(Originally written June 2, 2007 in Book 14)
Doubt
Chris Linehan
Can any one doubt, truly doubt the existence of God? Can anyone be so convinced that this is our ultimate, our pinnacle of existence? Is it truly possible to disbelieve in what is ultimately real?
Can anyone doubt, truly doubt their own existence? Can we truly escape our own mind to postulate that we are not here? Is it even possible to claim that our own existence is not a necessary one?
Can I doubt that I have a headache? Can I doubt that I am writing? Can I doubt any part of my physical existence? Can I doubt that my body is composed of parts or that these parts are composed of cells or those cells are composed of smaller things still?
It is easy to doubt that which we cannot perceive immediately. It's easier for me to make claims that I have no atoms rather than I have no hands though both are equally absurd. Would we consider a man that certainly, visibly had two hands, but doubted that he had two hands capable of rationality? Not likely, we would doubt that he possessed the faculties of a sound mind to make him capable of doubt.
Doubt can be therefore rational or irrational. If I were to doubt that the woman in front of me was actually real then many would question that as a rational doubt. But if I doubted that my cell phone would work in the remote areas of North Dakota, people would consider that a rational doubt.
But, in a shocking and fantastic scenario it would be found out that the woman in front of me was actually a hologram and that Verizon Wireless had been secretly testing underground stations throughout the Dakotas my irrational doubt would prove true and my rational doubt would prove false. What then of doubt?
It seems as if we treat doubt as being based on consequences prior to testing them but not so after testing them. I do not believe that means people would consider my doubts to be reversed once proven true and false. Doubting a woman's reality would still be an irrational doubt and doubting cell phone reception in unpopulated areas would still be considered rational.
Doubt and belief are similar here. In spite of rare, fantastic occurrences that prove the irrational true and the rational false, we are not abandoning reason altogether because of chance circumstances. Doubt and belief are further interconnected when it is applied to higher more ultimate things, namely religion and God. Is it rational to doubt God's existence? We cannot perceive God via the five senses, at least not directly. And for some this is sufficient to claim that doubting his existence is rational.
Others claim that rational proofs of his non-exisnetence are required to suffice rational doubt of the existence of God. Others point to the existence of evil as a sufficient condition of doubting the existence of God.
I feel that any sufficient reason for doubting the existence of an ultimate reality is purely subjective and totally arbitrary, There must be a supreme existence that is ultimate, otherwise we are no more real than Huck Finn or Hamlet. Without claiming some ultimate reality we cannot claim that our physical existence is any more real than the mental existence these characters enjoy.
So to doubt the existence of God, as defined as ultimate reality is completely irrational. Bud do not for one instance feel comfortable as a theist in stating that this proves the existence of a theistic, let alone Christian God. For this argument can claim that we are all our own God and we are ultimate existence unto ourselves.
However, I think here we can apply easy, fundamental notions to show that we are not in fact ultimate reality unto ourselves. The very notion of ultimate demands singularity. The fact that humanity is a multiplicity denies that each human being can be itself the God.
What then of all humanity? Can the aggregate of all humanity be this singular God? No series or multiplicity can be a unity. If humanity were the God then we would be all one mind, which is absurd. The same argument can be used against the totality of the universe. The universe itself is an aggregate and cannot in any way be construed as the God or ultimate reality.
Therefore, since we know that it is irrational to doubt the existence of God or ultimate reality and that, no single human or combination of humans or combination or totality of this universe can be called God then God whom we cannot rationally doubt to exist must exist outside this universe.
Whether or not to believe in the Christian, deistic or theistic God is another topic. For now it is clear and simple enough to demand that if we are rational in our thought process we cannot doubt that God, an ultimate reality exists. And in continuing with being rational in thought we cannot claim that any part or sum of this universe can claim ultimate reality or God-status. Thus, God, whose existence is rationally doubtless must exist beyond this universe.
End of Book XIV
02/15/07 - 06/02/07
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