From: fc03@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (Frederick W. Chapman)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: God's Existence
Date: 4 Sep 92 04:56:07 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <1992Sep2.235433.89970@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au>,
kevin@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au writes:

>I can't seriously believe that someone can assert God's existence by
>claiming it is an axiom - written in the bible.  [...]

"God says, 'I exist'; therefore God exists." is indeed a silly circular
argument.  (Let me add, though, that if God Himself were to tap me on the
shoulder and say, "Made ya look!" or "Mars needs women." or anything else
for that matter, I personally would find that to be a rather convincing
proof of His existence.)

The "I AM THAT I AM" Biblical passage referred to here is NOT intended to
be taken as a proof of the existence of God.  I am told that a better
translation of this is "I AM WHAT I WILL BE".  The essential meaning of the
passage is a statement about WHAT GOD IS LIKE (i.e., God is eternal and
unchanging), NOT a statement about whether God exists.  (In fact, "I AM" is
used in the Bible as a name for God, which French Bibles tend to translate
into something that means "The Eternal One".)

Again, this passage is NOT intended to be taken as an existence proof.
Besides, after reading the 50 or so chapters of Genesis, and however many
chapters of Exodus, the reader is STILL not certain of the viability of the
book's main character and needs reassurance from existence proofs???  :-)


>Reason 2. It is not immediately clear what an axiom in the real world is,
>or even more seriously, how we know we have one in our hands when we think
>we do. Note that by an axiom I mean a NON-TAUTOLOGICAL sentence about the
>world. [...]

My guess is that the original poster is using "axiom" in an ENTIRELY
different way than you are!  I personally would use "axiom" as follows in
this context.  Think of a theology as a belief system, analogous to an
axiomatic system in mathematics.  The most basic, fundamental assertions of
the theology are generally called "tenets of the faith" and correspond to
what are called "axioms" in a mathematical system; i.e., such assertions
are considered to be given, accepted without proof, and form the starting
point from which all else follows.  In this sense, the existence of God is
an "axiom" for many systems of religous beliefs.

...........................................................................

I posted a week or two ago that I believe that science and religion operate
in disjoint domains and that neither is adequate to address the issues
typically dealt with by the other.  It follows from this that I necessarily
believe a scientific/mathematical proof of the existence of God to be both
impossible and entirely unnecessary.  

OK, let me qualify this by saying that mathematical logic might yield a
possible exception; perhaps God is waiting for us, sitting atop the
hierarchy of sets.  :-)  Picture this scene in your minds...

Logician:  *puff* *puff* *puff*  Boy!  What a long climb!
God:       Welcome!  I was beginning to think you'd NEVER get here.  What
           took you so long?
Logician:  Well, just before I reached the Inaccessible Cardinal, we ran
           out of rope.  We had to send Hartog back for more.

Sort of the intellectual equivalent of Moses meeting God at the top of Mt.
Sinai, I suppose.  Speaking of which, while miracles themselves do not
constitute evidence for the existence of God (especially if we define
miracles to be phenomena beyond the explanatory powers of the scientific
theories of the time, or even simply as phenomena outside the realm of
ordinary every-day experience), a miracle followed by a conversation with
God, perhaps accompanied by some stone tablets with writting on them to
serve as a memento of the occasion, makes for a much less ambiguous
interpretation of the significance of the event.  My point is that
(Judeo-Christian) religious accounts of miracles do not present isolated
occurrences, but events which took place in a CONTEXT that gave (and
continues to give) them their meaning.  In (Judeo-Christian) religious
accounts, miracles are NOT intended to be taken as proofs of the EXISTENCE
of God (the faithful already believe that!), but as INDICATIONS OF THE
PRESENCE of God (and/or as demonstrations of the CHARACTERISTICS of God).
Miracles are just God's little way of saying, "Yoo hoo!  Here I AM!  (Come
see what I'm like!)"

e.g., "Moses, my main man!  *BUSH BURNS BUT IS NOT CONSUMED*  Yeah, that's
right -- over here, home boy.  Let me give you 10..."  :-)

Actually, the Bible is not especially concerned with proving the existence
of God; historically (especially in Old Testament times, but also in New
Testament times), the problem was not that people did not believe in ANY
gods, but that they believed in TOO MANY gods.  Identifying the true God is
a substantial Biblical theme (e.g., Jehovah vs. Baal in the story of
Elijah); showing that there are any gods at all is not.

...........................................................................

"100 uncircumcised Philistines on the wall, 100 uncircumcised Philistines,
you take one down and *LIGHTNING BOLT* *ZOT* ... 99 uncircumcised
Philistines on the wall."  [DECREMENT; REPEAT]

-- 

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|  Frederick W. Chapman, User Services, Computing Center, Lehigh University |
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Newsgroups: sci.math