Proven v. Known

“A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven.” Jean Chrétien

“All men by nature desire knowledge.” Aristotle

To prove is not to know. Neither is being known equated to being proven. The question of is God real depends upon proof. The question of can God be known is dependent mostly upon personal beliefs and, more rarely, on reasonable evidence. In philosophy, the branches of Epistemology and Metaphysics consider these questions and offer answers that can be challenged or accepted, but most importantly, they are answers for any seeker. Let it be understood, “proven” in this paper will mean being shown to exist, and “known” will mean capable of being understood.

In order to answer “is God real?” using skepticism, one must first consider whether anything can be proven by skepticism. By definition, knowledge cannot be known or is difficult to know; therefore the burden of proof is put on the skeptic to prove God does not exist. To prove God does not exist requires, at least, a rudimentary understanding of the universe and knowledge on the subject of God. However, if knowledge cannot be known, can one prove God does not, or even does, exist? In skepticism, God is not proven or disproved, but must be either ignored or accepted on faith.

Whether or not God can be known through skepticism has an entirely different answer. For a skeptic to seek to know God shows dedication and a questioning nature that will assist them in their quest. Doubt causes a person to question. Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples, doubted, and he knew the Lord in a way beyond many: he was able to touch the Christ! God will reward the genuine seekers who ask the right questions. Questioning brings one closer to the truth, and can bring more understanding as ideas and concepts become realities.

Relativism has a different non-proof. By definition, all things viewed from different points of view are equally valid. Therefore, if relativism is asserted and is completely true, then there must be an absolute of some sort. There could be an absolute omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient being called “God” in existence. And if one believes God is real, no one can say they are wrong, because all beliefs are changeable and equally valid. Relativism then becomes similar to skepticism; one cannot prove or disprove God’s existence therefore God could exist.

Since God cannot be proven by relativism, can God be known by relativism? Assuming God is unchangeable (because He is God), can we know an unchanging God if our beliefs are always changing? Can we know and unchanging God in relation to our changing beliefs? We cannot know Him as we could, because our ever-changing beliefs (or capable of ever changing beliefs) can never relate to an unchanging God. Relativism allows God to exist, but you cannot know Him through relativism.

Empiricism can prove God’s existence through its definition: We can experience aspects of God and therefore know he is real. We can all experience His love, His glory, His mercy, and etcetera. What is most important is that because we can experience God, He is personal to us. Each experience will be different for everyone, because each of us are unique and can relate to God in different ways.

We can also know aspects of God through Empiricism, but one cannot know Him fully. Because we only experience certain aspects of God, we can only know those aspects. And even if we could experience all of God’s aspects, still we have not experienced all of Him. “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declared the Lord (Isaiah 55:8).” God is simply too large and too complicated for our simple human minds to grasp through experience.

To put this into perspective, I experience God through dance. I experience His presence and love through dancing for Him. By experiencing God, I know about His presence and His love, but I do not know about His grace or His judgment. And if I did somehow experience God’s grace and judgment during dancing, I still would never experience His mind, for it is too far above my thoughts.

It is said, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory (Romans 8:19).” We must experience Christ’s suffering to share Christ’s splendor. Mark 9: 2-13 tells of the Transfiguration, wherein three of Christ’s twelve experienced the glory of God and the power of Christ. Experience is an important part of the Christian life, but it is not the only way to see God.

Rationalism is the exact opposite of empiricism. Through the definition of rationalism, we can prove God’s existence. God is proven through deduction. Descartes uses rationalism in his search for God. In his third meditation, Descartes seeks to prove God’s existence: He asks whether or not he could exist without a supreme being. The conclusion is he cannot because he cannot give himself meaning; therefore something else gave him meaning. Only the most perfect being could create him, because only a supreme being in perfect unity with his creation can cause a being with any idea containing a supreme being (note 1). In this argument however, Descartes places himself at the center rather than God. By placing man in the center of the argument, he has effectively slammed God in a box and threw away the key. God must be perfect to create me. Knowing God now becomes very narrow and superficial.

