This idea is one of philosophy’s oldest and most viemently argued point. Religious and philosophical scholars have discussed this for thousands of years each major discussion having its own perspective. The meaningful ones are god as a useful idea from kants regulative ideal and feuerbachs prohection of human nature, and god as a mind independent entity that would exist wether people observed/believed in it or not . (Like the tree falling in the woods analogy )Tha case god is real and is not a conceptThe comsological argument from aquinas leibinz suggests that humans think in a literal and straightforward way so when they discuss how the big bang happend, something exists rather than nothing and contingent things need an explanation outside themselves so this will point to a nessacray being who set everything into motion.Fine tuning argumentPhydical constairins sir in a narrow range that allows life to prosper, you reading this right now are a 1/400000000000000 or 1/400 trillion chance to happen. Theism seems to agree with this suggesting that god dosent sit around doing nothing and just watches he is fine tuning every aspect of the universe like the strength of gravity, the Cosmological constant of expansion and even down to the masses of the elementary particles like electrons. Obviously you could explain this away with brute chance but naturalistic approaches often end up explaining it using a multiverse theory where by an infinite number of universes exist but each one has slightly different values and ours is the one that allowed life to prosper.Whats simpler a designer or infinte universes?Ontological argumentAnselm of Canterbury pondered thr question could “god” exists purely from a logical perspective he claimed that a god (using the definition a maximally great being ) must exist in reality not just in the mind because existance in reality is greater than existance in concept (the definition earlier allows us to explore this ). Imagine god is the greatest being ever and is inconsivably perfect in everyway now a exact replica exists and is real which one is more powerful? The greatest possible being must exist in reality otherwise you can just imagine an even greater one therefore god must existThe case that god exists as a concept onlyThere are very basic arguments against this so I will cover then quicklyProblems of evilGratutios suffering is hard to reconcile with an all good,all powerful being who has a plan for humanity’s salvation yet makes us wait thousands of years for it.EvidenceThere are many extraordinary claims of visions and talks and even guidance by God but those claims need extraordinary evidence, an absence of empirical detection counts against God as a real being with influence.Naturalistic explanations of religionFeuerbach, fried and burkheim each argue that god concepts arise from human psychological or social needs projected outward, this our need as a social species to appeal to others needs and wants if there is someone in the village who is unkind or un caring then with the existance of a god who is infinitely both you are more likely to overlook the shortcomings of the person.Divine hiddenessIf god wanted a relationship with humans as is clearly shown through the Bible and other holy books that god will try to speak to humanity in many forms such as jesus, speaking to moses and in the quran by sending a messenger. Why if he wants to help us or have a relationship does he hide between these?Additionally god requires human worship which from a logical standpoint does not make sense as god is an all powerful being why would such a being require worship and let alone force us into it by using damnation and eternal suffering as form of punishment for those who dont or for those who dont follow his “rules” yet gave us the freedom to disobey him.
Where philosophers of religion mostly agree is that this isn’t settleable by empirical test alone — it turns on how you weigh explanatory simplicity, the burden of proof, and what counts as evidence in the first place. That’s partly why it’s stayed a live question for 2,500 years rather than resolving.
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