Friday, February 20, 2015
The Courage to Think For Yourself The Search For Truth and The Meaning of Human Life: Is the Universe Designed? "Finality and Intelligen...
The Courage to Think For Yourself The Search For Truth and The Meaning of Human Life: Is the Universe Designed? "Finality and Intelligen...: Introductory The second edition of the book “Finality and Intelligence” belongs to the elucidation of the problem and an...
The Courage to Think For Yourself The Search For Truth and The Meaning of Human Life: Is the Universe Designed? "Finality and Intelligen...
The Courage to Think For Yourself The Search For Truth and The Meaning of Human Life: Is the Universe Designed? "Finality and Intelligen...: Introductory The second edition of the book “Finality and Intelligence” belongs to the elucidation of the problem and an...
Is the Universe Designed? "Finality and Intelligence"
Introductory
The
second edition of the book “Finality and
Intelligence” belongs to the elucidation
of the problem and analysis of existence of God. The fact of writing on God’s
existence in our times maybe surprising to a number of people who are under the
spell of the existential confusion in
philosophy, literature and art of our times. Frankly speaking, very many
people, some of them known scientists in different branches of modern science consider such a topic simply very
much out of date. One can hear from many sources statements to the effect of
complete lack of interest in such questions. Did not science settle this
problem once and for all. Did not even
some existential theologians after Nietzsche,
Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, Arthur Schopenhauer acknowledge the death of God? Is not the matter settled for good? We also have to mention here the very
aggressive group of scientists who openly
stress the fact that they are scientists but draw conclusions which are metaphysical in
nature. And of course the conclusion whether God exists or not is metaphysical. Metaphysics is also the generally accepted
way of analysis of the Universe and
God’s existence until the very Modern
Times. Philosophy whether for the Ancients or as a matter of fact any attempt
to answer the fundamental origin of existence is metaphysical in nature. On this level the mind moves from existence
to another existence as the necessary condition explaining the present
observation of the universe and it’s intrinsic structure. There are some phenomena
immediately experienced, which can only be explained in terms of existence of
God. To such belong (1) the rationality implicit in our experience of the world . Human rationality discovers
the possibility of knowledge because of the presence of rationality in the
structure of the universe. When it comes to higher levels of phenomena we would
have to mention (2) life, (3) consciousness, (4) conceptual thought, the power
to articulate and understand symbols and meaning of language, and finally (5)
the human self. Some atheists claim the
existence and necessity of so called
scientific reductionism, the evolution of the cosmos, the evolution of
life including humans as “arguments “ against existence of God.
On
the contrary the book is one of some other books to follow about a serious reconsideration
of the problem of God’s existence. No
matter how much progress has been made in many areas of our life and no matter
how scientific investigations modified our view of man’s position in the cosmos
, the nature of the vast immensity of billions of galaxies forming themselves
in the vastness of the surrounding world, and no matter how the human life and
situation has been apparently dwarfed, the thirst and desire for discovery of
some meaning of life is not only not belittled but in the chaos of different views
and opinions intensified for the average man today. The problem of God’s
existence will be amply analyzed in the
forthcoming book by Leszek Figurski “God or no God”.
The
present book is an evaluation and analysis of the last Way of the known Five
Ways leading the human mind to the existence of God
elaborated by Saint Thomas Aquinas. The Fifth Way will be considered
within general context of Thomistic philosophy. It is not the intention to
analyze all Five Ways of Thomas but center on
the ascent of the mind from the orderliness of the finite beings observed in this world towards final infinite intelligence of the First Mover
and the First Creative Cause of the world.
The
analysis is done on the metaphysical level; it acknowledges the right of the human mind to complete
intelligibility of being as such and the
power of the mind to answer the ultimate
questions to which of course belongs the problem of the existence of God.
Thomas
Aquinas was not the first to elaborate
the argument from finality and its relationship
to the mind, but he developed it and put
it on the strictly ontological level .
All
the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas have very similar structure of argumentation.
They begin with existing facts which are directly observable and then they attempt to discover the ultimate
presuppositions of the observable phenomena . This is why Thomas Aquinas does not use the word arguments or proofs of existence of God , instead he
prefers the word ways of reaching the ultimate presuppositions of what is
already in experience directly given to man. The Fifth Way is very important for the whole Thomistic
philosophy. It points to personal intelligence as a necessary presupposition of
the orderly activities of finite causes in the world. The fact that observable
entities are goal oriented in their activity must have some explanation. Thomas
does not mean here the teleological action of say human beings or even the small
degree of teleological behavior of lower
forms of life; he is pointing to the
fact that in- animate structured beings because of their structured natures contain a presupposition in their activity
towards definite goals or ends.
This is why
the universe is telos-oriented, this is why human rationality meets the
cosmic rationality, this is why science and any kind of knowledge is possible
at all , this is why the harmonious orderly world must be finally grounded
in
some cosmic intelligence. After all the world did not have to be the way it is ; it could be a forceless
chaos, not in any way open to the human mind ; or perhaps it could consist only
of photons and electrons. But it is not a chaos but an orderly cosmos as the Greeks noticed and
called it at the beginning of
philosophical reflection.
To the objection of the evolutionists, the
scientific reductionism and some other possible objections Thomas would if he
lived in our age simply answer :
“re-think the problem carefully and
without prejudice and you will realize that there is no other valid solution
but mine.” How the argument will be accepted and understood as valid and
sound or not is up to the judgments of the reader.
Irene
Ciszewska Saunder
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
The Courage to Think For Yourself The Search For Truth and The Meaning of Human Life: The Courage to Think For Yourself The Search For T...
The Courage to Think For Yourself The Search For Truth and The Meaning of Human Life: The Courage to Think For Yourself The Search For T...: The Courage to Think For Yourself The Search For Truth and The Meaning of Human Life: What Is the Connection Between the Facts of Histor...
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Monday, February 16, 2015
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)