Proof Of God's Existence

Faith & Science Conversation
10

This may be the preferred method of performing science (and rightly so), but it is not the preferred way of determining truth, as you assert. What you are describing here is Logical Positivism, which I would bet is the opposite of what you actually believe:

“Their (Logical Positivism’s) principle of verification meant that only propositions concerned with matters of empirically-verifiable fact (‘It is still raining’), or the logical relationship between concepts (‘A downpour is heavier than a shower’) are meaningful. Propositions that fall into neither of these camps fail to satisfy the principle, they argued, and consequently lack sense. It follows, therefore, that the propositions of ethics, aesthetics, and religion, are meaningless nonsense. The same would be said for any proposition that expressed a judgement of value as distinct from propositions solely concerned with facts.”

i stole the above from a good little article about Logical Positivism, Wittgenstein, and Tolstoy’s “The Gospel in Brief”
[/quote]

Many people today consider science to be a search for truth. It is not, however, because the scientific principles, rigorously applied in this argument, show that a physical reality is a bad hypothesis to begin with. But science CAN organize and explain what we observe in real life. Its still REAL even if it isn’t physical.

I think you may be attacking a straw man here. You are going to have to go into a specific example. I’m not sure I hold the views you think I do. For example: I am a fully in the Divine Command Theory camp. I don’t think that anything comes from outside of experience… after all, if it affects you, then you are experiencing its effects. (You don’t have to be conscious of it for this to be true).

I’m not sure where you would want to reject Logical Positivism, unless you were convinced that something you wished to believe could never be proven or shown to be likely by logic. That seems defeatist to me, although I probably would identify more with logical empiricism.

11

Challenge away.
Bear in mind that this argument is only a starting point. I don’t expect someone to become a christian because of this argument, It is a way to open the door by uprooting deep seated assumptions that categorically rule out the supernatural.

On a side note, Buddhism is interesting because it seeks to eliminate suffering by an arguably effective but joyless route. There is nothing to be gained from dismissing Buddhism, when there is clearly a great amount of human wisdom to be found in it. Without Christ, Buddhism is probably the best you can do.

Absolutely all suffering can be understood as the difference between desire and reality. Suffering is not equal to pain, because while pain can cause suffering, it does not necessarily do so. Someone who willingly endures pain because of the promise of the great reward (such as an athlete) does not suffer from their pain. Buddhism proposes to eliminate suffering by eliminating desire. But Christianity proposes the opposite, the elimination suffering by redeeming and fulfilling desire. Buddhists teach the lack of desire, while Christ teaches that our ultimate desires can be satisfied only through a relationship with a perfect God. These are the kinds of things that may lead us to judge the relative merits of Christianity and and Buddhism, but if someone is a materialist, there’s no way to even get to the point of having such a conversation.

As for the what the Bible may imply, at some point we have to stop and think about what creation ex Nilo entails. There is nothing except God. The universe is not an insulated bubble with God on the outside, it is stained by God from within. The Idea that the universe was physical always implied that it is something that can stand on its own. Ideas like deism come from this. But here we see that God is actively sustaining the universe. Such a view is very compatible with the bible. Far more compatible than the deistic view that is implied by the existence of the physical world that is self-sufficient.

@Larry_Bunce rather than asking me whether it might be too much to deny the physical reality, I ask you what you feel you would be giving up.

12

I have become interested in Proofs of God’s extistence after reading about the extensive and sophisticated proof the was argued by John Duns Scotus and if that may be relevant today in today;s scientific climate. I’m still considering it.

Meanwhile while there is an argument for God’s existence from a First Cause (part of Scotus argument), that the universe must have a cause and this is God is sometimes on disputed ground in relation to multiverse theory. Can there be a causeless original “something” that existed with many potential regions in which many possible universes arise and ours is just one out of the total set of possibles with the right conditions for our existence.

