The first article written by Dr. Kreeft that I will address is entitled Can You Prove God Exists?. It is organized into two parts. The first part contains a list of five questions regarding knowledge of existence, with a particular focus on knowledge of the existence of God. The second part briefly answers these questions.

The article begins by stating, in reference to the article's title as a question, that "Before we answer this question, we must distinguish five questions that are often confused." Dr. Kreeft opines that five questions are often confused, but by whom? Furthermore, in what context are they confused? Is he referring to religious debates? Perhaps, this is a generalization from personal experience. Whatever the case, more explanation is needed to understand why these questions are often confused.

Dr. Kreeft's first point of question includes the statement that "A thing can exist whether we know it or not." This is obviously meant to be understood by the reader as an intellectual or philosophical generalization. However, for it to be reasonable, Dr. Kreeft would need to change the word "we" to "I" so as not to imply that a thing can exist in the case that no one is aware of its existence. The word "can" in this context refers to the possibility of an occurrence and possibility implies knowledge of that possibility, such that nothing is possible or impossible if it is, in fact, nothing or, in other words, a nonentity.

Dr. Kreeft's second point of question includes the statement that "though a thing can exist without our knowing it, we cannot know it exists unless it exists." This statement is false. For it to be true, one would need to presume that knowledge is strictly confined to existing things. However, this is not the case, for, the word "it" in this context could refer to an imaginary object.

For example, I can claim to know that God exists, but this claim, alone, does not prove God's existence. Nor does it make any difference if everyone claims the same. Knowing is a matter purely dependent on the knower and the knower can be mistaken. Awareness of a thing does not ensure its existence. Rather, it ensures the awareness of knowing.

This leads an observation about Dr. Kreeft's third point of question, which includes the statement that "We can know some things without being able to lead others to that knowledge by reasons." Here, Dr. Kreeft reveals an apparent misunderstanding of the nature of reason. All knowledge is interlinked in a vast neural network within the brain.

Reason is a mental faculty that enables the formation of reasons through a process we very appropriately call reasoning. A reason, then, considered individually, can be most accurately described as a partial semantic distillation of one or more facets of past experience that achieves consciousness to support a related and consciously dependent facet, such as a belief or action. The sole function of a reason is to explain such a dependency so as either to merely inform or to defend it as reasonable or in simple terms, as what it is. From a functional perspective, a reason can be fundamentally regarded as a communicated identification of a causative neuropsychological dependency.

The core of Dr. Kreeft's apparent misunderstanding about reason is another instance of arbitrary definitional restriction. His statement to the effect that one can know a thing without being able to provide a reason to explain the source of, or motivation for, obtaining that knowledge, implies that all reasons must be communicated to other parties to be realized as such. However, knowledge necessarily emerges from within the mind of the self, within the mind of the knower. Therefore, the knower of necessary has the inherent capability to provide one or more reasons on behalf of that knowledge or, if not, awareness of that knowledge, by virtue of acquiring knowledge.

Dr. Kleeft's fourth and fifth proposed inquiries concern proof. The fourth asserts that most reasons are not proofs because they rely on the instability of probability that comes with an uncertain future. The fifth asserts that probability is unfit for scientific rigor. However, this instability is or should be assumed as a given in any discussion where time is involved, since the future, by definition, has not happened and, thus, forces one to rely on inductive reasoning processes to arrive at ever-increasingly probable probabilistic models of future events. If forced to exclude induction, no proof would be possible that involves time. Dr. Kleeft is, perhaps, unaware that there is such a thing as probabilistic proof, which is employed in the sciences all the time as standard procedure, designated as an immensely practical kind of mathematical proof.

Dr. Kleeft answers his first four questions in a single sentence, claiming that he can affirm them all, minus the fifth. He claims that God's existence cannot be proven scientifically or definitively "except in an unusually broad sense." I do not follow the meaning of his "broad" qualification. Nevertheless, I suspect that it does not weigh into the present debate and that, moreover, the above analysis aptly highlights his several sufficiently noted faulty presumptions.

The conclusion, at this point, is not as Dr. Kleeft would have us believe from his more-or-less outlined argument in this article, which is "that God exists." On the contrary, God's existence has not been established in the least. For there to be a remote chance of certain or probabilistic proof of God's existence, Dr. Kleeft would need to take a much further step back and tackle a reasonable definition of this deity he presumptively labels as God. This task is crucial and I posit with the utmost confidence that it cannot be achieved, thus, negating any and all future arguments in defense of this deity's existence.

‹ Answering Peter Kreeftup