The Inversion

— J. Chr. de Vries

A God on a throne is for fools; a God in a house is for the homeless; a God in a book is for scholars; an invisible silent God is for believers.
— The Great Book of Tile Wisdom of the Chinese Emperor

I was sitting in my garden reading a curious text that I had borrowed from George Bruijsols. A few days earlier, he had invited me for a drink. At some point, we started talking about the proof of God’s existence. I don’t quite remember how we ended up on this topic, but it had something to do with the current two wars raging in the world: Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’ attack on Israel, which resulted in the brutal invasion of Gaza, the umpteenth escalation of the conflict in this godforsaken corner of the world. Then we talked about posts on various digital media, where it was argued that all this endlessly repeating misery proves that God does not exist. This led back to the topic of fallacies. I remember this exactly, I said that this was a textbook example of the fallacy of the false premise, by first asserting that God is some kind of Santa Claus who must ensure that the world is a safe place, then observing that the world is not a safe place, and that therefore Santa Claus is not doing his job, and finally concluding that Santa Claus, and thus God, does not exist. Then George got up, said he had recently picked up an interesting book at an antiquarian book fair, and went into his house to get the book. George is a retired librarian who collects books. When he came back into the garden, he said I could borrow the book. The text is probably from the second half of the nineteenth century, there is no publication date.

Le Silence de Dieu

— Eugénie le Nothon

For the original French text: click here

René de Narea, a philosopher from the sophist school, and Eugène Hostindons, a theologian with a reformed background, engage in the following dialogue:

