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Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > (No Subject)
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PhilTheThrill
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 95
| Posted 5/4/2004 6:29 AM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Originally posted by FenderPriest
Hey, i've been wondering how it is that we know that God excists and that religion and spirituality is something that we have just created in our oversized imaginations? I mean, when we think about the "spiritual highs" of our excistence, could they just not be imagined things so that we don't have to think that we're alone, or that their some natural state of how our brains react to the environment?
Well, this is a good question, even for Christians. Sometimes it feels like it's not "okay" to ask or wonder about this, but i think everyone struggles with it sometimes.
With spirituality, you have to go based on inference and probability. It's a game of "What's More Likely?". The Intelligent Design movement says "Look at all the evidence of design. Isn't it likely that designs have a designer?". So, we have to observe what is out there and draw a conclusion based on the best evidence that we have. Some observations that help to indicate God:
1. Design in nature - The sheer complexity of nature and its amazing innovation don't seem to be possible by random chance. Nature is a beautiful machine and it seems to point to a grand and creative designer.
2. Morality in man - Why do we have a conscience? Why do we have a moral law "written on our hearts"? Why does every culture in the world protect the innocent and punish the guilty, for example? Cultures differ greatly in lots of areas, but we all seem to value similar things. If you say there are objective moral laws that are true for all people at all times ("It is wrong to torture babies for fun" for example), you have to believe there is a law giver higher than yourself.
3. Philosophical Likelihood - Everything that exists in the universe has a beginning. Everything thing the begins has a cause greater than itself. If the universe began (and there is ample evidence that it did), there is likely a cause greater than the universe responsible.
That is just a super quick survey, but they are some of the pillars of why it is likely there is a God. I'm sure other people on the board will have plenty more to give you. For me, when I have doubts, I just remember that there is too much evidence in the universe that there is SOMETHING out there greater than the universe. Working from that point, I can then weigh the merits and evidences for christianity and I find them to be the best. Then, I work out the evidence for Open Theism and find it to be the best. 
So there you go, I hope that will tide you over for now, and maybe others will have some really meaty offerings.
-Phil | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 5/5/2004 7:19 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by FenderPriest
Hey, i've been wondering how it is that we know that God excists and that religion and spirituality is something that we have just created in our oversized imaginations? I mean, when we think about the "spiritual highs" of our excistence, could they just not be imagined things so that we don't have to think that we're alone, or that their some natural state of how our brains react to the environment?
Questioning
In Christ
Jacob
Well, my take on this might be a little different from others. A little more post-modern.
What do we mean by "know"? One sense of the word means something like "understand with a high degree of objective certainty, such that it can be said it would be irrational for any objective thinker to disagree". It is in this sense of the word that we "know" the earth is a sphere (ie, claims about the present which we can directly observe), the sun is powered by nuclear fusion (ie, claims about the present we cannot directly observe), and the United States arose out of the American Revolution (ie, claims about the past). When many avenues of publicly-agreed-upon sensory data, interpreted plainly, simply and rationally, converge upon a common conclusion, without any clear competitors, we say we "know" in this sense.
My take is, that in this sense of the word, we do not and cannot "know" whether what we believe as Christians is actually true - ie, corresponds to reality. I agree that, at the most ontological level, the complexity and elegance of the universe - its fine-tuning and its correspondence with mathematics - seem to suggest a designer. I agree that the common human experience - subjective awareness of both deity and moral ought-ness - seems to suggest there must be some external reality to those common human impressions. I agree that the Christian record, and more generally the biblical record, is historically plausible when understood appropriately (ie, not as modern-day historical chronicle which must always be literally true at every point, but as reliable and faithful examples of the looser and more subjective historical genres of the time). I agree that the astounding emergence and spread of the church suggests something extraordinary behind it. But I also acknowledge that each one of these points is legitimately contentious from an objective, uncommitted point of view. It can be reasonably argued that other explanations exist besides Christian theism.
The simple fact is our explanations as Christians for these phenomena are not so ironclad as we sometimes might like to think. And yet neither are non-Christian interpretations of these phenomena conclusive either. And how can they be - for ultimately (as I think David Hume first dwelt upon) what we are trying to reason through here is something hopelessly outside of our natural experience and control, while paradoxically all mere human reasoning can proceed upon is based on analogy with those things that are within our natural experience and control. The outcome of this is, and, I think, can only be, intellectual detente, where it must be admitted that objective, rational minds can simply come to different conclusions. In fact, if we must insist only on a rational, critical definition of "know", then I must confess that we cannot "know" anything but agnosticism.
But why do we insist that this kind of "know" is a requisite for belief? If the intellectual debate is inconclusive, it must also be said that Christian theism is not ruled out. If it were true - indeed if any of several theistic worldviews were true - why would we even expect that intellect would be able to prove it - to know it in that rigorous sense? In fact, if Christian theism were true, making kenotic Love the greatest organizing principle of Everything, I suspect we certainly would not expect to know by reason alone. Because if we consider how we relate with people we love, we realize the way we relate in love involves so much more. The elements of trust and vulnerability - meaning knowing you might be wrong about the other person but giving yourself anyway - are essential.
So I do not think we can really know in the rationalistic, critical sense of the word (though we can be satisfied that we have reasonable warrant for our belief, albeit not exclusively so). The universe seems simply to be setup that way, and we must rest in that mystery. But in an analogous way we can't really know another person's heart - yet we continually give ourselves over to other people anyway, even in some cases to people beyond whose words we've never met. It seems to be squarely in the human condition to do this, and when we do, to say with confidence that we "know" one another. If "know" expresses conviction based on both trust and experience, and not a triumphalist claim to objective certainty (which necessarily implies the irrationality of anyone who disagrees), then I think we can say that we as Christians can know these things.
Scott
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 5/5/2004 4:31 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by FenderPriest
In Christ
If you can say THAT, and its true...
If the Spirit of God is working in you and transforming you with Life from the inside, all the while your flesh (your "tent") is dead...yet there are signes of the inner life pushing through the "thin-ness" (C.S.Lewis)...THEN "the things of Earth will grow strongly dim, in the Light of his wonder and Grace." | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 5/7/2004 1:45 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by FenderPriest
"Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts hav any relation to reality at all."
- G.K. Chesterton
LOVE that Chesterton quote!!!
www.ccel.org/c/chesterton/
Free. | | Back to Top | | |
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