How do you know that God exist’s?

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+JMJ+
John,
Your response to Kevin Walker-
john doran
Re: How do you know that God exist’s?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevin Walker

Because mathematics is dealing exclusively with abstractions, we assume, a priori, that numbers exist for the ease of understanding. Goedel just reminded us that not only is mathematics using nothing, but that nothing cannot prove itself (mathematics uses outside sources, logic for instance, to prove a mathematical statement.)

godel was actually an unabashed philosophical idealist who believed that **numbers actually exist as abstract objects **- that the number 1, for example, actually exists “out there” as a kind of platonic form…

John, Thank You!
This was my original thought, when I first started this thread. When I wrote “there are two truths: math and God”. I was trying to explain how to understand that God can be, the past present and future. This quote, pretty much sums it up – “that the number 1, for example, actually exists “out there” as a kind of platonic form… “
Respectfully Submitted,
 
john doran:
godel doesn’t show that 1+1 does not equal 2; he shows that 1+1 cannot be proven to equal 2…

one plus one does, in fact, equal two.
Click to expand...
O.K., so prove it. :hmmm:
 
Jimmy B said:
+JMJ+

**Kevin, **

Math problems can be represent in many forms, “pie-charts”, “graphs” and the use of objects (for counting). In your example, the apple is used to represent “One”, one object. Children, when first learning basic math, are taught by using objects that represent numbers. If a child were to place “One stick” along side another “stick”, he would now see and observe, “Two sticks.” 1+1=2.

A child could place one “stick” down, count it and say “One stick” when another “stick” is placed next to it, he could touch the first “stick” and say “one”, continue to count, using the objects in front of him (representative numbers) to do so, touch the second “stick” and then say “Two” and so on. To learn subtraction he could start with “Two-sticks” then when “One” is removed, 2-1=1. “One stick” plus “One stick” equals “Two sticks”. The is a form of representative math, a tool used for understanding a math problem in a tangible sense. The child can actually touch the representative “One” (object) and pick-up the second object, hold it, look at it and see it. Then he could physically count “Two” objects. Math doesn’t have to be presented in an abstract form. Therefore the Apple in your example is “One”; it represents “One” object.

Respectfully Submitted,
Click to expand...

Hi Jimmy B,

Yes Math problems do exist in many forms. But we were not talking about Math problems, we were speaking about numbers and Goedel’s theorem that mathematical statements do not prove themselves. Don’t forget what it is that makes mathematics work, - its logic. Math uses logic to function.

Next. An apple is definately ‘not’ a number. An apple is an object, and a number designates the quantity of that object, they are not one in the same.

So we have two distinct concepts: the physical reality of the apple, and the abstraction of numbers: [One] and then [Apple]; they are not the same. So if you remove one apple from the table, there is no number remaining. Numbers are not things, they are simply metaphors; and God is not a number nor can his existence be proven using arguments based on mathematics.
 
**

godel was actually an unabashed philosophical idealist who believed that **numbers actually exist as abstract objects **- that the number 1, for example, actually exists “out there” as a kind of platonic form…

John, Thank You!

This was my original thought, when I first started this thread. When I wrote “there are two truths: math and God”. I was trying to explain how to understand that God can be, the past present and future. This quote, pretty much sums it up – “that the number 1, for example, actually exists “out there” as a kind of platonic form… “

Respectfully Submitted,

Hi Guys,

You do realize that Platonism (and especially Neo-Platonism) was rejected by the Church in favor of Aristotelianism in the 12th centuries, and that the early Christian Platonists have officially been deemed by the Vatican as “in error” for the mysticism, demonology, pantheism, and fatalism inherent in Platonic philosophy? newadvent.org/cathen/12159a.htm
[New Advent]
So then any argumentation for the existance of God remotely based on Platonism is inapplicable to the Catholic Church.
 
**

godel was actually an unabashed philosophical idealist who believed that **numbers actually exist as abstract objects **- that the number 1, for example, actually exists “out there” as a kind of platonic form…

Hi Guys,
Since I am quite the Goedel fan, could you supply the website or another source for this quote?
Thanks! Kevin Walker
 
Hi Kevin,
I give up. It was interesting, but now I’m getting a headache :banghead:

GödelGödelGödelGödelGödelGödelGödelGödelGödelGödelGödel
I don’t know how this post got so off-topic?

