Argument

God Is Metaphysically Absurd Objection Defeater

Intro

Some atheists go further than "there's no evidence for God." They say God is metaphysically absurd, impossible in the way a square circle is impossible. Their argument looks like this:

1. Anything metaphysically absurd cannot exist.
2. God is metaphysically absurd.
3. So God cannot exist.

The logic is fine. If something truly is impossible, it does not exist. The whole question is premise 2. Saying God is absurd is not the same as showing it. To show it, the atheist has to point to a real contradiction, two things God is said to be that cannot both be true.

There is also a fairness problem. Ask the same atheist how his brain can have a thought about an apple. He will usually agree that the apple on the table and the brain state are different things, and then struggle to say what physical fact makes that brain state about an apple. If "I can't explain it" made something absurd, his own view of the mind would be absurd too. He cannot use one standard for God and a gentler one for himself.

The Penrose triangle, first drawn by Oscar Reutersvärd in 1934 and made famous by Lionel and Roger Penrose in 1958. Each corner looks fine on its own, but the whole cannot exist in three-dimensional space. That is what a real proof of impossibility looks like: you can point to the exact place where the parts contradict. Public domain (Wikimedia Commons).

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In full

The objection is a valid modus ponens whose second premise carries the entire load. The defeater has five moves:

• Grant P1. What is metaphysically impossible is not actual. Christians agree; Aquinas holds that even omnipotence does not extend to contradictions (Summa Theologiae I q.25 a.3).
• Make "absurd" precise. It might mean strange, unimaginable, unobservable, unexplained, logically contradictory, or metaphysically impossible. Only the last two bear on existence. The other four are true of quarks, the past, other minds and the objector's own thoughts.
• Locate the burden. "God is impossible" is a strong modal claim. It needs a derivation: a contradiction among the divine attributes, or a necessary truth the existence of God would violate. Asserting it restates the conclusion as a premise.
• Apply parity. The objector's physicalism leaves intentionality, consciousness and rational normativity unexplained. Either an unexplained feature makes a view absurd, in which case physicalism is absurd, or it does not, in which case the case against God collapses into "I can't see how God works."
• Expose the modal symmetry. "God is impossible" is the exact denial of the possibility premise of the Modal Ontological Argument. Neither side wins by asserting its premise, and inconceivability is not impossibility (Kripke). The objector owes the same kind of argument he demands of the theist.

Cheatsheet

30-second reply: "I agree that nothing impossible exists. But 'God is impossible' is your conclusion wearing a premise's clothes. Show me the contradiction: which two things I say about God cannot both be true? And before you answer, remember you couldn't tell me what physical fact makes your brain state about an apple. If 'unexplained' meant 'absurd,' your own view of the mind would be dead."

Fast facts:

• The argument is valid. Never attack P1; attack P2.
• A real impossibility proof names the clash (square and circle, the Penrose triangle's corners). A feeling of strangeness proves nothing.
• The classic attempt, J. N. Findlay's 1948 "disproof," rested on the view that all necessity is just a feature of language. Kripke and Plantinga's work on metaphysical necessity removed that support.
• Specific alleged contradictions (stone paradox, omniscience and freedom, justice and mercy) are answered one by one on God is Impossible Paradox Cluster.

Counter-moves:

• He says "God is beyond our understanding, so it's empty." Reply: beyond full comprehension is not the same as contradictory. No one fully comprehends the quantum vacuum either.
• He says "an immaterial mind is absurd." Reply: that assumes physicalism, which is the point at issue. And you just told me your thought about an apple is not the apple.
• He says "I can conceive of God not existing." Reply: I can conceive of water not being H2O. Conceivability is a fallible guide in both directions.

Concessions (with their reciprocals):

• Grant: theists must show God is coherent, not just assume it. Collect: physicalists must do the same for meaning and consciousness.
• Grant: some popular descriptions of God are confused. Collect: the classical doctrine is not the popular description, and that is the one you must refute.
• Grant: the modal ontological argument does not win by asserting its possibility premise. Collect: neither does your impossibility premise.

Closing line: "You've given me a valid argument with an unsupported premise. Until you show me the contradiction, 'God is absurd' is a mood, not a proof."

Argument structure

Form

Defensive. Grant the valid form, then show that the only premise doing work is unsupported, and that the standard used to support it would also sink the objector's own view.

