I find this to be an interesting topic. As is ever the case for things that draw my interest, I’ve ended up writing a long and rambling meditation on the subject.
I think the central issue concerning evidence for the actual existence of god-concepts [1] is the plurality of ontic [2] substances, and how they are supposed to interact.
First, an elaboration on the premise. Then, an examination of the consequences of different scenarios. And finally, addressing the thread topic proper—if there is such a thing as a God, how would evidence of Its existence manifest, and what such evidence would I, personally, deem compelling, persuasive, or convincing?
I should also preface all of this by stating that I'm not a philosopher; my understanding of these topics is the result of a few years of exposing myself to this stuff at the layman's level. As such, I suspect there will not be a single original thought in the sections below.
Also note that the symbols [X] are referrals to the Footnote section at the bottom of the post, which offer supplemental notes on the tagged concepts or passages.
In any case, let's begin with an overview of the problem:
[collapse=On the Plurality of Substances and their Interaction]
Most theistic models of reality [3] hold at minimum to Substance Dualism; there is the material (or "natural") and the spiritual (or "supernatural"). The body and the spirit. You could also have a model of triune substances (body, mind, spirit), in what would be substance pluralism.
Point being that these "substances" are each fundamental and distinct from one another, but interact and intersect with one another. All things are either of one substance or another. This is in contrast to Substance Monism, in which there is only one fundamental substance, and all things are expressions, or are derivative, of that substance [4].
The question, then, is how these substances interact. What is the mechanism that allows the material to interact with the spiritual (and vice-versa)? That allows the body to interact with the spirit or soul (and vice-versa)?
If the flesh is the puppet and the spirit the puppeteer, of what consist the strings? The substance of the strings can’t be purely material, nor purely spiritual; the strings must be of a different substance. But not of the same class; this substance must transcend all others, forming a medium that allows these ordinary ontic substances to interact. This medium would be like water, the solvent which allows these substances to react like chemical agents.
The next line of inquiry concerns the relationship between the given god-concept (which we’ll call God for simplicity), and this mechanism of interaction.
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[collapse=On God and the Mechanism]
For God to interact with the material substance, It would need a medium by which to do so. Let us call this the ontic medium.
If there is no ontic medium, then how does God—which we can broadly define as an entity consisting wholly of spiritual substance—interact with material substance?
Does God simply “will” things to be? If so, then how does this will propagate, or manifest "outside" of God? The exact methodology isn't the question. Whether God snaps Its fingers or collapses some quantum waveform, there must be a medium that bridges God Itself with whatever God is acting upon.
In a scenario of creatio ex nihilo (i.e. the act of creation with no prior material whatsoever), the only thing to exist by definition would be God, who then "poofs" all other things into being. So there would not be anything for God to act upon save Itself. Would this make God Itself the ontic medium that bridges substances? How can that be, if God is strictly of spiritual substance?
Or is what we call "spiritual" substance in fact synonymous with the ontic medium, meaning that "spirit" is the solvent in which material agents react with one another? The proverbial molecules of spirit that bond with matter, creating the human being (so as God is the great water, we are each a droplet).
Seems a coherent enough notion, on its own. But it raises another troublesome implication. How can a thing of one ontic substance create another kind of substance from whole cloth (as would be required in an ex nihilo model)? How does God, who is of the spirit, create the material, which is wholly not of the spirit by definition?
Is it God's omnipotence that allows such a feat? Omnipotence, as is usually defined, is the capacity of an agent to enact all things which are logically possible. Is it logically possible, then, for a thing of one ontic form to create wholesale an entirely different—and perhaps even diametrically inverse—category of ontic "stuff"? Is it logically possible for such an agent to perpetuate their will without a medium through which that will might perpetuate?
Are we to say that God created the medium as well? But how does the creation of that medium occur without a medium for the power of that creation to be perpetuated? Do we have a chain of infinite regression on our hands?
And if this ontic medium does exist, and does necessarily transcend any one substance, then would it not also transcend God, who is of the spiritual substance? If your definition of God holds that It is the ontological bedrock of All That Is, then we have a contradiction (and therefore, a problem).
And if God is the ontic medium itself, then It cannot be of the spirit also. To be both would be incoherent, as you have an entity that was at once the medium and one substance, but not all substances (like a being made out of space and electromagnetism, with gravity and nuclear forces as separate ontic substances).
It seems the preliminary case that there must necessarily be an ontic medium that transcends all substances, or they could otherwise never interact, nor one substance have influence over another. What this means for the nature and properties of God isn't wholly relevant to the inquiry at hand. Let us therefore grant the existence of this medium, and examine the further implications its existence would entail.
The very nature of interaction as a coherent concept demands a medium. For chemicals, the medium is a solvent or a volume (e.g. water); for the forces of nature (and human interaction), the medium is space-time [5]. For distinct ontic substances, the medium is… something even more fundamental.
Regardless of God’s properties and Its relation to our space and time (i.e. material reality), God would need an ontic medium to interact with the material. This would include performing miracles, which can be defined as all material occurrences whose causes are expressly supernatural.
However, I’d venture that God wouldn’t need an ontic medium to interact with one’s soul or spirit, since God and the soul would be of the same substance (i.e. the spiritual). God could “reach out” to a given soul, and thus be capable of delivering messages/visions/revelations/etc. without the need for an ontic medium.
