Hans Kung. Does God Exist?: GOD’S EXISTENCE

A Review: Hans Kung. Does God Exist? An Answer for Today. Trans. Edward Quinn. New York: Vintage Books, 1981. pp. 529-702.

PROVING GOD?

The arguments of the proof for and against the existence of God have a long “impressive tradition”. Several attempts have been applied already in the early history. Plato was the first one to use term “theologia” which refers to the supreme idea of the “Good”; Aristotle used scientific proofs to prove the existence of God, the Unmoved Mover. Based upon the concepts of unchanging truths in mind, Augustine used it for proving God’s existence. Aquinas used cosmological, teleological, ontological, and moral proofs of God. Among others who used “pure thought” as basis for God’s existence are Anselm, Descartes, Liebniz, and Wolff. Finally, Kant “postulates” the existence of God based on moral grounds.

On the other hand, Kung admits: “Belief in God cannot be proved to a person if the existential constituents are neglected, with the result that this person is dispensed from belief instead of being summoned to belief. In the light of our previous experience, there is no purely rational demonstration of God’s existence that could carry universal conviction. Proofs of God turn out in fact not to be coercive for everyone, whatever may be thought of the ‘possibility’ of knowledge of God as taught by Vatican I. There is not a single proof that is universally accepted.”(533) This does not mean, however, that he takes for granted the proofs of God offered by others like Aquinas and Kant. Only, he posits question to its sufficiency of arguments.

More than Pure Reason: Immanuel Kant

Concerning the main discussion of this section, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was considered to be asserting God’s existence between dogmatic and rational proof. His new approach, that earned him the title Alleszermalmer (the man who crushes everything), is “a solution that no one can ignore, not even the person who finally rejects it.”(537) He hypothesized that proving God theoretically can not be for he is not within space and time. Even the argument of God as the main idea is not does not imply reality. Though he rejected theoretical, rational, and psychological arguments, he does not espouse “claims of atheism” or agnosticism. He said that all argumentative claims to prove the existence of God that was made can be the very arguments to disclaim the intended point. Here, human freedom and immortality of the soul support his postulation of “practical reason” for the sake of morality manifested in man’s action. His principle goes that “God’s existence can not be proved but likewise cannot be refuted,”(544); it can only be “believed” in practice. The mystery of God is a “postulation”, never an imperative for him. Towards his death, Kant affirmed: “It is a good thing that we do not know, but believe, that there is God.”(542)

GOD EXISTS

The struggle of proving God’s existence led to new openness, instead of elimination, of religion since it is the foundation of ethics and “ethics is the presupposition of life”. Kung, after assessing the trends of treatment to religion, affirmed that “at any rate, sociologists of religion are agreed that religion—like art—will always exist. At the same time, religion is no more to be identified with the ecclesiastical, institutional, sacral, irrational aspects than is secularization with unchurching, desacralization, rational disenchantment.” (560).

God as hypothesis. Since Kung is interested with the knowledge of related to the existence of man, he posits three major questions that can never be separated to the question of God: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? If God exists, there must be a meaningful answer to all these three existential inquiry for he can be the ultimate ground, source and goal of all reality. If God exists, then he can be the ground, support, and goal of human existence, despite all the menace of fate and death, emptiness and meaninglessness, sin and damnation, and nonbeing. “I can with good reason confidently affirm the being of my human existence: God is then the being itself in particular also of human life.”(568)

God as reality. Kung clearly points out that both denial and affirmation of God are possible for God is a matter of trust. “It has been shown therefore that cannot evade a free, although not arbitrary, decision, not only in regard to reality as such but also in regard to a primal ground, primal support, and primal goal of reality.”(570) Since this primal things and reality are not imposed with definitive evidence, they are the bounce of man’s freedom; thus, both atheism and belief in God are ventures and taking the risks for both must decide without intellectual constraint as well as rational proof. Moreover, “Denial of God implies an ultimately unjustified fundamental trust in reality. Atheism cannot suggest any condition for the possibility of uncertain reality. If someone denies God, he does not know why he ultimately trusts in reality.”(571) On the other hand: “Affirmation of God implies an ultimately justified fundamental trust in reality. As radical fundamental trust, belief in God can suggest the condition of the possibility of uncertain reality. If someone affirms God, he knows why he can trust reality.”(572)