Of course the postulation of such causeless “something” is a theoetical construct that some would say has no actual proof behind it either. We might even say that a causelss universe is just the atheists way around the question “why is there somethng rather than nothing”.

Maybe there can be no real theoretical “proof of God” no more of less than there proof of a causeless origin.

13

I do not reject Logical Empiricism/Positivism as the proper philosophical outlook for conducting scientific inquiries. I reject it as an appropriate philosophy for determining “truth” in all matters because of its insistence that only propositions that can be verified by facts or the logical relationship between concepts can have any meaning. In other words, to say that “God is love” is to make a meaningless statement. It cannot be verified by facts, so it makes no sense. Divine Command Theory is, likewise, a bundle of nonsensical statements, judged by Logical Empiricism. To say that “God gave moral commands in the Bible” is meaningless. I can verify that there is a book called the Bible. I can verify that it contains commands. Using facts alone, I can’t verify that God gave the commands. Therefore, the statement has no meaning. Wittgenstein, in my view, pretty soundly countered their arguments.

Actually, I would say that creation ex nihilo entails the idea that God alone is self-sufficient and self-sustaining. He is the Creator; all else is contingent. Aquinas did a pretty good job with this. The physical can stand on its own only for a short period of time before lapsing into decay and eventual disorder. (Any finite period of time, whether 10 years or 10 billion years, is “short” compared to eternity.) The question I have at this point is whether your argument is a logical exercise, or whether you actually believe it to be true. Christian tradition is pretty consistent in teaching the reality of the creation as something that truly “exists” outside of ourselves.

@cosmicscotus
I’m definitely a fan of Blaise Pascal when it comes to proofs of God’s existence. He says that the proofs of God from nature are usually weak and give unbelievers the impression that “the proofs of our religion are indeed feeble.” Essentially, Pascal argues that the evidence from nature is ambiguous – neither absolutely confirming nor denying the presence of a divine being. The hidden God is a constant theme for Pascal, which he ties to our unworthiness because of sin. “It was therefore not right that (God) should appear in a manner manifestly divine and capable of convincing all men … (W)ishing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart and hidden from those who shun him with all their heart, he has qualified our knowledge of him … There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.”

14

You present a false dichotomy with your insistence on “meaning”. Something does not need to be proven true to have MEANING, because meaning is individual and subjective. TRUTH on the other hand, is neither. It is not my concern that you cannot prove this or that about religion. There is something called Faith, which can bridge that gap. But it is far too intellectually dishonest for me to say that I can PROVE truth WITHOUT Empirical evidence. And keep in mind that Empirical entails ALL experience, not just “natural” experience.

This is NOT a proof from nature.

Your speculation on how the physical may exist apart from God is… speculation. And it suffers from the problem that this idea of phyisical objects is ultimately illogical. It is also a road to putting God in a box.

I believe it personally. None of what I have proposed is in any conflict with those things. We experience reality. Our lives are real, and we have real interactions with others and with God. Reality is a creation of God. Reality is something external to ourselves. None of this requires the actual existence of physical objects as anything more than experiences. Maybe you don’t yet understand what is being proposed here. Do you need me to clarify something?

15

Well, I am not a philosopher and honestly these kind kinds of questions about the nature of reality aren’t that interesting to me so I don’t spend much time thinking about it. I don’t buy your “no physical reality” argument. I think creation is more than an emanation from the mind of God and has its own independent existence, albeit an existence that is sustained by God’s will and desire. Otherwise, I don’t see how the Incarnation makes any sense. If you are right, God did not enter his creation and unite himself with it in an unprecedented way. He entered his own mind emanation? How is that significant or redemptive?

1 Like
16

This is a legitimate concern, and I think the problem lies more in your framing of the idea. What does it mean to sustain the existence of something if that something has an independent existence. If something is being sustained, how could it then be independent? I see a paradox there.

