When God is described as the Ground of Being, this typically means that God is the fundamental reality or underlying source from which all things emerge. — Tom Storm

Sounds like Leibniz or Spinoza too. Or maybe Malebranch, or Hegel’s absolute, or Berkley. Or Aristotle’s prime mover, or the Platonic “good” or Plotinus’ “the One.”

Personally I find most philosophers’ conceptions of God are hollow shells that barely outline any type of entity; or they are anthropomorphic wishful thinking, slapping a face and personality on something that did not ask for it, like “being” or “the one” or “necessity”.

My sense is, if it’s a question of God, it is a question of personhood, as there is no larger more encompassing thing in the universe besides the person (as far as as I have experienced thus far). The person contains all else in his ability to know. Therefore, for me, anything I might find that I would call “God” has to be able to talk with me in order for me to know it as God. Otherwise it might be just thunder, or the ground of being, or something else I could make lower than a person.

And if we seek God in the empirical reality of other persons, then it becomes a question of truth and love. These are where I find God - in another person’s truthful testimony of what they love. God emerges there.

Whenever you find God, you find God was already there. But you also find something new you didn’t expect as well. With God, there is always more than you expected.

The mystical traditions are better at speaking this way without sounding religious, but they don’t sound scientific either.

Food for thought. :up:

Hart's account of God is interesting to me and comes from a vast tradition we tend to ignore in the secular community. What does it really mean when he writes:

God is not only the ultimate reality that the intellect and the will seek but is also the primordial reality with which all of us are always engaged in every moment of existence and consciousness, apart from which we have no experience of anything whatsoever. Or, to borrow the language of Augustine, God is not only superior summo meo—beyond my utmost heights—but also interior intimo meo—more inward to me than my inmost depths. — Tom Storm

All I'm really trying to do here is generate more interesting discussions about God. — Tom Storm

Meister Eckhart prayed to God to be rid of God. Looking at several of the posts here, I see little evidence of being rid of God. Even Nietzsche was full of God in his busy explicit mocking denials. So forget about God, the tiresome concept filled with the long history of busy imaginations, even sincere thinkers like Augustine, and ask, what is the world such that God ever came into conversation at all? Thereby reducing God to its essential elements that cannot be gainsaid. God is a metaphysical concept, so the matter turns to this metaphysics, and since the idea is to "start anew" from a position of radical ignorance (putting aside all the theology and excesses of thinking of God as Eckhart would have us do), what is there in the world that makes metaphysics a meaningful term, and one that responds to a finite deficit that insists on being filled? Insists not as a thesis wanting speculative closure, but an existential (referring simply to our existence) closure.

Isn't this a fancy way of saying that we created the idea of God to manage our anxiety?

Isn't this a fancy way of saying that we created the idea of God to manage our anxiety? — Tom Storm

No. And yes. What do you mean by anxiety? See, this is where things go stupidly fuzzy. And if one is dead set on not reading anything written in Germany or France during the early to mid twentieth century, things will stay that way.

See, this is where things go stupidly fuzzy. And if one is dead set on not reading anything written in Germany or France during the early to mid twentieth century, things will stay that way. — Astrophel

What makes you think fuzzy is a bad place? I don't read much philosophy, regardless of the country. But if you're advocating for continental philsophy over analytic, sure. I have no issues with this.

What makes you think fuzzy is a bad place? I don't read much philosophy, regardless of the country. But if you're advocating for continental philsophy over analytic, sure. I have no issues with this. — Tom Storm

Not to be a nooge, but how do you know if you have issues or not with continental philosophy if you "don't read much philosophy"?

Well, the obvious answer to this is that you can't have issues with things you don't follow, right?

I'm not a philosopher, and I don't have anxieties or burning questions about truth or reality. Metaphysics doesn't particularly capture my imagination. I'm content. I've read enough (and about) Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, not to mention some Evan Thompson and Dan Zahavi, to have a sense of the discourse. But I'm mainly here to understand what others believe and why. Hence my interest in more sophisticated accounts of theism.

I'm not a philosopher, and I don't have anxieties or burning questions about truth or reality. Metaphysics doesn't particularly capture my imagination. I'm content. I've read enough (and about) Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, not to mention some Evan Thompson and Dan Zahavi, to have a sense of the discourse. But I'm mainly here to understand what others believe and why. Hence my interest in more sophisticated accounts of theism. — Tom Storm

The more sophisticated accounts of theism ask questions that have nothing to do with theism. Here is a question I think is foundational for religion: Why are we born to suffer and die? Not meant to be an analytic challenge, but an existential one. One pulls away from theology and philosophy altogether, and asks from a radically simple mentality, "to begin in absolute poverty, with an absolute lack of knowledge" as Husserl put it.

