Why I Believe...

*This article was posted by Mike, but written by Cory in a separate document

Why I believe . . .

I can’t prove that God exists. If you are looking for that silver bullet, you are looking in the wrong place. Tangible, infallible proof that God exists, simply does not exist. However, I also don’t believe that the absence of tangible proof is, itself, proof that God does not exist. It is only proof that we don’t know if God exists, or rather that we lack the language or tools to prove that God exists. Or do we?

On the one hand, we have science. Traditional reasoning will tell you that science – the language of the natural world – is at constant odds with religion – the language of God. If this is true, how are religious people also scientific? What portion of their faith have they ignored in order to accept the explanations offered by science? Such a question is obviously silly – of course science and religion can get along, up to a point. That point is when they attempt to tread on each other’s shoes. This point tends to be regarding that all-encompassing question – why? Since science will deal only with what it can observed through physical means, science cannot attribute any portion of “why” to an intangible, all-powerful being. Here science and religion typically divide. This is a fallacy, for they are two sides of the same coin (to be explained later).

So how does one reconcile a belief in God with an acceptance of modern scientific theory? We’ll get there. Let’s first frame the argument.

Who is God?

I believe that God is the omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe and all that is in it. He is human in form, but timeless and conscious in a way mortal man cannot comprehend. God operates at a higher level of understanding than does man.  God is also empathic and knows the full range of human emotion (having created man in his image, it stands to reason He would have created man in his likeness in other ways, too). In addition, God is omnibenevolent. All powerful, all knowing, all loving. These are the traits of God. Of course, we have already reached a point of argument.

For example, the classical quandary of the impotent deity. Can an omnipotent God create a rock so big he can’t lift it? Of course, either answer implies that God can’t do something – either create the rock in the first place, or lift it after it’s created – and if He can’t do one of those things, He isn’t omnipotent and thus isn’t God. Seeking to diminish the traits of God is among the first element of attack the critic will employ against the Creator. The failure of the effort is in the definitions: is our understanding of “all powerful” consistent with what God would consider it to be (since, for this example, we have to assume that God exists)? If so, the answer to both element of the question is “yes.” God could create such a rock, and still be able to lift it. What? The concepts of the question demand exclusivity – both conditions cannot be met at once – unless we also include “all knowing.” If God exists, then He must be omnipotent, omniscience, and omnibenevolent. He cannot be only one or two; he must be all three. Therefore, it stands to reason that His methods are not known to us (we are not gods and therefore not omniscient). So, He could meet both requirements of the question and it is simply that we do not understand how.

This does not prove that God exists. It only suggests that we haven’t even left the realm of understanding yet and already there is trouble. It also proves one further point: much of the problem with this debate revolves around definitions and understanding of deific nature. Perhaps my personal explanations to these questions are not at harmony with the majority of believers. But my attempt here will be to explain why I believe in God, not why people in general do. As such, I cannot believe that God exists in any other way than I have come to understand that He does. I hope to explain that statement in short order.

The Nature of God.

If we assume the above traits of God to be true, then how do those traits affect us today? Do we likewise assume that God is some sort of ethereal puppeteer who controls and manipulates the universe from afar? I think not. God created the physical world around us, set the conditions such that life could exist where it does, and created man in His image and character (with condition). God created something far more important than these other things, however. It is inseparable from mortal life. It is agency. Agency explains the nature of God from here.

Here’s a simple explanation of my point. Think of God as a computer engineer. He made the system, wrote the program (we’ll call it a game), set the rules by which the program runs, and set the whole thing in motion – pressed ‘play’ if you will. Unlike the software engineer, however, God gave us, the characters in the game, agency with which to make our own way. The mortal software engineer must preprogram his characters to follow established routines; God simply wrote the rules and gave us the opportunity to choose how to play. He even empowered us to choose how to describe the game and how it came to be – an opportunity that some of us used to suggest that the game wrote itself. To God, that is fine. He gave us that choice.

At this point, the logical mind must ask, “what about deism then? Aren’t you just describing the absentee creator?” If we stopped there, I suppose the answer is yes. But we won’t stop there. If we were using science and logic as the only tools to describe the game, we could be content to stop. But we aren’t, so we won’t.

Imagine now that God gave us the instruction manual to the game. Perhaps the game has a point, some ultimate goal, and that goal is to discover the truth about how the game came about, how it works and how we can become software engineers (aka gods) ourselves. But God wanted only those who could learn His tenets – the “omnis” – through experience and choice, and not those who were simply given the answers. So He gave the instructions to the game to a few people throughout the program and asked those people to go tell the others about it. The game still runs, the rules still work, and people still go about their virtual little lives. Some choose to read the instruction manual, others choose not to. Some read it and followed it, others read it and ignored it. This isn’t to get into the differences of doctrinal religions; for purposes of this example let’s just lump all faiths into one generic religion.

