"But GOD figured as a public whore and gone crazy--that,
viewed through the optic of 'philosophy,' makes no sense at all. I don't mind
having my sorrow derided if derided it has to be, he only will grasp me aright
whose heart holds a wound that is an incurable wound, who never, for anything,
in any way, would be cured of it... And what man, if so wounded, would ever be
willing to 'die' of any other hurt?"
-Excerpt from Madame Edwarda, by Georges Bataille
For twenty-four years of my life I
lacked any sort of recognizable belief that could be even roughly ascertained
as theism--I never even bought into the idea of Santa Claus. Many and most would
have labeled me "atheist," and I agree; as soon as that term was
introduced into my lexicon I ascribed it to myself, and there it remained. I
now sit here, age twenty-four years and thirty days, contemplating my very
recent conversion to Monotheism. My intention here is to give a written account
of precisely what I mean when I utter the sentence "I accept that
Monotheism is true." I hope that the reader is aware of the differences
between what I mean by uttering that
sentence and whether or not Monotheism is actually true. In general, my approach will be a dialectical method whereby
I approach by beliefs by precisely defining them and then discerning to what
extent I am justified in asserting my belief as true; the reason for this
approach is that the meaning of the belief will, in very obvious and explicit
ways, complement the justification of the belief--and, in some cases, vice
versa. To the dismay of many, we must
unfortunately begin with the discussion of beliefs that are--at least in my
case--logically prior to the Monotheism to which I adhere. Tough titties. There will be no philosophical pussyfooting;
every word I type, I type for a reason. I will not dodge the questions of what GOD is, does, and how it relates to our lives. But first:
The Universe (and, if existent, the
Multiverse) is entirely physical.
On the face
of it, this might seem like a very trivial claim, but it is in fact
contradicted by the vast majority of atheists. Most atheists adhere to
something like property dualism whereby the Universe subsists in a physical
"substance," and physical properties are used to describe physical
attributes or characteristics about physical objects. To account for the
sentience of the mind many people
assert that the mental mind is an emergent
phenomenon of physical processes. The mental mind differs from the physical
brain in that the latter can be described in terms of the mathematical
functions of the physical sciences (neurology is eventually reduced to
physics), while the former is irreducible
to physical description. Under this
view, the mental mind experiences mental properties which are the result of the
physical processes of the brain. The most often cited example is the color red.
If a man were to spend his entire life in a black and white house, studying all
the physical facts of the eye and how the brain perceives color and then
suddenly: He is allowed to step outside and see a rose, would he in fact be
surprised by the experience of red? If you say
yes, then you likely assert that there is no amount of physical knowledge in
the world that can properly ascertain what redness truly
is. I myself disagree strongly with this view of the human being and the
Universe in which he inhabits. Understanding my disagreements and my positive
position will strongly elucidate the radical discontinuity between the "GODly"
and everything else. Another benefit to my refutation of mental properties
being present within the Universe is that it requires an explicit and detailed
account of my theory of semantics, thus giving the reader a general framework
from which I approach questions about meaning. Now I shall begin to defend a
reductionist account of the Universe. Reductionism asserts that everything (in
my case, I limit myself to the Universe[s]) can be reduced to a physical
description. I take a physical description to mean any description which
sufficiently and necessarily explains a particular event, object, or phenomenon
through the language of the physical sciences. Now, a defense:
Assertion A:
If I believe this to be the case, how can I handle accounts similar to the
colorblind man? To put it simply as possible, all I need do is explain how his
lack of the experience of red is actually a
physical issue rather than a mental issue. In fact, as is clearly demonstrated
in the thought experiment, the only issue is that he isn't allowed to step
outside. Thus, a simple movement through space--which can easily be described
in the language of physical sciences--resolves his problem. What was his
problem? Put simply, none of his book learning was personal in the sense that it never put him in relation to an
object that's surface reflected 650 nanometer wavelengths of light into his
perfectly functioning eyes and brain. Thus, the only conclusion that we can
draw from the thought experiment is that there are some facts whose meaning can
only be ascertained by personally
being the subject who stands in some relation to some object. It is, quite
literally, something you just "had to be there to get." The missing
property in question, though, is spatial--not mental. In other words, there are
different modes of knowing that require an understanding of physical
properties, and books simply aren't enough. Notice, though, that once the man has stood in a particular relation to an
object which will give him the experience of the color red,
we can easily describe the man, the relation between the man and the flower,
and the flower through the mathematical functions of the physical sciences.
