Is a deistic god possible?

Atheist View

The Atheist Perspective

I doubt it.

See The God Impossible and Defining the Supernatural.

Comments

...a childish perspective - to presume that an `active-tinker' god is necessary to explain the human capacity to recognize- and utilize cause-and-effect reasoning is non-sense...this capability is amply present throughout the animal kingdom - and they waste no moments kissing a god's ring. And "The law of non-contradiction" is routinely `violated' by humans experiencing `Cognitive Dissonance' - such as `god knows- and plans all, and knows best' - yet they must pray to `bring un-noticed evils' to god's attention...and ponder why a good- and loving god fails far more often then (s)he delivers.

— Neil Clark

Neil,

That animals begin to exist knowing that the entire universe is wholly non-contradictory is further evidence that their Creator is intimately involved with each of them, as I stated above.

Thanks for pointing that out.

— Timothy McCabe

It's a shame, but completely understandable, that Tim continues to make the same tired old arguments as if they hadn't been refuted many, many times before.
Cutting through the verbiage and the deepities, what Tim's argument boils down to is this:
1. The universe appears to exist and appears to behave consistently.
2. The existence of the universe and it's consistency require an explanation.
3. The only explanation is god - more to the point and to be precise, the explanation is Tim's own very personal and idiosyncratic view and interpretation of the Christian god as revealed to him not only through scripture but also via direct personal telepathic communication from this alleged god (for which Tim has never provided any evidence by the way)

— Tony

Anywa, if someone (a non-theist for example) were to ask Tim for an explanation for the existence of god, Tim will assert that god (for no good reason) requires no explanation. He just is. He just exists for no reason and no cause, and has the properties he has for no reason and no cause. These are mere assertions and by makuing them Tim refuses to account for the existence of the being which he appeals to as the foundation for logic, so he has accounted for nothing. His answer is devoid of any meaning whatsover.

— Tony

In a way, this is just a slightly different version of Bill Craig's favourite, the kalaam cosmological argument, which has also been refuted many, many times. As will be immediately to the non-brainwashed, these types of arguments fall down because of their blatant special pleading.

— Tony

Anyone reading Tim's answer should also bear in mind that whenever Tim talks about "evidence" in any context whatsoever, he is an utter hypocrite and intellectually dishonest.Tim has awarded himself carte blanche to pay heed to evidence if and only if it suits him. He has stated explcitly on this website that nothing would change what he believes. If this is the case, then any talk of evidence is smoke and mirrors.

— Tony

Please insert "apparent" after "immediately" 2 comments above. Apologies. It should make sense now.

— Tony

Tony - alot of people mistake the transcendental arg for the cosmological arg. Part of the argument (establishing a God) looks more like this though:

1. Justified certainty in the truth of a claim necessitates that there exists a personal being with authority over the truth of that claim.
2. Humans are justifiably certain that the universe is non-contradictory.
3. Therfore, there exists a personal being with authority over whether or not the universe is non-contradictory.

Anybody like that is God!

— Jon

Jon

You claim that this is part of the argument towards "establishing a god", and yet you presume the existence of said being in your first point, thus begging the question, thus the argument fails.

— Tony

Tim, one of your many errors is your misunderstanding, in the context of the law of non-contradiction, of the term "law". In common with many theists, you see the word "law" and assume that it means the same as "command", like in the biblical command from your loving god which orders us to stone to death women who aren't virgins on their wedding night. This is similar to the deliberate misuse and misunderstanding of the word "theory", particularly when it comes to the theory of evolution which theists equate to something like a "guess".
However this is not the sense in which the word "law" in "law of non-contradiction" is meant. In that context it is more like a scientific law which describes how the universe behaves - for example, Newton's Law of Motion which precisely describe the relationship between mass, force, velocity etc. Given the correct understanding of the word "law", you can see that a "law giver" is completely superfluous.

