Discussion on Reason for Logical/Rational/Scientific Belief in God

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65Stang

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Hey all,

New here so I hope this thread goes in the correct section. First, let me give a little background. I’m 21 and a cradle Catholic, though over the last year or so I have began to have serious doubts about my faith and even the existence of God in general. It stemmed from questioning my faith as a student of Science and Engineering in college.

Questions related to Catholic teaching bugged me, but even more so things such as the origins of the cosmos and the world, the origin of life, the Resurrection of Jesus… All bother(ed) me and still do. I want to believe in God and the Catholic church. But as an engineer (Or engineering student, I have 1 more month to graduate) I want to see proofs of this.

Ie, I can believe a mathematical theorem or differential equation, or a physics problem with tension or springs, etc., because I can see the hard proofs of these laws of physics and science as work. I can see a mathematical proof. This gives me an example of an issue I have with Christianity - namely, the origin/age of the earth. We all know the story of Creation in Genesis; however, scientifically it is quite hard to believe the earth and cosmos is “young” or that it came into existence over a period of 6 literal days, and it seems hard to deny that the Theory of Evolution must hold true at least in some regards. I have read many discussions on the matter from a scientific and theological point of view, but it seems to lead me to question - if the story in Genesis is not 100% accurate, but the Bible is the inspired word of God… Why would it not give a more… accurate? Recounting of the story of Creation?

Moving on…

Recently I have met a lovely young lady and we are quite taken with each other. I’ll leave out the details because it is not a concern of this post but an issue arises in that she is very scientific and science oriented - as a child she attended church, but grew apart as she grew older. Scientific theories, namely on the age of the earth/universe and its formation, conflicted with her strict Fundamentalist upbringing, leading her to a conclusion of agnosticism or athiesm. Meeting her has brought all my questions about the existence of God to the forefront of my mind; as I desire a relationship with her, the issue of Religion and God is very important. I want to believe in God, but if I cannot logically defend the existence of God, how can I have a fair discussion with her about this? Ultimately, I believe that truth has a subtle persuasion to it and I believe that she is open minded. I believe that… dare I say it… If God exists… He has brought me into her life, maybe solely for the purpose of us having this discussion.

I want to explore this topic for her as well as for me. I don’t know where the relationship will go or end up, but I feel that our conversation about God may be one of the most important discussions of both our lives… Or maybe I’m just being dramatic. At any rate…

If I can give any more information, or thoughts… Please let me know. I am open to any criticism, thoughts, prayers, or wisdom you may be able to share. Thank you all!!
 
Hi there 🙂

I am by far no engineer, but I’ll try to help.

First off The Catholic Church is not anti science as many people claim.

I’ll give you three examples

The Vatican has it’s own observatory that is staffed by priests who are highly trained astronomers.(For more info here is a link) vaticanobservatory.org/

Second and third example the first person to discover the Big Bang theory was a Catholic priest Fr. George Lemaitre, and the person to discover Genetics was also a priest Fr. Gregor Mendel,OSA

From the Catholic perspective you can believe in evolution. John Paul 2 even said theat evolution is more than a hypothesis. The Church doesn’t believe in fundamentalist(6 day literal creation) creationism or intelligent design.

I can recommend a book by Fr. Robert Spitzer,SJ,PhD called “New Proofs for the Existence of God” which deals more with astrophysics and philosophy.

Yes it is possible to be both Catholic and an engineer. My friend has a masters in electrical engineering and is studying to become a priest.

Hope I helped. This isn’t exactly my field of expertise. 👍
 
The Catholic Church is not fundamentalist. It is a very pro-science religion, with many practicing members and even clergy, both in the past and in the present, having contributed significantly to science and even developing major branches of science. Here is a good video on the subject: wordonfire.org/WOF-TV/Commentaries-New/Fr–Barron-comments-on-Religion—Science.aspx

As for the Old Testament, most of it is interpreted as symbolic religious truth, not literal scientific truth. There’s a saying: The Bible is all true, and some of it actually happened! Here’s some info on Creation: catholic.com/tracts/creation-and-genesis

Science itself is not opposed to religion and in fact makes no comment on it. Non-fundamentalist religion is not opposed to science and doesn’t claim scientific truth, only spiritual, religious truth. Fundamentalist “scientism”, on the other hand, claims that science is the one and only truth and is rather popular these days.

