Sunday's Sermon 3-7-10

Pondering Unanswerable Questions
Can We Really Prove God Exists?
Text: 1 Corinthians 2:9-16
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
March 7, 2010

This week is the third Sunday in Lent and I’ve already frustrated everyone by pondering two unanswerable question on God’s will and why bad things happen to us. Today I want to ponder that age old question on the existence of God.

There would be three major ways to attempt to prove that God exists.

The first attempt would be Biblical and theological. One can read quotes from the Bible about the existence of God and make the claim that because the Bible tells us that God exists, and the Bible is truthful, than God exists.

There is, of course, a slight problem with this. If you don’t believe in God, you don’t believe the Bible is truthful because to make it truthful would require God. The Bible is a great book for a countless number of reasons, but one has to have faith already before one can totally believe it; or one has to be inclined towards that faith.

Chances are, if you’ve stayed overnight in a hotel or motel someplace, you have found a Bible in the room. Mostly likely it was placed there by an organization called The Gideons. The Gideons have a worldwide ministry of publishing the Bible and putting them in the hands of people. One of their most famous ministries has been putting the Bible in hotel rooms and many a person has come to faith reading a Bible printed by the Gideons. They credit the Gideons for helping them to discover God in the Bible. The stories are powerful and good; but people had to be fertile ground for that faith to grow for that faith to grow. We need to have faith, or be open to faith, to embrace God from the Bible.

The second way of attempting to prove the existence of God is through reason; most notable through philosophy.

In the early portion of the Middle Ages philosophers attempted to prove the existence of God by way of reason. People like St. Anselm of Canterbury, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas Aquinas all wrote proofs for the existence of God. Their proofs were well reasoned concepts that used logic to prove that God existed.

Aquinas, someone I have always admired, believed that faith and reason walk hand in hand and that both reason and faith exist in God. Faith he believed, has nothing to fear from science and reason as long as faith, science, and reason are consistent with their own principles.

The problem is, reason and logic can and do come up short.

The philosopher Aristotle who lived around 350 BC became popular in the early part of the 12th century in Europe. Aristotle was Greek, but his teachings had never circulated through Europe, but he was highly regarded in the Islamic world. He works were discovered during the Crusades and he became very popular in western Europe. He wrote extensively on natural science and ethics and his writings and teachings were embraced. No one had written on the subject of natural science like Aristotle had.

Aristotle, however, used strictly reason to determine his conclusions. No one had ever thought of doing an experiment. One logical conclusion Aristotle came to was that if you dropped two items, one heavy and one light, from the same height, the heavier object would hit the ground first. This teaching held true for almost 1900 years before Galileo dropped two balls from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and disproved Aristotle’s theory. Logic, it was realized, can be flawed.

Then, of course, there is science.

When electricity was harnessed, Thomas Edison believed that electricity best worked using a direct current. A man named George Westinghouse believed that you needed an alternating current. Both were scientists and both proved their were right. And they both were. While alternating current is used more often than direct current, both proved the other one right and wrong; something science usually doesn’t do.

For centuries people debated about light. Was it a particle. People proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt that light was a particle.

Conversely, others said it was a beam. People proved, beyond shadow of a doubt, light was a beam. They discovered, as time went on, that both were right. Light was both.

Science proves things beyond a shadow of a doubt except for when it can’t.

All have tried to prove God exists or God doesn’t exist. There are philosophers who are people of faith, agnostics, and atheists. Reason hasn’t given us a definitive answer. There are scientists who are people of faith, agnostics, and atheists. Science hasn’t given us a definitive answer. And theologians all have faith in something, but faith is all over the lot.

But, as often happens with pondering unanswerable questions, perhaps the issue isn’t proving that God exists, but having faith in God.

St. Paul wrote:
"What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him"--
10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God's except the Spirit of God.

Later, St. Paul reminds us that the three greatest spiritual gifts are faith, hope, and love.

Take note. Faith is a spiritual gift-----it is a higher gift than the gift of knowledge.

It is easier to know something than to believe in something. It is easier to have knowledge than it is to have faith.

What makes God beautiful and difficult is that God does not allow God’s existence to be proved definitively. Our acceptance of God must be an act of free will and must be an act of faith. Thomas Aquinas observed that people can reason themselves almost to God, but not all the way. To truly embrace God, people must take a leap of faith.

If you’ve ever watched trapeze artists they are, in so many ways, the greatest example of faith.

When they swing through the air they have to let go; and when they let go, they do not know if the other swing and the other person will be there. At the moment they let go, things are not lined up. Everything is in motion and everyone is in motion. When the person let’s go of his or her swing, they are doing so without knowledge. All they have is faith.

St. Paul tells us that faith in God is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Faith in God is not about proving God; it is about letting go and believing in God. It is that simple and that difficult.

Ultimately faith is much like hope and love. It is not a rational decision of the mind, but an opening of our hearts.

Belief in God is not, ultimately the ability to reason or prove that God exists. The greatest minds in history have not been able to prove what the open hearts of people can embrace. The Peter O’Toole character in the movie “Creator,” said it best. We move forward with well informed blind faith.

This Lent is a reminder to us that we can reason our way to God all we want; but the only way to really embrace God is to open our hearts in faith.