What would count as absolute proof that God exists?

[RCCB]

So as not to boor anyone any longer with my heretical views, I shall, with this post, hope to extricate myself from this discussion. So it’s back to square one, back to the original question of this thread, which tends to get lost. Consider the question itself: “What would count as absolute proof that God exists?”

The question only exists because however ones reason might be prepared to accept the idea of God, contrary to much within it’s own scriptural record, contrary to the proclaimed claims of religion to ‘speak for God’, such proof has never been forth coming from he RCC nor any mono or theistic tradition. And many like myself have left and will continue to leave organized religion because we feel any ‘faith’ that does not lead to secure knowledge that can not demonstrate it’s own efficacy is a prisoner to theological wishful thinking and self deception.

Tradition will cry out, ‘but God is not subject to such scrutiny and that would destroy faith’. Not so. It might destroy faith in religion as we know it, but not in God. Quite the contrary. The revelation of a revealed truth, a moral insight for example, knowledge existing outside the perception of human nature, testable and confirmed by faith, would only build our strength of spirit to new heights. Such existing, theological ‘dumbing down of our souls’ is not worthy of the very idea of an omnipotent, omniscience God.

The purpose of science, but not limited to science, is exploring the worth of ideas and the goal is to leave any state of doubt or ignorance behind through testing, an act of faith in itself, to discover evidence for ones beliefs, even proof, and thus advance and progress in the security of understanding or equally to discover error of method or presumption and thus change ones mind. While I would not for a moment suggest that science will ever explain God, there is a hard lesson that scientific transparency and scrutiny could offer religion in the modern world?

But that lesson is ignored because IF existing religious tradition, founded upon the abstracts of dogma and doctrine, created and rationalized by an all too human theology and philosophy, should become subject to such an empirical, real world model, they would immediately come under question and threat. For it is part of the package of scientific scrutiny, that what cannot demonstrate the efficacy of it’s claims is without credibility or truth. And this scrutiny is what allows humanity to progress. For the process, in the material sense is ‘judgemental’, it separates the ‘wheat from the chaff’, the snake oil from the real medicine.

The basis of all law is accountability and the accountability of knowledge is absolutely necessary for a right choice to be made among competing claims. And of course within the religious sphere there are all too many. Science does not have all the answers and probably never will, but it has learned how to successfully measure the ideas of those who claim to have them. It ‘raises’ our perception of reality, to ‘see’ more clearly and for that, whatever it’s limitations, we should be thankful.

In all aspects of ones existence, ‘except religion’, faith finds confirmation in verifiable results. Every act of trust we make in another human being, within every relationship is a test of faith in action. It either confirms integrity and honesty or exposes those who do not deserve our confidence and loyalty. Why should our relationship with God be any different? Why should our relationship with God be subject to any doubt?

What is encouraging from my ‘heretical’ perspective is knowing that tradition no longer holds a monopoly on the scriptural record or it’s interpretation. And there are many rethinking the entire concept of ‘religion’ from square one to the purely moral and spiritual, without need for the heirarchal or institutional forms that now exist. The discoveries of Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Library provide many new avenues to consider and explore. Who knows what imagination may yet discover?

What is certain is that a path to enduring peace and sustainable values has proved beyond any historical cultural construct, beyond human nature and human values. No matter what religious forms, ideals or ideology. As stewards of our planet we remain a great deal less than successful. Thus the quest for God is unfinished and is now mostly going on outside all the main traditions, to which I am a part.

Tradition is one of those ideas that sounds safe and secure, especially with age. But it should be remembered that history is littered with uncountable examples of such, that held ideas so rigidly, they were without the critical self scrutiny to see error or accept change, and history consigned them to it’s own dustbin or oblivion.

Should a faith finally, ever exists that leads to direct insight, removes contradictions and demolish doubts, can correct a corrupted spirit with integrity and confirm and secure the aspirations of what it truly means to be human, often called ‘true self’, that can offer a truth to throw at any militant atheist with: ‘here is your proof, test for yourself if you have the moral courage’ . . . i’ll be first in line. But existing tradition can only pretend to such things while the world burns.
energon.org.uk

 

[grannymh]

So as not to boor anyone any longer with my heretical views, I shall, with this post, hope to extricate myself from this discussion. So it’s back to square one, back to the original question of this thread, which tends to get lost. Consider the question itself: “What would count as absolute proof that God exists?”

Somewhere in this thread, I suggested an original way of looking for a demonstration of God’s existence. However, there are only a few people on CAF who understand both the induction method often used in science and who understand the value of human nature which has to be recognized before there can be any reasonable demonstration of the existence of a transcendent pure spirit. Even the word “demonstration” has to be equally accepted. And the principles of objective and subjective need real understanding. Furthermore, one needs to walk a mile in a non-theist’s moccasins as preparation.