Since the man, the relation, and the flower are all that is sufficient and necessary for the experience of red,
we can now safely say experience of color is simply a physical affair.
Assertion B:
Mental properties are unnecessary to explain the phenomena of the universe.
Most would agree with the assertion that we would only find the mental in the
mind of the brain when we are talking about physical reality--those who do not
are usually idealists or panpsychists who, at least under any sort of holistic
verificationism, are basically the same as I, but since they are so few, I will
only concern myself with those who believe the mental resides in the mind.
Take the meaning of words or, if you
will, the definition of "definition." Intuitively, most of us think
that words are learned by constantly associating the word with the idea that
the word signifies. So, for instance, when I consider the definition of "dog,"
I imagine a four-legged creature of the canine variety. Likewise, whenever you utter the word
"dog," an image pops into your head and that image is precisely what
you mean by the word "dog." Presumably, those images "inside
your head" are mental, and thus not physical. That is, however, not how
definitions work. To use an analogy of Wittgenstein:
Suppose I
had a box and you had a box. There are four rules:
1. You can
look inside your box
2. I can
look inside my box
3. You
cannot look inside my box
4. I cannot
look inside your box
Further
suppose that upon opening my box, I discover an item and exclaim "Ah ha!
So that's what GOD is!" and as you open your box, you too shout "I've
finally realized what GOD is!" The question is: How do we go about
determining that "GOD" has a similar--much less the same--meaning in
each of our boxes? Clearly the boxes represent our minds and the rules our
subsequent inability to read the minds of one another. Clearly we are stuck
with, at best, trying to whittle away at the mysterious ambiguity of our GOD by
appealing to properties that are shareable
or external to ourselves. However, not just any old properties will do. We need
exactly those properties which will identify GOD and only GOD. If we say that
"GOD has the property of being red,"
that doesn't help us very much considering a whole array of things are red. We could subsequently limit ourselves to only red objects, but we would still presumably have a lot
further to go. So, as a rule of thumb, a definition shared between two people
can be identified when the two have each pointed to shared properties to the
point that we have narrowed down our possible existent objects to one and
exactly one (supposing we are only speaking about particulars, as in the case
of GOD).
So, it seems to follow that my task
in attempting to give grounds to my theism involves listing off the set of
properties that identify GOD and only GOD, and making sure that these properties
are shareable, and on display to the public. Notice that it isn't necessarily
the case, when it comes to definitions, that if I manage to list off the set of
properties that identify GOD and only GOD, I must point directly to GOD itself
(this would be akin to an extremely hard semantic theory of verificationism,
which has been refuted time and time again).
It seems perfectly reasonable to take properties from different
creatures, and know what the resultant animal would be if we encountered it.
Having the property of "being a horse" plus having the property of
"having a narwhal horn attached to your forehead" would presumably
identify you as a unicorn. Thus, by appealing to properties we can find in the
real world and logically gluing them together, we can construct what GOD would
entail and thus form a "GOD hypothesis," or "GOD
definition."
The idea of taking properties one
knows and gluing them together logically to form something unseen seems awfully
close to the previously rejected assertion
of the definition of words corresponding precisely to those objects that appear
in your head when you utter them, but this isn't the case. The "logical
gluing" of properties is essentially tantamount to the act of assigning
rules. For instance, we might say: "When you are playing chess, and you
pick up the piece known as 'the Bishop,' you can only move it diagonally across
the chess board." In the same way, we might say about GOD: "When you
experience something such that x, y, and z properties are present in a certain
object, you are necessarily experiencing GOD." Now, how exactly is the
second rule established? Exactly the same way as the first: Through convention.