With these factors in play, we can begin examining how evidence of God might manifest.
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[collapse=On Manifestations of Evidence]
We can define evidence as any data that can be measured or observed, and which serves as a sign that a given thing exists. Evidence that Bob exists would consist of measuring/observing Bob and his properties, and his interactions with the world (which would all lead to signal that Bob exists).
There are thus two avenues by which one might seek out, or obtain, evidence of God—the material and spiritual routes.
[collapse=THE MATERIAL SEARCH FOR GOD]
The immediate issue that surfaces in this scenario is that of an ontic "divide". So far as we know, you can’t build a machine out of matter to detect spirit-stuff. You could perhaps in theory create a device that could tap into the ontic medium itself, but even that seems a tenuous concept. So this doesn't seem a viable approach.
If we cannot detect God Itself directly using material means (which seems to be in concordance with the dualist framework of most theologies), then that leaves us with an indirect search, trying to infer God's existence by measuring Its interaction as Its spiritual self interfaces with the material.
Dark Matter, for instance, doesn't interact with electromagnetism, nor the nuclear forces; its existence is made known only through its interaction with gravitation. But unlike Dark Matter, God doesn't interact with the "material forces" as an innate property of Itself, which would make detecting instances of "divine interaction" difficult indeed.
So what's left? To wait until something "happens" that could be divinely caused? How might one distinguish something divinely caused, and something that was simply highly improbable (whose 0.01% chance of happening, happens to have manifested)?
Suppose we notice that the Andromeda Galaxy has shifted to the other side of the heavens overnight. Was this an Act of God? That would be one hypothesis, but other hypotheses would exist (e.g. advanced alien civilizations moving the galaxy; some singularly, complex material entity moving the galaxy; the galaxy moving due to highly improbable physical conditions; the galaxy moving due to common physical conditions we don't yet know about; etc.).
For such broad, general instances, it would be difficult to accept God as the most plausible hypothesis among all others. And suppose the act was of divine origin? As noted earlier, it would be beyond our capacity to detect this divine origin using the purely material means at our inquisitive disposal.
This means that, to infer God, divine acts must be so specific that they could not be attributed to any other cause. Thankfully, most theologies have very specific descriptions of god-concepts, their properties, and how they can (and do) interface with the material realm (and our own selves). So, for instance, if the Apocalypse of John as described in the New Testament happened word for word, beat for beat, in our own reality just as it reads on the page, then that might constitute sufficient evidence for the Abrahamic conception of God that is described in the Judeo-Christian Bible.
Nothing divinely caused on so conclusive or on so large a scale has so far been determined to have factually happened (to my knowledge). But if we grant that divinely caused instances do occur, then it may nonetheless be difficult to ascertain that divine proof (unless, again, the evidence is monumental).
If a man went about, proclaiming himself to be Kalki, the final avatar of Vishnu, here to herald the end of the epoch of Kali Yuga, how might one verify the truth of his identity? If he rode a white horse and wielded a sword of flame, would that be enough? If he were to perform public displays to showcase his power, would that be enough? How might one ascertain that these powers were of divine origin, and that this man isn't just a naturalist X-Man, or an alien with advanced technology (or a human or a time-traveller with advanced technology), masquerading as Kalki?
It thus seems that, to infer any manner of God, the interactions It has with the material must be so precise, so specific, that the only plausible explanation must reside in something of the spiritual substance having interfaced with matter. But that seems an extremely tall order for we humans to determine, so it doesn't appear that simple, mundane miracles or similar things would be enough; only an all-out eschatological shift in our experience of reality would be sufficient (and that won't happen until it does, so we can't currently use that as a measure to infer the existence of God).
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[collapse=THE SPIRITUAL SEARCH FOR GOD]
As the previous subsection assessed, finding God through material means seems either impossible, or way beyond our present capacity.
But God is of the spiritual substance, and in most theologies, we too, as humans, possess spiritual substance (the soul), which is conjoined to the body via the ontic medium. The material can interact with the material just fine, as is evident in our experience, so it is reasonable that the spiritual could interact with the spiritual just fine.
It must then be possible for God to interact directly with the soul of a given human—especially since God is defined as a conscious agent, and would thus be able to actively reach out to one's soul.
So if there is an ontic "channel" that links us to God, can we use that channel to verify the existence of God? Could we meditate, commune, pray, or project ourselves via this channel to perhaps glimpse at God, thereby gaining first-hand confirmation of Its existence? I suppose that would depend on the properties of the channel, the difficulty threshold of exploiting the channel, and whether God can be reached (or wants to be reached) via that channel. So it may be a viable method for inferring (or confirming) the existence of God, though only by first establishing the variables at play in such a system.
This seems to beg the question, however, as you'd have to affirm the existence of God as the foregone conclusion before you begin to search for It. We're supposed to start with nothing, and work our way up from scratch; that's the essence of investigation, the empirical way [6]. If you assume the conclusion of God before you begin the search, you will bias and compromise your methodology and the results thereby gained (which is also an issue that applies in the previous section about using "material" means to try and find God).
But let's suppose that this quibble of jumping the gun doesn't matter. God is a hypothesis, and we're just trying to examine its legitimacy.
