While returning from a journey through the Balkans and reflecting (trying to delve deeper into Karl Marx’s "Capital" and familiarizing myself with the many logical paradoxes present "on the market"), I unintentionally stumbled upon a profoundly philosophical idea which, I must admit, surprised me through its apparent simplicity.

This idea, known as "the hard problem of consciousness", caught me off guard primarily because it rejects one of the most famous counterarguments used by atheists to justify their irreligiosity (though not their lack of faith). This argument will therefore be addressed in an article, not so much because of its complexity in itself (although this aspect should not be ignored) but because of the inability of atheist apologists to refute it.

We will also analyze the causal argument, the one that can put even the most passionate and intelligent atheist apologists in difficulty and which demonstrates, from my humble point of view, that atheism is not only irrational but also logically impossible.

Thomas Aquinas and Religion

In order to meet criterion 0 (in other words, even before the moral code is compared), any religious belief, whether monotheistic or polytheistic, must generally meet three requirements:

1. It must include, as previously mentioned, an ethical code (such as: do not steal, do not kill, and so on).

2. It must contain specific rituals (such as meditation or prayer).

3. It must be supported by its own institutions (for example, for Christians, the Church).

Monotheistic beliefs are the most common, occupying approximately 70% of the religious space (such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, and so on), followed by polytheistic ones (such as Hinduism and Shintoism). Among the population, only 10–20% are atheists.

Since ancient times, people have used religion to justify things they could not understand. The Aztecs, for example, sacrificed a child every day to their deity, convinced that the sun would not rise without this bloody tribute. This paradigm persisted even up to the formulation of "the hard problem of consciousness": religion upheld an empirical argument for the existence of God, but science would sooner or later prove it false.

Of course, not all arguments offered by the Church in support of belief in God have been invalidated. There are numerous examples of Christian philosophers and theologians who, instead of attacking atheism from an epistemological perspective, preferred a metaphysical approach. Thomas Aquinas is among them, with the argument in "De ente et essentia", which makes a clear distinction between existence and essence. Think, for example, of a unicorn. Everyone can imagine it: it has a horn on its forehead, it is white and has a majestic mane, yet it does not exist in reality, so we can say with certainty that although it does not exist in the real world (and therefore has no existence) it possesses the essence of what it means to be a unicorn.

Let us now take something closer to reality. The chair. On a purely theoretical level, a chair is an object on which one can sit. That is its essence. But it depends on a human being to move it from the stage of essence (what the chair represents in the collective narrative) to the stage of existence (thus standing before us as a physical object). It therefore has an existence that is not necessary by its own nature (it is contingent) and needs a catalyst to bring it from the purely conceptual stage (as essence) to the existent stage.

This still leaves a big question mark. If the existence of object A (the chair) depends on the existence of object B (the wood), and the existence of object B (the wood) depends on the existence of object C (the tree), then all that exists is a long chain of “debtors” (in other words, phenomena and objects that owe their existence, in turn, to other phenomena and objects). Everything must, however, have a source, because there cannot be an infinite regress of contingent causes without a primordial phenomenon. In other words, there must be a Being whose existence is necessary in itself and in which essence and existence are identical. Thus, God is the source of all things, the one who created the primordial phenomenon and the one responsible for the paradigm of existence. God does not depend on anything in order to pass from the state of essence to that of existence, because the nature (or essence) of God is to exist. Therefore, essence and existence are united in God, because God is Himself the very source of both existence and essence.

The “Contradictory” Argument

Atheism (defined as “the lack of belief in a God”) is often justified by the absence of empirical scientific evidence. To understand why this requirement is methodologically problematic, a basic distinction is needed between “metaphysics” and the “empirical sciences,” both of which are analyzed by the philosophical branch of knowledge called epistemology. The empirical sciences study the physical world, observable phenomena, and the laws of nature, seeking tangible evidence. Metaphysics, by contrast, studies the fundamental nature of reality and of being itself, beyond immediate materiality.

Consider, therefore, a favorite example: the unicorn. Assuming, of course, that it were a real species, the scientific approach would ask: “What is its DNA structure?” or “Which laboratory methods guarantee the truth of these findings?” If, however, the metaphysical approach is preferred, the questions become: “What is the ultimate nature of its being?” or “Is the property of having a single horn an accidental trait or a necessary component of its substance?” Empirical science and metaphysics can be viewed as two different investigative tools. Science is like a microscope (excellent for analyzing the physical reality in our immediate vicinity), while metaphysics is a tool of conceptual analysis for the ultimate structures of existence.