Maybe someday in the future, the few CAF posters who know what I mean by the above will get together and tackle what has been presented in this thread. For now, I will step aside due to other commitments.

Blessings,
granny

The Quest for Truth is worthy of the adventures of the journey.

 

[Aprendo]

I’m sorry I do not have time to look at all of this, but I like to do some “spring cleaning” on my ideas now and then so like to look at why I do believe in what I do. I have a little one who keeps trying to eat everything so I can’t really spend too much time on the computer as I need to keep glancing in her direction. As far as the proofs part as far as miracles I think I read something that intrigued me in both Jesus of Nazareth by Benedict XVI and Fulton Sheen’s Life of Christ. They both looked at the second temptation as being a temptation to prove himself definitively with miracles. Prove yourself once and for all! Jesus said NO! I’m like what? I wish I had excerpts from this typed up but something has occured to me when looking at this, and that is that it almost necessarily can’t be done. God would no longer be God among other things. God would become an miraculous circus show for us 'gods" or an object making us the gods. I need to look at it again to be sure but I remember it basically saying ot do so would be workings against our souls. So yes, that part has been addressed in a way. God will be known but not in THAT way. They say more though. I have like this huge document where I’ve been looking at it and have found myself needing to look at deeper issues on what qualifies as “objective” and the “reality of the invisible” but I am unfortunately terrible at explaining myself. I didn’t even realize how much I 'd been influenced by Descartes on what we can even know. I think it possibly was helped by my teacher mentioning someone called Alisdair MacIntyre as well when talking about morality. There is a lot I wish I knew how to say on this subject well…not my strength…sorry! I wouldn’t know where to start! But I have found my belief at least not completely unfounded. I guess if you are interested perhaps I could send what I have done to you. It has too many long quotes from various books I’ve read to be published. It is just part of a personal quest if you will. I want to look at contentions head-on in many areas. It is something I am still in the process of working on in this “document” if you will. A dialogue.I will point to a few sources in it though that may be helpful. I think in this dialogue it summed up well for me about arguments for God.They are meant to be “convincing and not compelling” There are many, many books I’ve been looking at but these are among the internet sites I’ve perused. I fear of overwhelming anyone so…I don’t know if these are the “best ones” ot put but they are a start. I suppose I’m

www2.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/eog.htm

payingattentiontothesky.com/category/catholicism-for-atheists/

Strange, maybe…but one of my favorite things to uncover was Goedel’s Incompleteness Theorem. It has big implications as far as “proof” goes apparently. You may need to know what positivism is to see it’s signifigance and the history behind it and Russell’s Paradox as well when trying to find foundations for math or these axioms. I don’t know the background knowledge of anyone but I guess I thought I’d put some places, or signposts I thought were helpful. If anyone’s interested in other sources I have looked at I will put those. Otherwise this is probably enough.

Goede’s Incompleteness Theorem.

miskatonic.org/godel.html

My child is deciding to try and eat envelopes so I must get. God bless anyone sincerely looking for the truth and not just arguing for the sake of arguing!

 

[Aprendo]

Something I thought I would add regarding “miraculous” instances as a basis for belief or these “visible” signs as well as the “blessed are those who haven’t seen and believed.” A real-life anecdote. One of the people I know who is atheist had at one time considered becoming Catholic. Why might you ask? There were really down and I brought them in front of the Eucharist. Let’s just say they had a “miraculous” instance happen. They decided to convert. They went to classes but when starting to look at the belief more over time instead of superficially, though really not as deeply couldn’t reconcile how this could have really been “miraculous” after all. But time set in. Maybe it was something else? They really didn’t understand the beliefs well enough they just had something like that “happen” and decided to convert. So know what should have happened? Should another miracle “happen” and then they ride on this “high” while over time begin to doubt it? We become gods and this only believe if God does x and x. God does x and x. Well, that was great and all but then we’re not satisfied. This instance really is best maybe as a start to look at the existence of God but not as an “ultimate” reason to. There must be some point, in us, invisible where we decide what with combinations faith and reason (much disputed meanings left best for another debate) that this suffices. I will say as Chesterton did though that I have “faith” in reason though! Miracles may move some others but others they don’t so to speak and if they are such a “secure” basis for proving God shouldn’t they be relied on for everyone? No. It’s superficial. Your reasons must be deeper than that. Inside. Invisible and involving your whole mind and soul to convert. It must involve you, not just waiting passively for God to do it all for you. In other words I don’t see miracles as an ultimately reliable foundation for the belief in God.

