God
is a Self-Contradictory Notion
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What does
the word God, deity or divinity mean?
An Analysis
of Divine Simplicity
One
Attribute Makers and All That
FOREWORD
This book hopes to bring it to light what most believers in God don’t
realise. They are not told by their
conniving clergy just how bizarre the doctrine of God is. If they knew there would be less believers and less cash in the coffers of the Church.
Assuming God exists or needing him to exist doesn’t prove he should be
assumed or that the idea is coherent. It
has nothing to do with it.
WHAT DOES THE WORD GOD OR DEITY OR DIVINITY MEAN?
Before we can destroy the concept of God we have to be sure we know what
we mean by God. What is God or
deity? This is a popular question in a
world where just about anything can be called God.
God
is the best, greatest and most powerful person there could be. God is the being who is to be our ultimate
concern. If we are going to call
anything else God then we may as well call the president God. To give the term a real meaning it has to be
restricted to the greatest moral being.
If God is not entirely moral then morality is more important and
entitled to more honour than he is. He
can’t be God for he can’t come first. If
personality is better than impersonality then God must be a person of some kind
though perhaps very different from person as we know it if he is perfect.
A
weak being would not be divine. A God of
evil would be crazy and would not be a great being for he is captive to stronger
forces. A God that has unfree will would not be the greatest being for the forces that
program him are better and greater. An
impersonal God is no more a God than electricity is. The idea of many gods is self-contradictory
for none of the gods is fully free to do her or his own
thing.
Some
people teach that God exists and is just a symbol for morality. God is just another word for morality.
It
is unreasonable to worship a God that it just that for he is an
it not a he and an idea not an entity.
It is quite foolish. It is as
dishonest as saying that to worship Santa is to worship the custom of
exchanging gifts at Christmas.
Don
Cupitt is well known for believing that talk about God is not talk about a real
being but abut beliefs about moral principle.
God is not a spirit in this view – he is morality (page 9, Taking
Leave of God).
If
morality is an invention then we have made God but God has not made us. If it is not then we have discovered God and
he has made no effort to be discovered which is the
opposite of the biblical view that God reveals himself to us.
Some
say that since the idea of a real God is obvious rubbish that people who pray
and believe in God must believe that God is a picture of love and goodness and
is not real. For example, when a person
loves God it is love that he or she loves for God is literally abstract love
and not a being. When he or she prays it
is not to get God to do something for them but to change themselves
for the better. Prayer is opening
yourself up to love and using prayers and meditations to assist you in
this. People can temporarily believe in
nonsense when they trick the reason. So,
it is wrong to say that a person engaging in what looks to be irrational
spiritual activity must believe that the God they pray to is not real. They think he is as real as long as they keep
the smokescreen. Praying is like
communicating with another being so it is a pretence
and a deception to pray to a God that does not exist. Self-help techniques would be more
honest. The Christians might say that
God is literally love but they also see him as a being and say they do not
understand how these things could be true so just because God is love we cannot
say that they are just praying to love and not a being. At most they are people who
believe in a God who does not exist and one who does and the same time
and cannot see it. Believers in this God
have no business picking on atheists but they do.
Others
feel that since there is no evidence for a personal and real God those who
believe in God are really praying to something they have imagined and not a
real God. But they may have weak faith
but still pray. You don’t need faith to
pray. You could pray to the being you
don’t believe in just in case. You don’t
have to believe your doctor exists in order to talk to him. A solipsist, a person who doesn’t believe
anything exists other than himself or herself, would still converse with a
doctor!
A
spirit is a real entity that has no parts.
It doesn’t need anything to hold it together or put it together. God must be spirit for since no being made
him he must be a being that needed no maker.
If God had a maker he would not be God for something would have more
power than him. Theism supposes that
when there must have been a maker it had to be God for there is none
better. God has many attributes. He is literally his attributes. He is literally love
for example. Strictly speaking, God is
absolutely one so he has only one attribute which is all of
these rolled into one.
