Is God an atheist?

[harvey1]

That might sound like an outlandish question, but let me ask it in a serious way. If you were God, then would you have good reason to believe in yourself knowing how you've interacted with this particular universe--the one you've created? If God doesn't have good reason to believe this, then would you say that God must be an atheist if we assume God exists and believes something only with the best of reasons?

[McCulloch]

harvey1,

I have a really small mind and do not quite understand your question. On the surface, it seems absurd. Any sufficiently intelligent being is self-aware. If I am X, I believe in the existence of X. If I were God, then I would believe in the existence of God. An atheist God would seem to be an oxymoron.

But I suspect that you have some deeper philisophical meaning that you are trying to uncover. Maybe if you explain your question in smaller logical steps, I might get it.

[harvey1]

If you ask the strong atheist, they will say that there is no good reason to believe in God and that it is actually impossible for God to exist given the world as it is. Now, let's say for argument's sake that the atheist is wrong and God exists. However, this doesn't change the nature of the universe which led the strong atheist to conclude that God cannot exist. So, given that God exists, and given the evidence the strong atheist used to conclude that God doesn't exist (but God does exist, per the given), then my question is this: is God justified in believing in God's own existence, or should God succumb to the arguments of the strong atheist and believe that God's existence is not reasonable?

As an analogy, let's say that you were taken up by space aliens and they performed a little surgery on you but put everything back to the way it was. You told some people but got their instant scoffing. The only people who would publish your story are the National Enquirer and tabloids like that. Of course, you want reputable people to believe you. If you could believe only based on the best reasons available, would you be in your right to believe that aliens kidnapped you and performed odd surgery procedures on you without leaving a scar, or would it be more reasonable to chalk the whole experience up to some severe ailment and check yourself into the nearest hospital?

If you think hospital is the better explanation, then would you think that God, who must believe based on the best of reasons, would have to deny one's own existence because that is the most reasonable thing to do in the circumstances? In other words, if God believes the most reasonable thing, and looking at the universe as it is, would God have to be an atheist? If reason requires that God has to be an atheist, then that would mean God is an atheist since God would believe the most reasonable thing, it wouldn't just be hypothetical. So, is God an atheist under these assumptions? (It's a wild question I realize, but I thought it was a fun one having some interest for me as I see what others think in terms of having reason to believe in one's own self, assuming others would conclude you don't exist; and, therefore, see what constitutes the most convincing evidence of an event, personal/experiential or "objective" evidence.)

[ST88]

is God justified in believing in God's own existence, or should God succumb to the arguments of the strong atheist and believe that God's existence is not reasonable?

I don't think you can make that leap if only because, to the atheist (& everyone else) God is beyond rational explanation. This is only because the rational, for a human, extends exclusively to what can be perceived or worked out. However, for God, the rational includes not only what is rational for humans, but also what is rational for God. That is to say, the reasonableness of His existence to himself is self-evident to Him even though it's not reasonable for anyone else.

Here's my analogy. It applies exclusively to this moot argument. A hunter is behind a duck blind, perfectly camouflaged. The hunter blows on his duck call, a perfect representation of a duck. Now, is it reasonable for a duck to suspect that there is another duck making the sound, even though it can't see the other duck, or does it suspect that something else is making the sound? The hunter knows he, himself, exists because he is self-aware. But the duck has no idea, can have no idea, and would find it perfectly reasonable to assume the call came from another duck.

If you could believe only based on the best reasons available, would you be in your right to believe that aliens kidnapped you and performed odd surgery procedures on you without leaving a scar, or would it be more reasonable to chalk the whole experience up to some severe ailment and check yourself into the nearest hospital?

I don't think this analogy succeeds because the implication is that God would have a psychology that was susceptible to self-deception. The person who had this experience would be perfectly within his rational rights to question his own sanity in such a circumstance because such is life as a human. But God would have no such doubt, no such psychology.

If you think hospital is the better explanation, then would you think that God, who must believe based on the best of reasons, would have to deny one's own existence because that is the most reasonable thing to do in the circumstances? In other words, if God believes the most reasonable thing, and looking at the universe as it is, would God have to be an atheist? If reason requires that God has to be an atheist, then that would mean God is an atheist since God would believe the most reasonable thing, it wouldn't just be hypothetical. So, is God an atheist under these assumptions?

No. As I stated above, God is privy to information that humans are not privy to. All that is required for reasonableness is evidence. Since God has evidence that we do not, then God can be perfectly justified in believing in himself.

As an aside, if God existed, I guess he would have to be an atheist, because his existence would be part of nature. Therefore, there would be no supernatural deity for him because he is the topmost level.

[Curious]

That might sound like an outlandish question, but let me ask it in a serious way. If you were God, then would you have good reason to believe in yourself knowing how you've interacted with this particular universe--the one you've created? If God doesn't have good reason to believe this, then would you say that God must be an atheist if we assume God exists and believes something only with the best of reasons?

I don't see how God could not have good reason to believe in himself since simply considering the proposition would in itself prove existence. Surely the fact that God asks this question would be reason enough to believe in his own existence.

[angelic_spirit]

Quote from the Urantia Book.

Paper 1:5 Personality of the Universal Father.

p29:4 1:5.14 God, being eternal, universal, absolute, and infinite, does not grow in knowledge nor increase in wisdom. God does not acquire experience, as finite man might conjecture or comprehend, but he does, within the realms of his own eternal personality, enjoy those continuous expansions of self-realization which are in certain ways comparable to, and analogous with, the acquirement of new experience by the finite creatures of the evolutionary worlds.
p29:5 1:5.15 The absolute perfection of the infinite God would cause him to suffer the awful limitations of unqualified finality of perfectness were it not a fact that the Universal Father directly participates in the personality struggle of every imperfect soul in the wide universe who seeks, by divine aid, to ascend to the spiritually perfect worlds on high. This progressive experience of every spirit being and every mortal creature throughout the universe of universes is a part of the Father's ever-expanding Deity-consciousness of the never-ending divine circle of ceaseless self-realization.
p29:6 1:5.16 It is literally true: "In all your afflictions he is afflicted." "In all your triumphs he triumphs in and with you." His prepersonal divine spirit is a real part of you. The Isle of Paradise responds to all the physical metamorphoses of the universe of universes; the Eternal Son includes all the spirit impulses of all creation; the Conjoint Actor encompasses all the mind expression of the expanding cosmos. The Universal Father realizes in the fullness of the divine consciousness all the individual experience of the progressive struggles of the expanding minds and the ascending spirits of every entity, being, and personality of the whole evolutionary creation of time and space. And all this is literally true, for "in him we all live and move and have our being."

Just wanted to share.


Blessings,

Angelic_spirit