Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

is, arguably, the mystery beyond everyday experience, if not actually the Spirit of God. And it is easy to equate the noumenon with ‘formlessness’ and ‘the One’.

Using God to fill in the gaps in our knowledge really tells us nothing. It closes down arguments, as there is nothing left to say. If God is ‘The One’ — or, ultimately, the ‘Godhead’, in the Christian religion — then we have to accept that we have nothing to say about such a God, as Hume long ago observed. So, in this sense, the religious and the secular are in the same boat. But clearly the idea that most people have of God is a long way from this! Schopenhauer and others take us beyond just closing down arguments and suggest that, in a sense, God can be known. This is really the bridge into faith and religion proper.

If a very general approach were adopted in asking the nature of God, then, at the outset, there are several options; dualism, polytheism, pantheism and monotheism. For the most part, Western philosophy and religions are concerned with the last option — monotheism, the belief in one God — but each of the other options are discussed briefly below.

Dualism, in so far as it refers to God, suggests that there exist two opposing forces of good and evil that are in constant conflict. One criticism of this belief is that it seems to imply a standard over and above the two ‘gods’ by which their action can be judged good or bad. Such a standard would seem to be greater than the gods themselves. Another criticism is that purely evil acts seem to be impossible. Evil is

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