User talk:Yesselman/SandboxGod

Endnote 3.28c - From Jay F. Rosenberg's "Practice of Philosophy"; ISBN: 013687178X; Pages 26, 27—Theistic and Non-theistic World views Synthesized, Hall:TB3:20, TB3:38, Duck or Rabbit,

{Summary}

[1] Now the word 'dialectical' has had many uses in philosophy, from Plato to Marx. What I mean by it is not unrelated to these historical roots. A pair of world views stand in what I call dialectical opposition just in case they are incompatible but nevertheless are both tempting—there's an initial pull toward each of them; both pivotal—they serve as centers for ordering and regrouping families of beliefs; and both reformulable—they are expressible by a variety of different specific claims or theses. [2] Consider, for example, what we might call the theistic and the non-theistic world views. Some people look at the world and see it as the perfect handiwork of a Divine creator {God}, infused with a benevolent personal presence. Others greet this picture with incomprehension or hostility, seeing in the world only complex flows and interactions of mass and energy, the workings of blind and wholly impersonal forces {or Spinozistic Theism and a chain of natural events}. Perhaps most people have moments of both sorts from time to time, sometimes confronting the world as a deep mystery, with awe and reverence, and sometimes confronting it as a mere object, imperfectly understood, to be sure, but perfectly understandable and able some day to be grasped and mastered.

[3] Both pulls are undeniably there. Both pictures have an undeniable attraction for us. But it is clear that, even with the most prodigious efforts at self-deception, one cannot retain both pictures indefinitely at the same time. They are ultimately incompatible with each other {different paradigms}.

[4] Now how is this incompatibility to be expressed? One traditional way, of course, is as a disagreement over the statement "God exists". One philosopher offers an argument for or against the statement; another replies with criticisms of that argument; the first responds to the criticism of the second with a critique of his own; still other voices enter the chorus; and so it goes. But to see this ongoing dialogue as a dispute concerning, only the truth or falsehood of a single statement is to overlook the greater hidden mass of the icebergs. {I highly recommend Prof. Hall's Lectures for a study of these dialogues.}

[5] For, in a sense, everything is touched by the issue. One of these disputants, for example, lives in a universe permeated with meaning {}. It, and we within it, have a purpose, exist for a reason. For the other, in contrast, if there are to be meanings and purpose at all, they will need to be {subjective} human meanings and purposes, for we are here not by design but as the result of the {seemingly} random coming together {chain of natural events} of appropriate raw materials and the systematic evolutionary working out of this original fortuitous chance concurrence {}.

[6] Again, one philosopher sees people as "a little lower than the angels"—as creatures who are imbued with souls and with a Divine spark of life, who are granted the freedom to choose between good and evil, in accordance with or in opposition to God's will. For the other, however, we are perhaps only "a little higher than the apes"— sophisticated deterministic organic data-processors which create whatever values there are in the process of our mutual interactions and our continuing adaptation to a universe of value-free, uncaring stuff. For one, our death is our transition to a higher life; for the other, it is only the ultimate malfunction.

[7] Any of these differences, and many others, may emerge as a focal point from which the dialectical process of meeting argument with argument develops. People have souls—or they do not. There is life after death—or there is not. We have free will—or we are determined. There are ultimate values—or all values are conventional. Sensory perception is our only knowledge-yielding faculty—or mystical experience gives us access to a higher reality. Whatever the specific thesis, the ultimate aim of the enterprise remains the same {to achieve Peace of Mind}—to assemble from pieces rooted in the preferred picture a consistent, coherent, articulate, and systematic whole which can withstand the test of critical challenge, to build a synthesis which hangs together under analysis.

Yesselman 14:20, 19 January 2006 (UTC)