Let’s attempt the scientific method to prove or disprove the existence of deity. Science, particularly physics, often starts with a ‘thought experiment’- the application of logic and visualization to a question leading to a hypothesis. The next step is to determine what evidence would count as supportive followed by relevant observations and/or experiment. It concludes with an analysis as to whether the hypothesis is confirmed or refuted.
Consider Einstein’s theory of relativity which began as a thought experiment imagining the experience of being inside and outside a train moving at or near the speed of light. He visualized the consequences and developed equations which led to his theory of relativity and the equivalence of matter and energy. Empirical proof came from the gravitational effect on starlight detected during an eclipse and from the explosion of an atomic bomb.
Let’s apply this method to the question of why is there anything rather than nothing and the corollary, whether events in the universe trace back to a first event. Logic, in this case common sense, tells us something cannot come from nothing and no series of cause and effect goes back forever. We are led to the hypothesis that there must be some thing or things which did not come from nothing (i.e. had always existed) and directly or indirectly caused all subsequent events. Traditionally God is the singular designee.
Now what empirical evidence would confirm or refute this hypothesis? There appear to be three possibilities: (1) trace back the history of the universe to its origin, (2) identify a class of things that do not come from other things and also cause events, and (3) find indirect evidence of the thing or things which serve as the initiating and ever-existing cause.
The first leads us to the generally accepted big bang theory which postulates an infinitely small and dense singularity. This tends to substantiate the existence of God if the axiom that something cannot come from nothing is correct, unless the singularity had itself always existed. It seems curious however that an always existing singularity would “explode” into time hence effectively ceasing to exist.
The second is more difficult. We have no problem finding things which do not come from something else – a perfect circle, numbers such as 2 or π, natural laws, nothingness, darkness, etc. – but none seem to be causal in the usual sense. Most are ideas while the remainder are inert.
Thirdly, indirect substantiation is problematic. We have supposed evidence of this type for God – mystical experience, revelation, answers to prayer, miracles, and even the appearance of God (in at least two traditions –Hinduism and Christianity), but they are either subjective or suspect. It remains unclear or even impossible to specify what would count as proof of an experience of God as ever-existing and causative of the universe.
However the scientific argument against an ever-existing first cause depends on equally speculative mathematics describing the spontaneous appearance of the singularity due to quantum flux or the physicist leap to the multiverse. The position of science like that of theology appears irrefutable – that is no argument or evidence counts to their proponents as proof of the opposing position. My conclusion then is God cannot be demonstrated nor disproved definitively via argument or science. Agnosticism, and not atheism, seems to be the most rational position in the absence of faith or subjective warrants.
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1See post titled God – A Personal Synthesis Parts I-III, dated 3/18/19, 3/20/19, and 3/22, 19 on this site.
2 Paul Tillich’s notion of God.
“It is a perversion of language to assign any law as the efficient, operative cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent, for it is only the mode of according to which an agent proceeds; it implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the law does nothing, is nothing.” – William Paley, Natural Theology. 
We also may want to address miracles, revelation, and God’s appearance on Earth as mitigating factors that encourage prudent belief. Next time I will produce a narrative of both sides hoping to land on the most tenable position.
““Beyond all doubt the great purposivenesss present in the world compels us to think that there is a supreme cause of this purposiveness and one whose causality has an intelligence behind it. But this in no way entitles us to ascribe such intelligence to that cause.” – Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement 
“Whoever claims absolute teleological unity, saying that there is one purpose that every detail of the universe subserves, dogmatizes at his own risk” – William James, Pragmatism. 
It is from these conclusions that we will construct a synthesis of the surprisingly ineffable topic of teleology and meaning of reality and human life. Join me next time for the final discussion.
“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” – C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
“There is perhaps no more bewildering and controversial problem than the meaning of meaning.” – Ernest Cassirer, An Essay on Man.
exemplified by a college education with its many intangible benefits. Viability refers to the implicit assumption that its referent has the ability to fulfill its role. A flower needs to be large enough, last long enough, and have the necessary parts for pollination by an insect to be possible.
