Gnostic Atheism

[reggieM]

The same applies to space and matter. God may be independent of our space and our matter, but that is all. It does not follow logically that God is spaceless (not to mention “infinite”) and that God is not composed of matter of some kind.

One follow up, Vera.

You mention here “matter of some kind” and similarly implying that there is some different kind of space, different dimensions than we are aware of through observation. On that, you should be very open to mystical explanations, starting with the life of Christ and his awareness of that which transcends human senses (“My kingdom is not of this world”). I can find nothing in your reply that would close off these possibilities (mystical experiences of St. Pio, for example).

Beyond that, when we talk about matter - that means something. We know of one thing we call matter. Admittedly, even here our knowledge is limited and there are mysteries. But the same with space and energy in the universe.

I’m ok with someone saying, “there could be another kind of matter somewhere out there”. Or, there could be some other kind of space and time. Sure.

But please don’t ever come back, on anything, with the atheistic refrain: “Where is the evidence?” There is no, and actually can be no, scientific evidence of anything outside of the universe. If we had empirical evidence, it would be in the universe - by definition.

So, to claim that God could be this or that – with absolutely no evidence to support it, well - that is even more fantasy-thinking than what you claim theists do. We have many testimonial evidences of people who have encountered God. We have revelations from God. We have people who have witnessed miracles, heard or seen divine-events. Sure - you can dismiss all of these. But you’re going to still claim there is some, imaginary, never-seen, existence of “some other kind of matter” out there?

Finally, we’re looking for the best explanation of origins with the knowledge we have.

1. “I don’t know” is not an explanation.
2. “There is no origin. It always existed, eternally in some form”. Ok, that’s one possibility, but it’s saying that what exists now, had no beginning. It never began to exist. There are lots of problems with this that we can get into.
3. It was created by God.

There are other explanations of various kinds I suppose. But I’m proposng #3 as the most reasonable and best.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

You’re making my job easy, Vera. You’re handing me the answers. You just contradicted yourself and refuted your claim. You stated that the Christian definition was creator of the universe and nothing more. Now you added two attributes: Has the ability to create a universe. And has the power to create a universe. We can go on from here.

These are not additional attributes. You make a similar error to Anselm, who called God the Greatest Conceivable Being (GCB), and argued that “existence” is a greater feature than “non-existence” and therefore God must exist necessarily. Of course other philosophers and theologians quickly pointed out that “existence” is not an attribute, which is either present, or not.

Another problem is that you wish to use the word “universe” incorrectly. It means “everything there is” and NOT “everything there exists outside God”. That is why I don’t use the word: “universe” I use the “world”. We are only familiar with our segment of the world (3 spatial and 1 temporal dimension - which I will call the 3+1 world), but logically the physical world is not restricted to these parameters.

God is obviously outside our 3+1 world, but not necessarily outside the physical universe.

I don’t know that I can concede that. First of all, your “Christian definition” is that God created the universe. As a Christian, I accept that as “God created all there is, outside of His uncreated Being”. You, however, want to limit the Christian definition to “God created this world”. I have no idea how you arrived at that definition. As I said earlier, you’re making an arbitrary claim about what Christian doctrine is. Where is your reference for this?

For all I care, you can create all sorts of definitions for God. I am only interested in examining the absolute basic assumption, namely that God created our 3+1 world. Everything else needs to be shown to be the logically corollary of this assumption.

Additionally, we might cite Occam’s razor here since you’ve multiplied entities here to an infinite degree.

Occam’s razor is only a useful tool, not a philosophical necessity. And I do not present a hypothesis, only a thought experiment.

It goes beyond agnosticism. This is actually St. Anselm’s argument for you: Is it possible that God exists in some possible world?

Sure. It is quite possible that the creator of our 3+1 world exists. And no, it does not follow that this creator necessarily exists in every possible world.

Attributes: God is necessarily independent of the space He created in our universe. God occupies a different kind of spacial dimension than we have in our universe. God is not composed of the matter we know in our universe. God is not composed of any kind of matter known to mankind.

We could go on and on like this. Eventually, we’d have quite a lot of attributes. I only gave a few.

None of these are new attributes, they are the logical corollaries of the basic assumption (which I stipulated).

