Would the world be better off witout a concept of God?

On another forum in which to which I contribute, a question arose regarding philosopher Peter Kreeft’s thought experiment where he asks us to consider what the world would be like if no one had ever conceived of the idea of God. The question was: without a concept of God, would humanity as a whole be better or worse off?


By way of responding to this question, let us begin by asking what concept should we take as the definitive understanding of God? Is it that of Vishnu or Hari, the Superior Reality, the all-pervasive Lord who expands into everything? Is it the Greek God Zeus, God of gods, who thought nothing of copulating with mortal women and who, through the midwife Maia, produced Hermes, messenger of the gods, and from whose head emerged Athena? Is it Aristotle’s ‘primum mobile immotum’ ,the ‘first unmoved mover’: the roi fainéant, the nothing king who reigns but does not rule: a god whose only occupation is to contemplate the essence of things? Is it the God of Islam: a god who rewards those warriors who die so that others might know the true way with maidens who save their honour for this worthy cause? Is it the pantheistic God of Spinoza, or the God of Moses and the Old Testament: the all powerful jealous and angry God who demanded complete allegiance to his whims and commandments? Or is it the God of the New Testament, the God of Jesus who, whilst seemingly benign, still insists that the only way to salvation was through him? Whilst all these divinities are revered in their own way by their own adherents, for Peter Kreeft it is the God of Catholicism – the God of the New Testament - for whom he is an apologist. Now while Kreeft’s position may be admirable to those who share or are persuaded by his views, to the philosophy his 20 ways of proving the existence of God are little more than a rehashing of the same arguments extended by Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes and others –all arguments, that is, that have been found to be rationally or philosophically unsustainable. Although Kreeft accepts that science cannot prove the existence of God, he argues that it is possible to just know something without necessarily being able to prove it. This, of course, places him in the company of flat-earthists, and those who insisted that the earth is the centre of the universe.

Let us pause for a moment to consider what recent history tells us of this world of Kreeft’s God. By coincidence I have just returned from visiting the graves of those slaughtered on the battle fields of Flanders during the 1st World War, in this God’s world. In my lifetime I can recall the horrors that humans perpetrated against other humans during the 2nd World War, in Kreeft’s God’s world. I have lived at the time of the Vietnam War, of the genocide of the ‘Killing Fields’ of Cambodia, of Chechnya, Rwanda, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, East Timor, and many many more troubled lands, all which have taken place in Kreeft’s God’s world. I live in a country that, over many centuries, has been constantly torn apart by religious differences of people who, paradoxically, all believe in the same God; I have grown up in a country whose indigenous people still carry the emotional scars of a famine that reduced its population from 8 million to little more than 3 million in less than 3 years; I have learned of the misery visited on this God’s creatures by earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and other ‘natural disasters’; I have visited ‘Ground Zero’, site of the place where the planes destroyed the iconic Twin Towers in New York; against this act of terror, and I have witnessed counter acts which, rather than punishing the perpetrators, have terrorized and destroyed the lives of innocent men, women, and children – all in Kreeft’s God’s world. I have watched those close to me struggle and win their battle against cancer and other terminal diseases, and I have seen others close to me fight the same fight and lose - all in Kreeft’s God’s world. And I have seen how leaders of the Catholic Church have for too long not only ignored the cries for justice of victims of child physical and sexual abuse by its own clergy, but also how they actively moved to protect those guilty of these crimes by moving them to parishes and/or institutions where they were free to continue their heinous practices – in Kreeft’s God’s world. And you ask if the world would be better or worse without such a God.

So let us return to the question at hand. It should not come as a surprise to learn that there are systems of beliefs that do not look to other worldly entities for social values and moral guidance. Buddhism, for example, whilst its adherents follow strict ethical guidelines, is known as the religion without a God. Secular humanists, who espouse reason, ethics and human fulfillment, make the case that humans can be ethical and moral without religion – or God; and believe it or not it is actually possible for atheists and agnostics to live perfectly moral lives without seeking direction from religion and its gods.

So what do I think of a world in which values are grounded in common sense rather than superstition? What do I think of a world built on reason rather than the imagined whims of an imagined transcendent deity? What do I think of a world in which humans, rather than attempting to conceive that which is unconceivable, would be better occupied addressing themselves to the study of the human world: the laws, institutions, customs and practices that are germane to this world rather than the next? And what do I think of a world built on pragmatism, tolerance, pluralism, and mutual respect? You know what, not only do I think that it couldn’t be worse, I actually think that it might even be better.