By using ontological arguments (I will get into them later), Descartes arrives at the conclusion there is a God. Knowing God then implies this: “So provided I play my full part, pay serious attention and do all the disciplined thinking required of me, I can be certain of the truth of whatever is then presented clearly and distinctly to me as being true—not by my senses…which I already know to deceive, but by my mind, that part of me that apprehends God, and also mathematics, neither of which the senses can do; the mind I irreducibly am (note 2).” Since Descartes has proven God exists, he can know God in a very small way: through his or our own deduction. We can deduce God is perfect and infinite, but compared to any other epistemological or metaphysical knowledge of God, rationalism is the most limiting.

Proverbs 8: 10 says, “Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold.” Proverbs 16: 16 says, “ How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver.” Wisdom and knowledge are lofty prizes, however the proofs and knowledge of God offered by the rationalist method pales to others. In Luke 14: 25-33, Jesus challenges those who followed him to turn their back on all they had owned, all they had known, all they had loved. In this case, Jesus gives those who would want to be his disciples a warning of the commitment involved. Knowing what they would have to do, probably discouraged many of the followers, some almost certainly did not become a disciples. Information, however, is valuable. They were able to make an informed decision in regards to Jesus and whether he was worth the cost they would have to give, and a few most likely decided to follow the Christ.

The A-priori arguments for God’s existence are essentially the balance between empiricism and rationalism. The definition of A-priori is there is knowledge before experience and each experience adds to knowledge. Therefore to prove God’s existence, we must have an intrinsic knowledge of the divine and also experience the divine. We have an intrinsic knowledge of the divine, because we know something is wrong with the world. We know what perfection should be, and we know it is not in this world. There is something better, we simply do not know what we are missing until we experience the divine. However, Kant, the foremost proponent of A-priorism, “had ruled out knowledge of God’s existence in order to make room for faith (note 3).” Therefore in the A-priori philosophy God is provable only to oneself, through acknowledging the inbred knowledge of God and experiencing Him in a personal experience.

The question then becomes, “can God be known A-priori?” We know God in what we know inherently and in how we experience him. For example, a little child has the ball taken away from her by another child without a “please.” She automatically knows this situation is wrong, her intrinsic knowledge of the divine has prompted the words, “That’s not fair!” She remembers the fairness concept until she reaches the age when she can understand what she does in church with her parents. Now with her inherent knowledge that something is wrong with the world and the way it works, she can experience that which is fair and perfect and will always operate as such. This is how the girl comes to know God, intrinsic thought and experience.

Now let us enter the realm of metaphysics. Ontology is one of the hardest proofs for God’s existence to understand. Developed by St. Anselm during the Middle Ages, the argument is as follows: Even the Fool declares God does not exist. God is defined as the greatest perfect being to ever be conceived. The Fool consents that this being can exist in the mind. For the greatest perfect being to be perfect it must exist in the mind and in reality, otherwise another being could be greater. Therefore, since the greatest and most perfect being must exist in the mind and in reality, God exists.

Now, one might respond with, “How is a perfect all powerful being, different from an all powerful perfect Leprechaun?” Both can exist in the mind and in reality. Both are perfect. Both are all powerful. However, there is a difference between the perfect all-powerful being and the perfect all-powerful Leprechaun: The Leprechaun is limited by time and space, whereas the perfect and all-powerful being is not limited by time and space.

The question then comes, “Can God be known through ontology?” Once again the answer is not fully. One can understand a part God’s perfection, but no one can fully contemplate God’s perfection, because we are limited, like the Leprechaun, to time and space. Whenever something exists outside those limits, we will be unable to comprehend all of it. We can really only understand that this being exists outside that which we know.

