You say that God exists. But for the proposition "God exists" to have meaning, one must be able to imagine a state of affairs in which God does not exist. Otherwise the whole proposition would be meaningless, since any occurrence whatsoever -- no matter how effectively it disinclines one to believe in God's existence -- could be reconciled with it. So I have a brief question for you:
what would you accept as sufficient evidence to bring you to believe that God does not in fact exist?
Yours sincerely,
T. P. Uschanov
tuschano@cc.helsinki.fi
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Dear T.P.
Thank you for your question. What a surprise to hear from the University of Helsinki! That is the wonderful thing about the Internet.
I have been thinking about your question all week. I really do not know how to respond. I do not have an "knock-out" proof for God's existence. When I was a child I used to wonder why there was any being. It seemed logical that there should be nothing, just emptiness and darkness, but in fact there is a whole universe. What strikes me is not how big it is. The existence of a grain of sand seems equally amazing. I know Stephen Hawking has theory about the universe being self-creating, but does that seem plausible to you?
But even more than the fact of being what impresses me most is the inner sense of moral law ("ought") and of judgment ("it is"). They can be erroneous, but they are irrepressible. They reach out to an absolute Goodness and Truth.
As to your question, for God not to exist those things would have to disappear from my experience.
Now, having said that, I also want to affirm that faith itself, as Christians understand it, is a gift, that is something beyond what we are normally capable of as sinful and fallible human beings. And like almost everyone else, I often act as if God did not exist. So I'm pulled between a kind of "practical atheism" and true faith.
Are you seeking the gift of faith?
Fr. Phil Bloom
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A Brief Look at A Brief History of Time
Darwin Under the Microscope By Discovery Senior Fellow Michael J. Behe: "Pope John Paul II's statement last week that evolution is 'more than just a theory' is old news to a Roman Catholic scientist like myself..."
The Galileo Controversy: "And yet, it does move." These alleged words of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) conjure images of science's first "martyr":
In 1979 Pope John Paul II expressed the wish that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences would conduct an indepth study of the celebrated and controversial "Galileo case." The following English translation of the Holy Father's address, which was given in French, appeared in L'Osservatore Romano N. 44 (1264) - 4 November 1992
A Helpful Resource: Brebeuf College School Science and Religion Page