The Search for God Page 2.1.2.1.1
To be or not to be, that is the question. In this scene, Hamlet is contemplating death. Which is better, he wonders, the pain of living (being) or the pain of dying? We have considered death, but what do we mean when we say “to be” or being?
The idea of being is a difficult concept, but generally, being is thought of as existence. When we say something has being, we mean something has substance, that something exists. But is that all being is? By this definition, a rock has being, a chair has being, and the very universe has being.
What does it mean to be or not to be?
Definitions of Being
So one definition is simple existence. But there is a broader definition, like when we refer to a human being. In this context, we understand that this being has an identity just like a chair or a rock.
So expanding the definition, we include the idea that being is something that has a unique identity and exists. How about if something dies, like a human or a tree? Does that thing still have being? Has that thing moved from being to non-being?
In this situation, we change the identity and might say that it is a “dead human being.” So just like when we considered knowledge, there are a couple of ways to think about being.
Identity
We have the identity of existence, the idea that the thing has attributes that provide identity, and that object exists in reality. So a design of a chair in our mind has identity but not an external reality that others can experience that would indicate the mental chair image has a true being.
The second concept is that the identity of our being can change. We can have a burned chair, a broken rock, or a dead human. Hamlet contemplated a change in his being.
A dead human still has being in the physical sense, but we recognize that the identity of that being, now rotting in the ground or burned on the stake, has lost a state of being.
Change of identity
Humans often use being in the sense of a complete identity, and for humans to no longer think and move and have their current abilities is a significant change, a change from life to death, which is akin to moving from being to non-being.
Just as a chair that was once useful for sitting upon, once burnt, it no longer has the function of a stable chair; all the burnt chair is good for is to be thrown out. So too, humans now dead have lost their identity as a being and are no longer functional.
So a sun that goes supernova moves from being to non-being, and there is a change in identity. Even though that new identity has being, since the identity has changed, we often speak in the manner of the changed being.
So the second idea of being is to be alive, which is really just an identification of the attribute that an object possesses and can result in confusion. When I use the word being, I mean an object with a defined set of attributes that exists in objective reality.
So, is the idea of being rational?
Of course, we all recognize that objects and things have being in objective reality or shared reality between humans. Two people can walk together and say, “Isn’t that a cool chair? Let’s sit.”
So then,
- Can God have being?
- Can God have a set of attributes that exists in objective reality?
Absolutely. So the idea of God as a being is rational.
Is it rational for some living being to be able to relate to other beings in an objective external world? Of course, would we expect anything less?
Is an eternally existing substance rational? Sure. In our last article, we dismissed nothing producing something as impossible. So either non-living matter (being) or a living being is eternal.
- Could there be a living eternal being?
- Isn’t this what we really want to know?
- What is the difference between a living being and a non-living being?
As soon as we say living, a whole list of attributes springs to our minds. We will consider the characteristic of living in our next article.
What Next?
- What is the crucial concept?
- God can have being.
- Why is that significant?
- God existing as an objective external reality is rational.
- If you agree, the next steps.
- If you disagree, please consider reading.
References and Links
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time | The Question of the Meaning of Being |
What is being by Dr. Christopher Ryan Maboloc
Greatest Conceivable Being: Imaginary or non-imaginary?
- Cambridge dictionary – Being
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Existence
- Lesswrong – What is Being
- Poets.org – To be, or not to be