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The Impossibility of God

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I've been an atheist since the late 1980s, and after innumerable debates with theists, I can say only one thing about "God"; there's nothing to it besides wishful thinking!

Well, I can say a lot more about it than that, and The Impossibility of God provides new ideas that I hadn't yet become acquainted with.

I tended to think of myself as what you might call a "weak atheist" or a person who simply lacks belief in God. I was a born again Christian years ago, and after less than two years, I realized that my faith had slipped away. One of the reasons I could no longer believe was my reading both contradictions and false prophecies in the New Testament. Now years later, I realize that these difficulties were and are insurmountable, and that not only does God not exist, he cannot conceivably exist as explained in The Impossibility of God, and therefore strong atheism-the denial that there is a God-carries the day.

This book is organized into five parts:
1. Definitional disproofs of God in which one points out a contradiction in the definition of God. For example, James Rachels argues that total subordination to God excludes moral autonomy which is at odds with a God that is defined as worthy of worship.
2. Deductive evil disproofs are perhaps the best known disproofs and center on the paradox of positing a good God that allows evil. Quentin Smith, for instance, finds flaws in the free will defense and argues that a good and all-powerful God would have created a world devoid of evil.
3. In the doctrinal disproofs section, Christine Overall offers a perhaps surprising argument that miracles, if real, are actually disproof of God because God is supposed to have created natural laws.
4. In this part, several disproofs are presented that argue against the possibility of a God with two or more traits that are incompatible. Kretzmann discusses, for example, that no being can be omniscient and immutable because knowledge changes with time, and if God knows all, then his knowledge must change which results in his changing.
5. Finally, several of the contributors argue that any one of God's purported traits are impossible. One of these contributors, Cowan, explains that omnipotence is impossible as in the famous example of asking if God can do anything possible, then can he create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?

If I have any problem with this book, I can only complain that many of its essays may require a degree in philosophy to fully understand! Be prepared to encounter a plethora of technically difficult concepts.

In conclusion, I must say that The Impossibility of God presents fresh ideas to the debate surrounding God's existence. Believers may remain believers, and no doubt most of them will, but after reading this work, they can only believe based on faith. To reason with them may be, like God, impossible.

It would seem a bit of a stretch to "prove" the impossibility of God, since proving a negative has long been considered impossible. And it would seem to be quite a task to prove that God does not exist given that the presumably easier task of proving the positive that God does exist has never been done--at least not done well enough to convince most philosophers.

At any rate, what we have here are 32 closely-argued essays and an appendix written by 25 academics collected from mostly philosophic journals such as Philo, Sophia, the International Journal from Philosophy of Religion, etc, along with excerpts from various books. What is demonstrated is that the sort of hair-splitting arguments for which philosophy is famous are still alive and well in academia.

To my mind what the authors come close to proving (in the most painstaking fashion) is that the usual definitions of God are inadequate, thereby allowing one to derive contradictions from those definitions, contradictions that prove that God, defined in such and such a way, cannot exist. For example (and several of the contributors use variations on this theme), God cannot be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-benevolent since there exists the palpable presence of evil in the world. Actually the editors break this down more finely and throw out three categories of "disproofs" which might be called, (1) the argument to disproof from definition; (2) the argument to disproof from evil; and (3) the argument to disproof from doctrine. In the latter, what is demonstrated is that a particular formulation of God is inconsistent with a particular religious doctrine, demonstrating that THAT God cannot exist.

The astute reader will note that all three categories rest on demonstrating a disconnect between definitions. What the various authors are trying to do is NOT to prove that God does not exist, rather that it is impossible to define God in such a way that contradictions do not arise. As the editors point out in their introduction, the real task here is to show that God is a logical impossibility, and therefore, like a square circle, cannot exist.

