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Let's assume a God exists.

So, does God believe in God?

And if he does - in which one?

I think that's not easy to tell - answering seems to require reasoning about objects in the domain of God.

Explaining in which way it can not be answered would make an interesting answer too!


(I do not know whether there is a consesus whether logic can be applied to "God-domain objects".)


Hmm... after seeing some downvotes, I noticed that there may be a problem with the question, restricting who can answer it:

I do not think God exists, but make the assumption it does for the purpose of this exercise in abstract thinking; But now I notice that someone who answers it by thinking partly in this other kind of reasoning would need to actually assume God exists, just to be able to even know that "other kind of reasoning".

Now, tha is unusual, but it looks like the answer would belong to a different Stackexchange site.

One could think about also asking that on https://christianity.stackexchange.com/ - but I think that would be interpreted in a different way, because of the very different context - so that does not really work.

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    I guess for the purposes of the question, we have to assume there is a God. Is this the same as asking "is God concious" ? The fact that he/she/it is all-powerful (assuming that's the definition) would presumably be irrelevant..just a case of whether God is self-aware.
    – user2808054
    Apr 2, 2015 at 8:36
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    @user2808054 Oh right, that's actually funny! I do not normally assume a God exists; I was thinking abour the question completely in the abstract, like a exercise in thinking in part just logic, combinied with possibly different rules of arguments in the God domain. So yes, I'll had implied something like "Let's assume a God exists." - I will add it.
    – Volker Siegel
    Apr 2, 2015 at 12:30
  • God, as humans typically think of God, believes in himself - by definition there is no higher power to believe in. Obviously, we make think a higher being is the highest and call that god, and he may not be the highest and will look to another god. Our logic can't answer this question because it would be based on premises of which we have no knowledge to create.
    – ProfessorFluffy
    Apr 2, 2015 at 12:48
  • @ProfessorFluffy That sounds just right - but a different kind of answer I was expecting; which is obviously my fault; By now, I found that I implied quite a lot of context that is much more ambiguous than I initially expected; I edited to make some things explicit. Anyway, yes, your comment is a valid answer.
    – Volker Siegel
    Apr 2, 2015 at 13:17
  • Cross posting the same question is generally frowned upon. Re-siteing the question would be preferable if you think Christiantity will provide good answers.
    – Dave
    Apr 2, 2015 at 13:59

2 Answers 2

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The answer to your question heavily depends on your notion of 'God'. Since you've mentioned Christianity.SE, I will suppose a god in the Christian sense, which also means accepting some paradoxes that, we'll see, are troublesome.

We also have to fix a definition for believe. I will take the following:

1. Accept that (something) is true, especially without proof
2. Hold (something) as an opinion; think.

If we assume this god is omniscient, this idea of him believing something is difficult to imagine. How would you hold something as an opinion if you would know if it's true or not? Why would you accept that something is true without proof, if you have proof?

So, it's arguable that an omniscient god does not believe anything. He knows whether he exists or not, and if we may rely on our logic to answer that question, he knows he does.

This is troublesome with common notions of god because, at least in Christianity, God is considered to be omnipotent as well. So, he can do everything, and thus also believe something - even something that is not true.

However, this is a paradox that already exists when accepting a god being both omniscient and omnipotent (can that god know a falsehood?), and is not a paradox introduced by your scenario. To solve this paradox is outside the scope of this answer, but one could argue that that's where your belief comes in: is your belief strong enough to handle these paradoxes?

If we're talking about a god who is not omniscient, that may change things, because the above argument doesn't hold anymore. Then it also gets rather unanswerable, because typical notions of god include omniscience - taking it out leaves little of the intuitive idea of a god, making it impossible to argue about it.

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    Interesting! Regarding the religious context - yes, I was thinking of a/the Christian God - but I was not aware that the definition of "God" varies so much that it is or relevance here. After reading your answer, I see even minor variants in definitioin are clearly relevant - and would also even if only part of the reasoning was rigorous. I think my intuition was to see the details of what God is as personal features, while they are more like logical properties.
    – Volker Siegel
    Apr 2, 2015 at 16:11
  • On my religious context: I was never religious, and am sure I will never be, provided I do not get a serious mental illness* ). A person I learned from about the definition of God is something like a Katholic-to-Protestant convert, roughly. My knoledge about other mainstram religions is shallow at best. [ (*)There is a trick.]
    – Volker Siegel
    Apr 2, 2015 at 16:23
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If god is omniscience he would know how we(he / universe) became and why. What purpose there is in live. What his 'duty' is. If he has to pray or not. All that he would know. But the thing about the idea that a god exists is that you dont want to know.

If you ask yourself if god knows everything you are allready questioning religion and you cant be a true Christian (what you already stated). No one who seriously believes in god would even consider that god doesn't know everything and therefore has to believe in a god. If god would have to believe in other gods is he really a god? Since he cant be omniscience or omnipotent what basically would degrade him from being a god.

At the end of the day, if there is a god and he would belive in other gods. But the only knowledge we have about him is: He is the only god there is plus omniscience and omnipotent. Then we have to come to the conclusion that he does not believe in other gods because of the 'knowledge' we have. Even when in our hypothetical he was believing in other god.

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  • Oh, lots of interesting aspects! For anything related to this question, I assume that God exists; that means I take it as fact that is just accepted and can not have any doubt. I can not really follow the logic currently - but that's more because I'm confused, not that I see it's wrong; have to try again...
    – Volker Siegel
    Apr 2, 2015 at 14:45
  • As a side note, I also can not be a true Scotsman!
    – Volker Siegel
    Apr 2, 2015 at 14:48
  • basically: if god exists and all knowledge we have about him is true we have to come to the conclusion that he doesnt believe in any gods because: 1. he is the only god 2. he is the creator of everything so there cant be anything he did not create or that created him.
    – yamm
    Apr 7, 2015 at 8:35

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