Question Occam's razor seems to be a devestating weapon when it comes to the atheist's argument to why God doesn't exist, or more precisely it is more likely that he doesn't exist. It seems the scientific community has the consensus that they will never rely on "God" for the answer to any problem. Will there ever be a scenario in which God might prove simpler than the scientific or mathmatical explanation, and Occam's razor can be used to justify a belief in God?

Accepted:
August 13, 2009

Comments

What if a burning bush appeared out of nowhere in Central Park in front of hundreds of people and said, "It is God speaking. I have come to tell you that you should believe that I exist. Also, love one another. And, by the way, the health care bill does not say anything about a 'death panel'"? Well, a scientifically minded person would want to consider various alternative explanations for this event. For instance, perhaps it's an elaborate hoax involving holograms or even mass hypnosis. But another hypothesis worth considering is that it was God, and God is able to perform miracles that cannot be explained by anything the sciences study (or could study). There might be ways to test whether this event was a hoax, but presumably a 'hoaxster' would try to cover his tracks.

So, what if an agnostic scientist in the crowd said to the burning bush, "I would like to believe in God but I need evidence that the best explanation for this event is that you really exist and that this isn't just a hoax. Please plan to appear again in a laboratory I will secure at noon tomorrow (of course, you'll know where to go, right?)." She then secures a lab that cannot be 'hoaxed' and sets up various equipment to measure everything she can, such as whether matter or energy is coming into the lab from outside, etc. God appears at noon and has a long conversation with the scientist and dozens of witnesses of various beliefs and backgrounds (brought in at the last minute so they couldn't set up a hoax). God explains some mysteries, maybe even explains how it is the he exists outside of physical space-time yet can interact with it, etc.

Well, now I think the best explanation for these events is that God exists (i.e., the entity that calls himself God and has these powers and this knowledge exists) and that God caused these events. It looks like applying Occam's razor here would suggest this explanation is superior to any scientific or mathematical explanation (at least any that we could currently offer, without ad hoc adjustments). It may be that we could eventually develop scientific explanations that would account for this God, but they'd be very different, it seems, than our current paradigm.

Meanwhile, as far as I can tell, none of the actual events (or interpretations of them) that people have thought are better explained by the existence of God than by potential scientific explanations are actually best explained by the existence of God. I could, of course, be mistaken.

This suggests to me that if God exists, God does not want it to be easy to believe in him based on our best evidential standards. Perhaps this is where faith is supposed to come in.