Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion
In a time of the spring, old paths are obscured and new growth begins.
Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit DiscussionIn a time of the spring, old paths are obscured and new growth begins.
[This is the 4th post of the serial discussion regarding vital queries on existence and life. The 1st, the 2nd and the 3rd posts are “Is the Truth Attainable?”,“Evidence of Essential Existence in the Nature” and “Life: Evidence of Essential Existence” respectively.]According to the verdict of reason the ever-changing natural world is a possible existence and so its primary source must be an Essential Existence.Followers of religions believe in Essential Existence, however not by this name; they have given this Existence different name in different languages. That doesn’t matter. In English language this Existence is called God and for the sake of language we see no problem to use this name. But the problem is the definition of the Essential Existence or God. Religions differed each other regarding His definition. To solve these differences we must rely on the verdict of reason that is universally, irrespective of religions, common standard, hence should be accepted.Reason can find some positive attributes those are unavoidably necessary for the Essential Existence and some negative or relatively negative characteristics from which He must be free. In a nutshell we can say that He must have all the attributes necessary for perfectness and He must be free from all the characteristics those indicates directly or indirectly deficiency, weakness or need. Now we shall discuss regarding these attributes of perfectness and negative characteristics.
1) Life: The first attribute the reason can find essential for the Essential Existence is life. A lifeless existence can create neither a living thing nor a lifeless thing. A lifeless thing cannot inject or inspire life to a lifeless thing. Because we are living, so the Essential Existence must be a living existence. His life must be eternal i.e. beyond time. He is the Creator of time too, so He may not be limited within time.
2) Power: The Essential Existence must have unlimited power to do everything including creation of material and non-material living and lifeless existence, natural rules etc. If He had no absolute and unlimited power then He couldn’t start creation from nothing.
3) Will: The Essential Existence must have will to do or not to do anything, otherwise in spite of having absolute and unlimited power He wouldn’t create anything.
4) Knowledge: He must have absolute knowledge i.e. complete knowledge of His own existence and knowledge about all forms of past, present and future of His creation. Absolute knowledge means He is capable to plan and execute the plan of creation and its management. Otherwise He couldn’t do this or couldn’t do this in the best manner.
5) Unlimited: His existence must be unlimited, because limitation represents weakness. So He must be free from all sorts of limitations including that of space and time. Due to the same reason none of the created things; even the whole space can contain Him. So He cannot enter into the body or self of a creation.
6) Invisible: He must be invisible, because visibility is the characteristic of some material existences and they are naturally limited.
7) Non-Material: He must be non-material. Even He may not be semi-material. Matter and semi-material things are naturally limited. Being limited is one of the signs of weakness and imperfectness. So the Essential Existence cannot be material.
Without Limbs or Body: The Essential Existence must be free of having limbs or body. Body limits an existence, so the Unlimited Existence may not have a body and for the Existence without body question of having limbs or organs does not arise. Why do we need limbs, organs or physical senses? We need due to physical and qualitative limit of our existence. We see with our eyes, but all the scenes are reflected in the Essential Existence, so He does not need eyes; He can see without eyes and can see better than us. We have ears to hear and listen, but all the sounds are reflected in Him; He can hear and listen without ears and can hear and listen better than us. We smell with our noses, but all the smells reflect in Him. So He does not need any nose. We taste and talk with our tongues and throats, but He is the Creator of tastes and informative sounds, so all the tastes reflect in His Knowledge and He can transfer any message without voice and if will can create informative sounds or voices in ears or minds of listeners. We touch and catch with our hands, but everything is within the control of His will, so He does not need hands. We need our legs to move from one place to another place, but He is beyond place or space and is the creator of space, no space can conceive Him, so question of having legs for moving from one place to another does not arise for Him.Though no example, particularly material example matches to the very existence of the Essential Existence, yet to make the point more clear we can put an example. Suppose there is a living being with unlimited expansion of existence to the extent that all the material creations are within it and every particle of that existence has the capacity to see, hear, smell, taste and preserve & transfer all kinds of information of everything. Then should such an existence need eyes, ears, nose, tongues, throat, hands or legs? Then how may it be thinkable that the non-material unlimited Essential Existence, who is the creator of all material and non-material limited existences, should have necessity to have body and limbs or organs for Him? He does not need ears; He can hear.
9) Non-Dissectible: The Essential existence may not be a complex existence composed of parts or particles or atoms. Because an existence composed of parts is dependent on its parts, and the Essential Existence must be free of all kinds of dependency. So His existence must be non-dissectible and beyond analysis. He must be non-dissectible both from physical point of view and also from intellectual point of view i.e. from development of the very existence and qualities. Any kind of development is related to imperfect existence or quality that does not suit to the Essential Existence.
