God Arguments are a Take on Reality
Once again I am driven to examine my hobby of making God arguments. No atheist will ever admit that they prove anything. Actually that's not quite true. There have been a couple of people on message boards, although they may not have called themselves "atheists" who came to admit that my argument proved to them that there must be a God. While these two are rare, if they were willing to do that, there must be more who are toying with the idea. The problem is, God arguments really don't prove God's existence in the way that full blooded empiricists would like to have proven. We will prove the existence of bigfoot before we prove God that way. That's because God is not a "thing" in creation. God is not another item alongside light posts and swizzel sticks; God is the framework of reality, god is off scale for any sort of measurement. This would be like trying to prove the universal constant with a speedometer from a car.
God arguments are a take on reality
God arguments do something else entirely, something other than "proving" the existence of God in an absolute and undeniable way. In fact it really contradicts my theology to try and prove God in that sense. I proposed the soteriolgocial drama theory, which says that God wants us to have to make a leap of faith. Thus it would be self defeating if the kind of proof existed whereby God could be proven in such a way that it would be undeniable. God arguments offer rational warrant to believe. That means only that it is not irrational to believe in God. While this can be parled into a strong sense indicating a good probability, it is not the kind of undeniable proof the atheists are seeking. Atheists really want to be forced. They want to be dragged kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God in such a way that they are overwhelmed and forced to give up and admit God is real. Of course this will never happen because it's not what God wants.
God doesn't refuse this level of proof to be mean, or to test people, or to play games. it's a simple necessity. If that level of credulity was met and atheists were forced to admit there msut be a God, even though I don't like it, they would not like it. They would resent it. God wants free moral agetns who willingly choose the good. That means they cant' dragged into it agaisnt the their will. The only way to get that is to search. Only those who have searched out the truth in their hearts, wrestled with dobut and come to make the leap of faith, can internaltize the values and seek the good because they want the good.
Belief in God is much more than just a factual question about the existence of a particular item in the universe. Belief in God is more than just a proposition to be weighed according to evidence. Belief in God is a value, an orientation toward Being. Religion is the identification of the human problematic, and the resolution of that problematic through the mediation of an ultimate transformative experience. God is that aspect of Being which forces us to face the problematic of being human and to seek ultimate transformative experience. God is that ultimate transformative power. God is the object of our ultimate concerns which we sense in our apprehension of the numinous. Thus God arguments can't possibly provide the kind of empirical evidence most skeptics seek but neither is it fair of them to expect it. That's why God arguments are ways of forcing us to evaluate and come to understand the nature of Being and our relation to the ultimate.
The only real proofs of God are those we each find in our hearts when we seek out the nature of our lives in relation to their goals and ends, and their ultimate ends. Those are not the kinds of ideas that can be subjected to objective sorts of proof. They are phenomenological apprehensions. They are existential. God arguments are existential clearifiers. They enable us to understand our own relation to the ultimate. When we make a God argument we are saying something about the rational nature of being, the meaning of what it is to be. We are making judgments about reality as a whole when we talk about reasons to believe in God. Thus, it's not a matter of proving some argument per se, it' snot a matter of demonstrating some fact, the impossibility of naturalistic cosmology, or the need for targets in anthropic fine tuning, but an understanding of reality that superceeds any particular fact or demonstrable bit of information.
I've written many times in this blog about the nature of God arguments and the need for a phenomenologicla approach. This view point must be maintanied by a stark realism about the lmiiations of empiricial science and the socially constructed nature of a materialist outlook.If beilef in God is the expression of a value about the meaningful nature of rationality in being, then the expression of lack of God belief, and it's justification thorugh empirical science must be a cyncial statement about the limiations of our ability to come to terms rationally with our own being.
God is not subject to Empirical Proof
Atheists demand proof of God as though God were some fact in nature. God is not a thing along side other things in creation. It is not strange that we can't prove God with some emprical fact because God is not given to empirical study. As I said in another post:
"There are somethings we can say about God that make sense realtive to our understanding of things. God is the foundation of all that is, so we know that God can't be compared to anything else. God is off scale for all atributes because God is the scale. Trying to measure and compare God to anything would be like trying to compare our single sun to the big bang. Even that is not apt because the BB was finite."