So, if the channel is two-way, it would be possible for God to reach out to our soul, and communicate with us directly (assuming the "soul" is synonymous with—or at least linked to—our consciousness/mind). Through the common denominator of the spiritual substance, God could impart upon one soul (or many) visions, impressions, sensations, thoughts, speech, and/or whatever else.
The obstacle in this case is authentication. How can one determine that it is God that is communicating, and that it isn't one's own self or some other entity? We know from psychology and neurology that the mind can be unreliable as a tool for assessing the veracity of experience, what with such things as cognitive biases and falling prey to fallacious reasoning.
So, if some manner of entity communes with me, Sehnsucht, out of the blue, how might I determine the origin? How might I determine this origin to be divine, or of God? Obviously, if the entity just says that It's God, and I'm supposed to just take Its word for it, then there isn't much for me to go on.
Evidently, the most optimal approach would be to demonstrate how the interlocutor could be none other than God, by imparting spontaneous knowledge in our mind about God, revealing truths about oneself, and so on. But even so, it could be difficult to accept the authentication. What if I'm getting transmissions from an alien organism, filling me with notions of God and ontology and truths about existence, yet which are all fabrications the alien has devised?
I could believe the interlocutor to be God. But we aren't interested in belief. The topic at hand concerns evidence, and thereby, knowledge.
If we want assurances that the messenger is God and not some other entity (regardless of their ontic makeup), then the solution is simple—the more information God gives to authenticate Itself, the less doubt there can be that it's God, and so the probability that God is the speaker rises accordingly. The only way to be 100% certain that we're dealing with God, then, is if God reveals Itself 100%, in full, revealing all knowledge It possesses to dispel any possible doubts of Its identity.
With an omniscient entity, that might be problematic. Though there might be a solution, if we suppose that there is a threshold of sufficient information for the human brain that is required to be freed of all doubts as to the interlocutor being God (i.e. at one point, you exclaim "Alright, I get it! You're God!").
In examining this two-way ontic channel of spirit-stuff, it's looking pretty uncertain. We can't say any more about reaching out to God without knowing more about the properties of the channel itself and how it can be used by the human soul; and we can't truly be certain that God is reaching out to us unless God authenticates Itself with enough information to dispel all other candidates or causes for the sending of these messages (/revelations/imparted knowledge/etc.).
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There is also a third avenue worth touching, rooted not in empiricism, but in rationalism. Which is to say, inferring God not through experimentation and the accumulation of data, but through rational examination and reflection. Things such as logical or mathematical proofs of God, syllogisms and arguments that demonstrate that God—which is at minimum a consciousness of spiritual substance and the cause of material reality—must logically and/or necessarily exist, in order for our own material domain to exist, or have come to be.
But can such things count as evidence? If these logical or mathematical displays aren't corroborated by empirical fact, then how would they be more useful, or indicative of anything, than mere armchair speculation? Admittedly, I'm not confident in my understanding or knowledge of how such arguments are intended to be compelling, but it remains that, so far as the question of this thesis is concerned, we're trying to find evidence that God exists—so naturally, tangible and observable evidence of God is preferable to abstractions and derivations of purely logical constructs (which, I should note, can certainly be compelling, though less so than empirical confirmation).
In any case, this should cover all the ways in which evidence for God might conceivably manifest. We can now move on to what I would consider to be compelling evidence for the existence of God.
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[collapse=On Sufficient Proofs for the Existence of God]
Now, we turn to what it would take for me, Sehnsucht, to acknowledge the existence of God. But first, we must establish my own current stances, as well as reiterate the definitions established throughout this post.
[collapse=Sehnsucht and God]
Concerning labels, I'd be classified as an agnostic apatheist [7]. I'm agnostic because I presently lack knowledge of actually extant god-concepts, and I'm apatheist because not only to I lack belief in the existence of god-concepts, but I find that things that cannot impact, affect, or influence my experience to not be worth taking into account in my quotidian decision-making.
In other words, it isn't practical to seriously think about, or consider the existence of god-concepts if I can't or don't perceive their influence on my experience. God-concepts, then, become as relevant to my life as the Bleeps of planet Blorp. Why ponder the implication the Bleeps have on my life if their influence (let alone their existence) cannot be ascertained, or quantified?
Thus far, I've had no firsthand experiences (no visions or epiphanies or so forth), or direct observation of god-concepts and related phenomena. And secondhand sources—exposure to information—has yet to offer compelling reasons to shift my view of things; thus far, I find non-theistic frameworks to be more compelling, more aligned with my perceived experience, and more fascinating (a less relevant point, admittedly) than theistic models.
But I do strive to be reasonable and open-minded [8], so if new information comes to light, I'd do as any rational person would—assimilate the information and alter your understanding accordingly. Which leads us to the questions to be discussed shortly.
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And now, definitions (gotta love 'em):
[collapse=Sehnsucht's Definitions]
-God
--A self-aware consciousness consisting of spiritual substance, and who caused our present space-time.
-Belief
--The state of accepting a proposition as being true or probably true.
-Knowledge
--Awareness of a discrete quantity of information.
-Material Substance
--The ontic substance manifest in our space-time (the stuff of matter, energy, forces, fields, etc.).