From The Theology of His/Her Body

Mysteries are to be Revealed, Not Exposed

Have you ever heard someone say, “If God wants us to believe in Him, 	why doesn’t He just reveal Himself?” (My note: Does this make anyone think of a certain doubting Thomas?) It seems like a reasonable 	request, but it overlooks the fact that he did reveal Himself, and we crucified Him. What else does  He need to do? Write a book about 	Himself? He’s done that as well, through the Church. Despite these efforts on His part, some people argue that He hasn’t done enough….

But is there merit in their argument? 

God cannot be reduced to a philosophical argument or a scientific proof. He is a person, and a Bridegroom. One women noted ( Melinda Selmys in The Lord God of the Living Room):

Imagine a young suitor who arrives seeking the hand of a princess. After a period of exchanged glances and slain dragons, she invites him to visit. And so he does--bearing a three- tome detailing the reason why she is 	compelled, by reason and by the threat of eternal unhappiness, to love him. Our initial reaction to this man would be laughter, but if , for some 	reason, we were forced o take him seriously, we would consider him a 	presumptuous, unromantic jerk.

This is not God’s way of dealing with us. In fact, He sometimes 	appears to be hiding…

God is a lover, and lovers make proposals. Certainly, God could reveal His glory to us if he wished…

(Evert recounts a story sere St. Francis asked to hear at least one note of heaven’s song to which God conceded and St. Francis awoke from a coma a few days later.)

The human heart--even a saintly one--is not yet ready to take in the majesty of heaven…

In order to be filled by God, we must first empty ourselves. We must do our part and allow God to do his. He has not failed to make 	Himself available to us. If anything, we are the ones that rarely make 	ourselves available to Him. He has given a proposal and we are free to accept or reject it. But if we truly wish to see His glory revealed, we first need to accept is proposal.

(This next part for woman I think is good too)

Just as skeptics demand that God reveal His glory in order to prove 	Himself, the modern culture tells women, “If your body is so great, show 	yourself!” The woman who understands her worth would resist such an 	invitation and reply, “Because of my value, I veil myself. My body was not 	given for the sake of exposing it to you. If I show too much, I wouldn’t be 	revealing my true worth to you. I’d be distracting 	you from what matters 	most….

When a women observes how God chooses to reveal Himself, she learns 	the truth about herself. Only a worthy spouse deserves to experience 	the glory of unveiled mystery.

Jason Evert (p. 9, 12-14)

 

[Aprendo]

From Zen and the Birds of Appetite by Thomas Merton

“In our evaluation of the modern consciousness, we have to take into account the still overwhelming importance of the Cartesian cogito. Modern man, in so far as he is still Cartesian ( he is of course going far beyond Descartes in many respects), is a subject for whom his own self-awareness as a thinking, observing, measuring and estimating “self” is absolutely primary. It is for him the one indubitable “reality,” and all truth starts here. The more he is able to develop his consciousness as a subject over against objects, the more he can understand things in their relations to him and one another, the more he can manipulate these objects for his own interests, but also, at the same time, the more he tends to isolate himself in his own subjective prison, to become a detached observer cut off from everything else in a kind of impenetrable alienated and transparent bubble which contains all reality in the form of purely subjective experience. Modern consciousness then tends to create this solipsistic bubble of awareness–and ego-self imprisoned in its own consciousness, isolated and out of touch with other such selves in so far as they are all “things” rather than persons. (This reminds me of the beginning of John Paul II’s Love and Responsibility talk of persons and things and utilitarianism)
It is this kind of consciousness, exacerbated to an extreme which has made inevitable the so called “death of God.” Cartesian thought began with an attempt to reach God as object by starting from the thinking self. (This reminds me of what Benedict said about the temptation of Jesus by Satan to become an “object” in a sense through wonders to which Christ refused. I put the excerpt from this from his Jesus of Nazareth later. ) But when God becomes object, he sooner or later “dies,” because God as object is ultimately unthinkable. God as object is not only a mere abstract concept, but one which contains so many internal contradictions that it becomes entirely nonnegotiable except when it is hardened into an idol that is maintained in existence by a sheer act of will. For a long time man continued to be capable of this willfulness: but now the effort has become exhausting and my many Christian have realized it to be futile. Relaxing the effort, they have let go the “God-object’ which their fathers and grandfathers still hoped to manipulate for their own ends. Their weariness has accounted for the elements of resentment which made this a conscious “murder” of the deity. Liberated from the strain of willfully maintaing an object-God in existence, the Cartesian consciousness remains none the less imprisoned in itself. Hence the need to break out of itself and to meet “the other” in “encounter,” “openness,” “fellowship,: “communion.”
Yet the great problem is that for the Cartesian consciousness the “other,” too, is object. There is no need here to retail the all-important modern effort to restore man’s awareness of his fellow man to and “I-Thou” status. Is a genuine I-Though relationship possible at all to a purely Cartesian subject?
Meanwhile, let us remind ourselves that another, metaphysical, consciousness is still available to modern man. It starts not from the thinking and self-aware subject but from Being, ontologically seen to be beyond and prior to the subject-object division. Underlying the subjective experience of the individual self there is and immediate experience of Being. This is totally different from an experience of self-consciousness. It is completely nonobjective. It has in it none of the split and alienation that occurs when the subject becomes aware of itself as a quasi-object. The consciousness of Being (whether considered positively or negatively and apophatically as in Buddhism) is an immediate experience that goes beyond reflexive awareness. It is not “consciousness of” but pure consciousness, in which the subject as such “disappears.”
Posterior to this immediate experience of a ground which transcends experience, emerges the subject with its self-awareness. But, as the Oriental religions and Christian mysticism have stressed, this self-aware subject is not final or absolute; it is a provision self-construction which exists, for practical purposes only in a sphere of relativity. Its existence has meaning in so far as it does not become fixated or centered upon itself as ultimate, learns to function not as its own center but “from God” and “for others.” The Christian term “from God” implies what the non-theistic religious philosophies conceive as a hypothetical Single Center of all beings, what T.S. Eliot call “the still point of the turning world: but which Buddhism for example visualizes not as a “point” but as “Void.” (and of course the Void is not visualized at all.”)
In brief, this form of consciousness assumes a totally different kind of self-awareness from that of the Cartesian thinking-self which is its own justification and its own center. Here the individual is aware of himself as a self-to-be-dissolved in self-giving, in love, in “letting-go,” in ecstasy, in god-there are many ways of phrasing it.
The self is not its own center and does not orbit around itself; it is centered on God, the one center of all, which is “everywhere and nowhere,” in whom all are encountered from whom all proceed. Thus from the very start this consciousness is disposed to encounter “there other” with whom it is already united anyway “in God.”

