Can God's existence be established through reason and publicly accessible evidence?

Question

Is it possible for an ordinary individual possessing sound cognitive faculties and access to publicly available evidence to establish the existence of a God? Is there a prevailing consensus in philosophy regarding this question?

Two disciplines that suggest that God's existence can be established through reason, arguments, and evidence that anyone should be able to inspect and study by themselves are natural theology and apologetics, but my impression is that not everyone would agree with this suggestion.

Note: When I mention publicly accessible evidence, I am referring to evidence that is in principle available to anyone. Additionally, a proper examination of this evidence, with sound cognitive faculties, should ideally lead to substantial degrees of intersubjective agreement.

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Related questions

Are most philosophers atheists, monotheists, polytheists or what?

Is the teleological argument for God completely refuted?

Can God make the belief in His own existence justified (if He exists)?

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Definitions

In the comments section definitions of evidence and God have been requested. I will provide quotes from a few sources as working definitions of these concepts.

Evidence

The concept of evidence is crucial to epistemology and the philosophy of science. In epistemology, evidence is often taken to be relevant to justified belief, where the latter, in turn, is typically thought to be necessary for knowledge. Arguably, then, an understanding of evidence is vital for appreciating the two dominant objects of epistemological concern, namely, knowledge and justified belief. In the philosophy of science, evidence is taken to be what confirms or refutes scientific theories, and thereby constitutes our grounds for rationally deciding between competing pictures of the world. In view of this, an understanding of evidence would be indispensable for comprehending the proper functioning of the scientific enterprise.

For these reasons and others, a philosophical appreciation of evidence becomes pressing. Section 1 examines what might be called the nature of evidence. It considers the theoretical roles that evidence plays, with a view towards determining what sort of entity evidence can be—an experience, a proposition, an object, and so on. In doing so, it also considers the extent to which evidence is implicated in justified belief (and by extension, knowledge, if knowledge requires justified belief). Then, section 2 considers the evidential relationship, or the relation between two things by virtue of which one counts as evidence for the other; and it explores the nature of their relationship, that is, whether the relationship is deductive, explanatory, or probabilistic. Finally, equipped with this theoretical background, section 3 looks at some of the important problems and paradoxes that have occupied those working in the theory of evidence.

(source: https://iep.utm.edu/evidence/)

God

God and Other Ultimates

What it takes to be ultimate is to be the most fundamentally real, valuable or fulfilling among all that there is or could be. Historically, philosophy of religion in the West has taken God to be ultimate. Over the past century, the field has become increasingly aware that ultimacy is grasped under different concepts in the world’s religions, philosophies and quasi-religious philosophies—so not only as “God” but also as, e.g., “Brahman”, “the Dao”, and more. Moreover, people have thought to conceptualize each of these ultimates in numerous ways across cultures and times, so there are many models of Brahman, many models of God, many models of the Dao, and more; perhaps there is even a model of what is ultimate for each person who has thought hard about it. This entry presents a framework for understanding this vast landscape of models of God and other ultimates and then surveys some of its major sights. Familiarity with this landscape can clarify the long journey to deciding whether there is anything ultimate, among other benefits.

Section 1 defines “ultimate” and “models” of ultimates, discusses reasons to be interested in the project of modeling what is ultimate or alternatively to think it futile, and explains major categories that help organize the field of models. Section 2 uses these categories to relay over twenty models of Brahman, God and the Dao, both for their own sakes and as entrées into the landscape (the models are numbered as they surface to help the reader spot them and to show by example what a model is). Section 3 discusses the significance of the plurality of models once they are juxtaposed.

[...]

The most venerable model of God that is often read dualistically is known as “perfect being theology”, which bears traces of its origin in its name (this is model 8—a general model, species coming). The idea fully grown, as we have it today, defines God as that which is perfect (whether personal or not), where perfection is typically taken to entail being unsurpassable in power, knowledge, and goodness, and several models add being immutable, impassible, a se, eternal, simple and necessary in some sense. Most perfect being theologians take God to have created the universe out of nothing (ex nihilo), and that view can be taken to entail dualism for a variety of reasons. To offer one, as Brian Davies says, “God makes things to be, but not out of anything” (italics his), including not out of Godself, so the cosmos is entirely fresh stuff—a second kind of stuff, distinct from and radically dependent on God (2004: 3).

(source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-ultimates/)

Answer 1

There are four tactics I have seen applied to this question:

1. Natural theology in favor of God -- argue from Aquinas-type proofs to a deity of some kind, then argue for a specific religion based on miracles. The best theologian/philosopher I have seen arguing this way is JP Moreland.

