One of the questions, or tasks, in the admissions test to the philosophical department here was: "Correctly deduce God's existence."

How would you go about doing this?

"I think. Therefore, God may be."

Unless this is strictly a problem in deductive logic ("correctly deduce"), it would not be possible.
Zarathustra

This post has been edited by Zarathustra: Oct 19 2007, 10:50 AM

That's a bold claim.

Wouldn't the certain knowledge of God's existence then make a philosophical discussion regarding the existence of God rather moot?

Or successful, but that might just be two ways to say the same thing.

According to St. Anselm (1033-1109), paraphrased, "There is nothing greater than God. Which would be greater, a real God or a God who doesn't exist? A real God who exists would be greater than a non-existing God. Therefore, God must exist." He was a Benedictine monk who eventually became the archbishop of Canterbury.

Rene Descartes has his own proof. Basically, "Only a perfect, infinite being can explain a perfect, infinite being [God]." Because man cannot conceive of anything perfect or infinite, only God can, therefore God exists because he is the only one who can comprehend himself.

Of course, both these theories are slightly more complicated; this is the gist of them. The flaws in them are obvious in that you have to already assume God exists in order to prove he exists. It is impossible to prove the existence of God if you don't already assume somewhere that God exists. Therefore, you cannot "correctly deduce God's existence".

Also, both these people had strong ties with the Christian faith. Rene Descartes was raised a Christian, and St. Anselm was a monk.

This seems to be a issue of "Faith" , the very fact that we're hear typing away seems proof enough to me , the fact that we haven't discovered life out side of Earth would seem to back that up also . then there is this guy http://www.kpho.com/news/13323731/detail.html

I cannot recommend this movie enough, The Ninth Configuration
"Infinite goodness is creating a being you know, in advance, is going to complain. "

" In order for life to have appeared spontaneously on earth, there first had to be hundreds of millions of protein molecules of the ninth configuration. But given the size of the planet Earth, do you know how long it would have taken for just one of these protein molecules to appear entirely by chance? Roughly ten to the two hundred and forty-third power billions of years. And I find that far, far more fantastic than simply believing in God"

Which may have been gleamed from this

"The occurrence of any event where the chances are beyond one in ten followed by 50 zeros is an event which we can state with certainty will never happen, no matter how much time is allotted and no matter how many conceivable opportunities could exist for the event to take place" (Dr. Emile Borel, who discovered the laws of probability).

"The probability for the chance of formation of the smallest, simplest form of living organism known is 1 in 10 340,000,000. This number is 10 to the 340 millionth power! The size of this figure is truly staggering since there is only supposed to be approximately 10^80 (10 to the 80th power) electrons in the whole universe!" (Professor Harold Morowitz, Biophysicist of George Mason University)

It may be a bold claim, but I think it is philosophically correct. And this is a philosophy forum and the original post was a philosophical question.
To my knowledge no deduction or proof of God's existence in the history of philosophy from the very beginnings to the most modern schools of thought, has remained unchallenged and irrefutable.

I am not even sure that one could properly use formal logic to prove the existence of God, or indeed of anything else.
Z

This post has been edited by Zarathustra: Oct 20 2007, 09:38 PM

It is quite a step to go from saying that no one has done it to saying that it is impossible.
I would say that any proper proof requires logic. How formalized the logic is depends on how formalized you state your proof, but that is more a question of method rather than nature. For something to be a proof it would have to have, if not explicit formalized logic, then at least implicit logic.


Here is a clear deduction of God's existence which does not in any way rely on faith:

If I have a coin in my pocket God exists.
I have a coin in my pocket.
-------------------------------------------------
God exists.

If I do not have a coin in my pocket, then God exists.
I do not have a coin in my pocket.
Therefore God exists.

If I do have a coin in my pocket, then zebras are blue.
I do have coin in my pocket,
Therefore zebras are blue.


Consider the logical formula:

If A then B.
B
Therefore A

The truth table for this form is:

A.................B................If A then B
________________________________
T.................T.................T
T.................F.................F
F.................T.................T
F.................F.................T



The reason I suggested that formal logic would in principle be incapable of proving existence has to do (1) with the nature of the copula (is) in formal logic and its unique relationship with being (exists), and (2) the conclusion that since the rules of logic have been understood since at least Aristotle's discussion, and since philosophers of the highest merit have failed to present a logical proof of God's existence, then it is seems almost (I am forced to qualify that by MrAlpha's sensible remarks) certain that such a proof cannot be made.

