DOES CALLING GOD A SPIRIT MEAN THAT SPIRIT COULD BE A UNICORN OR A TEAPOT?
THE QUESTION
"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed
in. Some of us just go one god further," Richard Dawkins.
There are countless things you do not passively believe in. There are many
things you actively do not believe in such as that politicians care about you.
The Christian says they do not passively believe in other gods. They
actively do not believe these gods are real. To them only God is real. So they
say that to say God alone is real is to deny the existence of the countless gods
that people have ever adored. Dawkins would say they are only a hairs
breadth from denying God as well and should take that step.
They answer that God as creator of all is not like those other pathetic gods
and has good explanatory force. So it is not the same thing.
Is believing in a spiritual God with supernatural powers as bad or silly as
believing in any pagan God or witch or unicorn or whatever with supernatural or
godlike powers? Or is it worse? We are talking about the idea that dropping
belief in God is similar to dropping belief in magical unicorns or fairies or
whatever. If it is just a magical belief like them, then those who discard faith
in God are in the same camp as those who dismiss magical beings such as
unicorns, goblins, ghosts etc except they just go one further. They just drop
God. Believers in God are atheists except with one God and the secularists agree
with them except that they go a step further and abandon God. Big deal. If you
throw away your sweets and have one left then you might as well throw it away as
well.
ALISTER MCGRATH V RICHARD DAWKINS' UNICORN
Page 85 of Alister McGrath's book, Mere Theology (SPCK, London, 2010) states
that the following argument given by Richard Dawkins is wrong. "I do not believe in
God. It is an unnecessary belief such as belief in a magical invisible unicorn.
The believers in God do not believe in all tales about supernatural entities. I
am just going a bit further than them and abandoning God."
So McGrath says it is a mistake to think that God is an alleged object in the
universe such as the invisible unicorn. McGrath then implies that God is
necessary for accounting for how all things exist and the unicorn is not. He
means the unicorn does not explain how things exist or where they came from and
God does. He assumes that if there is a unicorn then God made it and that is the
explanation but God cannot be explained for he is not a creature like the
unicorn. Thus he thinks that God is a more sensible idea than the unicorn and so
in a different league.
This overlooks the fact that it is not always irrational or foolish to favour a
view that might not seem to be the most sensible. If God is a smarter idea than
the unicorn it could still be wrong. If you admit you do not know how all things
came to be the unicorn is as good as God.
All you know about God if he is real is that he is non-physical and can
command things to appear and they appear. He made all things from
his word. That does not rule out God being a non-physical computer or even
a unicorn. It says they are possibilities. McGrath in that way
overlooks how the unicorn could explain how things exist or where they came from
if unicorn is what a God would be.
There are different degrees of rationality. Being a bit irrational does not
define you as irrational. If you can be called rational and believe in God then
you can be called rational if you believe in God as in the unicorn instead. You
could be a more rational person as you believe in the God-unicorn than you would
be if you believed in the standard God.
The claim that God is immune to Dawkins' criticism for he is not an object in the
universe but its spiritual creator source is actually a red herring. For God to
be the source means he has the miraculous power to make the universe from
nothing. So the point is not if God is an object in the universe or not but his
supernatural powers. God by definition is a spiritual and magical power. Dawkins
correctly reasons that if you reject a unicorn with magical powers, just go a
step further and reject a God with magical powers. If you reject one magical
being why not another?
THE MAGIC
If you say that God makes all things and the unicorn is not God but has magical power then what?
God would be more magical than the unicorn for he is seen as more powerful and maker of all. So God would be a worse idea than a magical unicorn! It is mad to argue that a unicorn is a necessarily ridiculous idea and to say that a God who can make a unicorn is not!
God making all things from nothing is a trick with language. Using
nothing to make something is not making. What is happening is that God is
telling things to appear and they appear. That is magic.
