In a pervious article, The Beginning of an “Unapologetic” Argument for God, I conceded that human beings cannot prove the existence of God as an absolute, objective certainty. Not because God may not exist, but because we are finite beings who have limitations.
Because we don’t know what we don’t know, we have have to take our most basic assumptions on faith. Basically, we all must reason from a point of faith. Whether our premise is a multiverse limited to space/time and matter or the existence of a transcendent creator God, we assert the starting premise on faith because we cannot prove it.
That is the very nature of an axiom. Axioms are propositions we regard as “self-evidently” true, but we can’t prove them.
Immanuel Kant famously demonstrated the dilemma we face on the existence of God by creating an airtight syllogism logically proving the existence of God. Then he turned around and created an airtight, syllogism logical proving there is no God. What was the difference?
The difference was the first premise, the axiom with which he started. Thus, the premise with which your logic starts will determine the outcome of a syllogism. Different starting premises yield different logical conclusions. The logic can be solid in both examples, but the difference in the starting premises leads to opposing conclusions.
This is the human condition, finite as we are: we have to take our starting premises on faith. We can test them logically and in other ways. We can eliminate starting premises that won’t stand up to logic or other forms of testing, but we cannot ultimately prove our starting premises.
When we have two syllogisms that stand up to logic and to other ways of testing them, and they still yield opposite conclusions, we are at a loss to reconcile them and to eliminate one or the other – except by faith.
We can’t hold them together, because they are diametrically opposed to each other. We cannot resolve which one is correct objectively because we do not have the facts we need, as finite beings, to determine which axioms comport with ultimate reality, and which do not.
This is the human dilemma on the existence of God. It requires us to choose a starting premise on faith. With that said, I am going to make a very “unapologetic” argument for the premise of God.
Continue reading “Where to Begin Looking: an “Unapologetic” Argument for God”
Navigating by Faith 