It is famously (or perhaps infamously) known as Hitchens’ Razor. “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” As a simplified or condensed version of the epistemological principle of Justified True Belief, Hitchens’ Razor is an advantageous admonition for anyone engaged in critical thinking. However, skeptics and critics of faith frequently employ Hitchens’ Razor to argue that religious claims lack any supporting evidence. As such, any claims about the existence of God can be summarily dismissed.
In this essay, I will argue that there is indeed evidence for many of the claims made within the Judeo-Christian tradition. Moreover, it will be apparent that Hitchens’ Razor is used by atheists to avoid engaging with the arguments for God.
To do so, I will explore what Catholicism means by God, the various types of evidence, and how the evidence supports the existence of God. First, however, it is beneficial to address the fundamental error atheists commit in their assessment of religious claims.
Scientism
Scientism is a rather prevalent category error of our time. Epistemologically, scientism seeks to extend scientific ideas, methods, practices, and attitudes to matters of social, religious, and political concern. Said differently, scientism claims that the only valid source of human knowledge is scientific.
For the most part, scientism has its roots in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment Period (circa 1543-1815). Prior to that, science was understood as one branch on the epistemological tree.
Additional branches included metaphysics (being, reality), ethics (morality, values), epistemology (nature of knowledge), logic (reasoning), and philosophy of mind (consciousness). (Aristotle. Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. 1850). In turn, these branches of knowledge sprang from the tree that combined Judeo-Christian scripture and ancient Greek philosophy.
Scientism ultimately advocates for rejecting all of these forms of knowledge if they cannot be falsified scientifically. Ironically, its proponents do not recognize the inherent self-contradiction of scientism: the claim that all knowledge is reducible to science and the scientific method is itself not falsifiable scientifically.
Suffice it to say that not everything can or should be reduced to science. One such thing is God.
Who Is God?
The fundamental reason why the question of God’s existence is not entirely reducible to science is also a clue to who God is. God is not a being or cause in the universe. Rather, God is being itself (ipsum esse subsistens). It follows, therefore, that God is both ontologically and epistemologically prior to science. To ask for scientific evidence is akin to asking for a physical sample of the laws of logic.
In following much of Western philosophy, Catholicism asserts that God is the uncaused cause of existence. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 234). This can be explained by bringing together two philosophical terms: essence and existence. Essence is what a thing is, and existence is the actualization of an essence. Created beings are a composite of both essence and existence. However, it is possible to separate these two aspects. For example, we can speak of the essence of a unicorn (what a unicorn is), without admitting the existence of such a creature.
God’s essence, however, is to exist. Owing to God’s simplicity, His essence cannot be separated from His existence. Another way of saying this is that God exists necessarily. Moreover, as a being whose essence is existence, God must be the first source from which all other beings derive their existence.
So far, so abstract, but what evidence is there that God actually does exist?
Types Of Evidence
Evidence is generally any body of knowledge that either corroborates or refutes a proposition. In this case, the proposition is that God exists. The term ‘evidence’ is generally used in a legal or scientific sense. Obviously, questions about God are not of the legal sort, but is the existence of God a scientific problem?
If science is the study of the natural world, and if God, by definition, transcends the natural world, then it is evident that science cannot adjudicate the question of God’s existence. (The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Open Road Media, 2014). Still, it must not be argued that science cannot provide inferential evidence for God. So, what kind of evidence can one examine when seeking to determine the existence of God?
Two categories figure predominantly for this end. The first category is philosophical. In turn, there are numerous types of philosophical proofs. However, in light of the nature of this enquiry, it is advantageous to reduce the type of evidence to three sub-categories: empirical, conceptual, and methodological.
Empirical evidence has corollaries in the sciences, in that it is derived from the senses or scientific methods. Empirical evidence for God generally comes under the umbrella of natural theology. Natural theology holds that human beings are capable of recognizing God’s existence and, in a limited way, understanding God’s nature. The reason this is possible is the presupposition that God has disclosed Himself in and through the natural world through what is called general revelation.
Examples of evidence gleaned from general revelation include science (the Big Bang and the fine-tuning of the universe), morality (the existence of objective moral claims), and the complexity of life (which suggests an underlying teleology that purely random processes struggle to account for).
The second form of evidence is conceptual. This type of evidence includes logical deduction and inference, as well as a priori knowledge, such as that in mathematics. (Wang, Hao. A Logical Journey. Bradford Books, 1996). A syllogistic argument for the existence of God would be a form of the cosmological argument: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
The third form of evidence is methodological. Under the methodological framework, historical claims such as the existence of Jesus of Nazareth and the Resurrection are considered. Here, too, one may include anthropological evidence. The fact that every known culture has engaged in religious practices suggests that humans are endowed with an innate sense of the transcendent.
As in mathematics, not all knowledge is a posteriori. This leads to the second category of evidence: special revelation.
How Can God Be Found?
In a very real sense, God can only be “found” because He has revealed Himself in history. As shown above, what is called general revelation is a matter of natural theology.
In addition to general revelation, there is special revelation. Special revelation refers to events such as miracles, dreams, visions, angels, divine speech to individuals (Moses, prophets), and ultimately, the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Catholicism asserts that special revelation discloses aspects of God that cannot be known by reason alone, thereby distinguishing it from general revelation.
It may be argued that special revelation incurs the fallacy of circular logic; it seems to presuppose the thing it is supposed to prove, the existence of God. However, if the books of the Bible are analyzed as historical records, then the accounts of miracles and prophecies, along with the historical reliability of the witnesses, must be judged by the historical-critical method.
Nor do I wish to imply that special revelation requires a ‘blind leap’ on the part of the individual. Rather, special revelation is supported by motives of credibility – such as the historical consistency of the biblical narrative, the endurance of the Church, and the testimony of miracles. In a sense, the motives of credibility serve as external signposts suggesting that revelation is a communication from a source beyond human invention, rather than a self-contained, circular claim.
Conclusion
It must be admitted that none of the above arguments for God’s existence rises to the level of deductive certainty. Still, as any adult knows, many aspects of life are not certain. We cannot predict with certainty things like human behavior, the weather, what, if any, purpose does life have, what happens when we die, etc.
Nevertheless, the evidence provided by general revelation and asserted by natural theology does infer the existence of a necessary first cause. Special revelation provides the basis for inferring the existence of God.
In other words, general revelation, under the auspices of natural theology, leads one to understand the need for a first cause. Special revelation leads one to realize that such a first cause is the God depicted in the Bible: Au contraire, Hitchens’ Razor.
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