I’m not sure whether I’m being obtuse, or whether my philosophy classes are fundamentally contradictory to my spiritual views. Whatever it is, my recent studies in philosophy have been driving me mad. Granted, I’ve only been pursuing the subject for about a month. But it’s sort of like a new relationship that I’d prefer to break off… things just aren’t working out. Although one could argue that even some bad relationships have a way of teaching you things about yourself.
Don’t worry, philosophy – it’s not you, it’s me.
Approaching the “subject” of God from a secular, critical and argumentative point of view just rubs me the wrong way. It is nearly impossible for me to separate my intense passion for a God that I know and love from my academic pursuit of truth. Trying to argue for or against His existence, when I know more solidly than anything else that He exists is absurd. Add to it the fact that every argument must be rational and logical, and you have me on the brink of a philosophical break-up.
I am 100% in favor of the pursuit of truth. That's one thing philosophy and I have in common. But do we agree on what the truth is? Can man really comprehend genuine truth? Or in our own brokenness and limited understanding, do we assign truths to the shallow conclusions we draw by way of argument? I'd like to think that God's truth, though somewhat available to us, is also a force and reality that no man can truly grasp. It seems that we humans are awfully audacious, accusing God of not even existing. I don't want to use abuse my logical reasoning abilities in an effort to disprove a God that I already know and love, no matter what the assignment is. I am having trouble setting aside something so dear to me in an effort to effectively evaluate God's existence in an unbiased way. Well, sorry guys - I'm biased. I love my Lord. I hope I am not self-condemning myself to the status of "arrogant, close-minded and stubborn Christian." But I am not willing to thoroughly re-evaluate the existence of a Being who has radically transformed my life and encountered me in a variety of divine and supernatural ways.
So, for my own academic success's sake, let's assume that I can philosophically argue in favor of the existence of God. Can my own spiritual and life-changing experiences be legitimate evidence supporting God's existence? It would be impossible for a skeptic who has not entered the presence of God to argue against one of the most powerful experiences in life. This argument is as irrational as a blind person arguing that visibly perceived evidence is not legitimate, only because he has never seen. But to one with sight, that argument is ridiculous and irrational. Such is someone who hasn't experienced God arguing against that experience. I know that this rant is probably philosophically underdeveloped, immature and not “sound.” Or perhaps not even valid. But because Philosophy and I aren’t even a very compatible match to begin with, I don’t really care.
I wonder if philosophers who argue against the existence of God have spent time genuinely seeking Him. However, that creates quite a contradiction. Who seeks something that they don’t believe exists? I wouldn’t waste time looking for a unicorn, solely to solidify my belief that it doesn’t exist. But if millions had testified to the goodness and power of a unicorn, I might be motivated to look a little harder. And if people attributed their love, compassion, life-altering experiences, divine encounters, supernatural revelations and appreciation for life to a unicorn, I would feel foolish not genuinely seeking one out.
I think I’m beginning to sound crazy. I blame philosophy itself for encouraging ridiculous analogies like this, but such is logic. I’m just giving philosophy a little taste of it’s own medicine.
It was also argued that people who experience an appreciation for nature do so in 2 ways. Firstly, some experience nature and as a result are in awe of its Creator, God. The second group experiences nature in a way that is purely secular and solely an appreciation for nature itself.
As a disclaimer, I know that Scripture is not a legitimate source of evidence in philosophy. But as I said, I don’t care. It’s legit with me. So… with that as my disclaimer, Romans 1:20 says “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” One of my favorite passages, and also a wonderful verse that completely captures how I feel about nature and its relation to God. Seeing nature, I experience God and am completely without excuse. I’m not even sure how one can experience nature without acknowledging the characteristics of a creative, beautiful and inherently good Creator! Surely any profound appreciation for nature is a spiritual experience with God, whether the person attributes this to a higher Being or not.
I think I’m getting off topic…better wrap this up before I offend fellow Christian philosophers. The point is that I am frustrated with a subject that I expected to really enjoy. I choose to pursue truth through the One and Only source that I trust and hope in… my God. Trying to approach it from the “logical” and “rational” paths that man have deemed acceptable is not my preference. As Paul writes in Corinthians, God will destroy the wisdom of the wise. He will frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent. I don’t proclaim to be wise or intelligent, but I will admit that I am already frustrated with the wisdom of the world. God is certainly fulfilling His promise.
We are flawed, we are blind, and we are ignorant. We don’t understand everything. God is good. He is real. No amount of arguments, proofs, or valid points is going to persuade me otherwise. And that is all the philosophizing I feel like doing.
I guess this means things are over, Philosophy. Let’s just be friends.
[I conclude this blog from the comfort of my seat… in philosophy class. MLIA.]
Emily -
ReplyDeleteAs a philosopher who can completely destroy and rebuild anybody's view of the world in under 20 minutes, let me say that this was a really well written article, and your logic is actually more sound than you seem to think.
Scripture is evidence in any real school of philosophy - because it actually exists. Most people who don't believe in God do really have extremely specialist, fragmented brains that frequently do not see existence as a whole thing . The specialist is the man who does not make small mistakes while moving toward the grand fallacy - which is what most philosophical arguments you'll hear in school are.
Philosophy classes won't admit Scripture as evidence because they are too complicated. Few people can put any of the books of the Bible into their true context, and certainly college kids, who are seeking specialist knowledge, are not going to be given the Keys to the Kingdom just to study road signs in the human race's journey out of near total darkness.
FYI, philosophy is all downhill after Plato. One of the most important concepts you will hear is Plato's 'World of Ideas' vs. the World of Matter. They might present this to you as the World of Being vs. the World of Becoming. If you can master this idea, it will greatly help you understand the rest of the near impossible to understand later philosophers who really had much less to say than Plato did.
Plato's World of Ideas is the realm of the eternal, the unborn, infinite and timeless. For example, a square is something that is never born and has no growth or death cycle like everything in material existence. It's transcendental, like the number 1, it exists everywhere and nowhere, is unchanging and can be applied to anything in our 3d world.
Everything in this world is made up of geometrical harmonics - this is why my religious views in my facebook profile says what it does. The geometry that reality crystallizes around existed before mother Matter ever did - and these worlds are like 2 sides of the same coin, Father Spirit and Mother Matter.
Sound and light are highly misunderstood media(mediums) that connect these 2 worlds together - each note and each color is the result of geometric ratios that are contained within the medium but is not created by it. Sound, Plato and Pythagoras taught, has one root in the world of the Eternal Ideals and one root in the world of Matter.
Its middle is what creates the phenomenal world, and like sound, man is a medium between Heaven and Earth that contains divine proportions but did not create them.
If you really want to blow your teacher's mind, ask them where sound comes from. They will most likely tell you it is a result of matter and nothing more, and that the fact it can be beautiful is a mere coincidence with no necessary philosophical signifigance. They feel the same way about God, because they can't see the real information hidden in the medium of matter.
Bob