Whether God is real has not been settled by any test that everyone accepts. There is no scientific experiment that proves or disproves the existence of God, so people decide the question by weighing arguments and evidence. Believers point to the existence of the universe, its apparent fine-tuning, morality and religious experience. Sceptics point to the problem of suffering, the lack of direct evidence and the natural explanations available for belief itself. This guide sets out the main arguments on each side and what surveys show people actually conclude.
Is God Real? The Short Answer
Nobody can currently show, in a way that convinces all reasonable people, that God exists or that God does not. Most people in the world belong to a religion, while most professional philosophers do not believe in God, and both groups include careful thinkers. What can be done is to lay out the reasons people give, and to see which of them stand up to scrutiny. The answer you reach depends on how you weigh those reasons, and on what you think should count as evidence for a claim of this kind.
| Main arguments that God is real | Main arguments that God is not real |
|---|---|
| Something must explain why the universe exists at all (the cosmological argument) | The amount of suffering in the world is hard to square with a good and all-powerful God (the problem of evil) |
| The laws of physics seem finely tuned to allow life (the design or fine-tuning argument) | A loving God who wanted a relationship would not stay hidden from sincere seekers (divine hiddenness) |
| Objective moral truths seem to need a moral source (the moral argument) | Extraordinary claims need evidence, and the burden of proof lies with the claim (the evidential objection) |
| Many people report direct experience of God (the argument from religious experience) | Belief in gods can be explained by human psychology and culture without any god being real (natural explanations) |
What Do We Mean by God?
The question depends on which god is meant. Most debate in Western philosophy concerns the God of classical theism: a single being who is all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good, and the creator of everything else. That is the God of mainstream Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Other ideas of the divine are quite different. A deist believes in a creator who no longer acts in the world, a pantheist identifies God with the universe itself, and polytheistic traditions describe many gods with limited powers. An argument that succeeds for one of these ideas may say nothing about the others, so it helps to be clear which god is under discussion.
The Main Arguments That God Is Real
The cosmological argument: why is there something rather than nothing?
The cosmological argument starts from the simple fact that things exist. Everything we observe has a cause, the argument runs, and the chain of causes cannot go back for ever, so there must be a first cause that is not itself caused. Versions of the argument appear in Aristotle and in the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas, written in the thirteenth century. A modern form, the Kalam argument, was revived by the philosopher William Lane Craig in 1979: whatever begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, so the universe has a cause.
Critics reply that the argument, even if it works, only reaches a first cause, not a personal and good God. They also question whether the rule that everything has a cause can be applied to the universe as a whole, and they ask why the chain of explanation should stop at God rather than at the universe itself. The site’s fuller treatment of this debate is in the first-cause argument and the question of who made God.
The design and fine-tuning argument
The design argument points to order and complexity in nature. William Paley made the classic case in 1802: if you found a watch on a heath, you would infer a watchmaker, and living things are far more intricate than any watch. After Darwin showed how natural selection produces complex living things without a designer, most of the modern debate moved to physics. The fine-tuning argument notes that several physical constants appear to fall within narrow ranges that allow stars, chemistry and life to exist, and asks whether chance is a credible explanation.
Responses include the anthropic point that we could only ever observe a universe compatible with our existence, the suggestion that our universe may be one of many, and doubts about how the probabilities of different physical constants could even be calculated. Some critics add that a universe in which life is confined to a tiny corner of a vast and mostly hostile cosmos is an odd product of design. The site examines this claim in whether the universe was designed for us.
The moral argument
The moral argument holds that some things are objectively right or wrong, whatever anyone believes, and that such objective moral facts are best explained by a moral lawgiver. If cruelty for its own sake is really wrong, the argument asks, what makes it so in a purely physical universe? Critics answer that morality can be grounded in human wellbeing, reason and shared social life, and they raise the old dilemma from Plato’s Euthyphro: is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? Either answer causes difficulties for the argument. The site discusses the question further in morality without God.
The ontological argument
First set out by Anselm of Canterbury in the eleventh century, the ontological argument tries to prove God from the concept of God alone. God is defined as the greatest being that can be conceived, and a being that exists in reality is greater than one that exists only in the mind, so God must exist. Most philosophers, believers included, reject this version. Immanuel Kant’s objection that existence is not a property that adds to a concept remains the best-known reply, though modern philosophers have developed more technical versions of the argument.
Religious experience
Many people across history and across cultures report experiences that they understand as encounters with God or the divine. Some philosophers argue that such experiences give the person who has them a reason to believe, in the same way that ordinary perception gives us reason to believe in the world around us. Critics point out that these experiences contradict one another from one religion to the next, that they closely track the believer’s own upbringing, and that similar states can be produced by meditation, fasting, illness or drugs. The site looks at one form of this claim in near-death experiences and the soul.
The Main Arguments That God Is Not Real
The problem of evil
The problem of evil is the most discussed objection to belief in God. If God is all-powerful, God could prevent suffering. If God is perfectly good, God would want to. Yet the world contains vast suffering, much of it falling on children and animals and caused by disease and natural disaster rather than human choice. David Hume set out the problem forcefully in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, published in 1779, drawing on questions credited to the ancient philosopher Epicurus.
Believers respond with theodicies, explanations of why God might allow suffering. The free will defence says that a world with free creatures who can choose good must also allow them to choose evil. Others argue that suffering builds character, or that God has reasons beyond human understanding. Critics reply that these answers do not cover natural disasters or animal suffering, and that the scale of suffering goes far beyond what any of them would require. The site examines one sharp version of the debate in the problem of evil and the evil god challenge.
