just finished reading David Bentley
hearts a great book called the
experience of God being consciousness
and bliss it's a wonderful book at many
levels but I think the signal
contribution is his clarification of
what serious theists mean when they use
the word God you know a lot of kind of
conversation between theists and
atheists today and they both use the
word God but the trouble is as hard
points out there's just a massive
equivocation the same words being used
but in very different senses it's not so
much that Christopher Hitchens and
Richard Dawkins are seriously engaging
Thomas Aquinas it's rather that though
they use the same word namely God they
really have no idea what Aquinas means
when he uses the word God now here's the
thing the new atheist to a person
believed that God is some reality in the
world or alongside the world or above
the world God is the supreme instance if
you want of the category being all kinds
of beings around God's the supreme
instance of the category or genus of
being well that's exactly what God is
not according to Thomas Aquinas Thomas
couldn't be clearer he says that God is
not in any genus even that most generic
of genera namely being he say well isn't
God at least a type of being and
Thomas's beguiling answer is no he's not
God's not a thing or an individual
whether God is and Thomas's a pithy
Latin if some sa subsistence which means
the subsistent act of to be itself God
is not an item within the world all the
New Atheists believe that some version
of it I call it of course the yetee
theory of God some people say there is a
Yeti Bigfoot some say there isn't let's
go find out some believe it some don't
as precisely
God is not some item within nature
within the world rather God is that
great ocean of existence from which the
world in its entirety comes not
something in the world but the condition
for the possibility of the world that's
God you know one way to get at this too
is to distinguish between God capital G
and the gods go back to the old you know
Greek and Roman myths or Mis of any
culture really gods
you know the gods are supreme instances
of let's say the human type so look at
the great Greek and Roman gods they're
like super humans who they're immortal
may have you know super minds and superb
skills and powers but they are finally
beings in the world living up on Mount
Olympus or down on the sea or up in the
sky or something there are supreme
instances of the human or the or the
natural they're not strictly speaking
supernatural they exist as denizens
within nature this is why we can say
legitimately that the sciences the
modern Sciences have indeed eliminated
the gods so with our scientific
equipment and our great scientific
spirit we've explored the heavens and we
explored mountaintops and the depths of
the ocean and indeed we haven't found
supreme beings around more to it the
modern physical sciences have managed to
explain most physical phenomena we don't
have to appeal to extraneous causes of
supernatural divine causes that's true
if by divine you mean the gods the
sciences have indeed eliminated the gods
but here's Hart's point and a point I
want to underscore the sciences in
principle cannot eliminate God because
God is not an item within the natural
world God is not some event or phenomena
that can be examined by the physical
sciences he's not the subject or object
of an experiment even in principle
the sciences can't eliminate God they
can't address the question of God that's
why the famous story of the Russian
cosmonaut going up into the heavens and
saying well I've looked all around and
there's no God well he was speaking so
much nonsense it was simply a category
error if he had changed the capital G to
a small G fair enough I'm up in the sky
and there are no gods great that's fine
science can do that but it can't even
begin to address the question of God
seeing this why - you hear the new
atheist say like man will say well what
the advance of the science is religion
retreats to ever smaller bits of
intellectual turf no it does not because
this is not a zero-sum game this is not
a battle between equals it's addressing
reality and entirely different levels
the advance of the sciences can never
threaten authentic religion it's also
why it's so silly for people to say
produce evidence for God see it's the
Yeti theory against oh well is there
evidence well there's a big footprint
and there are some sign that the Bigfoot
might be around
well you don't produce evidence like
that for the creator of the entire
universe you don't use the scientific
method to get at questions of God again
it's simply a category error and that's
what Hart's book is very good at at
pointing out so how do you get at the
true God so what is the right way to do
it and again hard here I think is very
interesting authentic religion will
often begin in this extraordinary
experience an experience of the
contingency of the world what does that
mean it means this deep sense intuition
the world exists it doesn't have to
exist things are but they don't have to
be they don't carry within themselves
the reason for their own existence now
look at a very particular case the
camera that's now recording me so it
exists certainly but how's it exist
through the power its own essence well
hardly that camera exists because of a
whole slew of engineers and designers
and scientists and manufacture
put it together more to it even now it
exists because of its molecular
structure its atomic structure its
subatomic structure if you take those
away the camera would even s the point
is it's surrounded extrinsically and
it's grounded intrinsically in all sorts
of causes that bring it into being that
allow it to be now keep musing in that
direction as Bentley heart urges us to
do all the things I just mentioned all
those designers and scientists and
technicians all those those lower levels
of physical reality are themselves
contingent they don't contain within
themselves the reason for there being an
endless appeal to contingent causes is
not going to answer our question of why
that camera exists rather now
philosophers do it in a very explicit
way I would say ordinary believers do it
in a very implicit way we know there's
some reality whose very nature is to be
that infinite source of reality which
grounds and gives rise to the whole
nexus of condition things in you we live
and move and have our being we say in
the liturgy and that's the poetic
expression of this philosophical
intuition that's God that's the true God
is the non conditioned and
non-contingent ground of contingency put
it religious language that's the creator
of the heavens and the earth you see
again that's the distinction between God
and anything in the world between the
properly supernatural and anything
within nature it's why the sciences try
as they might cannot even begin to
address this question now let me just
close with this because Hart's book
which I like in so many ways trigger
this in my mind many times because I
find it in my dialogues with people on
the Internet
yes I find the atheists who often claim
we're the most rational you really just
people believe in your magical thinking
and your
you're caught in these old superstitions
and we're the real rationalist around
here I always tease them and say you
drop the question just when it gets
really interesting
yes scientific questions are fascinating
I agree with you follow them all the way
but the really interesting question is
why is there something rather than
nothing why does the world exist at all
why is there the realm of nature why is
there the nexus of contingent things
now that's nursing question and what do
I get from the Atheist time and again I
don't know it just is or my favorite it
popped out of nothing and I'm getting
accused of magical thinking David
Bentley Hart I think helps us to clarify
enormously what's at stake here and why
the question of God remains the most
beguiling question on the team