-Spiritual Substance
--The ontic substance of "spirit-stuff" (whatever that may be).
-Ontic Medium
--The conceptual mechanism that would allow different ontic substances to interact with one another.
-Evidence
--Observable and/or measurable data signifying the existence of a thing.
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The OP inquires about sufficient evidence for any given god-concept, and for the Abrahamic God of Judeo-Christian theology in particular, so we'll address both questions.
In order for me to acknowledge the factual existence of any god-concept, there are two conditions:
-Direct authentication via the ontic medium, where the more information is imparted, the greater the apparent validity of the authentication;
-Determining that an occurrence in the material domain was divinely caused, either with absolute confirmation, or it being the most, if not the only, plausible explanation for the occurrence.
For the Abrahamic God in particular, sufficient evidence would include modified versions of the above two conditions, alongside a third:
-Direct authentification via the ontic medium, where the more information is imparted, the greater the apparent validity of the interlocutor being God;
-A divinely caused occurrence whose manifestation, and explanation, is accounted for in the Judeo-Christian Bible, and where such an explanation is the most, if not the only, plausible explanation for the occurrence;
-The advent of an eschatological scenario (End Times) whose manifestation and unfolding are accounted for in the Judeo-Christian Bible (e.g. Rapture, Tribulation, Antichrist, etc.).
If one or more of these conditions were to be satisfied, then I, Sehnsucht, would acknowledge the factual existence of God. Anything else would fall short of sufficient justification for acceptance of their objective existence (though there is the possibility that I could be persuaded to believe that God exists, without having sufficient evidence—which is the nature of belief, but I digress).
In a scenario where these conditions are met, I would both believe that God exists (accepting the truth in the proposition "God exists)" and know that God exists (being aware of the information pertaining to God's factual existence). There would be no faith in God, however, as faith, while conceptually tied to belief, has connotations of trust and hope despite the lack of sufficient assurances (e.g. I have faith that you'll succeed, even though I can't be sure you will).
There is one last line of questioning that emerges before we can conclude.
If I now know that God exists, what then?
Being aware of God's existence has no implications; it is information that exists in a vacuum. A tree's leaves are green, but what does that have to do with anything? It is simply a property of existence of which I am aware.
Simply knowing that God exists doesn't tell me what I should do with that information. Should I try to commune with God? Worship It? Ignore It? Oppose It?
These are questions to be tackled in the potential scenario in which God's existence comes to light. And that's after discussions concerning whether these conditions can or will ever be met.
But these are also questions that are best kept for another day.
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Thus ends my lengthy dissertation on evidence and God, as examined through the lens of ontic substances.
Having reached the end, the conclusion is that there are conditions through which evidence for God could manifest, thereby leading me to acknowledge and accept the existence of God; however, this acknowledgement, if it ever does manifest, tells me nothing as to how I might apply that information—how I might change my decision-making process, or the way that I live my life, in an existence where God is a factor/variable/etc.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. If there are questions, counterpoints, comments, or the pointing out of fallacies in my reasoning (or errors in my references to philosophical or scientific concepts), by all means share them. 8D
Lastly, here are the footnotes referenced throughout the text:
[collapse=Footnotes]
[1] I use the term “god-concept” as shorthand for “conceptions of supernatural entities”. Whether or not actual supernatural entities exist, conceptions of them do exist. So it’s more useful, practically speaking, to term such things as god-concepts, since the existence of such conceptions can presently be verified.
[2] Ontology is the metaphysical inquiry into the nature of being. Ontic is the adjective denoting objective properties proper to an entity, removed from perceived experience. So when I say ontic substance, for instance, I'm referring to the substance that comprises the fundamental nature of the given entity.
[3] A pantheist model, in which God and reality are synonymous, would fall under Substance Monism, since it’s all made of the same “stuff” (whether that stuff be material, cognitive, spiritual, or what have you). Panentheism would be dualist, since God would be more than material reality (meaning material substance is only one aspect of God).
[4] In Substance Monism, you have three possibilities for the nature of the one substance. There is Physicalism, in which the stuff of matter and energy and so forth is the fundamental substance, and all things (including mental phenomena) are derivative of it; there is Idealism, in which the stuff of thought, consciousness, and ideas is the fundamental substance, and all things (including physical phenomena) are derivative of it; and there is Neutral Monism, which holds that what we call the “physical” and what we call the “mental” are derivative of a shared underlying substance.
[5] In physics, a field is a quantity that has a value for every point in the system. Different values in the points of a gravitational field, for instance, determine the strength or weakness of gravitational effects. Each physical force manifests as a field that permeates space-time (which thus serves as the medium in which they exist and interact).
[6] Empiricism is an approach to inquiry, a methodology. Science as a practice is empirical. It isn't the only path to knowledge, but it's a very solid and thorough one (if done correctly). And for matters such as evidence and God, it's the most appropriate methodology to apply.
[7] Apatheism is basically a utilitarian flavour of atheism (apathy+atheism). Why live my life assuming god-concepts if I can't tell if they do or don't exist, nor know to what extent they influence my life?
[8] There is a definition that holds that open-mindedness is the capacity to entertain a thought without accepting it (which, incidentally, is the approach I've taken throughout this discourse, as you'll no doubt have noticed).
