16 evidence of the existence of god magazine. evidence of God's being

By publishing this material, we risk a lot. We take risks because today both many believers and unbelievers agree that it is impossible to rationally prove the existence of God. True, for various reasons. If the former believe that this is impossible, since God reveals to the purity of the heart, and not to the intricacies of the mind, then the latter are convinced that since it is impossible to scientifically attest to the fact of the existence of God, then there is no God, because only science is objective.

However, not everyone knows that in Christian culture there is a centuries-old tradition of proof of the existence of God. In the Middle Ages, such evidence became popular thanks to Catholic scholastic theologians, especially Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas. True, the scholastics, as a rule, did not turn their arguments to atheists — what atheists were in the Middle Ages! - and to believers, in order to confirm faith in a rational way. Since the existence of God seemed obvious, “rational,” then in the world, in life, philosophers sought to find obvious, reasonable evidence of this. Yes, and a modern person like "Thomas the Unbeliever" sometimes wants to put fingers in sores to make sure the authenticity of Christianity. Editors

It is interesting to note that in the Orthodox tradition no such school of “evidence of the existence of God” arose. Orthodoxy proceeded and proceeds from a different understanding of the relationship between faith and reason (although neither Orthodox nor Catholics, as a rule, oppose reason and faith). The main evidence in Orthodoxy was and remains the man himself, who met God in his heart. And if this meeting did not happen, how can you believe! And if it happened, then the loving heart no longer needs any more arguments!

But after all, many of us studied precisely Western philosophy. And our thinking itself has acquired such a Western “taste”. How many times have we heard: but you prove rationally justify that God is! And if, by and large, such evidence is unlikely to lead a person to God (this is the position of the editors), this does not mean that they are absolutely useless. After all, for someone they can be the first step on the road to faith ...

Today we do not live in medieval Byzantium or Russia, but not in medieval western Europe. Much water has flowed since then, but the believing mind did not cease inquisitively seeking the rational foundations of its faith, finding more and more evidence of the presence of the Creator in the world.

The following article is an attempt to list and (for starters) a brief description of searches in this area. Of course, not all arguments can be agreed, and if someone is interested in some kind of evidence, the editors are ready to provide both the author and his opponents with an opportunity for discussion.

1. The first evidence, which can be called "existential" (that is, "proof of existence"), is formulated as follows: Why is everything that is, more likely than not?

After all, how to create something, and to maintain the existence of anything was much more difficult than to have nothing at all. Try, for example, to independently design a cottage, choose a suitable place for it, build and constantly maintain order in it ... Or, for example, to make your garden really a garden, you need to regularly dig it up, plant it, weed, water it, etc. If you do not do this, the garden will immediately grow weeds, run wild and turn into an ordinary field without any trace of reasonable care.

the second law of thermodynamics, according to which all the stars in the Universe would have to go out long ago, and even the atoms should disintegrate if, as the materialistic atheists claim, nature would exist forever.

So why does it still exist as BEING, as a beautiful and wonderful Cosmos? Undoubtedly, only because it was created by Someone and has been supported by Him ever since.

This Creator is God, about which Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), who formulated the laws of gravity and motion, discovered differential calculus, said: “He abides forever; present everywhere; He constitutes the length of time and space. ”

2. The second evidence is as follows:

Why is everything that is, naturally and strikingly ordered, bears the undoubted imprint of a reasonable plan for the device of the whole? After all, such a plan cannot but presuppose the existence of a Mind superhuman in its capabilities, a truly divine Planner (since regularity is a property of reason)?

So, Nikolai Copernicus (1473-1543), who created the theory that the Sun is in the center of the universe and the Earth only revolves around it, believed that this model demonstrates the wisdom of God in the universe, for “who else could put this lamp ( Sun) in a different or better position? ”

When the watchmaker assembles the watch mechanism, he carefully attaches one part to another, takes a spring of precisely calculated length, certain sizes of the hands, dial, etc. The result is a wonderful mechanism, which by the very fact of the expediency and calculatedness of its device indicates the mind that created it.