Pantheism
is the doctrine that all things are one spirit and that this spirit is
God. This leads to many
contradictions. If all is God I am God
and if I am God I am a spirit and if I am a spirit then I am the only being
that exists. I am the woman I kill when
I drive recklessly. I am also the
car. Pantheism is just pretending that
things which are not supreme are God is it has no God at all. It is a fully cracked form of atheism and it
would be wiser to accept proper atheism.
Polytheism
has lots of gods who are subject to greater powers and forces therefore they
are no more gods than the presidents of the world are. You cannot call a being divine just because
it has strong psychic powers.
Deism is the notion that God made the world but has no interest in it. He does not answer prayer or work miracles. When God made the world and us he must do miracles for that is a miracle. But it is answered that God making all things is not unnatural but God changing natural law to work miracles is unnatural and God does not do unnatural miracles. Theists say that when God made so much good in the world he must be interested in us. But even if God does not care there will be some worlds better than others assuming we are not on the only planet with life on it. How do they know that there are not billions of spiritual and physical worlds which would show that God was random? Deists should forsake the word God and replace it with cosmic intelligence or something. The word Deism implies belief in God so it has to go as well.
God in the Bible is referred to as Yahweh. Father Richard P McBrien observes in his tome Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco, New York, 1994) page 279 that nobody knows for sure what Yahweh means. There is a connection with the verb to be but any more than that leaves everybody mystified. W F Albright suggested that it is only the first word of the name yahweh aser yihweh which means, "He who brings into being whatever comes into being". It would mean then that God is creator. Others think Yahweh means, "I am who I will be". If so, that implies a changeable God. Some say such a God must be imperfect and not a real God.
AN ANALYSIS OF DIVINE SIMPLICITY
Christians believe that God has no parts and though he is said to be everywhere he is really nowhere for he is pure mind without feelings, parts or body for he is a spirit (page 14, 80, Asking them Questions; page 28, Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Part 1; page 38 The Puzzle of God; chapter 18 - That There is No Composition in God, from Summa Book One; page 31, A Summary of Christian Doctrine). It follows that if God loves us then God is literally love (page 30). He is the abstract attribute. He is identical with his law (page 30, Why does God?; page 25, A Summary of Christian Doctrine). Augustine declared that God’s qualities and his substance are one and the same thing for spirit is what it has and there is no difference between what it is and what it has (Book Eleven, Chapter 10, City of God). As you will see later, the problem with God being a being without parts or a simple being leads to the absurdity that God has several attributes and they are all one essence (page 6, Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Part 2) or all the same thing so they are not several but one. They are only several in our thinking but not in reality. Either God has only one attribute or he has many and is not a spirit. The absurdity of a God being pure spirit is recognised by many philosophers (page 90, Taking Leave of God). The idea of spirit is bad enough but the idea of God being literally something abstract - something that is just a concept and not a real thing like love – is utter insanity. The miracles of the Catholic Church are claimed to verify just that kind of a God. If they do that then they have to be from an evil force for the force has to be anti-rational and if it is anti-rational it has no business giving miracles as signs.
Believers
say that we see God differently from what he is because for us his mercy is not
his knowledge and his knowledge is not his creative power whereas in fact they
are one in God. Frederick Copleston said
that our knowledge of God then is inadequate and hazy but is not false (History
of Philosophy, Vol 2, pages 360-361).
The problem is when the God theory cannot be understood how we can know
if it is false or not? Anything we think
we know about God we do not know it at all for we don’t know if he is even
coherent. It is like saying that seeing
a nebulous black shape which is a man is the same as knowing that a man is
there and what he looks like and what he is wearing.
Goodness
would exist whether God existed or not.
So would 2+2=4. These things are
not dependent on a God to make them.
They are necessary truths. God
knows that goodness exists and that the 2+2=4 is true so he is the knowledge of
these. He is goodness and he is 2+2=4
for these are part of his existence.
