Proof of God

[apothanein kerdos]

we dont have to prove god.if someone is looking for him,just ask for him to show you...for he's been longing and looking for you all along

Then how do you know God is there? Because you feel Him? Then God becomes subjective, only as known or as powerful as our experience in Him. If He cannot be proven, then we should rid ourselves of the Bible as well.

[Fiosh]

Can we, as Christians, prove God?

I would support the idea that we can. For one, all of the patriarchs and even new Testament people saw, interacted, and heard God. This occured either through the Holy Spirit, Jesus, or God the Father. Thus, if faith rests upon our lack of proof in God, these men had no faith. If, however, faith is putting our trust in what we know to be true, these men had absolute faith.

Thus, how do we as Christians prove God?

We look to the human experience. Let us look at a universal moral; murder. It is generally accepted that to kill someone with malice is wrong. If we remove God from the equation, or at least some sort of source, then there is no reason to prohibit murder or feel objectionable to it. If I am nothing more than a highly evolved animal than killing for my own benefit, or for the benefit of my family, there is logically nothing wrong with murder. God has been removed from the equation.

This applies across the board. When we take God out of the equation, when we remove the Supernatural, there is no reasoning behind the human experience. There is no reason to live or exist. "We do this to exist." Why do we want to exist in the first place? What is our reasoning behind such a thing? There is none.

When we put God into the equation, we see the proof....we see why we are human.

Yes let's look at human experience. Many cultures have survived and thrived without any knowledge of the christian god. Where did they get their morals from? The reason to prohibit murder, theft, rape etc is quite simple. Organized, lawful society cannot succeed in chaos, these prohibitions exist because people would not come together in social interaction if everyone is allowed to kill each other. Society is all about security and without security economic and social interaction cannot take place.

GH brings up a good point. I would like to suggest, AK, that you consider the impact of our ability to communicate thru a more precise language than other animals. We humans have the ability to negotiate and reason with one another because of speech. An advantage other animals do not have. This explains why our moral constructs are more complex than those of lower species.

As for morals....there are no absolutes. "Normal" varies from one society to another depending upon the circumstances. It is inaccurate to imply that murder, theft, rape, etc are considered immoral by all societies. Laws are simply one more indication of the survival instinct, as pointed out by GH.

Morality does not prove the existence of God.

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In defense of "man".....while he may be mis-interpreting the philosophical/logical definition of "proof", he is correct in stating that no one has "proved" the existence of God beyond the shadow of a doubt. True, many proofs have been constructed; none are totally convincing; all have their weaknesses and logical difficulties.

[alev]

The short version is:

What exists must be experienced directly.

Objective reality exists.

None of us experience it directly (because we are all biased in various ways).

Only an omniscient and eternal being could experience it directly.

An omniscient and eternal being must exist.

With respect, I must disagree with your reasoning. Your premise that 'what exists must be experienced directly' is false.

There is an objective reality (an objective truth, if you will) and it exists whether or not it is experienced. When it is experienced, it becomes subjective. Thus, it may be that in some instances what is subjectively experienced overlaps with what is objectively true, that is, what is actually true. In other instances, they may differ.

[Copper Scroll]

The short version is:

What exists must be experienced directly.

Objective reality exists.

None of us experience it directly (because we are all biased in various ways).

Only an omniscient and eternal being could experience it directly.

An omniscient and eternal being must exist.

With respect, I must disagree with your reasoning. Your premise that 'what exists must be experienced directly' is false.

That's a different argument then. I started with that premise because many (if not most) atheists will accept it... and I happen to agree with it. How can we meaningfully say something exists if no one has experienced it?

[apothanein kerdos]

The short version is:

What exists must be experienced directly.

Objective reality exists.

None of us experience it directly (because we are all biased in various ways).

Only an omniscient and eternal being could experience it directly.

An omniscient and eternal being must exist.

With respect, I must disagree with your reasoning. Your premise that 'what exists must be experienced directly' is false.

