The Search for God Page 2.1.1.4
Knowledge
Humans know stuff! We know things. We can reason. We can think. We exist. While we understand our senses are limited and our knowledge is limited, we exist, we know, and we reason.
How does that impact our search for God?
In this blog, I am going to take up the challenge conceiving of the greatest possible being, a being we term “God.”
I am going to use the information or laws we know exist, with 100% certainty, and then filter them through reason to see if these attributes or characteristics can exist in one being: God.
What is it that I am attempting? I am taking St. Anselm’s ontological argument – which when simplified states that the greatest conceivable being must exist – and altering the process.
Being
What is it that I am attempting? I am taking St. Anselm’s ontological argument – which when simplified states that the greatest conceivable being must exist – and altering the process.
First, I will attempt to conceive of the greatest possible being, and then, instead of using that as an argument that this being must exist, I will look throughout human history to see if that being communicated with humankind. Why?
Then if this greatest being exists, I will take a page out of Kant, which states “man cannot know God from our reason“.
So, there is a disconnect between intellectual knowledge of a being and the actual existence and personal relationship of that being. There is a giant chasm between us.
Reason
Humans are standing on earth and this being is somewhere outside the universe. Therefore, I propose the only way for humans to know this being is for the greatest conceivable being to speak to humans.
So then, our job is to search the multiple religions, philosophies, or supernatural encounters to determine if a communication from the greatest conceivable being exists.
- Take what we know
- Conceive of the greatest being
- Evaluate science, reason, and philosophy
- Examine history
- Determine if this being might have spoken to humans
This was the logical process I developed in my late teens and twenties to search for God. I hope it helps some.
What Next?
- What is the crucial concept?
- Why is that significant?
- If you agree, the next steps
- If you disagree, please consider reading
References and Links
How do we “know” the Greatest Conceivable Being?
Anselm & the Argument for God: Crash Course Philosophy #9
The Ontological Argument (The Introduction)
The Ontological Argument – Part 1 – William Lane Craig
St. Anselm
- St. Anselm College
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy- Anselm of Canterbury
- Wikipedia – Anselm of Canterbury
- Stanford Encyclopedia – Descartes’ Ontological Argument