This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for they would have to be
separate from him and are not things but concepts. To say that God is not a spirit or a
substance but just abstract truth, in other words just to call things like
goodness and truth and mercy and maths God, is to be an atheist. This shows us how many thought they were not
atheists and they were!
Goodness
would have to exist for God to exist. If
God is goodness then it has nothing to do with him that he is good but it is
just the way he is. He is good by
nature. The Christians won’t be keen on
that for it ruins the freedom defence argument.
The freedom defence argument says that because we cannot be good unless
we can sin God has to give us free will for he wants us to be good. It blames sin and suffering and death on
human evil or the misuse of the freedom thus getting God off the hook.
Goodness then makes God and this is absurd for it denies that God is the
Supreme Being or sovereign and goodness is not a thing or power.
How
do God and goodness connect? Three
solutions have been proposed.
*
Descartes’ view is
that God is sovereign and nothing controls him or limits him. God is the Supreme Being. So he gives himself his properties instead
of the properties being independent of him and controlling him and him
conforming to them. They don’t make him
the way he is. This is bizarre for God
is outside time and cannot change. God
invents the properties and conforms to them.
So God could have been evil if he had wanted to be only we would have to
call it good then.
*
Others say that
there is no such property as mercy or knowledge so God is the way he is and is
sovereign and supreme because there are no properties. But of course there are properties. If blue does not exist the property of blue
can still exist.
*
Aquinas solved the
problem by saying that God has a nature and in him his essence and his
attributes are one and the same. It
means that God is not a personal being but an abstract like goodness. It is nothing like the personal God of the
Bible.
Those
who have tried to solve the problem of God say that God has a nature which is
made up of properties but God and his nature are not one indivisible
thing. It is like my property of white
skin and me are not the same thing. I am
consciousness and whiteness is not a part of that. This denies the doctrine of simplicity but
replaces it with a God that is made of two spiritual forces.
Some
stupidly say that since we accept one another as persons or minds and not
machines without proof we should do the same for God (page 88, Doing Away with God?). But God is different for we cannot see or
hear or know him like we do other people.
It is more rational to regard them as minds than God for we can sense
them with our five senses. It is more
rational to regard a stone as a mind than God for we are surer the stone is
there than that he is.
Aquinas
held that God’s existence is his essence (chapter 21, Summa, Book
One). Existence is not a quality. For example, if nothing existed goodness
would still exist but the thing called existence does not exist for it is not a
power but a concept. Aquinas did not
realise it but he was really saying that God was existence which is lunacy for
existence is independent of God – for example, if there were no God there would
be the existence of nothing so existence would still be there - and if God is
an abstract thing that is not even a power like existence then God is not a
being or anything but just an idea. He
exists only in the imagination. Aquinas
turned the Church towards confused and garbled atheism.
This
research has been gained from The Concept of God. See its chapter 7 called Simplicity.
To say that God is a spirit and that spirit is not something and it is not nothing but something between the two is problematic (page 75, The Puzzle of God). There is no in-between for something and nothing. The answer given to this is that God would be beyond being something and nothing and this is possible (ibid, page 75). But that is as silly as saying 1+1=3 not in a contradictory way but in a way that transcends maths or is beyond them. Of course it is a contradiction. It is just not being admitted. It is also meaningless to use the answer because you cannot prove if it is possible for it to be true so you don’t know if you are talking sense therefore you are not talking sense. If God is something then what made this something? If he is nothing then that is atheism. It is no use blurring the definition of something and the definition of nothing for these definitions are as clear as day. There is such a thing as nothing full stop and to talk about another kind of nothing is madness. The same goes for something.
