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Some Important Issues in Philosophy |
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by Kenneth F. Dougherty, S.A., Ph.D., S.T.D.
For the classical philosophical realist in the Aristotelian tradition, cosmology is the philosophical study of inanimate (nonliving) mobile being. It is also referred to as the "philosophy of nature." For a discussion of this topic from the standpoint of commonsense classical philosophical realism, see The Philosophy of Nature: A brief introduction to cosmology. For a discussion of classical Thomistic theodicy, see The Philosophy of God: A brief introduction to theodicy. Please note that the discussion below is a technical presentation of the classical realist position in the Aristolelian-Thomistic tradition. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pantheism is against reason and experience, and on these grounds we assert that it is to be rejected. Pantheism holds that the universe is God either entirely or partly or as the ideal state to which the world is evolving. In its contemporary meaning, it often speaks of God as evolving in the world, a finite God. Pantheism is of various kinds and may be divided into the following classes:
The opponents to our assertion that Pantheism must be rejected include those who profess Christian Science, Theosophy, and the various philosophical systems cited above. To these we may add absolute dynamists and materialists who believe that the cosmos is self-sufficient. The argument:
Regarding the first premise. The cosmos of mobile beings considered in itself is not the Immobile Being, the necessary Divine Being -- rather its mobility depends upon the latter. God is called immobile not because of the immobility of inertia but because he is supreme actuality or perfection. The mobile can never be self-sufficient or ultimate in that mobility connotes potency and act. The mobile lacks sufficient reason for its being exactly because it contains potency; it is not purely act, perfection, reality. Hence, the mobile is imperfect, insufficient and cannot be identified with the perfect, the self-sufficient, the Immobile Being, Pure Act. The infinite multiplication of the mobile does not change its nature of insufficiency precisely because it is mobile. (If you are unfamiliar with classical realism's "Theory of Hylemorphism," it is suggested you read about it here; a presentation of Thomistic theodicy is provided here.) Regarding the second premise. Evident from the exposition of Pantheism, which either totally or partially identifies the cosmos and God, who is the Immobile Being, Pure Act. Pantheism does not adequately define God and the cosmos. It fails to comprehend God as Pure Act because it fails to understand actuality itself. It fails to comprehend the mobile cosmos in terms of the dualism of potency and act because of its monistic tendency to view the cosmos either as purely fieristic, undetermined, potential or as purely static, and determined. Pantheism takes being as univocal. As. Maeterlinck's "Bluebird of Paradise" says of the cosmos: "It is all the same somehow." But the Pantheist never defines objectively what is meant by "the same somehow." The classical realist objectively notes that being is analogous. God's existence, which is identical with his essence, does not exhaust all the possibilities of existence since there exist natures which possess existence, not in their own right as natures, but by participation in existence from God who is existence itself. It is true that whatever is real is one, but this unity is analogous. God is one in the purest ontological unity. The cosmos is one accidentally as a union of many substances. Man is one in species, but many in individuals. This man is one as a person, but many in the potential parts that compose him physically. Materialism as a philosophy is repugnant to reason. Materialism holds that everything is one kind of being, namely matter, and that matter is eternal and unproduced. The term "materialist" was first used by Robert Boyle in his work on The Excellence and Grounds of the Mechanical Philosophy (1674). The atomism of Leucippus and Democritus is the first known formulation of the materialistic philosophy. These ancient Greeks were the first to maintain in a philosophical system that the totality of reality is purely material. It was in France in the eighteenth century that the great modern development of philosophical materialism took place in the writings of Lamettrie and the Encyclopedists. Baron d'Hollach's Systeme de la Nature, published in 1770, represents the culmination of the movement. After the accession of the Idealists in Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century, materialism began to rise again; about the middle of the century Herbert Vogt and Freidrich Buchner were among the leaders. The English agnostics and evolutionists, Herbert Spencer, John Tyndall and Thomas Huxley, can hardly be classed as anything but materialists. In our time Marxian communism is the great exponent of the materialist trend in what is called dialectical materialism. This theory maintains that matter has existed eternally and is a unity of opposites, a composite of contradictory elements. Atheistic communism holds that matter is by its nature autodynamic; there is no need for a Creator. The argument:
Regarding the first premise. This is evident from classical realistic cosmology which shows that the corporeal universe is accidentally and substantially mutable, that the universe is not infinite, and that it is composed of mobile beings which are specifically and numerically many. Regarding the second premise. A mutable, finite, contingent being or a series of such beings is not independent because it is not purely actual. Hence, it is by another. In other words, it is not the ultimate sufficient cause of itself. Materialism is a species of Pantheism. There is no real difference between the propositions: "All if God" and "there is no God but only matter exists." Extremes meet. The materialist denies a personal God, really distinct from the universe. For him matter is autodynamic, self-sufficient and therefore divine. He ascribes to matter the divine attributes of a Necessary Being. "Matter is God." Out of this pseudo-cosmology he constructs a false religion of naturalism in which his highest concept is "mother nature." Agnosticism is the "one floor" view of reality, the belief that physical science alone represents the field of the knowable and religion represents the unknowable. Thomas Huxley, who invented the term "agnosticism," explains its meaning in the following words: "...It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts, and in my opinion it is all that is essential to Agnosticism." (Thomas Huxley, Essays Upon Controverted Questions.) Let us distinguish this verbal affirmation of agnosticism from its historical significance. The agnostics, Huxley in England and Haeckel in Germany, were in fact materialists. Their agnosticism is simply a polite name for materialism. The agnostic claims to be indifferent to God as the Deist claimed that God is indifferent to man. But the human mind cannot be indifferent to the ultimate origin and end of things. Man cannot dismiss these questions as simply "unknown values" that will take thousands of years to answer, if they are ever to be answered. He will identify the Alpha and Omega of all things with matter or some other thing if he turns from a belief in God, a Creator, a First Cause. It is somewhat a fad in our times for a scientist who espouses materialism to cloak his identity before the public at least by labeling himself an agnostic. This ruse has been indulged in by many who have proven themselves experts in some field of natural science but have unhappily wandered off into a form of evolutionary materialism. Such men condemn the idea of a created universe and a First Cause in their writings, not from the standpoint of explicit atheism, but from the rather coy skepticism that "as scientists: they have never found "proofs" for such doctrines and consequently they have no belief in them. This pseudoscientific authoritarianism can only be answered by inducing these agnostics to affirm their real position as professed atheists and to answer them accordingly. Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book... Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Magazine...
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