Consilience, Truth and the Mind of God: A Synthesis

Abstract

As the title implies, this chapter will review the main conclusions of the preceding chapters as a prelude to consideration of the essential ontological question concerning the existence of God. We begin with “The Metaphysical Poem of Parmenides”, which in its own right provides an intriguing basis for belief in a necessary Being that is the source of all being. The main philosophical arguments for the existence of God are briefly presented, beginning with St. Augustine’s original “Argument from Truth”, which is then followed in historical order by Boethius’ “Argument for the Necessity of a Supreme Good”, and detailed explanation of St. Anselm’s “Ontological Argument”. The five arguments of St. Thomas are then mentioned with particular attention given to “The Argument of the First Cause” and “The Argument of Contingency”, which together lead to the existence of a Necessary Being that is the Self-Sufficient First Cause all that exists. St. Thomas’s “Argument of the First Cause” and “Argument of Contingency” are re-evaluated in the context of the existence of an eternal multiverse, in which case we must ask whether such an entity could be the Necessary Being that is the sufficient cause of itself. We then show why the interdependent collection of pocket or bubble universes that comprise the eternal multiverse cannot be the sufficient cause of itself; and why the parallel argument that atheists make against the self-sufficiency of God as the Necessary Being is answered by the Modified Argument from Truth, described herein. We show the essential role played by the existence of infinite and eternal Consilient Truth, and the epistemology of Dewy and Bentley which posits that knowledge, per se, has no existence of its own but rather must exist in mind knowing truth. This argument leads to the existence of an eternal mind that knows eternal Consilient Truth.