Existence of God

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Indy2003

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What are the “Proofs for the existence of God”? I remember them called the Apologetics.
 
Indy2003 said:
What are the “Proofs for the existence of God”? I remember them called the Apologetics.
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I remember them called unconvincing now that we have access to information about the natural world.
 
StrawberryJam said:
I remember them called unconvincing now that we have access to information about the natural world.
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I don’t know if there may have been lesser “proofs” that are now less convicing now that we know more about the natural world. The intelligent design, “watchmaker” argument comes to mind as a possibility, but this was always a very juvenile attempt at a proof. The more serious proofs for God, the idea of God as the First Cause above all, are not in any way deminished by our increased knowledge of how the created world works.
 
ClearWater said:
To those who don’t believe, they are called “unconvincing”, but to believers, they are not.
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This is a poor argument. It makes us sound like irrational fideists. The logical proofs are compelling because they really are logical.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
I don’t know if there may have been lesser “proofs” that are now less convicing now that we know more about the natural world. The intelligent design, “watchmaker” argument comes to mind as a possibility, but this was always a very juvenile attempt at a proof. The more serious proofs for God, the idea of God as the First Cause above all, are not in any way deminished by our increased knowledge of how the created world works.
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We will have to disagree.
However, anytime someone links the ID movement with anything described as very juvenile I can not hide my pleasure. 🙂
 
StrawberryJam said:
We will have to disagree.
However, anytime someone links the ID movement with anything described as very juvenile I can not hide my pleasure. 🙂
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I should clarify that there may be variations on the intelligent design idea that are actually intelligent. I am refering only to the crudest version of it: that the complexity of living things or other natural phenomina implies a design and fabrication process closely analogous to human invention and craftmanship.

With regard to the First Cause, since the natural phenomena investigated by science would all qualify as secondary causes no increase in the understanding of them will have an impact on the logic of that proof. Philosophers may come up with relevant arguments against it, but not scientists.
 
There are a lot. Some are good, some aren’t.

Personally, I think Aquinas’ first way (properly understood) and Lonergan’s proof are convincing.
 
Indy2003 said:
Could you be more specific as to why they are “unconvincing”?
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Perhaps what ClearWater means is that we in the western world have in a sense lost a “taste for God”; regardless of what proof there may be, simple or complex, people won’t believe in God or act like there is a God because they simply don’t want to. They’d rather do what they want and have unrestrained ‘freedom’.
 
 
buffalo said:

  1. *] The Argument from Change
    *] The Argument from Efficient Causality
    *] The Argument from Time and Contingency
    *] The Argument from Degrees of Perfection
    *]The Design Argument
    *]The Kalam Argument
    *]The Argument from Contingency
    *]The Argument from the World as an Interacting Whole
    *]The Argument from Miracles
    *]The Argument from Consciousness
    *]The Argument from Truth
    *]The Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God
    *]The Ontological Argument
    *]The Moral Argument
    *]The Argument from Conscience
    *]The Argument from Desire
    *]The Argument from Aesthetic Experience
    *]The Argument from Religious Experience
    *]The Common Consent Argument
    *]Pascal’s Wager
    *]
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  1. Thank you.

    I liked this one in the ‘intelligent design’ argument -

    And as Ravi say’s it’s like assuming the dictionary came about by an explosion in a printing press, people like Dawkins might be able to calculate the probability of that happening, a number which cannot even be pronounced, but I would like to see someone pick up a dictionary and try to convince people that that particular dictionary he has in his hand came about by an explosion in a printing press. 😃
    Question 1: Hasn’t the Darwinian theory of evolution shown us how it is possible for all the order in the universe to have arisen by chance?
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    Reply: Not at all. If the Darwinian theory has shown anything, it has shown, in a general way, how species may have descended from others through random mutation; and how survival of these species can be accounted for by natural selection—by the fitness of some species to survive in their environment. In no way does it—can it—account for the ubiquitous order and intelligibility of nature. Rather, it presupposes order. To quote a famous phrase: “The survival of the fittest presupposes the arrival of the fit.” If Darwinians wish to extrapolate from their purely biological theory and maintain that all the vast order around us is the result of random changes, then they are saying something which no empirical evidence could ever confirm; which no empirical science could ever demonstrate; and which, on the face of it, is simply beyond belief.
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    I think this perfectly addresses materialists like Richard Dawkins.

    I also find this by C.S. Lewis very good.

    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 [and Mathematicians] as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts - i.e., Materialism and Astronomy [and Mathematics] - 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

    Hence, if we are here by mere accidents, than objective truth cannot exist, because as he rightly puts it, it would be 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, and we all know that objective truth does exist, hence the philosophy that there is no truth only perception has to be false, because regardless of perception, we cannot change realities like the fact that maths will always have to add up and the Earth’s gravity will always be 9.78 m/s², the numbers might be percieved differently, but when “translated” they must be the same regardless of perception.

    The very notion of ‘translation’ would be nonsense unless there were an objective truth that could be translated.
 
josh987654321 said:
Thank you.

I liked this one in the ‘intelligent design’ argument -

And as Ravi say’s it’s like assuming the dictionary came about by an explosion in a printing press, people like Dawkins might be able to calculate the probability of that happening, a number which cannot even be pronounced, but I would like to see someone pick up a dictionary and try to convince people that that particular dictionary he has in his hand came about by an explosion in a printing press. 😃

I think this perfectly addresses materialists like Richard Dawkins.

I also find this by C.S. Lewis very good.

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 [and Mathematicians] as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts - i.e., Materialism and Astronomy [and Mathematics] - 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

Hence, if we are here by mere accidents, than objective truth cannot exist, because as he rightly puts it, it would be 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, and we all know that objective truth does exist, hence the philosophy that there is no truth only perception has to be false, because regardless of perception, we cannot change realities like the fact that maths will always have to add up and the Earth’s gravity will always be 9.78 m/s², the numbers might be percieved differently, but when “translated” they must be the same regardless of perception.

The very notion of ‘translation’ would be nonsense unless there were an objective truth that could be translated.
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StrawberryJam said:
I remember them called unconvincing now that we have access to information about the natural world.
Click to expand...
I believe the word “proof” is a misrepresentation of these arguments, it is better to look at them as clues, as evidence and collectively, the evidence for the existance of God (while it cannot be conclusively proved) is quite overwhelming, they can prove God’s existance far, far beyond a resonable doubt, but there will always be doubt, so if your looking for something that will conclusively prove, you will never find it, not for God and not for materialism or any kind of worldview, you can’t even prove the non existance of a worldview nor the existance of one.

Also, I am reading a book by C.S. Lewis called “Mere Christianity” and I have found that materialists etc have said the very same thing back when C.S. Lewis was alive (unconvincing now that science can explain so much about the natural world), so no new scientific discovery has ever discounted God, it’s only people Like Dawkin’s who wish to pretend as if it does, when it never has and never will, because the architect, nor the builder is a part of the house like the bricks or walls are.

So science cannot disprove/prove God anymore than you can disprove/prove the builder or architect by looking at the house.

If you are ever interested StrawberryJam, theres is a book called “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis that I have really enjoyed, if you ever come accross it, it’s a good read 👍

Thank you for reading
Josh
 
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