The Existence of God
What do you tell your brother when he begins to doubt the existence of God? What do you tell them when they see no reason to believe in the infallibility and truth of the Bible? How do we know that the Bible is God’s Word… or that the God of the Bible is the same as the God or Creator that made the universe? Any thoughts?
We’ve been studying the existence of God in Philosophy the last few weeks. Dr. Davis has been going over the great philosophers Anselm, Hume, Thomas Acquinas, and others… and we’ve been studying, arguing, and debating the existence of God. I was enlightened. I have always known or believed there to be a God, but when questioned as to how I knew, I never had a clear cut answer other than by just examining the incredible design of creation - there had to be a Creator or Designer, right?
We studied Anselm’s argument for the existence of God. Apart from all of his assumptions and presuppositions that he assumes the readers have, his argument deals with the existence of God in the Understanding and in Reality. We know that God exists in the understanding (because we can believe in God and have some idea of who He is). But if God exists only in our understanding, then God is not God. The definition of God is “the Being than which no greater can be conceived.” And to exist in reality is greater than to exist in merely our understanding. So he must also exist in reality… because we know it’s false that God is not God. That’s an apparent contradiction. So Anselm concluded that God must exist in the understanding AND in reality. That’s his proof for the existence of God.
Thomas Acquinas also wrote about the existence of God. He had five ways in which he proved the existence of God. In his first way, Acquinas spoke of motion. “It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion.” He goes on to explain how everything that moves must have been moved by something else before it… for nothing can be moved unless it is first acted upon and moved by something else. But we also know that it is impossible for something to be the moved and the moved. Acquinas calls us to look at a fire, for example - a fire (which is actually hot) makes wood (which is potentially hot) to be actually hot… but now that the wood is actually hot (burning), it can’t be potentially hot at the same time (not burning). So from this, we know that the world is in motion and is in a series of constant movement and motion - but has this always been going on? Is this whole process infinite? Acquinas concludes that it has not always been going on because anything that moves must have been put in motion by something to begin with… if it was infinite, then there would be no first mover. And if there was no first mover, would we have a second mover? No. So Acquinas uses this argument to conclude that there must have been something that started everything - a first mover = God.
Thomas Acquinas continues on with four other ways in which he proves that God exists. I could go through and list them all in great detail, as was explained to me by Dr. Davis and from reading Acquinas myself. But I don’t want to lose focus here… so in brief, his other proofs were 1) God must exist because “in the world of sensible things we find there is an order of efficient causes.” For every cause, there is another cause or effect that stems from that (very similar to the order of the first mover, the second mover, and so on). We can see in our world that there are ultimate causes and intermediate causes - so there must have been a first cause, right? First efficient cause = God. 2) We know from nature that it is possible to be and not to be. Everything in this world has the possibility (or had the possibility) of not being in existence. And if everything was at one point not there and not in existence, then it would have been impossible for anything to begin existing, right? If at one point there was nothing in existence, then unless there was some first BEING, there would still be nothing in existence today. We know that’s false (you’re here), so there must be some FIRST BEING which did not find it’s necessity in anything else = God. 3) We also know in nature that there is a gradation in things - some things are bigger and better, and some things are just smaller and insignificant. From this sort of hierarchy of beings which we know to exist, there must be “something which is truest, something best, something noblest, and consequently, something which is most being… there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God. And finally, 4) we can observe from the way the world works that all things act for a purpose. Just by observing animals and nature, everything works for a purpose - consider photosynthesis and the ways that plants need carbon dioxide in order to grow (carbon dioxide is poisonous to humans) and they give off oxygen in their growing process (guess what - we need oxygen to live and breathe). But do plants have brains? Do they know what they’re doing? No…. but they work for a purpose. The same is with the rest of nature - we see a governance in the world. But how did it get there unless there was some greater Governor or Designer or Creator? = God.
Those are a few proofs of the existence of God. They sound pretty convincing to me. All of these truths of the world point to the existence of a God, or a BEING than which no greater can be conceived.
But my question is this - how do we know that the God of the universe (which we know from the above proofs exists) is the same as the God of the Bible, except by knowing it through faith? I believe and have faith that the God of the Bible is one and the same with the God of the universe - but I believe that through faith. Suppose we were to discount the Bible as being a source or reference… could we know, apart from the Bible, that the God of the Scriptures is the same as the God of the universe?
Published on 20 Feb 2007 at 1:50 pm.
14 Comments.
Filed under Academics, Real Life Issues.
Calvinists (and most Christians, in fact) have traditionally denied that it is possible to know the Biblical God apart from special revelation. Romans 1 talks about a general knowledge of God, but this knowledge, the Apostle Paul states, is non-salvific.
