Tag: Proof of God

Blaise Pascal on the Finitude of Man and the Transcendence and Hiddenness of God

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Young man with long hair writing geometric theorems with a quill at a wooden desk

According to Britannica, Blaise Pascal was a french mathematician, physicist, and philosopher who lived in the 17th century (1623-1662). He died young but he accomplished much. He revolutionized multiple scientific and mathematical fields1.

As a teenager, his essay on conic sections became known as Pascal’s Theorem in projective geometry. He invented mechanical calculators. He didn’t invent Pascal’s triangle, a three-sided arrangement of integers such that every number equals the sum of two diagonal numbers above it, but he found novel uses for it, including calculating probabilities. He also laid the groundwork for modern probability theory2.

Pascal did pioneering work in the physical sciences, laying the foundations for hydrodynamics and hydrostatics. Because of this work, a unit of pressure is named after him. Pascal’s Law – that pressure applied to a confined fluid is transmitted undiminished in all directions – underpins modern hydraulics. Experiments with vacuums and fluids led him to develop the syringe and the hydraulic press.

Blaise Pascal is known as much for his philosophy and theology as he is for his mathematics and science. Pascal’s Wager is a brilliant critique of atheism based on probability theory. Many people misunderstood Pascal’s Wager to be an apologetic argument for the existence of God. Pascal believed in God, of course, but he doubted the ability of finite human beings to prove the existence of God with logic and reason.

Pascal maintains that people perceive the existence of God on an intuitive level. He would argue that we use our reason to support or deny that intuition, but the reasoning power of a finite being is insufficient to establish proof.

Pascal did not eschew the reasoning capabilities of human beings. He used his own brilliant mind in the advancement of science, philosophy, mathematics, and theology. Rather, he was mindful of our limitations as finite beings.

All of this is nothing, however, but setting the stage for my own summary of a point Pascal makes in his work Pensees. The fact that Pascal had a brilliant mind is not proof of the existence of God to be inferred from the fact that he believed in God. Pascal would be the first person to deny that kind of proof, yet Pascal had confidence in the existence of God.

Blaise Pascal says that we cannot find happiness within us as the Stoics suggest. Neither can we find happiness outside of ourselves in amusements, nature, or anything else. These things are fleeting – temporal. We can only find true and lasting happiness in God, who is both within us and outside us.

God makes himself available to us in “the inner man” (my words), and He makes himself available to be known in and through the world He created. God is neither part of us nor part of the world. He is not contained in us nor contained in the world. Yet he is present; He is transcendent in everything.

Blaise Pascal talks about the fact that the Bible reveals a God who hides himself. Pascal says we have no obligation to provide proof of such a God, because such a God is revealed as one who hides himself. What proof can we then give? To undertake such proof is to deny such a God, says Pascal. To accept that God is hidden is to affirm Him.

Yet, Pascal spoke about God, as I do. I also have come to the same place Pascal reached in my own thinking, which perhaps is why I resonate with him as much as I do.

He is not completely hidden, of course, to the extent that men like Blaise Pascal – and many other people before him and since him – are convinced that such a God exists. Such a God however cannot be known by proofs that finite beings demand.

As I think about these things, it occurs to me that a hidden God will remain hidden to the man who demands and requires proof. What proof should such a God give? What proof should a finite man require?

The God of the Bible is revealed as not being such a God. Such a God does not reveal himself to a man who makes demands.

Indeed, we make no demands on nature. We seek only to discover, to understand. We don’t make any demands on gravity. We don’t create the natural laws, neither do we control what they should be or how they should prove themselves to us. Such a task would be a fool’s errand, and we would know nothing to undertake it. Why would we then make similar demands of God?

Indeed, if God exists, and I believe He does, we can only undertake to learn who God is on His own terms, just as we learn what nature is on its terms.

Neither should we expect God, who created nature, to be revealed in the same way nature is revealed to us. A God who creates nature is a God who is “other” than nature. Such a God must “stand apart” from nature in order to create it. Such a God must have agency. Such a God must have capacity to determine to create or not to create. Such a God does not exist according to a law like gravity. Such a God may only be known in a way that corresponds to who such a God must be to have created this universe.

Skeptics say that people have created God in their own image. The person of intuition and faith says that we know God because He has created us in His image. He has created us with capacities that are like Him, that allow us to know Him as He is.

