Classic Objections to God’s Existence

(including some possible answers)

1. “If God exists then I cannot be free. But I am free. Therefore, God cannot
exist.”

What this statement is not taking into account about God is that his will is not opposed
to human freedom---God will is for me to be fully alive and free.

2. “Religion is the opium of the masses.” In other words, we invented religion to

soothe our lives from all the difficulty and suffering. When we throw away the drug we
will make progress.

What this statement is not taking into account about God is that…God is not in
opposition to our progress or our freedom. This quote makes the same mistake the
previous one did that God is somehow opposed to our freedom.

God consoling us in our suffering and making progress are not opposed to each other.
God actually does bring both of the two together in marvelous way. God uses all things
for the good of those who love him – this includes, in a very special and unique way –
suffering & difficulties. If we take God out of the equation – we still have to deal with
suffering & difficulties this time without much hope, peace & even joy.

3. “The idea of God is really just our own childish wishful thinking. We invented it
because we wanted there to be a cosmic being that could fulfill our deepest
longings for a perfect Father we could never have. We just need to wake up.”

What this statement is not taking into account about God is that…this quote makes the
mistake of saying that belief in God is contrary to knowledge of the truth. It somehow if
we admit that there's a God it's going to be a denial of the facts as if those two things
were contradictory to each other. It also makes the mistake of thinking that we projected
our desires on to God, but the same argument might be said for atheism, that atheism is
our projection of a world where I don't have to be held accountable for my actions on to
the universe.

Scott Hahn tells the story of a student who said “I think we invented God to make
ourselves feel better.” Scott Hahn responded with “I think we invented atheism to make
ourselves feel better about our sin and so we did.”

4. “Religion is like living in a permanent North Korea.” In other words, God is really
just a cosmic cop who imposes his will on us.
What this statement is not taking into account about God is that... God is not opposed to
our freedom. Again this is pitting our freedom against belief in God as if they were
mutually contradictory.

5. “Existence precedes essence.” In other words, our freedom determines what

we are entirely--- don’t let someone outside of you tell you who to be, much less a
religion.

What this statement is not taking into account about God is that…Again, this is saying
that our freedom is opposed to our design. It assumes that if someone tells you your
design that you can't be free. This is a mistaken notion of freedom.

A train is not free to go where there are no tracks because it's designed to go on tracks
it is only free to go on tracks. If it goes off the tracks, it will limit its own freedom and
break its design.

Similarly, the human person has a design and it's made to go on truth when we go
against that design we break ourselves. The quote assumes a totally different kind of
freedom one in which we have no design and design is limiting to our freedom.

We can see this in the effects that different sins & vices have on us and other people.
We can see that we must not be made to do these things.

6. “Why does God command us to worship him anyway? Is his ego so small that
he needs little creatures to bow down in front of him so he can feel better than
himself?”

What this statement is not taking into account about God is that… God does not need
worship, but the command to worship is given so that we might flourish. We are
creatures that are meant to and created to worship. It's not a matter of if we will worship
something, it's only a matter of what we will worship (examples: sports, vanity, etc.).

Another way of saying that is we will always imitate something; it's only a matter of what
we will imitate. Because we are made in the image of God, when we worship God, it
makes us free because we imitate the thing that were patterned after.