Evidence for God

[henrikhank]

What is you favourite existential eveidence for the existence of God?
Are there any good evidences for God that deal with existential questions?
What would you tell someone who consideres himself an agnostic?

 

[lmelahn]

What is you favourite existential eveidence for the existence of God?
Are there any good evidences for God that deal with existential questions?
What would you tell someone who consideres himself an agnostic?

Do you mean a philosophical proof for God’s existence? In my opinion, the only valid way is what philosophers call the via causalitatis.

The idea is, you start with some indisputable reality (but it has to be something real and concrete, like the many changes that are seen in world, or the differing intensity of goodness and beauty, and things like that: not abstractions or logical propositions). From there, you deduce that this reality must have an ultimate cause (because things can’t cause themselves, and real effects must have real causes). If we reflect on how multiplicity and change work, we note that there can be only one First or Ultimate Cause; and this must be God.

That is the via causalitatis in a (very brief) nutshell, made famous by Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways.

I don’t know if the Five Ways are all that useful as a pastoral practice to help an agnostic, unless he is extremely sharp and intellectual. They are extremely useful in order to understand how reality works (which is the subject of the discipline of metaphysics), but they certainly do have a learning curve.

Perhaps a more interesting approach is to use the same method (the via causalitatis) but this time taking properly supernatural realities into account.

For example, how do we account for the fact that many thousands of people have given up their lives for the sake of Jesus Christ? Are they all deluded? How do we account for the fact that hundreds of young women enter, say, the Missionaries of Charity, so as to serve the poorest of the poor? I think we all agree that Blessed Theresa of Calcutta was not deluded, but it also not realistic to think that young women would do the work that the Missionaries do unless they had supernatural help.

Or else look at the Church. There is a story told about Napoleon Bonaparte. He wanted to claim an imperial authority that was greater than the Church’s: for example, he famously abducted Pope Pius VII, made the Pope crown him emperor, and then, at the last moment, seized the crown from the Pope’s hands and set it upon his own head. In any event, at one moment he was negotiating with a cardinal; in a moment of frustration he declared, “Do you not realize that I have the power to destroy the Church?” The cardinal replied, “Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1,800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.”

There is a lot of truth to that. How has the Church survived its long history of heresies, schisms, sandals, sins, debacles, and intrigues, and yet still produces such examples of holiness today?

As you can see the reasoning is actually the same: take an undeniable reality and see that it can only have been brought about by supernatural help. The difference is that we are starting with realities that are, so to speak, closer to the Creator, and hence it is easier to see the connection.

 

[davidzim]

What is you favorite existential evidence for the existence of God?
I know it is a bit nerdy, but I had an agnostic math genius friend in high school who once wrote a mathmatical proof that God existed. He wrote e^(pi*i) + 1 = 0. Therefore God exists. It is not a super helpful proof if you don’t understand equation, but if you do, I think it is a compelling case for the fact that there is something else out there other than humans. If that doesn’t work, I have found Al Plantinga’s approach to be refreshing. (Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God)

Are there any good evidences for God that deal with existential questions? There are tons of evidences for God. One of my favorites is a young man I met in Evansville, IN. He told me that he was sitting on his front step one day pondering whether God really heard everything he said, so he said to air, “God, if you are real, make the lights on that car down the street blink on and off. In 5 seconds!” He started counting aloud. When he got to 3, a man walked out of his house. When he got to 5, the man pressed his key fob and the lights on the car blinked on and off! My friends faith was greatly built up by that moment. I don’t usually recommend that sort of test, God is a real person and sometimes answers those sorts of things.

