(Editor's Note: This is an article we received through forwarded email a while back from an Ateneo Philosophy professor. The Wharton MBA mentioned below is his former student and author of "The Wharton MBA Experience" article, Biboy Calanog.)

Two Penn graduate students ascended onto makeshift podiums in the middle of College Green last Wednesday afternoon and announced that they were going to be debating about the existence of God for the next hour. Drawing a crowd of close to a hundred people, the two graduate students maintained a respectful discussion as sharp reasoning flew back and forth, attempting to establish grounds for faith in God or atheism.

The most interesting twist to this story was that "God's defender" was a Wharton MBA while "God's prosecutor" was a Philosophy Ph.D. Introducing the debaters as Penn students and providing a short background of their involvements around campus was a representative from the Vice Provost for University Life. "Both students are extremely involved in co-curricular activities around campus and will today be defending their personal views about God's existence," the representative said. The crowd chuckled at the irony of the stereotypical Wharton MBA concerned about material wealth and career advancement defending God, and the stereotypical Philosophy Ph.D. sitting under a tree contemplating existence claiming that God did not exist. "It just proves that the diversity around campus will continually surprise you," one undergraduate student said.

The main defense of the Wharton MBA for God's existence is that it is rational for us to believe in God only up to a point, where we will have to make a decision whether life and reality itself makes sense if there were no God. Drawing upon sources as varied as Anselm's Proslogion, Aquinas and works of more contemporary philosopher-writers such as C.S. Lewis, the MBA painted a vision of life where the mind and reason takes us only up to a point: For the MBA, the question of God or no God implied the question of meaning or no meaning. "He took the time to start from the listener's point of view, asking very challenging questions," said one listener, a SEAS student. "He made me think about God's role in my life when he asked if anything would change about my life tomorrow morning if I found out that God did not exist."

The Philosophy Ph.D. on the other hand, argued convincingly that there can be no empirical proof for the existence of God. A self-confessed atheist, the Philosophy Ph.D. did not challenge the MBA's points directly but grounded his 15-minute argument by concluding that he cannot possibly be convinced to believe in something that cannot be proven to exist. "He certainly appealed to a lot of the engineers and scientists in the crowd," one College student said. "We're so busy with the many things we have to do in the real world that it's difficult to spend time trying to rationalize belief in something that cannot be grasped or proven."

During periods of interpellation, the MBA consistently defended the need to look at life as a whole and think about important things that could not be proven empirically. The MBA stressed that "evident things like love, or the belief in human potential and will" could not be proven empirically, but are manifested in reality nonetheless. When the Philosophy Ph.D. elicited nods and cynical laughter against the MBA's arguments by asking how God could be manifested in the many senseless and seemingly irrational things in this world, the MBA responded by pointing to a young couple holding hands and said, "There is your manifest proof and my defense. Love and hope in the middle of your senseless world. Would you take it away from them? If you do, then you break their belief in a God that exists, and a God that cares. If you help them find love and hope in your senseless world, then you manifest the presence of God." Several seconds of silence prevailed before the crowd erupted in applause.

The two graduate students ended the debate cordially as the crowd dispersed. When interviewed by the DP regarding their personal beliefs, the Philosophy Ph.D. said, "I don't think we were disagreeing; we were having a healthy discussion. It's rare to find someone these days who can talk about God and not keep on referring to some sacred text in defense of his or her faith." The Wharton MBA said, "faith is reasonable and yet beyond reason. Our ultimate proof for the existence of God lies in the way we live our lives. When we are kind, happy, helpful to others and successful in our personal lives, we stand as living proof of hope for the future and we help others believe in God. Conversely, every time we hurt people through our thoughtless or deliberate actions, we break down their belief in God."

Perhaps the MBA's six-figure salary on Wall Street will help people believe that there is a God after all.