One can get a feel for what the authors are up to by considering some of the essay titles. (God forbid that one should actually read the arguments!) Matt McCormick, for example, entitles one of his two essays, "Why God Cannot Think" with the subtitle: "Kant, Omnipresence, and Consciousness." What McCormick argues (borrowing from Kant) is that since God is omniscient and omnipotent, God is also omnipresent. However, McCormick argues, such a God cannot have a higher consciousness "because in order to be conscious a being must be limited in ways that an omnipresent thing is not." McCormick gets this notion from Kant's idea that "an omnipresent being cannot make object/representation discriminations, so it cannot make a self/other distinction." Consequently "it cannot apply concepts or form judgments." McCormick goes on to conclude that "an omnipresent being cannot have higher consciousness, so it cannot have a mind." Ergo, it cannot think!

Regardless of how one might feel about this argument, there is the additional question as to whether proving the impossibility of "it" is the same thing as proving that "it" does not exist. The other essays are similar in that they attempt to ensnarl prospective gods in webs made from human logic.

I have a couple of answers to this (if you will) sophisticated sophistry.

First, any God worth the name is beyond the restrictions of human logic, and can even exist and not exist at the same time. (Demigods, such as the anthropomorphic God as seen in fundamentalist Christianity or the many personifications of God in Hinduism or the gods presented in this book, etc., are a different matter of course.) In a similar question one might ask can the universe (or anything) exist and not exist? By the rules of logic, the answer is no. But might there be some sort of meta-logic of which we are not yet aware? Consider that something as simple as so-called "fuzzy logic" was unknown to the ancient Greeks, and the Boolean logic taught today was not completely formulated (if it is indeed completely formulated) until recent times.

Second, let me present a definition of God that, for some reason, the authors do not consider--or perhaps I missed it among the 439 pages of text. This is the definition of God from the Vedas, and is the source of the so-called "Way" of the Taoists, namely, a God with no attributes, a God about which nothing can be said, in short "God, the Ineffable." I challenge the authors to find some contradiction in a God about which nothing can be said!

What I think this book's authors demonstrate is that old saw about the futility of trying to reconcile the ways of God to man. In a sense, if we reverse the arguments, we can see just how apparently impossible it is to prove the usual--namely that God exists--while demonstrating that to even discuss such matters, it is necessary to have our terms clearly defined. There is the God of Old Testament. He is, by his actions, a far cry from the ocean of Brahma that one encounters in the East.

Nonetheless I like this book. It is handsomely presented by Prometheus Books, and well edited and proofread. In this age of mass media censorship (coercive, prior and self), it is good to see that in book publishing even the most unpopular views are still being allowed full expression.

As Dennis Littrell earlier put it, the authors of Impossibility of God "come close" to proving that all definitions of God are inadequate. If he is wrong and the authors in fact did demonstrate the inadequacy of the definitions, what then? If that is the case, one does not need to disprove God since the very definitions fail to establish such a being in the first place!
One need not note that contradictions exist. All we need do is point out that the definitions of God simply fail, therefore, the onus (as it has always been) falls on the theist to prove God exists. Atheists have to prove and disprove nothing.
If no definition of God is adequate to prove God, further arguments for or against are ridiculous.
The question remains: did this book adequately demonstrate that there is no adequate definition of God. Read it and judge for yourself instead of taking my word or the word of Dennis Littrell or anyone else!

The Impossibility of God is a wonderful compilation of potent arguments against the existence of God. That is, a God defined in a way that defies logic and reason. The book accomplished what it intended, showing the Impossibility of God. I certainly recommend this book as being a vigorous, entertaining and up-to-date refutation of the figment of man's imagination (the existence of God).

This is one of those rare philosophy books that must be read with a highlight pen in hand. I had a hard time putting it down, reading it rather incongruously through my Christmas holiday. While savoring it, thoughtful readers will no doubt also be inspired to create their own parallel arguments.

The arguments are mainly applicable to an omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving God. Most Christians will simply retrench into a watered down version of God rather than truly be swayed against belief per se, without worrying about if such a tepid deity is worthy of belief and devotion anyway. Nevertheless, as an exercise in logic- of the rather ultimate sort- The Impossibility of God is undeniably fascinating and thought provoking.

