Thursday, April 24, 2014

Is Believing in God Like Believing in Zeus or Thor? Nope.

The famed atheist Richard Dawkins has often said (as here) that he does not consider it any different to not believe in the Christian God than to not believe in Zeus or Thor or Mithras or any other non-Christian deity. "Everyone's in atheist concerning some gods; we've just got one god further," he says. Now, being the Anglophile I am, I'm always so tempted to treat seriously any words spoken in a refined English accent--I just love the way Dawkins says "Zyoos" for Zeus--but in this case I'm afraid that even his silky Oxonian tones can't salvage Dawkins' rather silly statement.

The problem here is one of equivocation; that is, the same word, "god," is being applied to Zeus and Thor and Mithras and YHWH, but what being a "god" means in each case is radically different.

In the mainstream orthodox Christian tradition, when we speak of "God" (even prescinding from the whole question of Christ and the Trinity and any personal attributes), we mean the very ground of existence, the first cause of all things who is Himself uncaused, the source of all goodness and love, that than which nothing greater can be conceived, eternal, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent. We are making claims that matter to our entire worldview, that reach down to the deepest metaphysical questions. One can conclude the existence of such a God purely through reason, as in Aquinas' Five Ways, as Socrates did when he said there was only one god, as many a former atheist who has thought about it a bit has done.

When we speak of Zeus or Thor or Mithras or any other "god" of this sort, we are not dealing with anything quite so philosophically serious. None of these are eternal, having existed always. None is the uncaused first cause of all things--each of this has his own birth, and none can be said to have created all. None are all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good: they may know a lot, and be able to do a lot, and do some good things, but they are occasionally ignorant, and often limited, and quite frequently immoral. One could conceive of a universe without the god of the sky or of thunder or of justice, or of this particular god of those things; someone else in the pantheon could take up the role. One would never and could never reason to the existence of Zeus or Thor or Mithras.

These pagan "gods" are high-octane versions of humans, like people with the volume turned up. The Christian God is something fundamentally different. It's comparing apples and oranges... not even apples and oranges. More like apples and wrenches. I don't believe in Zeus or Thor or Mithras because it's unreasonable to, and because they have never revealed themselves, and do not continue to reveal themselves throughout history--I've never heard of anyone in the last 3,000 years being healed of a deadly disease thanks to their supplications to Apollo. But to believe in the Triune God as described above is eminently reasonable, and that reason is supported and confirmed by revelation, by miracles, by personal experience, by faith. These other three poseurs cannot compare. Nice try, Dick Dawkins.

7 comments:

  1. "I've never heard of....." possibly speaks to your lack of experience? "Revelation" is subject to interpretation. "Miracles," at least as found by the Catholic Church can seem suspect and somewhat subjective. Confirmation by personal experience leaves room for 7,000,000,000 eminently reasonable Gods, discounting the experience of all other species. "Faith" could be thought of as a filler for all other holes to be punched in somewhat academic discussions of theological surety. One must find religion by and for oneself. Jesus did not profligate or litigate.

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    1. Very little of what I wrote concerned appeals to personal experience, and I was not equating personal experience with reasonableness, nor positing that personal experience is a subset of reasonableness. Miracles, personal experience, etc., are types of proof apart from reason--I wouldn't say that proof by personal experience results in 7 billion "eminently reasonable Gods." When I say "reason," I mean "logical demonstration," which is what most of my post concerned. One can deductively reason to an uncaused cause as source of all existence, which puts you on the path toward the Christian God, and away from pagan gods. The two require very different levels of metaphysical commitment. That was my point.
      You've put several words in quotes; perhaps you could define them for me? What do you understand revelation, miracles, and faith to mean? I might then better understand your objections.

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  2. How about Allah or the Hindu and Buddhist Gods? Or the Native American God? Or the Gods of many South American traditions? They are more in the category of your Judeo-Christian God, so if you do not believe in Allah, then you are an atheist in that regard. Or is your God better than their Gods?

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  3. Now this is a pretty grandiose statement (even for a theologian), "I've never heard of anyone in the last 3,000 years being healed of a deadly disease thanks to their supplications to Apollo." So presumably, you have roamed the entire earth for "the last 3,000 years" and observed all the billions of intercessory supplications and their results. Er, did you say your name was . . . Yahweh?

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  4. "But to believe in the Triune God as described above is eminently reasonable," you say, Nick. Well tell me how reasonable it is that a Father sent His Son to be killed, but the Son turned out to be God who while He was dying (if a God of this unimaginable potency can die) spoke to His Father as if He was being abandoned and apparently the Father ignored Him, because He did die (although God could have saved Him, or saved Himself) and now the Son is God who also created the Earth 4,000 years before He died. No fair using the water, ice, fog analogy.

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    1. Hi Gil, sorry for the delay, and thanks for your responses. I've chosen to address them in their own post, which has just been published. Do please check it out!

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  5. In the mainstream orthodox Christian tradition, when we speak of "God"

    Isn't at all where Richard Dawkins is coming from.

    On the other hand the great god Bumba (try Google) seems to be an immortal creator god. But I'll bet you don't believe in him.

    Atheists just go one god better.

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