The Philosophy Book I Would Love to Write

My philosophical project, so to speak, is to explore some of the metaphysical/ontological/epistemological implications of my core convictions and the assumption that certain responses to the world are authoritative. Here are central ones I want to focus on but the list could be greatly expanded:

·        Love (in its diverse forms) as a response to the independent reality of people and other beings.

·        Grief as a response to the independent reality of a beloved person's death.

·        Remorse as a response to the independent reality of a person (or animal, place) you have harmed in some way.

·        Awe and reverence as responses to the sublimity of a clear night sky.

·        Awe and reverence as a response to great art or the disclosing of deep truths.

·        Awe and reverence in the presence of true heroism and self-sacrifice.

·        A related but different kind of reverence as a response to the beauty of certain sunsets.

·        Delight as a response to children, their imaginations and capacity for joy.

·        Moral horror and bewilderment over great evil: the Holocaust, the stabbing of a two-year-old as happened in Germany recently – the list is sadly very long.

·        Fear as a response to the danger of the destruction of that which is precious.

·        Outrage over a vulgar narcissist like Trump demeaning the heroism of people like John McCain and destroying the moral substance of a country.

·        Wonder over existence.

·        Anxiety over the ever-present possibility of misfortune.

·        The special kind of longing or Sehnsucht C. S. Lewis called joy: i.e. “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” 

But first, as though to get it out of the way and to introduce a more fruitful way to think about metaphysics, I would like to show the limits of science and even classical philosophy by focusing on the standard arguments for atheism based on the incompatibility of theism (leaving the content of the Idea of God open) and scientific rationality. A misleading conception of God as a super-being (the old man in the sky) lies behind classical and new atheist thought i.e. God as one being among others in the universe, although of course privileged and possessing magical powers. I have rarely encountered an argument for atheism that wasn’t a refutation of a straw man.

     The "super-being" conception – where God is imagined as an entity within the cosmos, albeit vastly more powerful – underlies many of the standard atheistic arguments, from the problem of evil to arguments from scientific explanation. If God is thought of as one being among others, then He could, in principle, be subject to empirical investigation like any other entity, and His existence could be confirmed or refuted in the same way. This assumption is especially evident in figures like Richard Dawkins, who treats God as a kind of scientific hypothesis, akin to a yet-undiscovered law or force of nature. The underlying premise is that God, if He exists, must be continuous with the natural order. Classical theism, by contrast, holds that God is not a being but Being Itself, the necessary, self-sustaining reality that underlies all contingent existence. This view means that God is neither an empirical object nor a scientific hypothesis but the condition for the intelligibility and indeed the possibility of being as such. However, this metaphysical understanding is often ignored in contemporary debates, making the arguments of New Atheism largely strawman attacks.

. . .

    Assume now that an atheist rejects the classical conception on a more logical argument: say, a being outside of beings, an existing thing that is at the same time no-thing, is just nothing, it is a logical impossibility. What then does such an argument leave as a possible answer to the question "Why is there something and not rather nothing?" To me it seems only

1) the material universe is eternal. In this view, something has always existed; there was never "nothing." The universe, or perhaps a multiverse, simply is: uncreated, self-sustaining, with no deeper explanation needed or possible. This was a common position among ancient materialists (like the Epicureans) and some modern cosmologists. or

2) The material universe just magically popped into existence out of nothing. This is the more counterintuitive view but one that some atheists, especially in contemporary physics, entertain. They argue that the universe emerged spontaneously from a "quantum vacuum" or that “nothingness” itself is unstable in such a way that it gives rise to existence.

These explanations are not coherent.

 

Response to 1). The eternity of being runs into the problem of infinite regress. If everything that exists is caused, as science assumes, then the assumption that the universe or some form of matter-energy is eternal is incoherent based on the unintelligibility of infinite regress. If nothing comes into existence except by being caused by something else, then logically the whole chain never gets started unless you posit an uncaused first cause. (A classical proof of God’s existence.) Therefore, if everything is caused, the universe itself must be caused by something outside itself. I don’t see how that can be refuted.

Response to 2). The “nothing” of the physicist cosmologists is not really nothing. It is more like the Chaos of many pagan creation myths. Physicists like Lawrence Krauss argue that physics shows how something can come from nothing but his "nothing" turns out to be a highly structured quantum field, not true metaphysical nothingness. This is playing with words.

