4. Does God Exist?

4.1. How to Confirm the Existence of God

Before determining whether the statement "God exists, and if you repent and believe in Jesus, you will go to heaven" is true or false, the most critical issue that must be resolved is to confirm whether "God exists or not." If God does not exist, all these secondary debates become meaningless.

I will try to verify the existence of God through five systematic stages. The reason I want to approach this topic by dividing it into 'stages' is that without going through clear stages and a logical verification process, it is easy to end up with a wasteful debate full of too many sophistry.

The five stages are as follows:

1. Confirm the problems of atheist sophistry
2. Present the correct argumentation method to rationally prove the existence of God
3. Evidence for the existence of God - Cosmological argument based on deductive logic
4. Evidence for the existence of God - Inductive argument based on hypothesis testing
5. Confirm the actual evidence supporting the reality of God

4.2. The Sophistry of Atheists

What do you think is the reason why debates between atheism vs theism never end in a confrontational battle, despite presenting as much objective evidence as possible to each other?

The core reason is that there are errors in arguments and logic. Even if objective evidence is factual, if there are errors in the arguments and logic based on this evidence, the conclusion of the argument will be full of errors, right?

This is why endless debates are only produced between theism and atheism without reaching a rational conclusion.

Representative examples of incorrect logic claimed by the sophists are as follows:

• All phenomena and principles can be explained by human reason.
• Phenomena that cannot be explained scientifically are false.
• Phenomena that cannot be proven empirically are false.

The first logic is erroneous because human reason 'knows a lot' but does not 'know everything'. Of course, it is clear that we will be able to know more in the future, but there is no logical guarantee that we can know 'everything'.

The second logic is erroneous because phenomena that cannot be scientifically explained are clearly being 'scientifically observed' even now. We just don't know the reason.
These are the so-called 'supernatural phenomena' and 'mysteries'.

Of course, among these phenomena, there are many cases that stemmed from misunderstandings or mistakes, and there are clearly cases that have become scientifically explainable as science has developed.

However, there is naturally no guarantee that phenomena that have not yet been scientifically explained will 'definitely' be scientifically explained in the future. In addition, science has limitations in that it can only explain 'physical phenomena' and cannot explain non-physical properties.

The claim that non-physical phenomena are false because they cannot be scientifically explained contains a logical error. This claim may sound very 'scientific' at first glance, but it is actually very irrational.

The third logic is erroneous because there are clearly phenomena that we cannot empirically prove but can trust as fact based on rational grounds. For example, the following is a typical example of the atheist's forced argument:

Show me direct scientific evidence that God exists. How can you claim that God exists when there is no 'direct method' that can be scientifically proven? Prove the existence of God with physical equations that prove the process of God creating the universe, or with physical laws! Can't prove it? Then God does not exist!

Of course, there is indirect scientific evidence that God exists, and the details will be covered in detail in later posts, but there is no way to directly prove or demonstrate the process of God creating the entire universe with physical equations or to the extent that you can see or experience it with your own eyes.

No one would deny that World War II was a historical fact. However, there is no way to 'empirically' prove the truth of World War II, right? It's because it's impossible.

For example, let's assume someone says this:

World War II did not break out. There is no definitive evidence that World War II actually took place, right? We can't go back to 1940 in a time machine and directly confirm it with our own eyes, right?

We call people who make such claims crazy.

What is the problem with this logic? When it is impossible to verify the truth of a fact by a direct and empirical method, it is rational to verify it through other possible methods. However, forcibly demanding an impossible method and insisting that it is false if it cannot be proven is a complete forced argument.

Moreover, attempting to completely prove the existence of God purely through science is also a logical error. God is a being of a higher dimension than humans, the creator of science, and a non-material being.

Attempting to completely prove the entire properties of a being who created and transcends science, which is of a lower dimension than God, through the partial properties of science, which is nothing but a minuscule part, is a clear error because it is an attempt to prove a higher dimension through a lower dimension, to prove a being who transcends science through science, and to prove non-material properties through material properties.

