DAY 348
CHALLENGE
“Belief in God is unscientific.”
DEFENSE
This challenge can mean different things, but none show that God does not exist or that it is unreasonable to believe in him.
The statement that something is “unscientific” can mean different things. Taken in the most charitable sense, it would mean that the methodology used by science (i.e., scientific method) cannot establish the existence of God.
Although this view is widely held among both scientists and theologians, it is not clear that this is the case. The scientific method involves proposing an explanation based on observed data, figuring out what the explanation would predict, and then seeing if this prediction is verified or falsified.
To apply the scientific method to God, one would need to specify what the existence of God would mean, make a prediction, and then see if the prediction is verified or falsified. It is not clear that this can- not be done. It is true that God cannot be directly observed, but this is also true of many entities considered established by science. For example, electrons are invisible entities that we have no direct means of observing, yet they are considered well established by scientific means.
It may be that some traditional arguments for God’s existence—or new arguments—can be framed in a way provable by scientific method. If so, the existence of God would be scientifically verifiable.
However, suppose that this is not the case. This would in no way rule out proof for the existence of God. It would merely mean that the scientific method could not be used to do so. His existence could be proved by other means.
The ideas proposed by mathematics and philosophy are supported by means other than the scientific method. You don’t have to do ob- servational experiments to construct a mathematical proof or to verify “I think, therefore I am.” In the same way, one could use means other than the scientific method to show that God exists.
Of course, one could be using the term “unscientific” as a slur against anything not susceptible to proof by the scientific method, but then the word would simply be an insult and would not stop fields like mathematics, philosophy, or theology from using their own methods to prove things—including the existence of God.