What would you tell someone who considers himself an agnostic?
I think it would depend on your relationship. It is very hard to tell someone who doesn’t trust you to trust something you are talking about that they haven’t experienced. In my experience, the most important part of introducing someone to God is being a part of his life. As Pope Francis writes in Evangelii Gaudium, “Evangelization consists mostly of patience and disregard for constraints of time.” (paragraph 24) I find that most of the sincere agnostics I know want to be academically rigorous with regard to what they believe. This is an admirable effort, and very difficult in today’s age of misinformation and propaganda. I told one friend of mine with whom I am able to be very frank, “I think I can understand why you have a hard time believing in God. Some aspects of him are hard to understand. But if you do ever want an introduction, or want to ask him anything, just let me know. Until then, it is always great to talk to you.”

 

[Took2Long]

I take Paul’s letter to the Corinthians as the best existential proof of God. Many are familiar with his words in his first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13: his words on love. Love, proves God’s existence to me. We all try and explain love and rationalize what it is that we feel. When pressed to explain it, however, I can’t do it. I was an agnostic most of my life. I fell into the false belief that science held an explanation to everything. Faith in science and reason became my false god. But Paul’s writing on love moved me. Even to an unbeliever, those words are powerful and meaningful, because love is something we do all believe in…though we can’t completely explain it. It isn’t like love is necessary if we only believe us to be cosmic accidents that have crawled out of the primordial ooze. It is not necessary for purely evolutionary purposes. We could still procreate and pass along our genetic information without love. Many animals do exactly that. Some humans have made the choice to do so as well, unfortunately. But love is a gift. For those of us that choose to participate in the gift of love, we know it to be the great gift from God. And just as Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians, when we no longer need faith and hope, love will remain. In this life we still need faith and hope. When we leave this life, I believe we will have our hopes and faith answered as we stand before God. We will no longer have a need for those two things. Love, though, will not vanish. I believe we are being prepared to love in the next life by participating in the emotion of love in this life. We need love…we excel with love…yet love is not easily explained, or defined. That is why I find it to be existential proof of God. I hope my wordy answer has helped.

 

[Karen107]

You might tell the person to look at all the beauty in nature and how it works together so well. This is because the Created were from the intelligent mind of God. We are the fruits of God. We all have a desire to be good, even the worse of us may be good to someone. We can’t be self-created, because we’re just not that supernatural. God started this all, and God is with us and reminds us we are with Him through signs which are His miracles. Signs in the clouds, with nature (look at all the prayers for the phillipines and the storm weakened)… healing signs. prayers answered surrounding shrines of Our Lady…

Its funny that even the best of atheists Steven Hawkings did not recognize that God worked in his own life since early on. He was diagnosed with ALS when he was 21 and is still with us at the age of 72. The normal lifespan of someone with ALS is 3 to 5 years. Now in a very small number of people the age limit can be longer but I happen to believe that God has in mind that he should live longer for a reason. So I might say to someone who is agnostic to look for signs of God in our world. Our world has the fingerprints of Gods intelligent design all over it. We are made in the image and likeness of God, so just think of us, we have a mind to create or engineer as Our God does only God is without limits as to what He can create.

God speed!

 

[wmw]

Why be limited to the “existential”. Real physical evidence appears and has verified witnesses of the miracles.

Top-10-astonishing-miracles

 

[henrikhank]

What do you say about this?:
God is the ground of our existence or even existence itself (Thomas talked about Ipsum esse). How can anything exist if existence itself doesn’t exist?
Is this good or bad reasoning?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

What do you say about this?:
God is the ground of our existence or even existence itself (Thomas talked about Ipsum esse). How can anything exist if existence itself doesn’t exist?
Is this good or bad reasoning?

Yes, that is similar to the proof for God’s existence given by St. Thomas in his essay Existence and Essence and reads as follows:

" 80. Now, whatever belongs to a thing is either caused by the principles of its nature, as the ability to laugh in man, or comes to it from some extrinsic principle, as light in the air from the influence of the sun. But it cannot be that the existence of a thing is caused by the form or quiddity of that thing ─ I say caused as by an efficient cause ─ because then something would be its own cause, and would bring itself into existence, which is impossible. It is therefore necessary that every such thing, the existence of which is other than its nature, have its existence from some other thing. And because every thing which exists by virtue of another is led back, as to its first cause, to that which exists by virtue of itself, it is necessary that there be some thing which is the cause of the existence of all things because it is existence alone. Otherwise, there would be an infinite regress among causes, since every thing which is not existence alone has a cause of its existence, as has been said. It is clear, therefore, that an intelligence is form and existence, and that it has existence from the First Being, which is existence alone. And this is the First Cause, which is God. "
dhspriory.org/thomas/english/DeEnte&Essentia.htm

To really understand what St. Thomas is talking about, one should read the whole essay or at least the previous two paragraphs - it is a complex study.

