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Chapter
7, Belief in God Through Rational Philosophy
I
am not a philosopher by training. I had one course in the subject in my pre-med
years. Yet I wish to present logical philosophical arguments for a belief in the
existence of God from the evidence presented in the previous chapters. To do
that I am going to follow the philosophic reasoning presented by Mortimer J.
Adler in his book, How to Think About God, A Guide for the 20th
Century Pagan, published in 1980. Adler has been one of the leading
philosophers of this country in the 20th Century, and his approach in this book
is highly considered as an excellent exposition of how to approach thinking
about God. I have no intent to plagiarize his work, but to use it for guidance.
Adler was born in 1902 in New York City and was raised as a Reform Jew. He
explains in his prologue that he left that faith after his confirmation at age
16, and after he married, with his wife and children attended an Episcopal
church. He considered joining the Catholic Church, and then the Episcopal
Church, but did neither. Although not strongly attracted to organized religion,
as a renowned educator, in the 1930’s and 40’s he was an outspoken advocate
of teaching absolute moral standards in the American classrooms, campaigning
against the teaching of moral relativism, which began to appear in that period
of time. (Levy, letter to the editor, Wall Street Journal, 11/15/99) It was not
until 1980 that he felt he could present a book, which would illustrate “a
reasonableness of the belief that God exists.” My background has some
similarities to Adler. As I explained in the Introduction, I was raised as a
Reform Jew, never left that faith, but wandered around for years as an agnostic,
before recognizing the scientific findings and my own experiences in the
practice of medicine that would lead me to God. I did not follow Adler’s
reasoning in my own decision, but having found his method, I will use it, give a
synopsis of it for the reader, and follow his logic in presenting my arguments,
which are based on the preceding material in this book. In offering a synopsis
of Adler’s presentation, the background of reasoning for each of his
assertions may not be complete