My point is that none of the OTHER attributes of God (infinite, immaterial, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-benevolent etc.) can be deduced from the basic assumption of the creator.

Nature is another term for “the physical universe - our world”. So, no - the creator could not have been a force of nature.

Our world is not necessarily restricted to the 3+1 world. So the force of nature could well be part of an “n+m world” (“n” physical dimensions and “m” temporal dimensions). Mind you I do not argue for the existence of such “n+m world”, I only argue that it is logically possible.

Creation means, all contingent reality. It means “all things that do not explain their own existence”.

The expression “do not explain their own existence” is a meaningless grammatical nightmare. If you would say that everything needs an external explanation for their existence - AKA “principle of sufficient reason”, then you would either fall into an infinite regress, OR would have to posit a stopping point for which the PSR is inapplicable. Of course I know that the believers wish to stipulate that this “exception” is God, but there is no reason to accept it. It is a much simpler principle that the actual Universe (not just the 3+1 subset of it) is the “existential primary”.

Theoretically, it is possible that you can find a physical event, which cannot be explained by the laws of physical reality. Which necessitates the assumption of some non-physical entity. The trouble is that to show the “nonexistence” of a physical explanation would require real “omniscience”, the knowledge of ALL the laws of physics. And neither you, nor anyone else can claim such a knowledge. All you can do is declare: our current knowledge is insufficient to provide an explanation". And if you suggest that God is the explanation, all you have is the God-of-the-gaps.

That’s the best they could do because they didn’t want a theistic God.

Wanting has nothing to do with it. From the assumed act of “creation” you cannot get to a sentient and sapient creator. It is you (in general) who wish to “smuggle in” the theistic God.

All that is needed is to ask the question: “How did the world get set in motion”.

This kind of question is the result of ignorance. Of course Aquinas et al. had no idea of the reality of physical existence. They thought that there is absolute “rest” and any motion / change would have to be imposed from the outside. This ignorant assumption has been falsified a long time ago. Amazing that the apologists keep on insisting on this failed principle. That is one of the reasons that they cannot be taken seriously.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

You mention here “matter of some kind” and similarly implying that there is some different kind of space, different dimensions than we are aware of through observation. On that, you should be very open to mystical explanations, starting with the life of Christ and his awareness of that which transcends human senses (“My kingdom is not of this world”). I can find nothing in your reply that would close off these possibilities (mystical experiences of St. Pio, for example).

You offer a hypothesis, which is subject to verification and/or falsification. I don’t. But, of course, if you could offer some verifiable experiment, you will have my attention. For example, if you would have a special prayer, which would allow me to have a direct experience of God, I would certainly be willing to try it. But I am not interested in some open ended experiment, which has a built in “cop out” of “if it be thy will”.

But please don’t ever come back, on anything, with the atheistic refrain: “Where is the evidence?”

As soon as I would submit it as a hypothesis, it would be subject to the same kind of falsification principle. But all I offer is a thought experiment, which is logically consistent. For thought experiments there is only one requirement; namely that they must be logically coherent.

The whole point was and is that the assumption of the “creator” does not lead to the Christian-type of God.

So, to claim that God could be this or that – with absolutely no evidence to support it, well - that is even more fantasy-thinking than what you claim theists do. We have many testimonial evidences of people who have encountered God. We have revelations from God. We have people who have witnessed miracles, heard or seen divine-events. Sure - you can dismiss all of these. But you’re going to still claim there is some, imaginary, never-seen, existence of “some other kind of matter” out there?

Finally, we’re looking for the best explanation of origins with the knowledge we have.

1. “I don’t know” is not an explanation.
2. “There is no origin. It always existed, eternally in some form”. Ok, that’s one possibility, but it’s saying that what exists now, had no beginning. It never began to exist. There are lots of problems with this that we can get into.
3. It was created by God.

There are other explanations of various kinds I suppose. But I’m proposng #3 as the most reasonable and best.

I am not looking for some “origins”, and / or explanations. Testimonials, revelations, miracles are irrelevant. I am only interested in the real world, along with any and all logical corollaries that can be derived from the observations.