But how much more complicated, harmonious and more reasonable is the arrangement of the entire Universe surrounding us, this beautiful Cosmos!

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), who formulated the theory of relativity, expressed this idea: “The harmony of natural law reveals Reason so superior to us that, in comparison with it, any systematic thinking and action of human beings is an extremely insignificant imitation.”

The universe, as the ancient Greeks said, is the “Cosmos”, that is, a perfectly ordered and harmonious complex system consisting of interconnected parts, each of which is subject to special laws, and all as a whole are governed by a combination of general laws, so that the prosecution of any particular goals surprisingly contributes to the overall goal of the whole.

Therefore, it is impossible to allow all this to be a matter of chance, and not of rational Providence, that is, the Providence of God.

3. The "cosmological proof" of the existence of God was developed by the ancients (in particular, Aristotle) \u200b\u200band is most often found in the following form: every thing in the world and everything, the whole Universe as a whole has a reason for its existence, but continue this sequence, the chain of reasons until infinity is impossible - somewhere there must be a Root Cause, which is no longer conditioned by any other, otherwise everything turns out to be unfounded, “hangs in the air”.

Not only philosophers, but many naturalists and scientists speak of such a Reason. Thus, the famous Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), who developed, among other things, the world-famous process of milk cleansing, which has since been named after him, often mentioned the “cosmic asymmetric Force” that created life. He believed that the concept of REASON "should be reserved for the only Divine impulse that formed this Universe."

It is clear that such an unreasonable reason is God: “God is not a man” - He is spiritual (“ideal” as thought), that is, he is outside of time and space, therefore

does not arise, but exists forever, being not a cause in the physical meaning of this word, but the Creator of the visible Universe and its laws.

4. The "anthropic principle of the Universe" as evidence of the existence of a reasonable plan for the structure of the Universe and God was - perhaps involuntarily - put forward by modern science, which suddenly found out that life on Earth, the appearance of man and the development of civilization are possible only with the presence and combination of extremely rigid and paradoxical unlikely conditions that were, as it were, originally laid down in nature itself: a fixed distance from the Sun (a little closer to it - and living organisms would burn out, a little further - they would freeze, turning into a devil solid blocks of ice); the presence of the Earth's rotation, without which unbearable heat would reign on one half of the planet, while the other would be chained with eternal ice; the existence in her of a certain satellite size, providing a complex system of circulation of water flows; minerals and resources: coal, metals, oil, water, etc., without which technogenic civilization could not have arisen and developed, etc.

Moreover, modern scientists have the impression that the entire Universe is located and oriented in such a way that it can be looked at with human eyes! The existing coordination, interconnectedness and interdependence of these factors is such that the possibility of its "accidental" appearance is completely excluded.

5. The following evidence of the creation of the Cosmos by intelligent will is also formulated at the forefront of modern cosmology and physics, which drew attention to the paradoxical existence of the Universe in the form in which it exists: it turned out that only four basic physical constants, without which it could not to exist for a long time as a structurally organized whole, the probability of their “accidental" occurrence and coordination among themselves is approximately 10 to minus the 100th power. But there are not four basic constants, but even more ...

6. The following “teleological” (from the Greek “telos” - execution, result) evidence of the existence of God in general terms has been known since antiquity, when Aristotle first noticed the presence in the body of some animals and in nature clearly expressed expediency. However, only modern discoveries in biology have undoubtedly proved the systemic nature of these teleological mechanisms and their need for the existence and survival of almost all types of living creatures.

A kind of activity of these mechanisms is, for example, the “pre-established harmony” of the development of various living organisms, which, even in the embryonic state, as it were, know in advance what they will encounter after birth.

And, what the Darwinian evolutionary theory is completely unable to explain, studies of fossil organisms have shown that many of them have organs that have been anticipating environmental conditions for millennia, organs that are absolutely useless in the current conditions of existence of these animals, but really need this through hundreds of generations when the conditions of existence change radically!

A legitimate question arises, to which modern evolutionary theory has no answer: how can a body devoid of mind have such an amazing prediction of future changes and how can it itself evoke the required favorable mutations in itself ?!