 

[Aprendo]

The metaphysical intuition of a ground of openness, indeed of a kind of ontological openness and an infinite generosity which communicates itself to everything that is. “the good is diffusive of itself,” or “God is love.” Openness is not something to be acquired, but a radical gift that has been lost and must be recovered ( thought it is still in principle “there” in the roots of our created being). This is more or less metaphysical language, but there is also a non-metaphysical way of stating this. It does not consider God wither as Immanent or as Transcendent but as grace and presence, hence neither as a “Center” imagined somewhere “out there” nor “within ourselves.” It encounters him not as Being but as Freedom and love. I would say from the outset that the important thing is not to oppose this gracious and prophetic concept to the metaphysical and mystical idea of union with God, but to show where the two ideas really seek to express the same kind of consciousness or at least to approach it, in varying ways.

Also, and I think it has been argued in some of the sites I posted, “Why God exists?” isn’t necessarily the best question in the first place. Maybe a question more along the lines of what existence is itself and the various invisibles such as “love” and “justice” should be asked instead. What is the nature of existence itself? What IS love? Is it real? In what way? Is only what our sense directly perceive real? These KINDS of questions I think get more at the heart of it I think.

We are not just dispassionate observers. One book I will mention that has been intriguing to me despite the Church jabs has been Everyman Revived by Drusilla Scott that looks at the philosophy of Michael Polanyi. It is not know what he believed though he was a scientist turned philosopher w I’m at the part about “discovery” which I found particulary interesting as well as many of his ideas i have come across.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Polanyi

I have also been enjoying Logic of the Heart by James Peters which covers some of the criticisms of reason being seen as an absolute not dependent on anything and “final, certain, infallible knowledge” or “foundationalism.” What are beliefs we don’t have to prove?

 

[Aprendo]

