I realize that I can't. And that's alright.
I cannot provide scientific proof of the Judeo-Christian God. I can argue God philosophically, logically, theologically. I can offer no scientific method-type proof that would satisfy. None whatsoever. Yet I believe anyway.
My atheist friends loooooooove when they get me to this position in a debate!
Although fictional, I always think of Ellie Arroway, the atheist scientist in the book/movie CONTACT, regarding the demand for proof of her supposed intergalactic journey:
I had an experience... I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real! I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever...I wish I could share that. I wish, that everyone, if only for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and hope. But that continues to be my wish.
A faith experience is very similar. I've had several experiences in my life that have confirmed the faith I was born into. When I received Communion for the first time. When I first met my wife. When I made my first Confession in 20 years. When I saw my sons leaving their mother's body into the world. When I decided to stop drinking, literally in mid-slug. When my cancer-afflicted mother asked for my prayers...and her doctors still can't fully explain her recovery.
In each of these experiences, God was with me. Period.
I can't prove it. I can't explain it. But like Ellie, everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. Thank you God, for Your Presence today and everyday, for believers and non-believers.
Daily Mass Readings
Galatians 3:7-14
Psalm 111:1-6
Luke 11:15-26
I will never ask a believer for proof. Just like I cannot prove there is no Easter Bunny, I can never prove there is no God. However, when I ask myself, What is the PROBABILITY that there is an Easter Bunny, or God? Well, now THAT'S how I would frame the question. By the same token, if you are not prepared to acknowledge the possible existence of an Easter Bunny, how can you entertain the existence of a far more complex being?
ReplyDeleteIs this Frankie? What's up, ya heathen?
ReplyDeleteIn such a debate, there's no way to present proof in either direction. Proving a negative is never required (nor is it possible, I believe?) and scientific proof cannot be offered to prove the positive. We BEGIN at an impasse.
As a reasoning intelligent being, I understand how silly I can seem to someone who may have not had an experience in the same vein as mine. But I will allow the following:
- I must acknowledge, as a reasoning, intelligent being, that I could be completely deluded.
- I acknowledge that I have no evidence or explanation to give anyone on the probability of God's existence, although I'm sure many atheists have come up with something, and I'll bet it don't look good for us believers.
- At the risk of sounding silly (which I'm sure it was meant to do!), I can't dismiss the existence of the Easter Bunny out of hand, just like you cannot dismiss the existence of God out of hand due the impossibility of proving a negative.
That said, the only thing I have to go on is my own personal experience, and what I have seen working in the lives of others, both familiar and strangers.
I acknowledge that I understand a very complex idea (God) through the lens of the faith I was brought up in, and that other people who have a very different portrait of what God is have just as valid belief as mine. Something as enormously complex as the Designer of the universe is not something to be grasped by the 5 senses alone.
The probability I'm right, scientifically speaking, sucks. Again, I can't prove it. I can't explain it. Deluded though I may be, I also can't deny it.