US where schools teach ABOUT religion, ABOUT Christianity, but by federal law and court decrees they may not teach that THERE IS a God. A teacher can teach that reincarnation is true without fear of correction by his or her superiors. I know because it happened to a person in my immediate family. The public school teacher tried to convince the class that reincarnation is true. That is possible because in the popular mind, and apparently the judicial mind, belief in reincarnation can be non-religious. Not so simple belief that a Supreme Being exists.

I bring again philosopher Immanuel Kant as an example. He seems to have believed in God and that on rational grounds alone. If he worshiped God, which is unclear, that was separate from his rational belief in God.

Adler stands as another example, but we will get there eventually. Keep reading!

*Note: If you choose to comment, make sure your comment is relatively brief (no more than 100 words), on topic, addressed to me, civil and respectful (not hostile or argumentative), and devoid of pictures or links.*

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