Hostindons: God exists, and that is demonstrable.
Narea: Then we must first establish the form of God, through his attributes.
Hostindons: Do you mean His characteristics, in external or internal sense, or both?
Narea: I mean in every conceivable sense.
Hostindons: So, for example: God is great.
Narea: In both a literal and figurative sense?
Hostindons: Naturally, God is both grand and extensive, meaning: all-encompassing and comprehensive.
Narea: But then I say: God is also everything, so he is also small.
Hostindons: Yes, indeed. God is both great and small. That is the Divine Wonder.
Narea: How can God be both great and small? It’s one or the other.
Hostindons: No, He can be both, both great and small, in a continuous transformation.
Narea: So, God is constantly in motion?
Hostindons: Indeed, God is the movement itself.
Narea: But then God is not motionless?
Hostindons: God is the perpetual motionless movement.
Narea: Aha, perpetual, so he doesn’t stand still for a while? He doesn’t sleep either?
Hostindons: Yes, God sleeps, because God is everything, but God watches while He sleeps.
Narea: Does God dream when he sleeps, and does he ever have a nightmare?
Hostindons: God knows all the dreams of all people, and also their pains and demons.
Narea: So he himself has no pains and demons, he knows and recognizes them.
Hostindons: Indeed, He is aware of everything.
Narea: But then he is not everything. He merely sees or hears everything at best.
Hostindons: Because God transcends the human in a sovereign way.
Narea: Well, then God is not human. I repeat my previous observation: you admit that God is not everything.
Hostindons: That is a matter of perspective. God sent his Son to humanity, to become human, and to die as a human. Thus, humanity has become part of the Divine, and therefore God is indeed everything.
Narea: You call this a matter of perspective, one could also classify it as a matter of rhetoric, because suddenly his son comes into play. Is that son now a part of God, or is he a separate entity
Hostindons: Both. The Father and the Son, together with the Holy Spirit, form a Trinity. They exist simultaneously as separate and shared substance. This is something that is difficult for us humans to comprehend; the Divine is a Mystery to us.
Narea: In summary: God is both great and small, in a continuous, eternal motionless movement, he transcends as God the human, but is also human through the son; he is the same as the son, but he is also his father. He is everything.
Hostindons — Indeed. Thus He is a Mystery.
Narea: So if God is everything, then there is something he is not, namely nothing.
Hostindons: If God is everything, then He is also nothing; nothing is part of everything. Without nothing, there is no everything, and without everything, there is no nothing. This shows us the Divine Mystery, which is incomprehensible to us humans.
Narea: But if the divine mystery is incomprehensible to humans, then God is not demonstrable to them.
Hostindons: Indeed, God exists, but that is not demonstrable; humans are too insignificant to fathom the Divine Mystery.
Narea: But if the existence of God cannot be proven, how can this insignificant human know that he exists?
Hostindons: Through faith. The only way.
Narea: Belief is not knowing; it is imagination, the product of the imagination.
Hostindons: Belief is indeed a form of knowing, just not on a rational level, but transcending and fundamental: on a soul level.
Narea: But if I am unable to believe, then I cannot have knowledge of God either; then he does not exist.
Hostindons: Then He does not exist for you, but that non-existence is solely the product of your imagination.
Narea: In that case, our imaginations, yours and mine, stand opposed to each other. There is no basis for privileging one over the other. The inevitable conclusion is this: neither the existence of God nor non-existence can be proven.
Hostindons: An important caveat must be added to your conclusion: your imagination is negative, mine is positive.
Narea: Indeed, that is the power of imagination; you can invent anything, and it’s up to the other to refute it, which indeed is a negative discipline. Refuting delusions is difficult because you are forced to formulate within the terms of this delusion. If you say ‘God does not exist’, then by mentioning the concept of ‘God’, you already concede its existence. You are constantly playing catch-up. The ‘everything’ is nameable, but the ‘nothing’ is unnamable.
Hostindons: That is why God is everything and nothing.
Narea: When God is nothing, he does not exist, and that cannot be proven.
Hostindons: He is both everything and nothing, which can only be understood through faith, and that faith can be demonstrated.
Narea: Undoubtedly. Delusions are as old as humanity, and their existence will not be doubted by any human.
Hostindons: But a lack of ideas is equally as old as humanity, yet such ideas cannot be logically demonstrated.
Narea: Isn’t a lack of an idea far preferable to a delusion?
Hostindons: I’d rather have a delusion than a lack.
Narea: But a delusion is a lack.
Hostindons: I mean, of course, a lack of an idea. I’d rather have a lack than nothing.
Narea: So, then, rather a god with a lack than no god at all?
Hostindons: That question is not relevant, because God knows no lack. God is infallible.
Narea: If God is everything, then he must also have a lack, it seems to me.
Hostindons: He does: in his all-encompassing infallibility, he lacks lack. This is the ‘nothing’ in his ‘everything’.
Narea: Well, then this lack is a negative lack, and the construction of your imagination is based on a negative element.
Hostindons: In everything, both the positive and the negative are inherent. In your so-called ‘non-god’ only the negative exists.
Narea: And therefore, you believe that your god is superior to my non-god.
Hostindons: Your non-god lacks the positive.
Narea: This negative is solely an articulation of the rejection of a delusion. The positive is then what remains: humanity.
Hostindons: As if humanity does not suffer from a lack. Humanity without God is the quintessential articulation of a lack.
Narea: At least humanity as a lack exists, and is moreover demonstrable. That is more than we can say for your god.
Hostindons: If I were to entertain your reasoning, solely as a thought experiment, then that ‘non-existence’ of God is nevertheless part of his Mystery, because this ‘non-existence’ is part of the ‘everything’. In that case, God exists in his ‘non-existence’.
Narea: In that case, God is nothing more than an abstraction. When we return to the beginning of our discussion, to my question about the properties of God, you must admit that all those properties are purely theoretical. There is no physical property to name. If God walks, it is in our imagination, and if he sleepwalks, it is in our dreams. If he speaks, then we hear nothing but the sound of the wind or the sea, which we can at most transform into the ‘voice of God’ through our imagination. God is a human-constructed abstraction.
Hostindons: But man is created in His image. Therefore, all human characteristics necessarily exist in Him, including the physical ones.
Narea: The word ‘image’ says it: his ‘human characteristics’, physical or otherwise, are the product of imagination. They are not real.
Hostindons: They are real in the imagination. Even humans cannot exist without imagination; the human is precisely determined by it.
Narea: Indeed, but imagination is essential in our existence because it is linked to the real reality.
Hostindons: Also, love, which we experience in our real reality, is the product of our imagination; however, it cannot be demonstrated through certain, well-defined concepts. Love is immeasurable because there is no standard for it; there is no unit of love.
Narea: No, but when I’m in love, my body is upside down, that is indeed demonstrable: I eat poorly, I sleep hardly, I can only think of one person; infatuation leads to behavior that could be described as ‘insane’.
