Because they are making an affirmative proposition concerning the existence of God/Gods.

But they are doing so as an article of faith. By definition that means there is no burden of proof at all. In fact the very notion of "proving" god's existence is antithetical to religious faith since it implies that God can be defined in terms of human reason.

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A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

How do they know God cannot be defined in terms of human reason?

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

No, positing faith as the reason to believe means that they are shirking away from their duty of providing an explanation, which is understandable since, as I previously noted, the burden is so far insurmountable.

I'm sorry but that's just nonsense. "Proof" is a logical construct. It has no meaning outside a formal system. It certainly has no meaning when discussing the concept of god. Religious or spiritual faith is founded on the premise that there are things in the world and about existence which go beyond the scope of the rational mind. Applying a tool of logic to it is like fixing your computer with a sledgehammer. Sometimes tempting but never successful and always a waste of a good tool.

Clearly you are free to believe there is nothing in this world beyond the grasp of reason. But that assumption is based on faith since you can never prove such a thing.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

because a God defined by human terms is just a personification of the person doing the defining.

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"A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent."
-John Calvin

So? That can be said about anything, but it still says nothing about whether god actually exists or not. By pretending its just a matter of faith, you are just avoiding having to present evidence. Little more than a game of logic.

If you refuse to define god in terms of human reason, how could someone like the pope have the gall to say he knows what pleases god?

Andrew

__________________
Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

Spirituality is meaningless in a world where everything is amenable to reason. If there is a rational explanation for every phenomena of existence then there is no space for spirituality to exist.
Although faith is not a solely christian concept I think the nature of faith and spirituality is well expressed in 1 Corinthians ii v9 & 13
"...as it is written:
'No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him'
and
"This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words"

So I guess if you could "prove" God's existence or if you could fully define God through reason and logic then he wouldn't really be god at all but just another natural phenomenon.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

Well thats taking it in a different direction. That is about "proving" God and the logic of belief. I was just saying that according to traditional Christian theology, God is completely unknowable except through Christ (if you follow the tradition of Karl Barth). Thus any attempt for humans to define him purely on our own logical terms are useless because God is defined solely on his terms.

Well, it's not about defining God, but if one must the way to "define" God is through his action in Jesus Christ as revealed by the Bible. Now I am not an expert on on Catholic theology so it might be better to ask a a Catholic on this one.

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"A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent."
-John Calvin

Indeed, which is why I never mentioned it.

Not necessarily, but again this is outside of the scope of the current discussion.

You are mistaking a tool of philosophy (epistemology) with a tool of logic. When anyone makes a claim that they 'know' something is true (the affirmative proposition, in this instance relating to God), they necessarily invoke epistemology (the study of the limits/origins of knowing). Thus, one is naturally persuaded to ask just how it is that the person in question knows what they claim.

Again, in this case, the answer is 'faith' (also known as "Shut up, I just know!"), or if they have a better philosophical understanding of the question, 'intuition' (which hasn't been viewed as an adequate source of knowledge concerning the objective since the medieval ages) as the source of their knowledge.

To summarize, when one claims to know, their claim is now within the purview of epistemology (though not necessarily logic).

I never made such a claim and I sure as hell wouldn't now since Rationalism has been effectively dead for hundreds of years already, although I have sympathies towards it.

"suffer the weight of the so-far insurmountable burden of proof"
Yes necessarily. There is no need and no room for spirituality if everything in existance is amenable to reason.
I don't think so. You said proof.
I'm sorry but I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Clearly, people who believe there are things in the universe which cannot be comprehended through reason cannot be asked to explain those things using reason. You might as well ask me to explain rules of english grammar using the axioms of plane geometry.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

I'll grant that my terminology here is ambiguous in that I could have been referring to logical proofs, but I assure you that I was addressing the epistemological issues. As such, you can kindly address this issue since we have (hopefully) cleared up the confusion.

This all depends on what you mean by 'spiritual'. I would describe Spinozan Rationalism as both spiritual (pantheistic) and rational.

I'm trying to summarize as best as I can, honest. Basically, I mean that when one claims to 'know' (as is the case when someone claims that God exists), a whole series of investigations has to begin concerning what knowledge is, where it comes from, etc for this claim to have any meaning.

Assuming they are claiming that the God/Gods in question can't be comprehended through reason, they are still obliged to go through the motions of describing how they came to such conclusions (if they genuinely desire their propositions to be meaningful). After all, didn't Godel use logic to show that logic was perpetually an incomplete system?

It's funny you bring up goedel because i was just thinking of the incompleteness theorems when I was talking about believing in the existence of things beyond the comprehension of reason.

Certainly reason plays some role in the maintenance and the preaching (or explanation) of faith. We're human and reason is the tool that gets us through the day in the material world. No spiritual endeavor can succeed if it denies too fundamentally the evidence of our senses. But eventually there comes a point in any discussion of the existence of god where the believer tries to rationalize a transcendent experience of communion with a greater power or an internal spark or a something beyond rational comprehension. And that experience is not expressible in rational terms. There is a reason why so many spiritual seekers have had recourse to tools like fasting, chants, repetitive liturgy, ordeals, and psychoactive drugs. These are all aids to suppressing the rational mind. The mind after all like the rest of the body is part of the natural world, governed by laws we have discovered through reason. And spiritual exploration is dependent on transcendence of that rational mind.

So it is absurd both for the unbeliever to demand proof of god and for the believer to insist that the skeptic somehow "see" the believer's vision. It is especially absurd for christians to so insist of course since in christian belief faith is a gift of god. Given through god's grace, not as a result of the receiver's merit. Of course it is also absurd to claim god's existence can be disproven. There is no way for a rational system to disprove the existence of something which lies outside the rational system.

I read something from a physicist once who said exploring the conditions that existed before the big bang might be impossible because that state of existence violates all the natural laws of the universe now in force. There is no frame of reference - no vocabulary - no means of measurement for such a state. That's what it is like to expect a full understanding or proof of God through reason.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

I don't see spirituality as being antithetical to reason at all. Reason IS antithetical to organized religion however.

__________________
The apocalypse is coming... we're gonna need more ammo.

I invite you then to give a rational explanation of your soul. Or of an encounter you have had with a spiritual being or force. I know I can't do it.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon