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Atheism, Christianity, logic, problem of evil, proof, Proof of God, reason, religion
How much would you pay for this? 19 thousand dollars? 30 thousand dollars? For just 3 easy payments of 19.99 you too can own the video in which I prove the existence of God!
Well I have been posting on some atheists websites. And a very common response to just about anything I comment on is “prove God exists!” I almost feel like I should be able to say “Ok open up Skype and watch me prove it!” I don’t fault them. I’m sure we all would have liked more certainty at one point or other. But proving things isn’t so easy.
When I was a freshman in college I took my first philosophy course, which happened to cover Plato, and I was completely enthralled with logic. Logic came easy to me and I really loved it. I can still remember making a sincere mental oath that I would follow logical principles no matter where they led! In fact, I never abandoned that oath and I still love logic.
As an undergraduate one of my majors was philosophy. So my oath to sincerely follow logic lead me down many different paths. But one day I read a chapter out of a book by a philosopher named George I. Mavrodes. He really burst my bubble. You see I used to think to prove anything I just needed to come up with a sound argument. A “sound” argument is one where all the premises are true and the truth of the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises. (A “valid” argument is one where the premises are not necessarily true but *if* they are true the truth of the conclusion necessarily follows) Unfortunately I had to concede Professor Mavrodes demonstrated that logical proofs were subjective. Blasphemy!
How awful. Logical proofs subjective? Well yeah he gave a proof of God’s existence which I had to agree was likely sound but nevertheless would clearly not be a “proof” to anyone. Perhaps you are as crestfallen as I was, so let me let you down nice and easy and explain the problem.
One of the beautiful things about a sound argument is the premises just have to be true. It doesn’t matter if anyone believes them; they just have to be true. Well that beauty is sort of the problem as well. I can offer lots of sound arguments that prove God exists but if you don’t actually believe the premises (even though they are in fact true) it will not “prove” anything to you.
This works both ways I might add. Let’s consider an atheist “proof” that the Christian God does not exist:
Premise1) “If the Christian God (one that was all knowing all powerful creator of everything and thoroughly good etc.) existed then there would be no evil in the world.”
Premise 2) “There Is evil in the world.”
Conclusion: “Therefore, the Christian God does not exist.”
Now we should be able to agree on whether this argument is “valid.” I think it is. Some atheists would likely view this as a sound argument. That is they think the premises are in fact true and the conclusion necessarily follows. Now for some Christians this, or something similar, did act as a proof that the Christian God does not exist and they may have abandoned their faith. This has no doubt caused many thoughtful Christians to think long and hard. Others would say they don’t believe the first premise. If, in fact, they do not believe that premise then this argument (even if it were sound) will not be a proof of anything.
Now when I hear atheist ask for a proof of God I picture someone waiting for me to serve the tennis ball so they could smack it back saying that they do not believe one or more premises. It really doesn’t matter that the premises are true. I can of course then try to “prove” those premises by presenting other premises which yield the first premises as a conclusion. But of course they can say they don’t believe those either. Well this could go on infinitely, and these busy days, who has time for that? So what use is Logical argument?
I think it’s of great value. But it’s really of value mainly when people are open minded and intellectually honest about what they think. They need to be open to discuss the matter so acceptable premises can be found. The idea that someone will come up with a logical proof that will convince everyone God exists is extremely unlikely. But I think using logic can convince some people that believing in God is the rational way to go. Putting ideas in logical format with premises and a conclusion is also a great way to help identify where disagreements are. Is there a disagreement about one or more premises or is the disagreement about the validity of the argument ?(that is the logical connections between the premises and conclusion).
Well anyway I said I would give a proof of God so here is one:
P1) If anything is sacred then God exists.
P2) Human life is sacred.
Conclusion: therefore God exists.
Now I think this is a sound argument. Will it prove anything to anyone? That depends on whether persons thinks human life is sacred to begin with.
That said I will post more in depth logical arguments that it is rational to believe in God. I will also often break up arguments into premises and conclusion format when I think it is helpful. Sorry if this is not what you were hoping for. I do offer a 30 day money back guarantee.
