Has Scientific Consensus Proven God’s Existence?
This article examines if science has proven God's existence and explores the scope of science and the role of faith and personal experience.
A Search for Evidence or Answers?
Science is pretty amazing! We’ve made awesome progress and have come a pretty long way in our understanding of the world and the universe that we live in. Science has even opened up new frontiers in our quest to comprehend the mysteries within the universe.
Depending on which cosmologist you read, the existence of boundaries in the universe may or may not be true. However, in contrast, science definitely has its boundaries and limitations. There are certain things it just can’t answer, like the question “Does God Exist?” Let’s explore the limits of science in proving the existence of the one true God and examine the various ways in which people understand God outside the realm of scientific observation.
Explaining the Unexplainable
While science is amazing, it’s not without error or all-encompassing. Throughout history, scientific theories and explanations have been revised and even completely thrown away as new evidence and discoveries emerge. This isn’t a bad thing! Rather, it is one of the things that makes science scientific as it demonstrates that science is a dynamic and evolving field, susceptible to errors and limitations.
Have you ever tried to explain how your favorite old song makes you feel, when you hear it on the radio at the grocery store? Or the feeling of what it’s like to be tickled to the point that your laughter turns to anger?
Those kinds of experiences are tough to fully explain, even with science. Science can definitely help us figure out a pretty good bit about what’s going on inside of us when we do and experience different things — From brain activity to chemical reactions.
These experiences involve personal interpretations, cultural influences, memories, and individual differences that aren’t fully quantifiable or sometimes even explainable through scientific methodologies.
When it comes to the more abstract – the intangible parts of those experiences – science can’t fully capture them, and it isn’t meant to. It’s like trying to explain a color like blue, to your friend who’s never seen it! We can describe it, but it’s hard to really convey the full depth and meaning of it and why some cultures refer to blue as sad and red as anger.
In a similar way and more appropriately, science can’t answer questions about the nature of consciousness or God’s existence. This is because the tools and methods of science are not sufficient to unravel these kinds of life mysteries. And God is beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, as science is limited to studying only within our universe. So science can’t answer questions like, “What is the meaning of life?”
Science is based on facts and tangible evidence. It relies on repeatable experiments and observations. To answer questions about God and the purpose of the universe, well that requires different, less tangible pieces of evidence. Those pieces involve personal experiences, philosophical arguments, logical reasoning, and even faith-based beliefs. While science can help guide us in these discussions, it can’t provide proof or settle them once and for all.
The Boundaries of Scientific Scope
The main challenge in trying to use science to disprove the one true God’s existence is that He exists beyond the boundaries of the physical universe. Because God exists outside of space, time, and matter any attempt for science to observe and measure God is an impossibility.
Because of these limits to what science can comprehend about the Christian God, in attempting to understand God, gods become conceptualized in different ways, ranging from a limited or imperfect human conception such as an old man sitting on a cloud to a universal force.
Alternatively, some people try to extract God and conceptualize a natural law that operates independently of a god that governs the universe and ensures that justice is served.
These types of concepts may be helpful for reconciling a personal belief with the way that God has revealed Himself in the universe. But they do not necessarily lend themselves to scientific investigation. This does not mean that God is unimportant or irrelevant, It simply means that questions related to God’s existence and His choices in How He reveals Himself require a different kind of method than the scientific method.
Breaking Free from Ignorance to See Beyond the Shadows
Many People mistakenly rely on the argument that because there is no scientific proof for God’s existence, that absence of proof is itself a proof of God’s nonexistence.
While It may seem like the absence of scientific proof of God makes for a pretty good reason against His existence, it’s really not. It’s actually an illogical conclusion called the “argument from ignorance”. You see, the absence of evidence doesn’t actually suggest that there is any kind of evidence of absence.
Rather the existence of God is proved by the presence of beauty and order in the universe, our own consciousness and moral values, philosophical arguments, logical reasoning, personal experiences, and faith.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a thought-provoking story. It’s about a group of people who spend their whole lives facing a wall, chained up in a cave. Because of a fire behind them, all they ever saw were the shadows on the wall that were created by the fire. They believed that these shadows were the only reality.
