Geoffrey Berg: Summaries of his Six Arguments against the Existence of God
Geoffrey Berg, The Six Ways of Atheism (2009).
Argument summaries have been written by Mr Berg
These are six new arguments against the existence of God presented by Geoffrey
Berg in his book the Six Ways of Atheism. Not all of them are meant to be
understood as disproofs of God but merely proofs that we should consider God's
existence unlikely.
Argument 1: The Aggregate of Qualities Argument
1. If God exists, God must necessarily possess all of several remarkable
qualities (including supreme goodness, omnipotence, immortality, omniscience,
ultimate creator, purpose giver).
2. Every one of these qualities may not exist in any one entity and if any such
quality does exist it exists in few entities or in some cases (e.g. omnipotence,
ultimate creator) in at most one entity.
3. Therefore it is highly unlikely any entity would possess even one of these
qualities.
4. There is an infinitesimal chance that any one entity (given the almost
infinite number of entities in the Universe) might possess the combination of
even some two of these qualities, let alone all of them.
5. In statistical analysis a merely hypothetical infinitesimal chance can in
effect be treated as the no chance to which it approximates so very closely.
6. Therefore as there is statistically such an infinitesimal chance of any
entity possessing, as God would have to do, all God’s essential qualities in
combination it can be said for all practical and statistical purposes that God
just does not exist.
MY COMMENT:
Berg is saying that statistically it is virtually impossible or close to it for
God by coincidence to have all the infinite powers. Religion answers that God
has these powers by default and it is not like he has the powers by chance.
Religion says God is utterly simple and is non-material and is not an entity but
the source of all entities. This seems to prove that Berg is criticising the
wrong view of God.
Let us take it for granted that religion is right. It follows then that this
argument only explains the infinite powers God needs. If God has infinite powers
he does not need then clearly Berg has a point. If God has infinite capabilities
that he can do without then Berg is correct.
Let us work out the properties that the creator does not need to have. It does
not need to be alive. It does not need to be conscious. We are to believe that
God is infinite life and infinite consciousness. Anything else might be like God
but it is not God and not to be worshipped. But that is only a religious demand.
It is nothing other than the stupid, "We want a God who is alive like us.
Therefore such a God exists."
If there is a creator and it is an it, this creator despite its infinite power
cannot be worshipped. It is not God in the religious sense. God in the religious
sense is indeed too good to be real.
Argument 2: The Man and God Comprehension Gulf Argument
1. Man is finite (in time, space and power etc).
2. God if he exists is infinite (in time, space and power etc).
3. Therefore mankind cannot possibly recognise God or even know that God exists.
MY COMMENT:
You can know something exists without understanding it. We don't understand how
we are conscious beings for example. Is that enough to prove God does not exist?
No.
Berg wrote that we see all those different entities in the universe. He says
that if we have an experience of God, this experience is more likely to be the
experience of a deceiving spirit pretending to be God. As we tend to worship a
version of God that suits ourselves the experience is more likely to come from
ourselves than God.
Argument 2 needs to be edited as follows:
1. Man is finite (in time, space and power etc).
2. God if he exists is infinite (in time, space and power etc).
3. Man cannot comprehend God.
4. We know that there is a bigger chance of encountering deceiving psychological
forces or paranormal ones than there is of encountering God. If man cannot
comprehend God man is more likely to worship a version of God in the place of
the real God.
5. We know that our imagination and maybe paranormal forces will pretend to be
good and pretend to be God.
6. Therefore it is improbable that anybody really knows God or recognises God.
If adoring a God who is in our head only happens too much it is an indication
that God probably might not exist for a God would want a relationship with us.
We can only experience a being with intelligence. We cannot know if its
intelligence is finite - in which case it is not God - or if its intelligence is
infinite in which case it is God. Therefore we only assume that the being we
experience is God.
We may say that in everyday life we take things on trust and so if we have an
experience purportedly of God we should take it as an experience of God. But our
trust in matters of our daily life is based on experience. We know we should do
it. We have reasons for doing it. We don't know enough about experiences of God
and they are too opaque and rare to base trust on. It is a different situation.
