The argument I choose as a theist is “The argument from conscience”. The argument is based on the evidence that deep down every person and every human is bound to be good and do good in life. As a result, everyone acknowledges God, through their moral sense, which we commonly refer to as conscience. The voice of soul is the voice of God.
The current interpretation is to imply the guilt about something one is doing wrong or about to do wrong. In Catholic theology, the traditional definition is “understanding between right and wrong: moral values.”(Myers, J, 2015) The importance of conscience in any argument is the acknowledgment, not only a sensation; however, it is spontaneous knowledge rather than rational or analytical knowledge, and it is first and foremost the acquaintance that I must always do the right thing and never do wrong with any living soul, the ability of my absolute obligation to good will and all the goodness in the world including justice, charity, virtue, and holiness; only secondarily, it is the knowledge things which are right and which are wrong; and thirdly, it is the knowledge of which items are suitable and which are not.
To further take this argument, every human and everything in this universe is God’s creation; all the humans in this world have an innate nature of being good and doing well. It does not mean that they cannot do anything wrong; they can, but no human in their whole life is terrible somewhere, or sometime in their life they are good to other people. They are good to other living things, and how did this goodness come into their hearts or in their minds? It’s the voice of their souls and their conscience. Another argument arises here that those humans who are harmful to their core are serial killers or have no compassion in their hearts. Still, deep down, if you listen to them, they also hear the sound of their souls and their consciousness always try to tell them that what they are doing is wrong. The path they have chosen is wrong, but they leave their consciousness far behind and stop paying any heed to the voice of God and are considered to be dead inside. A human is deemed to be alive not merely by his lungs breathing or by his heart pumping. He or She is alive when their soul still has some light in it, and the voice of their conscience is still with them. If a human claims that he or she does not believe in conscience, they are suppressing it, or they have a bad conscience. It is stated in the bible that a person who claims to have no conscience is suppressing their knowledge about conscience (New International Version, Rom 1:18b; 2:15).
In instance, honest reflection on the data is required before the reasonable, philosophical argument. Consciousness is the knowledge about a treasure of gold hidden in the backyard. If anyone conveys me a message about it, saying that a rich family has hide it there, I should first uncover it and dig it before I can conclude anything. This was the first premise of the argument that conscience has control over us. Now the second premise is the only potential source of absolute authority is a divine entity with an utterly faultless will. As a result, we can conclude that such an entity exists.
It is not sure how someone could argue with the second premise. By establishing a basis for conscience other than God. There could be four possibilities: Something impersonal and abstract, such as a concept; something tangible but not human-like, something akin to animal instinct; anything of human nature but not divine in nature; and something higher than human but not a deity (Godawa, B, 2009).
In other words, once can look at the abstract, the concrete-less-than-human, the concrete-human, and the concrete-more-than-human to cover all of the possibilities (Myskja, B, 2018).
Of course, one cannot recognize the voice every time. Our consciences sometimes make mistakes. That is why our first moral task is to create our conscience by pursuing the truth, particularly whether or not this God has given clear, honest maps to us (Scripture and Church). If that’s the case, our conscience isn’t working correctly whenever it seems to advise us to ignore those maps. We can tell by our conscience that our conscience is not just an immediate feeling. We’d have to be polytheists if our gut sentiments were the voice of God, or God would have to be schizophrenic.
In conclusion, all the logical data and facts prove by the argument of conscience is that the voice of God in our lives is the voice of our conscience, and it hits on our mind and heart repeatedly and makes us believe that God exists. God is giving us signs and directions using our very conscience.
References
Myskja, B. K., & Magelssen, M. (2018). Conscientious objection to intentional killing: an argument for toleration. BMC Medical Ethics, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-018-0323-0
New International Bible. (2011). the NIV Bible. https://www.thenivbible.com (Original work published 1978)
Godawa, B. (2009). Hollywood worldviews: Watching films with wisdom and discernment. InterVarsity Press.
Myers, J., & Noebel, D. A. (2015). Understanding the times: A survey of competing worldviews. David C Cook.