Not that we have the same capacities as God. We don’t because we are created beings. We can only have some aspect of God’s capacities and not all of them. We sense, though, that we do have some divine-like aspects because we can think. We can perceive. We can reason. We are self-aware. We understand things like beauty and love, science, philosophy, mathematics, and theology.

These capacities are not the same as the capacity of a thing like gravity. It may be more like a thing like dark matter or dark energy, but only in the sense that we do not understand those things. Yet we know they exist because we see evidence that they exist, and so we may know that God exists because we see evidence that He exists. We know He exists, however, in a way that is different from the way the universe exists – as different as a created thing is from the creator of that thing.

God is hidden to those who set the parameters on where God should be found. God is hidden to those who assume that God is found in the same way that a thing like gravity is found. God is hidden to those who demand that God be known in the way they want to know Him.

As creatures made in the image of God, who have some capacity to know God and be like Him, perhaps, it shouldn’t be surprising that we attempt to be like Him in the way of making such demands. To demand that the world bow down to us, that even God bow down to our demands for proof, is the natural danger of God making a creature in His own image.

And so God hides himself of necessity because such a creature would be a danger to any universe God created. Indeed, if God is true to Himself, He could not allow such a thing. He must, of necessity, be hidden to such a creature so that only a creature who is willing to humble itself, to set aside its desire to be like God, may know Him – a creature who is willing to know God on God’s own terms, and to know God for who He really is and not for what such a creature wishes him to be.

It seems to me it could be no other way: that God would have to hide Himself so that He would be discovered and known by those people willing to know Him on His own terms, to know Him for who He really is and not for who they wish He was – a god they can control.

We cannot anymore demand that our spouse be the person we want them to be and make them to be it, than we can demand that God be the god we want Him to be and make Him dance to the tune of the music we play. It is a fool’s errand even to conceive of it and to entertain it. Such a god that we can manipulate and control would not be the true God.

So the fact that God is hidden is not surprising. The fact that God is hidden is expressly disclosed throughout the Bible. It is not hidden to us that God is a hidden God.

What proof, therefore, should we give of such a God?

Perhaps, the only proof we can give is the hope that such a God can be found, and indeed, that some people have found Him – that He has revealed Himself to people to whom He desires to reveal Himself because they desire to know Him as He truly is.

And so we can offer this proof: that the one who seeks God, the one who seeks to know God as He reveals Himself to be, the one who seeks God with his whole heart and his whole being, yielding all that he wishes to demand to such a God, that such a person can and will know Him, as the Bible says, and that such a God who is approached that way promises to be found.

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  1. Blaise Pascal, Brittanica.com, Lucien Jerphagnon, May 1, 2026 ↩︎
  2. What were the famous Blaise Pascal inventions? (How Stuff Works, by Nicholas Gerbis) ↩︎

How Not to Look for God: An “Unapologetic” Argument for God

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In two previous articles attempting to make an “unapologetic” argument for God, I have just been ramping up to make the argument. I still haven’t gotten there yet, and I am still just getting started.

That’s right. I am still working on getting to the starting line. Maybe I will still get there.

I say, “unapologetic”, rather loosely, in case you are wondering.  I am not being apologetic in the sense of apologizing for anything. Apologetics has nothing to do with being sorry, of course. It means to provide a defense, and it specifically describes the effort of providing a defense for Christianity.

The word, apologetics, derives from the Greek word, apologia, which means “a speech in defense” or a “verbal defense” or a “well-reasoned reply”. The world is used in Peter 3:15 as follows:

“Always be prepared to give an answer [apologia] to everyone who asks you to give the reason [logos] for the hope that you have.”

I am using “unapologetic” as a kind of play on words. I am not giving a typical apologetic argument for the existence of God, and I am not being apologetic about doing that.

I previously made the observation that we all start with axioms, premises on which we support our positions for and against God, but we are incapable of proving those axioms. We consider them “self-evident”, but that is, frankly, just another way of saying that we can’t prove our starting premises” we have to assume they are true, and we go from there.

We take our fundamental premises on faith, essentially. This includes everyone, even in science.

As an example, consider the scientist, like a few I have heard, who says that science is the only way to know truth and all truths can be revealed by science. That premise cannot be scientifically proven. Therefore, you just must take it on faith.

Ironically, that statement is also self-contradictory. If science is the only way to know truth, and the statement itself cannot be proven by science, then even if it is right, it is wrong! (Echoing John Lennox here.)

I recently heard the astrophysicist, Michael Guillen, say similarly that science does not prove anything absolutely. As an example, he says we could posit that ravens are always black. Every raven the modern world has ever encountered and documented may be black, but that doesn’t mean that every raven that ever existed and every raven that will ever exist is always black.