This topic comes up a lot. You’ll find a lot of lively threads and responses if you search for old threads.
 
Get the book by Edward Feser entitled: the last superstition; you will be glad you did. It gives rational proofs of the existence of God, and exposes the contradictions inherent within modern philosophies, including scientism, that deny him. I will warn you ahead of time, that he opens with claims that will offend the sensibilities of those who support gay marriage, and he doesn’t provide support for those positions until later in the book, but it is definitely worth it to stick with reading it and let him make his case.
 
65Stang said:
If I can give any more information, or thoughts… Please let me know. I am open to any criticism, thoughts, prayers, or wisdom you may be able to share. Thank you all!!
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Hi 65Stang

I’ll start with my favourite apologetic argument, which is the truth argument.

This I believe is one of the most powerful arguments for theism, because without God, the words true or false simply become meaningless, so the question I ask the atheist is if there is no God, why do you believe it to be true?

C.S. Lewis explains it well I believe.

“Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.” - C.S. Lewis

The theory that thought is merely a movement in the brain is, in my opinion, nonsense; for if so, that theory itself would be merely a movement, an event among atoms, which may have speed and direction but of which it would be meaningless to use the words ‘true’ or ‘false’. C.S. Lewis

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts - i.e., Materialism and Astronomy - are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset. - C.S. Lewis

John Lennox also explains it well I believe

*I believe in God because I believe there is evidence for God, for example, in the very fact that we can do science, we believe that the universe is rationally intelligable. Why does a scientist believe it is rationally intelligable? Atheism tells us that the human mind is the human brain and it’s the end product of a mindless unguided process, why should I believe anything it tells me if thats the case? Whereas theism tells me that there is intelligence behind the universe and behind the human mind which fits perfectly with science. So part of the evidence for God would be the fact that we can do science.

Infact the rise of science in the 16th and 17th century came about because people expected law in nature, because they believed in the Law giver (God). So science and faith in God fit perfectly together.* - John Lennox

Thus I believe it’s not science and theism that are in conflict as most atheists like to claim, it’s actually science and atheism that are in conflict, because atheism cannot trust the cognitive faculties we use to do science, as C.S. Lewis say’s atheism and science is like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

“Atheism tells me that the human mind is the human brain and it’s the end product of a mindless unguided process, why should I believe anything it tells me if thats the case? Whereas theism tells me that there is intelligence behind the universe and behind the human mind.” - John Lennox

Thus I believe by denying God, the honest skeptic becomes skeptical of his skepticism.

Please continue to next post -
 
Continued from above post -

I would also like to share with you a quote from Anthony Flew (Atheists turned Theist) in his book “There is a God - How the worlds most notorious atheist changed his mind”

"Some have said that the laws of nature are simply accidental results of the way the universe cooled after the big bang. But, as Rees has pointed out, even such accidents can be regarded as secondary manifestations of deeper laws governing the ensemble of universes. Again, even the evolution of the laws of nature and changes to the constants follow certain laws. 'We’re still left with the question of how these “deeper” laws originated. No matter how far you push back the properties of the universe as somehow “emergent,” their very emergence has to follow certain prior laws.'1 So multiverse or not, we still have to come to terms with the origin of the laws of nature. And the only viable explanation here is the divine Mind.” - Anthony Flew

As for the origin/age of the Earth, whether it is 6,000 years old or billions of years old, it doesn’t really have any affect on my faith at all, however, if you take for example the development of a human, at age 1-10 and account for the rate of growth there and than take a human at age 40-50 and account for the rate of growth there, I believe you will find that the development/grwoth of a human between 1-10 (especially through puberty) is far greater than the development/growth of a human between 40-50, so if you took a human at age 50 or so, and worked backwards from their rate of growth, I believe you would easily miss calculate that humans age, as between the ages of 1-10 and 10-20, especially through puberty, their rate of growth is significantly greater, and thus if you worked backwards from 50 or 40, I believe you would end up calculating that human’s age as far greater than it actually is.

