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| Is the Christian God Logical? The Christian god is the god that I am presented with most often and is the god most US citizens hold to be the one true god. I'm going to examine the most common characteristics given to that god by Christians. Though I will be discussing the Christian god, this concept of god can be applied to various other gods throughout the world in different societies and religions. I'll be using the word "God" (capitalized -g-) to identify the Christian god. Without being terribly philosophical I'll explain in this essay how and why the traditional concept of God is self-contradictory, therefore, illogical and impossible. Most Christians tend to believe that God has the following attributes: omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, transcendence, perfection, and free willed. If something exists, it cannot contradict itself. If for some reason it can be found that these qualities contradict one another, we know that a being with these qualities cannot exist. An omnipotent god is able to do anything. At this point I can present the--almost overused-popular spherical cube idea. God is all-powerful; yet, can He create a spherical cube? No, it isn't possible; a thing cannot have the qualities of both a sphere and a cube. Some Christians will answer yes, revealing that he is willing to forfeit logic and reason in order to maintain the omnipotence of God. In such a case, discussion is pointless and should cease. On the other hand, the spherical-cube concept is also impossible and illogical. One could argue that God is omnipotent, but His power is restricted to what is logically possible. If this is said, are we still discussing omnipotence, I wonder? If we aren't discussing limitless power, even if that ability is only halted by what is logically impossible, we aren't talking about omnipotence-we're talking about something with amazing abilities, but not omnipotent. After all, if we are to believe that God created the universe-the Christian will tell us that the universe isn't possible without God. Therefore, it would be logically impossible that the universe could have existed without the omnipotence of God. If God can use His omnipotence to create an impossible universe, why is this not true with an impossible spherical cube as well? If it is possible for the universe to come into existence naturally, a god would not be necessary for existence-shattering the notion that existence is evidence of God. With that in mind, I see the spherical-cube problem as a valid point to make. God is omnipotence, but also transcendent. Since God is transcendent, I'm compelled to ask whether or not God can think or move-or answer prayers. Thought and movement require space and time. God is outside of space and time. Since thought requires space and time, and God is outside of space and time, we can conclude that God cannot think. Our reason and logic tell us that He cannot think outside of space and time, we have no reason to think otherwise. To think that God can think while being transcendent is illogical. Movement, too, requires space and time. Using the same logic, we have no reason to conclude anything other than a transcendent being cannot move. In fact, there is no other reasoning. We have no concept of what transcendent is, nor do we have any reason to believe such a state exists. God's omnipotence, again, is at odds with logic and other characteristics assigned to Him. We are told in the Bible that God has form, i.e., a mouth, a head, arms, legs, a buttocks. Form also requires space. However, if we are to believe that God is transcendent, it is illogical to assume that God has any form at all. We have no reason to think such a thing; yet, we are logically led to the conclusion that God can have no image . . . no shape or body, no arms, legs, head, or buttocks. If we wish God to retain his transcendence and omnipotence at the same time, we must forfeit our reason and logic. Once again, if the Christian is willing to do this, logical discussion has come to a halt and has no reason to go any further. At this point, God can be saved and kept for further discussion by either abandoning His omnipotence or transcendence. Otherwise, we're left to conclude that God is a motionless, bodiless . . . thing that lacks the capacity to even think--and since God exists outside of our universe, it cannot even be said that He exists. God is omniscient. There are a few things that come to mind when dealing with God's omniscience. For example, can God truly know what it is like to personally experience a mistake? If so, we have a conflict with God's perfection. If not, God doesn't know everything. Nor can we think that God can surprise himself, as He would know everything, including the surprise. The problems with omnipotence and omniscience become more evident when we add free will into the mix. Most of us believe God is free willed. Is it possible for God to both have free will and be omniscient? For example, if God is truly omniscient He knows what will happen seven days from now. He knows what I will be doing, what you will be doing, and what He will be doing. Can God escape doing what He sees Himself doing? If He can, then He isn't omniscient. However, if God cannot escape what He sees Himself doing in seven days, not only does His omnipotence come into question, but can it truly be said that God is free willed? This isn't a problem that God will only encounter seven days from now. God knows every single moment in the past and future, including the present. God knows what He will be doing in thirty seconds. If at any point God cannot escape what He sees in the future, He loses his omnipotence and free will. If He can, He loses His omniscience. Even