1. The Existential Argument from the Need for Ultimate Meaning
Summary:
God is the source of all meaning. Without God, existence has no purpose. (Not to be confused with Argument from Purpose.)
C.S. Lewis, British writer and lay-theologian, 1898-1963
“The reason why [man cannot find something apart from God that will make him happy] is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p49
“The reason why [man cannot find something apart from God that will make him happy] is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p49
Elmer Leon Towns, American professor of theology & pastor, 1932-
“We certainly think that the view of extinction is very depressing, and we have often wondered how the materialist can face the destiny he envisages for himself with equanimity. He can only offer himself the death of all his hopes, all his scheming and endeavour. The more he struggles towards goodness the greater must be his ultimate loss. To say we are not worried about what is to happen a long time hence seems to involve a rather detached point of view: perhaps those who face extinction, even millions of years hence, will regard the matter differently if they adopt our author’s standpoint. We ourselves have immediate concern if we are asked to believe that all our striving is without final consequence. This is surely a doctrine of despair: life is meaningless, and it scarcely matters how we live if all will end in the dust of death. We turn from this gloomy picture with relief to the Christian revelation. How different, and how beautiful, is the conception that God’s grand design is life eternal for those who walk in the steps of Christ. Here is the one grand incentive to good living. In the Christian scheme each action has vital significance. As life is seen to have purpose and meaning, men find release from despair and the fear of death.”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958 p30
“We certainly think that the view of extinction is very depressing, and we have often wondered how the materialist can face the destiny he envisages for himself with equanimity. He can only offer himself the death of all his hopes, all his scheming and endeavour. The more he struggles towards goodness the greater must be his ultimate loss. To say we are not worried about what is to happen a long time hence seems to involve a rather detached point of view: perhaps those who face extinction, even millions of years hence, will regard the matter differently if they adopt our author’s standpoint. We ourselves have immediate concern if we are asked to believe that all our striving is without final consequence. This is surely a doctrine of despair: life is meaningless, and it scarcely matters how we live if all will end in the dust of death. We turn from this gloomy picture with relief to the Christian revelation. How different, and how beautiful, is the conception that God’s grand design is life eternal for those who walk in the steps of Christ. Here is the one grand incentive to good living. In the Christian scheme each action has vital significance. As life is seen to have purpose and meaning, men find release from despair and the fear of death.”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958 p30
Paul Kalanithi, American neurosurgeon, 1977-2015
“To make science the arbiter of metaphysics is to banish not only God from the world but also, love, hate, meaning — to consider a world that is self-evidently not the world we live in... Yet the paradox is that scientific methodology is the product of human hands and thus cannot reach some permanent truth.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air, Random House, 2016
“To make science the arbiter of metaphysics is to banish not only God from the world but also, love, hate, meaning — to consider a world that is self-evidently not the world we live in... Yet the paradox is that scientific methodology is the product of human hands and thus cannot reach some permanent truth.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air, Random House, 2016
Werner Heisenberg, German physicist, 1901-1976
“In a darkened world no longer illuminated by the light of this center [God], technical advances are scarcely more than despairing attempts to make Hell a more agreeable place to live in. This must be particularly emphasized against those who think that by spreading the civilization of science and technology even to the uttermost ends of the earth, they can furnish all the essential preconditions for a golden age. One cannot escape the Devil so easily as that.”
― Werner Heisenberg, Across the Frontiers, Harper & Row Publishers, 1972
“In a darkened world no longer illuminated by the light of this center [God], technical advances are scarcely more than despairing attempts to make Hell a more agreeable place to live in. This must be particularly emphasized against those who think that by spreading the civilization of science and technology even to the uttermost ends of the earth, they can furnish all the essential preconditions for a golden age. One cannot escape the Devil so easily as that.”
― Werner Heisenberg, Across the Frontiers, Harper & Row Publishers, 1972
Suzanne Olsson, American historian & biographer
“The old prophets filled our imaginations with gods and commandments and holy scriptures, with glowing descriptions of life in Heaven and among the stars. Because of them, we are on our way there. Perhaps that has been their intention all along.”
― Suzanne Olsson, Jesus in Kashmir: The Lost Tomb, Booksurge, 2005
“The old prophets filled our imaginations with gods and commandments and holy scriptures, with glowing descriptions of life in Heaven and among the stars. Because of them, we are on our way there. Perhaps that has been their intention all along.”
― Suzanne Olsson, Jesus in Kashmir: The Lost Tomb, Booksurge, 2005
2. Argument from Beauty
The Aesthetic Argument
The Aesthetic Argument
Summary:
Beauty is not necessary for life, therefore, why does beauty exist if not created by a benevolent god?
Richard Swinburne, English philosopher, 1934-
“God has reason, apparently overriding reason, for making, not merely any orderly world (which we have been considering so far) but a beautiful world—at any rate to the extent to which it lies outside the control of creatures. (And he has reason too, I would suggest, even in whatever respects the world does lie within the control of creatures, to give them experience of beauty to develop, and perhaps also some ugliness to annihilate.) So God has reason to make a basically beautiful world, although also reason to leave some of the beauty or ugliness of the world within the power of creatures to determine; but he would seem to have overriding reason not to make a basically ugly world beyond the powers of creatures to improve. Hence, if there is a God there is more reason to expect a basically beautiful world than a basically ugly one. A priori, however, there is no particular reason for expecting a basically beautiful rather than a basically ugly world. In consequence, if the world is beautiful, that fact would be evidence for God’s existence. For, in this case, if we let k be ’there is an orderly physical universe,’ e be ‘there is a beautiful universe,’ and h be ‘there is a God,’ P(e/h.k) will be greater than P(e/k)... Few, however, would deny that our universe (apart from its animal and human inhabitants, and aspects subject to their immediate control) has that beauty. Poets and painters and ordinary men down the centuries have long admired the beauty of the orderly procession of the heavenly bodies, the scattering of the galaxies through the heavens (in some ways random, in some ways orderly), and the rocks, sea, and wind interacting on earth, ‘The spacious firmament on high, and all the blue ethereal sky,’ the water lapping against ‘the old eternal rocks,’ and the plants of the jungle and of temperate climates, contrasting with the desert and the Arctic wastes. Who in his senses would deny that here is beauty in abundance? If we confine ourselves to the argument from the beauty of the inanimate and plant worlds, the argument surely works.”
— Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, Clarendon Press, 2004
“God has reason, apparently overriding reason, for making, not merely any orderly world (which we have been considering so far) but a beautiful world—at any rate to the extent to which it lies outside the control of creatures. (And he has reason too, I would suggest, even in whatever respects the world does lie within the control of creatures, to give them experience of beauty to develop, and perhaps also some ugliness to annihilate.) So God has reason to make a basically beautiful world, although also reason to leave some of the beauty or ugliness of the world within the power of creatures to determine; but he would seem to have overriding reason not to make a basically ugly world beyond the powers of creatures to improve. Hence, if there is a God there is more reason to expect a basically beautiful world than a basically ugly one. A priori, however, there is no particular reason for expecting a basically beautiful rather than a basically ugly world. In consequence, if the world is beautiful, that fact would be evidence for God’s existence. For, in this case, if we let k be ’there is an orderly physical universe,’ e be ‘there is a beautiful universe,’ and h be ‘there is a God,’ P(e/h.k) will be greater than P(e/k)... Few, however, would deny that our universe (apart from its animal and human inhabitants, and aspects subject to their immediate control) has that beauty. Poets and painters and ordinary men down the centuries have long admired the beauty of the orderly procession of the heavenly bodies, the scattering of the galaxies through the heavens (in some ways random, in some ways orderly), and the rocks, sea, and wind interacting on earth, ‘The spacious firmament on high, and all the blue ethereal sky,’ the water lapping against ‘the old eternal rocks,’ and the plants of the jungle and of temperate climates, contrasting with the desert and the Arctic wastes. Who in his senses would deny that here is beauty in abundance? If we confine ourselves to the argument from the beauty of the inanimate and plant worlds, the argument surely works.”
— Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God, Clarendon Press, 2004
Robin Collins, PhD, American philosopher
“Think about the extraordinary beauty, elegance, harmony, and ingenuity that we find in the laws of nature...
