The Search for God Page 3.1
Philosophy is one of the most ancient disciplines. In western thought, the term philosophy was put forth by the Greeks and means love “philo” of wisdom “sophy”. You can read more on Wikipedia’s philosophy article.
The wisdom of these deep thoughts was applied to every aspect of human life and study. The primary categories often studied in philosophy involve Metaphysics, Logic, Ethics, and Epistemology. Check out “What is Philosophy” from the Florida State philosophy department.
What is Philosophy?
In our search
Before I begin this section, I want to say that I am thankful and beholden to those giants that have come before. Many of these articles are written with the understanding that there is so much more thought and work from previous philosophers, of whom my favorites are Plato, Thomas Aquinus, Kant, and Soren Kierkegaard.
In our search, we will primarily use logic and the study of knowledge to consider the metaphysical question, “Does god exist?” If god exists and has spoken to humankind, then our view of ethics and human behavior might have to be realigned.
I am not a trained philosopher, but I will make extensive references to philosophical principles. We have already covered the three laws of logic, what we know, and how we know what we know.
If you disagree with the laws of logic and the laws of experience, either let me know or please do more research. For any meaningful conversation, each party has to agree on definitions of the words and concepts.
Philosophy
In this section on philosophy, I hope to consider whether the attributes outlined previously for this being whom we term god, are reasonable and rational. The attributes we’ve covered are as follows:
Eternal (causality)
Transcendent (death)
Non-caused (causality)
All-knowing (identity)
Unchanging, timelessness (change)
Being (identity)
Judge (morality)
All-powerful (moral, creation)
In addition, I will pose this question, “If a being did not possess all these attributes, could that being be god?
Before we begin, I want to take a few articles and consider ideas of reality and truth. In the previous section, we discussed belief; how everyone, 100% of humankind, has belief.
The reason I did not include reality and truth in that section is that even though we might believe these issues 100% exist, that section was focused on what we know. We can know our beliefs because they are unaffected by reality or truth.
Each individual can believe whatever they want, and 100% of people have beliefs. However, while we may recognize that truth and reality exist, we do not know 100% of reality or truth, which is why we will discuss reality, truth, and reasonableness of the attributes of god in more depth in this section.
Achieving The Goal
What is the end goal of all knowledge and wisdom?
To know ultimate reality and to know that reality is absolutely true.
- Do you love wisdom?
- Do you love knowledge?
- Do you love the truth?
What Next?
- What is the crucial concept?
- Philosophy is the love of wisdom.
- Why is that significant?
- Are we more interested in being right or finding the truth? Will we consider things from multiple angles?
- If you agree, the next steps.
- If you disagree, please consider reading.
References and Links
What is Philosophy?
What is Philosophy for?
Message 04 – Four steps backwards
- Ivy Panda – Philosophy is one of the most ancient disciplines
- Got Questions – Does god exist
- A Case For Truth – The three laws of logic
- Florida state university – What is Philosophy?
- Philosophy Basics – The Basis of Philosophy