When a positivist atheist says, “I don’t believe in God because science has not proven Him,” a category error is committed. A tool designed exclusively for the physical world (empirical science) is being asked to measure a reality that, by definition, is non-physical, transcendent, and lies at the foundation of existence itself. Empirical laboratory evidence cannot be discovered to validate or invalidate a metaphysical foundation. It would be like reciting Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Das Einhorn” to someone in order to debate profound ideas about symbol and being, and receiving the reply: “Unicorns don’t appear in zoology textbooks.” Because they belong to different methodological planes, it is therefore improper to claim that a metaphysical reality has been refuted simply by appealing to the absence of evidence in the natural sciences.

Furthermore, the ontological plane (what truly exists in reality) must not be confused with the epistemological plane (what can currently be demonstrated or explained through evidence). A deep mechanism can be absolutely real and true even if science does not yet possess clear evidence of how it functions in its intimate details. Dreams are a perfect example: although neuroscience observes surface-level brain activity, there is no clear evidence or complete empirical explanation for the exact mechanism by which the brain generates complex subjective images and narratives. Nevertheless, that hidden mechanism certainly exists within the structure of reality, independently of the current inability of science to map it.

The Hard Problem of Consciousness

Consciousness exists as a fundamental bridge between religion and the philosophy of mind. While Christianity and theology speak of consciousness as the immaterial and spiritual dimension of the human being (the soul or the divine spark), modern neurosciences have long tried to reduce it to mere chemical reactions in the brain. Yet precisely here a major crack appears in scientific materialism: the impossibility of demonstrating inner experience through purely empirical methods.

This “hard problem of consciousness,” formulated by David Chalmers in the 1990s, shows that neuroscience can explain biological functions but not the origin of raw inner experiences, thus offering a powerful philosophical argument in favor of the idea that the human being transcends purely material boundaries. To demonstrate precisely this—that the immaterial reality of consciousness exists and cannot be reduced to physical equations—Frank Jackson used, in 1982, a famous thought experiment meant to defend the concept of qualia (the subjective properties of conscious experience). The term comes from Latin, where “qualis” means “quality.”

Imagine a woman named Mary. She sees the real world, but she is locked in a room that turns all colors into black and white. Now imagine that this woman becomes a world-renowned expert, so that she knows, at a theoretical level, everything there is to know about vision, from the moment light reaches the retina until the brain becomes aware of the image. She even knows the concept of colors, she knows exactly which wavelength stimulates the brain and, above all, she knows which areas of the visual cortex are activated when someone looks at a tomato (for example). Then comes the moment when the door of the room opens and she can go outside. Her eyes fall on a red apple. At that moment, does she know more than she knew before, or not?

For most people, the answer is obvious. Of course she does! This is where Jackson’s incredible logic comes in. Since before seeing colors Mary knew all the physical facts related to color vision, but upon leaving the room she learns something new, it follows that there are aspects and forms of knowledge in the world that are not physical in nature. These are qualia, or the subjective experiences of consciousness.

However, the philosophical concept of “qualia” and the theological concept of “conscience” interweave, representing one of the most important bridges between the science of mind and faith. While philosophy analyzes the phenomenal mechanism (the inner screen on which the world is seen), religion analyzes the content and purpose of this screen (the dialogue with the divine and moral discernment).

The significance of the argument

In theology (from Saint John Chrysostom to the present day), conscience is regarded as “the voice of God in the human soul.” For this voice (which manifests in the human being through remorse, the intuition of good, and moral duty) to be perceived, the existence of exactly the subjective space described by philosophy is required. A robot, for example, can process objective ethical algorithms, but it cannot feel moral burden or “pangs of conscience.” This is an inner weight that cannot be reduced to a mathematical calculation, but is felt as spiritual suffering. The philosophy of mind also shows that subjective experience makes introspection possible. In a religious context, this space of introspection becomes an inner sanctuary. Abba Dorotheus emphasized that in conscience the human and the divine meet. Thus, the relationship with God is not purely external, based only on the mechanical repetition of written rules, but is a direct theological dialogue.

Where neuroscience sees an unresolved mystery (“the hard problem”), religion sees confirmation that the soul has a transcendent origin. If subjective experience cannot be reduced to chemical interactions, theology argues that this is because the spark of consciousness is divine in nature. It is therefore breathed by the Creator into the structure of the human being so that the human person may have the capacity to love, to feel beauty, and to freely choose the good.

