Can One Argue for God's Existence without assuming the Bible is true?

[vlad]

On 11/5/2018 at 10:45 PM, Uber Genius said:

Can we gain knowledge of God based on observed facts and experience apart from divine revelation?

50+ years ago in the US, the culture still accepted the truth of the Bible. Evangelists like Josh McDowell or Billy Graham could expound truths in the Bible to lead people to the gospel message.
Today no such assumptions are held by our culture. Trying to convince them that the Bible is a legitimate source of knowledge, let alone "truth," meets with derision or at best, suspicion.

And yet we spend our entire lives gaining knowledge about our world by using our faculties.

1. Memory
2. Testimony
3. Sense perception
4. Rationality
5. Introspection

These faculties are all potentially defeatable (fancy term meaning they can be wrong from time to time). Despite the fact that a stick appears to bend when we put it in the water, through the use of our other faculties (memory, rationality, and introspection) we overcome our misunderstanding of our sense experience alone.

When we perceive that the universe began to exist what does that imply?

When we recognize that nothing can't possibly produce something, what does that imply?

We perceive desires such as the one to live a meaningful existence, again what does that imply?

When we experience natural beauty do we stop and ask why is anything beautiful? What would create a universal standard of beauty?

When we are upset that someone mistreated us do we ask why is there a moral value or duty to treat people a certain way? What is the origin of that duty? To whom do we owe that duty?

There are dozens of similar questions that lead one to the inference of a Creator. 

Please feel free to comment on other features of our world that appear, upon some careful reflection, to be transcendent in their origin.

Or are these just brute facts? Or perhaps accidents or coincidental to evolution and therefore not actual features of our external world but rather delusions?

And there are things that you can not explain rationally with your faculties. I remember there was a student who could do such things. I put a picture  of a very complex installation with wheels, barrels, boxes and many other things into a thick book and the book in my case at home and in the morning just as he came I asked him to draw a picture which was in my case on the blackboard. Then I went out (with my case , of course) so that he could not see my reaction to his progress. When I came there it was all drawn with all the minor details that I had not noticed in the original myself. There are wonders. Wish you could see some.

Edited December 19, 2018 by vlad

[Uber Genius]

25 minutes ago, vlad said:

That applies strictly to exact sciences that deal with discrete countable  elements. All other spheres defy scientific approach due to their extra complexity and consequently subjective approach that reflects a certain group interest at best, that is as against  exact science.

I would say that how one understands truth claims about the physical world is different that how one understands claims about the non-physical world. 

26 minutes ago, vlad said:

Belief is a different thing. If you don't believe, don't. God gives this gift to some people.

Yes beleif is different than knowledge. 

Knowledge generally (according to epistemologists) has to have:

true beleifs (so any knowledge based on Newtonian space and time is no longer knowledge)

have justification (reasons why the belief is true)

beleif lacks the necessity of truth and of justification 

 

But Paul and Barnabas and Peter and the Gospel authors tell people "Just Believe."

They gave them testimonies from memories, and gave them experiences of people being healed.

They gave them rational arguments such as Paul arguing with pagan and atheistic philosophers in Ephasus for two years. 

So too I have given rational arguments that don't require any thing in scripture to be true. 

They are simply based on observations of things God has created. Romans 1-19:20 seems clear that these types of knowledge exists in non-Chrisians. Further that the accounts of evangelism entailed similar arguments as I have given. 

[Uber Genius]

29 minutes ago, vlad said:

And there are things that you can not explain rationally with your faculties. I remember there was a student who could do such things. I put a picture  of a very complex installation with wheels, barrels, boxes and many other things into a thick book and the book in my case at home and in the morning just as he came I asked him to draw a picture which was in my case on the blackboard. Then I went out (with my case , of course) so that he could not see my reaction to his progress. When I came there it was all drawn with all the minor details that I had not noticed in the original myself. There are wonders. Wish you could see some.

Okay, I think I know what you are saying now. 

Can one argue for the existence of God without assuming the Bible is true?

My answer was "Yes and here are several examples."

Your answer is "No, God is not something or someone we can know even the smallest thing about (like does he exist), because God is in a category that is unknowable to humans without special divine revelation like the Bible." At least I think that is what you are suggesting. 

Thomas Aquinas gave his five ways of knowing God and then later suggested we can say anything about God. Some (maybe all) modern Thomists beleive this to be true. I don't find it compelling given the verses in Romans I quoted or evangelical methods alluded to in Acts 13-19 specifically. But I am aware of the arguments. 

But just to be sure I understand you, you are claiming that a rational argument like the Kalam Cosmological argument is not helpful at determining if God exists?

anything that begins to exist has a cause 

the universe began to exist 

therefore the universe had a cause

if the universe has a cause that cause is timeless, spaceless, immaterial, all-powerful and uncaused.

i know of several atheists who have responded to that type of rational argument favorably. Why think that is not the case?

Edited December 19, 2018 by Uber Genius

[Uber Genius]

"1. The fine tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.

3. Therefore, it is due to design.

This is a logically valid argument. That is to say, if the two premises are true, then the conclusion necessarily follows. The only question is: are those two premises more plausibly true than false?"

The above argument for God's existence from the fine-tuning of the universe to support life is taking from the great Christian apologist William Lane Craig.