[/collapse]
I think the central issue concerning evidence for the actual existence of god-concepts [1] is the plurality of ontic [2] substances, and how they are supposed to interact.
First, an elaboration on the premise. Then, an examination of the consequences of different scenarios. And finally, addressing the thread topic proper—if there is such a thing as a God, how would evidence of Its existence manifest, and what such evidence would I, personally, deem compelling, persuasive, or convincing?
I should also preface all of this by stating that I'm not a philosopher; my understanding of these topics is the result of a few years of exposing myself to this stuff at the layman's level. As such, I suspect there will not be a single original thought in the sections below.
Also note that the symbols [X] are referrals to the Footnote section at the bottom of the post, which offer supplemental notes on the tagged concepts or passages.
In any case, let's begin with an overview of the problem:
[collapse=On the Plurality of Substances and their Interaction]
Most theistic models of reality [3] hold at minimum to Substance Dualism; there is the material (or "natural") and the spiritual (or "supernatural"). The body and the spirit. You could also have a model of triune substances (body, mind, spirit), in what would be substance pluralism.
Point being that these "substances" are each fundamental and distinct from one another, but interact and intersect with one another. All things are either of one substance or another. This is in contrast to Substance Monism, in which there is only one fundamental substance, and all things are expressions, or are derivative, of that substance [4].
The question, then, is how these substances interact. What is the mechanism that allows the material to interact with the spiritual (and vice-versa)? That allows the body to interact with the spirit or soul (and vice-versa)?
If the flesh is the puppet and the spirit the puppeteer, of what consist the strings? The substance of the strings can’t be purely material, nor purely spiritual; the strings must be of a different substance. But not of the same class; this substance must transcend all others, forming a medium that allows these ordinary ontic substances to interact. This medium would be like water, the solvent which allows these substances to react like chemical agents.
The next line of inquiry concerns the relationship between the given god-concept (which we’ll call God for simplicity), and this mechanism of interaction.
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[collapse=On God and the Mechanism]
For God to interact with the material substance, It would need a medium by which to do so. Let us call this the ontic medium.
If there is no ontic medium, then how does God—which we can broadly define as an entity consisting wholly of spiritual substance—interact with material substance?
Does God simply “will” things to be? If so, then how does this will propagate, or manifest "outside" of God? The exact methodology isn't the question. Whether God snaps Its fingers or collapses some quantum waveform, there must be a medium that bridges God Itself with whatever God is acting upon.
In a scenario of creatio ex nihilo (i.e. the act of creation with no prior material whatsoever), the only thing to exist by definition would be God, who then "poofs" all other things into being. So there would not be anything for God to act upon save Itself. Would this make God Itself the ontic medium that bridges substances? How can that be, if God is strictly of spiritual substance?
Or is what we call "spiritual" substance in fact synonymous with the ontic medium, meaning that "spirit" is the solvent in which material agents react with one another? The proverbial molecules of spirit that bond with matter, creating the human being (so as God is the great water, we are each a droplet).
Seems a coherent enough notion, on its own. But it raises another troublesome implication. How can a thing of one ontic substance create another kind of substance from whole cloth (as would be required in an ex nihilo model)? How does God, who is of the spirit, create the material, which is wholly not of the spirit by definition?
Is it God's omnipotence that allows such a feat? Omnipotence, as is usually defined, is the capacity of an agent to enact all things which are logically possible. Is it logically possible, then, for a thing of one ontic form to create wholesale an entirely different—and perhaps even diametrically inverse—category of ontic "stuff"? Is it logically possible for such an agent to perpetuate their will without a medium through which that will might perpetuate?
Are we to say that God created the medium as well? But how does the creation of that medium occur without a medium for the power of that creation to be perpetuated? Do we have a chain of infinite regression on our hands?
And if this ontic medium does exist, and does necessarily transcend any one substance, then would it not also transcend God, who is of the spiritual substance? If your definition of God holds that It is the ontological bedrock of All That Is, then we have a contradiction (and therefore, a problem).
And if God is the ontic medium itself, then It cannot be of the spirit also. To be both would be incoherent, as you have an entity that was at once the medium and one substance, but not all substances (like a being made out of space and electromagnetism, with gravity and nuclear forces as separate ontic substances).
It seems the preliminary case that there must necessarily be an ontic medium that transcends all substances, or they could otherwise never interact, nor one substance have influence over another. What this means for the nature and properties of God isn't wholly relevant to the inquiry at hand. Let us therefore grant the existence of this medium, and examine the further implications its existence would entail.
The very nature of interaction as a coherent concept demands a medium. For chemicals, the medium is a solvent or a volume (e.g. water); for the forces of nature (and human interaction), the medium is space-time [5]. For distinct ontic substances, the medium is… something even more fundamental.
Regardless of God’s properties and Its relation to our space and time (i.e. material reality), God would need an ontic medium to interact with the material. This would include performing miracles, which can be defined as all material occurrences whose causes are expressly supernatural.
However, I’d venture that God wouldn’t need an ontic medium to interact with one’s soul or spirit, since God and the soul would be of the same substance (i.e. the spiritual). God could “reach out” to a given soul, and thus be capable of delivering messages/visions/revelations/etc. without the need for an ontic medium.
