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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: How does stuff 'exist'? And does God exist the same way?
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Turn the electricity off and there is nothing. We cease to exist.
God is the electricity.
For a quick and clear summary of Tillich's views see wikipedia. I cannot vouch for the theology.
The term "Ground of Being" is sometimes used in philosophy to refer to the source of existence itself: i.e. not why this or that exists but why there is existing (and why does continue continue?) Or perhaps to a theologian, the significance of existence (especially human existence 'human being' or 'the being humans have'). As leo says, from a Christian point of view, 'God is the electricity'.
Tillich also talks about Ultimate Concern which he sees as what religion is, i.e as our attitude to the Ground of Being. (see article in SEP - though this isn't only about Tillich, or even Christianity).
You could you say your girlfriend is your Ultimate Concern. People chose all sorts of things but I suspect Tillich would say that would be idolatry. Unless you girlfriend is the reason existence exists of course.
For the sort of thing a Ground of Being would be, and whether that would make it an appropriate sort of thing to be worshipped, I couldn't say.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Trouble is that Wiki can be written up by anyone.
I agree, I'd always recommend clicking the 'talk' tab as well as the article. In Tillich's case there seems a lot of disagreement.
The SEP is much more reliable on Philosophy - but isn't big on theology.
By the way, I was wrong about the difference between Bach and Lady Gaga being objective. I may prefer simple tunes to complex but by doing so I am accepting that there is a difference between simple and complex music. I'm inclined to think the difference is objective.
Instructions for playing a piece by Bach will be more complex that instructions for singing a pop song and I think everyone (?) would agree. Which seems to make 'musical complexity' objective in some sense. Whether that makes sens I don't know.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Trouble is that Wiki can be written up by anyone.
tangent/
leo, that's the second time recently I've seen you make this criticism. "Anyone" includes you! If you disagree with what the page says and can back your assertions in an acceptable manner, your changes have every chance of being accepted. I speak as an occasional Wikipedia editor and as somebody who successfully helped maintain a page for which deletion had been requested.
/tangent
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Eutychus: I speak as an occasional Wikipedia editor and as somebody who successfully helped maintain a page for which deletion had been requested.
(LOL, I do this around three or four times per day on the Dutch Wikipedia.)
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Calleva Atrebatum wrote:
The God that's just a word-for-stuff-we-value isn't a God who is worthy of worship in any way! The only God worthy of worship is the supra-existent Being (he doesn't have to be omni-everything to be worthy of worship, I'm happy with some of the thoughts of process theology, but if he doesn't BE in a very real and objective way, she's not a Being we could ever worship or pray to or hope for salvation from.
Yes, errm, I know what you mean, sort of, but it all bites its own bum, doesn't it? I mean, that words like 'real' and 'objective' seem to involve so many assumptions, that we would end up writing a philosophy dissertation, heaven forfend.
I suppose you are saying that God is separate from me. Even that depends on what 'me' is, I suppose.
I think one big problem is that many words such as 'exist' are closely associated with naturalism, so that 'God exists' seems contradictory. Perhaps we could say that a no-thing non-exists.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Calleva Atrebatum
Shipmate
# 14058
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
... words like 'real' and 'objective' seem to involve so many assumptions, that we would end up writing a philosophy dissertation, heaven forfend.
I think one big problem is that many words such as 'exist' are closely associated with naturalism, so that 'God exists' seems contradictory. Perhaps we could say that a no-thing non-exists.
ISTM that words like 'exist' and 'objective' aren't, in fact, that complex - ordinary people without double firsts in Philosophy understand what they mean and the only thing they can mean: X exists means X is instantiated in the universe; there is X. X maintains this state of existence independent of whether I know or believe or care about it. It is wholly and completely independent of whether I perceive this existence. Existence is about ontology, not epistemology.
Further, I think someone in an earlier post said that God's existence is a different 'kind' of existence to things in our human 'sphere', and gave an analogy of the way things exist in a computer programme. But, if there's one universe, and all things are part of it, then God is part of it, and so God exists in the same way as all the rest of the stuff in the universe exists (the way I described above) because there's no other way anything can exist.
