RE: Arguments for God from a purely philosophical perspective
January 23, 2016 at 5:28 am
(This post was last modified: January 23, 2016 at 5:39 am by Mudhammam.)
As I've said elsewhere, I would not include this as "evidence for God" - though slick experts in the arts of theology and sophistry attempt using them like clowns launching off a circus trampoline - there are some pretty reasonable observations that might suggest some middle ground between the reductionist materialism quite popular among atheists and a mode of existence bearing a semblance, in its finer details, to the mysterious architect which (whom?) emerges from natural theology; curiously, within the cruder frameworks devised for theological imaginings, the principles underlying the fictions always dissolve into the latter when their higher-minded, or more pious brothers and sisters, reduce their purpose to allegories concealing transcendent truths.
And the very idea of transcendent truth seems, well, both trascendent and true. Such is the case with necessary being. First principles. Statements that represent nothing but immutable, eternal facts about reality, yet are known only as mere concepts, in a sense that is fundamental to intellectual activity and the operations that make thought possible, and these appear to subject the entire universe to the tools of the natural vivisectionists we once called astrologers, magicians, and priests, and now call mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers. God, if correctly understood, is a trascendent explanation that serves as the starting point for all other knowledge, the sustaining cause of being, the objective idealization of meaning and morality, and the very reason for reason itself by which theists and atheists may engage one another on these important topics. That even an infinite number of configurations for existence are possible, and yet here we are, may never amount to a brute fact that is much more satisfying than a dull, vague Creator.
And the very idea of transcendent truth seems, well, both trascendent and true. Such is the case with necessary being. First principles. Statements that represent nothing but immutable, eternal facts about reality, yet are known only as mere concepts, in a sense that is fundamental to intellectual activity and the operations that make thought possible, and these appear to subject the entire universe to the tools of the natural vivisectionists we once called astrologers, magicians, and priests, and now call mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers. God, if correctly understood, is a trascendent explanation that serves as the starting point for all other knowledge, the sustaining cause of being, the objective idealization of meaning and morality, and the very reason for reason itself by which theists and atheists may engage one another on these important topics. That even an infinite number of configurations for existence are possible, and yet here we are, may never amount to a brute fact that is much more satisfying than a dull, vague Creator.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