10) Oneness of Existence: It means any quality of the Essential Existence is the Existence Himself, not different from His very existence. So when we say that He is living it means His life is not different than Him. We can assume a human being or any other living being as lifeless too, but He Himself is His life. Similarly when we say that He has willpower it means He Himself is His willpower. On the other hand He sees and listens without separate seeing and listening power, but He Himself is His seeing and listening power.Though He is above any kind of material example yet this point may be understood to some extent from some worldly examples too. Generally people think that ear or hearing sense is necessary to hear and eye or seeing sense is necessary to see. But there are animals void of ears such as snakes that have no separate ears; a snake listens with its tongue besides tasting. Similarly an ant sees without eye by the help of its horns. So we can think about a living being that its body itself substitutes all of our five senses. This is regarding weak and imperfect created beings, so it is quite clear that the very ‘existence’ of the Essential Existence is capable of doing all the works those we do with our senses. Because He is the creator of senses, so He is free of the necessity of senses or qualities other than His ‘existence’.
Relative Qualities:
We can assume some qualities of the Essential Existence those focus upon His relationship with the creation. It means those are not essential for His existence for being essential existence, but emerge as the relationship with the creation Therefore, we can term these qualities as relative qualities. If He wouldn’t create anything then these qualities wouldn’t be conceivable. In a nutshell these qualities are: He is the initiator or creator, manager, guide, all-knowing, all-seeing, kind, judge, just, executioner of punishment etc. Some questions may arise and clarifications may be necessary regarding this attributes that may be discussed separately. We think in the present topic only mentioning (as done) is enough.
Why not Similar or son?
Some people ask question: If God is all-powerful then why is He unable to create another God or a Son for Him?
Such kind of question is illogical. Because, ‘being created’ is related to possible existence; related to neither the Essential Existence, nor impossible thing. If He creates anybody with all His qualities, yet due to being created and being limited within the frame of time, it may become neither eternal, nor essential, so it may not become His similar. The question of son is same. Son of a man must be a complete man and son of an ant must be a complete ant. So if the Essential Existence has to have a son that must be Essential Existence. But due to the same cause mentioned above a second Essential Existence is impossible.
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December 17th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
1. “A lifeless existence can create neither a living thing nor a lifeless thing.”
–there are perfectly plausible accounts of how life can arise out of lifeless material. Life supervenes on unstable molecules. Don’t take your lack of knowledge about molecular biology as evidence of the supernatural.
2. “If He had no absolute and unlimited power then He couldn’t start creation from nothing.”
–so you don’t know how the universe began, or what triggered the big bang. Let’s say nobody has figured it out. Lack of knowledge, in and of itself, is not evidence for supernatural explanations.
4. “He must have absolute knowledge i.e. complete knowledge of His own existence and knowledge about all forms of past, present and future”
–Why? The universe and life is flawed (suffering, evil). If you want to derive God’s will or nature from the state of the world, His will is somewhat less than omni-benevolent, or His knowledge is limited. If you derive absolute knowledge or goodness or power from the nature of the world, you are interpolating more than the evidence warrants.
6. He must be invisible, because visibility is the characteristic of some material existences and they are naturally limited.”
–forces (gravity, nuclear forces) are invisible, and they are naturally limited. Therefore invisibility does not follow.
7. “He must be non-material. Even He may not be semi-material”
–something can only have causal efficacy in virtue of matter being in contact with other matter or by the forces (gravity, magnetism, nuclear) it’s mass possesses. The immaterial possesses no mass (referred to as no extention in space in the sources that “inspired” you) and no forces. The immaterial can in no wise affect the material and cannot be a cause. That is the verdict of reason.
8. “Without Limbs or Body”
–was this even worth mentioning if God is immaterial?
9. “Non-Dissectible”
–again, worth mentioning? If something is immaterial, it’s not made out of anything. Can you divide nothing in two?
3. “The Essential Existence must have will to do or not to do anything, otherwise in spite of having absolute and unlimited power He wouldn’t create anything.”
–a will (i.e. a mind) only has causal purchase over the world by its connection to a physical something (so far, the only identified wills are associated with brains, but one could make a case for computers, universes). A mind supervenes upon, or interacts with, or is identical with that physical something (brain), otherwise it cannot, be a cause. So even an omni-will, if not associated with a physical substance, cannot interact with, cause, or even influence the world.
Nur, you seem to be making the same mistakes over and over again. Don’t conflate your lack of knowledge about the physical realm for positive evidence for a supernatural realm.
December 23rd, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Mr. Scott,
Harsh attack represents lack of reasonable argument. You are resorting to the same fallacies again and again.
Do you think molecules are creators of life? Have they will-power to create? Or some natural rules and molecules are factors of life, and the Creator of molecules and those rules is the Creator?
You claimed that nobody has figured it out. That’s a blind claim. Reason says, it has beginning and beginning must have a Beginner. You may have no knowledge about the reality of His existence, but the reason says that there must have an Existence behind the beginning.
The nature is the evidence of God’s knowledge. Never this argument put limitation to His knowledge. All the domains of His knowledge is known to Him. But verdict of the reason is that His knowledge is absolute. Does the ‘absolute’ means ‘limited’? Your claim is ridiculous.
