atheism for lent, day 1

Hidey-ho, namberinos (my 10yo’s take on “neighborinos,” which she insists on maintaining despite receiving corrections from various adults in her life; can anyone say “independent thinker”?)!

I’m back with my third attempt at Atheism for Lent (AfL). If you want to know exactly what that is, read this. In brief: Atheism for Lent is a 40-day practice of reflection and disturbance, designed to nudge and bebother the beliefs and paradigms of each participant. AfL is the brainchild of one Dr. Peter Rollins, Irish philosopher, author, and pyrotheologian. He makes my brain hurt in the best possible ways.

(In the preceding paragraph, I typoed “beliefs” as “belies,” and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.)

I did part of AfL in 2019, and eleven days’ worth in 2020 until the pandemic completely fried my everything. If you click this link, you’ll get the 11ish posts I wrote about 2020’s AfL.

Fast-forward (showing my age!) to now, and today is DAY ONE of AfL 2023. And I am all in.

Hopefully, “all in” lasts the whole 40 days of Lent. We’ll see how it perambulates. I plan to post A Brief Something here every day: either a summary of the day’s reflection and my thoughts on it, or whatever art the day’s inflection might have inspired, or just a photo of me looking super confused. Possibly all three, if the Muse so strikes me. HIDE AND WATCH, Y’ALL.

So. Onward! Tally-ho, and so forth.

DAY ONE

For today’s reflection, Peter gives us a sneak peek at what’s facing us this week: proofs of? arguments for? the existence of God. We start with three thinkers and their notions on the subject (keep in mind, this is how I don’t/understand what I heard):

I. Thomas Aquinas has Five Ways of demonstrating God’s existence logically:

1. the unmoved mover: everything in existence is in motion, therefore there must be a Mover That Does Not Move and set everything in motion; this is what we call “God”
2. the uncaused cause: everything we experience has a cause; so if you follow the effects back far enough, there must be a Cause That Has No Cause; this is what we call “God”
3. the necessary being: for anything to come into existence, there must be something that must have existed first and wasn’t caused to come into existence; this is what we call “God”
4. the highest degree of good: everything in existence displays a degree of something (a teenager walks better than a baby; a cat is larger than a mouse; the cheetah is the fastest land animal), so there must exist a Being That Is Maximally Great, Maximally Truthful, etc.; this is what we call “God”
5. constants of the universe postulate an intelligence at the center of it all, so there must be That Which Holds It All Together; this is what we call “God”

I will confess, I don’t really see much difference between 1, 2, and 3. It feels like Aquinas is using different words to say the same thing three ways. I expect I’ll be disabused of this notion during the coming week. XD

II. William Paley

Paley offers the argument which, historically, people find the most persuasive (Peter calls it “ironically the weakest argument”): the world is complex, which leads to the conclusion that there’s intelligence behind the design. If you find a pocketwatch in a field, you know that someone designed and built the watch; it didn’t just spring into existence out of nothing; there must be a watchmaker.

I remember first hearing this argument in college and finding it supremely convincing. Of course I did. I was primed to believe it and wasn’t questioning God’s existence. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

III. René Descartes

Descartes offers an a priori argument (an argument from reason/deduction, not from experience):
We have ideas in our minds. They might or might not exist in reality. I can think of horses; horses might or might not exist in reality. But even if they don’t exist, they still make sense.
BUT: nothing necessarily *has to* exist. I can have an idea of the essence of horses (fast, strong, four-legged, majestic, intelligent, ungulate), but still, they might not actually exist.
HOWEVER: if God exists, then part of the essence of God is to possess every Good to the maximum, *including necessary existence* because it’s better to exist than not to exist.
A horse doesn’t *have to* exist, because its essence doesn’t include the maximum of anything.
To say “God doesn’t exist” is to say “this God, who possesses the quality of necessary existence, who must exist of necessity, does not exist.” Existence isn’t part of the definition of anything except God; therefore, we are affirming the existence of God simply by using the word and holding the concept in our minds.

This one TRULY hurts my brain. I remember it from college as well, and I think I actually lose brain cells when I try to process it. I don’t think I understand it. Either that, or I’m making it way more complicated than it actually is.

And that’s it for DAY ONE. I’m sure I could write more, but it’s been a full (but lovely!) day, and I’m tired.

XOXO!