Video Transcript: Lesson 26

Dr. Clouser - We are now to the end of our course. This is our last section, and  we're going to do an experiment to test belief in God. We're going to talk about  God as the self evident divinity belief, and I've already described that as hearing  God speak through His Word. There's a kind of metaphor in that. It doesn't  mean that auditorily we hear sounds and it's God speaking, it means the  message is conveyed to us, and self Evidently, the truth about God from God.  I've already argued in the in our last section session, that comparing belief in  God to the naturalist, that's what it's called, the philosophy and naturalist divinity  beliefs take that is some it's some aspect of the creation with some aspect of the universe in which we live that is the divine reality, ends up being in an intuition of their self of the self evidence of people who believe it, but it's one that has no  content and can't be tested. That's because we have no concept whatsoever of  anything as purely anything. We have no concept of anything as purely  mathematical, purely spatial, purely physical, purely sensory or purely logical.  There's just nothing left for when you try to take take that out of its context and  its ties to all the other kinds of properties and laws. So now we're going to talk  about belief in God. I've already suggested some ways that's testable, that  natural divinity beliefs are not testable. But I'm going to talk about it in relation to  somebody who doesn't believe. The comparison here is somebody who doesn't  already believe in God says, Well, I never had that experience, so I don't believe in God. Of course, that's right, you never had it, or you would. But what about  that experience? What could we do to help someone have it, or at least test for it to see that they'll consider it? And I think here we need to draw a comparison  between what we what we should do for a person like that, and what we would  do if we were teaching geometry, and we came to the axiom things equal to the  same thing or equal to each other, and a student said, I don't see that as true.  That doesn't look self evident to me. In fact, it looks to me like there's something wrong with it. Okay. What? How would we help that person? We can't construct  the proof of the axiom. Axioms are true, so basically they don't need proof. But  of course, the other part is we can't even conceive of what a proof would look  like for them. Okay, what would we do? It seems to me that there are three or so ways that we could try to get this across, or help the student to see for him or  herself that this is an axiom. First, we would try to show the person what to look  for, look for problems that arise in this way. And can you see that this really  follows? But then we need the axiom to get there and things like that. This  course has tried to do that with belief in God, by directing your attention away  from the proofs to experience and experience of self evidence. We try to show  them what to look for. That's number one, it seems to me, we try to get the  person to participate with others in using the axiom, come to geometry class.  See how it's used. See how useful it is. That's not true because it's useful, but  I'm saying it's useful suggests as it's true. And see people struggle without it,  and whereas it does something nicely avoids the struggle and the next thing that

we could do is provide some broader intellectual framework into which this fits  and seems to make sense. And of course, in that case, it's the whole of  geometry into which it fits and makes sense. And I think those things are the  same thing that we ought to do with someone who doesn't see that God is the  one true divinity. But we can ask them then to we can show them what to look  for, and the first thing would be to read the Scripture. I'd suggest starting with the Gospel of John to reading, give yourself a chance to see if a cluster of its  teaching strikes you as true and the truth about God from God, and if you're  taking it seriously, I'd suggest further that before each reading, you say aloud to  yourself God, if you're really there. Show me, that's not to get you. That's not  trying to jolly you into believing in God. It's purely hypothetical. It doesn't assume God's already there if you if you are there, show me, comparable to working with the axiom in a geometry class for belief in God, it would be to observe Christians worship. So you attend the worship of some Christian group or other, whatever  church that is not not as a participant, as an observer, and you you watch  ordinary folks struggle in trying to apply belief in God to their lives. And it gives  you a greater appreciation of just how that fits in and the role that it plays, and  finally, giving it a broader intellectual framework is what we usually think of as  theology. And after you've read in the scripture for a while, it might be a good  idea to try a theology. People have been helped for a long time by theology such as St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Luther or Calvin or in this last century,  Karl Barth. And there's something I want to say about trying a theology. It's not  fun reading. It's not beach reading, but it's worthwhile. And I'm reminded of the  words that George Mavodes wrote about it in his book belief in God theology,  Mavodes says, might seem a cumbersome apparatus, and in fact, we may not  need it all at once. It may also seem singularly ill supported. But if some part of it makes contact with some element in our experience, so that each illumines the  other, then we may take a new interest in that theology. And if it goes beyond  this and serves to light up broad ranges of our experience, so that we begin to  see some kind of sense in our lives, then perhaps we'll be more than interested.  More importantly, if the terms and doctrines provide us with a clue as to how to  respond to all of this, and if, as we try that response, we find our experience  continuing to make sense, then we're liable to say that the theology was a true  one, and also that we've heard God speaking to us. So the way you approach  the  

Bob Zomermaand - Could you summarize that for me? Again, I thought that  was very interesting. Just give it a gist of it again.  