How is it possible to prove a higher dimension through a lower dimension, and how is it possible to prove all the properties of a being who created and transcends science through science, which is nothing but a partial property? This is a clear logical error.

God does not exist because the existence of God cannot be completely proven scientifically

The above claim may seem very rational and reasonable at first glance, but it actually contains very illogical and irrational errors.

4.3. How to Rationally Prove the Existence of God

Then, what is the rational way to verify the existence of God?

If God exists, since God created humans and science, God's reason surpasses human reason, and God's ability goes beyond the limits of science. From this perspective, it is not strange but rather very normal that 'a complete deductive, logical confirmation of the perfect reality of God' is impossible with limited human reason.

The epistemological, empirical, and scientific methodologies used by humans to determine the truth of a fact are no different from the methodologies used in general social sciences and natural sciences.

The rational and reasonable methodology for determining the 'truth' of an event, fact, or object can be divided into deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning based on hypothesis setting, and additional confirmation based on evidence supporting the existence of God.

Evidence for the Existence of God (Deductive Method)

The first way to discuss the existence of God is through deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning begins with premises that are so self-evident to be considered 'true' without requiring 'proof', that is, 'axioms', and obtains additional truths through a logical derivation process (generally syllogism).

For example, let's assume there is an axiom that 'if you work hard and put in effort, you will be rewarded'. And let's assume that I worked hard and put in effort.

If the axiom that hard work and effort will be rewarded is true and I worked hard and put in effort, we can derive the logic that I will be rewarded. If the premise is a true axiom and there is no problem with the logical derivation process, we can know that the derived logic 'I will be rewarded' is also true.

The existence of God can also be confirmed through the deductive reasoning process. The axioms that serve as the premise are 'everything that began to exist has a cause'. How these seemingly vague and ambiguous axioms are related to the existence of God will be explained in detail below.

Evidence for the Existence of God (Inductive Method)

The second way to discuss the existence of God is through inductive argument. The inductive method is a method of inferring by collecting various information and evidence and discovering their common properties. As a standard methodology widely used to verify or confirm the truth of a fact, probabilistic inductive argument based on hypothesis setting is used.

I will explain this concept of inductive argument based on hypothesis setting with an easy example later.

Empirical Evidence Supporting the Reality of God

The last verification method is empirical evidence supporting the existence of God. Generally, a hypothesis supported by both deductive and inductive methods can be strongly confirmed as 'true'.

The reason I added the element of empirical evidence is that the being of 'God' itself transcends the limits of human reason, so it may feel like a speculative and empty product of reason. Even if we confirm the existence of God through deductive and inductive methods, it feels too vague if we have no way to actually feel it.

Therefore, if the unique God claimed by Christianity truly exists, there must be a means for that omniscient and omnipotent divine being to reveal its existence directly in our human life and for us to experience, feel, and verify it to some extent, proving that it is not just an 'illusion' created in the process of human reason and logical thinking.

Even if we found deductive evidence and inductive evidence for the existence of God, let's say we reached the conclusion that 'something like a God' exists somewhere. However, if God does not allow humans to experience His attributes and possibility of existence even partially, we cannot feel the reality of that God.

If that God truly exists, He must show us the following concrete evidence:

I actually exist. And I have directly intervened in your lives so that you can experience that I really exist. Also, I have actually shown you and am always showing you various things that are impossible without God.

Through these three verification processes, although we cannot obtain a complete logical 'confirmation' of the existence of God due to the limitations of our reason, there is no problem in obtaining a sufficiently rational and strong belief in the actual existence of God.

My answer to the forced logic that 'the existence of God cannot be 100% confirmed by human reason, science, and logic, so if it cannot be confirmed by such methods, God does not exist' is as follows:

Before asking, please understand what the illogical errors and sophistry attached to the premise of that question are.

If you are a rational intellectual, you should not adhere to absurd forced arguments, but should coolly face and acknowledge the limitations of human reason and methodology, and apply rational verification methods and accept the results within the range permitted by that method.

The introduction was long. Now, let's take a closer look at whether God really exists step by step.