This is a very fascinating thread, just happened to catch my eye. And there is something I want to add to the discussion. We as human beings have this tendency to compartmentalize and organize how we think and what we know. We desperately want to discover some sort of consistency in nature, to the point where we can predict how things will behave in the future. The scientific method is drawn out of this, using observation, forming hypotheses and so on to try and establish a reliable method for understanding the world in which we live, but it would be unwise to think that this method reigns supreme over all knowledge.
For the longest time, I scorned at the reliability and value to be had in religious experience. I considered it too subjective, too vulnerable to people impressing their own emotions, desires, wills and so on, on certain experiences to come to some sort of conclusion. This all ended when I began to study Aristotle in a philosophy class in college. Aristotle places a huge emphasis on experience, noting that we can never truly know courage unless we have had the experience of being courageous. We can read about courage all we want, we can watch movies about courage, but we will never know it unless we experience it; to know courage requires us to be in situations where courage is employed. I have come to the belief, after many periods of doubt, that God is the same way.
And in regards to God, our inclination is to look for evidence, to look for proof, but what evidence and what proof do we expect to find? Do we want to find a body? For God to be God he cannot by nature be confined in time or space, both of which are created in and of themselves as modern science has reasonably established with our study of the universe. So what is it we expect to find? If God has a body, it must be the result of evolution, and if he exists inherently as a physical being then he is subject to the rest of the physical world in some fashion. So I ask again, what proof do we expect to find? At heart, I think all of us who want proof of God, want above all, an experience. I am certain that you, the OP, would believe in God if a voice came down from Heaven declaring itself as God, (or perhaps we would be inclined to say “I was just hearing things”) But what if a loved one was raised from the dead, etc? With such experience, to deny the existence of God or at the very least the supernatural would be inconceivable would it not?
You will never fully believe in God until you have the experience of God. I don’t mean this in an emotional sense, as if you were at some protestant worship concert and were moved by the music. I mean this in the sense of existing as God exists, seeing as God sees. But how do we accomplish this? How are we supposed to be God-like? The solution to our problem is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was and is the proof humanity has been waiting for, it is in this person that we know what it means to be like God. Love unconditionally, give everything to everyone, be virtuous in all things, tame your desires, stop living according to a fallen nature, but live according to a “supernature.” Jesus epitomized all of these things, and lived this message so perfectly, that every corner of the earth has heard his undying message for the past 2000 years.
No matter how much thinking you do about God’s existence, no matter how much reading, studying, theorizing you do. You will never come to full belief until you try to exist as God exists, having this experience which changes your *entire *perception. Just as I employed Aristotle before, you can read about courage all you want, you can think about it and so on, but only in experiencing courage can you know truly know it. But the objection to all of this is of course… this will only work if we act on the presupposition that God exists, and if God does not exist, these efforts are all done in vain. Well, true; however, this is why the first step is always a step of faith. Some might think it oh so convenient, that faith is required, belief without solid evidence. But on the contrary I think it is decidedly inconvenient that faith is required, it goes against every inclination we have, but maybe that’s the point… that it is through abandoning what seems natural and having faith that will give us the means to overcome our moral deficiencies that deprive us of living “the good life” not a life of empty pleasure, but living according to what we were supposed to be.
At the end of all of this, there are two doors we can take: #1 the door of faith and #2 the door not of faith; two mindsets… one of faith and one not of faith. I’m betting the house on faith and seeing where it leads me; it takes a certain character of individual to be able to make that leap of faith, what disposes each person to take this leap or not, who can say? Perhaps it is the sum total of our entire person, our choices, our desires, our reflections projected through the will, but at the end of the day it is your choice to make, and every choice has consequences. I know what’s behind Door #2, the door bereft of faith, and everything, what I know, what I have learned, what I have experienced, has led me to believe that this is not the door to take, Door #1 however, the door of faith, well let’s just say, I gotta good feelin’ about this one
I hope this was helpful at least in some minute fashion; feel free to pm me if you want to discuss anything further, I’d be happy to without judgement or partiality!
