Abstract
As the title implies, this chapter will review the main conclusions of the preceding chapters as a prelude to consideration of the essential ontological question concerning the existence of God. We begin with “The Metaphysical Poem of Parmenides”, which in its own right provides an intriguing basis for belief in a necessary Being that is the source of all being. The main philosophical arguments for the existence of God are briefly presented, beginning with St. Augustine’s original “Argument from Truth”, which is then followed in historical order by Boethius’ “Argument for the Necessity of a Supreme Good”, and detailed explanation of St. Anselm’s “Ontological Argument”. The five arguments of St. Thomas are then mentioned with particular attention given to “The Argument of the First Cause” and “The Argument of Contingency”, which together lead to the existence of a Necessary Being that is the Self-Sufficient First Cause all that exists. St. Thomas’s “Argument of the First Cause” and “Argument of Contingency” are re-evaluated in the context of the existence of an eternal multiverse, in which case we must ask whether such an entity could be the Necessary Being that is the sufficient cause of itself. We then show why the interdependent collection of pocket or bubble universes that comprise the eternal multiverse cannot be the sufficient cause of itself; and why the parallel argument that atheists make against the self-sufficiency of God as the Necessary Being is answered by the Modified Argument from Truth, described herein. We show the essential role played by the existence of infinite and eternal Consilient Truth, and the epistemology of Dewy and Bentley which posits that knowledge, per se, has no existence of its own but rather must exist in mind knowing truth. This argument leads to the existence of an eternal mind that knows eternal Consilient Truth.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Hamlet, Act III, Scene I. William Shakespeare
The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’.
Psalm 14:1
Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, I-Will-Be-Who-I-Will-Be.
Exodus 3:13–14
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22 May 2019
The book was inadvertently published with an incorrect ToC where Chapter 8 subchapter was not indented (Consilience, Truth and the Mind of God: A Synthesis). It is now corrected asRecollection and Synthesis
Notes
- 1.
Here, we have another interesting case of spontaneous insight in the mental efforts of a great medieval philosopher!
- 2.
The Argument from Efficient Causation is closely related to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (“PSR”), which articulates (1) For every entity X, if X exists, then there is a sufficient explanation for why X exists; (2) For every event E, if E occurs, then there is a sufficient explanation for why E occurs; (3) For every proposition P, if P is true, then there is a sufficient explanation for why P is true. The PSR was advanced by the ancient Greeks including the pre-Socratics, but found its most formal expression in the works of Spinoza, Leibniz and especially Arthur Schopenhauer, who wrote a famous doctoral thesis in 1813 “On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason”.
- 3.
The Archimedean Point of Huw Price alludes to the perspective of God in viewing the universe. John Bell also invoked this point of view when he spoke of “something coming from outside the universe” to explain the instantaneous communication between entangled quantum particles.
- 4.
Truth without meaning is an absurdity!
- 5.
Conveying an equivalent meaning, Gerald Schroeder wrote, “Wisdom or mind is the substrate of all creation”. (Personal Communication)
- 6.
“And the Lord’s messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush, and he saw, and look, the bush was burning with fire and the bush was not consumed”. Exodus 3:2
- 7.
This quote is taken from St. Bernard commenting on Psalm 61:12 – “God has spoken once”. An alternative rendering from the “Liturgy of the Hours” is: “God has spoken once. Once indeed, because forever. His is a single, uninterrupted utterance, because it is continuous and unending”.
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Di Rocco, R.J., Kyriazis, A.J. (2018). Consilience, Truth and the Mind of God: A Synthesis. In: Consilience, Truth and the Mind of God. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01869-6_8
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