To make the claim that all ravens are black is to go beyond science. We can only verify the blackness of all the ravens we can find and the ravens that other people have documented, but we can’t verify the blackness of the ravens that were never documented or the ravens that have not yet existed.

William Lane Craig talks about the philosophy of logical positivism championed by people like AJ Ayer in the 1940’s and 50’s. Logical positivism, or “verificationism”, as Craig calls it, was claimed that consideration of the existence of God is meaningless because it is not verifiable by the five senses. The book, Language, Proof and Logic, was a kind of “manifesto” of this view, says Craig,

Verificationsim was used by Ayer to nix anything metaphysical. According to this view, a statement is only meaningful if it is capable of being empirically verified. Since metaphysical statements are beyond the reach of empirical science, they cannot be verified. Metaphysical statements were, therefore, dismissed out of hand. According to Craig,

“Ayer was very explicit about the theological implications of this verificationism. Since God is a metaphysical object, the possibility of knowledge was ‘ruled out’ by our treatment of metaphysics. Thus, there can be no knowledge of God.”

Do you see the problem with this view? One only need ask, “Is that statement capable of being empirically verified?”

Ayer’s view was built on an axiom he could not prove, and which could not be proven by the methods he arbitrarily limited according to the premise he assumed. His view could not even stand up to itself!

Craig says the collapse of verificationism was “the most philosophical event of the twentieth century”. The verification principal was not only unscientific; it was self-refuting. “The statement, ‘You should only believe what can be scientifically proven cannot, itself, be scientifically proven.’”

In the previous “unapologetic” articles, I claim that we all have to take certain things on faith, especially our starting premises, which are the tools by which we view and explore the world, but not all of those starting premises are created equal. Some of them cannot even stand up to themselves!

But, enough of that. I need to get to the point of this article.

It seems axiomatic that, if one wants to determine whether God exists, and if one is sincere in making that determination, one will not start with a premise that will inevitably result in the logic that God does not exist.

Continue reading “How Not to Look for God: An “Unapologetic” Argument for God” →

The Beginning of an “Unapologetic” Argument for God

Faith is the inevitable position of a finite being who does not know all there is to know.

kevingdrendel5 Comments

I really like apologetics. I find it interesting to think about, but apologetics has limited power as a tool to convince people to believe in God. It is not a magic bullet. There is no magic argument to prove the existence of God.

When I see article titles or social media posts that make claims of proving the existence of God, I cringe a little bit. It’s a promise we can’t deliver. We really shouldn’t “go there”. I feel that we should be more honest than that.

Of course, the “promise” depends on the definition of “prove”. The Oxford online dictionary defines the word, “prove”, as follows:

  1. demonstrate the truth or existence of (something) by evidence or argument. (“The concept is difficult to prove.”)
  2. demonstrate to be the specified thing by evidence or argument. (“Innocent until proven guilty.”)

If everyone accepted and applied these definitions, perhaps, we could find more common ground. A “proof” in the first sense is just evidence or argument that demonstrates the truth of the existence of something. Whether that proof actually, definitively and absolutely provides the truth or existence of that something, is another matter. A proof in this sense is still open to judgment whether it accomplished the goal.

A proof in the second sense is similar, and the example includes a standard of proof (one that we use in criminal proceedings). This example raises a key point: Without agreement on the standard of proof, the determination whether a proof is successful in proving that point is a moving target.

The success of any evidence or argument in proving a point depends on what standard of proof is applied. Two people may apply two very different standards of proof and, therefore, arrive at two very different conclusions on the determination whether the proof was successful.

Most of the arguments between theists and atheists gloss over and fail to recognize this fundamental issue. Not only do they apply different standards of proof, they make all kinds of different assumptions, and worse: they define their terms differently. It’s no wonder the debates and discussions produce so much disagreement. They are basically talking in foreign languages to each other.

Wikipedia defines “proof” as “sufficient evidence or a sufficient argument for the truth of a proposition.” What is “sufficient” evidence, though, depends on the standard of proof that is applied. Different standards of proof will yield different results.

For instance, we generally apply different standards of proof in the American legal system in different contexts. In civil cases, the applicable standard of proof is “more likely than not”, and in criminal proceedings, the applicable standard of proof is “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Proving a case under the “more likely than not” standard is much easier than proving a case “beyond a reasonable doubt”. The higher standard (“beyond a reasonable doubt”) is designed for criminal cases with the purpose of causing “the system” to err on the side of finding a guilty person innocent (rather than erring on the side of convicting innocent people).