“...They’re beautiful, and they’re also elegant in their simplicity. Surprisingly so. When scientists are trying to construct a new law of nature, they routinely look for the simplest law that adequately accounts for the data...
“Besides, not all beauty is subjective; there are also objective aspects of it, at least, in the classical sense. In his book The Analysis of Beauty, written in the mid-1700s, William Hogarth said the defining feature of beauty or elegance is ‘simplicity with variety.’ And that’s what scientists have found–a world where fundamental simplicity gives rise to the enormous complexity needed for life...
“[If beauty were a product of evolution based on survival value,] that would only apply to things we can see, touch, or hear–things in our everyday world that are necessary for survival. But evolution can’t explain the beauty that exists in the underlying world of physical laws and mathematics.
“In physics, we see an uncanny degree of harmony, symmetry, and proportionality. And we see something that I call ‘discoverability.’ By that, I mean that the laws of nature seem to have been carefully arranged so that they can be discovered by beings with our level of intelligence. That not only fits the idea of design, but it also suggests a providential purpose for humankind–that is, to learn about our habitat and to develop science and technology...
“Under an atheistic viewpoint, there’s no reason to expect that the fundamental laws would be beautiful or elegant, because they easily could have been otherwise. Even Weinberg, who’s an atheist, conceded that ‘sometimes nature seems more beautiful than strictly necessary.’“However, the fine-tuning for simplicity, beauty, and elegance does make sense under the God hypothesis. Think of the classical conception of God–he is the greatest possible being, and therefore a being with perfect aesthetic sensibility. It wouldn’t be surprising at all for God to want to create a world of great subtlety and beauty at its most fundamental level...
“It’s not conclusive in the sense that mathematics tells us two plus two equals four. Instead, it’s a cumulative argument. The extraordinary fine-tuning of the laws and constants of nature, their beauty, their discoverability, their intelligibility–all of this combines to make the God hypothesis the most reasonable choice we have. All other theories fall short.”
— Robin Collins, PhD, (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p154-157
“Think about the extraordinary beauty, elegance, harmony, and ingenuity that we find in the laws of nature...
“...They’re beautiful, and they’re also elegant in their simplicity. Surprisingly so. When scientists are trying to construct a new law of nature, they routinely look for the simplest law that adequately accounts for the data...
“Besides, not all beauty is subjective; there are also objective aspects of it, at least, in the classical sense. In his book The Analysis of Beauty, written in the mid-1700s, William Hogarth said the defining feature of beauty or elegance is ‘simplicity with variety.’ And that’s what scientists have found–a world where fundamental simplicity gives rise to the enormous complexity needed for life...
“[If beauty were a product of evolution based on survival value,] that would only apply to things we can see, touch, or hear–things in our everyday world that are necessary for survival. But evolution can’t explain the beauty that exists in the underlying world of physical laws and mathematics.
“In physics, we see an uncanny degree of harmony, symmetry, and proportionality. And we see something that I call ‘discoverability.’ By that, I mean that the laws of nature seem to have been carefully arranged so that they can be discovered by beings with our level of intelligence. That not only fits the idea of design, but it also suggests a providential purpose for humankind–that is, to learn about our habitat and to develop science and technology...
“Under an atheistic viewpoint, there’s no reason to expect that the fundamental laws would be beautiful or elegant, because they easily could have been otherwise. Even Weinberg, who’s an atheist, conceded that ‘sometimes nature seems more beautiful than strictly necessary.’“However, the fine-tuning for simplicity, beauty, and elegance does make sense under the God hypothesis. Think of the classical conception of God–he is the greatest possible being, and therefore a being with perfect aesthetic sensibility. It wouldn’t be surprising at all for God to want to create a world of great subtlety and beauty at its most fundamental level...
“It’s not conclusive in the sense that mathematics tells us two plus two equals four. Instead, it’s a cumulative argument. The extraordinary fine-tuning of the laws and constants of nature, their beauty, their discoverability, their intelligibility–all of this combines to make the God hypothesis the most reasonable choice we have. All other theories fall short.”
— Robin Collins, PhD, (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p154-157
Paul Davies, PhD, English physicist & professor, 1946-
“A common reaction among physicists to remarkable discoveries...is a mixture of delight at the subtlety and elegance of nature, and of stupefaction: ‘I would never have thought of doing it that way.’ If nature is so ‘clever’ it can exploit mechanisms that amaze us with their ingenuity, is that not persuasive evidence for the existence of intelligent design behind the physical universe? If the world’s finest minds can unravel only with difficulty the deeper workings of nature, how would it be supposed that those workings are merely a mindless accident, a product of blind chance? ... Uncovering the laws of physics resembles completing a crossword in a number of ways... In the case of the crossword, it would never occur to us to suppose that the words just happened to fall into consistent interlocking pattern by accident.”
— Paul Davies, Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1984 p235-36 (Quoted by Lee Strobel, A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p156)
“So far I have dwelt on mathematics. But perhaps the laws distinguish themselves in other, more subtle ways, such as by their aesthetic value. It is widely believed among scientists that beauty is a reliable guide to truth, and many advances in theoretical physics have been made by the theorist demanding mathematical elegance of a new theory. Sometimes, where laboratory tests are difficult, these aesthetic criteria are considered even more important than experiment... Paul Dirac, the theoretical physicist whose aesthetic deliberations led him to construct a mathematically more elegant equation for the electron, which then led to the successful prediction of the existence of antimatter, echoed these sentiments when he judged that ‘it is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have them fit experiment.’
“Mathematical elegance is not an easy concept to convey to those unfamiliar with mathematics, but it is keenly appreciated by professional scientists. Like all aesthetic value-judgments, however, it is highly subjective. Nobody has yet invented a ‘beauty meter’ that can measure the aesthetic value of things without referring to human criteria. Can one really say that certain mathematical forms are intrinsically more beautiful than others? Perhaps not. In which case it is very odd that beauty is such a good guide in science. Why should the laws of the universe seem beautiful to humans? No doubt there are all sorts of biological and psychological factors at work in framing our impressions of what is beautiful. It is no surprise that the female form is attractive to men, for example, and the curvaceous lines of many beautiful sculptures, paintings, and architectural structures doubtless have sexual referents. The structure and operation of the brain may also dictate what is pleasing to the eye or ear. Music may reflect cerebral rhythms in some fashion. Either way, though, there is something curious here. If beauty is entirely biologically programmed, selected for its survival value alone, it is all the more surprising to see it re-emerge in the esoteric world of fundamental physics, which has no direct connection with biology. On the other hand, if beauty is more than mere biology at work, if our aesthetic appreciation stems from contact with something firmer and more pervasive, then it is surely a fact of major significance that the fundamental laws of the universe seem to reflect his ‘something.’”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p175-176
“A common reaction among physicists to remarkable discoveries...is a mixture of delight at the subtlety and elegance of nature, and of stupefaction: ‘I would never have thought of doing it that way.’ If nature is so ‘clever’ it can exploit mechanisms that amaze us with their ingenuity, is that not persuasive evidence for the existence of intelligent design behind the physical universe? If the world’s finest minds can unravel only with difficulty the deeper workings of nature, how would it be supposed that those workings are merely a mindless accident, a product of blind chance? ... Uncovering the laws of physics resembles completing a crossword in a number of ways... In the case of the crossword, it would never occur to us to suppose that the words just happened to fall into consistent interlocking pattern by accident.”
— Paul Davies, Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1984 p235-36 (Quoted by Lee Strobel, A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p156)
“So far I have dwelt on mathematics. But perhaps the laws distinguish themselves in other, more subtle ways, such as by their aesthetic value. It is widely believed among scientists that beauty is a reliable guide to truth, and many advances in theoretical physics have been made by the theorist demanding mathematical elegance of a new theory. Sometimes, where laboratory tests are difficult, these aesthetic criteria are considered even more important than experiment... Paul Dirac, the theoretical physicist whose aesthetic deliberations led him to construct a mathematically more elegant equation for the electron, which then led to the successful prediction of the existence of antimatter, echoed these sentiments when he judged that ‘it is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have them fit experiment.’