Premise 1, Grant the form

Affirmative case

1. Modus ponens is valid: if whatever is impossible does not exist, and God is impossible, God does not exist.
2. Classical theism has never claimed God can be contradictory. Aquinas says it is more fitting to say contradictory things cannot be done than that God cannot do them (ST I q.25 a.3).

Anticipated objections

1. "So you admit God would be refuted by any contradiction?"

Rebuttals

1. Yes, and so would any view. That is why the next step matters: a contradiction has to be produced, not announced.

Premise 2, "Absurd" needs a definition and a demonstration

Affirmative case

1. Six senses. Strange, unimaginable, unobservable, unexplained, logically contradictory, metaphysically impossible. Only the last two bear on existence.
2. The test. Can the objector state the alleged impossibility as a formal clash, where God's essential attributes entail both P and not-P? If he can, examine it on its merits. If he cannot, the charge is unestablished.
3. The wider route. Metaphysical impossibility can also be argued through theories of essence or grounding, not only formal contradiction. The objector is welcome to that route too, but it still needs premises.
4. What the classical God is. A necessary, immaterial, eternal being who is the ground of contingent existence. "Not physical" and "not in time" are not contradictory; they deny properties, they do not assert and deny the same one. See God Cannot Exist Outside Time Objection Defeater.

Anticipated objections

1. "A disembodied mind is obviously impossible."
2. "Necessary existence is meaningless; only propositions can be necessary."

Rebuttals

1. Obvious to a physicalist, because physicalism says so. That is begging the question. It also clashes with his own concession that thoughts have content no physical description yet captures. See God Cannot Be Conscious Without a Brain Objection Defeater.
2. This was Findlay's 1948 premise, drawn from the view that all necessity is linguistic. Since Kripke showed there are necessary truths discovered by investigation (water is H2O), and Plantinga developed the logic of necessary beings, the claim needs its own argument rather than being a default.

Premise 3, The objector's own unexplained items

Affirmative case

1. Intentionality. A thought about an apple is about something. The apple on the table, the brain state, and the content of the thought are three different things, and most physicalists rightly agree the first two are distinct. The open question is what physical fact makes the brain state about an apple rather than a red thing, a fruit, or nothing at all. See Intentionality.
2. Consciousness. Why physical processes are accompanied by experience at all remains, by the admission of physicalists such as David Chalmers, an unsolved problem. See Consciousness Emerges from Neurons Objection Defeater.
3. Normativity. Physics describes what happens; logic says what ought to be concluded. How the second arises from the first is contested. See Naturalistic Atheism Cannot Ground Critical Thinking.

Anticipated objections

1. "Teleosemantics explains content: a brain state means apple because of its evolved function." (Ruth Millikan, Fred Dretske)
2. "Unsolved is not unsolvable. Neuroscience is young."

Rebuttals

1. It is a serious theory, and it is a philosophical theory, not a neural observation. Critics press whether biological function fixes a determinate content (apple, or red thing, or food?) and whether it yields a standard of truth rather than of usefulness. Either way, the objector is using metaphysics to answer a hard question, which is what he refuses to let the theist do.
2. Agreed. And unexplained-but-possibly-explicable is the same status the theist claims for hard questions about God. That is the parity.

Premise 4, The parity dilemma

Affirmative case

1. Either a view with an unexplained essential feature is thereby absurd, or it is not.
2. If it is, physicalism is absurd (Premise 3).
3. If it is not, then the objector's difficulties in picturing God show nothing about God's possibility.
4. Either way, the objection fails as stated.

Anticipated objections

1. "The difference is that physicalism has a track record; God-explanations do not."
2. "This is a tu quoque, and two wrongs don't make a right."

Rebuttals

1. A track record of explaining physical mechanisms does not settle whether meaning and experience are physical mechanisms. That is the point at issue.
2. It is not "you do it too, so I'm fine." It is a test of the standard itself. A standard that would condemn the objector's own best theory is either too strict, or he must give up his theory. Either result helps the theist.

Premise 5, Modal symmetry and conceivability

Affirmative case

1. "God is possible" is the possibility premise of the Modal Ontological Argument; "God is impossible" is its denial. In S5, if a necessary being is possible it is actual, and if it is not actual it is impossible. So each side's premise is equivalent to its conclusion.
2. That means neither side can win by asserting its premise. Graham Oppy makes this point against theists; it applies equally against the objector. See Reverse Modal Ontological Argument Objection Defeater.
3. Inconceivability is a poor test of impossibility. Kripke's examples show that what seems conceivable can be impossible, and the history of physics shows that what seems inconceivable can be actual.