With these factors in play, we can begin examining how evidence of God might manifest.
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[collapse=On Manifestations of Evidence]
We can define evidence as any data that can be measured or observed, and which serves as a sign that a given thing exists. Evidence that Bob exists would consist of measuring/observing Bob and his properties, and his interactions with the world (which would all lead to signal that Bob exists).
There are thus two avenues by which one might seek out, or obtain, evidence of God—the material and spiritual routes.
[collapse=THE MATERIAL SEARCH FOR GOD]
The immediate issue that surfaces in this scenario is that of an ontic "divide". So far as we know, you can’t build a machine out of matter to detect spirit-stuff. You could perhaps in theory create a device that could tap into the ontic medium itself, but even that seems a tenuous concept. So this doesn't seem a viable approach.
If we cannot detect God Itself directly using material means (which seems to be in concordance with the dualist framework of most theologies), then that leaves us with an indirect search, trying to infer God's existence by measuring Its interaction as Its spiritual self interfaces with the material.
Dark Matter, for instance, doesn't interact with electromagnetism, nor the nuclear forces; its existence is made known only through its interaction with gravitation. But unlike Dark Matter, God doesn't interact with the "material forces" as an innate property of Itself, which would make detecting instances of "divine interaction" difficult indeed.
So what's left? To wait until something "happens" that could be divinely caused? How might one distinguish something divinely caused, and something that was simply highly improbable (whose 0.01% chance of happening, happens to have manifested)?
Suppose we notice that the Andromeda Galaxy has shifted to the other side of the heavens overnight. Was this an Act of God? That would be one hypothesis, but other hypotheses would exist (e.g. advanced alien civilizations moving the galaxy; some singularly, complex material entity moving the galaxy; the galaxy moving due to highly improbable physical conditions; the galaxy moving due to common physical conditions we don't yet know about; etc.).
For such broad, general instances, it would be difficult to accept God as the most plausible hypothesis among all others. And suppose the act was of divine origin? As noted earlier, it would be beyond our capacity to detect this divine origin using the purely material means at our inquisitive disposal.
This means that, to infer God, divine acts must be so specific that they could not be attributed to any other cause. Thankfully, most theologies have very specific descriptions of god-concepts, their properties, and how they can (and do) interface with the material realm (and our own selves). So, for instance, if the Apocalypse of John as described in the New Testament happened word for word, beat for beat, in our own reality just as it reads on the page, then that might constitute sufficient evidence for the Abrahamic conception of God that is described in the Judeo-Christian Bible.
Nothing divinely caused on so conclusive or on so large a scale has so far been determined to have factually happened (to my knowledge). But if we grant that divinely caused instances do occur, then it may nonetheless be difficult to ascertain that divine proof (unless, again, the evidence is monumental).
If a man went about, proclaiming himself to be Kalki, the final avatar of Vishnu, here to herald the end of the epoch of Kali Yuga, how might one verify the truth of his identity? If he rode a white horse and wielded a sword of flame, would that be enough? If he were to perform public displays to showcase his power, would that be enough? How might one ascertain that these powers were of divine origin, and that this man isn't just a naturalist X-Man, or an alien with advanced technology (or a human or a time-traveller with advanced technology), masquerading as Kalki?
It thus seems that, to infer any manner of God, the interactions It has with the material must be so precise, so specific, that the only plausible explanation must reside in something of the spiritual substance having interfaced with matter. But that seems an extremely tall order for we humans to determine, so it doesn't appear that simple, mundane miracles or similar things would be enough; only an all-out eschatological shift in our experience of reality would be sufficient (and that won't happen until it does, so we can't currently use that as a measure to infer the existence of God).
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[collapse=THE SPIRITUAL SEARCH FOR GOD]
As the previous subsection assessed, finding God through material means seems either impossible, or way beyond our present capacity.
But God is of the spiritual substance, and in most theologies, we too, as humans, possess spiritual substance (the soul), which is conjoined to the body via the ontic medium. The material can interact with the material just fine, as is evident in our experience, so it is reasonable that the spiritual could interact with the spiritual just fine.
It must then be possible for God to interact directly with the soul of a given human—especially since God is defined as a conscious agent, and would thus be able to actively reach out to one's soul.
So if there is an ontic "channel" that links us to God, can we use that channel to verify the existence of God? Could we meditate, commune, pray, or project ourselves via this channel to perhaps glimpse at God, thereby gaining first-hand confirmation of Its existence? I suppose that would depend on the properties of the channel, the difficulty threshold of exploiting the channel, and whether God can be reached (or wants to be reached) via that channel. So it may be a viable method for inferring (or confirming) the existence of God, though only by first establishing the variables at play in such a system.
This seems to beg the question, however, as you'd have to affirm the existence of God as the foregone conclusion before you begin to search for It. We're supposed to start with nothing, and work our way up from scratch; that's the essence of investigation, the empirical way [6]. If you assume the conclusion of God before you begin the search, you will bias and compromise your methodology and the results thereby gained (which is also an issue that applies in the previous section about using "material" means to try and find God).
But let's suppose that this quibble of jumping the gun doesn't matter. God is a hypothesis, and we're just trying to examine its legitimacy.