“Mathematical elegance is not an easy concept to convey to those unfamiliar with mathematics, but it is keenly appreciated by professional scientists. Like all aesthetic value-judgments, however, it is highly subjective. Nobody has yet invented a ‘beauty meter’ that can measure the aesthetic value of things without referring to human criteria. Can one really say that certain mathematical forms are intrinsically more beautiful than others? Perhaps not. In which case it is very odd that beauty is such a good guide in science. Why should the laws of the universe seem beautiful to humans? No doubt there are all sorts of biological and psychological factors at work in framing our impressions of what is beautiful. It is no surprise that the female form is attractive to men, for example, and the curvaceous lines of many beautiful sculptures, paintings, and architectural structures doubtless have sexual referents. The structure and operation of the brain may also dictate what is pleasing to the eye or ear. Music may reflect cerebral rhythms in some fashion. Either way, though, there is something curious here. If beauty is entirely biologically programmed, selected for its survival value alone, it is all the more surprising to see it re-emerge in the esoteric world of fundamental physics, which has no direct connection with biology. On the other hand, if beauty is more than mere biology at work, if our aesthetic appreciation stems from contact with something firmer and more pervasive, then it is surely a fact of major significance that the fundamental laws of the universe seem to reflect his ‘something.’”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p175-176
Owen Gingerich, American professor of astronomy & history of science, 1930-
“I believe that...the Book of Nature, with its astounding details–the blade of grass, the Conus cedonulli [shell], or the resonance levels of the carbon atom–suggests a God of purpose and a God of design. And I think my belief makes me no less of a scientist.”
— Owen Gingerich, “Dare a Scientist Believe in Design?”, Evidence of Purpose, Continuum, New York, 1994, p32 [Quoted by Lee Strobel, A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p158]
“I believe that...the Book of Nature, with its astounding details–the blade of grass, the Conus cedonulli [shell], or the resonance levels of the carbon atom–suggests a God of purpose and a God of design. And I think my belief makes me no less of a scientist.”
— Owen Gingerich, “Dare a Scientist Believe in Design?”, Evidence of Purpose, Continuum, New York, 1994, p32 [Quoted by Lee Strobel, A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p158]
John A. O’Keefe, American astrogeologist & planetary scientist at NASA, 1916-2000
“We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cossetted [sic], cherished group of creatures; our Darwinian claim to have done it all ourselves is as ridiculous and as charming as a baby’s brave efforts to stand on its own feet and refuse his mother’s hand. If the universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in.”
— John A. O’Keefe, “The Theological Impact of the New Cosmology,” in Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, p118 [Quoted by Lee Strobel, A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p202]
“We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cossetted [sic], cherished group of creatures; our Darwinian claim to have done it all ourselves is as ridiculous and as charming as a baby’s brave efforts to stand on its own feet and refuse his mother’s hand. If the universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in.”
— John A. O’Keefe, “The Theological Impact of the New Cosmology,” in Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, p118 [Quoted by Lee Strobel, A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p202]
3. Argument from Religious Experience
Argument from Revelation & Testimony
Sensus Divinitatus (”Sense of the Divine”)
Argument from Revelation & Testimony
Sensus Divinitatus (”Sense of the Divine”)
Summary:
People the world over feel a sense of something greater, or a yearning for God, or a sense that they have experienced God or received messages from God. Therefore, God exists.
J.P. Moreland, American philosopher & theologian, 1948-
“There are two types of arguments for God based on religious experience: a causal argument and a direct perception argument. The former argues that certain effects (e.g., a changed life, spiritual power) are best explained by postulating God as the cause of those effects. This is an interference to the best explanation. The latter claims that religious perception is relevantly similar to sensory perception and both are frequently veridical. Here the claim is that, occasionally, God Himself is directly perceived in religious experience.”
— J.P. Moreland (footnotes), Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p45
“As a university student in 1968, I met Jesus Christ personally, and He changed my life. I have had close to two decades of walking with Him and fellowshipping with Him and falling more and more in love with Him daily. He has given me a power for life that I did not know before, and I have had personal experiences of Him...
“When one tries Christianity based upon these rational considerations, he can put Jesus Christ to the test and see if Christianity works out in his own personal life. I have done this, and I have found that Jesus Christ has changed my life. This is an argument from religious experience that has meant a lot to me intellectually and personally, and I recommend it to you.”
— J.P. Moreland, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p74
“There are two types of arguments for God based on religious experience: a causal argument and a direct perception argument. The former argues that certain effects (e.g., a changed life, spiritual power) are best explained by postulating God as the cause of those effects. This is an interference to the best explanation. The latter claims that religious perception is relevantly similar to sensory perception and both are frequently veridical. Here the claim is that, occasionally, God Himself is directly perceived in religious experience.”
— J.P. Moreland (footnotes), Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p45
“As a university student in 1968, I met Jesus Christ personally, and He changed my life. I have had close to two decades of walking with Him and fellowshipping with Him and falling more and more in love with Him daily. He has given me a power for life that I did not know before, and I have had personal experiences of Him...
“When one tries Christianity based upon these rational considerations, he can put Jesus Christ to the test and see if Christianity works out in his own personal life. I have done this, and I have found that Jesus Christ has changed my life. This is an argument from religious experience that has meant a lot to me intellectually and personally, and I recommend it to you.”
— J.P. Moreland, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p74
Jerome I. Gellman, Israeli professor of philosophy, 1940-
“Our argument will be based upon the claim that purportedly God has been experienced over the course of history by a great number of adherents in several of the world’s major religions. This is testified to by the Bible and other religious texts, and by numerous reports and descriptions of people’s experiences. When we say that God has purportedly been experienced we do not mean to refer exclusively or even mainly to purported revelations from God, taking ‘revelation’ in the narrow sense of an experience in which it seems that God has revealed some truths or commands or His will for humankind or for an entire nation, or the like. Judging from the history of purported experiences of God, they are typically of God’s very presence or of God’s acting toward the subject of the experience in some way or other, or of God’s revealing His will as that pertains solely to the particular person undergoing the experience...”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p4
“From the claim about purported experiences of God, we will be drawing the conclusion that God really is experienced across various of the world’s religions. But although we are interested in affirming that God is truly experienced in various religions, nothing in our argument is meant to imply what we might call ‘hard pluralism,’ that (somehow) all religions are equally valid. On the one hand, it is perfectly consistent with what we argue that all religions are equally graced with God’s living presence, and equally bring their adherents to a realization of God. Also, it is consistent with our argument to claim that all religions are but human attempts, some better, some worse, to relate in an appropriate way toward God, and that none of them has any particular Divine sanction, or at least no more than any other religion.
“On the other hand, it is also perfectly consistent with the argument of this work to be what we might call a ‘soft pluralist,’ and argue, believe, or have faith that one religion has a fuller understanding of these matters than do others, or that God has a special relationship with one people, or that God, although appearing to all, has revealed His will only to some and not to others...
“This our argument leaves the status of any particular religion entirely open as regards to its truth, in itself or relative to other religions.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p5-6
“Analogously, our conclusion may be resisted or rejected in the name of a conviction that our whole enterprise is hopeless or frivolous on the grounds that God could not possibly be really and truly experienced by anyone. One might be convinced, for example, that God is ‘transcendent,’ beyond the reach of finite morals. But the claim does not deserve to be taken seriously without further argument, in the face of what seem to be a large number of instances in which mere finite morals have experienced God. Or, one might be convinced that God does not exist, and so regard the idea of God’s being experienced to be unworthy of serious consideration. Such a view too, however, would be disproved by our argument that from the substantial evidence that God seems to be experienced across several of the world’s religions it should be concluded that God is actually experienced, and so exists...”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p7
“Our argument will be based upon the claim that purportedly God has been experienced over the course of history by a great number of adherents in several of the world’s major religions. This is testified to by the Bible and other religious texts, and by numerous reports and descriptions of people’s experiences. When we say that God has purportedly been experienced we do not mean to refer exclusively or even mainly to purported revelations from God, taking ‘revelation’ in the narrow sense of an experience in which it seems that God has revealed some truths or commands or His will for humankind or for an entire nation, or the like. Judging from the history of purported experiences of God, they are typically of God’s very presence or of God’s acting toward the subject of the experience in some way or other, or of God’s revealing His will as that pertains solely to the particular person undergoing the experience...”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p4
“From the claim about purported experiences of God, we will be drawing the conclusion that God really is experienced across various of the world’s religions. But although we are interested in affirming that God is truly experienced in various religions, nothing in our argument is meant to imply what we might call ‘hard pluralism,’ that (somehow) all religions are equally valid. On the one hand, it is perfectly consistent with what we argue that all religions are equally graced with God’s living presence, and equally bring their adherents to a realization of God. Also, it is consistent with our argument to claim that all religions are but human attempts, some better, some worse, to relate in an appropriate way toward God, and that none of them has any particular Divine sanction, or at least no more than any other religion.
