Monday, November 10, 2008

A proof of the non-existence of God

Premise 1) Contradictions cannot exist.

Premise 2) God is a transcendent, supernatural, personal being, who created the natural universe.

Premise 3) God is an immanent, non-supernatural, non-personal being, equivalent to the natural universe.

Therefore God cannot exist.

7 comments:

The Welsh Jacobite said...

V. droll.

Reminds me of the old milk-drinking monosyllable.

1. Cat is a monosyllable.
2. A cat drinks milk.

Therefore a monosyllable drinks milk.

Gordon McCabe said...

Ah, the good old distinction between using langauge and referring to language:

Cat is a monosyllable

vs.

'Cat' is a monosyllable.

Takes me back to my university days, that does. Another favourite was:

The cat is on the mat.

vs.

'The Cat' is on the mat.

Anonymous said...

I always used to like the following joke.

Teacher: Please give me a sentence starting with "I"
Pupil: I is...
Teacher (interrupting): You don't say "I is", you say "I am"
Pupil: I am the ninth letter of the alphabet

Gordon McCabe said...

Another good one Nick.

The Welsh Jacobite said...

Ah, the joys of equivocation.

Hours of endless amusement.

Jonathan said...

Where do you get your premises from Gordon?

I mean, would God agree with them, as concerning him, if you ran them past him. If he'd accept them, he'd exist. You'd know it, because you'd be talking to him (he might then explain the apparent contradiction). If he refuted them, and said, actually, the 'philospher's God' was just idle fancy people dreamt up about him, you'd also thereby know his existence, but also no longer care about the contradiction.

Alas it is a challenge to know if there is a God beyond, and in distinction from, our ideas about God. It could be that our ideas are right and that a God exists that fits them; or that our ideas are wrong and that there is no God out there either the same or different from them; or that our ideas are wrong but that there really is a God out there, but one who is different from them. Or the reality could be somewhere between these three positions.

But examining how our ideas about God are internally incoherent or illogical: I'm not sure whether this says anything factual about the cosmos in-itself or only about how we construct ideas?

Greetings from China by the way, the land of tepid drinking water.

Rus Bowden said...

Premise 1) Contradictions cannot exist.

Premise 2) God is a transcendent, supernatural, personal being, who created the natural universe.

Premise 3) God is an immanent, non-supernatural, non-personal being, equivalent to the natural universe.

Therefore God cannot exist.


Corollary: God is me.