Basically it means that all the things which exist except God share in one perfection, existence. And since they all have it, and in different degrees, this perfection can only be caused by He who Subsistent Existence Himself, God.

And Dr. Peter Kreeft give 20 proofs for the existence of God.

strangenotions.com/god-exists/

Pax

Linus2nd

 

[Neoplatonist]

Yes, that is similar to the proof for God’s existence given by St. Thomas in his essay Existence and Essence and reads as follows:

" 80. Now, whatever belongs to a thing is either caused by the principles of its nature, as the ability to laugh in man, or comes to it from some extrinsic principle, as light in the air from the influence of the sun. But it cannot be that the existence of a thing is caused by the form or quiddity of that thing ─ I say caused as by an efficient cause ─ because then something would be its own cause, and would bring itself into existence, which is impossible. It is therefore necessary that every such thing, the existence of which is other than its nature, have its existence from some other thing. And because every thing which exists by virtue of another is led back, as to its first cause, to that which exists by virtue of itself, it is necessary that there be some thing which is the cause of the existence of all things because it is existence alone. Otherwise, there would be an infinite regress among causes, since every thing which is not existence alone has a cause of its existence, as has been said. It is clear, therefore, that an intelligence is form and existence, and that it has existence from the First Being, which is existence alone. And this is the First Cause, which is God. "
dhspriory.org/thomas/english/DeEnte&Essentia.htm

To really understand what St. Thomas is talking about, one should read the whole essay or at least the previous two paragraphs - it is a complex study.

Basically it means that all the things which exist except God share in one perfection, existence. And since they all have it, and in different degrees, this perfection can only be caused by He who Subsistent Existence Himself, God.

And Dr. Peter Kreeft give 20 proofs for the existence of God.

strangenotions.com/god-exists/

Pax

Linus2nd

This ties into a conversation I was having on a different thread. Can you clarify what you think it even means, in coherent terms, to say some things exist in greater degree than others? Are we “less real” than God?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

This ties into a conversation I was having on a different thread. Can you clarify what you think it even means, in coherent terms, to say some things exist in greater degree than others? Are we “less real” than God?

Some things are better or more beautiful or more powerful, or possess life more completely, etc. For example a flower is more beautiful than crab grass, a man possesses life more completely than a flower, etc. Therefore some things possess the act of existence more perfectly than others, because a thing possesses existence to the degree of its natural perfections. This is not an exact comparison of the various degrees, it merely shows how some things can exist more perfectly than others.

Then in a general way one has to see that since all things possess an act of existence, none of them can possess it perfectly. And since none of them possess it perfectly none of them can be the cause of existence either of itself or of any other thing. Therefore there has to be a First cause of the existence of all other things, which is itself perfect in existence, and this we call God.

Pax
Linus2nd

 

[Neoplatonist]

Some things are better or more beautiful or more powerful, or possess life more completely, etc. For example a flower is more beautiful than crab grass, a man possesses life more completely than a flower, etc. Therefore some things possess the act of existence more perfectly than others, because a thing possesses existence to the degree of its natural perfections. This is not an exact comparison of the various degrees, it merely shows how some things can exist more perfectly than others.

Then in a general way one has to see that since all things possess an act of existence, none of them can possess it perfectly. And since none of them possess it perfectly none of them can be the cause of existence either of itself or of any other thing. Therefore there has to be a First cause of the existence of all other things, which is itself perfect in existence, and this we call God.

