Abstract
I briefly defend a view I call nonetheism: the claim that God is a non- existent item. I develop a defense that might be acceptable to a theist, but I also note that arguments for atheism would also support this claim. As such, nonetheism is a form of theism that is actually supported by the case for atheism. I begin by showing that it is possible for there to be a non-existent object—that such an idea is coherent. I then argue that a non-existent item is actual and follow this with a defense of the coherency of claiming that God is a non-existent object. The paper concludes by demonstrating that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo entails the non-existence of God and so any evidence in support of creation from nothing is evidence in support of nonetheism.
Highlights
I briefly defend a view I call nonetheism: the claim that God is a non-existent item
One traditional view is that God’s existence is metaphysically necessary, and so He exists in every possible world
Forum Philosophicum 20 (2015) no. 1, 7–28 ✍ Independent Scholar, Canberra, Australia 📧 dougkabay@gmail.com neither existent nor non-existent. Compare it to the very clear understanding we have of necessary existence, which can be articulated in terms of possible world semantics or the Aristotelian concept of a thing’s essence
Summary
I briefly defend a view I call nonetheism: the claim that God is a non-existent item. The remainder of the paper is a defense of nonetheism, i.e., the view that God is a non-existent object. Noneism has a number of arguments for the actuality of non-existent objects and I show both why these are not compatible with nonetheism and why some of them are not even sound.
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