This amazing fact clearly indicates the existence in the world of a certain and reasonable development program, that is, Providence, which is called the Providence of God.

7. The "transcendental" proof of the existence of an ideal world and God was partially discovered by Kant and can be represented as follows: there is a world outside of space and time - the spiritual world, the world of intellect, thought and free will - which is proved by the presence in each person of thoughts that can relate to the past and future, that is, "travel" to the past and future, and also instantly transferred to anywhere in space.

Each of us, turning our consciousness to the source of our thoughts, can easily notice that they appear to be from somewhere outside, the thought turns out to be a projected spiritual ray from somewhere, which illuminates material being like a sun bunny - there’s no way for anyone and never succeeds to cover with his hand, he is always on top ...

Thus, human thought, supposedly born in the brain, appears both inside and outside of matter - it seems to arise due to neurophysiological processes in the brain tissue, is surrounded by the bones of the skull, but, at the same time, fundamentally exists outside of any matter, outside of space and time.

Thanks to this, a person is clearly aware that he has a spiritual nature, which is fundamentally different from the physical world that surrounds him. But it follows from this that this other nature, this Spirit, the manifestation of which is man, also possesses reason and free will, like man himself.

8. The following evidence could probably be called "creationist" - it is based on the fact of the existence in nature of organisms and living systems that basically cannot develop into such a whole of parts in an evolutionary way, as Darwinism believes, but can only be created together how exactly such an organic whole.

For example, an interconnected system of the heart, lungs, and blood circulation in living beings can be attributed to them: it is impossible to imagine that at first, let’s say, there was only blood circulation without a heart, then the heart would gradually “attach” to it and start pumping blood, and only after that lungs began to develop.

9. Evidence of the existence of God and the spiritual world from personal experience - most people met in their lives with “strange” manifestations of the divine and superhuman: both beneficial, Divine, and evil, demonic, or, probably, most often, both together.

In order not to touch for many dubious “traditions of the old antiquity,” I will tell you about an incident that happened to my colleague. He came from a believing family, but at one time he taught "scientific atheism" at the university for many years and, like most Soviet intellectuals, led by no means a pious lifestyle. After experiencing several personal tragedies, he realized the depravity of his life and decided to go to the temple.

When the priest, - he told me, - read a prayer for my sins over my head, and I began to get on my feet, some unknown force suddenly began to throw me from side to side so that I could not stand on my feet: the parishioners supported me on both sides, my knees were shaking and, to top it all, I was suddenly seized by a strange weakness. So for the first time on myself I felt the demons that are in the sinner, ”he concluded.

Similar examples could be given quite a lot.

10. Proof of the existence of ALL nations and peoples ideas about God and superhuman powers in one form or another; if atheistic individuals are found among many nations, then there are no “atheistic” nations on Earth.

11. Evidence from faith in God of the most outstanding geniuses of mankind. For example, the vast majority of Nobel laureates.

It should also be remembered that all scientists who contributed to the discovery and development of modern science (Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Boyle, Bacon, Pasteur, Einstein) believed in God.

So, the founder of modern chemistry, Robert Boyle (1627-1691) began every day with prayer; moreover, 2/3 of the income of his estate in Ireland went to the aid of the poor and the support of the Church, and 1/3 to the spread of Christianity and missionary activity among the Indians.

Francis Collins, one of the founders of genetics, said: “When we learn something new about the human genome, every time I feel a sense of awe from the fact that humanity now knows something that so far only God knew. I do not believe that scientific research can somehow threaten God. On the contrary, I think that God only benefits from our curiosity. ”

12. An indisputable proof of the existence of God is also the regular appearance in the history of mankind of great saints and religious figures who directly have spiritual revelations from above and thus testify to His being.

These are not only such prophets as, for example, Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, who constantly communicated with God, but also the righteous, who illuminated and directed their lives with their light at all times.

Perhaps it will be enough just to remind the reader of such great Russian saints as Seraphim of Sarov or John of Kronstadt to understand that God now speaks to us just as often as in the distant biblical times - there would be eyes to see ears to hear.

