The Step into Existence: Reasoning toward God in Mendelssohn’s Morning Hours

The "Theologism" of Duns Scotus: (Part II)

This article is concerned with how we can know about the existence of God. In attempting to do this, the article will single out two medieval thinkers, Anselm and Aquinas, and will examine their stances on the subject. The former holds, as exemplified in his ontological proof,that human beings can rationally know the existence of God, whilst the latter objects to theformer�s claim by proffering that human beings can know God�s existence through effects of God�s creation. Over the years these positions have appealed to people who defend eitherstr and of the argument. Such a followership makes worthwhile my efforts to contribute to the ongoing debate. It is my intention to show the argument of each of these positions and indicate which is more plausible to human beings. It is vital to note that Anselm and Aquinas both accept the existence of God; therefore, the existence of God is not in question for them.The article will only concentrate on where the two thinkers differ in terms of how human beings can know God�s existence.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article challenges idealists�philosophy that human beings can prove God�s existence from the concept, God, as epitomisedby Anselm�s ontological argument. The critique of the argument through the application of Aquinas�s realism exposes the limitedness of the human beings in epistemological conception of the absolute metaphysical reality.

THE UNIQUE CHARACTER AND THE FOUNDATION OF JOSEF DEFEVER'S REAL PROOF FOR GOD* Joseph Defever, S.J., was a professor in the faculty of philosophy at the Jesuit College of Louvain up to the time of his death, November 25, 1964. He was imbued with Joseph Maréchal's thought on the dynamism of the human spirit and the epistemological and metaphysical implications of Maréchal's teaching. La Preuve réelle de Dieu is Defever's rethinking of Maréchal'sbasic doctrine, but presentedsomewhat differently from Maréchal's presentation in order to take into account some of Maréchal's critics and more recent philosophical positions. Defever's real proof for the existence of God is proposed by him as a reflexive critical justification and vindication of the traditional proof as presented in the Five Ways of Saint Thomas. Defever's proof is not a substitution or a repetition; it is an invitation to explore the depths and foundation and interior forces which sustain the logical structure of the Five Ways. In Defever's real proof the epistemological and metaphysical presuppositions which are at work in the argumentation of the Five Ways are brought forth for critical reflection and validation. He intends to show that the proof for God is rooted in real experience and clings to our experience of the real and points to a God who is really there, really here, and not merely to some inefficacious concept of God. The setting for Defever's metaphysical journey to the affirmation of the creative presence of God is the concrete human act of knowing the existence of the sensible object. Throughout the entire way of the proof as explicated by Defever the focus is on the interior aspect of the total reality given in the act of knowing, that is, on the knower's reflexive awareness of himself in the actual exercise of himself being-knowing (or, knowing being). I. THE UNIQUE CHARACTER OF THE PROOF FOR GOD Before we discuss Defever's contribution to the contemporary rethinking of the proof for the existence of God it will be helpful to present * This article, based on a doctoral dissertation, Realis Probatio Existentiae Dei Ab Joseph Defever, Methode Transcendentali Explicata is published as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum, Rome, Italy. ??6HUGH ELLER, O. F. M. a review of certain ideas related to such a proof. This will enable us more clearly to see the peculiar problem of a proof for God and better to understand the value of Defever's approach to this problem. i. The Question of Terminology The "problem of God", says Pierre Fontan, is the most human of problems and the one which is least natural to our knowledge and our activity.1 Most writers on the subject, despite their diversity of opinion about particulars, agree that a proof for God's existence has a distinct charasteristic that sets it apart from every other type of proof.2 The very word "proof" in this context is ambiguous. "The word 'proof comes close to the equivocal in this case ; for it is a matter of affirming that God exists on the basis of signs and clues which are not God, and the first level of our knowledge of these does not comprise the conscious affirmation of the Infinite."3 The term "demonstration" has often been applied to the argumentation for the existence of God, but this, too, is not without its ambiguity. D. Dubarle suggests that St. Thomas used the term "via" in place of "demonstratio" to avoid the danger that the mind'sway to the affirmation of God's existence would be confused with a demonstration in geometry or with scientific demonstration as set forth in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics* Some writers would stress the unique character of the proof for God by calling it a "monstration" instead of a demonstration; but this term etymologically signifies to point out something, or to make something be seen, and A. Dondeyne reminds us that it is no less free of ambiguity when used for the proof 1 Cf. P. Fontan, Adhésion et D...