Personally I find most philosophers’ conceptions of God are hollow shells that barely outline any type of entity; or they are anthropomorphic wishful thinking, slapping a face and personality on something that did not ask for it, like “being” or “the one” or “necessity”.
My sense is, if it’s a question of God, it is a question of personhood, — Fire Ologist

God-like powers without personhood*1 is what we call Nature, Universe, Cosmos . Traditional polytheistic notions of gods --- (Zeus {weather} ; Ceres {grain} ; Persephone {seasons} ; Bacchus {wine, orchards} --- gave unique personalities to sub-components of Nature-in-general. Viewed as the impersonal physical universe though, Nature doesn't do anything in particular, but everything in general. So, it's the specialized aspects of Nature that seem more personal and intentional : as when lightening strikes your house.

That may be why the image of a mercurial divine king on a heavenly throne makes more sense to common people than the timeless-spaceless-personless notion of strict Monotheism, and the abstract everything everywhere concept of Cosmos*2. But for rational philosophers, a broader non-specific definition may seem more plausible. That's why I think A.N. Whitehead's PanEnDeistic God may be an appropriate update of Plato's universal Cosmos*3. :smile:


*1. Five requirements for Personhood :
Next, “The Cognitive Criteria of Personhood” was created by Mary Anne Warren in 1973, where she lists the five requirements for a person to exist. The criteria includes consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, ability to communicate and self-awareness.
https://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/personhood-explained/

*2. Cosmos :
Ancient Greek: κόσμος, romanized: kósmos) is an alternative name for the universe or its nature or order. Usage of the word cosmos implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos
Note --- Plato described the creation of our world allegorically, as the emergence of a pocket of organized space-time-energy-law (cosmos) within a larger expanse of random-but-potential nothingness (chaos). This was a functional, instead of personal, kind of Creator. As a logic-worshiping philosopher, Plato may have preferred that simple rational abstract practical definition over the crazy quarrelsome pantheon of Greek gods.

*3. Whitehead's God :
Although he uses a theistic term for the creator of our evolving world, I think his concept of “God” is not religious, but philosophical. Whitehead’s associate Charles Hartshorne⁵ labeled his theology as : PanEnDeism⁶. This deity is not imagined on a throne judging the creation, but everywhere, including in the material world, participating in the on-going process of Creation.
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page46.html

3. Whitehead's God :
Although he uses a theistic term for the creator of our evolving world, I think his concept of “God” is not religious, but philosophical. Whitehead’s associate Charles Hartshorne⁵ labeled his theology as : PanEnDeism⁶. This deity is not imagined on a throne judging the creation, but everywhere, including in the material world, participating in the on-going process of Creation. — Gnomon

Whitehead's God is not omnipotent (other entities have their own inherent power and independence).
Whitehead's God is not omniscient (the future is open and undetermined).
Whiteheads God is omnipresent (immanent within nature).
Many describe Whiteheads conception as panentheism (God is both completely immanent within the world and also transcendent of the world in certain respects)..
For Whitehead God works through the process of nature not by supernatural means (this is not supernatural theism).
For Whitehead (and Hartshorne for that matter) God has both a primordial (unchanging nature) and a consequential (taking in and responding to the events of the world). This vision of God is referred to bipolar.
God is the fellow traveler and sufferer of the world. God is persuasive and not coercive. God offers possibilities for creative advance but does not force outcomes. God is the poet of the world.
I personally like Whiteheads conception but no linguistic or verbal description can adequately capture the God.

I tend to avoid threads about God, but this isn’t so much about God as about how we discuss God, or think about the issue.

My position hasn’t been laid out so far as I can see in the thread. Although the apophatic approach has been mentioned in passing. But philosophers don’t seem to be all that interested in this sort of position.

The first point I would make is that we don’t know, but not just that we don’t know, but how could we know? and if we did know, what would we know? Because it may be something that we are incapable of knowing, or understanding. There may not be anything to know and if there is why would it necessarily conform with what we regard as rational, or plausible.

Furthermore, we are sort of assuming that we are in a world that makes rational, or logical sense. Follows the laws of nature for example. How do we know this? When it comes to what it is that’s going on in which we find ourselves here in this world we inhabit. Or that anything to do with our origins does too.

I could go on and in greater depth, but you probably know now where I’m coming from.

