(Sep 22, 2023 10:12 PM)Magical Realist Wrote:Quote:But trying to convince others of this has been a bit of a struggle
The problem becomes why it is a struggle to convince people God exists.
I think that there are a variety of reasons and it's complex.
Part of it is that there's little agreement on how to define the word 'God' or about what we mean when we use the word.
Many people associate 'God' with a big cosmic emperor in the sky (or wherever). Judaism, Christianity and Islam often lean towards that. Even Hinduism in some of its many moods. And lots of people don't want to believe in that. (I'm one of them probably.)
Quote:I mean really. There's no struggle believing real things exist. Trees, rocks, clouds, and stars. They're real because they are self-evident. But there apparently is a struggle to believe God exists.
God certainly isn't self-evident to our human senses in the same way that the tables and the chairs are. So along with belief in a hidden God we seem to need some kind of theological theory of divine hiddenness. That might demand a whole ontology, with explanations or at least claims about different kinds of existence.
Quote:It's a very simple proposition in the end: "If God exists, show me he exists. The burden of proof lies with the one making the claim. Then explain why he doesn't show himself to be existent."
I think that the persuasive burden lies with whoever wants to convince somebody else of something that the second person doesn't already believe. I call it a burden of persuasion rather than proof because it rarely rises to the level of proof.
I'm less convinced that a believer has any similar burden if there's no intention to convince anyone else. One might adopt an ethics of belief view and argue that it's wrong to believe anything without suitable justification, but I'm unconvinced of that. Defining 'suitable justification' would be a challenge, as would making room for morals, aesthetics, logical and mathematical intuitions. Even phenomenal sense experience.
As for me, I find myself drifting towards deism, much as Anthony Flew did late in his life. He was the atheist's-atheist, who seemingly defected to the dark-side.
I just intuit that the universe, the laws of physics, the formal patterns of logic and all that require explanation. It's possible to define 'God' to be whatever reality's ultimate explanation might be. And that forms the basis of a logical proof of the existence of God:
1. For all x, if x exists then a sufficient reason for x's existence exists. (This is philosophy's Principle of Sufficient Reason and it's controversial. But I just kind of feel that for any determinate state of affairs, we can always ask why it's that way and not some other way. Science often seems to assume it when it assumes that states of affairs aren't just givens but have histories and explanations that science can uncover. Think of what Darwin did for species.)
2. Reality exists. (Seemingly self-evident.)
3. God is reality's sufficient reason. (It's traditional in natural theology and the whole 'God as creator' thing. It's exemplified in first-cause and design arguments. Again, it's controversial.)
4. A sufficient reason for reality's existence exists. (From 1. and 2.)
5. God exists. (From 3. and 4.)
It seems to me that this is an impeccably valid logical proof. But like all logical arguments, it's only as good as its premises. 1. and 3. seem iffy to me. One might even want to argue with 2.
But I do find it somewhat convincing in my own life. I do sense (very strongly) that there are unknown explanations about which I know nothing. Unknown powers at work. (It's my surrounded by mysteries thing.) I'm not particularly motivated to call it 'God' in my own thinking, but I can see why other people might. (And many have.) Obviously there are regress problems. There's the problem that an unknown explanation isn't necessarily a suitable object of worship or any other distinctly religious emotion.
But I guess that the idea of an unknown Cosmic Source comes as close to religiosity as I come. I'm a bit of a Neoplatonist, perhaps.