Evidence for God from Science

Danieltwotwenty wrote:

Kenny wrote:

Danieltwotwenty wrote:Logic tells us that absolute truth can be known, but can we know if we have absolute truth?

I don't know about you but I am not 100% sure of anything, there just doesn't seem to be any certainty in life.

It seems to me,if there is such a thing as an absolute truth, it is something that must be taken on blind faith. I say “blind” faith because, how could you know you are being told the absolute truth unless you know the absolute truth, and can verify its accuracy? What system could you possibly employ, to verify what you are being told is the absolute truth?

Ken

Logic, reason and facts.

Yes; logic reason and facts is what everybody uses to attain what they perceive as the truth, and of course this truth varies from person to person. But if we assume the existence of an absolute truth that is true inspite of what others may believe, it seems there needs to be more than the system currently used.

Ken

Kenny wrote:

Danieltwotwenty wrote:

Kenny wrote:

Danieltwotwenty wrote:Logic tells us that absolute truth can be known, but can we know if we have absolute truth?

I don't know about you but I am not 100% sure of anything, there just doesn't seem to be any certainty in life.

It seems to me,if there is such a thing as an absolute truth, it is something that must be taken on blind faith. I say “blind” faith because, how could you know you are being told the absolute truth unless you know the absolute truth, and can verify its accuracy? What system could you possibly employ, to verify what you are being told is the absolute truth?

Ken

Logic, reason and facts.

Yes; logic reason and facts is what everybody uses to attain what they perceive as the truth, and of course this truth varies from person to person. But if we assume the existence of an absolute truth that is true inspite of what others may believe, it seems there needs to be more than the system currently used.

Ken

I think the system will always be flawed while in this current existence, I guess that was my point in all this, like what Paul says in 1Corinthians 13:8-12

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Paul seems to be saying that everything we know now is only known in part, or not quite understood properly, we just don't have all the facts yet, well at least that's what I think he is saying.

I think this is why belief is so heavy on experience, until I experienced God, I could not believe.

"...Work out your own salvation (notice: it does not say faith) with fear and trembling."
Why? because the road is a gauntlet? No.

The next text Philippians 2:12-13. KJV because "...it is God which works in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure."

And it goes on to say not to be negative and argumentative.

We should be cautious that we do not miss the great opportunity to rely on God, because our sinful natures are satisfied with the fig leaf garment and we are reluctant, if not entirely resistant, to change.

How can we know we have absolute truth? "The heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, who can know it?"
We walk by faith in the Bible etc, because it is not safe to make a judgement on truth on one's opinion alone.

Can we know the Bible is absolute truth? That privilege can only belong to the honest Christian who does not believe that they are wiser than what God has provided.

and of course this truth varies from person to person

No, the interpretation of truth varies from person to person.

PaulSacramento wrote:

and of course this truth varies from person to person

No, the interpretation of truth varies from person to person.

Yeah, that's what I meant; when we use reason and logic to determine the truth, what we call the truth will sometimes vary from person to person.

Ken

Kenny wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:

and of course this truth varies from person to person

No, the interpretation of truth varies from person to person.

Yeah, that's what I meant; when we use reason and logic to determine the truth, what we call the truth will sometimes vary from person to person.

Ken

Truth is simply defined as that which corresponds to reality.
Do you think that is a correct definition?

How can we know if we know we have absolute truth?

Are you absolutely certain their is no truth?


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Starhunter wrote:"...Work out your own salvation (notice: it does not say faith) with fear and trembling."
Why? because the road is a gauntlet? No.

The next text Philippians 2:12-13. KJV because "...it is God which works in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure."

And it goes on to say not to be negative and argumentative.

We should be cautious that we do not miss the great opportunity to rely on God, because our sinful natures are satisfied with the fig leaf garment and we are reluctant, if not entirely resistant, to change.

How can we know we have absolute truth? "The heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, who can know it?"
We walk by faith in the Bible etc, because it is not safe to make a judgement on truth on one's opinion alone.

Can we know the Bible is absolute truth? That privilege can only belong to the honest Christian who does not believe that they are wiser than what God has provided.

