Do All Atheists Deny the Same God?

Last updated on: December 27, 2015 at 9:49 am by Roger E. Olson

Do All Atheists Deny the Same God? 2015-12-27T09:49:58-05:00 Roger E. Olson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Recently here (December, 2015) I have discussed the controversial question whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God and the not-so-controversial question (that perhaps should be controversial) whether all Christians worship the same God. Now I’ll turn to a question I’ve never heard asked but interests me and I think should interest all thinking people. Do all atheists deny the same God?

First of all, let’s carefully examine the concept of “atheism.” The literal meaning is “without belief in God.” However, over time, at least in the West (Europe and North America), it has come to refer to denial of the existence of God. That is to distinguish it from “agnosticism” which is denial of knowledge of God. Atheism, as popularly understood anyway, affirms that God does not exist; atheists claim to know that or at last strongly believe that. Agnosticism, as popularly understood anyway, affirms that either 1) the agnostic does not know whether God exists (soft agnosticism), or 2) knowledge that God exists is impossible (hard agnosticism). The difference between atheism and agnosticism, at least among philosophers and religion scholars, lies in what is being denied. I could go on parsing the differences, but that should suffice for now.

Second, let’s carefully examine what atheists do believe in. All atheists I know (have read, have talked to) believe in nature, the cosmos ruled by natural laws in principle discoverable and understood by science. The “in principle” is important; many atheists would not claim that science has understood or ever will completely understand the cosmos exhaustively. The point is that it is in principle understandable by observation by anyone with the right tools and a working set of senses and mental activity. In other words, there is no “secret,” nothing ultimately mysterious, esoteric or ineffable that requires special revelation to be known or understood.

Many atheists, however, especially those who ascribe to secular humanism, argue that there is one exception to this epistemological rule (within which is a metaphysical view of reality). That is the human person. Somehow, in a way we do not yet fully understand and may never fully understand, freedom for self-transcendence has arisen within the cosmos. Humans are, like everything else in reality, products of nature, but they represent a “leap,” as it were, upward and forward into self-consciousness, ability to reason, and freedom to discover and create. All that means they are also responsible in a way non-human animals (to say nothing of minerals and plants) are not.

The question whether all atheists deny the same God is rarely asked. In fact, I’ve never heard it asked! That’s probably because people, atheists and theists alike, assume that atheists deny any and every God. However, whenever I have read atheists’ books and essays or engaged with atheists in conversation about God I have found uniformly the God they deny has a certain nature and character. Always, in my experience, the God they deny is something like the God of traditional Western philosophical-theological theism: the transcendent, even supernatural, all-determining Supreme Being of the “Abrahamic traditions” as defined or described by their traditional orthodoxies.

The problem is, of course, that is only one concept of God (and there is variety of interpretation about it even among orthodox Jews, Christians, Muslims and Baha’is!). All one has to do to know there are radically different concepts of God from that one (in all its forms) is to peruse books like Philosophers Speak of God by Charles Hartshorne and William L. Reese (University of Chicago Press, 1953, 1976)—a classic study of radically different ideas of God. Chapter III “Classical Theism” describes “God as Eternal Consciousness, Knowing [but Not Including] the World.” IN that chapter Hartshorne and Reese, two very well-known philosophers of religion, discuss Philo, Augustine, Anselm, Al-Ghazzali, Maimonides, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Channing and von Hügel. However, that is only one chapter in a book of 535 double columned pages! Other chapters various forms of pantheism (e.g., Spinoza), extreme temporalistic theism (Wieman), emanationism (Plotinus). In other words, for religion scholars, including many philosophers of religion, including many non-Christians, “God” is not a simple idea. Over the centuries even of Western culture many philosophers, including the “God-drunk” Jewish philosopher Spinoza, confessed belief in a God nothing like the God of Western classical theism as expounded by the orthodox theologians of the Abrahamic faiths.

