Bas C. van Fraassen - Theological Epistemology: How Can We Know God? (Part 1)

Can we know God? If so, how? We can we believe in God. But is such belief justified? How to apply the principles of epistemology to knowledge of God and belief in God? What would make belief in God justified true belief?

[uremove]

I think it is a very good question... what would convince a person that God exists? Especially if you are sceptical of experiences as evidence. I like Prof. Van Fraassen’s answer, that arguments and theology (and maybe experiences too) can only point towards a ‘greater ultimate reality’, (aka God) which being transcendent and ineffable, must necessarily rely on faith. Evidence, arguments and experiences may point the way, but it takes a ‘leap of faith’ to extrapolate from these to eg. a transcendent purpose to our existence. I think it also requires a paradigm shift, from materialism to a discourse more inclusive of mind/spirit or consciousness and experience. Atheists are those unwilling to make that leap, often (IMO inappropriately) applying criteria from Science, and who therefore regard religious beliefs as unsubstantiated and therefore fanciful.

[Diggsever]

I am about to find out what is on the other side if anything.

[theophilus]

Poor JLK. He seems not to be prepared to let anything reveal God. There's something about that attitude which strikes sympathetic chords. God, after all, unlike aliens in a mother ship, is no mere extra worldly entity - not an entity or mere being at all, in fact. But I would ask him why he sets the bar so impossibly high in the case of God? We trust all kinds of experience in our lives as revealing various kinds and levels of truth without (at least undue) fear of being fooled by default. Why draw that line at God - unless one is already more convinced than one is ready to admit that God is impossible?

[benimaruu]

I still cannot see how the same man that speaks about constructive empiricism and considers that “unobservables” can or cannot be true therefore it is not reasonable to believe in them, would go on and calmly say he believes in a god. Nothing against him or anyone who believes in a god, that is totally irrelevant for me, but what is strange is that he holds two counterintuitive theories in his own head. Van Fraasen also states that, in science, one could accept a theory while not believing they are true just for pragmatism’s sake (empirical adequacy); does he believe belief in god is not bound to his empirical views? How does that go? Again. Not trying to bash against theists belief by anyone, just questioning Van Fraasen’s cognitive dissonance here.

[guitars]

A god worth worshiping would know exactly what is necessary to convince everyone to believe in him. And yet we have non-believers. Which means either god does not care whether or not all believe in him, or he doesn't exist, or he is impotent to actually convince some of his creations, who exist exactly as he planned them...and in his image.

[gregoryarutyunyan]

The problem is not that a belief is required to admit that God exists, it's actually exactly the opposite - to assume that God does not exist, you need a belief. It's basically like denying the most basic and evident thing. And I would even go further to say, that it is like denying the only evident thing. To believe that God does not exist, is actually equivalent to believing in, say, that your hand does not exist. I am not speaking from a religious standpoint, just to clarify. And I understand that these words will most likely not convey the meaning that I am trying to express for majority that will read them. Because the meaning of the words is unfortunately corrupted by our society with interpretations.
P.S. to believe in God means to deny God, its like believing in your hand instead of just admitting that you have it. You would most likely need to have your hand paralyzed, in order for it to be a matter of belief for you.

[xspotbox]

It's probably pointless to ask a priest about personal evidences for God's existence because this people are not just spiritual but follow universal ethics, they deal with things all people need and feel the same. Life and church as community is purpose of religion, facts are written in religious scripts, many times supposedly authorized by God himself and need no special interpretation. To understand why supreme ideals exist, one should only look at actual conditions of every day life and disregard all knowledge, obviously this world is a weird mixture of chaos and divine. It's not about human civilization, intelligence, consciousness or anything like that, whatever we are trying to describe are just words real world does not depend upon.
We are godlike, sometimes, this is the base of modern theology, i think, and probably most confusing natural phenomena. How can we imagine something, than take some magic dust and turn mater into something almost living, channel energy to allow abilities that defy natural order, looks like this universe is made of a magical, dream like stuff where anybody can create whatever he want and can. And if humans can do that, just because we developed and cultivate symbolic language, there must be so much more out there we can't even dream about.

We can remember things that do not exist and imagine ways energies can flow nature alone would never come up by itself, how is this not godlike?

[gregoryarutyunyan]

I have a small secret to share: non believers are also believers😉

[_John_Sean_Walker]

God does not bring us closer to truth, but throws us thousand years back in time and further away from truth.
There is no God.

[jakesimmons]

Try psychedelics if you want empirical evidence, or at least a better understanding of God

[totalfreedom]

*_Nobody_* alive today believes in the sun. 🌅 Why? Because the sun is a *_fact, _* observed by everybody, even in the North Pole and South Pole. We believe in nonfactual things like ETs, fairies, unicorns, gnomes, angels, demons, gods, and God because we’ve been heavily conditioned since childhood to do so. We will stop believing and having faith in those things the day any one of those things is as real as the sun is *now, * not in a supposed hereafter (1 Corinthians 13:12). 💕 ☮ 🌎 🌌