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Same here...
the fact that there are atheists show that particular ways of looking at the world would allow for a God-does-not-exist view. In the end, faith is a gift and no one can force that on anybody.
posted by
Friar__Tuck
on February 2, 2005 at 9:48 PM
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Not so much a stalemate in logic, as the same problem as Einstein's thought experiment: "what happens when an irresistable force meets an immovable object?"
Or, better, the interaction between Jane Jacobs' Guardian Syndrome and Commercial Syndrome.
Neither is "better", but the moral precepts are mutually exclusive, somthing like you can't serve, totally, two masters.
The trouble is that both a belief in God and a belief that God does not exist both require a leap of faith, and "proof" of either requires the assumption of truth of the starting statement.
Personally, I work from the assumption that God exists, but I don't require others to do the same.
posted by
L.E.Gant
on February 2, 2005 at 11:55 AM
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A logical stalemate then?
Perhaps. But when one sets out to prove that God or the gods exist, one would really hit a blank wall. But try to prove any of the following...
- the Unmoved Mover
- the Uncaused Cause
- the Necessary Being
or show the ground for
- Perfection
- the Purposiveness of the Universe
then one can reach, as Antony Flew did, the conclusion that there is a Being such that without it all beings will not exist. St. Thomas of Aquinas at the conclusion of his five ways would say, "And this is what we call 'God.'"
But then again, one will need faith to see that this God is also the God of Jesus Christ. That is why I sympathize with Flew: he can't make the jump from the God of the philosophers to the God of Jesus Christ without the help of grace.
posted by
Friar__Tuck
on February 2, 2005 at 7:25 AM
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I know it's over a week since you posted this one, but I'm still catching up from a month ago...
There's an observation in mathematics that, in any complete system, there are conjectures that can neither be proved nor disproved. They may be true or they may be false, but there is no way that anyone can, within the system prove the validity or invalidity of the statement. (however, one can prove that there are statements or conjectures which can't be proven or disproven).
The point of this is that God is something that can neither be proven to exit or shown to not exist in any system of logic that we can use.
And, more interestingly, the assumption that God exists never leads to a contradiction. But then the assumption that God (or gods, for pantheists) does not exist never leads to a contradiction....
posted by
L.E.Gant
on February 2, 2005 at 2:10 AM
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