When questioned by a dying patient about his religious beliefs, physician Francia Collins stammered out the words “I’m not sure.” Collins, who in the moment was unable to provide a coherent response, said that the exchange with his patient “haunted” him for several days. “I was confident,” Collins recalled, “that a full investigation of the rational basis for faith would deny the merits of belief, and affirm my atheism.” With that goal in mind, he set out to indirectly prove atheism true by disproving God. In the end, the exact opposite happened. Francis Collins eventually converted to Christianity because of the rational basis for the faith, along with an indescribable impression left by an overwhelming religious experience. Very well and good for his conversion, certainly! However, my interest here lies in his initial defensive attempt to “reaffirm” his atheism. Claims of truth are either positive claims or they are negative claims. A negative assertion of a truth claim is quite interesting and is based upon the adage: “You can’t prove something doesn’t exist just because you haven’t found it.” Now, since atheism makes the negative claim that God does not exist, and since the burden of proof falls on the person making the claim, the atheist must prove the negative claim that atheism is true and that God indeed does not exist. The premise of atheism is quite interesting because it is not a belief in something, but rather a belief in that something’s polar opposite: disbelief. In the case of atheism, it is the belief that there is nothing rather than something, namely God. Since there are only two options—either belief in God, or belief in nothing, then atheism is, in fact, belief in nothing, or rather a belief in something that does not exist, which is impossible. For example, if I wanted to prove the existence of horses, all that is required is for me to observe the existence of one horse and have that evidence corroborated by other witnesses.

On the other hand, if I wanted to disprove the existence of unicorns, then I would have to experience everything that can possibly be experienced, go to every possible place on Earth, and be sure that there was not anything else that I had not experienced, or place I had not searched, and in doing all of that notice that I did not encounter one single unicorn, then, and only then could I say in the absolute sense that unicorns do not exist. Nevertheless, there is always the chance that I failed to look everywhere. Such is the inherent difficulty in proving a negative reality, such as “God does not exist,” which logically entails the statement “atheism is true.” While proving a negative truth claim is not categorically impossible, neither statement, “God does not exist,” should be made because they are both hollow and groundless statements. Perhaps that is why the German philosopher and atheist Friedrich Nietzsche said that “God is dead,” but never directly said that God does not exist. The burden of proof is perhaps too great.

Christian Apologist Usama Nisar points out that the challenge of disproving God is further strained by the limitations of human understanding in general, but most notably here as it relates to the nature and attributes possessed by God. Orthodox Christian doctrine holds that God possesses, among others, the attributes of all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, and all-good. Not only do humans not have these attributes, but humans cannot fully comprehend what these terms might mean when applied to God in the maximal sense. Suppose, correctly, that man cannot fully understand what “all-powerful” fully entails. In that case, it is challenging to formulate an argument against the existence of a Being that we do not fully understand. Oddly enough, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld can be of help here. The former Secretary of Defense once spoke about “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns.” Applying the concept to our current topic, there are things about God that we know we do not know. For instance, we know that we do not know all that is entailed in the divine attribute possessed by God, identified as all-powerful (omnipotent). However, there are also unknown unknowns—things we do not even know that we do not know about the nature and attributes of God. And since we do not know them, we cannot describe them, let alone form logical arguments disputing that they do not exist or that they are not attributes possessed by God. There can be little doubt that human understanding has significant limitations. Nothing drives reality home with more clarity than the multiple-dimensional theory, which suggests that beyond the four dimensions of our reality lie multiple dimensions that are outside of human perception. Perhaps there truly exists the 5th, 6th, or 7th dimension where the angels sing of heaven that lies just outside our hearing, just outside our perception, just outside our limited reality and understanding. Speculation is all well and good, says the critic of Christianity, but in modern times, the hard sciences reign king, right? And if that is true, then what might science tell us about God’s existence? Or has science disproven God and, by that, proven atheism true? Join us next time as we look to see if modern science has indeed disproven the existence of God. Until then, what say ye; is God dead?

Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Ty B. Kerley, DMin., is an ordained minister who teaches Christian apologetics and relief preaches in Southern Oklahoma. Dr. Kerley and his wife, Vicki, are members of the Waurika church of Christ, and live in Ardmore, OK. You can contact him at dr.kerley@isGoddead.com.