I wish to add the following. If you think of God as a gas that fills the universe but this gas has no parts then you get as close as possible to understanding what many people in Christendom mean by God. God is spirit. But there is no rule that says a spirit has to be infinite or permeate the universe like God. There could be a spirit, a being that has no parts but which does not fill the universe. You can imagine two spirit beings being put together like two atoms can be to make something new. They would be parts then. They have no parts in themselves but they can become parts. So we conclude from this that each spirit is a part. It may have no parts but it is a part. There is no proof then that God is a being without parts. He could be a machine or person made up of countless other spirits.
DIVINE
IMMUTABILITY
God has to be unable to change and need no change when he is
perfect. Any change would make him a
better God or make him less perfect so he cannot change. If God is outside time that is another reason
why he can’t change for it is changelessness.
This
doctrine destroys the emotional appeal of God.
Who wants to love and have a relationship with a God who may do good for you as impersonal as clockwork and who cannot have
feelings for you? God may be a person
but still be impersonal in his behaviour.
We cannot avoid having some kind of feeling so we cannot be like this
but just close to it. A person will have
a minimum of feeling for us and we hate that so it is worse with God who has
none. God is supposed to be perfectly
happy but to say he cares is inaccurate.
To care is to desire and to desire is to have pain exactly as Buddha
taught. A desire hurts at least a bit
until it is fulfilled. So God cannot
care about us for he has no feelings.
When
God is perfect and is as cold and impersonal as a conscious robot it implies
that it is a sin to have feelings for we should be more like him. If we can’t avoid feelings they have to be
kept to a minimum.
This
God may be a person but is so different from what we understand by a person
that he is really a “person” and his personality is of no satisfaction for us.
Nelson
Pike suggested that God cannot change in his nature or character but can change
with regard to having relationships with us.
So God’s character doesn’t change but he can change his mind about you.
This God would still be perfect but he would
have to be under the power of time in order to change though his nature cannot
be affected by time.
This version of God is not liked for it
implies that creatures cause change in God by changing themselves. God who is outside time and knows all things
cannot be changed for he has decided what he will do if you do x before you do
it.
Another problem with it is that God can only
really change if he does not know what we will do before we do it. Norris Clarke argued that God does not know
these things by looking but by enabling us to act the way we wish. It is like a man moving a box with a
stick. He does not see the box but he
knows he is moving it and what it is doing and this changes his thinking about
the box for it has been moved. But this
does not solve anything for God will still know what we do before we do
it. A God who does not even look at us
is not a very pleasing God either.
Most believers have a God who though they say
he repents and changes his mind they don’t mean this literally. He can accept somebody as his son and then
reject that son and disown him when he turns sinful. In reality it is us who change not God. God can be close to me when I am good but if
I go bad he departs from me not because he has changed
but because I have changed. It is
because he cannot change that he leaves me for he would be changing from good
to bad if he stayed with me.
DIVINE
OMNIPOTENCE
If God made all things from nothing then God has infinite power because
the difference between something and nothing is infinite.
So
God then is all-powerful or omnipotent.
God
cannot do what is logically impossible.
He cannot make a bed that is too heavy for him to lift and then lift it
for that is impossible because it is nonsense.
Religion says that God is good so we are to blame for evil for we
misused his gift of free will. If he
could then he could give us free will to do evil and not give it at the same
time so he would be an evil God when we sin and suffer for free will is no excuse then for letting these things happen. So God can only do what is logically possible
(page 120, The Puzzle of God).
However, this has its problems.
It
must be logically possible for there to have been no God. After all there could just have been
nothing. If God makes himself then God
can do what is logically impossible for that means that God made himself when
there should have been nothing. So it follows
that if God exists then he makes himself then he can do the logically
impossible. Why is it logically
impossible? Because when there could be
just nothing and when a being cannot make itself there should be nothing and if
there is a God that is all contradicted.
It would seem that when we exist there has to
be something that comes from nothing or something that always was and never
needed to be made from nothing or perhaps both that gives us existence. If God always existed and does not make himself
then we don’t need him for the building blocks of the universe could have made
themselves. God would not be supreme
unless he does make himself. This has
God designing himself to make himself.
