God: Plato’s good, Israel’s Lord, the Christian’s redemption, Porphyry’s (and St John’s and Augustine’s) Perfect Love, Anselm’s supreme being, Aquinas’ Cause, Paley’s watch, Newton’s great mechanical, the unseen Intelligence and Designer. Etc.
I am an atheist in the sense that I do not believe a singular unseen x stands behind any of these formulations. I don’t deny their importance as intellectual events in human understanding. They are simply ideas. They are expressions of how thinkers have thought about their world. I think that their interest or importance cannot depend on their rightness, because they are, as far as I can tell, mistaken views.
I do not need an unseen lover to experience love, or a super-dad to experience security, anxiety, a need for approval, a sense of falling short.
Satan, sin and death
I do not need to boil things down to a “singularity that explains complexity” in order to comprehend the workings of my world or my feelings about it. Thales was wrong. Aristotle was wrong. The Hebrew writer of Genesis was wrong. The Rig Veda was wrong.
Human things, finite things, physical things, historical things cannot be adequately understood through lumping them together as the work of an unseen power. When I say there is no God, what I reject is the shallow and sometimes cynical attempt to simplify cause, meaning, and experience: to reduce it to an unseen indissoluble essence.
It’s true of course that not all causes are apparent to the naked eye, but it is not correct to say that these causes can serve as analogies for the existence of a supernatural cause: the wind that blows the branches off trees in a hurricane in Kingston can be clocked. DNA can be mapped. The velocity of a hydrogen atom can be tracked. Science, as a form of inquiry, suggests that as we learn more about the universe it will be on the same terms as the way in which science has progressed in the past—on the basis of falsifiability.
The only revelations therefore are revelations achieved through hard work and discovery using the methods appropriate to investigating the world around us, the universe beyond us. Religion and theology are not suitable to that investigation. They are not grounded in science, they do not conform to science. They are grounded in myth, namely the myths of the human past.
There is nothing wrong with myth. But it is not science, and whether we are speaking of the Bible or of the Koran, or any book thought to come to us through revelation, the accidental insights of myth do not constitute a science.
True, we tell our students that god is not falsifiable because the basic criteria for falsifiability are missing. But what we really should be telling them is that the criteria for God are missing, the need to resort to an invisible explanation of the visible world is missing. It is a fool’s dilemma to fall back on axioms of ancient logic, which in any event don’t work here.
It may be the case that the vague God of the Philosophers cannot be negated because his defining properties have receded to an Archimedean dot; but it is not true that the God of the Bible cannot be disproved. History disproves him in the same way it disproves Marduk, Isis, the Monster Humbaba, and Vishnu.
If god is a being who is only worth knowing as a postulate to explain why the universe arises to look the way it looks, then he is not a god that we need to concern ourselves with–because he wears none of the clothes history dressed him in and has none of the attributes of the god of classical theism. “God the postulate” cannot be a god of the Bible or any other scripture: he cannot love, ask to be loved, be offended, forgive us our trespasses, save from sin, or create the situation whereby people would need to be saved from it in the first place,
That ancient God, the God of the Bible, is a god from whom I ask to be saved intellectually and possibly also morally.
The Dilemma and the Definition:
“Either God caused the universe or something else did.” Apologists in freshly pressed white shirts love to begin “discussions” and debates that way. It is a variation on the Jesus was “mad, bad or God” bear-trap they sometimes set for unimaginably stupid sophomores.
They go on to say that while they know what caused things to come out the way they did, the atheist cannot know because the atheist has no more proof than they do. (My cause has no personality; theirs lives in a book.) I have tried saying “Look around you: that’s my argument.” (I haven’t had much success with that one.) So, it is easiest to say confidently, “Something else did.”
And like the mad, bad, god MCQ, this is a false dilemma, since in most formulations theologians merge God with this something else: X=X by any other name. They begin by eliminating the god of Genesis and all later attempts to domesticate the tribal and biblical gods and the gods of early Christian (or Jewish, or Islamic) theology.
What you are left with is a god from whom all defining characteristics (perhaps Aristotle would have called them accidents, substrates?) have been removed. A decerebrated God whose will, moods, and mobility have been stripped away by the surgeons who were trying to save him.
