God the Contradictory?

There have been many ways in which atheists and skeptics have tried to disprove the existence of God. Some are more compelling than others, of course, but none that I have found ultimately succeed. Many don't even get off the ground for me, like the evidential argument from evil. Some who like this argument use specific incidences of evil and argue that the existence of such evils is strong evidence that a good God doesn't exist. I think there are good explanations for the evils they mention, but that is not the topic of today's entry. I wrote the above paragraph to ask this question:

If I don't believe that the argument from evil gets off the ground, what sort of argument could potentially convince me that God doesn't exist? I think that if it could be shown that the very concept of God was a self-contradiction then I would be forced to reject His existence.

First, I'll answer one question that some readers may be asking: What is a "self-contradiction?" A self-contradiction occurs when something is said to have two attributes or qualities that cannot coexist. For instance, if you went looking for a triangle with four angles you would be out of luck. By its definition a triangle has three angles. There cannot be a thing that has three angles and four angles at the same time. This is a self-contradiction.

I will now give you Dr. Corey Washington's attempt to show that the concept of God is self-contradictory. This was given in his debate with Dr. William Lane Craig. The argument goes like this: (warning, this gets a little philosophical!)

1. God is an abstract object.
2. God is causally efficacious.
3. Abstract objects have no causal properties.
4. Therefore, the definition of God is contradictory.
5. Contradictory objects don’t exist.
6. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

Now, my analysis. Premises 2 and 5 are non-controversial, in my opinion. Premise 4 follows if premises 1, 2, and 3 are true and premise 6 follows if 4 and 5 are true. However, this argument, with all due respect to Dr. Washington, fails. How so? The argument is certainly valid, so we cannot attack on that front. No, we must attack one or more of the premises. What premise(s) shall we choose? Let’s take a look at some of them.

Premise 1: “It’s common to think of God as an abstract object…”

This seems innocuous at first, but that depends on your definition of “abstract object”. In fact, it appears that this argument, specifically in a debate context, relies on an equivocation on this term. Dr. Washington begins by saying that it is common to think of God as an abstract object. Bear in mind that most people in a debate audience have their own definition of ‘abstract object’ and it is most likely not the philosophical one. He is probably right that most people think of God as abstract, but what do ‘common’ people think of as an ‘abstract object?’ If we took a poll of the people in the audience of the debate most would agree that God is not a material object. Why? Most likely because we can’t perceive Him with our five senses. Then Dr. Washington provides a definition of a “material object” from the Harper Collins Dictionary of Philosophy. The definition is as follows: “an object that casually interacts or inter-relates with other independently existing things.” He goes on to state that the same dictionary states that an abstract object is “and object that is not a material object.”

When most people think of abstract objects they think of it in terms of intangibility, not causal efficacy, and it is in the first sense that people think of God as abstract.

These considerations lead to this question: Why should we think of God as abstract in the philosophical sense at all? Dr. Washington suggests that “God is said to be timeless, and the only timeless things around are abstract objects.” Never mind that there is a strain of theology that asserts that God entered the time stream at the creation event. Let’s say that God is timeless. Why then must He be abstract? Because all other timeless objects are abstract? This doesn’t seem to follow logically does it? This is supposed to be a deductive argument isn’t it? What does this tell us about God? Not much.

If it is the case that it is not logically necessary for God to be abstract in Dr. Washington’s sense we can deny the first premise. The argument will fall apart from here.

Premise 2: “At the same time, it’s believed that God is causally efficacious, that is that God can affect material objects.”
There is certainly no problem with this from the Christian perspective.

Premise 3: “…abstract objects, as standardly understood, have no causal properties.”

Philosophically this is true, but as we saw above there is no reason to call God ‘abstract’ in this sense.

Premise 4: Therefore the definition of God is contradictory

This follows if premise 1 is true but we have seen that it need not be the case.

Premise 5: Contradictory objects do not exist

Agreed.

Premise 6: Therefore God does not exist.

Only if premise 4 is true, which it is not.

Conclusion

So much for the contradictory definition of God. There have been other attempts to show that the concept of God is contradictory, and perhaps better ones that I have not seen. None that I have seen come close to succeeding, but they must taken individually. It is my hope that showing a refutation of one such argument strengthens the faith of Christians out there. We can be confident that our God is real and that what the Bible says of Him is true. Worship Him confidently!