Can we prove God from the scientific method?

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Adamski

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I have an athiest friend, grew up in a fundamentalist/ calvinist church that said god doesn’t exist because I can’t prove him using the scientific method.

I got to to acknowdged after much work that the catholic church wrote the bible and Jesus existed as a real man

Help please
 
Adamski said:
I have an athiest friend, grew up in a fundamentalist/ calvinist church that said god doesn’t exist because I can’t prove him using the scientific method.

I got to to acknowdged after much work that the catholic church wrote the bible and Jesus existed as a real man

Help please
Click to expand...
The scientific method was actually developed by a Catholic Priest, so it is ironic now that since GOD has not provided a scientifically traceable and independently verifiable source of data that it would be a cause of atheism.
However, as Peter Kreeft teaches in his CD’s ( view on You Tube ), if GOD gave us to much data than we would be “forced” to acknowledge HIM and thus lose our free will, and if HE gave us to little data then we would never find HIM regardless of how long we searched. Therefore GOD has given us just enough that those who seek HIM, find HIM and those who chose not to believe, are not violating their free will and conscience and being forced to believe.
Get your friend a copy of the book, “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel and turn him over to the HOLY SPIRIT in prayer.
 
Adamski said:
I have an athiest friend, grew up in a fundamentalist/ calvinist church that said god doesn’t exist because I can’t prove him using the scientific method.

I got to to acknowdged after much work that the catholic church wrote the bible and Jesus existed as a real man

Help please
Click to expand...
Challenge him to prove that everything that exists can be proven by the scientific method. Including proving his own implicit claim “everything that exists can be proven by the scientific method.”
 
Adamski said:
I have an athiest friend, grew up in a fundamentalist/ calvinist church that said god doesn’t exist because I can’t prove him using the scientific method.

I got to to acknowdged after much work that the catholic church wrote the bible and Jesus existed as a real man

Help please
Click to expand...
I would say that “God” is not something one can so easily prove. Some things, one must rely on faith alone.
 
XiWang717 said:
I would say that “God” is not something one can so easily prove. Some things, one must rely on faith alone.
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Actually the Catholic Church teaches that one may know of the existence of God by natural reason alone. Which isn’t the same as “scientific method” as demanded by the OP’s friend.
 
I don’t think the existence of G-d can be proven by means of the scientific method, nor should G-d be put to the test using this method. The first step of the scientific method is observation and already we have a problem since observation is confined by human limitations as well as influenced by expectations, motivations, prior experiences, and cultural differences. One may choose to apply reason sans the scientific method–and both Judaism and Christianity make claims to using this approach–but I prefer faith and wisdom alone.
 
No, or someone would have done so already.
Evidence for, yes.
Proof, no.
 
I’ve never read the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, but based on what I’ve heard, isn’t his work super-logical? (would that be appealing to your friend?)
 
Adamski said:
I have an athiest friend, grew up in a fundamentalist/ calvinist church that said god doesn’t exist because I can’t prove him using the scientific method.

I got to to acknowdged after much work that the catholic church wrote the bible and Jesus existed as a real man

Help please
Click to expand...
Challenge him to design a laboratory experiment that proves the square root of 2 is an irrational number.

Study this remark by Protestant philosopher William Lane Craig: youtube.com/watch?v=cJrMFv6QoX0&t=1m12s
 
I found this conversation on the internet. Hopefully it’s helpful in some way.

Alice: “Can you see God?”
Bob: “No.”
Alice: “Can you touch God?”
Bob: “No.”
Alice: “Then God doesn’t exist.”
Bob: “Can you see your brain?”
Alice: “Well, no…”
Bob: “Can you touch your brain?”
Alice: “No…”
Bob: “So, by your logic, you don’t have a brain.”

Somewhat unrelated: Who else noticed the paradox in the last line of that conversation?
 
Adamski said:
I have an athiest friend, grew up in a fundamentalist/ calvinist church that said god doesn’t exist because I can’t prove him using the scientific method.

I got to to acknowdged after much work that the catholic church wrote the bible and Jesus existed as a real man

Help please
Click to expand...
Of course you cannot prove God by the scientific method. The method of science uses methodological naturalism, i. e. the search of natural causes for natural effects. God is thus excluded from the lab bench as a direct primary cause (while according to traditional philosophy natural causes are secondary causes that God uses in His creation – they are thus not “godless” causes). Note that methodological naturalism was invented by the first scientists that were all believers in God (no exception, including Galileo Galilei). It is not an atheistic, or more broadly, “secular”, invention, and should not be confused with metaphysical naturalism (the philosophical idea that the natural world is all there is). Alas most (not all) atheists, in their lack of proper analytical thinking, conflate methodological and metaphysical naturalism.

As a scientist (a biochemist) I use methodological naturalism all the time – it is my method. There is no alternative. I could not perform science using another method, but that self-imposed restriction of science also means that science proper can never prove God – and it cannot disprove Him either. God simply lies outside the scope of scientific investigation, just like history or politics.

Another issue are powerful philosophical arguments from science for the existence of God, such as the argument from the apparent fine-tuning of the laws of nature *). But this is not science proper.
*) on the other hand, biological “Intelligent Design” is rubbish
 
Adamski said:
I have an athiest friend, grew up in a fundamentalist/ calvinist church that said god doesn’t exist because I can’t prove him using the scientific method.