Pax
Linus2nd

I certainly understand more and less beautiful. It would follow, but still seems strange, that a more beautiful person is more real than the rest of us, right? Or that a more beautiful painting exists more fully than a hideous one. Just not sure how we can understand more/less being-ness without recourse to a decent analogy of some sort (like waking vs dreams or optical illusions vs accurate perception).

 

[lmelahn]

I certainly understand more and less beautiful. It would follow, but still seems strange, that a more beautiful person is more real than the rest of us, right? Or that a more beautiful painting exists more fully than a hideous one. Just not sure how we can understand more/less being-ness without recourse to a decent analogy of some sort (like waking vs dreams or optical illusions vs accurate perception).

If you are a Neoplatonist, then it is should be obvious that things possess being (understood as a things’s the most fundamental perfection) to a greater or lesser degree .

Things are beautiful, or true, or good, to differing degrees precisely because they “are” to differing degrees (even though that sounds strange to our modern ears).

This is an idea that St. Thomas borrowed from Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a fifth-century Christian Neoplatonic writer.

So, yes, beautiful things have more “being” than hideous ones. That makes sense if you think about it, because what makes something ugly is that it is lacking something it ought to have (generally a lack of order and proportion).

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I certainly understand more and less beautiful. It would follow, but still seems strange, that a more beautiful person is more real than the rest of us, right? Or that a more beautiful painting exists more fully than a hideous one. Just not sure how we can understand more/less being-ness without recourse to a decent analogy of some sort (like waking vs dreams or optical illusions vs accurate perception).

I think another way to look at it is this. St. Thomas said that we can conceive of and understand any created nature/substantial form but that does not mean it actually exists. For example, I can understand the nature of a horse or even of a Sphinx or even of a triangle. But that does not mean any of these actually exists. That means that existence is an act which makes a nature an actually existing thing. In other words, the act of existence is a property of actually existing things which makes them actually existing natures.

It stands to reason that the amount of existence a thing has, the perfection of its act of existence, is proportionate to the amount of its other perfections. Therefore each thing has a different amout of the act of existence in relation to every other actually existing thing.

Therefore, since no existing nature in the universe has the totality of the perfection of existence, none of them could possibly be the cause of its own existence or the existence on any other thing. Consequently, the existence of any thing in the universe must come from some source, not a part of the universe, which possesses Perfect Existence Itself ( Ipsum Esse Subsistens, which has the power to bestow the act of existence on all other things. And this we call God.

Pax
Linus2nd

 

[The_DNA_Rose]

What is you favourite existential eveidence for the existence of God?
Are there any good evidences for God that deal with existential questions?
What would you tell someone who consideres himself an agnostic?

All scripture was written by a human with a writing implement. Every bit of it.

The evidence for God, is that we are…

 

[Aloysium]

. . . The evidence for God, is that we are…

And, I would add, that we exist as self in relation to other.
The perfect relationship involves a giving of ourselves to, and in doing so achieving communion with what is other.
At our foundation, we exist in relation to God who is Love and our Creator.

 

[DanAl]

This ties into a conversation I was having on a different thread. Can you clarify what you think it even means, in coherent terms, to say some things exist in greater degree than others?

Depends on what you mean by degrees. We’re contingent, God is necessary, God is one, we’re composite beings, and God is omnipotent while we’re not. Aristotle was wise, while God’s wisdom is eternal, infinite, etc.

 

[Nixbits]

Linusthe2nd:

Some things are better or more beautiful or more powerful, or possess life more completely, etc. For example a flower is more beautiful than crab grass, a man possesses life more completely than a flower, etc. Therefore some things possess the act of existence more perfectly than others, because a thing possesses existence to the degree of its natural perfections.

‘Better’, ‘more beautiful’ and ‘more powerful’ are all subjective assessments. I think crab grass is much more beautiful than the flower of the birthwort (Aristolochia gigantea). It all depends on personal preference.