What is it about the rules of Chess that make it so much more successful that
the rules governing GOD? While having readily tangible pieces available might help the case of Chess, there is
nothing intrinsic about the pieces that signifies, in any way, what their
correspondent rules are. The rules of Chess are more successful simply because
there is a wider array of agreement, the properties are more familiar, and no
one has any impetus or desire to dissuade anyone else from the rules that
govern Chess. GOD, on the other hand, is clearly a different matter. For every
theist there seems to be a different god, the properties couldn't be more abstract
and obfuscated, and plenty of people
have a strong drive to persuade you away from how you come to define or
understand GOD--myself included.
"What? You want to overthrow
the rules of Chess and establish your own?! What gives you the right to do such
a thing?!" Take a moment to consider what the objective of language is and
how it can be (and has been) manipulated. The goal of language, it seems, is to
convey ideas, wishes, desires, beliefs, and knowledge about properties (whether
actual or logical) which are shareable amongst a group of similar speakers.
Linguistic change and promotion thereof can be thought of in terms of Richard
Dawkins' memetic theory. My putative definition is a meme that "A being is
GOD and only GOD if it holds properties x, y, z." Just as meme theory
dictates, my definition (or idea) can compete amongst other putative
definitions (or idea), thriving or dying based on its merits or faults. While
having a large amount of agreement does strengthen the propagation of the meme,
it isn't necessary to even be the
dominant or most useful meme. Take Euclid's axioms of geometry for example:
Historically, the vast majority of humanity could not list all of them off, but
that fact did not stop Euclidean geometry from surviving for centuries upon
centuries. Instead, it was the fact that Euclidean geometry was so useful and reflective of reality (at least until Einstein came along), that it
was the dominant set of memes in its respective field. Therefore, I will argue
that my definition of GOD is sufficient because:
A)
The definition includes the set of all properties such that finding a being
which satisfies all of the properties of that set will be GOD and only GOD.
Therefore there is no confusion about who or what it is or when you've
encountered it.
B)
The definition's set of properties all contain properties which are shareable
and public.
C)
The definition is reflective of reality in the sense that not only do we live
in the kind of world you would expect to see if this type of GOD did exist, but
that there are general rules and steps of behavior that, if followed and
practiced, can allow one to briefly experience GOD.
D)
The definition is useful in the sense
that there is a strong cultural imperative to use Christian-laden terminology
when discussing this GOD. This, however, should not make the reader wary that
this is a masked form of Christianity--if anything, it is the very opposite.
A
Through
arguing for these four points, it will become apparent where definitions
intersect with reality and vice versa. Point A essentially sets up for us a
putative definition for GOD, or in other words, a list of properties entailed
by GOD and only GOD:
1. GOD is transcendental. In other words, GOD is not in or outside of our
reality: It transcends reality; that needn't necessarily imply any superiority
to us as, from its perspective, we transcends its reality. Thus, even if you
define natural as "that which can be conceived of physically," GOD
is, at most, "paranatural."
If, however, you define natural as something existent--something not
"outside of existence and responsible for existence" then this
conceptualization of GOD falls squarely within the domain of the natural; all
you would concede is that some natural things cannot be conceived of
physically. The latter is the position I happen to take.
Although this word has been obfuscated to the
point of near uselessness, transcendence can be understood simply as being
composed of properties of a different kind
than ours (I rejected the notion of substance
and do so for reasons I won't go into here). As I asserted earlier, I believe
we've sufficient reason to think that our Universe (and any other universes out
there) are physical in the sense that they can be reduced to the mathematical
functions of the physical sciences. GOD, on the other hand, is of such a nature
that it cannot be reduced to the mathematical language of the physical
sciences. There are no propositions to be made about GOD's spatial location nor
his temporal location, as he lacks those properties since they can be described
in terms of the physical sciences.
