Many people--Christian apologists, secular philosophers, and laypeople alike, will inevitably say that "It is impossible to prove anything" and that the best we can offer is informed estimations of probability when pressed to defend certain propositions. But is this really true? Does it remain consistent with itself?
There indeed exists a vast difference between evidence, even strong evidence, and proof. For example, science can prove little to nothing, but it can definitely support a hypothesis or claim. Arguing that it is very probable that we aren't living in the Matrix does not prove we aren't inside it. I can't prove there are no invisible unicorns or wasps in my bedroom, and I can't prove that there is or isn't a single unified global conspiracy to suppress national autonomy.
Many positions either can't establish their first premise or they can't verify their conclusion. But there remain a great deal of things we can certainly prove.
There are many things we can prove:
1. That whether we claim to know something or know nothing we are really claiming to know something.
2. That knowing at least one thing is not just hypothetically possible but inescapable.
3. That if all people are mortal and Obama is a person, then Obama is mortal.
4. That in a given scenario one statement or explanation can seem far more probable than another.
5. That no one can argue against logic without using logic in the very argument against it.
6. That eternal conscious torment for finite sins is disproportionate [1].
7. That God cannot exist and not exist simultaneously; he either is or isn't real.
8. That it is impossible for any possible God to create a rock so large that he cannot move it, and that therefore any God that exists cannot do all things.
9. That if hurting people is generally wrong, then nothing is more evil than certain forms of physical torture.
These things can be proven to be absolutely correct and anyone who disagrees with them is incorrect and possibly intellectually impaired. We can definitely prove that some things are just how reality is and that at least that if a certain hypothetical or possible criteria is met then certain things must follow logically and inescapably.
There are many things I can prove to myself, even if not to someone else:
1. That I exist and am a conscious, thinking being that perceives.
2. That if I strike my face with what I call my hand I can feel pain.
3. That even if my senses are deceived, I still have senses and my senses are still experiencing and contacting something.
4. That I have certain moral preferences.
5. That I abhor certain vegetables.
6. That I fear cockroaches.
7. That I enjoyed preparing this post.
My own consciousness, experience, and mind prove these facts to myself alone, as other people can't know for sure if I really enjoyed preparing this post or if cockroaches frighten me, but it is possible for them to find out through various means that I am a philosopher who is very honest and transparent and that I am a Christian and therefore part of a religion that abhors deception and that I take my Christianity very seriously. They can assess the probability that I spoke honestly when I said I enjoyed preparing this and ascertain that I am almost certainly telling the truth and there is no reason to believe I lied, but they still can't know for sure if I was honest because they can't truly access my mind.
Also, I am not claiming here that everything one experiences must be exactly as one's perceptions suggest. I would never attempt to prove God's existence, for example, by appealing to my personal experience, either that of myself or someone else. A seeming feeling of God's presence cannot prove to anyone that God exists. However, my own consciousness, mental awareness and thoughts, and sensory experience undeniably prove to me myself that I exist, and while I can doubt this reality I can never do so rationally, for if I did not exist then I could not use my mind to ponder and question and doubt if I am real. I could not doubt that I am conscious and existing without first being conscious and existing to do so.
What is highly intriguing about the claim that no one can prove anything is the response when someone questions this. Usually the proponent of the claim will cite numerous examples of things we can't know for sure or that we can't prove, but, even if their attempts could succeed, the person doing this only ends up PROVING their point, which both contradicts their goal and hopelessly and thoroughly refutes their own position. This is very similar to the assertion that we can't know anything (I address something similar here [2]), an argument that clearly commits suicide the moment it leaves the sayer's mouth.
So in the end, the statement that "nothing can be proven" is just as self-refuting and intellectually pathetic as the one saying that "only science can reveal truth," or the claim that "we can't know anything for sure." Really? Can we know that for sure? Because even if we can't, then at least we know for sure that we don't know anything for sure! No one can escape from what must be true by necessity.
I've personally entered and exited a phase where I viewed everything with the highest degree of skepticism, and while I realized more than I had previously that many things are indeed unknowable or unprovable, I also recognized that not everything rests in that category. It's time others recognized this as well.
[1]. Yes, I am an annihilationist. I need to explain this more soon.
[2]. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/objectivity.html
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