If you hold that whatever always existed is a non-intelligent force then
you avoid this absurdity. It just made
itself without planning. It was
chaos.
God
would have to be omnipotent if he exists when there could have been no
God. If he makes himself he makes
himself from nothing and it takes infinite power to do that for the distance
and difference between something and nothing is infinite so to say he is
omnipotent is the same as saying his power is infinite. Omnipotence then destroys the idea of a God
who can be proved with the necessary being stuff or of God being necessary and
yet a necessary being God would have to be omnipotent to make himself! There is nothing in it all but incoherence.
Plantinga
says it is wrong to claim that God can do only what is logically possible
because it is logically possible to make a table that God did not make but God
is unable to make a table he did not make.
He gave up trying to find a definition of omnipotence that was any
good. Christians say, “But if there is no God then the table cannot be made for there would be nothing so
then it would be logically impossible for the table to exist without God in the
first place. So it is wrong to say that
it is logically possible for there to be a table not made by God who is the
source of all things.” But this assumes
that there can’t be anything without a God which is incorrect. Therefore there can be a table that God did
not make.
Another
problem is one presented by Professor Mackie.
First, if God can make a being that he cannot control then he is not
omnipotent for the being is able to go against him so he ceases to be
omnipotent when he makes it. Second,
Mackie said that if we say God cannot make such a being then he is still not
omnipotent.
The first observation is correct. If God makes an agent with free will then he
cannot remain omnipotent. This shows how
bad it is to believe in God. If I murder
then God wants me to do it. I might be
using my freedom but paradoxically I am still doing what he wants and he is as
much involved as I am. My freedom is
really his freedom.
I cannot sin in such a scenario. Suppose I can. Then it would be the bad intention that was
bad not the act of murder. It would
follow that I could murder all I want as long as I am aware that God wants me
to do it.
If God is omnipotent and making a free being
would end that omnipotence then it is logically impossible for him to make such
a being for he cannot change. So we find
it is impossible for God to make a free being because he is omnipotent and the
source of all things.
It is a problem because the Lord has to make
a power that is outside of himself which is the power
to go against God. You can’t have
omnipotent power making itself not omnipotent.
God and
free will are incompatible even though free will is used as a rationalisation
for the evil in the world. Swinburne
says that God does cease to be omnipotent by making free beings but that is no
problem. In other words, he thinks that
God’s power has not lessened with the creation of a free being because that
being is free because of him so he omnipotently makes me free. It is a problem and more for God makes all
things out of his power. He must make
the power to sin and create it. If
anything can come from nothing without his power then why believe in God? So say that God omnipotently makes me free
makes no sense and is contradictory.
Now to the second
observation. If God cannot make a free being is God not
omnipotent? From observation one we know that God cannot make a free agent anyway in any
real sense. If God can do everything
that is logically possible, God is omnipotent.
If God could do the logically impossible he could do away with his
omnipotence and still be omnipotent which makes no sense. For omnipotence to be possible, God has to be
able to do everything that isn’t self-contradictory or logically
impossible. If omnipotence means being
able to make a non-existent egg, then it is incoherent and therefore
impossible. So it is not a contradiction
of divine omnipotence to say he cannot make a free being.
You
can’t argue that it is logically possible for sin to exist so God should be
able to sin if he can do the logically possible when you believe in the
necessary being type of God for he is changeless and all-good. If God is a spirit, he is what he does so for
God to do anything apart from his nature would be logically impossible.
If
it is best to be able to do evil and not do it then God who cannot change is
imperfect and he is not all-good. If God
causes himself then God should cause himself to be a being that can sin but
doesn’t when he says that freedom to sin is necessary for being good and
loving. He has caused himself to be a
being that cannot change so as to be able to sin and that is criminal if love
depends on having free will as he says.
Omnipotence then in that case means that God should be able to sin. Why?
