THE ARGUMENT "GOD MADE ALL THINGS AND GOD HAD NO MAKER FOR HE DOESN'T NEED ONE"AN ANALYSIS OF DIVINE SIMPLICITY
Reification is when you mistake an idea for a thing or what has objective
existence. For example, you may write a novel and come to think that the main
character in it is real. It is easy to feel that he is.
You may think that a rule such as 1=1 is a real thing. It is information but
it is not a thing. It is abstract.
1=1 is simple. It has other sides. 1+1=2 and so on. The calculations can go on forever. This does not mean it is not simple. Every law by implication rejects what contradicts it. You can have one law refuting billions of things. It is not doing it on purpose. So there is no need to invoke a designer. It is just down to how a law by definition excludes what violates it.
More of this later, but this law is true regardless of whether anything exists or not.
When a law that is self-existent and cannot not exist and therefore had no designer can be so complex in its results then why can’t all things have been designed without an intelligence?
This law is real but it has no components or parts and it is not physical.
Believers in God are guilty of reification. They cook up the notion of an
objective reality that is non-material and has no parts or components and call
it spirit. They call it God. They think they believe in a spirit who keeps all things in existence
and upon whom all things depend or there will be nothing. They mistake this idea
for God. In other words, you imagine there is a mind without a body without
evidence that there is such a possibility and thus you imagine God into
existence.
Nobody can prove spirit exists. You would need proof that it exists before you
can say it makes sense. It makes sense to believe flowers exist in Africa though
you have no proof. But spirit is so different from anything we can experience
that we need proof. Some things have to be proven before you can make sense out
of them and if it is not spirit then it is nothing. When there are material
things that demand such proving surely spirit demands it even more?
The lesson is, don't believe in spirit without proof that it is even possible
for spirit to exist.
And if spirit exists, it does not prove that spirit in the sense of God exists.
God is different from any spirit even if he is spirit. So there could be spirits
but still no God.
Christians believe that God has no parts or has no body. Though he is said to be
everywhere he is really nowhere for he is pure mind without feelings, parts or
body. He, in other words, is a spirit (page 14, 80, Asking them Questions; page
28, Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Part 1; page 38 The Puzzle of God;
chapter 18 - That There is No Composition in God, from Summa Book One; page 31,
A Summary of Christian Doctrine). It follows that if God loves us then God is
literally love (page 30). He is the abstract attribute. He is identical with his
law (page 30, Why does God?; page 25, A Summary of Christian Doctrine).
Augustine denied that God is substance that has properties. For him, God is an
essence that is its properties. If God has properties, the properties of
omniscient, free, eternal and omnipotent are essential to him . He has
non-essential properties such as the power to create. He has these powers
because he chooses to have them.
Christians talk about how God is utterly simple, all-powerful, all-loving and
has no body. These qualities or attributes serve a crafty purpose. They hide the
fact that nobody can really know what they are talking about.
What makes me me and not anybody else? Thisness. Philosophers say God does not
have thisness.
Some believing philosophers argue as follows: "I have a thisness about me. I am
me and nobody else. If I was duplicated the duplicate would be a new person who
was exactly like me but not me. My parents could have had a child at the exact
same time as me and who was like me in every way genes and all but who is not
me. So we conclude that each human being has a thisness about her or him. This
is not a property nor is it a combination of properties. Thisness is not the
properties. The properties do not make you what you are. You have the properties
because of what you are. We say that God does not have thisness. Believers who
say that God is a substance with properties are wrong. Rather God is an essence
for he does not have his properties - he is them. He is his omnipotence and his
omniscience and his freedom and his eternity and his love and goodness. It was
Augustine who clarified this. Augustine declared that God’s qualities and his
essence are one and the same thing for spirit is what it has and there is no
difference between what it is and what it has (Book Eleven, Chapter 10, City of
God). God does not have thisness because if he did, that would mean there could
have been a God instead of him who is not him. Christians say that if a being
had God's properties that being would be the God that exists, the actual God.
There can be no other God or actual God." This argument is outlined on page 14
of Richard Swinburne's book, Was Jesus God? (Oxford University Press, Oxford,
2008).