This argument was so compelling that the number 1 athiest apologist in the world for the second half of the 20th century, Antony Flew, became a theist after examining the argument, it's premises, and the underlying evidence for same!

Now that is a powerful testimony of a non-Bible-referring argument. 

[vlad]

20 hours ago, Uber Genius said:

I have no idea what this sentence means. Please rephrase.

I meant to say that the word "knowledge" (that is exact knowledge) which you have in your message is not applicable  to humanities and missing the point when we speak about faith.

[vlad]

20 hours ago, Uber Genius said:

Okay, I think I know what you are saying now. 

Can one argue for the existence of God without assuming the Bible is true?

My answer was "Yes and here are several examples."

Your answer is "No, God is not something or someone we can know even the smallest thing about (like does he exist), because God is in a category that is unknowable to humans without special divine revelation like the Bible." At least I think that is what you are suggesting. 

Thomas Aquinas gave his five ways of knowing God and then later suggested we can say anything about God. Some (maybe all) modern Thomists beleive this to be true. I don't find it compelling given the verses in Romans I quoted or evangelical methods alluded to in Acts 13-19 specifically. But I am aware of the arguments. 

But just to be sure I understand you, you are claiming that a rational argument like the Kalam Cosmological argument is not helpful at determining if God exists?

anything that begins to exist has a cause 

the universe began to exist 

therefore the universe had a cause

if the universe has a cause that cause is timeless, spaceless, immaterial, all-powerful and uncaused.

i know of several atheists who have responded to that type of rational argument favorably. Why think that is not the case?

To give you a short answer faith does not require demonstration as in experimental physics. I can not see what you are trying to prove.  Express your opinion in a sentence or two to make a clear-cut conclusion, please. I have not been able to understand your attitude. Are you an atheist? What is the purpose of your messages? 

[Uber Genius]

54 minutes ago, vlad said:

faith does not require

Yes, you are absolutely correct.

But all men do not "require the same thing." 

All I need to do to justify my approach is show one individual who needed additional evidence. And one of the Disciples by the name of Thomas did. Secondly we see that Paul argued in Ephesus for two years, arguing with pagans and Jews alike using evidence and argument from presuppositions that his hearer held. So while it is hardly "Required" to demonstrate to an atheist professor at a college evidence from the fact that astrophysicist agree the universe had a beginning, or that they agree that the universe appears to be fined-tuned for life, it is "effective." And the scriptures seem to show us how disciples like Philip went out of their way to engage the Ethiopian eunuch with arguments and evidence from testimony and prophecy. So many methods are demonstrated in scripture. 

As Paul says that he strives to be all things to all men so that some are saved, and proves this at Mars Hill in Acts 17 by commending the religiosity of pagans who are worshiping false gods (demons), if Paul is aloud that latitude why can't a Christian present arguments based on facts known about the world that every person on the planet believes to be true, as a demonstration of God "by the things that were made, so that men are without excuse." (Rom. 1:19,20)

So is this method required, absolutely not. 

Is it profitable in certain scenarios, well... I'm going with Paul on this one.

[vlad]

You say   " ... why can't a Christian present arguments based on facts known ... " . There are some wonders I have personally seen as facts but if you have not seen them they are no arguments to you. I have no videos, no photos. I still do not understand where you are. If you are looking for proof that really may come to you and hope not too late. Talking about Paul you remember how he got the proof the hard way. But not everybody is that lucky.

[vlad]

3 hours ago, Uber Genius said:

Yes, you are absolutely correct.

But all men do not "require the same thing." 

All I need to do to justify my approach is show one individual who needed additional evidence. And one of the Disciples by the name of Thomas did. Secondly we see that Paul argued in Ephesus for two years, arguing with pagans and Jews alike using evidence and argument from presuppositions that his hearer held. So while it is hardly "Required" to demonstrate to an atheist professor at a college evidence from the fact that astrophysicist agree the universe had a beginning, or that they agree that the universe appears to be fined-tuned for life, it is "effective." And the scriptures seem to show us how disciples like Philip went out of their way to engage the Ethiopian eunuch with arguments and evidence from testimony and prophecy. So many methods are demonstrated in scripture. 

As Paul says that he strives to be all things to all men so that some are saved, and proves this at Mars Hill in Acts 17 by commending the religiosity of pagans who are worshiping false gods (demons), if Paul is aloud that latitude why can't a Christian present arguments based on facts known about the world that every person on the planet believes to be true, as a demonstration of God "by the things that were made, so that men are without excuse." (Rom. 1:19,20)

So is this method required, absolutely not. 

Is it profitable in certain scenarios, well... I'm going with Paul on this one.

I forgot to tell you 1) that for humans there is Universal Limitation that covers all including knowledge, 3)that the word of God is not a human sequence of sounds associated with some sense, a day of God may be millions of human years. That is if you read Genesis it is an easy explanation to people like you sometimes explain very complex things to kids. Once Jesus said something to the effect that human minds are not capable of grasping heavenly things as they are. I compare it with man and his pets. You can teach your dog many tricks but it will never learn how your smartphone  really operates. The distance between God and man is that big if not bigger for once it was a comparison of a pot-maker and his pots in the Gospel. Imagine the distance and difference: a Pot-maker and a pot he is making.