Autor: Tekippe, Terry J.

Buch: What Is Lonergan Up to in Insight?

Titel: What Is Lonergan Up to in Insight?

Stichwort: Gott, Existenz, Gottesbeweis, Thomas, Lonergan, 2 logische Möglichkeiten

Kurzinhalt: 2 Grundalternative; Universum: intelligibel - oder nicht, sinnvoll - absurd; Sartre, Gottesfrage, Moral, performativer Selbstwiderspruch in der Leugnung Gottes

Textausschnitt: () The first is from change in creatures to their unchanged cause; the second is from created effects to the first cause. The third argues from contingent being to necessary being. The fourth begins with created grades of perfection and rises to the most excellent and perfect being. The fifth argues from purpose and design in nature to its Universal Intender. Lonergan, in chapter 19 of Insight, offers one demanding and challenging proof which formulates the basic principle of all the Thomistic proofs.
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Either God exists, or
God does not exist.
Second,
If God exists, then the universe is intelligible;
If God does not exist, then the universe is unintelligible.
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Again Sartre had it right: If God does not exist, the human being is a useless passion.
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Though no rigorous proof has been offered, the reader is left, perhaps uncomfortably, with some stark alternatives. Do I brush these questions aside arbitrarily, or do I face them head-on? Can I find some way between an existent God and an intelligible universe, and a non-existent God and an absurd universe, or not? If not, do I opt for the absurd universe?
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In these pages the technique of performative contradiction has often been employed, and it may again find an application here. The drive to know is a drive for intelligibility. To affirm the existence of God is coherent with that drive, for God is the Intelligibility of the universe, the cause, reason, and explanation of all those intelligibles which do not explain themselves. To deny the existence of God is to be incoherent, for the desire for intelligibility would be positing a final unintelligibility in the universe. Still, one might well ask. If the universe is absurd, what is the point of being coherent?