As for Anselm’s proof, I imagine Dr. Davis gave you the reasons why it is not generally considered to be a valid proof of the existence of a deity - foremost among these being that, as Kant pointed out, being is not a property.
In any case, as Pascal said, we believe in the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not the God of the philosophers.” The Biblical God bears little similarity to the God who is described sufficiently as “the BEING [greater] than which none can be conceived.”
As to the question with which you opened your post, I don’t think there is any generalized apologetic which will “work” or convince people of the truth of the faith. Which is not to say I’m a fideist, by any means. Rather, it means that God is personal, and relates to us as persons. If people are to believe in God, they must not simply believe He exists - the demons believe that and tremble. Rather, they must believe that He exists and “is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him,” as the book of Hebrews says.
We are the Body of Christ. We make His presence known in the world. Only in your relating to someone who is questioning the faith - through your declaring, and living out, the Gospel - can God’s relationship to that person be made real.
Evan Donovan on 20 Feb 2007 at 2:42 pm.
I agree with you, Evan. I spent two hours last Friday night trying to explain that to one of my brothers here at Covenant - that I personally believe and have faith in God because of my personal experienes…
He came back with the question, “Well, why should I believe in something that is not provable? Why should I live a “false” life, so to speak, believing in something that cannot be truly KNOWN?”
He understands it’s a matter of faith… “but is that enough?” was his question.
Philip Codington on 20 Feb 2007 at 3:07 pm.
We know that knowledge is not enough because you can know how to play tennis or chess, you can know how to build a motorcycle and how they work but all of this knowledge doesn’t mean you can do any of those things. At the same time, we know that faith isn’t enough because you can believe all sorts of things without knowing anything about them and without being able to do what you believe you can do. In your friend’s case, what does it mean to know something? What does it mean to have faith? What does it mean for something to be provable?
Also Just because something isn’t “provable” doesn’t mean it can’t be known. Take the concept of self, for example. How do you know that “me” exists? All of your outward actions can be explained in terms of biology, environment (social, material) and neuro-physiological activity; so what proof is there for some sort of inner introspective “me”? He might want to argue that he’s “self-aware” but this is a circular argument. Self-awareness is “me” knowing that “me” exists. Okay, so where did the “me” come from again? And this is just the beginning, without getting into the complexity of how we analyze things like beauty or make moral distinctions. If we can’t prove that “me” exists then how legitimate are concepts that depend on “me”’s existence? I say the existence of “me” is proof enough that God exists and that humans were created in His image, but my faith makes me biased, so…
This is one direction, amongst many, that can be taken to deal with doubt. Depending on the person, a more effective approach might be appealing to past experiences. If your friend has been a Christian for a long time, then surely he can recall experiencing God’s presence in church through worship, through reading the Bible, praying, etc., then this can be more effective than “reasoning” with him.
jared leonard on 20 Feb 2007 at 4:08 pm.
I agree… it was definitely hard to pinpoint an actual proof without creating a circular argument. One of the other guys from my hall actually ended up coming in and talking with us too about it - and he was saying the same thing.. that the existence of the God of the Bible is taken as faith, and that the only proof he had were his own personal experiences of God working in his life.
I think you made a good point in asking “what does it mean to have faith?” What is faith, truly.. and how does it manifest itself in our daily lives?
Are you sure that faith is not enough? I’m just playing devil’s advocate here because i’m trying to get a better understanding for something that I daily try to live my life by - as well as something I want to be able to encourage my friends and brothers with.
In your comment, Jared, you said that “we know that faith isn’t enough because you can believe all sorts of things without knowing anything about them…”
If there is no proof of God’s existence (that is, the God of the Scriptures) apart from a person’s personal experiences, can we do anything other than just take it by faith?
Perhaps a person has never had his OWN personal experiences of God working in his life, but he has always been raised as a Christian…and he now begins to question. There are no apparent proofs of the God of the Bible (other than the Bible itself and other people’s personal experiences)… so if I want to believe in it, can I do anything but take it by pure faith?
Philip Codington on 20 Feb 2007 at 4:55 pm.
The question isn’t so much whether or not God exists, but whether or not He’s an underachiever (to borrow a sentiment from Woody Allen).
Josiah on 20 Feb 2007 at 10:27 pm.
I’m not sure I know what you mean by that, Josiah. What do you mean by “underachiever”?
Philip Codington on 20 Feb 2007 at 11:10 pm.