Thomas Aquinas's famous five arguments for God's existence, or 'Five Ways,' in Summa theologiae Ia q.2 a.3 are a cornerstone of thought and discussion about God and are still much debated today. In this book Peter Weigel provides the philosophical background, particularly surrounding Aquinas's metaphysics and theory of causation, needed to understand the Five Ways and examines the thinking behind the premises of these often difficult arguments. Weigel also considers larger issues surrounding arguing for God's existence beyond Aquinas's views, including more recent philosophical and scientific developments. He introduces readers to a wide array of thinkers and positions on the issues surrounding arguments for God, considers objections and other views from numerous historical and contemporary sources, and contemplates how Aquinas might respond to them. Written in clear prose with full explanations of technical concepts, his book will benefit a wide range of readers from undergraduates to advanced scholars.

This chapter concludes the volume with Moses Mendelssohn's final years. It provides the culmination of his conflict with Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and how such episodes influenced his later works. Indeed, Mendelssohn's last major work, the Morgenstunden, was brought about due to Jacobi's challenge. The Morgenstunden is the most systematic of Mendelssohn's major works. It has a single, well-defined theme—the existence of God—which it expounds step by step, starting from a discussion of the first principles of epistemology and culminating in the presentation of a novel argument in the last of the 17 lectures. None of his previous writings had been as compact and methodical as this one. The chapter ends with a discussion on Mendelssohn's retirement and his final works.

This article attempts to clarify the thesis by St. Thomas Aquinas, according to which it is possible to prove that the existence of God can be demonstrated. On the basis of the analyses in Summa Theologica I, q.2 and Summa contra gentiles I (I-XV), there is an attempt to understand the meaning and relevance of this thesis, its implications and its philosophical and theological significance. Thomas Aquinas’ analyses underline the importance of distinguishing between a knowledge about the existence of God and one regarding his essence, while highlighting in each case a set of difficulties and lack of knowledge factors. In a context where the idea of confusion plays a central role, Thomas Aquinas tries to show that: a) no matter how confused knowledge about God is and no matter how large the disproportion between the human and divine perspectives, there is an ineradicable notitia Dei, and b) this notice is linked at the same time to the inability to know God’s essenceand the ability to demonstrate His existenceby means of certain effects and traces of His. This all leads to the peculiar demonstration of the existence of a Deus absconditus. It is precisely the discovery of this God who manifests himself and at the same time hides himself that makes it possible to document the pos-sibility of demonstrating that God exists and that constitutes the foundations on which every and any demonstration of the existence of God rests.