    The fundamental problem with an eternal universe is that its existence is contingent. It could have not existed. If its existence could have been otherwise, then its factual existence calls for an explanation. That explanation cannot be just another contingent thing (since that would push the problem further back), so we need something necessary, something that must exist and cannot fail to exist. Thus philosophers like Aquinas, Leibniz, and others argue for a necessary being (which Aquinas conceives as the very act of existing itself). If we reject that, we seem left with a brute, unexplainable fact. Not very intellectually satisfying!

. . .

  But all you can say about this necessary being is that it is the "ground of being." Here God is a necessary hypothesis, a logical precondition for the possibility of something actual. Nothing more is implied. That is still a far cry from theism, it seems to me. This is why some thinkers, even non-theistic ones, have accepted the idea of a necessary being but remained agnostic about whether it has any of the attributes traditionally associated with God. For example, Spinoza identifies this necessary being with Nature (Deus sive Natura), an impersonal, self-sustaining reality. Some modern physicists speculate about a necessary quantum reality or a self-existent mathematical structure that generates the universe. A pure metaphysical skeptic might say the necessary being is simply “whatever reality ultimately is” but refrain from further speculation. (Spinoza has always attracted me.)

      I think (as Thomas Aquinas showed) further deductions are possible about this unmoved mover, the necessary existence, Being itself.

·        It must be purely actual, without potentiality. If it had potentiality, it would need something else to actualize it, contradicting its necessity.

·        It must be simple and indivisible. If it had parts, those parts would require a cause to be arranged in the way they are, contradicting its self-sufficiency.

·        It must be eternal and unchanging. Change implies moving from potential to actual, but a necessary being is fully actual already.

·        It must be the cause of all contingent things. Since contingent things exist, and they cannot be self-explanatory, they must derive their existence from the necessary being.

·        It must be immaterial. If it were material, it would be composed of parts and subject to change, violating the earlier conclusions. I don’t know what it means to say of any x that it exists but it is not material, but it must be assumed.

But still we are a long way from God.

     The inference from a necessary being to an intelligent or conscious being is a further move that requires its own justification. There are several classical arguments for this, but they are not strictly deductive in the same way as the earlier metaphysical reasoning. Instead, they tend to rely on inference to the best explanation. Here are three of the most well-known arguments:

The Argument from Order and Rationality

• The universe exhibits intelligibility and order: laws of physics, mathematical structures, and fine-tuned conditions that allow for life.
• Intelligibility suggests a rational principle behind it: to be understood, something must be intelligible; to be intelligible, it must arise from intelligence.
• If the necessary being were not rational or intelligent, how could a rational order emerge from it? The best explanation is that the source of intelligibility is itself intelligent.

The Argument from Final Causality (Teleology)

• In the natural world, things seem to be directed toward ends or purposes, even when they lack minds (e.g., the acorn grows into an oak, not a pine; the laws of physics consistently operate in specific ways).
• St. Thomas Aquinas argues in his Fifth Way that this goal-directedness cannot be random: something must be "directing" unintelligent things toward their proper ends.
• The best candidate for this “director” is an intelligence, because only intelligence can determine ends or purposes.
• If the necessary being is the first cause of all things, and things have directed purposes, then the first cause must be intelligent. Of course, evolution and self-organizing systems could explain apparent purpose without intelligence but evolution presupposes laws of nature, and self-organization still follows consistent patterns. The question remains: Why do those patterns exist rather than chaotic randomness?

The Argument from Abstract Objects and Mathematics

• The universe operates according to mathematical and logical structures that seem to exist independently of human minds.
• Many scientists and philosophers argue that mathematical truths are discovered, not invented.
• If mathematical truth is independent of us, it must exist in some kind of intellect.
• If the necessary being is the ultimate reality, and mathematical truth is part of reality, then the necessary being must be an intellect that grounds mathematical and logical truth.

Augustinian Argument

• An essence or Idea of some being is what is intelligible about it. I discussed the essence of apples in an earlier entry. Ideas don’t just float around in abstract space as Plato seems to have believed. An Idea belongs to intellect. The mind of God is a more logical address for Plato’s Ideas than spiritual space. When I grasp the essence of apples, and then deepen that grasp, I am thinking the thoughts of God (from a finite perspective) after him.

