Establishing the Reality of Transcendence

(Originally written March 4, 2007 in Book 13)

Other Experiences of the Human Need for the Transcendent

Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) & Heidegger (Waiting for God) both expressed a craving of modern man to hear from God. Even Nietzsche found life without God to be unbearable. The skeptic Hume confessed he could not always bear his skeptical thoughts. Kant found that it was practically necessary to postulate God to make sense of his moral life.

"Is there any basis in reality for this God-need which both believers and nonbelievers have confessed in having?" (73).

The Possibility of Fluffing the Need for the Transcendent

Pure logical proofs for the non-existence of God are no more successful than proofs for the existence of God.

One ought not to judge does not exist on an a priori basis.

Humans expect that there are ways of fulfilling their basic needs. Both science and social activities are predicated on this expectation.

Individual or local failures to find a reality basis for religious experience cannot be made into universal impossible.

But, psychological desire alone is insufficient ground for establishing something as real.

Establishing the reality of the Transcendent

"What human beings really need really exists" (74).

This is based on human experience in two ways:
1) It is in accord with basic human expectations. "People cannot lead a life built on total absurdity. A totally meaningless life is contrary to human expectation" (74)
2) Real human needs can be fulfilled. An individual may die of thirst, but this does not prove that there is no water. The fact that people need water and expect it to be somewhere means there is water somewhere.

"It is contrary to both human expectation and human experience to suppose that what people really need is really not there to fulfill that need." (75)

Since people, both believers and nonbelievers really need God it would follow that there must really be a God.

In addition, since some individuals have found fulfillment in God then God must exist.

It is not a logical contradiction that every sense of religious fulfillment is merely an illusion, but this is hardly believable.

"The problem with atheism is that it admits the human need to transcend but allows no object to fulfill this need. This is an existential cruelty" (76)