A final feature of meaning is the finding of relevance to some external entity or absolute standard. A newspaper review of a non-existent movie would fail to meet this criterion while a textbook of mathematics has meaning as demonstration of its abstract principles.
“The way that can be spoken of 
Japanese philosopher, Daisetz T. Suzuki, explains that Zen is a way of life, of seeing and of knowing by looking into one’s own nature. Truth is not found intellectually or gradually in the objectifying of the world, but rather intuitively or directly, through meditation and sudden enlightenment. Enlightenment comes from the ‘opening of a third eye’ leading to a sudden realization of one’s own nature, a moment of awakening or satori. It is the precipitous appreciation of the unity of all being – not an intellectual analysis, but an instantaneous grasping – a knowing all at once. Interestingly Suzuki tells us that from unity, Zen gleans a purposelessness and detachment from ‘teleological consciousness.’ Practical methods to achieve satori include the use of paradoxes, going beyond opposites, contradiction, exclamation, and silence. There is an emphasis on no mind. Obviously this approach is quite different, even antithetical to science and most Western philosophy.
Taoists also judge science as the wrong method to know reality. Western thinking depends on conventional signs and modes of communication, abstraction, and understanding one thing at a time, all unsuitable for grasping the universe where everything is happening at once – complexity that escapes analysis with abstract terms. Taoism deploys a different kind of knowledge, the direct understanding of a way of life which is based on intuition and ‘peripheral vision.’ The mind is used, but not forced; the Way is grasped by letting the mind go, a kind of unconsciousness or un-self-consciousness.
Dimensionality is another area where we are impaired. We experience reality in four dimensions (three spatial plus time). Stephen Hawking argues the anthropic view that two spatial dimensions would not allow life as we know it while more than three would lead to an intensity of gravity incompatible with our cosmos and with atomic structure, but still entertains up to 22 more dimensions (the others presumably very small) for the viability of string theory.3 While I lack the proficiency to argue the mathematics, I wonder if such an inconsistency reveals the deep imperfections of man’s knowledge of reality.
But I am haunted by humanity’s history of errors in reasoning such as: the near unanimous belief that man was created uniquely and distinct from other animals, misjudgment on the length of cosmic history, Ptolemaic astronomy, alchemy, physican use of bleeding to cure the ill, persecution of so-called “witches,” the classification of homosexuality as a mental disease until quite recently, and even contemporary people’s belief in astrology and UFOs. We can only guess what future men or alien life will think of our current “advanced” knowledge.
“Just as a physicist has to examine the telescope and galvanometer with which he is working; has to get a clear conception of what he can attain with them, and how they may deceive him; so, too, it seemed to me necessary to investigate likewise the capabilities of our power of thought.” – Hermann von Helmholtz
It seems unlikely survival to reproduce requires a brain able to invent calculus, understand cosmology, create an atomic bomb, or send a man to the moon. Putting aside speculation on whether a brain of this sophistication implies an intelligent creator, we must still recognize the limits of the human brain to discern every detail of how the universe works or why there is a universe at all. At some point, admitting this limit may lead us to conclude we simply are not be able to determine the origin of the universe or whether it was designed. More importantly once we concede any limit, then the magnitude of our ignorance is itself unlimited.
Similarly, we understand the world only within the realm of our five senses. Just as it is nearly impossible for someone born blind to understand sight and color or to someone born deaf, sound and music, we simply cannot comprehend the data of senses we lack which may be possible or even exist elsewhere. As Sir Arthur Eddington says, “So far as the broader characteristics are concerned, we see in Nature what we look for or are equipped to look for.”2 Even those senses we have are limited – consider the greater range of hearing and smell of a dog compared to a man. Tools such as the microscope or telescope expand our ability to process a greater range of a sense, but it is impossible to know whether they cover the majority or minority of what our biological sense organs miss.