Because if God is omnipotent he should be able to be perfectly good but
he isn’t. So then a contradiction comes
up.
For God to be able to sin would mean that he has an infinitely evil power
in him though that power is only potential not actual. God cannot be both
potentially infinitely evil or infinitely good for that would mean he
was identical to infinite evil motive and infinite good motive and he cannot be
both. The idea of omnipotence is
incoherent with a spiritual God of infinite power. Omnipotence gives us a God who cannot please
or satisfy us for he is not really love.
An omnipotent God cannot love if love requires the power to be evil but
turning away from that power. The idea
of God denies the popular view that if evil exists so does good
and if good exists so does evil. This
would mean that God is evil for giving us free will.
Anybody
who wants to believe in God has to deny that God is an infinite spirit and a
necessary being and affirm that he is not omnipotent but just the most powerful
being there is.
ONE ATTRIBUTE
MAKERS AND ALL THAT
If God exists he is infinite for he causes himself to exist and it takes
infinite power to cause something to exist for the distance between nothing and
something is infinite.
Suppose
it is true that the simplest and the most probable explanation for the universe
is that a spirit, a partless entity created or made it.
Whatever
attribute the spirit has it has it infinitely.
It is infinite power because it takes infinite power to exist. Infinite power is required to hold something
in existence because the distance between something and nothing is
infinite. Any spirit, God or not, has no
parts so it is wholly anything it does (page 53, God and the Human
Condition, Part 1).
We
know that such a maker would have to have one attribute especially when it is
infinite. If it were justice and were
love it would be two attributes because they are not the same. To assert that it is infinite love and
infinite justice would be contradictory.
So
if a spirit made or created the universe it must have one power. It must be that power, that energy. It is foolish to say that it is love or any
other abstract thing for that is absurd.
It
is not intelligence for stupidity exists.
It
is not love for non-love exists.
It
is not justice for injustice exists.
It
is not design for some designs are perfect and others are not.
Some
would say that God is act. But then it
just acts blindly and does not know what it is doing. One might as well believe in Atheism for all
things would have been put into order by mere chance. If God is act then he is also potential act. There are many things he has not made
yet. He cannot be actual act and
potential act at the one time.
No
matter what quality we can name it is the same.
Moreover, each quality consists of different qualities, which we see as
different aspects of it. For example,
love consists of prudence and humility which are separate attributes. Intelligence consists of the attribute of
being aware that 2+2=4 and that 3+3=6.
Again, these are two separate attributes. There is no single attribute, no attribute
composed of one attribute only, so the single force theory is valueless.
If
it created then it is the power to create and nothing else. And it is the power to create itself only and
it cannot create anything else. It
cannot have any other attribute. But it
needs more than one attribute to do that.
Its power causes the calculator to work so it must be intelligent.
If
it did not create but merely transformed itself then we meet the contradiction
of a partless being with no intelligence becoming human intelligence.
If the spirit had the power to love or whatever it would have the
power to order things in accordance with its attribute as well. Things like love and justice are a form of
order. It cannot exist for it has two
powers, the power to love and the power to create love or something to be
loved.
Is
the spirit evolution, the power to make things improve? No for things frequently devolve. Moreover it will have two attributes slowness and the
power to design. This would make
suffering a stepping-stone to something better.
When we deny free will we dare not say that suffering has value because
it would be allowing all possible evils.
If we are programmed to do evil when it is beneficial then it is evil to
stop evil.
Objection,
“There is a spiritual force that facilitates evolution. It is the power to evolve things. The power need not know anything. The law that 1=1 is impersonal. An impersonal law of evolution could organise
all things like 1=1 has done. Here, this
single principle is the cause or basis of every other rule and principle. For example, 10+10 cannot be 20 if 1 is not
equal to 1. Even if nobody discovers
mathematical truth it is still there.
Electricity does many wonderful things and it is only an impersonal
force. A single uncreated and unmade
spiritual infinite principle has made what exists possible.”