Another approach is to realise that all this talk in this thread is just chitta chatta in our heads. A discourse framed and hosted by a certain kind of organism which has developed an organ (the brain) which works quite well in solving problems to do with survival of the organism. We are rather like(an analogy I like to use) an ant walking across a mobile phone that happens to be placed across his trail. The ant has no idea what he is walking across, other than its shape and surface texture. It certainly has no idea, if it is even capable of having ideas, what that phone represents in terms of the evolution of animate objects.
And yet, a bold ant might stand there and claim “I am the pinnacle of evolution, I know everything about how the world works. Speaking in ant of course and confined within the limits of that language.

Are we like this ant, who just happens to be standing on a mobile phone? Proclaiming in our own little language that we understand everything, how we got here, why we are here etc etc.

Perhaps the best thing we can say about God, or referring to God, is the one about which nothing can be said.

Furthermore, we are sort of assuming that we are in a world that makes rational, or logical sense. Follows the laws of nature for example. How do we know this? — Punshhh

I personally don't know that the world makes sense, but I accept that humans have some pragmatic relationship that allows us to get certain things done.

We are rather like(an analogy I like to use) an ant walking across a mobile phone that happens to be placed across his trail. — Punshhh

A nice image.

And yet, a bold ant might stand there and claim “I am the pinnacle of evolution, I know everything about how the world works. — Punshhh

Are there many serious people who would make such a claim? The main conceit of science seems to be the idea that the world is understandable, which is a metaphysical position.

Perhaps the best thing we can say about God, or referring to God, is the one about which nothing can be said. — Punshhh

A legitimate answer. But given what you've said about our ant-like limitations, one could also argue (using this frame) that God is our own creation; a comforting teddy bear to help us face the unknown.

I'd like to try to ground this discussion by looking at what Tillich and others actually say about God, rather than oversimplifying their views as saying that God is being itself.

One of my favorite books by Tillich is Dynamics of Faith which is a really good read and not too long, he writes:

"The mysterious character of the holy produces an ambiguity in man’s ways of experiencing it. The holy can appear as creative and as destructive...One can call this ambiguity divine-demonic, whereby the divine is characterized by the victory of the creative over the destructive possibility of the holy, and the demonic is characterized by the victory of the destructive over the creative possibility of the holy."

A couple of crucial things here that make the picture a bit more complex than saying God is just being itself. First of all, Tillich is situating the divine / God within a broader category that he calls "the Holy". He is drawing here on ideas from the book, The Idea of the Holy, by Rudolf Otto. The category of the Holy, might in our contemporary language be better translated as "sacredness" or "numinosity". We could think of it as a phenomenological dimension of Transcendence-Immanence.

What I like about the passage above is Tillich's insistence that The Holy does not only contain what we think of as God or the divine, but also what we think of as the demonic or supermundane Evil. Religious faith, in Tillich's view, is not so much a belief in some specific story about God, such as the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita but rather the common attitude that is found in all such sacred narratives about the divine. Namely, that despite the dual divine-demonic nature of the dimension of Transcendence-Imminence, there is nevertheless a deeper truth, or ultimate metaphysical priority in the positive life-affirming side of this duality.

This conception of religious faith, gives us a philosophy of religion, and a philosophy of the nature of God, that is more attuned to the experiences of mystics and prophets, rather than the belief systems of the average religious person. We should remember that almost all religions claim to be based in the revelations provided by God to some mystic or prophet. So even if the attitude towards God and faith that Tillich is describing is one shared by a comparative minority of religious believers, it is nevertheless at the root of the nature of religion itself. So I think from a philosophical point of view it is crucial to try to understand this.

This conception of religious faith, gives us a philosophy of religion, and a philosophy of the nature of God, that is more attuned to the experiences of mystics and prophets, rather than the belief systems of the average religious person. We should remember that almost all religions claim to be based in the revelations provided by God to some mystic or prophet. So even if the attitude towards God and faith that Tillich is describing is one shared by a comparative minority of religious believers, it is nevertheless at the root of the nature of religion itself. So I think from a philosophical point of view is crucial to try to understand this. — FirecrystalScribe

Most men want something greater than themselves to look up to and worship.

But they must be able to touch the divine here on earth

They have found nothing to replace religion

Hence the relics, the sacred spaces, the rituals, sacred paintings and music.

A god that is beyond comprehension, beyond knowing, beyond words or thought is also beyond worship except for philosophers and mystics, a very distinct minority.

I personally don't know that the world makes sense, but I accept that humans have some pragmatic relationship that allows us to get certain things done.