I know it doesn't say faith, but working out your salvation is working out your faith, I think they are synonymous. Salvation is being saved by faith..........

I am not sure why you bring up being negative and argumentative?

The problem is Starhunter is that if truth was so easy to find in the Bible, then why do pretty much every Christian will disagree on it's interpretation on a huge range of different issues.

I personalaly think the Bible speaks to us on a personal level and everyone's walk is different and we should not stand in judgement of another on issues that are of little consequence. Romans 14:5 is quite applicable to this

jlay wrote:

Kenny wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:

and of course this truth varies from person to person

No, the interpretation of truth varies from person to person.

Yeah, that's what I meant; when we use reason and logic to determine the truth, what we call the truth will sometimes vary from person to person.

Ken

Truth is simply defined as that which corresponds to reality.
Do you think that is a correct definition?

For the most part; yes.

K

:

Kenny wrote:

jlay wrote:

Kenny wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:

and of course this truth varies from person to person

No, the interpretation of truth varies from person to person.

Yeah, that's what I meant; when we use reason and logic to determine the truth, what we call the truth will sometimes vary from person to person.

Ken

Truth is simply defined as that which corresponds to reality.
Do you think that is a correct definition?

For the most part; yes.

K

Then we've made progress. This dictates that there is a reality which can be rightly known.
So, interpretation can correspond to reality or it can miss the mark.
Does that sound fair?

Danieltwotwenty wrote:Jac if you could indulge me further I would like to ask another question, If truth is a reality and what we believe this truth is is based on facts, logic and reason, do you think it is possible that we currently don't have all the facts, logic and reason in our current state of existence concerning any given situation, are we able to make a claim of absolute truth from that? Forgive me if this is a stupid question.

It's not a stupid question. I would, again, be careful about making generalizations. It some questions, it is certainly possible that we lack enough information to claim that we know the truth. And it is possible that we mistakenly believe that we do have enough information but that future information proves that we were wrong. In such cases, it should be easy to see upon reflection that we drew an incorrect conclusion because we made a false assumption along the way. For instance, suppose a man driving a police car pulls me over, shows his badge, and proceeds to write me a ticket. Suppose further that I was, in fact, speeding. Given all that, would you be surprised if I went home and told my wife, "I got a ticket today"? Of course not. But suppose it turns out later that I discover that the "officer" was actually an imposter and he was actually collecting information from people to engage in identity theft. My mistake was not in believing that I was pulled over (I was) by a man presenting himself as a police officer (that was the case), but rather in drawing the conclusion that this man actually was an officer. Had I taken the time to call the station at that moment, I would have found that the man was not who he claimed he was. So my faulty conclusion came from the premise, "All men who so present themselves as police officers are genuine."

This is why I said that we should be willing to subject all of our beliefs to scrutiny, that is, to doubt. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we find that we still missed something. That's why peer review is so helpful. But having said all that and recognizing that sometimes we just miss it, we cannot say from THAT that we cannot make truth claims in any cases at all. In the above scenarios, we saw several truth claims that were indisputably true. The problem, again, was with our assumptions and therefore our conclusions. And that is always the case when it comes to missing premises.

And, again, it depends on the type of question. Sometimes we can't know all the facts (we just don't have or can't have access to enough information). At other times, we know we have all the facts (for example, here is a problem I want you to solve:

How many dots follow this sentence? . . . . . . .

Excluding the dot under the question mark, there are seven dots. I can be absolutely certain of that because I have all the information. The same applies to many mathematical or philosophical problems. And all that goes to the difference in deduction vs induction. The former is always correct if the reasoning is sound and the premises true. The latter is always correct if we have all the variables we are reasoning about (i.e.,the dots above), but we usually don't have that. In scientific claims, for instance, we usually only have representative samples/measurements that we assume will repeat themselves. But that assumption may be wrong if we missed some underlying variable we don't know about, so while our certainty may be highly warranted, it may not be absolute.

