{"id":16868,"date":"2016-08-25T14:00:55","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T18:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/?p=16868"},"modified":"2016-11-21T16:48:45","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T21:48:45","slug":"reflections-existence-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/2016\/08\/25\/reflections-existence-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on the Existence of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not how<\/em> the world is, but that<\/em> it is -\u00ad this is the mystery.<\/p>\n

Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose words these are, was perhaps the greatest, and certainly one\u00a0of the most influential, of twentieth century philosophers. He wasn’t what you’d call a\u00a0believer. And yet I want to develop the insight his words convey. I want to argue that the\u00a0mystery Wittgenstein identified points ultimately to the mystery of God<\/em>. The mystery of\u00a0God arises for us inescapably once we confront the most basic of all phenomena: not how<\/em>\u00a0the world is, but that<\/em> it is.<\/p>\n

What Wittgenstein has in mind is something I shall call the sheer existence of things<\/em>. It’s\u00a0the single astonishing fact that the world is<\/em>, rather than the countless more familiar facts\u00a0which together make up how<\/em> it is.<\/p>\n

To see what this is about, let’s consider the difference between thought and reality.\u00a0Suppose there’s someone you love. You can think of him endlessly, and the better you\u00a0know him the richer your thought of him will be. And yet thinking about him can’t make\u00a0him real. To be real he must exist: not just as an object of thought, but with a being\u00a0exterior<\/em> to thought, in excess of anything that thinking alone cannot produce. That’s what\u00a0reality<\/em> is: it’s sheer existence, existence beyond thought. It’s what you grasp when you no\u00a0longer have to bring the person you love to mind, because, astonishingly, he is there,\u00a0present, before you. What you grasp in that moment is what makes him real. In excess of\u00a0anything thought alone can summon or encompass, you grasp the sheer existence of him.<\/p>\n

You’re struck, in other words, not by how<\/em> he is, but by that<\/em> he is. How<\/em> he is is what makes\u00a0it possible to think of him. It’s everything that makes him who and what he is: let’s say it’s\u00a0the idea<\/em> of him. But how he is<\/em> isn’t the same as that he is<\/em>. That he is<\/em> is something\u00a0different, something other<\/em>. Beyond the idea of him, we can experience his reality, his\u00a0actuality, his sheer existence.<\/p>\n

Now so far I’ve been talking about the sheer existence of an individual, of someone you\u00a0love, just as an example. Wittgenstein of course is talking about the world. But the\u00a0argument is the same. The distinction between how<\/em> something is and that<\/em> it is applies not\u00a0just to individuals but to the world as a whole. The world itself is thinkable, can in\u00a0principle be made an object of thought This gives us how<\/em> the world is, the idea<\/em> of the\u00a0world. But beyond the idea, beyond everything thought can contain, there is the fact that\u00a0the world is<\/em>, that it is real<\/em>, that it exists.<\/em> And this<\/em>, Wittgenstein says, is the mystery.<\/p>\n

Now why<\/em> does Wittgenstein call it a mystery? Well, one reason is that sheer existence is\u00a0so fundamental and so encompassing that we tend to take it for granted. Our focus is the\u00a0how<\/em> of things. We’re immersed in discovering<\/em> the world, absorbed in trying to\u00a0understand<\/em> it. And yet discovery and understanding presuppose that the world exists<\/em>,\u00a0that it is there<\/em> in the first place to be discovered and understood. It’s this, which is so\u00a0obvious, so basic, that we take for granted and tend to make invisible. Retrieving it\u00a0induces a sense of strangeness, a kind of unsettledness, perhaps. It’s not unreasonable in\u00a0this context to speak of a mystery<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But there’s more to it than that. We speak of mystery not simply in the context of what is\u00a0strange or disconcerting. We speak of mystery, in the most fundamental sense, when\u00a0explanation has been defeated. So when Wittgenstein says that the sheer existence of the\u00a0world is mysterious, he means that in the sheer existence of things we encounter\u00a0something before which explanation breaks down. And he’s right about that: sheer\u00a0existence is<\/em> in a very fundamental way inexplicable.<\/p>\n

To see why, let’s think about how explanations work. Explanations depend on there being\u00a0something to explain. A classical way of putting this would be to say that explanations\u00a0depend on the natures or essences of things. On this classical understanding, explanations\u00a0involve finding out what these natures or essences are and how they express themselves.\u00a0But of course there isn’t just one kind of explanation. The immense complexity of things\u00a0means that very many kinds of explanation are generated. We have the sciences, of\u00a0course: physics, chemistry and biology and their numerous derivatives. But we also have\u00a0the kinds of explanation proper to humanistic studies such as history, sociology and\u00a0psychology. Some people, as it happens, think that sooner or later we will be able to do\u00a0away with humanistic kinds of explanation. History, psychology and the rest will one day\u00a0be absorbed into the supposedly more fundamental kinds of explanation offered by the\u00a0physical sciences. Others deny this. Still others aren’t sure one way or the other.<\/p>\n

