Why the God Debate Is a Non-Debate

First, Tell Me What You Mean by God

William Blake, The Ancient of Days (1794). — William Blake, *The Ancient of Days* (1794). Is Urizen what Blake meant by God?

In February 2012, three of the world’s most distinguished intellectuals gathered in Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre to discuss the origins of human beings and, tied with that, the existence of God. There was Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and celebrated atheist; Rowan Williams, then Archbishop of Canterbury; and the philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, a former Catholic priest who professed to be ‘ignorant’—that is, an agnostic. Kenny, who died in August 2026 at the age of 95, was a philosopher of exceptional range and clarity, and perhaps the ideal person to sit between the other two.

Here, apparently, were the three great positions in the God debate: belief, disbelief, and quiet uncertainty. But there was a problem. What did each man mean by ‘God’?

This is no minor philosophical quibble. Before asking whether something exists, we need, surely, to establish what that something is. Yet people routinely declare themselves theists, atheists, or agnostics without first defining the object of their belief, disbelief, or doubt. You cannot meaningfully ask whether something exists until you have some idea of what you are looking for. And ‘God’ can mean radically different things to different people.

Which God?

At one end of the spectrum is the God that Dawkins principally attacks: a supernatural intelligence who created the universe, designed living things, listens to prayers, judges our actions, performs miracles, and otherwise intervenes in human affairs. Millions of people believe in some version of this God, so it is perfectly reasonable for Dawkins to argue that such a being does not exist.

But it is far from the only conception of God. Aristotle’s God, for example, is the unmoved mover: the ultimate cause of change in the universe, itself unchanging. Aristotle’s God did not create the universe, which Aristotle believed to be eternal, and certainly does not sit in heaven listening to our prayers. Instead, he is the ultimate introvert, described by Aristotle as noesis noeseos, ‘thought thinking itself’.

Spinoza went even further in collapsing God. For him, God and Nature are one and the same: Deus sive Natura, ‘God or Nature’. Everything that exists is in God, because God is the single infinite substance of which everything else is a mode—a recognised position also in Indian philosophy.

Now ask the atheist: ‘Do you believe in Spinoza’s God?’ What would it mean to say no? That he does not believe in the rock that he is kicking? Unless the atheist wishes to deny the existence of Nature, the disagreement is no longer about whether something exists. It is about whether we ought to call that something ‘God’.

What Does an Atheist Not Believe In

When someone says, ‘I don’t believe in God’, what they really mean is, ‘I don’t believe in a particular idea of God.’

This becomes increasingly apparent as soon as we begin stripping attributes from God. Suppose we start with a personal creator who designed the universe, answers prayers, performs miracles, rewards virtue, punishes sin, and promises an afterlife. There is plenty here to believe or disbelieve. Now progressively remove the afterlife, divine intervention, answered prayers, God’s personality, and even the act of creation. With each subtraction, there is less for the atheist to reject. Eventually, we might arrive at God as the order of nature, the ground of being, Nature itself, or some such.

The less we say about God, the harder God becomes to disbelieve in.

At the limit, the atheist and the believer may agree completely about what exists. The disagreement is only about whether to call it ‘God’. Indeed, the atheist who tells Spinoza, ‘I don’t believe in your God’, may really be saying, ‘I believe in exactly the same thing as you, but I don’t think you should call it God.’ More commonly, Spinoza was himself accused of atheism, on the grounds that identifying God with everything amounted to believing in nothing.

The Problem with Agnosticism

The same problem applies to agnosticism. An agnostic typically says, ‘I don’t know whether God exists.’ But again: which God?

It makes perfect sense to be agnostic about a supernatural creator. Perhaps such a being exists; perhaps not; perhaps we cannot know. But what would it mean to be agnostic about Spinoza’s God? ‘I don’t know whether Nature exists’ is hardly a coherent position.

Like atheism and theism, agnosticism depends upon some prior conception of God. Until that conception has been supplied, saying, ‘I am an agnostic’ tells us surprisingly little. The familiar spectrum—theist, agnostic, atheist—is not really a spectrum of attitudes towards God. It is a spectrum of attitudes towards a particular—some might say quasi-mythological—conception of God. Change the conception and you may change your position without having altered a single belief about reality.

