The following letter was published in the February 21st edition of The New York Review of Books in response to several previously published letters from academics of scientific or positivist disposition seemingly ignorant of the history and philosophical background to the discussion of God’s existence. What has happened to general education in American universities ?

To the Editors :
I find it odd that the recent correspondence in The New York Review concerning the existence/non-existence of God has been conducted as if this subject were something new. [Letters, November 8, 2012, December 6, 2012, and January 10, 2013]. For proof of His existence ESP and individual cosmic sentiments or intuition (sensus divinitatis) have been proposed, and the existence of evil is cited as evidence of His non-existence (which has been an argument in Western philosophy since the time of Socrates).

Surely no scientific demonstration of God’s existence is available, the evidence in the matter being (literally) infinite and therefore invulnerable to scientific generalization. Nor, for the same reason, is God’s non-existence scientifically provable. In modern terms, the proposition that God exists can neither be scientifically demonstrated nor falsified.

The existence of God has never been held to be demonstrable other than by philosophical reasoning, as remains the case today. The claim that God exists rests on a different category of knowledge from that of science: philosophical reason -- which is indifferent to the inability of science to explain the existence of the universe. Philosophy makes no claim to offer an irrefutable validation of religion’s essential claims, has no expectation of doing this in the future, and does not consider that it needs to do so.

Philosophical discourse is capable of logical persuasion but not the material proof of abstract propositions. Theology, which rests on Biblical or prophetic “revelation,” describes the God who is presumed to exist, if He exists. But only philosophy responds to the essential human question, which is Leibniz’s: Why is there something rather than nothing?

The equivalent question as posed by Aquinas is that of the Uncaused Cause. Neither science nor philosophy has adequately answered, and I would think never will. However this is no surprise since the questions themselves are indirect affirmation of God’s existence.

One should read the late Leszek Kolakowski’s splendid little book, Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? (2007) which takes Leibniz’s question as its title, and dispassionately examines Leibniz’s discussion, as well as the responses offered to twenty-two of the other fundamental questions of human (or divine) existence by the major philosophers of Western Civilization, from the Greeks to the twentieth century.

William Pfaff

This rubric, Asides, will include observations and informal comments by William Pfaff that do not seem to merit formal treatment in articles and publications but may interest readers of this web-site.


AN ASIDE --
ON THE MID-TERM U.S. ELECTIONS:

November 4, 2010 -- Barack Obama responded to his defeat as if he had failed some objective test with his programs. "We haven't made enough progress on the economy." That says that his programs were right, but were blocked by the Republicans -- who now, as a result of thwarting his policies, have been awarded control of the House of Representatives.
Why should he apologize? I would think this puts him in an advantageous position where he can demand that the Republicans and the Tea Partyists unite -- if they can, which may be doubted -- on new programs that will give the voting public what it wants (like shutting down the government, as the Republicans did the last time they were in this situation -- a great idea at the time, which caused them to lose the next national election). Let the president stop the apologies, use his veto to protect his own achievements, such as the expanded health program, and await the opposition fiasco, which he cannot prevent.
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