What God cannot be like
Note: This post was originally published on Monday, November 29th, 2021 at my other, now defunct, blog Bonne Raison. It has since been revised and updated with an afterword to reflect any changes to my views since it was first published.
Sometimes it's very difficult--or just painstakingly inefficient--to answer a question directly that an indirect approach is more preferable. By considering a related but opposite or complementary question, meaningful progress can be achieved. A famous example, from probability, is the Birthday Problem: what's the chance in a room with n number of people that a birthday is shared?
To avoid cumbersome calculations, the solution to this question is best arrived at by first asking and solving for the related question: what is the probability that a birthday is not shared? Then, by subtracting that probability from 1 (i.e. 100%), one arrives at the probability that a birthday is shared:
p(a birthday is shared) = 1 - p(a birthday is not shared)
Similarly, in the philosophy of religion, I think it’s very difficult to answer what, if God exists (1), is God even like? It may be more promising, at least for developing our conceptual understanding, to instead consider what God cannot be like.
Interestingly, in an article by philosopher Emily Thomas (Durham University), I came across an argument against the existence of a human-oriented God (2). Below, I’ve reconstructed it for your convenience:
Argument 1
A human-oriented God would make humans prominent in the Universe.
Humans do not feature prominently in the Universe.
So, God is not human-oriented.
Objection: I don’t find this argument very compelling because, regardless of whatever religious scriptures say, I don’t think that human prominence in the universe follows from a human-oriented God. Humans needn’t feature prominently in order to be the special aim of God; which anyway really is what an orientation towards something implies.
That said, here's a far more compelling argument against the existence of a human-oriented God (3):
Argument 2
A human-oriented God would make humans the special goal or purpose of evolution.
Evolution is goalless and without any purpose whatsoever.
So, God is not human-oriented.
Contrary to human prominence in the universe, I think that a teleological notion of biological evolution does follow from a human-oriented God. However, given everything that we know about biology, teleological explanations fail to adequately account for and explain biological evolution.
Popular Drake meme; adapted for this blogpost by the author to dispel a common misconception about evolution
Conclusion
So, while I cannot say what God is like, I think something can be said about what God cannot be like. Although humans aren't required to feature prominently in the universe for a human-oriented God to exist, a teleological notion of biological evolution is. However, without any evidence to support a teleological notion of biological, it's therefore irrational to believe that God is human-oriented. So, if God exists, God cannot be human-oriented.
Afterword
Although my view hasn't really changed, I have a bit more to say and will, undoubtedly, have even more to say next year after I take a class on the philosophy of religion (which I'm very much looking forward to). Anyway, for now, I just want to make some clarifications.
Firstly, by human-oriented I meant only human biological beings; those beings usually with hands, eyes, give or take 46 chromosomes, and so on. I did not mean minds or souls and I haven't yet considered in much depth what it would mean to defend a God who's mind-oriented or soul-oriented instead of human-oriented.
Secondly, as I read more philosophical theology, I'm getting exposed to and learning the ground rules (many of which I was previously ignorant about).
From Norton's: "When a philosopher tells you that he or she is going to prove that God exists (or that God does not exist) your first thought should be, 'Wait! Stop! Before you say another word, tell me as clearly and as plainly as you can what you mean by the word 'God'. Like most familiar words, the word 'God' has many meanings, and each yields a different interpretation of the question 'Does God exist?" (4)
In my post above, I was very vague about this and so I would just like to stop here to acknowledge that I'm still just a fledgling--student--philosopher. I'm working hard to get better at it and looking back I can see how much I sucked at it even just a year ago (and, actually, though I still think I suck, I do believe that I've drastically improved over the the last several months.
Back to God. I don't mean the God of scripture and tradition, though the article does make reference to such a notion of God. Personally, I'm much more interested in the God of the philosophers and God as first cause or designer of the universe. I'm still confused about these different meanings of God but, anyway, those are the two notions of God which I'm interested to explore in greater depth. Additionally, there's the related notion of God as a transcendent source of 'meaning' but, just between you and me, I think it's far less interesting than the other two notions. Anyway, my main interest is centred on the various theological arguments for those notions of God and, more specifically, various notions of pantheism and panentheism.
Back to ground rules in philosophical theology:
From Norton's: "your first job is to figure out what the author means by the words in his or her text. Your second job is to determine what his or her argument is supposed to be. Your third job is to decide whether the argument establishes its conclusion." (4)
That's a pretty good job description of my favourite job in the whole wide world and I aim to get better at it with each and every day on the job (till the day I die). So, for this post, what I should've done from the beginning was to distinguish between the different meanings of God and identify and focus more specifically on the definition that Emily Thomas was using and referencing. I could've then later began to make a case for a broader definition or given an argument for if, and how, this is all relevant for the other notions of God. Anyway, I will come back to this post sometime next summer.
Notes
For the purposes of this blogpost, let's assume that the proposition that God exists is true.
P1 of Argument 1 is supported by various religious sources (as given in Thomas’s article).Â
P2 of Argument 2 is supported by the overwhelming body of scientific literature in evolutionary biology.
Rosen, G. (2018). Norton's Introduction to Philosophy. W.W. Norton.