If God is his properties, it follows that to say "There is no God" is
contradictory and makes no sense. It is like saying that you drank non-existent
tea. Swinburne denies this for he says that There is no God is coherent and does
not involve self-contradiction (page 15, ibid). If God exists and is his
properties then to deny his existence is illogical. We might suppose that its
logical to think there is no God but the problem is with our perception of
logic. We are not reasoning correctly. We fail to see that it is logical to
believe in God and illogical and self-contradictory to deny his existence.
Swinburne says we can understand that it makes sense to believe that there is no
God. But that is assuming we really understand. We can think we understand
things when we actually do not. We think we understand the finest grain of sand
but when we examine ourselves we see that we do not. We understand things about
it but that is all.
The problem with God being a being without parts or a simple being leads to the
absurdity that God has several attributes and they are all one essence (page 6,
Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Part 2) or all the same thing so they are not
several but one. They are only several in our thinking but not in reality. This
denies that obvious fact that being fair is not the same as being powerful. That
is one example. We have two choices. If we say God has only one attribute then
he is not really a God and you may as well be atheist for you cannot relate to
such an entity. If God has many then he is not a spirit. The absurdity of a God
being pure spirit is recognised by many philosophers (page 90, Taking Leave of
God). The idea of spirit is bad enough but the idea of God being literally
something abstract - something that is just a concept and not a real thing like
love – is utter insanity. The miracles of the Catholic Church are claimed to
verify just that kind of a God. If they do that then they have to be from an
evil force for the force has to be anti-rational and if it is anti-rational it
has no business giving miracles as signs.
Believers say that we see God differently from what he is because for us his
mercy is not his knowledge and his knowledge is not his creative power whereas
in fact they are one in God. Frederick Copleston said that our knowledge of God
then is inadequate and hazy but is not false (History of Philosophy, Vol 2,
pages 360-361). The problem is when the God theory cannot be understood how we
can know if it is false or not? Anything we think we know about God we do not
know it at all for we don’t know if he is even coherent. It is like saying that
seeing a nebulous black shape which is a man is the same as knowing that a man
is there and what he looks like and what he is wearing.
The danger with the idea of spirit is that we think of God as a gas that is not
made up of atoms or parts. But then this gas would just consist of one part. It
is its part. This part does not consist of any other parts. Do you see the
implication of all that? A God without parts is no more existing than a square
circle. He is a something that is a nothing. The idea that nothing consists of
two or more nothings would make more sense than that for something can never be
nothing to any degree. Christianity degrades children by playing conjuring
tricks with words. The idol worshipper adores a god of wood or stone or so the
Christian says. They bemoan how demeaning that is. But how much more is it
demeaning to adore nothing and call it God? At least the idol worshipper adores
something real. And he adores something that is more understandable than a being
that is supposed to be pure spirit. Christianity demeans all whom it gets to
adore its God. To the mind of a child, God is just like pretending the naked
emperor is wearing clothes as in the children's tale The Emperor's New Clothes.
It's pretending that something that cannot be seen or examined or verified by
the senses is real. The God concept is disrespectful and therefore an abuse of
the mind of a child.
To say that God is a spirit and that spirit is not something and it is not
nothing but something between the two is problematic (page 75, The Puzzle of
God). There is no in-between for something and nothing. The answer given to this
is that God would be beyond being something and nothing and this is possible
(ibid, page 75). But that is as silly as saying 1+1=3 not in a contradictory way
but in a way that transcends maths or is beyond them. Of course it is a
contradiction. It is just not being admitted. It is also meaningless to use the
answer because you cannot prove if it is possible for it to be true so you don’t
know if you are talking sense therefore you are not talking sense. If God is
something then what made this something? If he is nothing then that is atheism.
It is no use blurring the definition of something and the definition of nothing
for these definitions are as clear as day. There is such a thing as nothing full
stop and to talk about another kind of nothing is madness. The same goes for
something.
