Sometimes God’s existence is inferred from empirical observation. From the complexity of material objects and their inter-relationships, and the sheer improbability of such complexity emerging by unguided natural processes, the mathematical probability of a designing intelligence is posited.

Such arguments for God’s existence can be persuasive, but it’s important to know that his existence doesn’t depend on mathematical probabilities. Suppose future observations point to some material mechanisms capable of producing complexity without any guiding intelligence. Of course, the capacity of such mechanisms to produce everything about organized living systems is questionable – past claims of such capacities, though much-touted, have frequently turned out to be neither verifiable, nor repeatable. Moreover, they don’t comprise coherent, complete explanations; typically, they are atheistic “magic wands” to wish God out of existence. They resemble science fiction more than science.

But suppose, for argument’s sake, some such mechanisms were found. They would change only the validity of inferring his existence from our finite observations – not the validity of his existence. The Bhagavad-gita (10.39) draws our attention to the fundamental definition of God when it declares that nothing would exist without Krishna. Why? Because he is the source of everything, the cause of all causes, the first thing that is the foundation for all things.

Inference from observation can be a natural starting point for our faith. But the basis for our faith needs to eventually shift from such inference to appreciation of the philosophical coherence of a theistic worldview and the personal experience coming from bhakti-yoga practice.

Then we will understand that God’s existence is not dependent on probabilities inferred from the existence of other things – his existence is the necessity for the existence of anything else. Without his existence, the probability, in fact the possibility, of the existence of anything else would be zero.

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