How do thiests reconcile the contradictions for God's existence?

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AlbertBall et al
As given in post # 34, go to newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm
You’ll find the proofs for the existence of God, there.

For interested Catholics, also:
The Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine (CD), Our Sunday Visitor, explains:
“Rational ‘proofs’ for the existence of God are constructed by looking at natural phenomena and then reasoning to a cause or a formal order of things beyond finite nature.
St. Thomas Aquinas’s five proofs for the existence of God (cf. CCC 32) are cases in point. Aquinas’s arguments presuppose that nature is not self-explanatory, and the force of each argument depends upon agreement that the human intellect can make legitimate inferences from the seen to the unseeable, from the finite to the infinite. Because modern philosophy begins with doubt, many philosophers now would limit the reach of the intellect to what can be verified by immediate sense experience or proved by testing hypotheses in a laboratory. The First Vatican Council (1869-1870), therefore, took great pains to defend the human mind’s integrity and its capacity to know spiritual as well as material realities.”

The ideas produced by the intellect show the spiritual nature of the human person.

Proofs of God’s existence (EWTN)
Answer by Richard Geraghty on Feb 12 2008:
Frank Sheed’s Theology and Sanity is a good start. Fr. Owens’ An Elementary Christian Metaphysics is the best book I know of but it is may prove difficult for beginners. Determined readers, however, could get a great deal out of it. Fr. Farrel’s Companion To the Summa book one, is also quite good.

Answer by David Gregson on March-12-2007:
For a simpler explanation of the five (and other) proofs, I recommend Peter Kreeft’s Fundamentals of the Faith, available in online bookstores.
 
hatsoff said:
Are you holding something back about those experiences? Because from what you’ve told me, they’re not fantastic at all. Only your interpretations of those experiences are fantastic.
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Yes, I am holding something back. A number of rather severe warnings.
 
Bob_Crowley said:
Yes, I am holding something back. A number of rather severe warnings.
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Warnings? I don’t understand. Is this just a quip about my supposed Hellish destiny, or did you experience something which you interpreted as a warning from God?
 
traillius said:
So I think I understand what you are saying. " God makes us choose, by giving us free will. The wrong choice has eternal and infinitely painful consequences. If the consequences force the “right” choice, then there is no valid willful choice. So therefore either God is non omnipotent, or God is not omnibenificent.
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Umm, no. That’s not at all what I was driving at. I never said that God’s threats cause us to act a particular way, negating our free will. I’m simply applying the law of the excluded middle to causation: either our decision-making is caused, or it is uncaused. If it is caused, then decision-making is determined by previous causes, which themselves were either caused or uncaused. If decision-making is uncaused, then it is, by definition, random. The only way around this reasoning is for you to make sense of some middle ground between “caused” and “uncaused,” but as I said, I see no middle ground.
Straw Man.
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Look at the pot calling the kettle black.
He is omnipotent in the sense of being able to do anything he wills.
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Just out of curiosity: Can he will himself to not be able to do all that he wills? In other words, can God use his omnipotence to abolish his omnipotence? If not, it’s hard to see that he is able to do all that he might will, unless you’re saying that he is unable to will such things. Personally, I’ve never been fond of those who try to psychoanalyze God, even when I was a believer.
This argument doesn’t disprove the existence of God, but is merely a confusion between what he "can " do and what he “wills” to do. Extrapolating that since you can’t or won’t differentiate this, God cannot exist because of the resulting apparant " contradiction " is a logical fallacy, because its a false dichotomy.
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I did not try to disprove God’s existence. I suggest that you actually read what I write instead of making things up.
 
Pope_Noah_I said:
  1. Just because God has immediate access to all our future actions doesn’t mean that we are coerced in anyway. We can still choose. He just knows how we will choose.
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Knowing a man is going to choose Hell, why then does God will that man into existence?

Isn’t creating a life, knowing ahead of time that the life will suffer for all of eternity in hell the opposite of benevolence?
 
Oreoracle
The idea of “evidence” exists in no other field but science. There is no such thing as non-scientific evidence.
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Such errors are what help to prevent reasoned thought. A cursory glance at a dictionary will show that evidence = that which makes evident or manifest; that which furnishes, or tends to furnish, proof; any mode of proof; the ground of belief or judgment: as, the evidence of our senses; evidence of the truth or falsehood of a statement.

Thus that Church which accepts the proofs of God’s existence from reason as evidence of reality, also built Western civilization – and the theology and philosophy of the Catholic Church motivated and enabled the flowering of science. As no other religious society had these crucial ideas, ALL others failed to spark scientific achievement. It is a classic example of cause and effect to produce a watershed in science.
MindOverMatter2
… we rationally accept the existence of other things without scientific evidence
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Of course we do – well said.
 
coolduude said:
For example, how is a thiest supposed to respond to the contradiction that states: can God make a rock so big He can’t lift it?
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I don’t know about all theists, but Christians believe in the LOGOS, which is not just the Word of God, it’s God’s Reason. Christianity is built on the concept that God is rational and does everything through and by his Reason. It’s this faith-based foundation from which western science emerged. (i.e. There is reason and a reason for the universe and everything in it. Not magical reasons, either.)

God is rational, therefore, his creation will reflect rationality. God is not “magical” in Christianity. The resurrection did not happen by “magic.” Miracles do not happen by “magic.” Laws are not broken just because something extraordinary occurred that we don’t, at present, understand.

Many Jews and Muslims and pagans seem to view God(s) as a magical being(s) that suspends laws of nature and rationality…because that’s just how rad He is.
Christians, however, do not view God this way. (or they shouldn’t)

The resurrection happened by the power of God, and the power of his Logos. Since Jesus, the Logos, said he had the power to lay down his life and the power to “raise it up again”, it is inferred that there’s a rational reason it occurred, not a magical reason.

