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Aug. 27, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
08:06
God Does Not Exist in the Physical Realm
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Now there are things that are valid that do not exist in the material realm, right?
Like the inverse square law or laws of mathematics or laws of logic.
We derive them from the behavior of matter and energy in the material realm, but they don't exist.
Like the concept of a forest doesn't exist in the way that a tree does, but the concept of forest is dependent upon the presence of a cluster of trees.
Is that a fair way to put it?
Correct.
Yes.
Correct.
So I think it's fair to say that God doesn't exist in the detectable sense-based material realm.
Is that right?
I might, I might, I had to think about that question, but if I could pose a question to you.
No, no, no, no, no, hold on.
I'm happy to take your questions, but this is my, you asked me to take the lead on the hike.
So let me just, you know, take us a couple of steps, okay?
Go ahead.
So it is fair to say, I think, and I'm obviously happy to be corrected, but I don't think anyone has made the claim that we can detect the presence of God, at least through modern science and technology or our own senses, that we cannot detect the presence of God through the evidence of the senses.
or anything that translates the invisible to the visible.
For instance, we can't see heat, we can't see X-rays or gamma rays, but we can.
Correct.
We can translate those into things that we can see.
We can't see sound, but we can translate it into sound waves, which we can see.
Yeah, we can study the things and then they become things we can study.
I get it.
So there is no material way to test the existence of God.
God is not a door, but a doorway in that there is nothing there that we can detect from a sense-based vision.
Is that fair to say?
One more time.
Can you say that again?
Yeah.
So God is not something that we can empirically test for the existence of using our senses or anything that translates some other energy form into something we can process through our senses.
Okay.
So an entity that does not impact at all upon our senses is the same as an entity that is not there.
So for instance, if I said, I have an invisible bird on my head and you'd say, wow, that's a that's a heck of a trick.
Can I feel it?
Nope.
Okay, I can't feel it.
I can't see it because it's invisible and I can't feel it.
Okay, can I detect its heat signature?
Nope.
Okay, I can't see it, can't hear it, can't detect the heat signature.
Can't okay, can I can oh, can I shake a baby powder on the invisible bird and then see the outline?
Nope.
Right, so at some point there's no difference between the quote invisible bird and there not being a bird.
Is that fair to say?
Yeah, that's fair to say.
Okay, so if we accept that God does not exist in any way that is detectable in the material realm, then we have to say that God exists as a concept or as an idea or as something within our heads that does not match something that is empirical out there in the world.
And of course, I fully accept that God exists as a concept.
God exists as an idea.
But a concept does not prove the existence of something in the world.
So, I mean, you could have a contradictory concept like a square circle.
Something is both a circle and a square at the same time.
That would not mean that a square circle exists in the universe.
You could imagine a dragon that was a carbon-based life form that breathed fire and also was able to fly between the stars.
But we would not expect such a thing to actually exist because nothing can live, certainly that's carbon-based, in the depths of space.
So we wouldn't need to scour the whole universe and find out if there was such a thing as a dragon that could fly between the stars.
We can imagine things like time travel, but this does not mean that it's a real thing that we can actually do.
And of course, science fiction, Lord of the Rings, magic, and so on are all things that we can imagine or create that don't actually exist in the world, but are vividly conveyed through acts of creation and description.
Is that another fair way to put it?
Yes, yes.
Okay, so if God did...
In other words, if the material existence of God is exactly the same as something which does not exist, then we cannot look to the material realm to prove the existence of God.
And therefore, we have to look at some other realm.
Now, the fact that we have an idea of God.
I know that there's a proof for God that says, well, we have this idea of God and therefore there is a proof of God.
I don't accept that as a whole because in general, the idea of God is humanity with characteristics taken away.
So for instance, we live for, you know, 80, 90 years, sort of an average in the West, right?
So we are mortal creatures.
And so what we do is we say, okay, but we will take away the reality of mortality from a creature and we will make that creature immortal.
So that is taking away a characteristic of humanity.
We could also say that, well, all of our knowledge is limited.
Our knowledge is a combination of eternal and infinite and temporal and transitory, right?
So I had a dream last night, that's all gone, but two and two make four is true before I was born, it'll be true after I'm dead, and that sort of ends.
So, but if we say human knowledge is all limited to some degree, But if we take away all the limitations of human knowledge in the same way as if we take away all the mortality of human life, we end up with eternal and all-knowing.
And of course, we are born and we live and then we die, but if we take away that then we have eternal life and so on and so god is more of a negation of a concept of what life is that we would understand and god is a contradictory concept because if god for instance is all knowing then god knows everything that is going to happen past present and future and has certain knowledge of everything that could possibly that not that but that will certainly happen in the future but if god is all knowing then
then God cannot also be all-powerful.
For instance, if I know that a small comet is going to hit Etobicoke tomorrow morning, I know this for absolute certain, then clearly I cannot change it.
Because if I can change it,
That is a doorway, not a door.
And if God has self-contradictory elements, such as being all-powerful and all-powerful, all powerful and all knowing, then that's like a square circle.
Now, we cannot touch a square circle.
We cannot ever feel or hear a square circle.
There's nothing that can translate the existence of a square circle into our sense data, and a square circle is a self-contradictory concept.
And so, very briefly, if we look at these things and put them all together, then God certainly exists as a concept, and it's a very powerful concept for a lot of people.
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