Anticipated objections

1. "Then you can't prove God is possible either."

Rebuttals

1. Then the honest result is that the modal argument is a draw on its own, and the case is decided by other evidence: the Contingency Argument, the Kalam Cosmological Argument, the Argument from Consciousness, the resurrection. That is a long way from "God is absurd."

Master objections

1. "Every theist argument assumes coherence, so the burden is on you." Both sides bear burdens. The theist's burden is met by giving a coherent model (Swinburne, Plantinga); the objector who says "impossible" bears the burden of the stronger claim.
2. "If God is beyond understanding, the word 'God' means nothing." Partial understanding is still understanding. We know what we mean by "necessary," "personal," "creator" without knowing everything about the one they describe (Isaiah 55:9).
3. "You're just hiding behind mystery." Mystery is not a defence against a proof; it is a reply to an assertion. Produce the proof and it will be examined.

Tactical opening and closing

Opening: "Before we go anywhere, I'll agree with your first premise. Nothing impossible exists. So the debate is your second premise. Which of God's attributes contradicts which?"

Closing: "Your thought about an apple has content you can't yet derive from physics, and you don't call your mind absurd. Extend God the same courtesy, or give me the contradiction."

Live-cite kit

Scripture:

• "To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?" (Isaiah 40:18, ASV). God is not one more object in the world, so objections that treat Him as one miss the target.
• "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9, ASV). Higher is not contradictory.
• "I AM THAT I AM" (Exodus 3:14, ASV), the text classical theism reads as God's existence belonging to His nature.

Scholarly:

• Aquinas, ST I q.25 a.3: omnipotence concerns what is possible, not contradictions.
• Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (1977): a sustained defence that the divine attributes are jointly coherent.
• Kripke, Naming and Necessity (1980): necessity is not merely verbal, and conceivability misleads.
• Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (1996): the hard problem, stated by a philosopher who is not a theist.

Aphorism: "Hard to imagine is not the same as impossible."

Connection to Scripture

Scripture expects God to exceed human comprehension without contradicting Himself. Paul praises "the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments" (Romans 11:33, ASV), and the same apostle argues that God's "invisible things" are "clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made" (Romans 1:20, ASV). The pairing is the point: God is knowable through what He made and not exhausted by it. Only the Spirit of God knows "the things of God" in full (1 Corinthians 2:11, ASV).

Patristic and scholarly note

Anselm's Proslogion (1078) frames God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived, and Gaunilo's reply began a thousand-year argument about whether such a concept is coherent. Aquinas set the rule both sides still use: a genuine contradiction is not a "thing" God fails to do, so an alleged impossibility must be shown to be a real contradiction before it counts. In the twentieth century, Findlay's 1948 paper argued that a necessary being is absurd; the revival of metaphysical necessity in Kripke and Plantinga is the main reason that argument is now rarely pressed in that form, while atheist philosophers such as Mackie and Oppy shifted to evidential and parity-based cases instead.

Scholarship

Published academic works this page draws on, each matched to a publisher, index or library catalog record.

• David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Oxford University Press, 1996). Open Library
• J. N. Findlay, "V.,Can God'S Existence Be Disproved?" Mind Lvii (1948). doi:10.1093/mind/lvii.226.176
• Saul A. Kripke, Naming and necessity (Harvard University Press, 1980). Open Library
• J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of theism (1982). Open Library
• Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (Oxford University Press, 2012). doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199919758.001.0001
• Graham Oppy, Arguing about Gods (Cambridge University Press, 2006). doi:10.1017/cbo9780511498978
• Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Clarendon Press, 1974). Open Library
• Richard Swinburne, The coherence of theism (1977). Open Library

See also

• God is Impossible Paradox Cluster, answers to nine specific alleged contradictions in the divine attributes
• Metaphysical vs Logical Modality, the kinds of possibility the objection runs together
• Intentionality, the "aboutness" of thought behind the parity move
• Consciousness Emerges from Neurons Objection Defeater, the companion reply on emergence
• Modal Ontological Argument and Reverse Modal Ontological Argument Objection Defeater, the modal symmetry
• Define the God You Deny (Debate Traps), including the absent-versus-impossible fork
• God Cannot Exist Outside Time Objection Defeater, on timeless existence
• Concepts Do Not Exist Objection Defeater, the related claim about non-physical realities