Does God exist?

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catholic1seeks

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**Besides faith (your response to God’s revelation), how do you come to know God exists?

Through reason? How?

St. Augustine gave us five great arguments. What are yours? How can we even be nearly sure that this universe is not due to chance?**
 
This is just me:

I see that everything has a beginning and an end, yet I do not see human beings who accept that this will happen to them. I see human beings who have a fear of dying and an expectation, a thirst for eternity. The CCC tells me that the reason for this is that God has put inside us an irreducible seed of eternity, i.e. that we are made in His image.

Love rocks. It is all important in my life. God is Love.

History and the witness of Catholics through History, the real way we communicate fact-- in time-- through tradition, of which (thank God) I am a part of.

I do not see my reason, yet I know I possess it. I do not see my will, but I know I have it. I do not see my soul, but I know I possess one. I do not see my thoughts, yet I can experience their effect and observe that they are generated by my soul in a super natural way.

God works in my life.
 
I think one comes to know God through experience. I believe there is a pull toward the Good (natural law) and because of that humans are able to experience the love of God. I also feel that through earnest study and prayer, one can get closer to God, and therefore will know more about Him.
 
For me, the greatest proof that God exists is the human mind. Strictly speaking man is not able to create or concieve of anything new, but only able to manipulate what is known. The fact that the mind is able to concieve of a being that is not physical but is pure spirit, to me, is the best evidence of God’s existence. The same can be said of the human soul.
Of course this does not neccessitate proper understanding of these things.
 
St. Thomas’s proof from causality is the most convincing for me, I suppose.

Something simply does not come from nothing. Even if you posit an eternal world as Aristotle had incorrectly done, that eternal world would still be in need of a First Cause, for although an enternal world might not be logically inconsistent, a beginningless chain of causes is.
 
catholic1seeks said:
How can we even be nearly sure that this universe is not due to chance?
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What does “due to chance” mean?

When people use “chance” like this, they usually mean something utterly unpredictable. What has ever been observed that exhibits this “utterly unpredictable” behavior?

The answer: Nothing behaves like this.

If there were things that were “utterly unpredictable”, then scientists would throw up their hands and take up dice tossing as their much more profitable occupation.

The scientist assumes that EVERYTHING is predictable (and they’re wrong in only one instance of course). The natural human (and animal as well) assumption is that the world is predictable. The UNnatural assumption is that the world is unpredictable.

Why would anyone START with the unnatural assumption, when all the evidence supports the natural assumption?

So, the universe is either a “big deterministic machine” which has existed forever and will exist forever where “God” means “the machine”,…

…or the universe is “the creation of the Creator” where “the Creator” is a non-machine (meaning a person or persons).

Either way “God” exists.

Those averse to the absurd consequences of “the infinities” choose the latter. Those who are more interested in “easy answers” than “obvious truth” choose the former.
 
catholic1seeks said:
**Besides faith (your response to God’s revelation), how do you come to know God exists?

Through reason? How?**

St. Augustine gave us five great arguments. What are yours? How can we even be nearly sure that this universe is not due to chance?
Click to expand...
I came to know God because He came to me. That is how I know God exists.
 
To me its also the human mind. I honestly don’t see how moving matter can produce consciesness. Honestly there is no way for moving matter to produce consciusness without a soul.

In atheism, the universe is merely matter moving around. According to them matter eventually moved in such a way so that it can reproduce the shape that it was in in complicated ways. They call this behavior life. I dont see how free will can exist in an atheist world. Matter moves triggering more movement in other matter. For people this means that theres no free will there is just responce to stimuli. However we can make conscious choices and like I said we are aware of things, we have consciousness.

So I think the existence of God is quite evident with reason. However without faith you might end up with something like deism.
 
Nickkname said:
I came to know God because He came to me. That is how I know God exists.
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Why doesn’t God come to everyone, in such a manner, that every individual would know in the depths of their hearts, that God has come to them.

God, being omniscient, would know exactly what it is he needs to do to reach everyone.

If God did that, then everyone would be a believer and all 6.5 billion people on the planet would be Roman Catholics.

No?
 
Katholish said:
Something simply does not come from nothing. …for although an enternal world might not be logically inconsistent, a beginningless chain of causes is.
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By your logic, God being something, had to have been created.

Who or what created God, as you said, something cannot come from nothing.

I suppose that’s the problem with your argument, that everything has to come from something…except for God?

Everything seems to need a creator by this argument, except for God? God gets a free pass.
 
Perhaps then I should clarify to say that all changable or mutable things require a cause, which indicates that there must be something unchangalbe and immutable thing which is the cause of changable things. This thing we call God.

There is no paradox or logical inconsistency in the argument.
 
