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God is such a vague word that it’s hard to have meaningful conversations about belief in it or its existence. The god proposed by philosophers has very different qualities to the god proposed by theologians. Not to mention the god proposed by Spinoza and the like. Of course, even that trichotomy is oversimplified when considering the wide range of qualities assigned to god within philosophy and theology. The term has such a mulitiplicity of meanings that however distasteful it is to start an essay with a definition of terms, it is necessary in the case of god.

The god of philosophy is almost devoid of the concepts usually assigned by philosophers. It is transcendent by definition, as a creator of time and space god must necessarily exist outside of it. The philosophical god does also have a Will for the universe. Even in the case of Spinoza, where we can’t assign concious though, it’s evident that a Will for the universe shapes space and time in the form of physical laws. Of course, the philosophical god is also the root of the universe. This argument has been made in many different forms across different avenues of thought. The kalam cosmological argument is a popular modern day example. As a beginning needs a cause, and the universe has a beginning, the universe must have a cause. Whatever the cause of the universe is, must be god. Kant made his own argument for god as a concept through which all other concepts are given. In the way that the concept of the earth exists ‘through’ the concept of our solar system, all concepts exist through one another. Whatever the innermost concept is, is god. Kant’s argument is unique in that it doesn’t presuppose the existence of any of the concepts it discusses, only discusses the way in which our existence is a consequence of god. Therefore if the consequences exist, so must god. Plato also made a similar argument to the kalam argument, with his prime mover theory which would later influence Thomas Aquinas.

But of course, I’ve just listed the arguments of some theologians while talking about the god of philosophy. Really, the god of philosophy is a category of conceptions of the divine which can, broadly speaking, be said to probably exist. The problem with philosophical gods is that they’re usually not very deserving of worship. The properties which would make a god worthy of worship, which make a god a god of theology, are often very improbable in the god of philosophy. So, debates over god are often actually a debate over both of these topics. Over what god is, and over whether that concept exists. But in fact we think that both of these concepts exist separately. Theological gods really are a kind of cultural “god-head” placed on the divinity of the god of philosophy, of god. They are a cultural lense to reinterpret divinity.

Arguments attempting to bridge the gap between god and god-heads often lie on shaky ground. The most common properties which are attempted to assign to god are benevolence, and a will for humanity. Benevolence for humanity has a prerequiste in a will for humanity. And if one accepts that god’s will for the universe manifests in the laws of physics, one must then admit that no such law, and then no such will, exists for guiding humanity. The law of morality is a law, but it’s not binding or willful in the way that the laws of physics are. If god’s will is so powerful as to manifest physically in the universe, it cannot remain conceptual in humanity.

Another attribute often attributed unquestioningly is the level of awareness that god has of humanity. Surely there must be some compelling reason why a god on the scale and power of the universe is paying attention to humanity. We are certainly the most interesting thing in our solar system, but (even assuming that there is nothing more interesting than us out there in the rest of the universe) we are smaller than ants on the scale of god. If he were inclined to watch a particularly interesting ant colony, it still wouldn’t be appropriate to say that there is actually some kind of relationship with that ant colony.

In contrast, it’s quite easy to construct arguments that are more likely than not for the existence of god. Even most atheists will acknowledge these arguments, despite a good deal of protesting about moving goalposts. Thomas Aquinas made five arguments in support of the existence of god, the first three of which are accepted by the catholic church’s canon. The first is the argument from motion: although Aquinas couldn’t name the concept of inertia, his first argument is based on it. To modernize a bit, Aquinas says the universe could not overcome it’s own inertia, so something must have set it in motion. His second argument is that every effect in the universe has a cause. So if we trace the sequence of causes in the universe backwards far enough, we must find a first cause. His third argument is that all existent beings depend on other things, there must be one thing that exists independently to serve as a foundation for the universe. The second argument shows up a lot in modern arguments especially, in the form of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. These arguments are quite solid. Apart from whinging about goalposts, what’s a skeptic to poke holes in? Well, we could say that the universe has been in motion forever and has an infinite past. But then we’d have to explain why the universe hasn’t reached heat death given infinite time to do so. We could say that there are multiple first causes of the universe. But we would need some very strong evidence to justify complicating the causes of the universe. If we see a bowling ball rolling along a street we would need some very strong evidence if we were to propose that 5 ducks had pushed the ball together instead of one human.