I reckon what josiah is getting at is that if God does exist, why isn’t he taking a more visibly active role in his creation? this response to the question ‘does God exist?’ seems to presuppose that if God DOES exist, he owes us an explanation and a confirmation of why things are the way they are. he owes us absolute proof that he is real, and owes us reasons for all those contentious issues in our lives (e.g. the injustice of unmerited suffering), right? but i reckon that to ask whether God is an ‘underachiever’ or not is quite an arrogant question. By whose standards are we judging him? How can God, the creator of the entire universe, UNDERachieve? if he doesn’t behave in the way would like, or the way we expect, then I think that says more about us than it does about Him. God is working to a totally different agenda from the human notion of ‘achievemnent’. In the words of Isaiah, ‘Your thoughts are higher than my thoughts, Your ways are higher than my ways.’
ps. josiah i know that it probably wasn’t a serious quote you were making there as woody allen is a comedian, however i think the sentiment behind allen’s wit is actually a serious one, so that’s why I’ve responded to it as a serious quote.
Amy.x
Amy Mulholland on 21 Feb 2007 at 5:43 am.
After reading a few of these comments I have come to same conclusion as I have before when I’ve talked with both secular professors and dedicated atheists. That is, if the smartest man on earth only uses 10% of his brain capacity and he is the most knowledgeable person known to man, that is still only 10%. If of all human subjects, viz. Mathematics, Logic, Science, Argiculture, Astrology, Physics, etc etc, he knows merely 10% then how much less is he going to know about Heavenly things? Now lets say he understands up to 70% or 80%or even 90% of all subjects, still his understanding is limited. I believe that if you want to try to prove the existence of God and dig deep in to questions that deal with issues of faith as soforth; then you should try to first understand everything else that is human and by a different standard that isn’t God and see how far you can go in that subject without finding contradiction.
Matt on 21 Feb 2007 at 8:55 am.
Philip says:
If there is no proof of God’s existence (that is, the God of the Scriptures) apart from a person’s personal experiences, can we do anything other than just take it by faith?
I don’t see how just taking it by faith is a negative thing. All human knowledge rests on particular assumptions about how the self interacts with the physical world. What this amounts to is that the human experience of reality is impossible without faith in a most basic manner. To use another example, feelings (such as one’s conversion experience) aren’t just chemical reactions occuring in the brain; there is no meaning within such an atheistic description/conception. Without a faith of some sort there cannot be things like “fun”, “happy”, “sad”, “good”, “bad”, “beautiful”, “love”, “hope”, “joy”, just to name a few essentials.
And not just these things, but even the more practical sciences like mathematics or physics don’t function properly without faith of some sort; and we all know 2+2=4 and that what goes up must come down, right? But we can see that things come back down after going up, there’s empirical evidence for it, one might argue. Okay, so we don’t see prayers answered or God working in/through peoples lives (our own lives) and in all circumstances?
So, in short, I am sure that faith is not enough in as much as it is by itself. But there is no trouble here because faith is never alone when truth is involved.
jared leonard on 21 Feb 2007 at 1:01 pm.
Also, if a man only used 10% of his brain, he’d be pretty close to a vegetable (in other words, take Gen. Psyche with Dr. Rulon if you haven’t yet)…
jared leonard on 21 Feb 2007 at 8:17 pm.
Personal experiences may be one’s reason for believing, but they don’t constitute proof, since proof implies communicability, and one’s own experiences can’t really be expressed adequately to someone else.
I think it’s important to say that our faith is grounded in the testimony to Christ that we find in the Scriptures, and that it is formed by the worship and sacraments of the Church. Otherwise, we could be talking about a Kierkegaardian leap of faith - an “upper story” jump, as Francis Schaeffer would say, that has no real basis in the facts.
I remember when I was at Covenant we read a little essay by Alvin Plantinga about the internal witness of the Holy Spirit as a means to “properly basic” knowledge. I think he was on to something, as long as one states that the Spirit’s witness is through the means of the Word (esp. in preaching), prayer, and the sacraments (as the WCF says).
Evan Donovan on 22 Feb 2007 at 12:00 am.
Amy, I’m not sure it’s unfair or inappropriate to ask God for an explanation for how He needs the “glory” He receives from a child born extremely deformed or the suffering of a terminally ill cancer patient.
Our response to “why” those things happen are that they’re all part of God’s plan for His greater glory and love for us, but at a certain point one has to ask if God is guilty of using the ends to justify the means.
Josiah on 6 Mar 2007 at 8:55 am.
‘God is guilty’? By whose standards? If we are saying God is guilty by human standards… um, why should he need to conform to our concept of justice, when He’s the one who invented Justice and Truth in its purest form?
Amy Mulholland on 7 Mar 2007 at 7:03 am.
Well hey, if you think terminally ill cancer patient and a baby born with severe disabilities is “Truth” and “Justice”, have fun with that.
Josiah on 15 Mar 2007 at 7:59 pm.