And if formal logic cannot prove the existence of God, then can "implicit logic" which we normally would call reason, provide the proof?

Z

This post has been edited by Zarathustra: Oct 21 2007, 12:29 PM

It has been proven in labs that particles will act as particles or waves depending on whether they are observed or not. This indicates that the universe was designed with an observer in mind (no observer, no mass). Hence intelligent design, and God.

Maybe I am misreading the argument, so correct me if I am wrong.

Whether natural phenomena act as they do when observed or not does not seem to prove that natural phenomena only act as they do for the sake of being observed. The stream running by my house flows north and downhill whether I observe it or not, but this doesn't mean it does so just on the chance that I will walk by it in the morning.
Further to argue that the universe was "designed" with an observer "in mind" seems to presuppose a designer and a mindful purpose in fact exist, which is what is to be proved by the argument.
It is a doubtful leap from the workings of nature to the conclusion that these indicate a "design" of any sort. What does it mean to talk of "design" outside of the human concept, and are we not talking here about a human interpretation of the world surrounding us?
Z

Well, I guess some people think it's easier to tear other's ideas down rather than trying to answer the question themselves. In the interest of brevity, I mentioned only the particle experiments, but I fully subscribe to the Pribram/Bohm holographic paradigm. In numerous ways the universe has proven itself to be "unreal" as we know it. A hologram, empty space with information inscribed on area borders. But to respond to Z's"Whether natural phenomena act as they do when observed or not does not seem to prove that natural phenomena only act as they do for the sake of being observed", what other explanation could there be? We aren't talking about uncertainty principle here, with the observation method tainting the experiment. If observation and belief fields can alter the universe, as has been shown, this at the very least it proves a "spirit realm", as does Jung's "collective unconsonscious". It really takes a big leap in imagination to think that it is just a big coincidence and we are just that lucky. It's a bit like arguing that eyes weren't made to see with, or that a car wasn't designed to drive;these are just random side effects. At some point you have to admit that there are too many coincidences, that the chance of random occurence is too astronomical.

The discussion thread began with the question, whether the existence of God can be logically deduced, and I have taken the position that this does not seem possible, and have adduced two reasons for the stance I have taken. First, the limits of formal logic (deduction) seem to preclude such a proof, and second that in 2000 years of extensive thought, no proof of the existence of God has gone unchallenged, and none has been able to provoke ready assent.
The discussion then expanded to determine if God's existence could be proven by "informal" or "implicit" logic. Now since my own position about this is only tentative, I have refrained from explicitly stating it. But it does seem to me that God's existence cannot be demonstrated using human reason, and I hope in the course of this discussion to present some of my warrants for this conclusion as circumstances permit.

The most recent dialogue is an opportunity for this, since there seems to be some general agreement that "reality" or "observation" or the "universe" is subject to alteration by the human observer. I myself think that a very great part of "reality" has a strictly human, interpretative origin. Certainly whatever meaning it has is dependent on human beings, whether this process is called the "collective unconscious", the "spirit realm," or by other terms. Hence I suggested that using words or concepts like "designed" or "purposeful" is a human interpretation of the world, and does not necessarily accurately describe it "as it really is."

With this general theory of reality in mind, I wish to discuss some particular arguments made recently.

If we take the existence of sense organs, there is no reason to infer they were "made," when there are other ways to account for their existence as a part of the evolutionary path improving the changes of survival for locomotive animals. And in the case of automobiles, while it is prefectly true that they were designed to be driven, it is just as true that they were invented and designed by human technology for human purposes. In neither example, is the existence of God necessary for an adequate explanation of their coming to be, and seemingly illustrates the application of a strictly human interpretation (to forestall an objection, the evolutionary theory as part of science is also a interpretation, or a way of viewing events from a particular horizon. It would be another interpretation to understand why one standpoint would be preferred to another).

Is the the argument from random occurrence decisive in proving the existence of God? What were the chances that the Titanic would sink, that Oedipus would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, or that Shakespeare would write not just one but many great plays? These chances appear, at least to us, to be astronomical, yet the events did happen and we seem to happily accept their rarity without recourse to any other explanation than chance. If we accept that these events happen by chance, why should other events require a different explanation entirely?

I thoroughly enjoy this exchange of viewpoints, and hope we all can continue the discussion.
Z

This post has been edited by Zarathustra: Oct 31 2007, 09:11 AM