By Living Waters : What if God Really Exists? - Part 2

In my last blog, I discussed the question of God's existence and that it is possible to know that God does exist and even to know God. I also asked such questions as:

If such a being exists, can we know?

How can we know?

Has this God communicated to us in any way?

Did this Being leave any signs or hints that it exists, like a painter signing his art?

Has this Being interacted with us-- or anyone at all ---in any way?

We may also ask questions such as, “If such a being exists, is it good?

Is it benevolent towards lesser creatures or pay any attention at all?

Does this God set things in motion and then move onto something else, leaving us to our own decisions? Can we get its attention and perhaps win awards or favors?” Or the opposite? That is, incur God's disfavor or wrath?

I suggest that you read that first and that can be found here: https://bylivingwatersministries.blogspot.com/

These questions do not have simple answers, so we will need to go step by step to logically understand who God is and if he really exits. Where to start logically can be a challenge and apologists start a different places. No matter where we start, we will have deal with the finite and explain assumptions. I believe a good place to start is with the self. Though we do not understand everything about ourselves, we know it better than many other things. Self-awareness is something everyone can confirm in some way: I exist in some fashion.

At a very young age we start to become aware of ourselves and the world around us. I can remember as a small boy becoming more and more aware of myself and that I was consciously “alone” in my body and mind. I was an entity looking out from within through the tiny portal holes of my eyes. It was a little frightening at first to this boy, realizing I had to make decisions on my own in some sense. It took me quite some time to come to accept the reality of it about myself. I am a finite being in a material world. I knew came from my parents, but that still left many questions about existence.

Philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) has also explored this idea of self and existence. Through a series of doubting everything, he came to the conclusion that, at the very least, he himself must exist.

“While we thus reject all of which we can entertain the smallest doubt, and even imagine that it is false, we easily indeed suppose that there is neither God, nor sky, nor bodies, and that we ourselves even have neither hands nor feet, nor, finally, a body; but we cannot in the same way suppose that we are not while we doubt of the truth of these things; for there is a repugnance in conceiving that what thinks does not exist at the very time when it thinks. Accordingly, the knowledge, I think, therefore I am, is the first and most certain that occurs to one who philosophizes orderly.” ¹

Descartes reasoned that if he is able to doubt, he is therefore thinking, and if thinking, then he must exist for only something that exists can think. So at the very least, I can conclude that I myself (or yourself) does truly exist. Even if I know nothing else, I can affirm to myself that I exist. I am self-aware.

“While other knowledge could be a figment of imagination, deception, or mistake, Descartes asserted that the very act of doubting one's own existence served—at minimum—as proof of the reality of one's own mind; there must be a thinking entity—in this case the self—for there to be a thought.”²

I exist, but I am finite. I do not know everything and there is much I experience that is outside of myself. This realization of self-existence and awareness leads me to ask the next questions:

How can I know if anything else exist?
If I exist, and I am a finite being, where did I come from?
Why does anything exist and how did it all come into existence? (Why is there something instead of nothing?)

The next step in our quest for God will explore how we, as finite thinking entities, experience the material world: the reliability of the five senses.

1Principles of Philosophy, Descartes 1644; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum

2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum