The existence of God is perhaps the most challenging question in human thought. The question of God's reality is not usually approache...
The existence of God is perhaps the most challenging question in human thought. The question of God's reality is not usually approached from a scientific direction, using the tools of the scientific method. However, just as the study of the origin of the universe is not considered to be an unscientific subject, despite the fact that the criteria of the scientific method, falsifiability, which is actually the possibility of practical justification of theoretical propositions, cannot be applied to the origin of the universe, so the study of the existence of God need not remain alien to objective scientific thought, despite the fact that there seems to be no experimental method for testable verification of theories of God's existence.
If we assume that God can exist independently of human existence, if God is not just a product of human imagination, then the reality of God does not have to be examined only through human experience, and the scientific question of God's existence is not just a matter for philosophy or psychology and sociology. In this case, objective conditions could also be established for the possibility of God's reality in the world.
The analysis of this question is fundamentally determined by how we define the reality of God. There can be several definitions of God as an existent entity, which in practice describe God's attributes and human behavior toward Him.
Typically, we ascribe to God as an entity with reason (consciousness, intention and purpose), with the capacity to be a creator, ultimately capable of generating an entire world and, essentially, to determine its laws, its rules of operation, i.e. to have the power of sovereignty.
According to the customary systems that define human behavior in relation to the imagined God, i.e., according to various religions, the typical human behavior expected in relation to God is the recognition of superiority, reverence, and obedience.
The image of God constructed by religions, however, is a shaky area in the search for a real God, because as an image of God mediated by social norms, it provides a suitable means to influence the organization of the society of conscious and volitional beings, even if the given religion may not be directly connected to the real existence of God. The description of the divine entity as defined by religions is therefore biased, allows the use of an image of God as a tool, and thus is a field that allows subjectivity in characterizing the existence of a God that is possible in reality. Therefore, in addition to the image of God defined by religions, it is more useful to aim at analyzing the objective existence of God and to try to determine the conditions necessary for the possible reality of God.
The objective reality of God can be defined as follows:
A/ If the level of knowledge of an entity with intelligence makes it capable of abilities that are essentially inexplicable to another entity with intelligence as a result of its activity through abilities, it is a relative divine level for the intellect with more knowledge.
B/ If an existing entity comes into existence by the sovereign creative activity of another existing entity, i.e. the laws of existence are determined by creation, then the creator is an absolute divine entity for the created entity.
Therefore, on the basis of this definition of God's objective existence, different levels of divinity can be distinguished in terms of the practice of creation and the level of knowledge, i.e., the objective definition of God is possible according to the relative and absolute levels of knowledge available to intelligence. The objective existence of God is therefore a matter of epistemology.
On the basis of this statement, the existence of God can be related to objective conditions, and the question of when God cannot exist, and in what kind of world the existence of God does not fit, can be addressed scientifically.
By the definition of the objective existence of God, there can be no God in such a world,
- that is incapable of sustaining knowledge accumulating intelligence,
- or in a world where all existing knowledge is already known to the existing intelligence,
- or in a world that is incapable of creation, of forming new things that did not exist before.
There may be some kind of world in which these conditions actually exist. It is not impossible for a world to exist that is incapable of creating the complexity necessary for the existence of intelligence, just as our world can only be suitably complex because the existing system of natural laws and constants makes it possible. And it is also possible for a world to exist in which nothing new can arise because the world has reached the limit of its complexity, and if there can be intelligence in it, the intelligence in such a world can already be able to possess all existing knowledge.
But our world is certainly not like that. Our world is obviously capable of supporting intelligence, just as it is characteristic of our world that the complexity in our world is capable of increasing, so that new organizations can arise, creation, the formation of new things, is possible. And obviously not all the intelligence that exists in our world has all the knowledge that exists in the world, our science definitely has not reached its limits yet.
From an objective point of view, God can exist in our world. Is there a God in our world? This is the greatest question of human understanding. But if we look at the objective conditions for the existence of God, we can say that even we, human beings, are potentially capable of fulfilling the role of God, and if there is another intelligence, that intelligence is also potentially capable of serving the role of God.
Obviously, our world is potentially capable of the existence of Gods, and since everything that is possible in a world comes to reality, not the possibility but the reality of God can only be a question for intelligence.
Beyond religions, the search for the reality of God is a task related to objective knowledge, which is the domain of science. In fact, science actually seeks God by helping us to find the place of God in the world through the process of cognition by increasing knowledge, and at the same time helping us to substantiate God in the world. And this is a work that we can all do without religious prejudice, seeking reality in the subjectivity of religions.
No comments