— Anonymous

Anonymous,

What I think you are saying is that if the word "law" in this case is descriptive rather than prescriptive, then human knowledge does not need to be rationally justified.

If I understood you correctly, I disagree that your conclusion follows from your premise. Indeed, to be honest, I see no connection whatsoever between the two.

— Timothy McCabe

Tim, it would be refreshing if you could try not to tell me what I said, or what you think I said. I know what I said, and I try very hard to make what I say clear and unambiguous.
Acceptance of (or "belief in", if you like) Newton's laws of motion as accurate descriptions of the behaviour of the universe is rationally justified because they have been confirmed through repeated experiment and observation. In other words, they work.
It's the same with the law of non-contradiction. It describes the way the universe appears to work.
Adding god to the equation is, as Laplace pointed out, unnecessary and has zero explanatory power.

— Anonymous

Ok. Sounds like I understood you correctly and your comments have nothing to do with my answer above, even if I were to grant their accuracy, which would be contrary to evidence.

— Timothy McCabe

Contrary to what evidence, exactly?

— Anonymous

Anonymous, you're wasting your time. Tim's use of the word "evidence" is a dead giveaway and a sign that you have just, or are about to, read something of quite staggering hypocrisy.

— Tony

Tim,
You said at the beginning of your answer that "...atheism...is impossible". I'm an atheist. How does that work?

— Phil

Anonymous,

The observable evidence being considered is that "we all accept, at least from birth if not before, that the law of non-contradiction is inviolate. We accept this not on the basis of evidence, since evidence only makes sense if the law of non-contradiction is already presupposed. Otherwise, evidence may be identical to non-evidence, and we would have no way of knowing the difference."

As Neil pointed out in another comment, animals begin their lives with this same presupposition.

The fact that we each start off knowing things is the evidence I was focusing on.

— Timothy McCabe

Phil,

It's clearly not impossible to claim that there is no God. However, reason denies the possibility that such a claim could be true.

If there is no God, then there is no rational authority over the universe. In this scenario, humans have no available justification for holding to the premise of universal non-contradiction. The premise of universal non-contradiction is then nothing more than an imagined fantasy, even if it coincidentally happens to be true. This same fantasy is then used as part of the foundation for all human conclusions. This makes the claims of atheism deductively false as those claims deny all possibility of justified human reasoning.

— Timothy McCabe

Timothy McCabe...by stating:

"That animals begin to exist knowing that the entire universe is wholly non-contradictory is further evidence that their Creator is intimately involved with each of them..."

...are you implying that ALL animals have the kernels of a `soul' - that which is supposedly reserved ONLY for humans?

And I note you did NOT comment on the wide-spread- and persistent/pernicious existence of Cognitive Dissonance - which clearly undermines the human-contrived "law of non-contradiction"? Please do...

— Neil Clark

And to the opening line of the original article:
"No. Deductively, Deism (along with atheism and certain forms of polytheism) is impossible."

I am an atheist...I exist...and I am aware that I am an atheist who experiences existence...
therefore the very foundation of your opening statement is falsified.

— Neil Clark

Please don't put presumptions in my...keyboard...

"As Neil pointed out in another comment, animals begin their lives with this same presupposition."

I made NO such argument, but precisely the opposite...that animals learn-by-doing (and can be TAUGHT to do what others have learned) - not because they are operating with any innate `presupposition' about the workings of the world (or the
Plan of god") - but because any SUCCESSFUL animals which operate in a dynamic environment need such capabilities to survive and reproduce. Those that don't (absent mass extinction) largely end up the the Evolutionary Reliquary of Dead-Ends.

— Neil Clark

"The premise of universal non-contradiction is...nothing more than an imagined fantasy, even if it coincidentally happens to be true".
Dude, do you even read what you write? I don't even...what? You know what, I give up. The mentality that could or would come up with that level of utter balderdash is beyond my comprehension and frankly makes my brain hurt. Tim, dude if you seriously think that what you have written makes any sense whatsoever, then you're beyond help. I'm really sorry.

