Categories: Commentary

Logical problems for theists

I can understand why, whenever Christian apologists try to disprove atheism, they always use what seems like very logical and coherent argument to support what their infinite god was supposed to have done, but when they look at how this god is supposed to work, they abandon such reasoning methods. The reason is simple–infinity comes with a lot of contradictions.

Take the claim that our temporary universe was supposed to have been created by an everlasting god. To illustrate why this is impossible, I will use the example of igniting a stove burner.

Like everything we know, all things require a cause. So, before the stove burner was ignited, it was not lit. If the process of ignition was eternal, which is the cause, like god, we have a problem. The claim that the burner was at one point never lit would not be true. Seeing that the process of ignition is supposed to have been everlasting, what we would end up with is an everlastingly ignited and thus lit burner.

In other words, if the cause of this finite universe is supposed to have been an infinite god, then this universe could not be finite; it must be infinite too as, at one point during “creation”, the infinite would have had to meet the finite. That’s one of the contradictions of an actual infinite, which this god is.

Related Post

Given that an infinite cause for a temporary result is impossible for our reality, we end up being stuck with a temporary cause for a temporary result. However, this creates another contradiction – it’s called the infinite regression problem. If all results are temporary and each of them must have had a prior temporary cause, then that prior temporary cause is itself the temporary result of another prior temporary cause, and so forth. What we end up with is, for god, an infinite series of results and prior causes.

An endless or infinite series of causes and results is impossible to traverse – we can never reach the start or end. In other words, the present as we know it cannot be. This is the infinite regression problem and is another contradiction for the actual infinite that the Christian god is supposed to be.

I will say that I don’t take arguments for god’s existence serious anymore if, instead of attempting to explain how this god could have done anything in the first place, people try to prove god by explaining what he is supposed to have done already.

I am still waiting for a convincing argument for god’s own existence.

Michael A. Dingwall

View Comments

  • I feel very sorry for the author, but his argument is like carrying water in a plain bamboo fish basket. To suggest that an infinite God can not create something that is finite is absolute rubbish. Let me give you an example, the same infinite God plans at some point in time to destroy this finite earth and rebuild it again. Why? Because as you mentioned everything requires a cause. In this case God has to finally and totally destroy evil on Earth. Secondly what proof is there that the universe though, is finite in time, space (either or both).
    The scientist do not even have consensus. And as to its origin (if its finite) they seem to be making a case for intelligent design. That is someone (or thing to suit your atheism) created the universe in accordance with a specific plan.
    But really like you said in the first line, you can't understand. In your finite thinking mine (and no acknowledgement of God) and do not really expect you to.

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