God Is Real But Not Existing!

Author: Walter Nuñez

As of this writing, there are about 150 million more or so strong or weak atheists in the world. Strong or weak atheists alike would like to believe that there is not a thing as existing as God. In general, an atheist is a person who disbelieves in or denies the existence of God.  In particular, a strong atheist is someone who strongly or positively disbelieves in or denies the existence of God. The likes of which is a hard atheist to the core, closely resembling to a religious fanatic.  Whereas, a weak atheist is more of a misnomer and a contradiction, in the sense that they only lack a belief in the existence of God rather than categorically denies such existence. Hence, it is more closely related to agnosticism than atheism. The latter, then is deemed to walk in contradiction.

An atheist is grounded on its so called “system of belief”. One could not understand what an atheist is, unless one considers what  atheism is. Atheism is derived from the Greek word “atheos” which means “without a God.” More properly, it is the doctrine that there is no God. Mind you, it is not only the religious that has a doctrine to speak of, even atheist for that matter has one. This may not sound agreeable to an atheist, but like it or not, that’s a fact! A doctrine is “a body of principles presented for acceptance or belief, as by a religious, political, or philosophic group”. It comes from the Latin word “doctrina” meaning: “teaching.” Well, so much for atheist and atheism!

Now, let us go and focus our concentration to the heart of the matter. When an atheist alleges that God does not exist, he may, in fact, unwittingly, speak of the truth. For in truth and in fact, God is not existing as anybody or anything else is existing, like you and me and all the things around us. God has a different level of existence, if I may venture to speak of, that is far beyond the mind could ever grasp and fathom. But, be that as it may, the concept of God which is intelligible is capable of being accessed with reason and faith, or better yet through “reasoned faith.” For want of a better term, “faith illuminated with reason.”

As you can see, faith is not as the poetic definition provides which is merely believing of things that cannot be seen. Faith is an all encompassing term that we use it all our lives as long as we live but tend to sidestep it that it is there! Faith is an existential contract between you and me against nature and the world. Simply put, absolutely everything that we do and we do not do with each of our lives, presupposes the necessity of faith. Faith, in the words of the great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, is an “existential certitude or trust”.

On the other hand, just when can we say that something as God is existing? Or, do we even know what it takes for something as God to exist? Well, to tell you the startling truth: God is not existing but, nonetheless, very real. To say that something exists necessitates a beginning or cause of its existence. But to say this of God is deemed inapplicable, because God has no beginning, the cause of His existence is not caused by anything or anyone outside of Himself. God is the “uncaused cause” Therefore, God does not exist, in the usual sense of the word.

On the contrary, God is very real. Reason itself affirms its reality. Reality is what it is regardless if someone perceives it or not through the five senses. For something to be real, it may not necessarily be perceived at all as in by our sense perception. What it needs is it must be so conceived or processed in the mind through the scientific methodology, by means of a priori or deductive reasoning. An a priori reasoning means ” From a known or assumed cause to a necessarily related effect”. Or, “Based on theory rather than experiment.” As in any other scientific facts, it conceived to exist by way of its perceived effects or through its trail left in its path as it tries to impress an effect on the natural world. That’s how we deduced the truth of the reality of elementary particles like “quarks,” and other exotic particles like dark matter and dark energy. Through, its effects we know that it is objectively real. So like God we know for certain that He is real by virtue of its effects imprinted on the creation and origin of the world and the universe.

How can we know this for certain? Because as the fundamental law of physics provides there is a tendency of matter not to move unless it is moved by the same outside force. Fact is: everything around us from the small scale to the large scale structures of the universe is in constant motion. As the “law of enertia” states: for something to be set in motion, it requires a Force outside of itself (the system). The underlying reason here is a thing cannot be a cause of itself or for that matter a cause of its own motion. Since, everything requires an input outside from itself in order for it to be set in motion.

Ergo, the system, being referred here is  the universe, and the outside force being alluded to in the language of religion is “God”.

Or, it could be called by any other names depending on which language games (how a language is used in one’s disciplines) one plays. In general, in the words of philosophy, it is called as the “first cause”, in particular, in metaphysics, it is called as the “ultimate cause of being or reality”. But whatever it’s called, in the context of different language games, one knows that it refers only to one and the same thing: God.

God is real but not existing!