Who is the Atheist?
What do we mean by the word "God"?
Who is the Atheist? [1]
It is commonly stated that atheists deny the existence of God. But what exactly is meant by the term "God"? A glance at the dictionary would define it as the "supreme being." Once the word's meaning is clarified, another question arises: who is God? What is the true God? To whom does the predicate "God" apply? What characteristics must a being possess to be appropriately called God? Why does it deserve the name "God"? After all, there is the possibility of calling something "God" that is not truly God.
The atheist refuses to use the word God and closes himself to understanding it. For him, it is a word devoid of meaning, a term that designates something that does not exist and holds no interest. Others associate this word with various meanings: man, consciousness, the self, being, thought, the world, the universe, the absolute, the infinite, the indeterminate, the mystery, the totality, evolution, and history.
In rejecting what is truly absolute and divine, the atheist absolutizes the relative and the created. His need for the absolute, eternal, and infinite is futilely satisfied by the relative, finite, and temporal. He builds upon sand instead of rock. His "god" becomes the prevailing wind or the day's trend. He relies on what passes as if it were permanent.
The atheist is not without God, but against God. Atheism is not a theoretical position, but a practical one. It does not depend on the intellect but on the will. The atheist understands the proofs of God's existence but refuses to consider them. He knows that God exists, but he does not reflect upon it.
There is a difference between defining the meaning of "God" and asking, "Who is God?" In this regard, the Bible asks what God's "name" is because " name " refers to God's essence. Thus, it is as if one were asking what God's essence is. Can we define God's essence?
The word "God" is not necessary to refer to the supreme being, to name God. In the Chinese language, for example, God is referred to by the word "Tien," meaning "heaven." But how do we know that this refers to God? Because the heavens evoke attributes such as height, greatness, vastness, power, immutability, transparency, eternity, and luminosity—qualities that are divine. The word "God" itself derives from the Sanskrit root dib, meaning "light," an image of knowledge or truth.
The most proper name is the Hebrew name "Yahweh," a contraction of ehieh asher ehieh ("I Am Who Am"). In the Bible, God names Himself and defines Himself: "I Am." Thus, as St. Thomas concludes, God is "the very being that subsists in itself" (ipsum esse per se subsistens).
Once we have called God the supreme being, or, as St. Anselm does, "that than which nothing greater can be thought" (id quo nihil maius cogitari potest), or, as the Catechism of St. Pius X states, "the most perfect being," we can say: certainly, such a being is imaginable, it is conceivable, and it is not impossible.
But does He exist? How do we know? How was this concept achieved? Is there something real, something existing, that we can call by the name of God? The answer is yes, because, when we inquire into the causes of things, we discover that there truly exists a supreme and perfect being, the highest and greatest, the first cause.
Thus, if we call God the supreme and perfect being, we must say that having discovered and proven the existence of a first cause, we realize that this cause can only be what we call God, the supreme being. To say "supreme being," "highest," or "perfect" and to say "first cause" are the same thing.
For this reason, St. Thomas, after proving that a first cause exists, declares that this is God, and he can call it God, starting from the fact that by the word God, we mean the supreme being, and the first cause is, indeed, the supreme being.
Thus, we have both the word God and the concept of God. With the word, we signify the concept, and with the concept, the reality of God. Now, when the atheist says that God does not exist, he means that God is not a reality but merely an imagination, an imaginary and purely mental being, with no correspondence to the external reality, a mental entity invented by man. For the atheist, the theist believes in something that does not exist, thereby confusing reality with imagination.
Everyone Knows That God Exists
The properly functioning human reason, spontaneously and necessarily, as it experiences things when it perceives that they are caused, immediately questions their sufficient and proportionate cause—i.e., from the effect, it traces back to the cause.
Kant fails to rationally prove the existence of God because he starts from a mistaken concept of reason, one that cannot transcend phenomena and does not apply the principle of causality based on the experience of things, rising to that of the spirit, for God is spirit.
As St. Paul says, our reason, by considering the works of God, rises from them to contemplate the invisible perfections of God with the intellect (cf. Rom 1:20).
Or, as the Book of Wisdom states, "From the greatness and beauty of the creatures, by analogy, the Creator is known" (Wis 13:5). It is about tracing "from visible goods to He who is," meaning understanding that the visible being is the proof of the existence of He who exists by essence. It is about tracing from the works to the artist.
This means that, according to Wis 13:5, everyone knows how to apply the principle of causality in an analogical sense. Just as from the consideration of a human work one understands that there is the artisan who produced it, so by analogy, from the consideration of things, one understands that they are created by God. Thus, according to Scripture, everyone knows that God exists and that they must give an account to Him for their actions to receive eternal reward or eternal punishment.
In this passage, Scripture first clarifies what kind of being deserves to be called "God": it is not enough to be a simple visible being. It is not enough to be man, the world, living creatures, or the heavens. These beings are not yet God; they are not the supreme being because they are not the first cause.
The Bible does not discuss divine causality in the same manner as Aristotle, but it is clear that the Hebrew verb bara corresponds to the analogical concept of causality. This concept includes both created causation (to make) and divine causation (to create).
Secondly, the Bible reveals that the first cause, God, should be understood as spirit, as a person endowed with intellect and will—a person who conceives an action, desires to bring it into existence, and accomplishes it with free will.
Thirdly, the Bible teaches that the divine artisan produces the work in its entirety, ex nihilo, unlike human artisans who create works using pre-existing materials that they did not produce themselves.
Fourthly, the Bible indicates that the work of the divine artisan is analogous to the artisan himself. This is why it says that God created man in His image and likeness—thus, by knowing man, one can come to know God, his Creator.
