What would have to be true for the God of classical theism to be real?
7) Summing up
What constitutes the sum total of reality? If there is just the physical realm, then God cannot exist (except as a psychological state in the human mind). However, if there is also the metaphysical realm, then God becomes a possibility. Of course, if we use the word “metaphysical” to refer to principles, values, ideas, intangible qualities, such as love or patriotism, then the metaphysical definitely exists, but we are not making an opening for God other than as an idea. So, when we talk about metaphysics, we are asking if, as well as “physical stuff” existing, it is also possible for “spiritual stuff” to exist – things like God, souls, heaven. Clearly, if you do not accept the existence of the metaphysical in this sense, then you are ruling out the existence of the God of classical theism, as you are not allowing anything supernatural to exist. This would be a fair judgement – certainly we are only sure of the existence of the natural, and have no way to establish for certain the existence of anything beyond it.
So, we might want to say that it argues against theism that in order for God to have any chance of existing, we have to put forward the existence of a totally new category of being – the metaphysical. This seems so extraordinary, that we can see why modern atheists argue: “Yes, once upon a time, it made sense to believe in God, but now we know better, we really ought to drop these strange and false ideas”.
Yet why did humanity ever put forward such absurd ideas – if absurd they are? We acknowledge the power of belief in God as an explanatory mechanism to justify what seemed unfathomable without positing the existence of God (or gods) – namely: “Why are we here?”. But was this all there was to it? Isn’t it rather that human beings feel the call of something beyond themselves, and through generations of discovery and self-searching came to the conclusion that there is a God, who is “out there” but who is calling us to know him. I must beware of intellectual sleight of hand. The physical realm has the hard evidence of scientific verification, while I slipped in the existence of the metaphysical realm because we (humanity) “feel” the call of something beyond ourselves. Yet I do want to challenge the atheistic claim that religion began as an explanatory device, rather than in response to the experience of God. (I have argued elsewhere that today we can fully accept the scientific explanation of the universe while still responding to the call of God.)
So, for God to exist, in the way he is generally understood to exist, we need to assert the existence of the metaphysical realm in which spiritual beings are a reality.
A final question is why would such a God, if he exists, bother with people like us? God needs to have an immense love for those who don’t deserve it. Why should such a wonderful God pay any attention to creatures such as us? When we take a sober look at humanity, this seems very unlikely – we are not a nice species! However, this would be what makes God, God. He loves us because he has such a quality of love, and it is our ability to recognise this love that makes us accept him as our God.
Spiritual Devotion 