Objections to Premise 1

Objection 1: "This is the God of the philosophers, not the God of faith. The God of faith is Love, not some dry, far-off force."
Reply 1: There are not two Gods; God is God. I agree that he is Love (my meaning is made clear here), but I am not trying to prove every important thing that he is. One must start with a simple, non-exhaustive, definition and build up from there. First, let us learn whether he exists; then we shall ask what he is like. And since "the God of faith" means, among other things, Creator of the universe, let this objection be put to rest.

Obj 2: "The word 'God' doesn't mean anything, for we have no empirical experience of Him, nor has He been scientifically measured."
Re 2: We all know what is meant by the phrase "human rights", and we agree that there are human rights, even though they are not direct objects of sensation. We have all sorts of abstract concepts for realities that are not themselves corporeal or scientifically measurable: good and evil, a sense of humor, heroism, beauty. When some comes along and asserts that words are meaningless if they do not refer only to an empirical experience, what can we say or think, except that such thinking is strange, and it seems that he is really grasping for a way out?

Obj 3: "Perhaps an angel named 'Roy' created the universe, not God."
Re 3: Here, "Creator of the universe" is what "God" means. If you wish to call Him "Roy," I shall leave that between you and Him. As for angels, or any other created spiritual beings, I would argue that they can exist only in time, which in this argument rules them out as being Creator, for the Creator will be seen to cause time. Email me on this one.

Obj 4: "I choose to define God differently. Who are you to tell me what God means? I have the right to define him as a fireball, a particle, or even a cow if I wish."
Re 4: We do not have the right to define anything however we wish. This philosophy would make it possible for us to "define" Asian people (for example) as sub-human, so that we could enslave them as animals. No, we cannot define things any way we like; we stick with the language as it is. The word "God" commonly means "the Creator", so let us not play word games to obscure the issue.

Obj 5: "Maybe a bunch of Gods ganged up and created the universe."
Re 5: The argument for monotheism is elsewhere on this web site; 0click here for it.

Obj 6: "Ah, you define God into existence!"
Re 6: I do not. Existence is not part of the definition.

If you have further objections, please email me.

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