Three Questions

[Tantum_ergo]

No, you can’t be certain it doesn’t exist. By that same token, can you be certain that it does exist?

Yes, but the certainty is not limited to only that which is capable of being proven in a ‘material’ or ‘physical’ way.

Your material or physical proof limitation can only give you ‘it may be so/it may not be so’ so that you’re in a perpetual stalemate. You must go ‘beyond’ the solely material or physical, since the subject itself (God) is Himself ‘beyond’ the solely material or physical.

Suppose you had a piece of fabric. Suppose that piece of fabric (we’ll say it is rayon which is man-made) was itself surrounded by a completely different piece of fabric (we’ll say it is silk) which is natural.

Now, there are properties of rayon which are similar to those of silk. But silk cannot be ‘deduced’ from rayon. If all one were able to judge materially and physically simply based on only knowledge of rayon fibers, one could not ‘prove’ by those man-made fibers that ‘natural’ fibers existed. One could have a pretty good idea (because the man-made came about from the natural at one point) but one could not ‘prove’ in the physical sense that because man-made rayon exists, silk exists.

Now suppose that somebody from the silk fabric world actually came at some point to the rayon fabric world, and left them with information about silk.

NOW you have the testimony of an eyewitness.

And now, you know that silk exists even if YOU personally haven’t seen it and even if it cannot be physically ‘proven’ to exist from your rayon world.

 

[UltimatePotato]

Yes, but the certainty is not limited to only that which is capable of being proven in a ‘material’ or ‘physical’ way.

Your material or physical proof limitation can only give you ‘it may be so/it may not be so’ so that you’re in a perpetual stalemate. You must go ‘beyond’ the solely material or physical, since the subject itself (God) is Himself ‘beyond’ the solely material or physical.

Suppose you had a piece of fabric. Suppose that piece of fabric (we’ll say it is rayon which is man-made) was itself surrounded by a completely different piece of fabric (we’ll say it is silk) which is natural.

Now, there are properties of rayon which are similar to those of silk. But silk cannot be ‘deduced’ from rayon. If all one were able to judge materially and physically simply based on only knowledge of rayon fibers, one could not ‘prove’ by those man-made fibers that ‘natural’ fibers existed. One could have a pretty good idea (because the man-made came about from the natural at one point) but one could not ‘prove’ in the physical sense that because man-made rayon exists, silk exists.

Now suppose that somebody from the silk fabric world actually came at some point to the rayon fabric world, and left them with information about silk.

NOW you have the testimony of an eyewitness.

And now, you know that silk exists even if YOU personally haven’t seen it and even if it cannot be physically ‘proven’ to exist from your rayon world.

How do you know that the silk prophet was telling the truth, and the people who claimed that the silk fabric world is actually in fact something different weren’t?

 

[Michael_Francis]

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