ESSAY ON TO BELIEVE OR NOT ON GOD

I was in a bar, having a beer with some friends, and the conversation turned to the existence of God. Only one person of
eight claimed to be a believer. Most were dismissive, name-calling atheists, along with with a few rational, unmoved
skeptics. For myself, before jumping in, I wanted to know what we were talking about. Did we have a working definition
of God? The atheists insisted we were talking about a delusion, a mental disorder of psychiatric proportions. They cited
books by Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchins, among others. There was no possible definition of God, they said,
unless
we
wanted
to
talk
abnormal
psychology.
I suggested we stipulate the Biblical God of the Old Testament as a working definition, for the sake of discussion. The
atheists would not agree. One woman with a charming foreign accent insisted that we would just be discussing a fairy in
the tooth.What about Thomas Aquinass five proofs of the existence of God, someone suggested, the only person in the
group with any formal training in theology? Even the atheists were familiar with these famous arguments (not really
proofs) from 13th century Europe. All disproven, every one of them, the atheists insisted, and that settled it.
So the discussion went nowhere; never got started really. When students ask me if I believe in God, my standard
answer is, You tell me what God is, and Ill tell you if I believe in that. So after my frustrating discussion at the bar, I
decided to formulate a list of definitions of God, and see which ones, if any, I could justify.
Five
Kinds
of
God:
1. A readily available definition of God is the anthropomorphic, monotheistic God of the Old Testament and the Koran, a
blend of many ancient pagan gods. This God is superhuman and supernatural, in other words, divine and not of this
earthly world. It is the creator of all things, the bringer of death, the perfection of Good and The Righteous, and the
ultimate judge of each persons merit. This God is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent
(present everywhere). It is personal, hears prayers, responds to them (sometimes), directs individual lives, dispenses
ultimate reward and punishment, and can intervene into personal, social, and natural events, either on request, or
arbitrarily. This God also requires a great deal of praise and worship, and in return, might grant a strange kind of partial
immortality.
A variation on this theme is the God of the Christian New testament, Jesus, a God cloaked in flesh for better
communication
with
humans,
but
basically
a
messenger
for
the
Old
Testament
God.
Do I believe in those Gods, or anything like them? Definitely not. I think the monotheistic God of Christianity and Islam
is at best, crusty tradition, at worst, a projection of monumental human egocentricism. When we were children, each of
us was, for a while, the unquestioned center of the universe. A lot of people never get past that. As adults they project
and reify a paternal figure or tribal leader that will continue their infantilization. I think Freud nailed that analysis.
I dont believe there is any need for such a God, except among those people who cling to childish egocentricism,
believing that a benevolent, all-powerful parent still watches over them and assures them that everything is all right.
Thats why this kind of God persists in so many cultures: it indulges a real human need. But taken at face value as a
deity, it is too incoherent to be believed, or even understood, as anything but a human projection, and there is no
evidence or non-circular reason to justify it otherwise.
2. An alternative is a social god, what Anthony Freeman called God In Us (Imprint Academic, 2001). According to
Freeman, God is not "out there," in heaven, outside of history, distant, aloof, and silent. No, God is a force within human
beings, alive and present to us. What kind of a force is it? Freeman is vague on that. It is whatever the source of our
highest values is. What are those? The usual suspects: goodness, truth, justice, beauty, compassion and so on.
This approach has the advantage of dispensing with the trappings of churches, priests, idols, sacrifices, rituals,
superstition, hierarchy, paternalism, and all the murky mumbo-jumbo that goes with traditional religion, while retaining
the best of human values. Freeman's God is warm and fuzzy, but on the down side, its hard to say what makes a set of
values into a kind of God. All values are culturally-agreed-upon principles. No educated person would propose that
there are universal, cross-cultural, non-historical, transpersonal, absolute values. Would they? What would be the
evidence? A related idea of God, quite a bit more convincing, in my opinion, arises from the psychology of deep
intersubjectivity, articulated by philosophers and theologians such as Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Buber. According to
this idea, when you encounter another person honestly and authentically, not defensively, not egocentrically, but in the
other persons space, you find yourself facing something holy. You feel love, humility, and a sense of being in a sacred
presence. This is not a personal divinity, but an inter-personal divinity. Its not in you, but in us. The immanence of the
others subjectivity defines that spiritual encounter. Meeting someone like that is what Buber called an I-Thou
relationship, to distinguish it from the more mundane I-You relationship. Your response to the presence of that spirit
defines
ethics
and
morality
in
the
rest
of
life.
