God talk

My metaphysics are in a mess. I've been going through a practical atheist phase now for some time. I've read the books, considered the arguments, examined the evidence, and for the most part I have to say the atheists make a great deal of sense. Religion of any sort often makes little sense. The Buddhists do pretty well by mostly ignoring the whole thing.

Perhaps they're on to something.


When ever we want to talk about something, even if it's with ourselves we use language. Our language started as labels for things. The words we used were non-material symbols for very real things. What makes language work is that, for the most part, we agree on what words signify. If I say 'apple' you have a pretty clear idea what I'm talking about. We can agree (and have a reasonable conversation about) apples because we agree on their properties.

But what does the word 'God' mean? For a start, no two people seem to agree on the nature and properties of God. Furthermore, a label distinguishes an object from its background, for example, 'apple' splits the world into two bits, that which is an apple, and that which is not. But God, if it is any sort of God at all, is not just another object in the universe, and we simply can't point to bits and say THAT is God, but THIS is not God.

That's why some modern theologians say things like God is not A being, but God IS being. God does not exist, but God is existence. Some people find this kind of talk unintelligible. Atheists can rightly point out it sounds like nonsense. But any talk of God is going to sound like nonsense because God is beyond language.

So what then should we do? I say, let's give up God talk. We all know what we have to do: be kind and compassionate. How hard can it be?