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dessert
Guest
I also need a new mouse. But it still works.
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dessert
Guest
The ultimate in 'being ’ the best athelete, which would mean achieving the highest goal, no farther to go than the ultimate, would be winning the Gold Medal at the Olympics.
:extrahappy:
:bounce:Go USA
No not me. Dessert
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Vincent
Guest
The act of
“to-be” / existing / “be” -ing
“to-be” / existing / “be” -ing
= esse
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Truthstalker
Guest
How much being could a being be if a being could be being?
As much being as a being could be if a being could be being.
Indisputable.
Maybe a better word than “ultimate” would be “fundamental”??
Is God more fundamental than being, or is being = God?
As much being as a being could be if a being could be being.
Indisputable.
Maybe a better word than “ultimate” would be “fundamental”??
Is God more fundamental than being, or is being = God?
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dessert
Guest
The Essence is the prescence of the Lord.
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Greg27
Guest
In my understanding, Being is one predicate we can apply to things in general, or we can say Being is one thing in itself in which all ‘existent’ things participate. Philosophers call this the problem of universals, which is still a topic of discussion.
Aristotle tended to apply Being to things in the universe which the human mind encountered, while Plato predicated Being to an otherwordly reality of the ‘Forms’, the highest of which was the One or Good. Plato and Aristotle debate these at various points in their work, but a detailed analysis would take too long here.
Parmenides was probably the first Western Philosopher to make Being the ultimate reality. His argument was based on the observation of change; if everything changes, that means there is no true abiding principle behind things. Parmenides refused to accept this conclusion and instead decided change was an illusion, and that in fact the only true reality is the totality of what ‘Is’ - Being.
Philosophers after Parmenides took this concept and analysed it in various ways. Some affirmed the reality of change and denied the existence of a unitary entity or ultimate principle, while others allowed for change to exist and affirmed another higher principle or principles which explained the observed beauty and order in the cosmos.
Neo-Platonists examined Being in a way that allowed religious ideas to come in, especially Plotinus and his followers. Plotinus however negated Being from the highest principle in his system, which he called ‘The One’, and developed a sort of negative theology in describing it, without meaning to undermine its richness.
From this, the consideration of Being as appropriated by Christian Philosophers went in two directions. In the Western Catholic Church, Augustine borrowed the concept of Being and applied it to the Trinity, rather than elevating the Trinity above Being. This was that for Augustine while God was ineffable, the human mind could still in a way participate in God’s essence in such a way he and the created cosmos were intelligible to the human mind. Also, God’s encounter as a personal ‘I’ of the Bible rather than the impersonal One of Plotinus, probably also made him see God as a Being rather than a lonely and sole One.
Aristotle tended to apply Being to things in the universe which the human mind encountered, while Plato predicated Being to an otherwordly reality of the ‘Forms’, the highest of which was the One or Good. Plato and Aristotle debate these at various points in their work, but a detailed analysis would take too long here.
Parmenides was probably the first Western Philosopher to make Being the ultimate reality. His argument was based on the observation of change; if everything changes, that means there is no true abiding principle behind things. Parmenides refused to accept this conclusion and instead decided change was an illusion, and that in fact the only true reality is the totality of what ‘Is’ - Being.
Philosophers after Parmenides took this concept and analysed it in various ways. Some affirmed the reality of change and denied the existence of a unitary entity or ultimate principle, while others allowed for change to exist and affirmed another higher principle or principles which explained the observed beauty and order in the cosmos.
Neo-Platonists examined Being in a way that allowed religious ideas to come in, especially Plotinus and his followers. Plotinus however negated Being from the highest principle in his system, which he called ‘The One’, and developed a sort of negative theology in describing it, without meaning to undermine its richness.
From this, the consideration of Being as appropriated by Christian Philosophers went in two directions. In the Western Catholic Church, Augustine borrowed the concept of Being and applied it to the Trinity, rather than elevating the Trinity above Being. This was that for Augustine while God was ineffable, the human mind could still in a way participate in God’s essence in such a way he and the created cosmos were intelligible to the human mind. Also, God’s encounter as a personal ‘I’ of the Bible rather than the impersonal One of Plotinus, probably also made him see God as a Being rather than a lonely and sole One.