So, when an atheists tells me he (or she) believes no God (or gods) exists I have to ask “Which God or gods are you denying?” The usual answer is, of course, “Any and all.” Okay, but I still have to ask “Have you considered all concepts of God so that you know you are really denying ‘any and all’?” At this point it’s important to remember that an atheist is not merely an agnostic. An agnostic would simply say “Well, I don’t think it’s possible for humans to know….” An atheist is dogmatically asserting that nothing worthy of the label “God” exists. So an informed atheist, one, for example who has read a book like Philosophers Speak of God, might say “Whatever someone calls ‘God’ does not exist.” But what if someone, like Spinoza, calls nature itself “God” but, unlike the atheist, simply believes nature has a spiritual depth dimension to it that reason itself can discover? Has the atheist considered that possibility? Or what about Alfred North Whitehead’s or Charles Hartshorne’s non-theistic or neo-theistic concept of God that requires no special revelation to know and understand and does not in any way conflict with modern science? Many, perhaps most, followers of process thought call it a “naturalistic theism.”

So, in my humble opinion, for what it’s worth, most atheists have not even considered all concepts of God and therefore are exercising hubris in adamantly denying all—if that’s even what they are doing!

In my opinion, which I cannot prove, most if not all atheists in Europe and America are reacting to a certain idea of God which they have come to associate with all ideas of God even though, insofar as they are educated, they should know that is not the only idea of God. I find this especially the case among the so-called “New Atheists” whose books are so highly touted in recent decades. When I read them I can easily detect they are reacting against an idea of God as the transcendent, supernatural, personal, all-determining reality who exercises omnicausality. Even many devout Christians do not believe in such a God.

Also, many, perhaps most contemporary Western atheists believe in a mysterious reality called “free will” and they mean it in the libertarian sense of “power of contrary choice.” They realize that it is necessary for self-transcendence and responsibility. And yet, there is something supernatural about every act of libertarian free will. By definition it cannot be simply the product of chemical interactions in the brain. If it were that or anything like that, of course, humans would not be special—“above” animals (unless there were a God to say so). Could scientific observation and examination alone ever exhaustively explain why all people do what they do without appealing to something beyond science’s own ken? I don’t think so.

My point is, of course, that belief in libertarian free will, power of contrary choice, and especially in self-transcendence, implies something supernatural—whether someone is willing to call it that or not.

Then, of course, there is the point made by Martin Luther and repeated (in his own way) by Paul Tillich—that everyone has a god insofar as he or she has something that concerns him or her ultimately. And everyone does have an ultimate concern in or about something. In this way of looking at things, a naturalist, someone who believes nature is all there is, invests in nature (or in himself or herself) ultimate concern and therefore god-status. More likely, however, in the case of the sensitive, caring, thinking self-proclaimed atheist, humanity is endowed with god-like status in the sense of the well-being of humanity becomes his or her ultimate concern. The question then, of course, becomes “Why?” Why not live for self-interest alone if there is nothing eternal, transcendent, above and beyond nature who cares and to whom you are accountable? The only answer an atheist can give is “Because your well-being is ultimately tied to the well-being of humanity.” But suppose the hedonist, locked into radical eudemonism, simply says “I don’t believe that?” Very many people in this world seem to live quite happy and seemingly fulfilled lives on the basis of individual hedonism. (Just watch some of the programs on, for example, HGTV where wealthy people from the U.S., Canada or Europe spend millions of dollars buying “vacation homes” on beaches in Central American countries where thousands of children are hungry and homeless.) The true hedonist’s god is his or her own fulfillment—however that may be defined. And that’s difficult to refute—as ethically wrong–if nature is truly all there is.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

December 24, 2015

Denomination of the Week: The Church with No Name (The Truth/Two By Twos)

Next Post

December 29, 2015 Advice I Will Give My Grandson When He Is Twelve (Like Tamir Rice Was)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Against Liberal Theology Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Christian group believes in "baptism of the Holy Spirit" with evidence of speaking in tongues?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Pentecostals Methodists Lutherans Presbyterians