"On Proving God"

On Proving God

The skeptic demanded, “Prove to me that your God exists!”

What does “prove” mean?  Does it mean show a formal proof?  Does it mean to set up a control experiment?  Does it mean to gather a body of evidence, examine it closely, and then form some conclusion? 

Just what does it mean to “prove” that there is God?

Many Things Cannot Be Proven

Think about it.  There are many, many things that one cannot prove.   A person cannot touch, taste, feel, hear, see, or smell “love” yet who would argue that such does not exist?  The same is true of “gravity.”  Has anyone touched gravity?  Can you see it?  What does it taste like? Yet like love we know that it is very real.

The point is that there are many, many things that a person cannot experience with the five physical senses or prove with some theoretical calculation, and yet in the common body of knowledge we know that such things exist.  

How About One’s Thoughts?

If one applies the “experience criterion” to thoughts, they too are unprovable.  One’s thoughts though very real cannot be experienced by any of the five senses and yet who can legitimately argue that such are not real. 

Well sure, one certainly can measure electrical impulses and chemical reactions in the brain but are those thoughts?  Of course they are not!  They are simply electrons and molecules in relationship with one another etc.  That being so one would be hard pressed to prove the existence of consciousness by the existence of those physical observations.

So Can You Know For Sure?

Materialism is the notion that all is physical or as they say, "material" in some form or another.  This idea is the substance of arguments among philosophers but has little validity in the real world of most people.   

Most rational people know that there is much in life that cannot be known and experienced through the five senses.  Most know that there are elements in reality that are not indeed cannot be governed by the physical laws with which man is acquainted.  Even without the senses there is an inner awareness that there is more than the physical. 

In short there are many things that cannot be rationally explained without the existence of non-material and alternate realities.  So here are a few questions...

Questions

If one can agree that there is a non-material reality then there comes a question.  It is this.  What are the limits of that non-material world?   

Is it limited to that which functions in the mental processes of man?  The example referenced above is that of love.  There are others such as joy, fear, hope, kindness, etc.

Or…

Is it limited to that which functions in the mental process of man and as well that which functions in the physical world?  An example here is the aforementioned gravity.

Or…

Is there more?

In Summary

In sum, here are the points…

If you can accept that there is something beyond the material world…

If you can accept that there is something beyond the non-material part of man…

If you can accept that there is something beyond the non-material parts of the physical world

Then is it possible that existing in that non-material reality is God?

Jesus certainly said so when He said,

  “God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24, NASU