(Are welcome the guidance and indications, emails, web
address, name of head of area publications, etc. - about publishing houses and
institutions that could publish the book).
Nature
and scopes of the demonstrations of God’s existence
With respect to its nature and scopes,
demonstrations of the existence of God here present will be characterized by:
1) Be
reasonable
Here we present reasonable proof that can convince
reasonable people. It is not our purpose the elaborate those absolutely
accurate proofs that convince irrationally obstinates atheists and agnostics.
That is simply impossible. When the will reject what the intellect knows no
sense argue. As Saint Augustine said: “For those who want to believe I have
thousands arguments, but for those who do not want to believe I have none”.
One can only to reason with reasonable people.
Consequently, it is not relevant or necessary to prove with absolute certainty
the existence of God to the obstinate atheist. Simply you give him reasonable
evidence showing that theism is set up as a world view much more rational than
atheism because, after all, one can not have absolute certainty of anything but
even so relies on what is reasonable and acts accordingly. For example, I can
not make an absolutely accurate demonstration that will exist day tomorrow.
Might well happen, for example, the destruction of the universe for a unknown cause
by scientists. I have no way to prove with absolute certainty that this will
not happen. But even so think that will not happen reasonably and act
accordingly. It would be foolish to say: “Well, as I can not prove with
absolute certainty that will exist day tomorrow I have no reason to enlist my business”.
However, this is not very different from the case of the atheist or agnostic
who says (or thinks): “As I have not been persuaded with mathematical certainty
that God exists will continue living my life as if He does not exist”. That's
not reasonable. While it is true we can not be absolutely certain of anything,
and that ultimately we have to believe everything by faith, it is also true
that there are some “faiths” that are more rational than others and -as we will
show throughout this book- atheism is a “faith” especially irrational (or
better said anti-rational).
2) Be
philosophical
Evidence for the existence of God that we will
present in this book will be primarily philosophical. Consequently, those who
seek direct scientific demonstrations will be disappointed, and not by our
fault. It is a big epistemological error to think that science by itself can
not prove or refute the God’s existence. He is not a piece more of what exists
and therefore can not be coherently absorbed by single causes which act within
reach of telescopes or microscopes. Then, it is absurd to demand direct scientific
proof of the existence of God.
In other words: the question of God's existence is
not really a matter of physics but of metaphysics because, as the pope John
Paul II said, “science can not by itself resolve the issue, it is necessary
that knowledge that rises above physics and astrophysics, and that is called
metaphysics” (1).
However, this does not mean in any way that we will
not appeal to the advances of science to illuminate the issue. Quite the
opposite. This book will seek to show that the philosophical proofs of the
existence of God are entirely consistent with the current cientific evidence.
Our methodology will be starting from facts of
reality perceptible to prove the existence of God and, therefore, it’s evident
that we have to appeal to scientific knowledge to better elucidate the basic
premises and respond to objections. However, it should be noted that in any
case the validity of our reasoning depends primarily of what is reasonably
established by philosophy in general and not so much on what is provisionally
established for science in particular. Science can change but even so we may continue
concluding, with equal metaphysical rigor, that God exists. Thus -at least
philosophically speaking- the atheists “have no excuse” (cf. Rom 1:20).
3) Do
not substitute the knowledge and personal relationship with God
Finally,
the most important of all the clarifications that we will do in this book: be rationally
convinced that “God exists” does not necessarily mean “to know God”. These are
different things. For example, I can establish that exists a certain John Pérez
talking with people who know him, seeing his birth certificate or searching for
him on the Internet, but that does not mean I really know John Pérez.
Perhaps
someone thinks that this clarification is trivial. But no. It is of utmost
importance. What would happen, for example, if John Pérez is the most important
person in the universe? Or if he is the only person that can give real meaning
to my life? Or if he is the only person who can make me truly happy? Or if he
is the foundation of happiness? Would I be happy just knowing that “he exists”?
Would not it be personal relationship with him the most important thing in
life? Well, for our case, “John Pérez” is God.
It is therefore of paramount importance that
believers who will delve into the present book never forget that, as the great
Christian apologist William Lane Craig said, “the belief in God is, for those
who know him, a properly basic belief grounded in our experience of God. Now,
if this is right there's a danger that arguments for God's existence could
actually distract your attention from God himself. (…) We mustn't so
concentrate on the external arguments that we fail to hear the inner voice of
God speaking to our own hearts” (2).
“There are only two kinds of people who can be
called reasonable: those who serve God wholeheartedly, because they know him,
and those who seek God wholeheartedly because they do not know him”, said the
philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal (3). So those who know God take
this book to serve Him wholeheartedly through the preaching apologetics,
helping the conversion of his brothers atheists. And those who do not know God
use the present book to begin to look for Him with their whole heart.
References:
1) John Paul II, “Speech to the participants in
the plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences”, October 3, 1981.
2) William Lane Craig, “The existence of God”,
debate against Christopher Hitchens, held at Biola University on April 4, 2009,
opening speech.
3) Blaise Pascal, Thoughts (1670), Ed Espasa-Calpe, 7th ed., Madrid, n. 194.