Reviewed by: Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy: On Viewing the World by Acknowledging the Other by Sami Pihlström Ulf Zackariasson Sami Pihlström Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy: On Viewing the World by Acknowledging the Other Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2020. xiv + 195 pages (with index) Within the philosophy of religion (as in most philosophical disciplines), there are several different views on what to consider the discipline’s most fundamental topic. The answer that you offer at the meta-level is often more important than the concrete answers you, in the next stage, offer to that question which you have identified as the question to attend to. The identification serves, namely, as a hermeneutical principle for understanding and addressing other topics within the discipline. As regards analytic (in a broad sense) Anglo-American philosophy of religion, there has, for a long time, been a general agreement that the fundamental topic that philosophers of religion should attend to is God’s existence. Hence the centrality of the theism/atheism divide. This has led to a strong focus on various forms of arguments for and against God’s existence, the possibility of using religious experiences as evidence for the existence of God, and so on. There are, of course, important historical explanations for why philosophy of religion in the West has been so prepossessed with the theism/atheism debate. What is important for present purposes is that the predominance of the theism/atheism divide has had substantial consequences for the ways philosophers of religion have approached both the realism debate and the problem of evil. When the realism/anti-realism/non-realism debates began to attract much attention in philosophy of science and other areas of philosophical inquiry, the most common response from both theism and atheism-leaning philosophers was to simply take for granted that genuine religious faith—whatever that is— must be metaphysically realist. Various forms of anti- or non-realism [End Page 620] were often simply dismissed by theists as covert forms of atheism, and by atheists as dishonest religious attempts to shield faith from critical scrutiny. The theodicy/antitheodicy debate suffered, in the heyday of the theism/atheism-debate’s dominance, a similar fate: just as theism needs metaphysical realism, it needs a theodicy to explain why the fact that the omnipotent and benevolent God seems so horrifyingly indifferent to human, animal and environmental suffering should not lead atheism. It was hard for both theists and atheists to take non-realist analyses of religious faith very seriously; thus it was also hard to fathom the point of a religious anti-theodicist outlook (although there are, of course several exceptions to these general trends). I have taken this detour because it helps set the stage for Pihlström’s Pragmatic Realism, Religious Truth, and Antitheodicy. Pihlström has, for some years now, sought to develop a pragmatic philosophy of religion which treats the theodicy/antitheodicy question as the fundamental topic and hence hermeneutical principle for understanding and addressing other topics within philosophy of religion, and this volume offers a rather brief yet rich illustration of the implications, and pragmatic promise, of such a philosophical reorientation. One of its bearing ideas, Pihlström insists, is that “the problem of evil and suffering is fundamentally a problem concerning the appropriate way(s) of seeing our place in the world, as finite and limited human beings” (ix). To acknowledge and refuse to instrumentalize or reduce others’ suffering is hence a sine qua non of any promising philosophical outlook. In other words, Pihlström’s research project can be seen as an attempt to view philosophy of religion from the perspective of an antitheodicist form of pragmatic realism. Pragmatists have a tense relationship to questions of realism, where different divides tend to arise between “classical pragmatism” versus “neo-pragmatism” or between adherents of the allegedly realist-leaning C.S. Peirce on the one hand, and the not-so-realist leaning William James and John Dewey (and the Putnam-Rorty debate moves in the same neighborhood). Whereas pragmatists tend to agree rather strongly where epistemology is concerned (that is, how to conduct inquiry), there is significantly less agreement on...

