Proof of God

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm pretty hip to God, but arguments along various lines-cosmological, ontological, first cause, and so on-have been running for centuries with no positive results.

Maybe that’s because rust never sleeps. The same objections keep reoccurring because the people of today only see the ontological arguments from within the framework of modern analytic philosophy. For example, Anslem’s proof makes no sense on its own. It only becomes compelling within the Scholastic tradition. Scholasticism distinguishes between the mental conception of a thing and imagination of the same. Likewise for Aquinas’s 5 ways. Their effectiveness rests on a nuanced view of causation that has been lost since the time of Descartes

I propose that we accept God without proof. Perhaps based on the age-old prevalence of religious beliefs… I accept that religious belief is a response to something real. However, I'm not foolish enough to think this constitutes an existence proof.

I understand your position and respectfully disagree. Belief in God cannot be separated from beliefs about God’s nature. The ‘age-old prevalence of religious belief’ does not represent a monolithic understanding of what constitutes the Divine. Different cultures could be responding to various unrelated things. In particular, Christianity cannot be separated from its historicity. To paraphrase St. Paul, either Jesus rose from the dead or He didn’t. The identity and nature of Deity is highly specific in Christianity and that distinguishes it from the other religions.

---

Show me one thing that supports the notion of a god, that cannot be explained by more mundane things which might themselves need explanation, that doesn't have its basis in crusty mythology. That's all I ask. The stone in my shoe is capable of proving its existence. Why can't a god?

Have you ever considered that the stone in your shoe is proof of God? Seriously. The bare fact that sensible bodies persist in their being while also being subject to change, the intelligibility of reality, and the human capacity to reason allows us to identify necessary truths.