…DOES THIS JUSTIFY…

Stage 34 / Saturday 30 May / From Condom to Éauze / 28 km

 

I am sure that I am somewhat good-hearted, moreover I feel ma heart beating regularly. But I also feel in myself a vagueness of soul (an emotional ebb), but not a vagueness of heart, in leaving Condom this morning. This little town indeed merits its nickname: “the door to happiness.” Such riches: one sees seven churches there! Now if I appreciate the concept of “soul”, since I am pleased to find a certain number of expressions which use this ancient little-used word, I must better understand what the word implies. It seems that the word “soul” (better than the word “heart”) allows connecting existence (the fact of being), the essence (what makes the nature of the being) and the being of my “me” (this pilgrim cogitating here on the path) to a unique “Being,” He to whom I sometimes pray.

 

For if my existence is founded on a “possible” that the essence draws from the being, it is the same for other existences: of other pilgrims, of lizards, of trees, etc. … and this in great numbers! How can I not then deduce the concept of an ultimate Being at the origin of all these individual beings? In Him are confounded the essence of all things and the existence of all things. This Being would of course be the one we designate by the word God. Let’s talk a bit about this Being, God, because if I manage to advance on this point, my pilgrimage will have permitted me to take one step more: “a little step” that a large part of humanity will no doubt prefer to ignore, but “a giant step” forward for me!

 

The intuition that I have of the existence of God manifests itself by the regular pressure that I have to search for (the) proof. What say the apologists, with more professionalism, those who search for this proof?

1. God is, because it is necessary that “He” is. This is the ontological argument. The theologian Anselm, born in Aosta, in his Proslogion expressed in the 11th century that: to say “God” is to recognize a being “greater than whom cannot be thought of”. If such a being is only the fruit of the thoughts of one who thinks, then nothing stops the same thinker of conceiving a similar being who would additionally have the property of existing. The second being thought of, the one who exists, would therefore be “greater” than the first who does not exist. It can only be Him that on can call God: therefore God exists!

 

Now the argument of Anselme is refutable: on the same being he mixes the concept of God with the property which would distinguish him, to be precise, that he is greater than everything, and thus one uses this conceptual property to prove his existence. This is called tautology, like “The unicorn exists because it’s necessary that it exist. Because to say unicorn, is to recognize an animal that has a horn in its forehead. If the unicorn exists only in the mind of him who imagined it, then one might conceive a similar being which would have in addition the property of existing. Now the narval exists, and still more, the cow exists, with two horns on the forehead, therefore nothing prevents the unicorn from existing!” This gets around the obstacle in bypassing the presence of some proofs validating a possibility to the certainty of a fact.

 

2. The cosmos turning like a clock, its clock-maker can only be called God. This is the teleological (or appeal to design) that Voltaire resumed thus in two verses of the Cabals: “The universe embarrasses me, I cannot dream … that this clock exists and has no clock-maker!” The argument is sensible, the one we’d want to have when we lack an explanation for the why of things. But I want nothing to do with this stopgap God, postulated to fill the gaps in my science. God would be the receptacle for the proliferation of all unexplained mysteries: God being the simplest hypothesis, his existence is therefore very plausible. This would be going around an obstacle, in jumping from the absence of proof to the contrary to the proof of the presence; wanting to believe that the proposition “God doesn’t exist” is false. Now if it were that simple, it would be known!

 

I’m afraid that my daring steps toward the proof of God’ existence have only led me to trip! That’s what often happens when you consult the “pros”. Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, boasted having made “a small step for man, a giant step for humanity.” I, who had the audacity to try to make a giant step in justifying God to humanity, I find myself facedown in the dirt! I walk and dare … to search and nothing tangible comes. What then shall I find in entering Eauze? (rhymes with “and dare” [et ose] in French): God or no one? In any case, I’ll seek my dominical rest there—I need it.