Divine hiddenness
The philosopher J. L. Schellenberg developed a more recent objection in his 1993 book Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. If a perfectly loving God existed, Schellenberg argues, that God would want a relationship with every person capable of one, and would make sure that no one who was open to belief failed to believe. Yet many sincere people search for God and find nothing. On this view the existence of honest non-belief is itself evidence against a loving God. Believers answer that God may have good reasons to remain partly hidden, for example to protect human freedom.
The burden of proof and the lack of direct evidence
Many sceptics hold that the person making a claim must support it, and that a claim as large as the existence of an all-powerful being needs strong evidence. Bertrand Russell made the point with his well-known image of a teapot orbiting the Sun, too small to be seen by any telescope: nobody can disprove it, but that is no reason to believe it. On this view the absence of clear, testable evidence for God is itself a reason not to believe. Defenders of belief respond that the arguments above do count as evidence, and that God would not be the kind of thing a laboratory test could detect. The site discusses this standard of evidence in proof of God and in its piece on the god of the gaps.
Natural explanations for belief
Researchers in the cognitive science of religion study why belief in gods is so widespread. Some argue that human minds are primed to detect agents and intentions, sometimes where none exist, and that this tendency, together with culture and upbringing, makes belief in invisible beings natural to us. If belief can be fully explained this way, sceptics argue, the fact that so many people believe is no evidence that any god is real. Believers reply that explaining how a belief arises does not show that it is false. The site explores this question in why humans search for gods.
What Do People Actually Believe?
Surveys show a sharp gap between the general public and specialists in the question. In Gallup’s long-running poll of American adults, 81% said they believed in God in 2022. That was the lowest figure since Gallup first asked the question in 1944, down from 87% in 2017 and from a consistent 98% in the surveys of the 1950s and 1960s.
Professional philosophers lean the other way. In the 2020 PhilPapers Survey of philosophers, which had 1,770 respondents on this question, 66.95% accepted or leaned towards atheism and 18.93% accepted or leaned towards theism, with the remaining 14.63% choosing other options. Neither figure settles anything, because the truth of a claim does not depend on how many people accept it. They do show that the question remains open in the sense that informed people disagree.
Can Science Prove or Disprove God?
Science tests claims that make predictions about what we should observe. Some religious claims can be tested this way, such as specific claims about the age of the Earth, the effects of prayer on recovery from illness, or events said to have happened in history, and several of them have been tested. The broad claim that a God exists, outside space and time, is much harder to test, because it is not clear what observation would count for or against it. For that reason many scientists treat the existence of God as a question for philosophy rather than science, while others argue that a God who acts in the world should leave detectable traces, and that the absence of any such traces counts against belief.
Belief, Doubt and the Labels People Use
People who answer yes to the question are theists. People who do not believe in any god are atheists, and people who hold that the answer cannot be known are agnostics. These positions overlap more than many assume, since a person can lack belief and also admit uncertainty. The difference is explained in detail in the guide to agnostic vs atheist, and the history of non-belief is covered in what atheism is.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there scientific proof that God is real?
No. There is no scientific experiment that proves God exists, and no generally accepted scientific evidence for it. Arguments for God’s existence are philosophical rather than scientific, and they remain disputed.
Can anyone prove that God is not real?
Not for every possible idea of God. Some philosophers argue that specific ideas of God, such as an all-powerful and perfectly good creator, conflict with features of the world like suffering. Many atheists do not claim proof at all, holding instead that the case for God is too weak to justify belief.
What is the strongest argument for God?
Opinions differ, but the cosmological and fine-tuning arguments are the ones most often defended in modern philosophy of religion. Their critics argue that even if they succeed, they point only to a cause or a designer, not to the God of any particular religion.
What is the strongest argument against God?
The problem of evil is the objection most widely discussed by philosophers, believers and non-believers alike. Divine hiddenness and the lack of direct evidence are also frequently cited.
How many people believe in God?
Most people worldwide belong to a religion. In the United States, Gallup found that 81% of adults believed in God in 2022, a record low. Among professional philosophers surveyed in 2020, about a fifth accepted or leaned towards theism.
Summary
Whether God is real is one of the oldest questions people ask, and it has no answer that everyone accepts. The leading arguments for God appeal to the existence of the universe, its apparent fine-tuning, the nature of morality and religious experience. The leading arguments against appeal to the scale of suffering, the hiddenness of God, the lack of direct evidence and the natural explanations available for belief. Most of the public believes, while most philosophers do not. The fairest way to answer the question for yourself is to look at each argument on its merits and ask what evidence would change your mind.
Sources
- Gallup, “Belief in God in U.S. Dips to 81%, a New Low” (17 June 2022). news.gallup.com.
- David Bourget and David Chalmers, 2020 PhilPapers Survey, results for “God: theism or atheism?”. survey2020.philpeople.org.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Cosmological Argument”. plato.stanford.edu.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Teleological Arguments for God’s Existence”. plato.stanford.edu.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Ontological Arguments”. plato.stanford.edu.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “The Problem of Evil”. plato.stanford.edu.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Hiddenness of God”. plato.stanford.edu.
- David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779).
- William Paley, Natural Theology (1802).
- J. L. Schellenberg, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Cornell University Press, 1993).