At least, that is the theory. People still disagree on the outcomes of criminal cases, and innocent people are sometimes found guilty, even when applying the much higher standard of proof. I am reminded of the axiom: to err is human.

These problems of proof are inevitable for finite beings. We don’t know what we don’t know, and we are always prone to “getting it wrong”. If we don’t take that limitation seriously, we become arrogant and prideful.

Therefore, I am reminded of the propriety of maintaining humility. Even if we are certain in our own minds of the truth of a matter, we should be mindful of the human tendency to get things wrong.

This is where faith comes in. Faith, in part, is an exercise in humility. Faith is the inevitable condition of being human, and that goes for faith in the truth that science reveals and faith in the truth that the Bible reveals. Let me explain.

Continue reading “The Beginning of an “Unapologetic” Argument for God” →

Francis Collins on Proof of God: The Options are Simple

Which position requires more faith? The existence of God? Or the existence of a multiverse?

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Francis Collins is the former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute where he spearheaded the Human Genome Project. He is now director of the National Institute of Health. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences and has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science.

He graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. He graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy in physical chemistry from Yale University. Then he earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from University of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Francis Collins is best known for his work in sequencing and mapping the human genome. He has been involved in the discovery of genes associated with various diseases. Most recently, Francis Collins was announced as the 2020 Templeton Prize winner.

“The Templeton Prize is an annual award granted to a living person, in the estimation of the judges, ‘whose exemplary achievements advance Sir John Templeton’s philanthropic vision: harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it.’” The Templeton Prize exceeds the value of the Nobel Prize each year and is awarded to recognize progress toward research and discoveries about spiritual realities. (See Wikipedia)

The early trajectory of his life would not have predicted a Templeton Prize in his future. Francis Collins grew up on a small farm, in a non-religious home of parents he describes as hippies. He was home schooled through 6th grade. He loved science despite his more artsy upbringing, but any notions of the possibility of a God were wiped from the ledger of possibilities for him by the time he entered graduate school.

Francis Collins was an atheist, and he didn’t give God or religion much thought until sometime after his doctoral degrees were completed and he was working in the field of medicine. He was challenged one day by a cancer patient to support his view that God didn’t exist. While he was convinced of his position, he realized his position was based on assumptions he had not explored.

Collins realized he hadn’t really considered the evidence, or lack thereof. He had not come to his position in a scientific way.

The scientist in him recognized that he should know why he didn’t believe in God. He understand at that point that he could not hold that position with integrity without considering the contrary evidence. Thus, he set out to inform himself.

Along the way, he came to the conclusion that his original position wasn’t as tenable as he supposed. Reluctantly he came to believe that God is the best explanation for all the evidence he understood through science.

Francis Collins was in his late 20’s when he found himself a believer, and specifically a believer in the Christian concept of God. (A little bit of his story is captured in Inspiration or Artifice? Faith and Reason) That position has informed his life work ever since.

Francis Collins recently sat down (remotely) with Justin Brierley, the Unbelievable? Podcast, host, to discuss faith and science. I will embed the YouTube video of the interview at the end of this article, focusing on the question: what evidence of God is most compelling? (But the whole interview is worth a listen.)

Continue reading “Francis Collins on Proof of God: The Options are Simple” →

Can We Be Certain of God’s Existence? The Role of the Holy Spirit

Doubt is the common experience of saints and sinners alike.

kevingdrendel16 Comments

Can we be certain of God’s existence? The short answer is, no. If the question is whether we can have something like mathematical certainty or proof, we have to answer that question in the negative. There is no evidence, no proof, or argument that can provide certainty that God exists for finite beings such as ourselves.

Such evidence, proof, or argument would have to be built on premises that are 100% certain, and that kind of certainty is impossible for beings that are not all-knowing. The best we can do is to arrive at evidence, proofs, and arguments that suggest a probability that God exists. The same is true, or course, for the proposition that God does not exist. Even then, the proof for a negative is always subject to change if positive evidence turns up.

To this extent, doubt is the common experience of saints and sinners alike.

To put this another way: Can we be sure that God doesn’t exist? The only certainty is that we can’t be certain.

Many believers have doubts, and many doubters have their own doubts about their doubt.

Continue reading “Can We Be Certain of God’s Existence? The Role of the Holy Spirit” →