This argument shows, in short, that positivist atheism is logically problematic. If there is a reality that science cannot fully explain through material laws—consciousness—yet at the same time the existence of God is denied by invoking precisely the lack of material evidence, then this line of reasoning is not only a category mistake, but also a clear methodological inconsistency and a flawed logic.

KO for atheists

Now, it is probably being asked: “Fine, but you haven’t shown that atheism is illogical!” For that, the next argument on the list is needed…

First, it must be understood that there are two types of causal arguments: the temporal causal argument (from now on referred to as “TCA”) and the hierarchical causal argument (which will be renamed “HCA”). The main difference is that in the “TCA” links that have exhausted their causal energy can be removed, whereas in the “HCA” removing a link would mean the collapse of the entire system, because everything happens at the same time.

To use a relevant analogy for the “TCA”, imagine a long line of dominoes. The chain reaction (the domino effect) needs a primordial event to trigger it, in other words, a hand to push the first domino. Once the reaction has started, however, the fallen dominoes behind can be removed without this affecting the ongoing reaction. In other words, once they have exhausted their causal energy, they are no longer necessary for the continuation of the reaction.

A “human” example could be the temporal unfolding of existence. A child, for instance, owes its existence to its parents and therefore, to some extent, to its grandparents. However, as time passes, the grandparents pass away, and the child can in turn have another child. In other words, the grandparents transferred causal energy to the parents, who transferred it to the children, who in turn can transfer it to their own children, if they have any. Yet this reaction is not dependent on the continued existence of the grandparents, just as in the “domino effect” fallen pieces can be removed from behind without affecting the entire system.

If, however, things are to be analyzed from the perspective of the “HCA”, a different analogy is needed. Imagine holding a glass of water in a hand. The question is: “Why is the water there?” and the answer might be, “because it is in the glass.” But the glass owes its position to the hand that holds it upright. “The hand owes its position to the arm.” “The arm owes its position to the shoulder.” “The shoulder – to the torso,” “the torso – to the couch on which it sits,” and so on. Unlike the “domino effect,” if a link is removed from behind, everything collapses instantly. There is therefore a hierarchical argument, meaning smaller causes that owe their existence to greater causes. Everything, however, must have a primordial cause, so there is a need for someone who started it all, someone who caused existence itself.

Atheism states that “God does not exist,” but with the previous argument, that of the existence of consciousness, both as a subjective experience and as the voice of divinity within, it has been brought to the point of admitting that God “may exist.” With the second argument, however, it is clearly shown that there must be someone or something that triggered the primordial phenomenon, and that someone or something can be called GOD. It can be understood, though, that it is SOMEONE who has always existed (God), because “something” implies a phenomenon, and a phenomenon must have a cause; therefore, it is more plausible that an intelligent mind caused the primordial event than that the primordial event appeared out of nothing…

Bibliography and References

Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness (The Hard Problem and Qualia)

1. Chalmers, David J. – "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" (1995), Journal of Consciousness Studies. (The main source for the formulation of "the hard problem of consciousness").

2. Jackson, Frank – "Epiphenomenal Qualia" (1982), The Philosophical Quarterly. (The original paper that presents the thought experiment with "Mary’s Room" and defines the concept of qualia).

Theology, Metaphysics, and Causal Arguments 3. Aquinas, Thomas – "De ente et essentia" (On Being and Essence). (The source for the fundamental distinction between essence and existence). 4. Aquinas, Thomas – "Summa Theologica" (Prima Pars). (For the grounding of the "Five Ways" / Quinque viæ, especially the implicit distinction between per se / hierarchical and per accidens / temporal causal series). 5. O'Connor, Alex (Within Reason / CosmicSkeptic) – Public lectures, debates, and analyses on the Cosmological Argument and causality (especially discussions on classical theism, the argument from contingency, and the distinction between hierarchical and temporal causal series). 6. Craig, William Lane – "Reasonable Faith" or his debates on the cosmological (kalam) argument and causality, often targeted or analyzed in the counterarguments of apologists and skeptics (such as O'Connor).

Patristic Literature and Spirituality (The Concept of Conscience) 7. Saint John Chrysostom – Homilies and writings on conscience as the "voice of God" and natural law planted in the human being. 8. Abba Dorotheos (of Gaza) – "Spiritual Teachings" (Philokalia). (Especially the third teaching: "On Conscience", where conscience is described as a divine spark and a place of encounter with the divine).