If God is real and he is good and this goodness is his primary quality, then it
follows that the nearest we can get to knowing him is by recognising goodness
and finding it in our hearts. Miracles and religious experiences and scriptures
cannot substitute for that. We should not be looking for or depending on
mystical experiences. Even then we are knowing him indirectly. Why? Because God
and goodness are not the same thing. Good is not good because God says it is
good. It is good because it is good. The risk of psychological projection would
be extremely high. We could be confusing our own ideas about good with God.
Christians will say that mystics know God and we should take their word for it
that they do. They say that we take it for granted that many things we are told
every day are true so we should assume God is true. Mystics disagree with one
another and there is no scarcity of mystics who talk about their experience but
show no sign of a changed life.
Berg notes that believers will say the argument does not refute the existence of
God for it merely exposes the human incapacity to understand. True. But if God
has made us in such a way that we tend to worship mental idols of him rather
than him then we should agree that if a person has an experience of God that the
experience is probably not of God at all.
Berg says we would recognise that a cruel and nasty being could not be God (page
57). The trouble is, once you say a good God is forced to allow evil for he
needs it for a good and justifiable reason, God could try to come across and
evil and nasty but we would never be able to tell if he really is evil and
nasty. There is no way to tell when it is Satan or God. Instead of recognising
this God as good, believers trust. This kind of trust is telling yourself he is
good. How could that please him for it is not about seeing and celebrating his
goodness?
To conclude, the argument is incomplete. If you observe how few people really
care about any real God that is out there it shows you cannot argue, "Enough
people report an experience of God which indicates there might be a God." The
argument when fixed succeeds in telling us that there no reason to believe.
Argument 3: The ‘God Has No Explanatory Value’ Argument
1. God if he exists must be the ultimate being and provide the answer to all our
ultimate questions - otherwise he is not really God.
2. Yet even supposing as a hypothesis that God exists the questions that God was
supposed to finally answer still remain (though in some cases God is substituted
in the question for the Universe).
3. Therefore hypothesising God’s existence is only unnecessarily adding an extra
stage to such problems and has no real explanatory value.
4. Therefore according to Logic (Occam’s Razor Law - ‘that entities are not to
be multiplied beyond necessity’) we should not postulate God’s existence and
there is no adequate reason to suppose that God exists.
5. Therefore we should suppose that God does not exist.
MY COMMENT:
This is a disproof of the rationality of believing in God not God.
If we need a creator to explain creation, that creator may not be a living
conscious force. Thus we have no need to call it God.
If God is 1 then it is 1 if there is no universe created.
God creates. Religion says it is still 1. Creation adds nothing. It is not God +
Creation = 2. This shows that they are in fact claiming that the creation popped
into existence because God told it to. It did not come from anything not even
God's power. This is magic pure and simple. The absurdity of creation is an
absolutely certain proof that God does not exist.
God is supposed to have made the powers of chance. Chance would mean that what
is outside anybody's control. If God controls chance then chance does not exist
. We would then be all fatalists - a dangerous belief that nobody wants to
advocate. (The concept of God goes logically with the fatalistic doctrine of
predestination. The true believer holds that God causes all things and we sin
not in spite of him but because of him. This is fatalism.) It follows then that
God could have used chance to create the universe meaning we cannot say the
creation indicates that there must be a God. We can at best say we don't know
one way or the other. Even if it popped out of nothing we cannot prove he had
nothing to do with it. It would follow that creation does nothing at all to help
us believe or disbelieve. God explains nothing.
Berg mentions an objection that God's may still exist even if he has no value
for us as an explanation for anything. Supporters of the objection are insisting
that it is like the case where a person is seen burning a house. You don't know
why he did it but that is not needed to explain how the fire happened. But their
argument implies that instead of believing in God we can have the opinion that
he exists. There is no need for religion if opinion suffices or is all we can
manage.
