God obviously exists

Apologists sometimes claim that God obviously exists.

"Only a foolish person would deny that God exists. The fact of His existence should be obvious to all."

"The reality of God's existence is obvious, simple and natural. [...] God has revealed himself far more than some people want to acknowledge. It is obvious. It's obvious."

The claim that God obviously exists occurs in a few contexts:

• Apologists commenting on the strength of their conclusions.

• Apologists asserting that no argument is necessary to support the proposition that God exists. This includes the claim that Belief in God as a basic belief. This is a premise in presuppositional apologetics. Without a supprting argument, claiming God is obvious is a non-argument.

• The Bible says God obviously exists Psalm 19:1 , which is an argument from scripture.

Strength of conclusions

Certain arguments for God are said to be so strong, that their conclusion is obvious.

• Argument from design

"An intelligent person notices that planning, design and wisdom exist in every detail of the infinitely varied world. This draws him to recognition of the Creator [...] For the existence of God is obvious, and ignoring it would only be the beginning of the greatest damage we could ever do to ourselves."

• God is necessarily existent, which is a form of ontological argument.

"It is as certain that there is a God, as that the opposite angles made by the intersection of two straight lines are equal. There was never any rational creature that set himself sincerely to examine the truth of these propositions that could fail to assent to them; though yet it be past doubt that there are many men, who, having not applied their thoughts that way, are ignorant both of the one and the other."

— John Locke

• Argument from personal experience.

"it is obvious that you have been having a relationship with your higher power ever since you were conceived. "

Counter arguments and related topics

Philosophers and skeptics generally consider that no argument for the existence of God is entirely persuasive and usually open to discussion. According to them, the existence of God is non-obvious.

Many people don't believe in God, even if apologists claim that God's existence obvious. Apologists explain this with claims like you just want to sin.

Argument from non-belief

The argument from nonbelief is related to the notion of obviousness:

1. If God existed, this fact would be more obvious.
2. God's existence is not, in fact, as obvious as we would expect, if he existed.
3. Therefore, God does not exist.