LIfe

The Search for God

A small but vocal minority of individuals resolve competing religious claims by choosing not to believe in the God at all. These individuals – commonly referred to as atheists or as agnostics – are often highly educated, and claim to be scientifically motivated. However, as we stated earlier, there is nothing rational about their point of view. It is impossible for any human being to offer decisive proof that there is no God. You can open any atheist text, whether it comes from physicists, evolutionary biologists, or chemists, and in every one of them you will find the same leap of faith: “I can explain some part of the physical world based on my observations, hence there is no god”. As the saying goes, this is a case of comparing apples and oranges. It is impossible to prove there is no God, but is it possible to prove that there is a God? It turns out that the latter is also unprovable. However, the fact that something is unprovable doesn’t also mean that it is unknowable. Let me use an example from science to make this point.

The only branch of science that can remotely attempt to tackle unprovable issues is the specialized field of mathematical logic. Specifically, the Incompleteness Theorem of Kurt Godel is considered by some to be the most far-reaching theorem in all of mathematics and was developed in response to decades of effort to create a ‘complete’ formal, axiomatic system in mathematics, mathematical physics, and to the like in order to resolve all questions. The starting point of this theorem consists of ambiguous statements such as “This sentence is not provable”, after which individual statements are added and represented by numbers. Thereafter, we use symbolic logic tied to these statements to show that formal systems are always incomplete. In other words, no matter what our frame of reference is, there are true statements we can’t prove from within the framework of that system. We suspect that they are true, but we can’t prove the same one way or the other. When we go to the next level by adding more information or axioms, the original question may be resolved but new ones are raised. No matter how far we go, we always run into this constraint of incomplete knowledge.

As an example, take an earthworm. It observes that its local landscape is not flat and suspects the same to be true for the Earth as a whole, yet has no way to demonstrate the same. However, if it could make a spaceship with special viewing devices and fly into space, it would observe that the earth is not flat but has geodesic curvature … looking more like a sphere.

So adding more ‘information’ helps to resolve the original question, but raises many new ones such as is the earth moving or stationary, is its distance from the solar is constant or changing, etc. Adding more information resolves the new questions, but creates an even larger number of newer questions. No matter how much we expand the circle of influence of our formal system (to eventually cover the entire universe and stretch back to the beginning of time), we cannot rationalize it completely but have to rely on an external truth (or axiom) which, by definition, can’t be demonstrated from within the constraints of the knowable, physical universe. Just as one human being can not manufacture another from scratch using clay and water, so also the universe cannot be created and explained completely from within. The ultimate Truth is intuitively obvious but utterly unprovable. The final piece in the puzzle is that non-existence has no content and is therefore unable to resolve the incompleteness problem of the universe. Only the Creator that exists outside the constraints of space, time, and matter, but is not physically accessible from within our system, can bring closure.

When two ideas are mutually exclusive, they can’t both be true. You cannot prove or disprove the existence of God like you would a proposition in physical sciences, via experimentation and observation. But personal experience and recognizing the signs of God provide a clear way forward. Only a fool would deny that chocolate is not tasty simply because he has never tasted food in his lifetime. Such a person may have been born without a mouth and fed intravenously birth. If anything, intuitive experience is a more powerful mechanism for acquiring knowledge than physical observation but requires more effort and discipline. Just as you have to labor for many years to become a great physician, so also unshakable knowledge of the divine is not to be had without effort. If anything, superior knowledge requires a higher level of hardship. You have to conquer your desires, cut back on time-wasting activities, give away a significant portion of wealth to those in greater need, forsake arrogance, abandon the desire to be admired, and be grateful in hardship and ease alike. Who wants to follow such a difficult path?

It is hardly surprising that we walk away from our true potential by renouncing the divine with our words (the atheist), or our actions (proclaiming faith but setting up personal desires and preferences as god). Every day brings us one step closer to our reckoning. Will we not wake up and start taking small but concrete changes in our lives?

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