Friday, May 16, 2014
The Courage to Think For Yourself, philosophy/religion: Atheism and Human Knowledge PART III www.dpl21.com...
The Courage to Think For Yourself, philosophy/religion: Atheism and Human Knowledge PART III www.dpl21.com...: Atheism is the categorical denial of the existence of any transcendent absolute reality. The atheists of course can simply...
Atheism and Human Knowledge PART III www.dpl21.com
To the philosopher adopting the epistemology of methodical realism the mind is a comprehensive faculty able to understand and know in some degree all reality as some form or forms of existence or being . When for example I see a tree in the garden I have of course all the impressions given me by my five senses with their limitations of course . I say limitations because if I had let say fifteen senses instead of a five I poses , certainly the appearance of the surrounding world would be very different. My seeing touching and feeling of a tree is of course confined to the sense perceptions given to me with my bodily equipment. However when I look at whatever object somehow present to me through my sense perception I already am given it's existence that is: I am confronted with some presence, some being because I cannot have even the slightest perception of something that does not exist simply. Because otherwise if I go shopping and buy a carload of articles I would have to be able to pay for it with non existing money in my pocket. The absurdity of this is clear and it does not need any elaboration. We all know that nothingness which is absolute non-existence of anything can never in any way be productive, and this in spite of some scientific atheists who have the courage to say that the universe came into existence out of nothingness. It was a " free lunch" out of nothing.
The human mind is an active power of knowing and is a knowing subject discovering whatever confronts it but is not me in some way, and therefore is a broadening of the horizon of knowledge. Man therefore and the human mind cannot be as David Hume would like to have it and defined man as :" a bundle of perceptions." Man does not only know but knows that he knows . That is one of a fundamental beliefs of Rene Descartes. Kant followed the reflections of Hume , as he himself confessed that reading Hume awakened him from his metaphysical slumber. If man is nothing but a bundle of perceptions then only perceptions are available to him and therefore Kant denied the intelligibility of being in itself : Ding an Sich.
As already mentioned we shall follow the theory of knowledge called methodical realism. This attitude is accepted by Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and modern Thomists like Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson among others. This brings us back to the concept of being and the implications following from it. Being can be defined as whatever exists. The word exists here means that it is actually some reality confronting the human mind. The concept of being therefore is the most universal concept because it covers all that exists in any way whatsoever. The concept is therefore the richest way of knowing and it opens literally infinite horizons of knowledge. We must immediately stress here that the concept of being is analogical in it's nature . Because whatever exists does not only exist but it has some definite form of existence constitutive of it's whatness because the human mind does not only want to know that something exists but also what it is that exist. This is the ancient Aristotelian concept of form accepted also by other already mentioned thinkers. The fact that the concept of being is analogical in nature already indicates the transcending character of human knowledge. It means also that the dynamism of the human mind is one and the same in pre-scientific knowing, knowing on the level of science and knowing on the metaphysical level. Any philosophy that limits this one dynamic activity of the mind is therefore dogmatic and must lead to errors and misconceptions . For example in experimental sciences it appears as scientific reduction-ism and it leads to skepticism and finally materialism. Materialism of course is part of atheistic attitudes because atheists deny any reality to non material spiritual side of knowable reality. The basic fundamental dogma of atheism is the belief that whatever exists is matter in movement and many scientists not only physicists but also biologists like Richard Dawkins and his friends and also psychologists like behaviorists all try again and again to produce their " arguments" for this atheistic belief. A classic example, to illustrate those efforts is the attitude of Richard Dawkins , Daniel Dennett, Lewis Wolpert, Sam Harris , Victor Stenger and others . All belong to the same materialistic and atheistic bend of mind. Richard Dawkins is a zoologist and for him the fact of evolution of life on this globe seems to be absolute certainty that God is superfluous and not only superfluous but destructive and evil influence on many minds of believers. Religion is positively evil in itself and nothing but destructive superstition which produces division among people , hatred, and all this is done in the name of a non-existent God. Dawkins makes here a very serious error in thinking : It is true that some religious people indulge in those deviations but we must remember that it is human beings who do that and therefore it is part of human finite fragility and bias towards narrowmindedness and egoistic outlook on life. It is not part of any of the living religions in our time.
However we have to first focus our attention on the horizon and possibility of human knowledge in relationship to the possibility of a transcendent source of all existence on the level of philosophical analysis within the epistemology of methodical realism. It is important to remember that this is a philosophy of being and the intelligibility of being, and the analogical character of all that can be called being . Analogy simply is the realization that beings are partly similar to each other and partly different . For example a piece of rock exists therefore it is a being, and Plato existed and was a being but there was a deep difference between the two beings: of the stone and Plato. Their being therefore was analogical partly similar and partly different. This principle of analogy is universal in metaphysical thinking and it is an important vehicle of reaching to the transcendent.
