{"id":34,"date":"2014-10-09T19:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T19:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boethius101.org\/?page_id=34"},"modified":"2014-12-12T02:17:11","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T02:17:11","slug":"does-god-exist","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/boethius101.org\/?page_id=34","title":{"rendered":"Does God exist?"},"content":{"rendered":"

God, the beauty of the world is Your beauty; your mind is the source of its grandeur as you shaped it to your liking, imposing upon it your order, which harmonizes the many elements that compose it, the cold with the fiery hot, the dry with the wet, lest any fly off on its on and unbalance the equipoise of creation. (III, ix, pg 84)<\/em><\/p>\n

Boethius next tackles the complex question of God\u2019s existence by\u00a0providing two arguments, the first of which\u00a0pertains to the\u00a0imperfections in the world, while\u00a0the other discusses the ordered nature of the universe.<\/p>\n

The Existence of Imperfection<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Humans never truly encounter \u201cperfection\u201d.\u00a0 If, through some advanced technology, we were able to create a perfectly straight line, we would be viewing an image of perfection and not perfection itself; however, the fact that we are able to recognize imperfection in our world implies that there must be some ultimate perfection against which we are comparing everything to. Plainly put, \u201canything that is imperfect is imperfect because it is lacking in some way and falls short of perfection<\/em>\u201d (III,10, pg 86). The existence of imperfection presupposes the existence of perfection.\u00a0We can\u00a0identify imperfection only because we possess\u00a0the\u00a0knowledge\u00a0that there is a full, perfect version of this thing. Not only must there be perfection then, but there also must be an ultimate perfection, to which all else is imperfect in juxtaposition. <\/span>Anything\u00a0that is\u00a0lacking in perfection is thus inferior to something else that is <\/span>more perfect and so on, until the ultimate perfection is reached. The ultimate perfection, compared\u00a0to which all else is deficient\u00a0in our world, is God, and it is because we recognize the presence of\u00a0Him that we are able to identify\u00a0imperfections as imperfect.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nature is Ordered. <\/strong>Boethius proceeds to justify his argument that God must, in fact, exist by\u00a0identifying Him as the\u00a0being or force that is responsible\u00a0for creating and maintaining\u00a0the world. He suggests that the\u00a0world, rife with natural tensions and differing parts, would not have been able to come together, and remain together, without a being or force that was able to unify it all. \u00a0Boethius states, \u201cThis world would never have coalesced into one form out of such diverse and antagonistic parts had there not been one who could unify such diversity<\/em>\u201d (III, xii, pg 79).\u00a0 The extremely fixed order of nature, with its many systems that often oppose each other yet are somehow\u00a0able to coexist, could not\u00a0subsist\u00a0unless there were some being who was able to regulate everything. Without some sort of glue to hold the universe together, the diverse elements of nature would tear each other apart, and creation would not be able to remain in such an orderly motion. Yet, we continually witness the seasons come with regularity, snowy winters are tempered by heated summers, and the earth continues to rotate on its axis. The extreme regularity and orderly coexistence of natural elements,\u00a0which are inherently\u00a0in opposition\u00a0with each other,\u00a0are proof that there must be some powerful force or being that is able to\u00a0maintain them. This being is called \u201cGod\u201d.<\/p>\n

Reflection<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

We think that both of these arguments are particularly strong because they\u00a0depict God\u2019s existence in a\u00a0different\u00a0manner from what most people are used to. Boethius’ approach appeals to human experience because it is obvious that humans live in an imperfect world filled with tension, yet somehow it continues to function in an\u00a0orderly fashion. \u00a0For Boethius, it is actually the existence of problems and tension in the world that point to the existence as opposed to the absence of\u00a0God. While it is easy to look for what is lacking in the world and use that as an argument against the existence of God, this line of reasoning forces us to look around and see that too many things in this world are imperfect and conflicting to coexist as they do without outside forces. This groundbreaking viewpoint challenges everything humans are accustomed to believe. Boethius\u2019 approach is both refreshing and brings an age-old argument into a new and exciting light. Thanks to Boethius, we humans are forced to question the universe around us.<\/p>\n

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\"Creative<\/a>This work is licensed under a\u00a0Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License\u00a0<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

God, the beauty of the world is Your beauty; your mind is the source of its grandeur as you shaped it to your liking, imposing upon it your order, which harmonizes the many elements that compose it, the cold with the fiery hot, the dry with the wet, lest any fly off on its on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-34","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","no-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boethius101.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boethius101.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boethius101.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boethius101.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boethius101.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/boethius101.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199,"href":"https:\/\/boethius101.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boethius101.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}