Key Philosophical Concepts and the Existence of God
Objections Against the Existence of God
Although religious beliefs remained in force during the millennium, this fact does not justify these beliefs are legitimate. To be great objectives of both popular forms of understanding God and the various arguments in favor of its existence. Thus, Feuerbach said that the image of God is nothing more than a projection of human qualities: it is God who is made in the image and likeness of man. Freud denounced the image of a paternalistic God that underlies every religion and expresses the immature character of religious personality. Marx called the phenomenon of religious groups a need to be able to justify their rule over the popular classes. Nietzsche, in a radically vitalistic posture, explains that hinterworlds and their transcendent values are sentiments born of guilt and resentment, inculcated by the priestly class in the weak-minded.
Characteristics of Philosophical Knowledge
- Reflexive: Approaches freedom and truth through our rational capacities to seek solutions to problems that worry us.
- Open: Although the goal is to find the truth, it is believed that many of its proposals are in an open process and not a definitive truth.
- Rational: Seeks answers that adapt to human understanding, which differentiates it from other proposals, such as myth or religion.
- Global: Integrated unit: towards science, which is a partial, sectoral, and specialized knowledge, philosophy must explain the totality of all beings in addition to the deep and fundamental principles, while science seeks the most appropriate means to achieve certain determined purposes.
- Radical: Is getting closer to the most difficult issues, such as the meaning of human existence and freedom, the problem of good and evil, which represent “extreme problems” that do not have absolute answers.
- Practical: This guides nature in some way from a series of principles; philosophy manifests itself individually in ethics and at a collective level in political philosophy.
- Systematic: This sorts the different fields of reality and human experience.
- Critical: Reflects and analyzes the mentality of an era, thus showing some rejection of dogmatism, truths, and beliefs that are imposed on society and allowed in an automatic and unconscious way.
Philosophy and History
Philosophy is an attempt of the human spirit to establish a rational conception of the universe, using self-reflection that applies to its own functions:
- Metaphysics: Studies the reality and the properties of all that exists.
- Logic: Takes care of reasoning expressed linguistically and studies its structure in form and correction to get assurance of its validity.
- Epistemology: Reflects on the origins, validity, and limits of knowledge.
- Ethics: Studies the moral codes and examines the standards for their foundation, validity, and universality.
- Aesthetics: Analyzes the nature of beauty and artistic creations.
- Politics: Deals with aspects of the European Union, such as its social forms of government power.
Metaphysical Themes
The history of metaphysics revolves around a number of concepts that have been the starting point for the creation of a whole way of thinking for centuries. Well, because at that point, some important concepts will be examined, such as being, substance, accidents, the soul, and God, as well as the analysis of the idea of freedom, a fundamental anthropological concept of morality.
Being
The concept of being is the axis on which metaphysics builds itself. Aristotle said “being is said in many ways,” which means that it is not a univocal term, but neither is it a totally equivocal term. A similar term is expressed in a sense common to things and in another sense to different things. Being means, in accordance with the predicative use, to assign a determined quality to a subject (Socrates is female), and the existential use, expressed as the existence or the presence of an object, and may also indicate recognition that identifies an object as such (Socrates is) (this is a rose). The problem consists in establishing what may be considered essential features that define the object. The key is the simple and obvious aspects of it, and so the notion of substance and accident will appear.
Substance and Accidents
The Latin word “substance” is a translation of the Greek “hypostasis,” which means “to be below” or “to be support” of something. Substance is what makes something be what it is and not another thing. What does substance support? The term “accident” would be the answer to that question; accidents are the qualities of bodies.
The Problem of the Soul
The concept of the soul originates in a religious context, as a “breath” of life and as the image of something that transcends the body. In a philosophical sense, the concept of soul has two meanings: as a principle of life and as a substance of rational knowledge (if you also associate it with a religious idea of immortality), which supposes the reality of distinctive and specific human beings compared to the rest of the animals. Aristotle considered the soul in the first sense, but he also considered a specific kind of soul for human beings: the rational soul, according to this, the element of the human body. In the history of philosophy, the second meaning prevails, amplified by other ideas. Since Plato, a fixed opposition between soul and body has existed.
The Subject of God
Evidence of the Existence of God
The existence of God was and is a very important issue in the field of philosophy. Throughout history, different evidence of such existence has been given. Such evidence may be classified as:
Ontological Evidence
Anselm formulated for the first time the “ontological argument” that God is “that which no greater can be thought” and is also what can be thought, but must also exist, otherwise, the greatest thing that could be thought would be another thing that did exist, and that would be greater. Therefore, God exists, not only mentally but in reality. (Famously criticized by Kant).
Causal Evidence
The so-called “Five Ways” of Aquinas. All have the same structure: they start from a fact of experience (movement, chance, contingency, degrees of perfection, or order of the universe) and arrive at the fact that God, as the first engine, uncaused cause, must be perfect or supreme intelligence. There are two important elements that make this event possible: the principle of causality and the inability or reluctance of rational infinite chains of causes. (Kant criticizes the Five Ways, arguing that God cannot be the object of sensory experience or scientific discussion).