“On the other hand, it is also perfectly consistent with the argument of this work to be what we might call a ‘soft pluralist,’ and argue, believe, or have faith that one religion has a fuller understanding of these matters than do others, or that God has a special relationship with one people, or that God, although appearing to all, has revealed His will only to some and not to others...
“This our argument leaves the status of any particular religion entirely open as regards to its truth, in itself or relative to other religions.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p5-6
“Analogously, our conclusion may be resisted or rejected in the name of a conviction that our whole enterprise is hopeless or frivolous on the grounds that God could not possibly be really and truly experienced by anyone. One might be convinced, for example, that God is ‘transcendent,’ beyond the reach of finite morals. But the claim does not deserve to be taken seriously without further argument, in the face of what seem to be a large number of instances in which mere finite morals have experienced God. Or, one might be convinced that God does not exist, and so regard the idea of God’s being experienced to be unworthy of serious consideration. Such a view too, however, would be disproved by our argument that from the substantial evidence that God seems to be experienced across several of the world’s religions it should be concluded that God is actually experienced, and so exists...”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p7
C.S. Lewis, British writer and lay-theologian, 1898-1963
“Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man [a military officer who felt God]. I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America...
“...Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God–experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map... In fact, that is just why a vague religion–all about feeling God in nature and so on–is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work: like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p127-128
“When you come to knowing God, the initiative lies on His side. If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him. And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to to others–not because He has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.“You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred–like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope...”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p135
“Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man [a military officer who felt God]. I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America...
“...Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God–experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map... In fact, that is just why a vague religion–all about feeling God in nature and so on–is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work: like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p127-128
“When you come to knowing God, the initiative lies on His side. If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him. And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to to others–not because He has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.“You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred–like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope...”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p135
Peter John Kreeft, American professor of philosophy, 1937-
“Some sort of experience lies at the very core of most people's religious faith. Most of our readers have very likely had such an experience. If so, you realize, in a way no one else can, its central importance in your life. That realization is not itself an argument for God's existence; in fact, in the light of it you would probably say that there is no need for arguments. But there is in fact an argument for God's existence constructed from the data of such experiences. It is not an argument which moves from your own personal experience to your own affirmation that God exists. As we said, you most probably have no need for such an argument. Instead, this argument moves in another direction: from the widespread fact of religious experience to the affirmation that only a divine reality can adequately explain it.”
— Peter Kreeft, “The Argument from Religious Experience,” 20 Arguments for God’s Existence (website)
“Some sort of experience lies at the very core of most people's religious faith. Most of our readers have very likely had such an experience. If so, you realize, in a way no one else can, its central importance in your life. That realization is not itself an argument for God's existence; in fact, in the light of it you would probably say that there is no need for arguments. But there is in fact an argument for God's existence constructed from the data of such experiences. It is not an argument which moves from your own personal experience to your own affirmation that God exists. As we said, you most probably have no need for such an argument. Instead, this argument moves in another direction: from the widespread fact of religious experience to the affirmation that only a divine reality can adequately explain it.”
— Peter Kreeft, “The Argument from Religious Experience,” 20 Arguments for God’s Existence (website)
Elmer Leon Towns, American professor of theology & pastor, 1932-
“The self-revelation of God teaches at least four things. First, God is the core of all revelation, for He has revealed Himself. Of course, revelation includes the works of God and the plan of God, but the essence of revelation is the self-disclosure by God. Second, we see that the ones to whom God revealed Himself did not seek after Him, implying that they cannot perceive God without divine aid. In the third place we learn that the result of revelation is the communication of ideas or concepts. In the act of revelation, God revealed Himself to man. As the receiver of revelation, man had to interpret the stimulus/revelation he received. This reception process deals with ideas or concepts. The self-revelation of God was not made in vague feelings or ecstatic experiences. The self-revelation of God resulted in words and concepts that have meaning; the meaning of these words is objective, for they can be measured, repeated and interpreted. God did not reveal Himself in mysterious gobbledygook words. The self-revelation of God was an act that resulted in meaningful words. The fourth thing about revelation is that the message was written, which gives it perpetuity so that it can influence future generations. If the self-revelation of God was only oral, the receivers would have had no difficulty in understanding who God was. But there would have been problems as one generation sought to pass the message to a second generation. The self-revelation would have become corrupted if it were entrusted to the memory of man. But the self-revelation of God was encapsulated in a Book for man to read and pass on to others. Hence, God preserved its objectivity.
“The primary motivation of revelation was not to give man doctrine, although the end product of revelation is doctrine. In the same manner, the primary motivation of revelation is not to communicate words, although these are the result of revelation. Revelation is not primarily given to communicate supernatural knowledge, nor is it given to stimulate man’s ability to respond to God. Revelation is essentially an act whereby God unveils Himself to His people. This is more than a revelation of knowledge about Himself. Also, it is more than a revelation of information or doctrine of God... But the primary consideration of revelation is that the Bible reveals the Lord God Almighty who ultimately was made flesh in the incarnation and tabernacled among us...”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p30-31
“The self-revelation of God teaches at least four things. First, God is the core of all revelation, for He has revealed Himself. Of course, revelation includes the works of God and the plan of God, but the essence of revelation is the self-disclosure by God. Second, we see that the ones to whom God revealed Himself did not seek after Him, implying that they cannot perceive God without divine aid. In the third place we learn that the result of revelation is the communication of ideas or concepts. In the act of revelation, God revealed Himself to man. As the receiver of revelation, man had to interpret the stimulus/revelation he received. This reception process deals with ideas or concepts. The self-revelation of God was not made in vague feelings or ecstatic experiences. The self-revelation of God resulted in words and concepts that have meaning; the meaning of these words is objective, for they can be measured, repeated and interpreted. God did not reveal Himself in mysterious gobbledygook words. The self-revelation of God was an act that resulted in meaningful words. The fourth thing about revelation is that the message was written, which gives it perpetuity so that it can influence future generations. If the self-revelation of God was only oral, the receivers would have had no difficulty in understanding who God was. But there would have been problems as one generation sought to pass the message to a second generation. The self-revelation would have become corrupted if it were entrusted to the memory of man. But the self-revelation of God was encapsulated in a Book for man to read and pass on to others. Hence, God preserved its objectivity.
“The primary motivation of revelation was not to give man doctrine, although the end product of revelation is doctrine. In the same manner, the primary motivation of revelation is not to communicate words, although these are the result of revelation. Revelation is not primarily given to communicate supernatural knowledge, nor is it given to stimulate man’s ability to respond to God. Revelation is essentially an act whereby God unveils Himself to His people. This is more than a revelation of knowledge about Himself. Also, it is more than a revelation of information or doctrine of God... But the primary consideration of revelation is that the Bible reveals the Lord God Almighty who ultimately was made flesh in the incarnation and tabernacled among us...”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p30-31
4. Argument from Miracles
Summary:
A. Miracles exist.
B. Miracles are not merely extraordinary events, but need religious context.
C. Something must have caused the miracle.
D. God is the cause.
B. Miracles are not merely extraordinary events, but need religious context.
C. Something must have caused the miracle.
D. God is the cause.
Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, American physician-geneticist, NIH Director, 1950-
“All of this simply goes to say that a discussion about the miraculous quickly devolves to an argument about whether or not one is willing to consider any possibility whatsoever of the supernatural.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
“All of this simply goes to say that a discussion about the miraculous quickly devolves to an argument about whether or not one is willing to consider any possibility whatsoever of the supernatural.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
Richard Swinburne, English philosopher, 1934-
“What the theist claims about God is that he does have power to create, conserve, or annihilate anything, but or small. And he can also make objects move or do anything else... He can make the planets move in the way that Kepler discovered that they move, or make gunpowder explode when we set a match to it; or he can make planets move in quite different ways, and chemical substances explode or not explode under quite different conditions from those which now govern their behaviour. God is not limited by the laws of nature; he makes them and he can change or suspend them – if he choses.”
