How Disproving God’s Existence Fails
An examination of overconstrained logical systems
--
Does God Exist?
To answer this question, some may appeal to Science and modern Cosmology to argue that the cosmos is so incredibly vast, complex, and wondrous that it’s unnecessary to invoke a supreme consciousness. Others see the same thing and use that for the exact opposite position, as undeniable proof of a supreme creative being that designed it all, set it in motion, and continues to keep it all running.
Arguments abound concerning the existence of God. One of the most important formulations concerning God’s existence is the Problem of Evil.
What is the Problem of Evil?
The basic formulation is how can a good, just, omniscient, and omnipotent God cause or permit such Evil in the world that we witness ranging war, disease, pain, slavery, injustice, and other clearly undesirable things?
The Problem of Evil is used as proof that God does not exist, or that it’s unreasonable to believe in God.
Theologians and philosophers who believe in God come up with various arguments to address the Problem of Evil and thus prove or uphold God’s existence, such as the following:
- Overall Good and Evil
Humans do not and cannot know what’s involved in the overall accounting of Good and Evil since we can only see and understand a tiny part of a greater whole that only God can see. A greater amount of Good can arise at the cost of a lesser amount of Evil, and we must take into account larger context and timeframes. - Eternal Afterlife to Ensure Justice
If there no adequate justification or compensation for the victims of Evil, such as those who suffer from being born with genetic diseases, victims of random natural disasters, or civilian casualties in armed conflict, then that makes it even more reasonable to believe in an eternal afterlife to balance the scales of justice for those innocent victims who suffered, which also tips the argument even more strongly in favor of a God that can act in the eternal afterlife. - Human Freedom of Choice
God gave humans freedom of choice, and thus humans have the freedom to commit evil.
The most compelling argument for me is the last one concerning human freedom of choice.
Diving a bit deeper, the Problem of Evil is not only easily resolved by saying God provides humans freedom to choose and thus cause evil, but that God voluntarily gave up some of God’s own omniscience and omnipotent character for humanity to be free. This freedom humanity has is an expression of God’s love for us and even requires that God takes on some larhe risk of failure since there is no certainty on how we humans will freely choose, and it can be for evil and against God.
Overconstrained Logical Systems
In general, it appears that failure of disproofs of the existence of God, as well as many theological problems and paradoxes around God stem from our working in terms of overconstrained logical systems.
For example, consider a more precise formulation of the Problem of Evil:
- Premise 1. God is perfectly good
- Premise 2. God is all omniscient and omnipotent
However, it’s clear that there’s Evil in the world, which conflicts with both premises. So therefore God must not exist because a perfectly good and all omniscient/omnipotent God cannot cause or permit to exist, right?
Weaken or remove premises
Not necessarily. We can simply say that God’s act of giving humans the Freedom to act must weaken Premise 1 or Premise 2, or remove them entirely. In particular,
- If we want to retain God as perfectly good, we can say that God gave up some amount of omniscience or omnipotence and leave it to humanity to make that choice
- If we want to retain God as omniscient and omnipotent, we would say that God gave up his perfectly good nature to cause or permit some amount of evil
Too many premises
God can still exist and the Problem of Evil is not really a problem at all since we are placing too many conditions on God.
These arbitrary premises concerning God that lead to various contradictions disappear if you remove them outright or at least reduce their strength. Thus, they are not disproofs of God, but just shows that we’re dealing with over-constrained logical systems.
There exist other manifestations of such overconstrained logical systems, for example:
- Can God create an object that God cannot lift?
This is a simple logical contradiction that can be generalized to whether has the power to remove his power for some ability X. - What does human Freedom even mean if God is omnipotent and already knows the future and can see what we will do?
This leads to more nuanced arguments about whether God outside of time, in which case he can see all scenarios at once, or inside of time where God does not have the ability to see, and even compatibility with Everettian multiverse theory where the universe itself branches into different scenarios and realizes all of them! - Are abstract mathematical truths independent of God?
If abstract mathematical truths exist independent of God, then that constrains God’s freedom to act and may reduce God to a transmitter of a truth that may be deeper than God, and thus places a constraint on God’s omniscience or omnipotence.
Analogy to mathematical systems
Overconstrained logical frameworks with premises that are too numerous or powerful are analogous to overconstrained mathematical systems with axioms that are numerous or too powerful.
Truths within a mathematical system are only relative to the set of axioms, that themselves may be completely arbitrary. If the axioms themselves conflict either from being too numerous or powerful, then the mathematical system may be overconstrained, which may lead to paradoxes or intractable issues.
God as the placeholder for irreducible ignorance
Personally, I find the concept of God as a very useful probe for logical conflicts to dive more deeply into philosophical questions.
Consider the ultimate metaphysical question:“Why is there something rather than nothing?”
We can cite laws of physics with their powerful precision and accuracy, and as well as the initial conditions of the universe to explain the universe, but we cannot dodge the question if we take another step and ask where did those laws of physics come from?
It appears “any” explanation of the universe will end up at some irreducible placeholder of “God”. Once that exists, everything else can spring from it, such as the physical laws of the universe, the initial conditions, and the constants of nature.
The other choice is infinite regress where we can provide an answer in terms of another answer and so on. An example of this would be that our universe exists in a larger multiverse, which exists in a yet larger multiverse, and so on. This is akin to the “turtles all the way down” explanation of the Flat Earth Theory. This infinite regress can itself can be distilled simply to God.
I suppose a final choice is self-consistency. One example here, admittedly stretching, is that consciousness created the universe, which created consciousness, which was what caused the universe to spring into existence.
God cannot be addressed by Science, even in principle
Science in general and Cosmology in particular has provided us with an extraordinary explanation of the reality.
In only a few short centuries using the Scientific Method, we progressed from:
- seeing ourselves living on a flat earth
- to a round earth circling a sun
- to our sun being only one of trillions
- to an observable universe of vast expanse that we know is 93 billion light years in diameter and 13.7 billion years old
- to this universe being on a tiny patch of an unobservable universe
- to that entire universe being only one instance within a much larger multiverse
Even still with such advances, there is no way that Science can prove or disprove God since Science concerns itself with a different set of issues, namely, what’s empirically addressable, whether verifiable (inductively and tentatively) or falsifiable (according to Karl Popper’s definition of Science).
The issue of verification or falsification of God is not addressable empirically.
Religion is not God
In contrast to the concept of God, I find many religions far less deep and useful. I view religion as just a reflection of people being people with their culture, historical environment when the religion was created, etc.
This doesn’t mean religion does not have value since it can provide legal frameworks and sense of meaning to adherents. However, that’s not what I’m looking for.
Philosophy is needed
Philosophy can help enrich Science, but it’s impossible to see (at least to me) how any philosophical argument can prove or disprove God, since we ultimately face some irreducible end.
It’s why I cannot say I’m an Atheist, since that’s taking a definite position on an issue that you really can’t really take a definite position, even in principle, and requires as much a leap of faith as taking a definite position for belief in God.
The problem with philosophy is that it works on logical systems with explicit and implicit premises, arguments, and truth values. If those logical systems themselves are overconstrained, it can very well be that intractable problems and deep paradoxes do not point to any special deep truths such as the existence or non-existence of God, but really an indicator of the overconstrained nature of that logical system.