One day, a prisoner is freed and ventures outside the cave, where he experiences the true world, even seeing the sun for the first time. He returns to the cave to share his newfound knowledge of reality with the others. But instead of them being happy about the good news, they refuse to believe him. This story illustrates the idea that what we perceive as reality is merely just a reflection of the truth.
The freed prisoner was able to objectively see the outside world, and when he told the other prisoners about his subjective experience with the outside world, they refused that knowledge because in their existence they had zero evidence and believed that the lack of evidence was evidence of absence. The prisoners in the cave were unable to perceive the true nature of reality because they were limited by their environment. In the same nature, our ability to perceive the fullness of reality is also limited. And this includes our current scientific limitations.
Sadly, the prisoners rejected reality. They chose to suppress the truth and refused to believe as it challenged their existing beliefs and the only reality they have ever known. In their confined existence, they lack any evidence or experience of the outside world, leading them to perceive the absence of evidence as an evidence of absence.
So, we can’t dismiss God’s existence due to our own lack of observable evidence. For example, we did not have evidence of the existence of certain planets or subatomic particles until they were discovered through scientific advancements. The absence of evidence simply means that we do not currently have the means to observe or measure something.
There are many arguments that support the existence of God. For example, the Argument from Design makes the claim that the complexity and order in the universe are pieces of evidence of an intelligent creator. And similarly, the Argument from Morality suggests that our best explanation for our inherent sense of right and wrong requires God to exist.
It would be irresponsible for me not to mention the counterarguments against both the Argument from Design and the Argument from Morality. These counterarguments claim that just because something appears to be designed or just because we have a moral sense, does not mean that God exists. While these are valid counterarguments, they don’t disprove God’s existence! Rather in their counterargument, they acknowledge the appearance of design and a universal moral sense. So, in their attempt to poke holes in the two arguments, their counterargument actually strengthens the foundation of the two arguments. And sadly, in these counterarguments, they effectually circle back to an Argument from Ignorance.
The argument from ignorance incorrectly assumes that the absence of scientific proof disproves God’s existence, neglecting that God exists beyond the confines of scientific exploration. It fails to acknowledge that faith is the Biblical path to understanding God’s revealed truths that extend beyond the realm of our universe and scientific exploration.
Faith is the rock-solid foundation of belief in God. Where confidence in Him doesn’t depend on scientific proof, but rather it is rooted in the unwavering assurance and stems from the undeniable certainty of things hoped for and the proof of what is beyond our sight.
These “things hoped for” embrace every promise of God, and for those who believe, they hold on to these promises and trust in their eventual fulfillment, even when they are not seen and not scientifically proven.
Finding Meaning Beyond Science
The nature of God often falls outside of scientific observation and requires different forms of evidence and inquiry. Trying to answer the question of God’s existence is a deeply personal and complex one that requires ongoing personal exploration and inner contemplation. By recognizing the limits of science in your discussions and approaching the question with an open mind, I hope you can continue to deepen your understanding of who God is and the love He demonstrated by sending His Son Jesus into this reality.
By relying solely on science to understand the universe and beyond, we risk missing out on the emotional connections and experiences that shape who we are and bring true meaning to our lives. Yes, some argue that utilizing emotions and personal experiences is unreliable and subjective. However, emotions and personal experiences are a fundamental part of being human and to discount them disregards God and disregards humanity as a whole. If we reject God and ignore the objective worth of all humans, we risk losing our old favorite song and everything becomes black and white.
Rather we should treat others with kindness, respect, and empathy as demanded both by God, as revealed in the Bible, and humanity demands, as the inherent human worth and dignity bestowed upon us as beings created in the image of God.
Belief, love, and faith are fundamental pieces of what being human truly is. Promoting a world without God is encouraging a world that can justify lying, cheating, stealing, and even murder as ethics and morals become fully susceptible to personal interpretations and cultural relativism with no objective worth of humanity and no possibility of violation as their would be no principles and values prescribed by God.
By relying solely on science, at what point are we nothing more than animals with guns?