“The highest truth is reality distinguished from illusion for the welfare of all.”
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1.1.2
Every human being, regardless of nationality, education or belief, shares one remarkable desire. We want to know what is true. Long before we decide whether we are atheists, agnostics or believers, we already assume that truth exists and that it is worth searching for. Without that assumption there would be no science, no philosophy, no justice and no meaningful conversation. Every genuine investigation begins with the same quiet conviction that reality exists independently of our opinions and that, with sufficient honesty, we may gradually come to understand it more clearly.
This raises a profound question that is surprisingly easy to overlook
How do we actually know anything?
We often spend our lives defending conclusions without first examining the path that led us to them. Yet every conclusion rests upon assumptions. Scientists have assumptions. Philosophers have assumptions. Believers have assumptions. Atheists have assumptions. The important question is not whether we possess assumptions but whether we are aware of them. The search for truth begins the moment we become willing to examine even the foundations of our own thinking.
Recently I came across an article entitled The Evidence for God Challenge. The author confidently states that there is no evidence for God and invites readers to provide any if they can. At first sight the challenge appears both rigorous and convincing. Scripture is rejected. Personal experience is rejected. Philosophy is rejected. Historical testimony is rejected. Tradition is rejected. Only one form of evidence is considered acceptable, directly observable physical evidence that anyone can independently verify.
Many readers will probably think that such a challenge settles the matter.
Curiously, it had the opposite effect on me.
I did not immediately begin searching for evidence of God.
Instead I found myself asking a different question.
Before we investigate God, should we not first investigate the investigation?
That is not an attempt to avoid the challenge. It is the beginning of every honest inquiry. If a scientist announces an extraordinary discovery, other scientists do not simply accept his conclusion. They first examine the method by which that conclusion was reached. If a judge receives a verdict, he first asks whether the trial itself was fair. The quality of every conclusion can never exceed the quality of the investigation that produced it.
The challenge does not merely ask for evidence. It first decides what kind of evidence will be accepted. At first this appears perfectly reasonable. But is it?
Imagine someone asking you to prove that music exists while refusing to accept anything that can be heard. He will only accept fingerprints, DNA or chemical analysis. Most people would immediately recognise that the problem does not lie with music. The problem lies with the method of investigation. It is attempting to investigate one kind of reality with tools designed for another.
We instinctively understand this principle in every area of life. A microscope cannot reveal distant galaxies. A telescope cannot examine living cells. A mathematician cannot weigh the number seven on a set of scales. Different realities require methods appropriate to their own nature. The instrument must fit the subject.
Why should the question of God be different?
The illustration accompanying the challenge portrays God as though He were the subject of a police investigation. There are boxes for fingerprints, DNA, footprints, sightings and other physical traces. Every box is empty, leaving the clear impression that no evidence exists.
It is an effective illustration.
Yet hidden within it is an assumption so fundamental that it almost disappears.
The illustration quietly assumes that God, if He exists, belongs to the category of physical objects that should leave biological traces behind.
But who established that assumption?
Certainly not the great theistic traditions.
Whether one opens the Vedas, the Bible or the Qur’an, the claim is not that God is another material organism wandering through the universe. The claim is that He is the source of the universe itself.
Whether that claim is true is precisely the question we wish to investigate.
But before dismissing it, should we not first understand what is actually being claimed?
Otherwise we risk disproving something that no one has ever believed.
Imagine carefully examining every page of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. You analyse the paper, the ink and the binding. Finally you announce that Shakespeare never existed because his fingerprints cannot be found inside the play.
The problem is immediately obvious.
The investigation has confused the author with his work.
The absence of fingerprints tells us nothing about Shakespeare. It merely reveals that the investigation misunderstood the relationship between a creator and his creation.
The same caution should guide every discussion concerning ultimate reality.
There is another question that quietly emerges.
The challenge dismisses testimony, historical documents, philosophical reasoning and logical argument. Yet these are among the very methods upon which civilisation itself depends. Our knowledge of ancient history comes through documents, inscriptions and multiple independent witnesses. Courts of law reach verdicts by carefully weighing physical evidence together with testimony, reason and circumstance. Science itself frequently infers realities that cannot be directly observed by studying their measurable effects.
In ordinary life we constantly accept evidence that is indirect.
No one has ever seen another person’s thoughts.
Yet no one doubts that thoughts exist.
No one has ever photographed love.
Yet we recognise its presence through its effects.
No one observes consciousness as an object lying on a laboratory table.
Yet consciousness is the one reality each of us knows more directly than anything else.
The deeper we reflect, the more we discover that reality is richer than our instruments alone can measure.
Perhaps, then, the real question is not whether evidence exists.