So, if the channel is two-way, it would be possible for God to reach out to our soul, and communicate with us directly (assuming the "soul" is synonymous with—or at least linked to—our consciousness/mind). Through the common denominator of the spiritual substance, God could impart upon one soul (or many) visions, impressions, sensations, thoughts, speech, and/or whatever else.
The obstacle in this case is authentication. How can one determine that it is God that is communicating, and that it isn't one's own self or some other entity? We know from psychology and neurology that the mind can be unreliable as a tool for assessing the veracity of experience, what with such things as cognitive biases and falling prey to fallacious reasoning.
So, if some manner of entity communes with me, Sehnsucht, out of the blue, how might I determine the origin? How might I determine this origin to be divine, or of God? Obviously, if the entity just says that It's God, and I'm supposed to just take Its word for it, then there isn't much for me to go on.
Evidently, the most optimal approach would be to demonstrate how the interlocutor could be none other than God, by imparting spontaneous knowledge in our mind about God, revealing truths about oneself, and so on. But even so, it could be difficult to accept the authentication. What if I'm getting transmissions from an alien organism, filling me with notions of God and ontology and truths about existence, yet which are all fabrications the alien has devised?
I could believe the interlocutor to be God. But we aren't interested in belief. The topic at hand concerns evidence, and thereby, knowledge.
If we want assurances that the messenger is God and not some other entity (regardless of their ontic makeup), then the solution is simple—the more information God gives to authenticate Itself, the less doubt there can be that it's God, and so the probability that God is the speaker rises accordingly. The only way to be 100% certain that we're dealing with God, then, is if God reveals Itself 100%, in full, revealing all knowledge It possesses to dispel any possible doubts of Its identity.
With an omniscient entity, that might be problematic. Though there might be a solution, if we suppose that there is a threshold of sufficient information for the human brain that is required to be freed of all doubts as to the interlocutor being God (i.e. at one point, you exclaim "Alright, I get it! You're God!").
In examining this two-way ontic channel of spirit-stuff, it's looking pretty uncertain. We can't say any more about reaching out to God without knowing more about the properties of the channel itself and how it can be used by the human soul; and we can't truly be certain that God is reaching out to us unless God authenticates Itself with enough information to dispel all other candidates or causes for the sending of these messages (/revelations/imparted knowledge/etc.).
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There is also a third avenue worth touching, rooted not in empiricism, but in rationalism. Which is to say, inferring God not through experimentation and the accumulation of data, but through rational examination and reflection. Things such as logical or mathematical proofs of God, syllogisms and arguments that demonstrate that God—which is at minimum a consciousness of spiritual substance and the cause of material reality—must logically and/or necessarily exist, in order for our own material domain to exist, or have come to be.
But can such things count as evidence? If these logical or mathematical displays aren't corroborated by empirical fact, then how would they be more useful, or indicative of anything, than mere armchair speculation? Admittedly, I'm not confident in my understanding or knowledge of how such arguments are intended to be compelling, but it remains that, so far as the question of this thesis is concerned, we're trying to find evidence that God exists—so naturally, tangible and observable evidence of God is preferable to abstractions and derivations of purely logical constructs (which, I should note, can certainly be compelling, though less so than empirical confirmation).
In any case, this should cover all the ways in which evidence for God might conceivably manifest. We can now move on to what I would consider to be compelling evidence for the existence of God.
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[collapse=On Sufficient Proofs for the Existence of God]
Now, we turn to what it would take for me, Sehnsucht, to acknowledge the existence of God. But first, we must establish my own current stances, as well as reiterate the definitions established throughout this post.
[collapse=Sehnsucht and God]
Concerning labels, I'd be classified as an agnostic apatheist [7]. I'm agnostic because I presently lack knowledge of actually extant god-concepts, and I'm apatheist because not only to I lack belief in the existence of god-concepts, but I find that things that cannot impact, affect, or influence my experience to not be worth taking into account in my quotidian decision-making.
In other words, it isn't practical to seriously think about, or consider the existence of god-concepts if I can't or don't perceive their influence on my experience. God-concepts, then, become as relevant to my life as the Bleeps of planet Blorp. Why ponder the implication the Bleeps have on my life if their influence (let alone their existence) cannot be ascertained, or quantified?
Thus far, I've had no firsthand experiences (no visions or epiphanies or so forth), or direct observation of god-concepts and related phenomena. And secondhand sources—exposure to information—has yet to offer compelling reasons to shift my view of things; thus far, I find non-theistic frameworks to be more compelling, more aligned with my perceived experience, and more fascinating (a less relevant point, admittedly) than theistic models.
But I do strive to be reasonable and open-minded [8], so if new information comes to light, I'd do as any rational person would—assimilate the information and alter your understanding accordingly. Which leads us to the questions to be discussed shortly.
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And now, definitions (gotta love 'em):
[collapse=Sehnsucht's Definitions]
-God
--A self-aware consciousness consisting of spiritual substance, and who caused our present space-time.
-Belief
--The state of accepting a proposition as being true or probably true.
-Knowledge
--Awareness of a discrete quantity of information.
-Material Substance
--The ontic substance manifest in our space-time (the stuff of matter, energy, forces, fields, etc.).