I have no trouble imagining a god who is not great, or kind, or merciful or compassionate or steady of purpose, or immutable. And I won’t go into the absurdities of arguing a “philosophical god” who is changeless and a biblical god who changes his mind rather often (it is like the Eddie Izzard “Cake or Death” shtick, except it’s God holding a shamrock and saying “Redeem or damn, damn or redeem?”).
But I think most Christians—especially those in freshly pressed white shirts-would not be satisfied with a god who has been emptied of attributes, the All-Nothingness, the Eternal Absolute (I’ll take my math with tea, please, not incense) and I consider it dishonest to go on calling this being or axiom or hypothetical something god, just as I would have trouble calling a horse a horse if you forbid me to use ears, tail, hooves, mammal, four legs and oats as part of my definition.
In any meaningful definition that is not pure nonsense—and here the scholastics had a great deal to tell us—we need a genus, we need what they called differentiae. But what is the genus of God? God? Supreme being? All-Knowers, Creators, Flood-senders?
No good; there are no other members of this class, and as we found out from Anselm, supreme being is to god as boy is to young male. It doesn’t define it; it restates it. So I ask again, What are god’s differentiae?
The defining attributes of the God Christians are interested in knowing, loving and serving are all historical, time-bound: anger, wrath, mercy, compassion, punishment, salvation, forgiveness, knowledge, pure awesomeness. And did we mention, good at making universes? They will not worship a God who is, did or does none of these things. Why should they? They will not die for a postulate or march for the right to life in honor of a God who does not create individual souls.
In this case there is no baby to toss out with the baptismal water, no dead body that points to atheists as murderers. Theologians in ages gone by used to talk about god using certain modes: the via positiva—god the all-knowing, for example—or the via negativa—God as impassible (devoid of passion and emotion)—or the via eminentia, God as higher than our highest concept of god–whatever that means, but surely a shut down strategy for rational debate.
But as every first-year divinity student knows, the study of theology is the study of the problems theology created for itself: a god who cannot feel passion and is changeless cannot easily be the same God who so loved the world that he took pity on the world and sent his son to save it. The jealous and angry God of the Old Testament cannot be the same God who went from a solo act to playing in a threesome.
My argument is this: the God of Christian theism, Islamic theology, and Jewish scripture does not exist, and the God who is left over when that theology is scrubbed–as postulate, variable or merely “unknown”– is so useless as (in John Wisdom’s great phrase) to amount to the same thing—useless to move, love, inspire, create.
I have no reason to imagine such a being, neither as a piece of intelligent cosmic protoplasm filling the interstices of what we call space, a flying spaghetti monster, or a vastness beyond the vastness. There is no way to disconfirm any unobservable absurdity, and hence there is no reason to believe in it.
Notice I say no reason to believe it. Theologians have given us no reason to believe, and to be blunt, their affirmation of science and willingness to sacrifice the god of history for the god of guesses should alert everyone to the nature of their profession. There is more reality in any exhibition of Hollywood special effects than there is in theology.
To the theologians who have rejected the God of the books. To the theologians who have created the false dilemma of asking us to choose between X and X–a God who is not the God of revelation, but is a God in some irrelevant sense–who requires neither prayer nor sacrifice nor petition nor good behavior. To the theologians who in conscience must know that they are dabblers in unreality and illusion. To the theologians who have created a god less real than the God of the Bible, who for a couple of millennia had, at least, time and faith on his side. To the theologians who have lost faith like Bo Peep lost her sheep, but talk on and on.
The New Oxonian 
Wonderful post. Many thanks!
I love this post, it’s just plain ordinary beautifully well written and clever. Of course. There’s a reason for a bee, and that’s to make honey, and there’s a reason for honey, and that’s for Pooh’s tummy, but there’s no reason to believe in any being described above however many theologians bleat on and on not even necessarily believing themselves anymore. As long as atheism is expressed in this way, I’m an atheist, and always have been, too. I never needed to believe, that’s all.
x
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This is beautiful. Thank you.
