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

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

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

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

But it might be, if God allowed it.

In other words, if God wanted it, it would be logically clear.

One simple deduction of the existence of God can be achieved by removing an assumption from the question. The assumption is that "God" refers to the god of Abraham. If we do not make that assumption we can use this definition of god; the object of worship. Under that definition the only thing needed to prove the existence of any god is the existence of its worshippers. If people worship a god, then it exists as the object of that worship.

That is one way of looking at it. But the argument does not, I think, prove the actual (or real" existence of god, but only the existence of something-worshipped.
Putting it in another way, if no one worshipped god, then god would not exist, under this definition. In fact, the argument seems to prove the opposite, that god does not exist.
I am reminded of the words of Nietzsche's madman in the marketplace: don't these people realise that God is dead? We have killed him.
Zarathustra

The urgument does not prove that god doesn't exist, it merely points out that gods can exist as institutions. And that the question is inherently judeo-christian biased. Logically speaking, if we begin with the biblical paradigm, then it can be used in the urgument. For instance, it can be ascertained historically that a man lived who we now call Jesus. If Jesus is God (as the paradigm goes), then that proves the existence of God! Of course Jesus would also qualify as a "god" because he has worshippers. Likewise with Buddha, whose existence is attested to historically.

It may very well be that Jesus or the Buddha were actual historical figures. At the same time, though, neither of these left any writings directly attributable to them, and we are left with "eye-witness accounts" that may or may not correctly reflect their own views of who they were.

"If Jesus is God (as the paradigm goes), then that proves the existence of God!"
Both of their historical existences, then, is objective. But as you correctly point out, their deity is subjective and only valid from within the perspective/paradigm of the religion that grew around them. It would be completely reasonable, for an example, for someone to say that Jesus was an actual person, that there are contemporary accounts of him, but that he was not god. I think this is somewhat, as I understand it, the general position of the Jewish faith and the followers of Mohamed.
So we seem to remain in a confused and unsettled position about the truth of the premiss "If Jesus is God." Or "if the Buddha is God," for this depends on prior assumptions from within a particular system of religious faith, and these are unproven.
Z

We all recognize that "God" refers to Yahweh(the father, I AM, lord of hosts, etc.), not Vishnu or Zues. The orthodox Christian view is that the trinity are all one God, so there are three ways to try to prove God's existence. But that is precisely the difficulty with the question that you now seem to understand. We begin with someone's concept of God and then try to prove it. If we go with the Jewish "paradim", we could say God proved himself when he brought plagues upon Egypt. So somebody's concept of God may well depend upon their version of history (although I don't recall there being a different version to the Exodus story written by Egyptians, but who knows maybe there's version where Amen-Ra kicks the Jews out to racially cleanse Egypt).

I certainly agree with you about the concept of godhood being historically conditioned, and that is accounts for the many differing ideas about the nature of god. But doesn't this suggest that god's existence is on the same veridical level with the concept of a gryphen, that is, the existence of the object is purely linguistic?
And are we not talking about a different kind of existence here?
Z

If you want a satisfactory answer to the question the terms "God" and "existence" must be defined. As the question stands it is highly semantical (for instance, how could something not exist if we are discussing it? Is an idea a "thing" that exists?), and relies upon the common respondant to have a culture which defines "God" in the same way as the questioner.

"Truth begins with two."

You cannot have a private language.

Perhaps the confusion results from taking two different assertions:
Assertion 1. The idea (of) God exists, and this existent is dependent on man.
Assertion 2. God exists actually, and this existence is independent of man.

Bracketing for a moment any sort of definition of god and using that word in a everyday sense, if we consider the two different uses of "existence" then I am suggesting that Assertion2 cannot be proven by deduction.

Z

I understand your position, Z. Maybe you are right. As a person who went through agnosticism and atheism and arrived at Christianity, I believe that God is provable, but perhaps science or mathematics has not evolved to that point yet. So I have hopes for holo thoery or other unified field theories to eventually prove God. I wouldn't count God out as long as we cannot scientifically determine how the universe is put togehther (i.e., until we get a proven unified theory) Until then maybe this issue is in stalemate.

Individual perception and belief is individual reality. I perceive God exists. I believe God exists. Therefore, God exists.

Note of clarification: all of the quoted text in the above post (post #27) seems to be attributed to Zarathustra, while in fact only the first paragraph was written by him.

Z

Zarathrusta - my apologies for the quote layout - I messed up the "quote extract" bit and the whole thing was put out as a quote - you are perfectly correct, the first para only is yours - the rest is mine.. I'm still trying to over come an ingrained computer twit affliction!

Sometimes one's fingers and one's mind don't talk to one another, so don't worry about an honest mistake, Quiet Mike. I was not sure, but I thought that the other two paragraphs were probably your own thoughts, and I certainly could have written the last paragraph myself.

The existence of palpable evil in the world seems to present difficulties to anyone arguing for the existence of God. Either his existence involves allowing attributes which one does not want to apply to what-a-god-does/ or God's existence is completely and totally divorced from the universe in which case whether God exists or not is a "useless hypothesis."
The "third way" allowing the existence of evil as part of God's "plan" or of God's "testing" humanity, involving a tortuous and highly tenuous series of arguments, seems unsatisfactory because it relies primarily on textual interpretations and an anthropomorphic conception of the nature of God.

