Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – christians are indeed atheists

Doug Beaumont has a Phd in Theology, though I’m not quite certain where from.  HE lists “North-West University” which may be one in the US or a Christian university in south Africa. 

He also is a catholic and is an apologist.  He has written a blog post about Christians being atheists, which they do hate to be called, even though they are atheists.  It’s like they think they can catch cooties from the word.  They seem unable to grasp they can be a theist and an atheist at the same time. 

“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” —Stephen F Roberts

In discussions over the existence of God, many atheists seem to assume that anything that can be labeled “god” counts toward what informed Christians mean by the term. I’ve seen more than one atheist in a debate say that with the thousands of gods on offer from the world’s religions, atheists only disbelieve in one more of them than Christians do – and if Christians were consistent, they’d be atheists about their god too. This is a dim-witted argument on multiple counts (e.g., affirming any “X” excludes all “Non-X’s,” so this would be like an anarchist saying he just believes in one fewer government than Democrats do). However, besides reflecting poor reasoning, it also reveals ignorance as to what a Christian means (or should mean) when he speaks of “God.””

This is a common claim by Christians, that only they can define “god”, and only they have the one real god.   Alas, they can’t show that to be true.  Anyone can use their excuses why these other gods can’t be found either.   I find that a large problem for Christians: they use the same arguments for their god as other theists and they refuse to accept those arguments *unless* they are about their particular god (which they can’t even agree on among themselves).   They also use the same arguments against other gods that atheists do, but don’t see how those arguments apply to their god. 

“Even if they existed, beings such as Odin, Zeus, or Thor cannot be the God of creation. At best they would be very powerful sub-creations and thus part of the natural order. The creator God is metaphysically distinct from them or any other natural thing (i.e., super-natural). Once this is understood, the absurd nature of the above claim becomes apparent. Moreover, the existence of this kind of God is not simply a matter of biblical interpretation or theological tradition – it is solidly based in philosophical principles derived from creation itself.”

Doug seems to think as long as he makes a statement, everyone has to accept it as true.  Nope, this is the common Christian claim that only their god fits….the definition of god they’ve made up in their need to eliminate competition with other gods.  Christians to love to try to change the meaning of words when their claims fail.  All Doug has is presupposition, and the baseless assumption that creation can only happen with one god, and only a god as he describes it.  With no evidence, he has nothing. 

“Now, Thomas Aquinas wrote what might amount to a doctoral dissertation on this subject but we don’t have time for that here. (If you want to get it straight from him, the book is called On Being and Essence). I’ll summarize the relevant points here in a way that I hope will make sense to non-philosophers. We start with a simple and, I think, obvious principle:

A thing’s essence and existence are distinct.”

No, Aquinas didn’t write a doctoral dissertation.  Those need to be supported with facts.  Aquinas wrote a very long set of baseless opinions. 

“The term “essence,” as it is used here, refers to what a thing is. My essence is humanness, a horse’s essence is horseness. You get the point. “Existence,” on the other hand, here refers to whether or not there is a certain thing. The important thing to grasp is that essences do not automatically exist just because we know what they are. In fact, we could not know if something existed unless we first knew what it was.”

This is the usual double talk of a Catholic philosopher.  If there is no existence, there is no essence to be defined.  Again, metaphysics is invoked, something that no one can show exists. 

“So for example, a horse in a field is an essence with existence. A dinosaur is an essence without existence (there must be an essence or we wouldn’t know what a dinosaur is to deny that there are any). A phoenix is an essence that never had existence. Etc.”

This is more typical baseless nonsense, and we can see here how Doug is trying to define his god into existence.  This is no more than the ontological argument, which requires as a presupposition, that only one god can exist.  No evidence for that at all. 

“Because we can have essences that do not have existence (like the character Harry Potter whose essence is human but who does not have existence), essence and existence cannot be equivalent. Moreover, since a thing’s essence and existence are distinct, then:
If an essence has existence it must have received it from another.

