Does the existence of the present moment prove that God must exist?

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Robert Spaemann, a prominent German philosopher, proposed a unique argument for God’s existence based on the future perfect tense. He suggested that if the present is to retain its reality, it must be preserved in an absolute consciousness. Without this, the past and present would vanish into nothingness.

Robert Spaemann (1927–2018) was a German Catholic philosopher and a significant figure in the Ritter School. Born in Berlin to parents who were once radical atheists, he spent his academic career at institutions including the University of Münster, Heidelberg University, and LMU Munich, where he became an Emeritus Professor in 1992. His work, deeply rooted in Christian ethics, bioethics, and human rights, earned him the respect of Pope Benedict XVI and a role as a personal advisor to Pope John Paul II.

In his 2005 article for Die Welt, Spaemann explored the ontological necessity of God through the lens of the future perfect. He argued that the reality of the past depends on being remembered. However, if humanity were to cease existing, there would be no one left to remember the past. Because the past is always the past of a present, the disappearance of memory would cause the present itself to lose its reality. To prevent this, Spaemann concluded that an absolute consciousness—God—must exist to store everything that happens.

Beyond his metaphysical inquiries, Spaemann focused on the nature of human action and personhood. In his work Happiness and Benevolence (2000), he posited that happiness is derived from benevolent acts. He argued that humans are social beings created to help one another, and that this mutual assistance is constitutive of ethical practice and rationality. His other major contributions include Persons (2006), which examines the distinction between 'someone' and 'something,' and extensive writings on bioethics, including critiques of brain death as a definition for the death of a person.

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