Single Idea 22737

[catalogued under 28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism]

Full Idea

The Divine is not incorporeal, since that is inanimate and insensitive and incapable of any action; nor is it a body, since that is subject to change and perishable; so the Divine does not exist.

Gist of Idea

An incorporeal God could do nothing, and a bodily god would perish, so there is no God

Source

Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.151)

Book Reference

Sextus Empiricus: 'Against the Physicists/Against the Ethicists', ed/tr. Bury,R.G. [Harvard Loeb 1997], p.81


A Reaction

I find this quite persuasive. An incorporeal God has to be ascribed magical powers in order to interact with what is corporeal. A corporeal God is subject to entropy and all the depredations of the physical world.

Related Idea

Idea 22736 God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God [Sext.Empiricus]