The setting: A London district superintendents residential meeting. The speaker: The general secretary of the Methodist Church. The subject: "Deeks on Dawkins". The hope: That David Deeks, being both theologically astute and scientifically well-informed, would come up with some good logical counter-arguments to Richard Dawkins. The reality: An interesting and thought-provoking discussion on the Dawkins / Hitchens / Hawking / Pullman phenomenon, which failed to address any of the specific issues raised in The God Delusion.
Never mind. On the way to the meeting I was trying to frame a question to ask if opportunity arose, and I came up with further thoughts (following on from earlier post) on finding evidence for God's existence.
The issue boils down to this. If there exists objective evidence that can be presented to any reasonably intelligent person to convince them of God's existence (in the way that there is evidence which 'proves' to all but the ignorant or blinkered that the world is round rather than flat), then where is it? Believers in God would love to be able to prove their case in such a way. In the absence of objective evidence, all we are left with is subjective evidence - feelings, experiences, visions etc. - which (as Dawkins points out) could be explained as a trick of the mind.
My insight as I drove to the superintendents meeting was this. There does exist a category of personal objective facts which cannot be communicated to the general public. Here comes a trivial example. I remember a party where I noticed a cream bun had been left on my chair. I decided to act as if I hadn't seen it and pretended to sit down. The people on either side shouted last second warnings to save me from a creamy bottom. When I admitted I was only pretending they didn't believe me. I grew quite frustrated in trying to convince them. In the end I decided to regard their disbelief as a tribute to my acting skills. The point is that I saw the cream bun before I returned to my seat. This is an objective fact and not in any sense a trick of the mind. Yet I was totally unable to persuade other people of this truth.
In my lifetime I have had experiences which others may see as subjective (and if I'm honest they are far enough removed in time that my present self could see them as subjective too), but which were to me as clear and objective evidence of God's presence as anyone could wish for.
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