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| xkcd comic where one person says to the other, "...But wouldn't a God who could find a flaw in the ontological argument be even greater?" Image source. |
The ontological argument for God's existence never really made any sense to me. As I understand it, it goes like this: Imagine the greatest thing ever, the greatest thing you can imagine. That thing must be God, because we define "God" to be the greatest thing ever. Now, suppose that that thing didn't exist. Ah, but then it's not the greatest thing we can imagine, because we can imagine a version of it that really did exist, and obviously that would be even better than the one that doesn't exist. Therefore, it really does exist. Therefore, God exists.
(Maybe I've missed something and this isn't actually how the ontological argument goes? At any rate, I'm not going to be convinced it's a good argument.)
I first heard about the ontological argument years and years ago, when I was a college student. I felt like it didn't really make sense- it was like, we're doing this thought experiment about "the greatest thing you can imagine" and then there's some clever wordplay and suddenly the thought experiment breaks out and becomes a real thing.
What?
It's about as convincing as saying God has to exist because "wouldn't that be cool?"
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Fast-forward to when I was leaving evangelicalism and changing a lot of my beliefs about God. For example, I used to believe that God was going to send most people to hell, to suffer forever, and that it was right for him to do that, and that the criteria he used was whether or not someone was "saved"- ie, did they believe in Jesus in the specific correct way, with the correct facts and correct attitude. (Maybe there's an exception for people who haven't heard about Jesus- maybe they can get into heaven if God determines that they "would have" believed, if they had known. Maybe. Don't bank on it though.) That's the God that evangelicals believe in.
But, I decided, that isn't right. That isn't just. It's horrible for God to send the majority of people to hell. So, no, I don't believe in that. I believe in a God who judges in a way which is actually just. ... Or, maybe what I mean is, I believe in a God who judges in a way that *in my opinion* is just.
(Many people change their religious beliefs because of evidence or lack thereof, but for me it was about morality. I knew all the logical apologetics answers, but eventually I came to the point where I couldn't believe it anymore, because it was so heartless.)
So, there's kind of a weird thing going on with my beliefs. It's like I've never had any separation between the concepts of "the God who actually exists (if any)" and "a God who is good and moral- the God that we would want to exist."
Piecing my beliefs together as an ex-evangelical, imagining the God that I would want to exist, the God I feel would be the best version of God, and then believing that surely this must be the God who actually exists.
It was like... examining my evangelical beliefs, thinking, that can't be what God is like, because God is good, and I can no longer force myself to believe that sending the majority of people to hell is good. Changing my beliefs about what "good" means- but I never considered the possibility that God might not be good.
I was never impressed with the ontological argument, but isn't this kind of the same thing?
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There's another possibility, but it's one I have never seriously considered: What if there is a God who exists, but They are a bad god, an immoral god, a god we should NOT obey. This God sends people to hell for all the wrong reasons, this God causes good things or bad things to happen to people in a manipulative and petty way, etc.
What then?
Well, I never seriously considered that possibility, because it just seems like such a bad situation to be in- what would we even do? We want to help others, we want to do the right thing, but God is against us, and this God is all-powerful and we don't have a chance. I don't want to believe that's really the reality we live in. (Is this the "just world fallacy"?)
I will note, though, that when I was evangelical, there were things I believed about God that I wasn't happy about- for example, how much I had to plead and beg in my constant attempts to get God to answer my prayers- evangelicals believe that God is so powerful and active and totally answers prayers, and if it doesn't seem to be working, there must be some little technicality on my end, like maybe God is refusing because I don't have the right attitude or beliefs when I pray. I wasn't happy about this trait that I believed God had, but I thought that meant I was wrong. That in some way that I couldn't understand, it was actually good for God to be like this, and my opinion was wrong. "God's ways are higher than our ways."
So I believed "if I don't agree with something God is doing, I'm the one in the wrong- I need to force myself to believe this thing God does is good." Rather than "if I don't agree with something God is doing, I will fight this God."
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For evangelicals, there's sort of something similar going on with the bible- though as an ex-evangelical, I don't view the bible that way any more.
The evangelical view is, if the bible says something, that means it's true. If the bible says God said something, or God did something, or God approved of something, well then it must have been right for God to do that. If it's something that strikes us as horrific, like God commanding the Israelites to kill all the Canaanites, including children- well, we're the ones in the wrong, for being horrified by that. We need to read an apologetics book to convince ourselves that genocide is sometimes right.
(I will note, though, that in this view, if the bible says a person did something which we feel is terrible, we don't have to believe it was right. The human characters in the bible [except for Jesus] can do things which are wrong. They can serve as examples of what NOT to do. Not so for God.)
But now I no longer believe the bible is inerrant. I believe the bible is wrong about things. A lot of things. They wrote down "God told us to do this or that" and I can say "well, they were wrong." God didn't tell them to do that. Or, in the universe of the story, that God is a bad god- it's not the god I believe in though, so whatever.
So I now have a separation in my beliefs, between "what the bible really means" and "what is right and good." And I think that's great- I love how it gives me the freedom to study the bible for what it really is. Learning about what the bible says is no longer tangled up with being required to believe what the bible says. I'm allowed to learn the bible in an honest way, rather than subconsciously refusing to believe that it says things I can't bring myself to believe are good.
But I don't have the same perspective on God. I don't have a separation between "what God is like" and "what is right and good." Hmm. Is this a problem?
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This is why I don't have a "personal relationship with God," actually.
I know I must have some incorrect beliefs about God, because everyone has at least a few incorrect beliefs about various things. And since my view of God is "here's *my opinion* on what is right and good and moral, that must also be *God's opinion* because I believe God is good- how would it even work, to believe in intricate detail that God is good, if you didn't also believe 'God agrees with me on every aspect of morality'?" ... I don't have the confidence to act like I really know God, to go up to God and say "hey, you and me both know that [whatever belief I have about right and wrong]." No one should do that. We should all recognize that we are wrong about some things. And therefore, you can't really "know" God.
I see it more like, I'm over here doing my own thing, trying to do the best I can, and God is also here existing, and there must be some mismatch between my opinions and God's opinions, but it's impossible to know exactly what that mismatch is- so there's a haze between us, and I can't really know Them, and I shouldn't try- that can only lead to the arrogance of "God agrees with me."
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The God I believe in is the God I want to believe in. I come up with beliefs about Them based on my own understanding of goodness and morality, without allowing for the possibility of "maybe God is not good, in some ways."
I recognize there's something illogical about this, but I'm not sure there's an alternative that's better. Should I believe there is a God, but sometimes that God does bad things, so I should fight Them [how?], and/or by sheer coincidence, all the things I think God does wrong are also the things where I have incorrect beliefs about right and wrong, so actually it's fine and what was the point of believing God does some things wrong?
(I mean, also there's the alternative to just not believe in any god at all- I really am a Christian though, so that's out...)
So I just believe God fits my definition of "good", but I don't believe it with enough confidence to try to use it as a foundation for actually communicating with this God and having a "personal relationship" with Them.
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Related:
Modifying My Faith Because of Doubt
Cut Out the Middleman (or, why I am the master and commander of my own life)
When it comes to God, I believed Might Makes Right
What Does God Do When You Pray For An Anonymized Patient By Bed Number?
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