Despite their serious disagreements, Augustine, Pascal, and Hume all agree that any philosophical system extolling rational autonomy inevitably fails to comprehend the essentially dependent character-the radical embeddedness of human rationality. (Reason can’t refer to itself? Like Russel’s Paradox?) Whether Descartes ever intended entirely to oppose his own Augustinian tradition, the historical impact of his methodology was the founding of a tradition, exemplified in the Enlightenment philosophies of such great modern thinkers as Locke and Kant, that declares that we may believe only after autonomous reason apart from faith and affection has granted us permission. Such a doctrine conceives of rational authority as independent from any from of faith; faith in its various and sundry human expressions must submit to the authority of autonomous reason. Rather than embrace the humility about human understanding basic to Socratic, Augustinian, Pascalian, and Humean perspectives, modernity declares in effect “intellego ut credam,” I must first understand in order to believe.”
Now, although Hume and Pascal hold fundamentally opposing views regarding the wisdom of believing in an unseen God, both uphold a conception of embedded human reason. The dominant trend of modern philosophy, brilliantly initiated by such well-intentioned thinkers as Bacon, Descartes, and Locke, sought certain foundations for human thinking; moving to Pascal and Hume, we find and outlook that insists on a Socratic form of human philosophy–one that neither boasts of possessing final, infallible knowledge nor recommends that, bereft of such final certainty, people should therefore cease to pursue the examined life and abandon the philosophical quest to understand the true nature of the world.
Unfortunately, in the history of modern philosophy the Cartesian and ultimately un-Socratic quest for certainty, rooted as it was in a faith in autonomous reason, dominated and overshadowed the more humble approach of such modern “Socratic thinkers” as Pascal and Hume. It is clear today, however, that few if any philosophers hold out much hope for the attainment of indubitable first principles; indeed, one of the definitive marks of our so-called postmodern age is the widespread abandonment of of this modern quest for certain foundations. Whereas much of modern philosophy inherited and embraced the Cartesian and Lockean ideal of a system of knowledge built on indubitable truths, the mainstream currents of philosophical thought today, both in the analytic and continental traditions, have rejected this ideal of knowledge. This model of a structure of certain knowledge. This model of a structure of certain knowledge, erected firmly on the basis of indubitable, objective foundations, is a model known to contemporary philosophers as modern foundationalism; 16. ( Here He has a long footnote which I will go ahead and put because of its relevance and as an aside, what G.K. Chesterton said about reason in his Orthodoxy seems all to relevant here and he is quoted later in this outline……16. It is worth clarifying at the outset that I do not mean to give the impression that I am joining ranks with those “antifoundationalist” postmodern thinkers who condemn traditional Western philosophies and religions for being “foundationalist.” The epistemological stance I reject is not foundationalism per se, which is simply the theory that some of our beliefs are basic or known immediately serve as the foundations for beliefs weknow inferentially, but a very strong version of foundationalism that holds that our basic beliefs must be immediately knowable to any rational mind who attends carefully to them and must be indubitable. Both Pascal and Hume offer what are in my judgement convincing arguments that humans cannot and should not try ot govern their beliefs accoring to the standards of the modern foundationalist. While I hold that few if any our our beliefs are so certain as to be indubiable to any attenitve rational thinker, I see not good reason to deny thta we hold some of our beliefs without having inferred them from other more basic beliefs. In some sense, then, I want to argue that some of our beliefs are know immedately.
One problem withthe current debate surrounding foundationalist epistemologies is that historically there have been many variants of foundationalist theories of knowledge, a fact that seems at time to be overlooked in postmodern critiques of “foundationalism.” When Pascal attacks Descarte’s account of rationality , for instance, it would be a mistake to infer that he rejects either foundationalism per se or the importance of governing our beliefs rationally. On the contrary, Pascal clearly thinks that we know some things intuitively; what Pascal rejects is a Cartesian account of what we might call the “security of our intuitions.” For Pascal, it is dangerous for philosophers to believe that any our our beliefs can afford us complete security from skeptical doubts, for such illusion of epistemic power can deceive us into overlooking our need for grace. Th this extent, Pascal’s critique of Cartesian foundationalism is of a piece with Aquinas’s assessment of the limits of philosophy apart from divine grace. For an excellent analysis of Aquinas’s “nonmodern” foundationalist theory of human knowledge , see Scott MacDonals,”theory of Knowledge”, in the Cambridge Compainon to Aquinas, de. Morman Kretzmann and Eleomore Stump… 160-95 and Ralph McInerny, “Ethics,” in Kretzman and Stump, The Cambridge Compaion ot Aquinas, 196-231.

 

[Aprendo]

Finally it is important to note that postmodernist who attack foundationalism generally are not really attacking epistemological foundationalism at all but are attacking an perspective on human life that seeks to ground one’s ethical and political claims on some set of fundamentaal beliefs about the nature of the worlds as it is in and of itself. Here “antifoundationalist” really means “antimetaphysical” or “antirealist.” To be an “antifoundationalist” in this sense is to deny as does Richard Rorty, that we can even make intelligible sense out of the notions of an objective world order independent of human interpretive frameworks and of philosophical thinking as aiming at bringing us into contact with this objective world.) continuing from modern foundationalism; it is familiar to must current students of philosophy not so much as a venerable and viable inheritance, but as an epistemological fossil worthy of study simply to comprehend its demise and avoids its fate. So Stephen Toulmin notes in his work Cosmopolis that the Cartesian program, which so dominated the mainstream of modern philosophical, thinking, “ is now seen to have led the enterprise of philosophy into a dead end.”
I’m still at the beginning of both books though. =P

It has been interesting to see this debate though I don’t know how interesting it would be to anyone else or not. It can be tedious to look at these things and I at times have a repulsion/attraction to it all at the same time. In looking at “God” I find myself looking at more basic metaphysical and epistemological issues as far as what we can know and indeed it is humbling. I wonder what the suicide rate is among philosophers? One question I’ve wondered because of what I’ve seen as far as monism goes, materialistic and pantheistic, can existence refer to itself? Would this in a parallel sense not be inline with Russell’s Paradox? So creatures exist in relationship to God as the nature of reality? Or is the question itself wrong with my plain ignorance! Wouldn’t be a first! I admit I am still grasping at the nuances of many of the ideas I’ve encountered! It seems like I’ve noticed many things than can’t refer to themselves, like reason. Absolute relativism refutes itself too or else it’d destroy itself! Being relativistic about being relativistic!

