Proofs

[031064]

Can anyone out their provide me with a logical set of proofs for God. I was thinking recetly, I have most of my basic Catholic aplogetics set, however, no real tangable proofs for God. Thanks a lot!

 

[JustaServant]

This is where I value the teachings of a charismatic preacher. He was doing a study on the Psalms in the OT.
Quite frankly, outside of Solomon, the Jews never seemed to try to ‘prove’ the existance of God. From those Psalms we learn David was always singing to the Lord. David learned that God was the Living God. In the Psalms, God is the Living God, who is and who makes Himself known to us. One cannot escape Him. He is not an abstract principle or just a point of theology. You cannot sing to a point of theology. He is a God who can be known. Praise to the Hebrews is not an empty expression. It is always praise with an object. God’s creation, his work in history, or His work in the life of the Psalmist. It is praise over against the idols of the day. The proof of God is everywhere around, when I see that, all I can do is praise.

 

[VociMike]

I’m not sure one can prove the existence of God, but one can give arguments for His existence.

Peter Kreeft’s site may be a good one to check.

peterkreeft.com/home.htm

 

[1holycatholic]

You need to start reading Philosophy, specifically Natural Theology.

Aquinas, Anselm, Boethius, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysus etc…

A lot of really bad philosophy is related to fideism (a key tenet of Luther and a keystone - the “Sola Fide” of Protestantism), which is contrary to what is written is scripture.
Luke 10:27:

He said in reply, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

Philosophy is divinely sanctioned.
Romans 1:19-20:

For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse;

There are true and false philosophies. You should be able to discern which is which.
Colossians 2:8:

See to it that no one captivate you with an empty, seductive philosophy according to human tradition, according to the elemental powers of the world and not according to Christ.

The one true God was unknowingly revealed by Greek philosophers.
Acts 17:22-34:

Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said: “You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious. For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.
He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us.
For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’ as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since therefore we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination. God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world with justice’ through a man he has appointed, and he has provided confirmation for all by raising him from the dead.”
When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We should like to hear you on this some other time.”
And so Paul left them.
But some did join him, and became believers. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the Court of the Areopagus, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Can anyone out their provide me with a logical set of proofs for God. I was thinking recetly, I have most of my basic Catholic aplogetics set, however, no real tangable proofs for God. Thanks a lot!

Depends what “God” is taken to mean:​

• Supreme/Necessary Being - as per Aristotle & Co.
  or
• He Who is revealed in Jesus Christ

• they are not the same It’s also possible that the God of Christian systematic theology is a third God-type: an uneasy compromise between Aristotle & the Biblical God.

Be that as it may, why try proving there is a God ? It’s obscene to try that, because it implies that God can be known apart from His gracious action - to “prove” God is, amounts to pulling God down to our level, so that we can manipulate Him The initiative is never with man - always it is with God.

The absence of proofs of God is a witness to his Transcendence - if He is not Transcendent, He is a worthless little idol: & idols exist only to be smashed.

 

[1holycatholic]

Depends what “God” is taken to mean:​

• Supreme/Necessary Being - as per Aristotle & Co.
  or
• He Who is revealed in Jesus Christ

• they are not the same It’s also possible that the God of Christian systematic theology is a third God-type: an uneasy compromise between Aristotle & the Biblical God.

Be that as it may, why try proving there is a God ? It’s obscene to try that, because it implies that God can be known apart from His gracious action - to “prove” God is, amounts to pulling God down to our level, so that we can manipulate Him The initiative is never with man - always it is with God.

The absence of proofs of God is a witness to his Transcendence - if He is not Transcendent, He is a worthless little idol: & idols exist only to be smashed.

Here is what the Church teaches:
IV. How Can We Speak about God?
usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect1.htm#39 39-43.

 

[BeeSweet]

Summa Theologica by Saint Thomas Aquinas

Part One Question 2 The Existence of God

 

[Believe_85]

Can anyone out their provide me with a logical set of proofs for God. I was thinking recetly, I have most of my basic Catholic aplogetics set, however, no real tangable proofs for God. Thanks a lot!

From the website: www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/aquinas3.html
Aquinas offers 5 proofs that God exists in Summa Theologia:

1. Motion: someone had to get the ball rolling
2. Efficient cause
3. Necessary existence
4. There is always something greater: God is Greatest
5. Divine plan of nature

The website above has the actual text and delineates the logical arguments for each of the above points.

 

[Believe_85]

Can anyone out their provide me with a logical set of proofs for God. I was thinking recetly, I have most of my basic Catholic aplogetics set, however, no real tangable proofs for God. Thanks a lot!

From the website: www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/aquinas3.html
Aquinas offers 5 proofs that God exists in Summa Theologia:

1. Motion: someone had to get the ball rolling
2. Efficient cause
3. Necessary existence
4. There is always something greater: God is Greatest
5. Divine plan of nature

The website above has the actual text and delineates the logical arguments for each of the above points.

 

[mlchance]

Can anyone out their provide me with a logical set of proofs for God. I was thinking recetly, I have most of my basic Catholic aplogetics set, however, no real tangable proofs for God. Thanks a lot!

There are two types of proof: scientific and evidential. There is no scientific proof for the existence of God, but there are plenty of evidential proofs, which the Bible itself alludes to. (And thus contradicts Gottle’s all-or-nothing stance above.)

Here are 20 arguments for God’s existence. Not a single one uses the scientific method, but the combined weight of all 20 as evidence goes a long way toward making a case which is beyond a reasonable doubt.

The same sort of exercise can be undertaken regarding the divinity of Christ, but that’s another topic.



– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Joe_5859]

Here are 20 arguments for God’s existence. Not a single one uses the scientific method, but the combined weight of all 20 as evidence goes a long way toward making a case which is beyond a reasonable doubt.

Thanks for that link! I’m jealous! I’ve been to Kreeft’s site many times but never found that page. I always browsed the “Featured Writing” page but missed the “More Featured Writing” page!

 

[mlchance]

Thanks for that link!

Not a problem. That particular link is basically just a rehash of a chapter from the excellent Handbook of Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli. Another worthwhile read is Thomas Dubay’s The Evidential Power of Beauty.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Steve40]

Can anyone out their provide me with a logical set of proofs for God. I was thinking recetly, I have most of my basic Catholic aplogetics set, however, no real tangable proofs for God. Thanks a lot!

The Second Law of Thermo Dynamics (entropy) says basically that things move from a higher ordered state to a lower or more disordered state. I also like to think of entropy as an energy balance fudge factor that allows us to balance energy equations given changes of physical state.

The high degree of order in in the state of lifeforms could not have come from the disorder in nature. Therefore lifeforms had to be formed other than by natural causes.

I call this understanding of the Second Law of Thermo Dynamics the conservation of information. Information as defined by the order in a physical state can only be created at a higher state of information and naturally decays to a lower state of information. Information is only created and lost. Information can not be naturally gained.