I wish to add the following. If you think of God as a gas that fills the
universe but this gas has no parts then you get as close as possible to
understanding what many people in Christendom mean by God. God is spirit. But
there is no rule that says a spirit has to be infinite or permeate the universe
like God. There could be a spirit, a being that has no parts but which does not
fill the universe. You can imagine two spirit beings being put together like two
atoms can be to make something new. They would be parts then. They have no parts
in themselves but they can become parts. So we conclude from this that each
spirit is a part. It may have no parts but it is a part. There is no proof then
that God is a being without parts. He could be a machine or person made up of
countless other spirits.
The notion of God being simple is applying reason in matters we know nothing
about. We don't even know if spirit makes sense. Metaphysics concerning God is
sheer speculation. And it is also incoherent.
There is a difference between God being simple and logically simple. Aquinas
stated that God is logically simple. The difference does not really matter. The
first says that you cannot know how God can be simple and it is a mystery. The
second tries to show that it makes sense.
All the proofs for God presuppose that the universe could not have made itself
for it was too complicated. But that means that God is simpler than the
universe. That does not say much. Christians take it to the extreme. For them
God is utterly simple - has no parts for he needs nothing to assemble him or put
him together. But there is no need to go that far. Physics identifies entities
that are not simple in the way God supposedly is but which are very simple -
they are incomprehensibly simple.
You need to prove God can be simple. Then you need to prove that he must be.
Then you must prove that there is a God or at least that it is reasonable to
believe. That is the order. Religion cheats you. It just jumps to attempts to
show there is a God. It manipulates logic by not telling the whole story.
Why could the universe have not come from something simpler than itself like a
computer program instead (I mean something like a computer program not a
computer program!) of God?
We know simple entities could turn into the universe. We don't need the God
idea. And the God idea is not really simple for we have no reason to think that
a being that has no parts and which is not made of energy or matter as we know
it can even exist.
If God had the intelligence to make the universe then what made the complicated
intelligence to make the universe? God is a useless explanation. Also, they say
that God is a spirit, a being without parts or divisions but there is no reason
to believe that the Supreme Being (if there is one) is a spirit. Suppose spirit
can exist. An impersonal spirit could be the maker of the supreme being. Which
is simpler – a conscious supreme being (or God) or an unconscious intelligence
that makes all things? The latter is. If the proofs for God have any force that
is what they prove not God.
The law that 1=1 does not cause things to be as they are. The universe is just expressed through that law. The law only says that it must be this way and the law would still be true if nothing existed. Even if nothing existed 1=1 would still be true for one nothing would still be one nothing. The law is not a power. It is an abstract. It is a concept. Religion says that God is the absolute, ie all laws depend on him. They say that he is all truth. We cannot see how a non-thing such as truth can be a God. It is crazy to say that truths such as 1 = 1 are in spirit form and that spirit is God. 1=1 regardless of whether anything exists or not and that includes God. Not all laws need a maker. God is not the go-to for all truth. God is not God of that law. God is an incoherent notion.
God is the simplest thing imaginable. This turns God's love into the same thing as his mathematical ability. But religion says that divine simplicity is not lack of distinction, but lack of composition. That is wrong for the same reason as saying clear glass is not lack of distinct colours but lack of colour composition.
Christian theologians remind us that if God is simple that might mean he is not a mystery. Or it might mean he is both the simplest being and also the most mysterious or hard to fathom. They tell you that your spirit, your mind, is a bigger mystery than your body. Yet the spirit or mind is very simple. What does this mean?
Many things are simple but we are just not shown them to see that.
If God is simple and cannot find a way to
help us see his simplicity and dodge mystery then he is not God.
Mystery is only appealed to for believers are afraid God might not make sense and they want you to doubt yourself for seeing that.
You cannot really show how your mind is
simple and yet mysterious. If it is a mystery you cannot
demonstrate how it is supposed to be simple. You know there is
more to your mind and body than you will ever think. That does
not mean you have to go down the road of mystical woo.
We conclude that as we are human beings, if we need a God, we need one that we can be inspired by. How can we when all anthropomorphic ideas are overthrown by the notion of a God that does not have free will like we think we have, the power to deduce things, feelings and does not even have any parts. A God who is non-physical and has magical powers and is supposedly absolutely happy is not something that can be our friend.
God cannot be simple. If that means God cannot exist then so be it.