I hold that nothing unreal exists. The universe is certainly real enough, however one accounts for it. We can’t make any part of it go away. For me a god would have to be real in this same sense. But then it wouldn’t be a god. So I guess one could argue that a god exists in an unrealistic sense but that’s just semantics.
 
I don’t believe that the existence of God can be proven and it’s kind of silly to try. If you could prove it, we wouldn’t need faith. And proving His existence doesn’t say anything about Him. I might say, “Okay, He exists and as far as I can see, He is an omnipotent little boy who enjoys ripping the wings off flies.”

The choices are: an uncreated Creator or an unceated universe (or at least w/o a Creator). Both require a leap of faith.

You’ll notice that the more science discovers, the more mysteries they discover, but God always leaves us free not to believe. He hasn’t left us any cosmic, “Here I am!” signs – unless we already believe in which case they’re all over.

My .02
 
That God’s existence can be proven from reason alone is a *de fide *teaching of the Catholic Faith.

crowonsnow,
But then it wouldn’t be a god.
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Why would you say that a god that is real, wouldn’t be a god? I can agree with you that nothing “unreal” exists, therefore, if God exists, he is “real”. He is real by definition according to a Catholic understanding, as He is Being itself.
 
seeker777 said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by FightingFat View Post
This is just me:

I see that everything has a beginning and an end

Even God? If not, why?
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“Everything” means “non-God”, with one exception. The incarnated human body of Christ.

God has no beginning and no end because of the necessity of a first cause to explain the absurdity of “the infinities”.

What are “the infinities”? They are the various “invocations” of the quality “infinity” to “explain” some phenomenon.

Any time an infinity is invoked it is done so to simply “sidestep” the question on the table (which, by the way, is ALWAYS a “pointer” toward God Himself).
 
seeker777 said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nickkname View Post
I came to know God because He came to me. That is how I know God exists.

Why doesn’t God come to everyone, in such a manner, that every individual would know in the depths of their hearts, that God has come to them.
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But He does, and many people DO know in the depths of their hearts!

But your question is directed at WHY He doesn’t FORCE that knowledge on everyone!

He doesn’t DO force! Since you (most likely) see “God” as some “cosmic machine” you have trouble seeing God as what He is, which is three persons.

A machine would (most likely) force people to accept it’s “Godliness”, while persons are “allowed”, due to their nature AS persons, to NOT use force but instead use “persuasion”.
God, being omniscient, would know exactly what it is he needs to do to reach everyone.
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If God did that, then everyone would be a believer and all 6.5 billion people on the planet would be Roman Catholics.
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No?
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If God were a machine He would do that. At least if He were a machine designed by you. Of course that would make YOU God’s God, now wouldn’t it?

And God’s God would be a person! How interesting! Every time we turn around, we see God as HAVING to be at least one person.

Alleluia, eh!? 🙂
 
seeker777 said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katholish View Post

Something simply does not come from nothing. …for although an enternal world might not be logically inconsistent, a beginningless chain of causes is.

By your logic, God being something, had to have been created.
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By “something” we mean “any creature/creation”.

That is where your logic fails you. You simply are using the wrong terms in your logic.
Who or what created God, as you said, something cannot come from nothing.
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Since God is not a “something”, this is not a properly formulated question.
I suppose that’s the problem with your argument, that everything has to come from something…except for God?
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Everything seems to need a creator by this argument, except for God? God gets a free pass.
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Do you at least agree that, given our knowledge of God, that your “argument” is “silly” according to our understanding of what “God” means?
 
CatsAndDogs said:
“Everything” means “non-God”, with one exception. The incarnated human body of Christ.

God has no beginning and no end because of the necessity of a first cause to explain the absurdity of “the infinities”.
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That’s a contradiction. You say, God caused the first cause. That in itself is a contradiction, as that makes God the cause that came before what you declare to be the first cause.

Just declaring something so ( God is the creator of the first cause) does not make it so.
 
seeker777 said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
“Everything” means “non-God”, with one exception. The incarnated human body of Christ.

God has no beginning and no end because of the necessity of a first cause to explain the absurdity of “the infinities”.

That’s a contradiction. You say, God caused the first cause. That in itself is a contradiction, as that makes God the cause that came before what you declare to be the first cause.
Click to expand...
God didn’t cause the first cause. He IS the first cause, which caused all subsequent causes.

God is the uncaused cause, not the first caused cause.
Just declaring something so ( God is the creator of the first cause) does not make it so.
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You seem to think that just declaring the uncaused cause to be the first caused cause makes the uncaused cause a contradiction, makes it so.

Your being self-contradicting. So, why should we believe you about descriptions of God as given us by God Himself via revelation through His Church?

Where is YOUR authority to say what you say? 🙂
 
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