In this world we are surrounded by all kinds of beings as already mentioned above that is our first observation.
Second there are many beings .
Third each of those beings is limited .
Fourth each of those beings is in itself only a possible being : it may exist but also may not exist . For example when a human being dies the remains are no more human being and this principle applies to all finite beings and we call this fact the contingency of all finite limited beings. Contingency implies that any finite being does not possess existence by itself or better of itself and therefore it needs another being to make it's own existence intelligible, but this is simply to say that any finite being is caused in some way by some other being. This other again is either contingent too or it must finally point to some being which has existence in it's very nature, that is it is existence by itself and therefore is the source and cause of all finites entities.
In short all finite beings existing, known by humans, have their existence ultimately from some One Transcendent source and cause. This One Source and Cause is transcendent, infinite One. Both Plato and Aristotle and later on the medieval philosophers, especially Thomas Aquinas saw in this contingency of finite entities a fundamental pointer to the existence of the Infinite One. The contingency of finite entities is of course very clear because given in experience . However it is important to notice that it is an analogical mode of knowing. We do not have any direct knowledge of God. In short we know that the transcendent One Being exists, that it has existence of it's own, but we don't know the nature of this One Being. Thomas Aquinas said : We know that God exists, but we do not know what He is. As a First Cause this Infinite being is somehow also the source of all contingent reality. It is not important whether the number of contingent beings is infinite or somehow limited because the gist of the argument is the nature of those beings that is their contingency, not how many contingent beings exist. The Aristotelian Prime Mover is defined as mind thinking itself, absolutely independent in it's own existence and not in any way related to the contingent world. It would be demeaning for the Infinite Intelligence to be interested in the insignificant contingent entities. It is obvious now that Plato and Aristotle were very close in their thinking to the concept of God developed later by Thomas Aquinas but we must remember that Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican monk, a Christian who tried to give the philosophical foundation for the Christian faith. He did not however pretend that his thinking is his own invention and was very clear to confess that he borrowed very much his ideas not only from Plato and Aristotle but also from Arabic thinkers too.
For more elaboration of this topic please visit my website or contact me for discussion.
The human mind is an active power of knowing and is a knowing subject discovering whatever confronts it but is not me in some way, and therefore is a broadening of the horizon of knowledge. Man therefore and the human mind cannot be as David Hume would like to have it and defined man as :" a bundle of perceptions." Man does not only know but knows that he knows . That is one of a fundamental beliefs of Rene Descartes. Kant followed the reflections of Hume , as he himself confessed that reading Hume awakened him from his metaphysical slumber. If man is nothing but a bundle of perceptions then only perceptions are available to him and therefore Kant denied the intelligibility of being in itself : Ding an Sich.
As already mentioned we shall follow the theory of knowledge called methodical realism. This attitude is accepted by Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and modern Thomists like Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson among others. This brings us back to the concept of being and the implications following from it. Being can be defined as whatever exists. The word exists here means that it is actually some reality confronting the human mind. The concept of being therefore is the most universal concept because it covers all that exists in any way whatsoever. The concept is therefore the richest way of knowing and it opens literally infinite horizons of knowledge. We must immediately stress here that the concept of being is analogical in it's nature . Because whatever exists does not only exist but it has some definite form of existence constitutive of it's whatness because the human mind does not only want to know that something exists but also what it is that exist. This is the ancient Aristotelian concept of form accepted also by other already mentioned thinkers. The fact that the concept of being is analogical in nature already indicates the transcending character of human knowledge. It means also that the dynamism of the human mind is one and the same in pre-scientific knowing, knowing on the level of science and knowing on the metaphysical level. Any philosophy that limits this one dynamic activity of the mind is therefore dogmatic and must lead to errors and misconceptions . For example in experimental sciences it appears as scientific reduction-ism and it leads to skepticism and finally materialism. Materialism of course is part of atheistic attitudes because atheists deny any reality to non material spiritual side of knowable reality. The basic fundamental dogma of atheism is the belief that whatever exists is matter in movement and many scientists not only physicists but also biologists like Richard Dawkins and his friends and also psychologists like behaviorists all try again and again to produce their " arguments" for this atheistic belief. A classic example, to illustrate those efforts is the attitude of Richard Dawkins , Daniel Dennett, Lewis Wolpert, Sam Harris , Victor Stenger and others . All belong to the same materialistic and atheistic bend of mind. Richard Dawkins is a zoologist and for him the fact of evolution of life on this globe seems to be absolute certainty that God is superfluous and not only superfluous but destructive and evil influence on many minds of believers. Religion is positively evil in itself and nothing but destructive superstition which produces division among people , hatred, and all this is done in the name of a non-existent God. Dawkins makes here a very serious error in thinking : It is true that some religious people indulge in those deviations but we must remember that it is human beings who do that and therefore it is part of human finite fragility and bias towards narrowmindedness and egoistic outlook on life. It is not part of any of the living religions in our time.
