Larry E. Farr
LETTER THAT ADDRESSES REV. JEFF NEAL’S DECEMBER 01, 2007 ARTICLE TITLED, EVIDENCE FOR THE CHRISTIAN GOD.
LARRY E. FARR
For those who would like to read the arguments against Rev. Neal’s article, please consult the following: Richard Dawkins, The god Delusion, pages 77-85, 320-321. Paul Kurtz, The Transcendental Temptation, pages 295-300. The Teaching Company (1-800-832-24210) or the course, Philosophy of Religion, by Professor James Hall, lecture thirteen, “Why the Cosmological Argument is Said to Fall.” The following letter was mailed to News & Tribune, Jeffersonville, IN.
Rev. Neal states that the Christian God “… is all knowing” (omniscience) “all loving, personal, infinite, (limitless)” (omnipotence) “moral and necessary.” I have shown in previous letters that, using the Bible, the biblical god is not all-loving, moral or necessary. Richard Dawkins, on pages 77-78 of his book The God Delusion, states: “Incidentally, it has not escaped the notice of logicians that omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible. If God is omniscient, he must already know he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can’t change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent.” As for a “personal” god, this must be accepted by faith. Paul Kurtz, on page 298 of his book, The Transcendental Temptation, states: “God is a purely speculative idea lacking any identifiable empirical data.”
Although Rev. Neal never labels his argument for god or his argument for a monotheistic god, I believe he is using the theology of aseity* (God is not dependent on anything outside him or her self for his or her being and nature) and the Cosmological argument (god is the ultimate cause). Paul Kurtz, on pages 298-299 of the above mentioned book, argues: “The most pointed objection raised by the skeptical naturalist is to ask, ’What is the cause of the first cause?’ We do not advance our understanding by invoking a divine force, an uncaused unchanging unknowing entityto account for what is observed. Taking the universe as we find it, however, we might argue for the polytheistic cosmological principles, which better explain the variety of systems found.” I read Rev. Neal’s argument several times and found the theory of a monotheistic god over polytheistic gods circular in reasoning: his argument can be supported with polytheistic gods just as well as a monotheistic god.
Richard Dawkins, on pages 320-321 of the above mentioned book, gives an interesting sideline to Thomas Aquinas that Rev. Neal, refers to … “that the foremost among the theologians, St. Thomas Aquinas, in Summa Theological,said ‘That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly if they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell.’ Nice guy.”‘
Finally the reader may state that both Rev. Neal and I are biased because of our belief system. Certainly this is true. For an unbiased view of God’s existence, I recommend The Teaching Company course, Philosophy of Religion,by Professor James Hall. As an agnostic, professor Hall gives both sides of the arguments. I will close with a quote from page 04 of the 02 outline:”Even if the argument showed that there is some ‘external’ or non-contingent’ causation behind the world, there is no reason to think that it compels monotheism, because there could be multiple independent originators that, lacking aseity, don’t meet monotheistic god standards.”
* Aseity is a theological term, referring to the characteristic of being un-derived (from Latin a “from” and se “self,” plus -ity in contrast to being derived from or dependent on another, hence (apriori) predictable only of God in classical theology. Ideally, this term means that God necessarily exists as opposed to it happening to be the case that God exists. Indeed, this is understood by its users to be the content of the term “God.”
The term aseity is used to describe One who is the ultimate Being. God is said to “possess” aseity, since He was not created, but rather must always exist. He is His own existence, and nothing can exist without Him.
Whether or not this being should be described as God turns on whether the label “Creator” is a rigid designatorof God. Given that most theists understand all that is not God to be brought about by God, and that many (for example Aquinas) argue from the non-aseity of the universe to the existence of God, this problem is somewhat theoretical.
Some people claim that the universe should be described as having aseity. This is sometimes the position held by atheists.