When I came to these conclusions, about 45 years ago, the way I responded to challenges from believers was always to say, “Tell me exactly what you mean by God, and I’ll tell you whether I believe in it.” Few who bothered to try, but those always came up with something that was was either incoherent, or trivially unworthy of respect, or empty of real meaning. And as you said…
“… I think most Christians… would not be satisfied with a god who has been emptied of attributes, … and I consider it dishonest to go on calling this being or axiom or hypothetical something god, just as I would have trouble calling a horse a horse if you forbid me to use ears, tail, hooves, mammal, four legs and oats as part of my definition.”
I know a number of soi-disant Christians (including several people that I care for deeply) who spend their lives trying to convince themselves and others that they are satisfied with such a god. They use words like “apophatic” to imbue the meaningless with significance. I don’t know what to say to them….
Thanks, Geoff: Lovely thoughts–and I think I might prefer the naivete of the people who accept the traditional view to the duplicity of theologians who know they are doing whitewash.
I agree. The arguments of theologians often remind me of Wolfgang Pauli’s famous comment: “Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!” (Not only is it not right, it’s not even wrong!)
Genau!
I so agree with Steph – I never needed to believe, don’t understand the need, but accept that some do feel a need. But if Dawkins is correct, what we really need to believe in is the morality of humanity
I know many theists and others who identify as Christian. I interrogate them sometimes out of interest: why and what do they believe, and they generally confess varying degrees of agnosticism with a few exceptions as inbetweeners. They know they don’t know, they don’t even believe in a biblical God, just something undefinable seems to them better than nothing as they haven’t got any other explanations to depend on. I’m generally even more surprised by the self identifying Christians I know – who don’t seem to believe anything at all other than basic principles of loving enemies and giving to the poor and a faily liberal nineteenth century wishy washy view of Jesus. No heaven, no hell, no miracles, no resurrection (all purely ‘symbolic’), and a non biblical view of God as some ultimate ‘thing’, if indeed, a ‘thing’ at all. Perhaps they believe as a justification of their own being – I don’t know, and I don’t need to know. As long as we can share and agree on basic principles of ‘goodness’ then we can build relationships from there. The only biblical God ‘believers’ appear to be the likes of those who should know better (eg willie lane craig, tom wright, ben witherington the third etc) and crisp white collared with teeth to match, bike riding american accented mormons who knock on my door, as well as JWs with kiddies in tow, who come and evangelise and are politely told I’m busy today, tomorrow and forever. Of course I’ve come across street preachers too who sing about hell and damnation but I just feel sorry for them. But I do wish scholarship were flushed clear of those who insist on evangelising (to often innocent and vulnerable minds) what I’m sure they know, or at least ought to know, to be storytelling, not fact.
Joe, Steph, might you not be making the crucial mistake of identifying “understanding” with “rational explanation”- hence limiting knowledge of Reality to rational reasoning?
” –What theses are about is a great deal of explanations”(Steph) implying that much of it has little to do with assessing the evidence, for the reason that critical scholars may have “inherited a mistaken assumption” (Steph)
As physicists Paul Davies explains it is “the assumption of human rationality that it is legitimate to seek “explanations” for things and that we truly understad something only when it is “expained”, Yet it has to be admitted that our concept of rational explanation probably derives from our observations of the world and our evolutionary inheritance. Is it clear that this provides adequate quidance when we are tangling with ultimate questins? Might it not be the case that the reason for existence has no explanation in the usual sense?
Is there a road to knowledge – even “ultimate knowledge” – that lies outside of critical scientific inquiry and logical reasonng? Many people claim there is, it is called mysticism. In fact, many of the world’s finest thinkers, including some notable scientiests have espoused mysticism.”
You speak of “ultimate knowledge”. It reminded me of this passage from a blog piece by Erin MacDonalt (“”Choice in Dying”) here: http://choiceindying.com/2011/02/06/the-new-atheism/
MacDonald, not MacDonalt – sorry.
Ed. So where has anyone ‘identified’ understanding with rational explanation? But I don’t believe in mysticism although I appreciate you rather like Paul Davies. And no, I wasn’t ‘implying’ any such thing if I said what you have quoted, and I might indeed have said something similar at some time or another. I would have ‘implied’ exactly the opposite – they have everything to do with assessing evidence. And ‘inherited mistaken assumptions’ is taken out of context – it referred to Betz inheriting Bultmann’s assumptions formed in an environment in opposition to Nazi Germany.