However we have to first focus our attention on the horizon and possibility of human knowledge in relationship to the possibility of a transcendent source of all existence on the level of philosophical analysis within the epistemology of methodical realism. It is important to remember that this is a philosophy of being and the intelligibility of being, and the analogical character of all that can be called being . Analogy simply is the realization that beings are partly similar to each other and partly different . For example a piece of rock exists therefore it is a being, and Plato existed and was a being but there was a deep difference between the two beings: of the stone and Plato. Their being therefore was analogical partly similar and partly different. This principle of analogy is universal in metaphysical thinking and it is an important vehicle of reaching to the transcendent.
In this world we are surrounded by all kinds of beings as already mentioned above that is our first observation.
Second there are many beings .
Third each of those beings is limited .
Fourth each of those beings is in itself only a possible being : it may exist but also may not exist . For example when a human being dies the remains are no more human being and this principle applies to all finite beings and we call this fact the contingency of all finite limited beings. Contingency implies that any finite being does not possess existence by itself or better of itself and therefore it needs another being to make it's own existence intelligible, but this is simply to say that any finite being is caused in some way by some other being. This other again is either contingent too or it must finally point to some being which has existence in it's very nature, that is it is existence by itself and therefore is the source and cause of all finites entities.
In short all finite beings existing, known by humans, have their existence ultimately from some One Transcendent source and cause. This One Source and Cause is transcendent, infinite One. Both Plato and Aristotle and later on the medieval philosophers, especially Thomas Aquinas saw in this contingency of finite entities a fundamental pointer to the existence of the Infinite One. The contingency of finite entities is of course very clear because given in experience . However it is important to notice that it is an analogical mode of knowing. We do not have any direct knowledge of God. In short we know that the transcendent One Being exists, that it has existence of it's own, but we don't know the nature of this One Being. Thomas Aquinas said : We know that God exists, but we do not know what He is. As a First Cause this Infinite being is somehow also the source of all contingent reality. It is not important whether the number of contingent beings is infinite or somehow limited because the gist of the argument is the nature of those beings that is their contingency, not how many contingent beings exist. The Aristotelian Prime Mover is defined as mind thinking itself, absolutely independent in it's own existence and not in any way related to the contingent world. It would be demeaning for the Infinite Intelligence to be interested in the insignificant contingent entities. It is obvious now that Plato and Aristotle were very close in their thinking to the concept of God developed later by Thomas Aquinas but we must remember that Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican monk, a Christian who tried to give the philosophical foundation for the Christian faith. He did not however pretend that his thinking is his own invention and was very clear to confess that he borrowed very much his ideas not only from Plato and Aristotle but also from Arabic thinkers too.
To summarize this part of our reflections we may say the following. The very nature of contingent beings of the universe is a permanent pointer toward existence of the One Infinite Self-existent transcendent cause and source of all beings that are existing but are limited and finite and therefore are essentially dependent in existence on another. Ultimately this Other becomes the God in religion. Who would pray let say to Infinite Cause or Infinite Mind wrapped up in self-contemplation?. Such concepts may be very close to the Creator of the Deists later in the XVIII and XIX centuries, but when it comes to true religious beliefs the Transcendent One becomes a Personal Jehovah of the Judaic religion, the all forgiving, and loving Father of Jesus Christ in Christianity, the Allah of Islam and Brahman of the Hindus. In short Infinite, benevolent , omnipotent Creator who reveals Himself in some way or other to humans and reveals His plans for human beings, and gives instructions how humans should live on earth so that they maybe received by the loving God to eternal existence with him in some way. Every religion is some kind of unity between humans and God. This last point is the very basis and central fact on which the whole building of Christianity rests: in the teacher of Nazareth His birth, teaching death, and resurrection God is present in human form and redeemed man from the slavery to sin and evil and eternal death.
AT this point we are in the center of what we already mentioned in this article that there are two sources of religious beliefs and pointed out that revelation is fundamental to all genuine religion. But here we face a number of objections against the religious concept of God, the ways God is worshiped by some religions, and even the very rationality of any religious belief whatsoever . Some objections which we shall analyze , are made in the name of science , other objections from the existential impact of religious belief on human existence and human life.
For more elaboration of this topic please visit my website or contact me for discussion.
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