— Richard Swinburne, Is There a God? (quoted by Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p82)
“What the theist claims about God is that he does have power to create, conserve, or annihilate anything, but or small. And he can also make objects move or do anything else... He can make the planets move in the way that Kepler discovered that they move, or make gunpowder explode when we set a match to it; or he can make planets move in quite different ways, and chemical substances explode or not explode under quite different conditions from those which now govern their behaviour. God is not limited by the laws of nature; he makes them and he can change or suspend them – if he choses.”
— Richard Swinburne, Is There a God? (quoted by Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p82)
5. Argument from Faith
Summary:
We can know of the existence of God only through faith. God wants us to be faithful regardless of the evidence. Whether or not there is physical evidence for the existence of God, we should believe that he does exist, and the evidence may follow.
Martin Luther, German priest & theologian, 1483-1546
“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
— Martin Luther (quoted by Richard Dawkins), The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p221
“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
— Martin Luther (quoted by Richard Dawkins), The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p221
Leon Morris, Australian New Testament scholar, 1914-2006
“Faith is clearly one of the most important concepts in the whole New Testament. Everywhere it is required and its importance insisted upon. Faith means abandoning all trust in one’s own resources. Faith means casting oneself unreservedly on the mercy of God. Faith means laying hold on the promises of God in Christ, relying entirely on the finished work of Christ for salvation, and on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God for daily strength. Faith implies complete reliance on God and full obedience to God.”
— Leon Morris, “Faith,” The New Bible Dictionary, Eerdmans, 1962 p413 (quoted by Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p454-455)
“The characteristic construction for saving faith is that the verb pisteuō is followed by the preposition eis. Literally this means to believe ‘into.’ It denotes a faith which, so to speak, takes a man out of himself, and puts him into Christ (cf. the expression frequently used of Christians, being in Christ). This experience may also be referred to with the term faith-union with Christ. It denotes not simply a belief that carries a intellectual assent, but one wherein the believer cleaves to his Saviour with all his heart. The man who believes in this sense abides in Christ and Christ in him (John xv. 4). Faith is not accepting certain things as true, but trusting a Person, and that Person is Christ.”
— Leon Morris, “Faith,” The New Bible Dictionary, Eerdmans, 1962 p411 (quoted by Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p457)
“Faith is clearly one of the most important concepts in the whole New Testament. Everywhere it is required and its importance insisted upon. Faith means abandoning all trust in one’s own resources. Faith means casting oneself unreservedly on the mercy of God. Faith means laying hold on the promises of God in Christ, relying entirely on the finished work of Christ for salvation, and on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God for daily strength. Faith implies complete reliance on God and full obedience to God.”
— Leon Morris, “Faith,” The New Bible Dictionary, Eerdmans, 1962 p413 (quoted by Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p454-455)
“The characteristic construction for saving faith is that the verb pisteuō is followed by the preposition eis. Literally this means to believe ‘into.’ It denotes a faith which, so to speak, takes a man out of himself, and puts him into Christ (cf. the expression frequently used of Christians, being in Christ). This experience may also be referred to with the term faith-union with Christ. It denotes not simply a belief that carries a intellectual assent, but one wherein the believer cleaves to his Saviour with all his heart. The man who believes in this sense abides in Christ and Christ in him (John xv. 4). Faith is not accepting certain things as true, but trusting a Person, and that Person is Christ.”
— Leon Morris, “Faith,” The New Bible Dictionary, Eerdmans, 1962 p411 (quoted by Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p457)
Elmer Leon Towns, American professor of theology & pastor, 1932-
“[Satan] snatches the good seed of the Word. ‘When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart’ (Matt. 13:4, 19, italics added). The picture is, of course, of birds swooping down and picking up the grain fallen from the sower’s hand on the hard-beaten path. Even so, the devil snatches away good seed [sic] of the Word before it can sink into the understanding and be received by faith. This is the activity of the devil whenever the Word is preached. It underlines the fact we should pray after the preaching as well as before, for this subtle stratagem is all too often successful. How frequently the solemn impression of a powerful sermon is dissipated by the idle chatter after a service. The good seed is snatched away.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p382
“[Satan] snatches the good seed of the Word. ‘When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart’ (Matt. 13:4, 19, italics added). The picture is, of course, of birds swooping down and picking up the grain fallen from the sower’s hand on the hard-beaten path. Even so, the devil snatches away good seed [sic] of the Word before it can sink into the understanding and be received by faith. This is the activity of the devil whenever the Word is preached. It underlines the fact we should pray after the preaching as well as before, for this subtle stratagem is all too often successful. How frequently the solemn impression of a powerful sermon is dissipated by the idle chatter after a service. The good seed is snatched away.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p382
C.H. Douglas Clark, British inorganic & structural chemistry professor
“What does it mean when we say we believe through faith? We think it means that we bring into play a faculty different from reason, which we exert when we appreciate the grandeur of a lovely sunset or feel awe as we contemplate a lofty height with its rocky eminence veiled in mist. If awe deepens into reverence, we begin to feel the need of something to revere, leading to the idea of God and the urge to worship Him as a Being. This may happen to different people in different ways, but the end of the process is invariable. We see something with perfect clarity, and wonder why we had never thought of it before. We know we have come into contact with ultimate Reality. Faith is embodied in a vision of God, a spontaneous enlightenment giving us the certainty of a personal Presence to which we feel we must attach ourselves. We find ourselves en rapport with infinite essence which supersedes all the observations of time and sense, and realize that, although God cannot be perceived with the naked eye, He is known by spiritual insight, and that Jesus Christ, being both God and Man, gave us a concrete and historical expression in our space-time of the inward reality which many find so elusive.“Happy indeed is he to whom such vision is granted: surely it is the pearl of great price, yet unsought and unvalued by large numbers of men... The language we are using may seem almost meaningless to some readers, yet if we could inspire any to say: ‘Oh, I wish I could have a vision like that,’ it may well be that they would find themselves set on the road to its attainment. Faith is hard to achieve if our eyes are only turned down to the world of time and material privileges and possessions...”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958 p17-18
“What does it mean when we say we believe through faith? We think it means that we bring into play a faculty different from reason, which we exert when we appreciate the grandeur of a lovely sunset or feel awe as we contemplate a lofty height with its rocky eminence veiled in mist. If awe deepens into reverence, we begin to feel the need of something to revere, leading to the idea of God and the urge to worship Him as a Being. This may happen to different people in different ways, but the end of the process is invariable. We see something with perfect clarity, and wonder why we had never thought of it before. We know we have come into contact with ultimate Reality. Faith is embodied in a vision of God, a spontaneous enlightenment giving us the certainty of a personal Presence to which we feel we must attach ourselves. We find ourselves en rapport with infinite essence which supersedes all the observations of time and sense, and realize that, although God cannot be perceived with the naked eye, He is known by spiritual insight, and that Jesus Christ, being both God and Man, gave us a concrete and historical expression in our space-time of the inward reality which many find so elusive.“Happy indeed is he to whom such vision is granted: surely it is the pearl of great price, yet unsought and unvalued by large numbers of men... The language we are using may seem almost meaningless to some readers, yet if we could inspire any to say: ‘Oh, I wish I could have a vision like that,’ it may well be that they would find themselves set on the road to its attainment. Faith is hard to achieve if our eyes are only turned down to the world of time and material privileges and possessions...”
— C.H. Douglas Clark, Christianity and Bertrand Russell: A Critique of the Essay: ‘Why I Am Not a Christian,’ Lutterworth Press, 1958 p17-18
6. Argument from Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA)
Summary:
Science does not preclude a disbelief in that which is unmeasurable or yet unknown. Faith and science describe different things, cover different magisteria, and are not mutually exclusive or necessarily in conflict.
Martin John Rees, British cosmologist & astrophysicist, 1942-
“The pre-eminent mystery is why anything exists at all. What breathes life into the equations, and actualized them in a real cosmos? Such questions lie beyond science, however: they are the province of philosophers and theologians.”