Regards,
Z

Very easy - create a simple definition of God based on the tangible/quantitative.

As you will see, proving God depends on one's definition of God.

Whilst proving God is dependent on one's definition of God, I agree that the intangible/qualitiative aspect of God can be proven to one by the fact that s/he thinks and dreams. These are four-dimensional, timeless and spaceless qualities, which religion historical attempted to explain. The difficulty however is that since God is a process, it's definition is subject to time and will therefore change according to the experiences and perception of the person defining. Therefore, a definition will be relative to the person defining it and only true of that moment in time.

From a logical point of view:
It seems that the deductive step from the fact that one thinks or one dreams falters when proceeding beyond the statement "there are dreams" or "there are thoughts." If it is a major leap to the conclusion that there is an "I" who has those dreams or thoughts---no matter how lively they appear---then it is even greater to the conclusion to the (real) existence of God.

That there is a concept of God, on a par with there is a concept of a unicorn, and that this concept of God varies from one person to the next, or one historical epoch to the next, seems to argue that the origin of God is strictly human.
Z

Please can you elaborate a little more.

So, by applying the same kind of reasoning, I can do this? That there is a concept of nature that varies from one person to the next, or one historical epoch to the next, seems to argue that the origin of nature is strictly human.

The original question that began this thread was whether one can deduce God's existence. I have argued that such a deduction, taken in a strict logical sense, is not possible. In a more general sense, whether one can produce arguments able to convince anyone of God's real existence (in the sense of not being an object of imagination or feeling, but as actually existing) is open to debate. Hence, the question under discussion is not really whether God exists or not, but whether his (or hers or its) can be satisfactory demonstrated.

The gist of what I was saying is that any conception (or historical propensity) to "believe in God" may tells us something about human nature, but certainly does not prove God's existence, just as much as my mental picture of a unicorndoes not mean that any have ever actually roamed this planet.
Z

You are correct. Earlier I said that proving God depends on it's definition. If I choose to define God as a human being, I can prove to you that God exists by showing to you a human being. If I choose to define God as the floor or as existance, I can prove this to you by showing to you the floor or the objects that existance constitues. However, God's definition in most cases is based on an intangible quality that has no physical charactoristics. This is where it becomes diffcult proving God's existance. Again, there are ways of describing this quality. For instance, if I refer to the personality of a human as my definition of God, I can define God as being kind and polite. I can prove that God is kind and polite by allowing you to be aquainted with that human which has a kind and polite personality. However, as I said earlier, definitions of God will be relative to each person and proving God will depend on its definition.

For reasons that are very obvious, there is no physical evidence that can prove the 'intangible' aspect of God.

I disagree that because the concept of God varies from one person to the next suggests that the origin of God is strictly human, it only suggests that the origin of the definitions are human.

In relation to deducing God's existance, the process of deduction is based on the physical. Therefore, in so far as one's definition of God is physical, it can be proved. It is however impossible to use a physical process in order to prove something which is not physical for very obvious reasons.

I am not clear about how the process of deduction is based on the physical. Here is an example of the process of deduction:
All A is B
All B is C
Therefore, All A is C.
The only physical basis for the syllogism is that it is in my "head" and, so scientist tells us, the result of electrical stimulation of brain cells. Perhaps we mean different things by the word "physical," but in this example, the process (and it legitimacy) is independent of any physical object.

One could, moreover, define God's existence to be non-physical (or not physical in the sense that we understand physical, namely actually existing in time and space); this might make a proof of God somewhat difficult, but I am not clear how it would automatically rule out its possibility. Many arguments make sense, even if they refer to non-existences, because of generalized, or abstract, terms.

Lastly, it is not obvious (at least to this one) that one cannot use a physical process (thinking, for example) to prove something which is not physical. This "rule" which is not physical, could never be proved if that were the case.
Z

The best way of demonstrating logic is by the use of maths/physics. And what I meant to say was that physics/maths cannot be used to prove something which is not made from physical matter or which is not constrained by time nor space.

I agree that many arguments make sense even where they refer to non-existences, but that four-dimensional entities cannot be proved using physics/maths.

Certainly the application of laws of thought (logic) to existent observations depends on establishing the "truth" of the premises, and for this reason alone, one could take any attempt with a grain of salt.
Z

After having a philosophical discussion tonight, I have managed to form a clearer conclusion as to why God's existance cannot be deduced -

1. The truth about god cannot be communicated since communication is limited to the tangible.

2. There needs to be agreement on the definition on God before one can prove it's existance - whether God is exclusively tangible / intangible or both. The intangible aspect however cannot be proved, since proof is based on physical evidence, and without it, communication of the intangible is flawed, as asserted above.

The first argument, that human knowledge is limited to a certain kind of universe, has always seemed crucial. As Kant pointed out, when that knowledge is extended improperly to subjects outside of that universe of possible knowledge, the result is "antimonies" where one can equally "prove" two opposite propositions.
One might go further and say that any proposition with existential implications must, at least in principle, be subject to verification. But direct verification would not be possible and the "rules" for doing it would most likely rest on assumptions that would be circular.
Z