The sole proof of the existence of God is his existence.
THAT'S NOT AN ARGUMENT, IT'S A TAUTOLOGY.
No it isn't.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NO? THAT IS NOT AN ARGUMENT EITHER, IT'S JUST A CONTRADICTION.
No it isn't. God is our word for the meta-principle, the Principle of principles, that from which everything else flows downward.
Truth.
AND WHAT IS TRUTH?
Glad you asked.
Cards on the table: God is either impossible or necessary. But he is not impossible. Therefore he is necessary.
Alternatively, we could say with Lonergan that if the totality of reality is completely intelligible, then God exists. But the totality of reality is completely intelligible. Therefore God exists.
NO HE DOESN'T.
Now you're just contradicting me.
LOOK, IF I ARGUE WITH YOU, I MUST TAKE UP A CONTRARY POSITION.
Yes, but an argument is an intellectual process... contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says--
NO IT ISN'T.
Let's try another approach: the universe exists.
AGREED.
And it is intelligible.
UP TO A POINT.
Who defines the point?
YOU DO, ACCORDING TO KANT. I AM THE THING ITSELF. YOU, ON THE OTHER HAND, KNOW ONLY MY PHENOMENA.
Yes, but the phenomena are of the reality, precisely--
HOW DO YOU KNOW?
How do you not know? For if we don't know the thing itself, how can we even say it exists? Wouldn't knowledge reduce to dreaming about a hallucination?
YOU'RE GETTING WARMER.
I see. So you're a nihilist.
AND YOU CAN ONLY PRETEND NOT TO BE. YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO BILL MAHER.
It is you who pretend to place limits on man's intellect, but Wittgenstein says that "to limit thought you must think both sides of the limit." For example, back when our country had a boundary we didn't have to live in Mexico to know that Mexicans lived there.
I DON'T DO POLITICS. SPEAKING OF ARGUMENT CLINICS.
Better yet, Schuon says that
One of the keys to the understanding of our true nature and our ultimate destiny is the fact that the things of this world never measure up to the real range of our intelligence. Our intelligence is made for the Absolute, or it is nothing.
AREN'T YOU SPECIAL.
That's a good point, because I don't see you arguing with rocks or planets or animals. Doesn't the fact that we are having this argument imply something unique about man?
THAT'S ONE WAY OF PUTTING IT. LET'S JUST SAY I'M NOT IMPRESSED BY MAN'S CEASELESS DISAGREEMENTS.
God exists for me in the same act in which I exist.
Which is to say that you too only exist due to a prior act of God: yesterday we spoke of the instantaneous creation of all time and space out of a primordial event we call the Big Bang.
WHATEVER. THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE SAY NOTHING ABOUT MY LIMITS. I AM PARTIAL TO THE BIG BOUNCE THEORY, WHEREBY I CONTRACT AND EXPAND ETERNALLY. THERE'S NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT THE SO-CALLED BIG BANG OR ABOUT MY CURRENT PHASE OF EXPANSION.
In that case, you misunderstand your dependence upon God, which is vertical, not horizontal. Even supposing you are eternal, that doesn't account for your existence to begin with. Out of nothing, nothing comes.
WORD GAMES. WE ALREADY STIPULATED THAT I AM EVERYTHING.
We stipulated no such thing. I maintain that everything in time has a cause, and we make no exception for you -- that creation is the nexus between time and eternity, and God's creating is eternal, not this or that creature, no matter how big the creature. Creation is necessary, and everything necessary is eternal. You are not eternal, ergo you are created.
SOUNDS LIKE MYTH TO ME.
The bridge between nature and man is not science, but myth.
Granted, you've been here a long time -- for all of time, supposing it co-arises with you. Even so,
Truth is in history, but history is not truth.
Not even your 13.8 billion year history. For it merely took that long for the emergence of truth-bearing primates. And last in execution is first in intent.
SO YOU ARE THE POINT OF MY EXISTENCE? GRANDIOSE MUCH?
Don't believe me, believe Stephen Hawking:
It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.
HAWKING IS ON MY SIDE, DOOFUS. I SAY HE'S BEING IRONIC. BESIDES, DIFFICULT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE.
Yes, but is it plausible that the many variables that govern the universe are so finely tuned as to make this argument possible? Change any one of them and neither you nor I would even be here.
We will never know completely who we are until we understand why the universe is constructed in such a way that it contains living things (Smolin).
In other words, we can't explain what you are unless we can explain how you gave rise to me; or, more to the point, how the miracle of the human subject pops up in an immaterial cosmos.
The first thing that should strike a man when he reflects on the nature of the Universe is the primacy of the miracle of intelligence -- or consciousness or subjectivity -- whence the incommensurability between it and material objects, whether a grain of sand or the sun, or any creature whatever as an object of the senses (Schuon).
We might say that from God's perspective, you are but a grain of sand compared to the intellect that knows the sand. I know what you're going to say, but you'll have to say it tomorrow. We'll leave off with this:
[I]t is in the dark stirrings of primeval organic substance that a principle of freedom shines forth for the first time within the vast necessity of the physical universe -- a principle foreign to suns, planets, and atoms....
[T]he first appearance of this principle in its bare, elementary object-form signifies the break-through of being to the indefinite range of possibilities which hence stretches to the farthest reaches of subjective life, and as a whole stands under the sign of "freedom".... even the transition from inanimate to animate substance, the first feat of matter's organizing itself for life, was actuated by a tendency in the depth of being toward the very modes of freedom to which this transition opened the gate (Jonas).
And here we are.
3 comments:
It's interesting how seeing the all caps argument makes you read it in the shrill, indignant voice of Michael Palin, at least until it goes off script. That such a thing is not only possible, but completely ordinary, is nothing short of miraculous.
Hello All and Sundry:
Another enjoyable read. I've been instructed to pass along this message which had arrived from a certain Carla Tritellevitz, Attorney at Law. To whit:
"Ladies, gentlemen, I hereby proclaim that I, C. Tritellevitz, am lawfully retained by my client, the Universe, to argue for the defense in this case. Counsel immediately requests the plaintiff(s) identify themselves. Counsel requests said plaintiff(s) to state in plain language the charge(s) against my client and their legal basis. If these cannot be supplied I ask the presiding Judge, the right honorable Van Harvey, to dismiss this case and release my client from custody. What say ye all?"
Please don't shoot the messenger, staff clerk, Trench.
Counsel is cited for contempt of court, bailiff 'Cuz, please escort the counsel to F' off.
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