Natural "knowledge" of God's existence?

[PathDiagnosis]

Can anyone please elaborate on why you think it is a “natural position” to somehow “know” that God exists? Is it just the fact that every human civilization has been spiritual? I am not sure if I claim anything to be the “natural” position.

I’m intrigued at how God might be “naturally knowable”.

Is this supposed “knowledge” more like a “feeling” or “thirst” for the Divine?

Thanks.

 

[fhansen]

There’s an article on this topic which includes Aquinas’s five arguments for the existence of God here: newadvent.org/cathen/06608b.htm#I
Also read Rom 1:18-20 .

 

[Filius_Prodigus]

(PathDiagnosis,
Please tell where you heard it and whether you believe it is possible… for me those words you used in your first post are new to me.)

Perhaps those words refer to the idea of God as “the ground of being”, in other words the first cause. The first cause is a philosophical solution to the logical problem of the infinite regress, and to the quandary “Why something instead of nothing?”.

Nevertheless, this is the “God of the philosophers”, not the God of faith, and it appears to me the words you use in your first post confounds (or merges?) both, in a way I cannot intellectually grasp.

In any case, the Christian religion as understood by the Catholic Church is not the God of the philosophers but the God of faith, which is first and above all spiritual before simply intellectualizing or abstract in a quasi mathematical way. The God of the Catholics is Abbà, (father), the Divine incarnate (Son) and God with us (Holy Spirit). This is a far way from the abstract God “naturally knowable” of the philosophers.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Shouldn’t this be in the Philosophy section?

 

[Khalid]

I do not believe that God is inherently known, or a “properly basic” belief, as the belief in existence of other minds is: Alvin Plantinga argues this, and argues it well, but it is still too much of a Reformed religious epistemology, that is, with presuppositions that reason itself can never prove, but only demonstrate, God’s existence: for this reason I can not get behind it. There may be something that drives man to look for the divine; I know not. I do know that if a man looks for the divine, and has a solid foundation in philosophy, classic or modern - especially classic - the conclusion, the proof that God exists is inescapable.

I will demonstrate this using a few term-logic syllogisms. Let it be known that I am not using all of the proofs, let along arguments, for God’s existence, nor am I attempting to answer objections that can be made to them (of which I can write dozens of pages, sadly; both objections and rebuttals of the objections, through which I came to the conclusion the defenses were significantly stronger than the objections, and thus came to Theism); if and when objections are made, I will rebut them. I am presenting the arguments in the most simple form I know. I am presenting what is known as Al Ghazali’s Cosmological Proof below, which requires no acceptance of classical metaphysics to remain valid, as does Thomas Aquinas’ First Way, which is the Aristotelian analogy to this. The syllogisms in brackets are not essential to the argument, and are additions designed to answer common objections.

[1) Infinity can never be achieved by adding one finite number to another.]

[2) The series of temporal events is a set formed by adding one event after another.
3) A set formed by adding one event after another can not be actually infinite.
4) Therefore, the series of temporal events can not be actually infinite.]

Thus, with “past infinite” cosmology (whether in the context of chaotic inflation or steady-state model) disproved by the most easy method (in logic, not to mention the evidence of the Big Bang).

[1) The Universe is a series of temporal events.
2) No series of temporal events can be actually infinite.
3) Therefore, the Universe is not infinite.]

[1) Eternity is the actual infinite of time.
2) The Universe is not actually infinite.
3) Therefore, the Universe is not eternal.]

[4) If the Universe is not eternal, it began.]

The actual argument:

1) Everything that begins to exist had a cause.
2) The Universe began to exist.
3) Therefore, the Universe has a cause.

This is one of the four kinds of arguments that convinced me (counting all cosmological arguments, such as Aristotle’s, Aquinas’, Leibniz’s, Ghazali’s, etc. as one kind). I can defend what is called the “teleological argument” as well, and it supposedly converted Anthony Flew to Deism, but I put no stock in the argument myself, nor in any of the arguments based on a preponderance of empirical science instead of pure logic.

For further reading, I recommend The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, edited by William Lane Craig and JP Moreland.

The first cause is a philosophical solution to the logical problem of the infinite regress, and to the quandary “Why something instead of nothing?”.

