Topics Religion

Question If archaelogy or some other science were to prove in some manner or another that God really existed, would faith still be necessary? Would faith still exist? I'm not sure if this is a proper philosophical question, but could you guys/gals find it in your hearts to respond? Bernie Hebert Lafayette, LA

Accepted:
December 16, 2005

Comments

Neither archeology nor any other science "proves" the existence of anyobject — if by proof one means considerations that are incompatiblewith the object's non-existence. At best, science will give one goodgrounds for believing in God's existence. Should that happen, I suppose there mightstill be work for faith to do: it could be needed to take you from goodgrounds to absolute conviction.

As Alex said, one can presumably imagine there being lots of empirical evidence for God's existence. But if so, then I'm not sure why faith would be needed there any more than it is needed in ordinary scientific inquiry. But that doesn't mean faith wouldn't be required: The mere belief that there is a God hardly exhausts the content of faith. Liberal protestants and ultra-orthodox Jews agree that God exists, but there's not obviously a whole lot else about which they agree. Obviously, there are other religious doctrines, such as the status of Jesus, on which there is similar disagreement, but what is more interesting, to my mind, are the far deeper disagreements about what God wants for humanity and creation.

Indeed, I'm aware I might be in the minority here, but to my mind, the question whether God exists is really a pretty boring one. This point is really just one made long ago by Hume. Even if you can prove that God exists, via any of the standard sorts of arguments philosophers consider, you'll get very little other useful information about God that way.