This translation of Sébastien Faure’s classic essay, “12 Proofs of the Nonexistence of God” (also published under the title “Does God Exist?”) was first issued more than 60 years ago by the Kropotkin Library. That “Library” was, to the best of my knowledge, the work of Italian anarchist immigrants who had fled Mussolini’s Italy in the 1920s and 1930s; and the two translators of this pamphlet, Aurora Alleva and D.S. Menico, were members of that admirable group — a group which more than any other was responsible for keeping anarchism alive in the United States in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

That this translation exists at all is remarkable, given that the translators were native Italian speakers and were translating from one secondary language to another (French to English). The result is a comprehensible but far from fluid translation — and, unfortunately, still the only one available in English. (A good Spanish translation by Benjamin Cano Ruiz was published by Editores Mexicanos Unidos in 1979 in the collection, El pensamiento de Sébastian Faure.) But despite the flaws in this translation, Faure’s meaning is always clear, and this essay remains a very persuasive exposition of the atheist position.

— Chaz Bufe, May 28,1999

The career of Sébastien Faure did not turn out to be exactly as it had been planned. His parents longed to see him enter the Church and, as he was favored by special qualities of intelligence and ardour, become a standard-bearer for the Catholic Hierarchy. Therefore, they confided his intellectual upbringing to Jesuit teachers and schools which we said to have reached a very high, degree of efficiency in teaching the young and promising ones.

Guided by such tutoring, young Faure acquired a vast amount of knowledge and became one of the foremost orators in his land and time. But the faith did not last in heart as long as did the knowledge in his mind. The religion of God was soon superseded in his heart by a deep-rooted devotion to the welfare of mankind, and Faure became an atheist, uncompromising in his life-long battle against Religion and the Church.

Once he had repudiated all beliefs in the authority of God, Sébastien Faure — being a very logical person — repudiated also the right of man to impose his own authority upon man. For the last fifty years or thereabouts, Anarchism has had in France no more convinced, persistent and capable an exponent than Sébastien Faure. Äs a teacher, as a writer, as a lecturer, his whole life has been dedicated to the cause of liberty and human emancipation. To this day — past his eightieth birthday, undaunted either by persecution or age — he holds a foremost place in the line of those who battle for the spread of knowledge and the triumph of freedom in the world.

His work has been enormous: half a dozen of large books: “La Douleur Universelle”, “Propos Subversifs”, “Mon Communisme (Le Boniteur Universe!)”, “L’imposture Religieuse”, etc.; over a score of pamphlets — of which “Douze preuves de l’inexistence de Dieu”, herein translated, is one; countless articles on newspapers and magazines (often translated in many languages); and, last but not least, the “Encyclopedie Anarchiste” — a set of four large volumes of 3000 pages, wherein all the social, economic and cultural problems of Society are examined from the Anarchist standpoint — of which he was the editor and principal contributor.

To this should be added his lectures — thousands of them — each one of which is in itself a masterpiece. For Sébastien Faure is an orator in the classical Latin sense. Not a ranter but an artist of the spoken word, whose appearance on the rostrum is even now an intellectual event. No one can weigh the influence his word has had on the minds of two generations of Frenchmen.

Here is but a sketchy idea of the kind of man Faure is. In the following pages the reader will find a spark of the intellectual light that he has brought to mankind in his lifetime.

There are two ways of studying and trying to solve the problem of the inexistence of God. One way is that of eliminating the hypothesis God from the field of plausible and necessary conjectures by a clear precise explanation through the exposition of a positive system of the universe, its origin, its successive evolutions and its final scope. But such an exposition would make the idea of God useless and would destroy beforehand the whole metaphysical edifice upon which it has been placed by spiritual philosophers and theologians.

However, taking in consideration the present status of human knowledge and duly confining ourselves to that which is demonstrable and has been demonstrated, verifiable and has been verified, we have to admit that there is neither such an explanation nor such a system of the universe.

Of course, there are certain ingenious hypotheses not at all unreasonable; there are various systems, more or less plausible, based on a quantity of facts and observations which give them a very impressing character of probability. Frankly, these systems and suppositions could face the arguments of the theists with some advantage. But, in truth, on this point we have only hypotheses which lack the value of scientific certainties. And, finally, since each being is free to accord his preference for this or that system, the solution of the problem — for the present, at least — thus viewed, appears to be held in reserve.

The adepts of all religions are so sure of the advantage they derive from examining the problem thus presented that they constantly try to bring it back to this very point. If they do not get the honors of the fight on this ground — the only one on which they can yet stand fairly well — it is still possible for them to keep the doubt in the minds of their religious brothers. The doubt! A capital point for the co-religionists.