That is the argument from a first cause, and the principle of sufficient reason, respectively. In any case, the “God of the Philosophers” led me to the “God of Faith”, and in the case of some of the arguments - the argument from Pure Actuality, the argument from morality - the two are one and the same. I believe Diagnosis remembers my post in his thread, “Why be spiritual?”, including what I said about “the God of the Philosophers”, Deism, Neo-Platonism, etc. - Christianity being the most logical choice, based on an inductive approach to predicting the shape of reality and true religion based on the attributes of the being shown necessary by the sum total of several different proofs of God - but based on evidence and induction, not deduction - and can interpret within that framework. The belief in God is not a matter of faith. It is a matter of rationality, of proof. The belief in Christianity, or any specific religion, is a matter of faith, at least to some degree (albeit not nearly the degree that Hume and Kierkegaard would have made it out to be).

PS Aquinas’ Quinquae viae, or Five Ways, will make no sense, or will seem absurd, to someone who has imbibed and taken for a foregone conclusion of truth a great deal of modern philosophy, and has rejected the metaphysics of the ancients, given that three of the five - and the best three of the five - rely on the Four Causes of Aristotle, and a Realist conception of reality. Then again, all knowledge - not just the knowledge of God - falls apart under conceptualist and nominalist conceptions of truth.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

(PathDiagnosis,
Please tell where you heard it and whether you believe it is possible… for me those words you used in your first post are new to me.)

Perhaps those words refer to the idea of God as “the ground of being”, in other words the first cause. The first cause is a philosophical solution to the logical problem of the infinite regress, and to the quandary “Why something instead of nothing?”.

Nevertheless, this is the “God of the philosophers”, not the God of faith, and it appears to me the words you use in your first post confounds (or merges?) both, in a way I cannot intellectually grasp.

In any case, the Christian religion as understood by the Catholic Church is not the God of the philosophers but the God of faith, which is first and above all spiritual before simply intellectualizing or abstract in a quasi mathematical way. The God of the Catholics is Abbà, (father), the Divine incarnate (Son) and God with us (Holy Spirit). This is a far way from the abstract God “naturally knowable” of the philosophers.

I think the most formal teaching of the Church on this so far has been in the First Vatican Council.

ewtn.com/library/councils/v1.htm

1. If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema

I highly recommend reading the whole of Session 3.

 

[Filius_Prodigus]

I think the most formal teaching of the Church on this so far has been in the First Vatican Council.

ewtn.com/library/councils/v1.htm

1. If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema

Therefore I am anathema. I do not think looking at nature can help you conclude there is a God.

Then again, if the Church accepts the reality of evolution, therefore it accepts the flowers, trees and lake I am seeing (and the natural species of germs, poison weeds, piranhas, snakes and other lethal predators) were not directly by God, only indirectly, by setting existence into motion. So there is no “Made in God Works LLC” sticker in nature. God isn’t the designer of every last virus and whale, but instead the ground of being, the remote agent of everything that exists. I agree with the Christian natural philosophers from the Bacon to Newton, for whom nature is autonomous, and with current Christian scientists for whom this autonomy is also in the development of the species. God cannot be credited with the Ebola virus.

 

[Khalid]

“Anathema” is excommunication squared. It’s not something you want to be on the wrong side of.

Other anathemas have been, “He who believes Christ was created…let him be anathema”, etc.

(Not counting the various false anathemas propagated by the Caesaropapist Byzantine Emperors.)

God created and sustains everything (including free will, of which the Fall is a result, and has ended in corrupted nature). The early modern scientists you’re speaking of (Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Spinoza) were either Deists or Pantheists (or, in the case of Newton, a decidedly heretical Arian). The “Grand Architect of the Universe”, or “God as Clockmaker”, is Deism.

 

[Sufjon]

Can anyone please elaborate on why you think it is a “natural position” to somehow “know” that God exists? Is it just the fact that every human civilization has been spiritual? I am not sure if I claim anything to be the “natural” position.

I’m intrigued at how God might be “naturally knowable”.

Is this supposed “knowledge” more like a “feeling” or “thirst” for the Divine?

Thanks.

You’ve posed an interesting question, and I have to say that I’ve always thought it to be the case that knowledge of God is part of the inherent wisdom of the species. How that works, I can’t say for sure, but I’m certain that it has something to do with the nature of consciousness and the intimation of a “presence.” Far deeper than the experience of sentient being, true consciousness lies eclipsed by the chatter of the nervous system. I think this is what we sense, and what we sense is shared, trans-personal and one with all things. Different cultures will express it as this thing or that, but the underlying spirituality that we all sense in one way or another is probably the only true reality. More than a thirst for the divine, I would posit that it’s the call of the “Self,” which is divine, omnipresent, and the home of all hearts. Just my take on it.

