What's what

We are on uncertain ground, to be sure. There comes a time in everyone's life when they have to decide what they believe. This is a good thing, even if it is a difficult thing to accomplish.

At the heart of the matter is "God". Yes, it's that simple. Does "God" exist or not? Atheists, if they're worth their salt, say "no". Many others (and here I'm speaking in broadest terms) say "yes" (e.g., Jews, Christians, Moslems, and others). And here, two interesting questions arise: (1) Do those who believe in "God" agree who/what "God" is? and (2) Do those who don't believe in "God" agree on who/what "God" isn't? In both cases, the answer is "no".

Time for some clarification. First the so-called "non-believers", the atheists. Let's face it, just because you don't believe in "God" doesn't mean that all atheists "believe" in the same thing. In other words, atheists reject a whole array of different beliefs. I don't think this is really all that problematic. For most atheists, "God", I would think, is some kind of omniscient, omnipotent, Charleton-Heston-kind of being, who damns whom he wishes and saves whom he wants without any really recognizable system. What is more, they have trouble recognizing or acknowledging that this "God" is the original cause of everything that is. For them, chance is a sufficient explanation of what we see and experience of the universe, and science can very well define and describe all that we experience as reality. I realize that this is a very condensed view of things, but I don't think it's inaccurate. I also think, to be honest, that it is an honest and sincere explanation of "how things are" or "why things are the way they are". To put is most succinctly, it's like LaPlace said to Napoleon: "God is not an hypothesis that I felt in need to invoke."

One can "explain" the universe without recourse to the notion of "God". One can make sense of all that is without postulating that "God exists". I wouldn't argue that for a minute. The question is: Does this prove that God does not exist? And here, the answer is a very simple "no". In fact, that which we know has, at least in this case, absolutely nothing to do with what we may or may not believe and what may be beyond what we think we know. In other words, we still don't know if "God" exists or not. Hans Küng, the pre-eminent German theologian, has argued quite convincingly (in his seminal work, Does God Exist?) that there is no way to prove (or disprove) that "God" exists; it is a matter of faith: we can believe that "God" exists, or we can believe that "God" does not exist. Proof is beyond the issue. It is, in the end, simply a matter of faith, which in my mind is simply a stronger, perhaps more formalized, form of belief.

I, for one, think that Küng is right. It is a matter of what we believe. We can't "prove" it, either empirically or logically. Küng's greatest contribution to the debate, however, is that, in the end, it doesn't really matter. There are some things that are simply beyond "proving". And whatever these things are, they are, in the end, simply matters of faith.

Phrasing it differently, are the atheists "right"? The answer is "no". On the other hand, are those who believe in "God" right? And here, as well, the answer it "no". In other words, there are some things that we just can't know. The question is: Do we need to know them? The answer ... sorry, one possible answer next time.