— Martin Rees, Our Cosmic Habitat, [year, publisher] (quoted by Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p79)
“The pre-eminent mystery is why anything exists at all. What breathes life into the equations, and actualized them in a real cosmos? Such questions lie beyond science, however: they are the province of philosophers and theologians.”
— Martin Rees, Our Cosmic Habitat, [year, publisher] (quoted by Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p79)
Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, & historian of science, 1941-2002
“The net, or magisterium, of science covers the empirical realm: what is the universe made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the old clichés, science gets the age of rocks, and religion the rock of ages; science studies how the heavens go, religion how to go to heaven.”
— Stephen Jay Gould, Rock of Ages, Ballantine Books, 1999, (quoted by Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p79)
“The net, or magisterium, of science covers the empirical realm: what is the universe made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the old clichés, science gets the age of rocks, and religion the rock of ages; science studies how the heavens go, religion how to go to heaven.”
— Stephen Jay Gould, Rock of Ages, Ballantine Books, 1999, (quoted by Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Mariner Books, 2008 p79)
Freeman Dyson, English-American theoretical physicist, 1923-2020
“Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect. Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute. The media exaggerate their numbers and importance. The media rarely mention the fact that the great majority of religious people belong to moderate denominations that treat science with respect, or the fact that the great majority of scientists treat religion with respect so long as religion does not claim jurisdiction over scientific questions.”
― Freeman Dyson, Progress In Religion, Templeton Prize Lecture acceptance speech, March 22, 2000, published in Edge. vol. 68 May 16, 2000
“Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect. Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute. The media exaggerate their numbers and importance. The media rarely mention the fact that the great majority of religious people belong to moderate denominations that treat science with respect, or the fact that the great majority of scientists treat religion with respect so long as religion does not claim jurisdiction over scientific questions.”
― Freeman Dyson, Progress In Religion, Templeton Prize Lecture acceptance speech, March 22, 2000, published in Edge. vol. 68 May 16, 2000
C.S. Lewis, British writer and lay-theologian, 1898-1963
“...Ever since men were able to think they have been wondering what this universe really is and how it came to be there. And, very roughly, two views have been held. First, there is what is called the materialist view. People who take that view think that matter and space just happen to exist, and always have existed, nobody knows why; and that the matter, behaving in certain fixed ways, has just happened, by a sort of fluke, to produce creatures like ourselves who are able to think... The other view is the religious view. According to is, what is behind the universe is more like a mind than it is like anything else we know. That is to say, it is conscious, and has purposes, and prefers one thing to another... Wherever there have been thinking men both views turn up. And note this too. You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense. Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long run, however complicated it looks, really means something like, ‘I pointed the telescope to such and such a part of the sky at 2.20a.m. on January 15th and saw so-and-so,’ or, ‘I put some of this stuff into a pot and heated it to such-and-such a temperature and it did so-and-so.’ Do not think I am saying anything against science: I am only saying what its job is... But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes–something of a different kind–this is not a scientific question. If there is ‘Something Behind,’ then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientists do not usually make them. It is usually the journalists and popular novelists who have picked up on a few odds and ends of half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them. After all, it is really a matter of common sense. Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, ‘Why is there a universe?’ ‘Why does it go on as it does?’ ‘Has it any meaning?’ would remain just as they were?”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p28-29
“...Ever since men were able to think they have been wondering what this universe really is and how it came to be there. And, very roughly, two views have been held. First, there is what is called the materialist view. People who take that view think that matter and space just happen to exist, and always have existed, nobody knows why; and that the matter, behaving in certain fixed ways, has just happened, by a sort of fluke, to produce creatures like ourselves who are able to think... The other view is the religious view. According to is, what is behind the universe is more like a mind than it is like anything else we know. That is to say, it is conscious, and has purposes, and prefers one thing to another... Wherever there have been thinking men both views turn up. And note this too. You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense. Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long run, however complicated it looks, really means something like, ‘I pointed the telescope to such and such a part of the sky at 2.20a.m. on January 15th and saw so-and-so,’ or, ‘I put some of this stuff into a pot and heated it to such-and-such a temperature and it did so-and-so.’ Do not think I am saying anything against science: I am only saying what its job is... But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes–something of a different kind–this is not a scientific question. If there is ‘Something Behind,’ then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientists do not usually make them. It is usually the journalists and popular novelists who have picked up on a few odds and ends of half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them. After all, it is really a matter of common sense. Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, ‘Why is there a universe?’ ‘Why does it go on as it does?’ ‘Has it any meaning?’ would remain just as they were?”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, HarperOne, 2017 p28-29
Sam Harris, PhD, American philosopher & neuroscientist, 1967-
“An encounter with the holy is mysterious because it shatters our normal habits of thought. It jars our categories of understanding because a starry sky, or the birth of a child, or a text we have heard a hundred times, or a high Mass, becomes transparent to a depth beyond itself. But the medium is only a symbol, a finger that points beyond itself, a container, a metaphor, a momentary incarnation of the mystery that can never be fully grasped or comprehended. An experience of the holy, unlike scientific investigation, does not give us verifiable knowledge about objects or events. It is not about facts but meanings. Spiritual experience has no factoids–no shrouds of Turin, no special miracles, no data unavailable to the skeptic. It is about experiencing the ordinary as miraculous.”
— Sam Harris, The End of Faith, W.W. Norton Company, New York, 2004 p85
“An encounter with the holy is mysterious because it shatters our normal habits of thought. It jars our categories of understanding because a starry sky, or the birth of a child, or a text we have heard a hundred times, or a high Mass, becomes transparent to a depth beyond itself. But the medium is only a symbol, a finger that points beyond itself, a container, a metaphor, a momentary incarnation of the mystery that can never be fully grasped or comprehended. An experience of the holy, unlike scientific investigation, does not give us verifiable knowledge about objects or events. It is not about facts but meanings. Spiritual experience has no factoids–no shrouds of Turin, no special miracles, no data unavailable to the skeptic. It is about experiencing the ordinary as miraculous.”
— Sam Harris, The End of Faith, W.W. Norton Company, New York, 2004 p85
Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, American physician-geneticist, NIH Director, 1950-
“I was vaguely aware that some of those around me thought that this pairing of explorations was contradictory and I was headed over a cliff, but I found it difficult to imagine that there could be a real conflict between scientific truth and spiritual truth. Truth is truth. Truth cannot disprove truth.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
“Faith and reason are not, as many seem to be arguing today, mutually exclusive. They never have been. The letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament defines faith as ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of the things not seen.’”
― Francis S. Collins, Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith, HarperOne, 2010
“I do not believe that the God who created all the universe, and who communes with His people through prayer and spiritual insight, would expect us to deny the obvious truths of the natural world that science has revealed to us, in order to prove our love for Him.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
“Science’s domain is to explore nature. God’s domain is in the spiritual world, a realm not possible to explore with the tools and language of science. It must be examined with the heart, the mind, and the soul—and the mind must find a way to embrace both realms.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
“The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful – and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles. And only we can end them.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
“I was vaguely aware that some of those around me thought that this pairing of explorations was contradictory and I was headed over a cliff, but I found it difficult to imagine that there could be a real conflict between scientific truth and spiritual truth. Truth is truth. Truth cannot disprove truth.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
“Faith and reason are not, as many seem to be arguing today, mutually exclusive. They never have been. The letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament defines faith as ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of the things not seen.’”
― Francis S. Collins, Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith, HarperOne, 2010
“I do not believe that the God who created all the universe, and who communes with His people through prayer and spiritual insight, would expect us to deny the obvious truths of the natural world that science has revealed to us, in order to prove our love for Him.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
“Science’s domain is to explore nature. God’s domain is in the spiritual world, a realm not possible to explore with the tools and language of science. It must be examined with the heart, the mind, and the soul—and the mind must find a way to embrace both realms.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
“The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful – and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles. And only we can end them.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Free Press, New York, 2006
Paul Davies, PhD, English physicist & professor, 1946-
“...As a professional scientist I am fully committed to the scientific method of investigating the world. I believe that science is an immensely powerful procedure for helping us to understand the complex universe in which we live. History has shown that its successes are legion, and scarcely a week passes without some new progress being made. The attraction of the scientific method goes beyond its enormous power and scope, however. There is also its uncompromising honesty. Every new discovery, every new theory is required to pass rigorous tests of approval by the scientific community before it is accepted. Of course, in practice scientists do not always follow the textbook strategies. Sometimes the data are muddled and ambiguous. Sometimes the influential scientists sustain dubious theories long after they have been discredited. Occasionally scientists cheat. But these are aberrations. Generally, science leads us in the direction of reliable knowledge...