Your friend
Sufjon

 

[Aelred_Minor]

To be clear, anathema statements of past Ecumencial Councils no longer have canonical force. The teachings of those councils remain valid, however.

 

[Kathryn_Ann]

Well, I’ve always felt that seeing birds fly in perfect formation in the sky, and all of nature itself reveals the Hand of our Loving Father. :heaven:

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.

 

[Khalid]

To be clear, anathema statements of past Ecumencial Councils no longer have canonical force. The teachings of those councils remain valid, however.

So, for anathemas to remain valid, every single anathema must be re-stated in the canons of every new ecumenical council? I don’t think the Vatican Council II restated anathemas against Nestorians, Arians, Docetists, Patripassians, Eutychians, Monarchic Modalists, Iconoclasts, etc. (all of the ancient heresies, three of which - Unitarianism/Modalism, Arianism, and Iconoclasm, continue in strength amongst sectarians down to the present day), but I have to believe such heresies are still anathema.

Is there some sort of “enduring anathema” that is propagated, to cover these specific and recurring heresies?

 

[Aelred_Minor]

So, for anathemas to remain valid, every single anathema must be re-stated in the canons of every new ecumenical council?

They have to be kept “on the books” in some way, not necessarily by an ecumenical council. Currently, anathematization no longer exists at all, at least in the Latin Rite Church.

 

[Filius_Prodigus]

“Anathema” is excommunication squared. It’s not something you want to be on the wrong side of.

Other anathemas have been, “He who believes Christ was created…let him be anathema”, etc.

(Not counting the various false anathemas propagated by the Caesaropapist Byzantine Emperors.)

God created and sustains everything (including free will, of which the Fall is a result, and has ended in corrupted nature). The early modern scientists you’re speaking of (Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Spinoza) were either Deists or Pantheists (or, in the case of Newton, a decidedly heretical Arian). The “Grand Architect of the Universe”, or “God as Clockmaker”, is Deism.

Not necessarily. God doesn’t push every planet nor did he evolve wolves and foxes apart. I agree with James Hannam (linky and linky) that science was born in Catholic minds and precisely because these minds were Catholic, and they believed the nature was a creation of God autonomous from his direct agency. They derided those they called superstitious for believing in supernatural forces everywhere, which is --for me-- closer to animism than to Christianity.

 

[Michael19682]

As an experimental answer to your question, one might consider the difference between a himself and a stone. I know that I think, and that one of those thoughts is of infinity. I cannot verify that a stone thinks.

A question then arises. How can I verify that any given thing thinks? It seems ‘naturally knowable’ that other people think. Strictly speaking, however, I have no proof that others can think. Even when they tell me that they can think, this is not proof. At this stage of the proof, the difference between a lie and the truth is not introduced. The only psychosis I can experience is my own.

Other people are simply the most similar things to me that I can find. Their speech implies thought, but is not proof of thought. Infinity helps bridge the gap between people exactly because it cannot be grasped (for reasons that have been expounded in other posts). This is because all other kinds of thought refer to observations that are dependent on the nature in which other I and other people are embedded. Therefore, speech which refers to these objects is possibly a mere mechanical reaction to them and does not prove psychosis in the other. When I hear someone say “Stone”, the sound makes ‘me’ think of that object I call a stone. The stone itself also cannot be proven to think. It cannot therefore be something which generates thought. With this in mind, I now face in thought the dilemma of my own psychosis, which cannot derive itself because it cannot establish a source beyond or outside of itself. Nothing that it holds or grasps can give it thoughts, but still it is what I seek to identify in others.

Infinity however is a thought that aims at all of nature, most importantly, at people. It also is thought to encompass the natural process of the psychosis. Psychosis is a part of what I think of as in ‘the infinite’.

The opposite of infinity is zero, which is apprehended by the cessation of that stone. When I can not see it or hear water splashing over it, for example.

Somewhere in history, man - in our tradition it was the Jews - equated their psychosis with the infinite and called it God. They presumed, rightly or wrongly, that this psychosis was what created all things visible and not visible.