Also as for the others in genesis such as the literal 6 day creation theory I would strongly recommend John Lennox’s book - Seven Days that Divided the World.

As for evolution, I believe in evolution within species, but I believe that evolution outside of species is really too far, it goes beyond science and common sense I believe. However the Catholic Church has no qualms with evolution, this is just me personally.

I hope I have helped

God Bless

Thank you for reading
Josh
 
OP: Two books I would recommend getting are “Old Errors and New Labels” and “God and Intelligence”, both by Ven. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Being an engineer you will like his logical, no BS approach. Fulton J Sheen was no idiot, but he will make you feel like one after you read his work. Like being smacked with a big beam of common sense.
 
65Stang said:
Ie, I can believe a mathematical theorem or differential equation, or a physics problem with tension or springs, etc., because I can see the hard proofs of these laws of physics and science as work. I can see a mathematical proof.
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I know how this feels :p.
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adawgj:
I can recommend a book by Fr. Robert Spitzer,SJ,PhD called “New Proofs for the Existence of God” which deals more with astrophysics and philosophy.
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OP, buy this book and read it. I assure you that you will not be disappointed.
Inego de Loyola:
Get the book by Edward Feser entitled: the last superstition; you will be glad you did
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Another excellent recommendation. Here is Prof. Feser’s blog which has been immensely helpful to me at least: edwardfeser.blogspot.com/. He also has a new book coming out next month that you should consider: Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction. Then look into the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. There are very, very strong rational defenses of Catholicism, and they’ve been around for thousands of years.

Here’s another book recommendation: The Science Before Science - A Guide to Thinking in the 21st Century - Dr. Anthony Rizzi. Dr. Rizzi is a well-respected Catholic physicist that at one time had a lot of the same difficulties that you are having. Hope this helps :).
 
Stang,

I have three college degrees in the sciences myself. I’ve taken courses in everything.

Looking at the world with this science background, I have to think, “So all this happened by accident! :bigyikes: You’ve got to be kidding me!” :rotfl:

Just one example, that should interest an engineer. Consider this. There isn’t enough matter in the universe to collect itself into galaxies, and stars and us. The original hydrogen atoms from the Big Bang should have dispersed so thinly they would never collect together into masses. So why did they? Because the gravity from “dark matter” was enough to gather matter together. Well, well, well! Wasn’t that lucky for us! Or was it luck? :hmmm:

I could go on all day with these scientific “lucky breaks”, 😃 but let’s turn to something else.

The existence of the universe in time:
Could the universe have lasted through an infinite past? As an engineer you must be conscious that no event could have happened an infinite time ago. It is a self-contradiction to say an “event”, which by definition happens in a fixed amount of time, could have happened an infinite time ago. There are other contradictions in this time business but enough of that for now ( there’s another event ).
So the universe had to have a beginning.
Did it start itself? Impossible. Atheists will say the universe began by “chance”, or “accident”, or “quantum effect”. Really? 🤷 What the atheists “forget” to mention is that all three of these processes require that something pre-exist to operate on. These processes can’t operate on absolutely nothing.
Therefore, God had to start the universe.

That’s my basic “God manifesto”.
 
Wow!! I am very grateful to all of you for the responses. I’m about to head to Houston for a Drilling Fluids conference… Fun stuff. It will be a while till I can read through all these in depth and reply. Thanks again to all of you for the excellent responses.
 
Another must-read: Modern Physics and Ancient Faith by Stephen Barr,

amazon.com/Modern-Physics-Ancient-Faith-Stephen/dp/0268021988

This book may blow your mind (I don’t agree with every detail but that doesn’t matter in the bigger picture). The writings of Barr have been one of the crucial factors that have prevented me from slipping into atheism a few years ago. Now that I have studied naturalism (the acceptance of which would be required for me to become an atheist) more in depth I have to say that this philosophy is so full of weaknesses and contradictions that it has lost all appeal for me.
 
