Hey, I could be wrong. I'm not exactly making these pronouncements with a high degree of certitude - maybe the answers you seek are out there. I tend to think not, but then again, I don't know for sure. And the uncertainty doesn't particularly bother me.
Our own human experience forces these kinds of questions on us. And for millennia, men have been asking them, and coming up with the best “answers” of which they were capable. There is no “final” answer; for the point is, these are open questions. They are the very questions that human beings ask, and have been asking, apparently ever since there have been human beings.
Really? Most people go their entire lives, wondering only briefly about such things, if they bother to wonder at all. We are born, we live, and we die, and the world continues to turn and the sun continues to rise, regardless of our notions of "truth" and "reality".
We hold up the Kants and Descartes and Voegelins of the world because they think about things most people don't, and so we assume they know things that the rest of us don't, and have discovered things that the rest of us haven't. Lately, I've come to the conclusion that this is exactly backwards - actually, what is happening is that the rest of the world knows things that the Kants and Voegelins don't. Or that they've forgotten. And so, off they go, the Voegelins of the world, looking for answers that are as plain as day to everyone else - namely, that the world is out there, not in here.
But the Voegelins don't know that, or they can't see that - he, being a rather complicated fellow, imagines the universe to be a rather complicated place. But what you end up with is an endless nightmare of reification, where your abstract thought-things are somehow taken to be an accurate representation of how abstract world-things actually are. Which, of course, you have absolutely no way of knowing, because they were immaterial and not formally representable to begin with, and now you have abstractions of abstractions. And every layer of abstraction you introduce divorces you that much more from the true nature of things. So you end up spending all your time trying to cram the entire world into your head, instead of keeping your head in the world.
Well, who needs that? Life is lived, not imagined. The universe exists as it is, in spite of our attempts to impose order on it and make it conform to our desires for "truth" or "reality". It's like looking through a hundred panes of glass, and thinking that you'll be able to see clearly if only you can jigger them into the right order. If only we can find the right combination of abstractions, we'll be able to see clearly the nature of "truth" and "reality". But the real solution is to toss them all out, and start from there, only pulling them out one at a time, as needed, on an ad hoc basis. You want to know "truth" and "reality"? Let's start with what we know is.
An attempt. Men try. And men fail.
They all fail. All of them. All of them fail to answer the question of "why something instead of nothing?" You may see the value of asking the question, but frankly, I don't. Existence is. Like everything else we try to understand, some things have to be taken axiomatically, as a brick wall beyond which the "truth", if any, is unknowable. Why existence? Why this existence, and not some other? Even if you stumble on the "truth" of those questions, how will you know it?
I used to ask myself those questions. But then I realized that life is inherently uncertain. Uncertainty is our lot in so very many ways. Navel-gazing leads you one of two places - nowhere, or unwarranted certitude. And so I have abandoned it is favor of a simple life of hedonism and debauchery. If there is a "right" answer, odds are that my answer is the "wrong" answer also, but you places your bet, and you takes your chances. There are no guarantees.
Where do men get this idea of “perfection” not attained or attainable “in this world?” Where does such a notion come from? For that matter, where did we get the idea that there is such a thing as truth – be it knowable or unknowable?
What difference does it make? Suppose for a moment that you had those answers, with absolute certainty. And suppose that those answers corresponded exactly with what you already believe to be true - that those concepts came to Man directly from God (or whatever the precise details might be for you). What would you do differently if you had that answer? Now suppose that you had the answer to those questions, again with absolute certainty, but it turned out that you were completely wrong about everything - those concepts simply arose by random chance, in an entirely random universe, just as you yourself did. Given that answer, what would you do tomorrow that you didn't do today?
Forgive me, general_re, but IMHO, this is a thoroughly “smart-*ss” take on your part. The point is, men act as if there were answers to be had, that all answers are potentially accessible.
LOL. Smart it may be, but is it true? Are there unanswerable questions? If there are, what would you call someone who insists on acting based upon how they want things to be, rather than as they actually are?
but for myself, I don’t insist that everything be “accessible” to me – for I know that is impossible, for reasons of my own insufficiency, and the sheer size of the problem.
Goodness, BB - you're off on an exploration of God, life, the universe, truth, and reality. Given that, what on earth do you think is beyond your ken to understand? If you think some things might be beyond you, perhaps you should start with more mundane mysteries to test your limits a bit. Explain to me why hot dogs come in packages of ten, while buns come in packages of eight, and I'll put your penetrating insight up against EV any day of the week ;)
To try to see the world truthfully as it is, for what it is -- that is enough of a challenge for me.
And if the hidden details turn out to be ugly and annoying?
Truth, you might say, is a “work in progress.” I don’t think Voegelin puts himself in the position of deciding whether various answers to Leibnitz’s questions are “satisfactory” or otherwise “up to snuff.”
But he thinks there is an answer. I don't.
In a certain strict sense, there are no “right” or “wrong” answers – the search for truth is a quest, never a final possession.
The truth is an asymptote. The harder you try, the closer you can get, although you can never fully get there. Unfortunately, in some things, nobody seems to agree on just where that asymptote should theoretically be. Everyone seems to have a different conception of the God-truth they are approaching-without-ever-reaching. Which leads one to ask, is there really only one God-truth after all? If so, how do we know which one it is?
I like this approach: Ethical Monotheism.
Best.
The origin of that order is, however, not touched by Science's means. One may assume the obvious, as has the vast bulk of humanity, that there is an omnipotent intelligence behind (within?) the Universe.
There is, as well, a non-rational or emotional element to the discernment of truth, much ignored by the scientists, and that is monumentally significant flashes of insight, in which incredibly complex mathematical structures come fully formed to mind, to be later laboriously deconstructed and made accessible. They "intrude" with incredible force upon the lives of the individuals experiencing them. Both Poincare and Nash are examples (now reading A Beautiful Mind).
To assume life is pointless because we cannot conceive of some or many of the deeper aspects of reality sells both God and Man short. Our limitations do not define God but we are not without some siginificant capacity.
My 2 cents ...
One universe = One God. Therefore, one "God-truth." For millennia, human beings have tried to articulate it. As I said, this is a "work in progress," an open question. To refuse to engage it is to destroy one's own humanity. JMHO FWIW.
The asymptotic quality of human consciousness is a condition of human existence; that is, to physically incarnated human being. The spiritual dimension of a man, however, extends beyond the asymptote. For man is more than physically incarnated being.
This has been the great insight of mankind down the ages, West and East.
This also happens to be the "inconvenient fact" that totalizing nihilists driven by the will to power would most like us to forget. It makes for easier prey....