Disbelief in God

My recent article 'Intolerance of God' (September 2) elicited 17 comments online. The vast majority of the responses were not supportive of my position. There are many who claim that they do not believe in God but it is not clear who exactly they do not believe in and what is the alternative belief that they are proposing.

Belief in the idea of God means, among many other things, that God is the Uncaused Cause. "God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." God brought himself/herself into being. If God was created by someone else then that creator would be above God. Therefore, the concept of God means that being/spirit brought himself/herself into existence and made everyone and everything else.

So when someone claims that he does not believe in God is he saying that he does not believe in someone or a Supreme Being who is an Uncaused Cause? If so, then, that person needs to explain our origins. How did we come into being? Who brought into being, the first life form? If it is claimed that it is an atom that brought everything into being, then it means the first atom is a god because that first atom would be an Uncaused Cause.

Uncaused Cause

There would be nothing that caused the existence of the atom to come into being. So if someone does not believe in the Christian God as revealed in Jesus the Christ, as bringing everyone and everything into being including himself/herself then it means in effect that they have ascribed the attribute of the Uncaused Cause to someone else or something else.

The question of origins tries to answer which comes first - the chicken or the egg? Those who believe in God would say God created the chicken. However, those who do not believe in God would have to ascribe godlike qualities to either the chicken or the egg because one of them had to bring itself into being.

And those who disbelieve in God need to realise that at best what they are doing is offering an alternative belief system. What they offer cannot be proven, so that is also a belief system. A belief cannot be proven or disproved. If it is proven or not proven then it is no longer a belief. Just like hope. Hope is always of the future, but when you receive what you hoped for, it is no longer a hope.

God concept

There is no laboratory proof for or against God. And the very concept of God is anathema to being proven. To prove God is to subject God to man-made tests - which would defeat the idea of God. It is like trying to confine God to a building or to time and space. God can be experienced, but not proven like a chemistry formula. No one can fully understand God or his ways. Anyone who could fully and completely comprehend God would have 'one' over God.

In addition, is the belief in no God saying that the order that we are witnessing in the earth, so much so, that there are mathematical and scientific formulations that are consistent and tried, just happen?

Additionally, those who purport that there is no God need to explain if it means that this life is all there is? If so, life would have been grossly unfair to the majority.

So, those who do not believe in God and pretend as if it is such a great intellectual position must furnish us with who or what is the first Uncaused Cause.

Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church and author of 'The Cross and the Machete: Native Baptists of Jamaica - Identity, Ministry and Legacy'. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com