An emanation from the mind of God is no less REAL then a physical world. This is the key point. The entire argument is based on the realization that there is nothing that we can use to distinguish a physical reality from a non-physical one. We still experience a reality. We still have a human experience. As humans, we are limited to a certain viewpoint and mental resources. There is no reason that Jesus cannot enter the same reality as us.

But even more important, I don’t think you should be hung up on this in general. The cross is a symbol of something that is far more profound then the simple Crucifixion of a God in the body of a man. The forgiveness of our sin is that something. How are we to understand God’s forgiveness of our sin without the cross? But even with the cross we are still unable to comprehend what it means for an infinite God to forgive us despite our failure to love him. The outward suffering of the cross is a infinitesimally small glimpse of the true suffering of Christ on our behalf. Do you agree with that? God’s forgiveness of our sin has nothing to do with physical vs non physical reality. We still have a real life, we still sin. It is just all the worse because we realize that God is literally facilitating our every second of existence, and yet we use it to sin against him, and he still has grace for us.

17

Well, one example would be a fetus in its mother’s womb. When my babies were inside me, I was sustaining them, and their existence was dependent on mine, but at the same time, the babies were not me; they were independent beings even in their dependence on my sustenance. At least that is how I view unborn infants.

But for me, the fact that the cross is symbolic of anything depends on the historical, physical reality that generated the symbol in the first place. The forgiveness of our sins was accomplished by a physical death and resurrection and the revelation in Scripture that I give much greater priority to than logic-based metaphysical musings repeatedly hammers on the idea that Jesus died in a physical body and rose again with to physical new life, giving us the hope of our own physical resurrection in the New Creation.

No, I don’t grant that premise. I think the Incarnation as I understand it definitely depends on a physical reality that exists distinct from God’s Kingdom reality. My whole concept of the Kingdom is based on the idea of an in-breaking and eventual unification of God’s spiritual reality with our physical reality. That is the idea I see presented in Scripture and I’m not inclined to part with it just because a different conceptualization might stump an atheist. I’ll stick with special revelation on this one. :relaxed:

1 Like
18

I don’t think that’s quite the same thing. If you were to die, the baby would not die right away. But fair enough, I will grant that it is not necessarily a paradox.

“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Is that a metaphysical musing? Did Jesus say that because after bearing his tortures in silence suddenly had it occur to him that God was forsaking him? I don’t think I should have to argue there is clearly a spiritual dimension to the whole thing. And isn’t the spiritual dimension always regarded as MOST important. Baptism with the holy spirit. Treasures in heaven. Spiritual warfare.

I don’t think “non physical” means what you think it means in this context. I am saying that our experiences are a constant act of our Creator God. “Physical” in the sense of having a body and living in a spatial and temporal framework does NOT require the actual existence of physical objects. I am not merely trying to confuse atheists. I have found unequivocally that this framework strengthens and enhances all these key conceptualizations that you feel are being threatened.

On a side note, if you have some objection to my argument besides “It goes against my interpretation of scripture.” I’d love to hear it. Otherwise, you are arguing like a YEC :smiley:

19

It’s not either or. Yes, of course there is a spiritual dimension to the whole thing. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a physical dimension, which is what you are arguing. We are physical creatures that needed a physical act of redemption in order to secure our spiritual salvation.

If you say so. But this is where philosophy becomes useless to me. It seems like you are just redefining what everyone else labels “physical reality” as “non-physical reality” and I honestly don’t see what it buys you.

It goes against my interpretation of English. :open_mouth:

“It goes against my interpretation of Scripture” is not a valid scientific argument. It is a valid contention when one is discussing one’s personal theology and view of metaphysics and the nature of reality, things science doesn’t speak to, but Scripture does.

20

This is what frustrated me. Yes, the argument for a first cause is, as I said, probably the best mainstream argument. But it is not all that convincing. It can be CONFIRMING for many people, but it is not the kind of logic that compels someone to confront it. It is too easy for people to say “well maybe the universe (or multiverse) just always existed”, and leave it at that.