2. GOD is the Logos. No. Not the Christian way of using it, but more in line with
the Greek Stoic way of using it. Essentially, GOD is strictly--to stick with
consistent and contemporary terms--mental properties or, to put it more
commonly, GOD is strictly a mind full of ideas. More specifically, GOD is
composed of relations of ideas; even more specifically, GOD is composed of
relations of specific kinds of relations of ideas, namely those ideas which
have a logical counterpart (this will be detailed later, do not be tempted to
take "relation" in the sense of physical sciences). To see why GOD
would have this property, it's helpful to examine the Christian story of Jesus
Christ--strictly from a hypothetical point of view--so that we may get a better
understanding of, in this particular instance, good and bad (in the moral
sense).
Consider one of the most centric
assertions of the Christian faith: Salvation through accepting the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ. What is it about accepting the sacrifice that cleanses a believer
of his sins? The fact that Jesus took upon him the peccata mundi, or the sins of the world. Now consider some of the
more minor--yet still important--properties of Jesus Christ:
a. Jesus was born and, as is
implied, lived through thirty-three human years.
b. Jesus is often claimed to be the
Son of God in the Trinitarian sense of being One with the Godhead.
c. Jesus ate, drank, bled, suffered,
died, and was resurrected in biological form.
d. Jesus often spoke as genuinely
inquisitive, thus prima facie
displaying a lack of omniscience--especially at Bethlehem (imagine an
omniscient baby).
e. Jesus claimed to be the sole path
to Salvation. This is usually theologically explained by being sinless and thus
bearing the sins of the world; thus, if you accept his sacrifice as legitimate,
you are atoned of your sins.
f. Jesus often refers to His Father,
presumed to be His equal within the Trinity.
What sort of picture do these
properties create? Well, a bit of a confusing one at first glance. We can say
that, roughly speaking, half of the properties instantiated in Jesus were human
while the other half were God (omniscient, omnipotent, character in the Bible
who claims to have preformed all of the actions as said by scripture). Now
consider Jesus at the penultimate moment of his global repentance: What
properties did Jesus possess at this time of dying and death? Surely several human properties such as
bleeding, suffering, dying, and weakness. Was he, in any sense of the word, the Word? He seemed far from anything
omniscient or omnipotent. Is his capacity for forgiving those who wronged him a
property ascribed to the human side of Jesus or the God side of Jesus? Presumably, although seemingly
contradictorily, both. Looking at the death of Jesus from the human
perspective, what value, if any, did his empathy have? Although admittedly
remarkable by human standards, what is it worth when weighed against the sin of
the world? Wouldn't Jesus, subjecting himself to the fallen human nature, have,
in dying, a value that--even if we were to grant him to have lived without sin--would
redeem merely himself alone? How can the death of a human facilitate the
Salvation of another, let alone the entirety of humanity? How can the Grace of
one atone the Sin of another? If we look at it from the perspective of Jesus as
God, then what could the Logos (a notion used by the Christians as well, but
not terribly consistently) undergo that would even remotely reach the realm of fallen
nature of humanity?
Even if we grant all the necessary
conditions for Jesus Christ to be the conduit of Salvation (the trinity,
original sin, and the resurrection), Jesus still does not appear to be a
sufficient vessel whether considered fully human or fully god--and to consider
him as both at the moment of His death
implies all sorts of crazy nonsense about propositions and properties. So,
although not a complete refutation of the idea, I would say that we have
reasonable doubt and thus, if we can come up with a better interpretation for
the (hypothetical) events then all the more reason to doubt the deification of
Jesus. Though this better explanation is indeed false, it demonstrates a
pivotal principle behind the Logos, and thus gives us a clearer idea of GOD.
Remember: This is all purely within
the hypothetical realm, and even this reinterpretation of the Sacrifice of
Jesus Christ is meant to be taken as fictitious--the point is to learn the
moral behind the story: Namely, that no
man, not even God reduced to the carnal, can escape the sinful nature of
our existence. Jesus came here to bring a sword of Light and Grace; GOD brought
to attention the futility of a man's attempt at such a hubristic act and
sheathed his sword into Darkness and Sin.
