How far can we use reason to access God?

It is sometimes claimed that faith starts where reason ends because in the final analysis God is incomprehensible and that words can never adequately capture the essence of God. Is that so? Obviously Michael Scriven doesn't agree, if we may rely upon his article " God and Reason" in Critiques of God ed. Peter A Angeles 1997 .

Scriven does not accept the idea that because God is infinite, we cannot talk about God. He argues that "there is nothing in the least self-contradictory about a human being reasoning to the conclusion that there are beings with more than human power, just as the big game hunter frequently reasons to the presence of elephants....we can go even further; the whole of modern particle physics involves reasoning about the existence of beings with properties that are so fundamentally different from the ones with which we are familiar with that comprehension in the sense of simple analogy with the familiar is almost completely lacking but the success of applied physics shows that such inferences are not only possible but very effective. And mathematics readily demonstrates the possibility of reasoning to the existence of infinite entities and properties." Here he is right about our ability to draw inference from things known to our senses to things not "directly known" or "perceived" by such senses ie. to so-called "invisible" things, assuming that "sight" is a very powerful way we can affirm if something exists or not, but I think he is misconstruing the problem. The God of the Christian is not something within the universe. If the particles are "infinitesimally" small, it is a so-called "infinity" within and still part of the universe and hence not "truly infinite". It is only an approximation of what is truly infinite. Besides, to be able to talk about infinities in some way is just not the same as being able to talk "adequately" about "infinities" , which is what the mystics claim.

From that premise, Scriven argues that "there is a clear possibility of direct proof of the existence of a Being with wholly unfamiliar powers and that there is nothing inappropriate about approaching that possibility via the simpler strategem of discussing the finite and more comprehensible Basic God, however different this may be in itself from the mighty God of our fathers. it is different but not irrelevant....So an approach via the existence of Basic God makes it possible to show there is a God that many would consider worthy of awe, reverence and prayer even if the difficulties about the more complex entities of certain religions are insuperable". The real question is not whether it is possible to talk about God "in some way" at all. The true question is whether there are any ways in which we can "fully comprehend" God the way we can fully comprehend something simple like say, the metal iron. We can't even say we "fully understand" human beings. How much more difficult it is for us to fully understand an "entity" (although here, there is some doubt if, strictly speaking, the word "entity" can be used about God at all) infinitely more complex than man and obtain the kind of "proof" that Scriven is talking about. Scriven appears to understand his difficulties. He says, "The mightiest arguments of the theologians are aimed higher, it might be said, and for better or worse, they bear on a different question. God is not just more of everything or even the most. He is different in kind from other things: He is the Creator and not just a jumbo sized friendly handyman, and so on with the other properties.". He says that "these points are good' but "'irrelevant". Why? Because he says that he is just concerned with the question of whether what he calls a "Basic God" exists, not whether a God "as or more powerful than Basic God" exists. But the whole point is that there is no so-called "Basic God", just a "God" who is infinite. Mathematicians have shown us that at infinity, the "normal" rules of mathematics and logic break down and they would have to make various further assumptions to make their mathematical formulas work! We must confess our inability to deal "adequately" and "fully" with infinities, certainly as far as our "understanding" and "knowledge" of infinities are concerned. "Some" knowledge is simply not "total" knowledge! A part of us is never congruent with the whole, holographs not withstanding, because holographs are merely visual images of what the original image is and sight is but one of our senses.!

