Objections to God’s Existence

Perhaps the most important questions you can ever ask are three, interconnected questions.

1. Is there a God?
2. If there is, who is he?
3. What does he want of me?

The first question either has a “no” answer, or a “yes” answer. God cannot partially exist. 

Consider the reasons people come to the “no” answer.

The first is “injustice” or “unfairness”. This isn’t really an argument against God’s existence, as much as it is an expectation that the world be different if God existed. Typically, the objections sounds something like these:

• “How could a good and powerful God allow suffering in the world?”

• “How could a loving God send people to hell?”

These objections to God’s existence say, “If God, as I conceive him, truly existed, he would put a stop to suffering, violence, and abuse. If God, as I imagine a perfect God to be, truly existed, no one would go to hell.”

But notice what is happening in this objection. The objector has already decided what God should be or do in advance. When the world does not look like such a god is operative, the self-fulfilling prophecy is vindicated. But this is known as “begging the question”: assuming what you are required to prove. Our objector must first prove that his version of God is the only kind: a version where God stops evil, prevents suffering, and sends no one to hell. Only once he has proved that this is the only kind of god that could exist, is his conclusion valid. If a god must prevent or eliminate suffering to be god, then, yes, there is no god. 

But could there be other options? Is it possible that God could exist and allow suffering? How could you decisively prove this couldn’t be the case?

The second category of objection to God’s existence is “association”. Again, this doesn’t really prove God’s non-existence. It argues that the followers of God don’t seem to be much like the God they preach. These objections typically say,

• “So much injustice, violence and terrorism have been done in the name of religion.”
• “Religion is narrow and confining and turns people into hypocrites and tyrants.”
• “Faith is just a crutch for weak or unstable people.”

In logic, these are known as fallacies of relevance. People claiming to be the followers of God may make many claims about God or on God’s behalf. But their actions cannot establish the non-existence of God. There can be all kinds of reasons why the claimed followers of God aren’t very good. They may be phoneys. They may have been much worse and are now, having improved, still not very good. Their actions might be being misinterpreted or misconstrued by hostile critics. Perhaps they are not weak but have found a new kind of strength. But their behaviour is irrelevant to the existence of God.

A third category of objection might be called “scientism”. Scientism is a not a form of science. Science observes the world, makes hypotheses and then tests them. Scientism is a belief system about science. It believes that empirical science can answer the ultimate questions: where did everything come from, where is it going, why are we here, what is mankind, what is consciousness? Scientism is a philosophy, even a substitute religion. Scientism says things like

• “Science has disproved the claims of religion, and shown we don’t need a God to explain the world.”
• “Religion, like superstition, belongs to primitive phases of man’s development. Man invoked the spiritual and supernatural to explain the gaps in his knowledge. As science closes more of these gaps, the need for God diminishes.”
• “Science is objective and verifiable by observation and reason. Religion is subjective, and is probably just wish-fulfilment.”

Scientism commits a number of errors. First, it also “begs the question”- placing its conclusions within its premises. It claims that once we understand the natural order, we have eliminated the supernatural. But that’s neither obvious nor verifiable. Why should the laws of physics operate the way they do? Why should the universe exist at all? Why should explicable causes eliminate a Creator as Cause and Sustainer? As C. S. Lewis said, “If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe—no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase”. Further, why should we think that the only kind of knowledge is empirical, observational knowledge? Knowledge comes from many other sources: reason, experience, intuition, authority, tradition. Observation is a useful form of knowledge, but it is not the only kind.

A fourth category of objection is “confusion”. Many religions compete for the title of “true religion” or at least “original religion”. The cacophony of competing claims leads some to make these kinds of statements:

• “So many religions all claim to be the truth or the only way. How could we possibly know who is right?”
• “Aren’t all religions really the same at heart?”
• “Everyone has their own interpretation of the Bible. Who’s to say one is right?”

Again, these are irrelevant to the point being claimed. A conflict over truth does not mean truth does not exist. A multiplicity of religions does not prove atheism; if anything, it points to the innate spirituality of mankind, and his instinctive desire to believe and to worship. And if God’s truth were present in a world filled with evil opponents, would we not expect distortion, deception, and perversion of that truth? It hardly argues against the possibility of truth itself.

These arguments, by any normal standard of logic, do not prove the non-existence of God. None of them inevitably lead to the conclusion: “Therefore, God does not exist.” At most, they allow a person persuaded by their reasons to say, “Therefore, assuming my premises are true, probably God does not exist”. But as we’ll see, these objections are flimsy, and no person should be satisfied to close the question of God’s existence based merely on these.