Jesus came and referred to Himself as the infinite God. Thus he identified with all men in their psychosis. In essence he is thought. Everyone knows the story of the resurrection and its proof that His body is immortal, everlasting. Technically, his resurrection doesn’t necessarily prove that he can think or is the psychosis because that can’t be seen. But the Church does offer this proof by intentionally re-equating the psychosis with Him in whom we have proof and by bringing men together in brotherhood, thus establishing that we are all alike by virtue of our need for each other (among many other ways). The closer and more similar to each other we know each other to be by virtue of this affiliation, the more we have proof that we all can think, have a psychosis - that is, a natural knowledge of infinity, and therefore of God.

Without depending on Jesus, and the Church he founded as proof, a man remains in his psychosis and is a dead end. He can not know the existence of others because he has no way of relating to them and can never have proof of existence beyond himself.

 

[GaryTaylor]

As an experimental answer to your question, one might consider the difference between a himself and a stone. I know that I think, and that one of those thoughts is of infinity. I cannot verify that a stone thinks.

A question then arises. How can I verify that any given thing thinks? It seems ‘naturally knowable’ that other people think. Strictly speaking, however, I have no proof that others can think. Even when they tell me that they can think, this is not proof. At this stage of the proof, the difference between a lie and the truth is not introduced. The only psychosis I can experience is my own.

Other people are simply the most similar things to me that I can find. Their speech implies thought, but is not proof of thought. Infinity helps bridge the gap between people exactly because it cannot be grasped (for reasons that have been expounded in other posts). This is because all other kinds of thought refer to observations that are dependent on the nature in which other I and other people are embedded. Therefore, speech which refers to these objects is possibly a mere mechanical reaction to them and does not prove psychosis in the other. When I hear someone say “Stone”, the sound makes ‘me’ think of that object I call a stone. The stone itself also cannot be proven to think. It cannot therefore be something which generates thought. With this in mind, I now face in thought the dilemma of my own psychosis, which cannot derive itself because it cannot establish a source beyond or outside of itself. Nothing that it holds or grasps can give it thoughts, but still it is what I seek to identify in others.

Infinity however is a thought that aims at all of nature, most importantly, at people. It also is thought to encompass the natural process of the psychosis. Psychosis is a part of what I think of as in ‘the infinite’.

The opposite of infinity is zero, which is apprehended by the cessation of that stone. When I can not see it or hear water splashing over it, for example.

Somewhere in history, man - in our tradition it was the Jews - equated their psychosis with the infinite and called it God. They presumed, rightly or wrongly, that this psychosis was what created all things visible and not visible.

Jesus came and referred to Himself as the infinite God. Thus he identified with all men in their psychosis. In essence he is thought. Everyone knows the story of the resurrection and its proof that His body is immortal, everlasting. Technically, his resurrection doesn’t necessarily prove that he can think or is the psychosis because that can’t be seen. But the Church does offer this proof by intentionally re-equating the psychosis with Him in whom we have proof and by bringing men together in brotherhood, thus establishing that we are all alike by virtue of our need for each other (among many other ways). The closer and more similar to each other we know each other to be by virtue of this affiliation, the more we have proof that we all can think, have a psychosis - that is, a natural knowledge of infinity, and therefore of God.

Without depending on Jesus, and the Church he founded as proof, a man remains in his psychosis and is a dead end. He can not know the existence of others because he has no way of relating to them and can never have proof of existence beyond himself.

Infinity doesn’t start at zero. Infinity is a straight line which extends in both directions infinitely. Zero is simply a place holder in a value system. Whats the sum of Zero and a Negative number? Umm not zero

And we most definately have proof others can think. Its a simple fact of short/long term memory, just like I remember infinite doesn’t begin with Zero. Animals/Humans can accomplish this. Creating becomes yet another aspect to contemplate as does transending. Thinking equates to memory in the sense that one could be taught something they never knew, thus remember the lesson taught. Creating from nothing still applies to thinking yet in a different context. Learned Behavior is memory. You notice humans don’t use a Glass to cut their food? They know fire burns, and the wheel rolls. So the process of thinking, learning and then applying the learned behavior is self evident.

The Spirit takes on another aspect, in that we are conscious of our hand, but our hand is not conscious, we are conscious of our brain, but our brain is not conscious. So the conscious can transend the body in time and space. So then the energy can live outside the matter of the body. If fact it must, it can’t be destroyed only displaced. In fact time and space is just a learning tool. When mankind has no further need to learn, it will cease to exist. God collapse’s time at will, he is not subjected to it, to His will we are. God collapsing time is exactly what a Miracle is. Such as the Miracle of the Sun at fatima. Which defys all laws of physics.