 

[reggieM]

I am only interested in the real world, along with any and all logical corollaries that can be derived from the observations.

You proposed that God may be composed of “matter of some kind”. That is, not the matter of our universe, but some other kind of matter that has no evidence of existence. As I said, if that is “the real world” for you, then I’d have to have access to your imagination in order to understand it.

I’m not interested in going down that path.

But thanks for the conversation.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

You proposed that God may be composed of “matter of some kind”. That is, not the matter of our universe, but some other kind of matter that has no evidence of existence. As I said, if that is “the real world” for you, then I’d have to have access to your imagination in order to understand it.

That is not the real world I am speaking of. It was a thought experiment to show that from the assumption of creation there is no logical path to the God of Christianity.

But thanks for the conversation.

You are welcome. I am only sorry that I -]invested/-] wasted a few hours to formulate my thoughts, and you were not interested. But that is par for the course.

 

[Bradski]

Human beings makes choices based on experience, information, desires etc. ok

Couple points:
No two human beings are the same. Each human person is unique. So the thought experiment can’t work. People might have “the same” (really no such thing…) circumstances and come up with different choices. That’s because human beings are unique.

To say that a choice is uncaused doesn’t work, The person himself is caused, so everything about a persons life stems from an outside cause. And, we have free will. As a freely acting person, we bring about our own choices.

I didn’t say ‘based on’. I said ‘determined by’. Our choices are determined by the relevant facts and our experiences. And the thought experiment is only carried out with the same person because, as you say, people are unique.

But I agree with that an uncaused cause doesn’t work. That everything stems from outside causes. And I am going to include concepts such as mental states and genetic make up because they themsleves are determined by external causes.

So if you make a choice, and that can be as important a decision as takng a life or as inconsequential as choosing strawberry icecream as opposed to vanilla, unless it is truly arbitrary, is determined by outside causes.

Now if exactly the same conditions pertain each time the decision is made (by the same person), then what would cause that decision to be different? There has to be a reason why it is different and that reason must be based on an external cause. Because we have already agreed that decisions are not uncaused but are determined by external causes.

So if all conditions are the same, there is nothing that would cause the decision to be determined in any other way. That is, for any given set of conditions, there is one choice that would always be made under those conditions.

If you maintain that the choice could be different under exactly the same circumstances, then you are contradicting what has already been agreed: that decisions are based on external causes.

I just hope you aren’t going to try to argue that we can make different decisions because…we have free will. That would be a circular argument.

 

[Bradski]

It is important to believe what you think is true, and it hypocritical to profess a belief in something one does not think is true. One must be true to oneself - and others.

However, when it comes to the existence of God I don’t think anyone can know for certain if there is or is not a God. We can believe it is true there is God, or we can believe it true God does not exist, but I personally don’t think it can be known for certain which is true.

With you so far. Except that if we agree that what you say is true, then we would need to add all deities from all other religions as well. Otherwise you are immediately showing bias: It’s perhaps impossible to know if my God exists or not with certainty (but I am certain that all the others don’t).

I suppose that’s where the ‘no evidence’ argument comes from, but I’m a bit more open-minded - probably because I am one of those eccentric people I referred to in my post to KnowtheSilence. I don’t think we should need hard evidence in order to believe something. We need it where we insist others must believe it, but not to believe it ourselves.

Still with you. Although I’m not sure being open minded necessarily precludes one from being skeptical at the same time. And I agree that you don’t necessarily need absolute proof to believe something. If it is beneficial for you to believe something, or you want to believe something, then you need a lot less proof. Similarly, if the matter is inconsequential, then sometimes no proof is needed at all.

However, and obviously, if the matter is of extreme importance, then one is not going to accept dubious evidence or heresay. The burden of proof becomes greater.

It is possible a horse with a horn once existed and also very small people with bright red hair, and stories grew up that became embellished. Having said this I’m someone whose into this kind of thing, but not as a serious endeavour.

These matters are inconsequential. Unless you fear ridicule for stating a belief in leprechauns or unicorns.

For this reason it is possible there is a God, and if there is a God it is possible supernatural events occur. That said I continue to exercise a considerable degree of caution prior to construing an event as supernatural as in my view events perceived as supernatural are consistently accompanied by rational explanations. The miracles reported at Lourdes is one example but being Catholic I believe Mary guided Bernadette to the water.

