Hello to all!! I have visited these forums often but never suggested a topic, so here goes: How do you "prove"that God exists? I told a relative that the Universe — even at 13.8 B yrs old – is too young to have just mindlessly and aimlessly fallen into place—and they, of course, want proof. Well…I can probably find something in Polkinghorne, but also wanted to see how others might handle the "general question"of “how or why should we believe there is a God? Is there proof?” Thanks for all your thoughts!!\
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Just as a starting position, I think the question of proof of the existence of God does not require us to give a definition of God. We do not need to try and answer the question ‘what or who is God?’, at least not in any complete manner.
To give grounds for this let us turn our attention for a moment to mathematics. We can, for example, prove the existence of zero, even though we cannot define zero completely. We can show that it exists at the point where the number line passes from negative to positive numbers. We can imagine the number zero as a vanishing point. We can describe it as an infinity, but all of this is not sufficient as a definition. But despite our inability to define zero we can prove its existence and make use of it. It has a practical and indeed very important application. Similarly then, in our proof of the existence of God, we do not need to define God completely, which is an impossible task anyway, we only need to lay down some founding premise.
This is a favorite of mine and indirectly speaks to your argument, saying that the cosmos couldn’t be any younger:
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Honestly, I don’t think you do. But you can take comfort in no one being able to prove God does not exist either. Most attempts on either side end up looking silly, mostly arguments from incredulity.
Oh I think you need some kind of definition or else you’re just proving that something of some kind exists, and that won’t get it done. But I agree you don’t need to know everything about it. However, whatever you do claim to know about it should get some support. If that has to come from the Bible, then you’ve got a circularity problem. All in all, why not just accept that no one can prove it either way?
Loved the strauss blog…thanks…
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I don’t think God wants his existence to be ‘provable’, not that there is not plenty of evidence pointing to him. See Why there is no proof of God.
You cant neither cant they prove he does not. But for me the logical mindset here is that we didnt came for nothing here and mass cannot also be created alone. That energy that caused the big bank cannot be created by itself. I remember when i was an atheist how everytime someone asked me about my depression i woukd say why do you care we dont have a purpose anyway. I bring this up becuase since i became a christian it helped me very much.
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Isn’t it all a matter of statistics?
Thanks Nick
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I dont know why you thank me but youre very much welcome:slightly_smiling_face:
I typically don’t try to prove that God exists to unbelievers. I don’t believe you can actually scientifically prove God exists , or historically, without using faith. That does not mean I don’t believe you can argue various forms of evidence, but that the evidence must still eventually be accepted on faith. I use a combination of God of the Gaps and Unlikely Probabilities and couple that with the beauty of the Bible and some of the historically supported stories and being up the beauty of the written word . Then just as importantly, I show them how it has affected my life snd the life of others including having a great network of brothers and sisters in Christ.
I’m also aware that this can be said of almost any faith or even if things like aliens. But I don’t care because that’s not what in presenting. I don’t believe in predestination as in humans having no will choose salvation and truth but I do believe that the Holy Spirit convicts them and a person can either harden their heart to it like pharaoh or they can accept it by their own personal faith.
We have no definition of zero!
I agree that we need to give something, maybe some qualities but we can never have any definition of God. God is unknowable.
For the purpose of a proof let us lay down a founding premise by saying that God is essentially “The Oneness”, which we cannot know, but which can only know Itself.
We can describe ‘Its’ basic attributes’, to which all religions ascribe to in one form or another. These are omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, infinitude, immutability and permanence.
These attributes are not only a means of pointing at what we wish to prove exists, but also in due course to show its application.
I can grant you the God as defined without agreeing it’s attributes are those traditionally imagined in ancient religions. I guess the devil is in the details.
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Science says that each one of us came from our parents, so that shouldn’t be an issue. We simply don’t know enough about the origin of universes to say anything about it. We don’t know if energy can or can’t spontaneously appear. People believe through faith that God was involved in some way, and as an unbeliever I’m just fine with that. However, disagreements do occur when people put forward faulty scientific claims or God of the Gaps arguments. If we are talking about what is taught in science class, then the best way to teach on the subject is “We don’t know. Scientists are looking into it, but they may or may not find an answer.”
Till scientific proof comes out that a obsurd mass amount of energy can be created alone with that much complexity,the logical potision here is someone created it. Call it aliens call it whatever you want. I call it God
Why not the opposite? Until scientific proof comes out that a massive amount of energy was created by a supernatural deity, the logical position is that it emerged out of nothing.
Becuase it cannot be created alone. For example i can create energy . Theres a proof of that. Can energy come itaelf in anture? I dont think so. Can calories consumed as energy if we dont eat them ? No. Thats proven that energy has to come from somewhere. The things that is yet to be proven is for energy to come from nothing. So till that gets proven the burden of proof is on that
That’s just a bare assertion. You don’t have any scientific evidence for that.
Not really. You are simply transforming potential energy into kinetic energy. No new energy is created.