Al_Moritz said:
Another must-read: Modern Physics and Ancient Faith by Stephen Barr,

amazon.com/Modern-Physics-Ancient-Faith-Stephen/dp/0268021988

This book may blow your mind (I don’t agree with every detail but that doesn’t matter in the bigger picture). The writings of Barr have been one of the crucial factors that have prevented me from slipping into atheism a few years ago. Now that I have studied naturalism (the acceptance of which would be required for me to become an atheist) more in depth I have to say that this philosophy is so full of weaknesses and contradictions that it has lost all appeal for me.
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Thank you for this. I will order the book.
 
Thanks again to all for the excellent replies. I am currently ordering the books y’all have recommended… The video of Fr. Barron was great, and I would like to read more of his work as I would love to hear him expound on that brief 5 minute section.

I find the most compelling argument for God is as the causer of the universe… I like what Fr. Barron said about the New Athiest and ID crowd getting caught up in their arguments as God of a fussy, partial cause to the coming about of humanity… I have been watching Cosmos, and it brings to light so many questions/doubts… I feel that Fr. Barron answered some of them quite well in that brief segment.

And speaking of Cosmos… Possibly this is another question for another thread, but I’ll go ahead and post it here. Tyson, while an unquestioned genius, is an agnostic (athiestic) and he seems to take many jabs at religion and, especially in the first episode, at the Catholic Church. The issues he brings up are namely the “thought police of the Inquisition,” his problems with God as the origin of life or creator of the cosmos (Even though he dabbles in mention of the so-called multiverse, which IMHO is as physically unprovable as the God he does not believe in…), and his thoughts on unguided evolution as responsible for bringing the human race from non-living chemicals to functional, self aware life some several billion years later…

Do y’all have any further thoughts or comments on this?
 
65Stang said:
Thanks again to all for the excellent replies. I am currently ordering the books y’all have recommended… The video of Fr. Barron was great, and I would like to read more of his work as I would love to hear him expound on that brief 5 minute section.

I find the most compelling argument for God is as the causer of the universe… I like what Fr. Barron said about the New Athiest and ID crowd getting caught up in their arguments as God of a fussy, partial cause to the coming about of humanity… I have been watching Cosmos, and it brings to light so many questions/doubts… I feel that Fr. Barron answered some of them quite well in that brief segment.

And speaking of Cosmos… Possibly this is another question for another thread, but I’ll go ahead and post it here. Tyson, while an unquestioned genius, is an agnostic (athiestic) and he seems to take many jabs at religion and, especially in the first episode, at the Catholic Church. The issues he brings up are namely the “thought police of the Inquisition,” his problems with God as the origin of life or creator of the cosmos (Even though he dabbles in mention of the so-called multiverse, which IMHO is as physically unprovable as the God he does not believe in…), and his thoughts on unguided evolution as responsible for bringing the human race from non-living chemicals to functional, self aware life some several billion years later…

Do y’all have any further thoughts or comments on this?
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Not all scientists are atheists… here’s a blog that lists famous scientists (and their reasons for belief) who believe in God:
“Are all great scientists atheists?”
There’s also a fine post on Strange Notions, “Fathers of Science”, about Catholic priests who have advanced the cause of science, including Gregor Mendel, founder of genetics, and Abbe Georges LeMaitre, who propounded the Big Bang theory
 
65Stang said:
And speaking of Cosmos… Possibly this is another question for another thread, but I’ll go ahead and post it here. Tyson, while an unquestioned genius, is an agnostic (athiestic) and he seems to take many jabs at religion and, especially in the first episode, at the Catholic Church. …]
Do y’all have any further thoughts or comments on this?
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I am guessing you never saw the original (1984?) Cosmos by Carl Sagan (his name shows in the opening credits). The present day show takes a lot of material from there. Some of it word for word. There is some discussion on him in previous threads over the past few years. The shows producer is Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy). He is non-religious too.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
I am guessing you never saw the original (1984?) Cosmos by Carl Sagan (his name shows in the opening credits). The present day show takes a lot of material from there. Some of it word for word. There is some discussion on him in previous threads over the past few years. The shows producer is Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy). He is non-religious too.
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You’re right, I have actually never seen the original shows. I will go look for older threads on the original show. I suppose what I’m getting at is the idea that, as Tyson says, the origin of life is “The greatest story science ever told” and that inasmuch as we are genetically similar to animals, it is inherently wrong to believe we were “created” especially different from animals on earth…
 
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