Do I believe in that kind of God? Yes. It is attractive because while it is a transpersonal spiritual experience, larger than
the individual, it is not supernatural, because it is a naturally occurring phenomenon in human experience. It is a wellacknowledged and documented experience among psychotherapists and other counselors, and ordinary people with a
honed
intersubjective
sensitivity.
On the down side, encountering intersubjective holiness is not an everyday occurrence, at least not for me. For someone
not susceptible to deep intersubjectivity, it is basically an inaccessible kind of spirituality. And I must admit, it is a thin
God as far as deities go. In other words, it does not provide for worship, prayers, burning bushes, everlasting life, or any
of the other alleged benefits attributed to a more traditional god. But it does exist, it is transpersonal and holy, and its
existence can be verified on demand, empirically, not scientifically, but observationally, by direct personal experience. I
believe
it.
3. A third kind of God is a transcendent spiritual experience that some scientists attribute to specialized activity in

certain parts of the brain, but which other people attribute to God. Psychotic patients hear Gods voice all the time, talk
to
God,
and
get
along
in
jolly
conversations
with
the
Big
Guy.
But
theyre
crazy,
right?
Social science and medical research reveal that most ordinary (non-crazy) people have had auditory hallucinations at
least once or twice in their life (Visions for All, Science News, April 7, 2012, 22-25). These are non-psychotic
hallucinations, and people having them report experiencing God in a physical, sensory way. Such experiences can be
correlated with heightened activity in certain parts of the brain, the so-called God-spot. (Scientific American, October,
2007). For these people, God is real, out there and He/She presumably tells them things, like what to do or what is
right. Do I believe in that kind of God? Yes and no. I believe this is a natural phenomenon, a genuine neurological and
cultural event that occurs in some people, and for those people, there is no denying their experience that they have
encountered a self-transcendent otherness, which they name God. Do I believe these phenomena are best interpreted
as evidence for a divine, supernatural God? No. A side-effect of brain activity is a better explanation, in my best
judgment.Dreams, which we have, every night, are also mental phenomena that arise from activity in certain areas of
the brain (e.g., Alan Hobson: Dreaming as Delirium. MIT Press, 1999). Dreams have that quality of otherness, that is,
the feeling that they arise not from me, but from somewhere outside of me. Yet that feeling alone does not justify, in my
view, the claim that dreams originate from a divine source. Throughout most of history, dreams were thought to have
a
brain
origin.
divine
origin.
But
today,
I
think
the
evidence
favors
4. A fourth kind of God is approached from one of Aquinas five proofs, the argument from contingency. Aquinas did
not have a convincing argument but I believe it can be fixed up into a fair argument for the existence of God. First
Aquinas
argument:
A. Contingent things exist (those things that just happen to exist now, but might not have, and didnt exist in the past,
and probably wont in the future. You are an example of a contingent thing, as am I, and as is everything in human
experience).
B. Each contingent thing at some time does not exist (by definition thats what contingent means).
C. If everything were contingent, there would be a time when nothing existed (by definition of contingent).
D. If there was a time when nothing existed, that would still be the situation today (because nothing comes from
nothing).
E.
Hence
if
everything
were
contingent,
nothing
would
exist
today.
F. Things do exist today. Hence, everything cannot be contingent. Therefore a non-contingent (eternal) being must exist
and
that
is
God.
There are two obvious errors in the argument, in my judgment (and I am neither logician, philosopher, or theologian).
The first is in statement C. It presupposes without justification that there had to be a moment when all contingent things
did not exist. But why? Animals and plants, for example, go out of existence (die) at different times. Subatomic particles
go in and out of existence at different times and rates, all through the vacuum of space. There is no reason to suppose
that
there
must
have
been
a
single
instant
when
nothing
existed.
The second error is in statement D, which supposes that nothing comes from nothing. We know that in the quantum
world, particles pop into existence all the time, for no reason at all. And more obviously, we know that creativity exists,
and one definition of creativity is to make something exist where it did not before, like a bridge or a television. Aquinas
would not have known about quantum mechanics, but he surely would have known about creativity.
