Topics Religion

Question There's no rational argument to prove the existence of God. St. Thomas d'Aquinas' famous "God is that of which nothing greater can be thought" is, to my knowledge, the most rigorous attempt to apply reason to the subject of supernatural existence--but it achieves exactly the opposite of what it purports to achieve: it shows merely the limits of reason, rather than the existence of God. This said, and as a consequence, reason can't provide any arguments against the existence of God, either. For that which can't be proved, can't be disproved either. (And, in fact, can anyone think of any law of physics or rational argument which disproves the existence of something? Non-existence is "disproved" on mere empirical basis--and it is thus never certain). Therefore, the only rational (which does not mean necessarily: correct) position regarding God is agnosticism. Any thoughts? Thanks

Accepted:
March 15, 2006

Comments

It's not true that "what can't be proved can't be disproved either": it can't be proved that there is a largest prime number, but that can be disproved, at least according to the standards of proof that every mathematician accepts.

I am inclined to agree with you that reason alone, without empirical evidence, can't settle whether there's a God. But since we in fact have lots of empirical information about the world, it doesn't follow that the only rational attitude for us is to suspend judgment.

Reason alone can't settle whether there are socks in the drawer, but you can prove to me that there are no socks in the drawer by opening it and showing me the empty drawer. In normal circumstances, it would be unreasonable for me to regard the question whether there are socks there as still unresolved. Indeed, any reasonable person would now believe that there are no socks there and indeed would be certain that there are no socks there (using these terms in their ordinary senses).

On the other hand, surely it is not completely impossible that there are invisible socks, or that an evil scientist is manipulating my optic nerve so as to scrub my visual experience of traces of the (quite visible) socks that are there. But what follows from this? Is it that you haven't really proved there are no socks, so I should be uncertain and suspend belief? Well we can use those words that way. Is using them that way "correct", or is it equally (or more) correct to use them on the looser standards of the previous paragraph? No matter---in any case all that follows from the fallibility of empirical evidence is that the existence or nonexistence of God can't be empirically proved in any stronger sense than you prove to me that there are no socks in the drawer.

But surely in the relevant sense of "agnostic", you are not a socks-in-drawer agnostic. So the reasoning in your question should not itself convince you to be agnostic about God.

One more thing: you seem to think the reliance on empirical information precludes what might othewise be possible: a proof based on "reason alone" that would not admit of any doubt whatever. But even when our reasoning doesn't consult the empirical world, we are fallible. Haven't you ever made arithmetical mistakes or other mistakes in mathematical proofs? It's not at all clear that a notion of "proof" that utterly eliminates grounds for doubt has much (or any) application to human reasoning, whether empirical or a priori.