This is how I see God. He is all those “omnis” from our perspective because we just don’t understand how He does it all. But as we learn the methods and elements of His ways – as we become more omniscient ourselves – this doesn’t diminish who God is; it simply makes us more like Him. I believe that that is precisely God’s purpose – to make us each like Him and to teach us to become gods of other universes ourselves.

Now, let’s join the aforementioned game and discuss this like the players. What if one of the players – we’ll call him Mike – was discovering how the game worked and just couldn’t reconcile that with what another player – his name will be Cory – was telling him regarding the existence of a programmer – the programmer we’ll call God. Mike’s philosophy was that if he couldn’t use the tools around him to explain how something worked, he simply couldn’t answer the question yet. He just needed to learn more about his tools (we’ll call the tools science – clever names here, I know). Cory said, “Mike, you are right. You need to develop your tool set before you can hope to explain anything else.” Here’s his suggestion:

God is nature. God wrote the rules, God designed the system, God made it all happen, and He did it through logical, scientific means. Science is the language of God – the language He used to create the universe and everything in it. Call it a miracle if you want; I call it good design. The design is so good, God left no trace of ‘magic’ or ‘miracle’ in the effort; it simply follows predetermined rules – rules that science is constantly uncovering and relearning – and God lets the natural/physical world take it’s due course. This is the crux of the “intelligent design” argument – that some omnipotent being must have been behind it all. I agree. What I don’t see is how this is inconsistent with modern scientific theory. And now we have come full circle so let’s get back to the point.

Why is it so inconceivable that God is the answer to the question that science is trying ask – where did this all come from? Several theories exist, of course, but science cannot “prove” any of them. Since we can’t get physical, observed evidence of the big bang, does that mean it didn’t happen? Then what did? You see, we just don’t know. We may never know. But not knowing and claiming to know what it wasn’t isn’t the same thing. Just because we finally prove it happened through some specific process or another doesn’t automatically mean that God didn’t start the process – unless you cling to the orthodoxy viewpoint that God created the earth and all there is 7 days without using physical processes. This blind position automatically means that God and science are mutually exclusive – which contradicts everything the orthodox religious person believes. If God created everything, didn’t He also create science? If He created science, why would He do everything He did in contrast to scientific principles? I contend that He wouldn’t and didn’t. I contend that God created the world through the language of science, and He did such a good job (being omniscient and all) that we can’t find one shred of “magic” in it. Everything has an explanation. The more we learn, the more we can explain. If there is a miracle anywhere in there, it is in that very idea.

In sum . . .

I believe in God because I cannot conceive of a world in which He didn’t exist. The natural movement of the planets, the perfection of the physical world, and everything that lives, breathes or exists in the universe speaks the truth of His existence to me. I am not unintelligent, but nor am I omniscient. In either case, I cannot imagine a world like ours that was not designed. A random occurrence of chance does not seem as likely to me as an intelligent, benevolent being having written the rules by which this world is governed. The simplistic (and ignorant) view that “God spoke and it was so” seems equally as unlikely. An omnibenevolent God would play by His own rules; He wouldn’t magically create the world and then create science to mask His existence and involvement. Science simply hasn’t learned to explain God yet. And there is the kicker of my whole belief. I believe that one day science will prove the existence of God. He is real, he exists, and science will discover the language of logic that proves it. We just aren’t there yet.

So what are we to do in the mean time? We follow the instruction manual - the other half of the coin to which I eluded earlier. God doesn’t speak only in logic and science. That is simply the language of the natural world. God’s native tongue is of the spirit. I will leave this discussion here because I don’t intend this diverge into a theological debate. Suffice it to say that, while I truly believe that the natural world is evidence of God’s existence, I also believe that we cannot draw closer to Him, to learning His character and ways, through science. We can only observe how He did things. We can never learn why He did it, or why He involved us. That realm is left to religion to answer, and since this is a religiously neutral discourse, I will leave the debate there.

In parting . . .

I wrote this with intent to be short. To that end, I have bounced off topics that could be a whole discourse in themselves, and left out other topics entirely that don’t directly suit the argument but are relevant just the same (faith, for example). I hope this will be the beginning of a longer discussion in which some of these things can be discussed in more detail, but alas I fear many of them will lead into religious debates rather than broad, “why are we here” discussions. Perhaps that won’t be such a bad thing.

My point is to invite the reader to comment and ask for expansion on various claims and ideas. Please offer your comments and critique as you see fit. I only ask for respect – attacks and accusations lead to neither fuller understanding or enlightenment. My purpose is to gain both; I hope your purpose is also.