I
think
an
argument
similar
to
Aquinas
can
be
made
without
these
errors:
A. Creativity exists as a natural phenomenon, observed in nature, and known personally by introspection and other
human
experience.
B. Creativity produces something out of nothing. This depends on how you define something and nothing, but surely
we can say with confidence that humans have produced gunpowder, airplanes, and computers which did not exist
before.
At a fine grain of psychological analysis, we can argue that human creativity is inherent in every act of intentionality
(e.g., Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, 1874), and that creativity therefore is a fundamental property
of human psychology. That can be verified by introspective observation and reasonable generalization.
C. Everything that exists was created. Nothing comes from nothing (in other words, nothing is uncaused), but creativity
is
something
rather
than
nothing.
D.
Humans
exist;
the
world
exists.
E. Therefore, there is a supernatural creator of all things not created by humans or other natural sources of creativity.
This argument establishes the existence of a superhuman, supernatural creator, which easily falls within the scope of
entities that can be called God. This is not a personal god, only a divine creator, like Brahman, or the Creator of the
Deists.
By implication, we humans are gods also, demiurges, if you will, because we are also endowed with the quality of
creativity, the power to make something out of nothing. This in turn suggests, but does not prove, that we humans can
know
God
the
creator,
inasmuch
as
we
have
the
same
or
similar
power
of
creativity.
The weak point of the argument is statement C, nothing comes from nothing, or more exactly, nothing is uncaused. That
cant be proved and it might be wrong, but I side with Einstein, who said, God does not play dice. I dont think there is
such a thing as pure randomness, only limits to our powers of pattern recognition. Thats an article of belief based on life
experience, but I admit it could be mistaken. Certainly it is contradicted by principles of statistics and the physics
derived
from
statistics,
but
so
be
it.
If we allow the assumption in statement C, I think this makes a pretty good argument for the existence of a divine
Creator not the bearded guy on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and not the Old Testament creator whose actions

were documented (by whom?) in Genesis. This argument establishes only a principle of supernatural creativity. Its not
much, but its something, not nothing. Do I believe it? Yes.
5. The fifth and final kind of God is approached in a way similar to the previous one, and also derives from Aquinas, this
time his argument from design. Like the previous one discussed, I think Aquinas argument here is fatally flawed, but
can
be
fixed
up.
First,
Aquinas
argument:
A. We see around us evidence of intelligently designed objects, such as the wing of a bird.
B.
Things
do
not
design
themselves.
C.
They
must
have
been
designed.
D. Hence a great (superhuman, supernatural) intelligent designer must have designed complex natural things.
The rebuttals to this argument are well-known and well-worn today. Chief among them is the fact that the theory of
evolution shows that natural objects, even those as complex as the wing of a bird, come about not through the efforts of
a divine designer, but as a result of accidental mutations and arbitrary environmental selection pressures.
Evolution is an extremely compelling theory that has withstood many thousands of empirical tests and observations.
People who do not accept this rebuttal do not sufficiently understand the theory of evolution.
So basically, Aquinas argument fails because its first premise is unsound: the estimation that a complex thing was
intelligently designed is an opinion, a judgment based on ignorance. It is not a necessary inference or a defensible
assumption. A wing looks complex, yes, but that is not sufficient reason to say it was created by an intelligent designer.
A brain is complex too, but also a natural product of evolution. There is no basis for the assumption of statement A.
A common counter-argument is a question: If you found a pocket watch on a deserted beach, would you assume it was
the natural fruit of some exotic tree, or would you assume it had an intelligent designer? I would assume intelligent
designer, of the human variety. Humans are intelligent and we design and build many complex things, from calendars to
computers. The things we design and build are indeed the products of intelligent designers. But were not God and the
existence of our own complex products are not arguments for the existence of God, unless you want to argue, as some
have,
that
humans
invent
God
by
analogy
from
themselves.
And yet, I think there is some merit in Aquinas argument from design, that can be salvaged and reshaped.
What if there were empirical evidence of a transcendent creator/designer, one that designed and produced complex
natural phenomena and whose existence was independent of human intentionality (or that of any other animal or plant,
just
to
be
complete).
