Can monotheism be proven?

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True Bible Answers · Accepted Answer

Asking whether monotheism can be proven is really two questions: what can the human mind establish on its own, and what can only God make known? Commentators in this collection answer that reason can carry you a certain distance and then stops dead — and that the stopping point is where revelation begins. Reason's ceiling One writer draws the line with unusual precision. Reason, once it has been handed the idea of God, can rule out rivals; what it cannot do is tell you that anything actually exists. Reason and conscience have their own proper power in their place, needing, in order to act in divine things, a light wholly independent of them, that is, a revelation. As I have said, when conscience has got light, it can say, Jupiter and Saturn cannot be gods; and reason can say, when it has got the idea of God, there cannot be two. Reason can never say, "is," or "is not," but "must," and "cannot." Ideas, and not facts, are its sphere. Revelation says "is" — another most important difference. J. N. Darby The same limit was noted in a review of the standard arguments for God's existence: we are bound to confess the insufficiency of all these reasonings which can never go beyond a must be, and fail to reveal to us the Being after whom the mind of man, however cultivated, does but vainly grope and confess as "God unknown," apart from a divine revelation. The Bible Treasury What creation does establish This is not scepticism about evidence. The visible world is treated as real testimony, with a defined reach: What is invisible in the Creator should be and is seen, and seen clearly, being understood by the things that are made — even His eternal power and Godhead — not, indeed, His grace, or truth, or love, but infinite power and design, so much so that people are left thus without excuse. Creation declares the power of God. It does not reveal what He is in Himself — His nature — but to any, except those wilfully blind, it is evidence sufficient of the existence of a Creator-God! J. Wilson Smith Scripture never argues the case The Bible itself does not open with a proof. It opens with an announcement — and one commentator adds a warning about the whole business of proving: Compare, of course, Genesis 1:1, where God is at once introduced, without the writer's pausing to prove His existence. That was supposed to flow from Creation, attributed to Him. Some evidential treatises have probably helped on unbelief as much as they have confirmed belief in GOD. William Kelly Declared, and meant to be spread Instead of demonstration, Scripture gives testimony — first to one nation, then through them outward: That there is only one God had been fully declared before Christ came. The unity of God is the great foundation truth of the Old Testament. It was the great testimony to Israel, as we read, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). It was the great testimony that was to flow out to the nations from Israel, as we read, "Let all the nations gather together… Let them hear and say, It is true. You are my witnesses, declares the LORD… that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior" (Isaiah 43:9-11). Hamilton Smith The historical direction is disputed A popular account of religion has humanity climbing from many gods up to one. One writer flatly reverses it: Those peoples that are now heathen once knew God. Man's course has not been from polytheism to monotheism, as some dreamers would have us imagine, but the other way round. They have sunk out of light into the darkness. Once "they knew God" (v. 21), but the fact is, they "did not see fit to acknowledge God" (v. 28). F. B. Hole The real obstacle is not evidence If proof were the whole issue, better arguments would settle it. The resistance is located somewhere else: "God" implies authority, and we all know that restraint is irksome; but, further, when "God" means holiness, and the judgment of evil, and the disallowance of that which we naturally like, then we do our utmost to banish from our minds, if possible, the existence of any such God at all. J. Wilson Smith What answers a revelation Since God's self-disclosure is not a deduction, the faculty that receives it is not the reasoning one: It is not, therefore, reason that responds to revelation, but faith. God makes Himself known to faith. Faith is not unreasonable, but it transcends reason. It dwells in a region far outside that of reason or science. It has to do with God in His proper sphere. J. Wilson Smith Summary Evidence. Creation clearly shows eternal power and design, leaving people without excuse — but it shows a Hand, not a heart. Ceiling. Reason can only say "must be" and "cannot be"; it can rule out rival gods, but it can never pronounce that God is. Announcement. Scripture skips the proof and states it: one God, declared to Israel and meant to reach every nation. Direction. On one reading of Romans 1, humanity did not climb from many gods to one; it fell from knowing God into darkness. Response. Since revelation says "is," the answering faculty is faith, not argument — and God makes Himself known to it.