“...Although I obviously can’t prove that [supernatural events] never happen, I see no reason to suppose that they do. My inclination is to assume that the laws of nature are obeyed at all times. But even if one rules out supernatural events, it is still not clear that science could in principle explain everything in the physical universe. There remains that old problem at the end of the explanatory chain. However successful our scientific explanations may be, they always have certain starting assumptions built in. For example, an explanation of some phenomenon in terms of physics presupposes the validity of the laws of physics, which are taken as given. But one can ask where these laws come from in the first place. One could even question the origin of the logic upon which all scientific reasoning is founded. Sooner or later we all have to accept something as given, whether it is God, or logic, or a set of laws, or some other foundation for existence. Thus ‘ultimate’ questions will always lie beyond the scope of empirical science as it is usually defined. So does this mean that the really deep questions of existence are unanswerable? I notice, on perusing the list of my chapter and section titles, that an awful lot of them are questions. At first I thought this was stylistic ineptitude, but I now realize that it reflects my instinctive belief that it is probably impossible for poor old Homo sapiens to ‘get to the bottom of it all.’ Probably there must always be some ‘mystery at the end of the universe.’ But it seems worth pursuing the path of rational inquiry to its limit. Even a proof that the chain of inference is uncompletable would be worth knowing...”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p14-15
“Most scientists have a deep mistrust of mysticism. This is not surprising, as mystical thought lies at the opposite extreme to rational thought, which is the basis of the scientific method. Also, mysticism tends to be confused with the occult, the paranormal, and other fringe beliefs. In fact, many of the world’s finest thinkers, including some notable scientists such as Einstein, Pauli, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Eddington, and Jeans, have also espoused mysticism. My own feeling is that the scientific method should be pursued as far as it possibly can. Mysticism is no substitute for scientific inquiry and logical reasoning so long as this approach can be consistently applied. It is only in dealing with ultimate questions that science and logic may fail us. I am not saying that science and logic are likely to provide the wrong answers, but they may be incapable of addressing the sort of ‘why’ (as opposed to ‘how’) questions we want to ask.”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p226
“Einstein once remarked that the thing which most interested him was whether God had any choice in creating the world as it is. Einstein was not religious in the conventional sense, but he liked to use God as a metaphor for expressing deep questions of existence. This particular question has vexed generations of scientists, philosophers, and theologians. Does the world have to be the way it is, or could it have been otherwise? And if it could have been otherwise, what sort of explanation should we seek for why it is as it is?
“In referring to the question of God’s freedom to create a world of his choice, Einstein was alluding to the seventeenth-century philosopher Benedict Spinoza. Spinoza was a pantheist, who regarded objects in the physical universe as attributes of God rather than as God’s creation. By identifying God with nature, Spinoza rejected the Christian idea of a transcendent Deity who created the universe as a free act. On the other hand, Spinoza was no atheist: he believed he had a logical proof that God must exist. Because he identified God with the physical universe, this amounted to a proof that our particular universe must also exist. For Spinoza, God had no choice in the matter: ‘Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained,’ he wrote.
“This type of thinking – that things are as they are as a result of some sort of logical necessity or inevitability – is quite common today among scientists. Mostly, though, they prefer to drop God out of it altogether. If they are right, it implies that the world forms a closed and complete system of explanation, in which everything is accounted for and no mystery remains. It also means that in principle we need not actually observe the world to be able to work out its form and content: because everything follows from logical necessity, the nature of the universe would be deducible from reason alone. ‘I hold it true,’ wrote Einstein when flirting with this idea, ‘that pure thought can grasp reality, as the Ancients dreamed... We can discover by means of purely mathematical constructions the concepts and the laws connecting them with each other, which furnish the key to the understanding of natural phenomena.’ Of course, we may never be clever enough actually to derive the correct concepts and laws from mathematical deduction alone, but that is not the point. If such a closed explanatory scheme were even possible, it would profoundly alter our thinking about the universe and our place within it. But do these claims of completeness and uniqueness have any foundation, or are they just a vague hope?”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p161-162
“One of the surprises of [mathematician Georg] Cantor’s work is that there is not just one infinity but a multiplicity of them. For example, the set of all integers and the set of all fractions are both infinite sets. One feels intuitively that there are more fractions than integers, but this is not so. On the other hand, the set of all decimals is bigger than the set of all fractions, or all integers. One can ask: is there a ‘biggest’ infinity? Well, how about combining all infinite sets together into one superduperset? The class of all possible sets has been called Cantor’s Absolute. There is one snag. This entity is not itself a set, for if it were it would by definition include itself. But self-referential sets run smack into Russell’s paradox.“And here we encounter once more the Gödelian limits to rational thought – the mystery at the end of the universe. We cannot know Cantor’s Absolute, or any other Absolute, by rational means, for any Absolute, being a Unity and hence complete within itself, must include itself. As [Rudy] Rucker remarks in connection with the Mindscape – the class of all sets of ideas – ‘If the Mindscape is a One, then it is a member of itself, and thus cannot only be known through a flash of mystical vision. No rational thought is a member of itself, so no rational thought could tie the Mindscape into a One.”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p230-231
“Does the frank admission of hopelessness discussed in the previous section mean that all metaphysical reasoning is valueless? Should we adopt the approach of the pragmatic atheist who is content to take the universe as given, and get on with cataloguing its properties? There is no doubt that many scientists are opposed temperamentally to any form of metaphysical, let alone mystical arguments. They are scornful of the notion that there might exist a God, or even an impersonal creative principle or ground of being that would underpin reality and render its contingent aspects less starkly arbitrary. Personally I do not share their scorn. Although many metaphysical and theistic theories seem contrived or childish, they are not obviously more absurd than the belief that the universe exists, and exists in the form it does, reasonlessly. It seems at least worth trying to construct a metaphysical theory that reduces some of the arbitrariness of the world. But in the end a rational explanation for the world in the sense of a closed and complete system of logical truths is almost certainly impossible. We are barred from ultimate knowledge, from ultimate explanation, by the very rules of reasoning that prompt us to seek such an explanation in the first place. If we wish to progress beyond, we have to embrace a different concept of ‘understanding’ from that of rational explanation. Possibly the mystical path is a way to such understanding. I have never had a mystical experience myself, but I keep an open mind about the value of such experiences. Maybe they provide the only route beyond the limits to which science and philosophy can take us, the only possible path to the Ultimate.”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p231-232
“...As a professional scientist I am fully committed to the scientific method of investigating the world. I believe that science is an immensely powerful procedure for helping us to understand the complex universe in which we live. History has shown that its successes are legion, and scarcely a week passes without some new progress being made. The attraction of the scientific method goes beyond its enormous power and scope, however. There is also its uncompromising honesty. Every new discovery, every new theory is required to pass rigorous tests of approval by the scientific community before it is accepted. Of course, in practice scientists do not always follow the textbook strategies. Sometimes the data are muddled and ambiguous. Sometimes the influential scientists sustain dubious theories long after they have been discredited. Occasionally scientists cheat. But these are aberrations. Generally, science leads us in the direction of reliable knowledge...