But for my purposes such disagreements are of no importance. What is<\/em> important is that\u00a0all kinds of explanation have something in common. They all presuppose that something\u00a0or other exists, and then proceed to try to explain why, on the basis of what exists, things\u00a0happen as they do. None of them, however, explains why<\/em> anything exists. None of them,\u00a0we might say, explains why there is something to explain.<\/p>\n

And this is no accident. Explanations tell you what kinds of things there are and why they\u00a0function as they do. But what something is and why it functions as it does can never tell\u00a0you why it exists. We need to be absolutely clear about this. Take yourself as an example.\u00a0You are a human being: not a mere idea, a possibility, but something actually existing. It’s\u00a0manifest that being human doesn’t explain why you actually exist. Existence isn’t part of\u00a0what it means<\/em> to be human, so your existence must originate in something else. And at\u00a0this point it seems very natural to say that it originates in the particular event of your\u00a0parents conceiving you; this surely explains why<\/em> you are. But that’s a mistake. Your\u00a0parents’ existence is as much in need of explanation as yours is. Of course their conceiving\u00a0you explains something<\/em>: it explains what<\/em> you are, and doubtless to some degree who<\/em> you\u00a0are. But that’s all<\/em> it explains. And so your sheer existence, even in the very moment of\u00a0your coming to be, remains mysterious.<\/p>\n

And of course it’s not just you or your parents of whom this is true. Take anything in the\u00a0world you like. Take the world itself. However deeply you penetrate what it is and why it\u00a0functions as it does, you’ll find nothing that tells you why it exists. And because of this,\u00a0existence defeats explanation. It is as Wittgenstein said: the mystery is not how<\/em> the world\u00a0is, the mystery is that<\/em> it is.<\/p>\n

The defeat of explanation I’m speaking about is universal. The mystery of sheer existence\u00a0is something which not even the most fundamental kinds of scientific explanation can\u00a0dispel. How could they? If science were able to explain existence, it would first of all have\u00a0to free itself from taking existence for granted. But in doing so it would become a science\u00a0focussed upon, precisely, nothing<\/em> \u00ad- for nothing is what remains, if the assumption of\u00a0existence is suspended. And of course the idea of a science with nothing to investigate is\u00a0an absurdity. However basic the agents or processes which science invokes, their\u00a0actuality, their sheer existence, necessarily remains unexplained. So not only is science\u00a0incapable of dispelling the mystery of existence. Science, as an exploration of what’s real,\u00a0depends radically upon that mystery for its very possibility.<\/p>\n

But, as I’ve already said, my argument isn’t just about the mystery of existence; it’s about\u00a0the mystery of existence pointing inescapably to the existence of God. It’s time for me to\u00a0try to spell out why I think it does so.<\/p>\n

And first of all I want to say that the idea of the existence of God is in danger of becoming\u00a0too familiar. We think we know what the idea of God amounts to. We think we know what\u00a0is involved in affirming or denying that God exists. I can’t avoid disrupting those\u00a0assumptions. What we mean by God, what it means to consider whether or not God exists,\u00a0are stranger, more mysterious adventures of thought than we might suppose.<\/p>\n

Now let me be as explicit as possible. The world’s existence is a mystery. The world itself\u00a0cannot explain its existence, cannot tell us why it exists. And yet despite this, the why\u00a0<\/em>question seems inescapable. The fact that the world cannot answer it does not mean that\u00a0it’s a misguided or unintelligible question to ask. On the contrary. We naturally and\u00a0spontaneously search for an opening, a direction perhaps, in which the why<\/em> question can\u00a0be posed, and in which an answer can be, however provisionally, indicated. And that\u00a0opening or direction has a certain shape or orientation. We know that the world’s\u00a0existence cannot come from the world itself. We know, then, that it must come from\u00a0elsewhere. And we can know at least one thing about how this must be characterized.\u00a0Using Wittgenstein’s language, the world’s existence can’t originate from something in\u00a0which how<\/em> it is and that<\/em> it is once again come apart. Why is it that your parents can’t\u00a0explain that you exist? Because they’re just like you: their existence is as unexplained as\u00a0yours. That’s the situation which the why<\/em> question moves us to transcend. And so the only\u00a0possibility would seems to be this: The mystery of the world’s existence must originate in\u00a0something that definitively transcends the duality of how<\/em> and that<\/em>. This is what’s\u00a0inescapably indicated, if we allow our wonder at the world’s existence to unfold\u00a0uninhibitedly. If we do, we find that it must originate in something in which how<\/em> it is and\u00a0that<\/em> it is do not diverge. In other words, and in more classical language, we are drawn to\u00a0affirm something in which essence and existence cannot be separated<\/em>. And this is\u00a0precisely what we call God.<\/p>\n