The reviewer dmitri works himself into a lather attempting to dissuade the reader from becoming an atheist. Since I am feeling feisty right now and am taking a break from writing a paper, I will address some of his laughable reasons adduced for that purpose.

dmitri asserts that the authors of this fine text are cocksure because they believe that God exists in no possible world. He goes on to say that there is a small chance that God does exist. Clearly that is begging the question, since the issue at hand is whether or not there is a small chance that God exists. If dmitri disagrees with the authors, then perhaps he should specify which arguments he finds unsound and why he finds them so. I can assure you that any attempt on his part would have to possess more content than the drivel that he did in fact type. Criticizing the general strategy of proving that a being does not exist is absurd, since this sort of argumentation occurs daily and with great success in philosophy departments across the country.

dmitri appeals to Pascal's Wager as well. That this argument is still used by theists is fine evidence that the foundations of theism are on the verge of collapsing--it is a desperate final attempt to get the trained intellect to believe despite the mountain of evidence against theism. If you are convinced by the wager, I have a nearby bridge to sell you.

dmitri also recommends the books by C.S. Lewis and Lee Strobel. Unfortunately these two men have the philosophic intelligence of Baptist youth ministers. Please see S.T. Joshi's book God's Defenders for a hilarious criticism of Lewis's buffoonery. Strobel, I trust, can be exposed as a sophist within a few minutes of careful reading.

So we see that dmitri proposed no good reasons for his contempt for Martin's book and atheism in general. But sadly, dmitri is a token of a type--the pseudo-intellectual Christian. Watch out for this sort. Far more dangerous that the typical religious dolt.

Herbert Spenser once said that since "God" can neither be proven or disproved the only realistic position for the intelligent man is "agnosticism". The True atheist claims this position is a "cop-out". I would say that this is a book that is making the attempt not to cop out. This is not for the idle reader; this book is a sophisticated in depth study. The two men who put this book together did their homework. If this is a serious subject to you and not simply a partisan argument or a personal attempt at apologetics, this is a book for you. I imagine the audience for this book is very limited. This book is not for the weak of mind or the simplistic. You won't read this book in a week, or a month or a year. This is a continuous lifelong study. It is a text not a dialogue. It deals with specific arguments and takes one argument at a time. This could be used at a university in a course in traditional logic. I don't remember exactly but I think that I spent $30 for this book. I have no regrets about that purchase.

Richard Edward Noble - The Hobo Philosopher - Author of:

Noble Notes On Famous Folks

The thing I love the most about books like this is that it brings out the best examples of both sides of the arguments. If you really want to know who's on the side of truth (as has been the case since time began) just look at the reviews on this site.

The truly rational arguments come from those who found this book as fascinating as I did. The irrational ranting (replete with scriptural notation, because that's the only book they've ever read...not that they understood that one either) comes from the crazies who hate this book. The latter have never been big fans of truth, however. Remember when we told them that the Earth revolves around the Sun? Remember when we told them to stop burning women at the stake? Remember when we tried to explain that the planet is spherical, not flat? Remember when we tried to explain that Tinky Winky carries a BAG, not a purse (and that it's okay to be gay anyway)? They're stomping their feet and threatening a good old fashioned book burning over this one for the same reason, kids.

That's exactly why you should buy this book. Then get every Harry Potter novel, and set them up on display around your house. It really makes them jumpin' mad.

Amen.

I finally got around to reading this. Great stuff. While I had to have help with the symbolic and mathematical logic, it was well worth the trouble. The arguments in the book, such as the incompatibility and incoherent property arguments should be talked about more. If nothing else, they are mentally stimulating.

Everyone that gave this book a negative review (to my knowledge) clearly didn't read and/or they just cared about grinding an axe and defending Jebus.

I bought this book hoping to get ammunition to use in arguments with theists. I found the book to be useless for that purpose: the arguments are too abstruse for general use. If you are a professional philosopher well versed in symbolic logic, this will be just the book for you. For lay people, though, it is tough sledding and, in the end, not very interesting.