Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
- Mortimer Adler's
- Syntopicon
Essays
God:
Editor's
1-minute essay
- The idea of a Supreme Being is, itself, supreme among the 102
great ideas.
Among these, there are more references, more discussions during the last 25
centuries, among the authors of the Great Books than regarding any other subject.
The idea of "God" within these writings is addressed in terms of four
general questions. As usual, the teachers of antiquity disagree on all of these, but
a broad outline of some of their discussion follows:
- (1) Does God exist?
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- Debate divides itself between two major camps: Atheism vs.
All Forms of Affirmation of God's Existence.
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- (2) What is God's nature? What is he like?
Polytheism vs. Monotheism. Polytheists think
of God in a plurality of forms; monotheists assert that "God is one." Among this
latter group, there are the unitarians who see the nature of God as absolutely
simple; and the trinitarians who conceive of God as three Persons. God's can also
be viewed as an Impersonal Force vs. Personal Being.
- (3) Is it possible to know that God exists and something of
his nature apart from revelation and religious faith? that is, by the operation of reason
and the natural processes of knowing?
Agnosticism vs. All Claims of Natural Knowledge of God:
the agnostic does not deny the existence of God but only that such knowledge is
unattainable for us.
- (4) What is God's relation to the world and to humankind?
Deism vs. Theism: deists suggest that God, having created Isaac Newton's
clock-work universe, complete with a full array of cause-and-effect laws and blessings,
separated himself from us and the world and no longer actively governs: "his eye is not
on every sparrow"; theists believe that God is intimately involved in all
details of life. Theism vs. Pantheism: theists see God as in the world, but only by
his power; in a very real sense, they believe, he transcends the world and is high above
it; pantheists conceive of God as co-extensive with the world -- the world, for them, is a
kind of body for the divine.
Reviewing all of the above, Adler remarks that before we can properly address the
question concerning God's existence, we must know something of God's nature; in other
words, he presses us, unless we find some basis of meaning or definition for this word
"God," a quest for his existence becomes a meaningless activity. This is so,
because, if God, as some make claim, truly is unknowable and utterly transcendent, then
the word "God" can never be meaningful for us -- and, therefore, questions
concerning the existence of this God are rendered pointless.
Considering this, Adler takes us on a sequential, step-by-step journey of rational
thought leading to -- as close as humans may venture -- to evidence for the existence of
God.
When we ask questions about the existence of God, we must begin, as stated, by
addressing how we think about God -- Adler tells us that here there are three
general possibilities:
(1) It's possible to think of God as totally unlike
everything else that we know: but, if this is the case, then how, in absolute
terms, shall it be possible for us to know anything about God? We are here devoid of all
reference points, all things that have meaning to us, and there will be no way to bridge
the gap between the grand infinite and the humble finite.
There is an opposite extreme...
(2) It's possible to think of God as essentially like
everything else that we know: things of this world are finite, mutable,
sensible, imperfect, changing in time -- and if God shares these qualities, he should be
as knowable as all other things in our universe. But, we all sense, God is not knowable as
other things.
Adler suggests a middle-ground view...
(3) It's possible to think of God as both like
and unlike everything else that we know: because God is not finite as
are other things of our common experience; because God is not mutable ... not sensible ...
not changing in time, therefore, we conclude that, in these respects, God is unlike
many things of our world; however, it seems reasonable to say, God is like that
which must be common to whatever has being and is. God, if he is like anything
related to our common experience, at least has being.
Keep in mind, none of this constitutes proof for God's existence, but, at this
point, only speaks to how we might think about God. It is possible to think about
God and, in this sense, presumably know something about him, because, in a limited way,
God, in one attribute at least, shares something with us and the world about us.
This ground just traversed represents a victory hard won on the way to
understanding more about God's existence; it takes us directly to one of the most famous
arguments of history regarding God's existence -- St. Anselm's ontological
["being"] argument.
As we've said, it's possible to think of God as a being -- not necessarily one
that has real existence but, for now, a possible being, one in our minds. But God is no
ordinary being -- so if we're going to think about him, we must think about him as a
Supreme Being; and, if we do this, certain things necessarily follow at once from this
conception.
- Anselm spoke of a "being than which nothing greater can
be conceived."
This being, conceived in our minds, suggests two alternatives:
(1) The being can be conceived as not existing in the real world:
but, if this is the case, if this mental being lives only there and not in our common
world, then Anslem's statement cannot apply to it -- because we can
conceive of another being which does have real existence in the real world and
such a being would be superior to one that lives only in the mind!
(2) The being can be conceived as existing in the real world: because he
has real existence, he is deemed to be superior to his counterpart living only in the
mind.
Therefore, it is necessary to conceive of God as a being having real
existence apart from our thoughts of him.
- None of this is proof for the existence of God -- all of this
merely speaks to how we must conceive of him if we think of him as a
Supreme Being!
A thousand years ago when Anselm made this kind of mind-game famous, many
party-faithful jumped to the conclusion that philosophical proof had been garnered for the
existence of God. Wrong! And many of the great teachers in later generations beat up
Anslem for this.
Nevertheless, Adler continues on and, having mentally conceived of this Supreme
Being, he devises a plan to move this Being into our real world. (All of this
reminds me of the Star Trek: Next Generation, episode #138, "Ship in a
Bottle," wherein the holodeck creation, Moriarty, schemes to leave his illusory world
for more palpable climes on the Enterprise and beyond.)
Adler's devices entail the creation of a tightly woven syllogism, one requiring
too much explanation to fully detail here; however, its essence involves (1) a Necessary
Being, one who is the primary cause of all entities; and (2) Contingent Beings, like
ourselves along with cats, dogs, trees, and most everything else -- things that hold
existence loosely and are dependent upon something else, even for very being.
Adler concludes and leads us to the logical end-point: if all of the premises of
the syllogism are rock-solid, then the existence of God is certain.
The problem, Adler admits, is that not all points in the syllogism are air-tight
but admit to some measure of doubt -- as such, absolute philosophical proof for the
existence of God escapes us once again.
But Adler decides not to whimp-out on us.
- He declares that there are times, even in the face of
incomplete evidence, for the person of reason to make a "leap" beyond reason
into belief. Reason, sometimes, in this world, will carry us only so far and the rational
person, on the strength of that which is philosophically likely, is entitled, he says, to
leap to the belief that God does, in fact, exist.
Adler, the 20th century's apostle of philosophy, in this, reminds me of the
ancient scholar-turned-apostle for God, Paul of Tarsus, who, after abandoning formulaic
approaches to seeking the divine, tells us that, at the end of the day, while we still
live in this world, simple "faith" will be required.
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