Christians say that Berg's argument is disproved by the fact that God's
existence explains God's existence. He is the reason for his own existence. But
this is not an explanation to us. God might understand it but we don't. To us it
is words and mystery.
Berg mentions that believers say that Occam's Razor is right but it only applies
in the material universe and not to God. They say that God is undetectable by
science and science uses the razor so it has nothing to do with God. Sounds like
they are doing a Joseph Smith here! "Oh I have a magical golden book but I
cannot show it to you for an angel took it away."
Berg states that the believers will hold that the argument does not render God's
existence less believable. He is well aware of the intransigence of believers.
Argument 4: The ‘This Is Not The Best Possible World’ Argument
1. God if he exists must be omnipotent, supremely good and our ultimate creator.
2. Therefore an existent God (being supremely good and competent) would have
created the best possible world (if he created anything).
3. As the world is inconsistent (between ages and people) it cannot all be the
best possible world.
4. Therefore as the world is not the best possible world, God cannot exist.
MY COMMENT: The world being worse at certain times and being better at others
does not prove that it is not the best possible world. The best possible world
concept is a general one. It takes in the whole picture. We don't have that
picture.
Pain and suffering are not exactly the same thing. You can feel your existence
is worthwhile to whatever degree if you have pain. Suffering is a form of pain
that makes you feel your existence is not worth it. If God can allow pain, it
does not follow that he can allow suffering. Suffering would mean he has given
us the faculty to feel that our lives are useless and that if he has a purpose
for us it means nothing for us.
I should look at my own experience. Do I suffer?
Suffering is the experience of meaningless existence - it is experiencing
something that tells you you should not be happy or alive.
If a person experiences meaningless existence it is harassment to tell them
their life has meaning and that God cares. It is virtually dismissing their
experience. Suffering would be a stronger experience that there is no God than
any alleged religious experience that seems more benevolent and desirable. What
gives you the right to claim that suffering can agree with the loving care of an
all-powerful God? You can't know how another person suffers so how dare you say
their suffering does not refute God. If you said, "Annie was abused by her
father. But she should see this does not disprove his love for her" you would
rightly be seen as a do-gooder and a hypocrite. Why? Because you don't know what
it was like for her. And so it is with God and suffering people. Suffering is
far better at disproving God than an imperfect world is.
Argument 5 says that a God who is unsure of the truth is
a contradiction in terms. It says all beings are unsure so God cannot
exist. The Christian answer is based on God making all things from nothing
so he knows exactly what is happening. The answer to that is creation is
magic. God uses nothing but just tells the universe to exist and it
appears. Creation is nonsense. Berg needs to debunk creation
to make the argument work.
Argument 6: The ‘Some Of God’s Defining Qualities Cannot Exist’ Argument
1. God must have certain characteristic qualities (such as providing purpose to
life), otherwise he would not be God.
2. But it is impossible for any entity to possess some of these qualities (such
as providing purpose to life since we can find no real purpose and therefore we
in practice have no ultimate purpose to our lives) that are essential to God.
3. Therefore since some of God’s essential qualities (such as being the purpose
provider to life) cannot possibly exist in any entity, God cannot exist.
MY COMMENT: We all create our own sense of meaning in life. I believe that
purpose is gained by living for pleasure up to a point, procreating and helping
others.
Could God create a universe in which he does not intend to provide our lives
with a sense of purpose that depends on him and belief in him? Yes because if he
is infinite love then he matters not us. Our purpose is to serve him and not to
be happy. If God put us here to be happy then why is it that if we try to be
happy we end up feeling dissatisfied? Why is happiness something you have to let
happen to you as opposed to working on it?
The fact that I know I exist 100% means I should put me first and not God. As
you cannot help others unless you start with helping yourself there is nothing
dangerous in this principle. It only proves that a God who claims absolute
rights to tell me what to do does not have such rights at all assuming there is
a God. It demands that one repudiate the view that God comes first and that
religion matters.
Argument 6 is only of value for people who think it is God's job to make them feel
their lives are worthwhile.
Finally - the book succeeds in opening the door to thinking about new reasons for rejecting belief in God.
