Proving God's Existence Undermines Faith

Your assuming "thinking is I". Whereas I say thinking is going on and the I sits above observing. Observing can be passive: one way flow of data about direction of thoughts into the will but without the will thinking about anything. The will pressing buttons (without thinking) according only to will.You're an evolutionist right? This should make sense to you if you were to model it on the 'will' being:

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animalistic vestiges of instinct which do not think but just act according to a preset programme called will/instinct. Thinking being just a refined way for the will to have its...er..instinct satisfied

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If that, then there is no reason to suppose that the will (God breathed) couldn't have the extra possibility of enabling the will to want to will differently. But again without thinking about it. Reliability of their knowing we have been talking about. Their beliefs being based at least partial exposure to external evidence are open to public examination and are open to being modified by the person. Knowledge is another thingIt doesn't follow that what a person knows is in fact the case. I have repeated a number of times that God does not necessarily exist just because I know he does. We could be an aliens playstation game. Or God could be playing a game by giving different people all kinds of contradictory ideas about his existance.None of this changes that I know what I know. I arrived at the knowledge of knowing he exists only because he showed up. I know of no other way one could arrive at that knowledge. My question to you was: which other way could use to check the reliability of this knowledge, if not by calibrating it against some other externally unverifiable knowledge that I have eg: I know I exist. Knowing the 'flavor' of the knowledge of what it is to exist myself is perfect comparison material for examining whether the knowledge that he exists is in fact knowledge or something else.And when I compare the two flavours I find that they match. I'll sum up with a couple of statements with which you may or may not agree with regarding what it is to know.You know you exist.Saying "I know" is the most absolute way of asserting "something to be the actual case" that we have available to us. Its not absolute but its the best we haveKnowing you exist doesn't mean you do in fact exist. You can only know it.Knowing anything doesn't mean it is the case.That one knows something is a strictly personal affair. No one can know what another knows. No one can test for it. Each must decide for themselves what it is they know and whether they do in fact know it.Ones mans way of deciding he knows may not be anothers. That two people know contradictory things might be a result of their way of establishing that they know. I use what I think is the best way: calibrating against the best knowing I have: "I exist".I can have no insight into what you know other than what you tell me you know. How could I have?I can take you at your word or I can say you are lying or misguided or something else. But I cannot know that my choice is the correct one however.This message has been edited by iano, 11-May-2006 06:19 PM

No, I am not assuming that "thinking is I"- that isn't at all what I said. I stated that you cannot observe your thoughts unless you have thoughts to observe - which you agree with. And even if you don't agree that observation is thought in itself (although how you understand what you observe without at least unconscious thought is something you'll have to explain) surely drawing a conclusion from an observation involes thinking. None of that involes the assumption you attributee to me so I have no idea where it comes from.I also fail to find either of your ideas about the will convincing or relevant.

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I arrived at the knowledge of knowing he exists only because he showed up. I know of no other way one could arrive at that knowledge. My question to you was: which other way could use to check the reliability of this knowledge, if not by calibrating it against some other externally unverifiable knowledge that I have eg: I know I exist. Knowing the 'flavor' of the knowledge of what it is to exist myself is perfect comparison material for examining whether the knowledge that he exists is in fact knowledge or something else

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As I have already siad that comparison requires that you are God, so ti doesn't work. Comparign your belief with similar beliefs held by other people for similar reasons would appear to be more appropriate.

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Saying "I know" is the most absolute way of asserting "something to be the actual case" that we have available to us. Its not absolute but its the best we have

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Knowing you exist doesn't mean you do in fact exist. You can only know it.

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On the contrary, if I did not exist I could not know anything - or even wrongly believer that I know anything. Thus since my existence is a necessary precondition to the belief that I exist, I cannot be wrong to beleive that I exist.

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Knowing anything doesn't mean it is the case.

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Which means that all certainty is false certainty.

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That one knows something is a strictly personal affair. No one can know what another knows. No one can test for it. Each must decide for themselves what it is they know and whether they do in fact know it.

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Ones mans way of deciding he knows may not be anothers. That two people know contradictory things might be a result of their way of establishing that they know. I use what I think is the best way: calibrating against the best knowing I have: "I exist".

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I can have no insight into what you know other than what you tell me you know. How could I have?

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But the knowledge that you exist is dependant on the fact that you ARE you, that you do have this special insight into your own mind. Your "calibration" doesn't take that into account so it can't be trusted because it leaves out the most important fact, in favour of what appears to be a subjective impression (if it's anything more it isn't apparent from your writing).In fact IMHO the comparison suggests to me that your "God" is an internal mental construct.