2. God thinking is viable, and a credible alternative to non-God assumptions. This is basically an extension of Lakatos' "Research Programme" approach in philosophy of science, to ontological worldviews. Just as a science field can support multiple viable research programmes, so can philosophic ontology -- and reason and evidences can support a at least plausible God hypothesis. The best theologian/philosopher who I have seen arguing this way is Richard Swinburne.

3. God thinking is incoherent, and intrinsically nonsense, hence God is not a credible idea. This was the main argument of Anthony Flew. Swinburne's most important pro-theism book "the Coherence of Theism" was admitted by Flew to have refuted this claim. However, despite that admission, most atheists today continue to hold by Flew's conclusion in "the Presumption of Atheism" that atheism is the default view, and should be what one concludes unless theists provide very strong justification for theism.

4. Natural theology refutes God. Prior to Flew, this was the primary argument used by atheists -- that the contradictions between theology claims and this world are sufficiently extensive, and these falsification tests have been demonstrated in multiple religions, that one can reasonably infer that all religions are false even if not all have yet been explicitly falsified. One work in this line I can recommend is "the Miracle of Theism", by JL Mackie.

I believe that "an ordinary individual possessing sound cognitive faculties and access to publicly available evidence" can review these four sets of arguments and reach a credible conclusion based on them.

That conclusion MAY be that none of these are definitive and convincing arguments, and the question remains open, that one of the four IS convincing, or that several are viable, but not yet slam dunk, etc.

Answer 2

My knowledge of the subject is insufficiently compendious to allow me to give an authoritative answer to your question, but I assume the answer is no, since were it possible to prove the existence of God beyond any doubt, I am sure we would all know the proof by now.

Answer 3

You would need observations that can be explained by the existence of god, and that have no reasonable explanation if god does not exist. I don’t know of any such observations.

And then there is the possibility that you find an entity that is very powerful, knows a lot, but isn’t quite what we would call “god”. And that could be very hard to distinguish.

Answer 4

Well, I have been finding answer to this specific question since I became an adult. I don't think by applying reason we can find God. The existence of God is beyond time and space. We cannot apply a 3D scientific approach to find it. We can only feel it.

Answer 5

If you're a Bayesian, then absence of evidence is the evidence of absence, although unconclusive. Similarly, if you'd expect God to do X and X indeed happens then it is an evidence for God's existence (so, for example, existence of religion is evidence for God's existence, although, again, unconclusive). Therefore: yes.

Answer 6

TL;DR: No, because such evidence would limit God‘s omnipotence.

Assuming God exists as described in the Hebrew bible, and is omnipotent, then His omnipotence also includes the ability to reveal or not reveal Himself to mankind. Evidence that could be established by pure reason would take away the possibility to not reveal Himself. The idea that such evidence could exist is therefore at odds with the concept of omnipotence.

UPDATE: @pygosceles rightfully pointed out in a comment that this argument implicitely uses an inconsistent definition of omnipotence and is thus not sound.

Interestingly, this sort of supports the refutation of OP's question on another level. The debate on how to understand omnipotence in a non-contradictional way has been going on for centuries (see for instance the omnipotence paradoxon). The same is true for the concept of God itself, so all attempts at proving God will suffer from the same problem.

Answer 7

Is evidence an objective criterion?

1. There are two rather different interpretations what it means that “a statement is evident”.

   • Objective definition: Evidence is an objective property of a statement. The truth of the statement S is obvious, no further proof is necessary. Every morning the sun rises in the East out of the ocean.
   • Subjective definition: Evidence is a relative property, it is a property of the belief of a given person p about the truth of a statement S. Person p believes S, i.e. that every morning the sun rises in the East out of the ocean.

   In both cases of evidence it is claimed that the truth of the statement does not need further proof, the truth can be recognized by intuition. In the first example above the statement about the sun is false, in the second example the statement about the belief of the person concerning the sun is true, but the belief is false.

   Historical experience with statements like above shows that evidence is not sufficient for truth. Intuition can be a good or a bad guide. Intuition has to be verified.

2. Concerning the OP’s question my answer is: No one has presented objective evidence for the existence of God. There are several persons who claim subjective evidence. But in neither case evidence replaces further inquiry.

   Also the majority of philosophers does not accept the claimed proofs of the existence of God.

Answer 8

I think the answer is 'no', but it took me a bit of time to appreciate what the question actually was. I can't answer for everyone else, but suppose someone showed me they could work 'miracles'...

These miracles are happening in our universe. They are part of it, even if I do not see how they are done. It could be a trick or it could be advanced technology.

The miracle is not performed by us; it is only done by appealing to some higher power. Fine: there are technically advanced aliens but they are still part of our universe.