with the issue of answering prayers, we must question whether or not God is actually acting on His own volition, or doing what His knowledge of the future predestines Him to do. God is omniscient; therefore He knows every single prayer that He will answer before it is even uttered. When Jane Doe falls into the lake and quickly prays for God to save her, God knew she would fall and pray eons ago. He always knew she would fall and pray. He has always known whether or not He will answer it. So, is God really answering a prayer or merely doing what is required: what He is programmed to do by His own knowledge of the future? So, we find that God cannot have free will and be both omnipotent and omniscient at the same time. If God is free, then God cannot be omniscient because He can't know the future. If God is not free, then He isn't omnipotent because his actions are predetermined. God cannot be both omnipotent and omniscient because He either is or is not free willed. God is also omnibenevolent. One must wonder why an omnibenevolent god would create a world that has or would come to have so much pain and suffering in it. It could be said that the current state of the world is a result of man misusing his free will, rather than God's fault. However, God knows all things and is capable of doing all things. God knew we would fail; knew that He would have to drown all but a few of the entire species at some point; knew that He would send a majority of us to Hell in the end. Still, He chose to create things in a manner that would allow such things to happen. Was it truly necessary for God to place a tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden? Not if God is omnipotent. So, by placing the tree in the Garden from the start, it seems as if God were the original tempter. However, I'd rather address man and his failure. God either created humans perfectly or imperfectly. Of course, if God created humans imperfect and then demanded perfect obedience, the fault is on God and God alone. So, it is necessary that God have created humans perfectly. Man couldn't have been created perfectly bad, because he would be compelled to perform nothing but bad actions. We would like to say that God created man perfectly good, but a perfectly good being would never have sinned. So, as I was once told, God created us perfectly neutral. Why an omnipotent God couldn't create a perfectly good species that also had the quality of free will is beyond me, but we'll accept the notion of perfect neutrality. The free willed and perfectly neutral nature of man isn't sufficient to save God from being the reason suffering is in the world. Creating a perfectly neutral humanity would be just as damning as creating a perfectly bad humanity. If humanity started out perfectly neutral, we were no more inclined to do good than we were to do bad, as we would have been no more inclined to do bad than to do good. So, what was there to compel us to do good or bad at all? If we were perfectly neutral, we wouldn't want to please God any more than we would want to please ourselves. Without some amount more of goodness, nothing at all would inveigle us to lean toward good behavior. We certainly would've had much trouble making any decisions; if we were perfectly neutral I imagine we were quite indecisive. God created a species that was no more likely to do good than it was to do bad. He planted nothing in us to cause us to inherently want to do good over bad, we know this since we were created perfectly neutral. So, God put a perfectly neutral pair of humans in a garden, a pair of people who had no preference over doing good or bad, good and bad are equally appealing, and then put a forbidden tree in the garden to tempt them. God then instructed them not to eat from the tree. This in itself was pointless, since the pair of people were perfectly neutral, they are no more inclined to do the good thing and obey God than they are to do the bad thing and disobey. Then God created a serpent, sent the serpent, or allowed the serpent to go to the Garden of Eden and tempt these perfectly neutral people. God is responsible for placing the Tree of Knowledge in the garden and for allowing the serpent the opportunity to tempt the gullible humans who knew of no good or evil, knew of no lies and liars. Certainly, if God was able to do the impossible task of creating the universe, He should've been able to give a couple of people a perfectly good nature while also keeping their free will intact. The fact still remains, evil and suffering wouldn't exist in a universe created by a perfect God which is omnibenevolent. God created all things, including evil. Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create the darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. God created the first doer of evil, knowing in advance it would perform evil. That evil and suffering contradicts an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god cannot be denied. Unless, of course, one makes an appeal to God's unknowable nature. In which case it is illogical to claim any knowledge of God or give any characteristics to God, including loving, powerful, knowing, creating, or even existing. Unless we are willing to abandon our reason, a form of intellectual suicide, we see that God, because of the very qualities we give Him, vanishes in a cloud of logic. Sources: Krueger, Douglas E. What is Atheism? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998. Smith, George H. Atheism: The Case Against God. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989. Martin, Michael. Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Philadelphia, Pa: Temple University Books, 1990. ---------- Quick Word: Atheists should not ask the heavy rock question about a god or God |