That's a different argument then. I started with that premise because many (if not most) atheists will accept it... and I happen to agree with it. How can we meaningfully say something exists if no one has experienced it?

Though logical deduction. That thing is, we all have experienced God (or at least secondary evidence of God) whether we want to admit it or not. Being human and living in a world where God is active, we have no choice but to experience Him. Though we may deny it, chalk it up to naturalism, or find another excuse, we have all had that experience. We draw off of that experience to show the person that God has been there all along.

[alev]

That's a different argument then. I started with that premise because many (if not most) atheists will accept it... and I happen to agree with it. How can we meaningfully say something exists if no one has experienced it?

The objective truth of existence, that is, the way everything really is, will be that way whether or not someone experiences it. To say otherwise would be to say that if a tree fell down in the woods, and no one heard it, it didn't really fall. That no-one heard it does not change the fact it fell down.

However, you are correct - we cannot meaningfully talk about the objective reality, even though we can be sure it exists. By "it" I am not referring to a god, or an omniscient and eternal being, as you have posited. Rather I

[Copper Scroll]

The objective truth of existence, that is, the way everything really is, will be that way whether or not someone experiences it. To say otherwise would be to say that if a tree fell down in the woods, and no one heard it, it didn't really fall. That no-one heard it does not change the fact it fell down.

However, you are correct - we cannot meaningfully talk about the objective reality, even though we can be sure it exists.

How can we be so sure?

[alev]

How can we be so sure?

Logically, it must exist. Where there is a subjective reality, there must be an objective reality underlying it. Otherwise, from where are we drawing our experiences? What are we perceiving?

Whether the objective reality is "the real world" vis-a-vis The Matrix movies, or whether it is almost identical to our subjective reality, in my submission, we cannot know. We only ever move closer and closer to figuring it out, always mindful of errors that result from our perceptual and experiential limitations.

[Copper Scroll]

Logically, it must exist. Where there is a subjective reality, there must be an objective reality underlying it. Otherwise, from where are we drawing our experiences? What are we perceiving?

Our minds could be generating the experience themselves. We could be simply perceiving the content of our own minds, moving from our unconscious minds "up" into consciousness. Experience does not necessitate an objective reality. Meaningful experience (I think) does. If it is all in our minds, the question becomes What for? and the answer to this could never be known, because there would be no foundation on which knowledge or truth could rest. We can't just trust our own minds because we are prone to deception and illusion. We could be wrong thinking we are right. So in order for our lives to be meaningful and for us to say meaningful things about it, we need for an objective reality to exist. We can never verify its existence though. We must accept its existence as a matter of faith. We must believe that our subjective experiences are indicative in some way of an objective world in order for our subjective experiences to have meaning or significance.

Whether the objective reality is "the real world" vis-a-vis The Matrix movies, or whether it is almost identical to our subjective reality, in my submission, we cannot know. We only ever move closer and closer to figuring it out, always mindful of errors that result from our perceptual and experiential limitations.

This last claim too is based on faith. We could all be suffering a grand delusion. Our sensory modalities may have more fundamental flaws then the ones we are already aware of. But to consider these possibilities is pointless. Again, it would rob our lives of meaning. We must believe that our intersubjective experience draws close to objective experience, which we as mortal and partially ignorant consciounesses can only imagine.

[CNU Erik]

To prove God one could simply turn to his son Jesus. The miracles and power to raise others (Lazurus) from death and walk on water, and turn water into wine, die and raise to life in three days, and heal others. Who else can do such things without God in the name of Jesus? Also the Bible meticulously recounts all the awesome works of God through His people. Those that want God proven to them either have a hard heart, are arrogant in their own intelligence (i.e. philosophers), or simply chose not to have faith. People do things such as bring about "inconsistencies" within the Bible to try to support why they do not believe in God. They hold their own thinking above the word of God instead of praying and letting the Holy Spirit answer their questions and disbelief.