Scriven complains that some theologians have argued that the words we use to describe God do not have their "ordinary" use at all. "All religious knowledge is symbolic and not to be taken literally, they say", he commented.  He says, "This move throws out the baby of belief with the bath water of mythology: it is too sophisticated for its own good". Why? "In the first place, almost all believers and potential believers, past and present, take the usual claims about God's nature to be something like the truth, even if not quite literally true and it is to them we are addressing these discussions." Secondly, he says that, if we ask seriously "what it is about religious belief, interpreted in this way, that distinguishes it from the beliefs of a pagan or avowed atheist: we find that either there is no agreement on the answer or the answer is that no such distinctions exist." He argues, if there is real difference between almost everyone who believes in the existence of God and everyone who does not" ie. that the two groups disagree about what a thorough census of all existing entities would show and only one of them thinks it would include an intelligent Being with supernatural powers, concerned with our welfare.". He says that "recent liberal Protestant theology" fails to see what is indistinguishable cannot be indispensable.  Now if by "no agreement on the answer", he means that the theists and atheists cannot agree, that is obvious. There is no common ground. I am not sure what he means when he refers to "this residual content in theism" by the liberal Protestant theology" being equivalent to saying that there, the differences between atheists and theists have become "indistinguishable". In any event, he says that such differences can now be dispensed with. Why? According to him, if we say that theists claim that God is Unknowable or certainly unknowable, then "there cannot be any reason for worshiping or respecting or loving or praying to or believing in such a God". This to me, is simply false. We do it every day. We love and respect our parents, our mates and even our grown children without completely understanding their every thought, feeling and acts! He is making a completely unfounded assertion! There is no good reason for him to suggest that we cannot or should not do so in such circumstances! His reason? "The Unknowable may be evil, stupid, inanimate or non-existent." he says. But as far as I am concerned, that is not the Christian concept of God! If he is suggesting that the Christians are "wrong" in their belief, I can equally argue too that he is wrong in "his" assumptions that God is evil, stupid etc. The unknown is unknown. If it is possible to assume that the Christian God is evil, stupid, as Scriven does, then it is "equally" legitimate for the Christians to assume the contrary. At least the Christians have some evidence in the form of their Holy Scriptures that their God is good, loving etc. Scriven has none or if he has, he has not demonstrated them.  So his argument goes! Against this, he falls back on the position that the God of the great religions has "quite enough properties to make him...non-existent"  What are they? He did not specify.

He says that "one can all too easily get carried away by catchy little slogans like "The finite cannot comprehend the infinite" "Man cannot presume to judge God", "God takes up where Reason gives out" . He says some "special reason" must be given why an infinite God cannot be reasoned about in the same way about "ordinary" things. He asks: why should the human mind be incapable of dealing with the infinite in theology but not in mathematics and cosmology, where it is a commonplace and well-defined part of the subject? The theological answer is simply that God is not a "being amongst other beings" but he is the "Being" which embraces and contains all the "beings" there are in the universe and in whom they have their individual "beings": God is their "Creator" and their "sustainer". Here, Scriven is making a categorical mistake. God is simply not the "kind" of being that he is talking about as if God were just like any other "being"!  According to theology, God is the first cause of all the other causes of there being something rather than nothing. He is the infinite of the infinites, so to speak and non-ordinary.  He is one of a kind, unique, incomparable!  Here my argument about strange things happening in mathematics whenever infinities are involved applies: e.g the infinity of even numbers is the same as the infinity of odd numbers ! Where infinities are involved, the "normal" rules simply do not apply.

Scriven argues that "reason can in principle both prove and disprove the existence of God" He says, "the world must to some extent be a reflection of his character. If we can show that the world is best explained in terms of a divine plan, we have the best reasons for theism. If the world is simply a natural phenomenon, whose natural properties are grossly imperfect for our needs and not improved by any unseen forces, it seems at first sight as if we would have some kind of reason for thinking Him less than good, powerful and wise." I have no quarrel with him on this score. But to me, the evidence is ambiguous: the world is both good and bad from the human point of view and there is as much order as there is disorder, as much appearance of "design" as "chaos". We can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God simply from studying evidence of whether or not there is "order" in the universe. Scientists tell us that more than 95% of the known universe contains "dark matter" or "dark energy". We know much less than we think! That'll teach us some humility in what we think we know or can know, despite our "reason".

Then Scriven argues. "even if it were His nature to be anonymous, the nature of our basic question still makes an answer possible. For we are not discussing the question of whether the existence of God is possible but the question of whether it is likely...the absence of all evidence for God's existence would it most unlikely that He exists." I am sure that Christians will come up with plenty of evidence to refute him on this score.
 
To conclude, Scriven has simply failed to persuade me that if God is truly infinite, why it is not reasonable for us to find we should be unable to fully understand him or that we now have all the necessary intelligence and all the necessary evidence to fully penetrate such a God's "existence" in a humanly comprehensible way, including the question of whether or not he truly exists and if so, in what form. 
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