True and Reasonable 
Dear friend, Thank you very much, I was really happy to have been following your blog. I’m still a lot to figure out, and here I can only say that you are an awesome blogger, full Inspiring and hope you can inspire more readers. Thanks and greetings compassion from Gede Prama 🙂
Wow thank you very much for the kind words. Comments like that will definitely make me happy to keep blogging inspire me as well.
Premise two is not universal, never mind objective. It is not even universal across all members of any/every social group. Premise one is fatally flawed. Human life as sacred is a subjective value and not even valid in the rigid definition of sacred except by viewing life as being given by a god which makes the argument circular.
Thanks for the comments.
I’m not sure what you mean by universal. But keep in mind that the argument can be sound regardless of whether anyone believes the premises. The premises just have to be true. Like I said this is the beauty of sound arguments, but it is also a problem when it comes to sound arguments being proof.
My first blog went into what it means for something to be true.
Whether the claim is objective again might depend on what you mean. But I do believe morals are objective and real. If I am right then the proof is sound regardless of your failure to believe the premises.
You say:
“Human life as sacred is a subjective value and not even valid….” Remember in the context of logical proofs and arguments it does not make sense to say a single statement is valid or not valid. Validity is the relationship between several statements such that if the statements that make up the premises are true then the conclusion must be true.
Perhaps you mean valid in another sense. Like you think it would be irrational to believe it or that it is not true. Like I said then we would need to explore why you don’t accept the premise and we might be able to find some other argument to prove to you the second premise is true. On the other hand we might not. In the latter case the argument might still very well be sound but still not a proof to you.
I did consider whether the argument begs the question, but I decided it doesn’t. I think a person might believe that human life is sacred and still not believe in God. People react to different experiences differently. Recall my reaction to reading Plato where I took a sort of mental oath to always follow logic. Others read Plato and don’t have the same reaction and do not begin to believe that they should commit to logic not matter what.
So someone at one point in their life might have studied the holocaust and saw pictures of all the corpses. They may have wondered how those culpable for this atrocity could have ever reached a mental state where they could do this and worry that they may also somehow go down that path. This may have lead them to take a sort of oath that they would always believe that human life is sacred. Perhaps they believed in God when they made that oath and then stopped believing in God but nevertheless held on to the belief that human life is sacred. I’m not saying how likely it is but it is certainly possible.
BTW I did a blog on what it means to believe something here that might help fill you in on where I am coming from:
Also please note that I am not saying that someone who does not believe human life is sacred will necessarily be willing to engage in holocausts. I am saying that its possible someone might decide to commit to believing that human life is sacred to ward off the possibility that they would ever engage in a holocaust. If for whatever reason they dropped belief in God (or never believed in God) then this proof might focus their attention on the fact that they may need to give up one of their beliefs. Namely they would need to give up their belief that human life is sacred or they would need to give up their belief that God does not exist.
Does it really matter if your proof is sound if the premises are demonstrably untrue?
P1 needs definitions for ‘sacred’ and ‘god’
P2 needs to be non-subjective or all it ends up saying is that god is true for people that find life to be sacred. There are all sorts of things which are held as sacred which do not show anything about your god or any god which is thought possible. The supposed bones of John the baptist are held as sacred but this does not prove that a god exists, nor which god at all.
This proof, sound or not, is meaningless.
Let me give some of my thoughts about your comments that might help clarify some of what I am getting at.
You say: “Does it really matter if your proof is sound if the premises are demonstrably untrue?”
A sound argument always has true premises.
You say: “P1 needs definitions for ‘sacred’ and ‘god’”
A sound argument just needs to state true premises that necearrilly lead to a the truth of the conclusion. The argument does not need to define the terms of all or any of the words used and usually doesn’t. I would point out that people might have a very good understanding of what words mean even if they can not define what the words mean. Defining terms (or clarifying them) can be helpful at times but I am not sure what purpose that would accomplish here.
You say: “P2 needs to be non-subjective or all it ends up saying is that god is true for people that find life to be sacred.”
P2 actually does not mention God at all. Premise 2 says: “Human life is sacred.” nothing more and nothing less.
“There are all sorts of things which are held as sacred which do not show anything about your god or any god which is thought possible. The supposed bones of John the baptist are held as sacred but this does not prove that a god exists, nor which god at all.”
That might or might not be true.
My blog set out to show that I can set out sound argument and it still might not be considered a proof to someone. That is because even though the premises are in fact true the person reading the proof might not believe them.