Ed: I read a couple of Fritjof Capra’s including the Tao of Physics obviously and Paul Davies including God and the New Phsyics, back in the early 90s. Various other more forgettable authors too. I was enamoured at the time but they lost their charm eventually. For me anyway.
The following quote for what it may be worth.
“Genuine mysticism, presisely to the extent that it is genuine, is perfectly capable of offering its own defence, its own evidence, and its own proofs. Indeed, that is exactly what the physicists in this volume proceed to do, without any need to compromise poor physics in the process.
No, the audience I would like to reach is the same audience these physicists wanted to reach: the orthodox, the established, the men and women who honestly believe that natural scence can and will answer all questions worth askng. And so, in that orthdox spirit, I would simply ask, you of orthodox belief, you who pursue disinterested truth, you who – whether you know it or not – are molding the very face of the future with your scientific knowledge, you who – may I say so? – bow to physics as if it were religious truth, to you I ask: what does it mean that the founders of your modern science, the theorists and researchers who pioneered the very concepts you now worship implicitly, the very science presented in this volume, what does it mean that they were, every one of them, mystcis?
Does that not stir something in you, curiosity at least? Cannot the spirit of these pioneers reach out across the decades and touch in you that “still small point” that moved them all to wonderment?
The last thing these theorists would want you to surrender is your critical intellect, your hard-earned skepticism. For it was exactly through a sustained use of the critical intellect that these greatest of the physicists felt absolutely compelled to go beyond physics altogether. And as we will see, they left a trail, clear enough for all sinsitive souls to follow.” (Preface, Quantum Questions by Ken Wilber.)
The problem, if there is a problem, is that here in the Western world, when we speak of God we mean, unless otherwise advised, the God of Abraham. And this Guy, as we all know, is a sumbitch.
Now, if you are brought up being brainwashed into thinking the bogeyman is lurking behind every corner, watching your every move, and waiting, just waiting for you to commit something called “sin,” thereby sealing your fate as a future and forever occupant of hell, then you are probably not going to be very receptive to a lesson in metaphysics, or cognitive science, or M-Theory, or modal logic. (Of course, those of us with the ability to think critically, and who tend to rely more on the findings of our left-brain, can dispatch this brainwashing problem much more easily than your average person in the pew.)
Believers believe they are protected in their belief by the shield made from their highly emotional investment in an unshakable faith. It is very much like the “Stockholm Syndrom.” Like that. Denying three thousand years of wishful thinking is hard work. Yes, the priests and preachers are intellectually dishonest and merely help perpetuate a lie, but, then, they are only human. Somebody has to tend to Voltaire’s invention.
I don’t like to disagree with you Herb, and I may have misunderstood you, but that was my point. I don’t believe that alot of believers’ beliefs are static. Without advice even, the God of theists is often not the God of Abraham. It’s just the name they borrow to label that concept which they can’t describe. Just as I didn’t have, and didn’t need ‘advice’ in order not to believe in the biblical God or even necessarily the necessity of something other, I’ve learned that other people also have never been able to be believe in that biblical God, yet they need to express some sort of concept which they credit with the solutions to all the questions they have that science can’t explain or hasn’t yet explained. I just tend to think reality is probably alot more complicated than that and something that we inconsequential blips will never possess the power or science to fully explain despite our persistent enquiry and regardless of continuing scientific achievements and progress.
And no, not ALL priests and preachers are dishonest. Some actally do believe what they preach, and some don’t preach what they don’t believe. In fact I know personally two Presbyterian ministers in New Zealand who were kicked out of the church for preaching what they believed which was less than the rest of the church believed. That is, their sermons included stuff like Jesus didn’t literally rise from the dead, he wasn’t born of a virgin and the son of God is not meant to describe Jesus’ divinity. One of these ministers was charged in court for ‘heresy’ – famous last case against heresy in NZ 1967-9. The other has sense set up a ‘home church’ in which he gives services from his house to others who appreciate ‘religion’ without a biblical God or magical messiah figure. I have a friend in Yorkshire UK who is a Methodist minister, and hasn’t yet been kicked out by church or congregation for being more than a little unorthodox in his services. He’s honest, you see, and I suspect his congregation are intelligent people. I don’t actually know any other church preachers personally but I think to dismiss all as dishonest is completely unfair.
