Meir Buzaglo

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

On Proving the Unprovability of God’s Existence

1 March 2019, 15:45

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: In my talk I use “theology” in a narrow sense, i.e., the analysis of proofs for the existence of God. Meta-theology is the study of the very possibility to prove God’s existence and of whether belief in God is a matter of rational thinking or an issue that must be left to faith. Thus, the lively discussion on Gödel’s ontological argument belongs to theology, while Kant’s attempt in the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) to disprove all possible proofs for the existence of God belongs to meta-theology. In the talk, I wish to explore the possible application of Gödel’s Second Theorem (GST) to meta-theology. After showing why there is prima facie evidence for the relevance of GST to meta-theology, I argue that in one sense - which is to be clearly defined below - it is pointless to try to prove that God’s existence is unprovable. As it turns out, this conclusion is not confined to the existence of God and can be generalized to other claims of proving unprovability.