THEORY
McGrath says the mistake of Dawkins is that God is thought to be an alleged
object in the universe such as the invisible unicorn. McGrath says God is not an
object in the universe but its source. Think about this. It actually exalts God
as in theory. It is saying God as theory matters in itself. Are they wondering
how the universe can exist unless there is a God to make it? That is arguing
from effect to cause. But why can't God be theorised to exist even if we pretend
there is no creation? He should be if he is that important. It turns God into an
explanation for the universe instead of God being an explanation for God. We
cannot understand how anything can be an explanation for itself. It ends up just
being words. Thus any theory will do. It is just as understandable to say a dog
explains itself as it is to say a ghost did or a God did.
The fact of the matter is, that though pagans did see their gods as objects in
the universe their faith was as much theory as faith in God is. The problem is
not about the source but about the theory. And what if pagans argued that though
the idea of gods being the source of all has problems those problems do not
disprove it for it is a mystery?
THE CREATION "EXPLANATION"
Is believing in a spiritual God with CREATOR powers as bad or silly as believing
in a spiritual unicorn or witch or whatever with CREATOR powers? Or is it worse?
McGrath thinks that the reason it makes more sense to believe in God than the
unicorn is that God explains why the universe exists and the unicorn does not.
That is what his source and object talk is all about. He sees God as a source
and anything that is not God as an object that exists because of the source.
But God is not really an explanation. We do not know how somebody can make
something without using anything. At best for the Christians, we do not know if
it is possible. But many of us realise that we do know it is impossible.
The fact that we are here instead of being non-existent does not help. It is
like saying that because a rock is on the shore that somebody put it there. We
do not know if God creates or makes all things from or out of himself.
We do not know if the idea of spirit - a being with no parts - like God makes
sense. We may as well pick a unicorn as an explanation for creation as God!
UNICORN AS CREATOR?
A unicorn creator of all is more comprehensible to us than a Christian God. It
would be a better option. God can never be greater to us than how our minds
conceive God and the mystery of God. In other words, anything we think God is,
is only going to be a guess. We tend to see the unicorn as a magical fictional
thing and God as real for that is the way we have been conditioned. We think
there is no comparison between God and a supernatural unicorn. But the problem
is not that the unicorn is magical but that his existence cannot be proven or
disproven. Thus it is in the same category as God. It is not question of myth
but a question of knowing one way or the other. So God and the unicorn are in
the same boat.
God is too much of a mystery and too unknowable. The unicorn making all things
is a better explanation. We have a better idea of what we are talking about
then.
IS THE UNICORN OR GOD THE BEST EXPLANATION?
If magic exists, we should not assume that it is more powerful than what it is
or assume there is more powerful magic than we need to. God with his infinite
power would have infinite magic power so belief in the the unicorn who has
limited magic would make more sense.
Magic is making something with something that rationally should not make it.
Witches and God casts spells for the magic words make things out of nothing.
Infinite magic or limited makes no difference. Magic is magic.
If there is no evidence, logical or otherwise, for God or the unicorn or against
them, we can draw some morals from this.
Moral 1 is that our being unable to prove their non-existence does not make it
reasonable to assume or believe that they exist.
Moral 2 is that our being unable to prove their non-existence does not make it
unreasonable to assume or believe that they don't exist.
Moral 3 is that we cannot prove the non-existence of either but it does not mean
that it is equally likely that they exist or do not exist
Moral 4 their non-existence cannot be proven with absolute certainty but the
chance of their existing is very small
Moral 5 we must assume their non-existence until suitable evidence for their
existence comes along. This assumption is reasonable and needs no defence.
Christians and some philosophers say the morals are correct as regarding the
unicorn but that God is a different case. So they take us back to where we
started.
We don't need to go back thank you. Spirit could be anything even a unicorn so God could be a unicorn. And magic is magic so you don't need a God of vast and infinite power for magic is able to create without it making any sense anyway. And a God of incredible power is more magical than a unicorn that has enough magic to generate a universe so God is a worse idea.