Is God extant without us, or does God need us to believe?
(Multiple religious perspectives appreciated)
My own personal take is that God exists beyond our knowing … and that is in fact the essence of my theism … but it seems that most traditions have God relying on human testimony. What are the various theistic perspectives on this?
Let’s do some math -
There are around one hundred billion stars in this galaxy. I’ll make a conservative estimate, and say that 1 in every 10,000,000,000 has a planet orbiting around it which contains intelligent life. That gives us 10 different sentient races sharing our galaxy with us.
There are around one hundred billion galaxies in the observable univers. If we consider our galaxy to be an average sized one - and thus an averagely populated one - that gives us one trillion intelligent species at this moment in time.
And that’s just this universe.
The thing is, God doesn’t really need us all that much. We’re not that big, and we’re not that important.
Does God NEED us?
No.
Does God WANT us?
Absolutely.
Wow! We’re one out of a billion, but “we’re not that important.” WTF you gotta do to impress some one? 
By the way, I’m agnostic.
Why would an all-powerfull, all-knowing force need anything to exist? Yes, I understand that Christians think that they were told to spread the word.
Were Muhammadans, Confucians, Buddhist and others told to “spread the word?”
How can god “want” anything? It contradictory for an omnipotent being to want anything.
An omnipotent being, having decided to create other entities with free will, cannot act to compel those other entities to do anything willingly. To do such would entail a logical contradiction, similar to creating a four-sided triangle.
Obviously he could have done other things, but we appear to be in a world in which free will does in fact exist. Therefore the logical contradiction does in reality obtain, on the presumption of an omnipotent god. (Obviously a nonexistent omnipotent god could not actually do anything.)
Besides, I commented elsewhere that the God of Christianity is only omnipotent in the loose sense; to deal with strict categories, he is self-limited… i.e., he can do anything he chooses to, but can choose not to do things or to create entities such that his omnipotence is marred as concerns them.
According to traditional and modern understanding of Scripture, he did in fact do so.
Hence any debate about a hypothetical god with absolutely no limits is as abstract and contrary-to-fact to a Christian as it is to a philosophical Materialist.
But Polycarp, you entirely avoid the OP.
Truth be told, my inspiration for this question is not the Christian love of witnessing but my middle boy’s Haftarah reading for his Bar Mitzvah (just assigned). He has Isaiah 43:21-44:23. In it God states “You are my witnesses. Is there any god, then, but me?” Midrash (Rabbinic commentary) interprets this as meaning that “If ‘you are my witnesses,’ then I am God; but if you are not my witnesses, then, so to speak, I am not God” That is to say that human testimony is what gives the reality of God significance. It reminds me a bit of Terry Pratchett’s “Small Gods” (one of the Discworld series, in which gods only exist out of peoples beliefs) and not dissimilar to my eldest’s “Black and White” computer game!
Again, I dispute the premise, but it seems to be pervasive in multiple belief systems …
God is quite capable of witnessing to his own reality.
I take your point, but a Jewish scholar will need to address whether God needs witnesses from a Jewish standpoint. From a Christian one, however, it is not a question of what he NEEDS but what he commands, which is that his followers are to be his witnesses unto the ends of the earth.
How one goes about doing that depends, of course, on one’s own understanding of who he is. But the command, as addressed to a Christian, is quite explicit.
Well, once you’ve started with one logical contradiction, why stop there?
It is, in fact, a logical contradiction, for an omnipotent being to create other entities with free will. This would entail him creating something over which he has no power. Similar to creating a four-sided triangle.
If God requires our faith to survive, how did he live before we existed?
No, it would only entail him creating something over which he chooses not to assert his power. If we assume that God has free will, then he has the ablility to refrain from action, if he so chooses.
On omnipotent being chosing to relinquish his power is an oxymoron. It’s like making a square circle.
It is also a contradiction for an omnipotent being to have free will, or to make choices. Since it has power over past, present, and future events, everything is determined by the omnipotent being. Thus, everything is determined.
I should say up front that I respect other folks’ right to believe whatever they want. This post is not meant to disrespect any religion. It’s just my take on things right now.
I think that god is an artificial concept, a convenient repository for humans and perhaps other alien entities we haven’t met yet to put all the things they can’t comprehend and/or explain, for example, how they came to be, why they’re mortal, where do they go–if anywhere–after they die . . . As such god is omnipotent and omniscient for s/he/it has the potential to be anything anywhere at any time that any given individual wants, from a fierce and vindictive god, to a mortal who supposedly died on the cross for human sins, to a gentle, loving old man, to a beautiful and powerful woman, to an entity who has no gender, to an elemental source, to unadulterated love, and so on. By this definition, god needs witnesses because her/his/its existence/form/purpose is predicated on the witnesses’ beliefs. God is whatever believers need for her/him/it to be.
