Can we know who God is with our reason?

[LethalMouse]

Thank you lethal… for allowing me to see the error in my post. “All that we believe we believe because of faith…” Makes no sense in the context of the earth and all that is here or the planets, stars, etc…
Julius Caesar I can believe in historically but will have to take on faith that everything I’ve learned about him is accurate.
As for meeting god, a saint, an angel, etc… being logical I would have to believe that I’d have to take this on faith.
Last year my wife and I traveled several hours away by car to help one of our granddaughters move into an apartment of campus. She had stored some things at the home of the parents of an ex-boyfriend and was meeting us there as my wife knew where this was. We were there a few minutes before her-when she drove down the street in our direction coming from the direction we faced I saw a person sitting on the passenger side of the car with a baseball cap on. I asked my wife if ------ was having someone else help as well? She said not that she knew of and asked, why? I mentioned the person I saw and she said “oh, I didn’t see anyone.”
Our granddaughter pulled in the drive way, we got out of our car which was in the street and walked up to meet her. When I got near her car I looked towards the passenger seat to say hello to who I had seen. There was no one there. I asked our granddaughter if the person had already gone in the garage (thinking I hadn’t seen them get out of the car). She asked me who? I told her what I had seen (you can guess the look I got from her). She assured me there was no one with her. This bothered me for quite some time.
I cannot explain this incident through logic nor through reason. I can only state that I have faith that I “saw” someone. I don’t expect anyone else to believe it because of logic or because it seems reasonable (which it doesn’t to me) or to take it on faith because I have.
Hope this clarifies what I mean a bit.

Yes “on faith” to a point… but there is the issue of what something could be. Yours could be a person and your daughter lied, could be optical illusion, psychological image, or supernatural… we won’t know. Though there becomes a point when things get narrowed down.

For example me and a friend saw 3 “spirit” beings 2 angels and one demon. (Labeled in hindsight based on attributes and intentions)

There are simply 2 explanations available in how they were seen, either they were what they were, or psychological thing between us.

As many evidences of God either require truth, masterful deception/luck… and then in some cases there is little motivation for the deception.

It is the question of the psychological that allows someone to later be agnostic/atheist despite such an event, but that is also cultural.

This is cultural because there is a push by many other humans to not believe it. There is NO push to disbelieve Caesar, so the alternate options do not allow themselves to creep in the mind.

Now there is a push to disbelieve the moon landing/holocaust by some. I and most people take these events as true based on the same evidences presented for religion, but some sub cultures take that amount if evidence as not enough and therefore it is the “in thing” in a sense to deny their historical accuracy. So while even most atheists would claim that the moon landing or holocaust happened and the deniers are silly, they deny every claim and evidence of God false based on the existence of another option while ignoring the alternate options for these two historical events. I have equal reason to believe/disbelieve Moses parting the red sea happened as the moon landing lol… so idk.

 

[puzzledtoo]

Well as far as lying-no. Not that she has never lied but that no one got out of that car. Optical illusion-possible. Psychological image (as in my imagination) possible. Supernatural-possible. So I suppose logic and reason come into play here.

 

[ynotzap]

I fail to see how logic and reason can be how we can know whether there is a god or not or who god is or how god is. I fail to see how logic and reason can be used to deny the existence of a god or gods. I can only see that someone has faith there is a god or gods or one has faith that there is no god or gods.
I have faith that I’ll live to see tomorrow, that I’ll not get in a car accident today, etc… but I do not know these things through logic or reason. In my view it is illogical to assume that I can know 100% what will happen five minutes from now let alone profess there is or is not one or more superior spiritual deities. All that we believe we believe because of faith (in my view). I believe there is one truth and we may or may not ever find out what that is. I do not know this through logic or reason but through faith.

By the natural light of human reason God’s existence can be known and proven by five classical metaphysical arguments, motion, order, necessity, grades of beings, and origin. “Ever since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what He has made” (Rom. 1; 2:20-21)
St. Thomas Aquinas synthesized reason with faith. God is the Author of right reason and faith.