PHILOSOPHICAL CLUB

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22631, 24 July 1935, Page 6

PHILOSOPHICAL CLUB

“ CAN WE PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD?” A very interesting symposium and discussion took place at a meeting ot the Philosophical Club when Dr Findlay presided over a good attendance of membeis and visitors. . . The subject of the symposium was, " Can We Prove the Existence of God. Mr Cameron opened the discussion by saying that there was only one proof ot anything, and that was whether it was reasonable. If a thing was thinkable it existed, and existed only in so far as it was thinkable. He took the well-known saying of Milton that he who destroyed a good book . . . killed the image of God itself. From this point Mr Cameron proceeded to show that the whole of creation was God because by definition the universe was everything. Theretoie God was in everything, and everything was in God. This meant that there could be no moral code nor any unmoral acts because every act was a moral one. ft a workman made a good piece of furniture he had acted morally. .If he made a bad piece he had acted immorally. The antithesis was taken by Mr Prior, who criticised Mr Cameron’s assertion that if a thing was thinkable it existed, stating that there was no reason to believe that what was thinkable and existence were co-extensive-—still less that they were two terms for the same thing. Mr Prior further objeted to Mr Cameron’s conception of God, which he designated as pantheism, a form of religion to which the Christian Chruch had always shown itself opposed whenever it appeared within the Church. Mr Prior was of the opinion that the existence of God was not conclusively demonstrable, but God’s existence was self-evident to faith, which was itself a gift of God. The synthesis of the symposium was in the hands of Dr Mernngton, who stated that be considered that the previous speakers had rather missed the point ot the symposium, which he considered was Theism v. Atheism. He quoted the saying that " nothing worthy of proving can be proven or disproven ” as an example of the fact that God could not be mathematically proven, but that His existence was demonstrable, which means there were a great number of people for whom the existence of God was certain, but what convinced them would not convince anyone who did nob wish to beliete in An interesting discussion followed these papers.