The existence of the universe is absurd

[Amandil]

…which is irrational and illogical, even though it is true.

How do you know this? What are your reasons?

Why is it “irrational and illogical” that God is Being itself and the source of all being?

blase6:

I expected an answer along these lines. “His purpose,” what purpose? Please explain where this purpose comes from. It cannot come from before God; nothing can.

The purpose comes from His very nature: Love.

Love naturally wants to share itself and what It has with others than Itself. It desires others to share with.

So Love creates others like Itself, in it’s “image and likeness”, with the capacity to love as It loves, so as to share It’s life and it’s Being with them.

Nothing irrational or illogical about it.

 

[Amandil]

Blase6:

Fully satisfying interaction with God in this world is impossible…

I simply don’t understand how you have come to this conclusion.

The plethora of Saints stand in stark opposition to this claim, among them St. Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and even Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas went so far as to when He actually was granted a true experience of God’s grace he almost destroyed his accumlative body of works because he said that they together amounted “to so much straw.”

Perhaps it would be better if you would alter your approach from the merely discursive and intellectual pursuit of God to the more contemplative and prayerful.

Blase6:

…so I will use reason to understand God as well as I can. If it cannot help me understand God, I will throw it away. I am becoming convinced that the law of non-contradiction is false. I can only understand God now as a Being wholly logical and illogical at once.

I still wish I could understand the workings of a strange and absurd world.

Then you’re asking to be disappointed. This is not to say that the Law of Non-contradiction is invalid (hardly), its your approach which is mistaken. Thomas Aquinas reached a similar situation where he knew a lot about God, but he really didn’t know God. So he turned to prayer.

It seems as though you are abandoning the virtue of faith, which if true is your first mistake. God is a personal God, not a logical abstract. He must be approached with faith, not merely intellectual believe but volitional surrender.

St. Augustine wrote, “I believe (first) so that I may understand, the more I understand the better do I believe.”

It seems to me that prayer should be your primary focus, not the intellectual pursuit of God.

Fr. Thomas DuBay has a short primer on Prayer titled, “Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer”. I would hope that you would give it a look.

 

[meltzerboy]

‘Our’ logic is a reflection of our own lived reality and experience. It is difficult to say how much of this logic is truly universal when we consider the possibility of different realities.

The fact that the existence of our own reality does seem absurd points to the fact that our own set of logic is deficient or incomplete in some way. It also points to the idea that there is a different reality containing a more universal logic beyond our own.

But if our logic may be deficient or incomplete, how can we trust it in anything, including our belief in G-d? Or is the latter belief purely a matter of faith apart from logic?

 

[Bahman]

Has anyone else ever felt this way? That it seems entirely unreasonable that anything should exist over not, like God, the universe, or any other conceivable thing?

Why does the universe exist? Because God created it.
Why does God exist? I cannot see any answer.

I have said before that the universe has meaning in relation to what meaning God gave it, but it seems that nothing could give God a meaningful existence. Does God give Himself purpose? Nothing in the world gives itself an ultimate purpose; that purpose is bestowed on it by another. Is God exempt from human logic?

In all, it is more reasonable for nothing to be, than for anything to be.

What make the existence absurd is the lack of purpose, not existence per se. Things however are subject to change toward an end which means that there is purpose. The end is not approachable since once purpose is achieved the further change is not possible.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . we live and think in a world where 1 ≠ 3, created by God where 1 = 3.

A few thoughts come to mind:

No. God has not created a world where 1=3.

The physical universe is not absurd.
Morality may seem inconsistent, but goodness and love are not.
What is absurd imho, is applying certain forms of understanding to the Divine. It is absurd to approach God and even one’s own existence mathematically or empirically.

Being has a paradoxical quality. Although we are limited in time, our existence is eternal. The moment has no boundaries and contains the flow of time. Yet one is born.

In keeping with our being in a loving relationship with God, He reveals Himself as the beloved. And, what is revealed is not absurd.

 

[Amandil]

There is also a difference between 1=3 and 1is 3.

The Cappadocian fathers have some great insights and prayerful reflections on the Trinity.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . the Trinity.

OH, that’s what he meant.

Duh.
LoL

We are relational; God is relationality, which perfect, is Love.
Three persons = One love.
Not absurd at all.

 

[abucs]

But if our logic may be deficient or incomplete, how can we trust it in anything, including our belief in G-d? Or is the latter belief purely a matter of faith apart from logic?

Good question.

While our logic may be deficient in the universal sense it is of value in our universe.

Because God is the author and actor of our universe we can know about him from using logic related to our world and experiences.

I would suggest that our logic says there was a supernatural beginning to our universe, I would say also that the study of the mechanics of our universe at the smallest level suggests the laws of our universe are written with conscious beings in mind. We also have revelation where each case needs to be looked at on its own merits.

We can use logic in the question of why God would act in such a way. We can use our logic to philosophy on the basic fabric of reality. (which I believe is mind).

Perhaps the most important part is not the intellectual philosophy which has limits but the direct experience of God in what I would categorise as the ultimate reality of spirituality.

We have the reality of spiritual interaction with God. From this interaction I can’t know that Mary was a virgin or that Jesus was only a man but I can perceive right and wrong based on the reality of God, I can perceive important traits of honesty, stillness, compassion etc through the experience of the interaction with the spirit of God.

So I believe logic can help us know God. I don’t like the use of the word ‘faith’ where it is defined to be ‘without reason’, This is not my definition of faith.

 

[abucs]

But if our logic may be deficient or incomplete, how can we trust it in anything, including our belief in G-d? Or is the latter belief purely a matter of faith apart from logic?

Good question.

While our logic may be deficient in the universal sense it is of value in our universe.

Because God is the author and actor of our universe we can know about him from using logic related to our world and experiences.

I would suggest that our logic says there was a supernatural beginning to our universe, I would say also that the study of the mechanics of our universe at the smallest level suggests the laws of our universe are written with conscious beings in mind. We also have revelation where each case needs to be looked at on its own merits.

We can use logic in the question of why God would act in such a way. We can use our logic to philosophy on the basic fabric of reality. (which I believe is mind).

Perhaps the most important part is not the intellectual philosophy which has limits but the direct experience of God in what I would categorise as the ultimate reality of spirituality.

We have the reality of spiritual interaction with God. From this interaction I can’t know that Mary was a virgin or that Jesus was only a man but I can perceive right and wrong based on the reality of God, I can perceive important traits of honesty, stillness, compassion etc through the experience of the interaction with the spirit of God.

So I believe logic can help us know God. I don’t like the use of the word ‘faith’ where it is defined to be ‘without reason’, This is not my definition of faith.