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All of the people who say that they are "atheists  through skepticism, because they see no evidence that God exists," are patently unthinking people, since by virtue of turning skeptic, no one has ever done anything—employed any logic, gathered any evidence, found any way forward—to reach a conclusion about whether God exists. So these atheists have not reached a conclusion; they have made a commitment.

What the scientific skeptic ought to say is this: "Having examined the hard evidence, we declare that route to be exhausted. The only kind of evidence for God’s existence that counts will have to be  of some other kind—if there is any other kind."

That would be reasonable. And it would be a fine thing for a skeptic to doubt that there is any evidence besides the standard, demonstrable kind—and there are skeptics who do so. But all those who, just because they doubt it, run home with the question answered are frauds like their agnostic brethren if they still call themselves scientists.

Hunches are starting points, not arguments. We need "to inquire, to investigate, to think critically about any subject" before we settle our minds, as they so love to tell us. But where are the skeptics who go up the mountain with Pascal? Nowhere.

When the smart scientist of the seventeenth century was asked, “Is clear water pure?” he did not go with his gut and answer "yes" or "no." "The naked eye says yes," he answered, "but is there an instrument better than the naked eye with which to see?" We need to listen to the scientist who claims that there is, and that scientist is Pascal.

That instrument is the heart. "It is the heart which perceives God, and not the reason" (424). "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know" (423). Pascal’s reasons of the heart are meant to take over from an intellect that operates on hard evidence but has run out of it. "The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one" (298).

We are not talking here about feelings, which love to cheat us. Pascal says that the heart convinces, makes us rightly sure. “Demonstration is not the only instrument for convincing us” (821).


[http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=21-05-020-f Touchstone Magazine]