Have you heard some people say that believing in God is just irrational as believing in unicorns, monster, or chocolates that isn't sweet to taste?
You may have also heard some Christian claim that there is irrefutable proof that God does exist.
Can we use fact, logic, and reason to talk about God's existence? Or is it all just a bunch of spiritual woo-hoo?
Eversince the dawn oh history, human beings have wandered what is our place in the universe, and most have had a sense deep down that there is somr higher power. Even though there's been a lot of disagreement over what that higher power might be like.
Aristotle, a philosopher, realized that using reason, human could gain greater insight in to the mystery. Reason is an essential tool for getting fuller insight into ourselves and the universe.
To Catholic, Jesus shared the deepest truths about existence, as recorded in the Bible. But these revelations in Scripture aren't the only way of knowing.
Key ways that reason can support belief in God
1. Logic of causation
In the 13th century, Catholic thinker St. Thomas Aquinad created an intellectual revolution by applying the philosophical tools of ancient Greece to Christian spirituality.
He proposed 5 ways of arguing for the exiatence of God. Everything in the universe has a cause likr a toddler asking, "Okay, but why?" The point is you can always go back one more step.
You exist because of your parents. They exist because of their ancestors. Science traces this chain all the way back to evolution, the formation of the Earth, and the forging of chemical elements in the hearts of exploding start.
Most physicist believes that all matter in our physical universe exploded outward from a single point during the Big Bang. But, what caused the Big Bang?
Eventually there is something that wasn't caused by something else, that set everything else in motion. This, as Aquinad says, we understand as God.
2. Law of physics
In order for us to exist at all, not only did evolution need to follow a very precise path, but the laws of physics themselves couldn't be much different from what they are.
Current science says that there are 38 kinds of elementary particles which interact according to four fundamental forces. Even very slight changes to these would prevent our solar system from forminh in the first place.
For example, one second after the Big Bang, if the gravitational pull hadn't been balanced to within one part in quadrillion, the known universe have quickly collapsed back on to itself. If the pull had been just a tiny bit weaker, matter would have never clumped together to form starts and planets.
The same problems would have happened if the density one instant after the Big Bang hadn't been tuned within 60 decimal places. According to physicist, Roger Penrose, for the universe to produce orderly matter, it would have needed very low entropy or disorderliness, just after the Big Bang.
Only 1 in 10 to the 10 to 123 possible universes would have had low enought initial entropy. That's 10 followed by vastly more zeros than there are atoms in the known universe.
Any one of these factors would prevent life. None of this irrefutably proves the existence of God, but these discoveries through our scientific reason show that a life-supporting universe coming into being by pure chance would be a mind-boggling coincidence. Astronomer Hugh Ross compared it to the possibility of a Boeing 747 aircraft being completely assembled as a result of tornado striking a junkyard.
Catholics see an inteliigence behind all this, and that, to quote Aquinas again, we understand as God.
3. Human Experince
Reason also allows us to reflect on our own experiences of the world in search of truth.cwhen we experience beauty, feel love, or ponder our own existence, most people would say we're transcending a purely physical understanding of the world.
Maybe, you believe that 100% of the experience of love is just an illusion explained by hormones and electricity in our brain. Neuroscientist can describe the electricity in our brains and analyze our hormones, but they can't explain why humans have the capacity and desire for the transcendent. And the non material part of ourselves that connects us to the transcendent is what Catholics would call soul which has it source form God.
Ultimately, a certain leap of faith is still required. Reason can point our minds toward God but the heart must also seek Him.
The Catholic view of God is a sort of tension between two understandings. On the one hand, we are humbled by the vast and transcendent mystery of it all, and that's okay, because on the other hand, we believe that God made us in ahis image, and knows us, and loves us more personally than we can imagine.
God don't really need to create a universe; let alone us ridiculous humans. But the fact that God did create us and created universe reveals God's desire to share Himself with us.
So what it means to believe in God?
It means living with gratitude that eberything you are and have comes from God. And it means recognizing the inherent dignity of all human beings made in God's image.
God bless everyone!
God is a supreme being