The God of Genesis

The God of Genesis

An Analysis and Refutation of a Particular Conception of God

By William Phillips

ABSTRACT: The folly of many atheist polemics is that they attempt to approach the problem of theism on too ambitious a scale. Not only do they attempt to address all religious deities, or even the deity of one entire religion, but they also tend to commit to imprecise generalizations about the culture and societal impact of those respective religions separate from the divine. While not an impossible task, it is quite improbable that one, within any reasonable amount of other things to do, could accomplish such. Here lies the foundation of our work here today. I seek to talk about, not all gods, but Abraham’s god. Furthermore, I do not claim to know everyone’s conception of Abraham’s god, but simply one professed to me by a friend we’ll call John. And, while I’m sure everything contained in this view will sound quite common with regards to many popular beliefs of god, I do not profess to lay claim to a refutation of anyone’s ideology besides John’s. It is this way that we avoid the generalizations, circumvent the folly “well not all Christians think that,” and enter into conclusive particular refutation, one by one. And if at the end, there are any outliers, still clinging to their positions, we will consider them irrefutable, or idiotic, as almost always is the case.

John’s Argument

1.      God (g) Exists.
Ǝ(g)

2.      There is one and only one God (g).
Ǝ₌₁(g)

3.      God (g) is beyond the realm of Logic (L).
~L≡g

4.      God (g) created the universe and all therein (U).
g→U

5.      The universe and all therein (U) is governed by the rules of Logic (L) created by God (g).
U↔L←g

Or…
[(Ǝ₌₁(g) • ~L≡g) → (g→U → U↔L←g)]

And so this is John’s argument, relayed in proposition form, with supplementary symbolic representation. However, to properly understand some of the entailment, we need to aid John’s argument by providing supplementary implicative propositions. So, to John’s benefit, which as we see later will be inconsequential to our refutation, we will provide a modified argument.

The Modified Argument

1.      God (g) Exists.
Ǝ(g)

2.      There is one and only one God (g).
Ǝ₌₁(g)

3.      God (g) is beyond the realm of Logic (L).
~L≡g

a.       Time and space (TS) are Logical (L) principles.
L→(TS)

b.      God is beyond the realm of time and space.
(~TS)≡g

4.      God (g) created the universe and all therein (U).
g→U

5.      The universe and all therein (U) is governed by the rules of Logic (L) created by God (g).
U↔L←g

a.       The universe (U) is governed by Time and Space (TS).

(TS)≡U

Or…
{[(Ǝ₌₁(g) • ~L≡g)→(L→TS)→(~TS≡g)]•[(~TS≡g→g→U)→(U↔L←g)]}

Our Critique

Our critique is composed of three simple points, of which, as all good critiques, deals little with the subject matter of the molecular propositions expressed, but more with the form of its logical atoms and constituents. However, our last and final point will deal with some of the implications of the logic therein.

1.      Our first point regards definition. The term g, which represents god, is undefined within our calculation. This means that if all other constituent variables and propositions asserted were defined and correct, which we are not affirming that they are, because we cannot define g, since g, by proposition 3, is beyond our understanding, which is asserted by proposition 5, then our equation would not render a true or false value, but the value of undefined. To give a programming analogy, if you’ve ever been to a webpage that had a jumble of code instead of a functional work page, that is what we get when we attempt to analyze our molecular proposition without defining g. Thus, the molecular proposition, while not true or false, can be affirmed to be nonsense for all human practical measure.

2.      Our second point concerns implication. To paraphrase Wittgenstein, whatever can be asserted, can be asserted clearly, and thus, if one cannot clearly assert their view, they must be silent, for what they speak of is beyond the realm of their grasp. Therefore, if one cannot clearly define the implicative relationship between propositions 1 and 2, that is, how they get from God exists, to, there is one and only one god, or, how they incur that because a being is outside the realm of logic, they must have created the universe, then they’d best to not explicate the view at all, as what they are talking about is nonsense. That is to say, that even  if we took the the equation prima facie, the implicative statements would not hold without an explication of motive, or a mechanistic sub-equation describing how god, by his mere existence, necessarily had tocreate the universe. Of course, one could not give any account of such, as the being of god, as per proposition 3, states that Gods qualities, attributes, and so forth, would be out of our grasp, as per proposition 5. One often might try to use the theoretical implication principle, for example, that because steel is attracted to another object with at an observable level of consistency, that we name that magnetism, and from that, we imply that there is a magnetic field, despite the fact that we can’t observe it plainly. Or, that because of certain laws of physics, and the quite obvious physical condition of gravity, that gravitons must exist, as they are implied by certain theoretical principles. However, I’ll offer my infinite slavery to the one person who can supply a ~Logical proposition, or theory, of which implies God in the Logical world. Such a sentence, as the one I just uttered, is a function of rhetoric, but the point can be no clearer.

3.      Our last point is two-part, mainly because of an error of my own. I originally believed, via a so-called “Case of the Divine Logician,” that if one assert that God lay outside the realm of logic, and that any being g, that lay outside the realm of logic be god, that anyone claiming to have knowledge of such also were claiming to have, at least mentally, properties that lay outside the realm of logic, and thus elevated themselves to a state of divinity, proving gods existence, if, they could exhibit such a beings super-logical powers to create ex nihilo. Of course, the flaw in this thinking I found later, was that God was defined by his extralogical qualities, not confined by them. Thus, if the being did exist, they would be able to operate in both realms, thusly knowledge of such could be possible. However, by gods supposed own principles, the universe is composed of solely logical things, thus, any communication god made with the universe would be logical, and thus gods communication with the universe would be indiscernible from the natural logical principles of the universe, and therefore, to assert such a thing, would be merely to agree that logic existed, that a=a, not to say that g→U. If one is to take up the position that because god has the extralogical faculties, that he would not have to follow his own logical rules in the world, that too would be nonsensical, as then god would be communicating illogically to logical beings. If one is to say that they are not, and have ever been a being composed of and dictated by ~Logical beings, then god does not contradict himself, but they contradict themselves within their own assertions via props 3 and 5, and thus, for all logical purposes, they are not just speaking nonsense, but speaking falsely, as the contradictions arise from their own assertions. Likewise, in such a case, the Case of the Divine Logician would apply.

In conclusion, if you believe in these propositions, you’re full of shit, period, point blank. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not claim that you can reconcile science, of which by definition only deals with the natural laws of our universe, with the a being from another fucking dimension, do not claim that science can’t explain everything, as by your own assertions, the only thing you can truthfully assert are logical principles. Thusly, if you have something to say about anything other than those, don’t. Philosophy is not a conversation, there are analytical truths values that follow from logical forms. Shut up.