The
law that 1=1 does not cause things to be as they are,
creation is just expressed through that law.
The law only says that it must be this way and the law would still be
true if nothing existed. Even if nothing
existed 1=1 would still be true for one nothing would still be one
nothing. The law is not a power. It is an abstract. It is a concept. The spirit would need to be more than just
1=1 for it would need to be 1+1=2 and so on forever as well but it cannot be so
the spirit does not exist. Electricity
is not a spirit and therefore it cannot prove that a spirit with one attribute
can do a lot. Electricity has lots of
attributes. It can flash,
it can make things move etc.
The evolution force
would need to be an intelligence. The argument wants to say it is mere
evolution and doesn’t have any other powers.
When a law that is
self-existent and cannot not exist and therefore had no designer can be so
complex in its results then why can’t all things have been designed without an intelligence?
God
would not really be a God if he has only one attribute. He would not be worth worshipping. And he could not create. There is a contradiction between God creating
matter or even making matter from himself.
PROCESS THEOLOGY
Process theology or panentheism claims that God and the universe depend
on each other but that they are not one and the same thing. They reject the idea of an unchanging and apparently
impersonal God who makes all things out of nothing. They call the world God’s body meaning that
God needs the world to exist like the mind needs the body. Their God is the mind and soul of the
world.
The first problem is that this God is not
needed as an explanation for the existence of the universe for he never made it
from nothing for he always needed it. If
he had made it from nothing then there was a time he did not need it and when
he had the power to make it why could he not use the power to fulfil his needs
directly rather than using it to make a universe which is very much a
roundabout way of doing things?
The second is that God cannot guarantee that
he will be able to save us finally from death and sin and suffering. Though the universe is his body things do go
wrong. Could it have been his will to
put uranium on earth and lead the world to the power to destroy itself a
hundred times over through nuclear war?
The third is that this God who is not
all-powerful is not like the God of Jesus Christ. But if the concept is decent and better than
Jesus’ that shouldn’t be a problem.
Jesus is the one that should be dumped.
Plus we must leave Jesus out and look into the face of God without
letting him colour the picture.
Philosophy demands that.
The fourth is that this God cannot predict
the future for he is subject to time himself and cannot look into the
future. Process theologians respond to
the complaint that God could be so radically different from what he was a
hundred years ago that it makes no sense to think he is the same God now by
saying that as long as God loves us who cares.
It’s heretical and humane. I like
it best.
CONCLUSION
There is no God. The belief is
incoherent. It is therefore opposed to
correct thinking which means it is opposed to people for we need to think
correctly for our own self-confidence and our welfare.
WORKS CONSULTED
A HISTORY OF GOD,
Karen Armstrong, Mandarin,
A HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY, VOL 6, PART II, KANT, Frederick Copleston SJ, Doubleday/Image,
A PATH FROM
A SHATTERED VISAGE
THE REAL FACE OF ATHEISM, Ravi Zacharias,
A SUMMARY OF
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth Trust,
AN INTELLIGENT
PERSONS GUIDE TO CATHOLICISM, Alban McCoy, Continuum,
AN INTRODUCTION TO
PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS, John Hospers, Routledge,
APOLOGETICS AND
CATHOLIC DOCTRINE, Part 1, Most Rev M Sheehan DD, MH Gill, & Son,
APOLOGETICS FOR THE
PULPIT, Aloysius Roche, Burns Oates & Washbourne LTD,
AQUINAS, FC
Copleston, Penguin Books,
ARGUING WITH GOD,
Hugh Sylvester, IVP,
ASKING THEM
QUESTIONS, Various,
BELIEVING IN GOD, PJ
McGrath, Wolfhound Press,
BEYOND GOOD AND
EVIL, Friedrich Nietzsche, Penguin,
CITY OF
CONTROVERSY: THE
HUMANIST CHRISTIAN ENCOUNTER, Hector Hawton, Pemberton Books,
CRITIQUES OF GOD,
Edited by Peter A Angeles, Prometheus Books,
DIALOGUES CONCERNING
NATURAL RELIGION, David Hume, William Blackwood and Sons,
DOES GOD EXIST? Brian Davies OP, Catholic Truth Society,
DOES GOD EXIST?