I don't think they are trying to prove the existence of god because they are having trouble beliving in him, they do it for apologetics. Mostly the defensive position.I don't think they are lacking faith, they just want to step up to the plate with science. Science has "proven" that evolution occurs. This realates to the creationist's belief system, so they want to prove that god exists to get up to speed with the scientists. It isn't a lack of faith, its the desire to be in the ballgame. I agree. I agree, but again I don't think this is why they do it.

HEY. can we try to stay on my topic, and not on how we know God exists?For those who have forgotten:
does trying to find empirical evidence for God's existence undermine faith.are those evangelists that try to convinve athiests with empirical evidence going about it in the wrong way?in terms of question one of my topic, it seems that it depends on your definition of faith. If it's more like blind trust, than the answer is yes, it does undermine faith.no one has discussed my second question (I admit it wasn't in the OP, but as there are those doing this, I figured it fit in) so I willI say that if you want to evangilize the atheist, you have to reach to him with faith. The pagan romans were impressed by the persecuted christians willingness to die for their faith, and that was one of the most important reasons for their conversion to christianity.Many today are converted by witnessing the good works that christians do. Many are converted by witnessing the faith that they have.

*cough-cough*Look up two posts.

I think that if that were examined further we would find that an awareness of Gods excellence is a result of his grace rather than being a definition of grace itself. Grace (from whence: gratis, gracious, grateful) tends to raise the impression of it being something 'freely given'. The something is fuel (faith) freely given (grace). I think a closer approximation would be that faith is a fuel, delivered freely (gratis) which enables such as insights into his excellence and a knowledge of what we truly are. Giving man laws so that man knows he is a sinner (oh wretched man) is an example of grace to. A tough, painful effect but given freely for our benefit. The fantastic thing Robin is that their is no end. Unlike all else in life you cannot exhaust this. No matter how far in you go fresh pastures open up. The doors always open into springtime and new life. Summer sits at the end of it all. It makes being thrown to lions a bearable affair I would imagine. Ah go on. It won't hurt a bit. Receptiveness to him s'all. A Christian remain a sinner. He is a person who has made a heart choice to hand the steering wheel of his life over to him who is better able to steer it. But that doesn't mean we don't try to yank back control on occasion"God calling Iano, God calling Iano". I need the aerial as I need everything else.This message has been edited by iano, 11-May-2006 11:55 PM

I just meant that I knew quite a bit about Johnathan Edwards' ideas.What I can't figure out is why faith would be considered a moral virtue and the lack of faith a moral failing. I don't see how the issue of whether one believes something or not could be a moral matter. That's why I was interested in pinning down this notion of "trust" mentioned by Faith--whether or not trust is simply another belief.

Can you quote him on that? Page reference too? (I have many of his books). I think Iano answered you that grace confers a sense of God's excellence, and I would agree with that. I wouldn't think Edwards would make it the definition of grace. Believe you have that backwards, Robin. Faith is a product of grace. Grace is God's action toward us, His forgiving us of sin and granting us access to Himself, on the basis of Christ's sacrifice. Faith is His gift to us through His grace, but in its essence it is our response to Him. In a sense it is a chicken-egg question too, as {abe: There is a reciprocity involved however:} we do generally receive more grace in proportion to our faith. But grace is God's initiating action, before anything in us that responds. Unless I have all this very confused indeed. Sounds like Edwards, but out of context it's hard to get the full meaning of it. I never heard the phrase before myself. Iano?This message has been edited by Faith, 05-11-2006 07:20 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-11-2006 07:22 PM

What do you mean by faith in this context. Faith as fuel doesn't make sense here. I don't see that it is. What do you mean here too? Whilst words such as faith,salvation, belief, justification, righteousness trust, etc., etc., run deep in terms of fullest meaning, it is a safe bet that if one took the obvious meaning first then the first layers would be accessed. I'm doing the same myself with them.Maxim: Always involve a person in the analysis. God is a person afterall.faith: what does faith in someone produce? You trust them, you believe what they say, you listen to their guidance, you look up to them, you turn to them in trouble, you put your hope in them.belief: you believe them, you hold to what they say no matter what anyone else says.Justification: Making someone just. Making them innocentTrust: self explanatory. Trusting God has the same flavor as trusting anyone else - except that it can be (in so far as one is willing to place it) absolute trustThose words are words which describe aspects of an overarching principle under which these words operatePersonal, one-to-one relationship with someone. Remove that and these words are paint without a canvas. Person stands behind it all. Remove the person and you have mush

I thought the Calvinist formula was as follows. Faith comes first (not works). Sincere faith results in Grace, which is a gift from God that allows us to be a more holy person. Out of this Grace comes naturally "good works," but what matters is faith. One cannot have faith unless you are a member of the "Covenant of Grace,"
which is a replacement for the Covenant of Works (contract with Adam and Eve).I got the other information from a sermon in an anthology. I'll get the title for you later. He doesn't actually call it grace; he calls it "Divine Light." I thought it was the same thing.

