THE LIVING AND THE DIVINE

Introduction: About God

'Is there a God' is a question that can be reformulated: When we consider something that unquestionably has being and is set in a foreground termed 'the world', does there exist something that can only be adequately designated by the concept God.

Speaking in non-theological terms, one can say that there can be no preconception of God based on predicates such as personality, omnipotence, all-graciousness, omniscience, creator - all elements that would be taken as pertaining to a being, 'god'. We cannot form a conception to which we then seek to attach reality.

Theology starts out from the premise of a concept, however it defines it, the content of which is somehow independent of the mere nature of that which exists; something that faith or knowledge seeks to grasp and then add to the content of the idea of God. Philosophy does not start out from the concept of God, but from reality. That which exists is its ground basis and, if philosophy is led to something that it is obliged to call God, this can only be something that exists or that has being, reached from a given perspective.

Unlike theology (or theological philosophy), philosophy does not need to produce proof of the existence of a somehow predefined divine being. Its question is whether something, the existence of which is not in doubt because it is in being, can only be designated as a category termed the divine or a divinity. All that philosophy is doing is to analyse reality itself.