Wednesday, April 1, 2020

"You Can't Prove God's Existence..." part 2

...Is nothing but a trivial evasive slogan

        It is also problematic that empirical[1] investigations (as opposed to mathematical calculations) don’t have the capacity to yield provable truths.  Scientific conclusions to some extent are always tentative for the reason that the means of measuring actual things are only as good as the instruments that calculate their actual weights, sizes, angles, etc.  Consequently, the body of evidence Christians appeal to (that can’t be proved) are in the very same boat as that of every other claimant who advances their respective truth claims.  Nothing empirical science analyzes can ultimately be proved, just the same as for Christian claims.  I say this NOT to diminish the enormous contributions scientific research has made to enhance our engagement with the natural world.  Yet these successes are heightened only because of contributions from mathematical formulations because they correlate with the structure of the cosmos, which further vindicates Christian belief that our Creator isn’t only powerful, but also an intelligent Being.[2]
  
When naysaying skeptics either belittle or simply deny belief in a personal intelligent God, I want to ask what it is they propose to offer in its place as the potential causal agent of the above two phenomena just cited.  In truth, the very propensity of skeptics to limit their mission to theological demolition betrays a profoundly anti-scientific posture.  Philosopher of Science Dr. Stephen Meyer has noted that in Charles Darwin’s seminal work, On the Origin of Species,[3] he employed the investigational principle called abduction, also known as “inference to the best explanation” among a pool of multiple-competing hypotheses.[4]  This methodology specifies that followers of the scientific method don’t run to claim victory after defeating an opposing hypothesis.  To the extent that they are committed to truth, they instead study the very phenomenon in question in every single one of its relevant aspects.  They then proceed to construct a working hypothesis in their endeavor to identify the cause(s) of the existence (or occurrence) of that same phenomenon, which in turn becomes the “guidebook” for the investigational program by which to assess the correctness of the initial hypothesis.  In an ideal world, each competing researcher will deem every other well-intentioned researcher to be a co-explorer in the common endeavor to get to the bottom of the truth of the nature of the phenomenon in question.

In light of the above investigational method employed by Darwin, the skeptics who laud his methods logically put themselves under obligation to, with him, present their own hypothesis which they deem addresses the above phenomena more comprehensively.  It is not sufficient that they claim to have toppled theistic belief on the assertion that, as they echo, “God’s existence can’t be proved!”  Let them instead propose their “scientific” explanation (based on purely naturalistic scientific assumptions) of the existence of a cosmos that is the result of a beginning from out of absolutely nothing in the Big Bang.  And on the same terms, let them also propose a “superior” naturalistic program as to how life, in all of its present complexity and sophistication, is supposed to have arisen from code specified in DNA.  Indeed, let the skeptic accept the challenge posed by the prophet in Isaiah 40:23a, who said “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who [or ‘what’?] created these?”  For to instead evade this challenge is to fail to intellectually engage with commonly acknowledged wonders of nature.  After all, the truth that God’s existence cannot be proved cuts both ways.  For skepticism too can’t prove the validity of its own principles or conclusions.
 
It is my judgment that Stephen Jay Gould’s “magisterium of science” may describe, but will never  account for, these phenomena precisely because it is hindered by naturalistic assumptions; while the case for the reality of the God of the Bible, although not provable, wins that contest hands down (Psalm 19:1)!



[1] By empirical I am excluding mathematical calculations by instead fixating our attention onto phenomena that are perceived by our senses.
[2] Flew, Op.cit. (4), pp. 107, 167.
[3]If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.(Charles Darwin, (Harvard facsimile of 1859 version) p.189).
[4] Stephen Meyer. Signature in the Cell. (Harper One, 2009), pp. 153-4.