Does Science Disprove God? Nope.

I was listening to an episode of Catholic Answers Live that was fielding calls from agnostics and atheists, and I was amazed at how often the same sorts of objections were raised by the callers. So many of them boiled down to this: "Science can't find any proof for God's existence. Therefore we have no reason to believe God exists."

The atheist or agnostic claims that one ought not to believe in God if there is no scientific way to verify His existence. If we were to set this out in a simple syllogism, it would say:

We ought not to affirm the existence of anything for which there is no physical evidence.
God is a thing for which there is no physical evidence.
Therefore, we ought not to posit the existence of God.

What's wrong with this argument? Well, an argument can be faulty either in its structure (form) or its content (matter). The form of the argument is sound: the premises lead to the conclusion, provided the premises are true. But are the premises true? Nope.

The biggest problem is with the premise "We ought not to posit the existence of anything for which there is no physical evidence." This premise assumes that only physical things, things able to be detected by observation and verified by the scientific method, exist. It claims that our only sure basis of knowledge is empirical science, that we cannot say that we know anything beyond what observation tells us. But this is not true. There are all kinds of things we know to be true that cannot be established by the scientific method.

For one, there are truths of our own interior experience. It is true that right now, I feel fine. It is true that I love my fiancee. It is true that you feel hungry. It is true that you hate the Lakers. All of these things are true, but there is no scientific experiment one can run to verify the truth of these things. They are not subject to empirical observation.

For another, there are moral truths. It is wrong to injure innocent parties. It is wrong to steal. We know these to be true, but we don't know that by observing human behavior and drawing the conclusion that these things are wrong. We don't derive our morals from behavior; we apply our morals to behavior. We don't determine their truth with test tubes and telescopes.

Nor are the very truths used by science to do its work. Science draws conclusions based on observation; but the rules of reason that science uses to draw those conclusions are not themselves based on observation. The Law of Identity (A equals A, A does not equal B) or the Law of Non-Contradiction (a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect) are two obvious, intuitive truths that structure our thinking and that we use to examine and evaluate our observations. Mathematical truths are not demonstrated by science, either. What experiment do you run to prove that two plus two equals four? It is pre-observational truth, what we call a priori. Truths based on empirical observation, like scientific laws, are called a posteriori. To use the argument above, you must deny all a priori truth; but if you try to do that, you cut your own legs out from under you. Certain a priori truths provide the condition for the possibility of science. The existence of these truths alone prove that not everything that is is demonstrable by science.

Indeed, the claim "It is true that only that which can be discovered by empirical observation (a posteriori) is true or real" is itself not an a posteriori claim, but rather an a priori one. The claim refutes itself!

This is all to say that the this materialist empiricist atheist must concede the fact that there are truths beyond those with which science deals. With that, the atheist must admit the possibility of things existing outside of the sensor range of empirical science. Then maybe, just maybe, there's a God after all.

Varia: Belgian Suicides and Unscientific Science

Sorry about the recent silence, but things have been a bit hectic. School started up again. I totaled my car. Various wedding planning-related activities. And lots of inchoate notions that I never gave sufficient nourishment and sunlight to so that they might sprout into fully bloomed blog posts. So, as an exercise to get warmed up again, shall we consider a few brief points on various topics? ...

The Belgian parliament has voted to allow children with terminal illnesses to request that they be assisted in committing suicide, provided they are suffering unbearably, have their parents' consent, and make the request repeatedly. Nominee for understatement of the year: "Some paediatricians [British spelling] have warned vulnerable children could be put at risk and have questioned whether a child can really be expected to make such a difficult choice." No, really? We won't let a kid pick their own shoes, but suddenly they can decide whether they should live or die? I would guess that the motivation behind this is law is some vaguely well-intended but seriously misguided desire to alleviate suffering, with the solution being to eliminate the sufferer rather than the suffering. I thought it significant that "160 Belgian paediatricians signed an open letter against the law, claiming that there was no urgent need for it and that modern medicine is capable of alleviating pain." 160 may not sound like a lot, but Belgium is pretty small; that could be, like, half of them....

I often tell people that "science isn't an exact science." What do I mean by that? Well, the "scientific method," as we call it, employs inductive reasoning, which means that it comes to probable conclusions based on repeated observation of the same outcomes. Scientific conclusions are always provisional: they are sound, provided that the experiment was done properly, and that all the relevant facts were accounted for in the interpretation of the experiment's outcomes. But it's quite possible that reported scientific findings can be in error: some crucial factor was missed; some outcome misinterpreted; some item ignored. And, if one study is to believed, this happens quite frequently, such that the majority of research published in prestigious journals is false, perhaps unable to be reproduced in subsequent experiments or seriously flawed in its methodology. Be wary of reports in the news on scientific findings. Scientists, being human, want attention for their work, and reporters want attention for their stories, and the combination can lead to a whole heap of hasty conclusions....

Hmm, that may be enough to chew on for now. Do feel free to suggest topics or ask questions any time!