When “God Lied” Means “There Is No God”

Article 6 of 10 — No Parachute: Following a Doctrine to Its Final Destination

“God lied” and “there is no God” appear to be different propositions. The first retains a deity while accusing him of falsehood. The second denies deity altogether. Why should one lead to the other?

Because Christianity does not use God as a flexible title for any powerful invisible being. Scripture reveals who God is and excludes every rival. Truth is essential to his identity. A being who lies may be imagined, feared, or worshipped; he is not a damaged version of the triune God.

The conclusion applies only where a theory, joined to established biblical teaching, requires that a genuine promise of the true God failed. A mistaken interpretation does not make God false. A possible danger is not an entailment. The route must be proved.

The Only True God

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD” (Deuteronomy 6:4). “Beside me there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6). Paul writes that “there is none other God but one” (1 Corinthians 8:4). Christ calls the Father “the only true God” and joins eternal life to knowing him and Jesus Christ whom he sent (John 17:3).

God is not one member of a larger class of deities. He alone is the uncreated, self-existent, infinite Lord. Everything else is his creature.

Scripture also identifies this one God as the one who cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18). Truthfulness is not an optional excellence attached to a more basic divine substance. He cannot deny himself.

Two descriptions therefore cannot identify the same being in the same respect:

1. The one true God is necessarily truthful.
2. The being under discussion speaks falsely.

Power, worship, religious language, or the title God cannot repair the contradiction. A god who is created is not the Creator. A god who is one person rather than Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is not the triune God. A lying deity is likewise another god, and another god is no God.

Pagans have believed in deceptive supernatural beings without professing atheism. Scripture nevertheless calls their idols vanities and says, “the LORD is the true God, he is the living God” (Jeremiah 10:10). The consequence in view is atheistic relative to Christian theism: it denies the only God who truly is, even if a powerful deceiver or religious abstraction remains.

The Argument in Full

The route may now be stated:

1. The God revealed in Scripture is the one and only true God.
2. Essential to his identity is that he cannot lie.
3. A genuine promise spoken by God cannot finally fail.
4. The doctrine under examination entails the final failure of a genuine divine promise.
5. Therefore, the doctrine entails that the speaker is not the God revealed in Scripture.
6. There is no other true God.
7. Therefore, the doctrine’s necessary terminus is the denial of the only true God.

Premise four bears the immediate burden. If the doctrine does not entail a failed promise, the route stops. If the supposed promise is a human misreading, it stops. If a stated condition was not met, it stops.

Nor does the conclusion mean that the advocate consciously travelled through all seven steps. He may affirm the first three, reject atheism, and never recognize that another theory supplies the fourth. His set of beliefs is then inconsistent. The objective conflict remains.

A Reductio, Not an Accusation Against God

This form of reasoning is a reductio ad absurdum. The disputed doctrine is assumed for examination, joined to truths its Christian advocate already confesses, and shown to produce a contradiction. The proper conclusion is that the doctrine must be rejected.

We do not conclude that God actually lied. We conclude that the theory cannot be true alongside the Christian doctrine of God.

That distinction prevents two errors. The critic is not charging God with falsehood, and he is not claiming that every advocate expressly denies God. He is showing what must be surrendered if the theory is retained consistently.

The reasoning also explains why not every theological mistake is atheistic. An error in church chronology may be false without touching the divine identity. The atheistic consequence appears when denial reaches an indispensable attribute of the only true God. Make the Creator created, the immutable God mutable in his being, or the truthful God false, and the description no longer identifies him.

“God can remain God even if one promise failed” abandons the biblical premise that he cannot lie. It replaces necessary truthfulness with an admirable record which has suffered an exception.

“The important message survived” answers only if a general message was the promised object. If God promised his words, a weaker survival cannot satisfy the stronger promise.

“I reject atheism, so my theory cannot be atheistic” reports the advocate’s profession. It does not show which premise or inference is false.

Romans 3:4 fixes the proper order: “let God be true, but every man a liar.” When a theory requires divine falsehood, the Christian should not revise the doctrine of God to save it. He should locate the false premise and remove it.

A lying god is not the God who tells the truth less reliably than expected. He is not the God of Scripture. In that exact sense, a doctrine which truly entails “God lied” terminates in “there is no God.”

Sources and Notes

• The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), 2.1.
• Greg L. Bahnsen, “Arbitrariness (1 of 5),” Practical Apologetics, especially 1:11:09 on reductio ad absurdum. See the timestamped lecture outline.
• Scripture quotations are from the Authorized Version.