But like trust as fundamental justification, trusting God does not mean irrationality. Rationality is like fundamental trust in a sense that it is not an outward rationality that cannot offer security but like an inward rationality which produce fundamental certainty. As a fundamental trust, belief in God is “a matter not only of human reason but of the whole concrete, living man, with mind and body, reason and instinct, in his quite particular historical situation...therefore superrational: as there is no logically conclusive proof for the reality of reality, neither is one for the reality of God...but not irrational: there is a reflection on the reality of God emerging from human experience and calling for man’s free decision...not, then, a blind decision, devoid of reality, but one that is grounded in and related to reality and rationally justified in concrete life...realized in a concrete relationship with fellow men...not grasped once for all, but constantly to be freshly realized: belief in God is not secured against atheism unassailably and immune from crises by rational arguments.”(576-5) Moreover, belief in God is seen as a gift that must be accepted.

Thus, in relation to Kant’s moral argument, Kung comments that the “norms should illuminate the situation, and the situation should determine the norms.”(582) It means that what is moral and good is not simply right and good in the abstract sense but in concrete terms of appropriation of good and right for a particular person of group.

YES TO THE CHRISTIAN GOD

The God of the non-Christian religions. Etymological study of “God”, i.e., theos (Platonic “Good”), guth (Germanic/Gothic), dues, Dio, Dios, Dieu (Roman “heavenly”), and devas (Indian), has a long history. In China, the name of God is translated in dual tem: Supreme Lord (Shang-ti) and Heaven (T’ien). It could be is used in the dualistic view of Yin-Yang or pantheistic expression of Tao (Lao-tse) or Tai-chi and Li (the ultimate reality and the principle) of neo-Confucian philosophy. From the start of Christian missions in China, two missiological approaches was used in terms of the usage of the Chinese concept of God: assimilation and rejection. The latter approach made Christianity a reproach to Chinese. In Buddhism, God is nameless: Nirvana , Void, and Nothingness where the main idea is that the Absolute is neither being or non-being or any concept.

The Eastern concept of God, therefore, is incomprehensible, indefinable, incomprehensible, and transcends positive and negative statements, world and man and pervades them at the same time.

Two main types of religious experience. Mystical experience is popular among Hindu and Buddhist belief systems. In Christianity, Pseudo-Dionysius (5 ca.) introduced a Neo-Platonic piety in his Mystike Theologia. Mysticism is a form of religiousness where “the senses are closed altogether against the whole external world, so that salvation can be sought in the depths of ones’ own soul.”(604) Precisely, it is “intercourse with God” where the world and self are denied absolutely; human personality is dissolved and is “absorbed in the infinite unity of the Godhead.” This is a reaction to systematization and sophistication of religion. Prophetic religion (religion of revelation/Piety of faith), however, emerged from nomadic tribe’s primitive religion towards the level of monotheistic belief in God like that of Zarathustra, Moses, or Mohammed. Mystical and Prophetic religion’s differences extend in three structures: psychic basic experience (denial of life vs. will to live), basic attitude (passivity vs. activation), and the understanding of God (Hidden God and ecstasy vs. Revealed God and experience of faith). Nonetheless, Kung maintains that in the midst of this theoretical and practical differences “belief in God must certainly be proved in practice, but that the criterion of the truth of belief in God is not simply practice.”(611) In theory and practice, there is certainly a difference.
On the other hand, both intellectualism and pragmatism see the reality of religious reality only in one aspect. But reflection and experience must go together. Without religious reflection, experience is blind; reflection must provide assurance and critical illumination to experience. Moreover, experience lives by reflection and without religious experience, reflection is void. (611-2)