In finding the OP argument, I dug deeper, and realized that the “existence” of the universe itself is in question. If we simply grant the assumption that the universe IS an independent physical realm of objects, then we have already lost half the battle. But there is NO good reason to grant this assumption. It is an ILLOGICAL assumption to make. There is NO question whether the universe was caused to exist because it DOESN’T HAVE AN INDEPENDENT EXISTENCE in the first place. You don’t prove God by saying the universe must have a cause, you prove God by showing that there is NO logical alternative to God.

21

It buys me a lot:

  • It provides both a role and explanation for the soul without relying on Cartesian dualism or equivocating soul with consciousness.
  • It enables me to avoid making a HUGE logical assumption in my personal view of reality.
  • It provides a POSITIVE logical proof of God’s existence. Something that is SORELY needed by today’s apologists. (Not to mention me personally)
  • It provides a framework for understanding the “Image of God”.
  • It obliterates many ways in which God is commonly “boxed”, such as nature vs divine intervention, evolution vs creation where the questions are always framed in terms of “How does God interact (or not interact) with the PHYSICAL world.”
  • It re-frames the secular vs religious debate into one that can be plausibly won.
  • It fills me with awe and humilty to realize how little we really know about the ultimate nature of reality.
  • It provides an effective way of visualizing the eternal perspective, and puts life on earth into that perspective.
  • It increases my awareness of God’s “active” participation in my life and my personal debt to him.
  • It generally harmonizes a wide range of theological and scientific concepts into a coherent and robust belief system without compromising the integrity of scripture or science.
  • There are many other reasons, I can’t think of at the moment.

Yes, English is not well equipped to explain this idea. If you read about George Berkeley, he actually proposes that we simply do exactly that: continue to think and speak of reality as physical for practical purposes, but while retaining the knowledge that it is ultimately not made of physical objects.

You seem to think that the philosophical doctrine of physical reality came from scripture, when in fact it came from western philosophy and has been absorbed in scriptural interpretation.

22

Re this:

There is no empirical way to distinguish between a mind-generated experience of an object and an experience of a “real” object. (This is evident from our experience with dreams. In dreams as in reality, you can see a cup, pick it up, drink out of it, and drop it on the floor and watch it shatter into pieces. True, you can’t take a dream cup into reality when you wake up, but nor can you take a real cup with you into a dream.*)

I think this is true, in principle, given a sufficiently powerful and robust experience-generating mind. But I’ve never thought that the example of a dream is anything more than a poor example of this. If I am critical and honest with myself, I have to concede that my waking experiences of ‘physical reality’ - my sensory experiences while awake - are far richer, more comprehensive and robust than my dream experiences. At every moment I am awake, I experience a wide range of vision, sound, touch, etc, that all logically hold-together and mutually cohere in the finest detail all the time. In comparison, when I am dreaming I have to honestly admit that my perceived sensory experiences don’t even come close to this in their comprehensiveness or coherence. My dreaming mind only thinks that they do, because its discriminating faculties that could tell otherwise are not fully online. In other words, its only because of my altered state of mind that my dreamworld seems as real as the ‘real world’, if I’m critically honest with myself.

It’s sort of like somebody experiencing a ‘high’ or an acid trip. Sure their experiences seem real to them, their insights seem incredible, and etc - but that’s not because they really are just as compelling, but rather because important discriminating faculties in their mind are not fully functioning.

1 Like
23

@pacificmaelstrom, Well, you might THINK you are not God… but you might not be in a position to know…

24

@pacificmaelstrom

I think I owe you a drink! Your 11 point list in the first post are very impressive! But I think you can save even more steps! I don’t think you need to argue about physical objects.

The three steps that I think can stand alone are the ones I’ve highlighted.

This is actually why I DO believe in God. I just didn’t have the full vocabulary to support my ideas… now I do! I have YOU to thank!

My usual discussion is that CONSCIOUSNESS is the most mysterious thing in the Universe … and without God to support Consciousness, Consciousness is completely meaningless.

