(April 17, 2015 at 6:54 pm)Nestor Wrote: Typically, when people speak about God, they speak about a being who acts within the Universe. That is an empirical entity because its relation to the empirical world results in effects that we can define and measure by the empirical method. The difficulty is in distinguishing unknown causes with miraculous ones. There seems to be no way in principle to know if a miracle has occurred, which is why all justification for belief in miracles must be fallacious. It amounts to an appeal to ignorance. Now, there are objects in existence that we may not be able to subject to verification, such as the application of certain mathematical propositions, or the existence of intelligent extraterrestrials, or the experiences of an individual's particular thoughts or sensations, but we are also under no obligation to agree that they exist in whatever sense the claimant means without sufficient logical and empirical demonstration, both of which are required to establish high degrees of certainty. God as an abstract entity that sort of ties up the loose ends of our cognitive deficiencies may be necessary in thought, but this is not the same as being necessary in nature, either as in the one that is external to us and through which our brain perceives objects or as in one external to the external world, i.e. the universe. So, if we should not expect any empirical evidence for God's existence, we also cannot judge the soundness of related propositions, and logical validity itself proves nothing.
It seems to me, that a theist might respond that God is able to act within the Universe and that the effects of God's actions can be experienced or observed, but that the God itself remains outside the realm of experience or observation. But again, I can't think of any rational justification for making the claim. The sole reason seems to be to absolve the claimant from having any burden of proof.