Ummm…maybe I posted too much! Well, food for thought to ignore or look at as you like!

Reading Selections from Can We Know What We*Know?

Excerpts:

Kurt Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems

Fr. Javier Leach, S.J., informs us that mathematics is pluralistic, and so are religion and philosophy. All three fields are ways of not arriving at the truth, and thus are like each other. And since the twentieth-century revolution in logic, in particular Kurt Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems, proves that we cannot know the full truth, we must content ourselves with whatever partial truth seems best to us.….

Mainstream research has long abandoned the conceit of the 1960s that Gödel showed that we cannot know anything for certain. On the contrary, Gödel — a deeply religious man — set out to demonstrate we cannot prove with formal logic everything that we know to be true in mathematics. The nub of his Incompleteness Theorems is that there are things that we can define to be true in a mathematical system, but which we cannot capture in a formal proof. If we concede that mathematical objects are in some way real, Gödel requires us to concede as well the existence of some higher source for the intuition which sees a mathematical truth that transcends formal logic.
Leach willfully interprets Gödel’s results to mean quite the opposite. “One other way to think of incompleteness,” he declares, “is the fact [sic] that the human mind is creating many of our mathematical systems ad hoc. Mathematics is not outside the mind, as Platonism and the classical tradition [in mathematics] have held.” That is not a “fact” at all, but an opinion, and one he shares with the positivists and the New Atheists.

Debating “Real” Existence

Philosophers have debated whether ideas in our mind have a “real” existence simply because we can define them mentally, or whether we must first instantiate such ideas in order to establish their reality, since fifth-century b.c. Athens. But classical mathematics did not simply rake over Plato’s ancient arguments. The problem is more difficult, and more disconcerting….
What Gödel sought to show is that there are truths that exist in our mind that we cannot “prove.”

payingattentiontothesky.com/2011/05/02/reading-selections-from-can-we-know-what-we-know/

 

[grannymh]

I have also been enjoying Logic of the Heart by James Peters which covers some of the criticisms of reason being seen as an absolute not dependent on anything and “final, certain, infallible knowledge” or “foundationalism.” What are beliefs we don’t have to prove?

My apology.

I have not read everything you have posted. (I will eventually do so. Thank you for your work.) I have a personal prejudice against some philosophers because I personally consider them a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. And there have been times when I have started reading a book or article by beginning at its middle. This is one of those times.

The question “What are beliefs we don’t have to prove?” from the end of post 183 stands on its own.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=9100666&postcount=183

Despite the fun of philosophical challenges, humans do not have to prove the belief that they, as individual persons, along with the rest of humanity exist.

On the other hand, demonstrating the existence of humanity can lead to all kinds of beliefs centered in *both *the material realm and the spiritual realm. A general question about all kinds of beliefs is – are the beliefs objective or subjective and/or are the beliefs both objective *and *subjective? When considering humanity as a whole, one can then look for the basic similarity of certain beliefs which would make it possible to demonstrate an objective truth coming from these beliefs.

It is a personal opinion that once an objective truth is known to exist, there is no need to prove it; but there are lots of reasons to demonstrate it. Obviously, I have separated proof and demonstrate based on some people’s scientific reasoning. Maybe the word demonstrate is less threatening than the word proof modified by absolute. In any case, I like the word demonstrate because it gives people the opportunity to accept or reject.

Demonstrating the existence of God gives people the opportunity to rely on Faith and Religion. One should not have to prove one’s faith. Yet, Catholics are often asked to prove the existence of God. Personally, I think it is reasonable to ask Catholics to demonstrate their faith. A good demonstration of Catholic Faith is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is a wonderful, amazing circle! The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a demonstration of God’s existence.

Blessings,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect.

 

[Job42]

“By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

 

[joapde]

0thetrooth0, I have read through this thread and I believe you are someone that is truthfully seeking the truth about God. I believe God exists and that His truth can be known. What I found was that the Bible encourages us to keep seeking:

God promised the Israelites that they would find him when they searched with all their hearts and souls. God is knowable and wants to be known—but we have to want to know him.

From there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul. (Deuteronomy 4:29)

In the New Testament Jesus tells us to persist in pursuing God "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. (Matthew 7:7)

Knowing God takes faith, focus, and follow-through, and Jesus assures us that we will be rewarded. Don’t give up in your efforts to seek God.