None of these arguments strictly prove that the necessary being must be conscious or intelligent in a qualitatively infinite way relative to human consciousness and intelligence. The last two seem strongest to me. But they all at least point in the direction of an intelligent first cause as the best explanation for the rational, ordered nature of reality. If is not an irrational belief even if not provable in the sense that the Pythagorean theorem is.

. . .

    I follow the tradition on this. These are arguments of probability, possible explanations for what is actual - intelligibility, etc. This is as far as "natural reason" gets you. Our exchange on this rather confirms my thinking on it. So now the next move, the move starting with my convictions as axioms, the idea that Being is (partly) disclosed through moods and emotional responses like grief, remorse, wonder, joy, reverence, longing, moral terror, fear in some cases, etc. It seems that if you start there, you are not very far away from attributing a kind of love, beauty, and thus goodness to the ground of being. For if, say, my children are revealed as precious in the light of my love, it follows that something precious exists, something precious is real. The same in the moral horror that is a response to evil done to children, i.e. that which is precious. Thus the universe is not blind or neutral, allowing the inference – again probable, best explanation, logically, but existentially certain – that the ground of being is perhaps love (1 John 4:8). Of course, I fear wishful thinking here. Seems too good to be true.

    So the approach I want to explore starts from the premise that certain emotional and moral responses (grief, joy, reverence, moral terror) are genuine responses to real features of the world. This flips the common question: “What is the nature of the world that gives rise to these responses?” into “What does the nature of my response reveal about the world?” This framing offers the possibility that the emotional and moral landscape is not just subjective but is a way of knowing (a form of participation in truth), especially when it pertains to things like love and beauty. By seeing the preciousness in my children through love, or feeling the horror of evil, I maintain quite commonsensically that these emotional responses reveal something true about the nature of reality: that reality itself is not cold and indifferent but that it possesses intrinsic value. These kinds of experiences are ex hypothesi not a random evolutionary byproduct but an intentional engagement with reality.

     I would have to show this, but the idea that the ground of being might be love is what our most profound emotional responses point to. This approach recalls Bernard Lonergan’s idea of “the law of the heart,” which suggests that the emotional response is integral to our grasp of the world. According to Lonergan, emotional responses to beauty, goodness, and suffering are cognitive acts that reflect the deeper structure of reality. Even the experience of moral horror points to goodness as a real quality in the universe. That goodness must exist beyond human constructions if we are to take moral experience seriously as a response to real evil. My approach harmonizes with Christian metaphysics (1 John 4:8: “God is love”) but I want to explore this idea philosophically.

       My approach draws on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, who also explores how our emotional responses to existence, especially in despair, love, and faith, reveal the reality of a God who is both transcendent and immanent. His theological reflections often assume that God is disclosed to us in our feelings, particularly our longing and love.

     Simone Weil reflected on the attention to suffering as a form of spiritual knowledge. She believed that emotional responses to human suffering (and, importantly, to beauty) were ways of knowing something deeply true about the universe and God.

      Also I have learned from the work of Raimond Gaita. Gaita’s approach to ethics and metaphysics posits the irreducibility of moral experience, especially love and compassion, without trying to reduce them to mere psychological or naturalistic explanations. Like Wittgenstein, Gaita is wary of metaphysical claims, preferring to let the moral life be a guide to understanding the world. However, his work suggests that moral phenomena may have some ontological weight though he doesn’t make metaphysical deductions based on them as I want to do.

     Iris Murdoch is important to me. Her reflections on attention and love show how the act of loving others is a way of perceiving reality. For Murdoch, love is not merely a subjective emotion but a way of seeing the world clearly. Her emphasis on the objectivity of moral experience (love as seeing beyond the self, etc.) suggests that love reveals what is true and real about others and the world. Our moral failures are failures of love.

     I must add Martin Heidegger to this list. Though hard to read, his insights on Being as revealed through moods and emotional states as well as his insights into truth as an uncovering of Being, which encloses and transcends us, are of central importance.

. . .

   This is my wish. To further argue that emotions like love, grief, and remorse are not only revelatory of human nature or morality but that they actually point to ontological truths about the structure of reality itself. These affective responses reveal their object, not simply what the object means to the moral life, but what the object is, ontologically. This means that love, for example, doesn’t just reveal the psychological or social value of the beloved but points to the real, objective value of the beloved and, by extension, reveals the ground of being itself.