Planet: A Wandering Deity

Perhaps Descartes was on to something when he questioned if God deceives us or not. Of course, Descartes concludes that God can be nothing of the sorts, nor anything less than absolutely benevolent, but this is beside the point. It isn't unprecedented to find instances in which God deceives people: He hardens the Pharaoh's heart to pursue the Jews across the desert, He says: "Hey, don't eat from that tree" and expects no one to do so, et cetera. Certainly the Hebrew God is a trickster of sorts, conniving, manipulating, and, like His chosen people, a vagabond: He wanders in and out of the Garden, and He wanders with the Jews across the deserts (something most gods didn't do, i.e. they stay in one place). Likewise, God seems to wander in and out of perception, logic, and nature: an erring deity, like a planet: a wandering deity in the sky.

Most people who deny the existence of God arrive at such a belief because they believe the whole idea of God is preposterous and a logical and rational absurdity, but this conclusion is an error of petty human reasoning. The existence of God is completely acceptable, if not inevitable in logic. Anselm's Ontological Argument is probably one of the most convincing logical arguments for the existence of God: that because nothing greater than God can be thought of, and it is greater to exist than to not exist, and God is by definition that great, then that than which nothing greater can be thought (God) must exist. Perfect, flawless reasoning. Then there is the empirical arguments of Aquinas, and the numerous arguments from creation (i.e. there is something rather than nothing, therefore something created it). All are wonderful logical proofs of God's existence.

What? That doesn't prove that God actually exists! No shit. Existence in logic is not the same as existence in nature (i.e. actuality, reality). Since when has logic ever actually coincided with nature? Does a straight line actually exist in nature? Mathematicians spend a lot of time with something that doesn't exist in nature. Do truly good things actually exist? Find anything "good" and a flaw will be found in it. Is there such thing as a pure friendship? All relationships are unequal, and someone will always take more than the other receives, which isn't a very nice relationship. Such is the way of the world: the logical and the natural do not coincide.

Thus the existence of God is absolutely a logical and rational conclusion to come to, which, in fact, seems inevitable to come to given the Ontological Argument, or even the Hebrew and Sumerian idea of El-Elyon (God Most High, which supposes there are other gods that the El-Elyon is superior to). But this does not prove that God exists in reality.

It is an error of human reasoning and understanding to say that the idea or any logical proof of God is absurd. God reigns supreme in logic and reasoning. God does not, however, seem to reign at all in nature. In fact given that the straight line does not exist in nature, nor a perfect circle, or a truly good thing, then it seems reasonable to conclude that God cannot actually exist in nature, and that in physical reality it would be absurd for God to exist at all.

Logically God cannot exist in nature, but, of course like all logic, this conclusion, too, may be an error of human reasoning.

Once again God wanders in and out of reasoning and existence, just has God has always done. God gives us reason to believe and to doubt His existence. Perhaps that is the only essence of God anyone has left. This is not to say that we cannot know God in some way (with this writing I know "God" (however one may define such a term - a little bit better). To say we cannot know God is, in the words of Hume, to be "an atheist and not know it."