This has to be one of the more incoherent arguments against the existence of God that I’ve personally come across:

Apparently, mathematician Jordan Ellenberg came up with this one. Or, the creators of the video seriously misrepresent Ellenberg’s argument. I’ve not read Ellenberg’s book, How Not to Be Wrong, that the video creators claim to have found this argument. According to his Wikipedia article, Ellenberg was a child prodigy in math who now teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The argument is pretty simple and would be quite clever if it weren’t incoherent. It begins like this:

The Argument from Design is one of the most popular arguments for the existence of God, insisting that the created order is so complex that there must be a God to have directed it’s creation and order.

So:

1. If there is no God, humans developing is very unlikely.
2. Humans did develop.
3. It is unlikely there is no God.

First, it’s a bit of a leap to go from the Argument from Design to the Argument That Because Humans Developed, God Exists. But, to be fair, the argument only says it is “unlikely that there is no God” since humans developed. Okay. Fine.

How is this premise proved true? Well, Ellenberg argues, if there is no God, it would be very unlikely that humans would develop. Not impossible, but very unlikely. However, if there is a God, it is more likely that humans would develop. Then Ellenberg argues that, since the existence of one God makes the development of humans more likely than if there were no God, the existence of multiple gods would make it more likely still that humans would develop. Why? Because more gods means more gods to create humans, ‘natch!

Already we have a problem. This all depends on how one defines God. The classic Catholic definition of God is: that for which nothing greater can be thought. Given that, polytheism is irrational. Why? Because there can’t be two or more greatest. If two gods existed, then one would necessarily be greater or lesser than the other. So, if the first god is greater, than the second god isn’t really god. Or, if the second god is greater, than the first god isn’t really god. Why can’t they both be greatest, sharing every quality or characteristic alike in every possible way? Because then you’re talking about only one God. If two beings share every quality or characteristic in every possible way, then there is nothing to distinguish the one from the other. Hence, they are really the same being. So, polytheism is impossible, according to the classic Catholic definition of God.

It’s also an interesting question to consider whether polytheistic religions traditionally regard their many gods as creator gods, given that Ellenberg’s argument is based on the hypothesis that more gods would more likely still result in humans developing than atheism or monotheism because you would have more gods to create humans. In point of fact, however, polytheistic religions generally take one of two approaches to the question of creation: either there are multiple gods but one dominant god who is the creator god, or there are multiple gods and these gods together represent various manifestations of a single absolute principle. Either way, you don’t find multiple gods creating different things. You either find one dominant god who does so, or all the gods working in concert as part of the single absolute principle. Now, this point doesn’t negate Ellenberg’s hypothesis that multiple gods would make it more likely still that humans develop because there would be more gods to each create humans, but it does, at the very least, reveal a misunderstanding of how polytheistic religions have understood the relationship between their multiple gods and creation.

Ellenberg takes his argument one step further. If it is more likely that humans would develop if there is one God as opposed to no God, and more likely still that multiple gods would result in the development of humans than would with only one God, it is most likely that we humans are only the simulations (sims) created by advanced humans on their computers. Ellenberg says that many people, including Elon Musk, believe that we humans will advance to the point where we will create sims of ourselves on our computers, as we already do with other aspects of nature in order to study them, and that these sims will develop, or be developed, so that they gain consciousness and think they are real, without suspecting that they are only our creations. So, if we’re going to be able to do this someday, it’s only reasonable to conclude that we ourselves are the sims of more advanced humans created on their computers. And why would these advanced humans create human sims on their computers? Because humans are obsessed with humans. Well, I can’t argue against that particular claim!

Oh, but here’s the rub. If it’s most likely that we were created as sims by a group of advanced humans, it is most likely, as well, that those advanced humans were also created as sims by a group even more advanced humans. And, most likely that those humans were created as sims by a group of still more advanced humans, and on and on…

How far back do these scenarios go? There are only two options. Either the scenarios of humans created as sims by more advanced humans goes back infinitely, or they go only so far back as the first more advanced humans who created their first humans as sims.

If one claims that these scenarios go back infinitely, there’s a problem. If that is the case, then there’s really no first advanced humans who created the first humans as sims on their computers and, as such, no humans at all. The idea that these scenarios would go back infinitely is irrational. If there’s no first scenario, there’s no second, and no third, etc. Hence, no scenarios at all, and no humans. Yet, here we are!

If one claims that these scenarios go back only to the first more advanced humans who created the first humans as sims on their computers, then one must ask what differentiates these first advanced humans from God? There are only two options. Either there is nothing that differentiates them from God, and so we’ve simply replaced one God for another. Or, they are differentiated from God in that they are human and not divine. Which requires one to ask: Where did they come from? Who or what created them?

This is a regular problem atheists have. They come up with clever arguments against the existence of God, only to replace one God with another. Jordan Ellenberg is obviously a brilliant man. He ought to know better.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.