This leads to the possibility of dialogue between man and God, much as two persons would converse with one another. The atheist, however, finds himself engaged only in dialogues with other human beings and refuses the dialogue with God. But with what wisdom, if God is his Creator and Savior?
Nevertheless, one must avoid excessive reverence for humanity and refrain from thinking of man as God. Atheism, such as that of Marx, can be understood as a false deification of man.
It is a grave error to believe that God is against man and that His laws prevent man from being free and from making laws for himself. The atheist does not understand that true freedom lies in obedience to God. Just as a machine functions best when it operates according to the design established by its Creator, man is a free agent, not a mere mechanism.
St. Thomas and the First Cause
To prove God's existence, St. Thomas introduces the issue of the infinite regress in causality. The reason asks about the cause of a cause and excludes the possibility of an infinite regress. As Aristotle had already observed, one must stop at a first, uncaused cause. St. Thomas observes that it is true that caused beings are causes, but to explain the totality of things and causes, a sufficiently explanatory first cause, one that is uncaused, is required. God causes everything but is not caused by anyone.
The atheist, on the other hand, accepts only caused causes and is content with them, as though they were sufficiently explanatory. He halts his reasoning midway, preventing it from reaching its ultimate goal—the discovery of God, where reason finds peace and satisfaction.
As for the Scriptures, they do not present the intricate question of the infinite regress, which is not strictly necessary. The Bible, written for all people, not just philosophers, aims for what is essential and shows a path that all can understand and walk. It reminds us that the artisan produces a work, and upon seeing the work, we understand that it must have an author. Thus, the first proposition of Scripture: "God created the heavens and the earth," meaning all things depend on Him.
An important question is how to identify the true God, among the many propositions of various religions and philosophies—He who alone and fully deserves to be called by this unique and sacred name, "the name above all names," as the Bible says. It is the question of divine names or attributes. What is the criterion for judging this?
What is fitting and what is not fitting for God? What can and what should we say about Him, and what should we avoid saying? This is the issue of theology, of speaking about God. Or perhaps it is better to remain silent, as Dionysius the Areopagite, Heidegger, and Buddhists suggest? But what if God spoke of Himself?
Is God only in us, or is He also outside of us? Does God change? Does He become? Is He only spirit, or also matter? Does He desire only good, or also evil? Does God suffer? Can He exist without the world? Is the world the appearance of God, or is God distinct from the world? Does He identify with the man?
The answers to these questions shape more or less accurate or defective concepts of God. The atheist denies all attributes of God because he denies the very subject.
For the Bible, the atheist is not one who, in good faith, does not know that God exists, nor one who, due to intellectual limits, cannot recognize through reasoning that God exists. Nor is he one who mistakenly confuses the creature with the Creator. No; if he does this, he does it deliberately, because he prefers the creature to God.
This does not mean that there are no errors regarding God. However, each person can correct themselves to stand before God's judgment, where He is recognized in His identity—God is perfectly recognizable, identifiable, and distinguishable from any other being—without risk of confusion or mistake.
In the history of human thought, there have been many deceptive doctrines about God—many forms of atheism, skepticism, idealism, materialism, idolatry, polytheism, pantheism, panentheism, and agnosticism. But in our innermost being, each of us is in a relationship with God, whether we love Him or not.
A subtle but important matter of discernment in theological practice is the ability to distinguish between divine and demonic inspiration. The devil himself may suggest the validity of atheism. The atheist believes he is following his conscience, but in reality, he may be following the devil without realizing it. The gods of the pagans, according to Scripture, are demons. The Greek word daimon means both "god" and "demon." Idolatry, for Scripture, is the worship of the creature in place of the Creator, but behind this lies the worship of demons.
Atheism is not so much an intellectual conviction, but rather a practical choice. The atheist is the first to know that his claim that God does not exist is unsubstantiated. What we can do is only willfully avert our gaze from God—not wanting to see Him or meet Him. His paradise does not interest the atheist. Hell is nothing other than the place where those go who wish to stay far from God, just as one would flee from a hated person.
No one can claim in good faith that God does not exist and be excused on the Day of Judgment for not knowing this. The Bible teaches us that everybody comes to know this through simple reasoning, which both the Book of Wisdom and St. Paul direct us to.
Finally, it is necessary to distinguish between an explicit knowledge of God and an implicit knowledge of God. Whoever loves and serves their neighbor sincerely, according to their real needs, even without a clear idea of God, is already pleasing to God, as is evident from Matthew 25:31-46. On the other hand, one can know perfectly well that God exists and be familiar with all the divine attributes as St. Thomas knew them, but if they do not love their neighbor, it will not only avail them anything but they will be punished more severely.
The most significant figure of atheism is certainly Karl Marx. His atheism can be summarized in two points. The first is that man does not need any God to help him free himself from his miseries, as he is perfectly capable of liberating himself from his slavery by his means. This is because man himself is God, a self-subsistent being ("man is God for man"). The absolute being that the Bible attributes to God, Marx attributes to man.
The second is the hypocrisy of occupying oneself with the oppressed, not out of mercy and compassion, but because, for him, the oppressed are those oppressed by God. He intends to liberate man from God. The God of religion, in fact, for Marx, is an otherworldly, celestial, omnipotent but non-existent and imaginary entity invented by the oppressors (priests and capitalists) to keep the oppressed in a condition of oppression, so that they will not rebel, but instead endure patiently in the hope that they will be comforted in heaven after death.
P. Giovanni Cavalcoli OP
Fontanellato, November 19, 2024
source:
https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/normal-0-14-false-false-false-it-x-none_20.html
Note:
Article published in Italian on Substack by Aurelio Porfiri.
