Thursday, January 15, 2009

Pink, Flying Elephants Anyone?

Try thinking of something--anything--that is UNIQUE. Something that no one has ever thought of before. A concept that has never entered a human mind. SOMETHING THAT HAS ABSOLUTELY NO BASIS IN REALITY.

I've used the example of a pink, flying elephant before as something that someone might answer in reply to my "provocation" above. However, even that, or at least its components, is based on artifacts that are existent in reality. Elephants, the color pink, and the concept of flight are all figments of reality.

Actually, NO ONE CAN THINK OF ANYTHING THAT HAS NO BASIS IN REALITY. The human mind, FINITE as it is, merely SUBSCRIBES to what is before him, as REALITY presents it, and from there forms CONCEPTS and ABSTRACTIONS.

I mention all this in relation to the concept of GOD. Man could NEVER have conjured up the idea of God if God wasn't REAL. He would not have anything to draw upon. Man is in touch with the idea of God BECAUSE GOD CHOSE TO REVEAL HIMSELF. This is the absolute basis of man's relationship to God: that God in love and utter condescension, broke through the infinity barrier, proclaiming HIS CHARACTER and HIS WORKS to lumps of clay made in His image and likeness. He has made Himself UNDENIABLY known through HISTORY, the BIBLE, and the INCARNATE CHRIST (the chief revelation of God).

French thinker, René Descartes, spoke in the same vein when he said in the Fifth Meditation:

"But if the mere fact that I can produce from my thought the idea of something that entails everything which I clearly and distinctly perceive to belong to that thing really does belong to it, is not this a possible basis for another argument to prove the existence of God? Certainly, the idea of God, or a supremely perfect being, is one that I find within me just as surely as the idea of any shape or number. And my understanding that it belongs to his nature that he always exists is no less clear and distinct than is the case when I prove of any shape or number that some property belongs to its nature."

So, any new ideas?

2 comments:

  1. Warren,

    I understand that he wanted to make use of the ontological argument but I'm not sure that Descartes was entirely faithful to Anselm. I suspect that Descartes changed one of the terms of the argument.

    I suspect that Descartes turned Anselm's God into an idea, i.e., he turned the Creator, who necessarily exists, into a creature that is contingent.

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  2. Or a universal devoid of ontological personality, the Deist's "out there" God, sir.

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