In this hand to hand scuffle where the two opposing theses belabor each other, the theists receive some blows and also deliver some. Poorly or well, they defend themselves. Although the results of the debate are somehow uncertain, the mob, the believers — even if they have been put with their shoulders to the wall — could still claim victory. This is a thing which they do not fail to do with an impudence that has always been peculiar to them. And this comedy succeeds in maintaining the immense majority of the flock under the staff of the shepherd. That is all these “bad shepherds” wish to do.

Nevertheless, my friends, there is a second way of studying and trying to solve the problem of the inexistence of God. It consists of the examination of the existence of that God which all religions offer for our adoration.

Where would you find a single, reflective, sensible man who would admit this God who, we are told, could exist free of every mystery — as if nothing about Him would be unknown, as if we had received all of His secrets, as if His thoughts had been fully divined? Yet, they dare say of Him: “He did this; He did that. He said this, and He said that. For this reason He spoke; for that end He acted. These things He permits; those things He does not. These actions He will reward; those He will punish. That He did and this He wants because He is infinitely wise, infinitely just, infinitely powerful and infinitely good.”

Alas! Here is a God who makes Himself known. He leaves the Empire of inaccessibility, dispels the clouds which encircle Him, descends from the summits, converses with the mortals, confides His thoughts and His will and charges some with the propagation of His laws and His doctrines. Not only that: He asks them to represent Him down here and gives them full power of doing and undoing in heaven and on earth.

This God is not the God-Might, the God-Intelligence, the God-Will, the God-Energy who — like everything that is Will, Intelligence, Power and Energy — can be, from time to time and according to circumstances, indifferently good or bad, useful or harmful, just or iniquitous, merciful or cruel. Oh no! This is the God about whom all is perfection and whose existence is and can be compatible — since He is perfectly good, just, wise, powerful, merciful — only in a state of things of which He would be the author and by which His infinite Justice, Wisdom, Power, Goodness and Mercifulness would be affirmed. You all know this God. He is the one taught to the children through the catechism. He is the living and personal God to whom temples are erected, for whom prayers are given and in whose honor sacrifices are made, whom all the clergy and the priesthood of every religious denomination on earth pretend to represent.

He is not the mysterious Principle, the Unknown, nor is He enigmatic Might, impenetrable Power, incomprehensible Intelligence, inexplicable Energy, hypothesis to which the human mind resorts because it lacks the power of explaining! the “hows” and the “whys” of things. He is not the speculative God of metaphysicians but the God that has been profusely described and detailed to us by His representatives. He is, I shall repeat, the God of all religions. Since we are in France, I shall say that He is the God of that religion which has dominated our history for fifteen centuries: that is, the Christian religion. This God I deny, but I am willing to discuss the subject. If we are to derive some positive gains and get some practical results from this lecture, it is befitting to study and analyze the facts involved in the issue.

Who is this God?

Since His procurators on earth have been so polite as to depict Him to us with an abundance of details, let us treasure this gentility and let us examine Him at close range. Let us put Him through the microscope. To properly discuss the subject it is necessary to be well acquainted with it.

This is the God who, with a powerful. and fecund gesture, made everything from nothing, who called the emptiness into being, who, of His own will, substituted movement for inertia and universal life for universal death. He is the Creator!

This is the God who, having completed His gesture of creation — rather than re-entering His century-old inactivity and remaining indifferent to the thing created — is concerned with His own work, takes interest in it, administers and governs it. He is the Governor-Providence!

This is the God who, like a Supreme Tribunal, calls us unto Him after death and passes judgment according to our deeds, establishes the measurement of bad and good actions and then imposes, as a last resort and without appeal, the sentence which will make us for centuries to come the happiest or the most unfortunate of beings. He is the Justiciary-Judge!

It is obvious that this God possesses all the attributes and that He does not possess them to an exceptional degree; He possesses them all to an infinite degree. Therefore, He is not only just but infinite Justice; He is not only good but infinite Goodness; He is not only merciful but infinite Mercifulness; He is not only powerful but infinite Power; He is not only wise but infinite Wisdom.

Once more, this God I deny, and with twelve proofs — where one would suffice — I shall undertake to demonstrate the impossibility of His existence.

Here is the order in which I shall present my arguments. I shall divide them in three groups. The first will mainly deal with God the Creator and will consist of six arguments; the second will be concerned chiefly with God the Governor or Providence and will consist of four arguments; the third and last group will deal with God the Judge or Justiciary and will consist of two arguments. So, we shall have six arguments against God the Creator, four against God the Governor and two against God the Judge. These will be the twelve proofs of the inexistence of God.

Now that you know the plan of my exposition, it will be easier for you to follow its elucidation.

What do we understand by the word “creating”? What does “to create” mean?

