And I was never at all convinced by these arguments (then, or later) because it struck me as absurd to posit God as an explanation for anything.
And I was right! To deploy "God as an explanation", or even worse "God as an hypothesis", is a ridiculous and counter-productive way of talking about God; especially ridiculous as a way of trying to convince people of God's reality.
God is not an explanation or hypothesis, God is really a metaphysical assumption concerning the fundamental nature of reality - Creation by God is something much deeper than an hypothesis: something upon-which all possible hypotheses depend.
Therefore, it is incoherent to use "accepted reality" to make hypotheses about God.
It makes no sense to begin a conversation by starting with the 'things' of this world, by starting with an assumption that there is meaning; starting with an assumption that we already know lots of stuff about this world - and then putting forward God as a putative explanation, an hypothesis, for why these things exist, why there are these meanings, why we know such-and-such.
This is putting the cart before the horse.
From a theistic perspective, it is crazy to grant atheism a whole bunch of knowledge about the world - when the whole question of knowledge is exactly what is at issue; it is crazy to try and explain meanings, when meaning itself is the issue.
For example; if we start talking about the history of 'the universe' and whether it was created or happened 'by science'; we cannot simply accept that we already 'know' stuff about the history of the universe - and then seek an explanation of it! The 'knowing' that we assume already contains an explanation - and that explanation already excludes God!
In effect, this style of reasoning describes what has happened, describes what the world is made from (its units) and how the world works... and only then asks whether God is 'needed' to describe and explain the world we have already described and explained!
The answer will always be no - we don't need God as an explanation! God becomes, at best, an 'optional extra'.
The proper question is hard to put into words, because it is far bigger than the usual questions, bigger than any other possible question; but is something like the question of whether reality is created?
This is not a simple question about restricted phenomena - it is a question about the nature of every-thing; and it is a question about whether there is meaning to any-thing.
The questioner needs to be able to intuit that if God is rejected and creation rejected; then purpose is rejected - and without purpose there can be no meaning, no justification, no knowing.
If God is rejected; stuff Just Is, stuff Just Happens.
We cannot then know anything about anything - because there is no 'knowledge' to be had - what we call 'knowing' is just stuff happening; or maybe nothing happening - we cannot know either way...
Nothing can be said about anything - or rather, nothing we say can mean anything.
For creation; if we picture reality as having been made with intent, with purpose - then there can be meaning in relation to that purpose.
If this is a creation we inhabit; then there can be phenomena, entities, beings... reality can be understood as being divided in certain ways, shaped in certain ways; knowledge may be possible in certain situations...
But if reality just happened - without purpose - then anything we choose to say about it is meaningless; since we our-selves have no purpose.
There is no purpose to be had, there is no meaning to be had.
What I am trying to get at, is that the choice between believing in creation and not believing, is an absolutely fundamental choice.
Creation is not some kind of hypothetical description that we use like a scientific theory, to explain why B follows A, or why C, D and E are things in our words.
To consider creation is instead about whether or not such discussions are possible, whether they are coherent - whether they mean anything at all!
Someone who genuinely rejects creation, and who believes that things are, and things happen, without purpose; is making a decision to reject any meaning in anything - including in life.
Now, in practice, this never happens. Atheists who believe that everything that ever happened did so just because of causality and/ or randomness - nonetheless frequently express (and behave in accordance with) moral convictions; and hold convictions that they regard as really true; and the opposite as really false or evil.
Even those who affect 'relativism' or claim to be 'nihilistic' only use these claims of meaninglessness against other people and other beliefs - not against themselves and their own beliefs. They 'pose' as relativists and nihilists; but always and all-the-time behave as if they knew things - including that relativism and nihilism are True!
All discourse depends on the reality of creation. Yet - all the time, as an everyday fact - people are claiming that there is no 'evidence' for creation.
In other words, people are ignorant of their own metaphysical assumptions; and the situation is exacerbated by their denial that they have any metaphysical assumptions!
Incoherence is therefore the bread-and-butter, the staple diet, of all mainstream socio-political discourse in the world today.
That which is created has turned-against creation; and by denying itself - dishonestly, incoherently - creation consumes itself; and things revert towards purposeless, meaningless chaos.
This living-a-lie by denying creation is a deep reason why mankind has gone literally mad, and begun (increasingly) to destroy himself, his people, his nation and circumstances. Modern Man is not just neglecting survival and goodness; he actively, zealously embraces and propagates multiple self-destructive/ social-destructive/ civilizational-destructive ideologies and policies.
The ultimate reason is that denial of creation is incoherent, and it is never lived-by; and this combination is not just an error, but an actively-evil choice.
Since creation is real, and the only basis of coherence; we have a mass of people who deny reality and refuse responsibility for their own coherence. Life becomes necessarily a moment by moment expediency.
...Just one damned thing after another.
Once creation is rejected, all beliefs, attitudes and actions are declared arbitrary; yet in practice these are never acknowledged to be arbitrary.
We thus inhabit a world where The Lie is enshrined at the basis of everything in mainstream discourse; which means there is no basis for anything - hence the chronic trend of deliberate collapse.
Unless people, as individuals, can frame the question of creation properly; they will continue to be deeply confused and duped into embracing active evil: i.e. that destruction of Good (where Good = divine creation and that which is in harmony with it), which motivates the side of evil in the spiritual war of this world.
Note added: I have not mentioned deism here: which is belief in a non-personal deity; that reality has a structure but no purpose. This doesn't work as an ultimate explanation, partly because it leaves out how we personally could know anything: If deism was true, we could never know it. Deism therefore ultimately reduces to the rejection of creation, and any assertions of purpose, meaning, knowledge etc. are incoherent. Therefore, I regard deism as ultimately the same as atheism - but in practice (in 2022, although not in all times and places) deism seems to be a transitional belief-phase; either going-towards, or away-from, theism.
1 comment:
This post is rather breathtaking. It communicates primordial truth with a simplicity and economy almost never encountered today. I've read widely for decades on these matters. There are very few people in the English speaking world with such a deep grasp of our situation in this cosmos, coupled with the capacity to communicate this wisdom so powerfully and succinctly.
This leads me to wonder whether it was ever so. Were there also so few wise men in 700A.D., or 1100, 1750?
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