God is always with us, it is we, because of our weakness, that we are moving away, now we are again trying to return to Him.

13. Evidence from the contrary: the tragic fate of the projects (and often their own lives and destinies) of outstanding atheists. The most striking example here can be the example of the “Lenin-Stalin case” and their followers, who for the first time in history tried to build an atheistic state on a “scientific basis” both in Russia and other countries of Europe and Asia.

For example, the fate of the best materialist philosopher of the USSR, Evald Vasilyevich Ilyenkov, the son of a famous Soviet writer, laureate of the Stalin Prize for Literature, turned out to be tragic. All his life he has been substantiating the atheistic thesis about the “self-development of matter”, which for its existence does not need any spiritual foundation, Evald Vasilievich could not find moral support anywhere in the Soviet atheistic reality, fell into a deep depression and ended a special ...

14. The “ethical proof” of the existence of the supersensible world, which proceeds from the objective existence of morality and ethical laws governing the behavior of human beings, is also widely known.

The studies of many philosophers indicate that events and environmental influences can only predetermine people's behavior and force them to do certain things: no matter how much pressure from the outside, a person always has the opportunity to break the causal connection, which unreasonable nature obeys and act as a free creature, that is, as a creature of another, alien world!

To illustrate this, you can give a simple example: why do some people give alms, while others do not? It would seem that the latter act quite logically and reasonably - why part with your money, money, knowingly knowing that you will not receive any compensation ?!

So what compels the first to still give alms, sometimes even on a large scale? In the physical world, in nature, there is nothing that could explain such “illogical” behavior - this explanation lies outside this, in the supersensible world, where great moral ideas of love, kindness and mercy are located.

The famous reasoning of Immanuel Kant, who clearly showed that a person in his actions and actions is guided by values \u200b\u200bthat do not belong to the material world, belongs to the same type of evidence of the existence of God.

15. There is also widespread evidence of the existence of God under the name “aesthetic argument”, which states: in nature there is an amazing supernatural beauty of the starry sky, sunsets and sunrises, the Northern Lights, harmonious pictures of nature, the perfect arrangement of the beautiful bodies of living beings, etc. , which seems to be specially designed for the aesthetic enjoyment of a rational being - a person - because besides him in nature itself there is simply no one to contemplate it.

The already mentioned Robert Boyle felt such reverence for the beauty of nature that he often said: "When I study the book of nature ... I am often forced to exclaim with the psalmist: Oh, how diverse are your creations, Lord, in Thy wisdom you created them all!"

16. The proof of the existence of God “from real to absolute perfection” was put forward by Thomas Aquinas: in nature there is a clearly observable gradation of perfection within various types of being, which can be understood only in the presence of an absolutely perfect Being, that is, God.

This proof may seem rather complicated at first, but a simple example will help to understand its essence: if you have a ruler, say, 30 centimeters long, and your colleague 50 cm, if there are rolled up meters and other measuring instruments, then all this is only because the dimension of space really exists (its extent in different directions) and the idea of \u200b\u200blength.

Similarly, similar examples could be given with measures of weight, time, etc. But in nature there are also more complex types of gradations, among which a unique place belongs to the “ascending ladder” of excellence both in inanimate and living nature, and in human society, as well as among people themselves: there are, for example, curved and ugly trees, there are ordinary, unremarkable, there are “just” beautiful, but there are also unusually beautiful, perfect specimens. And so, not only among various species of trees, but also among various species of fish, animals, inside human races, etc. - Everywhere you can find more or less perfect individuals. But these different degrees of perfection in inanimate nature (for example, among stones!), Between separate types of objects, living things, etc., could not exist if for them there was no really existing measure of absolute perfection, which, however, we do not find in the material world, but which cannot but exist, and this perfection is God!

This is the essence of this proof.

Thus, we see that wherever and no matter how we began to consider the world around a person, all roads inevitably lead to the One who created and adorned him, who constantly supports and directs him, and without whom he could not exist for a moment - to God.

George Khlebnikov

George Khlebnikov,
candidate of Philosophy.