To say again, what if you could verify, at any time, by repeatable, personal observation and conservative logical
inference, that complex natural phenomena were being produced de novo, (not by evolution, but apparently from
nothing).
Im not talking about near-infinitesimal subatomic particles out in space, but great big, human-scale phenomena that
you can bump into and which fit perfectly into the course of your life as if designed for it. And these phenomena are
produced without a shred of ordinary human creativity, intentionality, or consciousness; and they are not produced over
the span of millennia, but in the frame of hours, days, and weeks; and not gradually, in some drawn-out evolutionary
trial-and-error,
but
right
now,
fully-formed.
You may be thinking it is a trick, a word-game. How about an apple? It fits perfectly into my life as if it belonged, keeps
me alive, is tangible and real, and no human created it. Close, but wrong. Apples are products of natural selection,
evolution over millennia. So not an apple, not an egg, not a horse. Im talking about natural phenomena that do not
arise from biological evolution (nor from the geological and cosmological processes of the environment that complement
biological
evolution
by
natural
selection).
Okay, then it must be ideas or cultural products: Fermats last theorem, Shakespeares tragedies, Beethovens string
quartets, Maxwells equations. Those are well-designed things that change lives. Close, but no. They are explicit products
of human effort, intention, creativity and consciousness, all ruled out in this scenario. Im talking about phenomena that
do
not
arise
from
human
intentionality.
It seems to me, if we could verify a process of production for important, well-designed, complex natural things such as I
have in mind, outside the principles of evolution, and without the slightest touch of human intentionality, it would be
justifiable to concede that there must be a superhuman, transcendent, intelligent designer of those phenomena.
Okay, thats the setup, heres the answer: the products are luck and insight. They are real and important phenomena of
human experience, and famously they are not produced by human intentionality. You cannot do luck, and you cannot
force insight. They happen to you, sometimes, for no reason, often when you least expect them.
In the vague category of luck, I include events that are positive, desirable, and fit into your life in an important way,
like winning the lottery or falling in love or finding the perfect parking space. Im ruling out so-called bad luck for now,
because Im not sure what that is. Luck is what we call the source of an outcome that is desired but apparently did not
come about as a result of intentional effort or known natural processes. Saying that something was just lucky is
tantamount
to
saying
it
was
uncaused
by
nature
or
by
oneself.
In the nebulous category of insight I include sudden knowledge about the nature of things, or of something in
particular, or of relationships among things, or about how to do something, or what something means. Again, insight
may come to you, but you cant make it happen. Insight may favor the so-called prepared mind, but to say something
occurred to you by insight is tantamount to saying it was uncaused by nature or by yourself.
Now all we need is to demonstrate that there is an identifiable, empirically verifiable, non-human, non-evolutionary
source of those two products. Then wed be in a position to say we had a case for the existence of a God, an intelligent
designer.
Elsewhere, I have called this source, the black hole of non-experience (Adams: The Three-In-One Mind, Paperless
Press,
revised
edition,
2012,
ISBN
978-0-9837177-1-3).
It is essentially what it sounds like, a suppression of intentional consciousness that terminates all known experience. It is

the culmination of certain well-known (among practitioners) meditative techniques. It is analogous to non-dreaming
sleep, in which the sleeper has no experience, no awareness of self or world, and performs no action directed at self or
world.
The
difference
is
that
the
Black
Hole
is
accessible
from
full
wakefulness.
If this so-called Black Hole is a non-experience, what justifies identifying it as the source of self-transcendent design?
That comes retrospectively, after the encounter with the Black Hole. During hours, days, or weeks after the encounter,
one notices a meaningful increase in the frequency and intensity of good luck and sudden insight in ones experience.
These
are
large
effects,
easily
identifiable.
Could
they
be
mere
coincidence?
Yes.
However, the effects are repeatable and reversible (in the sense that their frequency and intensity decline over time). So
it is possible to perform a traditional ABA quasi-experimental reversal study. When that is done, one finds that the
effects are reliably prevalent and intense after an encounter with the Black Hole, noticeably less so in the control
condition (the B condition), in which the Black Hole is not encountered for a period of time.
So based on that personal-empirical evidence and the arguments proposed above, there is reasonable justification to
identify a self-transcendent creator/designer that is not a product of evolution by natural selection. That qualifies as a
category of God. Do I believe it? Yes.