Abstractions Aren’t Answers

One reason abstractions are offered is because they are thought to answer important ultimate questions. People wonder where everything came from, want to know how humans have moral values, and so on. So they take what they know, work backwards from there, and reach a point where they conclude the buck has to stop. There they posit God. But it turns out that every answer of this type is no answer at all—since it fails to explain God.    

Take the problem of creation. If the universe needs a cause, such as God, why doesn’t God also need a cause? On the other hand, if something can be uncaused, why can’t that be the universe as easily as God? Some argue that perhaps the universe exists in the realm of causality but God doesn’t. But if God is outside causality, then he not only isn’t caused by anything, he also can’t cause anything. Therefore he can’t create a universe. In sum, the whole idea of a “first cause” is either useless or makes no sense.

Another example was provided centuries ago by Plato in his Socratic dialogue called Euthyphro. In this dialogue, Socrates is made to point out that, if one calls God good, there must be some standard of the good that is higher than God. This standard must be the benchmark against which we measure God’s performance and then judge him good. On the other hand, if we aren’t supposed to judge God because God is the source of goodness itself, then God can’t be good or bad. Whatever God wants constitutes the definition of “good,” no matter what it is. And “evil” is whatever God opposes. So the definition starts with God and therefore can’t be used to describe God. But good and evil are now just God’s whims—which are no different from our own whims. This means there is no higher standard of the good, and we haven’t solved the problem of where ideas of good and evil come from. Put more simply, if we need God to tell us what is good, who told God what is good?