Working Sober: The Transformation of an Occupational Drinking Culture, by William J. Sonnenstuhl (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 143 pp., $14.95 (paperback). There may well be, as old Doc Johnson used to insist, nothing quite like the gallows for concentrating one's mind, but for working folks the sudden prospect of long-term unemployment comes close. For a number of unions and civil service employees in New York City, something like that happened in the wake of the city's fiscal crisis in the mid-1970s. How one union turned economic duress into therapeutic inventiveness is the somewhat underplayed theme of Professor William J. Sonnenstuhl's Working Sober, a study of the fiercely self-protective Tunnel and Construction Workers Union, better known as sandhogs. As anyone even vaguely familiar with the building trades can attest, drinking-and the rituals, larger-than-life stories, subterfuges, cover-ups, missed deadlines, and occasionally sloppy work associated with it-is endemic in the worklife of a good number of blue-collar occupations. Sonnenstuhl shows clearly that this is something more than an elective affinity between dirty work and disreputable workers. In fact, his most convincing observations (at least to this reader) deal with the critical role that the staging areas of public drinking-the bars, pubs and hoghouses (changing rooms at mining sites)-have played in the recruitment and shaping (or daily selection) of this union's workers. Drinking with fellow sandhogs became a way first of establishing and then of renewing one's bona fides with them. Getting sloshed was the currency of belonging; standing for drinks around, a promise of more lasting and consequential reciprocal ties. Drinking lubricated the workday itself, eased its aftermath, and organized much of the workers' social life. (How it affected their family is only vaguely and glancingly mentioned.) In the somewhat stilted sociologese Sonnenstuhl tends to favor, the sandhogs experience their intemperate rituals as the means for constructing and reconstructing their sense of community. Drinking rituals solidify boundaries by enhancing members' sense of self and underscoring the obligations they owe one another; thus, they promote communal bonding among members (p. 82). But the point of Sonnenstuhl's study is not merely to chronicle what we know already too well. From both the historical sources he ably draws upon and my own discipline of anthropology, we have ample evidence of the varieties of constructive (Douglas, 1987) in multicultural places and times-the male bonding, stress reducing, identity annealing, repression lifting, fear defeating functions of elbow bending. If anything, the argument that drinking became a taken-for-granted fact of work life (p. 29) is overdetermined. The trick, as the subtitle of Sonnenstuhl's volume promises is to understand what turn out to be the crucial elements of its undoing. How does it come to pass that an occupational culture permeated by the ritual chemistry of gets sobriety? What prompts the transformation? How are the old ways of deconstructed? And, critically, with what sober versions of work, bonding, identity, story-telling, boundary maintenance, and reciprocity are they replaced? Here, as in most poorly understood cultural transformations, the play's the thing: what, with some detail and attention to chronology, actually happened? What was the sequence of events, actions and motivations of dramatic personae, new configurations of power and reciprocal obligations that stabilize new ways of working? And on this score, although the bare essentials are here, Sonnenstuhl's account is somewhat disappointing, reading in places more like Cliffs Notes than ethnography. (To be fair, he never claims to be doing ethnography; for six months in 1985, he used a variety of qualitative methods-some field visits to homes and work sites interviews with key informants, and extensive interaction with alcoholism program personnel-to get the story. …

Aim. The issues of perception of the ideas of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) and the sources of the founder of the promising gymnasium “Philanthropin” Johann Bernhard Basedow (1723–1790) are being investigated. The origins of Mendelssohn’s philosophy in pedagogy and in pedagogical experiments as practical logic in the German Enlightenment of the 18th century are considered.Methodology. Sources of Mendelssohn’s philosophy are revealed in the pedagogical experiments of Johann Bernhard Basedow, Reimarus and Rousseau. Basedow applied interesting, up-to-date methods in pedagogy and training, for example, the study of a new subject he began with mastering it in practice, tactilely, and only after that the study of this subject was continued in textbooks, through teaching literature, according to the instructions.Results. It is discovered and shown that Basedow observed how new knowledge is acquired through the experience of interaction with objects; different sides of new and familiar objects are discovered; knowledge and values of objects in a person’s mind increase. Similar to Basedow’s method was the method of teaching by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French enlightener of the 18th century, who was very highly appreciated by Basedow and Mendelssohn. Particular attention is paid to proving the importance of Basedow’s methods influence on the formation of Mendelssohn’s critical philosophy.Research implications. It is shown that Mendelssohn, as a true admirer of the progressive method, in his last lifetime work, in “Morning Hours or Readings about the Existence of God” (1785), followed Basedow’s method, that is, some “co-practice” or “co-work” as certain pedagogical techniques. It is concluded that Mendelssohn, even before Kant, began to build his kind of critical philosophy and, thus, the idea is substantiated that a critical approach in 18th-century philosophy was characteristic of many thinkers of that time.