Original post;
How do you know that God exist’s?
JMJ

How do you know that God exists’?

I have many reasons for believing in God’s existence. However, I am only listing one reason for my belief here. I would like to read how others have come to know that God exists.

Love,

**One reason I know God exists is based on love. Anyone that has a child can relate to what I am going to say next. When my oldest son was a toddler, I was sitting on the couch, watching TV, when he climbed onto my lap, facing me. He looked at me intently, as he drew his face closer to mine. He reached out, with his little hands and squeeze both of my cheeks. All the while staring directly into my eyes, then he leaned back, tilted his head and smiled, and said, “Daddy I Love you”. He reached his little arms around me and hugged me. I hugged him back and said, “I love you too son”, at that moment, along with many other blessed moments in my life; I experience pure, full, sincere, innocent love. The kind of love that completely fills your heart. **

**At that moment, it is as if God himself reached out, and with his finger, touched the center of my chest and I could feel the warmth of his love radiate outward from that point, throughout my entire body. **

**Moments like this don’t last long, but they are still awesome and important. The reason they are important, I believe, is that through the ones we love, God does reach out and touch us. Poof, in an instant, you are hit with a small amount of God’s love. I say small amount, because God’s love has no bounds. **

I am very blessed that I can remember this moment, a moment I shared with my father (God) and a moment my son shared with his father. There have been many, many moments like this in my life, as I’m sure you have experienced. It is our Father’s way of letting us know him and experience his love a little bit at a time. He is trying to let us know what we have to look forward to when we finally join him for eternity. I know love comes from God, because it is the only thing you can never grow tired of, or get too much of. How else could you enjoy all of eternity?

Pay attention, God is trying to let you know, He loves you!

Yours in Christ,
__________________
**:gopray2: Dominus Vobiscum :bible1: **

Yours in Christ,
***Jimmy Brousseau 👋 ***
***And the answer is: ***
LOVE!
 
+JMJ+

Kevin Walker

**Kevin, I ***googled "*Gödel" and found a ton of related web sites but I couln’t decide which one best applied, I couldn’t find the “Gödel” quote you were asking about, sorry,

**Catch you on the flip side brother 👋 . May God Bless You! Thanks for that great dialog! 👍 **
 
Kevin Walker:
O.K., so prove it. :hmmm:
Click to expand...
you can’t. but you can’t prove anything in that way…

doesn’t mean you can’t have knowledge about a great many things.
 
Kevin Walker said:
**

godel was actually an unabashed philosophical idealist who believed that **numbers actually exist as abstract objects **- that the number 1, for example, actually exists “out there” as a kind of platonic form…

Hi Guys,

Since I am quite the Goedel fan, could you supply the website or another source for this quote?

Thanks! Kevin Walker
Click to expand...

it’s not a quote, or anything, kevin - it’s just a synopsis of godel’s philosophical position.

you can find references to his being a platonist about numbers all over the place - i don’t actually have a link to one of his papers or letters where he comes out and states the position, though.

here’s an article on it, if you want to find it:

C Parsons, Platonism and mathematical intuition in Kurt Gödel’s thought, Bull. Symbolic Logic 1 (1) (1995), 44-74.
 
Kevin Walker:
You do realize that Platonism (and especially Neo-Platonism) was rejected by the Church in favor of Aristotelianism in the 12th centuries, and that the early Christian Platonists have officially been deemed by the Vatican as “in error” for the mysticism, demonology, pantheism, and fatalism inherent in Platonic philosophy? newadvent.org/cathen/12159a.htm
[New Advent]
So then any argumentation for the existance of God remotely based on Platonism is inapplicable to the Catholic Church.
Click to expand...
a couple of things here:
  1. the church only rejects those parts of any particular philosophical doctrine that are in conflict with its own revealed/traditional/declared doctrines. thus, while the church might have rejected the fatalism or pantheism or demonology of some platonists, it has nothing to say as to whether there are any such things as abstract objects or platonic forms.
  2. the view that there are abstract objects - e.g. sets, propositions, numbers - is a fairly common one, and is only “platonic” in the sense that it is a view that resembles plato’s thesis about the “Forms”.
  3. the church believes that the existence of god is knowable solely through reason; the church, again, is indifferent as to whether the argumentation that leads your reason to god is aristotelian, thomistic, or platonic, or whatever else.
 