However, not everyone knows that there is a centuries-old tradition in Christian culture. In the Middle Ages, such evidence became popular thanks to Catholic scholastic theologians, especially Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas.

True, the scholastics, as a rule, did not turn their arguments to atheists — what atheists were in the Middle Ages! - and to believers, in order to confirm faith in a rational way. Since the existence of God seemed obvious, “rational,” then in the world, in life, philosophers sought to find obvious, reasonable evidence of this.

It is interesting to note that in the Orthodox tradition no such school of “evidence of the existence of God” arose. Orthodoxy proceeded and proceeds from a different understanding of the relationship between faith and reason (although neither Orthodox nor Catholics, as a rule, oppose reason and faith). The main evidence in Orthodoxy was and remains the man himself, who met God in his heart. And if this meeting did not happen, how can one believe? And if it happened, then the loving heart no longer needs any more arguments!

16 EVIDENCE OF GOD

1. The first evidence, which can be called "existential" (that is, "proof of existence"), is formulated as follows: Why is everything that is, more likely than not?

In other words, the existence of any thing or structure requires a continuous expenditure of energy; when its internal supply is depleted or its flow from the outside ceases, the structure is destroyed. Therefore, the eternal being of the Universe contradicts, for example, the second law of thermodynamics, according to which all the stars in the Universe would have to go out long ago and even the atoms should disintegrate if, as the atheist materialists claim, nature would exist forever.

So why does it still exist as BEING, as a beautiful and wonderful Cosmos? Undoubtedly, only because it was created by Someone and has been supported by Him ever since.

This Creator is God, about whom Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), who formulated the laws of gravity and motion, discovered differential calculus, said: “He abides forever; present everywhere; He constitutes the length of time and space. ”

2. The second evidence is as follows:

But how much more complicated, harmonious and more reasonable is the arrangement of the entire Universe surrounding us, this beautiful Cosmos!

Therefore, it is impossible to allow all this to be a matter of chance, and not of rational Providence, that is, the Providence of God.

Not only philosophers, but many naturalists and scientists speak of such a Reason. Thus, the famous Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), who, among other things, developed the world-famous process of milk purification, which has since been named after him, often referred to the “cosmic asymmetric Force” that created life. He believed that the concept of REASON "should be reserved for the only divine impulse that formed this Universe."

It is clear that such a causeless reason is God: “God is not a man” - He is spiritual (“ideal” as a thought), that is, he is outside of time and space, therefore, does not arise, but exists forever, being not a cause in the physical meaning of this word but the Creator of the visible Universe and its laws.

4. The "anthropic principle of the Universe" as evidence of the existence of a reasonable plan for the device of the Universe and God was, perhaps involuntarily, put forward by modern science, which suddenly found out that life on Earth, the appearance of man and the development of civilization are possible only with the presence and combination of extremely rigid and paradoxically improbable conditions, which were, as it were, inherent in nature itself: a fixed distance from the Sun (a little closer to it - and living organisms would burn out, a little further - they would freeze, turning into sensory blocks of ice); the presence of the Earth’s rotation, without which unbearable heat would reign on one half of the planet, while the other would be chained with eternal ice; the existence in her of a certain satellite size, providing a complex system of circulation of water flows; minerals and resources: coal, metals, oil, water, etc., without which technogenic civilization could not have arisen and developed, etc.

6. The following “teleological” (from the Greek “telos” - performance, result) evidence of the existence of God in general terms has been known since antiquity, when Aristotle first noticed the presence in the body of some animals and in nature clearly expressed expediency. However, only modern discoveries in biology have undoubtedly proved the systemic nature of these teleological mechanisms and their need for the existence and survival of almost all types of living creatures.

And, - which the Darwinian evolutionary theory is completely unable to explain, - studies of fossil organisms have shown that many of them have organs that have been anticipating environmental conditions for millennia, organs that are absolutely useless in the current conditions of existence of these animals, but really needed through hundreds of generations when the conditions of existence change radically!

A legitimate question arises, to which modern evolutionary theory has no answer: where does a mindless body have such an amazing pre-knowledge of future changes and how can it itself bring about the required favorable mutations ?!

