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I think most of us might say that existence is far more complex than a series of multiple choice criteria that "we" decided is the key to it all. I also think that some might take issue with relegating "love" to an abstract notion, since evidentiary attestation to its existence can be found just about everywhere but that is my opinion.Rather than asking whether or not God exists, I instead want to focus on the epistemological criteria that we use to determine whether things in general exist and how that applies to God when someone says God "exists".
God has no parts, so what we have is a source of reality, so to speak, that is simultaneously a unity and a multiplicity. It's paradoxical, but makes a certain amount of sense, given that this is the same paradox that plays out throughout the whole natural world. The age old problem of the One and the Many.
The unknown that is being referred to is that which is beyond the reach of empirical science to describe. The power of empirical science is that it is reductive to sensory experience, and information that limits itself to where the sensory data usually takes us is immeasurably useful.To me, it sounds like the same thing.
Except that pots of gold at the end of rainbows actually sounds somewhat comprehensive, while your "explanation" reads like word salad.
I don't mean to be rude. It genuinely sounds like word salad. I can't make heads or tails of it. It's abstract mumbo jumbo with no grounding in reality at all.
At least I know what a rainbow and a pot of gold is....
You've repeated this a couple of times, but do you care to elaborate? I'm not really sure that it's useful to define a concept in a way that's not relevant to our being.
*Just as a side-note... I am familiar which historical background behind divine simplicity. But it's never explained in a language that isn't reduced to paradoxical concept of how such simplicity can causaly relate with our complexity. Hence "process theology" makes more sense to me, although I'm not married to it. I'm always interested on updated perspective on either concepts of what we label as divine and God.
Very true. What's interesting is that the Mystics say that in the "Nothing" is Everything. It has to be experienced to be known.Look at something like the unity of consciousness--while the mind itself is clearly complex, I think anyone who experiments with contemplation or meditation will tell you that at its heart, there is something that is utterly simple and perhaps even better described as a "nothing" than a "something."
To give an example of negative theology, God can be described in the negative such as the unseen, unrelated, inconceivable, uninferable, unimaginable, indescribable. Yet at the same time the Divine can be "experienced". This is Mysticism at it core.When looking at divine simplicity, we're dealing with the flagship of negative theology, so I don't think it's entirely wrong to refer to it as "conceptual nothingness."
It changes for me, depending upon whom I'm studying at the moment, but right now I'd suggest Meister Eckhart.(Christians should probably look to Church Fathers like St. Maximus the Confessor instead--he's the foremost proponent of this type of thinking from the Christian world that I'm familiar with.)
Try "nothingness" in an experiential setting, maybe through contemplation or meditation. I think experiencing it from that perspective might give an understanding to your question.What would "have no parts" mean? That's sort of how we describe "conceptual nothingness"... It has no distinguishable parts in it.
Can anyone truly describe God? Not really. If a person tried, they would never hit the mark. If they never hit the mark, what are they describing than?I find this concept intriguing, but I'm not sure that it's describing anything in particular.
Which is faith based.There's a whole lot more than Faith going on. There's also the Divine Mystery to explore.
Take your argument up with the Mystics.
How is consciousness not a verb?
I understand. When ones structure is doctrine, ritual, dogma and organization it becomes a lot harder to express the Divine Mystery.
What evidence?
I don't think it's so much as "what" as much as it is "doing".
There's only One Divine source.
Trees have consciousness as do all plants.
pot8to, potatoI was thinking experiential based.
Well, if God is an absolute reality for a person, such that everywhere they look, even in potatoes they see God, perhaps there's a lot more going on than "faith".pot8to, potato
Well, if God is an absolute reality for a person, such that everywhere they look, even in potatoes they see God, perhaps there's a lot more going on than "faith".
Delusion?Well, if God is an absolute reality for a person, such that everywhere they look, even in potatoes they see God, perhaps there's a lot more going on than "faith".
No, I don't think so. It's more like "Immanence", as one might find in Panentheism.Delusion?
I guess the apple tree in my back yard is based on Faith as well than?Yes, that's exactly what "faith" is: to accept as true (or "absolute reality") those things that you merely believe but can't prove or demonstrate or support with objective evidence.
Seeing stuff that other people don't see is delusion.No, I don't think so. It's more like "Immanence", as one might find in Panentheism.
In what way does one lead to anything more than the other? Both are merely building abstractions. The one creates principles and systems which he attempts to apply; the other is substituting his own understanding of, or memory, or subjective experience, for the thing itself. The latter isn't experiencing anything except the arrival of a modulated nerve impulse, which in reductionist terms is nothing but sodium and potassium exchange over a membrane. Either way, we are treating 'reality' in abstraction. You cannot say one leads to greater understanding, as you are presupposing valence of what 'understanding' entails. This is the difference of the Taoist Sage and the Confucian, the Platonist vs the Aristotelian. We are debating the merits, but on what scale? Our Empiricism assumes intersubjectivity, which is highly problematic from a strict observational standard, so actually there isn't as big a difference as we think. Regardless we are looking at complex phantasms loosely connected to what they are meant to signify, and assumed solid.I agree that this is a methodologic assumption. The "lower" categories are not any "less real" than the "higher ones" in a subjective sense. But the more general category is more objective. The idea being that, no matter how you look at a rock, you can always see it as a collection of forces or particles. It is more general.
I also think the view that the rock is more real than the particles that make up the rock is an epistemological dead end. The entirety of scientific and technological progress is primarily driven by figuring out what stuff is "actually" made out of.
Imagine two people sitting on a hill top. They both witness lightning strike a far-off tree. The first person says, "That lightning is real for me. The experience of lightning is more real than anything else I could see. I am content." The other person says, "I want to know what that lightning actually is. What is is made of?"
The first person is at an epistemological dead-end. He can known nothing more about lightning.
The second person will go on to discover electricity, electro-magnetism, light-bulbs, radios, computers, the internet, Wifi, satellite GPS, and much more. All because they sought to better understand lightning in a more fundamental sense rather than seeing it simply as it is in a subjective way.
So I suppose neither view is "correct" per se, but one view has lead to greater understanding and technological progress whereas the other has not.
Dualism. I think there is something called 'I' and things beyond that. Often these may be intermingled to whatever extent, for I certainly agree a large part of my conception of myself has a physical component, but then I don't know where my concept of my own personhood begins or ends, nor if my conception is fundamentally valid. However, it clearly must end somewhere, or all bets for rationality and such are anyway off. So either it does or it doesn't matter.For you, what is the alternative to monism?
Nope. The Tao that can be named is not the Tao. Read my first posts again. For us to be able to characterise at all, we are looking at potential metaphysical necessities here.Is not mind (or Mind) also just another category? Is not God just another category invented by us?
Seems like turtles all the way down to me.
But others do see God as immanent. The count would be billions. Any more I think that not see the Divine in life is the delusion.Seeing stuff that other people don't see is delusion.
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