Going back to the first point, I maintain that you need to say that if gods exist, then there is the possibility of the supernatural. Although the statement makes no sense to me in the first instance. God or gods and the supernatural are one and the same thing. If any god exists, then literally anything outside of nature is possible.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

“It is not so much that Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins* disagree with Thomas Aquinas on the existence of God; it is that neither Hitchens nor Dawkins display any real grasp of what Aquinas even means when he speaks of God.”–Bishop Robert Barron–“What God Is and Isn’t”

*replace Hitchens and Dawkins with: almost every single atheist ever.

Would you accept that noted Catholic thomistic philosopher, Edward Feser, knows what Aquinas is talking about when he is talking about God?

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/

If you do agree, then I can quite comfortably say that I am gnostically atheistic with respect to that God.

 

[Bradski]

Would you accept that noted Catholic thomistic philosopher, Edward Feser, knows what Aquinas is talking about when he is talking about God?

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/

If you do agree, then I can quite comfortably say that I am gnostically atheistic with respect to that God.

Might I suggest that you read his book, ‘The Last Superstition’. If you had any doubts about your position at all, this rambling polemic will help dispel them.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

We’ve all run across this crowd on the internet in one form or another. The section of atheists who claim to know for a fact that there is no God. Among this crowd are people such as:

Penn Jillette

Adam Carolla

Stephen Hawking

P.Z. Myers

Daniel Finke (blogger on Patheos: patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2014/09/i-know-there-is-no-god/)

I’m already of the opinion that the stance is at best illogical, but I was wondering what some of you guys make of this.

I don’t think that it’s reasonable for anyone to be a gnostic atheist towards all gods, but most of us are gnostic atheists towards some gods. To prove my point, you can ask yourself if you’re open to accepting the existence of the gods of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, or the Greek gods, etc. I’m open to accepting that the supernatural and/or a god-like being exists, but I won’t believe in one until I have good evidence.

 

[reggieM]

That is not the real world I am speaking of.

You claim to only be interested in the real world. Then, when you need an argument, you created a fantasy world. You’re saying that we can’t conclude that God is immaterial because there could be some other kind of matter that nobody has evidence of. That is like saying we can’t conclude that gravity is a physical force because there could be invisible alien beings pushing everything around.

You are welcome. I am only sorry that I -]invested/-] wasted a few hours to formulate my thoughts, and you were not interested. But that is par for the course.

I read what you wrote so the time wasn’t wasted. I was also interested in what you had to say. I just found too many areas of disagreement between us to pursue the conversation further. But I did appreciate the insights you shared and I’m sure others did also.

 

[reggieM]

Would you accept that noted Catholic thomistic philosopher, Edward Feser, knows what Aquinas is talking about when he is talking about God?

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/

If you do agree, then I can quite comfortably say that I am gnostically atheistic with respect to that God.

I offered this previously:

There are either a finite number of worlds or an infinite number.

If an infinite number, do you think it possible that God exists in some possible world?

 

[PRmerger]

Would you accept that noted Catholic thomistic philosopher, Edward Feser, knows what Aquinas is talking about when he is talking about God?

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/

Oh, yes.

If you do agree, then I can quite comfortably say that I am gnostically atheistic with respect to that God.

Fair enough.

But then again you also believe that aliens could have resurrected the body of Jesus so…

 

[PRmerger]

“It is not so much that Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins* disagree with Thomas Aquinas on the existence of God; it is that neither Hitchens nor Dawkins display any real grasp of what Aquinas even means when he speaks of God.”–Bishop Robert Barron–“What God Is and Isn’t”

*replace Hitchens and Dawkins with: almost every single atheist ever.

I don’t think that it’s reasonable for anyone to be a gnostic atheist towards all gods, but most of us are gnostic atheists towards some gods. To prove my point, you can ask yourself if you’re open to accepting the existence of the gods of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, or the Greek gods, etc. I’m open to accepting that the supernatural and/or a god-like being exists, but I won’t believe in one until I have good evidence.

