Authored by: Mitchell LeBlanc.

Carneades, the ancient Greek skeptic, proposed an argument against the existence of God which was built upon by contemporary philosopher Douglas Walton (his paper can be found in Philo 2, no. 2 (1999) 5-13). In this article, I seek to introduce the argument and attempt to provide an answer to a possible Christian objection.

The Argument

(1) God is (by definition) a being than which no greater being can be thought

(2) Greatness includes greatness of virtue

(3) Therefore, God is a being than which no being could be more virtuous

(4) Virtue involves overcoming pains and danger

(5) A being can only be properly said to be virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed

(6) A God that can suffer pain or is destructible is not one than which no greater being can be thought (for you can think of an indestructible and non-suffering being)

(7) Therefore, God does not exist

Now, contextually, the usage of the term virtue denoted the cardinal virtues. As such, virtue in the argument may be treated as a variable to be replaced by some cardinal virtue: wisdom, temperance, justice or courage. In particular, it seems that the argument is best exemplified where virtue is to mean courage, where courage is the quality by which one undertakes dangerous tasks and endures hardships.

The premise which seems most likely to be called into question is (4). Is it true that courage involves overcoming pains and danger? It seems to me that courage can be exemplified only in situations wherein one faces some hurdle, or hardship that they might not overcome. Walton states:

… courage is doing the right thing in a situation where it is markedly dangerous or difficult to do that thing.

If courage is indeed a virtue, then a being who is virtuous must be courageous. But how can God be courageous in this manner?

A Christian Objection?

One possible Christian objection is that God does exemplify courage in Jesus’ crucifixion where Jesus must endure difficult hardship to accomplish his goal. In Luke 22:42, Jesus states:

“Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” (NASB)

Might one then say that in God’s incarnation into man he gains all virtue that man may have previously claimed their own, due to their imperfect natures and as such exemplifies the virtue of courage? I am not sure that this notion is coherent with God’s proposed divine immutability.

The Doctrine of Divine Immutability (DDI) states that God cannot undergo intrinsic change. This would entail that if Jesus exemplifies courage at time t and Jesus is fully God, that God exemplifies courage at time t and that if DDI holds there can be no prior t or later t in which God does not exemplify courage. This clearly means that temporally prior to the biblical events leading to Christ’s crucifixion, he exemplified courage. This is not immediately troubling given that God could surely have knowledge of the impending events, but this would entail that God knows he will succeed at the task. That is to say, it would be true at any t prior to the biblical account of Christ’s crucifixion that Christ both exemplifies courage regarding his crucifixion, and knows that he will succeed in his task. Clearly, courage cannot be exemplified by Christ if courage is taken to mean facing a challenge that they might not overcome. Not only does God’s omnipotence ensure that Christ will succeed, God’s omniscience ensures that Christ knows he will succeed. As such, any exemplification of courage in this manner seems incoherent.

But might it be said that Christ’s task was still difficult? Surely, difficulty entails some hardship. In any given situation where there are two tasks, the more difficult of the two tasks is the harder to do. How can one make sense of this in light of God’s omnipotence? It seems that for God, no tasks are harder than others and further, no tasks are hard. With respect to God, is it possible that the creation of the universe was a more difficult task than the resurrection of Christ? It’s unclear as to how this distinction could be made unless one brings in an idea of effort, or expenditure of energy. But, again, how might one apply these concepts to an omnipotent being?

What of the hypostatic union, wherein we are to understand that Jesus is both fully man and fully God (and has both divine and human natures)? Perhaps it is indeed possible that Christ’s human nature experienced difficulty, fear and saw his upcoming crucifixion as a hardship. But, it seems incoherent to state that the divine nature somehow learns from, absorbs, extracts or even shares the hardship and pain which Jesus’ human nature may have exemplified in the time before his death. Surely, DDI entails that the divine nature of Jesus, being fully God, cannot change at all. As such, either God’s divine nature has never exemplified hardship and pain or it has always. But again, though there be hardship and pain for Jesus the man, what hardship or pain can there be for God? In this regard it seems there is no contradiction between the two propositions, “Jesus the man exemplified courage” and “God cannot exemplify courage.”

Conclusion

Christianity has the unique feature of having a triune God, who has taken the form of a human being. Most times, arguments of this variety will apply to a wide variety of Gods and not to the Christian God for this very reason. In this circumstance, though, it does not seem that God’s proposed triunity saves it from the criticism of the argument. That is to say, if the argument is sound, it will apply to the Christian God insofar as I am correct in that there is no unique feature of the Christian God which renders it exempt from any of the premises. With that said, it is always true that no argument of this type can encompass all concepts of God. Such that if one remarks that their God does not have to be all-virtuous, this argument does not apply. It strictly attempts to show the incoherence of an all-virtuous Divine being. It might be proposed that there exists a God who is not all-virtuous, but an exploration of what it means for God to be devoid of virtue is required, perhaps there are severe implications. Lastly, one should note that further argumentation would be required to suggest that any Divine being must be necessarily all-virtuous.