How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 180 pages
• Published by: Touchstone July 16, 1991
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0020160224
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0020160229
• Book Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.4 inches
• Weighs: 7 ounces

Product Description
Dr. Adler, in his discussion, extends and modernizes the argument for the existence of God developed by Aristotle and Aquinas. Without relying on faith, mysticism, or science (none of which, according to Dr. Adler, can prove or disprove the existence of God), he uses a rationalist argument to lead the reader to a point where he or she can see that the existence of God is not necessarily dependent upon a suspension of disbelief. Dr. Adler provides a nondogmatic exposition of the principles behind the belief that God, or some other supernatural cause, has to exist in some form. Through concise and lucid arguments, Dr. Adler shapes a highly emotional and often erratic conception of God into a credible and understandable concept for the lay person.

Reader Reviews
Mortimer Adler published this book as "a guide for the 20th-century pagan." At that time he considered himself a pagan (i.e. "one who does not worship the God of Christians, Jews, or Muslims"). As a prerequisite to his argument for the existence of God Adler assumes that the cosmos may be infinite in time. For, "to affirm ... that the world or cosmos had an absolute beginning --- that it was exnihilated at an initial instant --- would be tantamount to affirming the existence of God, the world's exnihilator." Adler wants to present an argument that "avoids the error of begging the question." Likewise he rejects the need for a first cause of the cosmos. A cosmos that has "an infinite extension of time from the present backward" can also have an "infinite temporal series of causes and effects." He rejects the "best traditional argument" for the existence of God, the argument from contingency, because the contingency we actually observe in the universe is only superficial, involving mere transmutation. Yet radical contingency, involving exnihilation and annihilation of entities, is what the argument presupposes. Adler supposes instead a principle of inertia of being. With inertia "bodies set in motion continue in motion without the action of any efficient cause...and...come to rest only through the action of counteracting causes." Individual things of nature may also be brought into existence by natural causes and continue so until the action of counteracting natural causes results in their perishing. Having rejected the third premise as traditionally understood Adler now recasts it. While radical contingency may be implausible of individual things in the cosmos, it might be true of the cosmos as a whole. What is true of the whole is not always true of the parts. Unlike the component parts that make it up, the cosmos does not exist as part of a greater whole. It therefore has an independent and unconditioned existence. It does "not dependent for its existence upon a larger whole to which it belongs, as its own parts do; and...its existence is not conditioned by factors outside itself, as the existence of individual things is conditioned by factors operating in their cosmic environment." The question then becomes is its existence caused or uncaused? Adler then states "the four propositions that constitute the premises of a truly cosmological argument:" 1. The existence of an effect requiring the concurrent existence and action of an efficient cause implies the existence and action of that cause. 2. The cosmos as a whole exists. 3. The existence of the cosmos as a whole is radically contingent, which is to say that, while not needing an efficient cause of its coming to be, since it is everlasting, it nevertheless does need an efficient cause of its continuing existence, to preserve it in being and prevent it from being replaced by nothingness. 4. IF the cosmos needs an efficient cause of its continuing existence to prevent its annihilation, THEN that cause must be a supernatural being, supernatural in its action, and one the existence of which is uncaused; in other words, the supreme being, or God. Adler's argument hinges on whether the cosmos as a whole is radically contingent. To demonstrate that it is he first notes that "the cosmos which now exists is only one of many possible universes that might have existed in the infinite past, and that might still exist in the infinite future." If other universes are possible, then this one also is merely possible, not necessary. This postulate can be inferred from the cosmos manifesting chance and random happenings as well as lawful behaviour. And "whatever can be otherwise than it is can also simply not be at all." A cosmos which can be otherwise is one that also can not be. A merely possible cosmos cannot be an uncaused cosmos. A cosmos that is radically contingent in its existence needs a cause beyond itself, a supernatural cause. Adler maintains this conforms to Ockham's rule because, "we have found it necessary to posit the existence of God, the supreme being, in order to explain what needs to be explained --- the existence here and now of a merely possible cosmos." Whether the form of exnihilation is creative or preservative neither is within the power of natural causes. Adler began by rejecting in principle a creation and therefore a creating God. He then found need to explain the continued preservation of the cosmos and therefore evidence for a preserving God. And "once we affirm God's existence on the assumption of an uncreated cosmos, we can turn to the more likely assumption of a created cosmos." The idea of a created cosmos with a beginning now becomes more plausible than the idea of an eternal cosmos. Adler evaluates his argument as not giving "certitude" as to the existence of God but as demonstrating it "beyond reasonable doubt." Finally, he excogitates some of the attributes of such a supreme being: omnipotent, animate, omniscient, voluntary, and thus a "person" not a thing. I must confess finding Adler's initial assumption of an everlasting cosmos problematic. Abstract, mathematical infinities are possible. For example: There are an infinite number of points on a line between points A and B, no matter how short or long the line may be. But real, concrete infinities? You cannot put an infinite number of concrete, real things between any two objects --- no matter how thin the things nor how far apart the two objects. Space is taken up. It is likewise with real time. It is impossible to pass through an infinite series of moments. Each moment that passes uses up measurable time. If the physical past or future were infinite (i.e. if the cosmos had always existed), then we could never have passed through time to get to today. If the past is an infinite series of moments, and right now is where the series ends, then we would have passed through an infinite series and that is self-contradictory.