GOD DOES NOT EXIST

"The fool says in his heart" (Psalm 14:1). Now, if Scripture itself qualifies as simple-minded and naïve the one who says that "God does not exist", is it appropriate to reflect on the theme of "the divine existence? The Bible does not even deal with this issue in its extensive text. It simply declares that God exists and invites people to faith. But the relevance of this topic lies in the fact that it reveals the high degree of man's alienation from God, after original sin.

Therefore, this text, although it argues, succinctly, in favor of divine existence, intends, in essence, to emphasize how much the current man is alienated from God to the point of not perceiving Him in "existence", in "Creation" and in his being. However, it should be noted that some thinkers, throughout history, have demonstrated, through reason, that God does exist. Just to name a few important names, I highlight: Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109); Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274); René Descartes (1596-1650) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).

Doesn't God exist? Now, if God does not exist and only matter exists, how did it come about? To affirm that the matter has always existed requires robust proof. Insisting on the statement without proof constitutes an act of faith. How did inert matter evolve into biological matter? That is, how did life arise from inert matter? If there is no scientific demonstration, the discourse continues in the field of faith, and thus atheism and materialism constitute only other religious systems. 

If God does not exist, how to explain the idea of "God" in the current human imagination? If there is no God, if there is only matter, and the human being is only matter, it is concluded that the categories of man's thought would be other, totally different from the current ones. There would be no ideas of spirit, angels, and the spirit world. All thought would be inspired by concrete reality. But matter can think and have feelings such as sadness, joy, love, hatred? 

So, to affirm that "God does not exist" is an impossibility, because the human mind would only think of entities of a material order. It is true that human beings can imagine something that does not exist. However, this something would only have, in its structure, elements of a material order. He would never think of God, angels, or anything of a spiritual nature. The human imagination is stuck in the categories of reality in which it exists. 

But this is not what happens. History shows that even primitive civilizations of antiquity already knew the concept of "god" and had religious systems. God is so real to humanity that if a group of explorers in the Amazon jungle find an indigenous tribe that has never had contact with civilized man, they will find in it a religious system and concepts of a spiritual order

So, what happens when the human being, without proof, declares that God does not exist, is because he is so far from God that he no longer feels Him, no longer sees Him and, in fact, for him God does not exist. It is the devastating effect of sin on man's being: spiritual death. That is why the psalmist says that "in all his thoughts there is no room for God" (Psalm 10:4). Men “are corrupt… there is no one who does good… All have turned away… they never call on the LORD" (Psalm 14:1-4).

It's true. Humanity lives alien to God. She lives as if He did not exist, as if she had not been created by Him, doing all that He disapproves. It is known, however, that there are thousands of religions, but they are only human creations, which alienate man, even more, from his Creator. According to the Apostle Paul, men without God live "in the futility of their thinking… They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts...." (Ephesians 4:17,18).

Not only did man alienate himself from God in the Fall, he also alienated himself from himself. So that man, today, lives far from the self he was before original sin. In the Fall, the human being lost from himself and lives in the dissatisfaction of being the self he is[1], because the being is only defined in the one who created him. Thus, man is never satisfied with himself and lives in search of his original self, which can only be found when he returns to God.

Alienated from God and from himself, man has also distanced himself from the other, from his neighbor. Created for a life of communion with the other, the human being, after the first sin, sees his neighbor as a competitor, an enemy or someone who can take advantage, enslave him, subjugate him. This, then, is the origin of all violence and all human barbarism. What is History, if not the account of the domination of man by man? 

But by attacking the other, the human being attacks himself, because he was mysteriously created in connection with the other. The human being needs the other to understand himself. In simple words, the doctor understands himself as a doctor in the patient, the teacher sees himself as a teacher in the student, the son perceives himself as a son in the father. And here, the great problem of man without God is verified: he feels like an orphan in the world and lost in the immensity of the universe.

God, however, in his great love for man, sent the Son into the world to rescue him from this condition of Fall. And to those who approach him, he teaches them to call God Father (Matthew 6:9). Then, near his death, he said to his disciples: "I no longer call you servants, because the servant does not know what his master does. Instead, I have called you friends, because all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15). The man who says that God does not exist does so because he is separated from Him.  

Antônio Maia – Ph.B., M.Div.

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[1] MAIA, Antônio. O Homem Em Busca de Si - Reflexões Sobre A Condição Humana na Parábola do Filho Pródigo. Ebook, amazon.com.br, p.65

[2] Idem. p.66