This amazing fact clearly indicates the existence in the world of a certain and reasonable development program, that is, Providence, which is called the Providence of God.

7. The "transcendental" proof of the existence of an ideal world and God was partially discovered by Kant and can be represented as follows: there is a world outside of space and time - the spiritual world, the world of intellect, thought and free will - which is proved by the presence of thoughts in every person, which can relate to the past and future, that is, "travel" to the past and future, as well as instantly transferred to anywhere in space.

“When the priest,” he told me, “read a prayer for my sins over my head, and I began to get on my feet, some unknown force suddenly began to throw me from side to side so that I could not stand on my feet: parishioners they supported me from both sides, my knees were shaking and, to top it all, I was suddenly overcome by a strange weakness. So for the first time on myself I felt the demons that are in the sinner, ”he concluded.

Similar examples could be given quite a lot.

11. Evidence from faith in God of the most outstanding geniuses of mankind. For example, the vast majority of Nobel laureates.

It should also be remembered that all scientists who contributed to the discovery and development of modern science (Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Boyle, Bacon, Pasteur, Einstein) believed in God.

Perhaps it will be enough just to remind the reader of such great Russian saints as John of Kronstadt to understand that God now as often speaks to us, as in the distant biblical times, would have eyes to see and ears to hear.

God is always with us, it is we, because of our weakness, that we are moving away, now we are again trying to return to Him.

For example, the fate of the best materialist philosopher of the USSR, Evald Vasilyevich Ilyenkov, the son of a famous Soviet writer, laureate of the Stalin Prize for Literature, turned out to be tragic. All his life he has been substantiating the atheistic thesis about the “self-development of matter”, which for its existence does not need any spiritual foundation, Evald Vasilyevich could not find moral support anywhere in the Soviet atheistic reality, fell into a deep depression and committed suicide ...

Similarly, similar examples could be given with measures of weight, time, etc. But in nature there are also more complex types of gradations, among which a unique place belongs to the “ascending ladder” of excellence both in inanimate and living nature, and in human society, as well as among people themselves: for example, there are curves and ugly trees, there are ordinary, unremarkable, there are “just” beautiful, but there are also unusually beautiful, perfect specimens. And so, not only among various species of trees, but also among various species of fish, animals, inside human races, etc. - Everywhere you can find more or less perfect individuals. But these different degrees of perfection in inanimate nature (for example, among stones!), Between separate types of objects, living things, etc., could not exist if for them there was no really existing measure of absolute perfection, which, however, we do not find in the material world, but which cannot but exist, and this perfection is God!
This is the essence of this proof.

16 EVIDENCE OF GOD

FROM THE EDITOR. By publishing this material, we risk a lot. We take risks because today many believers, as well as non-believers, agree that it is impossible to rationally prove the existence of God. True, for various reasons. If the former believe that this is impossible, since God reveals to the purity of the heart, and not to the intricacies of the mind, then the latter are convinced that since it is impossible to scientifically attest to the fact of the existence of God, then there is no God, because only science is objective.
However, not everyone knows that in Christian culture there is a centuries-old tradition of proof of the existence of God. In the Middle Ages, such evidence became popular thanks to Catholic scholastic theologians, especially Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas.

True, the scholastics, as a rule, did not turn their arguments to atheists — what atheists were in the Middle Ages! - and to believers, in order to confirm faith in a rational way. Since the existence of God seemed obvious, "reasonable", then in the world, in life, philosophers sought to find obvious, reasonable evidence of this.

It is interesting to note that in the Orthodox tradition no such school of “evidence of the existence of God” arose. Orthodoxy proceeded and proceeds from a different understanding of the correlation of faith and reason (although neither Orthodox nor Catholics, as a rule, oppose reason and faith). The main evidence in Orthodoxy was and remains the man himself, who met God in his heart. And if this meeting did not happen, how can one believe? And if it happened, then the loving heart no longer needs any more arguments!

