Morality and The Three-fold Existence of God

Leslie Armour

doi:10.35765/forphil.2012.1701.02

Abstract

Arguments about the existence of a being who is infinite and perfect involve claims about a being who must appear in all the orders and dimensions of reality. Anything else implies finitude. Ideas about goodness seem inseparable from arguments about the existence of God and Kant's claim that such arguments ultimately belong to moral theology seems plausible. The claim that we can rely on the postulates of pure practical reason is stronger than many suppose. But one must show that a being who is infinite and perfect is even possible, and any such being must be present in the physical world as well as in what Pascal called the orders of the intellect and morality (which he called the order of charity). Indeed, locating God in the various orders without creating conflicts is problematic. Such arguments are necessarily difficult and sometimes self-defeating but I argue in this paper that there is a promising path.

Highlights

A Arguments about the existence of a being who is infinite and perfect involve claims about a being who must appear in all the orders and dimensions of reality
Ideas about goodness are no doubt central in the sense that a universe which exhibits divinity in the Judeo-Christian and many other traditions must somehow be suffused with goodness. us Kant’s claim that arguments about the existence of such a being belong to moral theology seems plausible
We are looking for—and objectively there wherever we are able to specify a domain. To look at it another way, one can see at once that a god who is supposed to be the orientation point for our lives must challenge deeply held distinctions

Summary

Introduction

A Arguments about the existence of a being who is infinite and perfect involve claims about a being who must appear in all the orders and dimensions of reality. Part of the difficulty is that purely conceptual arguments suggest a god who is to be found only in what Pascal thought of as the order of the intellect whereas, as he thought, a god worth knowing about must exist in the physical realm, which he understood as the order of bodily things, and above all in the moral order.3 If we do find arguments which interest us in respect of each of these orders, we must find some way of pu ing them together.

Results

Conclusion