The Problem with God: Why Atheists, True Believers, and Even Agnostics Must All Be Wrong

by Peter J. Steinberger

Whether people praise, worship, criticize, or reject God, they all presuppose at least a rough notion of what it means to talk about God. Turning the certainty of this assumption on its head, a respected educator and humanist shows that when we talk about God, we are in fact talking about nothing at all―there is literally no such idea―and so all of the arguments we hear from atheists, true believers, and agnostics are and will always be empty and self-defeating.

Peter J. Steinberger's commonsense account is by no means disheartening or upsetting, leaving readers without anything meaningful to hold on to. To the contrary, he demonstrates how impossible it is for the common world of ordinary experience to be all there is. With patience, clarity, and good humor, Steinberger helps readers think critically and constructively about various presuppositions and modes of being in the world. By coming to grips with our own deep-seated beliefs, we can understand how traditional ways asserting, denying, or even just wondering about God's existence prevent us from seeing the truth―which, it turns out, is far more interesting and encouraging than anyone would have thought.

Genres: Philosophy, Religion

224 pages, Hardcover

First published June 4, 2013

Reviews

[Garrett Glass · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Steinberger is a noted philosopher who in this book tackles the problem of God's existence. As a philosopher, he holds himself to extremely high standards: his arguments are constructed to be as convincing as possible, if not irrefutable. He is, moreover, an accessible writer who expresses his ideas in a basic, if somewhat chatty, style. The book is easily read by anyone with an interest in religion, God, atheism, and related subjects.

Steinberger's fundamental argument is that the question of God's existence is such a contradiction in terms that it makes no sense for us to bother asking it. We live in a world of cause and effect, in which our lives and the material world around us are shaped by events which cause other events to happen, in an infinite chain, or at least as long as the earth exists. Our thinking is entirely predicated on the reality of cause and effect, which prompts us to posit that the universe must have had a creator, a First Mover, who put everything in motion. Call this entity God - Steinberger is happy with that - but the logic of cause and effect demands that something we will call God created the universe.

The problem arises that cause and effect also demands that we seek the origins of God as well. He could not have sprung up from nothing; Steinberger shows how this argument (which even scientists are now making regarding what preceded the Big Bang) falls apart, because our experience proves that something cannot come from nothing. The conundrum therefore exists that God cannot satisfy two competing and contradictory conditions - he cannot exist as the creator of the universe and First Mover, and at the same time satisfy the inexorable demand from cause and effect that he himself must have a progenitor.

Steinberger investigates all the theological circumlocutions to this conundrum, such as God is the exception that proves the rule - the one being not subject to cause and effect, or that God is simply a mystery beyond our comprehension (except that we somehow know he is all-loving, all-powerful, all-seeing, etc.). He deals with each of these by showing them to be evasions that don't really satisfy our deep down intuition that cause and effect cannot simply be waived away. Similarly, Steinberger shows how atheists are not correct either, since they ignore the problem of the origin of the universe. Nor do agnostics have an answer, because they are asserting that the question of God's existence has an answer and they will let us know what it is someday when they discover it. They ignore the conundrum at the core of God's existence.

At the end of many of the chapters, Steinberger asserts that all is not lost, and that there is an answer to the problem. At the end of the book, he shows how Plato came up with an important insight to this problem, but I won't spoil it for you by revealing Steinberger's conclusion of hope.

This is an important contribution to the discussion of God's existence, and the book deserves a wide audience. It is a completely different approach than is found in the popular literature regarding the atheism-theism debate. Steinberger's arguments are tautly structured and not easy to bat away or dismiss. Any interested and reasonably intelligent reader can benefit greatly from this book.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it in the beginning but the end of disappointing. I feel like he kind of made a point but didn’t really have anything new to say in the end.

[Destinie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not a difficult read. My rating is based on the fact that I find this kind of philosophical rant pointless. I picked it up from the library in a moment of weakness, thinking that maybe I wanted to try philosophizing, and this would be a great way to start. I found the arguments to be circular and full of nonsense. And basically it was one argument:
There has to be God because everything has to come from something. But God can't be God because God had to come from something also. And so on.
And then he beat that idea to death with examples of things that can't come from nothing.

To me, it was a waste of time. Others seem to have appreciated the arguments though, so if that's your cup of tea, go for it.