The miracles come from outside our universe. Hard to prove conclusively, but maybe there are causes that lie outside our universe. Again, this is possible but it may just stretch our idea of 'universe'. If the miracle generation comes from 'heaven in response to prayer, then we have two-way cause and effect between heaven and earth. Heaven is a part of the universe, even if it is not a place we can physically travel to.

What about these miracle workers themselves. Are they aliens? Where did they come from? Did something else create them and their world? If so, they are faced with the same regression to an origin as we are. We can only get out of this if they somehow are responsible for all worlds and all existence including their own.

At this point the argument has wholly moved from the material realm, and we cannot pursue it any further. You might believe they are gods; I might believe they are actually aliens who say what we want to hear.

Answer 9

I would say that some things have to be accepted axiomatically. Axioms don't have proof. Axioms are held to be true without being able to prove them.

As a fundamental rule the the most fundamental rule proves the derived rules. If God by definition is the most Fundamental Thing, there is no way to prove God or God's existence by any derivation.

Since you have mentioned sound cognitive abilities, it is implied that you are expecting the reasonableness of reason or any reasoning provided. The question that now remains is why is reason considered to be of value or meaningful or worth pursuing or even thinking about or why it should be considered sound or unsound. (Note: We are entering recursion. Reason is trying to reason about itself.)

Pure naturalism cannot explain the reasonableness of reason. In pure naturalism there is no reason for reason to exist. Which means reason and reasoning do not exist. Pure naturalism does not have any purpose or meaning or end goal.

Or to take naturalism to an extreme, like some people argue, pure non-rational (non purposeful and non-intentional) causes, suddenly caused reason to come into existence. However anyone with sound cognitive abilities will likely find this kind of argument distasteful and irrational. Its like ex-nihilo non-reason brought forth reason.

And this reason went on to question the source of its existence and found out that the source of its existence was actually non-reason. Funny, isn't it? The same applies to truth and morality and goodness. Out of something that doesn't care about truth or morality or goodness came forth truth and morality and goodness?

Is there a distinct "I", as distinct from the great naturalistic process which can think about the naturalistic process or is the thinking itself still part of the naturalistic process therefore making all contemplation and thinking itself meaningless and hence non-rational?

I hope this answer helped you in some way, pointing to theism as the more reasonable and axiomatic explanation for the existence of reason.

References:

Miracles by C.S. Lewis https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20150616/html.php#c3

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis : https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20150135

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_reason

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2006/07/argument-from-reason-and-lewiss-post.html

https://appearedtoblogly.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/the-argument-from-reason.pdf

Answer 10

Through reason? No, the existence of God cannot be shown through logic alone, for any reasonable choice of axioms. The obstacle is that all-powerful beings are logically impossible; I explain one proof in this answer. Word usage in holy texts would then preclude the existence of several deities as described; see this question and answer for one relevant example.

Through evidence? Well, it's unlikely, because quantum mechanics is indeterminate (see this question and answer) and contextual, and thus forbids classically all-knowing or all-seeing beings. The evidence in favor of quantum mechanics includes Bell tests, GHZ tests, and everyday objects like semiconductors in computers. Additionally, if any creator were to grant any of the typical definitions of free will to us, then by virtue of the Free Will Theorem and the interaction between the cells in our eyes and photons, we would be spreading free will throughout our surroundings, which sometimes is considered a conflict with being all-knowing. (See also "Omniscience and Free Will" on WP as a relevant portal.)

Answer 11

According to Romans 1:19-20, the answer is "yes":

What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

Consider a simple child's question, "Daddy, who made the flowers?". We instinctively know that the flowers (and us humans!) have a Designer, just as we instinctively know right from wrong. Life is absolutely abounding in indicators that it was Designed, while attempts to explain life without resort to a Designer run into any number of problems. This answer goes into some additional details. Also see the Discovery Institute for more.

Consider, also, the second point above; that we know right from wrong. Science struggles to explain altruism (as seen not just in humans but in animals as well), yet the scope of human morality extends far beyond that.

All of this points to a Designer, and, while the nature of that designer is more difficult to arrive at, such designer would necessarily be superior to any known existing life. Said designer must either have an origin, which would in turn have to be a higher-order designer and so on ad infinitum, or would have to be uncaused, i.e. would have to be "God". The lack of evidence of any other life in the universe also argues for the latter. (Additional cosmological arguments could be made, but it's arguable whether that's in scope. Moreover, if we invoke Christian Scripture, we could present evidence of the accuracy thereof, which would further support the existence of not just a Designer as a general entity, but the Christian God specifically. However, that is definitely stretching the scope of the question as I understand it.)

(At this point, it may be interesting to consider R. Kirk's answer; in particular, how he uses an a prior philosophical assumption — that nothing immaterial exists — to define "God" as being necessarily material. As noted, this takes us into infinite regress land, which in turn casts doubt on the axiom and therefore serves as positive evidence that "God" does, in fact, exist.)