 

[ChibiViolet]

I would say the miracles of Guadeloupe and Fatima are absolute proof of God’s excistence. Look them up if you haven’t already.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

This same question (What would count as absolute proof that God exists?) was asked on another forum, and id thought id ask it on here, basicaly she answers by saying that we can never KNOW if God does or does not exist, because theres always a posibility that some intelligent alien is doing it/pretending to be God. what do u guys think, what would convince YOU that God is real Catholics, how can you be sure sure that God is real/Catholicism is The Truth? How do you know that its not a alien like the woman says. Here is her answer:

"Again, a new contemporary source referring to Jesus would only support his existence, not his identity nor the existence of a god. So that wouldn’t do it either.

Same goes for a document written by Jesus himself, EVEN IF it could ever be shown to be genuinely by him, which it almost certainly couldn’t.

As for your other examples. Proof that we were created, for instance. Well, for starters, what might such proof possibly look like? It is certainly conceivable that we would find something that would challenge our current understanding, but how would that prove a creator rather than simply flag up another question to which we don’t currently have an answer? The lack of an answer for something doesn’t have to mean that Goddidit!

In any case, even if there WERE something that pointed incontrovertibly towards a creator, why should that mean it was a god who did the creating? Why couldn’t it be a super-intelligent alien civilisation that did it? For the record, I am not for one moment suggesting the existence of a super-intelligent alien civilisation, merely pointing out that God is not the default explanation!

God speaking to me personally? Well, we already know that the brain is very suggestible and that it can create very powerful illusions, even when not under the influence of drugs. So no, that wouldn’t be reliable evidence either. Besides, who’s to say that, if there WERE a real voice, it would have to be a god and not that super-intelligent alien again?

What might be evidence? Well, if prayer were consistently shown to work, that would get me thinking. Especially if, say, Christian prayers were always answered but Islamic/Hindu/Jain prayers were not. (Though even so, it could still just be a super-intelligent alien civilisation having some fun at our expense.) In reality, every properly conducted study has shown that prayer does NOT work – there is no correlation between prayer and outcomes.

Perhaps if this supposed God were to tell us something that we did not already know and which we could then test for ourselves and see that it was true: a cure for some currently totally incurable disease, for instance. (Carl Sagan wrote amusingly of the way alleged messages from God or aliens are invariably of the banal variety: ‘Be kind to one another’, ‘War is bad’; and never anything IMPRESSIVE, such as how to cure cancer or a comprehensible explanation of quantum mechanics or proof of Goedel’s Theorem.) But this, too, would only be evidence of a superior intelligence, and it could just as easily be those super-intelligent aliens again.

Actually, that isn’t true. It would be FAR MORE LIKELY to be super-intelligent aliens than God. Why? Because we know of natural processes by which intelligence forms on Earth (i.e. as a result of evolution by natural selection), and it therefore wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that something either identical or very similar to evolution by natural selection had been at work on another planet in this vast universe, and had been so for longer than here on Earth and had therefore resulted in super-intelligence that might appear truly god-like to us inferior beings. It would still have been an entirely natural process.

But there is NO mechanism we know of which could possibly give rise to a god. The Christian claim that God was simply always there just won’t wash: there’s no reason to believe it, it’s simply special pleading, dreamed up, invented, imagined, as a way of trying to prevent the rest of the story simply falling apart. It has nothing whatsoever to support it beyond the wishful thinking of those who want to believe the rest of the story.

So I find it impossible to imagine what proof there might be for God, because it would always be possible to imagine a far more plausible naturalistic explanation (and, for the reason given above, even the most outlandish naturalistic explanation will always be more plausible than an uncreated god).

I can’t prove that there isn’t a god either, of course; but there is absolutely no good reason to believe in one, and that’s why I don’t. I don’t believe in a super-intelligent alien civilisation either, by the way: it’s just a less preposterous hypothesis than an uncreated god."

The real existence of God.
What is the ultimate proof that you exist? It is the fact that you exist!

 

[InJesusItrust]

It would definitely be all the miracles. Stigmata, Marian apparitions, Eucharistic Miracles, statues weeping blood. Unlike in other religions the Catholic Church takes a skeptical stance until they are proven. In the face of these the skeptic can only call it lies or lunacy.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

I think this statement is flawed. We can also think or imagine aliens, but that does not mean they are. As time goes on people think about alot of concepts, but it doesnt make them true.

No, the argument is not that.
If you can thing of and Entity above Which nothing can be greater, that Entity is not alien, that Entity must exist.
Look, a dragon does not exist but we can imagine, because a dragon is contituted of parts of things that exist: head, neck, tails, simply you transform.
Go is Infinite. And the Infinite does not exist. Somewhere did that idea come from?

