We Have to Ask Appropriate Questions
This is an unavoidable theme while we try to learn how to understand things legitimately accurately.
What is unavoidable?
The question of the existence of God.
Ah, faulty presumptions about God certainly hamper accurate understandings.
So, it's a necessity to drive out faulty presumptions about God.
Before we delve into the theme, we will have to remind us to refrain from a typical problematic attitude into which we tend to fall when we discuss about God: we have to refrain from confusing not being able to know everything with not being able to refute anything. Although we can't know everything, we can definitely know some insistences are wrong.
Ah, an usual excuse that some adherents of a religion make when inconsistencies of the religion within itself and with the reality are indicated to them is, "Humans don't know everything." . . . Yes, of course. So, what? . . . Consistency is always definitely required, and it has nothing to do with whether we can know everything or not. For example, arithmetic operations have to be consistent whether we know calculus or not. We cay safely and rightly say, "1 + 1 = 3 is false," even if we don't know enough about the birth of the universe. Even if we don't know everything, if there is any inconsistency, we can always know that there is a fallacy.
Yes. The fact that humans can't know everything isn't any defense for inconsistencies of anything.
We can't know everything, but we can know something, and it's important that we ask appropriate questions.
What do you mean?
First, ambiguous questions are meaningless. We have to explicitly state what we are asking.
You mean, we have to clarify what kind of God we are talking about?
Yes. Some people regard the sun as God; some other people recognize the system of physical laws of the universe as God. Those Gods obviously exist because the sun and the system of physical laws of the universe certainly exist.
Any term is just a label to a concept, and we can put the term, God, to any concept. However, unless the term is used in a single fixed clear meaning across an argument, the argument will become something absurd.
Changing meanings of terms across the argument is a major fallacy, which is frequently seen committed unintentionally or intentionally.
A problem we tend to have when we discuss about God is to surreptitiously give unproven attributes to God. For example, if we define God as the creator of the universe, it isn't proven that God is all-powerful, but we tend to surreptitiously presuppose that the creator is all-powerful.
That's right. Being a creator doesn't necessarily mean being all-powerful, as a man as a creator of a chair isn't particularly all-powerful. If we want to discuss about the existence of a God as the creator of the universe, who is also all-powerful, we have to state the question explicitly as such.
I see.
Second, asking unanswerable questions is futile. As we can't legitimately judge anything without information, we have to choose questions to which we can answer based on information we can have.
Ah, being asked whether the afterlife exists or not, we don't have any information to judge on. Asking such a question is futile.
We can't answer such question as "Does God as a an all-powerful being exist?", but we can answer certain questions about God.
What Questions Should We Ask?
So, we have to ask an appropriate question.
Well, God as the creator of the universe is a common concept, but that isn't my primary concern. The creation of the universe is certainly an interesting subject, but it's a matter of past, and I'm more concerned with how the universe is being ruled right now. Note that we don't presuppose that the creator of the universe is also the current ruler of the universe: there is no base for that presupposition.
Asking the existence of God as the creator or the current ruler of the universe is still vague. As the system of physical laws can be said to be the creator and the current ruler, such God certainly exists, but is that what you really want to ask?
Such an obvious question isn't what I want to ask. . . . God is usually supposed to be a moral being, more exactly the moral authority who decree moral principles. The existence of God as the decreer of moral principles is my concern.
God as the decreer of moral principles is an interesting concept, but unfortunately, we don't have any base on which we can judge on the existence of such a decreer.
Ah, I understand. Decrees are just orders. Whether they are being observed is another story. So, we can't judge whether decrees exist or not by just seeing what are happening in the world. . . . However, at least, we seem to be able to answer the question, "Does God as the enforcer of moral principles exist?"
First, you have to assume what moral principles have been decreed. Then you can judge on the existence of the enforcer based on observations on how those decrees are being observed in the world.
It's fairness! Fairness is the moral principle with which I'm concerned. In fact, if a God hasn't decreed fairness, I don't want such a Got to exist.
Whether you want or not doesn't influence the existence of anything.
I know that, but at least, I don't care about the existence of such a God because I don't have any intention of obeying decrees by such an unfair God anyway.
Oh . . .
I assure you, I won't obey any decree only because the decreer is powerful, even if the decreer is God. It's just a tyranny!
Anyway, can I ask, "Does God as the decreer and the enforcer of fairness exist?"
Hmm, you will need a little more explicitness. The enforcer may be incompetent or at least not all-powerful. You can't deny the existence of the police just because they aren't preventing all the crimes.
Well, how about "Does God as the decreer and the all-powerful enforcer of fairness exist?"
Hmm, being all-powerful doesn't necessarily mean to perform duties sincerely. As we can't know God's mental images themselves, but God's acts, we can't discern whether God is unproficient or insincere.
How about "Does God as the decreer and the all-powerful and all-sincere enforcer of fairness exist?"
I think it's an appropriate question.