Traces of God
People don't come to belief in God because of arguments, and we shouldn't expect them to.
Humanity finds God in a million different places. It finds God in flowers and trees, in brooks (and in books), in grass, in each other. It finds God in storms and scary things, and in the night. It finds God in the sky and the stars in the darkness of a vast and endless expanse. It reaches out for what is there because it has been put into it to do so; not because God sat and said "I will make men and men will seek me" but because God provided for the reality of the Imago Dei to evolve and develop in whatever species reached the point where humanity has come to. God did this automatically as an aspect of self expression, as an outgrowth of consciousness. This kind of God would make a universe of the type we see around us. This type of God would also place in that universe hints so that whatever species reaches that level that God's manifestation would be waiting to show them God's solidarity with them. God would plant a thousand clues, not as a matter of deliberation like one plants Easter eggs, but as the result of being what God is--self communicating and creative. Thus we have design arguments and fine tuning arguments, and contingencies and necessities and the lot. We can find the God Pod in our heads that lights up when it hears God ideas. We can do studies and determine that our religious experiences are better for us than unbelief, because the clues are endless because the universe bears the marks of its creator.
Yet these marks are sublet for a reason. This is where the Evangelical view of God can also be a sophisticated view. The Evangelical God can also be the God of Tallish and the God of process, after all, these are all derived from the same tradition and the Evangelicals have as much right to escape anthropomorphism as anyone. The Evangelical God seeks a moral universe. This God wants believers who have internalized the values of the good. We do not internalize that which we are forced to acknowledge. Thus God knows that a search in the heart is better to internalizing values than is a rational formally logical argument, or a scientific proof. Thus we have a soteriological drama in which we can't tell if there is or is not a God just by looking at the nature of nature. That must remain neutral and must illud us because it is not given to us to have direct and absolute knowledge of God. Knowledge of God is a privilege. We must seek it through the heart, that's where it isthmian to be found. It's a privilege but faith is a gift.
Thus we should be speaking of the technology by which we can find God. Here I use the term "thecnology" in the Faucaultian sense, not as a machine or hardware, but as the manipulation of a technique. My God argument work as a God finding technology, but one must know how to apply them. You can't expect an empirical demonstration. We must find the co-detemrinate and demonstate the correlation between co-detemrinate and divine. How do we know when we find it? The Co-detemriniate will that thing which leads us to God.
God is accessable to all. We can each find God at an any time. What guarontee do we have that we have found God? Our lives will change. Atheist will baulck because it's not emprical proof. and it is not. But it is close enough that it leaves us into a transofmation. The proof is in the pudding. We know we have found it when we find it, becasue we turn on to it, our lives change, God becomes a reality to us. The that makes God a reality to us is the co-determinate. All questions about "how do you know that's really what it is" don't amount to anything, they are not negations of the expeince of transformtion.
God finder Technology: Co Deterinate
Co-determinate: The co-determinate is like the Derridian trace, or like a fingerprint. It's the accompanying sign that is always found with the thing itself. In other words, like trailing the invisable man in the snow. You can't see the invisable man, but you can see his footprints, and wherever he is in the snow his prints will always follow.
We cannot produce direct observation of God, but we can find the "trace" or the co-determinate, the effects of God in the wrold.
The only question at that ponit is "How do we know this is the effect, or the accompanying sign of the divine? But that should be answere in the argument below. Here let us set out some general peramitors:
(1) The trace produced content with speicificually religious affects
(2)The affects led one to a renewed sense of divine relaity, are transformative of life goals and self actualization
(3) Cannot be accounted for by alteante cuasality or other means.
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Argument
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(1)There are real affects from Mytical experince.
(2)These affects cannot be reduced to naturalistic cause and affect, bogus mental states or epiphenomena.
(3)Since the affects of Mystical consciousness are independent of other explaintions we should assume that they are genuine.
(4)Since mystical experince is usually experince of something, the Holy, the sacred some sort of greater trasncendent reality we should assume that the object is real since the affects or real, or that the affects are the result of some real higher reailty.
(5)The true measure of the reality of the co-dterminate is the transfomrative power of the affects.
so rather than arguing about "Proofs" we should be discussing how to seek God in your heart.