If you don't have faith you go to hell. I assume this God is a moral God and so if you were sent to hell it's because you did something immoral.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 05-11-2006 06:34 PM

I may not be grasping your question rightly. I'm trying to recall my own personal experience of faith. I remember at a certain point identifying a certain attitude I discovered in myself as faith -- as in, "oh, THAT's what faith is, now I get it." I think it has degrees or levels or something. The first level, at least as I think I experienced it, said "Eureka, it's all true after all!" This was before I had read much theology and didn't know where grace fit into any of it. At that point I believed God is real, and that He is all- powerful and all-knowing and everywhere at all times. And personal too -- someone you can talk to. I got that idea from my fragmented memories of what I'd learned in church as a child. Hymns are sung TO Him as if He heard them. The Lord's prayer assumes He is listening, and it ascribes all things to Him. "For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power and the Glory, Amen" gave me a sense of something imminently real and gloriously present that I couldn't see but "knew" was there.That was my first idea of God and I acted on it too -- I talked to him, or thought my thoughts in his direction. That's faith.I also thought all religions taught about Him. Oddly enough I think it was some half-baked American Hindu writers like Aldous Huxley and others who convinced me the Bible was all God's word. Of course to them so were the scriptures of all the other religions, and it was some time before I stopped believing that. But I never lost the conviction that the Bible was God's word. And that was an expression of faith.Before long I was aware of having prayers answered. Things happened that I had asked God to do. I asked for help out of a depressing situation and someone from my childhood I hadn't heard from in years called me up out of the blue and removed me from the situation. Oh there are many instances, but another I remember from later was having Jehovah's Witnesses at the door telling me about John 1 in their usual fashion and I prayed for the answer and God gave it to me on the spot, in Isaiah where it says "I am God and I will not give my glory to another." That sort of experience builds more faith. But even praying for the answer was an act of faith.I wish I had the trust of some great Christians I've read about, such as George Muller who depended completely on prayer to God for the financing of a huge orphanage project he started and ran for years, never resorting to ordinary human means, simply asking God for the provisions as they were needed. He would often -- usually -- be without the requested provision down to hours and even moments before it was urgently needed, and his faith sustained him through that kind of trial over and over again, and it would come through even at the last minute. He claimed this was not extraordinary faith but the basic faith Jesus preached. Too bad Christians don't have the spiritual strength to experience that if so.But there is the more ordinary trust that God will provide for us, will take care of us, will do only what is good for us -- even if it doesn't feel so good. That kind of trust doesn't complain, but thanks God even in adversity. I'm afraid I have that kind of trust only in fits and starts.Well, there I went off on a long story and I don't even know if it answered your questions.

I think basically this is because it honors God to believe Him and trust Him and dishonors Him to doubt Him and complain about Him and distrust Him.

That IS why people are sent to Hell -- for sins they've committed. Not because they lack faith. Faith in God, however, (specifically faith in Jesus' death on your behalf} SAVES YOU FROM the just consequences of your sins. That's why it's called a free gift. It's unmerited, undeserved. What is deserved by all of us is Hell, even by the best of us.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-11-2006 08:10 PM

We are all immoral to start with. Faith isn't given because we are moral. But because we were immoral and are in dire need of it. Faith is fuel to a moral tank run dry.Faith can be seen as a consequence of salvation. A lot of things happen at the switchover point between salvation and lost. A veritable raft of things. God is very busy at this pointHe justifies a person: he MAKES them innocentHe declares them righteous: he 'sees' them as innocent. They have been justified after all so this makes sense. They are only cloaked in the righteousness another has earned, but that is what he has decided is what he will see.He adopts them as sons: he is holy and cannot adopt that which is unholy. But given that we are (seen as) righteous there is no impediment to his adopting. Like most fathers he loves children. The more the merrier. "For God wants that NONE should perish..."He knows his son is a prodigal one. But that he has turned toward home. And he looks in eager expectation to his sons return. He knows the son flys a heavily damaged Flying Fortress over Stuttgart. He knows the the Focke Wulf 190s strafe and tear. He knows that the outer starboard engine is feathering and the pain and hurt and death that have and will occur on that craft. He knows his own sons longing for a home that appears so far away.And so he reaches out, by his grace. And gives his battered, weary son some faith. Faith that the mission will be completed, that home will be reached. The purpose of faith is to enable us to accomplish our mission and to give us hope that it will be completedThat is the role of faith. Its for our benefit. It does't make us moral people (for we are already considered righteous) - it keeps engines from featheringThis message has been edited by iano, 12-May-2006 01:12 AM