Is “There Is an Invisible Dragon in My Garage!” Applicable to Our Faith?
Key Takeaways
- A claim needs a reason. “You cannot disprove it” is not evidence that it is true.
- Before testing the dragon, ask the claimant what convinced him in the first place.
- The dragon analogy is useful when it exposes empty claims, but it should not be transferred to Christianity without examining the reasons Christians actually give.
- Christianity invites testing, testimony and examination of its historical claims about Jesus.
- The real question: what best explains the reality we encounter?
Alert!
The analogy cuts both ways. Applying it to God without asking “Why do you believe?” is as careless as believing without ever giving a reason. Ask for reasons, and be ready to give them.
The Invisible Dragon in the Garage
Imagine a man running to his friend and saying:
“Hey, you know what? There is an invisible dragon in my garage!”
Horrified and curious, his friend goes with him and checks the garage. But he sees nothing.
The man responds:
“You cannot see it. You cannot touch it. You cannot detect its footprints. You cannot measure its heat.”
Whenever his friend asks for some way to test whether the dragon is actually there, the man keeps adding another explanation for why the dragon cannot be detected.
The point of this thought experiment, popularized by astronomer Carl Sagan, is that a claim constructed in such a way that no possible observation could disprove it does not, by itself, provide evidence for its own truth.
In other words:
“You cannot prove that my invisible dragon does not exist” does not mean “therefore, the dragon exists.”
This thought experiment is often used against religious claims—particularly the claim that God exists.
But I think there is an important question we should ask before applying the invisible-dragon analogy to God.
Back to topAsk the Claimant
Suppose I were the friend whom the man called.
I would not begin by asking endless questions about how to test the dragon.
My first questions would be different:
“What made you convinced that there is a dragon here in the first place?”
After all, the man himself made the claim.
He came to me and said that there is a dragon in his garage. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask him what grounds he has for believing that claim.
I might say:
“Okay, you have clearly told me that there is a dragon here, but you also say that it is invisible and cannot be detected. I am willing to hear you out. But what made you believe that there is a dragon here in the first place?
If I ask you how we can test for the dragon and you simply give me more reasons why nothing can ever detect it, that still doesn't answer my question.
What evidence convinced you that the dragon exists?
What did you observe? What happened? What experience did you have? What reason do you have for believing it is actually here?”
This changes the conversation.
The issue is no longer merely:
“Can I disprove the dragon?”
The deeper question becomes:
“Why does the person making the claim believe the dragon exists?”
If the man has absolutely no reason—no observation, no experience, no evidence, no argument, and no explanation—and simply invented an undetectable dragon, then his claim gives us no reason to believe it.
The problem is not merely that the dragon cannot be detected.
The problem is that the claimant has provided no positive reason to believe that the dragon exists.
Back to topWhat About a Ghost?
Consider another example.
Suppose someone tells me:
“I saw a ghost in that house.”
I might ask:
“What made you think it was a ghost?”
Perhaps he would respond:
“You cannot test ghosts. They are supernatural!”
But that still doesn't answer my question.
I would want to know what happened.
Did he see something unusual?
Did objects appear to move?
Did he hear strange sounds?
Did he experience something he could not immediately explain?
Did someone else witness the same event?
Were there circumstances that could provide alternative explanations?
None of these things automatically prove that a ghost exists. A strange experience can certainly be misunderstood.
But at least there is something to investigate.
The claim can be compared against reality.
This is different from simply inventing an entity and then building the claim in such a way that nothing could possibly count against it.
So far, when I have discussed such things with Christians or even non-Christians, people who believe they have encountered something paranormal usually give some reason for their belief, even if their interpretation of the experience may ultimately be mistaken.
At least they are not necessarily making things up in the same way as the fictional dragon-claimant.
And this distinction matters when we begin talking about God.
Back to topWhy Do People Compare God to the Invisible Dragon?
I completely understand why some people apply Sagan's analogy to God's existence.
Many religious people fail to provide good reasons for what they believe. Instead, they simply say:
“You just need to have faith.”
Then there is the philosophical problem of God's hiddenness.
There is also the problem of evil and suffering.
And different religions make conflicting claims about God.
Christians may reject the existence of Krishna as a divine being. Muslims reject Christian claims about God and Jesus. Different religions make competing claims about ultimate reality.
So the critic may turn toward the Christian and say:
“Your God is nothing more than the invisible dragon in the garage.”
Christopher Hitchens famously expressed a similar principle:
“What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
The basic challenge is understandable:
If someone makes a claim without giving any reason for believing it, why should anyone else accept the claim?
That is a legitimate question.
But does it follow that our God is simply the invisible dragon?
I don't think so.
Back to top1. Christianity Does Not Simply Say, “Believe in Jesus”
As Christians, we do not simply claim:
“Hey, believe in Jesus!”
We ourselves recognize that we have not physically met Jesus in the ordinary sense, nor did we personally live during His earthly ministry.
So what makes us convinced?
There are experiential, historical, philosophical, and biblical reasons involved in Christian belief.
More importantly, the Bible itself does not discourage examination.
Paul writes:
“Test everything; hold fast what is good.”
— 1 Thessalonians 5:21
John likewise tells believers:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.”
— 1 John 4:1
Christian faith is therefore not presented as a command to switch off our minds.
Faith involves trust, but biblical faith is not simply believing something without any reason whatsoever.
And when we talk about God's existence, we should remember that not everything that is real is something we can directly detect through our five senses.
