Thursday, November 11, 2021

An illogical god


Here is an argument in favor of "proving God with logic". Since God is a transcendent creator of everything that exists (except himself), he can´t be observed "empirically". He is simply not an empirical object in space-time, but the person *creating* space-time. Since he stands outside space-time, only a kind of philosophical arguments can be used to suggest that he exists. 

However, this argument doesn´t seem to be correct, at least not if the God we are talking about is the *living* god of theism. Perhaps it could work if we assume that "God" is really some kind of geometric Platonic form, embodying logical syllogistic reasoning? The living god seems to be empirical, and can therefore only be proven (or disproven) empirically. Even a deist god, who doesn´t intervene in creation, could presumably be at least dimly perceived through some kind of empirical facts, let´s say the appearence of design in nature, the universality of the moral law, or something to that effect (of course, these arguments don´t work post-Darwin but that´s another issue). 

The supposed "living god of theism" can therefore not be proven (or disproven) by logic. He can only be proven by an appeal to actual experience. Thus, the existence of the Christian God ultimately hinges on the reliability of the Bible, the supposed record of actual experiences of such a god. I admit that I find this record unreliable. It is at best a record of how various human authors interpreted some pretty weird (and pretty wild) experiences. Or perhaps *claims* about such experiences. Also, there are prophecies that didn´t come to pass (Jesus didn´t return during the life time of his apostles). If the Bible is a record of *this* kind, it can still be supernatural in some sense, but not in the Nicene Christian sense. Further discussion would be needed on whether or not the supernatural exists at all. However, the observation that this or that doctrine is "illogical" according to atheist standards of logic ("all-good must mean a pork barrel program for atheists") has nothing to do with the topic at hand. 


No comments:

Post a Comment