If God isn’t physically present in order to scientifically prove His existence then we can’t say He does exist. There’s no evidence for God’s physical existence, therefore the claim God exists is the same as saying the flying spaghetti monster exists. – Atheist
A common rebuttal to the existence of God claim is that since He isn’t physically present He doesn’t exist until He shows up. When He shows up, we can scientifically state that God in fact does exist. However there are major flaws with this argument.
It isn’t logical
To say God doesn’t exist or even that it’s a good probability that God doesn’t exist because we can’t see Him infers that existence is based purely on our finite ability to apprehend what we can obtain in the physical world. It is like being shipwrecked on an island with people who’ve never seen or heard of a phone and trying to convince them you can talk to family and friends without seeing them through one of these devices. To the islanders phones don’t exist despite your futile efforts to explain a foreign technology but that doesn’t mean phones don’t really exist. But let’s take this even further. Imagine that every human was wiped off of the planet. Do phones still exist since no-one is on earth to see or use them? Let’s push this even further. Let’s say we then drop one person on this desolate planet who’s never seen or heard of a phone. Do phones exist now or do they only exist once this person has come in contact with one?
Now, at this point those critical of God’s existence would decry that by this logic we could say the flying spaghetti monster could exist! Why yes, we can actually and there’s nothing wrong with that statement at first glance. The problem comes in when the definition, character and or nature of the flying spaghetti monster doesn’t line up with what the expectation is for experiencing such a thing. When we talk about God, nothing about God’s character, definition, nature or makeup even hints at the fact we should expect to experience Him daily as a physical being in a naturalistic realm. The things we do know about God have evidences to match. These are things such as the Bible being replete with historic facts and fulfilled prophecies. The existence of Jesus from secular and non-secular witness accounts. The evidences for the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus as a testimony to Him being not only sent as God, but really as God Himself (John 1:1-4). God’s character and nature described as a personal creator concerned with righteousness, justice, love, mercy and goodness just as we do. Let’s not forget that God’s makeup is spirit.
“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” – John 4:24
Which means if you’re looking for a physical entity you’re looking for the wrong thing. I could go on. As for the flying spaghetti monster, there is no definition or expectation with evidences to match.
No absolute standard
Another way to look at this issue is to ask ourselves, by whose standard does God have to appear to us in order for Him to exist? If we’re talking about an infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent, personal creator God, then why isn’t it plausible things exist the way they do simply because that’s how God designed it? It is absolutely plausible that God, creator of the universe designed us with distance between the natural and supernatural realm on purpose. There is simply nothing, no scientific law, sound philosophical argument or anything we know about God’s character or nature that states if He were to exist, He must exist within His creation by way of daily visits and walks in the park with His creation. God is simply God and does as He pleases. That’s a big part of what makes Him God of not just the universe, but God of all things that exist.
“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” – Psalm 115:3
Man has zero authority
Another problem with this typical rebuttal concerning God’s existence is it attempts to dethrone God and replace Him with man. Meaning the argument starts from a position of what man thinks God should be doing instead of what God chooses to do. It argues that God – a supernatural being – should operate in a specific way within the natural realm according to how man – the created being – determines. However man has no natural or supernatural authority to even make such a claim. If one subscribes to the belief of naturalism where no God exists and there’s only nature, then man is simply a byproduct of nature. If one subscribes to the belief that life originated by way of supernaturalism, then man is a created being by way of supernatural means. In either case man is simply a product with zero creation ability and zero authority on the existence of life. Man has no voice in determining how God can exist or how God should operate.
When we think logically through this common rebuttal we can see that it really is nothing more than the classic example of the clay attempting to become the potter. The argument is not logically sound. There is no absolute standard that defines how God should operate outside what we know about Him and man has zero authority to hold God to such a standard.