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God Not Necessary

John Pettigrew

Mrs Julie Belding writes in the last Salient upon the Death of God, which, she suggests, hasn't happened. She has thought deeply upon the subject, she implies. Alas too deeply-I fear she has drowned. Allow me to peer briefly from between a pair of essays to declaim upon her plight to the multitudes, and declare myself proud to be one of those who, on her thesis, "lays himself open to be called a fool by serious thinkers".

Mrs Belding says several things, most of them ambiguous—

(1) The theory that God is dead has a long tradition.

(2) (a) God is related in some way to order and rationality.

(b) Man cannot live, or live in some certain way ('consistently', etc.). without order and rationality.

(c) Man can therefore not live without God.

(3) The atheist or agnostic has no logical or consistent basis for moral beliefs.

Let me consider these.

(1) The statement "God is Dead" is meaningless. As far as I know there is no tradition of such a belief.

The statements "God does not exist" (from the atheist) and "I do not believe that God does exist" (from the agnostic) are both reasonable statements, although in terms of support of his position the atheist is exactly as badly off as the believer. As Mrs Belding points out at length there is a long tradition of non-belief. This proves, however, merely that there is a long tradition of non-belief.

(2) The second part of her argument is that there is some relation between God and rationality. She doesn't use the concept of 'some relation'—I do, because I am not quite sure what she is getting at. However, it could be one of three positions, or possibly all at once. One at a time, then.

(a) Does she mean "God is order and rationality?" One does rather get this impression, and if this is a fair statement of her position then man, if indeed he cannot live without order and rationality, cannot live without God. By the same argument, of course, I could declare that God is blue bananas, and that as man cannot live without blue bananas (I'm sure I could prove that) then man cannot live without God. But we could both do the language a service in this case by ceasing to refer to God and using the synonym "order and rationality", or "blue bananas", as the case may be.

(b) Does she mean just that God created a rational and orderly universe? This seems to be implied also. If this universe is orderly enough, and properly made, then God may not be dead, but will be redundant after seven days of good and faithful service.

(c) Or is the position that God creates order and rationality, i.e, if God wasn't there chaos would ensue? Surely, though, this would not be an orderly and rational universe but an irrational universe which God strains to hold back from the ever-imminent chaos. She says "… it must be admitted (oh! arrogance) that on the presumption that God does not exist there can be no rationality." If it is logically impossible to have rationality without God, then we have the meaningless tautology in (a) above. If we do not have this, Mrs Belding must show why rationality cannot exist without God. If God "can be scientifically examined and understood on the basis of reason", (i.e., as can the "rationally ordered world") please do so, if not, we would want to know why not. Perhaps God is outside this rationally ordered universe, but surely in any meaningful sense of "a part of" God must be a part of the universe if he is the only force preventing a Great Chaos happening—surely he would need to be quite literally all-pervading —present in the actions of all things—"a part of"?

Mind you, I do not need, really, to prove my above case. Mrs Belding has more important problems in her argument, which is a hell of a place to have problems. Her proposition that it is impossible to deny the existence (or rather the non-existence—she attacks his weaker position) of God and live consistently in a rational world is true only if one believes God to be the source of the rationality. This weakens her argument somewhat, largely by making it nonsensical.

It is quite possible and logical for me to believe (as I do) in the rationality of the world without believing in a God. Whether the rationality is "caused" by God, or chance, or Occam's razor, or just exists in my mind, is irrelevant to the way I act, which is on the basis that certain things have happened in the past often enough for me to work on the hypothesis that it will happen in the future—e.g, that there will be typographical errors when this is printed. The concept of God is a needless one, a confused attempt at justification and explanation where none is needed.

(3) The argument that "objective standards of morality only make sense if this is a moral and rational universe, created by a moral and rational God" fails to move me. There is the problem of what a "moral universe" could be conceived to be, but I will content myself with denying that objective standards of morality make sense. Even Mrs Belding's strongest position—that a belief in God leads to consistent moral codes (I take it that a test of objectivity would be that "everyone" agrees, as they would, say, (hat water boils) could be easily disproved by pointing out different moral codes held by different groups of people who believe in God. No doubt Sartre could be criticised along similar lines, if Mrs Belding's comments on him are correct, but I am an apologist for me, not Sartre, who is big enough to look after himself.

Incidentally, if "the moral structure … is determined by the character of God", then he must be schizophrenic to a remarkable degree. Or if there is but one, true, moral structure, then I suspect that we have either a tautology or a triviality.

In conclusion, then—

(a) I assume that God is not. I can live with the assumption, not always an easy one to live with, that some things will always remain mysteries or unknowables, that the universe is unlikely to be moral, or essentially good, or even rational except in a certain restricted sense. That God, indeed nothing, need necessarily save us, either in the sense ot" the possibility of the decline of the human race, or in the sense of the possibility of hell, however defined. 1 am unable to believe in an afterlife—this present one is our only chance, so make use of it. If you can't take all this, then. I guess God is for you.

(b) I can, without reference to a God, develop a consistent morality to live by. I don't claim it to be objective, but I would assert that to do so is just the arrogance by which many of the early missionaries did harm to the societies they contacted. However, our definitions of harm no doubt differ.

(c) I am, however, quite happy to live with inconsistencies—they make life more interesting and allow for change. The world is not so rational, or if it is we do not know enough about it, to work everything out beforehand, as a rigid framework implies.

(d) I could give a considerable number of reasons for not 'raping the sister of my best friend,' most of which would be, I suspect, as least as 'logical' as those put forward by the deist. And probably also more humane — one of my criteria — considering the traditional Christian (as the most representative deist hereabouts) attitude towards women. In other words my reasons would be in terms of effects on individuals, rather than in terms of sinning against God, who also is big enough to look after himself, or in selfish terms of damage to my eternity prospects.

I do not seek to convert Mrs Belding, nor expect to, nor would want to. If she wants to believe in God, I have no objection, and would not try to disprove this faith, which is not subject to proof or disproof anyway. If it is part of this faith (and I doubt that it is) to deny the validity of any other, as implied by her statements (e.g. . "whether he admits it or not" when referring to articles of her faith) then I will declare her ideas nonsense, even though consistent nonsense.

(John Pettigrew is a B.A. Hons. student in Pol. Sc.)