Dr. Clouser - Yeah, the three things we try to do for the person who doesn't see  the axiom. First of all, show what to look for, yeah. And that's not a proof of the  axiom, because there is going to be it, yeah, but to see it operating, see it in 

practice. So that's the second part, get the person to use it participate in a  geometry class, even though the person doesn't see it as true. And finally, the  third thing would be to provide a broader conceptual framework into which this  fits. Well, that's the whole of geometry, and we see how impoverished geometry  would be without it, and how much it makes sense that it's in there. That's that  recommends it, again, as as an axiom. And I'm saying that the person who  doesn't see belief in God to be the true divinity, belief needs to make an  experiment. The experiment is first, and this is guiding them as to what to look  for. Don't look for proof or proofs and so on. Don't start with theology, but, but to  look for the word of God itself, or what claims to be the word of God itself. And I  suggest to John, because that seems to have been written for the purpose of  presenting the gospel to people. You know, the book ends with words. Jesus did a lot of other things and said a lot of others. And they're not all here, by any  means, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah,  and by believing have life through His name, so it has that purpose that's  showing the person what to look for, then what corresponds to getting the  person seeing it in use is just to observe Christians doing that here, here to  worship. See what they struggle with. They're ordinary people. They're not  perfect. They get things wrong. They agonize over how to apply this or that. You  need to see that, because that's part of the part of the consequence of belief in  God. And finally, the business about providing a broader conceptual framework  into which this belief would be integrated, and that broader conceptual  framework has traditionally been called theology. That's the common  commentary on the Scripture, trying to put the doctrines together in a way that  shows their relationship to one another. And so Mavodes admits that might  seem cumbersome. In other words, it isn't fun reading to begin with, and we may not need it all at once, but if some part of it makes contact with some element of  our experience, then we begin to see that how it fits into the whole and he ends  by saying, if the doctrines provide us a clue as to how to respond, and if, in  making that response, we find our experience continuing to make sense, I would have said more sense than without it, then we are likely to say that the theology  is true and that we've heard God speak. Which is pretty profound, yes, yeah, but that's the most common experience among believers in God, that there is  encountering the written record of God's dealings with humans and finding that  they meet God in that encounter than by just by the reading and being open to  its being, possibly being from God and being the way you find God. We don't  assume that that's true to begin with, but it has to be at least possible. You  would have to admit that it is at least possible in order for that experiment in faith to make any sense. And you wouldn't try it if you didn't think it was at least  possible. But if it's not, if you think it's not even possible, that it's right. I'd love to  hear your reasons. I don't know of any argument showed isn't even possible.  That doesn't beg the question, yeah. So this is, this is the way I would 

recommend somebody go forward. If this isn't just a course to satisfy curiosity. If  you're really interested for yourself and you don't already believe in God, this is  what I'd suggest you try. And you may try it and say, Well, God didn't speak to  me. I didn't hear anything. And then you won't believe it. That's right, but if you  do, you'll have discovered the greatest love that's possible for a human being to  know about and to experience. It's well worth trying. And by the way, if you say,  Okay, I can't prove that belief in God is false, but I'm not going to try that  anyway, then it puts you in a position like someone who says to me, oh, there's  no decent art in that museum down the street. And I say, Well, I was down there  and I saw a lot of great stuff. Nah, I know that's not right. Have you been there?  No, oh, well, the person that denies that and hasn't been there is in no position  to make the denial if you haven't tried this, you have no grounds for saying your  belief in God is is the correct one, and you're going to remain recalcitrant. You're not entitled to that belief. It's not justified, because you haven't even gone and  done what could be done to find out if it's true.  

Bob Zomermaand - So are you? Are you suggesting that one of the and  because I think I heard you say this before that, with all kinds of things, we're  testing them out every day. Sure. So this is another aspect of well, be true to  yourself and test it out. Yes, because this is what God made us really to be, it is  to be people who who discover things right and and we should test things out.  Now, when you sat on that chair, I think maybe the first time, you wanted to  make sure that it wasn't going to fall down, but after you have tested it out.  You're comfortable with sitting down there without having to test that over again,  right? And you're saying to someone else, it's similar to the thing with with  believing in God that if you've never tested it, you really should give yourself  okay,  

Dr. Clouser - I can make an even stronger point if you haven't tested it, you're  not intellectually entitled to your disbelief. Okay? Because you haven't even  done what could be done to check it, and you won't check it. You just say, No,  it's wrong, and I get away from me with that stuff. Okay, then, but then you can  do that. But you're you're not in a position. You're in a poor epistemological  position, right with respect to knowledge, you haven't done what could have  been done to find out, and so your denial just is unjustified. If you go down and  my analogy was, look in the museum, the guy said I found great art, and the  other guy says, No, I know there's nothing down there worthwhile. Well, he  doesn't know that, because he hasn't been there, and he could easily go and  look one of these not entitled to his disbelief. He even persisted it, but he is  entitled to it. Yeah, yeah, it's unjustified. So that's that was the where I left things in the end, that's the ultimate appeal. I am not trying to jolly anyone into  anything. I don't want to see anybody confess belief in God, but not really see it 

to be truth. That's not what we're looking for at all. And that's not what the  Gospels are looking at looking for either. Yeah. So that's my there's an  experiment in thought about the about other, the naturalist, divinity, proposals for divinity. And then there's an experiment that we can make to test out belief in  God.  

Bob Zomermaand - And I think that's a worthwhile say way to put it, that this is  experiment you need to because experiments take if I. If I say it right? Yeah, you hypothesize something, but then you do various actions in order to determine  whether your hypothesis.  

Dr. Clouser - We test hypotheses. That's right. And this isn't exactly the same,  but it's analogous. We don't test God's existence as though that's a hypothesis,  that it's a guess that originated with us, originates with God down, tied to  humans, but, but we do test it all the same in our lives, and we do it all the time.  I think Believers do that all, at least every day. Yeah, most of them, anyway. But  yeah, it's the appeal is experiential, and not to treat it as a theory and not to look for proofs and so on. Yeah, just repeating myself here, yeah. I think that's the  essential point,  

Bob Zomermaand - the and then the essence of that, then is, how can we know God is real? It's by experiencing by experiencing God,  

Dr. Clouser - that's right.