Proof for the Existence of God through Intuition Typically, an argument against the existence of God will use examples of worldly evil to attack the belief that God is omnibenevolent, which through extension attacks the belief in God’s existence. In actuality, it is not the case that evil disproves God’s existence; instead, it is our persevering intuition that life is good even in the face of such tremendous evil that proves God’s existence. A proof through good intuition is similar to Descartes’ proof through ideas, but gets past its pitfalls. After considering ostensible refutations such as common sense and evolution, it will become easier to understand that God is the only possible source of our life-is-good intuition. Strengthening this point, is the fact that the life-is-good intuition implies the intuition that an omniscient being exists. Other possible counterexamples such as suicide turn out to further evince the thesis.    Descartes attempted to prove that God exists because Man has the idea of a perfect being, which could not have arisen from any source except God. The problem with this proof is that although it sounds simple enough, the term “perfect” is quite abstract and vague. Moreover, the idea is complex and made up of many individual ideas, such as perfect goodness: omnibenevolence. It thus seems like the logical step to take in avoiding unnecessary abstraction would be to prove that the individual constituents of the complex idea of perfection can only come from God. This route also gets to the heart of the problem more quickly because God’s compatibility with earthly evil is the main obstacle in proving God’s existence. Note that God’s omnibenevolence coincides with Man’s life-is-good intuition because this intuition is necessary for a happy life in a seemingly evil world. A reply to the claim that the life-is-good intuition must come from God is that we get this intuition from our common senses. However, a brief survey of either history or modern society will give plenty of counterexamples to this counterexample. Disregarding evils like corruption, debauchery, slavery, poverty, disease, racism, and general cruelty, the example of war alone suffices to prove that evil is and always has been an undeniable presence in human society. Though, particularly in the modern era, there have been many a great treatise or fictitious account of a humane, civil and peaceful society, nothing of the sort has ever prevailed. At all times from the present back to time immemorial, there has been war somewhere on the globe. Depressingly, and despite our peace-longing pleas, war is increasingly becoming a more efficient killer and also more savage in that many of the added casualties are those of innocent bystanders. Common sense does not give us the notion that life is good, it gives us the antithesis to that notion. A stronger reply to the thesis would be that we get our life-is-good intuition from evolution. Evolution is the process whereby any characteristic that could possibly be beneficial in keeping the holder alive until procreation, is sought for. The life-is-good intuition is definitely such a characteristic. If someone were to believe that life is not good, and that procreation is unimportant, then their genes would have been weeded out of the gene pool long ago by two weeding processes. First, the intuition-less person would not take absolute precautions for their survival until maturity and would likely die before then. Second, even if by chance they did reach maturity, they would be unlikely to procreate. By adding these facts together, it is understood that any species which survives will evolve a life-is-good intuition. The evolution counterexample is strong indeed, but a few thought experiments will prove that although the intuition is necessary for survival, it did not originate through evolution. Through evolution, humans understand that anything which keeps us alive long enough to procreate is beneficial. Life is good in that it results in more life, but the scope of the life-is-good tuition is much vaster than this. Life is still considered good after procreation. The life of someone who is impotent is still considered good by both the person in question and humanity as a whole. Or, take the example of a potent man who plans to procreate very soon, but before this plan is realized, the earth is to be destroyed. Humanity still considers this life good up until the final moment. Basically, mankind has an intuition that life is good regardless of its instrumental uses; life is good inherently in itself. Evolutionary theory cannot explain this phenomena. If the life-is-good intuition cannot be explained by casual observation and common sense or through evolutionary theory, then the intuition cannot have a strictly earthly cause because there is no other earthy mechanism by which humans receive their intuitions. Note that intuitions are more of a sentiment than an idea, so the need to explain away imagination is not necessary here as it was with Descartes. The cause must then be supernatural, and as previously stated, omnibenevolent. By definition, this cause is God. So God exists. In order to understand why this is, we must expose the connection between the life-is-good intuition and the intuition that an omniscient being exists. The latter intuition explains the strength of our life-is-good intuition despite the opposing logic of common sense. Consider a child who has done some wrong. In an effort to deter, the parents hand down a punishment. From the child’s perspective, this act of punishment is evil; but in time the child will realize that the punishment did indeed act as a deterrent and is not in fact evil. Now, he sees his previous belief in the evilness of the punishment merely as an example of his previous ignorance. He understands that things, which appear evil, may turn out to be good if only a more adequate knowledge could be attained. The previous example may now be used to understand our persevering belief that life is good. Since we perceive great amounts of evil in the world and at the same time believe that life is good, perceived evils could only be evil according to our ignorant human perspective. The only means by which humans (children) could attain this understanding of our ignorance is through the intuition of an omniscient being (parents) that is by definition God. So, our life-is-good intuition coincides with the intuition that God exists because we intuit an omniscient being that could be nothing except God. Our life-is-good intuition proves the existence of God both through the fact that the intuition could arise from nothing else, and through the fact that it implies the existence of an omniscient God.       Counterexamples such as suicide and euthanasia attack the idea that everyone has an intuition that life is good in itself. Surely, if someone believed life to be good in itself, they would not commit suicide. Yet thousands upon thousands of suicides occur every year. Therefore, the critic concludes, life is not good in itself. Euthanasia argues for the same conclusion. If people believed that life is good in itself, then even a painful life is good. Proponents of euthanasia disagree with this statement and some even die for the belief that a painful life is not worth living. However, these counterexamples do not prove that humans lack the life-is-good intuition, they merely argue that it is be false. The critics confuse the term “believe” to mean an idea when a sentiment is all that is meant. The idea that all humans begin life with the intuition is not contentious. So what is it exactly that brings some humans to the conclusion that their intuition is false? Basically, they give in to the commonsense arguments previously spoken of. It is difficult to believe life is good in itself when war reaches the present state of million-man massacres and genocide. So, these critics conclude that our intuitions are misleading. Yet this does not disprove the claim that all humans have this intuition. It was never argued that this intuition could deteriorate from human logic. This logic does not damage the thesis because it says nothing against the claim that the intuition does exist and that it comes form God. Unless an argument undermines the thesis that we have a life-is-good intuition and that that intuition came from God, it is more rational to accept our intuition than our common senses and the instrumentalist conclusions of modern moral theory. For, if the claim that the intuition is a gift from God is left unscathed - and considering the consequent intuition of God’s omniscience – then why would we choose human knowledge over Godly? Basically, humans have an intuition that life is good that is not founded in anything natural. God is the only possible cause for this intuition. The intuition exists; therefore God exists. The consequent intuition of an omniscient being also strengthens the argument for God’s existence. Attacks against non-instrumental inherent goodness are irrelevant to this argument. We must therefore conclude that God exists.