A “bare essence” without existence does not, by definition, exist – and non-existent things can’t be the cause of anything (much less themselves). So if an essence has received existence, it must have come from some other essence that already had existence (it would have to exist in order to accomplish this feat). But now we run into a problem – because how did THAT thing get its existence?”

Here we have Doug failing for that very old reason, special pleading.  A Christian can’t argue for his god without it.  How did this god get its existence? Oh yes, it is somehow not part of the requirements that Doug puts on things to eliminate anyone but his favorite god. 

“We still cannot say this other essence got existence from itself – and if we say it came from another, then we enter into an infinite regress of causes. There are two problems with infinite regresses. First, there cannot be an infinite series of things, because infinity is not a number (crazy paradoxes arise when we try to treat infinity like a number – see Hibert’s Hotel or Zeno’s paradoxes for example). Second, even an infinite chain of essences causing other essences would not explain the chain. It would be like trying to explain the motion of rail cars that cannot move by themselves. Adding more doesn’t help! Eventually you need to have something that can move itself – something that doesn’t just have motion, but has it essentially ( it because of what it is – i.e., a train engine). So,
There cannot be an infinite series of existing-giving essences.

“In a similar fashion with the engine and rail cars, since every essence-existence combination cannot be explained by another, there must be a cause which exists because of what it is – a thing in which essence and existence are not distinct (and therefore require no cause to join them together). Therefore,

This cause would not have existence – it would be existence.”

That is another baseless claim.  Doug cannot show this to be true.  He admits that infinity is a hard idea to grasp and there is no reason to think he has.  All he has now is the “first cause” argument.  Nothing new as usual from an apologist. 

“The final piece of the puzzle here involves noting that pure existence is boundless. This is no mere assertion – what limits existence is always essence. The existence of the man, horse, and sun do not overlap – they are not shared. The existence of a thing is limited to what it is – a thing’s essence limits its existence. However, a being who joins existence to essences (i.e., creates) and whose essence is existence would be unlimited….infinite….pure spirit…
This infinite spirit can only be the creator God.”

This is indeed a mere assertion, though Doug really tries to convince everyone it isn’t.  He can’t show his “essence” concept is required or exists at all.  His nonsense is built on this one baseless claim.  It is quite a house of cards.  He also can’t define what “spirit” is either, which is the usual attempt at slight of hand by a theist. 

“This unlimited creator is, of course, God. Thus, when God’s essence is described as various attributes – each must be understood as being without limit. This is why the theologically sophisticated list of God’s attributes traditionally are formed by prefixing the principle attribute in such a way as to highlight lack of limitation either positively (e.g., omni-, all-,) or negatively (e.g., a-, e-, im-, in-). Thus, the Christian God is not accurately described as an old man in Heaven or a towering figure throwing a hammer around. He is infinite spirit, immutable, eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, etc.“

Yep, surprise, his definition ends up with his god.   And he can’t show his god exists at all.  Indeed, the bible, his ownly source of knowledge about this character, has it being quite a bit less than omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, etc.   He has to ignore his bible to get to his god. 

“The fact of the existence of a universe of things that do not exist simply because of what they are (their essence) shows that there must a cause exist whose essence is existence. Further, it shows that there can only be one of them (because unlimitedness cannot be multiplied). When we understand that this unlimited, infinite, first cause is the creator traditionally affirmed by Christianity, we see that comparing the true God to the “gods” of other religions is to commit a category mistake.”

This last paragraph makes precious little sense, and it’s because of Doug’s unsupported claim of “essence”.  He also claims that “unlimitedness” can’t be more than one, which also isn’t supported, since an equal “unlimitedness” can exist in multitudes.  He again has to create a supposed set of requirements that only apply to his god. 

There is no “category” mistake at all, a common thing Christians try to run to.  The Christian god is not the one that Doug has invented to try to make it appear “better” than all of the rest.  He, and most, if not all other theists are indeed atheists.  Not one of them has the only and only god, and they all are quite sure that other gods aren’t real.