Posted on 05/30/2014 1:24:45 AM PDT by markomalley
One of the more imponderable aspects of the growing number of agnostics an atheists is their claim that there is no evidence for the intelligent creator of the universe that we call God. But clearly the created universe manifests intelligibility and order from the farthest reaches of the cosmos and outer space to our small planet, and further down into the “inner space” of the life of microscopic bacteria, cells and the intricate order of atoms and molecules. Science affirms the Creator by uncovering the inner order and intelligibility of created things, but strangely the opposite trend seems to happen in this age of science.
Indeed, Creation is a veritable symphony of billions of notes and movements working together in an extraordinary harmony and melody which seem to shout “I was composed, and carefully though out. My master artist and composer is also the great conductor of my symphony, so carefully laid out.”
That the created world is intelligible is the very basis of the sciences. The world manifests meaning that we can discover, and moves along in predictable ways, not randomly changing from one thing to the next from moment to moment. Because there is order and intelligibility, a scientist can both predict, propose and test theories, and replicate results. Without order and intelligibility there could be no scientific method.
And yet many of the scientists who use this scientific method deny Intelligence who give the intelligibility that their science presumes. For if the created world is intelligible, then clearly an intelligence imposed this iintelligibility upon it. That the created world manifest order demonstrates that someone so ordered it.
Even if one were to argue that all of this intricate order happened just by accident at one moment, it would require something to maintain the order and keep it from breaking down the very next instant into something completely and randomly different. And yet this does not happen. Reality does not randomly mutate suddenly into something else. It follows predictable laws and changes are orderly and exhibit continuity with what went before. Order not only happens at one instance, but is sustained in over time, and become demonstrably more organized, as complex lifeforms have developed. Clearly creation tends toward a certain end in an orderly and progressive way.
That there is order and intelligibility to the created world is demonstrably true, and to deny this fact require the status of a mad man. The universe shouts out “I was planned, and carefully executed! I have been intricately designed by an intelligent cause moving me in an intelligible direction!”
I do understand scientists of the physical sciences saying that they are not equipped to opine on who or what this intelligence is. Indeed, the physical sciences are not equipped to measure the metaphysical. But that so many scientists claim the ability to deny that there is an intelligence that we believers call God, is for them to be unreasonable and to act outside of their field.
The claim that there is no God is not a scientific claim, it is a philosophical one. And those who who claim that there is only the physical, and not the metaphysical, are making a metaphysical claim! They break their own rule in announcing it. The claim that physical science wholly explains all of reality is not a claim that can be demonstrated scientifically. So once again, the rule is broken the very moment it is announced.
Many will say, there is no evidence of God existence because they cannot see it under a microscope or through a telescope. But of course God is not a physical being, he does not tip our scales. He cannot be physically measured any more than intelligence can be physically weighed, or justice, or mercy, beauty, or any other metaphysical concept. None of these tip a scale or can be seen with tools of physical science. But they are no less real.
For a reasonable person, there is plenty of evidence for a Creator, as stated above. The whole created world is steeped with intelligibility and order. There is a magnificent interplay between material, efficient, formal, and final causality. The created world shouts by its intelligibility of the intelligence that made it so. It sings, by it’s order, of the one who so ordered it.
Existence itself proclaims the question: “Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there anything at all? The only reasonable answer that can come back from the existing cosmos is: “I was caused!” Something cannot cause itself anymore than you and I can cause ourselves. We, and the entire cosmos, were caused by someone other than ourselves, and outside of ourselves. The cosmos says: “Someone outside of me caused me. That is why I exist. That is why anything exists at all.”
We moderns have become very obtuse and turned inward. If anything, we should be more convinced than ever that God exists as our sciences have revealed such incredible complexity and intricate order at every layer and level of creation. We should be on our knees singing of the incredible wisdom of the creator who has so perfectly ordered every level of his creation. And yet sadly just the opposite seems to be happening. Agnosticism and atheism grows.
Far too many scientists who should know better, (for there would not be science at all without the intelligibility built into creation), make unfounded denials of God, outside their field. And because so many of us idolize the physical sciences we give great weight to their nonscientific claims.
In all of this tragic turn of events I am somehow mindful of a little parable told by Venerable Fulton Sheen many decades ago wherein he likens many modern men to a little mouse:
Those who refuse to unify the cosmos in terms of Pure Intelligence but content themselves with secondary causes maybe likened to an all-wise mouse living in a grand piano who…explained the music by the play of hammers on the strings, the action of which could be seen in his own narrow little world. Scientists catch the tune, but miss the player. [Old Errors and New Labels Fulton J. Sheen 1931. P. 17]
Yes we have become mousy in our thinking. We prefer to live inside the piano and explain the music of the spheres only internally, never thinking to the great artist outside, who gives and causes the magnificent, understandable, beautiful, and intricate melody we hear.
Sadly, the great debate over the existence of God seems only to grow, even as the evidence of intelligibility, order and design grows. It is a great debate of mice and men.
Are you a mouse, or are you a man?
Msgr Pope ping
We moderns have become very obtuse and turned inward. If anything, we should be more convinced than ever that God exists as our sciences have revealed such incredible complexity and intricate order at every layer and level of creation. We should be on our knees singing of the incredible wisdom of the creator who has so perfectly ordered every level of his creation. And yet sadly just the opposite seems to be happening. Agnosticism and atheism grows …They not only want to not believe in a God, but also want to disbelieve in a devil.
A wise person, i can’t remember who said “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Thanks for this thread.
Ping!
This year the existence of God will become a huge factor in people’s lives.
Anyone can see the turmoil ahead, it’s very obvious.
When people encounter turmoil in their lives they will diminish their own will power and look to surrender.
Most will do as the Germans did after WWI and look for another person to surrender their individual authority.
A minority will surrender within self and find God.
After the turmoil gets worse and people are disapointed by the human they have surrendered to, they too will look again and many will find God.
I do a presentation on consciousness and the human soul that demonstrates that the human soul is a physical tangible objects in which the physical body exists as a very small part. I do this scientifically and include demonstrations to prove what I am saying.
Send me the scientists, the atheists, and the doubters and I can logically lead them to God. No hypnosis or mind manipulation tricks. I’ve had quite a few that the paradigm shift of what they were seeing in the demonstrations accompanied by detailed explanations was too great and they just started shaking on intellectual overload.
It’s not about miracles. Understanding God is just a science that mankind has not grown enough to comprehend.
God derived the function we discovered as mathematics.
A cop peeks out of his cruiser talking to a drunk. The drunk is circling slowly around a light pole.
- What are you doing there?
- I lost my wallet. I am looking for my wallet.
- Where did you lose it?
- On my way from the bar.
- Why don't you look for it on the road from the bar?
- The light is here, so I look for it here. I wouldn't be able to find it in the dark, would I?
About science looking for God.
All these points are valid, but they could just as easily support Judaism, Islam, or deism as well as Christianity.
In Catholic catechism class, we were taught that,
“Man can prove the existence of God through reason alone.”
There’s far more evidence of the hand of God in every facet of material existence than there can ever be proof of the atheists’ insistence that the Divine doesn’t exist.
That’s a presentation I would enjoy seeing.
True: Thomistic logic which was entirely rejected by the secular humanistic philosophers of the late 18th century. Sadly, the church has never adequately addressed this heresy.
When I have witnessed to people, sometimes you can tell they just aren't ready for Christ, the Bible, church and all that. Still, if I can at least get them thinking that some god existing is a possibility, then I have made some progress, and I am happy for at least helping them a few steps down the road.
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