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If There Were No God...
by L Cruz IIIWhile this article may be short in length, it will hopefully inspire deeper understandings. Let us examine a simple yet profound quote by GK Chesterton.
"If there were no God, there would be no Atheists."
Yes…the quote is a favorite of mine. Not only is it funny, I believe that if one reflects upon its deeper meanings, a sense of divine-gift status sneaks into view.
As far as I can tell this quote comes with two powerful arguments; one from origin and one from intellect.
The Argument from Origin
The argument from a position of origin is likely the first message most of us spot. It is one position that is contingent upon an already established theistic position.
The reasoning goes something like this:
If God had not created the all of creation then people would not exist. If people did not exist, then people who call themselves atheists would not exist either. In other words, "if there were no God, there would be no atheists."
Like I said, this position is likely most noticeable to those who already believe in God.
The Argument from Intellect
I consider this perspective a bit more fascinating. It uses words that unavoidably point to deeper intellectual truths.
Consider for a moment the word nothing.
Can you picture, within your mind, complete and utter nothingness ? What does that picture look like? Is it black? Is it big? Is it small?
The fact is that if you pictured anything at all then you were not picturing nothing. A picture (whether physical or nonphysical) is clearly something.
The truth is that no matter how hard we try, contemplations about nothingness will always be devoid of void.
We are so unable to envision what “nothing” means that the word requires the positing of a thing (“thing”) so we can remove it again (“no”): “no-thing…nothing.”
We cannot envision a realm devoid of existence. Better yet, we cannot envision a world devoid of envisioning.
Now let us consider the word atheist. There are striking similarities between the word atheist and the word nothing .
The root “theo” or "theos" means “God.” From “theo” we get words like theology, theist and polytheist. The prefix “a” or “an” means “not or without.” By combining both we get the word a (without) theist (God)...atheist .”
Like the word nothing which requires the positing of a “thing” and the removal of it, the word atheist requires the positing of “Theo” (God) and the removal of Him.
No matter how matter how hard we may try to rationalize God away...no matter how convincing our arguments may be, the concept of an existence without things is as impossible to conceive of as the concept of an existence without God.
"If there were no God, there would be no Atheists."
GK Chesterton.