Now there’s something about this conclusion I want immediately to emphasize. When we\u00a0are drawn in this way to affirm the existence of God, we aren’t in any very recognizable\u00a0way offering an explanation<\/em>. Explanations typically use something we know, to shed light\u00a0on something we don’t. Here that pattern is reversed. Something we know, the existence\u00a0of the world, leads us to something we don’t, the existence of God. Now in saying that the\u00a0existence of God isn’t something we know<\/em>, I obviously don’t mean that we can’t affirm<\/em> it. I\u00a0mean that we can’t understand<\/em> it. God, a being in which essence and existence cannot be\u00a0separated<\/em>, is entirely beyond our power to penetrate. Affirming God’s existence is\u00a0unavoidable, but in doing so we are affirming the existence of something\u00a0incomprehensible to us. In this moment, we think<\/em> what we cannot understand<\/em>. The\u00a0existence of God proves to be a kind of demonstrated unknowability<\/em>. If this is a kind of\u00a0explanation, it’s not one which justifies any claim to mastery or closure. It’s a kind of\u00a0necessary horizon of free thinking, an inescapable recognition of what lies mysteriously beyond us.<\/p>\n

Inescapable? Obviously not, strictly speaking. The desire to stay securely within the\u00a0boundaries of what can be mastered is after all very strong. So we might try saying that\u00a0although the existence of the world is indeed mysterious, we have simply to accept it as a\u00a0brute fact beyond which we cannot go. That would be a kind of escape. But if cannot go<\/em>\u00a0means will not go<\/em>, then our escape is at the cost of being arbitrary, in fact closed<\/em>,\u00a0defensive<\/em> \u00ad- dare one say, repressed<\/em>?<\/p>\n

The existence of God, by contrast, is an explanation that leads into the unknown, an\u00a0answer that shapes itself as a question. Or rather, several. Who is<\/em> God? Why<\/em> give the\u00a0world existence? What does it mean to recognize that the world and we ourselves receive\u00a0<\/em>existence rather than possess<\/em> it? Philosophy’s affirmation of the existence of God deepens\u00a0not mastery but mystery: the focussed, irreversible persistence of wonder.<\/p>\n

And such wonder is as far as we can go when, as tonight, our context is reason<\/em>, not faith<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Some on my side of this debate would dispute that. They would claim that over and above\u00a0affirming God as the mysterious origin of the world’s existence, philosophy can attain a\u00a0richer conception of the divine in terms of ‘attributes’ such as omnipotence, omniscience,\u00a0supreme goodness and so on. The arguments are interesting, but I have my doubts: both\u00a0about how much philosophy can actually achieve in this area, and also about the\u00a0usefulness of what it attempts. In my view, these questions are more religious<\/em> than\u00a0philosophical<\/em>. What is meant by calling God all\u00adpowerful or all-\u00adknowing or all-\u00adgood can in\u00a0my opinion be properly elucidated only in the context of Faith.<\/p>\n

What is Faith? Well, it draws on the questions we ask, but above all it’s about the answers\u00a0we receive. And according to Faith, these answers are God’s answers. Such answers\u00a0constitute determinate, systematic beliefs and practices which are said to come from God\u00a0and also to lead to God. Above all, in ways which definitively surpass all philosophical\u00a0speculation, Faith tells us who God is<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Atheism, the affirmation of God’s non\u00adexistence, is philosophically unreasonable in light\u00a0of the very being of the world. But when we consider not the existence<\/em> of the world but\u00a0what the world is like<\/em>, atheism might not appear so unreasonable after all -\u00ad at least as a\u00a0practical stance. Given the world as we know it, the supposedly all-\u00adpowerful, all-\u00adknowing,\u00a0all\u00ad-good God can certainly seem enigmatic, ambivalent or even hostile towards us. And if\u00a0God appears to have abandoned us<\/em>, why shouldn’t we<\/em> abandon God? Atheism, at least\u00a0sometimes, originates I think in this way, and I don’t find such a response unintelligible.\u00a0But this is where what religion, rather than philosophy, tells us of God can make a\u00a0decisive difference. I’d like to end by suggesting that the depth of Christianity, and the\u00a0most important of the signs that it is true, lies in its capacity to make redemptive sense\u00a0even of the experience of seeming to be abandoned by God. It seems appropriate to make\u00a0this concluding point by recalling something Chesterton wrote:<\/p>\n

When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the\u00a0crucifixion, but at the cry from the Cross: the cry which confessed that God was\u00a0forsaken by God … [Let] the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only\u00a0one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God\u00a0[Himself] seemed for an instant to be an atheist.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Philip Cleevely, Cong. Orat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not how the world is, but that it is -\u00ad this is the mystery. Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose words these are, was perhaps the greatest, and certainly one\u00a0of the most influential,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Michelangelo-Cropped.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8brX6-4o4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16868"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16871,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16868\/revisions\/16871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}