We could take the increasingly popular option of doubting that the universe exists, of course. Aquinas doesn’t really have an answer for this. All of his arguments for god presuppose that the universe exists. Immanuel Kant, however, does have an answer. His argument for the existence of god is philosophically useful for exactly that position. Kant’s argument for god is that of conceptual links. For example, the concept of the earth exists through a conceptual link to our solar system. If the earth exists, so must our solar system. We might say that the earth could exist in a different solar system, but if it did it would be a different planet and a different concept. So, if humanity exists, so must the earth, so must our solar system, and if we trace these concepts all the way up, we find ourselves at some kind of arch-concept. A thing which the rest of the universe is conceptually dependent on for existence. So, if the universe exists (whatever the form), god must also exist in that form. A triangle couldn’t exist without angles, and the universe couldn’t exist without god.

So the picture of god is quite clear, and quite likely to exist. The problem with this picture is that it leaves us very unclear as to the nature of theological gods, of god-heads. But in the case of god-heads, the opposite path leads us to clear picture. If we first consider the nature of their existence, the form they take becomes clear.

So let’s pivot for a minute, to solipsim. Solipsim is a very broad category which we will undoubtedly do no justice to here, but let’s say that we were a hard solipsist who believed that nothing outside of my own brain existed. How would we go about living my life? How would we function? We would have to come up with some litmus test for which concepts existing inside of my head were worth paying attention to, and which were not. We would need some way to distinguish unicorns from zebras. Because nothing can truly be said to exist in a solipsist worldview, we can’t use existence as this test. Instead what we would need to pay attention to are the things which hold the most influence over the world we experience. This would be the only way to live a sensible life as a solipsist. Unicorns will have no influence over the world (aside from maybe influencing some stories), but zebras might have some. We only need to worry about one of them when we consider the danger of being trampled by something.

So, if we ask this test if gods are worth paying attention to, what would the answer be? Yaweh, for example, is probably the single most morally influential figure in modern politics. The concept of human rights is based on Yaweh’s ownership of all human beings. He is the basis of most religion in the west. He exerts a large body of influence over the world we live in. If we look at him from this framework we can’t say that he exists, but we can say that he exerts a large degree of inluence over the world. Not only over stories, like zebras, but over the real material world. Think of the influence of human rights and the way it has shaped nations and lives. If Yaweh does not exist, he is the most real non-existant thing we have ever heard of.

Once we have established Yaweh’s very real influence the question of his existence feels almost strange to ask about. It is almost immaterial. Yaweh is a cultural object. That much is not in question, everything which a culture has a conception of is. Unicorns are a cultural object. Unicorns, however, do not hold the same wide-reaching material influence that Yaweh does. So, there exists some far-reaching materially influential cultural object named Yaweh. It is generally linked to other cultural objects named Yaweh, and occasionally linked to other cultural objects of different names but similar properties. It is generally associated with the idea of the ultimate divine concept of god, but it has many properties that cannot be attached to the ultime divine with any degree of certainty, and so is most likely a different concept. As we have discussed previously.

We could explore other ways this concept of Yaweh exists elsewhere, but these are the things we are certain of. This is what is meant by the statement that the question of Yaweh’s existence is immaterial. The concept of Yaweh exists, and the concept generally holds the same influential power as the “real thing.” (Here the real thing is meant the monotheistic idea of Yaweh as the ultimate divine) So, if we are confident that Yaweh is not the ultimate divine, as discussed above, and we are also confident that the concept of Yaweh holds the same influence regardless, then it does not really matter whether Yaweh might also exist as the spirit of sand dune somewhere. The important details of his existence have been established.

Knowledge about any particular godhead is somewhat circular in this way. If all that matters is the cultural concept, then what we know about a godhead is whatever the controlling culture has decided we know about a godhead. A cultural construction exists as whatever the culture decides it does.

So what is the relationship of godheads such as a Yaweh to god itself? The godheads exist as a thing to be worshipped. It is a cultural reinterpretation of divinity as something useful for the interpreting culture. The godhead is a thing to be culturally attached to god so that a culture can build structures and morals and values around it. God itself is not worth worshipping, but the godheads themselves aren’t worthy of it either. It’s only a godhead attached to god and identified as divine that’s worthy of worship and churches and moral ascriptions.

With a decapited god and a severed head we are left with the building blocks for a religion but no cultural glue with which to put it together. So where to go from here? We do not know. This essay deconstructed god for us, and left us with two things which are more real alone than they are together. But they are no longer worthy of worship and admiration. Where to go next is somewhere aside from religion. We will be looking for something else to fill the gap left by religion, but we am not sure where yet to find it.