QED

 

[minkymurph]

With you so far. Except that if we agree that what you say is true, then we would need to add all deities from all other religions as well. Otherwise you are immediately showing bias: It’s perhaps impossible to know if my God exists or not with certainty (but I am certain that all the others don’t).

I agree - it does show bias. Belief had a tendency to do that to people.

In my defense I don’t believe I am any more biased than anyone else.

That does not excuse me from addressing bias where identified.

I do not believe in the existence of any god but one, but it is impossible to prove there is only one God. In terms of the existence of others gods this raises an interesting point. Belief in one God in Christianity is based on the Bible, and to my knowledge there is nowhere in the Bible where it categorically states other gods do not exist. Isaiah writes, ‘I am the Lord there are no other gods but me,’ and this has been interpreted as other gods do not exist at all. However, the Israelites do not appear to have believed these other gods not exist at all, but rather their God was more powerful, Supreme, and above all things the Creator. It was for these reason they believed only their God was God or god, and not due to the fact other entities believed to be gods did not exist.

How’s that for the beginnings of addressing bias?

Still with you. Although I’m not sure being open minded necessarily precludes one from being skeptical at the same time. And I agree that you don’t necessarily need absolute proof to believe something. If it is beneficial for you to believe something, or you want to believe something, then you need a lot less proof. Similarly, if the matter is inconsequential, then sometimes no proof is needed at all.

However, and obviously, if the matter is of extreme importance, then one is not going to accept dubious evidence or heresay. The burden of proof becomes greater.

I could sign up to this - and I think you’ve framed it well.

However I’d like to propose an addition -

Where the matter of is of extreme public importance - in the private you only have yourself to convince.

These matters are inconsequential. Unless you fear ridicule for stating a belief in leprechauns or unicorns.

Can it not be said an element of fear now exists in terms of stating a belief in God? (Christian God). Is seeking to generate this fear intentionally or unintentionally justifiable on the ground it’s more common and consequential? I personally think the consequences listed by KnowtheSilence could readily be addressed in the absence of discrediting the existence of God, and in fact more productively as where the very existence of God is not only called into question but vehemently opposed it has a radicalizing effect which is highly undesirable.

Going back to the first point, I maintain that you need to say that if gods exist, then there is the possibility of the supernatural. Although the statement makes no sense to me in the first instance. God or gods and the supernatural are one and the same thing. If any god exists, then literally anything outside of nature is possible.

My comprehension of supernatural would be different. To me God or gods and the supernatural need not necessarily be one and the same thing. We have little comprehension of what forces exist in the universe outside our immediate physical world, how they operate and their effects.Supernatural to me is an event attributed to an unknown force in that it is a force that cannot be identified, explained by scientific understanding or the laws of nature. The unknown force may be God or a god, but equally it may be a force not yet identified or understood.

I agree if any god exists the literally anything outside of nature is possible. That said, my philosophy is nothing is impossible. There are things that are highly improbable, but this does not render them impossible. In terms of nature using the term in the context of the physical world, it cannot be said we have discovered the physical world of the universe in it’s entirety.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

You claim to only be interested in the real world. Then, when you need an argument, you created a fantasy world.

There could be two different lines of conversations going on here.

One would be a conversation about the existence of God. In that conversation I am only interested in a rational line of reasoning, starting with the observation of the real world (3+1 world), pointing out “something” that would lead to the existence of God. This would be akin to the attempts of Aquinas and other philosophers. This is NOT what this thread is all about. This is why I am not interested in revelations, testimonials or stuff like that.

The other one is about the attributes of God. I suggested a starting point that there is a creator of this actual world (3+1 world), and then examine if this starting point is sufficient to show that the alleged creator is actually the God of Christianity. This second part is purely logical. Which alleged attributes of God MUST follow logically from the hypothesis of the creator. The fantasy worlds (as you called them) are thought experiments. The only requirement in a thought experiment is that the “fantasy scenario” is logically consistent.

The “fantasy world” in this thought experiment is a multi-dimensional world - “n” spatial and “m” temporal dimensions. Is there any evidence that the reality is like this? Of course not, but it is logically possible. (Just remember the famous thought experiment of Einstein where is he proved that faster-than-light travel is impossible). I do not argue that this fantasy world be taken as an actual hypothesis.