Does it mean, perhaps, to take some scattered separate but existing materials and, by utilizing certain experimental principles or applying certain rules, bring them together, re-group, fix and coördinate them in such a way as to make something out of them?

No! This does not mean “to create”. For example: Can one say that a house has been created? No! It has been built. Has a piece of furniture been created? No! It has been made. And, again, has a book been created? No! It has been compiled, printed.

Therefore, taking some existing materials and making something out of them is not creating.

What, then, does “to create” mean?

To create!... Verily, I find myself in difficulty in explaining that which cannot be explained, in defining that which cannot be defined. Nevertheless, I shall try to make myself understood.

To create is to extract something from nothing and with this very nothing do something: it is to call the void into being. Now, I think that we cannot find a single person endowed with reason who could conceive of and admit that something can be extracted from nothing, that nothing can be turned into something.

Just take a mathematician, the most expert of calculators; give him a gigantic black-board; now beg him to write some zeros and some more zeros. Let him add and multiply to his heart’s content; let him indulge in all the operations of mathematics. He will never succeed in extracting one single unit from all those zeros.

Nothing is just nothing; with nothing you can do nothing, and the famous aphorism of Lucretius — Ex Nihilo Nihil — remains an expression of manifest certainty and evidence.

The creative act is inadmissible, is an absurdity.

To create, then, is a mystical religious expression which can be of value only in the eyes of those persons who are pleased to believe that which they cannot comprehend and on whom faith exerts an imposition conversely proportional to their lack of comprehension. But to any intelligent man, to any observer for whom words have value only in the measure that they represent a reality or a possibility, to create is an expression void of sense.

The hypothesis of the Creator is, then, loth to reason. The Being-Creator does not exist; He cannot exist!

To the believers who, in spite of reason, persist in admitting the possibility of creation I shall say that, at any rate, it is impossible to attribute that creation to their God.

Their God is “Pure Spirit”. And I say that the Pure Spirit — the Immaterial — could not have determined the Universe — the Material. This I say for the following reasons.

The Pure Spirit is separated from the Universe not merely by a difference of degree and quantity but by a difference of nature and quality. The Pure Spirit is not and cannot be an amplification of the Universe, and the Universe is not and cannot be a reduction of the Pure Spirit. The difference here is not only a distinction but an antithesis, an antithesis of nature: essential, fundamental, irreducible, absolute.

Between the Pure Spirit and the Universe there is not only a more or less deep ditch that could perchance be jumped over or filled, but there is an abyss whose depth and extension are such that nobody, try as he may, will ever succeed in filling or leaping over.

I challenge the most subtle philosopher, the most expert of mathematicians to establish whatever relation possible — although in the case of cause and effect the relation should be very close — between Pure Spirit and the Universe. The Pure Spirit does not tolerate any material compromise; it does not bear form, body, matter, proportion, extension, duration, depth, surface, volume, color, sound, density. On the contrary, in the Universe all is form, body, matter, proportion, extension, duration, depth, surface, volume, color, sound, density.

How can one admit that the latter was determined by the former?

It is impossible!

At this point of my demonstration I shall draw the following conclusion to the two preceding arguments:

We have seen that the hypothesis of a Power truly creative is inadmissible; we have also seen that, although persisting in the belief of that Power, we could not possibly admit that the Universe, essentially material, could have been determined by the essentially immaterial Pure Spirit. If you believers are so obstinate as to affirm that your God is the Creator of the Universe, I shall hold myself justified in asking you where Matter was originally found.

Now, then, one of the two things: Matter was either out of God or in God, and you believers cannot find a third place for it. In the first case, that is, if it was out of God, it means that God did not need to create Matter because it already existed; rather, it was co-existing, concurrent with Him. Therefore, your God is not Creator.

In the second case, that is, if Matter was not out of God, then it was in God. Therefore, I conclude: first, that God is not Pure Spirit because He carried within Him a particle of Matter. And what a particle! The whole Matter of our material worlds! Second, that God, carrying Matter within Him, did not have to create it because it already existed; He merely had to let it out. Therefore, Creation ceases to be a true creative deed and is reduced to a simple act of exteriorization. In either case there was no Creation.

Were I to ask a believer the question, “Can Imperfection generate Perfection?”, I am sure he would answer “No” without hesitation or fear of erring. Well, I likewise say that Perfection cannot determine Imperfection, and for identical reasons my proposition is as strong as the preceding one. Here, again, between Perfection and Imperfection, there is not only a difference of degree and quantity but a difference of quality and nature — an essential fundamental, irreducible and absolute antithesis. Here, again, we have not only a more or less deep ditch but an immeasurable and deep abyss which nobody could possibly fill or leap.