"What? You're telling me that
GOD facilitates sin, and even in some cases, sins himself?" On the
Christian view of god, yes. On my view of GOD? Not exactly. It appears to me that many religious people
(although Christianity was used, it was only used because I am the most
familiar with its tenets) want their deities to be forces of Good at all costs. The Christians have taken the idea so far that
listening to a Christian talk about his religion is almost no different from
listening to an author talk about his book where the Good Guy and the Bad Guy
duke it out in the Universe, each one fighting for the souls of human beings.
Naturally, at the end of the book, the Good Guy God overthrows the Evil Satan
and, as always, good conquers evil.
What most Christians seem to forget
is that, if there is to be a multiplicity of forms for ideas--if ideas like The Good are to be spoken of
qualitatively--can something be truly better if there is not something also
worse? And if something is said to be worse, mustn't there also be something
better? This relation between the better and the worse is a logical dependency
upon one another. If you eliminate one, then you necessarily eliminate the
capacity for anything to be the other. You who would eliminate the capacity for
sin also eliminates the capacity for grace. You who would eliminate the
capacity for pain would also eliminate the capacity for pleasure. Notice that
preceding each property are the words "capacity for." That is to say,
while eliminating the ideal of one opposite, we do not directly affect the
objects in the world, but rather we affect the capacity for those objects to
exemplify other certain properties.
It is this logical chain or union
between opposites that I mean by the Logos
and what sorts of ideals are contained within.
What this implies about us, and why this isn't just "all in our
head" will be made clear in the subsequent sections.
3. GOD is completely non-anthropomorphic. This point is of great concern because I
believe this is where most religions get it wrong. GOD's existence is just as
legitimate as ours, but that does not mean it (notice I have intentionally been
using the pronoun "it" over and above "he") simply does not
care about our existence; or, more precisely, it cannot care about our existence. It lacks emotions, although it
sustains the logically necessary relation between joy and horror. It lacks any
will or desire to create a Universe, although it sustains the logically
necessary relation between creation and destruction (that's right, not only
does GOD not interfere with physical affairs, it did not even "get the
ball rolling" as commonly advocated in deism). It lacks any ability to give us any sort of
afterlife, although it sustains the logically necessary relation between being
and non-being.
I cannot stress this point enough:
Do not expect this being to have humanistic properties; do not expect its mind
to be like our brain.
B and C
It seems most profitable to speak
about these two conditions at the same time, considering that, if I am to show
how one comes to recognize GOD and those entailed properties entailed by it and
only it (note that everything I have done thus is merely putative), I must plainly
explain what kinds of behavior, activity, or attitude can lead to an experience
of GOD. To the dismay of the reader,
these behaviors, activities, and attitudes are of such a nature that the
recognition of GOD will not be actualized by the time you finish reading this
paper. However, do not fear that I am about to jump on the bandwagon of
"you need to take DMT, shrooms, and LSD to see God, maaaaan." Nor will I provide you with any specific
religious doctrines by which to live your life. Neither will I travel down the
road of the Eastern religions; despite how 'mystical' this sounds, the East
has--for the most part--gotten it just as wrong as the West. Whether you end up 'seeing' what I have
'seen' makes no difference as to who you are, it however, may make the
difference between your ability or inability to recognize who you are.
To the dismay (or maybe even joy,
for some) of most readers, this is the point at which words and our
understanding of them begin to stretch--they begin to reach their limitations
of functionality. This, however, is the whole point of the enterprise. As words
are contingent upon our understanding of them and what role they play in our
physical lives, it can be said--quite brutely I admit--that an act of
transcendence is just those acts which surpass our ability to properly reduce
them to the physical. These acts are not
simple cases of perception which lead ones mouth temporarily empty, waiting to
be filled with the correct answer--for there is no answer to be found. However,
as Bataille suggests, words about the unanswerable and transcendental can be
spoken of because answerability is the general rule. It is only through a combination of the
unanswerable with the answerable that we begin to truly be able to form the
boundaries of the quintessential human condition.
