Addendum to Personal Thoughts, added 11/22/2018

This note is an addendum to some of my philosophical thoughts which I have expressed in my history earlier. My daughter Laura and I have been engaged in a “Philosophy Club” since my retirement, and we have had the chance to read many writings of contemporary and classic philosophers together. As I have been going over some of the writings of the early church scholars of the middle ages, and thoughts by Sartre in his book “Being and Nothingness”, I was struck by a possible link between these thinkers and the concept of being a child of God, and having a better conception of how a personal and caring conception of God could be expanded by the ideas of some of these great thinkers.

First of all, an idea proposed by the early church scholars is that God is of necessity outside time/space/being and this characteristic is what enables him to be a First Cause and ongoing Sustainer of reality within our being and universe. He is thus the Uncaused Cause of all. He is thus not subject to temporal causation Himself. Such a God is of necessity beyond human comprehension.

Secondly, Sartre’s idea of the human self is of a “nothingness” which also cannot be localized or defined in terms of material or space. It is that subjective part of us which is at the cusp of each instant of time, creating a new reality instantly and continuously by virtue of free will and choices which to a great extent shape our personal world moment by moment. This concept of self, outside temporal causality, is also beyond human comprehension.

There appears to be perhaps a link between these two ideas. The link seems to be that both metaphysical God and metaphysical human self are outside time and space, God being the ultimate creator, but the human self also being engaged in a more minor and personal creation epic.

There is an apparent consequence, quite profound, of the above ideas. In my mind it gives room for a God who can be part of being as much as we ourselves are. This in that both God and the self in the above definitions are outside time and space, giving justification to the idea that God’s “Self” could be part of a Being like us, and part of a Being who is partially or perhaps optionally inside space and time as are we. Thus the Self of God stays outside causality, time, and space in the analogous manner as the human self is outside causality, space, and time.

We have now a Creator (God), and a little creator (ourself). We also have an infinite Self (God), and a finite self (ourself), with these Selves which both create being outside causality.

This allows a God who can be thus conceptualized as a parent, and a self which can be conceptualized as a child of God.

We now have hopefully begun to unify the epistemological God of necessity with the theological personal and loving God with whom we can relate. A God not limited to be a mere philosophical abstraction.

This line of thinking also supports the idea, as we are God’s children, of eternal development or becoming more like God over time if we so choose.

This then leads to a very interesting nature of reality, which is both circular and linear in nature. Circular in that we have humans becoming parent Gods over time, which then beget or create more worlds and human children. An infinitely repeating cycle with no beginning or end. Linear in that the future is in continuous development, and hence reality itself develops, changes, and grows over time. A good analogy would be an apple tree producing apples and seeds growing into more apple trees. Thus the apple tree presents a cycle, but a cycle not just as a repetitive loop, but one which generates growth and causes new effects and changes the scope of the loop itself, hence being linear and circular simultaneously.

A neat observation is that this view of reality also tends to link eastern views of reality with western views of reality. Eastern views being circular and western views being more linear. Maybe reality, if conceptualized as above, is both circular and linear in nature.

It’s been fun for me to see that my interest in philosophy has had the effect of strengthening my faith. Reason is only a partial and incomplete path to faith, but for me it is also an enjoyable and productive hobby.

So there you have it! If you have read this you deserve a medal!