“This proof, sound or not, is meaningless.”
I think all the premises as well as the conclusion has meaning. You might not agree with them, but the sentences have meaning.
Well, let’s start with one question at a time then. What does God mean? If your proof is to have any meaning we should at least have a definition of what it is proving. Don’t you think?
Thanks for you comments.
You say:
“If your proof is to have any meaning we should at least have a definition of what it is proving. Don’t you think?”
The short answer is No. For purposes of the argument I provide I think people understand what words like “God” mean without requiring me to define them. The sentences that are my premises and conclusion have meanings. I am not sure why you think they don’t.
I’m really not trying to be difficult. Defining terms can be a tedious process. For example I know what a car is, but I don’t think I can easily define what a car is. Does a car have an engine? What if you remove the engine, is it still a car? Does it have 4 tires? If you remove one or 2 tires is it still a car? Can a car run on something other than gasoline or electricity? Does it have to run? If we generally know what a “car” is we can usually use the term in our language without having a precise definition in mind.
Demarcating the limits of what we might understand by a term is a far more tedious process than just using our general understanding of it. Properly defining God who has had libraries of books written about him would likely be a big project.
Understanding that I don’t intend to suggest that I gave this much thought I will throw this out there, from merriam webster online:
“The perfect and all-powerful spirit or being that is worshipped especially by Christians, Jews, and Muslims as the one who created and rules the universe.”
It doesn’t seem that great of a definition but I am not sure why we are trying to define God. If you have some sort of specific issue or ambiguity in mind feel free to indicate it, and I will do my best to address it. That might be a quicker route.
P1 suggests that if voodoo or Hindu believers find something sacred it proves that the god of Abraham is true. Can you account for this seeming discrepancy? Additionally, P1 does not state which god. Can we assume that you mean all gods or that you mean all gods are the same? Is your god the same as Bramha? Quetzecotyl? Clearly you mean the god of Abraham so how does a sacred fetish of voodoo prove that your god is true?
Thank you for the comments. I think you raise instructive points that can further illustrate the point of this blog.
However I still find you referring to what people “find” or “accept” or “believe.” None of this is relevant to whether the argument is sound. It is relevant to whether the sound argument will serve as a “proof” for a given person, but if the premises are true and they necessarily lead to the truth of the conclusion the proof is sound regardless of what anyone “accepts,” “finds” or “believes.” That is really the point of that blog. I can give sound arguments to someone but the sound argument might not prove the conclusion to them because they are mistaken about the truth of the premises.
Let me address your points with more specificity you say:
“ P1 suggests that if voodoo or Hindu believers find something sacred it proves that the god of Abraham is true. Can you account for this seeming discrepancy?”
Ok first there is not discrepancy in the proof as long as whatever I mean by “God” in p1 is identical to what I mean by “God” in p2.
Let me try to illustrate this point from the perspective of a person who believes only in the Hindu Gods and no other gods or sources of the supernatural. They can give an argument like this:
P1) If the Hindu Gods don’t exist, then nothing is sacred.
P2) Human life is sacred
Conclusion: Therefore the Hindu Gods Exist.
Now if these premises are true this is a sound argument.
Now I am a Christian so I do not accept premise 1. I actually do not believe the Hindu Gods exist and I think some things are sacred in light of the God worshiped by Christians. But my “beliefs” about whether the premise 1 is true does not make the argument unsound. I might say to the person I don’t believe premise one to him. But if the premises are in fact true then his/her argument is still sound. In other words, in that case he would have given me a sound argument that the Hindu Gods exist but it would still prove nothing *to me.*
Now the discussion may or may not move on. I might say well I believe in the Christian God and its because of him that certain things are sacred. But if in fact the Christian God does not exist and in fact the Hindu Gods are the only thing that cause anything to be sacred then his argument is still sound. I would just be wrong.
Now again the conversation might continue. He might give me reasons why he believes in the Hindu Gods and why he thinks they are the only supernatural things that would make something sacred. I might accept these reasons or I might not. My acceptance of the reasons or rejection of the reasons might be reasonable or unreasonable. Perhaps a Hindu did something bad to me or a friend in the past and therefore I have an emotional hang-up with accepting Hinduism. But regardless of what I “think”, or “find”, or “accept” or “believe” if the premises are true then he gave me a sound argument.