Anselm, it is said, gave us not one but two ontological arguments in his Proslogium and Responsio. The first of these, starting from the definition of God as "the being, than which nothing greater can be conceived," reasons to the conclusion that God exists, while the second reasons from the same definition to the conclusion that God's existence is necessary. The distinction between the two arguments is of some importance. The first argument has been in disrepute at least since the time of Kant, and finds few defenders today. The "second ontological argument," on the other hand, has a small but articulate band of supporters (including Hartshorne, Malcolm, and Plantinga1) who assert that it constitutes a valid and sound proof of God's existence. Anselm perhaps never clearly realized that he was dealing with two distinct arguments, but this is not decisive with regard to the philosophical significance of the arguments. For it is conceivable that Anselm was both less and more successful than he thought: less successful, in that the argument of Proslogium 2 is hopelessly flawed, but more successful in that along with it he also, without clearly realizing it, presented another, independent argument which succeeds where the original argument fails. This is conceivable, but is it the case? Is the second ontological argument sound? Indeed, what precisely is the second ontological argument? The present paper might possibly be summarized in the claim that there just is no second ontological argument; the thing does not exist. But that would be putting it too harshly. What I do want to claim, however, is that everything which has been said under the heading of the second ontological argument is completely and fairly summarized in the following statement:

In contrast to the West, which considers God as a myth and negates values ​​about reality and truth, the Muslim philosophers and Sufis base their knowledge on the concept of God that has been established in Islam. This article describes the approach of the Sufis and the Muslim philosophers regarding God as reality and truth. By using the descriptive analysis method, this study draws conclusions based on various arguments: first, there is a meeting point between the two, especially in terms of 'al-Haqq' as one of the 'Names' (asmā) of Allah which also means 'reality' and 'truth' which are linguistically unified. Therefore, everything that is called 'reality' has to do with the existence of God which provides wisdom behind all reality as God's creation. Because God created reality with a 'true' purpose. Second, despite the fundamental differences in various worldviews, the West has never assumed that God is Reality in itself because its worldview has negated the Diversity of metaphysical reality. This is also affirmed, only at the metaphysical level as 'speculative science' or 'noumena' in Kant's account. Third, different from the West in Islam, there are various treasures of intellectual property discussions about God as Reality. Although there are many schools in understanding God as Reality, the Muslims have almost the same opinion because they affirm revelation as the only authoritative source of explanation for the concept of God. Keywords: Reality, Truth, Muslim philosophers, Sufism, al-Haqq, Worldview, Epistemology

The concept of 'reality' is one of the most debatable discourse by philosophers, especially between Western and Islamic philosophers. One of Muslim philosophers’ criticism which addressed to Western philosophy is their tendency to restrict the only meaning of reality to empirical beings. That makes metaphysical beings like truth (haqīqah), reason (‘aql), revelation (wahy), also God to be reduced merely as ‘concept’ (grand narrative). Therefore, this paper would like to examine the Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas’ thought on ‘reality’. This study focuses on the classification of reality and the relationship between physical and metaphysical reality. This philosophical study was carried out with a descriptive and critical-analysis method among al-Attas' works. This study conclude that reality is not restricted to merely rational-empirical beings; but further to the metaphysical reality that affirms the existence of God and its relationship with nature and humans are also examined in it. This study concludes that reality; both physical and metaphysical are actually classified as objects of knowledge, which imply to the perception of human judgment on the 'truth value' of a being.

Despina's Pragmatism receives its impetus when Gugliemo devises a way of escaping the Count's Absolute. Although Gugliemo does not forego another version of idealism, his disenchantment with monism rescues some of the ideas of the Duke's followers, particularly Carlo's epistemological realism and principle of pragmatism. But as we shall see, the beneficiaries of Gugliemo's cogitation are Rodolpho and metaphysical realism. 1

