Obstacles to Divine Revelation by King Rolfe;

Author:King, Rolfe;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2008-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

8.4 The general problem of special revelation

In this section I comment on what seems to be the general problem of special revelation. This problem is that it seems impossible for God to give us evidence that he is all-powerful and all-good, such that this evidence is beyond the strategy of theoretically possible doubt that Descartes introduced into Western philosophy. We can see this as follows.

Take this universe that we ‘see’ with all our scientific knowledge, and add to that all that we as a race will ever ‘see’ with our science (and any form of knowledge), whatever that may be. Call this totality U1. Let us grant that being B1 created U1. How could B1 ever demonstrate, through special revelation, to us that it is all-powerful even in U1? To demonstrate that B1 would have to demonstrate that there was not a B2, which would at some point decide to intervene and stop B1 in its activities in U1. There seems no way B1 could ever demonstrate to us that B2 did not exist. So B1 cannot even demonstrate to us that it is all-powerful with respect to U1 let alone that it is all-powerful with respect to all actual and all possible ‘universes’ U1–UN. In the same way God could not give us a demonstration that God was all-powerful with respect to U1 and all actual and possible ‘universes’. So God lacks the power to give to us (and any creature) a demonstration, through special revelation, that God is all-powerful (I discussed this briefly in §7.1).

Similarly, how even in a perfect universe UP (say) could the creator of that universe BP (say) demonstrate, through revelatory activities, that BP was all-good? For there would be no way that BP could demonstrate that UP would always be perfect, nor any way to demonstrate that BP would always intend good. Also, if it is a necessary condition of a perfect world that it remains perfect forever then there seems no way to demonstrate UP even is perfect. The only way for that world to be perfect would seem to be if the creatures in it trusted BP when BP declared its intentions. If the creatures could not trust BP then for sure that world would not be perfect.

Perhaps it might be argued that it is just simply improbable that there could be a mind that either undergirds our universe or was in some way involved at its creation where that mind was not God. But write down for a moment an imaginary equation that captures the ultimate formula for the physics of this universe. Of course neither the reader or I has that equation but that does not matter. An imaginary one will do. It contains a number of variables and the relationships between them. The order and precision of the physical world (which would be reflected in this equation) is clearly remarkable, and hard to see how it evolved in a random way. It is well-known that Einstein was willing to

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