“...Although I obviously can’t prove that [supernatural events] never happen, I see no reason to suppose that they do. My inclination is to assume that the laws of nature are obeyed at all times. But even if one rules out supernatural events, it is still not clear that science could in principle explain everything in the physical universe. There remains that old problem at the end of the explanatory chain. However successful our scientific explanations may be, they always have certain starting assumptions built in. For example, an explanation of some phenomenon in terms of physics presupposes the validity of the laws of physics, which are taken as given. But one can ask where these laws come from in the first place. One could even question the origin of the logic upon which all scientific reasoning is founded. Sooner or later we all have to accept something as given, whether it is God, or logic, or a set of laws, or some other foundation for existence. Thus ‘ultimate’ questions will always lie beyond the scope of empirical science as it is usually defined. So does this mean that the really deep questions of existence are unanswerable? I notice, on perusing the list of my chapter and section titles, that an awful lot of them are questions. At first I thought this was stylistic ineptitude, but I now realize that it reflects my instinctive belief that it is probably impossible for poor old Homo sapiens to ‘get to the bottom of it all.’ Probably there must always be some ‘mystery at the end of the universe.’ But it seems worth pursuing the path of rational inquiry to its limit. Even a proof that the chain of inference is uncompletable would be worth knowing...”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p14-15
“Most scientists have a deep mistrust of mysticism. This is not surprising, as mystical thought lies at the opposite extreme to rational thought, which is the basis of the scientific method. Also, mysticism tends to be confused with the occult, the paranormal, and other fringe beliefs. In fact, many of the world’s finest thinkers, including some notable scientists such as Einstein, Pauli, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Eddington, and Jeans, have also espoused mysticism. My own feeling is that the scientific method should be pursued as far as it possibly can. Mysticism is no substitute for scientific inquiry and logical reasoning so long as this approach can be consistently applied. It is only in dealing with ultimate questions that science and logic may fail us. I am not saying that science and logic are likely to provide the wrong answers, but they may be incapable of addressing the sort of ‘why’ (as opposed to ‘how’) questions we want to ask.”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p226
“Einstein once remarked that the thing which most interested him was whether God had any choice in creating the world as it is. Einstein was not religious in the conventional sense, but he liked to use God as a metaphor for expressing deep questions of existence. This particular question has vexed generations of scientists, philosophers, and theologians. Does the world have to be the way it is, or could it have been otherwise? And if it could have been otherwise, what sort of explanation should we seek for why it is as it is?
“In referring to the question of God’s freedom to create a world of his choice, Einstein was alluding to the seventeenth-century philosopher Benedict Spinoza. Spinoza was a pantheist, who regarded objects in the physical universe as attributes of God rather than as God’s creation. By identifying God with nature, Spinoza rejected the Christian idea of a transcendent Deity who created the universe as a free act. On the other hand, Spinoza was no atheist: he believed he had a logical proof that God must exist. Because he identified God with the physical universe, this amounted to a proof that our particular universe must also exist. For Spinoza, God had no choice in the matter: ‘Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained,’ he wrote.
“This type of thinking – that things are as they are as a result of some sort of logical necessity or inevitability – is quite common today among scientists. Mostly, though, they prefer to drop God out of it altogether. If they are right, it implies that the world forms a closed and complete system of explanation, in which everything is accounted for and no mystery remains. It also means that in principle we need not actually observe the world to be able to work out its form and content: because everything follows from logical necessity, the nature of the universe would be deducible from reason alone. ‘I hold it true,’ wrote Einstein when flirting with this idea, ‘that pure thought can grasp reality, as the Ancients dreamed... We can discover by means of purely mathematical constructions the concepts and the laws connecting them with each other, which furnish the key to the understanding of natural phenomena.’ Of course, we may never be clever enough actually to derive the correct concepts and laws from mathematical deduction alone, but that is not the point. If such a closed explanatory scheme were even possible, it would profoundly alter our thinking about the universe and our place within it. But do these claims of completeness and uniqueness have any foundation, or are they just a vague hope?”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p161-162
“One of the surprises of [mathematician Georg] Cantor’s work is that there is not just one infinity but a multiplicity of them. For example, the set of all integers and the set of all fractions are both infinite sets. One feels intuitively that there are more fractions than integers, but this is not so. On the other hand, the set of all decimals is bigger than the set of all fractions, or all integers. One can ask: is there a ‘biggest’ infinity? Well, how about combining all infinite sets together into one superduperset? The class of all possible sets has been called Cantor’s Absolute. There is one snag. This entity is not itself a set, for if it were it would by definition include itself. But self-referential sets run smack into Russell’s paradox.“And here we encounter once more the Gödelian limits to rational thought – the mystery at the end of the universe. We cannot know Cantor’s Absolute, or any other Absolute, by rational means, for any Absolute, being a Unity and hence complete within itself, must include itself. As [Rudy] Rucker remarks in connection with the Mindscape – the class of all sets of ideas – ‘If the Mindscape is a One, then it is a member of itself, and thus cannot only be known through a flash of mystical vision. No rational thought is a member of itself, so no rational thought could tie the Mindscape into a One.”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p230-231
“Does the frank admission of hopelessness discussed in the previous section mean that all metaphysical reasoning is valueless? Should we adopt the approach of the pragmatic atheist who is content to take the universe as given, and get on with cataloguing its properties? There is no doubt that many scientists are opposed temperamentally to any form of metaphysical, let alone mystical arguments. They are scornful of the notion that there might exist a God, or even an impersonal creative principle or ground of being that would underpin reality and render its contingent aspects less starkly arbitrary. Personally I do not share their scorn. Although many metaphysical and theistic theories seem contrived or childish, they are not obviously more absurd than the belief that the universe exists, and exists in the form it does, reasonlessly. It seems at least worth trying to construct a metaphysical theory that reduces some of the arbitrariness of the world. But in the end a rational explanation for the world in the sense of a closed and complete system of logical truths is almost certainly impossible. We are barred from ultimate knowledge, from ultimate explanation, by the very rules of reasoning that prompt us to seek such an explanation in the first place. If we wish to progress beyond, we have to embrace a different concept of ‘understanding’ from that of rational explanation. Possibly the mystical path is a way to such understanding. I have never had a mystical experience myself, but I keep an open mind about the value of such experiences. Maybe they provide the only route beyond the limits to which science and philosophy can take us, the only possible path to the Ultimate.”
— Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p231-232
Peter John Kreeft, American professor of philosophy, 1937-
“1. God is the author and designer of the human mind and its power to reason.
“2. God is also the author and designer of nature and the evidence in nature that human reason can know.
“3. God is also the author and teacher of the Christian faith as a ’divine revelation’ in the Bible, as summarized by the Church’s Creeds.
“4. God does not contradict Himself or teach error.
“5. Truth cannot be opposed to (contradict) truth, but only untruth.
“From these premises, it necessarily follows that there can never be any real contradiction between any article of the Christian faith and any valid argument or true discovery of natural reason in the sciences or in philosophy. Further, the surprising (to many) corollary also follows that every objection and argument that anyone ever brings against any article of faith can be answered by reason alone without appeal to faith. For every such objection must contain some rational mistake. For truth (revealed by God to faith) cannot contradict truth (revealed by God to reason).”
— Peter Kreeft, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p23
“1. God is the author and designer of the human mind and its power to reason.
“2. God is also the author and designer of nature and the evidence in nature that human reason can know.
“3. God is also the author and teacher of the Christian faith as a ’divine revelation’ in the Bible, as summarized by the Church’s Creeds.
“4. God does not contradict Himself or teach error.
“5. Truth cannot be opposed to (contradict) truth, but only untruth.
“From these premises, it necessarily follows that there can never be any real contradiction between any article of the Christian faith and any valid argument or true discovery of natural reason in the sciences or in philosophy. Further, the surprising (to many) corollary also follows that every objection and argument that anyone ever brings against any article of faith can be answered by reason alone without appeal to faith. For every such objection must contain some rational mistake. For truth (revealed by God to faith) cannot contradict truth (revealed by God to reason).”
— Peter Kreeft, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p23
Thomas Paine, English philosopher, political theorist, & revolutionary, 1737-1809
“The Almighty lecturer, by displaying the principles of science in the structure of the universe, has invited man to study and to imitation. It is as if he had said to the inhabitants of this globe that we call ours, ‘I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, and I have rendered the starry heavens visible, to teach him science and the arts. He can now provide for his own comfort, AND LEARN FROM MY MUNIFICENCE TO ALL, TO BE KIND TO EACH OTHER.’”
― Thomas Paine, Age of Reason, Citadel Press, New York, 1988 p76
“The Almighty lecturer, by displaying the principles of science in the structure of the universe, has invited man to study and to imitation. It is as if he had said to the inhabitants of this globe that we call ours, ‘I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, and I have rendered the starry heavens visible, to teach him science and the arts. He can now provide for his own comfort, AND LEARN FROM MY MUNIFICENCE TO ALL, TO BE KIND TO EACH OTHER.’”
― Thomas Paine, Age of Reason, Citadel Press, New York, 1988 p76