Likewise if we define “God” to mean any sort of supernatural entity or energy, including spirits or other things like that. On that definition then all voodoo practitioners Christians and Hindus, who believe that human life is sacred, might then accept the sound argument I gave as a proof that such a “God” exists. It would only be naturalists who might have to change their views in light of it. But the logical principles I spelled out in this blog still apply. It’s still sound if the premises are true. And our ability (or inability) to convince a naturalist of the truth of the premises will not effect the soundness of the argument. It will only effect whether that sound argument is a “proof” *for them.*
You say that a sound proof has true premises. I’ll accept that. What I don’t find acceptable is the premises you have put forth as true.
I asked for definition, knowing the problems, but you acted as though I’m being unreasonable yet you concede that P2 would have to relate to the god use assert in P1. This means that definition is not meaningless to the proof. Because of this I will argue that to hold something sacred (of or relating to the god defined in P1) is true, it is because the beholder of the sacred item already believs in the god defined in P1. Let’s, for argument sake, assume that whatever is given in P2 is true. This means that despite what you believe is a sound proof all you have done is create a circular argument.
a – person believes a god exists
b – person holds things sacred because of that belief (it would not otherwise be sacred)
c – therefore the god the person believes in is true
This is not a proof of anything except the seeming power of circular reasoning.
Wow this is getting crazy how narrow your comments are. I don’t mean narrow minded but the actual format! I am just going to do a general reply until I can figure out another solution.
Myatheistlife thank you for your comments let me give some of my thoughts on what you say.
you say:
“You say that a sound proof has true premises. I’ll accept that. What I don’t find acceptable is the premises you have put forth as true.”
That is sort of my point. That regardless of my giving a sound argument it might not work as a “proof” *for you* if you don’t accept the true premises. As I indicate in the blog this works both ways. (actually if works all ways for everyone who engages in logic) An atheist might think he gives a sound argument of why the christian God can not exist. Yet it might not work as a proof *for me* because I do not accept one of the premises. It also works that way for the Hindu. He may think he gave a sound argument but it does not work as a “proof” *for me* because i don’t believe or accept a premise.
But in all these cases the opponent of the argument might just be close minded, might have emotional baggage, or other things that prevent them from accepting the truth. This means proving something like “its rational to believe in God” Or “its irrational to believe in God” Or “its rational to believe in the Hindu Gods” is a very subjective thing. You can’t just use true premises. You have to work with premises that are not only true but premises that the person opposing your conclusion also believes.
So when I just meet someone and they demand that I “prove I should believe in God!” Or “prove God exists.” From a logical standpoint that is complicated. if I just had to state sound argument it wouldn’t be. But I not only need to state a sound argument I need to know what premises that person will accept as true.
Why that person will not see the truth can be for all sorts of often complicated reasons. And often their mind will simply be shut.
It might be helpful if you keep in mind that everything I say works in all cases. Regardless of whether the person providing the argument is atheist, Hindu, Christian whatever. This particular blog is not intended as some sort of proof that only Atheists are illogical. It is a blog that is intended to simply show how logic works in practice.
“I asked for definition, knowing the problems, but you acted as though I’m being unreasonable yet you concede that P2 would have to relate to the god use assert in P1. This means that definition is not meaningless to the proof.”
Ok just to clarify the word “God” does not appear in p2. I believe I said the word “God” stated in P1 would need to have an identical meaning as the word “God” in the Conclusion. If it didn’t the proof would not be valid.
But I showed that the proof is sound regardless of whether define God more narrowly as the God that Christians Jews and Muslims worship, or more broadly as any sort of supernatural spirit force whatever. So how we define God was irrelevant to the point of this blog blog.
I don’t think how we define God is “meaningless” to the argument. I think it is irrelevant to my point. We can define God a few different ways and the argument will remain sound.
You say:
“This means that the definition is not meaningless to the argument. Because of this I will argue that to hold something sacred (of or relating to the god defined in P1) is true, it is because the beholder of the sacred item already believs in the god defined in P1. Let’s, for argument sake, assume that whatever is given in P2 is true. This means that despite what you believe is a sound proof all you have done is create a circular argument.
a – person believes a god exists
b – person holds things sacred because of that belief (it would not otherwise be sacred)
c – therefore the god the person believes in is true
This is not a proof of anything except the seeming power of circular reasoning.”
