According to a 2015 Pew Research Poll, approximately one third of Millennials in the United States, and nearing forty percent of younger Millennials, are not affiliated with any religious body (Millennials increasingly are driving growth of ‘nones’ | Pew Research Center). Not being religiously affiliated does not necessarily equate to atheism, untold numbers of people, then, are searching for the truth. If we are to engage with these people, to show them the light of Christ, then it is vital that we do not dismiss their questions, their doubts, even their misunderstandings and prejudices out of hand, or with glib answers about needing more faith, because then we will lose them. We must offer honest answers, even if that answer is: “I don’t know.”
In an interesting post, Krystal Smith compiles a list of fifteen questions atheists have for Christians (15 Questions Atheists Want Christians to Answer (msn.com)). I hope to add a small part to this ongoing conversation by giving a glimpse of the Orthodox perspective on these questions. I have organized the fifteen questions into five topical groups.
The first questions deal with the question of God’s existence. The atheist questions she compiled are: 1. “If God Created the Universe, then Who Created God?;” 2. “Where is the Proof that God exists?;” and 3. “Why Doesn’t God Show Himself?” Ultimately, these three questions are part of a larger conversation, that is: How can we know God exists? And, if He exists, how does He interact with us?
In the Orthodox view of the universe and our understanding of the way that the universe works, the existence of God is assumed. In fact, St John of Damascus says, in his Exact Exposition on the Orthodox Faith, “That there is a God, then, is no matter of doubt.” The automatic response to such statement is usually along the lines of, “but science demands evidence!” This type of a response ignores the major assumption that allows for the scientific method, that we are able to trust empirical evidence in order to make observations about the universe, an assumption not universally accepted in philosophy, and one that can, ultimately, not be proven either way. This may sound almost glib, and is, of course, not to say that our ability to trust our senses is not a true assumption, but it is an assumption nonetheless.
How, then, do we approach such a question? It immediately brings up a problem, how does one go about proving, or disproving the existence of something? If I were to ask someone to prove to me that he or she exists, this would pose certain problems, particularly the question of what would be acceptable evidence of existence? Renee Descartes basic premise of cogito ergo sum seems not work as evidence that you exist, as that person has no evidence that you cogitas! Following Descarte’s logic, however, if we are able to infer our own existence from our ability to reason, then we are able to identify our own thoughts. Being able to do so, we must be able to identify what is not our thought, and so be able to see what is an external input. Given external input we can infer a source of this input, which would be this other person.
Perhaps, then, a reliance on reason can help us in proving the existence of God as well. Philosophical argumentation relies on logic, that is, human reason, to infer a necessary conclusion given a set of circumstances. This is, perhaps, not the type of “evidence” that is normally meant, when people ask for evidence of God, usually what is meant is some type of empirical evidence, nevertheless, this type of argumentation is used, for example is also used in mathematics, and other fields of study that do not rely on the scientific method. There is the classic argument, used already by the Stoics, that if we can infer the existence of an artificer from the existence of a product, then we can infer a Creator from the existence of creation. St John of Damascus argues in a similar vein in his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith as well:
“All things, that exist, are either created or uncreated. If, then, things are created, it follows that they are also wholly mutable. For things, whose existence originated in change, must also be subject to change, whether it be that they perish or that they become other than they are by act of wills. But if things are uncreated they must in all consistency be also wholly immutable. For things which are opposed in the nature of their existence must also be opposed in the mode of their existence, that is to say, must have opposite properties: who, then, will refuse to grant that all existing things, not only such as come within the province of the senses, but even the very angels, are subject to change and transformation and movement of various kinds? For the things appertaining to the rational world, I mean angels and spirits and demons, are subject to changes of will, whether it is a progression or a retrogression in goodness, whether a struggle or a surrender; while the others suffer changes of generation and destruction, of increase and decrease, of quality and of movement in space. Things then that are mutable are also wholly created. But things that are created must be the work of some maker, and the maker cannot have been created. For if he had been created, he also must surely have been created by some one, and so on till we arrive at something uncreated. The Creator, then, being uncreated, is also wholly immutable. And what could this be other than Deity?”
St John of Damascus assumes two types of beings, those that are created and those that are uncreated, those that are created are changeable, and must have been created by something, the created beings, then, presuppose the existence of a Creator. This Creator is uncreated, and therefore, in opposition to created beings, unchangeable. The unchangeable Creator is God. There are numerous other philosophical and rational arguments that have been made for the existence of God:
The Eutaxological Argument: An argument for the existence of God discussed by Dr. Joshua Brown that: “maintains the universe’s order and existence is fundamentally grounded in logos (λογος) or Mind. Unlike teleological design arguments, the eutaxiological argument is not concerned with the alleged end or purpose of some physical entity—e.g., the human eye, the bacteria flagellum, or the universe taken as a whole. It is, instead, concerned with the fact that the universe is ordered. It, thus, makes a distinction between ‘order’ and ‘telos’. It argues that exemplifying essential order is both a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of physical entities—and, indeed, for the existence of the universe—and that we need not think of physical order in terms of goals, purposes, or final causation. Unlike most contemporary arguments for God’s existence, the eutaxiological argument argues for the existence of God as conceived of by apophatic theism. According to apophatic theism, the term ‘God’ denotes a unique, ontologically distinct, ineffable, logos that fundamentally grounds the universe’s order and existence from nothing.“ (Brown, Joshua (2020). The Eutaxiological Argument and Apophatic Theism. Dissertation, University of Birmingham)
The Ontological Argument: The Ontological Argument for the existence of God, which originates in the Prosologium of Anselm of Canterbury, can be summarized as: “1. It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined). 2. God exists as an idea in the mind. 3. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind. 4. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist). 5. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.) 6. Therefore, God exists.” (Anselm: Ontological Argument for the God’s Existence | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (utm.edu))
The Argument from Contingency: “Something is “necessary” if it could not possibly have failed to exist. The laws of mathematics are often thought to be necessary. It is plausible to say that mathematical truths such as two and two making four hold irrespective of the way that the world is. Even if the world were radically different, it seems, two and two would still make four. God, too, is often thought to be a necessary being, i.e. a being that logically could not have failed to exist.