I got to to acknowdged after much work that the catholic church wrote the bible and Jesus existed as a real man

Help please
Click to expand...
No, science is just about the physical relationships existing in nature and the search for physical laws governing these relationships and expressing them in mathematical grammar which can be used to predict future behavior within closely defined parameters.

However, sciences assumes as true the fundamental structure of matter and the causal relationships underlying that structure and that human nature can discover these fundamental relationships ( metaphysical facts and structures ) by observing nature through a process of abstraction and reflection. Thus, things e-x-i-s-t, but these things cannot account for their existence, they cannot m-a-k-e themselves e-x-i-s-t. Therefore something exists whose nature is to exist and who causes existence in all of nature.

Ask your friend why the universe exists and how it exists?

I don’t know how old you or your friend is but there is a great couple of books out which may be of some help: ’ Aquinas ’ and ’ The Last Superstition ’ by Edward Feser which some libraries carry or you may be able to get through the interlibrary loan system through your local library. Just skip pg 146 of the L.S. as it contains matter which my be suited only for Doctors or Nurses and which may be troublesome to others.

He also has an excellent blog, just google his name.

Or you can ask your friend to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is on line. You can just google ’ Catechism of the Catholic Church ’ and several on line sources will pop up.

👍
 
Nat682 said:
I found this conversation on the internet. Hopefully it’s helpful in some way.

Alice: “Can you see God?”
Bob: “No.”
Alice: “Can you touch God?”
Bob: “No.”
Alice: “Then God doesn’t exist.”
Bob: “Can you see your brain?”
Alice: “Well, no…”
Bob: “Can you touch your brain?”
Alice: “No…”
Bob: “So, by your logic, you don’t have a brain.”

Somewhat unrelated: Who else noticed the paradox in the last line of that conversation?
Click to expand...
No brain = no logic?
 
The scientific method is a philosophical construct, you can’t prove the validity of the scientific method by using the scientific method. With that being said you can prove God’s existence by using philosophy which is what you should be using.
 
Nat682 said:
I found this conversation on the internet. Hopefully it’s helpful in some way.

Alice: “Can you see God?”
Bob: “No.”
Alice: “Can you touch God?”
Bob: “No.”
Alice: “Then God doesn’t exist.”
Bob: “Can you see your brain?”
Alice: “Well, no…”
Bob: “Can you touch your brain?”
Alice: “No…”
Bob: “So, by your logic, you don’t have a brain.”

Somewhat unrelated: Who else noticed the paradox in the last line of that conversation?
Click to expand...
I respectfully disagree that this is helpful. The brain is a physical object, it can be seen and touched.
 
Julian0404 said:
The scientific method was actually developed by a Catholic Priest,
Click to expand...
I can understand why you would believe that, but is completely untrue. The method expanded over time with roots in Greek philosophy, Muslim academia, the Enlightenment etc…etc…etc…
 
Adamski said:
I have an atheist friend, grew up in a fundamentalist/ calvinist church that said god doesn’t exist because I can’t prove him using the scientific method.

I got to to acknowdged after much work that the catholic church wrote the bible and Jesus existed as a real man

Help please
Click to expand...
Adam:

You must determine what your friend believes the scientific method to be. Most people have no earthly idea.

The first part of any scientific method is what is called a “dialectic.” This portion of scientific inquiry involves asking questions and positing answers to those questions. Now, the questions raised and the consequences deduced from various possible answers to those questions are not in themselves propositions about the real world. They do not become propositions about the real until the consequences are tested by induction.

What is induction. “Induction” may be broadly defined as experimentation. After his dialectic, the scientist makes propositions. These propositions may then be tested to see if they fit observed facts. If a proposition fits the observed facts, for example. that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes, more experiments may be performed to verify the proposition. (Such experiments were probably not to the benefit of any uninfected people who volunteered for the experiment!) Upon verification, that proposition is proved.

It is the same for the arguments for God’s existence. Demonstration deals with propositions about real causes and real effects. A dialectic deals only with logical beings. The dialectic is the logic of questioning. And, no induction in the learned world proceeds without a dialectical plan to guide it. The proofs for God follow this same path. Starting with a dialectic, i.e., a logic of questioning, propositions are deduced and propositions are formed. Then, those propositions are tested, not in test tubes, but by dialectical induction.

Here’s a scientific inductive syllogism from a dialectic:
  1. Yellow fever is either transmitted by mosquitoes or human contact.
  2. It has been proven that nothing else, including human contact, physically transmits yellow fever,
  3. Therefore, yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes.
St. Thomas’ inductive syllogism follows essentially the same form of dialectic:
  1. All mobile beings are put into motion by another being that is in act and is either an unmoved mover or a moved mover that is part of a series of movers extending back infinitely, i.e. an infinite regression of moved movers.
  2. But, it has been proven that there cannot be an infinite regression of anything, including moved movers
  3. Therefore, there must be a first mover that is unmoved yet sets all mobile beings into motion.
So, if you friend knows what the scientific method really is, you can show him that the proof for God’s existence follows the same procedures of investigation that all scientific inquiry follows.

God bless,
jd
 
Science is for the physical world. God is spiritual. Science is the wrong tool for the job.

Ask him to prove radio waves exist using a hammer, then declare them to be a myth when he can’t.
 
you can make an argument for Intelligent Design with the scientific method

Yes. The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.

intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php

and if there is an intelligent design there must be an intelligent Creator 😃
 
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