Through the design and apparent purpose of things, God can also be proven to exist. The teleological arguments for God can be divided into two categories: one is looking at the design of the world and the other looks at the design of our lives. The first holds the world is so complex, the universe is so complex and ordered so perfect there must be a designer of some sort who created it all. Lee Strobel presents this case in The Case for a Creator. Since the universe is so ordered, if Earth was off just a few millimeters Earth would freeze or overheat, and since the design of intelligent life seems to have been expected, the Big Bang needed to have special internal conditions for life to ever form in the universe and those conditions happened, there must be some sort of a designer that created the universe (note 4).

The second kind of teleological argument deals with the design, the plan, of our lives. The will of God is the highest virtue, and is therefore perfect (because He is God). Since God’s will is perfect, His will is perfect for each and every life. Therefore there is a design in our lives that is the best path for us. This implicates design and therefore a designer.

So, can God be known through teleology? God is known through teleology as a designer. We know Him through the order and plan of the universe and the order and plan of our lives. Once again we cannot know him fully because there is only so much to know in a designer: We may know what His purposes are, but we do not know why He desires them for us. We simply take a leap of faith and must trust in His perfect virtue.

St. Thomas Aquinas provided four basic cosmological proofs for God’s existence. Number One: The world is in motion and because nothing starts moving on its own, there must have been a first mover that was not moved by anything before it, “and this everyone understands to be God.” Number Two: In the world one event is always preceded and followed by an event (efficient cause), and because there is always an event causing the next event, there must have been a first causer, “to which everyone gives the name God.” Number Three: We find in nature the ability for things to be and to not be as a result of birth and death, and since it is impossible for things to always exist, there must have been a time when nothing existed. Since it is impossible for something to come out of nothing, because it cannot create its own purpose, there must have been a being that existed in its purpose and did not receive its purpose from anything else. This being then gave purpose to the universe and caused necessity in that which was created, “This all men speak of as God.” Number Four: In nature there are things, which lack intelligence (planets, stars, trees), and they remain on the courses they are set upon, or follow the rules that predict movements or ends. Therefore, there must be a design in the governance of the natural world, “and this designer we call God.”

The question then becomes, after proving God through cosmological arguments, “can God be known through cosmology?” The answer is much the same as the teleological knowledge of God. We know Him as a designer and therefore cannot fathom His ways or thoughts, for He is beyond us because He has created us to be finite.

St. Thomas Aquinas also provided the axiological argument for God’s existence. It follows: We have fixed in our psyche the idea of something moral better than this world. We know the concept of fairness and, right and wrong. Therefore, there must be an ultimate good we draw our ideas from, “and this we call God.”

Unfortunately there is a downside to this argument. Can we not also draw our concepts, our standards, of fairness from an ultimate evil? The answer is no, because in evil there exists no fairness or right. But if there is an ultimate good is there not automatically an ultimate evil? Again the answer will be no, because there will always be a standard of right evil is measured against. Therefore there is always some good in evil, because it is measured against that which it is opposing.

To know God through axiology is similar to knowing God through empiricism. We are revealed only one aspect of God: His goodness. Therefore we can only know that aspect and cannot now Him fully in all that He is.

The balance of all these philosophies is the best way to prove God exists and know as much about God as one is capable. Our will and reason should be able to sustain our affections, emotions, and experiences, and vice versa. One should take the questioning seeker of the skeptic, the “doesn’t-matter-what-anyone-thinks” attitude of relativism, the experiencing of empiricism, the logic of rationalism, the balance of A-priorism, and the reasoned proofs of Metaphysics, combing them into one philosophy. It is only then God becomes may become almost fully known, for we can never know the complete being or mind of God, as Isaiah 55:8 says, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.” It is only through balancing the many philosophies one can have the ultimate philosophy of God, and of life. Examining my God and my life is my ultimate quest, for it is as Plato wrote,

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Notes:

(note 1): Argument from 2): Magee p. 87, 88

(note 3): Magee p. 137

(note 4): The Case for a Creator Lee Strobel p.104-107

Works Cited:

The Case for a Creator Lee Strobel p.104-107

Magee. The History of Philosophy.