Now, naysayers will of course deny that God exists, which tells us something else about God; namely, that He has arranged for the evidence of His existence to not be incontrovertible. In fact, He has arranged for humans to have Free Will, which includes the ability to disregard the evidence of His existence. Nevertheless, such a position is full of problems and inconsistencies.

A relevant question is whether those who deny God's existence have an ulterior motive for doing so... and the answer would appear to be 'yes'. Just as most humans acknowledge some form of obedience-debt to their parents, the existence of a Creator would imply some degree of subservience, as well as the existence of standards of right and wrong. One need only look at the rampancy of moral relativism to understand how most humans feel about those ideas!

Answer 12

Is it possible for an ordinary individual possessing sound cognitive faculties and access to publicly available evidence to establish the existence of a God?

Absolutely yes. The first question to answer is whether or not this person knows anything. What does it mean to know something? It is the same meaning as to have a Conscience. All people have a Conscience to begin with. The very word "cognitive" is cognate with conscience. The root of both words is "knowledge", with the prefix con- meaning "together; with". Therefore a person possessing sound cognitive faculties by definition must have a functioning conscience. The Latin verb cogitare is further extended by etymologies showing a connection to words such as consider, examine, and so on. All of these are grounded in Conscience because in order for anything to be known, it must be contained within or distill upon the Conscience (by definition). Taken together, Conscience and observation prove to all people that there is a God. If he knows anything, he knows there is a God, or can know it by connecting to what he knows.

Interestingly the philosopher René Descartes equated this inner knowledge with a proof of being:

Cogito, ergo sum

In other words, in plain Latin, I have a Conscience (implied by the use thereof by perception or consideration in the verb cogito), therefore I am.

We all know this at least to the degree that we personally think, but how does one think or know anything?

Philosophy alone is unqualified to opine on this subject, and this proves the existence of a Power superior to oneself, or even one's faculties for cognition. Therefore the ultimate proof of existence implies a syllogism consequent from something greater than self or even than thought itself.

Revelations from God state:

For in Him (God) we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Acts 17:28

Our faculty of cognition is a gift. We did not and could not create it ourselves, therefore Who gave it to us? This is good logic. Nothing short of this admission or question can be good logic, depending on circular or ungrounded presumption instead.

Further revelations from God equate the Conscience with something called "the Light of Christ", or in other words, the ability to perceive things as they really are, through the power of the Son of God to give and to be the Light and Life of the world. This is the Conscience, the basis of cogito in "cogito ergo sum".

Putting two and two together with these revelations, in the Spirit of true science we may proclaim,

I am a child of God, therefore I am.

This is immediately consequent from the observation that we think or know some things, and that God has claimed authorship of this gift, and proves it to our own selves to the very undeniable and personal repository of the Conscience.

All proof is personal. The work of proving is the act of connecting a proposition "under test" to the corpus of what we personally already know, demonstrating it by the same standard of Conscience, or proving its inconsistency with what one already knows. When such knowledge or proof is delivered, it simply becomes a matter of whether one (1) recognizes what he knows (it is possible to know a thing but not presently remember or recall it, as the condition of temporary amnesia proves), and (2) is honest with oneself and others about this proof. This handily explains why, even when something is known to one or to millions, both relative handfuls or billions depending on the ebb and flow of secular thought, there are holdouts who do not acknowledge what is true, whether they be a minority or a majority.

An infinite number of proofs of the reality of God exist, and every one of them is verifiable by the appropriate application of Conscience to the question.

All things denote there is a God. From planets and comets to skin grafts and the chirality of molecules, every alternative argument requires suspending what we know to pursue ungrounded speculation or circular claims. Belief in God, on the other hand, has its roots in what we do know.

Is there a prevailing consensus in philosophy regarding this question?

Consensus is not a very meaningful indicator in the realm of philosophy. "Philosophy" means love of wisdom, not love of popularity or consensus. If there is wisdom in consensus as contrasted with certain other value systems is a question which deserves an answer in its own right, but it cannot otherwise or generally be taken for granted that consensus among philosophers is inherently meaningful. Many such consensuses in the past have proven to be fads. Whether few or many embrace wisdom does not change the nature of it, nor is it any less valuable because fewer appreciate it. All are entitled to seek it.

As the example from Acts 17 illustrates, many respected philosophers and poets may hint at, touch on, or even agree on the reality and nature of God, and yet still fail to clinch a widespread or unwavering consensus from a populace. This is because of the mutability of how people treat Conscience relative to other considerations, for example, the wavering principle of deference to consensus or apparent consensus.

my impression is that not everyone would agree with this suggestion.

And as we have just demonstrated, whether or not everyone agrees is immaterial.