George Brooks, Tampa, FL

25

Hi Jamie!
I think that line of reasoning is based on a faulty application of Occam’s Razor. The principle holds that our explanations should be as simple as possible, but not simpler. If you apply a razor too enthusiastically, you end up cutting your own veins…

Both the denial of the reality of matter in favor of the mind (like Berkeley) and vice versa (like Dawkins) are, in my opinion, examples of reductionism. They end up reducing reality to one of the two.

I think we’re doing more justice to God’s handiwork if we acknowledge that matter and mind are both essentially real, while dynamically interdependent on each other. Otherwise God’s work would be more like maintaining a universal hallucination.

1 Like
26

Reductionism to the spirit-state of the mind is no sin …

27

How so, and how does this framework relate to the way “image of God” is presented in Scripture?

And what was the Incarnation, in your view? If reality is just an emanation of God’s mind, what does it mean that God took on σάρξ?

What is the New Creation going to be? A reboot of God’s mind projection?

28

“What is the New Creation…?”

Discussions on this topic are of theology, and as human beings we will exercise our reason and intellect. When we discuss God, we are undertaking theological discussions. Theology is the science of religion and the way arguments may be constructed (via speculative philosophy), on matters pertaining to particular conceptions of God. The following summary is fairly typical …“theology may deal with dogmatic ascertains, or may be natural theology, or consist of arguments about God. Such activities include writings ranging from those of St. Aquinas, to the 20th-century theologians, such as Karl Barth. Theologians have endeavoured to construct theology as a science that radically differed from the natural and the human sciences because its ultimate subject, God, was not accessible to empirical investigation. Aquinas included in his theological system five proofs for the existence of God. Barth considered God’s freedom and revelation (communication of himself), as providing the understanding of God. In this way Barth believes one may avoid the danger of approaching God as an object of investigation”.

Even if we agreed that we avoid considering God as an object for empirical investigation, we cannot reason that revelation may be within a range of phenomena that are human potentialities or of the human senses. We have ruled out objective-based activities such as found in the natural sciences. Revelation cannot be defined in a way that philosophy or science may argue and consider within the ideas of reason.

For revelation to be valid, the person being revealed unto needs to be able to respond, to reason, and to consider the revelation within his (context of) life. The meaning of God needs to be completely comprehensible. Since I understand all human life and reason to be within the freedom of birth, freedom of life, and freedom of thought (intent), revelation is also understood within freedom. The unreasonable part of the human condition is lack of freedom that finds its ultimate unreasonable condition in death.

The goodness of life is within the completeness of life and the resulting continuation of life. Revelation is that God reveals himself within the possibilities of the goodness of life and its continuation; revelation is presented to human beings within such goodness and revealed things become meaningful. Furthermore, because revelation is comprehended as goodness, it can be argued that this leads to an increase in reasonableness. Revelation is in harmony with reason and removes the antimony found in reason and may be said to add to the reasoning aspects of a human being. The possibilities within human beings regarding revelation arise from both the responses of reason to revelation, in that each person may respond according to his reason and heart, and also because revelation can be comprehended within the framework of life and death, thus within good and bad. The remarks concerning the idea(s) of god(s) and the capacity for human beings to conceptualise such entities within the context of human attributes, provides many possibilities that reason may ponder and consider as the meaning of god within the human context. Because of these many possibilities that confront reason, the necessity of faith naturally follows this discussion.

So while we should have a working understanding of major philosophical arguments, the theological content is what matters, and Berkley (and many other philosophers) understood this. The emphasis that I place to these arguments is the necessity of faith - this is especially relevant in this age of materialism/science, which appears to exclude perhaps the major aspects of what makes us human. Christ indeed took on human flesh and bone and we are also taught that we have the mind of Christ - able to discern spiritual matters as mature Christians.

29

@GJDS I’ve read your post above twice and I don’t really understand it. Could you summarize in a sentence or two the point you were trying to make about reason and revelation?