+JMJ+

*We must always be ready “to inquire, in a rational way, into the things human reason can disclose concerning God.” *
***—***Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, I. 9. n. 4.
 
Wow what a collection of gibberish.

Sorry, I majored in math ( a long time ago, I admit ) but the only explanation that I could releate to was JimmyB’s story of his son expressing his love for him.

BTW 1+1 is not equal to 2 IF you use a different numbering system other than base 10. We had to prove this sort of thing, not this specific problem as it has to be defined or accepted as an axiom to start whatever system you were dealing with. (at least that is the way I remembered it, I hated those theory classes)

I know God exists because I know Love exists. I can not explain love, I know what it feels like, I can sense its presense, but I can’t touch it, define it mathematically, or physically. I can’t sell it to you nor can I buy it from you. Yet it is priceless, and can only be given away freely.

I don’t think God can be proven in mathematics, in physics or in logic or any other science or field of study with the one possible exception of theology.

I think God is like a paradox in Mathematics. He can’t be explained, seemingly contridictory, and baffling… we can state the problem, but we can not define a solution, similar to a black hole, we know it is there, but we can only look at it indirectly.

I know God is here, because I see Him in the marvels of nature and creation. I see Him in the love of my family and friends. I see Him in the vastness of the universe and the simplicity of the atoms that make up this universe. I especially see Him in the outpouring of love and concern for the folks in SE Asia. IF God were not here, I probably would not see Him in any of these things.

And I know this too is gibberish, as it’s my own opinion and my view of what God is to me.

wc
 
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wcknight:
Wow what a collection of gibberish.

Sorry, I majored in math ( a long time ago, I admit ) but the only explanation that I could releate to was JimmyB’s story of his son expressing his love for him.

BTW 1+1 is not equal to 2 IF you use a different numbering system other than base 10. We had to prove this sort of thing, not this specific problem as it has to be defined or accepted as an axiom to start whatever system you were dealing with. (at least that is the way I remembered it, I hated those theory classes)

I know God exists because I know Love exists. I can not explain love, I know what it feels like, I can sense its presense, but I can’t touch it, define it mathematically, or physically. I can’t sell it to you nor can I buy it from you. Yet it is priceless, and can only be given away freely.

I don’t think God can be proven in mathematics, in physics or in logic or any other science or field of study with the one possible exception of theology.

I think God is like a paradox in Mathematics. He can’t be explained, seemingly contridictory, and baffling… we can state the problem, but we can not define a solution, similar to a black hole, we know it is there, but we can only look at it indirectly.

I know God is here, because I see Him in the marvels of nature and creation. I see Him in the love of my family and friends. I see Him in the vastness of the universe and the simplicity of the atoms that make up this universe. I especially see Him in the outpouring of love and concern for the folks in SE Asia. IF God were not here, I probably would not see Him in any of these things.

And I know this too is gibberish, as it’s my own opinion and my view of what God is to me.

wc
Click to expand...
Hi WCKnight,

I personally don’t believe there is any “gibberish” on this thread. A slight digression took place to explain different opinions on the use of a mathematical argument for the existence of God.

I do believe in God, and I throw my intuition in there for good measure, but as yet, human intuition has yet to be quantified so I generally do not throw out the concept of intuition for general consumption.

Now, other than feelings or intuition, do you have an argument, i.e. a premise that is supported by its conclusion, either in the form of a syllogism or a sorite, that is all convincing that God is up there sitting on his throne? And if you don’t believe in an anthropormorphic God, offer your take on it also.

If you have an argument for the existance of God based on Love, please share it on this thread.

Thanks!
Kevin
 
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