Perhaps the real question is whether we have first understood the nature of the reality we are attempting to investigate.
That question deserves careful thought, because every conclusion that follows depends upon the answer.
That question deserves careful thought, because every conclusion that follows depends upon the answer.
The purpose of this article is therefore not to prove God in a few pages. Such an ambition would be unrealistic, just as it would be unrealistic to imagine that a few pages could prove or disprove consciousness, love, beauty or justice. Rather, my purpose is much more modest and, I hope, much more useful. I simply wish to examine whether the challenge itself begins with assumptions that deserve as much investigation as the conclusion it reaches.
The author states that there is no evidence for God. That is an important claim. Notice, however, that it is not the same as saying, “I do not believe in God.” It is a positive statement about the nature of all available evidence. Such a conclusion naturally invites another question. How was every possible category of evidence examined before reaching that conclusion? If entire categories of evidence are excluded before the investigation begins, can we honestly say that the investigation itself has been complete?
Every investigation is shaped by the questions it asks. If I ask, “How much does justice weigh?” I shall never discover justice, not because justice does not exist, but because I have asked the wrong question. If I ask, “What colour is honesty?” I shall spend the rest of my life searching in vain. The failure lies, not with reality, but with the method by which I attempted to investigate it.
The same principle applies when considering God. If the very first assumption is that only physical evidence will be accepted, then the investigation has already concluded that God, if He exists, must belong entirely to the physical world. Yet this is precisely what the great theistic traditions have never claimed. They speak of a reality that is the source of matter rather than another object made of matter.
At this point someone may object that such a claim simply moves God beyond investigation. I do not believe that it does. It merely reminds us that every subject must be approached by methods appropriate to its own nature. We do this constantly without thinking about it. Music is appreciated by listening. Mathematics is understood by reasoning. Friendship is discovered through relationship. None of these realities can be adequately investigated by chemical analysis alone.
There is another remarkable feature of the challenge that deserves our attention. It rejects logical argument as evidence. Yet the challenge itself is constructed as a logical argument. It reasons from a set of premises to a conclusion. In other words, reason is quietly used to persuade the reader that reason is not acceptable. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the conclusion, this should at least encourage us to examine the consistency of the method.
Perhaps the greatest lesson that emerges from this discussion is one of intellectual humility. We all see the world through certain assumptions. The believer does. The atheist does. The scientist does. The philosopher does. Genuine inquiry begins, not when we imagine ourselves free from assumptions, but when we become willing to examine them honestly.
This is one of the reasons I have always admired the method found in the Bhagavad-gītā. Lord Krishna never asks Arjuna to abandon his intelligence. On the contrary, He engages it. He answers questions, removes misunderstandings, presents reason, explains the nature of the self, material nature, consciousness and the Supreme, and only after completing His explanation does He say,
“Thus I have explained to you knowledge still more confidential. Deliberate on this fully, and then do what you wish to do.”
Those words contain extraordinary confidence.
There is no coercion.
There is no emotional manipulation.
There is no demand that Arjuna surrender his ability to think.
Instead, there is an invitation to understand.
I believe that every sincere search for truth should possess that same spirit. We need not fear honest questions. We need not fear careful investigation. Truth does not become weaker because it is examined. If it is truly truth, examination can only make it shine more clearly.
For this reason I have no desire to “win” the challenge that inspired this article. Winning a small prize would prove nothing of lasting value. What matters infinitely more is that we learn to ask better questions. When our questions become clearer, our understanding has already begun to deepen.
Whether one ultimately accepts the existence of God or not is a decision each individual must make. But let that decision arise from a careful examination of reality rather than from assumptions that have never themselves been examined. The love of truth demands nothing less.
If this article has encouraged you to think more deeply, I would invite you to do one more thing. Read the original challenge for yourself. Do not read it in order to agree with it. Do not read it in order to disagree with it. Read it with the same spirit of honest inquiry that has guided this article. Ask yourself whether the investigation begins with assumptions. Ask yourself whether the methods proposed are appropriate to the subject being investigated. Ask yourself whether the same standards are consistently applied in science, history and everyday life.
Above all, ask yourself not what you have always believed, but what reality itself may be inviting you to discover.
Only then can any conclusion, whether theistic or atheistic, become the result of genuine investigation rather than inherited opinion.
Devarsiratha das
The original challenge that inspired the above examination can be found here:
https://www.atheismuk.com/the-evidence-for-god-challenge
Truth has nothing to fear from honest investigation.
Hare Krishna.
Sincerily
Devarsiratha das Vanaprastha
Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada 1973
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Ps..AI helped with the linguistic assistance in finalizing this text. AI did not create the philosophical content or determine the conclusions. All credit for its substance belongs to my spiritual master Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and His divine teachings.
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