Ok its clearly not simple case of circular reasoning. The conclusion is not stated directly in the premises. But I did consider whether the argument begs the question. Begging the question is a form of circular reasoning. I concluded that it does not. I gave my reasons why I do not think it begs the question in my first response to you.
But lets understand what begging the question is and what it is not. It is not a logical fallacy. That is it is not a fallacy where the logical principles are misapplied nor does it presume logical principles that do not exist.
When someone claims this or that argument is begging the question they are merely asserting that no one would accept the premises unless they already accepted the conclusion. But its very important to note: just because the premises imply the conclusion is not the same thing. In fact if the premises did not imply the conclusion the argument would be invalid and therefore unsound!
So the assertion of begging the question is in allot of ways just an assertion of a fact. They are asserting that no one who reads the proof would believe the premises unless they already believed the conclusion. In response to that I gave why I think its possible someone might believe the premises but still not believe the conclusion. It is for those reasons that I do not believe the argument begs the question.
This is what I said and I still believe it:
“I did consider whether the argument begs the question, but I decided it doesn’t. I think a person might believe that human life is sacred and still not believe in God. People react to different experiences differently. Recall my reaction to reading Plato where I took a sort of mental oath to always follow logic. Others read Plato and don’t have the same reaction and do not begin to believe that they should commit to logic not matter what.
So someone at one point in their life might have studied the holocaust and saw pictures of all the corpses. They may have wondered how those culpable for this atrocity could have ever reached a mental state where they could do this and worry that they may also somehow go down that path. This may have lead them to take a sort of oath that they would always believe that human life is sacred. Perhaps they believed in God when they made that oath and then stopped believing in God but nevertheless held on to the belief that human life is sacred. I’m not saying how likely it is but it is certainly possible.
BTW I did a blog on what it means to believe something here that might help fill you in on where I am coming from:
Also please note that I am not saying that someone who does not believe human life is sacred will necessarily be willing to engage in holocausts. I am saying that its possible someone might decide to commit to believing that human life is sacred to ward off the possibility that they would ever engage in a holocaust. If for whatever reason they dropped belief in God (or never believed in God) then this proof might focus their attention on the fact that they may need to give up one of their beliefs. Namely they would need to give up their belief that human life is sacred or they would need to give up their belief that God does not exist.”
Thus I do think there very well could be people who have dropped belief in God but still tend to think human life is sacred. Yes of course I do not think that such a belief is logical. If it were logical then my proof would be unsound. But again just because the premises imply the conclusion doesn’t mean they beg the question. All deductively sound arguments have premises that imply the conclusion.
Thanks for the lesson in logic. The real proof of God lies in predictive prophecy. No other book rivals the Bible.
It’s impossible to argue the fact that God predicted people and events with impeccable specificity, literally thousands of years in advance.
Thank you for the comment. It shows there are a variety of ways people can reach the same conclusion.
You could definitely see your expertise within the work you write.
The sector hopes for even more passionate writers like you
who aren’t afraid to say how they believe. All the time follow
your heart.
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That’s not even close to a sound argument. Per Wolfgang Pauli, it’s “not even wrong,” and thus not worth more time being wasted on it.
That said, it is nice to see where you’re coming from, when I see you comment elsewhere.
Thanks for the comment.
Yes I agree it is important to understand where people are coming from. Our comments inform us about our understanding of logic and ability to use critical reasoning.
When you talk about an argument not even “being close to a sound argument.” It tells me that you understand these terms differently. That is because an argument either is, or is not sound. It is not a matter of being “close to” sound.
BTW: Which argument are you referring to? And do you think it is not sound due to lack of validity, or do you think you know the premises are false, or both?
Gadfly,
“That’s not even close to a sound argument”
That is a poor response. All you have done is state your feelings. But your feelings are neither interesting nor relevant.
Now if you had reasoned arguments to make in reply that would be interesting.
Do you have any?
“it is nice to see where you’re coming from, when I see you comment elsewhere.”
I agree. It is nice indeed to see thoughtful, balanced arguments made without the bias and prejudice of some publications.
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