Arguments for the Existence of God
by Metacrock - edited by JMT Used with Permission
15. Argument from the State of Reity.
Definitions:Reity = the ultimate necessary state of affairs, ultimate reality.
Arbitrary Necessity = (1) The inclusion of a set of contingent circumstances or conditions in place of a true state of Reity; (2) the attribution of necessity to a purely arbitrary state of affairs.
Argument:
(1) Any Ultimate Necessary state of Affairs must be a state of Reity; logically necessary and eternal.
This is so because if it depended upon prior conditions it would not be "ultimate;" if it could fail or cease it would not be "necessary."
(2) All naturalistic phenomena are by definition contingent.
Why? Because they are the result of cause/effect, or they are correlated with prior conditions, which means they are predicated upon something else so they are contingent. (QM particles, as far as we know, while a seemingly acausal, are correlated with Vacuum flux, time, and physical laws; thus they are not unrelated to prior conditions).
(3) Therefore, naturalistic origins must be rejected as the ultimate state of Reity.
(4)Therefore, State of Reity must involve an eternal logically necessary condition
Since the most basic definition of God is "the ground of understanding" (Flew)whatever is at the top of the metaphysical hierarchy, than whatever is the ultimate state of affairs is by definition in a position to function as God in that metaphysical economy in which it exists.
Objections:
(1) Atheists often posit energy as eternal.
But energy is contingent upon Gravitational field. Gravitation field might be posited as necessary and eternal, except for the fact that it's really just warped space which is the result of space/time, that is the combination of all contingent factors. For example, there is no space that is independent of space/time, there is no time that is independent of it, and energy is created by gravitational field in the expansion of warped space, in other words, in the "big bang."
So it appears that even warped space is just a combination of contingent factors.
Therefore, it seems like the most logical solution would be to posit some non naturalistic extra temporal existant as the answer to origins. But its the pressure of avoiding a God solution that will keep them from embracing this obvious truth (well to me it seems so).
(2) Atheists will claim that I'm confusing two types of contingency.
The atheist confusion on this point stems from the fact that there are two types of necessity: (a) that which can fail or cease to exist; (b) that which depends for its existence upon some higher set of conditions.
What they usually fail to see is that Hartshorne showed that these two types of necessity stem from the same reality; that existents can fail or cease to exist because the conditions upon which they are predicated could have been different or can be altered. Thus the two are related. Moreover, I can stipulate which type I'm using for my argument. Since naturalistic phenomena deals with cause /effect it would at least be no.b!
"In his best-selling book "A Brief History of Time", physicist Stephen Hawking claimed that when physicists find the theory he and his colleagues are looking for - a so-called "theory of everything" - then they will have seen into "the mind of God". Hawking is by no means the only scientist who has associated God with the laws of physics. Nobel laureate Leon Lederman, for example, has made a link between God and a subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson. Lederman has suggested that when physicists find this particle in their accelerators it will be like looking into the face of God. But what kind of God are these physicists talking about?"
"Theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg suggests that in fact this is not much of a God at all. Weinberg notes that traditionally the word "God" has meant "an interested personality". But that is not what Hawking and Lederman mean. Their "god", he says, is really just "an abstract principle of order and harmony", a set of mathematical equations. Weinberg questions then why they use the word "god" at all. He makes the rather profound point that "if language is to be of any use to us, then we ought to try and preserve the meaning of words, and 'god' historically has not meant the laws of nature." The question of just what is "God" has taxed theologians for thousands of years; what Weinberg reminds us is to be wary of glib definitions."
C. Attempts to Deconstruct TS lead to abyss of Meaninglessness, and back to TS.
1) Derridian Deconstruction.
The French Post-structuralist Jacque Derrida seeks to explicate the end of Metaphysics which is the final project of Western philosophy. His technique of deconstruction aims at undermining any logos or first principle that would give rationality to the universe by unseating the privileges of reason which undergird all such projects. Even logic itself is undermined.
Derrida:
"Are we obeying the principle of reason when we ask what grounds this principle [reason] which is itself a principle of grounding? We are not--which does not mean that we are disobeying it either. Are we dealing here with a circle or with an abyss? The circle would consist in seeking to account for reason by reason, to reason to the principle of reason, appealing to the principle to make it speak of itself at the very point where, according to Heidigger, the principle of reason says nothing about reason itself. The abyss, the hole, ..., the empty gorge would be the impossibility for a principle of grounding to ground itself...Are we to use reason to account for the principle of reason? Is the reason for reason rational?"
Derrida in Criticism and Culture, Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schlefflier, Longman 1991, 20.
Derrida's argument amounts to saying, "logic does not endorse itself." The point of the quotation above seems to be that logic is in a dilemma. If one tries to prove logic by its own terms, one is merely arguing in circle. But, if one does not do this, there is no foundation upon which one can base logic, because logic is the foundation.
[Quotes from Derrida from "The University in the Eyes of It's Pupils" Diacritics]
2) Into the abyss and back out to TS.
Many critics of Deconstruction have noted that if we take this principle seriously we would wind up unable to speak or think, even language requires an organizing principle which orders the world of our thought and speech (of course the basic thrust of Postmodern thought understands us to be trapped in, as Jameson said, "the prison house of language" unable to get at the real things of the world and their understanding because all we can really ever think through is language). But in opening this abyss Derrida creates a safe bridge over it as well, although that is not his intention. He uses the principle of difference (which he spells as "difference" to indicate that meaning is both differing and diffurring) but difference becomes the organizing principle of a Derridian universe. IT not only explains how meaning is derived from signifiers, not only does it tear down the meaning of all hierarchies, but it actually builds new ones because it becomes the foundation of value in valuing difference.