Hostindons: The great philosopher from ancient Greece, Socrates, in Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus, rightly calls this ‘manikē’, ‘Divine Madness’.
Narea: Yes, but he did not have your God in mind; the Greeks had multiple gods anyway, and the main difference with humans was their immortality. Otherwise, they mainly had human qualities; they fell in love and were jealous.
Hostindons: The Greek gods are indeed the product of human imagination, and thus they exhibit human characteristics. And Socrates lived centuries before God sent His Son to us, so he could not have known about that. However, this does not mean that God was not at work in this wise man. After all, God’s ways are inscrutable, and He works in us, without us.
Narea: For Socrates, God was a non-existent god. And even if you were right that God works independently in us, this would only make sense if we consent to that work, and thus are aware of it at least. For Socrates, this was an impossibility. He existed outside the necessary timeframe. God did not exist for him.
Hostindons: The limitations of time and space certainly applied to Socrates, as they do to all humans, but they do not apply to God.
Narea: But then God keeps himself aloof from most people. Only the ‘chosen ones’ qualify to experience his presence. This would at most make him the leader of a sect. Whereas I thought you wanted to assign him a universal meaning.
Hostindons: It is not for you to speak for God, to want or be able to give meaning to His work. You are solely responsible for your relationship with Him; nothing else is given to you. You are aware of His existence, and it is up to you to do what is right with that. That means: what is good for you.
Narea: Then we’re back to the beginning of our discussion; I am actually not aware of God’s existence because I do not hear, see, or encounter him — neither in a physical nor in an intellectual form. Everything I hear about God comes from you, or people like you, but not from himself. It is solely indirect. God is unprovable.
Hostindons: But that is truly your own decision and responsibility. If you were to open yourself to God, then He would reveal Himself to you. And certainly, as we discussed earlier, it is a matter of faith. A knowing at the soul level.
Narea: This is a repetition of moves. That ‘knowing at the soul level’ of yours is nothing more than an invitation to share your fantasy with me, to create the same imagination and celebrate it together. However, that imagination is purely human.
Hostindons: In essence, by saying this, you indicate that you mistrust me or do not take me seriously. I am not trying to convince you of the existence of God out of self-interest; I only have your best interests at heart and am trying to point out your responsibility. I see your blind spot, and it is my duty to share it with you.
Narea: I am immune to emotional blackmail. If you perceive a blind spot in me, then you must demonstrate that spot, and you cannot expect me to demonstrate it myself, based on some vague belief. Because ultimately, that amounts to creating a vicious circle. I must believe this belief to obtain a certain belief.
Hostindons: I wouldn’t have chosen the word ‘vicious’ myself; as I said, I only have your best interests in mind.
Narea: Call it paradoxical or recursive, or whatever you like; the point is that you are asking me for something impossible.
Hostindons: I ask nothing of you; I merely point something out. It is up to you whether or not to do something about it. That is a choice you can make freely. I wish you all the best with it.
Narea: And if I choose not to do anything about that ‘blind spot’ of mine, is that bad for me?
Hostindons: Ultimately, it is not for me to judge; that judgment is solely reserved for God. I can only wish you the best. I can pray for you, if you wish, but I suspect you would decline.
Narea: You suspect that very rightly; it would make my argumentation extremely inconsistent, as if it were mere mockery for me.
Hostindons: If you feel that way, I would regret it; I believe you are very serious in your arguments.
Narea: Well then, let me try to formulate a conclusion now. We have established that not everyone believes in the existence of your God. For a part of humanity, this is due to conviction, but for a much larger part, it is due to ignorance; they belong to a very different culture than the Western one in which we live, and where this belief originated. For an even larger group of people, namely those from the past, your God did not exist at that time. Socrates could not have known about the Son simply because he had not yet been born. The church that sanctioned your faith dates back to the beginning of our era, precisely to the year 325 AD, which is less than two thousand years ago. Before that, your God did not exist in the same way as you now believe. Your God originated from an earlier god, described in the Tenach, a much older book than the Christian texts. And that god from the Tenach, in turn, originated from earlier gods: mountain gods, fire gods, war gods, and water gods. The god of Noah is a water god, while that of Moses is a mountain, fire, and war god. All these gods were united into one abstract god, whose name could not be mentioned; the god ‘who is, was, and will be’. And, I dare to add, the god who ‘is not’.
Hostindons: Your imagination knows no bounds. For someone who denies the existence of God, you have delved into it quite deeply.
Narea: I have never claimed that I do not find your faith interesting and intriguing. But let me finish my argument first.
For the vast majority of people, both in the present and in the past, your God is a god who ‘is not’. He is either consciously denied, or the concept of him is entirely unknown. The existence of God is determined by a specific person, not by humanity as a whole, solely by an individual. God exists only when this person decides that he exists. His ‘existence’ thus arises from a decision regarding ‘non-existence’. God is thus created by humans, in their image. In fact, you alluded to this when you said: It is not for you to speak for God, to want or be able to give meaning to his work. This applies vice versa for you as well. The meaning you attach to your concept of God, just as it is with love, is an individual matter, solely played out in your relationship with your God. This means that God does not exist in a universal sense, but that he could potentially exist. After all, everything is born from nothing. If God were demonstrably proven to exist, then belief in his existence would be destroyed because this belief would then have become factual knowledge. God’s non-existence is a condition for belief.
Hostindons: But this would lead to the following statement — what God forbid: God does not exist, and moreover, this is not demonstrable.
Narea: That remains to be seen. That’s what I meant by the latter. We still need to discuss the ‘potential’ of his existence.
Hostindons: I wanted to ask you what you meant by that. God does not exist, but could potentially exist, how so?
Narea: God has the potential to exist, but the moment he exists, it destroys belief. So, it is fundamentally important for that belief that he exists only in potential, but not in reality. That potential is therefore just as fundamental; without that potential, belief is not possible. In order to realize that potential, God must distance himself from any sign that would indicate his existence, everything that hints at a real existence of God must be avoided by him, and this means that God must remain silent. This is what we can learn from the Tenach; at the beginning, God speaks incessantly, but as the book progresses, he becomes increasingly silent, and eventually, he speaks not a word. He lets others speak for him, like you, for example. With this silence, belief is born. Any evidence that seeks to prove that God exists is a form of blasphemy. It is the greatest sin against faith, and thus against your God. The proverb is not for nothing: speech is silver, but silence is golden. Silence speaks in potential.