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Greg27
Guest
In Eastern Christianity, there was a different direction. The Cappadocian Fathers, especially Gregory of Nyssa, denied that any predicate (including Being) properly describes the divine nature, which is ineffable and totally incomprehensible. Building on this, the writer known as Pseudo-Dionysius developed an apophatic theology and philosophy which placed the Trinity and the Divine nature above all names and predicates, including Being. This was to emphasize its richness but also its mystery, since Dionysius’s thought is highly mystical.
Eriugena, an Irish Philosopher, drew on this, and also placed the divine nature beyond comprehension and names, as well as making the universe a sort of manifesting of the unmanifest Being of God, which got him in trouble for pantheism.
The scholastics, especially Aquinas, drew more on Augustine and while sticking to the ineffability of God’s essence, still felt Being was the most accurate way to describe the fullness and infinite riches of the divine essence. Meister Eckhart, who tried to wed Aquinas with Dionysius’s negative theology and possibly also Eriugena’s ‘theology of glory’, with his peculiarly expressed mysticism, also got in trouble but also worked out an interesting philosophy of Being which has a lot in common with Buddhism.
With the focus on sensible reality and science in the Enlightenment and the 20th century, the idea that Being was the highest principle came into some problems, but now it is being valuably recovered.
I think Being is a useful way to understand higher reality, so long as it doesn’t become an intellectual idol. We need to recover the dialetic of Being with non-Being in my view to recover the beauty and depth of the Greek vision of Being. From this Western Philosophers can look to Asia with its treasures in considering nothingness as a metaphysical principle, without collapsing into the arid nihilism Western philosophers sometimes fell into when considering it. I think personally the highest reality is beyond either Being or Non-Being, but understanding the highest reality can be helped by a dialectical process using both terms and names derived from them. It should also help in recovering a sense of the divine mystery, which was somewhat lost in Scholasticism and its nuanced logic.
Eriugena, an Irish Philosopher, drew on this, and also placed the divine nature beyond comprehension and names, as well as making the universe a sort of manifesting of the unmanifest Being of God, which got him in trouble for pantheism.
The scholastics, especially Aquinas, drew more on Augustine and while sticking to the ineffability of God’s essence, still felt Being was the most accurate way to describe the fullness and infinite riches of the divine essence. Meister Eckhart, who tried to wed Aquinas with Dionysius’s negative theology and possibly also Eriugena’s ‘theology of glory’, with his peculiarly expressed mysticism, also got in trouble but also worked out an interesting philosophy of Being which has a lot in common with Buddhism.
With the focus on sensible reality and science in the Enlightenment and the 20th century, the idea that Being was the highest principle came into some problems, but now it is being valuably recovered.
I think Being is a useful way to understand higher reality, so long as it doesn’t become an intellectual idol. We need to recover the dialetic of Being with non-Being in my view to recover the beauty and depth of the Greek vision of Being. From this Western Philosophers can look to Asia with its treasures in considering nothingness as a metaphysical principle, without collapsing into the arid nihilism Western philosophers sometimes fell into when considering it. I think personally the highest reality is beyond either Being or Non-Being, but understanding the highest reality can be helped by a dialectical process using both terms and names derived from them. It should also help in recovering a sense of the divine mystery, which was somewhat lost in Scholasticism and its nuanced logic.
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Greg27
Guest
In terms of the highest reality being One or many, various religious philosophies often try to reconcile both the metaphysical demand for simple unifying unity which unites all things or phenomena into a higher or simpler principle or entity, and the empirical demand to account for the evident multiplicity of things and phenomena we encounter in the universe. Some philosophers deny there is a higher or single principle behind all appearances, or at least defer to a scientific theory like string theory in this regard, while others affirm a single principle, which might be God or the Absolute of Western or East Asian religious philosophy. Sometimes the universe itself is held to be the highest principle, especially by materialistic scientists. It is probably correct to say that in any attempt to reconcile unity with diversity in things, there is a dialectic which has not passed beyond Plato.
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Ani_Ibi
Guest
Thanks Greg. This was interesting.
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Tomster
Guest
What can we say of this Godhead, one in three Persons? “We shall say much, and yet shall want words: but the sum of our words is: He is all.” (Ecclus:43:29) By what name shall we call him? He has told us his name. He is Being. “I am who am.” (Exod. 3:14).
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