God, gods, & Fairies

God, Gods, and Fairies

The False Claim of Neutral Atheism

• Popular atheism often claims disbelief in God doesn't imply a positive philosophy or creed, but is simply neutral incredulity.

• Earlier atheists lived in cultures shaped by religious worldviews, making this claim unlikely for them.

• The claim is nonsensical; those who make it may not be coherent atheists.

Distinguishing "God" from "gods"

• It's possible to mistake "God" as a discrete object within nature due to ignorance of theistic history.

• However, a distinction exists between "God" (the transcendent source) and "gods" (divine beings within the cosmos).

• Xenophanes recognized this distinction in Western tradition.

• The distinction is not just numerical (monotheism vs. polytheism).

• It's a qualitative difference between incommensurable realities and disparate conceptual orders.

• Swami Prabhavananda: the transcendent God is "the uncreated"; gods are creatures, like Christian angels, closer to humans than to God.

Understanding "God"

• To speak of "God" (in orthodox Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc.) is to speak of the infinite ground of all that is.

• God is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, transcendent, and immanent.

• God is not a particular thing against the universe, nor is he the universe itself.

• God is not a being like a tree or a god, but the infinite wellspring of all that is.

• God is beyond being (if "being" means finite things) but also "being itself" (the inexhaustible source of reality).

• God is the absolute upon which the contingent depends and the unity underlying all things.

Understanding "gods"

• To speak of "gods" is to speak of a higher dimension of immanent reality.

• Gods don't transcend nature; they belong to it.

• Their theogonies can be recounted, including their origins and eventual demise.

• Each god is a distinct being, dependent on the universe for existence.

• There may be endless gods, but only one God.

• God is not merely one but oneness itself, the sole act of being.

Implications of Belief and Disbelief

• It is ultimately meaningful not to believe in the transcendent God.

• The possibility of gods, spirits, angels, or demons is a matter of the taxonomy of nature.

• To be a modern atheist and fulfilled naturalist, one must not believe in God and accept the logical consequences.

• The question of God is present in the mystery of existence, consciousness, truth, goodness, and beauty.

• Philosophical naturalism claims to have answered this question negatively, which aspiring naturalists must understand.

The Absurdity of Common Atheistic Arguments

• Atheist speakers use witticisms like "I believe neither in God nor in the fairies at the bottom of my garden" or "Everyone today is a disbeliever in Thor or Zeus, but we simply believe in one god less."

• Such jokes elicit self-congratulatory laughter but reveal ignorance of elementary conceptual categories.

Clarifying Beliefs

• Beliefs regarding fairies concern objects that may or may not exist within the world.

• Beliefs regarding God concern the source and end of all reality, the unity of all things, and the ground of possibility.

• Fairies and gods occupy the same conceptual space as organic cells, photons, and gravity.

• Science may investigate fairies and gods if a proper medium is found.

• God is the infinite actuality that makes photons and fairies possible.

• God can be investigated through logical deduction, conjecture, or contemplative experiences.

• Belief in fairies or gods cannot be validated by philosophical arguments.

• The existence of Zeus cannot be discussed in modal logic or metaphysics.

• The question of God must be pursued in terms of the absolute and the contingent, the necessary and the fortuitous, act and potency, possibility and impossibility, being and nonbeing, transcendence and immanence.

• Evidence for Thor or King Oberon would be local, empirical, episodic, psychological, and personal.

• Evidence for God pervades every moment of experience, reason, consciousness, and encounter with the world.

Atheism as a Philosophy of Being

• One cannot profess atheism without assenting to a philosophy of being.

• The naturalist's view doesn't just fail to find God; it's a specific representation of the nature of things with metaphysical commitments.

• It requires belief that the physical order, an ensemble of contingencies, can exist of itself without an absolute source.

• It requires resignation to ultimate irrationalism.

• Naturalism cannot logically encompass the existence of nature itself.

• It is surrounded by a truth that is super naturam, which it refuses to recognize.

• It embraces an infinite paradox: the universe as an "absolute contingency."

• It may not be a full metaphysics, lacking rational content, but it's more than the mere absence of faith.