Reviewed by: The Paradox of Anti-Semitism William Nathan Alexander The Paradox of Anti-Semitism, by Dan Cohn-Sherbok. London: Continuum, 2006. 242 pp. $26.95. Is antisemitism good for Jewishness? Dan Cohn-Sherbok thinks it is. The paradox of antisemitism, he writes, is that "hatred can be a positive force in Jewish history." "Rather than being our most ferocious enemy, anti-Semitism has . . . often fostered Jewish survival." In fact, the decline in antisemitism in modern times has led to the "disintegration" of traditional Judaism. The idea of tolerance, a product of the Enlightenment, has insidiously undermined Judaism by disarming its most overt, yet stimulating opponent. The result is that Jews today are "deeply divided over the central tenets of the faith," many separating themselves altogether from the Jewish heritage. This leads Cohn-Sherbok to conclude, provocatively, that "anti-Semitism and Jewish survival must be intrinsically [End Page 179] interconnected." It is antisemitism which has the paradoxical power "to renew and enrich Jewish life." The decline of antisemitism began when the Enlightenment ideal of tolerance was transformed by the French Revolution into the universal political rights of man. The Code Napoléon established in law what the revolutionaries had aspired to through politics: Jews were no longer to be a special "estate" within France, but were to be fully citizens, indistinguishable from former aristocrats and Africans. Jewish leaders quickly assured Napoleon that Judaism was indeed compatible with citizenship, and when not all Jews went along with this the fragmentation of Judaism began. Reform Judaism was created in the 19th century as a response to the emancipation brought about by the French Revolution. 18th-century intellectuals such as Moses Mendelssohn and Baruch Spinoza had found points of compatibility between Judaism and the often secular ideals of the Enlightenment. Reform Judaism provided a theological framework for this by denying the divine authorship of the Torah and limiting the binding laws of the Torah to those which were easily understood. Between the middle of the 19th and the 20th centuries, new schools of Jewish thought found further common ground between Judaism and the increasingly secular European world. Neo-orthodoxy attempted to harmonize Judaism with the claims of science and modernist biblical scholarship. Conservative and Reform Judaism would emphasize the role human reflection played in the Jewish faith—generally at the expense of orthodoxy's insistence on the Divine Revelation at Sinai. In 1971, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) would make belief in God not essential to the Jewish faith: "There is room in Reform Judaism . . . for a variety of understandings of God's reality, including individuals who are not sure whether they believe in God or think that they do not believe in God." Mordecai Kaplan's Reconstructionist Judaism and the "Radical Judaism" of Sherwin Wine further assimilated the meaning of Jewishness to the Diaspora. Both conceive of Judaism as a human construction, rejecting even the rabbinic tradition. Perhaps this is the reason Cohn-Sherbok concludes the first half of his book on Jews with chapters on assimilated Jews or Jews who have altogether rejected Judaism. Etre Juif, c'est tout! The second half of The Paradox of Anti-Semitism surveys Jewish history from the Exodus to Auschwitz. While Cohn-Sherbok's narrative is one of persecution, it is also, he argues, the history of the unity and loyalty of the Jews to their faith. It is the history of a flourishing culture. Despite exile in Babylon or demonization under medieval Christianity, Jewish culture has thrived on antisemitism. [End Page 180] While The Paradox of Anti-Semitism is clearly written and covers an immense range of Jewish history and erudition, it is not argumentative, and one has to look closely to find Cohn-Sherbok's opinion beyond the book's title. That antisemitism is somehow constitutive of Judaism is hardly a new idea, but Cohn-Sherbok makes no mention of others, such as Sartre, who have looked at this question in greater detail. In fact the book is scarcely argumentative at all, and the book's thesis becomes a platitude. What does it mean for antisemitism to somehow regenerate Judaism? Cohn-Sherbok's survey of Jewish history...

This chapter explores Kant’s third book, The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of God’s Existence (1764). Section 1 surveys Kant’s development after his professorial thesis (1756): the West Winds essay (1757); Motion and Rest (1758) and its sequel Directions in Space (1768); the Optimism essay (1759), the project of a “Children’s Physics” (1759), and the False Subtlety treatise (1762). Section 2 explains the organization of Kant’s third book and how the two arguments for God’s existence derive from a joint demonstrative basis. Section 3 analyzes Kant’s conceptual proof for God’s existence and the rigor of its logical structure.