Still one of the best logical arguments for God's existence.

[Athanasias]

Using logic to "prove" God may remove roadblocks, but it also creates, in their absence, new stumbling blocks. The faith required for Christian belief is not one of intellectual assent, is not rooted in the "reasonableness" of the belief to which we are called. On the contrary, true faith--the faith of Abraham, the apostles, and the saints throughout history--is irrational, transrational, or super-rational...

However one wants to characterize it, such faith is a call to abandon the limitations of self-will and self-knowledge; it is a challenge to cast off into the great unknown; a beckoning to despair of knowing in order to be known; a call to be embraced by light by first being immersed in the darkness of inability and total trust. Such a faith has no "logical" defense, for it cannot be described, it can only be experienced.

This is why attempting to root such a faith in "proofs" creates the stumbling blocks which I mentioned. Such arguments create a false foundation, a brittle facade. When a strong "storm" of competing logic batters against it, the house will only be as strong as the foundation upon which it was built; if this foundation is the flimsy support of human logic, it cannot support the weight and is destined to fall with a great crash.

I speak of this from personal experience. I have many, many friends and family members who have become victims of such "apologetics". Much of their understanding of Christian belief was rooted in the "logic" and "reasonableness" of their "faith", and to make matters worse they were purposefully shielded from antagonistic points of view. However, when they were finally outside the protection of such a carefully crafted theological "bubble" and came into contact with (what appeared to be ) stronger "logic", the foundation upon which their beliefs was based was exposed as nothing more than a brittle facade. And as they were given no better tools than "logic" and "reasonableness" by which to understand their faith, it was dealt a fatal blow, a blow from which few can recover.

This is why the species of apologetics which you advocate is so inherently dangerous. By appealing outside of Christian faith to (try, but fail to) establish the "objective truth" of Christian belief, such "logic" only opens the floodgates for the enemies of the faith (whether self-identified, or otherwise) to sow confusion and deceive those already deceived by false apologetics.

We are not called to convince the world of the reasonableness of our beliefs; such is impossible, for if we have convinced ourselves of that what we believe is "reasonable", ours is a false faith. When the apostle calls us to "be ready" to give a defense of the hope that we have, this is a challenge to be ready to articulate "what" we believe, and "how" this has transformed our lives. The "why" of believing cannot be rationalized; it can only be embraced existentially, in the total commitment of oneself to the mystery and sovereignty of the divine. Like Abram, we cannot explain "why" we would cast off into the darkness to follow the voice of the creator beckoning us into the unknown, for the only point at which the answer is revealed is after the leap has been made, after we have set ourselves on the path to the land of promise. For the one standing on the precipice, pacing back and forth in indecision, such an answer can have no meaning whatsoever.

Look we all know your main hang up is in epistemology. You have a false epistemology based on Humes ideas and tracing itself back to William of Ockham and his mess. Your idea of "proof" has to be his empirical and you reject that man can know these truths outside of divine revelation and cling to fideism and have a radically skeptical outlook on evidence.

I believe you had had personal experiences with this in your family and friends as you say. Well so have I. Thats no surprise I mean the world in general espouses this type of false philosophy and its all around us I talk to people at my store weekly that espouse this type of stuff. You got to know its historical roots and the problems with it.

In fact that is why so many people I know of in my generation have dropped out of Christianity and embraced either atheism or agnosticism. If you deny mans knowledge and reason as a gift from God to go hand in hand with faith you end up in mere fideism and Christian fundamentalism and then its true only because the bible says so or you end up as a non-beleiver. This has gotten alot of Christians that I know of(such as the atheist convert to Catholicism Leah Libresco or the Christian convert to Atheism Dan Barker) to embrace one of 2 positions 1). either the Atheist view which uses reason and deny's Christianity or 2). Embracing Catholicism or a Christian worldview that allows reason and faith to coexist synthetically and beautifully.


Therefore I cannot deny what God did with people like socrates who knew the logic of the existence of God and I cannot deny the experiences the great converts and saints to Christianity in history like St. Augustine who had a conversion of the mind first and used logic to come to God's existence via the argument from desire, and later had a conversion of the heart while pondering the scriptures. You travel a dangerous road with your path on fideism.

 

[Cappadocious]

Your idea of "proof" has to be his empirical

How are you defining empirical?

 

[Sapiens]

The only argument made in the video is in regard to the contingency of the universe. There is no logical connection made to the necessity that this contingency is somehow explained by God. The only way to make the connection is via a non-logical assertion, or an assumption (without any basis) that God is most reasonable explanation for the existence of the universe. This, in itself, is a different species of logical error.

The logical link is that God created the universe. Perhaps you would've prefered if it was worded that this is "the best", or at least, "the most probable" explanation for there to be a beginning to our universe, a first cause.

God is a necessary being, the universe is not. The universe unnecessarily began, why? God created it.

 

[Athanasias]

The logical link is that God created the universe. Perhaps you would've prefered if it was worded that this is "the best", or at least, "the most probable" explanation for there to be a beginning to our universe, a first cause.

God is a necessary being, the universe is not. The universe unnecessarily began, why? God created it.

Well Put!

 

[Greg Logan]

I'll have to take your word for it. What I've read (and debates I've seen) from WLC has not been very compelling.

Thanks for saying that - I totally agree - WLC seems pretty weak actually. In fact I do not know any evangelical apologist who is very convincing... perhaps because faith is not to stand in the wisdom of men's words but in the Power of God...

 

[Gnarwhal]

I agree. I hadn't heard of this until a couple months ago when I was in the inquiry phase of RCIA. Aquinas sure was a brilliant thinker.

 

[Cappadocious]

Thanks for saying that - I totally agree - WLC seems pretty weak actually. In fact I do not know any evangelical apologist who is very convincing... perhaps because faith is not to stand in the wisdom of men's words but in the Power of God...

Apologetics in general are not truth-conducive, nor respectful to the given audience.

 

[hedrick]

There’s a difference between reasonableness and proof. I’d say our faith needs to be coherent and consistent with the evidence. But that doesn’t mean you can prove it. I share the general skepticism about the usefulness of proof.

As to the argument: Even if you think that the ultimate can’t be contingent, I don’t see why laws of physics are any less satisfactory than God as a non-contingent basis. I should note that these are not necessarily the laws of physics as we normally think of them. If you believe in multiple universes, each with different laws, there could well be a level underneath the laws of a specific universe.