THE GOD OF THE BIBLE

The one, sole God. Without the Jewish God, the Christian God cannot be understood properly or vice versa. The God described in the Old Testament was a touchstone to the Christian, as well as Islam, concept of God as the “one, sole God”. Nonetheless, Kung reasons out that monotheism is never the main criterion of truth as explained in the background of Israel’s religious development, .i.e., Akhenaton, husband of Nefertiti (1 ca. before Moses). Israel’s “one-God faith emerged not as a result of theoretical reflection but from practical behavior: first of all as a ‘practical’ monotheism in the forms of veneration and worship (monolatry).”(616) Decisively, this form of faith reached its peak from the small “Moses troop” (13 ca. BC) out of Egypt. God is seen as “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who eventually became Israel. This Israel’s God is a jealous God without rival “whom they there identified with the Canaanite El—the supreme God of a heavenly array of gods—and then defended against the increasing pressure from the god Baal (Lord, heavenly Baal) and the baals (agricultural divinities), rivals of the one God Yahweh.”(617) The development of “Yahweh is God” by Elijah has “a long road by way of the great writing prophets, Isaiah in the eight and Jeremiah at the end of seventh centuries, for whom the gods (elohim) of the great powers (and especially those of the Neo-Assyrian kingdom) are ‘nothings’ (elihim), ‘not-gods’ (lo-elohim) and ‘worthless breath’ (heb-hel).”(617)
In principle, the Sh’ma established Israel’s monotheism in three respects: not other deities,, no feminine partner deity, no evil rival. “He is not only the highest, but the incomparable God. This God is not responsible only for particular spheres of life, like the gods of the pagans (a god for the fertility of the soil, a god for success for war, a god for the moods of the fate, a goddess for the perils of love, and so on). No, this one God is Lord over all. He gives everything, all life, all goodness, he may also expect man’s whole surrender, his whole love.”(618) Thus, this faith in one, sole God (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) has pivotal effects for the individual and society: “cooperation is imperative...Faith in the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob means the fall of both ancient and modern gods. It prevents both the deification of natural powers and the turning of political powers and rulers into idols. The one-God faith of course does not involve a social program, but it has incisive social consequences.”(618-9)

In the society, God is seen as “the God of liberation”—not a slave owner, but the God of freedom. This is manifested in the story of Israel where Yahweh, the God of the Exodus, delivered them out from their Egyptian oppressors. It is expressed in the primordial creed of Israel: profession of faith in the one God, “who brought Israel out of Egypt.” It also serves as the basis for unity of the people. But this God is named. YHWH (the Tetragrammaton) were the pronouns of the name “Adonai” (Lord). The Sinaitic revelation of God’s name “I am who I am” is expressed in the infinitive verb hayah (to be). Generally, it means “to be present, to take place, to turn out, to happen, to come to be.” It can be translated as “I am present as I am in present” or “I am present as I will be present.” In Martin Buber’s translation, it is “I will be present as I will be present.” This enigmatic name may mean: “It is not an explanation of God’s nature” but rather, “a declaration of God’s will”(621) declared mainly in the Exodus account of which Kung considered that the “God of the Bible is indeed a God of historical dynamism.”(622)
By comparison, the God of the philosophers is nameless, a Theos agnotos. It is abstract and indeterminate and does not reveal himself. On the other hand, God of the religions is not nameless; the biblical faith in God is concrete and determinate for Israel’s God has a name revealed in history and demands decision. They are rooted in “the experiential unity of knowing, willing and feeling, which, however, should not be understood as one’s own achievement, but as answer: an answer to an encounter with or an experience of God (or the Absolute), whatever form it may have taken.”(625) Despite all the differences, the God of religions has many names and one main question here is: Which is the true God? With respect to other world religions, reasons for choosing the God of Israel here is based upon the incoherent understanding of other religions where they display many names and natures but each contradicts each other; thus, it is impossible to believe in all of them at one time. On the other hand, the one-God faith is rationally justifiable and has historical significance for many thousand years. The name of this one God is Yahweh. “It cannot be denied that in the other world religions also it is known that the Deity, however close, is remote and hidden and must itself bestow closeness, presence and manifestness.”(626)

Kung argues other religions, however, seeks (Muslims-Allah, Hindus-Brahma, Buddhist-Absolute, Chinese-Tao) to one true God (for Jews and Christians-Yahweh). “The religions of the world can perceive not only the alienation, enslavement and need of redemption on man’s part but also the goodness, mercy and graciousness of the one God. Because of this truth—despite many untruths, despite polytheism, magic, natural forces and superstition—people in the world religions can gain eternal salvation.”(627) He added that the “question of salvation must therefore be distinguished from the question of truth. And if the question of salvation is settled positively, this by no means renders superfluous the questions of truth. For however much truth can be seen in detail in the world religions that can be accepted by Jews and Christians, they do not provide the truth for Jews and Christians. Only the one true God of Israel, known by faith, is the truth for Jews and Christians.”(627)

