Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview
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C O N A T U S
13. Turning to Religion
‘If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.’
Voltaire
‘…God’s creation is best imitated by the invention of questions rather than answers.’
Frederic Jameson — Archaeologies of the Future
A belief in God, as I’ve suggested, is really an argument for a split in the world. Even for a God who is ‘immanent’ — that is, present in all things — it’s difficult to escape from this splitting up of the world. Belief in God gives us the ultimate split into a mysterian version of truth. Here, not only is everything of importance happening on the mysterian side of the split, but the mysterian — that is, God — is fully in command of what’s happening in the real world. The real world might just be an illusion (the ‘idealism’ that was considered in earlier chapters) but, with God, this view takes on a different form. It’s God that creates the illusions of reality in our minds, so, with so much at stake, it’s important to ask, is there a God — or gods? If yes, then what is God like and can we prove God’s existence?
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