"The constant danger of deconstruction is that it falls into the same kinds of hierarchies that it tries to expose. Derrida himself is quite aware of this danger--and his response--which is really a rhetorical response...is to multiply the names under which deconstruction traffics..."
[--Con Davis,Culture and Critique 178-179]
D. unavoidable nature of TS indicates God is a priori.
Either way, whether we try building a reductionist notion of the universe or whether we tear down the hierarchies of reason that implies a TS, we can never escape the TS. This inescapable nature of the transcendental signifier points to the a priori nature of the God concept. That reality is ordered by a single principle which gives meaning and rationality to all other principles is inescapable, but humanity's multifarious attempts to understand that principle, and the frightening conclusion that the principle leads to a creator God is the logical inference. All of the many signs which have been used to understand this uber-sign imply an intelligent ordering rationality which makes sense of the universe, and therefore, logically must have created it in the first place.
1) Transcendental Signifier is unavoidable.
As has been pointed out above, there is no possibility of holding a rational view of the universe without an organizing principle, a "thing at the top." This indicates the ultimate necessity of a TS. In other words, the fact that we cannot get away from the TS indicates that there must really be one.
2) God is the ultimate Transcendental Signifier.
"Without God, who has been the ultimate Transcendent Signified, there is no central perspective, no objective truth of things, no real thing beyond language." [Nancy Murphy and James McClendon jr." Distinguishing Modern and Postmodern Theologies." Modern Theology, 5:3 April 1989, 211]
E. God is the ultimate unifying principle.
1) Coincidence of Opposites.
Nicholas of Cuza's concept that God's infinity is a universal set subsuming all finite sets of opposites. (See Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology)
"The universe of Nicholas of Cusa is an expression or a development, though of course necessarily imperfect and inadequate, of God--imperfect and inadequate because it displays in the realm of multiplicity what in God is present in an indissoluble and intimate unity (complication) a unity which embraces not only the different but even the opposite, qualities or determinations of being. In its turn every single thing in the universe represents it--the Universe-- and thus also God in its own particular manner; each in a manner different from that of all others, by contracting the wealth of the universe in accordance with its own unique individuality."[--Alexandre Koyre' From Closed World to The Infinite Universe, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University press, 1957, 8-9.]
Cuza's vision of a universe taken up metaphysically in God in an undifferentiated unity is grounded in the paradoxical nature of geometry.
One example Cuza gives is of the dichotomy between straightness and curvilinearity. But if one was dealing with an infintie circle, from every point along the circle it would appear that the circle was a straight line. Or another example; large and small are opposites in a finite perspective, but in dealing with the infinitely large circle and the infinitely small one the center loses its special quality, both are at the same time both nowhere and everywhere, and thus equally meaningful and meaningless. This may not seem like a particularly Christian notion of God, but Paul Tillich remarks that Martin Luther embraced it," one of the most profound conceptions of God ever developed." Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought.
2) God as Being itself.
As being itself God is Metaphysically above the level of existing things in the universe and constitutes all the potentiality and all actuality. This the nature of God is to order and to bring to concrescence potentialities. The signifier 'G-o-d' universally signifies and therefore takes up into itself all concepts and principles of rationality.
3) All people seek TS, therefore, this reflects innate sense of God.
Not only do we seek it, we cannot avoid it. The alternative is a meaningless universe, and more than that, a universe without coherence to reality. Of course we have the rules of logic, and we have science to tell us facts, but those move toward the TS because they are both predicated upon organizing reality under a logos, a rationale.
F. Objections.
1) Deconstruction and Postmodernism.
The climate of opinion today is that all metaphysical structures are merely constructed hierarchies of meaning and we can simply deconstruct them by reverse the terms, bringing out the contradictory elements in a text, or unbracketting that which is silenced by the text. But the move of Derrida to the metaphysical level form the linguistic level is totally unwarranted. The deconstruction of metaphysical hierarchies is nothing more than arbitrary. Moreover, Derrida simply makes his own TS through the concept of "difference" (he even spells it with an "a" to show that it is more than mere "difference" but includes differing and deffering meaning. Yet this principle comes to define the universe, to set all values, to play the ultimate arbitration; in effect it has become its own TS.
2) We merely impose meaning upon a random and cold universe.
We impose meaning upon the universe as part of the brains innate pattern making ability, which is an evolutionary deposit allowing us to determine what to eat in the world and to recognize danger, remember where the good mushrooms are etc. and as cultural deposit owing to our need for security in a cold universe.
Answer: While this is going to be the commonplace assumption in the current climate of opinion, and while it is no doubt true in general, even the "objective" "proven" "advocate of human knowledge" science must be nothing more than the imposition of a pattern of meaning upon nature to make us feel better in a cold universe. Of course the skeptic will break down the dichotomy between metaphysical meaning and "objective fact" about the workings of the universe. But science no less than religion transforms itself into metaphysical organization in dictating its materialist assumptions about ultimate reality. While it is true that we impose patterns and read in meaning this in no way proves that there is nothing "out there" and the fact that it seems to be a natural inclination of humanity to find it implies that there is an innate sense of it laid upon our being as a divine program, to find the mark that gives meaning to all other marks.
3) This is an attempt to square the circle.
Answer: This criticism has been made of the use of Nicholas of Cuza. Note, Cuza's argument does not mean that the square and the circle change shapes, it is not saying that squareness is really roundness. It is saying that in infinity all distinctions between binary opposition become meaningless. The shapes are the same, but from the view point of a finite observer in infinity the distinctions are meaningless.
By Metacrock. Used with Permission.
For more articles by the same author, see Doxa.