The idea of God as a person (persona, prosopon, hypostasis) posits one difficulty in understanding the Jewish and Christian God. At present, understanding person is not ontological (nature of being) but psychological (self-consciousness), thus, acquiring various ideas. When applied to Trinity, it has connotations of tritheism, an offense to Muslims. But Kung maintains that “God is not a person as man is a person. The all-embracing and all-penetrating is never an object that man can view from a distance in order to make statements about it. The primal ground, primal support and primal goal of all reality, which determines every individual existence, is not an individual person among other persons, is not a superman or superego. The term ‘person’ also is merely a chiper for God. God is not the supreme person among other persons. God transcends also the concept of person. God is more than a person.”(633) He transcends the personal “Thou” and the impersonal “It”, yet, he is never an “intrapersonal” or “less personal” or a “thing.” “God is not neuter, not an ‘it.’ but a God of men, who provokes the decision for belief or unbelief.” (633) But Kung makes it clear that the terms are not really important, “whether we call God personal or non-personal depends on the statement of the question. It is part of the completely incommensurable nature of God that he is neither personal nor nonpersonal, since he is both at once and therefore transpersonal.”(634) One thing remains, this does not mean that God is below man’s level and even though humanity can speak to God only in analogical terms, images, metaphors, symbols, and chipers, still, God can be spoken of in meaningful human terms. Despite that man cannot precisely define or predicate God in human terms that reality must be accepted. God who is suprapersonal and transpersonal can be addressed.

“The language of the Bible is not a scientific language of facts, but metaphorical language of images.”(639) This is Kung’s final comment to the contemporary discourse concerning God in relation to the world. Science as the right to assume their claims concerning their theories for the Bible did not implicitly claims factual terms of the creation of the world in a scientific manner. Thus, one “should avoid mixing scientific conclusions with religious beliefs.”(648) According to Kung, the Bible’s understanding of reality it not scientific as manifested in the “miracles” as infringement of natural laws of nature for what is more important there is the “reality” behind the story, not the forms of the statements in the content. It is provided to arouse admiration of faith in God’s power, not historical description. Miracles are, therefore, pointers to God’s activity in the world.

THE GOD OF JESUS CHRIST

Death of God theologian’s main thesis has something to do with the Christological theme to atheism in Christianity where the Son of man prevails in contrast to God. E. Bloch says, “God is dead, long live Jesus, the Son of man; yes, long live Man!”

God as Father. While others look at the OT God as tyrannical, indifferent, demoniacally evil, and ambiguous, Jesus clarified the ambiguity. Though he addressed him “father” this does not mean God is masculine and there’s “Great Mother.” The term “Father” is a “patriarchal symbol—but also with matriarchal traits—for transhuman, transsexual, absolutely last/absolutely first reality.”(673) Moreover, he is a Father of the lost.

God through Jesus Christ. Jesus’ title as the Son of God in contrast to God as the Father created controversial (bitheism) misunderstanding. The Christian aspect of God is through Christ himself, the revealed, historical God. The Father can not be taken as the “Crucified God” for it is the historical Christ, the Son, who was crucified. Thus, the NT God has a face and concrete, manifested in love through the cross.

God in the Spirit. This is in main contrast to the “flesh” and no other than God himself. He is never a “third party”, not a thing in between God and man either but “God’s personal closeness to men.”(697) The Holy Spirit according to Kung is never man’s possibility but “always the force, the power and gift of God.”(698) He added that no one possess the Spirit.
In conclusion, Kung closes with the dogma of the triune God. The Trinity has been a mystery from apostolic times where in the account concerning Jesus ascended at the right hand of the Father was considered blasphemous by pious Jews. Yet Kung asserts that “God is revealed by the Son in the Spirit”(701) and “as Son the true man Jesus of Nazareth is the true revelation of the one true God.”(702) Through or in Spirit, God became real to man. “It must not be forgotten that the Trinity originally was an object not of theoretical speculation but of the profession of faith and the act of praise of God’s ‘glory’: ‘doxo-logy.’”

Does God exist? Through the major philosophers (Descartes, Pascal, Kant, Hegel), critique of religions ((Feuerbach, Marx, Frued), Nietzche’s nihilism, and the Eastern alternatives, the question can be answered by a resounding “Yes” justifiable at the bar of critical reason.