Proofs of God

 

First a thank you to everyone here - and I mean everyone - for all being part of an online community that offers support, gives support, and for me a safe haven for my waffling. I do find it therapeutic. As is often said, we are all unique individuals and it seems to follow that the less judgement we have of others the better. Judgement has to morph into mercy. Unique individuals must find communion with others.

That said, this thread has run its course for me. I barely understand many of the "proofs" offered here for the existence of God. A great many of the great theologians and philosophers state (and I think, correctly) that "God" cannot "exist" in the same way that we exist. "God" is the ground, in Whom - as the Bible says - we live and move and have our being. The Hidden Ground of Love. There will be no time, ever, where we will stand here and God will stand there, opposite. That is not the way it is, and will never be.

The "proofs" offered here seem to presuppose some sort of "external" Being beyond the heavens, no matter what is presumed. My own leanings are towards individual expressions, testimonies. Ways of grasping our own "being" that acknowledge meaning, significance - even grace, love, compassion. In spite of everything.

Elie Weisel lost his entire family in the holocaust, including his younger sister, just six. Turned into cinders and smoke just a few hours after their arrival at Auschwitz. His telling of this in his autobiography "All Rivers Run to the Sea" is heart-rending. Yet from the ashes Elie Weisel has spoken of his own faith:-

We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.​

And more, he writes:-

For me, every hour is grace.​

Therefore, out of darkness light shall shine. And as Albert Camus has said:-

No matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.

There is a story recounted of a group of Rabbi's in one of the Concentration Camps who decided to put God on trial. Each put forward their arguments, based upon and supported by the sheer suffering they saw each day around them. Finally, the verdict - no, God could not exist. At this moment a bell tolled. The Rabbi's recognised that it was time for prayer. They bowed and prayed.

As per my Wittgenstein thread, there is much - if not everything - beyond logic. In the end, we are what we understand.

Anyway, not time for prayer, time for finishing up my coffee and getting some shopping.