Steph, I agree totally with what you say. And I do tend to over generalize, putting people in boxes they don’t belong in. But in my own defense, I live in the “Bible Belt” of America. In fact, I can see Oral Roberts University from my house. Just this week a bill was introduced in the Oklahoma legislature that would require creationism to be taught along side evolution in our public schools so students could be informed about “both theories.”
But, Oklahoma is not alone. A Gallup poll taken as recently as December 17th, 2010 showed that only 16% of Americans agreed that humans came about through natural evolution. 40% of those polled believe God created the earth and us about 10,000 years ago, and 30% were inclined to believe in intelligent design. (See http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_public.htm)
A much older poll conducted for Newsweek magazine in June, 1999, asked American adults whether they believed that Jesus would return during the next millennium — i.e. between years 2001 and 3000 CE. Results were: All persons: 52%, Evangelical Protestants: 71%, Non-Evangelical Protestants: 48%, Roman Catholics: 47%, and Non-Christians: 20%. (See http://www.religioustolerance.org/godpoll.htm)
This is a country where the evangelicals shoot abortion doctors and threaten employees of Planned Parenthood clinics. Many of them believe 9/11 was nothing less than God punishing us for gay rights. We have candidates running for president who don’t believe in evolution and 8 of our 9 Supreme Court Justices are strong Catholics. So, welcome to my world.
But, you’re right, I should have narrowed my criticism from the Western world to the United States and pared the believers in the Abrahamic God down to the Christian fundamentalists. When read in that context, perhaps my comments are a bit more appropriate.
I should add on reflection, the fact that none of the three mentioned ‘preachers of the church’ believe in or preach a biblical God. ‘God’ is used more as a term to encapsulate some sort of concept of some sort of indescribable eternal or whatever, ‘goodness’. And it’s so vague, in conversation, I don’t think even they are very sure about anything other than goodness. From a biblical perspective, they’re not only heretics, they are almost … atheists, but not really, and they certainly wouldn’t identify themselves as such. Agnostic yes, but not atheists.
I might add that the very distinguished John Hick was denied ordination in the Presbyterian Church USA, having been a staunch British style Church of Scotland type before he went to Claremont, because of views about religion that would strike an atheist as infantile. That is what we are up against. And I have to say, on a day to day basis, the posts I choose not to post are not coming from religious types. They are coming from the Kagin (the hairdryer guy) and PZ Myers culties. Libera nos Domine! (sorry)
I remember the hair dryer cult unfundising or debaptising post. But who is PZ Myers? Someone important?
Infantile. What an odd thing to suggest about John Hick. Shame. He was a good friend of the late and wonderful, more recently (quiet) atheist Michael Goulder. I don’t think Michael thought his views infantile. Must read: Between Faith and Doubt, 2010. I admire the scholarship of both Hick and Goulder. I think their work reflects their impeccable honesty. I could not charge either with being ‘infantile’.
John Hick: “God purposes unconditionaly to guarantee the highest good and blessedness to each individual”. But with the following qualification: Ogden “generally accepts Hartshone’s neoclassical metaphysics in which divine power is conceived on a social rather than a monopolistic model. God acts persuasively”. “On a social model” must mean that God can only act within the mechanics of relationship. In the apparent weakness of having to wait on the human freely offered response and coorperation before He can actually do what he unconditionaly purposes. Thus we are caught in the Catch-22: God’s persuasive unconditional quarantee must wait for the feeely offered human response – at the least, for the first level of believing that He is,
Steph, you may admire the scholarship of John Hick but unfortunatly you cannot believe in his God. How sad!
not at all – do I have to take on board every belief of every author I read? Michael Goulder was an atheist. Shakespeare was a critic of religion and believed far less than Hick, and even Hick isn’t consistent in his belief. I’d be pretty mixed up if I took on board all the religious and non religious beliefs of every author I admired. I’d be a little bit Muslim, a little bit witch, a complete feminist lesbian sexually obsessed nymphomanic nunnishly sexually repressed depressive introverted extrovert… How ridiculous is that Ed. Ridiculous Ed.