Perfection is absolute; Imperfection is relative. Compared with Perfection, which is all, that which is relative and contingent is but nothing. Compared with Perfection, relativity has no value and does not exist. And it is not within the power of any philosopher or mathematician to establish any relation whatsoever between that which is relative and that which is absolute. Such a relation is then impossible — especially when it need be of the rigorous and precise kind which should unite the principle of Cause and Effect.

It is, therefore, impossible that Perfection should determine Imperfection.

Vice versa: there is a direct relation — a fatal and somehow mathematical one — between the work and its artificer; the value of the work is measured by the value of the artificer. As you will know a tree by the fruit it bears, so will you judge the artificer by his work.

If I am to peruse a poorly written work, full of grammatical errors, where sentences are badly constructed, where the style is poor and neglected, where the ideas are common and quotations incorrect, I certainly would not think of attributing so ugly a page of literature to an embosser of phrases, to a master of letters.

If I rest my eyes on an ill-made design in which the lines are wrongly drawn, the rules of proportion and perspective violated, I surely shall not attribute so rudimentary a scrawl to a professor, to an artist, to a master. Without the slightest hesitation I shall say that it is the work of a novice, an apprentice, a child. And I am sure I would make no mistake, for so clearly does the work bear the stamp of its artificer that from it you can judge its author.

Now, then, Nature is beautiful; the Universe is magnificent. I, as much as anybody else, admire the splendors of this everlasting natural spectacle. Nevertheless, no matter how enthusiastic I am about Nature’s charms, whatever may be my homage to it, I cannot say that the Universe is perfect, irreproachable and faultless. Nobody dares to hold such an opinion.

The Universe is, then, an imperfect work. I can consequently say that between the work and its author there is always a rigorous, strict, mathematical relation. The Universe is an imperfect work; its author, therefore, cannot be but imperfect.

This syllogism hurls the attribute of Imperfection at the believers’ God and implicitly denies Him.

I can yet pursue a different line of reasoning: either God is not the artificer of the Universe (and I express my own conviction) or, if you persist in affirming that He is and the Universe being an imperfect work, your God is also imperfect.

As you see, syllogism or dilemma, the conclusion remains the same. Perfection cannot determine Imperfection.

If God does exist, He must be eternal, active, necessary.

Eternal? He is so by definition. It is His reason for being. He cannot be conceived enclosed within limit of time; He cannot be imagined as having a beginning and an ending, as an appearing and disappearing being. He exists with time.

Active? Why, yes. He cannot be otherwise since His activity — so the believers say — has been confirmed by the most colossal majestic act: the Creation of the Worlds.

Necessary? Since without Him there would be nought; since He is the author of everything, the initial fire whence everything gushed, the unique and first source from which all has been derived; since He, alone and self-sufficient, had it dependent on His will that either nought or everything should be; He is so and cannot be otherwise.

He is, therefore, eternal, active and necessary.

I then assume, and shall also show, that if He is eternal, active and necessary, He must be eternally active and eternally necessary. Consequently, He could not have been at any moment inactive or unnecessary. This shows, finally, that He has never created.

To say that God is not eternally active is to admit that He has not always been active, that He became so, that He began to be active, that before being so lie was not. Since His activity was manifested through His act of creation, it is the same as admitting that during the billions of years possibly preceding creation God was inactive.

To say that God is not eternally necessary is to admit that He has not been always necessary, that He became so, that He began to be so, that before being necessary He was not so. Since the Creation proclaims and testifies to the necessity of God, we must also admit that during the billions of years possibly preceding creation God was useless.

God was useless!

God idle and lazy!

God superfluous and useless!

What a bad situation for the Being essentially active and essentially necessary! We must admit, then, that at all times God has been active and necessary. But, then, He could not have created because the idea of creation absolutely implies the idea of a beginning. Something that begins could not have existed all the time. There necessarily must have been a time when before coming into being the thing was not at all. No matter how long or short the time preceding the creatcd thing may be, it cannot be ignored.

The results are:

Either God is not eternally active and eternally necessary, and in this case He became so with Creation. If it is so, God, before Creation, did not possess the two attributes of activity and necessity. Such a God was incomplete; it was a fragment of God, nothing more. And to become active and necessary, to complete Himself, He needed to create.

Or God is eternally active and eternally necessary, and in this case He has been creating eternally; the creation has always been going on. The Universe has never begun; it existed all the time; it is eternal like God; it is God Himself, and He is lost in it.

If it is so, the Universe never had any beginning; it has not been created.

Therefore, in the first case, God, before Creation, was neither active nor necessary; He was incomplete, that is, imperfect — and, then, He does not exist. In the second case, God, beipg eternally active and eternally necessary, has not become so and, therefore, He has not created.

It is impossible to conclude otherwise.