Would the attribute of “all powerful” be logically necessary for the creation? Answer: “no, being powerful enough would be sufficient”.
Would the attribute of “all knowing” be logically necessary for the creation? Answer: “no, it is not logically necessary that the creator would even know what he is doing”.
We could go on and examine all the alleged attributes of God, and see if any one of them is a logical corollary of the creator-hypothesis.

You’re saying that we can’t conclude that God is immaterial because there could be some other kind of matter that nobody has evidence of. That is like saying we can’t conclude that gravity is a physical force because there could be invisible alien beings pushing everything around.

Not quite. If you present a hypothesis of some invisible aliens, that would be a verifiable argument. I did not present that God is material. I merely said that God could be material, that God’s attribute of “immaterial” does not follow logically from the assumption of the creator.

I read what you wrote so the time wasn’t wasted. I was also interested in what you had to say. I just found too many areas of disagreement between us to pursue the conversation further. But I did appreciate the insights you shared and I’m sure others did also.

I am glad you took time to read what I wrote. Since you only reflected on one sentence, I made an erroneous conclusion, that you were not interested. You falsified my conclusion, so I abandon my failed hypothesis. You can always count on my willingness to “eat crow”, and if you can point out an error on my part, I will accept defeat.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

I offered this previously:

There are either a finite number of worlds or an infinite number.

If an infinite number, do you think it possible that God exists in some possible world?

There are infinitely many possible worlds. But even then there cannot be a world, which contains a “married bachelor”, a “four sided triangle” or “someone who is BOTH just and merciful at the same time in the same respect”.

So, if we want to speak of God, it is imperative that we agree on the definition of what God is - or what God is supposed to be.

 

[reggieM]

I am glad you took time to read what I wrote. Since you only reflected on one sentence, I made an erroneous conclusion, that you were not interested. You falsified my conclusion, so I abandon my failed hypothesis. You can always count on my willingness to “eat crow”, and if you can point out an error on my part, I will accept defeat.

Thank you and you brought to mind something else. I note this tendency in myself- a desire to win or score points, or worse, humiliate the other person (you) in some way. I find that is not respectful to the other person and it’s part of my personality that I have to change.
I totally respect your point of view, I accept much of what you say and disagree elsewhere. I could continue to argue about it, but I think I have a good idea about how you approach the issues, so I can’t go any further.
For me, when it’s a question of trying to understand God and engaging in that kind of discussion, it’s a matter of learning and moving towards greater understanding.
You may feel that you’ve refuted all of the points I’ve raised. I don’t see it that way, but that’s why I think we disagree about things at a much deeper level than can be sorted out in this kind of conversation.
In any case, thank you again for your follow-up.

 

[reggieM]

There are infinitely many possible worlds. But even then there cannot be a world, which contains a “married bachelor”, a “four sided triangle” or “someone who is BOTH just and merciful at the same time in the same respect”.

The question of a “married batchelor” is one of a time-line.
You have already proposed that there could be some other kind of time, somewhere else in another universe (and another kind of space).
So, yes, there could be a married batchelor.
A man was a batchelor and now he is married. Those are two discrete elements on a timeline. However, if the timeline is such that all events happen simultaneously, then both events can be present at the same time. Or, the man is married and can go back in time in some way and speak to himself as a batchelor. Same man appearing in two time periods. Which is the real one?
It might be said, that a person cannot be in one place and another at the same time.
But (many) Catholics (like myself) believe that bilocation is possible.
I am not trying to prove that but to indicate that there is a possibility.
In an infinite number of universes, there are an infinite number of factors, conditions, forces.

So, if we want to speak of God, it is imperative that we agree on the definition of what God is - or what God is supposed to be.

True. If a discussion starts, for example, with “I propose that God, in the Catholic idea of who He is, actually exists” - then it’s necessary to know what that idea is.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

I offered this previously:

There are either a finite number of worlds or an infinite number.

If an infinite number, do you think it possible that God exists in some possible world?

That’s the thing. I don’t believe the god described by Feser is logically possible. That is, it doesn’t matter how many worlds there are, Feser’s god can’t exist.