-Spiritual Substance
--The ontic substance of "spirit-stuff" (whatever that may be).
-Ontic Medium
--The conceptual mechanism that would allow different ontic substances to interact with one another.
-Evidence
--Observable and/or measurable data signifying the existence of a thing.
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The OP inquires about sufficient evidence for any given god-concept, and for the Abrahamic God of Judeo-Christian theology in particular, so we'll address both questions.
In order for me to acknowledge the factual existence of any god-concept, there are two conditions:
-Direct authentication via the ontic medium, where the more information is imparted, the greater the apparent validity of the authentication;
-Determining that an occurrence in the material domain was divinely caused, either with absolute confirmation, or it being the most, if not the only, plausible explanation for the occurrence.
For the Abrahamic God in particular, sufficient evidence would include modified versions of the above two conditions, alongside a third:
-Direct authentification via the ontic medium, where the more information is imparted, the greater the apparent validity of the interlocutor being God;
-A divinely caused occurrence whose manifestation, and explanation, is accounted for in the Judeo-Christian Bible, and where such an explanation is the most, if not the only, plausible explanation for the occurrence;
-The advent of an eschatological scenario (End Times) whose manifestation and unfolding are accounted for in the Judeo-Christian Bible (e.g. Rapture, Tribulation, Antichrist, etc.).
If one or more of these conditions were to be satisfied, then I, Sehnsucht, would acknowledge the factual existence of God. Anything else would fall short of sufficient justification for acceptance of their objective existence (though there is the possibility that I could be persuaded to believe that God exists, without having sufficient evidence—which is the nature of belief, but I digress).
In a scenario where these conditions are met, I would both believe that God exists (accepting the truth in the proposition "God exists)" and know that God exists (being aware of the information pertaining to God's factual existence). There would be no faith in God, however, as faith, while conceptually tied to belief, has connotations of trust and hope despite the lack of sufficient assurances (e.g. I have faith that you'll succeed, even though I can't be sure you will).
There is one last line of questioning that emerges before we can conclude.
If I now know that God exists, what then?
Being aware of God's existence has no implications; it is information that exists in a vacuum. A tree's leaves are green, but what does that have to do with anything? It is simply a property of existence of which I am aware.
Simply knowing that God exists doesn't tell me what I should do with that information. Should I try to commune with God? Worship It? Ignore It? Oppose It?
These are questions to be tackled in the potential scenario in which God's existence comes to light. And that's after discussions concerning whether these conditions can or will ever be met.
But these are also questions that are best kept for another day.
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Thus ends my lengthy dissertation on evidence and God, as examined through the lens of ontic substances.
Having reached the end, the conclusion is that there are conditions through which evidence for God could manifest, thereby leading me to acknowledge and accept the existence of God; however, this acknowledgement, if it ever does manifest, tells me nothing as to how I might apply that information—how I might change my decision-making process, or the way that I live my life, in an existence where God is a factor/variable/etc.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. If there are questions, counterpoints, comments, or the pointing out of fallacies in my reasoning (or errors in my references to philosophical or scientific concepts), by all means share them. 8D
Lastly, here are the footnotes referenced throughout the text:
[collapse=Footnotes]
[1] I use the term “god-concept” as shorthand for “conceptions of supernatural entities”. Whether or not actual supernatural entities exist, conceptions of them do exist. So it’s more useful, practically speaking, to term such things as god-concepts, since the existence of such conceptions can presently be verified.
[2] Ontology is the metaphysical inquiry into the nature of being. Ontic is the adjective denoting objective properties proper to an entity, removed from perceived experience. So when I say ontic substance, for instance, I'm referring to the substance that comprises the fundamental nature of the given entity.
[3] A pantheist model, in which God and reality are synonymous, would fall under Substance Monism, since it’s all made of the same “stuff” (whether that stuff be material, cognitive, spiritual, or what have you). Panentheism would be dualist, since God would be more than material reality (meaning material substance is only one aspect of God).
[4] In Substance Monism, you have three possibilities for the nature of the one substance. There is Physicalism, in which the stuff of matter and energy and so forth is the fundamental substance, and all things (including mental phenomena) are derivative of it; there is Idealism, in which the stuff of thought, consciousness, and ideas is the fundamental substance, and all things (including physical phenomena) are derivative of it; and there is Neutral Monism, which holds that what we call the “physical” and what we call the “mental” are derivative of a shared underlying substance.
[5] In physics, a field is a quantity that has a value for every point in the system. Different values in the points of a gravitational field, for instance, determine the strength or weakness of gravitational effects. Each physical force manifests as a field that permeates space-time (which thus serves as the medium in which they exist and interact).
[6] Empiricism is an approach to inquiry, a methodology. Science as a practice is empirical. It isn't the only path to knowledge, but it's a very solid and thorough one (if done correctly). And for matters such as evidence and God, it's the most appropriate methodology to apply.
[7] Apatheism is basically a utilitarian flavour of atheism (apathy+atheism). Why live my life assuming god-concepts if I can't tell if they do or don't exist, nor know to what extent they influence my life?
[8] There is a definition that holds that open-mindedness is the capacity to entertain a thought without accepting it (which, incidentally, is the approach I've taken throughout this discourse, as you'll no doubt have noticed).
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