Indeed the Christian, and even wider Abrahamic experience is absolutely brimming with examples of those people who "found god".
One wonders about this absentee landlord, that the big guy would even have to be found.
From another point of view, hoe does one recognize that they have truly and completely found god, does it come with an official manual? Isn't it equally probable, and certainly possible that they have merely found religion, which is anything but god?
Ultimately, any assertion regarding Abrahamic higher reality arrives with a moral authority, an implicit belief that some baisic goodness has been disposed. Such becomes a value judgement bestowed by others which has been weaponized throughout history, thus bringing into question this moral award.
Regarding Descartes, I could never get a certain image out of my mind, of him dissecting living dogs and exclaiming in surprise why they howled so, since they were mere machines.
The one point I will concede to Descartes is that after long contemplation he concluded the ancients used a different math to his own. In this at least, he was correct.
This is a great piece and you do a good service to Descartes.
For me, cogito ergo sum is not the summit of the mountain, nor the mountain itself.
"I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." is at the top. It is the beginning and end. Cogito is an assistant along the way.
Thank you. With Descartes, one of the more intriguing things he has to say about God is that if we consider thinking substance (taking in mind the true depth of what he means by 'thought', much wider than mere understanding...) without limitation, we arrive at the idea of God. If we take this same thinking substance as limited and finite, we arrive at the idea of the human soul.
…and because a cause cannot impart what it does not contain, that we can arrive at the idea of God in this manner proves the existence of him as the cause of that idea. do I have this right?
The arguments for God in Descartes are many, often interlinking in ways that aren't immediately obvious. Yes, and we are in a sense, in a manner not too different from Spinoza, an idea of God. But this idea of 'us', Descartes seems to say it is *the same* as God, only different by its limitations. I believe this should be taken seriously, as this is part of the reason for why we can know God, and what constitutes the 'deduction' from the knowledge of ourselves to the knowledge of God. Descartes is very clear that he sees there to be one straight line from the idea of cogito to the idea of God. I can not claim to understand what all of this means, but I do see the value in commentators such as Alquié who have said Descartes' proofs for God can not only be understood by referring to some abstract ontological proof. There seems to be for Descartes a more 'lived' intuition, for lack of better words, which gives reality to these more abstract proofs. For example, in our recognizing our will as being this quasi-unlimited power, we get an 'idea' of what God's will would be like. And in knowing what thinking means, we can get an idea of what this would be if it were truly unlimited. Now, we can only get an idea of this because we already truly have an idea of this unlimited nature of 'thought', namely in the depths of hyperbolic doubt where the cogito proof takes on its clearest form, for here, nothing escapes thought, it swallows everything. And so God is known, precisely because we bear the mark of him. He says the material reality of the idea of God refers to the operation of our intellect (having the idea of God); but it can also be taken objectively —as the real thing represented by that operation. This objective thing, even if it is not seen as something totally outside of myself (remember, in hyperbolic doubt, there is nothing outside of thought), can still be taken as being more perfect than myself by virtue of its essence. This essence of the idea of God, it is nothing else than 'intellectual nature in general', considering of course the broad and all-encompassing nature of intellect, thought, etc. There is perhaps not so much a 'leap' from the material reality of these ideas to their objective reality through the understanding, as that the clear material reality of the idea reveals to us the objective reality. This seems to be necessary, and this would mean the idea of God does not so much save us from ourselves as many have made it out to be, this image that for ex. we are lost in doubt and then luckily we have this idea of God lying around somewhere that re-constitutes the veracity of things. Rather, discovering the essence of ourselves, we recognize the essence of God, at least in so far as is possible. In this way, there are no 'gaps' in Descartes' meditation.
One need not be a philosopher to "find God".
Indeed the Christian, and even wider Abrahamic experience is absolutely brimming with examples of those people who "found god".
One wonders about this absentee landlord, that the big guy would even have to be found.
From another point of view, hoe does one recognize that they have truly and completely found god, does it come with an official manual? Isn't it equally probable, and certainly possible that they have merely found religion, which is anything but god?
Ultimately, any assertion regarding Abrahamic higher reality arrives with a moral authority, an implicit belief that some baisic goodness has been disposed. Such becomes a value judgement bestowed by others which has been weaponized throughout history, thus bringing into question this moral award.
Regarding Descartes, I could never get a certain image out of my mind, of him dissecting living dogs and exclaiming in surprise why they howled so, since they were mere machines.
The one point I will concede to Descartes is that after long contemplation he concluded the ancients used a different math to his own. In this at least, he was correct.
This is a great piece and you do a good service to Descartes.
For me, cogito ergo sum is not the summit of the mountain, nor the mountain itself.
"I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." is at the top. It is the beginning and end. Cogito is an assistant along the way.
Where does God fit into this picture for you?
Thank you. With Descartes, one of the more intriguing things he has to say about God is that if we consider thinking substance (taking in mind the true depth of what he means by 'thought', much wider than mere understanding...) without limitation, we arrive at the idea of God. If we take this same thinking substance as limited and finite, we arrive at the idea of the human soul.
…and because a cause cannot impart what it does not contain, that we can arrive at the idea of God in this manner proves the existence of him as the cause of that idea. do I have this right?
The arguments for God in Descartes are many, often interlinking in ways that aren't immediately obvious. Yes, and we are in a sense, in a manner not too different from Spinoza, an idea of God. But this idea of 'us', Descartes seems to say it is *the same* as God, only different by its limitations. I believe this should be taken seriously, as this is part of the reason for why we can know God, and what constitutes the 'deduction' from the knowledge of ourselves to the knowledge of God. Descartes is very clear that he sees there to be one straight line from the idea of cogito to the idea of God. I can not claim to understand what all of this means, but I do see the value in commentators such as Alquié who have said Descartes' proofs for God can not only be understood by referring to some abstract ontological proof. There seems to be for Descartes a more 'lived' intuition, for lack of better words, which gives reality to these more abstract proofs. For example, in our recognizing our will as being this quasi-unlimited power, we get an 'idea' of what God's will would be like. And in knowing what thinking means, we can get an idea of what this would be if it were truly unlimited. Now, we can only get an idea of this because we already truly have an idea of this unlimited nature of 'thought', namely in the depths of hyperbolic doubt where the cogito proof takes on its clearest form, for here, nothing escapes thought, it swallows everything. And so God is known, precisely because we bear the mark of him. He says the material reality of the idea of God refers to the operation of our intellect (having the idea of God); but it can also be taken objectively —as the real thing represented by that operation. This objective thing, even if it is not seen as something totally outside of myself (remember, in hyperbolic doubt, there is nothing outside of thought), can still be taken as being more perfect than myself by virtue of its essence. This essence of the idea of God, it is nothing else than 'intellectual nature in general', considering of course the broad and all-encompassing nature of intellect, thought, etc. There is perhaps not so much a 'leap' from the material reality of these ideas to their objective reality through the understanding, as that the clear material reality of the idea reveals to us the objective reality. This seems to be necessary, and this would mean the idea of God does not so much save us from ourselves as many have made it out to be, this image that for ex. we are lost in doubt and then luckily we have this idea of God lying around somewhere that re-constitutes the veracity of things. Rather, discovering the essence of ourselves, we recognize the essence of God, at least in so far as is possible. In this way, there are no 'gaps' in Descartes' meditation.
Brilliant, too much for one post. The aside about the perception and education necessary to put philosophy in service of life warrants it's own post.