Since we believe in a rational God that does everything through and by his Reason, we reject that he can be irrational. If he could create a rock so heavy that even he couldn’t lift it, there would be a rational reason why he could and why there is no contradiction, even if we, at present, don’t know how that can be.

From Pope Benedict XVI:

“Christianity must always remember that it is the religion of the “Logos.” It is faith in the “Creator Spiritus,” in the Creator Spirit, from which proceeds everything that exists. Today, this should be precisely its philosophical strength, in so far as the problem is whether the world comes from the irrational, and reason is not, therefore, other than a “sub-product,” on occasion even harmful of its development or whether the world comes from reason, and is, as a consequence, its criterion and goal. The Christian faith inclines toward this second thesis, thus having, from the purely philosophical point of view, really good cards to play, despite the fact that many today consider only the first thesis as the only modern and rational one par excellence. However, a reason that springs from the irrational, and that is, in the final analysis, itself irrational, does not constitute a solution for our problems. Only creative reason, which in the crucified God is manifested as love, can really show us the way. In the so necessary dialogue between secularists and Catholics, we Christians must be very careful to remain faithful to this fundamental line: to live a faith that comes from the “Logos,” from creative reason, and that, because of this, is also open to all that is truly rational.”
Or, if God knows everything we don’t have free will.
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Free-will is just about foresight vs. lack of, that’s it. God may know you’ll exercise foresight or you won’t, but that doesn’t mean he forced you to exercise foresight, or forced you not to exercise it.

For instance, let’s pretend you want a new car. If you exercise foresight you will probably get a job, start saving, so you can purchase a new car. If you do not exercise any foresight, you might instead just steal a new car.

Temptation, or the Tempter, is what could convince you that the second choice is a good idea after all, even if you know the first choice is the right choice. Temptation is what tries to convince you to commit idolatry, preferring lies to the truth of God. Basically justifying why being deliberately stupid is the better way to go. Neither God, nor the devil, forces you to be deliberately stupid, but only God knows if you will choose to be deliberately stupid. Understandably, deliberate willful stupidity offends a rational God.
 
AlbertBall said:
I don’t have to figure out anything, you have made a claim and i am asking you to justify it. You can’t!
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You asked for proof and I cheerfully gave it you, its not my fault if you’re too lazy to figure it out!
 
Bob_Crowley said:
Fantastic to you maybe. I don’t have an ounce of trouble believing him, due to my own “fantastic” experiences.
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hatsoff said:
Are you holding something back about those experiences? Because from what you’ve told me, they’re not fantastic at all. Only your interpretations of those experiences are fantastic.
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I’m pretty sure what he meant was, since he had experienced events that felt divine, he couldn’t simply dismiss an account of a similar experience in another.

Bob is right, there is a definite relationship between personal experience and level of outside evidence needed. I have had several experiences that have formed my belief system-no outside arguments, no matter how powerful, have had as much impact on my worldview than those experiences.

Because I have had them, I am forced to give more credence to similar experiences described by others. Since I’m not crazy or deluded, I have to accept that there must be others who describe similar experiences who are also not crazy or deluded, even if it’s impossible for me to know which are valid or not.

But had I not had any of those experiences, I doubt I would have come to believe in God at all, so I certainly understand the reasons for atheism.
 
Thing said:
You asked for proof and I cheerfully gave it you, its not my fault if you’re too lazy to figure it out!
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I’ll need to remember that one for my up and comming paper. 😃 Yeah i did to prove it Dr, its not my fault i offered ZERO evidence and you can’t figure it out! LMAO. If you call that evidence, no wonder you believe what you do. :rolleyes:
 
AlbertBall said:
I’ll need to remember that one for my up and comming paper. 😃 Yeah i did to prove it Dr, its not my fault i offered ZERO evidence and you can’t figure it out! LMAO. If you call that evidence, no wonder you believe what you do. :rolleyes:
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You did not request evidence, you asked for proof. So you’re just going to have to figure it out for yourself!
Theres another one for your paper.:coffeeread:
 
Thing said:
You did not request evidence, you asked for proof. So you’re just going to have to figure it out for yourself!
Theres another one for your paper.:coffeeread:
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No what i am going to to is throw your “proof” onto the scrap heap with every other so called “proof” of god. :rolleyes:

I figured it it a long time ago, and what i figured out is not one theist has a single shread of evidence that supports the existence of a god.
 
AlbertBall said:
No what i am going to to is throw your “proof” onto the scrap heap with every other so called “proof” of god. :rolleyes:

I figured it it a long time ago, and what i figured out is not one theist has a single shread of evidence that supports the existence of a god.
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So much for open minded atheism. You throw away what you request.😊
 
AlbertBall said:
No what i am going to to is throw your “proof” onto the scrap heap with every other so called “proof” of god. :rolleyes:

I figured it it a long time ago, and what i figured out is not one theist has a single shread of evidence that supports the existence of a god.
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Perhaps it is the other way around. Athiests don’t have a single shread of proof against God. 🤷
 
coolduude said:
Perhaps it is the other way around. Athiests don’t have a single shread of proof against God. 🤷
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Nor do Atheists have a single shred of proof that magical unicorns aren’t presently living in deep space. :confused:

A religious persons Insistence that an invisible supernatural being exits and can read the thoughts of every single human being on earth, is a positive claim.

The onus rests on the person making the positive claim to prove their statement true.

So no, it isn’t the other way around.
 
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