In short, the effable opposites we
engage in everyday life are to be pushed to their excess. This is achieved not through observing the
physical word, but understanding how that which physically exists relates to one
another logically--more precisely, it is achieved by understanding how the two
opposite properties relate to one another.
It is easy to see how in recognizing that which is good we also come to
a better understanding of that which is bad, since we must be able to recognize
that which is bad in order to know the good--this principle works just as well
where "good" and "bad" are replaced with one another. It is
easy to see how in recognizing the strong, we come to a better understanding of
the weak. It is easy to see how in recognizing the pleasurable, we come to
understand better the painful. Any sort of logical relation which operates by
this principle will lead one to a transcendental experience when the
limitations of those opposites are pushed to their extreme to the point of
fracturing. One cannot fully understand
what it means for that of "pleasure and pain" to be sustained in an
equality. One cannot fully understand what it means for that of "good and
bad" to be sustained in an equality. The only thing one can do is experience
the union of the two. This, as it should be obvious by now, requires a great
deal of experience and knowledge about each side of the coin. Through our five
senses, we can see, individually, a picture of each opposite side of the coin,
but it isn't until we come to experience the coin as a whole that we truly
grasp what the coin is. How this experience is facilitated outside of our five senses is impossible for me to explain. It is,
as it were, something you "had to be there to get," but at the same
time it is something so much more than that: It is something that you, in order
to experience, "have to be."
By be I mean the most simplistic, yet
ineffable, act of being.
Additionally, as said above, this is
the type of possible world we would expect to see if this type of GOD did
exist. GOD is not, in any sense of the word, a creator of or interventionist in
our Universe. Certainly, as one would rightfully object, a transcendental
experience cannot be encapsulated or explained by a physicalist description.
This, however, isn't exactly what I am saying.
The experience itself occurs neurologically in the brain, but how the
experience is facilitated is
ineffable. To understand what
"facilitate" denotes in this context, remember above about the man
who never knew red. What was his problem? It was that he himself, as the
subject, did not stand in some particular relation Z to the object that gave
rise to the experience. What is essential about experiencing GOD is finding
that particular relation that puts you in such a position that allows you, as a
subject, to experience GOD. This particular relation is just the relation
spoken of in the unanswerable. It is, perhaps unfortunately, ineffable. I have done the best I can to describe how I
obtained this particular relation, but the relation itself cannot be properly
understood until one is placed in that particular relation, just as the man,
reading anything and everything he could about red,
never properly understood the color until he stumbled upon the flower.
D
This, in short, is why I choose to
call this composite of ideals--which remain wholly and distinctly apart from a
Universe which keeps apart these opposites we, at very rare moments in our
lives, experience as a union--GOD. The
assertion that this is GOD, as opposed to some other definition, is contingent
upon two motives:
Firstly, as every linguist and amateur
linguist since the 20th century has realized, words carry with them much power.
To call this object GOD is to attempt to bring the discussion of theology
(which, in my opinion, has spent far too long focused solely on fairytales) to
the realm of human experiences and their limitations.
Secondly, as one experiences GOD, so
too does one define the human condition. To have even the briefest of glimpses
into what is essentially an inhuman experience is to have a much more refined
ability to discern the lines and boundaries which, in our normal everyday
experience, encapsulate and define what it means to be human.
That's it. No afterlife. No Creator.
No doctrines. No salvation. The only thing to understand is who you are and
your place in existence.
"The act of a free man, connected to the balance of the
world, projects itself into the infinite. But the fracture of its ontological
ballast, the dispersion and the overcoming, bring a harvest of increasing
conflict--a descending spiral of splinters lacerating the meridians.
The temple stands. Its walls a prison for the Katechon, while
the plowshare grates on the crystal hard, and vivid tear and blood pours from
the furrows while the star shines high, no place to cover from its rotten
light."
-From Chaining the Katechon, D. S. O.
