Arguments for the existence of God have been codified for centuries by theologians, and supplemented by others, including purveyors of misconceived 'common sense'.
THOMAS AQUINAS' 'PROOFS'
The five 'proofs' asserted by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century don't prove anything, and are easily - though I hesitate to say so, given his eminence - exposed as vacuous. The first three are just different ways of saying the same thing, and they can be considered together. All involve an infinite regress - the answer to a question raises a prior question, and so on ad infinitum.
1 The Unmoved Mover: Nothing moves without a prior mover. This leads us to a regress, from which the only escape is God. Something had to make the first move, and that something we call God.
2 The Uncaused Cause: Nothing is caused by itself. Every effect has a prior cause, and again we are pushed back into regress. This has to be terminated by a first cause, which we call God.
3 The Cosmological Argument: There must have been a time when no physical things existed. But, since physical things exist now, there must have been something non-physical to bring them into existence, and that something we call God.
2 The Uncaused Cause: Nothing is caused by itself. Every effect has a prior cause, and again we are pushed back into regress. This has to be terminated by a first cause, which we call God.
3 The Cosmological Argument: There must have been a time when no physical things existed. But, since physical things exist now, there must have been something non-physical to bring them into existence, and that something we call God.
All three of these arguments rely upon the idea of a regress and invoke God to terminate it. They make the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress. Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, simply because we need one, there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such human attributes as listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts. Incidentally, it has not escaped the notice of logicians that omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible. If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can't change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent. Karen Owens has captured this witty little paradox in equally engaging verse:
Can omniscient God, who
Knows the future, find
The omnipotence to
Change His future mind?
~Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion (Copyright © Richard Dawkins 2006)
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Dheep Says -
ReplyDeleteHi Rito, I think an attempt at addressing this paradox leads inevitably to the question as to whether i) logic/reason is supreme, ii) even if it were, would it be sufficient to understand God's nature? iii) if it is not supreme, what else is required for this same understanding? iv) or is it simply incomprehensible to the human mind?
The questions I have asked are not necessarily leading ones. :)
Yet another related question is regarding God's omniscience and the human free will. Are these two compatible? If God knows the future, does man possess free will? According to a theologist I read, these two are compatible - he appeals to transcendence. He goes on to aver that God knows not only the future - but also the futuribles - i.e., the many futures that will never be.
I think that Logic, Reason & Observation are quite dependable tools in the search for creationist answers, possibly the best we have. I will tend to think that these three tools are possibly more dependable than arm-chair theorization. The logical understanding of God's nature would first require the logical acceptance of God's presence - the question we are trying to tackle here.
ReplyDelete"Simple incomprehensible to the human mind" - The argument is very familiar, and I have come accross it in books of multiple religions. But the logic behind it is never spelled out, and the more you think about it the more vacuous it seems to me. Looks to me like a convenient explanation to fill in all the gaps in the God Hypothesis. If he/she is beyond the human mind, then we might not as well be talking about, trying to believe, praying to him/her - for we do all of these with our minds.
The problem of Free Will and God's Omniscience possibly comes because both are armchair theories propagated separately and at some point of time a logical person understood they do not match. Then they start spawning newer theories (and possibly more absurd ones) to explain the same. It's a pretty easy task for a theologist actually - you just have to sit back and imagine things. What are Futuribles :) ? Many futures that will never be ? Then they are not futures at all, right ? That way I also know innumerable futuribles - in all of which I live more that a thousand years and end up the supreme ruler of the universe.Is that knowledge, or just mumbo-jumbo ?
That you cannot prove God's non-existence is accepted and trivial, if only in the sense that we can
never absolutely prove the non-existence of anything. What matters is not whether God is disprovable (he isn't) but whether his existence is probable. That is another matter. Some undisprovable things are sensibly judged far less probable than other undisprovable things. There is no reason to regard God as immune from consideration along the spectrum of probabilities.
Martin Luther seems to be pretty vocal against reason and logic himself and he frequently warned of its dangers: 'Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.'Again: 'Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason.' And again: 'Reason should be destroyed in all Christians.'
ReplyDeleteDawkins writes - "Luther would have had no difficulty in intelligently designing unintelligent aspects of a religion to help it survive. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he, or anyone else, did design it. It could also have evolved by a (non-genetic) form of natural selection, with Luther not its designer but a shrewd observer of its efficacy."
It's possibly emotions like this that led Oscar Wilde to say "Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived."
Dear Rito,
ReplyDeleteI think all of what you say makes eminent sense. In fact, I wrote my previous comments despite having read Amartya Sen's argument in "The Argumentative Indian" that "reason cannot but be supreme, since even when disputing reason, we would have to give reason for that disputation." (I do not remember whether this is Prof. Sen's own argument or whether he was citing this as Akbar's argument).
While I have been largely and for long convinced of this, I have at times wondered whether there is any cirucularity imbedded in this argument. I do not know.
The issues you have addressed are also very deeply philosophical (at least to me) and I find myself incapable of commenting on them wisely without having devoted deserving time, thought and reading to those issues.
Hence I close (for now) with just a few ponderings. The logical understanding of God's nature and the logical exploration of God's presence could very well be very fruitful pursuits. However, I wonder whether and how far they are required for the development of a personal relationship and union with God. I mean, if I believe in God (whether it be due to prior conditioning, indoctrination or perhaps a set of divine experiences), would I still need to pursue the path of logic in order to lend credence to and/or cement my relationship with Him?
Further, is there a possibility that by first insisting on a logical deduction of His presence, we somehow shield ourselves from His vision? I mean, should one have to believe first and only then hope to see?
Or it might be possible for certain souls to simultaneously believe and search for a logical answer - thereby being open to the possibility of a negative answer regarding His presence. I do not know what it takes to be able to marry these two apparent or real contradictions. I for one seem to be unable to do that. Neither do I deem it absolutely necessary, as I hold in doubt (but do not dispute) the necessity (but not the usefulness) of such a search.
Forgive the overly use of paranthetical expressions in the last sentence.
Let me invoke my own Brahmastra here, which is Godel.
ReplyDeleteThe goal of Physics or Biology or any other field of science/knowledge is to ultimately axiomatise the laws of the Universe.
From Godel, we have that *any* axiomatic system based on rules of logic is either
a) Incomplete
or
b) Inconsistent
We will always have true statements unprovable in a system, thus making the system incomplete.
If we attempt to augment the system with rules & axioms to prove those statements, then the system will become inconsistent. That is, there will be statements that can be proved both true and false using the system.
Now, this 'God' thing could just be one of those special 'statements'. Either
a) The system is incomplete so God is unprovable.
or
b) Trying to prove God will make the system inconsistent(which is precisely the problem with Thomas Aquinas' proofs)
So, guys, if you want a consistent system, you gotta live with an incomplete one. One which cannot prove all truths.
If a father knows that because his son has behaved badly the father will give the boy a good hiding, is the father capable of not giving the boy a good hiding? Obviously! The father just knows that the boy needs a hiding and he, the father, means to give the boy one. The "omnipotence and omniscience are mutually exclusive" argument is weak! God is omnipotent, but this does not mean that He will act at variance with His nature; for example, God CANNOT lie (because it is against His nature - i.e. a self-imposed limit - Titus 1:2) but this does not mean He is not omnipotent
ReplyDelete