Hostindons: The inevitable conclusion is: The non-existence of God, the ‘non-god’, can only be demonstrated in silence.
Narea: And this inevitably leads to our final conclusion: God does not exist, and this can be demonstrated, as we have just proven.

Postscript

George Bruijsols and I sat in the garden of his house, Chez Hilbert, three days later, at the end of the afternoon. I had returned the book to him, and he invited me to stay for a drink. He was curious about my thoughts on the book. Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the text yet.

“But you must have some thoughts on it,” said George. “We had an extensive conversation about the proof of God last time. You could read this text as a response to that, in the form of a ‘disproof of God.’”

“Well, yes, I do have some thoughts, of course. I found Narea’s remarks about the almost impossible task of refuting a delusion quite striking,” I said. “Religious texts, conspiracy theories, political opinions — anything that can’t be verified by facts — can be comfortably proclaimed and proves difficult to refute. It spreads like an ant plague. You have to become an ant yourself to counter it, but ants are much better at being ants. It’s the tragedy of negation.”

“Still, I found Narea’s solution to that particularly elegant. I’m referring, of course, to his concept of potential, a clever way to give negation a positive force. By the way, do you remember that Great Book of Tile Wisdom of the Chinese Emperor?”

“You gave that to me back then.”

“You surely remember this one,” George said with a grin, “In the house of unbelievers, all gods sleep; in the house of believers, all gods are wide awake, making a hell of a noise. The sailor sails the oceans in silence; the farmer tills his fields in silence.”

— J. Chr. de Vries, Bonnemort, October 12, 2023