How do you conclude that a man possesses life more completely than a flower? What about in comparison to an oak tree. Oaks can live much longer and are much harder to destroy than a man. So they must ‘possess life more completely’, is that right?

The oak tree outside my house looks to be an almost perfect specimen. It’s magnificent. It is almost perfect at being an oak tree. I’m far less accomplished at being a human being. So it must possess existence more perfectly than me, is that right? No, I don’t think so.

Things don’t ‘possess the act of existence’. That sort of alleged ‘reasoning’ is just twisting words out of shape until they have no meaning at all. Things either exist, or they do not, at a given point in time and space. Things can exist for a longer or shorter time than another thing. Things can be better or worse in a whole list of categories. But the degree to which something ‘possesses the act of existence’ is not meaningful as an objective assessment.

 

[lmelahn]

‘Better’, ‘more beautiful’ and ‘more powerful’ are all subjective assessments. I think crab grass is much more beautiful than the flower of the birthwort (Aristolochia gigantea). It all depends on personal preference.

Just a question: you don’t think that a human being is a more noble thing than an Aristolochia gigantea? And that there is no objective basis for that difference?

How do you conclude that a man possesses life more completely than a flower? What about in comparison to an oak tree. Oaks can live much longer and are much harder to destroy than a man. So they must ‘possess life more completely’, is that right?

The oak tree outside my house looks to be an almost perfect specimen. It’s magnificent. It is almost perfect at being an oak tree. I’m far less accomplished at being a human being. So it must possess existence more perfectly than me, is that right? No, I don’t think so.

This, I am afraid, is exactly what we mean when we say we should not compare apples to oranges . (Even though we actually can, so long as we keep certain things in mind.)

Seriously, though, a thing’s intrinsic nobility (i.e., “beauty”) has two dimensions. It has a certain nobility just for being what it is, and a different kind for realizing its potential.

It is obvious (I think) that human beings are a more noble kind of thing than oak trees. So, no matter how much of disaster I am, nothing can take away from the fact that I am a superior kind of thing to that perfect oak tree.

On the other hand, a perfect oak tree is superior to (and yes, more beautiful than) a stunted oak tree. And a perfect man (say, Jesus Christ or the Blessed Virgin Mary) is more perfect (and more beautiful) than I am.

So I agree: in absolute terms, it would be absurd to say that a perfect oak tree is more beautiful than a human being (no matter how badly off the man is).

Things don’t ‘possess the act of existence’. That sort of alleged ‘reasoning’ is just twisting words out of shape until they have no meaning at all. Things either exist, or they do not, at a given point in time and space. Things can exist for a longer or shorter time than another thing. Things can be better or worse in a whole list of categories. But the degree to which something ‘possesses the act of existence’ is not meaningful as an objective assessment.

Well, that is why I don’t like to speak in terms of an “act of existence,” but rather of an “act of being,” which is a slightly different notion. “Existence” is on or off, yes or no. The concept of “being” offers more possible shades of meaning.

The idea is actually simple: what is it that makes a man more perfect than an oak tree, simply because he is a man? Is there some principle, intrinsic to the man or oak, that makes it so? Unless we are prepared to say that God, by arbitrary fiat, makes men superior to oaks (or else that there is no ontological difference between and oaks), then we will need to answer “yes.” That radical, intrinsic source of perfection we call the “act of being.”

A man, if you will, has a more “intense” act of being than an oak tree. Whether the man (or oak) gets a chance to fulfill all the potential of his act of being is another story. (And obviously, a man has much, much more potential than an oak tree ever could.)

 

[Charlemagne_III]

What is you favourite existential eveidence for the existence of God?

Sacred music.

There is no way to account for its power over the soul except by being taken as evidence that there truly is a Power that takes over the soul if we just let it happen.

youtube.com/watch?v=6KUDs8KJc_c

 

[Charlemagne_III]

What would you tell someone who consideres himself an agnostic?

Why are you certain of being uncertain?

“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.” Revelation 3:16