Comments
First, regarding your comment about atheists, you seem to take the position that those that don't agree with you haven't thought things through and just need to mull things over more thoroughly. Then your article goes on to state that god can't be proven through empirical evidence. Well that's the point. Wishy washy subjective and anecdotal accounts are not at all convincing to somebody that relies on reason instead of on faith.
The rest of your article is just higlighting the fact that your god is a supernatural being and thus conveniently exempt from any natural laws or possibilities of testing. That's always a very convenient argument for those defending their super natural beliefs. Reminds me of those that claim some special power won't work in the presence of skeptics. Again a rational person requires something reason-based explanations rather than myth based explanations.
Lastly, your logical argument at the end of the article breaks down immediately at points 1 and 2. You are arguing from an ignorance perspective or a "god in the gaps" pov. Basically because there are some things that can't be explained then they must have supernatural/mystical origins and so on. That is just relying on ignorance of the causes of x phenomenon. Like when people used to attribute epilepsy to demonic possession. As our learning of how the brain functions we'll be able to explain various states of mind without relying on the need for a supernatural entity. I recommend you keep abreast of the latest developments in neuro science.
As a last point, I find it interesting when Christians put forth these type of arguments. Mostly because nothing really implies that their god is any more possible then any other religions god. But if you mention any other gods or religions they quickly qualify them as silly and wrong. Also, all the discussion of how the christian god defies evidence and can't be tested etc etc, doesn't seem to jive with the old testament god. That god seemed quite involved and didn't seem to mind making his presence known whenever things didn't meet his strict standards. It's very convenient that now in our modern era all of a sudden he seems to shy to make his presence known.
Can the attitude, lose the arrogant swagger, because I'm not going to respond ot arrogant little know nothings who they all they need to do is draw beat Christians.
the only point in your entire tirade that had any substance, although not much, was your idiotic mistake in thinking that my argument could be a god of the gaps argument. Clearly you don't know what g of the g is. But let's look my argument:
Argument
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(1)There are real affects from Mytical experince.
(2)These affects cannot be reduced to naturalistic cause and affect, bogus mental states or epiphenomena.
(3)Since the affects of Mystical consciousness are independent of other explaintions we should assume that they are genuine.
(4)Since mystical experince is usually experince of something, the Holy, the sacred some sort of greater trasncendent reality we should assume that the object is real since the affects or real, or that the affects are the result of some real higher reailty.
(5)The true measure of the reality of the co-dterminate is the transfomrative power of the affects.
g of the g says that an argument from from God turns on some sort of gap in knowledge. but there is no reason why a g of the g argument is wrong per say. the only problem is when the gap is filled. There is nothing illogical about a g of the g argument.
that is the stupidity of atheists who don't study logic and don't know anything about it. There is nothing illogical about basing an argument on a gap if the gap wont be filled and if the argument doesn't claim to be able to fill it and isn't based upon claiming aboslute knowledge.
I said my arguments are based upon rational warrant. I have over 300 studies which prove the results of religious experince like I"m talking bout there is no data from anyone, no atheist has ever been able to give me any, that prove any sort of causality.
Moreover the arguemnt turn on the gap, that's just my argument against the defeater, the argument turns upon the outcome of the experinces. you have to be able to prove that there is some naturalistic cause. It is a reasonable surmise that in the absence of such proof, and in the presence of the outcome, it is the trace of the divine. Its' what we would expect from the divine, ti's obviously reason since the effects are real. We have reason to assume to assume it. and the whole arguemnt itself doesn't claim to be to be proof but warranted rationally.
there is no data from brain/mind studies or from neurology that disproves this argument, if anything it supports it. see the Book by Anderw Newberg Why God Wont Go Away.
Also, your lengthy post was pointless as you just reiterated that in the absence of an explanation a supernatural one is reasonable. That is only reasonable and warranted by someone already befuddled by superstition. Any other thinking individual would react to a gap in knowledge with curiosity and study.
Also, I'm sure you have 300 anecdotes in your portfolio as does the astral projectionist groups, UFO abductees, big foot hunters etc etc. I recommend you learn about the scientific method so you can sort out what constitutes an actual study, evidence, theory etc so you won't be so easily fooled.
Have a great day!