Yes, something’s don’t make sense, although most things do. We know that the sun will rise tomorrow and that when we sit down to lunch, we will eat it rather than it eat us. But when it comes to discussing things beyond the world we know, we can’t make these assumptions. This limits what we can say considerably.

Are there many serious people who would make such a claim? The main conceit of science seems to be the idea that the world is understandable, which is a metaphysical position.

We’ll there probably aren’t many people who overtly make such a claim and philosophers are quite open minded about this. But there is an implicit assumption in human nature that the world we know and those who have investigated and thought about it in depth are right. This also manifests in a deeper way, in that we are blind to the other, the other that is beyond our known world. This is understandable, as this is all we know, but it puts us in the position where we have to account for any implicit bias that this leaves us with.

A legitimate answer. But given what you've said about our ant-like limitations, one could also argue (using this frame) that God is our own creation; a comforting teddy bear to help us face the unknown.

Yes, I was coming to that, God is entirely our own invention*, but actually this doesn’t bring us any closer to an understanding. Because God is used in our culture to discuss, or provide explanation of our origin. So the question remains. By what means did we arrive in this world we find ourselves in?

Perhaps one could dismiss the whole question as pointless, because the answer could be anything, just take your pick. It could be the Flying Spaghetti Monster who delivered us. Or a big bang, or something mundane and inconceivable to us. We are just here, rather than not here. But this brings me back to the issue I brought up. We really don’t know and yet there could well be some kind of agency, or being responsible for our arrival. Or there really might not be. Both possibilities result in really deep questions about what is really going on here. Questions that put everything we know aside and leave us profoundly blind to reality, the reality of this issue.

*I am well aware of people who have been contacted, or communed in some way with God, or divine beings. So they perhaps have a claim to some knowledge of God. But I am putting this to one side for now, as it may become a distraction from my point.

God is the fellow traveler and sufferer of the world. God is persuasive and not coercive. God offers possibilities for creative advance but does not force outcomes. God is the poet of the world.
I personally like Whiteheads conception but no linguistic or verbal description can adequately capture the God. — prothero

Unlike Spinoza, Whitehead concluded that some Cause outside of our evolving spacetime Cosmos was necessary for a complete philosophical worldview. Surprisingly, he came to that conclusion before astronomers found evidence of an ex nihilo beginning to spacetime reality. Likewise, eons ago, Plato rationally inferred that a creation myth (Cosmos from Chaos) was necessary for his philosophical system, that ranked static*1 unchanging eternity above the dynamic ups & downs of mundane reality. Yet, all of these fleshless intellectual god-models may still not appeal to the non-philosophical mind.

So, Whitehead may have felt that some human-like attributes (personhood) would make his god-model more acceptable : "fellow traveler", "sufferer" , "persuasive", "poet", etc. Although I agree that such personal features make the invisible intangible deity more accessible to the imagination, I still find it hard to picture his otherwise ghostly God as an allegorical father in heaven. In any case, an immanent participating deity feels better than a theological formless featureless apophatic*2 God that can only be described in terms of what it's not (e.g. Infinite : no spacetime definition). However, I don't take any of these metaphors literally.

Hard-core Materialists can't accept the notion of ex nihilo (something from nothing) world creation , so they envision a tower-of-turtles reality, where one evolving world stands on the back of another material world. But my worldview is based on causal Information, not malleable matter. So, I can accept Plato's notion of a formless, self-existent, ineffable, First Cause or omni-potential Chaos*1. That's closer to a mathematical concept than a material myth. :smile:


*1. What is the fundamental state of Statistics?
Statistics and spacetime, while seemingly disparate, have a surprisingly intricate relationship in modern physics. Statistics, in its core, deals with the probability distribution of data, while spacetime, as described by general relativity, is a dynamical, curved 4-dimensional structure where gravity is a manifestation of spacetime curvature. The intersection arises in the realm of quantum gravity and the statistical nature of spacetime itself, particularly in models involving quantum black holes.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=statistics+vs+spacetime
Note --- Most practicing statisticians think of their field only in terms of given data. But theoretically, the unspecified state of mathematical potential, containing all possible data, is necessarily infinite & unbounded. Plato's Chaos is essentially a Statistical black hole containing infinite possibilites.

*2. Apophatic theology :
Augustinian Negative theology, attempts to understand God by stating what He is not rather than what He is. It's a theological approach that acknowledges the limitations of human language and reason in fully grasping the divine nature. The point of apophatic theology is to move beyond conceptual understanding and towards a more mystical or intuitive experience of God, recognizing that true understanding is often found in what cannot be expressed.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=apophatic
Note --- As you said, "no linguistic or verbal description" can adequately define a transcendent God.

