This
argument continues and I felt the urge to put things into perspective maybe for
myself and one other person. Christians refer to God as the creator and ruler
of the universe and source of all moral authority – the Supreme Being. In
classical theism, God is characterized as the metaphysically ultimate being
(the first, timeless, absolutely simple, and sovereign being who is devoid of
any anthropomorphic qualities). Despite extensive writing on the nature of God,
these classical theists did not believe that God could be defined. They
believed that it would contradict the transcendent nature of God for mere
humans to define him – that must be why God gave Moses the simple and most
effective definition: “I am”, because we can form no idea of Him except in so
far as that idea is analogous to something which comes within the range of our
own experience. Existence is commonly held to be that which objectively
persists independent of one’s presence – that which exists is with an objective
reality, so it dispels subjectivity. Epistemology is the investigation of what
distinguishes justified belief from opinion; it studies criteria of truth,
defining “primary truths” inherently accepted in the investigation of
knowledge. The first is existence. It is inherent in every analysis. It is
self-evident, a priori (knowledge or justification independent of experience)
nature cannot be consistently doubted, since a person objecting to existence
according to some standard of proof must implicitly accept the standard’s
existence as a premise. A very scintillating discourse, which begs the
question, how then is it possible that God does not exist?
Atheists
generally maintain that arguments for the existence of God provide insufficient
reason to believe. Additionally, some contend that it is possible to
affirmatively disprove the existence of God, or of certain characteristics
traditionally attributed to God such as perfection – Perfection, is broadly, a
state of completeness and flawlessness. The word perfection derives from the
Latin perfectio, and perfect from perfectus. These expressions in turn
come from perficio – to finish, to
bring to an end. Perfectio (n) thus
literally means a finishing and perfect (us),
finished. The genealogy of the concept of perfection reaches back beyond
Latin, to Greek. The Greek equivalent of the Latin perfectus was teleos. The
latter Greek expression generally had concrete referents, such as a perfect
physician or a perfect social system. Hence, the Greek teleiotes was not yet so fraught with abstract and superlative
associations as would be the Latin perfectio
or the modern perfection. To avoid the latter associations, the Greek term
has generally been translated as completeness rather than perfection. The
oldest definition of perfection, fairly precise and distinguishing the shades
of the concept, goes back to Aristotle. In Book Delta of the metaphysics, he
distinguishes three meanings of the term, or rather three shades of one
meaning, but in any case three different concepts. That is perfect:
a.
Which
is complete – which contains all the requisite parts;
b.
Which
is so good that nothing of the kind could be better;
c.
Which
has attained its purpose.
The first
of these concepts is fairly well subsumed within the second. Between those two
and the third, however, there arises duality in concept. Thomas Aquinas, in the
Summa Theological, expressed this duality when he distinguished twofold
perfection: when a thing is perfect in itself – as he put it, in its substance;
and when it perfectly serves its purpose. Flipping through history of our
scientific and technological advancement, we decidedly continue to strive for
perfection with our numerous discoveries and innovations. However, since
concepts of perfection are connected to notions of God and we cannot seem to
accept that which is perfect, how then do we recognize or relate to perfection?
Our race was always designed to innovate and discover, but it doesn’t make what
we do or don’t discover exist more or less. Faith is not mere concept of the
notion of God, but rather it reaches far beyond, because it is the very
substance of God – “Those who come to God must believe that He is, and He
rewards those who diligently seek Him”.
Metaphysics
is a matter about which, most of all, we desire to know the truth, but reason
only perceives that which it produces after its own design. The unconditioned
does not lie in things as we know them, or as they are given to us, but in
things as they are in themselves, beyond the range of our cognition. For that
which of necessity impels us to transcend the limits of human experience and of
all phenomena is the unconditioned.
If you
have gone through books as I have, then you can call this gumption. However,
I’m out of my depths here, so I’ll let God handle the rest..
Written by
Bakare Olumide
B.Sc Computer Science