 

[Gaber]

It was once said “I think, therefore I am…”

I would add, “I am, therefore i was created”

Proof enough for me…

Dscates had the “Cartes” before the horse. It ought properly be, I AM, therefor there is Light to my thought, and I can perceive the awareness of thinking. What is the “I am” you claim to be? Find that and you will see how “you” are created!

 

[Gaber]

This same question (What would count as absolute proof that God exists?) was asked on another forum, and id thought id ask it on here, basicaly she answers by saying that we can never KNOW if God does or does not exist,…

Knowledge of God cannot be predicated on arguments of the discursive mind save as intellections. God, as the Contemplatives know what that word points to, since “God” is not an object, is known by another mode of awareness, not by figuring, thinking, arguing, etc, but only when the part of the mind that does that is exhausted and one is receptive to Grace.

 

[CarolVP]

I’m answering without looking at all of the posts, since there are so many of them. Probably, therefore, someone else has already answered this to your satisfaction, and, no doubt, much better than I can. Regardless, I’ll put in a couple of cents’ worth:

1. Because something exists, and not nothing, it is clear that something (or someone) must have caused its existence. Every bit of creation proclaims that the existence of something has been preceded by something else. Therefore, something (or someone) extraordinarily greater must have been there causing/creating/bringing into existence.
2. Since the universe, itself, being made of matter - much of it inanimate - actually exists, and cannot have created itself, then another, greater being must have created it. This being must be capable of creating matter, and yet must be higher than matter. We call this attribute “immaterial”.
3. The universe can not have existed in infinity, either, since an infinite regress in time is impossible. The universe must have had a point when it came into existence. It must also have had a point when it did not exist. Something/someone must have caused this beginning. Otherwise, nothing would exist, instead of something.
4. Since life also exists, then the something must be a ‘someone’. Life is a higher form than non-life, and consciousness is a higher form than non-consciousness. Visualise the differences (most especially in consciousness) between nothing, a rock, an earthworm, a dog, and a person. This hierarchy of forms at least allows the possibility of a yet higher form of consciousness - one that is capable of knowing, and understanding, far more than we.
5. The name “God” simply designates a being much greater than us, who must have brought everything into existence. It is totally pointless asking: “Who created God, then?” as some silly people do. The name “God”, by definition, means the one who must have been uncreated - the uncreated cause of all that exists.
6. Knowing that a God must exist is quite different from actually knowing anything about Him.
7. Atheists deny the existence of God, because they don’t like Him very much. They don’t like evil. They don’t like suffering. They don’t like what some ‘religious’ people do, or have done in the past. More to the point, they don’t want to obey Someone who seems to be impossible to love, or to even like.
8. So, is it possible to prove that God exists? We can prove that a Creator exists, because the universe exists.
9. Can we prove what this Creator is like? Only by deduction and reasoning. We can know that He is immaterial, and all-knowing, all-powerful, outside of time, etc. Aristotle was thus able to prove the existence of an un-caused Cause.
10. Can we prove that the Creator God is also loving and merciful, etc.? Not necessarily, because these attributes are revealed in Scripture and in personal experiences.
11. Can we prove that the Creator God is also the God of the Scriptures? Also, not necessarily, except that the attributes of the Creator God fit in very well with the God of the Scriptures.
12. Can we prove that Jesus of Nazareth is God the Son, made Man? It is possible, through historical reasoning, yes.
13. Can we prove that Jesus of Nazareth started a Church on earth? From an historical and Scriptural perspective, yes.
14. Can we prove that the Catholic Church is the Church begun by Jesus of Nazareth? Historically, yes.
15. Can we prove that the Catholic Church was started by God Himself? Yes, because of the supernatural miracles that have been documented as having definitely taken place.

 

[itullian]

my dead relatives coming back to life.

 

[CarolVP]

Having just been reading some philosophical ‘stuff’, perhaps I am wrong to have said that a Creator Being must exist. I suppose it depends on what people want as ‘proof’. It can certainly be reasoned that God must exist, but does that count as ‘proof’? If one is wanting a scientific positivist ‘proof’ (like Dawkins seeks), then only the tangible will do. Rational conclusions are not enough.

If God were to speak audibly from the sky, so that all people on earth could hear Him, all at the same time, and understand Him perfectly, and also see Him as a ‘living being’ speaking, I wonder if that would suffice. Is that the sort of proof required? What other ‘special tricks’ would the Almighty have to do for people to believe? Would this be forcing God to act like a magician - a special act with special effects?

Just as footprints on a sandy beach are proof enough that a person had previously walked along the beach (or else that another entity had faked the footprints), or that a magnificent, working watch is proof that someone made the watch, why is it not enough that our universe exists, works perfectly, and can sustain us all, to prove a Creator God?