Are there many serious people who would make such a claim? The main conceit of science seems to be the idea that the world is understandable, which is a metaphysical position. — Tom Storm

The world as it appears to us is obviously understandable. That is not so much a conceit of science as a fact of human life and science. When it comes to the understanding of the world based on observations in physics and chemistry (and forgetting about unanswerable questions such as, for example, why the elements combine invariantly in the ways they do as formulated as the Periodic Table) does it really seem plausible that all that could somehow turn out to be wrong?

Scientific theories may turn out to be wrong, but observations? Take evolution―it seems unarguable that evolution has occurred, so it would seem that what might be revisable are only the particular details―descriptions and explanations of the processes of evolution.

People often say that the history of science shows that all our current scientific theories will most likely turn out to be wrong. Counter to that, it is a well-accepted fact that past events are not a good guide to future events, from which it follows that that is an underdetermined conjecture.

I wonder whether anyone can come up with a good example of a past understanding which has been completely overturned. The idea of a flat earth that is the centre of the cosmos would seem to be the paradigm example, but that view was based on inadequate capacity for observation, and was later corrected by more sophisticated observations, which were themselves enabled by technological advances based on science.

The world as it appears to us is obviously understandable — Janus

Well, I don’t understand it, so there’s that. :razz: Logical fallacies aside, I suppose my intuition is that we understand some things. We’ve learned to make things work; we’ve developed remarkably effective models, tools, and narratives to account for what we observe. But does that amount to genuine understanding?

I wonder whether anyone can come up with a good example of a past understanding which has been completely overturned. The idea of a flat earth that is the centre of the cosmos would seem to be the paradigm example, but that view was based on inadequate capacity for observation, and was later corrected by more sophisticated observations, which were themselves enabled by technological advances based on science. — Janus

I hear you. There are still many unanswered questions that I’m unsure how certain we can really be about what we call scientific knowledge. We don’t know precisely what consciousness is, why there is something rather than nothing, or what the ultimate nature of reality is. We also don’t fully understand how life first began, or what dark matter and dark energy actually are. Science has achieved a lot, but it still leaves many of the deepest questions unresolved. That makes me cautious about treating scientific knowledge as the final word on reality.

When we say that the world is understandable, we should ask what kind of understanding we mean. Predictive success in mathematics and the physical sciences is impressive, but is it sufficient? Does it capture the essence of reality, or merely model some patterns?

We claim to understand the physical world, yet it's unclear whether we truly grasp the nature of physicalism itself. The concept is often assumed rather than examined. Likewise, our self-understanding seems limited. We remain confused about consciousness, morality, even how meaning works. These sorts of quesions seem central to any claim of understanding reality.

Well, I don’t understand it, so there’s that. :razz: Logical fallacies aside, I suppose my intuition is that we understand some things. We’ve learned to make things work; we’ve developed remarkably effective models, tools, and narratives to account for what we observe. But does that amount to genuine understanding? — Tom Storm

I'm making a modest claim that events make sense to us―that they are intelligible within the general frame of causation. What more could we expect? The question as to why things are the way they appear seems to be either a scientific question to be investigated under the scientific rubric of causes and conditions or else unanswerable, unless you count flights of imaginative intuition answers. And even in the latter case such answers can be in turn questioned as to why the conditions they paint are the way they are.

I hear you. There are still many unanswered questions that I’m unsure how certain we can really be about what we call scientific knowledge. We don’t know precisely what consciousness is, why there is something rather than nothing, or what the ultimate nature of reality is. We also don’t fully understand how life first began, or what dark matter and dark energy actually are. Science has achieved a lot, but it still leaves many of the deepest questions unresolved. That makes me cautious about treating scientific knowledge as the final word on reality. — Tom Storm

I think there are far more answered questions in science than unanswered ones. And expecting science to answer "ultimate" questions seems to be unreasonable. There are no definitive answers to such questions, and it even appears likely that there could be no definitive answers to such questions. Maybe such questions are the result of "language on holiday".

As to so-called "dark matter" and "dark energy" science may be able to say what they are at some time in the future, who knows? Or the theoretical need for them may be dissolved.

Science would seem to be the only game in town when it comes to understanding how things work. "The final word on reality" may simply be a malformed, misplaced idea.

Well, I don’t understand it, so there’s that. :razz: Logical fallacies aside, I suppose my intuition is that we understand some things. We’ve learned to make things work; we’ve developed remarkably effective models, tools, and narratives to account for what we observe. But does that amount to genuine understanding?