Visible things are limited, so the unlimited Essential Existence must be invisible. This is the verdict of reason. But we didn’t claim that there is nothing invisible other than Him. There are limited creations those are invisible; Is it an argument to reject His invisibility? Why do you put forward such irrelevant argument?
Material existences and laws dominating those existences demand beginning and that must be immaterial. Only blindly you are claiming that immaterial existence cannot affect the material existence. But we are not talking about ordinary immaterial existences, We are talking about the Immaterial Existence Who initiated the creation of matter and natural rules dominating matters.
He is not made of anything. You have taken it as He is ‘nothing’. Strange! Surely you mean ‘non-existence’ by ‘nothing’, but the Essential Existence is existence, not nothing in the sense of non-existence and He is not dissectible even abstractly or intellectually, such as by degrees of qualities.
Mr. Scott,
We are arguing and differing with each other regarding same topics. It is not the characteristic of matter. It is the evidence of the fact that our minds or wills or selves are non-material existences having freedom to the extent, though may be the Creator of mind or will or self planned it in a way that it would emerge from the material body and continue to dominate it. The electricity in a peace of metal is other than that metal; also we can think that metal void of electricity. So our mind or will or self is not matter. Emergence and stability of will in a living body is in accordance with the will of the Initiator of the Creation and this rule is applicable for creations having limitations from many dimensions and you cannot claim its applicability for its Creator.
December 23rd, 2007 at 11:44 pm
This person has not studied science. These explanations about science are not true.
The electricity in piece of metal is that piece of metal. Electricity is nothing more than the physical movement of electrons. When an electrical potential is placed across a conductor (like metal) or semiconductor (like silicon), electrons move from one molecule to another. If you feel a piece of wire with an electrical current flowing through it, it can feel hot. This is because of the physical movement of electrons within the metal. Electricity is like water flowing through a pipe. It is physical in nature. This is basic physics.
If you study physiology, you will learn that the body’s nerves carry impulses using only four elements. For instance, when the eye sees a color, a very complex set of chemical signals from potassium, sodium, etc. carries the information back to the brain via photoreceptors and special nerves.
If you don’t understand physics, electricity will appear like magic to you and you will search for a magical explanation. If you haven’t studied physiology, you may think the mind must be a “non-material existence” and that it is magic too. It isn’t. It is chemistry. That is why medicine works.
December 25th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Now you guy’s have a very nice Element required for something to find out the mystery of illusory world that dominated by the five senses. just go ahead. you can make a million dollar book out of that.
January 1st, 2008 at 7:54 am
As I previously mentioned worldly or material examples are not accurately applicable to the truths beyond the material existence. But we take resort to such examples only to make the points clearer and more understandable. So we should not make ourselves busy with subsidiary points leaving aside the central point. I never oppose material sciences; I support its progress. But the fact is that always there were difference of opinions among scientists regarding many phenomenon and still are. But that is not relevant to the subject of our discussion. Secondly many persons are not aware that the same term can bear separate meaning in separate subjects. For example, as I mentioned previously that there is space among particles of a solid mater. Now one can claim that there is nothing solid. But when we talk in other subjects and feel to indicate three particular condition of a thing then we term one of those as solid as it is told in popular term. Similarly according to popular term material things have three dimensions, so something without three dimensions cannot be counted as mater in popular terms. That’s why we term those as semi-material existence. But if one want to stress that those too are material things we are not willing to continue with this subsidiary point.
To prove the existence of the Essential Existence it is not necessary to solve the problem whether electricity is material existence, or semi-material existence, or only a reaction of material existences. In all the conditions all the existence of our experience and all the natural rules dominating those deserve the existence of a primary source above being created and above being dominated by natural rules. However, existence of self or soul in living beings, particularly human beings helps us to realize the existence of the Essential Existence easily.
Feeling, hesitation, debate, faith, etc. i.e. all the human characteristics prove that life is not mere chemical reactions of material elements. However, material reactions can create and change feelings but one who feels may not be material though the Creator might have created the soul or the spirit or the human soul through creating particular pre-planned reaction in maters. If he who contradicts with my opinion tries to stress that both of us are nothing but material existence, really it would be a ridiculous argument. Because mater can not debate if and unless preplanned by an existence having personality as we can produce a computerized robot and put a programme in it so that it can work to some extent same as a living human being. Then that robot is the evidence of a human programmer. Similarly our conscious existence is the existence of the more conscious programmer i.e. the Essential Existence.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Harsh attacks?
Here’s what you might consider a harsh attack:
Your ideas are obviously borrowed from some great thinkers (Descartes, Anselm, Aquinas). But to different degrees these thinkers were steeped in logic, philosophy, and the natural sciences. Thinkers who currently defend these the views proposed by such thinkers are deeply rooted in logic, philosophy, and the sciences. You have no grasp of logic, physics, causality, psychology, physiology, philosophy of mind. Your best argument is “I don’t know the answer, therefore it must be supernatural.” This doesn’t cut it with grown-ups.
If you want to have serious discussion, stop being offended when the big kids don’t like your ideas. Do your best to understand the criticisms, stop dismissing them, address them, then we can talk.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
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