Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. Science can’t prove the truth or untruth of a spiritual or mystical experience. When a scientist or other rational thinker says that they can prove or disprove the reality of spirit, it’s a conceit, a stroke of arrogance.

The reason why science can’t offer a watertight proof or disproof of any matter touching upon spiritual subjects is because its method is inadequate to the task. The spiritual realm includes but transcends the rational. The mystical isn’t irrational. It’s superrational.

Science grew out of philosophy. Scientific knowledge and methodology were once part of the body of philosophical knowledge. Since philosophy was also wed to religious disciplines (and is still so unified in many Eastern traditions), it’s understandable why some who embrace rational ways of knowing believe they can debunk or authentic the existence of a spiritual dimension.

Let’s take a look at the experimental method. It relies upon—

• hypothesis,
• an experiment designed to test the hypothetical,
• control and variable groups in a double-blind setting (the gold standard),
• the performance of the experiment, and
• the conclusion, which tells us whether the experiment verifies or falsifies the hypothesis.

Of course, the experiment must use valid measures, which means that it must measure what it purports to measure. And it must be reliable, which means it must be demonstrably repeatable with the same result.

There are at least two ways that this experimental structure breaks down at the level of metaphysics, spirituality and mysticism. First, spiritual reality is nonratifiable. By its definition, it lies beyond the bounds of merely rational knowing. It may be partly rational, partly knowable in a logical sense. Yet a part of spiritual understanding always lies beyond the boundaries of human rational understanding. It is nonfalsifiable. Second, we noted that an experiment always involves measures. It must measure what it purports to measure, whether that measurement involves mere counting or utilizes a more sophisticated measuring device, like a particle accelerator.

Spirit, by definition, transcends measure. It’s beyond quantification because it involves quality. In fact, it involves at least two qualities: the infinite and the timeless. Although mathematics and the science which bases itself on mathematics sometimes discuss the concepts of infinity and the atemporal, these are really immeasurable qualities, and as such, they are not quantifiable. Science concerns itself with spacetime measures – measures of spacetime, within spacetime. Since they can neither be verified nor unverified, counted nor uncounted, spiritual matter are not wholly amenable to logical or scientific treatment. They extend beyond proof or the experimental method.

Therefore, a scientist or a logician who concludes that they can prove or disprove the existence of spirit has really exceeded their jurisdiction. This is really hard for me to write about, since I believe in a spiritual dimension and I really want to root for those scientists who say that they can prove its veracity. But they, as well as the atheists who advance proofs in favor of mindless, materialistic causes to consciousness, are walking outside the gates of the castles of logic.

To those philosophers who’ve stepped outside those walls, my hat’s off to you. I think a belief in spirit is a choice, an assumption, and a matter of faith. In the end, we may know whether it’s real or not. And by ‘in the end’ I mean, when we die.

Yet some mystics have written that true knowledge of the spirit can only be attained by another kind of death: the death of the ego. If this is so, then we may never know, since conscious knowledge of the spiritual dimension – the kind that is attained through rational and scientific means – is essentially egoic knowledge. Spirit is absolute, and human, or egoic understanding, is relative. Scientific measures are always relative to something. Absolute enlightenment means that the sole subject of understanding, the ego, won’t be there to know what enlightenment is in the logical way humans grasp things.

The ultimate proof will probably always lie beyond our intellectual comprehension. This maddening quest to seek understanding of the essentially unknowable is only transcended when we change our goal from one of knowing, to one of experience.

© 2024 by Michael C. Just