Ascent Blog

What I wish to talk about today are the gods of the past. Before many knew the one true God, people on Earth have worshiped countless others. There were the Sumerian gods, the Egyptian gods, the Greek gods, the Roman gods, the Chinese gods, the Indian gods and so on and so forth. Perhaps looking at this multitude one might become confused and say: “Well… where are all of these gods now? Aren’t they “dead”? How is the Christian God any different then?”

Implied in these questions is a statement about the nature of gods in general. Because we have so many gods that have been imagined, worshiped and ultimately forgotten, one might consider that our current “fad” with Christianity is just another echo of the distant past. This is the type of statement I frequently see on popular atheist websites, or in some of the more recent peer-produced media. Typically, it is thrown out as a challenge… to show that the Christian faith does not stand up to even the simplest of tests.

Fortunately, this question is not difficult to answer – it is a simple exercise in logic. Let’s walk through it then…

Many people think of the spiritual world as a bi-polar entity. There either is one or there isn’t. Either there are gods or there are no gods. From this perspective, the conclusion about Christianity seems obvious. We observe that Christianity involves a God; We also observe that there have been many gods in the past and that they are all dead; thus we conclude that the Christian God is just a figment of imagination and will “die” with the rest of the gods. Simply put – there is no God!

But let’s look at what we just said more closely. Many people might be convinced by the logic of the argument and I agree that the logic is correct. However, the problem is not with the logic… it is with the assumptions that we set up to derive our conclusions. What is wrong is the statement: Either there are gods or there are no gods. This statement actually does not encompass Christianity! Everything we know about Christianity says: There is ONE God. And this quantity qualifier matters! So the correct statement about the world should instead read: Either there are many gods, or there is only one God, or there are no gods.

Now that we have teased out this subtle difference let’s look at the huge impact it has on the conclusions we draw about our world. From the onset the Jewish and Christian God has claimed to be the only one. If this is to be true, then all other gods must be ‘dead’. If even one single god of the past is true, Christianity would be false. What do we observe? Every other god is indeed dead! Does this prove that Christianity is true? No, certainly it is not enough to prove Christianity. But in no way can we conclude that the imagined gods of the past disprove Christianity. On the contrary, it goes hand in hand with claims by the Christian God about His being – He claims to be the one (and only) unchangeable I am!

In conclusion, this is a very good example of how starting with incorrect assumptions and then using flawless logic will still lead us to incorrect results. We can arrive at disparate conclusions given even one false statement. I think, in general, it is good to consider such exercises in logic as they also strengthen the faith once we determine where such statements fall short.