I recently read a conservative Christian claim: “no human being will ever be able to prove whether
or not God exists, as that would then make him/her superior to God.”
A friend offered this comment:
1. That seems to be a non sequitur. How does that conclusion follow
from the premiss? The only “reasonable” suggestion I can attribute to
the syllogism is that a priori you believe that, ultimately, God is
incomprehensible and we, ultimately, can’t reason to God. That makes
Paul a confusing person (and confused?), given that he has said we can
in Romans 1: “because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for
God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His
invisible attributes are clearly seen, being UNDERSTOOD by the things
that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead”. Note the word
“understood”, further note the Greek and further even still note what
the understanding leads to i.e. the GODHEAD! Unless of course you
believe atheists have the intellectual power to reason to the Godhead
and then, well, just ignore the answer after REASONING correctly. But
this would contradict your premise that man can’t reason to and prove God, wouldn’t it?
2. Can’t prove whether God exists or not? What on earth does that
mean? You completely limit (?misuse) the word ‘prove’. Of course you can
prove God exists! What do you think apologetics are about!? If you
can’t prove God exists, then why have apologetic organisations? Why waste your breath trying to appeal to atheists’ reason,
unless your review of the DVD isn’t really an appeal to reason.
And then you go and contradict yourself by saying “this does not mean,
however, that Christian faith is irrational or contrary to logic and
reason”. If it’s not contrary to logic and reason, it must be reasonable
and logical (The Law of the Excluded Middle applies), and thus
provable. An analogy: If a man were to say, “All cats are mammals, and
all mammals are animals, so therefore cats are animals” but then says he
can’t prove cats are animals, a listener would insightfully say the
chap’s lost his marbles or seems to not understand the power of logic
and reason. This feline syllogism is no different to, say, the Argument
for God’s Existence from Design or the Kalam Cosmological Argument for
His existence.
