Proof of God’s Existence- Introduction

“What would constitute an adequate proof, to you, for the existence of God?” It’s a common question on the tip of many a Christian’s tongue when confronted with skepticism regarding their theistic worldview, yes? Responses from skeptics generally revolve around some kind of convincing display(s) of ‘miraculous’ interventions, or other manifestations i.e. events beyond the generally accepted, deterministic norms of the most current naturalistic paradigm, and supported by scientific methodology such as observation, controlled testing, repeatability and the like. Christians counter such requirements on several fronts. Some of the more common responses are:

God exists in a supernatural realm beyond our means of investigation.

Many, if not most, real events are neither observable nor repeatable, such as Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon.

There is no clear distinction between natural and so-called supernatural events,

All so-called ‘proof’ has a subjective element, so there’s really no such thing as absolute proof for ANYTHING. Everything is a matter of belief to some degree, from gods to puppy dogs.

God purposefully confounds any naturally-based investigations aimed His way-to test the saints, to get people to concentrate more on the ‘spiritual’ side of their lives, or simply because he likes rubbing skeptics’ noses in their own limitations.

Of course, all these arguments would work equally well in defending claims which are held to be patently untrue by the huge majority of human beings alive today, from the existence of leprechauns, to Richard Dawkin’s Flying Spaghetti Monster. Within the mental space of all hypothesized possibilities, all things are possible. We could argue all day (and many people do) about the details of what constitutes proof, or evidence, or even what might be more likely amongst competing premises. But these sorts of conversations rarely lead anywhere productive. I’ve always believed that constructive dialogue has to proceed from commonly accepted experiential ground; otherwise, things are destined to spiral downward into fruitless contests comprised of words about words, and nothing more. Perhaps not so surprisingly, many apologists I’ve read and interacted with seem right at home in these muddy waters, where every otherwise assumed factually oriented statement is punctuated by an epistemic question mark. It’s always frustrating; and, more to the point, fruitless when it comes to ascertaining where the truth actually lies. Argument for arguments sake, is the way I see it.

However, for argument’s sake I’m willing to concede, for the purposes of this series, to the apologist’s gambit that all statements of fact, or proofs, are actually merely opinions to one extent or another. What I’m not willing to entertain is the idea that all opinions are of equal value, or veracity. Most apologists I know would agree with this, EXCEPT when it comes to seriously weighing the evidence supporting their own theistic worldviews...especially as the field of inquiry narrows in on the particulars of their own more-or-less distinct religious beliefs. When that happens, suddenly the common-sense practice we use everyday in the weighing of evidences goes out the window, and the investigative bar is lowered to what amounts to “Your proofs are as crappy as ours, so we’ll stick to the convictions that make us comfortable, thank you very much!”

When I say common-sense practices, I’m generally challenged as to what the term ‘common-sense’ might entail; and that, indeed, common-sense is not nearly so common as I might imply. Furthermore, I seem to be hung on my own petard philosophically speaking since, as an atheist, the things I believe concerning the alleged existence of certain deities are quite UNcommon amongst the world’s populace. Fair enough. My rebuttal is that there are, indeed, areas of life in which our normative habits of investigating reality are thrown out the window. There are psychological reasons for why this is so, but I don’t intend to go into them here. Instead, I’d like to demonstrate, by a series of hypothetical examples, just how common-sense inquiry naturally proceeds, and how the processing of this inquiry leads to what we call ‘belief’. I’ll also take a stab at differentiating between the notion of ‘belief’ and ‘fact’; and while from a purely epistemic position this appears to be a hopeless case, it is a ‘fact’ that we draw such distinctions all the time, and that, indeed, religion is not immune from the same sorts of questions and judgments that we make from moment to moment in our everyday lives.