Something is “contingent” if it is not necessary, i.e. if it could have failed to exist. Most things seem to exist contingently. All of the human artefacts around us might not have existed; for each one of them, whoever made it might have decided not to do so. Their existence, therefore, is contingent. You and I, too, might not have existed; our respective parents might never have met, or might have decided not to have children, or might have decided to have children at a different time. Our existence, therefore, is contingent. Even the world around us seems to be contingent; the universe might have developed in such a way that none of the observable stars and planets existed at all.
The argument from contingency rests on the claim that the universe, as a whole, is contingent. It is not only the case, the argument suggests, that each of the things around is us contingent; it is also the case that the whole, all of those things taken together, is contingent. It might have been the case that nothing existed at all. The state of affairs in which nothing existed at all is a logically possible state of affairs, even though it is not the actual state of affairs… The only adequate explanation of the existence of the contingent universe, the argument from contingency suggests, is that there exists a necessary being on which its existence it rests. For the existence of the contingent universe must rest on something, and if it rested on some contingent being then that contingent being too would require some explanation of its existence. The ultimate explanation of the existence of all things, therefore, must be the existence of some necessary being. This necessary being is readily identified by proponents of the cosmological argument as God.” (Philosophy of Religion » The Argument from Contingency)
The Kalam Cosmological Argument: This is similar to the Argument from Contingency, one major difference is that the Kalam Cosmological Argument assumes a universe that has a beginning in time, while the Argument from Contingency works whether the universe is eternal or finite: “(1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence. (2) The universe has a beginning of its existence. Therefore: (3) The universe has a cause of its existence. (4) If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God. Therefore: (5) God exists.” (Philosophy of Religion » The Kalam Cosmological Argument)
The Fine-Tuning Argument: “’There are many . . . lucky accidents in physics. Without such accidents, water could not exist as liquid, chains of carbon atoms could not form complex organic molecules, and hydrogen atoms could not form breakable bridges between molecules’ (p. 251)–in short, life as we know it would be impossible.
All these things Freeman Dysan calls lucky accidents — which include the initial distribution of matter when the Big Bang banged — and values of some fundamental constants — can be thought of the universe as being fine-tuned so as to allow for the emergence of life and all those other good things that come with it.
Then the argument is: Isn’t it more plausible to suppose that these things were not accidents, but happened according to a plan of some intelligent being? If I found an aquarium in your house, with water and plants and food in the just combination required to keep goldfish happy, I might reasonably infer that someone put it there because they wanted goldfish, not that it occurred by accident. Similarly (a bit) the universe has ended up with a little aquarium for humans, reason and morality, namely, our earth So isn’t it reasonable to suppose that, rather than being an accident, things were set up to allow for this development?
But such fine-tuning, in order to make life possible, requires a fine-tuner. This would have to be some Being with incredible knowledge and power. That seems to amount to God, or at least a God.” (The Fine-Tuning Argument for God | Philosophy Talk)
These arguments, as well tuned as they may be, all share their basic form. They attempt to infer the existence of a Creator based on the existence of creation. St John of Damascus affirms this as an important way that humans can learn about God: “God, however, did not leave us in absolute ignorance. For the knowledge of God’s existence has been implanted by Him in all by nature. This creation, too, and its maintenance, and its government, proclaim the majesty of the Divine nature.” However, when speaking about God, we cannot say much about Him, other than that He exists, because He is infinite, and beyond the universe itself. This shared basis for approaching God is, then, the ultimate issue with attempting to make proofs about God’s existence, that human reason must be applied to a being that is beyond human reason:
“God then is infinite and incomprehensible and all that is comprehensible about Him is His infinity and incomprehensibility. But all that we can affirm concerning God does not shew forth God’s nature, but only the qualities of His nature. For when you speak of Him as good, and just, and wise, and so forth, you do not tell God’s nature but only the qualities of His nature. Further there are some affirmations which we make concerning God which have the force of absolute negation: for example, when we use the term darkness, in reference to God, we do not mean darkness itself, but that He is not light but above light: and when we speak of Him as light, we mean that He is not darkness.” (St John of Damascus Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith Book I Chapter IV)
It is in this way that we begin to answer the third question: “Why Doesn’t God Show Himself?” The way that we approach our understanding of God is in the knowledge that we cannot, as human beings on our own, comprehend anything about Him. It would be, so to speak, as if the characters in a book were to attempt to comprehend the author. Unless the author puts himself into the work, this is an impossibility. This is, however, precisely what God does, He put Himself into His own work, in Creation, in the history of Salvation, in the Incarnation, and in the Church, particularly through the Mystery of the Eucharist.
A natural phenomenon is able to be proven by scientific means, a philosophical or mathematical proposition by logical argumentation. God is none of these things, however, God is a person. This means that, ultimately, we want to know God, rather than knowing about God. If we want certainty of God’s existence, we must approach Him as a person. We can learn every fact about someone’s life and background, but not know them. In order to come to know them, to learn of their existence, we must interact with them, speak with them, eat with them, build a relationship with them. This holds true for God as well. Through the participation in the Mysteries of the Church, in prayer, in fasting, we build a relationship with God, and it is this relationship through which God reveals Himself to us, and through which we learn of God’s existence.
