Atheists ask for evidence. Evidence is semiotic, it functions by signification. For example, a falling object is not itself gravity, and so as evidence of gravity the falling object functions semiotically as a sign of gravity. Gravity itself, therefore, is not known directly by the senses, and so is not directly empirical. The empirical aspect of gravity functions according to signification, i.e. it is semiotic.
What would evidence of God be? Well, the concept of God includes that it (the concept) points to a reality not contained within the empirical realm. Like gravity, God cannot, in principle, be verified directly, cannot be directly perceived by the senses. Therefore, evidence for God must also be semiotic.
Moreover, God, as a concept, includes many aspects that are distinct, and so to provide reasonable evidence for what the conceptual sign points to could not therefore mean providing exhaustive evidence for all that is ascribed to God. Only certain attributes can be reasonably treated at any given time. A proof of God's love, for example, is not the same as a proof of His existence. The semiotic evidence, in other words, must be suited to the attribute.
Now, the evidence demanded by naturalists is not God's love but His existence, but this existence must be related to something conceptually meaningful to the naturalist. What is meaningful to a naturalist is related to his basic presupposition regarding the universe: its intelligibility. Their basic assumption about the universe is its intelligible order, for apart from this presupposition science cannot establish itself or proceed.
Moving forward, the basic assumption about universal order cannot be verified empirically in any direct way, only semiotically. The laws which govern the universe are not immediately accessible to the senses, but must be rationally discerned. The empirical is a pivot for the intuition of order, but in itself is incapable of proving order. Order must not only be discerned semiotically, but is also a non-empirical presupposition which functions as a precondition of empirical and scientific intelligibility.
It is also worth noting that the cause of something is not circumscribed by the event it affects. Nor do signs circumscribe the signified. For example, although it semiotically points to gravity, the falling object does not itself circumscribe gravity, but is acted upon by gravity. Thus gravity transcends any particular gravitational effect. In this way an ordered event can function semiotically as a pointer to a more fundamental ordering principle or law. Not only does the sign, then, signify the signified, but the signified itself also points to a governing principle or law.
The foregoing is to say that order itself points to a principle of order, something that functions to order that which is ordering. For example, gravity itself is governed by the law of gravity. This law governs the various gravitational effects acting on objects. This is to say that three coinhere, (1) the semiotic object, or sign, like a falling object, (2) that which the sign points to, like gravity, and (3), the law which governs gravity. A similar analogy could obtain from (1) the swaying tree which functions as a sign of wind, (2) the wind itself which the sign, the swaying tree, signifies, i.e. the atmospheric pressure differentials, and (3) the thermodynamic laws which govern the atmospheric pressures.
More generally, all of the forces of nature are bound together as a whole and called the universe. Reality as such is singular. Gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, quantum mechanics, etc. all operate together in a singular reality (I would say material reality but quantum mechanics and laws of nature are not themselves "material"). In short, all of these forces coinhere in an ordered system, and this system of order functions semiotically to point to an ordering principle which governs this universal integration.
In conclusion, the order in reality, the order which is necessarily presupposed by the scientific endeavor, the order which is already non-material, presupposes a further and more fundamental ordering and integrating principle, a Logos, i.e. that which makes all things coinhere as a single intelligible reality and which yet transcends that reality, analogous to how the law of gravity transcends any particular gravitational effect. The Logos, as a concept, points to the fundamental, non-material ordering and integrating principle of reality that is itself not circumscribed by the reality it orders and integrates. The order of the universe, the very principle of its intelligibility, is therefore evidence of God, because one aspect of the concept of God is that God is the Logos.
-Fr. Joshua Schooping
See also here for a few brief related reflections on multiverses, teleology, and entropy.
See also here for a few brief related reflections on multiverses, teleology, and entropy.
