There’s an old riddle that asks, “What is greater God? What is more evil than Satan? The poor have it. The rich need it. And if you eat it, you’ll die.” Supposedly, children perform well on this riddle, answering immediately, whereas adults devote much thought to it and frequently cannot come to the answer. I myself thought about it for five consecutive days, finally deciding that the answer was my penis. Of course, while my penis is greater than a nonexistent entity, more evil than a nonexistent entity, often given to poor women, frequently denied to rich and snobby women, and leads to the inevitable murder of anyone who so much as tries to chew on it, this is not technically the correct answer. Children, with their ignorance of the graces of my penis, instantly know that the answer is nothing. Nothing is greater than God, or more evil than Satan. The poor have nothing and the rich need nothing. And eating nothing will cause your death. I admit, it seems a far more satisfying solution to the puzzle than the answer of my penis, one of the very few times something has ever been more satisfying than my penis. So ladies, this means I can say with the utmost confidence that nothing is more satisfying than my penis. Absolutely nothing.

My penis aside, however, the first question of this riddle is quite theologically instructive. What is greater than God? Nothing. This can be interpreted in a number of ways. Perhaps it means that God is the greatest entity there is, and nothing can be greater. Or perhaps it means that nothing itself is greater than God, that an empty void is, for all intents and purposes, greater than God. The latter interpretation, naturally, is the more theologically interesting position and can even be justified through argument.

Traditionally, theologians have defined omnipotence as the capacity to do anything that is logically possible. In this manner, theologians can dodge the age-old criticism concerning God’s strange hobby of creating rocks that he himself cannot lift. On the face of things, it would seem that omnipotence would grant God the capacity to create such rocks, but if he cannot lift these rocks, he is no longer omnipotent, and on the other hand, if he cannot create these rocks, then he is also not omnipotent. By defining omnipotence as the capacity to do anything that is logically possible, of course, God can excuse his inability to fashion rocks he cannot lift by noting that such rocks are either impossible to create (that is, it is not logically possible to create a rock that an omnipotent being could not lift) or are possible to create but impossible to lift (that is, God can create a rock that it is not logically possible to lift). Clearly, a God whose omnipotence is bound by logical possibility has no trouble explaining his rock-lifting impotence. God, after all, prefers to lift things other than rocks, like his terribly huge ego, for instance.

But if God is capable of doing anything that is logically possible, that brings us back to the first question of our riddle: What is greater than God? In terms of logical possibility, nothing (pure nothingness, or the void) is indeed greater than God. If omnipotence is the capacity to do anything that is logically possible, then nothingness is omnipotent. After all, it is not logically possible for nothingness to do anything. Therefore, even though nothingness cannot do anything, it is still omnipotent. This is one reason why people should not wish for omnipotence on forbidden monkey paws, as the forbidden monkey paw would instantly grant your wish by causing you to cease existing. You also should not wish for the thing that is greater than God and more evil than Satan, because then you’d end up with my penis, an appendage I’d sorely miss.

Of course, the fact that nothingness is omnipotent in the sense that God is omnipotent doesn’t mean that nothingness is greater than God. At best, it means nothingness is equal to God. In that sense, God is still the greatest being, as nothing is greater than God—nothingness only comes close to surpassing his power by equalling it. But this realization that nothingness can be considered omnipotent can explain many of the attributes commonly applied to God.

Nothingness, for instance, seems to trump God in terms of morality. Because God is conceived of as a creator of the universe and therefore capable of interacting with reality as we know it, we can assume that it is within the limits of God’s power to interfere with humanity in various ways. The problem, however, is that this means God would also have the power to do evil. God would have the capacity to destroy the universe, to kill Job’s family, and to rape sweet, innocent virgins in the ear. Thus, while this is compatible with God’s omnipotence, it seems to conflict with his moral perfection. The obvious response is to maintain that though God has the capacity to do evil, he never chooses to do so. But this response is not fitting. God is defined as morally perfect. If God should one day act on his capacity to do evil, he would thereafter no longer be God. But that doesn’t seem to cohere with the idea that God should be infinite and always exist. As such, to preserve God, it is necessary to show that God cannot choose to do evil, that it is not logically possible for him to do so. Nothingness, of course, already lacks the capacity to do evil, as it cannot do anything. But if God, likewise, cannot do evil, then this does not cohere with a being that is capable of interacting with a physical world and with physical human beings. Of course, perhaps there is some way in which God could still interact with the world and still be incapable of performing bad acts. This is in the realm of possibility, but it doesn’t seem to be something conceivable unless God’s inability to do good resulted from his inability to do anything. That is, the hypothesis that God is omnipotent and morally perfect because it is not logically possible for him to do anything seems to be the most elegant solution.

Such a solution also explains God’s transcendance. If God cannot do anything, then naturally he transcends us. Thus, nothing is not just the answer to the question, What is greater than God? It also answers the question, What is God? God can be legitimately interpreted as nothing. Nothingness transcends human existence, just as God does. Nothingness can do no evil, just like God. Nothingness is omnipotent, just like God. And if nothingness is God, this seems to make sense of the implications of other faiths, as well. Certain varieties of Buddhists, for instance, see death as being returned to God, to becoming part of that absolute, and if God is nothingness, then it certainly seems true that death would entail a return to this. We cease to exist and become part of nonexistence, just like God.

In this sense, sophisticated theologians seem little more than atheists in disguise. The transcendant, omnipotent God they worship has all the qualities of nothingness. Even worse than applying lipstick to a pig, theologians thus seem to be attempting to apply lipstick to nothingness, commenting on its beauty and power like mock pastors. If you approach a person saying nothing and also a person mumbling nonsensical non-words, and then ask both what they are saying, both will reply that they are saying nothing. I find this example analogous to the distinction between atheists and the more liberal variety of theologian. The atheist is the person saying nothing, and the theologian is mumbling nonsense—and in turn saying nothing, as well. Hence, I worship nothing, in the sense that I do not worship, whereas the theologian worships nothing, too, but in the sense that they go through the motions of worship directed at nothing in particular, toward some unknowable, transcendant nothing.

This explains why criticizing atheists for not addressing deeper theology is nonsense. Most of us are not concerned with the deistic, nothingness deities that theologians posit that hide their God’s flaws in incomprehensibility and the unknowable. For all intents and purposes, such theologians are simply confused atheists, dressing nonexistence up like a God. Atheists are more concerned about the gods of the masses—the God that can talk to people and do things in the world, the God that fundamentalists think can invade their bodies and cause them to behave like imbeciles, and the God that mobilizes the religious to deride women and homosexuals or attempt to pass ridiculous religious legislation. We can overlook the theologians because we both agree that God has all the qualities of nothing. The difference is that we rightly point out that God is, in fact, nothing.