“Other people are simply the most similar things to me that I can find.” This would imply that you are somehow “unique”, wouldn’t you say?

Peace

 

[Michael19682]

Infinity doesn’t start at zero. Infinity is a straight line which extends in both directions infinitely. Zero is simply a place holder in a value system. Whats the sum of Zero and a Negative number? Umm not zero

And we most definately have proof others can think. Its a simple fact of short/long term memory, just like I remember infinite doesn’t begin with Zero. Animals/Humans can accomplish this. Creating becomes yet another aspect to contemplate as does transending. Thinking equates to memory in the sense that one could be taught something they never knew, thus remember the lesson taught. Creating from nothing still applies to thinking yet in a different context. Learned Behavior is memory. You notice humans don’t use a Glass to cut their food? They know fire burns, and the wheel rolls. So the process of thinking, learning and then applying the learned behavior is self evident.

The Spirit takes on another aspect, in that we are conscious of our hand, but our hand is not conscious, we are conscious of our brain, but our brain is not conscious. So the conscious can transend the body in time and space. So then the energy can live outside the matter of the body. If fact it must, it can’t be destroyed only displaced. In fact time and space is just a learning tool. When mankind has no further need to learn, it will cease to exist. God collapse’s time at will, he is not subjected to it, to His will we are. God collapsing time is exactly what a Miracle is. Such as the Miracle of the Sun at fatima. Which defys all laws of physics.

“Other people are simply the most similar things to me that I can find.” This would imply that you are somehow “unique”, wouldn’t you say?

Peace

Though it wasn’t the main point I was trying to make, since you took issue with it I will try to answer your objections. Infinity is plenitude and fullness beyond comprehension. Negative infinity is a negative number beyond comprehension. Zero is complete absence. You might call it ‘infinite absence’, a vacuum, or use the words ‘incomprehensibly infitesimal’. It is nothing at all. Jean Paul Sartre wrote a book about it. The philosophers of the East might attempt to say that infinity and zero are the same thing. (None of those works are Christian, and do not give us the person of Jesus and hence natural proof that we think).

Without the Church community of Jesus’ Church we have no proof that others can think. Short and long term memory can be accomplished with electronic circuits. A computer can recall data when the right keys are pressed. If a computer thinks, or claims it can think, it is in the same category as a person making the same claims insofar as proof is concerned. There is no proof either way. At mass the Priest says “All creation rightly gives you praise…” That’s part of our worship, our Catholic community; it is a statement made as a consequence in time of Jesus’ teaching. Thus a computer, part of creation, does give praise to God. That’s good for it.

I repeat, we need each other and to be as close to each other as possible if we are to approach a proof that others are thinking, conscious beings, like ourselves.

Your most problematic statement was in the apparent issue you took with the uniqueness of myself and everyone else. We are all configured uniquely if not only by virtue of our physical location and our sensory perspecitive of the universe. If I see a house or a stone from a certain angle or from atop a certain hill under a given day’s weather conditions, none of these things can be proven to repeat themselves for the next person who stumbles inebriated to my exact location and who happens to look at the house or stone from precisely the same same angle, or from atop the same hill under the exact same weather conditions. Lastly, if his consciousness isn’t deadn’d by too much beer he will have a host of associations in his brain, call them memories, which will further make impossible the likelyhood that we are the same person.

Jesus is unique also, so we believe. He says he will dwell with those who feed on him. That for such people, there is no difference between he and them. Since he is God and constant forever, he is the basis for our proof that others can think, are conscious. Only those with whom we share community, particularly the Eucharistic Sacrament, can support us in our hope that this existence isn’t a mad scheme of the devil, a kind of zero, a drunken slumber from which we awake to an even greater headache.

He allows us our uniqueness, and we are unique, because he is gentle and does not impose the full force of his being on his. That is called his wrath and the world has felt it the great wars of history. In the meanwhile, we await heaven, where conformity of thought is believed to occur because it is the place where proof of eternity is found.

 

[Khalid]

And we most definately have proof others can think.

Actually, we don’t. That’s a major problem in modern post-Hume philosophy, called “the problem of other minds”. Conceptualism and Nominalism reduce to Solipsism, and the problem is equally applicable to all non-realist skeptical philosophies.

I agree, like the “is-ought problem”, the problem of other minds is severely negated or rendered moot by a proper understanding of ontology, i.e. realism and essentialism.