Herbert W Armstrong, Worldwide
DOING AWAY WITH
GOD? Russell Stannard, Marshall
Pickering,
EVIL AND THE GOD OF
LOVE, John Hicks,
GOD A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED Keith Ward, OneWorld, Oxford, 2003
GOD AND EVIL, Brian
Davies OP, Catholic Truth Society,
GOD AND PHILOSOPHY,
GOD AND THE HUMAN
CONDITION, F J Sheed, Sheed & Ward,
GOD AND THE NEW
PHYSICS, Paul Davies, Penguin Books,
GOD AND THE PROBLEM
OF SUFFERING, Philip St Romain, Liguori Publications,
GOD THE PROBLEM,
Gordon D Kaufman,
HANDBOOK OF
CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Monarch,
HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY, VOL 2, Frederick Copleston SJ
HONEST TO GOD, John
AT Robinson, SCM Press,
HUMAN NATURE DID GOD
CREATE IT? Herbert W Armstrong, Worldwide
IN DEFENCE OF THE
FAITH, Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Eugene Oregon, 1996
IN SEARCH OF
CERTAINTY, John Guest Regal Books,
JESUS HYPOTHESES, V.
Messori,
NEW CATHOLIC
ENCYCLOPEDIA, The Catholic University of America and the McGraw-Hill Book
Company, Inc., Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
ON THE TRUTH OF THE
CATHOLIC FAITH, BOOK ONE, GOD, St Thomas Aquinas, Image Doubleday and Co, New
York, 1961
PHILOSOPHY AND THE
CHRISTIAN FAITH, Colin Brown, IVP,
Philosophy of Religion for A Level, Anne Jordan, Neil Lockyer and Edwin Tate, Nelson Throne Ltd, Cheltenham, 2004
RADIO REPLIES, Vol
1, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press,
RADIO REPLIES, Vol
2, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press,
RADIO REPLIES, Vol
3, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press,
REASON AND RELIGION,
Anthony Kenny, Basil Blackwell Ltd,
SALVIFICI DOLORIS,
Pope John Paul II, Catholic Truth Society,
SEX AND MARRIAGE – A
CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE, John M Hamrogue CSSR,
TAKING LEAVE OF GOD,
Don Cupitt, SCM Press,
THE CASE AGAINST
GOD, Gerald Priestland, Collins, Fount Paperbacks,
THE CONCEPT OF GOD,
Ronald H Nash, Zondervan,
THE HONEST TO GOD
DEBATE Edited by David L Edwards,
THE KINDNESS OF GOD,
EJ Cuskelly MSC, Mercier Press,
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN,
CS Lewis,
THE PROBLEM OF
SUFFERING, Alan Hayward, Christadelphian ALS,
THE PUZZLE OF GOD,
Peter Vardy, Collins,
THE REALITY OF GOD
AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL, Brian Davies, Continuum,
THE RECONSTRUCTION
OF BELIEF, Charles Gore DD, John Murray,
THE TRUTH OF
CHRISTIANITY, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd,
UNBLIND FAITH,
Michael J Langford, SCM,
WHAT IS FAITH? Anthony Kenny,
WHY DOES GOD ALLOW
SUFFERING? LG Sargent, Christadelphian
Publishing Office,
WHY DOES GOD ALLOW
SUFFERING? Misc, Worldwide
WHY DOES GOD?
Domenico Grasso, St Paul, Bucks, 1970
WHY WOULD A GOOD GOD
ALLOW SUFFERING? Radio Bible Class,
Friday, 21 December
2007