The Search for God Page 2.1.2.1.2
So I needed to take a break from writing and wanted to contemplate this question. So I stopped by my 16-year-old son’s room. He was sitting playing his video game; he looked up at me out of the corner of his eyes, and smirked, certain I was going to talk about God or give him some lecture.
But I slyly switched up the conversation;
Being alive
I am just good like that, and asked, What does it mean to be alive?
He shook his head slightly and said,
I don’t know. To have a heartbeat?”
Okay, not a bad answer I thought, but then pressed further,
What about bacteria, are they alive?”
I guess, he replied.
I continued to ask him questions, but he was uninterested in the conversation, so I left him to his video game, slightly disappointed but not surprised. So I proceeded to my 14-year-old son’s room and asked him the same question, What does it mean to be alive?”
With just a moment’s pause, he answered: “Having organic material.”
Whoa, that was impressive, but I am not surprised, he is thoughtful.
Still, I pressed a little more, What about the sun, it has organic material, is that alive?
Again he thought but a mere second and said,
“They should have a life cycle or some type of replication. They should have physical developmental changes.”
I sat there and nodded, taking notes. “Okay, then what about God? Is he alive?”
- Well, God came as Jesus.
- How about before that?
- There was the burning bush.
Okay, okay I can see the senses and physical aspect, so then I asked,
- Could there be a being who is pure mind?
- What about a being made out of gamma rays?
- What would it take for them to be considered alive?”
You see, these conversations revealed two things. No, not that one son doesn’t like to talk to me. Well? Nah, that couldn’t be it. What these conversations revealed are the various ways in which we view our universe using our senses, our rational mind, and our imagination.
Senses and Rational Mind
In our sensory view, being alive is equated with reproduction, heartbeats, and organic material. Things that are alive undergo development. We can say a rock undergoes changes from erosion and a river changes its course and flow, but these things, while they change or even grow don’t display a process of replication.
Beings that reproduce are equated with living beings. In our experience, things that reproduce are organic, they are made out of carbon. This is how we view the world; this is what we know. I think everyone would agree this definition makes rational sense.
So when we distinguish between a living being and a non-living being there is an idea of replication. In our experience, that replication occurs with organic material.
So our senses observe replication and our rational mind makes a category of living beings that display replication and non-living beings that do not. But what about things we have not experienced, what do our rational mind and imagination say?
Imagination and Rational Mind
- Are there different forms of living beings?
- Could a being be made out of silicon?
- Are we developing robots?
- How about a being that is pure mind?
- Or gamma rays?
- What are we considering here?
- What would it take for these beings to be considered alive?
- Do they have to reproduce?
- If a soul exists separate from the body, is the soul alive?
All these categories are not available to our senses to experience, but our imagination has considered these categories. Can something that never dies but does not reproduce be considered alive?
A Mind, Will, and Ability
What if a being had a mind that could process and decide and had the will to affect the world around them, and the ability to carry out that decision of his will, would that being be alive?
Would that being need to be able to replicate to be considered alive? If we made a robot, like Commander Data from ST:TNG (that’s Star Trek: The Next Generation for non-Trekkies) would he be alive? Watch The Measure of a Man one of the best Star Trek episodes.
We understand there could be different identities of being, a being made of different substances. Not every living being has to be a carbon-based life form. More than chemistry, more than reproduction, the measure of a man, the measure of a living being is possessing a mind, a will, and the ability to carry out what the mind wills.
So would a dementia or Alzheimer’s patient not be living? Remember, there is a different identity for each living being. One definition is a heartbeat. A tree is considered to be living but has neither a heartbeat nor a mind or will; a tree reproduces.
However, I don’t want to get into the morass of when life begins and what constitutes life. The purpose of this article is to consider what it means to be living in the context of God and the rational human mind.
Is this rational?
We reason that beings with different identities (or attributes) are considered living beings, and one possibility is a nontangible being with a mind, will, and ability to carry out its will. Therefore just because we have never experienced an eternal, immaterial being with a mind, a will, and ability, we are able to theorize that such a being would be living. Is this rational?
Yes, this living being’s identity is rational and does not violate reason. What we want to know is, does this being exist or are we just creating an imaginary “superbeing,” our hero for all eternity? Please remember that the attributes we propose come from the laws of logic, laws of experience, and laws of humanity.
What the section on philosophy is dealing with is the rationality of these attributes. If you are stuck on a topic like law of morality then do more work, reading, and research. We are not creating a being, we are developing and theorizing regarding the attributes of the greatest conceivable being, then we are going to search if this being spoke to humanity.
What Next?
- What is the crucial concept?
- There are different identities of living beings.
- Why is that significant?
- God can be living without a material body or the ability to reproduce.
- If you agree, the next steps.
- If you disagree, please consider reading.
References and Links
The Great Debate – What is Life?
What does it mean to be living for God?