That’s not quite what I’m trying to get at. It’s more that the answer to our origin, the reasons why there is a world like this etc, might be really easy to understand, but that no one has bothered to tell us, or are waiting for us to figure it out on our own. All the ascended beings could be sitting by our side*, but we can’t but see it. And when one of them turns to us and explains it. We would say, we’ll blow me down, it was so obvious, I don’t know why I failed to see it.

*if one collapses time and space, they literally are sitting by our side, or in the same point as ourselves.

I think there are far more answered questions in science than unanswered ones. And expecting science to answer "ultimate" questions seems to be unreasonable. — Janus

Yes, and I think science's inability to answer these will have many of us reaching for our gods and our Platonic forms until the end of time... (or thereabouts).

That’s not quite what I’m trying to get at. It’s more that the answer to our origin, the reasons why there is a world like this etc, — Punshhh

I think much of this comes down to temperament. I've never really found myself wondering why there is something rather than nothing, or even why we’re here. To me, those questions feel like they are from the land of cliché. It’s not that I have any answers. It’s just that the questions themselves have never struck me as urgent or necessary. I'm not sure what you mean by 'ascended beings', they're not part of the framework I know.

A god that is beyond comprehension, beyond knowing, beyond words or thought is also beyond worship except for philosophers and mystics, a very distinct minority.

In the quote I gave from Tillich he doesn't say anything about God being beyond comprehension or beyond knowing. And if you read the larger context of that quote in the book, you won't find much of that type of apophatic theology. I'm not saying he doesn't make gestures in that direction, but I guess I'm trying to say that there is a more concrete and experientially grounded side to Tillich's philosophy.

In other words, there is a positive phenomenology to the experience of the divine, as well as the demonic within the larger phenomenology of the Holy. There is a stark philosophical difference between this perspective, which we might call a theology of the numinous, and the apophatic theology which says God is fundamentally beyond any direct experience or intellectual understanding.

When it comes to worship, by grounding theology in the Holy, there is also a basis for understanding worship and ritual as outward or material expression of the experience of the Holy. In the same way that a physical painting is an outer expression of the artist's aesthetic vision or sensibility or style, the religious worship service is a outer expression of historical encounter with the divine in the the Holy. It may be true that the average participant in the religion doesn't have an intense direct experience on par with the mystic or the prophet, but they can still participate in the sacred encounter indirectly via the outer ritual and worship practices.

I think much of this comes down to temperament.

Yes, I agree. It depends on the person, although I would point out that we are on a site frequented by deep thinkers, who often look into these issues, although more in the direction of metaphysics.

I've never really found myself wondering why there is something rather than nothing, or even why we’re here. To me, those questions feel like they are from the land of cliché.

Au contraire, I am very much interested in these things. Although annoyingly people say things like why do you have to ask these questions, is there something missing in your life. Or something to that effect.
I very rarely meet anyone who is actually prepared to give it some thought.

It’s not that I have any answers. It’s just that the questions themselves have never struck me as urgent or necessary.

Actually, I know no more than you, which is the logical conclusion of my position. But this is not to negate the role of the apophatic route, or the realisation that if one were to know, nothing would change. So what is the difference between one, who does know and one who doesn’t? A bit of a zen posture. I can say more than one might expect about the subject from this position.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'ascended beings', they're not part of the framework I know.

I reference this as all the major religions have such beings and infer that you personally can become one of these beings by practicing the religion. It would be remiss of me to leave them out.

In the quote I gave from Tillich he doesn't say anything about God being beyond comprehension or beyond knowing. And if you read the larger context of that quote in the book, you won't find much of that type of apophatic theology. I'm not saying he doesn't make gestures in that direction, but I guess I'm trying to say that there is a more concrete and experientially grounded side to Tillich's philosophy.

In other words, there is a positive phenomenology to the experience of the divine, as well as the demonic within the larger phenomenology of the Holy. There is a stark philosophical difference between this perspective, which we might call a theology of the numinous, and the apophatic theology which says God is fundamentally beyond any direct experience or intellectual understanding.

When it comes to worship, by grounding theology in the Holy, there is also a basis for understanding worship and ritual as outward or material expression of the experience of the Holy. In the same way that a physical painting is an outer expression of the artist's aesthetic vision or sensibility or style, the religious worship service is a outer expression of historical encounter with the divine in the the Holy. It may be true that the average participant in the religion doesn't have an intense direct experience on par with the mystic or the prophet, but they can still participate in the sacred encounter indirectly via the outer ritual and worship practices. — FirecrystalScribe

Very nice writing, I don't disagree really. I have no problem with the mystics or the philosopher's, just acknowledging that if there is a God, it can not be captured by language or description only by experience of as the holy, the sacred, the numinous. Rituals and religious practices are experiences which are supposed to bring us closer to the sacred.