YOu know Ed – that’s actually incredibly patronising ‘how sad’ and in fact, it’s quite rude.
Steph,
Apologies that my comment appeared “patronising and rude”. I made it from a state of utter dismay, having just posted a Feb. 7, 10:09 comment to your Feb 7, 9:45 pm comment. It seemed incomprehensible that this level of testimony from 8 of our greaest physicists, one being Einstein indisputably the best thinker of the 20th Centry, could be so flately dismissed. But you may not have read the 10:09 pm comment.
In any case, I am an old man, a believer, in an alian centre, mistake prone – forgive.
Was your contribution meant to convert me to your flavour of faith or play some great and significant role in my life? Goodness me. “Incomprehensible”? How incredibly patronising. I read a great deal and appreciate many different insightful perspectives. Even I have read Einstein, Ed, so I don’t need your selected spoonfuls to digest for a first taste. I also have an independent mind and can form my own opinions.
I adore both John and Michael. I’m sure Steph does too. They were miles apart “religious;y” (hard to use the term re Goulder) but there we are.
yes I do, and yes they are (or were, poor Michael – he suffered too, for a long time). But I ought to respectfully correct my reference to him – Michael never said he was an atheist: he very specifically identified himself as “a non-aggressive atheist” in view of the current unfortunate state of atheism (‘it’)…
Best useful quote from Michael I’ve used is “Matthew, … was a conventional Jewish male chauvinist.” (Luke: A New Paradigm, 221)
and just in case anyone thought of posting chunks from either in this comment thread, I’ve read everything both of them published except John’s latest which I’ve got on order. So no advance quotations to spoil my first reading.
BTW I no longer get pingbacks. About a month ago my twitchy finger clicked a cancel and I’ve somehow scrubbed my subscriptions to wordpress. I no longer get comment notices or updates on blogs. I’m not technical enough to work out how to resubscribe – it won’t let me when I try.
If I am not wrong, Michael was a favourite of Harry Stopes Roe and the BHA. I know Harry lionized him when I was there. I thought he was the best example of where studied disbelief takes a text. I do not believe in “secular” criticism, especially if it gets us to Hector (heh) Avalos–because all criticism ought to be. It’s a preposterous qualification.
Beyond this, I am not surprised that Shelley has proved too much for the old time atheists judging from hits. Pretty sure they fell asleep after three paragraphs. They will be spirited to know nudge nudge that they would never be sent down from Oxford for their atheism as they would never have arrived there with their grasp of the topic.
They were good friends I believe, and Michael was a former president of the Birmingham Humanists before Harry who I think might have actually succeeded him … ‘it’s a preposterous qualification’ I AGREE!!! We lament that often (James, Maurice and me). It’s frustrating and part of what makes this discipline so flawed. And Michael work on the synoptics is the best scholarship I’ve come across in that area. Reading his work was a major turning point for me.
I would have been surprised if they read the Shelley post at all. I wonder if they’d even heard of him before. Their hearts are set in stone I think. I don’t think they’ll ever mellow or want to share in something bigger – It would be nice if they had a great big paradisical island all of their own and they can snigger and bark and scratch together til Kingdom come and be happy little chappies together. Not that they get in the way of anything but they seem so unhappy and don’t want to be part of anything that involves people who don’t share their opinions about religions. And that does appear to be a large focus of their lives and organisations. Then those of us who want to can work together to build a better more ideal, significant humanist future for the world. With better education.
It’s appalling that the Oxford proctors ever sent someone down who had such obvious outstanding intellectual capabilities which he demonstrated in an undergraduate essay.
x
You seem to have no understanding of what “via eminentia” (and it’s “eminentiae” and “via negativa” mean. “Via positiva” is, as far as I can tell, something you just made up. If you don’t like theology and want to say its all hot air, at least don’t misreport the meanings of its terminology.
Actually they are valid terms and the author has defined them sufficiently. For someone who claims to make his ‘bread from poetry’, you lack imagination but not stupidity. And wherever did you get the assumption that the author doesn’t ‘like’ theology? What on earth do you mean by ‘theology’? Your comprehension and analytical skills are deficient and I would be very surprised if your ‘poetry’ is worthy of anything greater than a stale cracker.