But after all, many of us studied precisely Western philosophy. And our thinking itself has acquired such a Western "taste." How many times have we heard: but you prove rationally justify that God is! And if, by and large, such evidence is unlikely to lead a person to God (this is the position of the editors), this does not mean that they are absolutely useless. After all, for someone they can be the first step on the road to faith ...

16 EVIDENCE OF GOD

1. The first evidence, which can be called "existential" (that is, "proof of existence"), is formulated as follows: Why is everything that is, more likely than not?

After all, how to create something, and to maintain the existence of anything was much more difficult than to have nothing at all. Try, for example, to independently design a cottage, choose a suitable place for it, build and constantly maintain order in it ... Or, for example, so that your garden is really a garden, you need to regularly dig it up, plant it, weed, water it, etc. . If you do not do this, the garden will immediately grow weeds, run wild and turn into an ordinary field without any trace of reasonable care.

So why does it still exist as BEING, as a beautiful and wonderful Cosmos? Undoubtedly, only because it was created by Someone and has been supported by Him ever since.

This Creator is God, about whom Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), who formulated the laws of gravity and motion, discovered differential calculus, said: "He abides forever; is present everywhere; He constitutes the length of time and space."

2. The second evidence is as follows:

So, Nikolai Copernicus (1473-1543), who created the theory that the Sun is in the center of the universe and the Earth only revolves around it, believed that this model demonstrates the wisdom of God in the universe, for "who else could put this lamp ( Sun) to a different or better position? "

But how much more complicated, harmonious and more reasonable is the arrangement of the entire Universe surrounding us, this beautiful Cosmos!

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), formulating the theory of relativity, expressed this idea: “The harmony of the natural law reveals the Reason so superior to us that, in comparison with it, any systematic thinking and action of human beings is an extremely insignificant imitation.”

The universe, as the ancient Greeks said, is the "Cosmos", that is, a perfectly ordered and harmonious complex system consisting of interconnected parts, each of which is subject to special laws, and all as a whole are governed by a combination of general laws, so that the prosecution of any particular goals surprisingly contributes to the overall goal of the whole.

Therefore, it is impossible to allow all this to be a matter of chance, and not of rational Providence, that is, the Providence of God.

3. The "cosmological proof" of the existence of God was developed by the ancients (in particular, Aristotle) \u200b\u200band is most often found in the following form: every thing in the world and everything, the whole Universe as a whole has a reason for its existence, but continue this sequence, a chain of reasons until infinity is impossible - somewhere there must be a Root Cause, which is no longer conditioned by any other, otherwise everything turns out to be groundless, "hangs in the air."

Not only philosophers, but many naturalists and scientists speak of such a Reason. Thus, the famous Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), who developed, among other things, the world-famous process of milk cleansing, which has since been named after him, often referred to the "cosmic asymmetric Force" that created life. He believed that the concept of REASON "should be reserved for the only divine impulse that formed this Universe."

It is clear that such a causeless reason is God: “God is not a man” - He is spiritual (“ideal” as a thought), that is, he is outside of time and space, therefore he does not arise, but exists forever, being not a cause in the physical meaning of this word but the Creator of the visible Universe and its laws.

4. The "anthropic principle of the Universe" as evidence of the existence of a reasonable plan for the structure of the Universe and God was, perhaps involuntarily, put forward by modern science, which suddenly found out that life on Earth, the appearance of man and the development of civilization are possible only with the presence and combination of extremely rigid and paradoxically improbable conditions, which were, as it were, originally laid down in nature itself: a fixed distance from the Sun (a little closer to it - and living organisms would burn out, a little further - they would freeze, turning into sensual blocks of ice); the presence of the Earth's rotation, without which unbearable heat would reign on one half of the planet, while the other would be chained with eternal ice; the existence in her of a certain satellite size, providing a complex system of circulation of water flows; minerals and resources: coal, metals, oil, water, etc., without which technogenic civilization could not have arisen and developed, etc.

5. The following evidence of the creation of the Cosmos by intelligent will is also formulated at the forefront of modern cosmology and physics, which drew attention to the paradoxical existence of the Universe in the form in which it exists: it turned out that only four basic physical constants, without which it could not to exist for a long time as a structurally organized whole, the probability of their "accidental" occurrence and coordination among themselves is approximately 10 to minus the 100th power. But there are not four basic constants, but even more ...