At lot of religious philosophy which requires trying to develop language to discuss such matters focuses on the nature of god and gods relationship to the world.
immanence vs transcendence
omnipotence which raises problems with presence of evil
omniscience which raises problems with free will and agency
omnipresence is the spiritual world separate from the material world or is this world infused with spirit

A lot of traditional theology portrays God as eternal changeless, immutable, impassive, perfection
How does such a God relate to a changing world and human concerns.

God is often portrayed in anthropomorphic terms. the ultimate being the assertion of Jesus as God in the flesh. "If horses had a religion, god would be a horse"

I am not sure how Tillich addresses these types of questions especially as a Christian.

The reason I like Whitehead and the process theology approach in general is because these questions are addressed, albeit not in the traditional way.

For Whitehead, God's primary nature is creativity, experience.
Most process theologians see God as the ordering, creative principal in the world.
Nature, the universe is infused with the creative animating spirit (as with many native religions).
The general term is panentheism ( the world is in God, but God is more than just the world) giving both immanence and transcendence.
Creation is not ex nihilo but God imposes order on the formless void, the deep, the primordial chaos.
Creation is not an accomplished feat but an ongoing process. Creation is hard work and is accomplished through nature and natural process not by supernatural intervention.
God does have a primordial changeless nature (think Plato's forms or Whiteheads eternal objects) but also has a consequential nature which takes in and responds to the activity of the world.
The dipolar conception of the divine essence.
Whitehead tries to use language to describe the divine nature but such terms are metaphorical or allegorical not literal descriptions.

I think Victor Frankel is right, man seeks meaning and purpose. Some find it in other pursuits but many find it in religion. I personally have a religious inclination but the traditional theologies are just not compatible with the rest of my understanding about how the world works.

The earth is not the center of the universe, Man is not the crown of creation. God apparently has many concerns and purposes other than human happiness or salvation. Whitehead says "God is not a petty moralist".

Unfortunately our traditional religions and many of their doctrines give the individuals familiar with science cognitive dissonance. Adherence to traditional religion is weakening in all the countries with advanced systems of technology and education. If religion (which I think is useful, even necessary to some extent) wishes to survive it needs to change and adapt to our modern worldview and understanding. In that respect I find process theology a promising approach for discussion.
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This conception of religious faith, gives us a philosophy of religion, and a philosophy of the nature of God, that is more attuned to the experiences of mystics and prophets, rather than the belief systems of the average religious person. We should remember that almost all religions claim to be based in the revelations provided by God to some mystic or prophet. So even if the attitude towards God and faith that Tillich is describing is one shared by a comparative minority of religious believers, it is nevertheless at the root of the nature of religion itself. So I think from a philosophical point of view it is crucial to try to understand this. — FirecrystalScribe

What do you think is the best reason for trying to understand this?

I think Victor Frankel is right, man seeks meaning and purpose. Some find it in other pursuits but many find it in religion. I personally have a religious inclination but the traditional theologies are just not compatible with the rest of my understanding about how the world works. — prothero

I think it's fair to say that humans are sense-making creatures, we interpret everything we see, often incorrectly or through a messy web of interwoven preconceptions and biases. But the fact that we seek meaning and purpose doesn't necessarily indicate that we're on the right track, or that this is even what we ought to be doing. Possibly not needing to make sense of things may be a more sophisticated impulse.

It has often struck me that a tendency toward spirituality or theism is more like a preference, you either have it or you don’t, a bit like a sexual orientation. You can't help what you're drawn to. The theist is pulled toward the idea of God; the atheist sees no explanatory power or use for it. The more sophisticated the individual, the more sophisticated their theology or their atheism.

t has often struck me that a tendency toward spirituality or theism is more like a preference, you either have it or you don’t, a bit like a sexual orientation. You can't help what you're drawn to. The theist is pulled toward the idea of God; the atheist sees no explanatory power or use for it. The more sophisticated the individual, the more sophisticated their theology or their atheism. — Tom Storm

That is where I find myself. I have a strong background in science and biology. I know about cosmologic time frames, mass extinctions, global catastrophes, famine, pestilence, disease, the holocaust etc. I still cannot bring myself to believe it is all an accidental, purposeless, mindless creation the result of mere time and chance. I think there is something larger at work although traditional religion does not seem to provide an answer for me but certain philosophical conceptions do seem attractive to me.