As far as god being extant without believers, I imagine that’s possible–anything’s possible–but how can we prove it since getting any kind of data on a god that exists outside the realm of a believer’s comprehension would be impossible to comprehend? That god’s existence would it seems be predicated on the NON-existence of believers. However, thinking about this whole concept of god as a construct does make me wonder: What would we do if tomorrow someone could definitively solve the mysteries and perform the miracles attributed currently to god? Would believers attribute other phenomena they don’t understand, can’t explain, or perform to god to keep the concept of god going, or will they just chuck the whole system of god and come up with some other system of belief? I can’t answer those questions, but it’s interesting thinking about them. Still I have to wonder about the notion of god creating earth and humans because s/he/it was lonely. If god is omniscient and omnipotent, you’d think s/he/it could keep him/her/itself amused without having to create anyone or anything. Better yet, god wouldn’t get lonely at all or need to be amused. Still, the primary way we know of god is through folks coming up with multiple names, powers, and forms for this concept. Therefore, given what I know right now, the only thing I can conclude is that god is a construct. I just gave you my version of what god it right here, and who knows tomorrow my version of god may change yet again. 
FWIW, I’m agnostic and fast becoming atheist.
About this whole ‘Free Will contradicts God’s omnipotence’ idea:
God has free will. This isn’t really a debatable issue. God is also the most powerful being and so nothing can destroy that free will of God.
God did grant mankind Free Will. This free will can exist because God chooses not to exert his power over us.
Just because he chooses not to control us doesn’t mean he cannot.
Just because I happen to choose to be silent at this particular moment doesn’t mean I cannot speak.
Just cos I choose to wear no make-up doesn’t mean it’s not possible for me to wear the stuff.
Similarly, just because God chooses not to exert control over us doesn’t undermine his ability to do so if he so wished to.
But hey, looks like I’m guilty of ignoring the OP. oops.
As far as I’m concerned, God is an absolute reality independant of whether or not people believe. That’s just my opinion. Of course, if no one believed then religion wouldn’t exist, but then God would be independant of religion as well.
Incidentally, for those of you wondering, I’m also an agnostic. I just study religion.
And how do you know this? Why is it not a debatable issue?
How do you know?
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Just because he chooses not to control us doesn’t mean he cannot.
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If he has power over our every thought and action, then we have no free will.
So?
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Just cos I choose to wear no make-up doesn’t mean it’s not possible for me to wear the stuff.
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So?
Irrelevant.
An omnipotent being has control over everything. This is, in fact, the definition of omnipotence. If such a being exists, then you cannot choose to do anything different from what this being has foreordained for you to do.
Also guilty of being illogical…
And how do you know this?
How can you be an agnostic when you claim certain knowledge on so many things?
Would you use a product you know nothing about and have not heard of? Perhaps not. However, you’d be more inclined if one of your friend’s reccomended it. In that sense, God doesn’t need witnesses, but people would be more inclined to go with the flow if he has people testifying to his existence.
Naturally, there are those that think the witnesses are crazy.
Celestina,
Hmmm… “can’t comprehend yet”
First off, if that is the function of God, then we’ll always have a need. The more we learn, the more we learn how much there is to learn. The more we know, the more we find out how much is fundamentally unknowable. There will always be mystery to this universe.
Secondly, I’m not sure about “God to explain what we comprehend” is any different than science as a means to understand what we can’t comprehend … in its motivation, anyway. Both are driven by a need to makes sense of the world around us. Neither are complete answers in and of themselves.
But your point, that God emerges as a human comprehensible concept out of our need to understand, is a good one.
Re omnipotence: isn’t this the silly old “can God make a rock so heavy that even He can’t lift it?” debate? Gawsh.
DSeid, Thanks, and thanks for starting this thread. A very wise friend of mine has a saying: “I don’t know what I think till I say it.” I imagine all that stuff I wrote has been floating around in my mind, and I really didn’t know what it was I thought about god, until I wrote it out. I’m sure my thoughts on god will keep changing, but for right now:
You’re right. I should have said god stands for all the things we can’t comprehend “yet.”
As far as the function of god goes, well, yes, I imagine there may always be mysteries and a need for someone to solve them, and while folks are figuring the puzzles out, witnesses may well use god as the repository of all the answers to all the mysteries. Mind you, this will work so long as witnesses exist. The wrench in the plan is if the witnesses get too cocky or too crazy and do something stupid and wind up annihilating themselves. Then according to the system I set up, god will cease to be along with the witnesses because there won’t be anyone around to seek knowledge or to design a god who can be the source of answers for things they’ve yet to comprehend.
Of course, the other side of that is that witnesses may progress to a certain level where though they’ll acknowledge there are mysteries out there, they WON’T ascribe the answers to those mysteries to god. As you note, using god as a construct for all the answers to the unknowable is not any different really than using science to gain knowledge about what we don’t understand. And you’re right. Science and/or god aren’t complete answers in and of themselves. They are TOOLS folks use at this stage in their evolution to deal with the unknowable. Perhaps witnesses will decide that rather than using god or science as tools to find answers, they can figure the mysteries out for themselves without the aid of external tools, or they will design other even more sophisticated tools than the concept of god or science.
Although, I gave you one function–that witnesses use god as a repository of answers for things they’ve yet to comprehend–I honestly think that god’s ultimate function is to be whatever witnesses need for god to be. Some folks need for god to not exist at all; thus, for them god does not exist. Some folks need for god to be an answer for what they don’t yet comprehend; thus, god is the authority on everything and the answer to their prayers. Some need for god to be the opposite of evil; thus, god is good and the source of unadulterated love, and so on. Who’s to say god’s function can’t or won’t change? I think it will because people who design god will change.