— Anonymous

Anonymous, don't be too surprised. Tim has given ample evidence on this site that he finds it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and believes them to be pretty much the same thing depending on the exigencies of the "argument" he's trying to make.

— Tony

Initial grammar corrected. Thanks Neil and Phil!

— Timothy McCabe

Neil,

"any SUCCESSFUL animals which operate in a dynamic environment need such capabilities to survive and reproduce. Those that don't (absent mass extinction) largely end up the the Evolutionary Reliquary of Dead-Ends."

So, from your perspective, some creatures randomly and accidentally initially believe in universal non-contradiction without justification and others do not believe in it at all. The latter cannot learn and thus die off, and only the former remain.

This is exactly my point. Our presupposition of universal non-contradiction, part of the basis for every conclusion we come to, is rationally unjustified according to your worldview. All conclusions built upon it (which is all conclusions) are therefore also rationally unjustified. By definition, this means all our thoughts are irrational.

That is your worldview. It is deductively false as it denies all possibility of rational justification.

— Timothy McCabe

I'd love to give you the benefit of the doubt here Tim but I can't. There was nothing wrong with the grammar in your initial statement about the impossibility of atheism. The problem was that it was factually incorrect and patently ridiculous. To claim that you changed it because of poor grammar is a blatant lie. You can try to airbrush your remarks out of history all you want but it only makes your mendacity all the more apparent.

— Phil

Phil,

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Initially I said "atheism is impossible". What I meant, clearly from context, was that "the claims of atheism cannot possibly be true". You and Neil both seemed to point out that grammatically it could have been taken to mean "no one can possibly claim to be an atheist", which was clearly not my intent. I recognized the grammar could be taken either way, so to avoid anyone being confused about my intended meaning, I altered it to say "the claims of atheism cannot possibly be true", which was of course all I was intending to say to begin with.

"No one can possibly claim to be an atheist" is absolutely false. Not only does the Bible claim it to be false (Psalm 14:1; 53:1), but my experience agrees. I would never have any reason for making that claim.

I didn't alter anything other than to make my intended assertion, that "the claims of atheism cannot possibly be true", more grammatically apparent.

— Timothy McCabe

You've said before, on this site, that "No atheist really believes in atheism". That's what you meant then and it's what you meant in your initial comment, to which I objected. As this comment is clearly indefensible and patently ridiculous you've tried to backtrack. Your grammar was fine. It's your grasp of both morality and reality that are a tad shaky.

— Phil

Phil,

Yet another way my statement "atheism is impossible" could have been taken. And yet another way I did not mean it. If that was what I had meant above, why did I write the entire article arguing that the claims of Deism are false? Clearly Phil, context demands I did not mean what you thought I meant. I didn't even address that topic at all!

Having said that, it seems to me to be true that "no atheist really believes in atheism". All people believe that God exists. This has been my own personal experience, it appears to be the testimony of the entirety of human cultural history, and it also appears to be the testimony of scripture (Romans 1:18-20). Since scripture, history, and my own personal experiences all seem to agree, it is perfectly reasonable and defensible for me to hold to that position.

Regardless, that was most definitely not what my answer above was about, nor is it what I meant when I here originally wrote "atheism is impossible".

— Timothy McCabe

What I think you're saying then is that I wilfully and deliberately misunderstood, misconstrued and reworded what you'd said in order to suit myself? Yes that's indeed an appalling way to conduct an allegedly intellectually honest debate. Annoying isn't it?

— Phil

"All people believe that god exists". Let me repeat - I don't believe that god exists. Ergo your statement is false and it is therefore not "perfectly reasonable and defensible" for you to hold that posiition. In fact, that position is totally unreasonable and completely indefensible.

— Tony

More on deism:
http://presuppositions.org/philosophy/deism

— Anonymous

Is a deistic god possible?

More Questions

Comments