Jac3510 wrote:

Danieltwotwenty wrote:Jac if you could indulge me further I would like to ask another question, If truth is a reality and what we believe this truth is is based on facts, logic and reason, do you think it is possible that we currently don't have all the facts, logic and reason in our current state of existence concerning any given situation, are we able to make a claim of absolute truth from that? Forgive me if this is a stupid question.

It's not a stupid question. I would, again, be careful about making generalizations. It some questions, it is certainly possible that we lack enough information to claim that we know the truth. And it is possible that we mistakenly believe that we do have enough information but that future information proves that we were wrong. In such cases, it should be easy to see upon reflection that we drew an incorrect conclusion because we made a false assumption along the way. For instance, suppose a man driving a police car pulls me over, shows his badge, and proceeds to write me a ticket. Suppose further that I was, in fact, speeding. Given all that, would you be surprised if I went home and told my wife, "I got a ticket today"? Of course not. But suppose it turns out later that I discover that the "officer" was actually an imposter and he was actually collecting information from people to engage in identity theft. My mistake was not in believing that I was pulled over (I was) by a man presenting himself as a police officer (that was the case), but rather in drawing the conclusion that this man actually was an officer. Had I taken the time to call the station at that moment, I would have found that the man was not who he claimed he was. So my faulty conclusion came from the premise, "All men who so present themselves as police officers are genuine."

This is why I said that we should be willing to subject all of our beliefs to scrutiny, that is, to doubt. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we find that we still missed something. That's why peer review is so helpful. But having said all that and recognizing that sometimes we just miss it, we cannot say from THAT that we cannot make truth claims in any cases at all. In the above scenarios, we saw several truth claims that were indisputably true. The problem, again, was with our assumptions and therefore our conclusions. And that is always the case when it comes to missing premises.

And, again, it depends on the type of question. Sometimes we can't know all the facts (we just don't have or can't have access to enough information). At other times, we know we have all the facts (for example, here is a problem I want you to solve:

How many dots follow this sentence? . . . . . . .

Excluding the dot under the question mark, there are seven dots. I can be absolutely certain of that because I have all the information. The same applies to many mathematical or philosophical problems. And all that goes to the difference in deduction vs induction. The former is always correct if the reasoning is sound and the premises true. The latter is always correct if we have all the variables we are reasoning about (i.e.,the dots above), but we usually don't have that. In scientific claims, for instance, we usually only have representative samples/measurements that we assume will repeat themselves. But that assumption may be wrong if we missed some underlying variable we don't know about, so while our certainty may be highly warranted, it may not be absolute.

Once again, thank for taking the time to explain that, it all makes sense so far.

Cheers

So given all we have discussed relating to truth, could we be missing some variable when interpreting the Biblical texts? Even though we may have warrant to believe what we do there could be a variable that we have over looked or that was just not available to us at the time.

Yes, absolutely (pun intended). None of us are omniscient. The question is whether or not we are warranted in believing that we have (or someone else has) missed a variable. In some cases, there are good arguments. I have strong warrant in believing that JWs misunderstand Greek grammar when they interpret John 1:1c "the Word was a God." There are passages in my own theology that I'm not sure what to do with, and there are other passages that I have considered and come to a conclusion on their meaning but hold those conclusions rather tentatively. But there are others that I hold with near absolute certainty about--the same kind of "near absolute certainty" that I have that gravity is not going to stop working tomorrow and the spin of the earth throw me off into deep space. I'm really not trying to be coy or difficult when I keep saying "it depends" (because that is what a lot of this amounts to!) but it really does depend on the specific passage in question!

I think it comes down to evidence in what we believe is true when it comes from man,if it comes from God it is already true,but once man gets into deciding what is true and what is not,evidence is the only way to know.A person can believe anything is true but the question is where is your evidence?And how can we know what you believe is true?
Logic,reason and evidence is the only way to go to determine the truth.Man can be right but he can be wrong too.This is why I reject evolution and I'd reject evolution if I was an atheist,which I'm not and some atheists reject evolution and I've noticed some atheists who used to preach evolution kinda backing off about it.In my debates with atheists about evolution I've had agnostics side with me pointing out the lack of real evidence.