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Offence is taken, it is not given.
Posts: 159 | From: Kent | Registered: Aug 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Calleva
OK. But you have basically accepted the naturalistic account of 'exist', haven't you? That seems to go in the opposite direction to the kalam-type arguments, that the universe can't cause itself, therefore is caused by something not in the universe, i.e. not part of nature.
But I am not recommending kalam, as I find it unconvincing, but it is trying to capture the non-material nature of God, at least in most accounts, although I think that Mormons have a kind of physical God.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Calleva Atrebatum: X maintains this state of existence independent of whether I know or believe or care about it.
Does money exist independent of whether people know or believe or care about it? Does England exist independent of whether people know or believe or care about it? Does love exist independent of whether people know or believe or care about it?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:
"It is wholly and completely independent of whether I perceive this existence." doesn't really work with quantum mechanics...
I'm not sure if it works with anything, since I can only conceive of something existing, by conceiving of it. How can I ever know if it existed outside my conception, except by having a further notion of it?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Calleva Atrebatum:
But, if there's one universe, and all things are part of it, then God is part of it, and so God exists in the same way as all the rest of the stuff in the universe exists (the way I described above) because there's no other way anything can exist.
But God isn't part of the universe. God created the universe and holds it in being.
You've defined existence as being instantiated. But that doesn't mean that there's only one way anything can exist; as soon as you talk about ways of being instantiated you've dropped all the advantages of equating existence and instantiation. Besides, it's not obvious that instantiation is as simple as you say. Are rainbows instantiated? Are they instantiated in the same way as rabbits? Are rabbits instantiated in the same way as electrons? Are the non-time-dependent truths expressed by theorems of logic instantiated? How about the truths expressed by Euclidean geometry? Is Euclidean geometry just one instantiation or is there a separate instantiation of every truth within Euclidean geometry?
The answer is probably that instantiation and existence lose their usual application when applied to things like the truths of logic or Euclidean geometry. But the existence of God is at least as comparable to the truths of logic as it is to the existence of rabbits or electrons.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Dafyd
Nice post. Numbers were always the bugger, weren't they? They seem to exist sort of noiselessly and tactfully and non-physically. So they can't be physically enlarged, but numerals can be.
Cue much debate about mathematical platonism, and mathematical arguments for God, but on second thoughts, I shall demur. I prefer to watch my collection of Beyonce videos.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Frank Mitchell
planked
# 17946
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Posted
Do Abstractions in general exist? Consider: Right-Angled Triangles; the Square-Root Of Minus-One; Right & Wrong; a Limited Liability Company; and Your Own Consciousness...
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Faictz Ce Que Vouldras
Posts: 72 | From: Cheshire, England | Registered: Dec 2013
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frank Mitchell:
Do Abstractions in general exist? Consider: Right-Angled Triangles; the Square-Root Of Minus-One; Right & Wrong; a Limited Liability Company; and Your Own Consciousness...
They exist as ideas. Do they exist in some other way? It's difficult to say, since then we are thinking of them.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Frank Mitchell
planked
# 17946
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Posted
I concluded that you understand these concepts by empathizing with other people who use them. It's like Dale Carnegie's advice in "How To Win Friends & Influence People": You need to look at these things from the other guy's point of view. Ultimately, intelligence is a collective activity.
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Faictz Ce Que Vouldras
Posts: 72 | From: Cheshire, England | Registered: Dec 2013
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Frank Mitchell:
Do Abstractions in general exist? Consider: Right-Angled Triangles; the Square-Root Of Minus-One; Right & Wrong; a Limited Liability Company; and Your Own Consciousness...
They exist as ideas. Do they exist in some other way? It's difficult to say, since then we are thinking of them.
As I said in a different thread, aren't these part of the Nicene Creed's "unseen" things that God created...
quote:
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
An abstract idea is something that can't be truly instantiated to be seen, we can only use the idea to make something in our reality that reflects the idea. Such as making a right-angle using a few pieces of wood.
As such, isn't an abstract idea covered in the "and unseen" line? It is to me anyway.
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
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