Is God Really Impossible?

We came across an interesting essay which explained how God was impossible. Unfortunately, most of the opponents of the article did not read the fine print which qualified the argument. We would like to elaborate a bit further on the thesis.

The author of the article in question is an anonymous writer going by the name fatfist. To his credit he adheres to the scientific method and to precise definitions. Most of his adversaries couldn't define a fart if their lives depended on it.

For those wondering, a definition is a stipulation declaring criteria for membership in a set. For example when we ask for the definition of a ball, we don't care about its size, color, weight, etc as those are descriptive aspects of what we assume to be a ball. We are only interested in the minimum criteria for labeling an object a ball. We might then say that a ball is sphere with a bounce coefficient greater than 0. Thus a globe, though spherical, is not a ball because we assume that it does not bounce.

And so fatfist defines key terms in making his argument that God cannot exist. The first term is God who is defined as the person who created something from nothing as monotheist theologians are inclined to do.

His argument is sullied by the mischievous stipulation that the verb "to create" must be creatio ex nihilo, but which in ordinary usage does not carry that meaning. As such, caveat emptor. We exploit the loophole in short order.

He then defines space as a void, and matter as something which has form which can only come from location in space. An object has existence if it has location, and location is defined as the set of distances to other objects. Matter is that which has form.

Since space is a void - ie nothingness - by definition it cannot be created. Since it is impossible to have form without space, then space must necessarily precede form and hence precede matter. Since God is said to have form, he must have matter and be surrounded by space. The implication of these statements is that space and matter are eternal and God must consequently be subsequent to them.

Thus we have a non-eternal God who rather than creating the universe could have assembled planet earth and this would be highly consistent with Genesis which pervasively uses the language of manufacture, construction, and formation to describe the creative acts in its first 2 chapters. They were not creations ex nihilo as the theologians and atheists normally insist.

So God might exist, contrary to fatfist, but then we are talking of 2 different types of Gods - a greater and "lesser" god. The idea of a "lesser" god is actually consistent with the Biblical book of Genesis which introduces elohim which refer to powerful or authoritative beings rather than to gods with magical powers. These elohim could be the assemblers who built the earth and man but then the question becomes, How did they come to exist?

Along with Fatfist's description of matter and the universe is the explanation that all matter is bound together by gravity, magnetic, and other forces such that all matter is in fact unity. This gives rise to the idea of the Universal Mind. Perhaps all of these connections among matter creates in effect a mind much like the human mind which operates as the electro-chemical machinations of brain cells, neurons, axons, synapses, dendrites, and so forth. The idea of the universal mind could be analogous to the brain but operating on a much grander and more complex scale.

In any event, God is not impossible if one considers the "lesser" god of whom we may be children. On the other hand, neither is he guaranteed.

Reference

fatfist, God Does NOT Exist - It is IMPOSSIBLE for a God to Exist, HubPages (hubpages.com), June 3, 2014, accessed 10/28/2014

Copyright 2017 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.