Does it make a difference?

When it comes to the philosophical questions we pose here a popular claim is that there really is no evidence that we can gather to answer them. This is an especially popular reaction to the question: Is there a God? But, let's think about this for a moment.


Let's suppose that there is no evidence of any kind to count either for or against the question of God's existence. Then whether God exists turns out to be true or false is not a matter of how things are in the world. The claim that God exists is simply a claim about how the person who believes feels. Likewise, the claim that God doesn't exist is simply a claim about how the person who does not believe feels. Is this really what you want to maintain when it comes to this question? To the believers we could ask: Do you mean to say that your claim that God exists has no bearing on how things are in the world? If you don't believe there is evidence then you must answer this question yes. However, if you think that God's existence makes some difference to the world and how it works then you have to concede that evidence is relevant to answering the question.


Why is this such a hard thing to concede? I believe it is because recognizing the relevance of evidence means that you have to recognize the relevance of all the available evidence not just the evidence that validates your position. This involves risk.


It is easy for most believers to cite some evidence for their belief; personal experiences, miracles, the complexity of the world. What is more difficult is to evaluate this evidence in light of good standards of critical thinking. Indeed, there are problems with citing personal experiences or miracles as evidence and we can discuss these in later posts. The notion of the complexity of the world has been discussed in many forms but essentially comes down to one form or another of the teleological (or design) argument which we can also discuss in later posts.


The point to make here is simply that if God's existence matters, if God's existence makes a difference in the world then evidence has to be relevant to the question and that evidence exists. Our goal here is to find the evidence and evaluate it. As Bertrand Russell once said "what we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out."