In most
of my discussions about God and whether or not there is any good reason
to believe God exists I have focused on the various concepts of God that
people actually worship, since those concepts of God are described as
having specific characteristics and as having done and promised to do
specific things. As such, those concepts of God make testable claims
that we should be able to verify and for which there should be an
abundance of reliable and objective evidence, so the complete lack of
reliable and objective evidence and the fact that the various claims can
and have been proven to be false is, in itself, compelling evidence
that those concepts of God do not, in fact, exist. See, for example, Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of Absence.
With
such a focus on evidence and counter-evidence, however, I have often
more or less given a pass to the concept of the so-called “Deist” God.
The Deist God is described as the Creator of the Universe (as with most
theistic concepts of God), but with the qualification that this Creator
simply set the universe in motion and then let it run on its own ever
since with absolutely no further interference whatsoever. This means
that the Deist God has never revealed itself to humanity in any way,
does not perform miracles, does not provide moral guidance, does not
promise salvation, etc. And the reason I have more or less given a pass
to this concept of God is basically because it seems to be a wholly
irrelevant concept. I have even gone so far as to say that, while I am
an atheist with regard to standard concepts of God, I would consider
myself to be agnostic with regard to the Deist God, since there’s
neither evidence for nor evidence against a God who, by its very nature, does not interact with the universe in any way.
Well,
that was then and this is now. After giving the matter a lot of
thought, I’m finally ready to assert that I know that the Deist God does
not exist to the same extent that I know that all other concepts of God
do not exist (which is to say, as much as I can claim to know anything
in life, including that I am a conscious being, that I only have one
head on my shoulders, that the earth is round and rotates, etc.). Some
of the reasons for why I know this are included in another recent post (No, I Don’t Need to Explore the Entire Universe to Be an Atheist),
but I thought it would be helpful to put them all into a post of their
own and expand a bit on my reasoning. And please keep in mind that the
following is not offered as any sort of “proof” that the Deist God does
not exist, but simply to explain why I can now feel confident that I
know that it does not exist, to the same level of confidence that I
claim to be able to know anything.
First of
all, many modern Deists like to claim that Deism is wholly separate from
the ancient superstitions that produced every other concept of God,
whether it be the Sumerian gods, the ancient Greek and Roman gods, the
Egyptian gods, the Norse gods, or even the God of the Bible. “Those gods
are all based on ignorant superstition,” they like to say, “but our
concept of God is derived from wholly logical and rational
considerations of the universe.” Except, this claim is not actually
supported by the history of modern Deism:
Deism gained prominence among intellectuals during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Typically, these had been raised as Christians and believed in one God, but they had become disenchanted with organized religion and orthodox teachings such as the Trinity, Biblical inerrancy, and the supernatural interpretation of events, such as miracles.
In other words, Deism was clearly a response to the prevailing concepts of God that were rooted in ancient superstitions and not some sort of de novo
theology that came up with the idea of God from first principles and
careful consideration of the universe. Or, to put it yet another way,
when Deists realized how untenable it was to assert belief in something
for which there was no good evidence (and for which there was plenty of
counter evidence), they decided to argue for an impersonal and
undetectable creator God rather than abandoning their faith all
together. As a result, if we can dismiss all the mainstream theist
concepts of God as the product of ignorant superstitions, we can also
dismiss the Deist God for exactly the same reason, despite all the
pseudo-intellectual gloss that has been applied to the underlying
concept over the years.
Second of all, since the Deist God — by definition — does not interact with the universe in any detectable way whatsoever, the only
way in which Deists can claim to know that such a God exists in the
first place is through various logical and philosophical arguments. And every single one of those arguments is flawed. Every single argument in favor of there being a Deist God is based in an Argument from Ignorance (or “God of the Gaps”) fallacy. Whether it be the so-called Teleological Argument (a.k.a. the Argument from Design), the Cosmological Argument, the Fine-Tuned Universe Argument,
or what have you, they all basically claim that since we [supposedly]
cannot explain some facet of the universe, the only possible explanation
is a supernatural creator who exists outside of time and space and is
somehow able to interact with matter and energy despite not being
composed of either. Aside from the fact that we actually can now
explain many of the things that used to be inexplicable (the theory of
Evolution by Natural Selection, for example, now perfectly explains the
apparent design in the natural world), the lack of an explanation cannot, in itself, be evidence of some other explanation for which there is no independent evidence.
There
have been many, many refutations of the various Deist arguments for the
existence of God over the years, but here are some of my own personal
attempts:
To
quote the late, great Christopher Hitchens, “That which can be asserted
without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” Deists
acknowledge that there neither is nor can there be any direct observable
evidence for the existence of their God, and all of their philosophical
arguments are based on flawed premises that by necessity lead to
incorrect conclusions.
Finally, even if the
Deist God weren’t rooted in the same ignorant superstitions as
mainstream theist concepts of God, and even if the various Deist
arguments weren’t fatally flawed, the Deist God requires a belief in a
logically impossible “supernatural” being of some sort that somehow
exists “outside of space and time” and that is made made of neither
matter nor energy (yet is somehow able to interact with matter and
energy at least with regard to creating both). Can I “prove” that
nothing supernatural exists? No, but I assert that the term itself is
meaningless (a “one word oxymoron” as some have been known to say) and therefore I know (again, to the same degree that I
claim to know anything) that the Deist God does not and cannot possibly
exist. For more on this, see:
Of course, your mileage may vary, but this is what I know to be true and why I feel confident saying that I know it to be true.
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