Divine Inexistence

Leon Niemoczynski

The Divine Inexistence: An Essay on the Virtual God (L'Inexistence divine. Essai
sur le Dieu virtuel) is the title of Meillassouxs 1997 doctoral thesis. As he has
remarked in After Finitude, the divine inexistence is to be the subject - and title
- of a much larger, forthcoming work, as After Finitude covered only the first 150
pages of the whole of LInexistence divine. In addition to the dissertation there
are two noteworthy pieces that Meillassoux has published where each covers
important topics found in The Divine Inexistence. Those pieces are the essay
Spectral Dilemma and a lengthy book chapter Immanence of the World
Beyond.

In all of these texts Meillassoux argues against theism and atheism (for each
accept and work within the terms of theistic thought), questions a/theism or any
God after God a/theological perspective and its anti-realist fideism, and
opposes orthodox onto-theological (metaphysical) religion and its corresponding
longing for satisfying transcendence (defined as exteriority in general.) A more
admissible alternative, claims Meillassoux, is a third option which in the Spectral
Dilemma he calls divinology or in Linexistence divine he simply refers to as
philosophy or in Immanence of the World Beyond he calls irreligion. In each
of these cases God is not constrained to the limits of human reason and thus not
relegated to be an object of faith found within some unknowable noumenal realm
(Kant), nor is God hidden in the atheistic folds of immanence, mostly in the denial
of an all powerful transcendent being. Nor is God rejected but then converted into
an immanent vital principle of life (Deleuze). Rather, divinology does not reject
God at all. It places an immanent form of hope in Gods inexistence and the
potential for this virtual God to appear in the future. Meillassouxs claim is that
philosophy can believe in God because God does not exist.

In After Finitude, Meillassoux concludes that only contingency is itself necessary

(or more precisely, only contingency is non-factial; where factiality - that things
can be otherwise than what they are - is the non-factiality of facticity). This is
important regarding the divine inexistence because Meillassoux does not accept
God onto-theologically as a necessary being or causa sui. Because
metaphysics deals with necessity and necessity has been rejected through the
non-factiality of facticity, we cannot admit God (a necessary being) into
metaphysical theology de facto. After the death of God we have no grounds to
admit God back into our ontology if necessity demands that re-appearance by
way of faith. Later, Meillassoux equals his rejection of necessity with the
insufficiency of reason. If everything has the property of being absolutely
contingent it doe not have to be that way in virtue of its creation - we cannot
provide a sufficient reason as to why something should be some way rather than
another way. Using a principle of insufficient reason, then, Meillassoux states
that there are no a priori reason for why anything (including Gods existence)
must be necessary (Meillassouxs argument here attacks Aquinass second and
third proofs for the existence of God as well as to Anselms ontological proof in
denying the type of necessity required for theologians to construct a priori
arguments concerning Gods necessary existence).

Twentieth century theologians are not safe either, as those who draw close to
Hegel in attempting to reveal an Absolute or All are said to run into contradiction
as well. Meillassoux states that if an Absolute or All (Hegel, Badiou) is itself and
its opposite then it cannot change. If it cannot change then its state must be
necessary rather than contingent, and by reductio ad absurdum cannot be.
Meillassoux arrives to the conclusion that contingency (associated with
hyperchaos or surcontingency) can only be a ground necessitating a lack of
sufficient reason as well as the principle of non-contradiction. This means that
anything can appear, without reason, save for the contradictory.

When we apply this reasoning to God we find that God, a necessary being,
cannot exist. But given the nature of surcontingency and the fact that anything
can appear without reason (save for contradictory beings), Meillassoux is able to
state that if there is no law for becoming, then becoming is capable even of
God. Thus, God inexists, or, God does not exist now but, in accordance with
the principle of factiality, may exist at some point in the future. God is thus virtual
existing neither possibly nor necessarily. Rather, Gods possible existence is
necessary. Given the radical and contingent nature of this possible future divine
being, Meillassoux uses some interesting terms to describe the divines possible
emergence. First, whatever appears does so miraculously within an advent
created via surcontingent ground. Several advents in particular intrigue
Meillassoux specifically due to their impact upon progress in the cosmos, and
each constitutes a distinct World: First, the advent of Matter; second, the advent
of Life; third, the advent of Thought; fourth, the potential advent of a World of
justice. It is the fourth World of justice that most expressly relates to the divine
inexistence as only a divine being is capable of resurrecting the dead and
bringing about a world where there is justice for the dead as well as the living.
Therefore, this divine beings appearance, among others, is ontologically most
important.

Several other key moments are crucial concerning the appearance of this virtual
God (other than the bodily resurrection of the dead which, again, according to
Meillassoux, is not impossible as the laws of nature are contingent and able to be
reconfigured according to a divine beings institution of the fourth World). These
key moments include: a Messianic appearance of a Christ-like figure who is to
mediate between the appearance of the divine and those living within the new
world; the child (infans) who is to remind the world that power is ultimately of the
surcontingent alone; and the emergence of an immanent logos that
circumscribes beauty, truth, and justice as ultimate rational ends in the last of
all Worlds.