Is Dawkins Attacking a Straw Man?

This helps explain something peculiar about the modern God debate. Dawkins is not attacking a straw man when he attacks the supernatural, interventionist God. Millions of people believe in precisely such a God.

But difficulties arise when an argument against that concept of God is treated as an argument against God tout court.

The God of philosophy and theology can be much more elusive. God may be described not as a being but as Being itself; not as one cause among others but as the ground of causation; not as something within the universe but as that upon which the universe ultimately depends. Dawkins’s arguments against a supernatural designer may have considerable force without touching these concepts at all.

The atheist can reasonably reply, ‘You have defined God into existence.’ The theologian can equally reasonably reply, ‘You have been attacking a God I don’t believe in.’ And there, in miniature, lies the problem.

The more concrete and anthropomorphic God becomes, the easier God is to attack. But the more abstract and deflationary God becomes, the less obvious it is what atheism could mean—and, eventually, why we need the word ‘God’ at all.

Why Does the God Debate Persist?

If the problem is so simple, why do some of our most distinguished intellectuals sit there arguing about God without first agreeing what they mean by the word?

One reason may be that belief and disbelief are about far more, and far less, than metaphysics. For many people, religion is bound up with family, community, culture, morality, and personal identity. When someone starts questioning their idea of God, they are also questioning their idea of who they are.

Atheism can function in much the same way. For some, especially since the rise of the New Atheism, it can signify reason, science, intellectual independence, or emancipation from religious tradition. People on both sides may therefore be defending not merely propositions, but identities and the ego defences that buttress them. This may account for the extraordinary heat surrounding the debate. Once people start agitating, it is no longer simply about the facts.

Another reason is that the God debate has acquired the status of the ultimate intellectual question. It seems to encompass the origins of the universe, the meaning of life, morality, death, and our place in the cosmos. To call oneself a theist, atheist, or agnostic is not only to take a position in the debate but to take a position on reality itself—even if said position happens to be incoherent.

The ambiguity that makes the question philosophically troublesome may be precisely what makes it so attractive. Everyone thinks they understand the question, and even ‘I have no clue’ counts as a valid answer. All in all, the God debate makes for excellent theatre—hence the Sheldonian for the venue, while virtue ethics is for the basement.

A more rigorous debating approach would begin by defining God, fragment into more precise questions, and attract smaller audiences.

Three Clever Men in the Sheldonian

Which brings us back to Dawkins, Williams, and Kenny. Perhaps the most striking thing about their discussion is not that three exceptionally intelligent men could disagree about God, but they could appear to disagree before establishing whether they were talking about the same thing.

Dawkins was principally rejecting a supernatural creator. Williams resisted treating God as another object or explanatory cause within the universe. Kenny, sitting between them, professed uncertainty. All three positions are perfectly intelligible in themselves. The difficulty arises when we treat them as answers to the same under-defined question—as though Dawkins were saying no, Williams yes, and Kenny maybe.

Perhaps, then, there is no single God debate. There are only debates about particular conceptions of God, some more substantial than others. Once those conceptions are made explicit, apparent disagreements may sharpen into real ones—or disappear altogether. As things stand, everyone can leave feeling that they have won. In a properly defined debate, some people might have to accept that they are wrong.

Of course, none of this says whether God exists, or does not exist. It makes a simpler point: neither statement means very much until we know what ‘God’ means.

So before you tell me that you are a believer, an atheist, or an agnostic—or worse, ask me whether I am one of those—there is something else I need to know.

What do you mean by God? —And, do you know your Aristotle and your Advaita Vedanta?

What I mean is that the familiar God debate is culturally provincial. It tends to assume a conception of God shaped by Christianity: a personal creator, separate from the world, who takes an interest in human affairs. But Aristotle’s unmoved mover already unsettles that picture, while Advaita Vedanta can dissolve the distinction between God, ultimate reality, and the deepest self.

Once we step outside the familiar Christian frame, the apparently simple opposition between belief and disbelief begins to break down.