A kind of activity of these mechanisms is, for example, the "pre-established harmony" of the development of various living organisms, which, even in an ebrional state, as it were, know in advance what they will encounter after birth.

This amazing fact clearly indicates the existence in the world of a certain and reasonable development program, that is, Providence, which is called the Providence of God.

7. The "transcendental" proof of the existence of an ideal world and God was partially discovered by Kant and can be represented as follows: there is a world outside of space and time - the spiritual world, the world of intellect, thought and free will - which is proved by the presence of thoughts in every person, which can relate to the past and future, that is, "travel" to the past and future, as well as instantly transferred to any point in space.

For example, an interconnected system of the heart, lungs, and blood circulation in living beings can be attributed to them: it is impossible to imagine that at first, let’s say, there was only blood circulation without a heart, then the heart would gradually “add” to it and start pumping blood, and only after that just started to develop the lungs.

9. Proof of the existence of God and the spiritual world from personal experience - most people met in their lives with "strange" manifestations of the divine and superhuman: both beneficial, Divine, and evil, demonic, or, most often, together.

In order not to touch for many dubious "traditions of the old antiquity", I will talk about the incident that happened to my colleague. He came from a believing family, but at one time he taught "scientific atheism" at the university for many years and, like most Soviet intellectuals, led by no means a pious lifestyle. After experiencing several personal tragedies, he realized the depravity of his life and decided to go to the temple.

Similar examples could be given quite a lot.

10. Proof of the existence of all nations and peoples ideas about God and superhuman powers in one form or another; if atheistic individuals are found among many nations, then there are no "atheistic" nations on Earth.

11. Evidence from faith in God of the most outstanding geniuses of mankind. For example, the vast majority of Nobel laureates.

It should also be remembered that all scientists who contributed to the discovery and development of modern science (Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Boyle, Bacon, Pasteur, Einstein) believed in God.

Francis Collins, one of the founders of genetics, said: "When we learn something new about the human genome, every time I feel a sense of awe from the fact that humanity now knows something that only God has so far known. I do not believe that scientific research can somehow threaten God. On the contrary, I think that God only benefits from our curiosity. "

God is always with us, it is we, because of our weakness, that we are moving away, now we are again trying to return to Him.

13. Proof of the contrary: the tragic fate of the projects (and, often, their own lives and destinies) of outstanding atheists. The most striking example here can be the example of the “Lenin-Stalin case” and their followers, who for the first time in history tried to build an atheistic state on a “scientific basis” both in Russia and other countries of Europe and Asia.

For example, the fate of the best materialist philosopher of the USSR, Evald Vasilyevich Ilyenkov, the son of a famous Soviet writer, laureate of the Stalin Prize for Literature, turned out to be tragic. All his life he has been substantiating the atheistic thesis about the "self-development of matter", which for its existence does not need any spiritual foundation, Evald Vasilyevich could not find moral support anywhere in the Soviet atheistic reality, fell into a deep depression and committed suicide ...

So what compels the first to still give alms, sometimes even on a large scale? In the physical world, in nature, there is nothing that could explain such “illogical” behavior — this explanation lies outside this, in the supersensible world, where great moral ideas of love, kindness and mercy are located.

Similarly, similar examples could be given with measures of weight, time, etc. But in nature there are also more complex types of gradations, among which a unique place belongs to the “ascending ladder” of excellence both in inanimate and living nature, and in human society, as well as among people themselves: for example, there are curves and ugly trees, there are ordinary, unremarkable, there are "just" beautiful, but there are also unusually beautiful, perfect specimens. And so, not only among various species of trees, but also among various species of fish, animals, inside human races, etc. - Everywhere you can find more or less perfect individuals. But these different degrees of perfection in inanimate nature (for example, among stones!), Between separate types of objects, living things, etc., could not exist if for them there was no really existing measure of absolute perfection, which, however, we do not find in the material world, but which cannot but exist, and this perfection is God!