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Church: UK Observations

God Can’t be Proved

The British Advertising Authority have decided that questions of the existence or otherwise of God ‘cannot be objectively verified’. So, even though over three hundred complaints were made about it, the atheist bus campaign can go ahead. Quite right too. The Times has the full story. Sorry, this happened yesterday, but I’m running slow (like the buses).

Mind you, I don’t suppose God is worried one way or another whether the ASA think that his existence can be proved or not.

5 replies on “God Can’t be Proved”

Just been reading ‘Faith and Doubt’ by John Ortberg. Here’s a good quote: ‘Evidence alone cannot clearly indicate that God does or does not exist. God seems to present himself in such a way that those who want to dismiss him can do so. He seems to leave space for that.’
I have really appreciated interacting with his ideas about uncertainty being a gift. “When we can live in the midst of uncertainty with joyful and courageous commitment, we will change. Not more certain, but more faithful. Faithfulness matters more than certainty.”
Isn’t it kind of freeing to know we don’t have to strain to prove God by argument?

Mark D

I gave up believing in the existence of God some time ago. Seems kinda obvious to me: of course God doesn’t exist; existence is our problem, not his.

God is not an object within the universe; rather the universe exists in God. Existence is a characteristic of contingent beings and things: things that depend upon something else in order to be. Speaking of God’s existence simply locates God within the framework of the universe, makes God nothing more than another contingent being.

It’s like saying that a river swims – swimming is something that things living in the river do; it’s the river that makes swimming possible. It’s like calling planet Earth an earthling, when earthlings are things like us that inhabit the earth: it’s the earth that makes earthlings what they are. So it is with God: it’s God who (and I dare to say ‘who’ rather than ‘that’) makes existence possible.

My analogies fall apart, of course, because a river itself exists within a valley; the earth exists in space; whereas God transcends existence: it’s a term that has no relevant meaning to the reality of God. God defines existence, not the other way around.

In the same way, all talk of God ultimately falls apart because God cannot be defined: the moment you think you’ve defined God, you’ve missed the point. This is the great adventure of theology, of God talk: it’s an journey beyond ourselves into the other…

God does not exist; we do: thank God for that!

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