If this question were asked of most of us in the Church you'd get an answer such as, "Belief in God is a matter of faith. If we scientifically proved God existed we wouldn't need faith." However, I've tried giving this answer to a multitude of seekers, skeptics, cynics, and the just curious and it hasn't convinced anyone of God's existence. Others have written articles and books with ontological arguments (arguments that attempt to prove God's existence) and though these have been a little more successful, arguing about God's existence doesn't prove it either.
But to answer this question, I have to ask a question: What would it take to prove God's existence?
For science to prove something it has to provide empirical evidence that can be duplicated, in the case of experimentation, or verified by multiple sources, in the case of historical events. The issue is, can we apply this to God?
I think so. But we have to agree on one presupposition: God is not physical. Few, if any, major world religions claim God is less (or more) than spirit. Further, to date, there have been no scientific experiments developed to prove or disprove spiritual existences -- even the field of the paranormal is sketchy when it comes to proving apparitions of the spirit. This being so, we have to depend on other means to "prove" God's existence.
Which leaves two other avenues of proof: (1) Witness accounts; and (2) Effects of the existence.
As to witness accounts, there is more evidence to prove the existence of God than to prove the existence of Julius Ceasar. Caesar's existence is in the hands of historians and witnesses. We have no written documents by Caesar's hand, we have no photographs and we don't know where he is buried. What we do have is the written accounts and the historical records offered by those of the ancient past.
Do we have the same for God? Certainly. We have the written accounts of witnesses such as Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel, and others who claim to have spoken with God and we have the account of Moses who claims to have seen God. In fact, there are more witness accounts attesting to God's existence than for Julius Caesar and Emporer Nero combined.
"But someone saying something exists doesn't prove it," I hear some saying. Well, it does for figures like Caesar, Alexander the Great, Constantine, and Antony and Cleopatra. But there is more evidence to offer for God as well.
No one has seen an atom. No one has seen the wind. But we know both exist because we see the effect of their existence. Nuclear fission powers generating plants and levels Pacific islands. The wind blows dust into the air, dries our clothes, cools our faces, and, in severe cases, shatteres limbs and levels homes. We know these exist because we see the effects of their existence.
Can the same apply to God? Are there effects that show God's existence? Depends on who you talk to. Evander Holyfield, who claims his heart was miraculously healed by God says yes. Those who have witnessed changes in the lives of people who have taken to heart the discipline of talking to God (prayer) say yes. Those of us who have felt the power of God in worship and in our daily lives say yes.
And then there are the scientists, and there are many, who trace creation to the Big Bang and beyond and eventually assert that somewhere, somehow, "Billions and billions of years ago" there was suddenly matter, or energy that created matter, where once there was none. Sort of like maybe God said, "And let there be. . . ."
So, why doesn't God prove that he exists? Perhaps because God already has. Or perhaps it is a matter of faith. But then, I believe in Julius Caesar too.
Author unknown
Fact
How can one prove the existence of God? The late Carl Sagan, the renowned and loved Professor of Astronomy, on the question whether he believed in the existence of God said, 'I can't prove the existence of God. On the other hand I can not disprove the existence either'. Perhaps the only way to prove if there is a God is the occurance of death itself, where one might experience a re-uniting with God. But that doesn't help those who are living prove the existence one way or the other.
When President Eisenhower was shown the first super computer, a monstrosity that took up a whole room of space, he asked the question, 'is there a god'? After some time, the computer with lights flashing and bells ringing came back with an answer. 'Now there is!'.
Perhaps the best way to approach the question about God is to determine exactly what God is. In Christian theology God is seen as the creator, a masculine figure who both loves all that he created, and at the same time being capable of giving out punishment for those who do not abide by his commandments. Buddhists believe God exists in everything, in a rock as well as each human. They saw God as being 'within' the human conscious and not something that was separate and needed acquistion from an outer source. Native Americans saw God as nature, the rivers, trees, animals, etc., being brothers and sisters to respect and to live in harmony with. Mystical aspects of Western religions (Christian Gnosticism, Jewish Kabbalah, Islam Sufi) saw God as a source found within each individual, that the texts and references to God were metaphorical references to the human experience.
Joseph Campbell once made this statement; 'God is a thought. But God is beyond thinking. Is he or is he not. Neither is or is not. The best thing we can do is talk about God, and experience him in our own psyche'.
Whatever the truth about the existence of God, it is an individual determination.
Chief Settle, in his famous letter to President Grant on selling Indian land said this; 'There is but one God, but he goes by many names'. There are a great many differing spiritual beliefs, and respecting each others is certainly a quality I hope God would possess. We humans generally tend to mimic our gods.
Carl Jung, a psychologist and scientist, has shown us the psyche does indeed possess metaphysical aspects. Love is metaphysical. Creativity is metaphysical. Dreams, if not metaphyical connect us to those aspects beyond the normal range of human experience. These aspects are beyond biological, they are the 'higher' part of our psyche.
The fact so many of Jung's patients made full recoveries through his 'Individuation Process', a process of discovery {the actual realization of an inner, 'higher' aspect that balances life} gives evidence of a true metaphysical process within the psyche. Through dreams we can identify the language the psyche uses in its process of regulating the biological/psychological body. The process of understanding that language helps us understand to the metaphorical symbols and motifs within the dream that have direct correlation to our individual lives. Mythology provides with religions,
and in our differenting cultural languages that aspect is put into concepts, naming and describing God. But its experience is individual, not masculine, nor feminine, but both, or neither. As Campbell stated, "it is beyond thought. we can not name it, only experience it!"
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