The world as it appears to us is obviously understandable — Janus
Well, I don’t understand it, so there’s that. :razz: Logical fallacies aside, I suppose my intuition is that we understand some things. We’ve learned to make things work; we’ve developed remarkably effective models, tools, and narratives to account for what we observe. But does that amount to genuine understanding? — Tom Storm

This post seems to highlight the various ways of "understanding" the world : a> Science, in terms of objective matter, and b> Theology, in terms of unknowable divinity, and c> Secular Philosophy, in terms of direct human experience. Science has a Blind Spot*1 in that it knows the world by means of Mind, but cannot know the subjective tool objectively. That limitation of objectivity may be why ancient Philosophy began to turn the rational microscope toward the viewer : a crude "selfie" so to speak*2. Later, Medieval Theology*3 began to use philosophical methods to look behind the Self, in order to know the Mind of God.

But eventually, that attempt at double introspection became so effete that it's theories were comprehensible only by faith. So, the Enlightenment rebellion banned subjective Faith in favor of supposedly objective Empiricism. Yet, when hard evidence for mental phenomena (direct experience) proved unobtainable and indescribable in material terms, Modern Philosophy began to again use self-aware Reason to rationalize itself.

Unfortunately, as Hume noted, Reason can be the slave of the passions. Which is why Philosophical understanding requires a dispassionate perspective --- allowing mind to rise above body --- and a language based, as far as possible, on first principles instead of blind faith & selfish desires. Such self-knowledge & self-discipline may not amount to genuine or divine understanding, but it should make the material & mental world more understandable to our subjective experience. First know thyself, then put God under the microscope of reason. :smile:



*1. Blind Spot of Science :
But this image of science is deeply flawed. In our urge for knowledge and control, we’ve created avision of science as a series of discoveries about how reality is in itself, a God’s-eye view of nature.
Such an approach not only distorts the truth, but creates a false sense of distance between ourselves and the world. That divide arises from what we call the Blind Spot, which science itself cannot see. In the Blind Spot sits experience : the sheer presence and immediacy of lived perception
https://aeon.co/essays/the-blind-spot-of-science-is-the-neglect-of-lived-experience

*2. Plato's psychology, particularly his Theory of the Soul, explored the nature of the human mind and its relationship to the body. He proposed a tripartite model of the soul, dividing it into reason (logistikon), spirit (thymoeides), and appetite (epithymetikon), which represent different aspects of human nature and often conflict with each other. Plato believed that a harmonious society and individual life required reason to rule over spirit and appetite.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=plato+psychology

*3. Nick Spenser, theologian :
this essay, once it has done some necessary ‘explanation’, looks instead at one particular aspect of quantum theory, on which Ball touches frequently, and which I think is of real interest and relevance to theology: namely the business of using language to describe things that can’t really be described.
https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2018/09/14/quantum-theology

I still cannot bring myself to believe it is all an accidental, purposeless, mindless creation the result of mere time and chance. I think there is something larger at work although traditional religion does not seem to provide an answer for me but certain philosophical conceptions do seem attractive to me. — prothero

I think a lot of people share this intuition. I personally don’t and I don’t encounter any transcendent meaning in life or the universe as I understand it. What I do see is humans telling stories - stories that offer solace, meaning, and guidance for how to live.

To me, the idea that life is accidental or mindless isn’t necessary either. It doesn’t have to be a choice between God and Meaninglessness or theism versus nihilism. There’s perhaps a middle ground: a world where meaning is made, not given.

Yes, I think that’s a fairly well-worn framework. The contrast, if not a kind of competition, between a hoary enchanted world and the Enlightenment is currently in vogue, and even a cursory glance at popular podcasts and books reveals a widespread appetite for anti-modernism in various forms, from Jordan Peterson to John Vervaeke.

To me, the idea that life is accidental or mindless isn’t necessary either. It doesn’t have to be a choice between God and Meaninglessness or theism versus nihilism. There’s perhaps a middle ground: a world where meaning is made, not given. — Tom Storm

Definitely, people can create their own meaning in their work, their relationships trying to make the world a better place or to contribute something lasting art, literature, music, etc. It is just that although the religious impulse is not universal, it is still strong, and religion still plays a major role in peoples lives and thus in politics and society. Eradicating religion does not seem possible, hard to think of a culture without some form of religion, so encouraging better forms of religion seems a worthwhile endeavor.
It is hard to understand western history, music, art, literature or architecture without understanding the religious impulse that lay behind much of it. Likewise for other cultures. So being familiar with the worlds religions is essential to understanding the societies we live in.