We recognize many things indirectly through their effects.
We may not see gravity itself, for example, but we observe its effects.
Likewise, the philosophical case for God does not necessarily begin with:
“Show me God under a microscope.”
Instead, it can begin with questions about the existence of the universe, causation, contingency, morality, reason, order, consciousness, and other features of reality—and then ask which explanation best accounts for them.
The inability to place God into an empirical laboratory experiment does not automatically mean that belief in God is irrational.
Back to top2. The Dragon Was Invented to Make a Point About the Claimant
There is another important distinction.
Sagan's dragon is not an actual religious claim. It is an imagined example constructed to challenge someone who makes an extraordinary claim without evidence.
That means we should not simply stop at:
“Can you disprove my dragon?”
We should ask:
“What made you believe there is a dragon in the first place?”
The person making the claim is the source of the claim.
Therefore, his reasons for making that claim matter.
If someone says:
“There is an invisible, undetectable dragon in my garage,”
and cannot provide any reason whatsoever for believing this, then the claim is indeed empty.
But that does not automatically establish that every claim about an unseen reality is equally empty.
The real question is:
What reasons are being offered for the claim?
That is precisely the question Christians should be willing to answer.
Peter writes:
“Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.”
— 1 Peter 3:15
Notice the language:
“a reason for the hope.”
Christianity does not tell us merely to possess hope. It tells us to be prepared to explain why we have it.
Back to top3. God Cannot Be Tested Empirically in the Same Way as a Physical Object
Another mistake is assuming that if God cannot be empirically tested in the same way as a physical object, then there can be no rational case for His existence.
But there are different ways of reasoning.
We can use deductive and inductive reasoning, philosophical arguments, historical investigation, and inference to the best explanation.
We can begin with features of the natural world, move toward philosophical questions about God, then examine the biblical claims about revelation, and finally consider the person of Jesus.
The question then becomes:
What best explains the evidence?
Christian apologetics does not need to pretend that God is a physical object hiding somewhere in the universe waiting to be discovered by a telescope.
God, by definition, is not simply another object inside creation.
Therefore, the question is not:
“Where is God physically hiding?”
but rather:
“What best explains the reality we experience?”
And from there, Christianity makes a further claim about Jesus.
If God exists, then the possibility of divine revelation becomes meaningful. We can then examine the biblical claims about Jesus and ask whether they are historically and philosophically defensible.
C. S. Lewis famously presented his well-known “liar, lunatic, or Lord” argument concerning Jesus' claims. His point was that Jesus' identity and claims cannot simply be dismissed without considering what Jesus actually said and did.
Ultimately, Christianity makes a historical claim about Jesus—not merely a vague claim about an invisible supernatural being.
Back to top4. Jesus Sends His Followers as Witnesses
Jesus did not simply tell His followers:
“Believe in Me blindly.”
He sent them into the world as witnesses.
After His resurrection, Jesus told His disciples:
“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
— Acts 1:8
A witness is someone who gives testimony concerning what he has seen, heard, or experienced.
The apostles repeatedly presented themselves in this way.
John writes:
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands...”
— 1 John 1:1
The Christian message therefore involves testimony.
That does not mean that every Christian's personal experience is automatically true or that every testimony is automatically reliable.
It means that Christianity invites examination of its claims.
The early Christians did not simply say:
“Nobody can test this, so you have to believe us.”
They proclaimed events and invited people to consider their testimony.
Paul even placed the resurrection at the center of the Christian proclamation:
“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:17
That is a remarkably bold statement.
Christianity is not supposed to survive merely by making its claims impossible to question.
Back to top5. Let People Evaluate the Best Possible Explanation
Finally, we should allow people to examine the evidence and ask:
What best explains these things?
What accounts for the Christian witness if God does not exist?
What best explains the origin and existence of the universe?
What best explains objective moral realities, if such realities exist?
And most importantly for Christianity:
What best explains the claims surrounding Jesus and His resurrection?
These are not questions that can be answered simply by saying:
“Have faith.”
Nor should Christians be afraid when someone asks them.
The Christian response should be:
“Let's examine the claim.”
That is very different from saying:
“You cannot disprove my invisible dragon, therefore you must believe in it.”Back to top
So, Is God Just an Invisible Dragon?
The analogy is useful when it exposes empty claims.
If someone invents an invisible being, provides no reason for believing that being exists, and then protects the claim from every possible challenge by making it completely unfalsifiable, then the criticism is appropriate.
But we should not automatically transfer that criticism to Christianity without examining what Christians actually claim and what reasons they offer.
The Christian claim is not merely:
“There is an invisible God. You cannot disprove Him.”
It is a much larger claim involving the existence of God, the nature of reality, revelation, Scripture, history, Jesus, His life, His death, and the claim that He rose from the dead.
Therefore, before saying:
“Your God is just like Sagan's invisible dragon,”
we should first ask:
“Why do you believe in God?”
And Christians should be prepared to answer.
Our faith does not leave us without reasons.
Scripture does not command us to embrace blind faith.
Rather, we are called to examine, test, reason, witness, and give an account of the hope we have.
The invisible dragon argument reminds us of something important:
A claim needs a reason.
But that principle should be applied consistently—including to the claim that Christianity is nothing more than an invisible dragon.
So the real conversation is not simply:
“Can you prove that God doesn't exist?”
It is:
“What reasons are there for believing that God exists—and what best explains the reality we encounter?”
That is where the apologetic conversation should begin.
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