God Doesn't Exist, or Does It?

Upon impartial and rational consideration, it seems evident to me that, while purely and correctly exercising one’s reasoning faculties, the belief in God is very simply impossible. Yet at the same time, for all the scientific rationality they claim to possess, it seems just as well that atheism is itself also irrational, and through the proper use of reason, impossible. The general argument behind these claims is simply such that God is, by nature, a being outside of space and time. We, bound to the confines of both space and time, have no means of grasping any qualities that may exist outside of these limits. Our nature is bound by the laws of physics, and these laws are, by definition, the description of our spacetime – both concerning the matter that resides within it, and the geometry of spacetime itself. I believe this argument should suffice on its own, but nevertheless I think it is best, in the aim of further conveying the point, to prove this by providing, and refuting, the key arguments both for and against God.

Our universe, in fact everything within the bounds of time, is fundamentally in accordance with the principle of causality. Everything existing at this moment is both a cause and an effect. It is a cause insofar as it will bring into effect (whether it is through conscious will, random movements of atoms, or something else entirely) all that lies in the future. It is an effect insofar as it has come about as a consequence of what has come before. Everything follows in accordance with this, so long as it is existing within the threshold of time. Why? Because time is, at least through the perception of anything within it, an arrow constantly progressing forwards. All matter, or more broadly anything residing within spacetime (for, as Einstein showed, they are fundamentally linked), moves along with this arrow. Everything is forever in a state of flux, as Heraclitus rightly put it, and runs in perfect accordance with the principle of causality. Now, if this is the case, then such causality will also apply to the universe itself, for it resides within spacetime, and it must inevitably have a cause. And this cause must also have a cause, and that, and so on infinitely. There is only one solution to this infinite regress, and that is such that some entity, existing outside of time, must have served as the initial cause. It is the unmoved mover, as Aristotle first proposed over two thousand years ago. It is outside of time, and thus required no cause, but could nevertheless serve the role of bringing into existence the first event in time – the creation of the universe.

If one is to follow this argument with sound reasoning, they will quickly find that it is irrefutable that there must be such an unmoved mover. But they must also realise that this does not lead to the inevitability of God. The unmoved mover is a certainty, and God is but a possibility. The nature of the unmoved mover is in almost all aspects unknowable to us. All that we can possibly know is that it is outside of spacetime, and that – whether through random chance or conscious will – it puts into action all that resides within time. That is it. That is all we may know. This is the central argument that required refutation, partially because it is the most logical argument, and also because it shows the reasoning behind my proposal. Yet I will briefly examine, and refute the other major arguments of God’s existence, before moving onto those against.

First, there is the ontological argument. It says that God is the greatest of all things and, since it is greater to be real than not, God must exist. This appears to be logical, however there is a significant error in the interpretation of how exactly we conceive God. The qualities that God possesses are such that he is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and so on. Yet how do I conceive these qualities in my mind? Well, I understand that I can know something. If I can know something, then I can conceive the possibility to know nothing, or to know everything – so long as I understand that one can know. I understand that something can exist for some time, or no time at all. Then, clearly, I can know that something may exist for all time. Then, to conceive of a being, namely God, that possesses all of these properties, it is merely done through clumping ideas together. Just as I might call a dragon something that has wings and breathes fire, I may say that God is eternal and omniscient. In essence, this argument is no more proof for God’s existence than it is for a dragon’s.

The final argument in God’s favour that I will address is the teleological argument. It states that the order and complexity of the universe is due to either chance, necessity or design, and that design is the most plausible. But this is but probabilistic, if that (for there are a number of other manifestations of chance and necessity), and carries no definitive truth. From here, all other arguments for the existence of God follow the same uncertain nature of proposing probabilities and possibilities, and are as such worth no further investigation.

Now, in terms of the atheist arguments against the existence of God, it is worth noting that none seriously claim that God cannot possibly exist in any form. Instead, they serve the role of refuting many central qualities of the orthodox deity. For instance, there is the argument that denounces that God is omnibenevolent. It is claimed that God is all-good and, although God is all-powerful, there nevertheless exists evil and suffering. Therefore, there is no such omnibenevolent God. This makes sense, but even then is relying on our necessarily uncertain knowledge of what is good (maybe freedom is good, for instance).

Another argument is that if God exists, why am I writing this article? More precisely, how can I possibly doubt God’s existence if he is real? One may also propose that there is more evidence for creation through scientific means, such as the Big Bang theory or evolution, something which has been a dominant point of modern atheists. Yet it seems that most of these arguments are more concerning the disproof that God is actually involved in our lives beyond being merely the first mover, something which is not necessary to his existence. In essence, they are against the Gods that we are inclined to organise our religions around.

So that brings to an end my refutations, and appears to me to be conclusive proof that if one is to exercise their reason accurately and impartially, they will inevitably find themselves identifying as an agnostic. To believe in the existence, or non-existence, of God, there are but two means. The first is to practice unsound reason, or to lie in a state of bias and simple denial. The second is through what is best labelled as divine revelation. To be possessed by a supernatural spirit, and to transcend the bounds of ordinary human reason. I have never experienced this, and as such I cannot possibly determine its reality. All I can do is examine historical examples of revelation, and comment on them with as careful and rational a lens as I can muster. And so it seems only right that I dedicate the sequel to this task.