When arguing about the existence of God,   the vast majority of arguments I have ever run into always go to the point of   asking for evidence. With that word in use they are implying the physical   manifestation of evidence to prove God true and, as a theist, that is not how   God works in relation to what we are taught. Must evidence, in a physical   form or with science backing its existence, be truly necessary to believe in   the idea of the supernatural?

May 15, 2013

Thank   you for this inquiry! The idea that all our beliefs, religious or not, must   have sufficient evidence is sometimes called “evidentialism.” It is   much debated today: some philosophers think there is no uncontroversial   domain of what may or may not count as evidence nor, if we did agree on what   counts as evidence, how much evidence one needs in order for a belief to be   justified. I am inclined to think that all or most of our beliefs are in fact   backed up by some evidence (reasons for thinking our beliefs are true),   however modest and elusive. And I also suggest that the belief in God is   rarely without some evidence, even if it only amounts to ‘it appears to me   that God exists.’ But four things might be noted in reply to your   question(s).

First, not all evidence for a belief need involve “physical   manifestations,” a “physical form,” or the natural and social   sciences. Part of the problem with these claims is that we do not have a   clear, universal concept of what counts as physical.

Second, evidence may include the experiential or what seems manifested in   one’s experience. So, I suspect that for many theists, part of their   evidence-base is some sense of the presence and reality of God. Appeals to   experience in a philosophical argument is sometimes referred to as an appeal   to phenomenology, an appeal to what seems evident in our experience. Appeals   to phenomenology are sometimes used in ethics (e.g. claims are advanced that   good and evil are evident in our experiences of health and harm), philosophy   of mind (some philosophers seem to deny the reality of consciousness and   awareness; other philosophers reply that such a denial flies against all our   waking experience), aesthetics (e.g. appeal to our experience of what seems   like beauty and ugliness). There are also a variety of arguments for theism   based on religious experience. You may find references to this literature on   the free, online Stanford Encyclopedia.

Third, a significant number of philosophers reject “evidentialism”   whether in a religious or secular context. Some think that what makes a   belief justified or warranted is the reliability of the belief being true,   even if the “believer” has little idea of the evidence available.   Some philosophers have argued for believing in God on non-evidential grounds,   such as Pascal’s wager (if you do not know whether there is a God, it is   better to believe or assume that there is a God rather than not). In several   dynamic, interesting books and papers, Paul Moser (of Loyola University) has   argued for the primacy of a volitional account for believing in God. It is   “volitional” insofar as Moser argues that to seek God one must be   willingly open to recognize the reality of a perfectly good, loving God. Once   this openness is in play, Moser believes that a yielding to this God of love   will become both apparent and justified (the belief in God through this   process is not at all in conflict with one’s intellectual integrity). You can   find references to his work by just doing a Google search for: Paul Moser   philosopher belief in God.

Fourth, I suggest that the term “supernatural” may not be the best   to employ in connection with reflection on God. This is partly because the   term does not have a consistent usage in English and some associate the   “supernatural” with the superstitious. The term “theism”   (coined in the 17th century in the first philosophy of religion texts in   English) is the more consistent term for the belief that there is an all   good, powerful, knowing, necessarily existing, omnipresent God who has   created and conserves the cosmos in being.